But TFA doesn't elaborate on that. Was he convicted only for pirating the program? Or for reverse-engineering it? Or for disseminating information aquired through those means? Or what?
And if they don't know, why are they already drawing these conclusions?
On one hand, you have a guy who might have been convicted of 'telling people about a security hole he found', which of course is awful, but also unlikely.
On the other hand, the guy might have been convicted for nothing more than a single count of software piracy, and is simply defending himself by hiding behind the guise of 'security research', something which I am not at all sympathetic to.
Sorry, but the source here is a Blog post, which in turn refers to the convicted guy's home page.
Nowhere does it say what, exactly the guy was convicted of, or why. So how are we possibly supposed to be able to react to this?
I have a hard time accepting statements like: This ruling can cripple the security research in France, making it illegal to publish security vulnerabilities or the proof thereof by reverse engineering. Without being able to tamper software the actually studying and consequent publication of vulnerabilities is made impossible.
Without seeing the judgement or at least a description of it from a neutral source.
Reverse engineering is legal in Europe, and is a protected right under European law. (91/250/EEC, article 6.)
I have a strong feeling the whole story is not being given here.
Lesson of the day: Just because you have several sources, doesn't mean they're any good. (In this case both are named 'Armageddon online', which is obviously implies a trustworthy, balanced and accurate depiction of the geology involved.)
I suggest peeking at this instead. It's a rather large report from the US Geological Survey.
It says (under "The future of Yellowstone volcanism"): About 700,000 years intervened between the climactic episodes of the first two volcanic cycles and about 650,000 years between the second two
So perhaps 'calendar like' on a geological timescale, certainly not on a human one.
To summarize what the report says: Does this really constitute periodicity? They don't know. (4 events isn't much to go on, now is it?) Does this mean there's a real risk? They don't know.
Personally, though, I think there's a lot more in the world to worry about than the fact that if the thing is periodic, it might erupt again, possibly within the next tens of thousands of years.
Re:Why is it still in court?
on
SCO On the Rocks
·
· Score: 4, Informative
But considering the length of time this has dragged on, the 900 million lines of code provided to them, and the fact that there has not been a single shred of evidence to date, why is this even still in court? How much money do you suppose this has cost IBM and tax payers so far?
Why is this still in court? Well, in part because the US legal system works at this speed. The average copyright case from filing to verdict is 2 years. And this is a larger-than average case.
It looks like this one will be resolved in 3-3.5 years.
SCO has a big pile of claims. IBM has a big pile of counterclaims. It's not just a question of the copyrights. SCO has contract claims too, IBM has licensing, trademark-infringement and patent counterclaims. And then there's the fact there's is a lot of code involved, with a lot of history behind it.
Add to that the fact that SCO has indeed been dragging their feet, and consistently been requesting more discovery.
Doesn't the court have some basic responsibility to IBM to end this case now that SCO has come up short?
That would be true if SCO had come up short. But in reality, the court hasn't determined that SCO has come up short. Yet. IBM filed for summary judgement and it was not granted. The case is still in discovery, and the court obviously felt it was more important to give SCO a long leash to produce anything it can during discovery, than it was to give IBM a quick trial.
Now, normally you would think SCO would put everything they had on the table in order to defeat the motion for summary judgement. They probably did, too, but the court decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and told IBM they could re-file their motion after the discovery phase is over. (When the court is certain it has all evidence in front of it)
Solar cells are shiny and hot. They'll be more efficient when they're black and cold.
Not today's solar cells. What's the point in increasing IR absorption when the thermal energy isn't going to go towards increasing current?
What's so wrong about mentioning that in a discussion of breakthrus in solar cell material science?
Because your comment doesn't add anything at all to the discussion. It has no facts in it, nor is it a question, as for instance "Why aren't solar cells black and cold?".
In fact, what's wrong with you just answering "current tech doesn't allow bandgaps in infrared, so they waste heat"?
