It does MSFT no good to say they comply with the old version of Kerberos if everyone moves on to a non-extend-and-embrace version. Noone will buy it then.
Microsoft has notified them that they believe that a copyrighted document they control is being duplicated without authorization and asking Slashdot/Andover to remove it in good faith.
No, they haven't - it's an email - only certified registered snail mail is proof that it came from them.
They have not passed the electronic signature bill, nor has it been signed, so all emails are unenforceable under the law.
True, but Slashdot/Andover is still responsible for removing the copyrighted material from any servers they have control over.
No, they have yet to receive a demand letter by certified mail. So no legal request has yet been made - the electronic signature bill is still in committee, so emails are unenforceable.
Also, what proof of copyright has MSFT presented - via certified mail? And they have yet to inform the true copyright holders, the slashdot posters, who implicitly have copyright until proven otherwise in a court of law.
Besides, according to most of us, MSFT is in violation of the root license for Kerberos, and thus could not have a legal copyright to the extensions, as they are based on an illegal use of a piece of work.
Since I've got a few hundred magazines and articles in the US Library of Congress (and also the Canadian one), I'm pretty darn sure that this is correct, based upon all the bleeding forms I had to fill out over the years. I didn't get into Who's Who in the World for my dancing ability, after all...
Seriously, I've got a dual 9.1 GB SCSI hotswap from VA Linux (dual CPU boards up to 600MHz PIII, currently 450MHz PII (without the ID...)) and another from Penguin Computing (my play machine, same basic config, but I got a CD/RW in this instead of a Zip drive).
What's with the single drive? You can't stripe or anything... and for static serves, that's critical. heck, it's more important than dual CPUs or RAM!
In short: You might want to address the claims that Microsoft has laid forth in its letter. The other questions are great, yes, but is not going to get you very far in stating your case as for why unauthorized reprodctions of copyrighted work appear on your site. Even if Microsoft relinquished all rights that they have to the specification, the infringement still occurred in the past and is punishable.
I don't necessarily agree, but IANAL. I would consider taking the action of notifying the posters of the request by MSFT, and asking for their response. Unless they're ACs.
Of course, if they are citizens of Europe, they can tell MSFT to go suck eggs. Or other countries where these legal restrictions are more weighted towards the public good and less the corporate evil.
How do we know if you're really Mark Robins? You could be Bill G, Dark Lord of Microsoft for all we know, surfing slashdot right before a ragefest flameout at your employees.
When you're dealing with MSFT, you don't bow down to the dark lord, you step right up to him and scream right back in his face.
That said, I hope someone sent the reply by registered snail mail, as electronic communication is not yet legally enforceable, and can be easily revised to correct things like spelling mistakes (e.g. "the Microsoft" in the main post) and errors that one could be sued over (e.g. when MSFT let's slip it's plans for world domination).
[note - as a shareholder of MSFT, I'm speaking against my interests - but I also own Red Hat shares, too]
As UCITA has been passed and signed into law in two states, this could be a problem if the Web Server that the EXE appeared on had physical residence in Virginia or that other backwards state that passed it.
Under the terms of UCITA, you don't even have to read the non-extracted file that you didn't know was there to have basically given away all your rights to MSFT. The non-publication of the license still makes it enforceable, and they now can hunt inside your computer system, without court order or permission, to try to find the Kerboros spec if they determine that you violated the license from their perspective. You're automatically presumed guilty before being proven innocent. It's up to you to pay the legal fees, and you have no recourse.
At least UCITA hasn't even appeared in Washington State, we're not that gullible about tech stuff. Plus I told about half the state officials, state reps, and state senators about it.
Well, it seems at work that we have at least five shareholders on Borland/Inprise (INPR) here, and I must say we're ecstatic about this. And, it appears so is the market - puzzlingly so.
I mean, why did the share price of both Borland (INPR) and Corel (CORL) both go up on the news? Is it the lead weight of Corel being lifted from around Borland's neck? Or the escape from a punishing lawsuit by nasty American lawyers working for Borland against Corel's buyout.
In the end, I never got to vote on a darned thing - what use are 700 shares if they act like the owners don't exist?
I mean, with all these virii going around, there's no way I ever open a self-extracting file without scanning it and ignoring anything that isn't supposed to be there.
