What happens when you are dealing with a home video or recording?
Like a commercial recording, that depends entirely upon how it was created and what DRM restrictions were - or weren't - applied to it at the time.
How does Vista knows it is non DRM encumbered media?
The player will not set an Image Constraint Token.
How about a CD for which the authors or publishers do not give a rat ass about DRM? How is Vista going to know it does not need to waste cycles to check that?
Because the ICT won't be set.
In case you haven't managed to figure it out yet, Vista only applies DRM restrictions when the content owner tells it to.
Your baseless defense of the indefensible is frankly tired and futile.
I defended nothing. You, however, are revelling in your ignorance. You should be embarrassed.
Good idea. There's a quiet room over there you can go into to beat yourself with it.
If you'd actually read Guttman's paper (which you clearly haven't)[...]
Actually, I have.
[...] it talks about the fact that all the stuff needed in hardware to support Vista's DRM crap causes higher costs for manufacturers and reduced hardware performance.
When you're not using DRM-encumbered media, no DRM (encryption, "tilt bits", whatever) is being applied. Ie: no "performance degredation" in normal usage.
Higher costs ? No-one makes you buy DRM-capable hardware. Further, if you *do* want to use DRM-encumbered media, those "higher costs" will apply across the board to any capable device since they *ALL* have to support these restrictions to be licensed.
My AT&T Unix PC never crashed. Apple OS X doesn't crash. Linux doesn't crash (since the 1.3 days). Solaris doesn't crash. My DEC Alpha running Turbolinux 7 never crashed (but that's bragging, I did the Turbolinux 7 port to DEC Alpha).
You are either lying, or have never used any of those operating systems for any length of time.
Well, the famous one is A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection by Peter Guttman; which goes into great detail.
And is mostly FUD, resulting in people believing things like this:
Its not really the DRM, so much, as it is all the "features" (cough cough) that supports the DRM, especially how Vista encrypts alot of traffic crossing the system busses...and how Vista checks the "tilt bits" many many many times per second. All this needless "housekeeping" slows the system down.
Vista only does this when you are using DRM-encumbered media. It does not do it at other times.
I'm sure the restrictions are subtle. The industry has learned that much since the Borland licensing debacle in the early 90s.
In other words, your predictions of doom and gloom, or more restrictions over using GPLe code, when using closed source libraries are nothing but FUD.
Not in any world I've ever lived in. When I buy a commercial product that relies on libraries which are shipped with it, I fully expect whoever I'm buying it from to have handled the library licensing details.
You've changed the argument to suit your point. From "uses a shared library" to "ships with a shared library".
Linux-only applications probably would have been derivative works of Linux (this has not been decided in court, so it's not completely clear), but it's not an issue because the license of Linux is a modified GPL. Linus added:
Attitudes like this are a prime example of why developers are wary of GPLed code. Suggesting a program is a "derivative work" because it happens to run on a GPLed platform is even more ridiculous than saying it's derivative because it uses header files.
Trolltech, MySQL AB, Sleepycat, Sun and IBM, among others, beg to disagree. All of those companies have products that are profitable because the OSS license they use is the GPL. The GPL's very restrictions make it attractive for products that can be dual-licensed.
No, they're making money because they've dual-licensed their code and are *NOT* using the GPL for their commercial product (eg: Trolltech) or are tying their GPLed code to some other product or service (eg: IBM).
Dual-licensing and support contracts are in no way a good counter-arguments to the GPL being ill-suited for licensing code you want to sell. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Bah. Developers are stupid if they're "wary" of the GPL. There's no need to be afraid of it at all. It's a simple decision -- decide if you want to write GPL code, then you'll know if you can incorporate GPL code into it or not. If you somehow "accidentally" use someone else's GPL code in a product you don't want to GPL, it's not a big deal, either. Just stop distributing until you can remove/replace/license the GPL code.
This doesn't even come close to mitigating the problems with GPLed shared libraries, nor the concerns about zealots who think, for example, that userspace binaries running on GPLed operating systems would be considered "derivative works" if it wasn't for an exclusion clause.
The concept of a "derivative work" is grossly abused by GPL supporters. This makes developers nervous about being "near" GPLed code, should their hard work suddenly be declared a "derivative" and they have to choose between GPLing it, writing significantly more code (to replace all the GPLed stuff they interact with) or (in the extreme example of a GPLed OS) abondoning the platform altogether.
One major problem that both sides can agree on is that the GPL hasn't yet been tested in court, so just how "viral" it is has not yet been determined. Businesses that don't want to GPL their own code, and are smart, are giving other GPLed code a wide berth until this happens.