Because current tech does allow bandgaps in that range. You just can't get a current out of it, unless the thing is cooled to 1 Kelvin or so.
And what's wrong with you actually going through the trouble of Googling for an answer to why solar cells are black before announcing that they should be?
... why I don't believe the "Global Warming is being caused by greedy corporations" spiel..
And what does Global Warming have to do with ozone-layer depletion?
These are two completely seperate phenomena.
quite simply, it's because most people (scientists included) quite simply don't have enough information to say for a FACT that THIS or THAT is causing ozone depletion
Wrong. CFCs do cause ozone depletion. That is established. The mechanisms of how CFCs catalyze the degradation of ozone into oxygen are fully understood. It is something you can easily reproduce in a laboratory. This has been done many times. A Nobel prize was awarded for this. They don't give out Nobels for things which aren't considered to be well-established.
You are confusing this issue with global warming, which is far more controversial, and something which is far less easy to know with certainty.
As for the quote: "While chlorofluorocarbons are still blamed for ozone depletion, scientists said this study shows they don't properly account for the sun's impact."
It is also correct. But what they are saying is that the extent of ozone destruction due to CFCs wasn't correct before, since they didn't take this factor into consideration. It does not mean that CFCs don't destroy ozone. They do. And it's no theory.
Oh yeah. Solar cell should work in the infrared! Why hasn't anyone ever thought of that?
Oh wait.. they have. And it simply can't be done with the solid-state solar cell technology of today. You can't have a bandgap that small and get a current.
And yes, of course there is a lot of research going on in this.
So, what is the point of your comment? Do you mean to say that you have a solution noone knows about, or are you bitching about the state of solar cells today because you think you know something noone else does?
They still are asskissing servants....the list could go on and on. The major difference actually is, that mercenaries had balls and risked their life while doing all this.
You have a somewhat romanticized and erroneous view of mercenaries.
500 years ago, mercenaries (such as the Italian condottieri) were notorious for being disloyal. They would change sides for a fee, or sometimes simply give themselves up or flee if the other side had a larger army. You want to keep your occupational hazards at a minimum.
The only real analogy you have is the first. Mercenaries and lawyers both profit from dispute. The rest is just silly.
Wikipedia is quite useful, it will also tell you such important facts like how Professor Baron-Cohen in the article is none other than the first-cousin of Ali G (Sacha Baron-Cohen).
I can imagine the two... Ali: What you're sayin' is like.. They is smart, 'cos they got brain damage? Simon: Well, not quite. A savant isn't quite what we usually mean by.. Ali: An' drugs? Theys give ya brain damage? Simon: Yes, they can.. Ali: So if me was to like, drop a pile of E, I could, like, do maths and stuff? Simon: Well, I wouldn't.. Ali: RESPECT!!
They will only give up when software patents are legal. This is going to be a LONG fight.
Perhaps a long fight, but not a constant one.
Firstly.. the EU almost certainly going to have a directive on the patentability of software. Whether that directive allows or bans software patents isn't determined. But both sides want a directive, and that's what's going to happen.
Once a directive is passed into law, the issue will be buried for several years. It's the rules of the game. Once an issue has been settled, the politicians won't bring it up again for a while, no matter how strong the lobby. It's how politics works. They don't have time to sit around pushing the same issues back and forward. There are other things to do.
And I'm not sure it will go on forever anyway. I think that in the long run, the folly of software patents will prove itself.
It's an order of magnitude easier to build a Chemical or Biological weapon. Not to mention that they're far smaller and don't set off radiation detectors all over the place.
Not to mention the ramifications. Detonating a nuke would give the victims (read: USA) free hands to respond in kind. And who's got the most nukes of the two?
I cannot for the life of me see a single reason why any terrorist would choose a nuke over a chemical or biological weapon.
Making a 'commercial product' out of something GPL-licensed doesn't 'negate' the GPL in any way.
