Yes, what you say is almost certianly true, but why do they bother telling us that they used LAME? Doesn't that strike you as a bit odd? When I created mp3s for a friends band, I didn't go around telling people which mp3 encoder I used.
My email to them is fairly dumb, so their response will be interesting.
Okay, in a few moments of boredom, I sent the following email. I'm interested to see what response I get (although judging by my previous experience of American company's email-based customer support/service, I won't get any response).
Dear Sir,
I am eager to exercise my right to examine and modify the source code of your GPL-derived CD playing technology[1]. I am particularly interested in the modifications to the vanilla LAME source in the product you ship[2].
In order to exercise the above right, I obviously need access to the source code of your product[3]. As a matter of urgency, please provide me with the details required such that I may obtain a copy of the source code for your GPL-derived CD playing technology, specifically including your modifications to the LAME codebase.
Yours faithfully,
Stewart Adcock.
[1] From http://www.musichelponline.com/legal/
"The Content has been encoded using software that incorporates the LAME encoder; more information about the encoder is available at http:// www.mp3dev.org."
[2] From the GNU General Public License, as persuant to the LAME encoder:
" 2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion
of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and
distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1
above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:
a) You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices
stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.
b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in
whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any
part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third
parties under the terms of this License.
c) If the modified program normally reads commands interactively
when run, you must cause it, when started running for such
interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an
announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a
notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide
a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under
these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this
License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but
does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on
the Program is not required to print an announcement.)
"
[3] Also from the GNU General Public License, as persuant to the LAME encoder:
" 3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,
under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of
Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections
1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
customarily used for software interchange; or,
c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer
to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is
allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you
received the program in object code or executable form with such
an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
"
My doctoral work was funded partially by the EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council - a British Government funding body) and partially by SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals (Now GSK). This is not unusual in British Universities, and I guess the same holds for American Universities.
If my code was to be released, would I have to work out which parts were publically funded, and which were not?
The University's IP lawyers have obviously thought about this in the past. There is a clear contract stating ownership details.
As it happens, the more useful parts of the code I developed are now released under the GPL.
The fire probably didn't destroy much (or any) electronic data. But the genetic strains should have been "backed up" just as any of us know that we should backup our data.
My girlfriend's previous employment was in a lab that appears similar to this blackened one. They carried out research using cell lines with genetic traits that had taken years to develop. These cells can generally be frozen for later use, but since the freezer is in the same building a fire could destroy that too. So they donated cell-lines to other research groups, on the condition that they stored a portion of the sample.
The QNX people got it right. They have their own windowing system, no bloat or crap. The nasty X11 stuff is then supported through an optional add-on layer so you can still run all of those important legacy apps.
One day there will be a horrible X11 compatiability layer for directFB and I will be happy.
I use NR extensively. I am not a mathematician by trade but release that the presented routines should never be used in a black-box fashion.
Their C code really sucks, but I'd always assummed that the text was basically correct. Your link provides pretty good proof that that is not the case.
(The licensing restrictions for the code appears to conflict with the GPL, so I generally can't/won't use it anyway).
I've just had a quick peek at your book. Nice. New Riders are great aren't they.
I really wonder whether releasing some of their books with a rather generous license harms or benefits the sales figures. I know that when I was looking for a book about GNOME, I bought Havoc's GGAD book in preference to one of the others because I liked the license.
I have several freely available online books in my bookmarks. They are a great alternative to carrying huge tomes everywhere I go. I have three of the below books on real paper, but I use the online editions far more frequently:
Numerical Recipies - Numerical Recipes in C, 2nd edition is the numerical methods book.
Maximum RPM - Documentation for the RedHat package manager.
Based on that list, can anybody suggest further online books that I may be interested in? (Don't bother telling me about the old O'Reilly books, I know about those)
The BBC didn't dumb-down anything. These are the Royal Institute Christmas lectures which just so happened to be broadcast by the BBC. (Initially on radio and more recently on TV)
Why don't the BBC broadcast these anymore? Who knows. Someone obviously thought it was a good ideas to stop a hugely popular braodcast. Luckily C4 have some sense. The only problem is the annoying commercials that the BBC is free of.
The great thing about my beloved BBC is that they aren't scared to experiment. They had a fully functional website long before most American broadcasters knew what the web was.
Unfortunately somethings don't change, and BBC America is showing the Queen's Christmas speech in 5 minutes. Arrgh, run, hide.