I think MS applies some no-reverse-engineering restrictions, and there are probably others as well. I don't know if Apple does the same. Look at the license agreement to your developer tools for details.
Just for the hell of it, I downloaded the SDK for Vista and.NET 3.5 to have a look at the EULA. From a quick read through it doesn't appear to impose any of the licensing restrictions on code written to use it that you are talking about.
Nearly all commercial software libraries place some sort of restrictions. For example, some require that you pay per-user royalties, which effectively means that you can't license the derived work for free distribution.
Why ? Surely it's the end-user's job to ensure they have and are fully licensed to use, those shared libraries ?
Others attach clauses regarding reverse engineering, use in competitive products, etc., and require that the developer of the derived work enforce those restrictions on the end-user. This is typically done by simply including similar clauses in the license of the derived work.
What "others" ? What common-use shared components impose these sorts of restrictions on code that uses them ?
First -- and note that this hasn't been argued out in court, but it's the opinion of a copyright attorney I respect -- if the code is originally written to link against a non-GPL library, and if it does not include any GPL code (no headers, for example), then the fact that it can also run when dynamically linked against a GPL library would not seem to make it a derived work. This presumes that there's a non-GPL library with the same interface that the code can be written against.
Now there's a corner-case scenario if ever I've heard one. On the other hand, it does a good job of exposing the stupidity behind the idea that linking a program to GPLed code somehow makes it a "derivative work".
More realistically, code that is written against GPL libraries typically incorporates GPL code directly (from headers) and by dynamically linking, and cannot be used without the supporting GPL code. That clearly makes it a derived work that can only be released under the terms of the GPL -- unless all of the reliance on GPL code is removed. If you take the GPL stuff out, your code is yours and you can release it under any license you like, in source or binary form, whatever you want, whether you have already released it under the GPL or not.
Whether or not it can be "used" without the supporting GPLed code is utterly irrelevant. That would imply, for example, that any Linux-only binary is "derivative" because it cannot be run without (GPLed) Linux.
Further, calling a piece of code "derived" because it references *header files* is the kind of thing I'd expect from a GPL zealot but, frankly, it's ridiculous. Someone writes 100k LOC, and you call their hard work "derived" because it includes some header files ? Madness.
I never denied that the purpose of the GPL was to encourage the development of more GPL software.
No. Not "encourage". Require. "Encourage" is what the LGPL does.
I do, however, deny that the GPL itself is somehow "viral" in any way that copyright itself is not. In fact, the GPL *cannot* be more "viral" than copyright law, because that's where it gets all of its power.
It most certainly is, at least if you listen to the likes of you, RMS and the FSF. Take the your examples above - that's like saying a book review is a derivative work of the book because it quotes a few passages and wouldn't "work" if the book didn't exist.
Developers are wary of the GPL because the whole point of it is to make it as difficult as possible to use GPLed code without also GPLing their own code. Since GPLing a codebase *severely* restricts the options for making money from it, lots of developers prefer to take the safe way out of simply avoiding any GPLed code altogether.
Wrong. It *always* requires subjecting the resulting combined work to their license (or other form of permission to create and distribute derivative works). There are cases, like BSD, where that permission does not restrict how you choose to license the combined work, but *most* licenses, commercial and non-commercial, apply some restrictions.
For example ? What restrictions are placed on source code that someone writes linking to the standard Windows or OS X shared libraries ? What other "commercial" shared libraries are you thinking of that put restriction on how the source in programs that link to them must be licensed ?
In the case of the GPL, the restriction takes the form of the requirement that the combined work be licensed under the GPL (note that you are *not* required to license your work under the GPL, just the combined work. You're free to license your own work in whatever way or ways you want.
According to RMS and the FSF, linking to a GPLed library (either staticailly or dynamically) creates a "derived work". How do you propose someone distribute software that links to GPLed code without GPLing their code as well ?
It's only confusing when FUDsters make it confusing.
I always find it amazing how people try to deny that the GPL's primary, defining "feature", doesn't exist. The GPL is designed to be "viral". The whole *point* of it is to make using GPLed code without also GPLing your own code as difficult as possible. Trying to deny that just makes you look like a stupid zealot.
Not surprisingly, this is one of the hardest things to convince PHB's of. They seem (at least my boss seems) to believe that it's GPL == free (in all senses of the word.)
Probably because that's what all the GPL advocates keep telling him. GPL == free == Free == everything you could ever want from a license.
What they typically neglect to mention is that what they mean by "free" is not what most people mean by "free".
This is not rocket surgery. It's not even the slightest bit confusing, except when made deliberately so by FUDsters.
