and it's effectively impossible to steal a copyright. (at least I can't reckon how one would)
You would have to somehow vest it in some physical object such as a document, such that copyright was transferred to whoever had the document. Whether that's actually possible probably depends on jurisdiction. Similar to a bearer share, normally I shouldn't think a share can be stolen though it could be obtained through fraudulent means. A bearer share could be stolen.
Not that that's at all relevant to anything... just speculating:)
The owner of the copyright still has the copyright no matter how many times his rights are infringed upon. Unlikely physical property a legal right cannot be carried off like that. If it could be then you could indeed bring charges of theft but it can't be.
It's like someone walking into your house and refusing to leave. This is infringing on your rights, but they have not in any sense stolen your house - it's still there.
Copyright infringement IS illegal. But it is defined by different laws to theft and carries different penalties.
The fact that copyright isn't theft has no bearing on whether it's illegal (it is) or whether it's immoral (depends on the value system applied). So why not focus on those points where you have good points to make instead of determinedly arguing a narrow point that you can't possibly win because it really is totally clear cut.
If you really like calling copyright theft then use the word and then when challenged say that you were using the term figuratively or something, like "those prices are daylight robbery". Trying to argue that copyright infringement really is theft is just silly.
I don't know about the differces between English and Scottish law, but under English law it isn't a matter of the loser automatically paying the fees of the winner, but of the court deciding who should pay. So often the winner will be awarded compensation for his legal costs as well as damages, but not always.
At the extreme other end of the scale are "contemptuous" damages, where the court finds a plaintif to be legally in the right but considers there to have been no merit in actually bringing the case it can award damages amounting to the smallest coin in circulation (currently one penny) and order the winner to pay costs for both sides.
I do believe it does prevent crime to some extend.
Could you explain how this happens? I'm not saying it isn't true, I'm honestly interested in knowing how it is supposed to work.
Is it because you are asked to show your ID card so often that if you do commit a crime and then flee the crime scene that someone who saw you will have a record of who you are and be able to track you down? That's the only scenario I've been able to dream up so far in which it could have an impact and it doesn't sound very plausible, are you rally showing your ID every 5 minutes?
No you didn't - learn some history. Russia saved Europe - if they hadn't beaten the crap out of Hitler's eastern army he would've rolled over the American-British invasion army in an instant.
The second part of that is conjecture and probably overly aggressive:) The first part though, that on the facts as they happened that Russia was the most significant country in defeating the Nazis is certainly true.
I've never quite understood what's so horribly wrong with a compulsory ID?
I'm not sure there is any intrinsic problem with one.
In the UK it's partly a cultural thing. We had them in World War II I think, and destroying them afterwards was a sign of things returning to normality. Bringing them back sounds like a backwards step.
Also, successive governments have come up with spurious arguments for why we should have one, which makes everyone suspicious and uneasy.
It's a bit like the Intel processor ID thing: there's no problem with the idea in principle but when they come out with that rubbish about it being to aid internet shopping people get nervous wondering what the real reason was and why they were lying about it.
Mostly the UK Government has tried to claim that having an ID card would reduce crime but then refuse to say what crimes (bank robberies? murders? pickpocketings?) and how.
For situations where evidence of ID is desirable, it isn't that hard to require some (which I'll admit is one reason for saying that an ID card can't do any harm in itself). There's a cost issue as well, though that isn't a reason people would usually react so negatively.
Serious question -- you hear of countries trying to escape MS in favor of Linux all the time. Why haven't we seen a large government announcing plans to test Apple desktops?
Being able to help the domestic economy is probably one factor. Local companies are able to provide fuller support for a system that they can access the code for and change where necessary.
Not being reliant on a foreign company that may, for example, include backdoors to allow it's own government to bypass some security measures, or which may be subject to export controls or other forms of government interference. Don't assume that you know which governments will be allies 20 years in the future, and don't assume they can just change systems overnight when alliances shift.
As a more general principle, multiple points of supply is seen as a good thing. Whether it's changing relationships between your company and another or whether it's the risk of price gouging or being tied into their other products, being reliant on one source for important products is risky.
With Windows you can go to multiple competing vendors for the hardware, but there's only one source for the operating system. With Linux there are multiple suppliers for both. With Apple there's a single source of supply for the hardware and the operating system.
So your objection, if you have one, to the proposed OS is you don't think that it will be defined by a big list of specifications that various companies can bid on but that if that is what happens then you'll be happy?
It's a bit different in this case: the governments in question would be paying people to make a product to replace existing products (Windows, MacOS, Linux, BSD, etc).
