"The only person I've talked to who uses this interpretation of the GPL is _you_; one would think that you decided to interpret it to bolster your own argument."
As are you. Or anybody else in this discussion. Instead of trying to belittle my interpretation based on my minority standpoint you should try finding actual flaws in my interpretation. Being part of the majority doens't make you right by default.
"In particular, the section at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#Consider covers the situation you've been talking about."
Here's what it says:
Consider this situation:
X releases V1 of a project under the GPL. Y contributes to the development of V2 with changes and new code based on V1. X wants to convert V2 to a non-GPL license. Does X need Y's permission?
Yes. Y was required to release its version under the GNU GPL, as a consequence of basing it on X's version V1. Nothing required Y to agree to any other license for its code. Therefore, X must get Y's permission before releasing that code under another license.
First off, note that there still isn't mention of Y's ability to change license, with or without X's permission. Of course, Y has no right to change the license since the GPL is essentially a "no" response to everybody.
Secondly, X was the only person who had the option of unilaterally applying the GPL (or any other license) to the project to begin with. Y had only two options: GPL or don't code.
And elsewhere from the FAQ you sent me to:
Is the developer of a GPL-covered program bound by the GPL? Could the developer's actions ever be a violation of the GPL?
Strictly speaking, the GPL is a license from the developer for others to use, distribute and change the program. The developer itself is not bound by it, so no matter what the developer does, this is not a "violation" of the GPL.
However, if the developer does something that would violate the GPL if done by someone else, the developer will surely lose moral standing in the community.
We have a long Wired article talking about poor Mr. Whatley and all the suffering he's going through, a quote here and there from the website in question, a single comment from Xybernaut's lawyer, but not a single link to Whatley's page for everybody to see exactly what was considered libelous. In fact, it doesn't look like Wired tried very hard (if at all) to get Xybernaut's opinion and mostly just wrote a little sob story about poor Whatley. Did I somehow miss the part where the article said "Xybernaut officials weren't available for comment?"
Like it or not, libel is libel, and just because you're free to say what you want doesn't mean you're not responsible for what you say. Of what was shown of what Whatley said, it could very easiily be libelous.
"I have been dealing with the Newmans and XYBR and they are the most incompetent management I have ever seen,"
Wouldn't it be interesting if Whatley had had no dealing with Xybernaut prior to the lawsuit? How many managements has he seen in order to make this comparison?
"If Steve Newman was not a relative his job would consist of... 'Would you like fries with that?'"
Has he seen Newman's resume? Has he even met Steve Newman face-to-face? Is Newman really a relative, or just somebody that happens to share a last name? Hell, has anybody even checked to see if there's a Steve Newman working for Xybernaut? Anyone?
I have checked and there is a Steve Newman on the executive board, and he does share the last as somebody else on the board, but since the bio links aren't working I can't find out if they're actaully related. However, at the very least the fact that Steve Newman has a doctorate suggests that Whatley's claims of his lack of education might be just a tad unfounded.
If you simply believe everything you're told by the media, whether it be AOL/TW or Slasdot, you're no better than the mindless sheep you claim to despise.
"If the person disagrees with the will of the majority, then they are free to leave and are not bound by the will any longer."
"Love it or leave it?" And what if the majority's will is to follow this individual and make sure that their rules apply? Arguably this is what happened to British colonists in America, and they ended up choosing option C.
"If I write a piece of code, release it under the GPL, and then someone modifies it, I have no more rights to the derived product than anyone else does."
You have the right to dictate the terms of use and distribution of the derivative and exercised this right when you originally applied the GPL to the work. If you're the one that controls the use and distribution of a work, you are the owner of that IP. That's the definition of intellectual property. What you decide are the terms of use and distribution isn't as important as the fact that you were the one that decided it and could decide it.
OK, I'm having trouble understanding this paragraph:
"You can not distribute part of the derived product no matter how small unless you are in total ownership of it. This is precisely how companies are able to release binary kernel modules for Linux under whatever license they choose. They simply can not distribute a version of the kernel with those binary modules already included."
The GPL says that "any derivative work" of a GPLed work must itself be GPLed. I still don't see how a patch doesn't fit into the category of "any derivative work," even if the patch's authors treated the kernel as a black box. And if it fits into that category, the patch's author is legally required to distribute the patch under the terms of the GPL. Whether actual companies do this or not is something else entirely...
"The end-user is free to use the software in anyway they wish as long as they do not infringe on the inherent freedoms of the software (see 'inalienable rights')."
So being able to decide how your work is used and distributed isn't an "inalienable right?" Or is it only an inalienable right if you somehow wrote your program in a vacuum?
"All individuals have equal rights to the copyright of a work in public domain."
A copyright gives the IP owner the ability to restrict a work's use and distribution. Public domain has no restrictions on its use or distribution at all. If nobody can control a work's use or distribution (requirements for the defintion of IP), then nobody can be said to actually own it.
"In communism, all individuals have equal rights to the items produced by society. Public domain == communism."
Public property means that it is the public that dictates the use of that property. Generally, everybody can access it and use it so long as it doesn't infringe upon the ability of anybody else to use it. The usual example of public property is a park. The public will not allow you to run a slash-and-burn logging operation in a public park.
Public domain on the other hand is something that nobody can restrict the use of, not even the public. It's as if everybody had their own private copy of that something to do with as they please. Instead of public parks everybody has their own back yard. The only really "tangible" example I can think of here is sunlight; not even the public can dictate what can and can't be done with it.
Public domain isn't public property because public domain isn't property. If anything it's one of those inalienable rights you mention.
"If this were true, then Linus Trovalds would own the entire Linux kernel. The fact of the matter is, Linux has as much rights to the Linux kernel as I do."
But he does own the entire kernel. He is the only one that has any say in the kernel's use and distribution. Only he had the ability to GPL the work or not. Not you, not I, not Stallman.