The GPL does not make any distinction between 'commercial' or 'non-commercial' distribution. Any and all distribution must follow the terms of the GPL. Commercial or not doesn't enter the picture.
Don't you know there are commercial linux distributions out there?
And patents and copyrights are completely different forms of protection. You can't patent music. But that doesn't mean it isn't protected by copyright.
The (first) article states the waveguide is 1.5x1.55micrometers and 48millimeters in length, Has it got the units right on that one?
Yes. The Nature article the guys published (20 Jan, vol 433, p292) on this says "4.8 cm".
IANAEE, so maybe its correct, but their going to refine it, or maybe its not linear.
Yes, of course they're going to develop this further. This is the first time they've achived continous-wave laser gain in silicon, obviously the next step is to increase it. (A smaller cavity requires larger gain)
Let's say I have a write a game that uses the popular library, LibSDL (a rendering library). Though open-source may be great, why should I be *forced* to GPL my game code, which has little to do with LibSDL development?
You're not forced to do anything. Did anyone put a gun to your head and force you to use that library?
There are thousands of commercial software libraries out there, used by thousands more software products. Do you hear any of those developers saying: "Why am I *forced* to pay for this library, although my program has little to do with its development?".
Just because something can be downloaded gratis, does not mean you're free to use it any way you want. And when people release their code under the GPL, the 'payment' they want if you choose to use it is that you put your code under the GPL too. If you don't want that, then don't use the code.
We are going to get ruled more and more by corporations, rather than governments.
Well.. not if you compare to good old days of the Hanseatic league.:-P
And since politicians can always be blackmailed with the prospect of lost jobs (Siemens did that in Germany, and lots of other comapnies too),
They can always try to blackmail them with the prospect of lost jobs. That doesn't mean that the politicians always give in. You don't think a politician who hears this every day won't get wise to the scheme?
I think the FFII is correct in their statement, it's not a very good lobbying technique.
But it does work sometimes, mostly in those cases where states can be played out against eachother. (Like how GM just played out Germany and Sweden, threatening to move their factories in one to the other. End result is no factory is currently going to be moving and both are getting some nice presents from the respective governments.)
Thalidomide is currently being used as a very effect agent against 3 different types of cancer, and is in trials for some types of neuropathic pain, as well as a host of other uses. Just because a drug is bad for pregnant women doesn't mean it's a bad drug.
I didn't say that it was a "bad" drug. It was a (very) badly tested drug, when it was released onto the market. And this resulted in thousands of victims.
Today it is a very well tested drug. The risks are well-known. And that makes all the difference.
The difference between a good drug and a bad drug is often in the eye of the beholder & in the way they are prescibed.
And how do you suppose drugs are supposed to be prescribed properly without clinical testing? This is exactly my point. A drug which may be useful in one circumstance may do more harm than good in another.
A fair portion of the drugs approved by the FDA have never been subject to any testing or formal approval process at all, they were simply grandfathered in.
How is that an argument against testing new drugs? If a drug has been for decades, it's effects and risks are well known.
[..] hell most of them haven't even been tested on teenagers, much less children, todlers, newborns, the unborn...etc [..] Even drugs that are approved are rarely tested in human trials beyond 6-10 weeks.
So your arguments here is that since the testing isn't infinitely rigorous, then you shouldn't have testing at all? I don't understand what you are trying to say here.
However, something to be mindful of: Just rewriting their binary driver in C is copyright violation,
Well, that may depend on the EULA. But assuming either that the EULA doesn't forbid reverse engineering, or that you're willing to bet that the purpose your work will qualify as 'intercompatibility' in court. (Which it should, but not everyone wants to take that risk.)
Anyway, if you rewrite it without duplicating their code, you're not infringing their copyright.
make sure you properly document the spec and then do a cleanroom implementation.
That is not clean-room, since the developer is already 'tainted' by having seen the code. A real clean-room implementation would be to give the spec to someone else, who would then do the implementation without ever having seen the proprietary code.