Just like if a government commissions a new fighter plane?
Even though they may start with Linux, or BSD, do you think they will just join the OSS movement and play nice? Do you think they won't impose standards, or DRM, or backdoors? Do you really think they will release source code?
I really don't know whether they will or not. I think there could be big advantages to them realeasing source, but I can believe that they may not see it that way. Either way, I believe that it is perfectly acceptable for them to pay people to produce software for their purposes. Governments do this all the time in relation to all manner of products.
The power a government can exert, backed up by armed force and threat of imprisonment, vastly overshadows anything MS can do by not following standards.
It sure can. So you mean governments shouldn't be allowed to buy stuff? Or just shouldn't be allowed to require a partcicular specification or WHAT is the problem as you see it? If they were paying Red Hat to produce the same product to the same specification would that make it okay? Or what if it was Microsoft?
But ultimately governments making software isn't a whole lot better than governments making airplanes or computer chips.
How about governments paying people to make airplanes because the government needs airplanes? Governments pays lots of people money to produce things. That includes producing software to meet their needs (as well as airplanes and computer chips). I think you need to be a little clearer as to what the problem is in this case. Governments want a better operating system, governments pay for it to be produced.
Plus - you're kidding, right? A word processing program that requires network authentication before you can print anything?
No. A word processing program that lets you set specific documents to only be printable following network authentication. This will have no effect on the vast majority of documents. If one of your coworkers uses it unnecessarily then that could get annoying, but no more so than plenty of other things they could be doing.
Wasn't all of this said before when Microsoft put the activation "features" into some of their software? That still seems to be around.
Yes, but it did cause more problems than it solves, if only because it hasn't solve any problems at all. Everyone pirates the 'professional' versions that don't feature product activation.
The K in KDE does not stand for anything. It is the character that comes before L in the Latin alphabet, which stands for Linux. It was chosen because KDE runs on many types of UNIX (and perfectly well on FreeBSD).
It is true, or at least reasonably true, to say that the K doesn't stand for anything now. Claiming that it was chosen for any reason other than because KDE was originally called the Kool Desktop Environment is not true.
Seriously, they started with a bad name. They very sensibly ditched it. No need to go on about it but no reason to pretend it never happened either.
That last sentence may have sounded flamier than I meant it:) I just meant to say that if you looked at the meanings of the matches you did get for the word then you could have seen what the word meant.
People use words that aren't in dictionaries all the time, by deriving them from existing words. I doubt that the word "flamier" appears in most dictionaries, though I see that dictionary.com even gets that, but anyway the meaning is perfectly guessable.
Dissemblance is a perfectly valid word. You just need a better dictionary.
Also, anyone familiar with the English language in general and the meanings of some of the words you listed (dissembled, dissembling etc.) should find it easy to work out the meaning of "dissemblance".
Re:Perception of linux crowd at issue possibly
on
SCO Roundup
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· Score: 1
I'll believe it when I see a posting on Slashdot that says, "newest version of redhat sucks" or something to that effect...:-)
I guess you missed that whole Bluecurve flamewar. Even excluding that, finding people criticising Red Hat on Slashdot has never been hard.
I don't think there's any way that you could interpret that paragraph as granting ownership of derivatives to AT&T (or to SCO) and I don't think that even SCO are trying to claim that it does, at least not in their court claims (their PR contains all manner of gibberish).
What that paragraph does say is that the derivative works are covered by the same terms of that contract as the original software is. The contract requires that the original code is not disclosed to others. Thus, the derivatives also cannot be disclosed to others.
Remember, this case is about trade secrets and breach of contracts not about copyright violations. SCO are not claiming to own the copyright to the derivatives, they are claiming that IBM is contractually prohibited from publishing the code.
Their argument is still wrong because code that is linked to theirs is not derivative of theirs when separated out and containing none of theirs.
4. They are pissed because Linux took market share from them, and they are just doing this to get even.
That one might make sense if we were talking about the Santa Cruz operation, but we're not, we're talking about Caldera (renamed to SCO Group). Nothing took their market share, they bought Unixware knowing that it already had lost its market share.
They might be pissed because they failed as a Linux distribution.
More likely is a variation on your point 3, with some aspects of point 4 thrown in: they intended to pressure IBM into buying them up or settling, have realised that it isn't going to happen, but now won't back down out of pride and are determined to be as destructive as they can in failure.
You also missed out the whole Microsoft paying them off conspiracy. I doubt it personally but if you want a complete list then that should probably be in it.
You just can't call it redhat or mention its from redhat.
