That I understand. Of course, I when I said that I did not understand why they would want to do this, I should have said that I did not see any legitimate reason for them to encourage this law.
It is not clear from the draft (I assume that it is considered a matter of implementation) whether content without any DRM encoding will play on a device which has these security controls. If so, then this is a waste, since content will be converted to a non-DRM format (think about a guy sitting in a movie theater with a video camera), and shared without problem. If not, then I am effectively shut off from sharing videos of my kids with my family over the Internet. The way I see it, one or the other is true -- this burdensome law would be either useless or unbearably restrictive.
I just want to state, for the record, that I am a human first, a citizen second, and a consumer somewhere much further down the list. Sen. Hollings, please don't take away my rights as a citizen to prop up my supposed choices as a consumer.
I'm not trying to be obtuse, but I don't understand why the Hollywood content types would be pushing this. As I understand it (and please let me know if I am missing something), this law would require computing devices to have some kind of copy control mechanism. As has been shown countless times before, only hardware copy controls have any chance of being robust and effective.
So, it would seem that the effect of this law would be to require hardware devices to be integrated into future digital devices. But, if the content producers could, on their own, come up with a workable hardware solution, they could simply start releasing content that is only viewable through such a hardware device. That would cause the hardware industry to include these copy control pieces into the devices that people intend to use to watch content. The beauty of this would be that all of the folks who believe that movies and music on a PC are (and always will be) awful, can choose a PC without these control devices. True, we won't be able to watch all the wonderful Hollywood content on our PCs, but then, I don't believe most people want to.
What I am afraid this law would do is require that I foul up my computers with various control devices (e.g. will I still be able to record music in my home studio and mix in on my computer? How much harder will it be?), even though I have no intention of watching any of this Hollywood content on my PC. What does Hollywood gain by that? Without their hardware control devices, I can't watch their encoded content, so why can't I have a "Hollywood content-free" PC that is configured to work the way I want it to work?
I guess I don't completely follow your reasoning. You do point out that different people have different goals. But then you defend that whiny essay as "totally valid" when all that I can tell Shawn Gordon is doing is complaining that RMS has different goals than he does.
Some folks write software and distribute it under GPL because they find it meaningful. In fact, I do that. My goal in doing this is not to help folks like Shawn make a living selling software. If he can, more power to him. If he can't, he should get a day job like I have.
Telling me that my distribution of software under the GPL is "a horrible mess and convolution of licenses" and won't lead to Linux on the desktop merely tells me that you don't know, or care, about the reasons that people like me release software under the GPL.
I took a quick look at the EULA in my Windows Media directory. This snippet seems important:
IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A VALIDLY LICENSED COPY OF ANY VERSION OR EDITION OF MICROSOFT WINDOWS 98, MICROSOFT WINDOWS MILLENUM EDITION, MICROSOFT WINDOWS 2000 OPERATING SYSTEM OR ANY MICROSOFT OPERATING SYSTEM THAT IS A SUCCESSOR TO ANY OF THOSE OPERATING SYSTEMS (EACH AN "OS PRODUCT"), YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO INSTALL, COPY OR OTHERWISE USE THE OS COMPONENTS AND YOU HAVE NO RIGHTS UNDER THIS SUPPLEMENTAL EULA.
Earlier in the EULA, Windows Media Player is described as an"OS Component". So, it looks like any use of Windows Media Player on a non-Windows operating system is probably not permitted. If it were, you can be sure MS would fix that in the next version of the EULA.
It will be interesting to see whether MS tries to do anything to CodeWeavers on this front.
To me the most infuriating part of this is the mentality, expressed in Hollings' letter, that the world is divided into content "creators" and "consumers".
If we are not in the business of making money off copyrighted works, then we must be "consumers" of copyrighted works. There appears to be no notion in either government or most major media outlets that some of us might value some of our rights that don't necessarily advance our positions as "consumers".
