And what's so funny about the fractional scores? In chess, a draw is a 1/2 win. That's just the way it is. At a sufficiently sophisticated level of plays, draws are incredibly common. You can't just write them off as "do-overs" or play overtime periods.
khkramer's thoughtful and thorough summary said, in part:
In Lessig's opening -- which lasted about thirty seconds before he was
cut off by Justice O'Connor -- he said that "this is not a case" about
the "general power" that Congress has over copyrights, but about
"specific limits."
Previously he'd written that he was troubled at the grilling the Justices gave Lessig. ISTR that O'Connor is known for doing that when she finds an argument particularly interesting and wants to know more about it. If in fact she was pushing Lessig to explain his case more precisely, that's a good sign.
Judges seem to have a tendency to reject overly literal interpretations that defy common sense.
I believe it was one of Eldred's briefs that said something like: by calling for "limited" copyright terms, the Founders couldn't have possibly meant this, because they never would have chosen that wording. They might have written "...blah blah exclusive rights for a duration of Congress's chusing..." or some such. Yes, strictly and mathematically speaking if you add a "limited" extension to a "limited" term you will still have a "limited" term, but that's a pedantic reading that no reasonable person would think of as the most obvious way to understand the text.
It would be like literally reading all the male pronouns in the Constitution in order to draw the conclusion that no woman should be allowed to serve in federal elected office. It's defensible only in the twisted logic of someone with an unhealthy agenda but makes no sense in a reasonable context.
I'm no expert, but it seems to me that of all courts the SCOTUS would be the one where money matters the least. It's all oral arguments, no expert witnesses, no witnesses of any kind, briefs limited in length, motions severely limited... all the things that make trials long and costly are off the agenda.
Also, federal judges have lifetime tenure, so there's hardly a reasonable way to influence them with money. You clearly can't contribute to their re-election campaigns; short of an outright bribe, what else is there?
Now getting to SCOTUS, that's another thing. It's a complex system with many layers, each of them costing money.
I have some confidence that the Supremes will rule on the merits of the case as they see them. Regrettably, it's a rather pro-corporate Court so I'm not terribly hopeful of the outcome.
The basic dispute was NOT that the information should not be released to Karl but rather whether Karl had absolute discretion to decide what information could be released on the public. ICANN deals with proprietary information supplied by various domain name service providers, for example, and the dispute, as I understood it, revolved around how confidential information would be protected, once released to any director.
Not according to the filings. Auerbach's complaint was that ICANN staff put unreasonable conditions on his access. Auerbach repeatedly said he was more than happy to comply with any reasonable confidentiality requirements. But ICANN declined to provide financial records, and didn't bother to inform Auerbach directly; six months later, ICANN was still "formulating policy" on the matter.
I don't think Auerbach ever got a copy of the employee handbook he requested.
And he wasn't allowed to make copies of any documents without asking a committee for permission first. Even though California law clearly gives him the right to view and copy whatever the hell he pleases--"all books, documents, and records of any kind"--without restriction. ICANN's own bylaws grant similar rights to all directors.
Unsurprisingly, the court ruled for Auerbach on all counts.
The confidentiality issue was a red herring from the start.
I wish Vint Cerf would answer the question again, this time without using confidentiality of ICANN's records as an excuse.
I don't know Karl Auerbach. Everything I know about this case came from the publicly available documents.
I would prefer operating system vendors to treat security as part of the core functionality of their products, if only because effective security has to be designed into the operating system from the start.
Internet Explorer is a fundamental, inseparable part of the operating system; but security is an add-on product. I love it.
Support for the ADA doesn't come from anywhere except emotional arguements. It has nothing to do with principles or reasoning.
It comes from logical application of values, values that obviously differ from yours.
ADA opponents like you want to live in a society where you can do whatever you want with your own business.
ADA proponents want to live in a society where as many people as possible can do normal things like go shopping and work and buy airplane tickets, if it the cost of doing so isn't disproportionate.
I don't think that makes the proponents irrational or overly emotional. They (we) just want different things from what you want.
Does taking away the right of free association really promote harmony? If we value freedom, should we be free to associate as we please? Should we be free NOT to associate if we want to?
That was exactly the argument of racial segregationists in the US South in the 1950s and 1960s. I believe a national consensus emerged to the effect that no, in a business context you do not have that right if it has the effect of leaving people out of mainstream society. Sorry.