Actually it is confusing to a lot of people, and the reason it is confusing is because in most situations linking to someone else's code doesn't imply subjecting *your* code to *their* license.
So, as you see, the GPL is clearly not viral. All it says is that you make derivative works with GPL works and distribute those works [...]
The nasty surprise awaiting the unwary is that the GPL considers linking to be "deriving". Further, the licence itself was specifically designed this way - to "infect" otherwise completely independent code that just happens to use GPLed shared libs. *That* is why it is considered "viral".
You get the same thing with "closed" products too: you purchase a license to redistribute something, but the actual product you are redistributing has to stay closed.
Actually you don't, because most (if not all) "closed" products don't consider linking to them to be the the equivalent of distributing them.
The biggest problem - the "viral" problem - with the GPL really only surfaces when you are linking to GPLed libraries. Standalone GPLed binaries are basically "harmless", so to speak, with regards to the GPL being "viral".
So you think that the MPAA and RIAA are solely responsible?
They have the content. Players are commodities. Seems a somewhat one-sided equation - you either follow the rules of the content providers or your customers use someone else's product that does.
You think that since the media requires DRM that M$ had to implement this degradation? I have to say I disagree. M$ did not have to implement the Vista DRM in the way they did. Things seem to work on XP machines so I do not see how your argument holds water. M$ did NOT have to do this they chose to.
EVERYONE has to implement this degradation. Every HD-DVD or BluRay player does the same thing. No "protected path", no full-quality DRMed HD content on your platform.
So if you shoot your own movies in high definition, you're not going to be able to watch them that way on Vista. It's not a question of steering away from DRM-stricken media, unless it's the Vista-plagued hard drive you're talking about.
Your own movies will only be degraded if *YOU* enable DRM on them. Mr Gutman is - depending on your point of view - either making a serious error of ignorance or lying.
I've wondered about medical applications. What if your specialist reviews your scans on a screen, as is pretty common, these days? Gee... I hope the scanner doesn't count as a high-definition camera in Vista's eyes. More accurately, I hope the doc isn't running Vista. "Wonder what that fuzzy lump in the corner is..."
Once again, the image will only be degraded if the provider of the content has set the ICT tag on their output. It doesn't just happen randomly.
It helps to have even a basic grasp of the concepts, if you want to criticise something.
It's also the way to go for speed - your controller doesn't have to calculate the parity bits for every write operation (yes I know the parity sum is simple - that doesn't stop it from adding a bottleneck).
The "bottleneck" of parity calculations is so small as to be irrelevant. Parity-based RAID levels are bottlenecked by the much higher number of physical disk operations, not the parity calculations.
All true, but the machine was good enough when you bought it. Does your mom have such a tech-lust that it's no longer good enough now?
No. Nor is it relevant to my comment that buying a machine that was replaced only a month or two later with a vastly more capable one is quite reasonable cause to be disappointed. One does not need "techno lust" to wish they'd gotten a better deal.
Not in my country, no. Why should MIcrosoft selling Vista all over the world implement an american law and force it onto users in other countries?
GP is incorrect, the relevant law is copyright, which says that only owners of copyrighted material have the "right" to distribute it.
The lack of a DMCA (or equivalent) in your jurisdiction means only that you are able to convert their distributed content into a format of your choice without worry, not that media companies are obliged to distribute it the way you prefer, or that Microsoft is obliged to ignore the wishes of said content owners because you want them to.
It's clearly ridiculous to claim Microsoft has been forced to cripple its flagship product at the whim of content providers.
As described in the article summary, Vista is not "crippled" in the slightest. It's quite capable of HD playback, just not when the owner of the content has decided not to allow it.
If Microsoft had told the media companies "no DRM", they would still have fallen over themselves to provide material for the platform. It's too big a market to ignore.
Rubbish. The proportion of people using *PCs* to consume HD content is miniscule. Further, there's little reason to believe it will become anything more than a niche market any time in the near future.
No, this is about Microsoft taking control of the means of distribution of media. It's about closing off PCs as an open platform and about excluding competitors, just like almost every other recent action by Microsoft.
How so ? Users are still able to play back DRM-free content.
So is this saying that pirating the movie will yield a higher quality then buying it?
No, it's saying that if you buy DRM-encumbered media, it's likely that it won't deliver as good an "experience" as media without DRM.
This being Slashdot, there will undoubtedly be dozens of posts blaming Vista and Microsoft, despite the article summary itself demonstrating that not to be the case.
DRM is an attribute of the media. The solution is simple - if you don't want DRM to impact your life, don't buy DRM-encumbered media.