Going back to the car analogy, just because I let you borrow my car every time you ask for as long as you want doesn't also somehow make it your property as well.
"or quote relevant passages of the source code for commentary purposes."
It says "any derivative work." I see no exceptions spelled out for commentary.
"The limited permissions of the GPL only apply to the distribution of the work."
Or of "any derivative work."
"The work becomes the communal IP of ALL of the authors who have contributed something to the work."
Intellectual property is considered property because only the owner can control the use and distribution. If anybody could use and distribute the information at whim, it wouldn't be property at all.
The only person that can dictate the terms of use and distribution of both the original GPLed work as well as any derivative work is the original author. By exercising their choice to release the original code under the GPL, the author is not only controlling the use and distribution of the original code but also any code that might be derived from it in the future. Because the control of distribution and use rests with the original author, the original author becomes the de facto IP owner of everything you call "communal property."
The fallacy of "communal property" comes into it becuase later coders can decide either to code under the GPL or don't code at all, and people pretend this somehow an example of the community deciding how the work is distributed.
No, it's a license to use and distribute. It spells out what you must and mustn't do if you want to use or distribute the code in any way, shape or form.
"Quoting passages? Go ahead, there are plenty of Non-GPL books which quote from GPL-ed Software."
First off, just because the example you used hasn't been tested to see if it complies with the GPL doesn't mean the GPL allows it. "Any work" is vague enough to cover books.
Secondly, many people have made the argument that code is speech. What if I copied a block of code from a GPL program (however short) and used it in my own program? Is it different because that's an actual program? What if don't actually compile it but instead publish it in a paper book? Or take a photograph of the code? Haiku? What if I start listing off all the examples that have been used in the DeCSS argument?
Either speech and code have the same legal status or they don't. Period. The GPL just says "any work."
"As long as your use truly falls under fair use, the GPL doesn't even come into effect."
The purpose of a software license (any license) is to restrict use and distribution more than copyright law alone. This includes even the BSD license.
"The GPL is a license to copy the software beyond that which is allowed by law."
No, it is a restriction beyond that of copyright law.
I can copy short passages of a non-licensed copyrighted work and distribute it however I wish so long as credit for the work is given to the copyright's owner (I can't plagiarise). I can sell my work however I wish and not have to pay any royalties.
However, as soon as I put any part of a GPLed work into mine, the GPL comes into effect and restricts my ability to decide distribution to only those allowed by the original author. In fact, the GPL is broad enough that even if I don't use the code but simply become inspired after looking at it my work must then be GPLed (far and away beyond what the original author can dictate under plain old copyright).
"Don't forget: If the GPL isn't there. You have to contact him."
Not if what you're doing falls into the category of "fair use" it doesn't. And derivative works are allowed under fair use.
"Incorrect. They become the communal IP of all the authors."
Let me pick my jaw up off the floor...
First off, my point here is that those that come after the original author have no other option but to release their work as "communal property." It doesn't matter how small a part the original work plays in the derivative, there is no other legal option but this "communal property.
Secondly, the whole idea of "intellectual property" is that whoever has the legal right to control distribution "owns" the IP in question. Under the GPL the original author is the only person that can have any say in both the original work and whatever the original work is used in. Call it "communal property" or whatever other pretty name you can think of, the original author is the de facto IP owner in all cases.
"As I believe Rosseau said, A vote in democracy is a vote for the will of the majority."
And what about people who abstain from voting?
"If you build a car, and then I come along and put a sticker on the car, can I then claim that I own the car? Absolutely not. I may own the stick (or the derivation), but I surely do not own the car and do not have any specific rights to the car."
Under the GPL, the car manufacturer owns the sticker.
Let's say you build a car and I buy it. I then modify the engine or replace it outright. Under the GPL, that modification would then be your modification and I would not be free to make a profit from modifying such cars.
"In a derivative work, the author only has rights to the derivation of that work. With the GPL, an individual can release a patch to a GPL'd piece of software under any license he chooses."
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.
You can't release a patch without some knowledge of what your patching. I can't see how a patch isn't "derived from the Program or any part thereof."
"If I write a piece of software, and release it under the BSD license, then another company can come by and rerelease the software with absolutely no freedom for the user to modify the software."
But under the BSD license the end user must be made aware of any BSD code used in the product. If you're using IE, click on "About Internet Explorer" and notice what it says about Mosaic. And since the end user must be informed of what the for-profit work is derived from, they are able to get the original BSDed work and make their own derivations.
If Mosaic were GPLed instead of BSDed, just about every browser out there today would be forced to comply with Mosaic's license, no matter how far removed modern browsers may be. The software is free only by your definition of "free" and you require that all future users of that code to comply with your definition. The end user is not free to decided how free they want to be.
"It would really suck if I wrote a piece of software, saw it being used by some company, and then asked to have the source for it and they said no."
Why should you have a "right" to see what they've done with your code and to dictate the licensing terms their modifications can be released under?
And if you wrote some code after reading a book on programming, should the author of that book have the same right to demand your sourcecode and require that a copy of their book be distributed with "your" code? Since you are using what you learned in the author's book, should the author have the ability to dictate the terms of your license? Under GPL's philosophy the answer is "yes."
"Simply giving code away to become property of society is communistic."
Public domain is not the same as public property. If it were, private individuals wouldn't be able to use it however they wish for their own profit. Especially not in a communistic system.
"If I write code, it should be my property."
And the GPL dictates that anything done with your property is again your property. If you GPLed a do-while loop, you would then have the ability to dictate licensing terms to anybody who uses that loop.
"Yes. And they can release their code under any license they want (however useless their minor changes may be)."
No, they can't.
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:
...
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.
Derivative works must also be GPLed, thereby essentially making them the IP of the original author.
"If they don't like this restriction, they can either start from scratch with their own gall darn code,"
So you agree that all programming takes place in a vacuum?
"If the group does not like the original author's license, they can rewrite the original author's code and license the new product under any license they choose."