Clearly it is too much to expect the public at large to "get" open source, but is there no general sense that our rights ought not be pidgeon-holed like this?
"The technology community doesn't want any standards regardless of what form they take. There's an impasse that needs to be bridged if we want to create broadband services and increase consumer demand for those services," Davis said on Tuesday.
Davis is Hollings' spokesman. So, the government believes it has a duty to increase demand from consumers for certain kinds of commercial services?
File formats are not patentable nor are they copyrightable.
Whoa, there. Where did you get that from? File formats certainly are patentable -- the fact that particular companies have not patented particular file formats says nothing about the patentability of file formats in general.
The Supreme Court has ruled that anything made by man is patentable subject matter. As long as the file format is a new one, and not a completely trivial change to an existing file format, then it should be patentable.
And yes, I am an attorney (a recovering patent attorney).
Innocent until proven guilty applies in criminal cases only. In civil cases, the default is "preponderance of the evidence" (i.e. more likely true or not). In many areas of civil law, though, the balance can be pre-tipped in this manner.
Before abandoning your libertarian viewpoint so easily, consider whether the government is guilty of doing anything to support Microsoft as a monopoly. Can't think of anything? Hmm... Not anything?
But it seems people are finally acknowledging that beyond just being a shakedown, the last few months may be showing us what the web is most useful for.
Shakedown? I can only assume the writer meant "shakeout".
And yes, it did really irritate me just enough to write this reply.
For me, the problem is the computer. I don't think that a computer screen is a good way for consuming most content (computer-games aside). I don't think I'm cheap -- I'll plop down $4 to rent a DVD, or almost twice that to see a movie in a theater. If the same movie were available for streaming over the Internet for free, I doubt I would bother. Who wants to sit at their computer watching a movie on a monitor? Not me.
I happily pay $20+ to buy books to read. Recently, several books I would like to read have been made available for download over the Internet for free. I generally haven't bothered, unless I felt that printing them out on my laser printer was a wise use of my toner. There is no way I am going to sit a read a whole book on my computer.
What about shorter content, like articles? Most are of little value to me. The trouble it takes to find good content often overwhelms the positive value of that content. As long as content is free on the Internet, I'll browse through it to see what is there. As long as car dealerships don't charge for window-shopping, I'll do that too. But when you ask me to go through the trouble of paying (never mind the value of the money itself), it just stops being interesting. I consume content on the Internet because it is free. If it were all charged for, I'd stop using it (except as a medium for exchaning free software with others), and I can't see how my life would be worse off. Maybe I'd miss it, and then be willing to pay.
Further, once the BSA shows that your are using the software, it's up to you to show that you have a valid license. That's just the way copyright works, by default, you have no rights (other than fair use).
That's not true. If you have a license to use a copyrighted work, you have a license to use that copyrighted work. The fact that you cannot find the appropriate paperwork does not mean you are not licensed and have to pay up. The BSA may try to confiscate your copies (and a bone-headed judge may permit this), but until they prove that you have no license, you will not owe them any money. Of course, the standard of proof in a civil case is only a preponderance of the evidence, but still, it is their burden to prove.
Don't accuse me of patriotism. I never said anything about the legitimacy of the US government. My comments were directed solely to the "government" of China.
That is a bullshit cop-out. It should be, "Judge, and prepare to be judged."
Hey, I never said that the US, or any other government for that matter, is legitimate. I merely pointed out that China is controlled by a particularly awful band of brutes.
The President of the United States warned that China's continued detention of 24 US Navy personnel "could" harm relations between the two governments. It damned-well should. This is a hostage situation, and our government appears to be primarily concerned about how this might somehow affect US corporate interests. The problem is that the President is thinking about the "government" of China in the wrong terms. The President's problem is likely that when he thinks of the "government" of China, he is thinking, "sovereign". He should be thinking, "thugs."
