> Infinite loops don't just happen to stupid people >;). Anyone can get too tired to realise they're > sending a billion packets a second because they > reversed a conditional or something.
That would account for a temporary slowdown, but a robust network would have recovered as soon as he pulled the plug. This one didn't. Are they going to actually fix it, or just throw more hardware at the problem?
> Although I admit link-prefetching may be good, > but if it becomes a on-bydefault feature in most > browsers, the ones that it will damage are the > content providers.
And those of us who do not have always-on wideband connections. Between this and the refusal to fix the DNS timeout bug I'm becoming rather unhappy with Mozilla.
> How do you provide open source without escrow, > yet protect what we are documenting up front as > out intellectual property rights in the ownership > of this code?"
This has nothing to do with Open Source. You're just looking for an ordinary source license such as companies have been using for decades. Hire a lawyer.
> I believe the idea is that it's not enough to > simply boycott the Entertainment Cartel, because > most of us couldn't go without movies/music > forever.
The last time I bought any music was when I bought an LP for my mother in the seventies. I haven't been to a movie since the early eighties. My tv has been broken for about ten years: I could fix it, but it has never seemed important enough to bother. I have never downloaded any illegally copied music. This not some incredible demonstration of moral outrage and self-restraint. It's just that the entertainment cartel has nothing I want.
Wrong. All they have to do is monitor the radiation from the local oscillator in your radio. The British government uses this to detect unlicensed radios and TVs. To stop them modify your radio to use a non-standard IF.
> Later versions of FlatStack will connect to > appliances wirelessly....coming soon to your neighborhood. Watch blocks of yard lights flash in sequence! Listen to hundreds of stereos blasting!
Facts cannot be copyrighted, full stop. Therefor there is no copyright issue, and the DMCA does not apply.
> These sites are getting this infomation from > people who are preparing the ads that haven't > yet been released, all of whom are under > non-disclosure agreements to not tell what's in > the ads that they're working on.
The sites, however, are under no agreements at all.
> If these sites post the same infomation once the > ads ads published, they're in the clear. But > again, these ads are at this moment trade > secrets.
Tough shit. It's up to the companies to keep their secrets secret. Keeping their secrets away from people who might publish them is their problem. Once it gets out it isn't a secret any more.
> The company/person filing the complaint should > have to go to court to get an injuction to get > the offending material removed.
They _do_ have to go to court to force the material to be removed. It's just that under the DMCA they can't sue you if you voluntarily remove it upon receipt of the cease and desist letter. In the absence of the DMCA "safe harbor" provision they could sue you for having put it up even if you did take it down as soon as they complained.
The DMCA applies in that its "safe harbor" provision says that if you take down purportedly infringing material as soon as you are notified of the infringement the copyright owner can't sue you. In the absence of this bit of law copyright owners could still send out "cease and desist" letters, but they could still sue you even if you did obey. In fact, they could just sue, without bothering with the letter.
You've got it exactly backwards. If the loser had to pay the winner's legal expenses people would be afraid to sue big companies because of the risk of being required to pay the big companies $100,000 legal bill. The big companies, on the other hand, would see the risk of having to pay the "little guy's" $10,000 bill as a minor cost of doing business.
BTW you can collect legal expenses from a losing plaintiff if you can show that his suit was frivolious and malicious.
Then some greedy company comes along and builds a
user-friendly program around you're GPL'ed
program, but releases it under a EULA. That EULA
is automatically void, and anyone who gets that
program can reverse engineer it to get the
source, and may be on legal standing to demand
that the company give them the source.
This is not true. The EULA will be enforceable and only the owner of the copyright on the GPLd code will have standing to sue.
Slashdot Mirror
> Infinite loops don't just happen to stupid people ;). Anyone can get too tired to realise they're
>
> sending a billion packets a second because they
> reversed a conditional or something.
That would account for a temporary slowdown, but a robust network would have recovered as soon as he pulled the plug. This one didn't. Are they going to actually fix it, or just throw more hardware at the problem?
A network that can be brought down by an application is not of production quality.
> Although I admit link-prefetching may be good,
> but if it becomes a on-bydefault feature in most
> browsers, the ones that it will damage are the
> content providers.
And those of us who do not have always-on wideband connections. Between this and the refusal to fix the DNS timeout bug I'm becoming rather unhappy with Mozilla.
> How do you provide open source without escrow,
> yet protect what we are documenting up front as
> out intellectual property rights in the ownership
> of this code?"
This has nothing to do with Open Source. You're just looking for an ordinary source license such as companies have been using for decades. Hire a lawyer.
> One small but positive step in the gradual ... RadioShack
> erosion of personal privacy
> will no longer ask for your name and address...