I refer back to my previous blockquote of the GPL.
"Your choice, completely free and completely up to you."
The same can be said of any copyright.
"As has been pointed out time and again, normal copyright gives you no right to use someone else's code."
Just because copyright holders have been working to infringe upon those rights doesn't mean those rights don't exist. A normal copyright gives the purchaser several rights that fall under "fair use," such as being able to make an archival copy or to quote passages of it in your own derivative work. Anybody that's ever had to write a paper for class has exercised these rights.
However, the GPL does not allow such fair uses and it essentially declares any derivative works the IP of the original's author. If a book were GPLed, then any paper I write after reading that book becomes the IP of the book's author and by not including a copy of the book with my paper I'd be comitting plagiarism, no matter how accurate my bibliography may be.
"But again, if you find the GPL not to your liking you have every right not to use GPL'd code. You can simply write your own and be done with it."
Upon looking at the GPL it's not clear that any such choice exists if I even glance at some GPL code.
"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."
"Derivative works" is a very broad title.
"Whining about the GPL, saying that it 'forces' you into something, is deceptive at best. People who insist that the GPL injures them in some fashion are those that want to use GPL'd code rather than write their own, but don't wish to abide by the license."
Thank you for agreeing with my point that the GPL assumes ex nihilo programming on the part of the original author. After all, the original author doesn't need to include references and copies of any and every programming book, course, website, FAQ, howto, etc. that they may have glanced at before writing this code.
"Modern theories of democracy are based on the concept of inalienable rights"
Ehhh... not entirely true. Modern applications of democracy take into account these "inalienable rights." They do this by making sure that there's a mechanism to protect the rights of the individual from the abuses of the majority (which will happen in a true democracy). I think it was Madison that noted that it was a democracy that decreed the hemlock one day and statues the next.
"Inalienable rights are inherent rights that cannot be abandoned or taken away. For men to be free, they must ensure that these rights exist and are protected."
Either they can be taken away or they can't. Pick one.
"To simply grant these rights with no mechanism to preserve them would go against the fundamental principles of democracy. The GPL protects software not only from giving up it's fundamental rights."
Democracy is a pretty name for "mob rule," where the majority always wins over the minority and the individual. The GPL is democratic in the sense that it requires coders to surrender some of their coding rights as an individual (restricting what they can do with the code, even if they've heavily modified it) as they become a part of the group that works on the program (ie. the majority). The GPL protects the rights of the group over that of the individual by more or less forcing the individual to join the group.
"But, the original author also has the choice under which license to distribute the work. He may choice to abandon certain rights. The important thing though, is that it is his choice and his choice alone."
Ah, but who is the author? Isn't somebody that modifies the code and thereby improving it just as much of an author? By enacting the GPL, the original coder declares himself first among equals in the new group of coders that work on the app. The original author then requires that you join this group as a subordinate before you are allowed to make and distribute any modifications.
This more or less denies the existance of derivative works. It's based on the principle that the "original" author wrote the code ex nihilo while the work of anybody else is nothing more than adding to the original idea. Anybody that came along after the code's genesis (literally) is incapable of actually having an original idea (legally if not philosophically). If fire were released under the GPL, Bob the Caveman would get all the credit of the Industrial Revolution.
I personally have difficulty understanding how people can complain about the abuses of US copyright law by the MPAA and RIAA one day and support the GPL the next.
"I'm sorry, one simply cannot make the argument that the GPL is philosophically less 'free' than the BSD license. It's just not true."
It's untrue only so long as you pretend that a group and the individuals that make up that group are one and the same. Psychology and history tell us otherwise.
"BSD is not growing exponentially and Linux is surely not fragmenting."
Linux is growing exponentially because it requires anybody that does anything with the code to become part of the Linux group. BSD has no restrictions, so coders aren't forced to join the BSD camp. Like it or not, the folks that call the GPL "viral licensing" have a point. In this sense the BSD license is more free as it is not forced to grow at such a rate.
"Of course, I'm not a communist, so there is little chance that I would ever release code in such a way."
No, the GPL is the more communistic choice. It is a "coder's paradise," free from the opression of the bourgeois corporations but subject to another aristocracy just the same. Coders are more or less required to unite into one single group and produce as a whole, and any credit from the accomplishments of any single coder is both given to the group as a whole and the original Lenin figure that started the app in the first place. There is no room for the individual here except for the person that applied the GPL to begin with.
"If you're really paranoid, you could simultaneously set up a system to check NIST signals for time and then let GPS and NIST duke it out in your ntp server."
From the sounds of it, that would actually make your system time less accurate. NIST will tell you themselves that there's generally +/- 0.5 second error when you try to poll their servers over the internet. They actually reccomend that you use their dial-in modem line for die-hard time synch since the lag over the phone lines is both smaller and more predictable.
GPS time, on the other hand, is about as accurate as technology allows without having a bank of cesium clocks in the building with you. If GPS weren't gobs better than a good mechanical chronometer, it'd be worthless to the military and probably wouldn't have even been launched. Wars have been won or lost, empires risen or fallen all because one side had more accurate timepieces. Hell, the USNO's and NIST's clocks are probably just as important if not more important to national defense than our nuclear arsenal.
Now, do you really think that the time given by GPS can somehow be made more accurate by polling some ground station hundreds of miles away across a network of patchwork links where terms like "latency" and "signal lag" are more of a guessing game than a science?
For the record it was two lines, I gained no net karma from it, and the vast majority of my karma has come from "intelligent" and "insightful" moderations.
Amazing recap, especially to those of us who didn't know a damned thing about any of this, but there seems to be a big difference that gets in the way of comparing the case before Judge Kollar-Kotelly (henceforth to be referred to as K^2) and what was before Jackson and Sporkin: The states. While the USDOJ and Microsoft might be able to force their settlement into place via the Court of Appeals, nobody can force the 9 states to agree to something they don't agree to. And if they've held out this long, I have the feeling that at least two or three of them are willing to hang on to this battle to the bitter, bloody finale. Hell, I have the feeling that if they're forced to drop the federal case they may drum up state charges for the heck of it (say the UCC or whatever else is convenient) and do an end-run around the fed courts entirely.