The "government" of China is no more legitimate than the Gambino crime family . I say this realizing that the comparison is extreme and unfair. The Gambino crime family, of course, has not murdered anywhere near as many people as the "government" of China. I apologize in advance to the Gambino crime family for any offense created by my comparison of them to the "government" of China -- none was intended. However, even though the magnitude of the crimes is, different, I think it is useful to use the familiar concept of organized crime when trying to assess the "government" of China. Organized crime, after all, is what the "government" of China is all about.
In any other situation, how would one characterize a group which seizes control of a geographic area (their "turf"), intimidating not only the inhabitants but also nearby neighbors who refuse to knuckle under? These thugs loot the wealth from the area, under the hollow pretext of "protecting" the victims. It is not primarily the detention of the 24 US Navy personnel that should outrage any decent person (although clearly it should), but the detention, torture and murder of the people of China and Tibet.
The watchword of the day is "diplomacy." Is there no limit to the monsters who can be legitimized by the constant intonation of the word "diplomacy" by those willing to play "make believe." Yasser Arafat . The IRA. The "government" of China. Perhaps if Hitler had lived, we could have simply tarted him up with the gaudy trappings of enough "diplomacy" to give him a legitimacy makeover. The question, of course is, why would we do such a thing? Why would we pretend that any of these people should be treated more like a dignitary than a mass murderer? The only reason I can begin to see is political expediency. This is pragmatism at its worst.
Honesty is still worth something. Murder is still the worst crime one can commit against another. Locking people up and torturing them for expressing their views is wrong. Cultural relativism doesn't bring back the dead or missing. The President should learn to call the "government" of China what it is: criminal.
I think that this situation is pretty much the same as the fate of the dot-bombs. First some people start doing something useful and innovative (web, Linux). Then they start getting media attention, followed soon after by droves of worthless money-chasers who believe they can make a quick buck off the "new thing."
I saw one reference to "carpetbaggers." I think that is right on point. These folks are trying to turn Linux into a get-rich-quick scheme -- they are not part of the Linux community, and we should be careful not to describe them as such.
I don't have anything against companies making money from Free Software, but then I am not particularly for them either. Hopefully the whole shake-out (both in the dot-com sector, and the Linux sector) will soon be over. I don't think the shakeout is particularly important, since those who actually care about doing something new and useful are free to still spend their time doing it -- that is what Linux is about.
This does not hurt the Linux community, because these carpetbaggers have nothing to do with the Linux community (never mind what the media tells you). The Linux community is not about stock options.
My dad used to have an office in those mines. They have been coverted not only into warehouse space, but also into pretty cool office space (you have to put up with no windows, of course, but some of the walls are craggly rock -- which is a sort of cool effect).
You may remember a few years back, when Reagan was in office, and it came out that the government had been hoarding cheese for years (to prop up dairy prices), and people were calling for the government to distribute the cheese to poor people. These are the mines where all of that cheese was stored (I don't know whether any of it made it to the poor, though).
I know it's off-topic, but sometimes, you've just got to spout useless facts, and damn the consequences.
Some states (e.g. CA) prohibit ownership of IP which is done off-site and off-hours.
Actually, the California limitations regarding company ownership of IP is not as simple as that. It says,
Any provision in an employment agreement which provides that an employee shall assign, or offer to assign, any of his or her rights in an invention to his or her employer shall not apply to an invention that the employee developed entirely on his or her own time without using the employer's equipment, supplies, facilities, or trade secret information except for those inventions that either: (1) relate at the time of conception or reduction to practice of the invention to the employer's business, or actual or demonstrably anticipated research or development of the employer; or (2) result from any work performed by the employee for the employer. To the extent a provision in an employment agreement purports to require an employee to assign an invention otherwise excluded from being required to be assigned under California labor code section 2870(a), the provision is against the public policy of this state and is unenforceable.
The long and the short of it is that, if it is in any way related to the work you do for your employer, the employer may own it (even if you did it on your own time, at your own place).