Almost everyday that I don't work in the office, I go to the beach for a hour or so before lunch. It's christmas day and I'm just checking/. before putting my damp wetsuit in a bag and heading off.
I would recommend it, physically and mentally. Although living in Southern California helps at this time of the year...
This is just plain wrong. "Anonymous" data is not covered by the data protection act. The CCTV frames would only become covered when they link your image to your identity. And even then there are suppliments to the 1984 DPA which provide exceptions, i.e. faces of suspected football hooligans can be stored.
People will be able to instantly refuse me credit; instead of telling me they will definitely give me credit and then send me a refusal letter a couple of days later when they realise that I have no US credit history.
This technology brings up an interesting alternative to the plans for a US national ID card.
If all foreigners were tagged as they entered the states, then we wouldn't need to carry our passports and INS documentation everywere we go.
Bars could just scan me rather than going through the process of asking for my ID and then searching through my passport because thay don't know where to find my date of birth in it.
I also use unique email addresses for web sign-ups. And, occasionally get spam sent to those addresses.
I forward the spam to all of the upstream servers in the form abuse@upstream.com, root@upstream.com, postmaster@upstream.com.
Nearly always, I get no response, except in one case I received an email stating that the company had been warned that if this happens ever again, their hosting contract will be cancelled. I thing this is enough justification to continue this procedure.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, what you say is almost certianly true, but why do they bother telling us that they used LAME? Doesn't that strike you as a bit odd? When I created mp3s for a friends band, I didn't go around telling people which mp3 encoder I used.
My email to them is fairly dumb, so their response will be interesting.
Okay, in a few moments of boredom, I sent the following email. I'm interested to see what response I get (although judging by my previous experience of American company's email-based customer support/service, I won't get any response).
Dear Sir,
I am eager to exercise my right to examine and modify the source code of your GPL-derived CD playing technology[1]. I am particularly interested in the modifications to the vanilla LAME source in the product you ship[2].
In order to exercise the above right, I obviously need access to the source code of your product[3]. As a matter of urgency, please provide me with the details required such that I may obtain a copy of the source code for your GPL-derived CD playing technology, specifically including your modifications to the LAME codebase.
Yours faithfully,
Stewart Adcock.
[1] From http://www.musichelponline.com/legal/
"The Content has been encoded using software that incorporates the LAME encoder; more information about the encoder is available at http:// www.mp3dev.org."
[2] From the GNU General Public License, as persuant to the LAME encoder:
" 2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion
of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and
distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1
above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:
a) You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices
stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.
b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in
whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any
part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third
parties under the terms of this License.
c) If the modified program normally reads commands interactively
when run, you must cause it, when started running for such
interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an
announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a
notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide
a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under
these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this
License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but
does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on
the Program is not required to print an announcement.)
"
[3] Also from the GNU General Public License, as persuant to the LAME encoder:
" 3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,
under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of
Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections
1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
customarily used for software interchange; or,
c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer
to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is
allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you
received the program in object code or executable form with such
an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
"
Since LAME is GPL'd has anyone tried getting all of universal's source code modifications yet? Worth a try I suppose.
My doctoral work was funded partially by the EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council - a British Government funding body) and partially by SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals (Now GSK). This is not unusual in British Universities, and I guess the same holds for American Universities.
If my code was to be released, would I have to work out which parts were publically funded, and which were not?
The University's IP lawyers have obviously thought about this in the past. There is a clear contract stating ownership details.
As it happens, the more useful parts of the code I developed are now released under the GPL.
The fire probably didn't destroy much (or any) electronic data. But the genetic strains should have been "backed up" just as any of us know that we should backup our data.
My girlfriend's previous employment was in a lab that appears similar to this blackened one. They carried out research using cell lines with genetic traits that had taken years to develop. These cells can generally be frozen for later use, but since the freezer is in the same building a fire could destroy that too. So they donated cell-lines to other research groups, on the condition that they stored a portion of the sample.
Accidents happen. Data-loss doesn't need to.
I agree with you entirely.
The QNX people got it right. They have their own windowing system, no bloat or crap. The nasty X11 stuff is then supported through an optional add-on layer so you can still run all of those important legacy apps.
One day there will be a horrible X11 compatiability layer for directFB and I will be happy.
Although I'm always suspicious of the practise of tying a windowing system into the OS, the windowing system of AtheOS is nicely OO'd and clean.
