Not really the same I think, if I remember the Peter Principle is that people who are good at their job will be promoted and people who aren't won't, hence people will be promoted out of positions they're suited to then stick once they "reach their level of incompetence" i.e get given a job they can't do. They are promoted for being good at what they are already doing, not for being good for the new job.
What the previous poster was suggesting was that people who aren't any good in their current position would be promoted, this is pretty much the opposite, and doesn't seem likely since it means deliberately putting incompetent people in charge where they CAN do damage. Shunting them off to non-managing admin jobs seems more likely.
The Peter principle is much more plausible as a genuine effect.
It would depend on ther boss I guess. I don't think my bosses would interpret "completely free" to indicate that they were getting source code, merealy that there was no restriction on the binary (what they're after) so the issue of being able to change it wouldn't enter their minds.
But they don't have more control in this context. Either they can tell whether the software they are providing (including any contributions they receive from outside) includes any code constituting a breach of copyright or they can't.
Using one licence rather than another can't enable them to detect copyright violations any better. When someone sends them code it's just as difficult to tell who the original author was regardless of the licence. And under either licence they are equally free to choose not to incorporate any code that they are unsure of into the version that they distribute.
What are you babbling about? If Sun weren't willing to issue code under a licence that hadn't yet been tested in court then they wouldn't issue it under SCSL any more than they would under GPL.
If the terms of either the SCSL or the GPL are breached then the copyright holder will be able to sue, if the software was written by Sun then that means they get to sue, they don't have to rely on anyone else to do it. The terms of the licence are a contract, parties to the contract are bound by it, it doesn't matter whether or not other people have enforced contracts with the same terms in the past, that makes no difference to the enforceability of the contract.
"i.e John Mcdonald could have McDonald.com but if he uses it to sell a product people may think come from the McDonald corp. he could be sued."
Surely the tort of "passing off" already covers that. John McDonald can set up shop, call his shop McDonald's (trading under his own name, no problem) even enter the fast food business. But if, for example, he decided to copy the color scheme and logo used by an established company already trading under that name, chances are the courts would find him guilty of passing his business off as being the other McDonalds.
The courts have to decide in all the facts whether the person was essentially acting fraudulently to take advantage of someone elses reputation or whether they were legitimately using the name to establish their own goodwill.
The courts are used to making these decisions, it makes more sense to me to let them continue to develop the law as it applies to new technologies than to have a separate legislated offence for "passing off by domain name", "passing off by fax header", "passing off by login name to slashdot" etc etc. They have the precendents to build on,let them get on with it, if they get it wrong then legislation can fix that but don't create thousands of separate offences to cover every way of committing the same wrong.
Seriously, you posted elsewhere on this topic that you were convinced of creationism by some arguments that seemed really convincing at the time but that you can't remember what they were any more. Do you seriously belive that that's an "intellectual basis"?
If you feel that I'm misrepresenting what you said previously then I'll go back, find it and quote it, let me know if you need me to.
For one particular creationist account, sure. It doesn't attempt to cover the whole field though, it's narrowly focused on the creationist account of only one religion. So it's okay as a place to start but you'd have to read a lot more to cover the subject comprehensively.
ALL of them? I doubt that anyone in New Mexico High School knows them all to teach if you're including religious accounts as theories here. If they tried this, I doubt they'd have time to teach anything else.
Do you apply this to everything? ALL economic theories (no matter how implausible), ALL accounts of historic events etc. Demand what you like, it isn't remotely practical.
It is not true that "Einstein hated QM, and died a lonely hold-out against it". He carried out some of the fundamental work in developing the field. He did disagree with the Copenhagen interpretation. He certainly wasn't the only one to do so, nor is the Copenhagen interpretation some sort of universally acknowledged truth today. It is perfectly possible to accept the results of all the experiments and calculations in QM without accepting the Copenhagen interpretation.
But that's the point, companies won't upgrade a Linux distribution every 6 months just like they don't upgrade to Windows 98. So I don't understand what disadvantage you see in releasing a new distribution every 6 months.
People who want to upgrade can, whether because they want to be at the cutting edge or because the new distribution has a feature they actually need. People who don't want to presumably won't.
Just because companies won't upgrade every 6 months doesn't mean that there aren't new features that are worth including that frequently, and companies making there initial buying decision will compare the distributions available at that time, a frequent upgrade cycle potentially gives a competitive advantage.
"There's a difference between copyright infringement and copyright theft; and this had to go to court to prove that there was an infringement - not to mention the fact that there has been no final decision from the judge yet."