Every time I see a news story that is 'blah blah 40% of the population is obese' I often wonder where these people are.
All around you, they just don't _look_ like it.
That statistic you hear is based on BMI. BMI is, at best, an unreliable indicator for a) whether or not someone "looks obese" (obviously very overweight, rolls of fat, multiple chins, no muscle definition anywhere, etc, etc) and b) whether they're "unfit" (gets puffed running up stairs, does no exercise, etc).
For example, I have a BMI of about 31 (=medically obese). However, I'm 189cm and "built like a tank", so while I definitely have a pot belly, I doubt many people would look and consider me "obese" - especially since I have reasonably good muscle definition on my arms and legs. I cycle a ~25km round-trip to work (without raising much of a sweat) and play a 40 minute game of indoor soccer once a week (again, without feeling exhausted afterwards). So while overweight, I'm not really unfit and I can't think of anyone who has ever referred to me as "obese" or looked at me in that "I can't believe you're so fat" way. However, my weight has been stable at its current level for 5+ years now and short of seriously intrusive dieting (= food I didn't really enjoy eating and feeling hungry 24/7) I haven't been able to lose it (or, rather, I did but it came back).
The "best" my BMI has ever been was 24.something, back in the middle of high school (just under "overweight"). I was about 180cm and weighed around 80kg. At the time, I was cycling ~30km daily (to and from school), training 1-2hrs a day for soccer and/or volleyball, swimming a kilometre ~3 times a week and playing 3-5 games of very competitive soccer and/or volleyball every week. For the last two years of high school, with a similar level of exercise, my BMI rose to (just) over 25. So I would have fit into that x% of the population that was being reported as "overweight", despite being extremely fit and not *looking* at all overweight.
The short version is, a hell of a lot of people are medically overweight or obese, but don't look it because of their body type - they just look "pudgy". That's where most of that "x% of the population is obese" is hiding.
Are those the same PC hardware vendors which Microsoft has systematically browbeaten into offering Windows?
No, they're the same PC hardware vendors who don't see any profit in not selling Windows.
The ones which (at least until recently) were almost to a man terrified of offering you something with any OS other than Windows lest some Terrible Beat of Redmond descent upon them?
The only thing a business is terrified of is going out of business. The only reason they'd go out of business if the "Terrible Beat of Redmond" comes knocking is if there was no money to be made selling non-Windows PCs.
Things are changing - Dell's recent foray into Linux systems demonstrates that - but to imagine that the Windows monopoly is entirely down to PC hardware vendors simultaneously, independently deciding to ship Windows and nothing else is pure folly.
To think PC hardware vendors wouldn't be selling Linux PCs if there was profit to be made in it is sheer stupidity. Even dumber than thinking they're all part of some huge conspiracy against Linux on the desktop.
If there's money to be made selling Linux PCs to home users, then they'll do it. If there isn't, they won't. It's that simple.
How is this a valid answer to the GP's conclusion that people wouldn't buy Windows if they had a clue WHAT they are buying?
Because for the vast majority of people using computers, the last one they bought wasn't their first exposure to Windows.
Like I said, if "dumb" people hated Windows anywhere near as much as "smart" people like you thought they do, Microsoft wouldn't own 90% of the market.
The market, the market, the market. Standard fanboy corpspeak without a factual base.
What "facts" do you feel are lacking ? Buying computers without Windows is easy. Apart from a few niche areas, there has always been at least one near-drop-in replacement for a Windows machine for the last couple of decades.
A free market still exists in IT, but it is a rather small niche outside of the Microsoft monoculture.
The free market in IT includes the "Microsoft monoculture".
The average user isn't so political. His laptop comes with Windows, but it doesn't really matter to him. If it breaks down, it is replaced or fixed by a friend.
I'm glad you agree that issue is not one of functionality. Now, why do you feel you shoudl be able to tell people what computers they should use ?
The majority of end users don't have the competence to decide for quality software, they just want the "standard" software they know. So Microsoft and friends can happily continue to shovel stuff down their throats. That's your beloved market: Powered by Dumbness(tm).
Standard anti-Microsoft superiority complex. How unsurprising.
Slashdot Mirror
What happens when you are dealing with a home video or recording?
Like a commercial recording, that depends entirely upon how it was created and what DRM restrictions were - or weren't - applied to it at the time.
How does Vista knows it is non DRM encumbered media?
The player will not set an Image Constraint Token.
How about a CD for which the authors or publishers do not give a rat ass about DRM? How is Vista going to know it does not need to waste cycles to check that?
Because the ICT won't be set.
In case you haven't managed to figure it out yet, Vista only applies DRM restrictions when the content owner tells it to.