You can't call it Red Hat, after all that's a trademark, but they can't stop you from making any honest statement just because it includes their name. E.g. if it's true that your distribution is identical to Red Hat's distribution other than with respect to the logos then you can say that. If you downloaded srpms from Red Hat then you can say so. And so on.
After nothing better than a -1 troll or -1 flamebait from their previous comments, SCO finally gets a +5 funny. Pity you don't get karma for funny mods any more.
But SCO claims the RCU/NUMA code was developed under Sequent's contract, which means that derrived work is owned by SCO, and not IBM.
Close, except that they don't claim to OWN the code, they claim that IBM/Sequent is contractually prohibited from distributing that code (which IBM/Sequent owns) hence breach of contract and trade secret violations.
Of course the theory that code with no Unix code in it is in some way derivative of Unix code just because it has ALSO been added to Unix isn't likely to get anywhere, but that's the straw they're clutching at.
So. Okay, we've established that a contract is necessary to redistribute the software.
No it isn't. Copyright law forbids you from copying and distributing the copies unless you have PERMISSION from the copyright holder. You do not need a contract, you need permission. The GPL gives you permission to copy and distribute the software in certain circumstances. If you do not meet the conditions it lays down then you do not have that permission. If you have some other permission from the copyright holders then you're covered by that. Otherwise you can't lawfully copy and distribute the software.
Unless there's a contract, signed in pen and ink somewhere, or at least a formalized agreement that witnesses will testify in court was made.... there isn't a contract. Contracts are not implicit things.
Incorrect. GPL does not rely on contract law to be valid, however your statement that contracts cannot be implicit is not true. Your suggestion that they have to be signed in pen or witnessed suggests no familiarity with contract law at all. Every time you walk into a shop and buy something you are entering into a contract with the seller. No signing required, no witnesses required.
If I break into your car and steal your notebook, I should end up in jail but if I defraud you through the stock market, I should be free?:(
I don't know exactly what his plan is, but he differentiated violent from non-violent. Breaking into a car and stealing a notebook is non-violent (at least, assuming there's nobody in the car).
Slashdot Mirror
and it's effectively impossible to steal a copyright. (at least I can't reckon how one would)
:)
You would have to somehow vest it in some physical object such as a document, such that copyright was transferred to whoever had the document. Whether that's actually possible probably depends on jurisdiction. Similar to a bearer share, normally I shouldn't think a share can be stolen though it could be obtained through fraudulent means. A bearer share could be stolen.
Not that that's at all relevant to anything... just speculating
The owner of the copyright still has the copyright no matter how many times his rights are infringed upon. Unlikely physical property a legal right cannot be carried off like that. If it could be then you could indeed bring charges of theft but it can't be.
It's like someone walking into your house and refusing to leave. This is infringing on your rights, but they have not in any sense stolen your house - it's still there.
Copyright infringement IS illegal. But it is defined by different laws to theft and carries different penalties.
The fact that copyright isn't theft has no bearing on whether it's illegal (it is) or whether it's immoral (depends on the value system applied). So why not focus on those points where you have good points to make instead of determinedly arguing a narrow point that you can't possibly win because it really is totally clear cut.
If you really like calling copyright theft then use the word and then when challenged say that you were using the term figuratively or something, like "those prices are daylight robbery". Trying to argue that copyright infringement really is theft is just silly.
I don't know about the differces between English and Scottish law, but under English law it isn't a matter of the loser automatically paying the fees of the winner, but of the court deciding who should pay. So often the winner will be awarded compensation for his legal costs as well as damages, but not always.
At the extreme other end of the scale are "contemptuous" damages, where the court finds a plaintif to be legally in the right but considers there to have been no merit in actually bringing the case it can award damages amounting to the smallest coin in circulation (currently one penny) and order the winner to pay costs for both sides.
I do believe it does prevent crime to some extend.
Could you explain how this happens? I'm not saying it isn't true, I'm honestly interested in knowing how it is supposed to work.
Is it because you are asked to show your ID card so often that if you do commit a crime and then flee the crime scene that someone who saw you will have a record of who you are and be able to track you down? That's the only scenario I've been able to dream up so far in which it could have an impact and it doesn't sound very plausible, are you rally showing your ID every 5 minutes?
No you didn't - learn some history. Russia saved Europe - if they hadn't beaten the crap out of Hitler's eastern army he would've rolled over the American-British invasion army in an instant.
:) The first part though, that on the facts as they happened that Russia was the most significant country in defeating the Nazis is certainly true.