As always, take glib generalizations of law with a grain of salt.
Unfortunately, if a product infringes a US patent, it can (and often is) blocked from being imported into the country. If the US patent holders petitioned them, customs would block any boxed Linux distributions containing infringing code. Obviously customs can't stop downloads, but stopping boxes would probably be enough of a revenue-stopper to prevent the inclusion of such code in the first place.
The way patents work, you can't be sure that any project is free of patents. Unfortunately, most of the people starting these "patent free" projects think that patents are like copyrights and trade secrets -- if you don't copy, you're alright. Patents don't work that way.
A safe rule of thumb would be to assume that anything is likely covered by an issued or pending patent filed by someone -- hopefull it is someone who isn't a vulture. Even when standards organizations make their members agree to license their patents on reasonable terms, they have no control over the companies who are not members. The number of software patents are growing so quickly you can never be sure a particular concept is not patented (even if you could look through all of the hundreds of thousands of issued software patents, you have no insight at all into the hundreds of thousands that have been in the application phase for a few years and are almost ready to issue).
It is an unfortunate state of affairs, but no one can claim to know that a paticular project is patent-free.
-Steve
Re:I know I'll be modded down, but bear with me he
on
Warez and Abandonware
·
· Score: 3
A couple of points:
A. Equating intellectual property rights with actual property rights is an extremely ify proposition. The awful consequences you trot forth in the case actual property rights are not observed (breaking into a home) actually do a pretty good job of illustrating why intellectual property rights are completely different from, and don't deserve the same level of respect as, actual property rights.
B. I have bought (that is paid for, with actual, real money) quite a few games which I am no longer able to play because either: (i) the media has worn out (ancient floppies), (ii) I no longer have a reader for the media (5.25" disk drives), or (iii) I no longer have the necessary hardware (Atari 2600). Abandonware sites, and modern emulators of old hardware, permit users like me to continue playing games we already paid for.
And yes, I am a lawyer. Actually, an intellectual property attorney, although I am in the process of extracting myself from that cesspool of intellectual dishonesty.
I used to play Red Storm Rising on my old 286. I haven't paid much attention to current naval warfare games, but my guess is the learning curve would be significant compared to RSR (and who has the time?).
I think I've still got the old maps and the 5.25" disks around, but amazingly my Athlon system doesn't have a 5.25" drive to read the disks (I doubt they are still readable after all these years anyway). RSR was one of those games where you have to actually insert the original floppy in the drive before it will let you play (even though the whole game had been copied to the hard drive).
I'd love to play RSR again, and since I did pay for it, I should be within my rights to get it from an abandonware site. From what I've seen, though, Microprose has largely put a stop to distribution of the game. I understand their point of view, but then, I have already paid for it.
Please forgive this pointless rambling about an old game I have fond memories of.
-Steve
Re:Obvious Question: Who read the EULA?
on
EULA In Games
·
· Score: 3
I am a lawyer, and I have written EULAs for major software releases (no games, though). Do I read EULAs? No. Every now and then I get curious and take a peek, but really, why would I want to spend my free time reading this stuff?
It is a set of contract provisions that in some cases would be read into international agreements. When it was developed, no one knew how they would be applied, and no one wanted to be the "test case" for these new provisions. So, attorneys, being the risk-averse set we are, started putting language in agreements that explicitly disclaims application of the UN Convention.
As long as the UN Convention is not typically used, attorneys will shy away from having it apply to their agreements, and they will avoid it in their agreements. My hope is that UCITA suffers a similar fate: obsolescence through non-use.
-Steve
P.S. I do want to point out that my knowledge of the UN Convention on the International Sale of Goods is skimpy at best. There may be a lot of valuable case law out there interpreting it -- but lacking that knowledge, I avoid it.
I am an attorney, and I do a lot of negotiation over software licenses. I used to always insert a clause that says:
The Parties hereby agree that this Agreement shall not be governed by the United Nations Convention on the International Sale of Goods.