On one hand you have the right to take pictures of publicly displayed art, sculptures and buildings, even though they're copyrightable and probably copyrighted. (Yes, even buildings can be copyrighted, since 1990)
On the other hand, you do not have the right to publish/distribute those photos beyond what is allowed in fair use (most notably commercial distribution) without permission from the copyright holder.
Now I'd agree this is pretty silly. But it is the law as it currently stands.
We are all 'terminal' some of us simply faster than others. This is where I'm at, not selectively choosing one sickness over another.
So basically, if someone turns out a drug which say, causes liver cirrhosis, then it doesn't matter whether it's a drug against cancer or a drug against acne?
That's a weird position. It's not 'government overhead'. It's a protection system which is there for a very good reason. I guess you never heard of Thalidomide?
To paraphrase you, I think that if you knew more drug chemistry, you'd have a greater appreciation of why the system works the way it does.
If someone developed a cure for all cancer, no, I would not condone confiscation, but neither would I condone a price tag beyond the reach of 'anyone' with cancer.
Bad example. Cancer is a completely insignificant killer in the third-world. They simply don't live long enough there to develop cancer.
I do agree R&D money has to come from somewhere, but without competition it is a common theme that prices tend to go up, never down.
The prices do go down. They go down rapidly, once the patent expires and the generic-drug makers take over. From patenting a drug to the stage of commercial release, it's about 12 years. That give s you 5-8 years to sell your commercial drug under patent, and recoup those development costs. (Because a corporation like Pharmacia, doing research and production in Sweden, simply cannot undercut a generic-drug developer who does no research and has production in Puerto Rico.)
The problem here isn't greed. It's not like the drug companies don't realize that in poor nations, they either sell their drug at a low price or not at all.
The problem here is how to stop those drugs from being re-imported into western countries and sold at a lower price and undermining the patent-monopoly. (If you don't think that'll happen, I guess you've never gotten a Viagra spam either?)
Drug companies aren't evil. But they're not saints either. They're businesses which make money. But they certainly contribute back to society, more so than most businesses, because of the patent system. The result of all their R&D billions become public property after less than a decade on the market. I don't think that's unreasonable.
He (or his associates) have managed to drag the case out for two years without a shred of evidence. Think about it, he is handling a case in which there is no chance of winning on merits, even the judge is saying that SCO has no evidence, and yet the case drags on. To SCO delay = win, so in that sense, he is winning.
First: Why would delay = win? SCO is the one bleeding cash. IBM is doing just fine.
The judge is also handling a very large case, with a relatively big number of claims and counter-claims ranging over contract issues to copyright issues to patent issues.
The average duration (from filing to ruling) of a federal civil case (years 1978-2000) is 725 days. Two years that is.
Is this case going to go on longer than average? Yes, but it's also a larger-than-average case. Are SCO dragging their feet? Yes.
But it's not the exceptionally long case that somehow showcases brilliant legal manuvering. (Besides which, it's not like it's difficult to ask for an extension.)
Which explains why, even though he's never even been to suborbital space, he was listed first.
I expect he'll show what he's useful for when a dimensional portal opens on one of their moon-bases, flooding the place with Imps and Hell Barons and flying-tomato-thingies.
That's pretty untrue. Linux is as good a platform, if not better to write games for. The difference is market share, and that is all.
Who said market share isn't part of what makes a platform 'good'?
Second, no it isn't. There is a lack of drivers, there is a lack of good APIs. If OpenGL was good enough, everyone would already be using it on Windows. It's not. The main reason is DirectX has quite a lot of other stuff which is simply not available on Linux and the alternatives like SDL are nowhere near it in functionality.
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly.
But TFA doesn't elaborate on that. Was he convicted only for pirating the program? Or for reverse-engineering it? Or for disseminating information aquired through those means? Or what?
And if they don't know, why are they already drawing these conclusions?