With all that free advertising they're getting, their stock should go through the roof..
Actually, the market is risk averse. Negative publicity and the implicit potential for costs related to a lawsuit usually drive a stock down. Of course, if you believe in the net effect of increased revenues and further growth, this would make it attractive to a long term investor.
Hmm... ok, I guess it is time to buy/. shares if MSFT is suing.
According to one of their reporters, the influential Seattle Weekly, one of our free weeklies that all the politicos and arts crowd reads, is doing stories on the DCMA and also on MSFT suing Slashdot.
They say that they can't get any of the Slashdot staffers to comment on it, though.
I just so love dropping nuclear bombs in Bill G's lap - the expression is priceless and you can hear the screams all the way across Lake Washington...
Not true. In most Commonwealth countries, you can only sue the Crown (aka govt) if it lets you sue. I believe you can't sue the Supreme Court, Congress, the President, and the Senate unless they permit you to. There are certain exceptions to this rule, but in general, you can't sue certain portions of government or royal personages without their permission.
Just a silly question, but when I was trying to get E*Trade to release the shares for the coders, I found that a lot of press coverage from other news organizations, as well as any federal agencies one can think of, sure makes large corporations sit back and think.
So, if every person on slashdot forwards the story link in an email to all the tech and business news organizations they know of, the intense spotlight of coverage might change the end result.
It's called daylight, you shine it on worms.
[Note: I own shares of MSFT, so I guess I should email them to complain about misuse of corporate resources to hound slashdot]
Actually, another very good point. If you believe that the original MIT license means that any added licensure restrictions by MSFT are null and void, you should inform MIT of this demand (by physical letter, since we do not have legal digital signatures to verify at this moment). And you should consider contacting the ACLU and EFF.
Attempts to enforce licenses which are in violation of the original license are unenforceable in a court of law - they can threaten you, they can twist the truth, but a judge will laugh in their face.
Definitely wait for a paper copy, delivered by US registered mail. It's probably someone pretending to be from MSFT.
As to the ISP letter - my understanding is that the US Supreme Court recently ruled that you can't be sued for posts by your users, so it sounds like you would want to go through the legal process. After all, if the person purporting to be from MSFT is asking you to do something that you don't have to do, one would want to wait until a court properly ordered you to do so.
And the point on filtering posts is very critical - the action of filtering removes certain legal protections which the Supreme Court upheld.
Remember that lawyers acheive 90% of their work by intimidating their targets, regardless of what a court of law would eventually rule.
I've got a better idea, with no packet loss during hunting season. It's based on a field application used at the Beach Burn in Seattle by some of the Burning Man crew.
What we do is use real wood pallets to encode the information in art sculptures. Then we burn them in a wild party, with drums used to transmit the signals that were in the art to the participants. OK, the packets are kind of big, but most observers will be distracted by the art that they'll never clue in that the painted glyphs on the packets contain actual information.
It's kind of lossy, and you need trucks to transport the pallets, but it makes for a great party. And you can even roast the pidgeons from the other method if you get hungry.
I was starting to get worried, what with all these people talking about getting 40 emails saying I LOVE U and me not getting any. I guess I just have a lot of friends who use *nix.
Trying to remind myself why I didn't sell at $300.:) RHAT turned into a Looong term investment for me in the past month or so.:)
Well, I only bought 25 shares at $110 as I thought it might drop down a bit, then picked up 75 shares at $25 and now the 100 shares at $21 5/8. But it could go down more, mostly due to the whole drag coefficient of tech stocks in general.
It's called speculation in that you're speculating which way the price will go. It could go to zero.
In general, if you start wondering if it's overvalued or undervalued, it probably is. But that doesn't mean the market will react that way. Bank stocks are down right now due to silly reasons that a long-term investor could care less about, plus they have low P/Es and high dividend rates. They could go down more. And I'll buy more.
The problem with buying RHAT for me is that I do get a little emotionally attached to the company. Which is a risk in itself.
Slashdot Mirror
It does MSFT no good to say they comply with the old version of Kerberos if everyone moves on to a non-extend-and-embrace version. Noone will buy it then.
Microsoft has notified them that they believe that a copyrighted document they control is being duplicated without authorization and asking Slashdot/Andover to remove it in good faith.