And another thing that's a little different is that K^2 now has the advantage of being able to cross-reference Jackson's findings of fact. The facts and the punishment in this case are even more separated from each other now, what with a completly different judge just dealing with the punishment aspect (and nothing short of the Supreme Court can change that). Jackson's successfully done all the hard work for her and all she really needs to do is tell the Court of Appeals "I don't agree with this because of the highlighted portions on pages 37, 182, and 2068."
The way I see it, there's a four phase cycle keeping IPv4 the standard for the internet for a long time to come.
1.) ISPs want to charge more for sharing a connection and a smaller address space gives ISPs justification to charge more for corporate users than home users. They already heavily frown upon the use of NAT (unless you pay more for them to set up your LAN for you). So why don't the ISP's just separate the concepts of bandwitdth and addressing?
2.) The backbone is overtaxed as it is. Currently the home user's connection speed is limited more by intermediate links than by their connection, even if the user is just using a 33.6 modem. A small address space provides an easy method of limiting bandwidth use. So why don't they just upgrade the backbone?
3.) IP address space is the primary driving factor in connection costs, more so than bandwidth. Most tier 1's more or less own their address blocks and stand to make money hand over fist as the price of using a single address skyrockets. If a tier 1 wants to make more money, it makes better economic sense to buy more address space than to put in faster connections. So why not jump to IPv6 to increase the address space by an order of magnitude squared so the big guys can focus on the bandwidth trouble? Tier 1 folks will make money no matter what, right?
4.) A larger address space opens up the ISP industry to small competitors. While most ISPs are owned or operated by large corporations that can afford the pricey IPv4 addresses, IPv6 stands to give every man, woman and child on the planet a bigger address space than many tier 1's currently have in IPv4. The low-level ISP scene under IPv6 could very well look a lot like the BBS/internet scene of ten years ago. Not to mention all the private little portals that could end up competing with MSN and Yahoo (with or without a DNS name). But still, the little guys could probably make a stab at making that happen with IPv4, using NAT to drive down the cost of a small IP address block. Why don't they do that?
"Webb watched the teenager copy a couple of other applications. He left the kid to find a CompUSA employee. 'I went over and told a CompUSA guy, but he looked at me like I was clueless,' Webb said."
If this isn't a wake-up call to stores like CompUSA, I don't know what is. If you treat and pay your employees like Wal-Mart employees, you're going to get people with the computer knowledge of Wal-Mart employees. Hand-holding employees through training isn't the answer because all that will give you is employees that require somebody else to do all their thinking for them while making them believe that they already know everything.
The reason the employees in stores like these don't have half a brain is because those that DO have half a brain can make far more money doing something else. Hell, people who answer tech support calls typically make more money than retail employees.
This is nothing more than CompUSA getting what it pays for.
Not when the person you're trying to instill FUD in both knows better and has the ability to throw your sorry ass in jail for making a mockery of her court...
"Here's a suggestion: Physically block the fucking I/O ports on display models. Put a locked metal bar across them or something. Cheap, quick, and effective."
You're forgetting something: This requires the store owners and/or employees to have half a clue about what they're selling.
I'm personally shocked and amazed that somebody that worked at CompUSA could figure out what was happening. Isn't this one of the signs of the Rapture?
"I haven't read the notice that they've delivered describing, in detail, why they believe the case should be dropped, but I doubt it will fly much further than into Judge Kollar-Kotelly's recycling bin."
Yeah, but how much further can the lawyers go making such frivilous claims before they end up being held in contempt of court?:)
First off, for all his faults, Lincoln did have a point that the intent of the constitution seems to disallow secession to an extent. From the Articles of Association through the Articles of Confederation on up to our current constitution, they all seem to be moving towards a "more perfect union." This suggests that secession at least shouldn't be that easy.
Secondly, if allowing a new state requires an act of Congress, why shouldn't secession require a similar act of Congress, since both acts greatly affect every other state?
And in my opinion the South lost any and all moral high ground when they bitched about West Virginia.
Microsoft claims that the states have no contitutional authority to bring such action stating that "Permitting the nonsettling states to seek sweeping, nationwide relief under the federal antitrust laws and would raise serious constitutional questions."
To which the response should be:
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
"I still hold out a little hope for Enterprise, because I personally think the story idea about the first days of deep-space exploration is a good one, it does seem to be succumbing to the hormone craze you mention, in a way that even Voyager didn't (at least not initially)."
First off, we should remember that scantily-clad women have been a staple of Star Trek since the beginning.
However, I'm personally holding out even more hope for Enterprise because I think they might be trying for a coherent series in the same vein of B5. There are what, 8 or 9 episodes out there right now? And we're already seeing quite a few references to previous episodes and some genuine character development. I have the feeling that it will at least be more coherent than DS9 was.
"I hope they do more with their semi-coherant story arc of the "temporal cold war" in Enterprise"
I can see that as something that will start to simmer a little more in the future, but Not Right Now. Still working on character development as well as pouring some more gasoline on the Vulcan/Andurian thing.
"and it would be nice if they entered the Vulcan Symmetrists movement"
Symmetrists, shymmetrists. Where's the Human-Romulan War? We need at least SOME ass-whipping in this show, and if we can't bitch-slap the Klingons (damn that was fun...) we should at least be allowed to vent our anti-pointy-ear agressions on those green-blooded SOB's.:)
"as I've read it's based on a "lost script" of Rodenberry's"
I'm not sure it was even on a script. But it was really a very basic idea at the very least.