On one hand, you have a guy who might have been convicted of 'telling people about a security hole he found', which of course is awful, but also unlikely.
On the other hand, the guy might have been convicted for nothing more than a single count of software piracy, and is simply defending himself by hiding behind the guise of 'security research', something which I am not at all sympathetic to.
Sorry, but the source here is a Blog post, which in turn refers to the convicted guy's home page.
Nowhere does it say what, exactly the guy was convicted of, or why. So how are we possibly supposed to be able to react to this?
I have a hard time accepting statements like:
This ruling can cripple the security research in France, making it illegal to publish security vulnerabilities or the proof thereof by reverse engineering. Without being able to tamper software the actually studying and consequent publication of vulnerabilities is made impossible.
Without seeing the judgement or at least a description of it from a neutral source.
Reverse engineering is legal in Europe, and is a protected right under European law. (91/250/EEC, article 6.)
I have a strong feeling the whole story is not being given here.
Lesson of the day: Just because you have several sources, doesn't mean they're any good.
(In this case both are named 'Armageddon online', which is obviously implies a trustworthy, balanced and accurate depiction of the geology involved.)
I suggest peeking at this instead. It's a rather large report from the US Geological Survey.
It says (under "The future of Yellowstone volcanism"):
About 700,000 years intervened between the climactic episodes of the first two volcanic cycles and about 650,000 years between the second two
So perhaps 'calendar like' on a geological timescale, certainly not on a human one.
To summarize what the report says: Does this really constitute periodicity? They don't know. (4 events isn't much to go on, now is it?)
Does this mean there's a real risk? They don't know.
Personally, though, I think there's a lot more in the world to worry about than the fact that if the thing is periodic, it might erupt again, possibly within the next tens of thousands of years.
But considering the length of time this has dragged on, the 900 million lines of code provided to them, and the fact that there has not been a single shred of evidence to date, why is this even still in court? How much money do you suppose this has cost IBM and tax payers so far?
Why is this still in court? Well, in part because the US legal system works at this speed. The average copyright case from filing to verdict is 2 years. And this is a larger-than average case.
It looks like this one will be resolved in 3-3.5 years.
SCO has a big pile of claims. IBM has a big pile of counterclaims. It's not just a question of the copyrights. SCO has contract claims too, IBM has licensing, trademark-infringement and patent counterclaims. And then there's the fact there's is a lot of code involved, with a lot of history behind it.
Add to that the fact that SCO has indeed been dragging their feet, and consistently been requesting more discovery.
Doesn't the court have some basic responsibility to IBM to end this case now that SCO has come up short?
That would be true if SCO had come up short. But in reality, the court hasn't determined that SCO has come up short. Yet. IBM filed for summary judgement and it was not granted. The case is still in discovery, and the court obviously felt it was more important to give SCO a long leash to produce anything it can during discovery, than it was to give IBM a quick trial.
Now, normally you would think SCO would put everything they had on the table in order to defeat the motion for summary judgement. They probably did, too, but the court decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and told IBM they could re-file their motion after the discovery phase is over. (When the court is certain it has all evidence in front of it)
Solar cells are shiny and hot. They'll be more efficient when they're black and cold.
Not today's solar cells. What's the point in increasing IR absorption when the thermal energy isn't going to go towards increasing current?
What's so wrong about mentioning that in a discussion of breakthrus in solar cell material science?
Because your comment doesn't add anything at all to the discussion. It has no facts in it, nor is it a question, as for instance "Why aren't solar cells black and cold?".
In fact, what's wrong with you just answering "current tech doesn't allow bandgaps in infrared, so they waste heat"?
Because current tech does allow bandgaps in that range. You just can't get a current out of it, unless the thing is cooled to 1 Kelvin or so.
And what's wrong with you actually going through the trouble of Googling for an answer to why solar cells are black before announcing that they should be?
... why I don't believe the "Global Warming is being caused by greedy corporations" spiel..
