Slashdot Mirror


User: Another+MacHack

Another+MacHack's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
432
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 432

  1. COREL *CAN'T* DO THIS!!! on Corel Linux Beta License Violates GPL · · Score: 1

    The GPL doesn't say "public distribution", it says "distribution" (2b). Later on (4) it says: "You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. "

    If corel is providing any software they licenced via the GPL as part of this beta test, then they are both copying and sublicensing under terms inconsistent with the GPL. According to the GPL, this terminates their own license, and continued use of that GPL'd software would be a violation of copyright law.

  2. Re:This is not as bad as it sounds. on Corel Linux Beta License Violates GPL · · Score: 1

    I like to download software from warez sites to try it out before I buy it. If I like it, then I usually buy it. Sure, this may violate the letter of copyright law, but as long as I do eventually buy it, what difference does it make?

    Try telling THAT to a corporate lawyer. Now, if I were to snag a copy of a Corell product, and let my friends "Beta Test" it after signing a form which, in part, states that I own all the intellectual property contained therein, they'd have my ass in court the second they found out about it. Why should they get a break when it's the other way around?

  3. Re:Finally. on Corel Linux Beta License Violates GPL · · Score: 1

    Why wouldn't the GPL stand up in court? The whole reason that shrinkwrap licensing is so fruity is that you've already paid money for the software, then after the sale is concluded, you're supposedly bound into a contract; the theory against them is that the uniform commercial code grants you certain rights as a result of the purchasing transaction, which you didn't waive during the transaction itself.

    The GPL, on the other hand, specifically states (paraphrasing a bit) "Nothing requires you to agree to this license, since you haven't signed it. However, nothing else grants you the right to use this software." Copyright law gives the author the right to exclude anyone from using the work (except for fair use, which wholesale copying usually isn't.) The GPL states the terms under which the author is willing to allow Joe Public to use his intellectual property.

    The only possible hitch would be if you'd purchased GPL'd software; then it might be argued that the UCC grants you certian rights because you purchased it. (although with the new UTICA, there's no reason to believe it would be any less valid than any other software license agreement.) The fact that you are able to obtain any GPL'd software gratis seems to be to be pretty clear evidence that what you are purchasing is not the software per se, but rather the service of the distribution itself.

    Yes, it's ironic that the GPL depends on the existence of intellectual property rights. My personal feeling is that RMS is fully aware of this, and probably loves the paradox. I know I do.

  4. GPL: Communist? on Corel Linux Beta License Violates GPL · · Score: 1

    It seems that the BSD license is the communist one: "to each according to his needs (want the source? take the source), from each according to what he can provide (here's the source, take it)."

    The GPL, on the other hand, says "Here's the source, here's the program. There's no marginal cost to me if you copy it, so I won't charge you for that. If you want to use it, though, you'll have to agree to my terms. Rather than demanding money in exchange for my work, you must give back any changes you make. Furthermore, you do not gain the right to exclude others from my property, to which I am only grant you license to use."

    It's a contract establishing a consentual transaction between parties to establish the rights associated with intellectual property. Sounds pretty damn capitalist to me.

  5. Re:Make it an opera! on Details About New Trek Series? · · Score: 1

    You, sir are a genius!

  6. Re:the worst on 'Citizenship' not Censorship · · Score: 1

    What's to object to in the ten commandments? Oh, I don't know, maybe the FIRST commandment? Not everyone believes your god exists, let alone would be deserving of any praise if he did.

  7. Re:not very believable on Here come the PowerPC Linux systems · · Score: 1
    It is well known that Linux doesn't yet scale very well beyond an SMP of two processors.
    It's commonly stated that OS Foo doesn't scale as well to multiple processors as OS Bar. How about some numbers, people?
  8. Re:a new seti burner??? on Here come the PowerPC Linux systems · · Score: 1
    besides, seti is searching for life on other planets in space not in vacuum dimwit.
    Somebody needs new batteries for their sarcasm detector.
  9. Re:Copying != theft on Review: Code of Ethics for Programmers? · · Score: 1
    Actually, dumbass, unauthorised copying IS stealing and there is EVERYTHING fscking wrong with it.
    Theft means taking something away. If I copy it, you still have it. Violating copyright law IS illegal, MIGHT be unethical, but is NOT the same thing as theft. Legally it isn't considered theft, it's "copyright violation" and the word "theft" didn't even enter into it legislatively until the fairly recent NET act. (No Electronic Theft).
  10. Re:thanks! on Bowie Distributes New Album Using SDMI Format · · Score: 1

    The trouble with this analysis is that it assumes that information is thrown out in the same manner by both MP3 and SDMI. This is not necesarily the case, and once "lost", you can never get it back.

  11. Re:feed the world and stop being greedy on Unisys Enforcing GIF Patents · · Score: 1
    Why are you so willing to take away people's freedoms?

    I'm quite willing to take away your freedom to kill me in cold blood. I'm also willing to take away your freedom to tell me what I am allowed to do with knowledge in my own head.

    Why is it that most people agree that monopolies are bad, but if someone claims to be the first one to do something, all of a sudden they have a "natural right" to a monopoly?

  12. Re:Oh, so we wanna talk about patent conspiracies on Unisys Enforcing GIF Patents · · Score: 1

    Guess what? the Earth puts out more CFCs in a year than we do by far - volcanic eruptions and the like. Last I heard, we were producing about 18% or so of the world's CFCs.