I just wish networks would stop touting all these new sereii from a guy that's been dead for a while now. The longer he's been dead, the less of the new series will actually have been his idea, until we reach some new series (already done with Andromeda?) that's based on some joke Gene told in a bar forty years ago...
If this "law" turns out to be something enacted through common law instead of an act of Parliament, this will apply to most of the US as well (since most state constitutions include English common law, Louisiana being the only exception I know of).
Slashdot Mirror
As are you. Or anybody else in this discussion. Instead of trying to belittle my interpretation based on my minority standpoint you should try finding actual flaws in my interpretation. Being part of the majority doens't make you right by default.
"In particular, the section at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#Consider covers the situation you've been talking about."
Here's what it says:First off, note that there still isn't mention of Y's ability to change license, with or without X's permission. Of course, Y has no right to change the license since the GPL is essentially a "no" response to everybody.
Secondly, X was the only person who had the option of unilaterally applying the GPL (or any other license) to the project to begin with. Y had only two options: GPL or don't code.
And elsewhere from the FAQ you sent me to:
We have a long Wired article talking about poor Mr. Whatley and all the suffering he's going through, a quote here and there from the website in question, a single comment from Xybernaut's lawyer, but not a single link to Whatley's page for everybody to see exactly what was considered libelous. In fact, it doesn't look like Wired tried very hard (if at all) to get Xybernaut's opinion and mostly just wrote a little sob story about poor Whatley. Did I somehow miss the part where the article said "Xybernaut officials weren't available for comment?"
... 'Would you like fries with that?'"
Like it or not, libel is libel, and just because you're free to say what you want doesn't mean you're not responsible for what you say. Of what was shown of what Whatley said, it could very easiily be libelous.
"I have been dealing with the Newmans and XYBR and they are the most incompetent management I have ever seen,"
Wouldn't it be interesting if Whatley had had no dealing with Xybernaut prior to the lawsuit? How many managements has he seen in order to make this comparison?
"If Steve Newman was not a relative his job would consist of
Has he seen Newman's resume? Has he even met Steve Newman face-to-face? Is Newman really a relative, or just somebody that happens to share a last name? Hell, has anybody even checked to see if there's a Steve Newman working for Xybernaut? Anyone?
I have checked and there is a Steve Newman on the executive board, and he does share the last as somebody else on the board, but since the bio links aren't working I can't find out if they're actaully related. However, at the very least the fact that Steve Newman has a doctorate suggests that Whatley's claims of his lack of education might be just a tad unfounded.
If you simply believe everything you're told by the media, whether it be AOL/TW or Slasdot, you're no better than the mindless sheep you claim to despise.
"If the person disagrees with the will of the majority, then they are free to leave and are not bound by the will any longer."
"Love it or leave it?" And what if the majority's will is to follow this individual and make sure that their rules apply? Arguably this is what happened to British colonists in America, and they ended up choosing option C.
"If I write a piece of code, release it under the GPL, and then someone modifies it, I have no more rights to the derived product than anyone else does."
You have the right to dictate the terms of use and distribution of the derivative and exercised this right when you originally applied the GPL to the work. If you're the one that controls the use and distribution of a work, you are the owner of that IP. That's the definition of intellectual property. What you decide are the terms of use and distribution isn't as important as the fact that you were the one that decided it and could decide it.
OK, I'm having trouble understanding this paragraph:
"You can not distribute part of the derived product no matter how small unless you are in total ownership of it. This is precisely how companies are able to release binary kernel modules for Linux under whatever license they choose. They simply can not distribute a version of the kernel with those binary modules already included."
The GPL says that "any derivative work" of a GPLed work must itself be GPLed. I still don't see how a patch doesn't fit into the category of "any derivative work," even if the patch's authors treated the kernel as a black box. And if it fits into that category, the patch's author is legally required to distribute the patch under the terms of the GPL. Whether actual companies do this or not is something else entirely...
"The end-user is free to use the software in anyway they wish as long as they do not infringe on the inherent freedoms of the software (see 'inalienable rights')."
So being able to decide how your work is used and distributed isn't an "inalienable right?" Or is it only an inalienable right if you somehow wrote your program in a vacuum?
"All individuals have equal rights to the copyright of a work in public domain."
A copyright gives the IP owner the ability to restrict a work's use and distribution. Public domain has no restrictions on its use or distribution at all. If nobody can control a work's use or distribution (requirements for the defintion of IP), then nobody can be said to actually own it.
"In communism, all individuals have equal rights to the items produced by society. Public domain == communism."
Public property means that it is the public that dictates the use of that property. Generally, everybody can access it and use it so long as it doesn't infringe upon the ability of anybody else to use it. The usual example of public property is a park. The public will not allow you to run a slash-and-burn logging operation in a public park.
Public domain on the other hand is something that nobody can restrict the use of, not even the public. It's as if everybody had their own private copy of that something to do with as they please. Instead of public parks everybody has their own back yard. The only really "tangible" example I can think of here is sunlight; not even the public can dictate what can and can't be done with it.
Public domain isn't public property because public domain isn't property. If anything it's one of those inalienable rights you mention.
"If this were true, then Linus Trovalds would own the entire Linux kernel. The fact of the matter is, Linux has as much rights to the Linux kernel as I do."
But he does own the entire kernel. He is the only one that has any say in the kernel's use and distribution. Only he had the ability to GPL the work or not. Not you, not I, not Stallman.
Going back to the car analogy, just because I let you borrow my car every time you ask for as long as you want doesn't also somehow make it your property as well.
"or quote relevant passages of the source code for commentary purposes."
It says "any derivative work." I see no exceptions spelled out for commentary.
"The limited permissions of the GPL only apply to the distribution of the work."
Or of "any derivative work."
"The work becomes the communal IP of ALL of the authors who have contributed something to the work."
Intellectual property is considered property because only the owner can control the use and distribution. If anybody could use and distribute the information at whim, it wouldn't be property at all.