No, they haven't - it's an email - only certified registered snail mail is proof that it came from them.
They have not passed the electronic signature bill, nor has it been signed, so all emails are unenforceable under the law.
What part of NO don't you get?
I already sent in an email in French complaining about this, since I'm a dual citizen living in the US, and this was the first I heard of it.
True, but Slashdot/Andover is still responsible for removing the copyrighted material from any servers they have control over.
...
No, they have yet to receive a demand letter by certified mail. So no legal request has yet been made - the electronic signature bill is still in committee, so emails are unenforceable.
Also, what proof of copyright has MSFT presented - via certified mail? And they have yet to inform the true copyright holders, the slashdot posters, who implicitly have copyright until proven otherwise in a court of law.
Besides, according to most of us, MSFT is in violation of the root license for Kerberos, and thus could not have a legal copyright to the extensions, as they are based on an illegal use of a piece of work.
Since I've got a few hundred magazines and articles in the US Library of Congress (and also the Canadian one), I'm pretty darn sure that this is correct, based upon all the bleeding forms I had to fill out over the years. I didn't get into Who's Who in the World for my dancing ability, after all
Seriously, I've got a dual 9.1 GB SCSI hotswap from VA Linux (dual CPU boards up to 600MHz PIII, currently 450MHz PII (without the ID ...)) and another from Penguin Computing (my play machine, same basic config, but I got a CD/RW in this instead of a Zip drive).
... and for static serves, that's critical. heck, it's more important than dual CPUs or RAM!
What's with the single drive? You can't stripe or anything
In short: You might want to address the claims that Microsoft has laid forth in its letter. The other questions are great, yes, but is not going to get you very far in stating your case as for why unauthorized reprodctions of copyrighted work appear on your site. Even if Microsoft relinquished all rights that they have to the specification, the infringement still occurred in the past and is punishable.
I don't necessarily agree, but IANAL. I would consider taking the action of notifying the posters of the request by MSFT, and asking for their response. Unless they're ACs.
Of course, if they are citizens of Europe, they can tell MSFT to go suck eggs. Or other countries where these legal restrictions are more weighted towards the public good and less the corporate evil.
How do we know if you're really Mark Robins? You could be Bill G, Dark Lord of Microsoft for all we know, surfing slashdot right before a ragefest flameout at your employees.
Hey, trust, verify, but always use WinZip.
When you're dealing with MSFT, you don't bow down to the dark lord, you step right up to him and scream right back in his face.
That said, I hope someone sent the reply by registered snail mail, as electronic communication is not yet legally enforceable, and can be easily revised to correct things like spelling mistakes (e.g. "the Microsoft" in the main post) and errors that one could be sued over (e.g. when MSFT let's slip it's plans for world domination).
[note - as a shareholder of MSFT, I'm speaking against my interests - but I also own Red Hat shares, too]
As UCITA has been passed and signed into law in two states, this could be a problem if the Web Server that the EXE appeared on had physical residence in Virginia or that other backwards state that passed it.
Under the terms of UCITA, you don't even have to read the non-extracted file that you didn't know was there to have basically given away all your rights to MSFT. The non-publication of the license still makes it enforceable, and they now can hunt inside your computer system, without court order or permission, to try to find the Kerboros spec if they determine that you violated the license from their perspective. You're automatically presumed guilty before being proven innocent. It's up to you to pay the legal fees, and you have no recourse.
At least UCITA hasn't even appeared in Washington State, we're not that gullible about tech stuff. Plus I told about half the state officials, state reps, and state senators about it.
Well, it seems at work that we have at least five shareholders on Borland/Inprise (INPR) here, and I must say we're ecstatic about this. And, it appears so is the market - puzzlingly so.
I mean, why did the share price of both Borland (INPR) and Corel (CORL) both go up on the news? Is it the lead weight of Corel being lifted from around Borland's neck? Or the escape from a punishing lawsuit by nasty American lawyers working for Borland against Corel's buyout.
In the end, I never got to vote on a darned thing - what use are 700 shares if they act like the owners don't exist?
I mean, with all these virii going around, there's no way I ever open a self-extracting file without scanning it and ignoring anything that isn't supposed to be there.
