Hi. I work for the FSF investigating GPL violations (and yes, we are also working on this Linksys thing). Can you tell me more about this Cisco issue? Is there any software FSF holds copyright on (the gnu c library, bash, gnu tar, gzip...)? Does the unit come with an offer to provide source code?
Hi. I work for the FSF investigating license violations. Can you let me know if there's any software on the Viglen box which FSF holds copyright on? Maybe gzip, or bash, or glibc, or GNU Tar? We even have copyright on a small part of busybox. If we do hold copyright, we can work to get you source code, like we did in this case (but, hopefully, without taking a year and a newspaper article). Also, let me know the exact name of the product. My email address is novalis at fsf period org.
Embedded device makers must provide source
on
GPL and Leased Software?
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Is this situation similar to the one where the makers of DSL/cable routers don't have to provide the source, even though the devices are based on embedded Linux?"
This is false -- people who make embedded devices using GPL software must make available source code to that software.
It's true. Mailing lists don't exist. Nobody signs up for the Everything2 Daily News. And E-Savers are a myth.
I am not supporting spam -- as a mailing list administrator, and recipient of mail for a well-known address, I hate spam. But I do not like to hear any proposals which assume that only bad people send lots of mail. It simply isn't true.
Sure, the GPL's text turns off some business people. But legalese turns off more hackers, and, well, hackers are the ones writing the code. The GPL's text is what attracted me to Free Software in the first place.
If business people don't want to use GPL'd code, then they're free to pay enough hackers to write a proprietary solution. It turns out that, at least in firewall boxes and embedded systems compilers, almost nobody is choosing to do that.
Could you legally distribute that and tell your customers to go and purchase Steven King's book if you want to read the first part of the story? Of course not.
Some Slashdotters may not believe this. I point them to Universal City Studios Inc. v. Kamar Industries, Inc. 217 USPQ 1165 (S.D. Tex 1982), and Microstar v. Formgen, Inc. 154 F.3d 1107. These cases were decided on the basis of no literal copying, but instead the copying of characters by reference to the original works.
Perhaps not surprisingly, there's actually some good stuff in the public domain. I recommend Three Men In A Boat, by Jerome K. Jerome. Heck, I can't even pick a section to quote, as it's all so good. Just start reading it.
The US Government *can* own a copyright -- it just doesn't get them on works it creates itself.
And, while I don't know if the government can obtain, register, etc, a trademark, they don't need to -- they can just create another sui generis trademark-like right, like they did for the Gold Star Mothers, the Boy Scouts, the Olympic Games, and others.
If you write to the FSF's director of communications, Ravi Khanna at ravi at fsf.org, he'll set you up. We're just doing it for another guy, now. I don't know if it's a simple process, but we're glad to do it.
I don't see a copy of the software on their web site. If you have more information about this (like, evidence that it's GNU's awk, as opposed to one of the BSD ones), please send full details to licensing@gnu.org, and I'll look into it..
Google deserves criticism now, for its censorship practices,
I assume you are talking about the Scientology stuff. I think it would have been praiseworthy to fight the DMCA in court, but I don't think that anyone is ethically required to. I notice that you don't have the secret Scientology documents on your web site.
for hiring a former NSA spook,
I believe that the NSA is fundamentally evil, because it is too far removed from the control of the people, and because wiretaps ought to be reserved for criminal investigations with probable cause, and because it worked to stop the spread of strong crypto. However, people who work for the NSA, no doubt gain great expertise in data search techniques. It seems to me that quitting the NSA is praiseworthy, and that one should not refuse to hire someone on the grounds that they once worked for the NSA.
capitalism is, fundamentally, amoral.
This, I disagree with -- it simply follows from a morality which places property rights above all other rights. This morality is as pernicious as those which elevate the words of books or of certain people above their due -- but it is a moral system. It is worthwhile to be precise here.
Ultimately, Google doesn't give a shit about "doing the right thing", only insofar as "doing the right thing" is necessary to prevent bad publicity. Sure, there are many people working for Google who do care. But for any sufficiently large company, it's the bottom line that counts, nothing else.
I agree that this is necessarily true for public companies, but I do not agree that it is necessarily true for privately held companies. Chick-fil-a, for instance, is closed on Sunday because of the owners' religious beliefs. And I think that decisions are made at Google with the goal of doing, if not good, then not evil. I think that for Google, more than the bottom line counts. That's why they put the DMCA notes in search results.