And also because the EULA breaks the bargain between copyright holders and the public. The public grants a temporary (heh) monopoly in exchange for certain statutory and common-law rights. Many EULAs, if enforced, would violate those rights that we as the public have already paid for by granting the monopoly.
EULAnians are singing the same song as those commercial broadcasters who whine about having to run public service announcements and provide a minimum amount of educational programming. They act as though something is being taken away from them when in fact they are only being required to share a little of the great gifts the public has already provided.
Felten's list gives the impression that it's the crazy interpretations of CBDTPA we have to fear.
But the real problem is that CBDTPA is a crazy bill to begin with. You can't fix something like this by giving back the singing fish.
If every single one of Felten's examples were exempted from the bill, what's left would be no less outrageous.
But it was the openness of the source that made it possible for someone to do that forcing. It doesn't matter that 99.99% of users didn't notice the bug and didn't go through the source code to find it. What matters is that one hacker did and was able to isolate it because of the availability of source code.
It doesn't prove that much as there may be fewer Apache-SSL sites on linux than there are IIS sites. Code Red hit all IIS boxes, Slapper only hits Apache on linux, and even then, it requires the presence of gcc and some other conditions to be met before it works.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
But doesn't that speak to the resilience of the Open Source approach? The fact that you can run an Apache site without enabling or even installing SSL is a strength. AFAIK (and ICBW) you can't do that with IIS.
More importantly, Open Source problems stay visible until they are fixed. There's no hiding behind STO, no stonewalling.
Have you noticed how many pre-emptive security patches are made by Open Source developers? Where the announcements start with "someone pointed out this security flaw, and they were right, and we wanted to fix it before the exploits get created"? The "someone pointed out" part is a big deal. You can't get that with closed source vendorware, not proactively. As a result, security problems are frequently fixed long before they cause any problems at all.
With credit cards, the credit card number is the secret, the whole secret, and nothing but the secret.
With the new gizmo, the speckle pattern is not the secret. The secret is the arrangement of crystals, which isn't shared with anyone. Steal a copy of the speckle pattern and you have nothing.
Slashdot Mirror
And what's so funny about the fractional scores? In chess, a draw is a 1/2 win. That's just the way it is. At a sufficiently sophisticated level of plays, draws are incredibly common. You can't just write them off as "do-overs" or play overtime periods.
khkramer's thoughtful and thorough summary said, in part:
Previously he'd written that he was troubled at the grilling the Justices gave Lessig. ISTR that O'Connor is known for doing that when she finds an argument particularly interesting and wants to know more about it. If in fact she was pushing Lessig to explain his case more precisely, that's a good sign.
Judges seem to have a tendency to reject overly literal interpretations that defy common sense.
I believe it was one of Eldred's briefs that said something like: by calling for "limited" copyright terms, the Founders couldn't have possibly meant this, because they never would have chosen that wording. They might have written "...blah blah exclusive rights for a duration of Congress's chusing..." or some such. Yes, strictly and mathematically speaking if you add a "limited" extension to a "limited" term you will still have a "limited" term, but that's a pedantic reading that no reasonable person would think of as the most obvious way to understand the text.
It would be like literally reading all the male pronouns in the Constitution in order to draw the conclusion that no woman should be allowed to serve in federal elected office. It's defensible only in the twisted logic of someone with an unhealthy agenda but makes no sense in a reasonable context.
I'm no expert, but it seems to me that of all courts the SCOTUS would be the one where money matters the least. It's all oral arguments, no expert witnesses, no witnesses of any kind, briefs limited in length, motions severely limited... all the things that make trials long and costly are off the agenda.
Also, federal judges have lifetime tenure, so there's hardly a reasonable way to influence them with money. You clearly can't contribute to their re-election campaigns; short of an outright bribe, what else is there?
Now getting to SCOTUS, that's another thing. It's a complex system with many layers, each of them costing money.
I have some confidence that the Supremes will rule on the merits of the case as they see them. Regrettably, it's a rather pro-corporate Court so I'm not terribly hopeful of the outcome.
Not according to the filings. Auerbach's complaint was that ICANN staff put unreasonable conditions on his access. Auerbach repeatedly said he was more than happy to comply with any reasonable confidentiality requirements. But ICANN declined to provide financial records, and didn't bother to inform Auerbach directly; six months later, ICANN was still "formulating policy" on the matter.