Now, that clause says:
The Parties hereby agree that this Agreement shall not be governed by the United Nations Convention on the International Sale of Goods nor the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act or any implementation thereof.
I have yet to hear any objection to this language during negotiations. I am hoping this practice of negating UCITA becomes as common as negating the UN convention (i.e. very common).
Slashdot Mirror
That I understand. Of course, I when I said that I did not understand why they would want to do this, I should have said that I did not see any legitimate reason for them to encourage this law.
It is not clear from the draft (I assume that it is considered a matter of implementation) whether content without any DRM encoding will play on a device which has these security controls. If so, then this is a waste, since content will be converted to a non-DRM format (think about a guy sitting in a movie theater with a video camera), and shared without problem. If not, then I am effectively shut off from sharing videos of my kids with my family over the Internet. The way I see it, one or the other is true -- this burdensome law would be either useless or unbearably restrictive.
I just want to state, for the record, that I am a human first, a citizen second, and a consumer somewhere much further down the list. Sen. Hollings, please don't take away my rights as a citizen to prop up my supposed choices as a consumer.
-Steve
I'm not trying to be obtuse, but I don't understand why the Hollywood content types would be pushing this. As I understand it (and please let me know if I am missing something), this law would require computing devices to have some kind of copy control mechanism. As has been shown countless times before, only hardware copy controls have any chance of being robust and effective.
So, it would seem that the effect of this law would be to require hardware devices to be integrated into future digital devices. But, if the content producers could, on their own, come up with a workable hardware solution, they could simply start releasing content that is only viewable through such a hardware device. That would cause the hardware industry to include these copy control pieces into the devices that people intend to use to watch content. The beauty of this would be that all of the folks who believe that movies and music on a PC are (and always will be) awful, can choose a PC without these control devices. True, we won't be able to watch all the wonderful Hollywood content on our PCs, but then, I don't believe most people want to.
What I am afraid this law would do is require that I foul up my computers with various control devices (e.g. will I still be able to record music in my home studio and mix in on my computer? How much harder will it be?), even though I have no intention of watching any of this Hollywood content on my PC. What does Hollywood gain by that? Without their hardware control devices, I can't watch their encoded content, so why can't I have a "Hollywood content-free" PC that is configured to work the way I want it to work?
-Steve
I guess I don't completely follow your reasoning. You do point out that different people have different goals. But then you defend that whiny essay as "totally valid" when all that I can tell Shawn Gordon is doing is complaining that RMS has different goals than he does.
Some folks write software and distribute it under GPL because they find it meaningful. In fact, I do that. My goal in doing this is not to help folks like Shawn make a living selling software. If he can, more power to him. If he can't, he should get a day job like I have.
Telling me that my distribution of software under the GPL is "a horrible mess and convolution of licenses" and won't lead to Linux on the desktop merely tells me that you don't know, or care, about the reasons that people like me release software under the GPL.
-Steve
I took a quick look at the EULA in my Windows Media directory. This snippet seems important:
IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A VALIDLY LICENSED COPY OF ANY VERSION OR EDITION OF MICROSOFT WINDOWS 98, MICROSOFT WINDOWS MILLENUM EDITION, MICROSOFT WINDOWS 2000 OPERATING SYSTEM OR ANY MICROSOFT OPERATING SYSTEM THAT IS A SUCCESSOR TO ANY OF THOSE OPERATING SYSTEMS (EACH AN "OS PRODUCT"), YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO INSTALL, COPY OR OTHERWISE USE THE OS COMPONENTS AND YOU HAVE NO RIGHTS UNDER THIS SUPPLEMENTAL EULA.
Earlier in the EULA, Windows Media Player is described as an"OS Component". So, it looks like any use of Windows Media Player on a non-Windows operating system is probably not permitted. If it were, you can be sure MS would fix that in the next version of the EULA.