OTOH, I agree with you that the cookie thing is dangerous.
Now instead of this ridiculous ".name" they should have introduced ".sex" and forced all those sex-companies into that TLD.
Lots of people think that this is a good idea, because they have a very clear idea of what a sex website is. Unfortunately, if you asked ten of these people which websites were sex websites, you would get ten very different clear ideas.
Trojan Condoms? Go Ask Alice? Reverse Cowgirl Blog? My dream log, which occasionally talks about sex, but has not yet described it in detail? The Bible? Bible Sex Facts, an evangelical Christian site with explicit discussion of sexual behavior?
AFAIK, no kernel code has been assigned to the EFF. But you really meant the FSF, which has most of the S390 stuff, but nothing else.
But if you're a kernel hacker, especially in the core, and want to see the GPL get enforced more effectively, just write to assign@gnu.org, and assign copyright to the FSF. Right now, almost everyone who uses the kernel also uses various GNU userspace applications. That's what lets me do my job of enforcing the GPL. But it would be much easier if the FSF simply had copyright in one or two core kernel files.
A 70-character passphrase *is* better than a 32-character passphrase, because your passphrase is likely not random characters -- it's an English phrase, and English has low entropy.
I, too, am a big James Morrow fan (although he was rude to a friend of mine at a book signing). But I think that especially the second and final Godhead books are far from his best. My recommendations would be City Of Truth and This is the Way the World Ends .
In the US, time- and space-shifting are allowed by 17 USC 107 (as interpreted by Sony v. Universal and Diamond v. RIAA, respectively). Some commentators claim that if 17 USC 107 didn't exist, the courts would have to invent it for First Amendment reasons.
The warnings on tapes have no legal force whatsoever.
Slashdot Mirror
Hi. I work for the FSF investigating GPL violations (and yes, we are also working on this Linksys thing). Can you tell me more about this Cisco issue? Is there any software FSF holds copyright on (the gnu c library, bash, gnu tar, gzip ...)? Does the unit come with an offer to provide source code?
Hi. I work for the FSF investigating license violations. Can you let me know if there's any software on the Viglen box which FSF holds copyright on? Maybe gzip, or bash, or glibc, or GNU Tar? We even have copyright on a small part of busybox. If we do hold copyright, we can work to get you source code, like we did in this case (but, hopefully, without taking a year and a newspaper article). Also, let me know the exact name of the product. My email address is novalis at fsf period org.
er, s/make/distribute, by selling, leasing, etc/
Is this situation similar to the one where the makers of DSL/cable routers don't have to provide the source, even though the devices are based on embedded Linux?"
This is false -- people who make embedded devices using GPL software must make available source code to that software.
is the only thing to ever fail the creativity criterion
What about map data in Alexander Drafting co. v. Amsterdam, or page numbering in the various Westlaw cases (remember to look post-Feist)?
Wrong (in the US, anyway)
It's true. Mailing lists don't exist. Nobody signs up for the Everything2 Daily News. And E-Savers are a myth.
I am not supporting spam -- as a mailing list administrator, and recipient of mail for a well-known address, I hate spam. But I do not like to hear any proposals which assume that only bad people send lots of mail. It simply isn't true.
Sure, the GPL's text turns off some business people. But legalese turns off more hackers, and, well, hackers are the ones writing the code. The GPL's text is what attracted me to Free Software in the first place.
If business people don't want to use GPL'd code, then they're free to pay enough hackers to write a proprietary solution. It turns out that, at least in firewall boxes and embedded systems compilers, almost nobody is choosing to do that.
Could you legally distribute that and tell your customers to go and purchase Steven King's book if you want to read the first part of the story? Of course not.
Some Slashdotters may not believe this. I point them to Universal City Studios Inc. v. Kamar Industries, Inc. 217 USPQ 1165 (S.D. Tex 1982), and Microstar v. Formgen, Inc. 154 F.3d 1107. These cases were decided on the basis of no literal copying, but instead the copying of characters by reference to the original works.
OTOH, IANAL.
More on this:
He writes his legal briefs in LaTeX. He says that he uses Perl for much of his programming, because it reminds him of APL.
Perhaps not surprisingly, there's actually some good stuff in the public domain. I recommend Three Men In A Boat, by Jerome K. Jerome. Heck, I can't even pick a section to quote, as it's all so good. Just start reading it.