Your baseless defense of the indefensible is frankly tired and futile.
I defended nothing. You, however, are revelling in your ignorance. You should be embarrassed.
*hefts clue bat*
Good idea. There's a quiet room over there you can go into to beat yourself with it.
If you'd actually read Guttman's paper (which you clearly haven't)[...]
Actually, I have.
[...] it talks about the fact that all the stuff needed in hardware to support Vista's DRM crap causes higher costs for manufacturers and reduced hardware performance.
When you're not using DRM-encumbered media, no DRM (encryption, "tilt bits", whatever) is being applied. Ie: no "performance degredation" in normal usage.
Higher costs ? No-one makes you buy DRM-capable hardware. Further, if you *do* want to use DRM-encumbered media, those "higher costs" will apply across the board to any capable device since they *ALL* have to support these restrictions to be licensed.
Google me. I've made no secret of my usage of those systems throughout the years.
If you've never seen Solaris, Linux or OS X crash, you can't have used them very much.
My AT&T Unix PC never crashed. Apple OS X doesn't crash. Linux doesn't crash (since the 1.3 days). Solaris doesn't crash. My DEC Alpha running Turbolinux 7 never crashed (but that's bragging, I did the Turbolinux 7 port to DEC Alpha).
You are either lying, or have never used any of those operating systems for any length of time.
Well, the famous one is A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection by Peter Guttman; which goes into great detail.
And is mostly FUD, resulting in people believing things like this:
Its not really the DRM, so much, as it is all the "features" (cough cough) that supports the DRM, especially how Vista encrypts alot of traffic crossing the system busses...and how Vista checks the "tilt bits" many many many times per second. All this needless "housekeeping" slows the system down.
Vista only does this when you are using DRM-encumbered media. It does not do it at other times.
I'm sure the restrictions are subtle. The industry has learned that much since the Borland licensing debacle in the early 90s.
In other words, your predictions of doom and gloom, or more restrictions over using GPLe code, when using closed source libraries are nothing but FUD.
Not in any world I've ever lived in. When I buy a commercial product that relies on libraries which are shipped with it, I fully expect whoever I'm buying it from to have handled the library licensing details.
You've changed the argument to suit your point. From "uses a shared library" to "ships with a shared library".
Linux-only applications probably would have been derivative works of Linux (this has not been decided in court, so it's not completely clear), but it's not an issue because the license of Linux is a modified GPL. Linus added:
Attitudes like this are a prime example of why developers are wary of GPLed code. Suggesting a program is a "derivative work" because it happens to run on a GPLed platform is even more ridiculous than saying it's derivative because it uses header files.
Trolltech, MySQL AB, Sleepycat, Sun and IBM, among others, beg to disagree. All of those companies have products that are profitable because the OSS license they use is the GPL. The GPL's very restrictions make it attractive for products that can be dual-licensed.
No, they're making money because they've dual-licensed their code and are *NOT* using the GPL for their commercial product (eg: Trolltech) or are tying their GPLed code to some other product or service (eg: IBM).
Dual-licensing and support contracts are in no way a good counter-arguments to the GPL being ill-suited for licensing code you want to sell. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Bah. Developers are stupid if they're "wary" of the GPL. There's no need to be afraid of it at all. It's a simple decision -- decide if you want to write GPL code, then you'll know if you can incorporate GPL code into it or not. If you somehow "accidentally" use someone else's GPL code in a product you don't want to GPL, it's not a big deal, either. Just stop distributing until you can remove/replace/license the GPL code.
This doesn't even come close to mitigating the problems with GPLed shared libraries, nor the concerns about zealots who think, for example, that userspace binaries running on GPLed operating systems would be considered "derivative works" if it wasn't for an exclusion clause.
The concept of a "derivative work" is grossly abused by GPL supporters. This makes developers nervous about being "near" GPLed code, should their hard work suddenly be declared a "derivative" and they have to choose between GPLing it, writing significantly more code (to replace all the GPLed stuff they interact with) or (in the extreme example of a GPLed OS) abondoning the platform altogether.
One major problem that both sides can agree on is that the GPL hasn't yet been tested in court, so just how "viral" it is has not yet been determined. Businesses that don't want to GPL their own code, and are smart, are giving other GPLed code a wide berth until this happens.
I think MS applies some no-reverse-engineering restrictions, and there are probably others as well. I don't know if Apple does the same. Look at the license agreement to your developer tools for details.
Just for the hell of it, I downloaded the SDK for Vista and .NET 3.5 to have a look at the EULA. From a quick read through it doesn't appear to impose any of the licensing restrictions on code written to use it that you are talking about.