It will be interesting to see whether MS tries to do anything to CodeWeavers on this front.
-Steve
To me the most infuriating part of this is the mentality, expressed in Hollings' letter, that the world is divided into content "creators" and "consumers".
If we are not in the business of making money off copyrighted works, then we must be "consumers" of copyrighted works. There appears to be no notion in either government or most major media outlets that some of us might value some of our rights that don't necessarily advance our positions as "consumers".
Clearly it is too much to expect the public at large to "get" open source, but is there no general sense that our rights ought not be pidgeon-holed like this?
-Steve
"The technology community doesn't want any standards regardless of what form they take. There's an impasse that needs to be bridged if we want to create broadband services and increase consumer demand for those services," Davis said on Tuesday.
Davis is Hollings' spokesman. So, the government believes it has a duty to increase demand from consumers for certain kinds of commercial services?
Frightening.
-Steve
File formats are not patentable nor are they copyrightable.
Whoa, there. Where did you get that from? File formats certainly are patentable -- the fact that particular companies have not patented particular file formats says nothing about the patentability of file formats in general.
The Supreme Court has ruled that anything made by man is patentable subject matter. As long as the file format is a new one, and not a completely trivial change to an existing file format, then it should be patentable.
And yes, I am an attorney (a recovering patent attorney).
-Steve
Innocent until proven guilty applies in criminal cases only. In civil cases, the default is "preponderance of the evidence" (i.e. more likely true or not). In many areas of civil law, though, the balance can be pre-tipped in this manner.
-Steve
Before abandoning your libertarian viewpoint so easily, consider whether the government is guilty of doing anything to support Microsoft as a monopoly. Can't think of anything? Hmm... Not anything?
Steve
Shakedown? I can only assume the writer meant "shakeout".
And yes, it did really irritate me just enough to write this reply.
-Steve
For me, the problem is the computer. I don't think that a computer screen is a good way for consuming most content (computer-games aside). I don't think I'm cheap -- I'll plop down $4 to rent a DVD, or almost twice that to see a movie in a theater. If the same movie were available for streaming over the Internet for free, I doubt I would bother. Who wants to sit at their computer watching a movie on a monitor? Not me.
I happily pay $20+ to buy books to read. Recently, several books I would like to read have been made available for download over the Internet for free. I generally haven't bothered, unless I felt that printing them out on my laser printer was a wise use of my toner. There is no way I am going to sit a read a whole book on my computer.
What about shorter content, like articles? Most are of little value to me. The trouble it takes to find good content often overwhelms the positive value of that content. As long as content is free on the Internet, I'll browse through it to see what is there. As long as car dealerships don't charge for window-shopping, I'll do that too. But when you ask me to go through the trouble of paying (never mind the value of the money itself), it just stops being interesting. I consume content on the Internet because it is free. If it were all charged for, I'd stop using it (except as a medium for exchaning free software with others), and I can't see how my life would be worse off. Maybe I'd miss it, and then be willing to pay.
Just my thoughts.
-Steve
That's not true. If you have a license to use a copyrighted work, you have a license to use that copyrighted work. The fact that you cannot find the appropriate paperwork does not mean you are not licensed and have to pay up. The BSA may try to confiscate your copies (and a bone-headed judge may permit this), but until they prove that you have no license, you will not owe them any money. Of course, the standard of proof in a civil case is only a preponderance of the evidence, but still, it is their burden to prove.
-Steve
Don't accuse me of patriotism. I never said anything about the legitimacy of the US government. My comments were directed solely to the "government" of China.
Please don't put words in my mouth.
-Steve
'Judge not, lest ye be judged'
That is a bullshit cop-out. It should be, "Judge, and prepare to be judged."
Hey, I never said that the US, or any other government for that matter, is legitimate. I merely pointed out that China is controlled by a particularly awful band of brutes.
