This should surprise no one. 911 is not anywhere near as reliable as you think it could or should be. A friend of mine nearly cut off this thumb with a chop saw. He ran into the house, called 911, and.... it was busy. Rather than dick around bleeding (drip, drip), he called the one person he knew he could rely on: his office secretary (three cheers for secretaries!) She called the local ambulance service, they picked up, took him to the hospital, and after a little tendon reattachment surgery and months of rehab, he was good as new. No thanks to 911.
I priced out one of these systems, but it was cheaper to buy a Dish Network PVR508 off E*Bay ($180). Its disk is a little small, but unlike newer PVRs from Dish, there are no monthly fees. Plus, it's nicely integrated into the Dish channel guide.
I don't think we can limit the discussion to just the one invention. The real question is not simply "Did patent rights create enough MORE potential for profit to enable Chiron to get the funding to allow them to keep working", but instead "Are the restriction in availability caused by the monopolies granted over all patentable technologies justified by the increase in the number or speed of invented technologies?" You can't point to one (arguably) successful patent and then say that all patents are thus worthwhile.
Chiron took a big gamble and succeeded where everyone else had failed. If there were no patent rights in the offing, would we even have a Hepatitis C genome sequence to squabble over?
So... you're arguing that nobody ever invents anything unless it can be patented. Do you have any evidence that this assertion is true, or did you just pull it from your butt? (Obviously, you are incorrect, thus that entire paragraph can be struck out.)
A patent can only be granted for a functional, functioning object. You can't get a patent for something that you haven't gotten to work yet. Otherwise, you could look at what people are researching, and patent what they're trying to get to work. Then, once they have made it work, you have the patent. Uh-huh. That dog won't hunt. Thus, JUST AS CRICHTON SAYS, the patent shouldn't have been granted.
Because djb refuses to let the OpenBSD folks make changes. Note that they don't actually have any changes they want to make. They argue that they must be able to make changes without negotiating with the author of the code. djb says, with good reason, that nobody writes more secure code than himself, so any patches written by somebody else would be unlikely to make the code more secure. Both parties are arguing from reasonable positions, it's just that they are incompatible positions. Thus, BIND9 (which needs to be hardened) versus djbdns (which is shipped without security holes).
I note that you didn't say you were using netqmail. We intend for your problem to be exactly and precisely solved by netqmail. If it's not, you should complain on the qmail@list.cr.yp.to mailing list. And we WILL listen to you, and you WILL get a response (unlike, say, complaining to djb).
Yeah, but we're not talking about copying which falls under fair use. Incorporating a copy of code into a unidiff patch would be fair use (commentary). Making a copy of a djb subroutine for pedantic purposes ("see how he does this") would be fair use. Making a copy of code which is no longer for sale and cannot be purchased for any reasonable price might be fair use. Making a copy of code which is freely downloadable elsewhere -- even if you use it to create a derived work -- is almost certainly not fair use. Fair use always ends up being a judgment call on part of a judge. You'd always prefer not to have to rely on fair use.
True, but it is djb who is making the copy, not you. Every copy he gives you is a legally independent copy, which you are free to do whatever you want with, including give it away to someone else.
You cannot make two copies without explicit permission (ie, a license) from the copyright holder.
So? If you download a copy A of djb's software, and then legally copy it to make A', and you want another copy B, just go download it. djb is happy to give you as many separate copies of his software as you think you need.
It's a style of coding; sure. If you're not used to it, it can be hard to read. But he gets a bunch of things right, like checking EVERY malloc for failure. Like not merely exiting when a malloc fails, but instead exiting with a special code for temporary failure, or in the case of a daemon which cannot exit, sleeping until memory becomes available. Like making counted strings easy to use in C (null termination is the tool of the demons in charge of buffer overflows). Like making it trivially easy to avoid memory leaks. Like subtle things like str_chr always returning a usable pointer, rather than NULL sometimes and a pointer to the character other times like strchr does.
When is a spade not a spade? If someone engages in puerile activity, don't they deserve a puerile name? djb (the old djb, anyway)'s biggest problem is that he didn't give people the truth gently. He would tell people "That's stupid, and you're being stupid for proposing it." The best djb quip I ever heard was:
djbwm - it's the best window manager in the world, but when you try to move a window, it argues with you for ten minutes that it was already in the right place.
Your users are going to be a little upset when they discover that their DNS server doesn't resolve anything anymore.
You see, the chief difficulty is *exactly* the same as the open smtp relay problem. Back when everybody on the Internet knew each other, and abuse was resolved with a phone call, nobody understood that some services needed to be authorized, and some needed to be public. Thus, relaying and delivery SMTP servers were the same thing, and caching and authoritative DNS servers were the same thing. The big challenge with this issue is not reconfiguring BIND 9 to not recurse. The big challenge is to split your caching from your authoritative DNS servers.