I don't think Auerbach ever got a copy of the employee handbook he requested.
And he wasn't allowed to make copies of any documents without asking a committee for permission first. Even though California law clearly gives him the right to view and copy whatever the hell he pleases--"all books, documents, and records of any kind"--without restriction. ICANN's own bylaws grant similar rights to all directors.
Unsurprisingly, the court ruled for Auerbach on all counts. The confidentiality issue was a red herring from the start. I wish Vint Cerf would answer the question again, this time without using confidentiality of ICANN's records as an excuse.
I don't know Karl Auerbach. Everything I know about this case came from the publicly available documents.
Says the story write-up:
Internet Explorer is a fundamental, inseparable part of the operating system; but security is an add-on product. I love it.
Consider the fact that the World-Wide Web is not a visual medium. It's a data medium.
It comes from logical application of values, values that obviously differ from yours.
ADA opponents like you want to live in a society where you can do whatever you want with your own business.
ADA proponents want to live in a society where as many people as possible can do normal things like go shopping and work and buy airplane tickets, if it the cost of doing so isn't disproportionate.
I don't think that makes the proponents irrational or overly emotional. They (we) just want different things from what you want.
That was exactly the argument of racial segregationists in the US South in the 1950s and 1960s. I believe a national consensus emerged to the effect that no, in a business context you do not have that right if it has the effect of leaving people out of mainstream society. Sorry.
The World-Wide Web is not a visual medium.
Behind every cloud there's a silver lining.
ISTR the term "vexatious litigator."
And also because the EULA breaks the bargain between copyright holders and the public. The public grants a temporary (heh) monopoly in exchange for certain statutory and common-law rights. Many EULAs, if enforced, would violate those rights that we as the public have already paid for by granting the monopoly.
EULAnians are singing the same song as those commercial broadcasters who whine about having to run public service announcements and provide a minimum amount of educational programming. They act as though something is being taken away from them when in fact they are only being required to share a little of the great gifts the public has already provided.
And keep in mind that nothing in this new legislation makes it legal to share copies in a way that destroys the market for "originals."
If in the future you find yourself losing CD sales, it will be because people are breaking this law, not following it.
Felten's list gives the impression that it's the crazy interpretations of CBDTPA we have to fear.
But the real problem is that CBDTPA is a crazy bill to begin with. You can't fix something like this by giving back the singing fish. If every single one of Felten's examples were exempted from the bill, what's left would be no less outrageous.
Says the Boston Glob article: "Project engineers are more optimistic than the auditors."
Oh. Okay then.
Someone please mod parent up. I want to see VC's answer to this.
Do you know runs ICANN?
Point taken.
But it was the openness of the source that made it possible for someone to do that forcing. It doesn't matter that 99.99% of users didn't notice the bug and didn't go through the source code to find it. What matters is that one hacker did and was able to isolate it because of the availability of source code.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
But doesn't that speak to the resilience of the Open Source approach? The fact that you can run an Apache site without enabling or even installing SSL is a strength. AFAIK (and ICBW) you can't do that with IIS.
More importantly, Open Source problems stay visible until they are fixed. There's no hiding behind STO, no stonewalling.
Have you noticed how many pre-emptive security patches are made by Open Source developers? Where the announcements start with "someone pointed out this security flaw, and they were right, and we wanted to fix it before the exploits get created"? The "someone pointed out" part is a big deal. You can't get that with closed source vendorware, not proactively. As a result, security problems are frequently fixed long before they cause any problems at all.
Yet I loved this quote from the article, although they're not the words from Ballmer's mouth:
That sounds like an admission that right now Beowulf beats Windows clustering. Which is yet another interesting concession.
Think for a second. You can't come up with any other reason? No?
Then I have an urgent business matter to discuss with you. It must be held in strictest confidence. I am the nephew of a deposed Nigerian prince...
No. That is utter nonsense. The envelope trick has no legal weight, period. Ask any IP attorney.
With credit cards, the credit card number is the secret, the whole secret, and nothing but the secret.
With the new gizmo, the speckle pattern is not the secret. The secret is the arrangement of crystals, which isn't shared with anyone. Steal a copy of the speckle pattern and you have nothing.