-Steve
The President of the United States warned that China's continued detention of 24 US Navy personnel "could" harm relations between the two governments. It damned-well should. This is a hostage situation, and our government appears to be primarily concerned about how this might somehow affect US corporate interests. The problem is that the President is thinking about the "government" of China in the wrong terms. The President's problem is likely that when he thinks of the "government" of China, he is thinking, "sovereign". He should be thinking, "thugs."
The "government" of China is no more legitimate than the Gambino crime family . I say this realizing that the comparison is extreme and unfair. The Gambino crime family, of course, has not murdered anywhere near as many people as the "government" of China. I apologize in advance to the Gambino crime family for any offense created by my comparison of them to the "government" of China -- none was intended. However, even though the magnitude of the crimes is, different, I think it is useful to use the familiar concept of organized crime when trying to assess the "government" of China. Organized crime, after all, is what the "government" of China is all about.
In any other situation, how would one characterize a group which seizes control of a geographic area (their "turf"), intimidating not only the inhabitants but also nearby neighbors who refuse to knuckle under? These thugs loot the wealth from the area, under the hollow pretext of "protecting" the victims. It is not primarily the detention of the 24 US Navy personnel that should outrage any decent person (although clearly it should), but the detention, torture and murder of the people of China and Tibet.
The watchword of the day is "diplomacy." Is there no limit to the monsters who can be legitimized by the constant intonation of the word "diplomacy" by those willing to play "make believe." Yasser Arafat . The IRA. The "government" of China. Perhaps if Hitler had lived, we could have simply tarted him up with the gaudy trappings of enough "diplomacy" to give him a legitimacy makeover. The question, of course is, why would we do such a thing? Why would we pretend that any of these people should be treated more like a dignitary than a mass murderer? The only reason I can begin to see is political expediency. This is pragmatism at its worst.
Honesty is still worth something. Murder is still the worst crime one can commit against another. Locking people up and torturing them for expressing their views is wrong. Cultural relativism doesn't bring back the dead or missing. The President should learn to call the "government" of China what it is: criminal.
-Steve
I think that this situation is pretty much the same as the fate of the dot-bombs. First some people start doing something useful and innovative (web, Linux). Then they start getting media attention, followed soon after by droves of worthless money-chasers who believe they can make a quick buck off the "new thing."
I saw one reference to "carpetbaggers." I think that is right on point. These folks are trying to turn Linux into a get-rich-quick scheme -- they are not part of the Linux community, and we should be careful not to describe them as such.
I don't have anything against companies making money from Free Software, but then I am not particularly for them either. Hopefully the whole shake-out (both in the dot-com sector, and the Linux sector) will soon be over. I don't think the shakeout is particularly important, since those who actually care about doing something new and useful are free to still spend their time doing it -- that is what Linux is about.
This does not hurt the Linux community, because these carpetbaggers have nothing to do with the Linux community (never mind what the media tells you). The Linux community is not about stock options.Steve
My dad used to have an office in those mines. They have been coverted not only into warehouse space, but also into pretty cool office space (you have to put up with no windows, of course, but some of the walls are craggly rock -- which is a sort of cool effect).
You may remember a few years back, when Reagan was in office, and it came out that the government had been hoarding cheese for years (to prop up dairy prices), and people were calling for the government to distribute the cheese to poor people. These are the mines where all of that cheese was stored (I don't know whether any of it made it to the poor, though).
I know it's off-topic, but sometimes, you've just got to spout useless facts, and damn the consequences.
-Steve
Some states (e.g. CA) prohibit ownership of IP which is done off-site and off-hours.
Actually, the California limitations regarding company ownership of IP is not as simple as that. It says,
The long and the short of it is that, if it is in any way related to the work you do for your employer, the employer may own it (even if you did it on your own time, at your own place).
As always, take glib generalizations of law with a grain of salt.