(Unfortunately it is very young code, and therefore has an API liable to change and a few missing features).
There is no insurmountable reason why something like this couldn't be constructed for any other OS. I would drop this bloated X rubbish in a second.
But GSL is licensed under the GPL which is incompatiable with BSD-like licenses ;)
Actually, GSL is quite good, although a bit bloated.
I use NR extensively. I am not a mathematician by trade but release that the presented routines should never be used in a black-box fashion.
Their C code really sucks, but I'd always assummed that the text was basically correct. Your link provides pretty good proof that that is not the case.
(The licensing restrictions for the code appears to conflict with the GPL, so I generally can't/won't use it anyway).
I've just had a quick peek at your book. Nice. New Riders are great aren't they.
I really wonder whether releasing some of their books with a rather generous license harms or benefits the sales figures. I know that when I was looking for a book about GNOME, I bought Havoc's GGAD book in preference to one of the others because I liked the license.
Whoops, sorry, the correct autobook link is here
Numerical Recipies - Numerical Recipes in C, 2nd edition is the numerical methods book.
Autobook - GNU Autoconf, Automake and Libtool.
GGAD - GTK+/Gnome Application Development by Havoc Pennington. I'm not sure which is better, the book or the authors name!
WGA - Writing GNOME Applications by John R. Sheets. Not complete, which is a pity. I'm sure that will change though.
Docbook - The definitive guide to SGML.
CVS book - Open Source Development with CVS by Karl Fogel. It is not quite the complete book, but it is the interesting bits.
FreeBSD Handbook - FreeBSD documentation.
Maximum RPM - Documentation for the RedHat package manager.
Based on that list, can anybody suggest further online books that I may be interested in? (Don't bother telling me about the old O'Reilly books, I know about those)
Is this something like what you are looking for: EFF europe?
Cool... thanks.
Judging by the address, one of the listed places is even within walking distance from my apartment.
Coffee is a great source of poower, but I need lots of it. So, being a considerate citizen of the world, I would like to buy fairly-traded .coffee.
Is there anywhere in California that sells such stuff, or is that not the "American way"?
I've already given up trying to find fair-trade bananas (another good source of early-morning energy).
The BBC didn't dumb-down anything. These are the Royal Institute Christmas lectures which just so happened to be broadcast by the BBC. (Initially on radio and more recently on TV)
Why don't the BBC broadcast these anymore? Who knows. Someone obviously thought it was a good ideas to stop a hugely popular braodcast. Luckily C4 have some sense. The only problem is the annoying commercials that the BBC is free of.
The great thing about my beloved BBC is that they aren't scared to experiment. They had a fully functional website long before most American broadcasters knew what the web was.
Unfortunately somethings don't change, and BBC America is showing the Queen's Christmas speech in 5 minutes. Arrgh, run, hide.
No, not that kind of surfing, dummy.
/. before putting my damp wetsuit in a bag and heading off.
Almost everyday that I don't work in the office, I go to the beach for a hour or so before lunch. It's christmas day and I'm just checking
I would recommend it, physically and mentally. Although living in Southern California helps at this time of the year...
This opens up some interesting possibilities:
SAM.
Nice idea, but:
This is just plain wrong. "Anonymous" data is not covered by the data protection act. The CCTV frames would only become covered when they link your image to your identity. And even then there are suppliments to the 1984 DPA which provide exceptions, i.e. faces of suspected football hooligans can be stored.
Good waste of £10.
I think it is quite clear that, if the illegal aliens here in San Diego were deported, the local economy would pretty much collapse.
And something else I've realised...
People will be able to instantly refuse me credit; instead of telling me they will definitely give me credit and then send me a refusal letter a couple of days later when they realise that I have no US credit history.
This technology brings up an interesting alternative to the plans for a US national ID card.
If all foreigners were tagged as they entered the states, then we wouldn't need to carry our passports and INS documentation everywere we go.
Bars could just scan me rather than going through the process of asking for my ID and then searching through my passport because thay don't know where to find my date of birth in it.
So you mean that you don't ask for their IP?
I also use unique email addresses for web sign-ups. And, occasionally get spam sent to those addresses.
I forward the spam to all of the upstream servers in the form abuse@upstream.com, root@upstream.com, postmaster@upstream.com.
Nearly always, I get no response, except in one case I received an email stating that the company had been warned that if this happens ever again, their hosting contract will be cancelled. I thing this is enough justification to continue this procedure.