The second part of that is conjecture and probably overly aggressive
I've never quite understood what's so horribly wrong with a compulsory ID?
I'm not sure there is any intrinsic problem with one.
In the UK it's partly a cultural thing. We had them in World War II I think, and destroying them afterwards was a sign of things returning to normality. Bringing them back sounds like a backwards step.
Also, successive governments have come up with spurious arguments for why we should have one, which makes everyone suspicious and uneasy.
It's a bit like the Intel processor ID thing: there's no problem with the idea in principle but when they come out with that rubbish about it being to aid internet shopping people get nervous wondering what the real reason was and why they were lying about it.
Mostly the UK Government has tried to claim that having an ID card would reduce crime but then refuse to say what crimes (bank robberies? murders? pickpocketings?) and how.
For situations where evidence of ID is desirable, it isn't that hard to require some (which I'll admit is one reason for saying that an ID card can't do any harm in itself). There's a cost issue as well, though that isn't a reason people would usually react so negatively.
Serious question -- you hear of countries trying to escape MS in favor of Linux all the time. Why haven't we seen a large government announcing plans to test Apple desktops?
Being able to help the domestic economy is probably one factor. Local companies are able to provide fuller support for a system that they can access the code for and change where necessary.
Not being reliant on a foreign company that may, for example, include backdoors to allow it's own government to bypass some security measures, or which may be subject to export controls or other forms of government interference. Don't assume that you know which governments will be allies 20 years in the future, and don't assume they can just change systems overnight when alliances shift.
As a more general principle, multiple points of supply is seen as a good thing. Whether it's changing relationships between your company and another or whether it's the risk of price gouging or being tied into their other products, being reliant on one source for important products is risky.
With Windows you can go to multiple competing vendors for the hardware, but there's only one source for the operating system. With Linux there are multiple suppliers for both. With Apple there's a single source of supply for the hardware and the operating system.
So your objection, if you have one, to the proposed OS is you don't think that it will be defined by a big list of specifications that various companies can bid on but that if that is what happens then you'll be happy?
Just trying to understand the complaint here.
It's a bit different in this case: the governments in question would be paying people to make a product to replace existing products (Windows, MacOS, Linux, BSD, etc).
Just like if a government commissions a new fighter plane?
Even though they may start with Linux, or BSD, do you think they will just join the OSS movement and play nice? Do you think they won't impose standards, or DRM, or backdoors? Do you really think they will release source code?
I really don't know whether they will or not. I think there could be big advantages to them realeasing source, but I can believe that they may not see it that way. Either way, I believe that it is perfectly acceptable for them to pay people to produce software for their purposes. Governments do this all the time in relation to all manner of products.
The power a government can exert, backed up by armed force and threat of imprisonment, vastly overshadows anything MS can do by not following standards.
It sure can. So you mean governments shouldn't be allowed to buy stuff? Or just shouldn't be allowed to require a partcicular specification or WHAT is the problem as you see it? If they were paying Red Hat to produce the same product to the same specification would that make it okay? Or what if it was Microsoft?
But ultimately governments making software isn't a whole lot better than governments making airplanes or computer chips.
How about governments paying people to make airplanes because the government needs airplanes? Governments pays lots of people money to produce things. That includes producing software to meet their needs (as well as airplanes and computer chips). I think you need to be a little clearer as to what the problem is in this case. Governments want a better operating system, governments pay for it to be produced.
This is not a news site, the articles are biased and often partially wrong or misleading
Sounds pretty much like the other news sites then, so what's your point?
Plus - you're kidding, right? A word processing program that requires network authentication before you can print anything?
No. A word processing program that lets you set specific documents to only be printable following network authentication. This will have no effect on the vast majority of documents. If one of your coworkers uses it unnecessarily then that could get annoying, but no more so than plenty of other things they could be doing.
Wasn't all of this said before when Microsoft put the activation "features" into some of their software? That still seems to be around.
Yes, but it did cause more problems than it solves, if only because it hasn't solve any problems at all. Everyone pirates the 'professional' versions that don't feature product activation.
The K in KDE does not stand for anything. It is the character that comes before L in the Latin alphabet, which stands for Linux. It was chosen because KDE runs on many types of UNIX (and perfectly well on FreeBSD).
It is true, or at least reasonably true, to say that the K doesn't stand for anything now. Claiming that it was chosen for any reason other than because KDE was originally called the Kool Desktop Environment is not true.
Seriously, they started with a bad name. They very sensibly ditched it. No need to go on about it but no reason to pretend it never happened either.