The only person that can dictate the terms of use and distribution of both the original GPLed work as well as any derivative work is the original author. By exercising their choice to release the original code under the GPL, the author is not only controlling the use and distribution of the original code but also any code that might be derived from it in the future. Because the control of distribution and use rests with the original author, the original author becomes the de facto IP owner of everything you call "communal property."
The fallacy of "communal property" comes into it becuase later coders can decide either to code under the GPL or don't code at all, and people pretend this somehow an example of the community deciding how the work is distributed.
"GPL is a license to copy."
No, it's a license to use and distribute. It spells out what you must and mustn't do if you want to use or distribute the code in any way, shape or form.
"Quoting passages? Go ahead, there are plenty of Non-GPL books which quote from GPL-ed Software."
First off, just because the example you used hasn't been tested to see if it complies with the GPL doesn't mean the GPL allows it. "Any work" is vague enough to cover books.
Secondly, many people have made the argument that code is speech. What if I copied a block of code from a GPL program (however short) and used it in my own program? Is it different because that's an actual program? What if don't actually compile it but instead publish it in a paper book? Or take a photograph of the code? Haiku? What if I start listing off all the examples that have been used in the DeCSS argument?
Either speech and code have the same legal status or they don't. Period. The GPL just says "any work."
"As long as your use truly falls under fair use, the GPL doesn't even come into effect."
The purpose of a software license (any license) is to restrict use and distribution more than copyright law alone. This includes even the BSD license.
"The GPL is a license to copy the software beyond that which is allowed by law."
No, it is a restriction beyond that of copyright law.
I can copy short passages of a non-licensed copyrighted work and distribute it however I wish so long as credit for the work is given to the copyright's owner (I can't plagiarise). I can sell my work however I wish and not have to pay any royalties.
However, as soon as I put any part of a GPLed work into mine, the GPL comes into effect and restricts my ability to decide distribution to only those allowed by the original author. In fact, the GPL is broad enough that even if I don't use the code but simply become inspired after looking at it my work must then be GPLed (far and away beyond what the original author can dictate under plain old copyright).
"Don't forget: If the GPL isn't there. You have to contact him."
Not if what you're doing falls into the category of "fair use" it doesn't. And derivative works are allowed under fair use.
"Incorrect. They become the communal IP of all the authors."
Let me pick my jaw up off the floor...
First off, my point here is that those that come after the original author have no other option but to release their work as "communal property." It doesn't matter how small a part the original work plays in the derivative, there is no other legal option but this "communal property.
Secondly, the whole idea of "intellectual property" is that whoever has the legal right to control distribution "owns" the IP in question. Under the GPL the original author is the only person that can have any say in both the original work and whatever the original work is used in. Call it "communal property" or whatever other pretty name you can think of, the original author is the de facto IP owner in all cases.
And what about people who abstain from voting?
"If you build a car, and then I come along and put a sticker on the car, can I then claim that I own the car? Absolutely not. I may own the stick (or the derivation), but I surely do not own the car and do not have any specific rights to the car."
Under the GPL, the car manufacturer owns the sticker.
Let's say you build a car and I buy it. I then modify the engine or replace it outright. Under the GPL, that modification would then be your modification and I would not be free to make a profit from modifying such cars.
"In a derivative work, the author only has rights to the derivation of that work. With the GPL, an individual can release a patch to a GPL'd piece of software under any license he chooses." You can't release a patch without some knowledge of what your patching. I can't see how a patch isn't "derived from the Program or any part thereof."
"If I write a piece of software, and release it under the BSD license, then another company can come by and rerelease the software with absolutely no freedom for the user to modify the software."
But under the BSD license the end user must be made aware of any BSD code used in the product. If you're using IE, click on "About Internet Explorer" and notice what it says about Mosaic. And since the end user must be informed of what the for-profit work is derived from, they are able to get the original BSDed work and make their own derivations.
If Mosaic were GPLed instead of BSDed, just about every browser out there today would be forced to comply with Mosaic's license, no matter how far removed modern browsers may be. The software is free only by your definition of "free" and you require that all future users of that code to comply with your definition. The end user is not free to decided how free they want to be.
"It would really suck if I wrote a piece of software, saw it being used by some company, and then asked to have the source for it and they said no."
Why should you have a "right" to see what they've done with your code and to dictate the licensing terms their modifications can be released under?
And if you wrote some code after reading a book on programming, should the author of that book have the same right to demand your sourcecode and require that a copy of their book be distributed with "your" code? Since you are using what you learned in the author's book, should the author have the ability to dictate the terms of your license? Under GPL's philosophy the answer is "yes."
"Simply giving code away to become property of society is communistic."
Public domain is not the same as public property. If it were, private individuals wouldn't be able to use it however they wish for their own profit. Especially not in a communistic system.
"If I write code, it should be my property."
And the GPL dictates that anything done with your property is again your property. If you GPLed a do-while loop, you would then have the ability to dictate licensing terms to anybody who uses that loop.
No, they can't.Derivative works must also be GPLed, thereby essentially making them the IP of the original author.
"If they don't like this restriction, they can either start from scratch with their own gall darn code,"
So you agree that all programming takes place in a vacuum?
"If the group does not like the original author's license, they can rewrite the original author's code and license the new product under any license they choose."
I refer back to my previous blockquote of the GPL.
The same can be said of any copyright.
"As has been pointed out time and again, normal copyright gives you no right to use someone else's code."
Just because copyright holders have been working to infringe upon those rights doesn't mean those rights don't exist. A normal copyright gives the purchaser several rights that fall under "fair use," such as being able to make an archival copy or to quote passages of it in your own derivative work. Anybody that's ever had to write a paper for class has exercised these rights.
However, the GPL does not allow such fair uses and it essentially declares any derivative works the IP of the original's author. If a book were GPLed, then any paper I write after reading that book becomes the IP of the book's author and by not including a copy of the book with my paper I'd be comitting plagiarism, no matter how accurate my bibliography may be.