Okay, so obviously we can see why you clicked on the "Post Anonymously" checkbox. I think Slashcode needs "Post Anonymously" to be a dropbox of reasons why you're posting anonymously:
Post Anonymously because:
o Posting something stupid
o Posting something illegal
o Posting something embarrassing
o Posting something shameful
Why do you think you need a license? Copyright law doesn't impose ANY restrictions on what you do with something you've downloaded. It only stops you from making copies.
Oh, and look at qmail-1.03.tar.gz#CREDITS -- my name is in there because of patches I've submitted to djb. Granted, he rewrote most of my code because his design was better than mine, but just because most patches 1) suck, 2) aren't necessary, 3) make the code worse, and 4) are badly design, doesn't mean that all are.
No, most of his software is copyrighted. The only djb software which is in the public domain is software that he has explicitly given to the public domain. The term for the rest of his software is "license-free". You don't need a license to use it. Just download it! Copyright law lets you do anything you want with a copyrighted work, except redistribute it. You can publish patches, as we've done with netqmail.
Eh, he's gotten a lot better. Hey, everybody was young when they were young. It's just that not all of us inflicted our youth on others. He just writes good software these days. If you don't use it, well, it's your loss.
It isn't that hard, but it's perceived to be difficult. You have to set up your authoritative records on a separate IP address from your current DNS server (e.g. using tinydns). Then you tell your registrar that your nameserver has a different IP address. At that point, the only queries coming to your old IP address should be recursive queries coming from your users. Then you can close off recursive queries coming from the rest of the net (e.g. using dnscache).
Then you have to make your secondarying work, which may be easy, or merely annoying depending on your setup.
I'd be inclined to go with those who actually do something a little more useful between rants.
I'm always embarassed on behalf of people who claim that ESR doesn't write code, or if they acknowledge it's code, they claim it's bad code, or if it's not bad code, it's not useful code, or if it's useful code, it's not useful to enough people, or if it's useful enough people, he takes too long to write it. Clearly no matter what ESR (or apparently me too) do, it's not going to be enough to satisfy some people. So, since you clearly are planning to be dissatisifed, there's no point in attempting to correct you. I'll let you be wrong -- and let you wonder why, and how, and where.
Slashdot Mirror
wouldn't you pay $12.00 a month extra to be able to access emergency services??
Not hardly worth $12/month. Maybe $1/month, tops.
This should surprise no one. 911 is not anywhere near as reliable as you think it could or should be. A friend of mine nearly cut off this thumb with a chop saw. He ran into the house, called 911, and .... it was busy. Rather than dick around bleeding (drip, drip), he called the one person he knew he could rely on: his office secretary (three cheers for secretaries!) She called the local ambulance service, they picked up, took him to the hospital, and after a little tendon reattachment surgery and months of rehab, he was good as new. No thanks to 911.
I priced out one of these systems, but it was cheaper to buy a Dish Network PVR508 off E*Bay ($180). Its disk is a little small, but unlike newer PVRs from Dish, there are no monthly fees. Plus, it's nicely integrated into the Dish channel guide.
I don't think we can limit the discussion to just the one invention. The real question is not simply "Did patent rights create enough MORE potential for profit to enable Chiron to get the funding to allow them to keep working", but instead "Are the restriction in availability caused by the monopolies granted over all patentable technologies justified by the increase in the number or speed of invented technologies?" You can't point to one (arguably) successful patent and then say that all patents are thus worthwhile.
"Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." --George Washington
Thus, we should censor government above all if we censor violence.
Oh, great, I've just upgraded from FC2 to FC4 ... and now there's an FC5?? Technology marches on....
Chiron took a big gamble and succeeded where everyone else had failed. If there were no patent rights in the offing, would we even have a Hepatitis C genome sequence to squabble over?
... you're arguing that nobody ever invents anything unless it can be patented. Do you have any evidence that this assertion is true, or did you just pull it from your butt? (Obviously, you are incorrect, thus that entire paragraph can be struck out.)
So
A patent can only be granted for a functional, functioning object. You can't get a patent for something that you haven't gotten to work yet. Otherwise, you could look at what people are researching, and patent what they're trying to get to work. Then, once they have made it work, you have the patent. Uh-huh. That dog won't hunt. Thus, JUST AS CRICHTON SAYS, the patent shouldn't have been granted.
Grammer Nazi!
You meant to say:
:)
(Glad to see I'm not the only one
otherwise your parentheses would be unbalanced.
You have a correct configuration. You gain 2 skill points.
I'll also bet a dollar that he doesn't know what public domain is. I'll even give two to one odds against it.
Because djb refuses to let the OpenBSD folks make changes. Note that they don't actually have any changes they want to make. They argue that they must be able to make changes without negotiating with the author of the code. djb says, with good reason, that nobody writes more secure code than himself, so any patches written by somebody else would be unlikely to make the code more secure. Both parties are arguing from reasonable positions, it's just that they are incompatible positions.
Thus, BIND9 (which needs to be hardened) versus djbdns (which is shipped without security holes).