I'm a little unclear on this, please explain the difference between "copyright theft" and "copyright infringement", I thought the former was a more emotive term for the latter.
On the second point, any infringement of law, whether breach of copyright, theft, murder or treason can can only be determined by a court of law. As far as that goes Microsoft are in exactly the same position as anyone else.
You didn't include any quote marks, were those intended to be quotes or were you paraphrasing his comments? Can you cite your source for these comments?
Einstein's work was fundamental in the development of quantum theory. He didn't "like" the Copenhagen interpretation, that's hardly the same as objecting to anything relating to quanta.
Tell whoever has the authority at your place of work that you wish to contribute to such-and-such a project in your own time and that the results would be GPL (or whatever) and ask whether that'd be okay. If you want the extra safety, try to get permission in writing.
If the project isn't related to your work they should be okay about it, at least if they've got the sense to want to foster goodwill with their workforce.
"Did you just ignore the part where he wrote "a lot of open source software can only compete on price, not features"? He said "a lot". Not all."
Sure, but as far as I can see this was an attempt to describe a chracteristic of Open Source. If you emphasise that it's true of a lot of Open Source software rather than typical of them, then it becomes irrelevant, because you could equally say that a lot of proprietary software can compete on neither price nor features (the ones that survive generally have marketing / user ignorance going for them).
Yes, it's true : most software, regardless of development model, is unexciting. Adding that the Open Source will typically have a price advantage hardly denigrates Open Source.
"Your average open source project is nothing more than an attempt to clone and make free something that was innovated by your traditional proprietary company."
Again, you describe a characteristic of typical software, whether produced as proprietary or as Open Source, but by referencing it to Open Source specifically you make it sound as though this is a criticism of Open Source, and by including that "average" you reserve a get-out when people name Free Software products that are innovative.
Most Open Source software, and most proprietary sofware, is "cloned" from existing software, generally with some attempt to improve features or interface. You can hardly have failed to notice that. Do you feel that we should have stuck with Visicalc (or whatever spreadsheet came first)? Or do you think that "cloning" successive spreadsheet products has been helpful? If the latter, why distinguish Free Software cloning from proprietary cloning?
"It doesn't 'take away any freedom' but it 'places some restrictions'? My, what a Brave New World you open-sourcers live in. The out-and-out pirates are more honest."
Initially you have no access to the code and no rights over it, then the author chooses to issue it under GPL. This gives you rights over it of the form 'you can do anything you like with this code except...'. This does not remove any rights that you would otherwise have.
There is no compulsion to acquire, use, look at or have anything to do with the code.
Seriously, how do you feel that that is taking away your freedom?
"If someone makes a habit of posting as AC so that they can moderate as well then they will loose their moderator status because they haven't been posting."
So far as I can tell, it's only proposed that you have to be an active reader, not an active poster too.
"If you're an altruist idealist and want your code to be free for everyone and never used in any profitmaking, use GPL."
GPLd code can of course be used in profitmaking in all manner of ways, including distribution fees, modification fees, support fees, and just using the code in running the business. If you want your code to be "never used in any profitmaking" then GPL would not be a good choice, that's just not what it's for.
"Email the author, have him release another version licensed under the LGPL. The GPL does not bind your program to the GPL, it binds that particular release."
True.
"If Linux wanted to release kernel version 2.2.6 under BSD, he could very well do so. "
Assuming for Linux you meant Linus; no, or at least only if he either :
(a) got permission from all authors of the software (close to impossible),
(b) rewrote it, excluding any code for which he didn't have permission from the original author and any code derived from early code for which he didn't have permission from the author.
The rights of all authors of GPLd code are equally protected, no special rights for a project leader (of course if people want to otherwise license a project leader to use their code further then they just have to give him permission either when they originally contribute or when he suggests the change, so setting up a project with this possibility is possible under GPL, but Linux is not an example of this).
Not answering questions is simply a choice you / he / I can make.
On the interrupting, you obviously have a different notion of free speech to me. Do you seriously feel that freedom of speech is violated every time someone is interrupted?
He doesn't argue that people with the ability to program "should" program, and he thinks that code should be freely available to everyone, not just those that "need" it. I can see nothing in his arguments that favour the proletariat either, his arguments, and the GPL, treat them the same as everyone else, no better no worse.
p.s. that's not to say that his philosophy necessarily cannot work in a business environment, just that his position is just as valid or invalid either way.
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He asked whether it was possible to coryright an API, not whether Sun claimed to have done so.