"But again, if you find the GPL not to your liking you have every right not to use GPL'd code. You can simply write your own and be done with it."
Upon looking at the GPL it's not clear that any such choice exists if I even glance at some GPL code."Derivative works" is a very broad title.
"Whining about the GPL, saying that it 'forces' you into something, is deceptive at best. People who insist that the GPL injures them in some fashion are those that want to use GPL'd code rather than write their own, but don't wish to abide by the license."
Thank you for agreeing with my point that the GPL assumes ex nihilo programming on the part of the original author. After all, the original author doesn't need to include references and copies of any and every programming book, course, website, FAQ, howto, etc. that they may have glanced at before writing this code.
"Modern theories of democracy are based on the concept of inalienable rights"
Ehhh... not entirely true. Modern applications of democracy take into account these "inalienable rights." They do this by making sure that there's a mechanism to protect the rights of the individual from the abuses of the majority (which will happen in a true democracy). I think it was Madison that noted that it was a democracy that decreed the hemlock one day and statues the next.
"Inalienable rights are inherent rights that cannot be abandoned or taken away. For men to be free, they must ensure that these rights exist and are protected."
Either they can be taken away or they can't. Pick one.
"To simply grant these rights with no mechanism to preserve them would go against the fundamental principles of democracy. The GPL protects software not only from giving up it's fundamental rights."
Democracy is a pretty name for "mob rule," where the majority always wins over the minority and the individual. The GPL is democratic in the sense that it requires coders to surrender some of their coding rights as an individual (restricting what they can do with the code, even if they've heavily modified it) as they become a part of the group that works on the program (ie. the majority). The GPL protects the rights of the group over that of the individual by more or less forcing the individual to join the group.
"But, the original author also has the choice under which license to distribute the work. He may choice to abandon certain rights. The important thing though, is that it is his choice and his choice alone."
Ah, but who is the author? Isn't somebody that modifies the code and thereby improving it just as much of an author? By enacting the GPL, the original coder declares himself first among equals in the new group of coders that work on the app. The original author then requires that you join this group as a subordinate before you are allowed to make and distribute any modifications.
This more or less denies the existance of derivative works. It's based on the principle that the "original" author wrote the code ex nihilo while the work of anybody else is nothing more than adding to the original idea. Anybody that came along after the code's genesis (literally) is incapable of actually having an original idea (legally if not philosophically). If fire were released under the GPL, Bob the Caveman would get all the credit of the Industrial Revolution.
I personally have difficulty understanding how people can complain about the abuses of US copyright law by the MPAA and RIAA one day and support the GPL the next.
"I'm sorry, one simply cannot make the argument that the GPL is philosophically less 'free' than the BSD license. It's just not true."
It's untrue only so long as you pretend that a group and the individuals that make up that group are one and the same. Psychology and history tell us otherwise.
"BSD is not growing exponentially and Linux is surely not fragmenting."
Linux is growing exponentially because it requires anybody that does anything with the code to become part of the Linux group. BSD has no restrictions, so coders aren't forced to join the BSD camp. Like it or not, the folks that call the GPL "viral licensing" have a point. In this sense the BSD license is more free as it is not forced to grow at such a rate.
"Of course, I'm not a communist, so there is little chance that I would ever release code in such a way."
No, the GPL is the more communistic choice. It is a "coder's paradise," free from the opression of the bourgeois corporations but subject to another aristocracy just the same. Coders are more or less required to unite into one single group and produce as a whole, and any credit from the accomplishments of any single coder is both given to the group as a whole and the original Lenin figure that started the app in the first place. There is no room for the individual here except for the person that applied the GPL to begin with.
"RMS in court talking about the GPL, that would be funny to see :P"
Nikita Kruschev pounding the podium at the UN with his shoe, shouting "We will bury you!" suddenly comes to mind...
"If you're really paranoid, you could simultaneously set up a system to check NIST signals for time and then let GPS and NIST duke it out in your ntp server."
From the sounds of it, that would actually make your system time less accurate. NIST will tell you themselves that there's generally +/- 0.5 second error when you try to poll their servers over the internet. They actually reccomend that you use their dial-in modem line for die-hard time synch since the lag over the phone lines is both smaller and more predictable.
GPS time, on the other hand, is about as accurate as technology allows without having a bank of cesium clocks in the building with you. If GPS weren't gobs better than a good mechanical chronometer, it'd be worthless to the military and probably wouldn't have even been launched. Wars have been won or lost, empires risen or fallen all because one side had more accurate timepieces. Hell, the USNO's and NIST's clocks are probably just as important if not more important to national defense than our nuclear arsenal.
Now, do you really think that the time given by GPS can somehow be made more accurate by polling some ground station hundreds of miles away across a network of patchwork links where terms like "latency" and "signal lag" are more of a guessing game than a science?
For the record it was two lines, I gained no net karma from it, and the vast majority of my karma has come from "intelligent" and "insightful" moderations.
Cowboy Neal on the grassy knoll.
Back and to the left...
Amazing recap, especially to those of us who didn't know a damned thing about any of this, but there seems to be a big difference that gets in the way of comparing the case before Judge Kollar-Kotelly (henceforth to be referred to as K^2) and what was before Jackson and Sporkin: The states. While the USDOJ and Microsoft might be able to force their settlement into place via the Court of Appeals, nobody can force the 9 states to agree to something they don't agree to. And if they've held out this long, I have the feeling that at least two or three of them are willing to hang on to this battle to the bitter, bloody finale. Hell, I have the feeling that if they're forced to drop the federal case they may drum up state charges for the heck of it (say the UCC or whatever else is convenient) and do an end-run around the fed courts entirely.
