1) No one need worry that linking to GPL'd works will force them to release their source. That can't happen. At absolute worst they might be required to destroy all copies of the infringing derivative and pay damages.
2) While a source package designed to be statically linked to a GPL'd library might not be a derivative of said library, I see no way that the binary resulting from compiling and linking that package would not be as it will contain an actual copy of the library.
> Now that technology can make music free (and > available), why not make it omnipresent as > well?
Because 99% of what you and your friends consider great "tunes" I consider obnoxious, intrusive crap. And vice-versa, no doubt.
> What about a signature song that uniquely > identifies you?
I don't think that the sort of people who are interested in these things want to be unique.
>...better still, what if *your* song played > every time you called someone else?
Clever. Audible caller id. I'd find obnoxious, except that I will never own a phone that plays tunes anyway. I might someday be willing to use one that says things like "You have a call from Zekk", though.
Most of that outside plant was installed when doing so was much, much more expensive. I have two fiber-optic cables and two buried telephone cables crossing my land, and I live among dairy farms 100 miles from the nearest large city. These cables belong to two different companies and the owner of the second telephone cable intends to offer service on it soon (it was laid a couple of years ago).
Probably because he is confusing it with Teflon, which was developed in the 1940s by the US nuclear weapons program.
Even those products that _were_ developed as part of the space program would have been developed anyway, at an appropriate time. The notion of net benefits to society from government program "spinoff" is nonsense.
Re:How About Permitting _Real_ Competition?
on
DSL Amidst Phone Wars
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
> and of course the gov't subsidies most phone > companies recieved (in direct payments and via > grants of monopoly status) to run those lines > doesn't entitle the tax payers that funded them > to anything.
Why should they receive either subsidies or protection of their monopolies?
> The idea is that there is only a limited amount > of space to run wires in -- so let a single > regional provider do that.
There is only a limited amount of space to build grocery stores in -- so let a single regional provider do that.
> I have my doubts, but the regulation has > withstood numerous challenges in court, at the > agency level (FCC) and in Congress.
Yes, of course it has. What has that got to do with whether or not it is right?
Re:Having SF Bay Area experience, not surprised...
on
DSL Amidst Phone Wars
·
· Score: 2
Why couldn't _you_ get a dry pair from your apartment to Covad's facility?
How About Permitting _Real_ Competition?
on
DSL Amidst Phone Wars
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
The whole idea of requiring phone company A to allow phone company B to sell "service" over phone company A's lines is ludicrous. Just let them both run their own lines.
> How often do you actually check your local > university to see how much they spent on: >... >...
Someone _will_ check on the contracts for these things, usually one or more of the losing bidders or some private watchdog organization. And if they see something suspicious, they _will_ bring it to the attention of the press and the legislature.
> If they can get a discount on MS licenses, I say > "power to them."
How do you know they are getting a discount when the contract is secret?
> I think schools having to pay less outweighs the >.02% of the population that cares or even looks > through the records.
Only one person has to look through the records to blow the whistle on corruption and/or incompetence. That's the point of such laws.
> Sure, an architect might be able to develop a > building in some obscure package in linux. But > the firms want you to know AUTOCAD.
These are universities, not vo-techs.
> Sure, StarOffice is great (I use it), but most > companies require MS Word for a reason. And > EXCEL MACROS are a must in most research places.
So you are saying that even after using it in grade school and high school students need four years of college to learn Microsoft's wonderfully "intuitive" software?
No. Dow is using copyright law to threaten Verio. The DMCA is forcing them to give Verio an opportunity to remove the putatively infringing material and thereby avoid any penalties. In the absence of the DMCA Dow could sue and possibly collect damages even if Verio took the material down as soon as they were notified. This would mean, of course, that no ISP would ever let anyone put any parodies up at all.
> And how about upgrades? It seems to me that > upgrading from one version to another should > automatically trigger a search to ensure that > installed programs are still there so that > everything actually works.
The Debian menu system is supposed to take care of that. Policy requires me to put code in my scripts to add my packages to the menu when they are installed and remove them from the menu when they are removed. I don't know how well it works because I don't use menus.
Re:Who cares about NAT?
on
802.11 RF Amp
·
· Score: 2
> No, you're paying for a personal internet > connection.
But what I want to pay for is bandwidth usage.
> If you were paying for bandwidth, it would > likely be more expensive...
Why?
>...and they wouldn't care what you did with the > connection.
That's the point.
>...it shouldn't matter what you do, so long as > you don't abuse the service, say by downloading > stuff 24/7...
Not likely with one phone line used for personal calls, business, and the computer.
>...or having 4 or 5 people using it all the > time.
Two people, and usage that is probably below average.
Re:Who cares about NAT?
on
802.11 RF Amp
·
· Score: 2
> Would you like it if the phone company said you > could only have 1 phone on your line,
The phone company did just that for more than half a century. In fact, they did not allow customers to use their own phones at all. We were supposed to rent phones from them.
I agree, though. ISPs should sell metered service and charge by the byte.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes. US copyright law.
> Importing public domain material from Europe to
> the US is piracy.
Wrong. It might be copyright infringement if the material in question is still in copyright in the US, but it is _not_ piracy.
1) No one need worry that linking to GPL'd works will force them to release their source. That can't happen. At absolute worst they might be required to destroy all copies of the infringing derivative and pay damages.
2) While a source package designed to be statically linked to a GPL'd library might not be a derivative of said library, I see no way that the binary resulting from compiling and linking that package would not be as it will contain an actual copy of the library.
> The birth of the first newsgroup,
> alt.news.cultureclub (hey, it was the 80's!)