I'd call that a _negative_ step in "the gradual erosion of personal privacy".
> Always freaked me out being asked my address
> just to buy some solder or something.
I've never had any difficulty saying no.
While it would be nice to be able to boot FreeBSD in case I ever want to try it, the inability to boot any version of Windows is a real plus.
> RMS wants no one to have any [money].
This is a lie.
> I believe the idea is that it's not enough to
> simply boycott the Entertainment Cartel, because
> most of us couldn't go without movies/music
> forever.
The last time I bought any music was when I bought an LP for my mother in the seventies. I haven't been to a movie since the early eighties. My tv has been broken for about ten years: I could fix it, but it has never seemed important enough to bother. I have never downloaded any illegally copied music. This not some incredible demonstration of moral outrage and self-restraint. It's just that the entertainment cartel has nothing I want.
> How many people have given to [the] EFF more
> money than they have given to their local telecom
> to give them shitty DSL service?
This is pretty easy to do when your local (independent) telco offers no DSL service, shitty or otherwise (not that I could afford it anyway).
> there's no passive way to do this at all.
Wrong. All they have to do is monitor the radiation from the local oscillator in your radio. The British government uses this to detect unlicensed radios and TVs. To stop them modify your radio to use a non-standard IF.
> Later versions of FlatStack will connect to ...coming soon to your neighborhood. Watch blocks of yard lights flash in sequence! Listen to hundreds of stereos blasting!
> appliances wirelessly.
> Thanks to the AC who noticed the goofed headline
> ("this is only a test," remember), now amended.
Yet you never corrected the bogus "jumping genes" headline. Why is that?
...the male morning after pill.
> I understand that part. I do not understand how
> copyright law enters into this equation though.
It doesn't, and we don't even know that the letters FatWallet received mentioned copyright or the DMCA.
> ...if they were not published, then it would not
...but trade secret law that comes into play,
> be copyright violation,...
In the US copyright is for any creative work, published or not. However, prices are facts, not creative works.
>
Whether or not trade secret laws were violated depends on how and where the sites acquired the prices.
> Published facts cannot be copyrighted.
Facts cannot be copyrighted, full stop. Therefor there is no copyright issue, and the DMCA does not apply.
> These sites are getting this infomation from
> people who are preparing the ads that haven't
> yet been released, all of whom are under
> non-disclosure agreements to not tell what's in
> the ads that they're working on.
The sites, however, are under no agreements at all.
> If these sites post the same infomation once the
> ads ads published, they're in the clear. But
> again, these ads are at this moment trade
> secrets.
Tough shit. It's up to the companies to keep their secrets secret. Keeping their secrets away from people who might publish them is their problem. Once it gets out it isn't a secret any more.
> The company/person filing the complaint should
> have to go to court to get an injuction to get
> the offending material removed.
They _do_ have to go to court to force the material to be removed. It's just that under the DMCA they can't sue you if you voluntarily remove it upon receipt of the cease and desist letter. In the absence of the DMCA "safe harbor" provision they could sue you for having put it up even if you did take it down as soon as they complained.
The DMCA applies in that its "safe harbor" provision says that if you take down purportedly infringing material as soon as you are notified of the infringement the copyright owner can't sue you. In the absence of this bit of law copyright owners could still send out "cease and desist" letters, but they could still sue you even if you did obey. In fact, they could just sue, without bothering with the letter.
You've got it exactly backwards. If the loser had to pay the winner's legal expenses people would be afraid to sue big companies because of the risk of being required to pay the big companies $100,000 legal bill. The big companies, on the other hand, would see the risk of having to pay the "little guy's" $10,000 bill as a minor cost of doing business.
BTW you can collect legal expenses from a losing plaintiff if you can show that his suit was frivolious and malicious.
> What would the effects of such a system be on
> America and the world?
Such an improbable fantasy would result in the collapse of government (not that this would be a bad thing).
> The only time you need a tax ID is if you want to
> eventually hire people.
He means a sales tax license. In some jurisdictions consulting services are subject to sales tax.
> If you end up doing a lot of consulting work,
> you're going to have to get a business license
Depends on the jurisdiction.
Then some greedy company comes along and builds a
user-friendly program around you're GPL'ed
program, but releases it under a EULA. That EULA
is automatically void, and anyone who gets that
program can reverse engineer it to get the
source, and may be on legal standing to demand
that the company give them the source.
This is not true. The EULA will be enforceable and only the owner of the copyright on the GPLd code will have standing to sue.
> ...a trusted entity like Verisign...
"Trusted"? ROFLMAO.
Mr. Wyman appears to have the backing of his newspaper. I think they can afford a lawyer or two.