And what does Global Warming have to do with ozone-layer depletion?
These are two completely seperate phenomena.
quite simply, it's because most people (scientists included) quite simply don't have enough information to say for a FACT that THIS or THAT is causing ozone depletion
Wrong. CFCs do cause ozone depletion. That is established. The mechanisms of how CFCs catalyze the degradation of ozone into oxygen are fully understood. It is something you can easily reproduce in a laboratory. This has been done many times. A Nobel prize was awarded for this. They don't give out Nobels for things which aren't considered to be well-established.
You are confusing this issue with global warming, which is far more controversial, and something which is far less easy to know with certainty.
As for the quote:
"While chlorofluorocarbons are still blamed for ozone depletion, scientists said this study shows they don't properly account for the sun's impact."
It is also correct. But what they are saying is that the extent of ozone destruction due to CFCs wasn't correct before, since they didn't take this factor into consideration. It does not mean that CFCs don't destroy ozone. They do. And it's no theory.
Oh yeah. Solar cell should work in the infrared! Why hasn't anyone ever thought of that?
Oh wait.. they have. And it simply can't be done with the solid-state solar cell technology of today. You can't have a bandgap that small and get a current.
And yes, of course there is a lot of research going on in this.
So, what is the point of your comment? Do you mean to say that you have a solution noone knows about, or are you bitching about the state of solar cells today because you think you know something noone else does?
They still are asskissing servants. ...the list could go on and on. The major difference actually is, that mercenaries had balls and risked their life while doing all this.
You have a somewhat romanticized and erroneous view of mercenaries.
500 years ago, mercenaries (such as the Italian condottieri) were notorious for being disloyal. They would change sides for a fee, or sometimes simply give themselves up or flee if the other side had a larger army. You want to keep your occupational hazards at a minimum.
The only real analogy you have is the first. Mercenaries and lawyers both profit from dispute. The rest is just silly.
I can imagine the two...
Ali: What you're sayin' is like.. They is smart, 'cos they got brain damage?
Simon: Well, not quite. A savant isn't quite what we usually mean by..
Ali: An' drugs? Theys give ya brain damage?
Simon: Yes, they can..
Ali: So if me was to like, drop a pile of E, I could, like, do maths and stuff?
Simon: Well, I wouldn't..
Ali: RESPECT!!
FTR, we already have a very clear anti-A&IP (algorithmic and information (inc. software) patents) directive in force.
Which directive is that? Or are you thinking about the European Patent Convention?
They will only give up when software patents are legal. This is going to be a LONG fight.
Perhaps a long fight, but not a constant one.
Firstly.. the EU almost certainly going to have a directive on the patentability of software. Whether that directive allows or bans software patents isn't determined. But both sides want a directive, and that's what's going to happen.
Once a directive is passed into law, the issue will be buried for several years. It's the rules of the game. Once an issue has been settled, the politicians won't bring it up again for a while, no matter how strong the lobby. It's how politics works. They don't have time to sit around pushing the same issues back and forward. There are other things to do.
And I'm not sure it will go on forever anyway. I think that in the long run, the folly of software patents will prove itself.
It's an order of magnitude easier to build a Chemical or Biological weapon. Not to mention that they're far smaller and don't set off radiation detectors all over the place.
Not to mention the ramifications. Detonating a nuke would give the victims (read: USA) free hands to respond in kind. And who's got the most nukes of the two?
I cannot for the life of me see a single reason why any terrorist would choose a nuke over a chemical or biological weapon.
Making a 'commercial product' out of something GPL-licensed doesn't 'negate' the GPL in any way.
The GPL does not make any distinction between 'commercial' or 'non-commercial' distribution. Any and all distribution must follow the terms of the GPL. Commercial or not doesn't enter the picture.
Don't you know there are commercial linux distributions out there?
And patents and copyrights are completely different forms of protection. You can't patent music. But that doesn't mean it isn't protected by copyright.