Not really the same I think, if I remember the Peter Principle is that people who are good at their job will be promoted and people who aren't won't, hence people will be promoted out of positions they're suited to then stick once they "reach their level of incompetence" i.e get given a job they can't do. They are promoted for being good at what they are already doing, not for being good for the new job.
What the previous poster was suggesting was that people who aren't any good in their current position would be promoted, this is pretty much the opposite, and doesn't seem likely since it means deliberately putting incompetent people in charge where they CAN do damage. Shunting them off to non-managing admin jobs seems more likely.
The Peter principle is much more plausible as a genuine effect.
It would depend on ther boss I guess. I don't think my bosses would interpret "completely free" to indicate that they were getting source code, merealy that there was no restriction on the binary (what they're after) so the issue of being able to change it wouldn't enter their minds.
But they don't have more control in this context. Either they can tell whether the software they are providing (including any contributions they receive from outside) includes any code constituting a breach of copyright or they can't.
Using one licence rather than another can't enable them to detect copyright violations any better. When someone sends them code it's just as difficult to tell who the original author was regardless of the licence. And under either licence they are equally free to choose not to incorporate any code that they are unsure of into the version that they distribute.
"And why the hell was the original post a Score:1 ?? Yet again we see the /. moderators chanting the "GPL Is God" mantra."
You don't think it might be because the "standard" unmoderated score for a post by a logged in user is 1?
What are you babbling about? If Sun weren't willing to issue code under a licence that hadn't yet been tested in court then they wouldn't issue it under SCSL any more than they would under GPL.
If the terms of either the SCSL or the GPL are breached then the copyright holder will be able to sue, if the software was written by Sun then that means they get to sue, they don't have to rely on anyone else to do it. The terms of the licence are a contract, parties to the contract are bound by it, it doesn't matter whether or not other people have enforced contracts with the same terms in the past, that makes no difference to the enforceability of the contract.
"i.e John Mcdonald could have McDonald.com
but if he uses it to sell a product people may think come from the McDonald corp. he could be sued."
Surely the tort of "passing off" already covers that. John McDonald can set up shop, call his shop McDonald's (trading under his own name, no problem) even enter the fast food business. But if, for example, he decided to copy the color scheme and logo used by an established company already trading under that name, chances are the courts would find him guilty of passing his business off as being the other McDonalds.
The courts have to decide in all the facts whether the person was essentially acting fraudulently to take advantage of someone elses reputation or whether they were legitimately using the name to establish their own goodwill.
The courts are used to making these decisions, it makes more sense to me to let them continue to develop the law as it applies to new technologies than to have a separate legislated offence for "passing off by domain name", "passing off by fax header", "passing off by login name to slashdot" etc etc. They have the precendents to build on,let them get on with it, if they get it wrong then legislation can fix that but don't create thousands of separate offences to cover every way of committing the same wrong.
Seriously, you posted elsewhere on this topic that you were convinced of creationism by some arguments that seemed really convincing at the time but that you can't remember what they were any more. Do you seriously belive that that's an "intellectual basis"?
If you feel that I'm misrepresenting what you said previously then I'll go back, find it and quote it, let me know if you need me to.
For one particular creationist account, sure. It doesn't attempt to cover the whole field though, it's narrowly focused on the creationist account of only one religion. So it's okay as a place to start but you'd have to read a lot more to cover the subject comprehensively.
ALL of them? I doubt that anyone in New Mexico High School knows them all to teach if you're including religious accounts as theories here. If they tried this, I doubt they'd have time to teach anything else.
Do you apply this to everything? ALL economic theories (no matter how implausible), ALL accounts of historic events etc. Demand what you like, it isn't remotely practical.
It is not true that "Einstein hated QM, and died a lonely hold-out against it". He carried out some of the fundamental work in developing the field. He did disagree with the Copenhagen interpretation. He certainly wasn't the only one to do so, nor is the Copenhagen interpretation some sort of universally acknowledged truth today. It is perfectly possible to accept the results of all the experiments and calculations in QM without accepting the Copenhagen interpretation.
But that's the point, companies won't upgrade a Linux distribution every 6 months just like they don't upgrade to Windows 98. So I don't understand what disadvantage you see in releasing a new distribution every 6 months.
People who want to upgrade can, whether because they want to be at the cutting edge or because the new distribution has a feature they actually need. People who don't want to presumably won't.
Just because companies won't upgrade every 6 months doesn't mean that there aren't new features that are worth including that frequently, and companies making there initial buying decision will compare the distributions available at that time, a frequent upgrade cycle potentially gives a competitive advantage.
"There's a difference between copyright infringement and copyright theft; and this had to go to court to prove that there was an infringement - not to mention the fact that there has been no final decision from the judge yet."