Nearly all commercial software libraries place some sort of restrictions. For example, some require that you pay per-user royalties, which effectively means that you can't license the derived work for free distribution.
Why ? Surely it's the end-user's job to ensure they have and are fully licensed to use, those shared libraries ?
Others attach clauses regarding reverse engineering, use in competitive products, etc., and require that the developer of the derived work enforce those restrictions on the end-user. This is typically done by simply including similar clauses in the license of the derived work.
What "others" ? What common-use shared components impose these sorts of restrictions on code that uses them ?
First -- and note that this hasn't been argued out in court, but it's the opinion of a copyright attorney I respect -- if the code is originally written to link against a non-GPL library, and if it does not include any GPL code (no headers, for example), then the fact that it can also run when dynamically linked against a GPL library would not seem to make it a derived work. This presumes that there's a non-GPL library with the same interface that the code can be written against.
Now there's a corner-case scenario if ever I've heard one. On the other hand, it does a good job of exposing the stupidity behind the idea that linking a program to GPLed code somehow makes it a "derivative work".
More realistically, code that is written against GPL libraries typically incorporates GPL code directly (from headers) and by dynamically linking, and cannot be used without the supporting GPL code. That clearly makes it a derived work that can only be released under the terms of the GPL -- unless all of the reliance on GPL code is removed. If you take the GPL stuff out, your code is yours and you can release it under any license you like, in source or binary form, whatever you want, whether you have already released it under the GPL or not.
Whether or not it can be "used" without the supporting GPLed code is utterly irrelevant. That would imply, for example, that any Linux-only binary is "derivative" because it cannot be run without (GPLed) Linux.
Further, calling a piece of code "derived" because it references *header files* is the kind of thing I'd expect from a GPL zealot but, frankly, it's ridiculous. Someone writes 100k LOC, and you call their hard work "derived" because it includes some header files ? Madness.
I never denied that the purpose of the GPL was to encourage the development of more GPL software.
No. Not "encourage". Require. "Encourage" is what the LGPL does.
I do, however, deny that the GPL itself is somehow "viral" in any way that copyright itself is not. In fact, the GPL *cannot* be more "viral" than copyright law, because that's where it gets all of its power.
It most certainly is, at least if you listen to the likes of you, RMS and the FSF. Take the your examples above - that's like saying a book review is a derivative work of the book because it quotes a few passages and wouldn't "work" if the book didn't exist.
Developers are wary of the GPL because the whole point of it is to make it as difficult as possible to use GPLed code without also GPLing their own code. Since GPLing a codebase *severely* restricts the options for making money from it, lots of developers prefer to take the safe way out of simply avoiding any GPLed code altogether.
Wrong. It *always* requires subjecting the resulting combined work to their license (or other form of permission to create and distribute derivative works). There are cases, like BSD, where that permission does not restrict how you choose to license the combined work, but *most* licenses, commercial and non-commercial, apply some restrictions.
For example ? What restrictions are placed on source code that someone writes linking to the standard Windows or OS X shared libraries ? What other "commercial" shared libraries are you thinking of that put restriction on how the source in programs that link to them must be licensed ?
In the case of the GPL, the restriction takes the form of the requirement that the combined work be licensed under the GPL (note that you are *not* required to license your work under the GPL, just the combined work. You're free to license your own work in whatever way or ways you want.
According to RMS and the FSF, linking to a GPLed library (either staticailly or dynamically) creates a "derived work". How do you propose someone distribute software that links to GPLed code without GPLing their code as well ?
It's only confusing when FUDsters make it confusing.
I always find it amazing how people try to deny that the GPL's primary, defining "feature", doesn't exist. The GPL is designed to be "viral". The whole *point* of it is to make using GPLed code without also GPLing your own code as difficult as possible. Trying to deny that just makes you look like a stupid zealot.
Not surprisingly, this is one of the hardest things to convince PHB's of. They seem (at least my boss seems) to believe that it's GPL == free (in all senses of the word.)
Probably because that's what all the GPL advocates keep telling him. GPL == free == Free == everything you could ever want from a license.
What they typically neglect to mention is that what they mean by "free" is not what most people mean by "free".
This is not rocket surgery. It's not even the slightest bit confusing, except when made deliberately so by FUDsters.
Actually it is confusing to a lot of people, and the reason it is confusing is because in most situations linking to someone else's code doesn't imply subjecting *your* code to *their* license.
So, as you see, the GPL is clearly not viral. All it says is that you make derivative works with GPL works and distribute those works [...]