Usenet was well established in 1983. It can and did operate independently of the Internet.
I think we should give him credit for creating Network Solutions instead. I wonder how much Verisign stock he ended up with?
You said it's Open Source. If you don't like their policies fork the project.
> Now that technology can make music free (and
...better still, what if *your* song played
> available), why not make it omnipresent as
> well?
Because 99% of what you and your friends consider great "tunes" I consider obnoxious, intrusive crap. And vice-versa, no doubt.
> What about a signature song that uniquely
> identifies you?
I don't think that the sort of people who are interested in these things want to be unique.
>
> every time you called someone else?
Clever. Audible caller id. I'd find obnoxious, except that I will never own a phone that plays tunes anyway. I might someday be willing to use one that says things like "You have a call from Zekk", though.
There were plenty of Jack Valentis around at the time of Gutenberg. That's why we have copyright.
> One company (a federally supported monopoly) ran
> the copper wires into your home (if you live in
> the US).
Not true.
> phone companies, like public utilities and most
> cable companies, are natural monopolies.
If they were natural monopolies there would not be laws in most jurisdictions making it illegal to compete with them.
> At least somebody must believe it is right, or it
> would have gotten shot down by now.
Nonsense. The law has nothing to do with right and wrong.
Most of that outside plant was installed when doing so was much, much more expensive. I have two fiber-optic cables and two buried telephone cables crossing my land, and I live among dairy farms 100 miles from the nearest large city. These cables belong to two different companies and the owner of the second telephone cable intends to offer service on it soon (it was laid a couple of years ago).
Probably because he is confusing it with Teflon, which was developed in the 1940s by the US nuclear weapons program.
Even those products that _were_ developed as part of the space program would have been developed anyway, at an appropriate time. The notion of net benefits to society from government program "spinoff" is nonsense.
> and of course the gov't subsidies most phone
> companies recieved (in direct payments and via
> grants of monopoly status) to run those lines
> doesn't entitle the tax payers that funded them
> to anything.
Why should they receive either subsidies or protection of their monopolies?
> The idea is that there is only a limited amount
> of space to run wires in -- so let a single
> regional provider do that.
There is only a limited amount of space to build grocery stores in -- so let a single regional provider do that.
> I have my doubts, but the regulation has
> withstood numerous challenges in court, at the
> agency level (FCC) and in Congress.
Yes, of course it has. What has that got to do with whether or not it is right?
Why couldn't _you_ get a dry pair from your apartment to Covad's facility?
The whole idea of requiring phone company A to allow phone company B to sell "service" over phone company A's lines is ludicrous. Just let them both run their own lines.
> How often do you actually check your local ... ...
> university to see how much they spent on:
>
>
Someone _will_ check on the contracts for these things, usually one or more of the losing bidders or some private watchdog organization. And if they see something suspicious, they _will_ bring it to the attention of the press and the legislature.
> If they can get a discount on MS licenses, I say
.02% of the population that cares or even looks
> "power to them."
How do you know they are getting a discount when the contract is secret?
> I think schools having to pay less outweighs the
>
> through the records.
Only one person has to look through the records to blow the whistle on corruption and/or incompetence. That's the point of such laws.
> Sure, an architect might be able to develop a
> building in some obscure package in linux. But
> the firms want you to know AUTOCAD.
These are universities, not vo-techs.
> Sure, StarOffice is great (I use it), but most
> companies require MS Word for a reason. And
> EXCEL MACROS are a must in most research places.
So you are saying that even after using it in grade school and high school students need four years of college to learn Microsoft's wonderfully "intuitive" software?
> I will gladly trade my right to privacy for a
> bit more freedom from the fear of terror.
No need to give up anything. Just quit believing the lies.
> After all, having government spooks reading my
> email is infinitely preferable to being
> incinerated in a nuclear fireball.
If there is any correlation at all between spooks reading your mail and the probability of nuclear incineration it is positive.
> This is too scary. I am now ready for a little
> less convenience and a little more privacy. How
> about you?"
Anomolous behavior will flag you as a "person of interest". Find out what the typical consumer of your age, income and education does and do it.
> DOW is now using the DMCA to threaten Verio,
No. Dow is using copyright law to threaten Verio. The DMCA is forcing them to give Verio an opportunity to remove the putatively infringing material and thereby avoid any penalties. In the absence of the DMCA Dow could sue and possibly collect damages even if Verio took the material down as soon as they were notified. This would mean, of course, that no ISP would ever let anyone put any parodies up at all.
> And how about upgrades? It seems to me that
> upgrading from one version to another should
> automatically trigger a search to ensure that
> installed programs are still there so that
> everything actually works.
The Debian menu system is supposed to take care of that. Policy requires me to put code in my scripts to add my packages to the menu when they are installed and remove them from the menu when they are removed. I don't know how well it works because I don't use menus.
> No, you're paying for a personal internet
...and they wouldn't care what you did with the
...it shouldn't matter what you do, so long as
...or having 4 or 5 people using it all the
> connection.
But what I want to pay for is bandwidth usage.
> If you were paying for bandwidth, it would
> likely be more expensive...
Why?
>
> connection.
That's the point.
>
> you don't abuse the service, say by downloading
> stuff 24/7...
Not likely with one phone line used for personal calls, business, and the computer.
>
> time.
Two people, and usage that is probably below average.
> Would you like it if the phone company said you
> could only have 1 phone on your line,
The phone company did just that for more than half a century. In fact, they did not allow customers to use their own phones at all. We were supposed to rent phones from them.
I agree, though. ISPs should sell metered service and charge by the byte.