The (first) article states the waveguide is 1.5x1.55micrometers and 48millimeters in length, Has it got the units right on that one?
Yes. The Nature article the guys published (20 Jan, vol 433, p292) on this says "4.8 cm".
IANAEE, so maybe its correct, but their going to refine it, or maybe its not linear.
Yes, of course they're going to develop this further. This is the first time they've achived continous-wave laser gain in silicon, obviously the next step is to increase it.
(A smaller cavity requires larger gain)
No it's not linear, the cavity is S-shaped.
Let's say I have a write a game that uses the popular library, LibSDL (a rendering library). Though open-source may be great, why should I be *forced* to GPL my game code, which has little to do with LibSDL development?
You're not forced to do anything. Did anyone put a gun to your head and force you to use that library?
There are thousands of commercial software libraries out there, used by thousands more software products. Do you hear any of those developers saying: "Why am I *forced* to pay for this library, although my program has little to do with its development?".
Just because something can be downloaded gratis, does not mean you're free to use it any way you want. And when people release their code under the GPL, the 'payment' they want if you choose to use it is that you put your code under the GPL too. If you don't want that, then don't use the code.
WTF is so hard to understand about that?
He was talking about software licenses. Not licenses in general.
We are going to get ruled more and more by corporations, rather than governments.
:-P
Well.. not if you compare to good old days of the Hanseatic league.
And since politicians can always be blackmailed with the prospect of lost jobs (Siemens did that in Germany, and lots of other comapnies too),
They can always try to blackmail them with the prospect of lost jobs. That doesn't mean that the politicians always give in. You don't think a politician who hears this every day won't get wise to the scheme?
I think the FFII is correct in their statement, it's not a very good lobbying technique.
But it does work sometimes, mostly in those cases where states can be played out against eachother.
(Like how GM just played out Germany and Sweden, threatening to move their factories in one to the other. End result is no factory is currently going to be moving and both are getting some nice presents from the respective governments.)
Thalidomide is currently being used as a very effect agent against 3 different types of cancer, and is in trials for some types of neuropathic pain, as well as a host of other uses. Just because a drug is bad for pregnant women doesn't mean it's a bad drug.
I didn't say that it was a "bad" drug. It was a (very) badly tested drug, when it was released onto the market. And this resulted in thousands of victims.
Today it is a very well tested drug. The risks are well-known. And that makes all the difference.
The difference between a good drug and a bad drug is often in the eye of the beholder & in the way they are prescibed.
And how do you suppose drugs are supposed to be prescribed properly without clinical testing? This is exactly my point. A drug which may be useful in one circumstance may do more harm than good in another.
A fair portion of the drugs approved by the FDA have never been subject to any testing or formal approval process at all, they were simply grandfathered in.
How is that an argument against testing new drugs? If a drug has been for decades, it's effects and risks are well known.
[..] hell most of them haven't even been tested on teenagers, much less children, todlers, newborns, the unborn...etc [..] Even drugs that are approved are rarely tested in human trials beyond 6-10 weeks.
So your arguments here is that since the testing isn't infinitely rigorous, then you shouldn't have testing at all? I don't understand what you are trying to say here.
I did not bring up Vioxx, that was someone else.
Just to pick a few nits..
However, something to be mindful of: Just rewriting their binary driver in C is copyright violation,
Well, that may depend on the EULA. But assuming either that the EULA doesn't forbid reverse engineering, or that you're willing to bet that the purpose your work will qualify as 'intercompatibility' in court. (Which it should, but not everyone wants to take that risk.)
Anyway, if you rewrite it without duplicating their code, you're not infringing their copyright.
make sure you properly document the spec and then do a cleanroom implementation.
That is not clean-room, since the developer is already 'tainted' by having seen the code. A real clean-room implementation would be to give the spec to someone else, who would then do the implementation without ever having seen the proprietary code.