I note that you didn't say you were using netqmail. We intend for your problem to be exactly and precisely solved by netqmail. If it's not, you should complain on the qmail@list.cr.yp.to mailing list. And we WILL listen to you, and you WILL get a response (unlike, say, complaining to djb).
Yeah, but we're not talking about copying which falls under fair use. Incorporating a copy of code into a unidiff patch would be fair use (commentary). Making a copy of a djb subroutine for pedantic purposes ("see how he does this") would be fair use. Making a copy of code which is no longer for sale and cannot be purchased for any reasonable price might be fair use. Making a copy of code which is freely downloadable elsewhere -- even if you use it to create a derived work -- is almost certainly not fair use. Fair use always ends up being a judgment call on part of a judge. You'd always prefer not to have to rely on fair use.
Downloading /is/ making a copy.
True, but it is djb who is making the copy, not you. Every copy he gives you is a legally independent copy, which you are free to do whatever you want with, including give it away to someone else.
You cannot make two copies without explicit permission (ie, a license) from the copyright holder.
So? If you download a copy A of djb's software, and then legally copy it to make A', and you want another copy B, just go download it. djb is happy to give you as many separate copies of his software as you think you need.
It's a style of coding; sure. If you're not used to it, it can be hard to read. But he gets a bunch of things right, like checking EVERY malloc for failure. Like not merely exiting when a malloc fails, but instead exiting with a special code for temporary failure, or in the case of a daemon which cannot exit, sleeping until memory becomes available. Like making counted strings easy to use in C (null termination is the tool of the demons in charge of buffer overflows). Like making it trivially easy to avoid memory leaks. Like subtle things like str_chr always returning a usable pointer, rather than NULL sometimes and a pointer to the character other times like strchr does.
When is a spade not a spade? If someone engages in puerile activity, don't they deserve a puerile name? djb (the old djb, anyway)'s biggest problem is that he didn't give people the truth gently. He would tell people "That's stupid, and you're being stupid for proposing it." The best djb quip I ever heard was:
djbwm - it's the best window manager in the world, but when you try to move a window, it argues with you for ten minutes that it was already in the right place.
Your users are going to be a little upset when they discover that their DNS server doesn't resolve anything anymore.
You see, the chief difficulty is *exactly* the same as the open smtp relay problem. Back when everybody on the Internet knew each other, and abuse was resolved with a phone call, nobody understood that some services needed to be authorized, and some needed to be public. Thus, relaying and delivery SMTP servers were the same thing, and caching and authoritative DNS servers were the same thing. The big challenge with this issue is not reconfiguring BIND 9 to not recurse. The big challenge is to split your caching from your authoritative DNS servers.
Okay, so obviously we can see why you clicked on the "Post Anonymously" checkbox. I think Slashcode needs "Post Anonymously" to be a dropbox of reasons why you're posting anonymously:
Post Anonymously because:
o Posting something stupid
o Posting something illegal
o Posting something embarrassing
o Posting something shameful
I think you would have selected the last one.
Why do you think you need a license? Copyright law doesn't impose ANY restrictions on what you do with something you've downloaded. It only stops you from making copies.
Oh, and look at qmail-1.03.tar.gz#CREDITS -- my name is in there because of patches I've submitted to djb. Granted, he rewrote most of my code because his design was better than mine, but just because most patches 1) suck, 2) aren't necessary, 3) make the code worse, and 4) are badly design, doesn't mean that all are.
No, most of his software is copyrighted. The only djb software which is in the public domain is software that he has explicitly given to the public domain. The term for the rest of his software is "license-free". You don't need a license to use it. Just download it! Copyright law lets you do anything you want with a copyrighted work, except redistribute it. You can publish patches, as we've done with netqmail.
Eh, he's gotten a lot better. Hey, everybody was young when they were young. It's just that not all of us inflicted our youth on others. He just writes good software these days. If you don't use it, well, it's your loss.
why is splitting the two such a problem?
It isn't that hard, but it's perceived to be difficult. You have to set up your authoritative records on a separate IP address from your current DNS server (e.g. using tinydns). Then you tell your registrar that your nameserver has a different IP address. At that point, the only queries coming to your old IP address should be recursive queries coming from your users. Then you can close off recursive queries coming from the rest of the net (e.g. using dnscache).
Then you have to make your secondarying work, which may be easy, or merely annoying depending on your setup.
I'd be inclined to go with those who actually do something a little more useful between rants.
I'm always embarassed on behalf of people who claim that ESR doesn't write code, or if they acknowledge it's code, they claim it's bad code, or if it's not bad code, it's not useful code, or if it's useful code, it's not useful to enough people, or if it's useful enough people, he takes too long to write it. Clearly no matter what ESR (or apparently me too) do, it's not going to be enough to satisfy some people. So, since you clearly are planning to be dissatisifed, there's no point in attempting to correct you. I'll let you be wrong -- and let you wonder why, and how, and where.