-Steve
Unfortunately, if a product infringes a US patent, it can (and often is) blocked from being imported into the country. If the US patent holders petitioned them, customs would block any boxed Linux distributions containing infringing code. Obviously customs can't stop downloads, but stopping boxes would probably be enough of a revenue-stopper to prevent the inclusion of such code in the first place.
Steve
The way patents work, you can't be sure that any project is free of patents. Unfortunately, most of the people starting these "patent free" projects think that patents are like copyrights and trade secrets -- if you don't copy, you're alright. Patents don't work that way.
A safe rule of thumb would be to assume that anything is likely covered by an issued or pending patent filed by someone -- hopefull it is someone who isn't a vulture. Even when standards organizations make their members agree to license their patents on reasonable terms, they have no control over the companies who are not members. The number of software patents are growing so quickly you can never be sure a particular concept is not patented (even if you could look through all of the hundreds of thousands of issued software patents, you have no insight at all into the hundreds of thousands that have been in the application phase for a few years and are almost ready to issue).
It is an unfortunate state of affairs, but no one can claim to know that a paticular project is patent-free.
-Steve
A couple of points:
A. Equating intellectual property rights with actual property rights is an extremely ify proposition. The awful consequences you trot forth in the case actual property rights are not observed (breaking into a home) actually do a pretty good job of illustrating why intellectual property rights are completely different from, and don't deserve the same level of respect as, actual property rights.
B. I have bought (that is paid for, with actual, real money) quite a few games which I am no longer able to play because either: (i) the media has worn out (ancient floppies), (ii) I no longer have a reader for the media (5.25" disk drives), or (iii) I no longer have the necessary hardware (Atari 2600). Abandonware sites, and modern emulators of old hardware, permit users like me to continue playing games we already paid for.
And yes, I am a lawyer. Actually, an intellectual property attorney, although I am in the process of extracting myself from that cesspool of intellectual dishonesty.
-Steve
I used to play Red Storm Rising on my old 286. I haven't paid much attention to current naval warfare games, but my guess is the learning curve would be significant compared to RSR (and who has the time?).
I think I've still got the old maps and the 5.25" disks around, but amazingly my Athlon system doesn't have a 5.25" drive to read the disks (I doubt they are still readable after all these years anyway). RSR was one of those games where you have to actually insert the original floppy in the drive before it will let you play (even though the whole game had been copied to the hard drive).
I'd love to play RSR again, and since I did pay for it, I should be within my rights to get it from an abandonware site. From what I've seen, though, Microprose has largely put a stop to distribution of the game. I understand their point of view, but then, I have already paid for it.
Please forgive this pointless rambling about an old game I have fond memories of.
-Steve
I am a lawyer, and I have written EULAs for major software releases (no games, though). Do I read EULAs? No. Every now and then I get curious and take a peek, but really, why would I want to spend my free time reading this stuff?
-Steve
It is a set of contract provisions that in some cases would be read into international agreements. When it was developed, no one knew how they would be applied, and no one wanted to be the "test case" for these new provisions. So, attorneys, being the risk-averse set we are, started putting language in agreements that explicitly disclaims application of the UN Convention.
As long as the UN Convention is not typically used, attorneys will shy away from having it apply to their agreements, and they will avoid it in their agreements. My hope is that UCITA suffers a similar fate: obsolescence through non-use.
-Steve
P.S. I do want to point out that my knowledge of the UN Convention on the International Sale of Goods is skimpy at best. There may be a lot of valuable case law out there interpreting it -- but lacking that knowledge, I avoid it.
I am an attorney, and I do a lot of negotiation over software licenses. I used to always insert a clause that says:
The Parties hereby agree that this Agreement shall not be governed by the United Nations Convention on the International Sale of Goods.
Now, that clause says:
The Parties hereby agree that this Agreement shall not be governed by the United Nations Convention on the International Sale of Goods nor the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act or any implementation thereof.
I have yet to hear any objection to this language during negotiations. I am hoping this practice of negating UCITA becomes as common as negating the UN convention (i.e. very common).
-Steve