Whoa, whoa. These are different issues here.
On one hand you have the right to take pictures of publicly displayed art, sculptures and buildings, even though they're copyrightable and probably copyrighted. (Yes, even buildings can be copyrighted, since 1990)
On the other hand, you do not have the right to publish/distribute those photos beyond what is allowed in fair use (most notably commercial distribution) without permission from the copyright holder.
Now I'd agree this is pretty silly. But it is the law as it currently stands.
Perhaps one should take note that this overflow bug is not in MS code, but in the open-source LibPNG, which MS used.
And it's also included in most Linux distros.
If MS is to blame, it's for their lousy reaction speed. This vunerability has been known for months.
We are all 'terminal' some of us simply faster than others. This is where I'm at, not selectively choosing one sickness over another.
So basically, if someone turns out a drug which say, causes liver cirrhosis, then it doesn't matter whether it's a drug against cancer or a drug against acne?
That's a weird position. It's not 'government overhead'. It's a protection system which is there for a very good reason. I guess you never heard of Thalidomide?
To paraphrase you, I think that if you knew more drug chemistry, you'd have a greater appreciation of why the system works the way it does.
If someone developed a cure for all cancer, no, I would not condone confiscation, but neither would I condone a price tag beyond the reach of 'anyone' with cancer.
Bad example. Cancer is a completely insignificant killer in the third-world. They simply don't live long enough there to develop cancer.
I do agree R&D money has to come from somewhere, but without competition it is a common theme that prices tend to go up, never down.
The prices do go down. They go down rapidly, once the patent expires and the generic-drug makers take over. From patenting a drug to the stage of commercial release, it's about 12 years. That give s you 5-8 years to sell your commercial drug under patent, and recoup those development costs. (Because a corporation like Pharmacia, doing research and production in Sweden, simply cannot undercut a generic-drug developer who does no research and has production in Puerto Rico.)
The problem here isn't greed. It's not like the drug companies don't realize that in poor nations, they either sell their drug at a low price or not at all.
The problem here is how to stop those drugs from being re-imported into western countries and sold at a lower price and undermining the patent-monopoly. (If you don't think that'll happen, I guess you've never gotten a Viagra spam either?)
Drug companies aren't evil. But they're not saints either. They're businesses which make money. But they certainly contribute back to society, more so than most businesses, because of the patent system. The result of all their R&D billions become public property after less than a decade on the market. I don't think that's unreasonable.
He (or his associates) have managed to drag the case out for two years without a shred of evidence. Think about it, he is handling a case in which there is no chance of winning on merits, even the judge is saying that SCO has no evidence, and yet the case drags on. To SCO delay = win, so in that sense, he is winning.
First: Why would delay = win? SCO is the one bleeding cash. IBM is doing just fine.
The judge is also handling a very large case, with a relatively big number of claims and counter-claims ranging over contract issues to copyright issues to patent issues.
The average duration (from filing to ruling) of a federal civil case (years 1978-2000) is 725 days. Two years that is.
Is this case going to go on longer than average? Yes, but it's also a larger-than-average case. Are SCO dragging their feet? Yes.
But it's not the exceptionally long case that somehow showcases brilliant legal manuvering.
(Besides which, it's not like it's difficult to ask for an extension.)
Which explains why, even though he's never even been to suborbital space, he was listed first.
I expect he'll show what he's useful for when a dimensional portal opens on one of their moon-bases, flooding the place with Imps and Hell Barons and flying-tomato-thingies.
That's pretty untrue. Linux is as good a platform, if not better to write games for. The difference is market share, and that is all.
Who said market share isn't part of what makes a platform 'good'?
Second, no it isn't. There is a lack of drivers, there is a lack of good APIs. If OpenGL was good enough, everyone would already be using it on Windows. It's not. The main reason is DirectX has quite a lot of other stuff which is simply not available on Linux and the alternatives like SDL are nowhere near it in functionality.