To be fair, Microsoft have lost to Canopy before. And to David Boies, even if the final judgment didn't hurt them as badly as it could have done.
The combination of Canopy and Boies might well scare them into a quick payment on terms that protect them from any further action.
I'm not saying that's what happened but things aren't quite as simple as you made them sound I think.
That last sentence may have sounded flamier than I meant it :) I just meant to say that if you looked at the meanings of the matches you did get for the word then you could have seen what the word meant.
People use words that aren't in dictionaries all the time, by deriving them from existing words. I doubt that the word "flamier" appears in most dictionaries, though I see that dictionary.com even gets that, but anyway the meaning is perfectly guessable.
Dissemblance is a perfectly valid word. You just need a better dictionary.
Also, anyone familiar with the English language in general and the meanings of some of the words you listed (dissembled, dissembling etc.) should find it easy to work out the meaning of "dissemblance".
I'll believe it when I see a posting on Slashdot that says, "newest version of redhat sucks" or something to that effect... :-)
I guess you missed that whole Bluecurve flamewar. Even excluding that, finding people criticising Red Hat on Slashdot has never been hard.
I don't think there's any way that you could interpret that paragraph as granting ownership of derivatives to AT&T (or to SCO) and I don't think that even SCO are trying to claim that it does, at least not in their court claims (their PR contains all manner of gibberish).
What that paragraph does say is that the derivative works are covered by the same terms of that contract as the original software is. The contract requires that the original code is not disclosed to others. Thus, the derivatives also cannot be disclosed to others.
Remember, this case is about trade secrets and breach of contracts not about copyright violations. SCO are not claiming to own the copyright to the derivatives, they are claiming that IBM is contractually prohibited from publishing the code.
Their argument is still wrong because code that is linked to theirs is not derivative of theirs when separated out and containing none of theirs.
4. They are pissed because Linux took market share from them, and they are just doing this to get even.
That one might make sense if we were talking about the Santa Cruz operation, but we're not, we're talking about Caldera (renamed to SCO Group). Nothing took their market share, they bought Unixware knowing that it already had lost its market share.
They might be pissed because they failed as a Linux distribution.
More likely is a variation on your point 3, with some aspects of point 4 thrown in: they intended to pressure IBM into buying them up or settling, have realised that it isn't going to happen, but now won't back down out of pride and are determined to be as destructive as they can in failure.
You also missed out the whole Microsoft paying them off conspiracy. I doubt it personally but if you want a complete list then that should probably be in it.
You just can't call it redhat or mention its from redhat.
You can't call it Red Hat, after all that's a trademark, but they can't stop you from making any honest statement just because it includes their name. E.g. if it's true that your distribution is identical to Red Hat's distribution other than with respect to the logos then you can say that. If you downloaded srpms from Red Hat then you can say so. And so on.
After nothing better than a -1 troll or -1 flamebait from their previous comments, SCO finally gets a +5 funny. Pity you don't get karma for funny mods any more.
But SCO claims the RCU/NUMA code was developed under Sequent's contract, which means that derrived work is owned by SCO, and not IBM.
Close, except that they don't claim to OWN the code, they claim that IBM/Sequent is contractually prohibited from distributing that code (which IBM/Sequent owns) hence breach of contract and trade secret violations.
Of course the theory that code with no Unix code in it is in some way derivative of Unix code just because it has ALSO been added to Unix isn't likely to get anywhere, but that's the straw they're clutching at.
So. Okay, we've established that a contract is necessary to redistribute the software.
No it isn't. Copyright law forbids you from copying and distributing the copies unless you have PERMISSION from the copyright holder. You do not need a contract, you need permission. The GPL gives you permission to copy and distribute the software in certain circumstances. If you do not meet the conditions it lays down then you do not have that permission. If you have some other permission from the copyright holders then you're covered by that. Otherwise you can't lawfully copy and distribute the software.
Unless there's a contract, signed in pen and ink somewhere, or at least a formalized agreement that witnesses will testify in court was made.... there isn't a contract. Contracts are not implicit things.
Incorrect. GPL does not rely on contract law to be valid, however your statement that contracts cannot be implicit is not true. Your suggestion that they have to be signed in pen or witnessed suggests no familiarity with contract law at all. Every time you walk into a shop and buy something you are entering into a contract with the seller. No signing required, no witnesses required.
If I break into your car and steal your notebook, I should end up in jail but if I defraud you through the stock market, I should be free? :(
I don't know exactly what his plan is, but he differentiated violent from non-violent. Breaking into a car and stealing a notebook is non-violent (at least, assuming there's nobody in the car).