The US Government *can* own a copyright -- it just doesn't get them on works it creates itself.
And, while I don't know if the government can obtain, register, etc, a trademark, they don't need to -- they can just create another sui generis trademark-like right, like they did for the Gold Star Mothers, the Boy Scouts, the Olympic Games, and others.
No. They changed the name to Next Generation Secure Computing Base.
The Trusted Computing Platform Alliance is doing a similar thing to Pd, but it's here *now*.
If you write to the FSF's director of communications, Ravi Khanna at ravi at fsf.org, he'll set you up. We're just doing it for another guy, now. I don't know if it's a simple process, but we're glad to do it.
I don't see a copy of the software on their web site. If you have more information about this (like, evidence that it's GNU's awk, as opposed to one of the BSD ones), please send full details to licensing@gnu.org, and I'll look into it..
No, because the FSF doesn't hold copyright in the relevant parts of the Linux kernel. There's nothing we can do.
Google deserves criticism now, for its censorship practices,
I assume you are talking about the Scientology stuff. I think it would have been praiseworthy to fight the DMCA in court, but I don't think that anyone is ethically required to. I notice that you don't have the secret Scientology documents on your web site.
for hiring a former NSA spook,
I believe that the NSA is fundamentally evil, because it is too far removed from the control of the people, and because wiretaps ought to be reserved for criminal investigations with probable cause, and because it worked to stop the spread of strong crypto. However, people who work for the NSA, no doubt gain great expertise in data search techniques. It seems to me that quitting the NSA is praiseworthy, and that one should not refuse to hire someone on the grounds that they once worked for the NSA.
capitalism is, fundamentally, amoral.
This, I disagree with -- it simply follows from a morality which places property rights above all other rights. This morality is as pernicious as those which elevate the words of books or of certain people above their due -- but it is a moral system. It is worthwhile to be precise here.
Ultimately, Google doesn't give a shit about "doing the right thing", only insofar as "doing the right thing" is necessary to prevent bad publicity. Sure, there are many people working for Google who do care. But for any sufficiently large company, it's the bottom line that counts, nothing else.
I agree that this is necessarily true for public companies, but I do not agree that it is necessarily true for privately held companies. Chick-fil-a, for instance, is closed on Sunday because of the owners' religious beliefs. And I think that decisions are made at Google with the goal of doing, if not good, then not evil. I think that for Google, more than the bottom line counts. That's why they put the DMCA notes in search results.
OTOH, I agree with you that the cookie thing is dangerous.
Now instead of this ridiculous ".name" they should have introduced ".sex" and forced all those sex-companies into that TLD.
Lots of people think that this is a good idea, because they have a very clear idea of what a sex website is. Unfortunately, if you asked ten of these people which websites were sex websites, you would get ten very different clear ideas.
Trojan Condoms?
Go Ask Alice?
Reverse Cowgirl Blog?
My dream log, which occasionally talks about sex, but has not yet described it in detail?
The Bible?
Bible Sex Facts, an evangelical Christian site with explicit discussion of sexual behavior?
AFAIK, no kernel code has been assigned to the EFF. But you really meant the FSF, which has most of the S390 stuff, but nothing else.
But if you're a kernel hacker, especially in the core, and want to see the GPL get enforced more effectively, just write to assign@gnu.org, and assign copyright to the FSF. Right now, almost everyone who uses the kernel also uses various GNU userspace applications. That's what lets me do my job of enforcing the GPL. But it would be much easier if the FSF simply had copyright in one or two core kernel files.
A 70-character passphrase *is* better than a 32-character passphrase, because your passphrase is likely not random characters -- it's an English phrase, and English has low entropy.
I would be careful with the DVD example -- even reading a DVD requires unloocking the player.
Of course, IANAL.
I, too, am a big James Morrow fan (although he was rude to a friend of mine at a book signing). But I think that especially the second and final Godhead books are far from his best. My recommendations would be City Of Truth and This is the Way the World Ends .
In the US, time- and space-shifting are allowed by 17 USC 107 (as interpreted by Sony v. Universal and Diamond v. RIAA, respectively). Some commentators claim that if 17 USC 107 didn't exist, the courts would have to invent it for First Amendment reasons.
The warnings on tapes have no legal force whatsoever.
Is this when clicking on a link? It ought to only happen if you click on a link, according to the author's description.
You document it so everyone can benefit.
You don't do it to cement a monopoly.