And another thing that's a little different is that K^2 now has the advantage of being able to cross-reference Jackson's findings of fact. The facts and the punishment in this case are even more separated from each other now, what with a completly different judge just dealing with the punishment aspect (and nothing short of the Supreme Court can change that). Jackson's successfully done all the hard work for her and all she really needs to do is tell the Court of Appeals "I don't agree with this because of the highlighted portions on pages 37, 182, and 2068."
The way I see it, there's a four phase cycle keeping IPv4 the standard for the internet for a long time to come.
1.) ISPs want to charge more for sharing a connection and a smaller address space gives ISPs justification to charge more for corporate users than home users. They already heavily frown upon the use of NAT (unless you pay more for them to set up your LAN for you). So why don't the ISP's just separate the concepts of bandwitdth and addressing?
2.) The backbone is overtaxed as it is. Currently the home user's connection speed is limited more by intermediate links than by their connection, even if the user is just using a 33.6 modem. A small address space provides an easy method of limiting bandwidth use. So why don't they just upgrade the backbone?
3.) IP address space is the primary driving factor in connection costs, more so than bandwidth. Most tier 1's more or less own their address blocks and stand to make money hand over fist as the price of using a single address skyrockets. If a tier 1 wants to make more money, it makes better economic sense to buy more address space than to put in faster connections. So why not jump to IPv6 to increase the address space by an order of magnitude squared so the big guys can focus on the bandwidth trouble? Tier 1 folks will make money no matter what, right?
4.) A larger address space opens up the ISP industry to small competitors. While most ISPs are owned or operated by large corporations that can afford the pricey IPv4 addresses, IPv6 stands to give every man, woman and child on the planet a bigger address space than many tier 1's currently have in IPv4. The low-level ISP scene under IPv6 could very well look a lot like the BBS/internet scene of ten years ago. Not to mention all the private little portals that could end up competing with MSN and Yahoo (with or without a DNS name). But still, the little guys could probably make a stab at making that happen with IPv4, using NAT to drive down the cost of a small IP address block. Why don't they do that?
Lather, rinse, repeat.
"Webb watched the teenager copy a couple of other applications. He left the kid to find a CompUSA employee. 'I went over and told a CompUSA guy, but he looked at me like I was clueless,' Webb said."
If this isn't a wake-up call to stores like CompUSA, I don't know what is. If you treat and pay your employees like Wal-Mart employees, you're going to get people with the computer knowledge of Wal-Mart employees. Hand-holding employees through training isn't the answer because all that will give you is employees that require somebody else to do all their thinking for them while making them believe that they already know everything.
The reason the employees in stores like these don't have half a brain is because those that DO have half a brain can make far more money doing something else. Hell, people who answer tech support calls typically make more money than retail employees.
This is nothing more than CompUSA getting what it pays for.
Not when the person you're trying to instill FUD in both knows better and has the ability to throw your sorry ass in jail for making a mockery of her court...
"Here's a suggestion: Physically block the fucking I/O ports on display models. Put a locked metal bar across them or something. Cheap, quick, and effective."
You're forgetting something: This requires the store owners and/or employees to have half a clue about what they're selling.
I'm personally shocked and amazed that somebody that worked at CompUSA could figure out what was happening. Isn't this one of the signs of the Rapture?
"I haven't read the notice that they've delivered describing, in detail, why they believe the case should be dropped, but I doubt it will fly much further than into Judge Kollar-Kotelly's recycling bin."
:)
Yeah, but how much further can the lawyers go making such frivilous claims before they end up being held in contempt of court?
First off, for all his faults, Lincoln did have a point that the intent of the constitution seems to disallow secession to an extent. From the Articles of Association through the Articles of Confederation on up to our current constitution, they all seem to be moving towards a "more perfect union." This suggests that secession at least shouldn't be that easy.
Secondly, if allowing a new state requires an act of Congress, why shouldn't secession require a similar act of Congress, since both acts greatly affect every other state?
And in my opinion the South lost any and all moral high ground when they bitched about West Virginia.
Microsoft claims that the states have no contitutional authority to bring such action stating that "Permitting the nonsettling states to seek sweeping, nationwide relief under the federal antitrust laws and would raise serious constitutional questions."
To which the response should be:
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
This should take all of five minutes to resolve.
"I still hold out a little hope for Enterprise, because I personally think the story idea about the first days of deep-space exploration is a good one, it does seem to be succumbing to the hormone craze you mention, in a way that even Voyager didn't (at least not initially)."
:)
First off, we should remember that scantily-clad women have been a staple of Star Trek since the beginning.
However, I'm personally holding out even more hope for Enterprise because I think they might be trying for a coherent series in the same vein of B5. There are what, 8 or 9 episodes out there right now? And we're already seeing quite a few references to previous episodes and some genuine character development. I have the feeling that it will at least be more coherent than DS9 was.
"I hope they do more with their semi-coherant story arc of the "temporal cold war" in Enterprise"
I can see that as something that will start to simmer a little more in the future, but Not Right Now. Still working on character development as well as pouring some more gasoline on the Vulcan/Andurian thing.
"and it would be nice if they entered the Vulcan Symmetrists movement"
Symmetrists, shymmetrists. Where's the Human-Romulan War? We need at least SOME ass-whipping in this show, and if we can't bitch-slap the Klingons (damn that was fun...) we should at least be allowed to vent our anti-pointy-ear agressions on those green-blooded SOB's.
"as I've read it's based on a "lost script" of Rodenberry's"
I'm not sure it was even on a script. But it was really a very basic idea at the very least.
I just wish networks would stop touting all these new sereii from a guy that's been dead for a while now. The longer he's been dead, the less of the new series will actually have been his idea, until we reach some new series (already done with Andromeda?) that's based on some joke Gene told in a bar forty years ago...
Between Vivendi and Jack Valenti, it seems that things with names that begin with the letter V are out to get us...
That depends.
If this "law" turns out to be something enacted through common law instead of an act of Parliament, this will apply to most of the US as well (since most state constitutions include English common law, Louisiana being the only exception I know of).
This is probably something worth looking up.