I'm a little unclear on this, please explain the difference between "copyright theft" and "copyright infringement", I thought the former was a more emotive term for the latter.
On the second point, any infringement of law, whether breach of copyright, theft, murder or treason can can only be determined by a court of law. As far as that goes Microsoft are in exactly the same position as anyone else.
While poorly worded, I think says you may not modify the data OR use it for commercial purposes.
You didn't include any quote marks, were those intended to be quotes or were you paraphrasing his comments? Can you cite your source for these comments?
Einstein's work was fundamental in the development of quantum theory. He didn't "like" the Copenhagen interpretation, that's hardly the same as objecting to anything relating to quanta.
Tell whoever has the authority at your place of work that you wish to contribute to such-and-such a project in your own time and that the results would be GPL (or whatever) and ask whether that'd be okay. If you want the extra safety, try to get permission in writing.
If the project isn't related to your work they should be okay about it, at least if they've got the sense to want to foster goodwill with their workforce.
"Did you just ignore the part where he wrote "a lot of open source software can only compete on price, not features"? He said "a lot". Not all."
Sure, but as far as I can see this was an attempt to describe a chracteristic of Open Source. If you emphasise that it's true of a lot of Open Source software rather than typical of them, then it becomes irrelevant, because you could equally say that a lot of proprietary software can compete on neither price nor features (the ones that survive generally have marketing / user ignorance going for them).
Yes, it's true : most software, regardless of development model, is unexciting. Adding that the Open Source will typically have a price advantage hardly denigrates Open Source.
"Your average open source project is nothing more than an attempt to clone and make free something that was innovated by your traditional proprietary company."
Again, you describe a characteristic of typical software, whether produced as proprietary or as Open Source, but by referencing it to Open Source specifically you make it sound as though this is a criticism of Open Source, and by including that "average" you reserve a get-out when people name Free Software products that are innovative.
Most Open Source software, and most proprietary sofware, is "cloned" from existing software, generally with some attempt to improve features or interface. You can hardly have failed to notice that. Do you feel that we should have stuck with Visicalc (or whatever spreadsheet came first)? Or do you think that "cloning" successive spreadsheet products has been helpful? If the latter, why distinguish Free Software cloning from proprietary cloning?
"It doesn't 'take away any freedom' but it 'places some restrictions'? My, what a Brave New World you open-sourcers live in. The out-and-out pirates are more honest."
Initially you have no access to the code and no rights over it, then the author chooses to issue it under GPL. This gives you rights over it of the form 'you can do anything you like with this code except...'. This does not remove any rights that you would otherwise have.
There is no compulsion to acquire, use, look at or have anything to do with the code.
Seriously, how do you feel that that is taking away your freedom?
"If someone makes a habit of posting as AC so that they can moderate as well then they will loose their moderator status because they haven't been posting."
So far as I can tell, it's only proposed that you have to be an active reader, not an active poster too.
"If you're an altruist idealist and want your code to be free for everyone and never used in any profitmaking, use GPL."
GPLd code can of course be used in profitmaking in all manner of ways, including distribution fees, modification fees, support fees, and just using the code in running the business. If you want your code to be "never used in any profitmaking" then GPL would not be a good choice, that's just not what it's for.
"Email the author, have him release another version licensed under the LGPL. The GPL does not bind your program to the GPL, it binds that particular release."
True.
"If Linux wanted to release kernel version
2.2.6 under BSD, he could very well do so. "
Assuming for Linux you meant Linus; no, or at least only if he either :
(a) got permission from all authors of the software (close to impossible),
(b) rewrote it, excluding any code for which he didn't have permission from the original author and any code derived from early code for which he didn't have permission from the author.
The rights of all authors of GPLd code are equally protected, no special rights for a project leader (of course if people want to otherwise license a project leader to use their code further then they just have to give him permission either when they originally contribute or when he suggests the change, so setting up a project with this possibility is possible under GPL, but Linux is not an example of this).
Not answering questions is simply a choice you / he / I can make.
On the interrupting, you obviously have a different notion of free speech to me. Do you seriously feel that freedom of speech is violated every time someone is interrupted?
erm.. how is that anything like his position?
He doesn't argue that people with the ability to program "should" program, and he thinks that code should be freely available to everyone, not just those that "need" it. I can see nothing in his arguments that favour the proletariat either, his arguments, and the GPL, treat them the same as everyone else, no better no worse.
Maybe you could elaborate?
p.s. that's not to say that his philosophy necessarily cannot work in a business environment, just that his position is just as valid or invalid either way.