The nasty surprise awaiting the unwary is that the GPL considers linking to be "deriving". Further, the licence itself was specifically designed this way - to "infect" otherwise completely independent code that just happens to use GPLed shared libs. *That* is why it is considered "viral".
You get the same thing with "closed" products too: you purchase a license to redistribute something, but the actual product you are redistributing has to stay closed.
Actually you don't, because most (if not all) "closed" products don't consider linking to them to be the the equivalent of distributing them.
The biggest problem - the "viral" problem - with the GPL really only surfaces when you are linking to GPLed libraries. Standalone GPLed binaries are basically "harmless", so to speak, with regards to the GPL being "viral".
So you think that the MPAA and RIAA are solely responsible?
They have the content. Players are commodities. Seems a somewhat one-sided equation - you either follow the rules of the content providers or your customers use someone else's product that does.
You think that since the media requires DRM that M$ had to implement this degradation? I have to say I disagree. M$ did not have to implement the Vista DRM in the way they did. Things seem to work on XP machines so I do not see how your argument holds water. M$ did NOT have to do this they chose to.
EVERYONE has to implement this degradation. Every HD-DVD or BluRay player does the same thing. No "protected path", no full-quality DRMed HD content on your platform.
So if you shoot your own movies in high definition, you're not going to be able to watch them that way on Vista. It's not a question of steering away from DRM-stricken media, unless it's the Vista-plagued hard drive you're talking about.
Your own movies will only be degraded if *YOU* enable DRM on them. Mr Gutman is - depending on your point of view - either making a serious error of ignorance or lying.
I've wondered about medical applications. What if your specialist reviews your scans on a screen, as is pretty common, these days? Gee... I hope the scanner doesn't count as a high-definition camera in Vista's eyes. More accurately, I hope the doc isn't running Vista. "Wonder what that fuzzy lump in the corner is..."
Once again, the image will only be degraded if the provider of the content has set the ICT tag on their output. It doesn't just happen randomly.
It helps to have even a basic grasp of the concepts, if you want to criticise something.
It's also the way to go for speed - your controller doesn't have to calculate the parity bits for every write operation (yes I know the parity sum is simple - that doesn't stop it from adding a bottleneck).
The "bottleneck" of parity calculations is so small as to be irrelevant. Parity-based RAID levels are bottlenecked by the much higher number of physical disk operations, not the parity calculations.
All true, but the machine was good enough when you bought it. Does your mom have such a tech-lust that it's no longer good enough now?
No. Nor is it relevant to my comment that buying a machine that was replaced only a month or two later with a vastly more capable one is quite reasonable cause to be disappointed. One does not need "techno lust" to wish they'd gotten a better deal.
You may wish to RTFA more closely, specifically the part describing how home-grown, non-commercial HD content is also being interfered with.
I'm afraid I'll have to take Mr Gutman's assertions with a grain of salt.
Not in my country, no. Why should MIcrosoft selling Vista all over the world implement an american law and force it onto users in other countries?
GP is incorrect, the relevant law is copyright, which says that only owners of copyrighted material have the "right" to distribute it.
The lack of a DMCA (or equivalent) in your jurisdiction means only that you are able to convert their distributed content into a format of your choice without worry, not that media companies are obliged to distribute it the way you prefer, or that Microsoft is obliged to ignore the wishes of said content owners because you want them to.
Why do people (especially Slashdotters) put up with it, when there are other options that are so much better?
Because some of us don't think the options *are* "so much better" (if they are better at all).
It's clearly ridiculous to claim Microsoft has been forced to cripple its flagship product at the whim of content providers.
As described in the article summary, Vista is not "crippled" in the slightest. It's quite capable of HD playback, just not when the owner of the content has decided not to allow it.
If Microsoft had told the media companies "no DRM", they would still have fallen over themselves to provide material for the platform. It's too big a market to ignore.
Rubbish. The proportion of people using *PCs* to consume HD content is miniscule. Further, there's little reason to believe it will become anything more than a niche market any time in the near future.
No, this is about Microsoft taking control of the means of distribution of media. It's about closing off PCs as an open platform and about excluding competitors, just like almost every other recent action by Microsoft.
How so ? Users are still able to play back DRM-free content.
All he knows is that the stuff he wants (possibly, maybe he doesn't care about this either) to play won't play like it's supposed to.
Except it is, in fact, exactly how it's "supposed to", as dictated by the owners of the content.
So is this saying that pirating the movie will yield a higher quality then buying it?
No, it's saying that if you buy DRM-encumbered media, it's likely that it won't deliver as good an "experience" as media without DRM.
This being Slashdot, there will undoubtedly be dozens of posts blaming Vista and Microsoft, despite the article summary itself demonstrating that not to be the case.