    You've been listening to too much Rush Limbaugh. Volcanic eruptions put out chlorine, not CFCs. CFCs do not occur naturally.

  13. Re:the actual quotation is much funnier on Feature:Obscurity as Security · · Score: 1

    function factorizeLargePrimeNumber(p) = {1,p}

    Wow! What a breakthrough!

  14. Re:Passing Notes In Class? on Ask Slashdot: Should the US Government Tax Email? · · Score: 1
    What's next -- do they want to take over all of the email servers and have one central post-office run by the USPS? (The same people who fail to deliver some 20% of all letters!)

    I'd love to see THAT figure cited.

  15. Re:President has way too much power on Clinton creates group to "address unlawful conduct" on Net · · Score: 1

    >Sounds good to me, you in favor of this stuff?

    When it comes to controlled substances, actually, yes. Yes I am.

  16. Re:GPL is about Ethics not Law on Ask Slashdot: GPLed code with non-GPLed output · · Score: 1
    We live in a world of laws. Laws make it clear what is right and wrong.

    We live in a world that has laws, and those laws have to be enforced by men with guns. Who's gonna do it. You? You, Lieutennant Weinburg? I have a greater responsiblity.... (appologies to Jack Nicholson)

    Seriously, though, laws do not at all make it clear what is right and wrong. Laws make it clear what society will and will not tolerate. There is a very important distinction between these two conecpts. Namely, everyone should be able to (more or less) agree on what the law is. (Which is not the same as agreeing on what it should be). Not everyone agrees on what is right and wrong.

  17. Re:Use of appropriate licenses on Ask Slashdot: GPLed code with non-GPLed output · · Score: 1

    The difference with, say, Microsoft Windows it that you go to the store, plunk down your $$$, take it home, and THEN discover you've already agreed to the license agreement. The GPL, on the other hand, says (words to the effect of) "nothing compels you to agree to this contract, since you didn't sign it. However, nothing else gives you the right to the program"

  18. Amiga... on QNX give update of new Amiga OS and GUI · · Score: 1

    I think it's fairly agreed that the big defining point of the Amiga was the custom hardware. How is a completely different OS running on completely different hardware still "Amiga-like"?

  19. Re:Are software licenses legal?: Revisited. on Ask Slashdot: "Pseudo-Free" Software in Major Distributions? · · Score: 1

    The GPL covers this:

    5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it.

    The issue with commercial software is that you have already -paid- for it; thus, under the uniform commercial code, people have certain expectations of what you can and can't do with it. So, they're changing the UCC. :P

  20. Re:Yeah, but it's DES.. on The First Step to Cypherspace? · · Score: 1
    Tripple DES is good enough. If it isn't, DES encrypt 5 times, or 7, or 9


    Baaaad idea. Let the crypto people decide when adding rounds increases security. Even doing 3 DES rounds, if done improperly, can result in hardly-better security. Blindly chunking on extra passes is a great way to give yourself a false sense of security.
  21. Unbelieveable jingles on Competition for Jolt/Dew/Coffee? · · Score: 2

    How about Corn Nuts' jingle? I was listening to the radio, and all of a sudden I hear these girls singing "Bust a nut! Bust a nut! Everybody loves to bust a nut!" Almost ran my car off the road laughing.

  22. Re:Locksmith, eh? on Wozniak's Comments on "Pirates" · · Score: 1
    My dad introduced me to software piracy and the online world several years before that, with a TRS-80 Model 1 and a CompuServe account. At that point, piracy wasn't even illegal!

    Hate to interrupt the reverie, but copyright law has been around a lot longer than computers.

  23. Re:Perfect on House subcommittee passes crypto bill · · Score: 2

    Then all blocking software can just block encrypted content in general.

    I'm a little bothered by the "use of crypto to hide a crime is a crime" part; it's already a crime to commit a crime. What do they hope to accomplish with that?

  24. Re:Hip and educated must not have taken probabilit on David Brin on Star Wars: TPM · · Score: 1

    ("probability argument" for religion)
    This is essentially Pascal's wager, which is a very poor reason to believe. There's more than one god to choose from--the choice isn't just "to believe in god" or "not to believe in god". If JVHV is god, but you "picked" Allah, you go to hell. OTOH, if Allah is god, but you "picked" JHVH, you at least get judged on whether you were generally a good person. If the ancient Greeks were right, then you just go to Hades no matter what you believe. This modified pascal's wager then says to pick the god for which the worst punishment exists for disbelief. Give your life to Cthullu!

    But what sort of faith is faith founded on a pseudomathematical probabilistic argument? "Well, God, I didn't accept your son as my savior, but I tried to believe in you because probability theory suggested it was the best way to cut my losses..."

  25. Re:Moderation please on Serious CGI Bug in MacOS X Servers · · Score: 1
    Relly, any GUI (Mac, WinX, ...) is really no more complicated than the 75 window managers for *nix. Yes, there are Mac look and feel GUI's for Linux, which aren't that popular on Linux, hence my comment.
    OS's control the hardware, resources, and other low level abstraction layers of a computer. Everything else is just user interface. Years of Microsoft and Apple trying to tell us that "Pixels Matter!" is brainwashing everyone into missing what is important in a OS.


    Having used both a Mac and the "Mac look and feel GUI's for Linux", there's no comparison. It's a "Mac sort-of look" with none of the feel. Perhaps an actual mac look and feel wouldn't be popular for linux either, but what's out there just isn't it.