DRM is an attribute of the media. The solution is simple - if you don't want DRM to impact your life, don't buy DRM-encumbered media.
Every time I see a news story that is 'blah blah 40% of the population is obese' I often wonder where these people are.
All around you, they just don't _look_ like it.
That statistic you hear is based on BMI. BMI is, at best, an unreliable indicator for a) whether or not someone "looks obese" (obviously very overweight, rolls of fat, multiple chins, no muscle definition anywhere, etc, etc) and b) whether they're "unfit" (gets puffed running up stairs, does no exercise, etc).
For example, I have a BMI of about 31 (=medically obese). However, I'm 189cm and "built like a tank", so while I definitely have a pot belly, I doubt many people would look and consider me "obese" - especially since I have reasonably good muscle definition on my arms and legs. I cycle a ~25km round-trip to work (without raising much of a sweat) and play a 40 minute game of indoor soccer once a week (again, without feeling exhausted afterwards). So while overweight, I'm not really unfit and I can't think of anyone who has ever referred to me as "obese" or looked at me in that "I can't believe you're so fat" way. However, my weight has been stable at its current level for 5+ years now and short of seriously intrusive dieting (= food I didn't really enjoy eating and feeling hungry 24/7) I haven't been able to lose it (or, rather, I did but it came back).
The "best" my BMI has ever been was 24.something, back in the middle of high school (just under "overweight"). I was about 180cm and weighed around 80kg. At the time, I was cycling ~30km daily (to and from school), training 1-2hrs a day for soccer and/or volleyball, swimming a kilometre ~3 times a week and playing 3-5 games of very competitive soccer and/or volleyball every week. For the last two years of high school, with a similar level of exercise, my BMI rose to (just) over 25. So I would have fit into that x% of the population that was being reported as "overweight", despite being extremely fit and not *looking* at all overweight.
The short version is, a hell of a lot of people are medically overweight or obese, but don't look it because of their body type - they just look "pudgy". That's where most of that "x% of the population is obese" is hiding.
Are those the same PC hardware vendors which Microsoft has systematically browbeaten into offering Windows?
No, they're the same PC hardware vendors who don't see any profit in not selling Windows.
The ones which (at least until recently) were almost to a man terrified of offering you something with any OS other than Windows lest some Terrible Beat of Redmond descent upon them?
The only thing a business is terrified of is going out of business. The only reason they'd go out of business if the "Terrible Beat of Redmond" comes knocking is if there was no money to be made selling non-Windows PCs.
Things are changing - Dell's recent foray into Linux systems demonstrates that - but to imagine that the Windows monopoly is entirely down to PC hardware vendors simultaneously, independently deciding to ship Windows and nothing else is pure folly.
To think PC hardware vendors wouldn't be selling Linux PCs if there was profit to be made in it is sheer stupidity. Even dumber than thinking they're all part of some huge conspiracy against Linux on the desktop.
If there's money to be made selling Linux PCs to home users, then they'll do it. If there isn't, they won't. It's that simple.
How is this a valid answer to the GP's conclusion that people wouldn't buy Windows if they had a clue WHAT they are buying?
Because for the vast majority of people using computers, the last one they bought wasn't their first exposure to Windows.
Like I said, if "dumb" people hated Windows anywhere near as much as "smart" people like you thought they do, Microsoft wouldn't own 90% of the market.
The market, the market, the market. Standard fanboy corpspeak without a factual base.
What "facts" do you feel are lacking ? Buying computers without Windows is easy. Apart from a few niche areas, there has always been at least one near-drop-in replacement for a Windows machine for the last couple of decades.
A free market still exists in IT, but it is a rather small niche outside of the Microsoft monoculture.
The free market in IT includes the "Microsoft monoculture".
The average user isn't so political. His laptop comes with Windows, but it doesn't really matter to him. If it breaks down, it is replaced or fixed by a friend.
I'm glad you agree that issue is not one of functionality. Now, why do you feel you shoudl be able to tell people what computers they should use ?
The majority of end users don't have the competence to decide for quality software, they just want the "standard" software they know. So Microsoft and friends can happily continue to shovel stuff down their throats. That's your beloved market: Powered by Dumbness(tm).
Standard anti-Microsoft superiority complex. How unsurprising.
Why is that so unlucky? Does it really bother your mom that her computer's running on PPC?
Because the intel iMacs were twice as fast as the PPC iMacs. Given OS X's thirst for hardware, that's a non-trivial difference.
This is before getting into things like being able to boot to Windows. An intel Mac is much more flexible piece of hardware than a PPC Mac.