Isn't that what we're supposed to do?
With all that free advertising they're getting, their stock should go through the roof ..
... ok, I guess it is time to buy /. shares if MSFT is suing.
Actually, the market is risk averse. Negative publicity and the implicit potential for costs related to a lawsuit usually drive a stock down. Of course, if you believe in the net effect of increased revenues and further growth, this would make it attractive to a long term investor.
Hmm
According to one of their reporters, the influential Seattle Weekly, one of our free weeklies that all the politicos and arts crowd reads, is doing stories on the DCMA and also on MSFT suing Slashdot.
...
They say that they can't get any of the Slashdot staffers to comment on it, though.
I just so love dropping nuclear bombs in Bill G's lap - the expression is priceless and you can hear the screams all the way across Lake Washington
Point of law -
Anyone CAN sue anyone.
Not true. In most Commonwealth countries, you can only sue the Crown (aka govt) if it lets you sue. I believe you can't sue the Supreme Court, Congress, the President, and the Senate unless they permit you to. There are certain exceptions to this rule, but in general, you can't sue certain portions of government or royal personages without their permission.
Looks like it's on cNet, according to this story here.
Anyone seen it on CNN in Tech, or NY Times, or Washington Post yet? How about Seattle Times or Seattle Post-Intelligencer or Seattle Weekly or The Stranger?
Just a silly question, but when I was trying to get E*Trade to release the shares for the coders, I found that a lot of press coverage from other news organizations, as well as any federal agencies one can think of, sure makes large corporations sit back and think.
So, if every person on slashdot forwards the story link in an email to all the tech and business news organizations they know of, the intense spotlight of coverage might change the end result.
It's called daylight, you shine it on worms.
[Note: I own shares of MSFT, so I guess I should email them to complain about misuse of corporate resources to hound slashdot]
Actually, another very good point. If you believe that the original MIT license means that any added licensure restrictions by MSFT are null and void, you should inform MIT of this demand (by physical letter, since we do not have legal digital signatures to verify at this moment). And you should consider contacting the ACLU and EFF.
Attempts to enforce licenses which are in violation of the original license are unenforceable in a court of law - they can threaten you, they can twist the truth, but a judge will laugh in their face.
Definitely!
Except, the question should be:
A) Compliance
B) Resistance
C) You are Borg - We are Slashdot
D) Hemos
Definitely wait for a paper copy, delivered by US registered mail. It's probably someone pretending to be from MSFT.
As to the ISP letter - my understanding is that the US Supreme Court recently ruled that you can't be sued for posts by your users, so it sounds like you would want to go through the legal process. After all, if the person purporting to be from MSFT is asking you to do something that you don't have to do, one would want to wait until a court properly ordered you to do so.
And the point on filtering posts is very critical - the action of filtering removes certain legal protections which the Supreme Court upheld.
Remember that lawyers acheive 90% of their work by intimidating their targets, regardless of what a court of law would eventually rule.
MSFT will sue them. Hey, if they can sue slashot, they can sue anyone.
Just a thought, since they're breaking it up and the Europeans don't like them ...
It's not like anyone's using it, after all.
I've got a better idea, with no packet loss during hunting season. It's based on a field application used at the Beach Burn in Seattle by some of the Burning Man crew.
What we do is use real wood pallets to encode the information in art sculptures. Then we burn them in a wild party, with drums used to transmit the signals that were in the art to the participants. OK, the packets are kind of big, but most observers will be distracted by the art that they'll never clue in that the painted glyphs on the packets contain actual information.
It's kind of lossy, and you need trucks to transport the pallets, but it makes for a great party. And you can even roast the pidgeons from the other method if you get hungry.
I'm a moderator for the third time in a month. This sucks!
... well, what can one do ...
Well, you could always moderate another thread you don't care about to burn your points up, and so your posting doesn't take away your moderations.
That's what I do, I look for a Katz article and moderate it. And since I'm so unbiased about Jon
I was starting to get worried, what with all these people talking about getting 40 emails saying I LOVE U and me not getting any. I guess I just have a lot of friends who use *nix.
Yep...
:) RHAT turned into a Looong term investment for me in the past month or so. :)
cash out,
Oops.
Trying to remind myself why I didn't sell at $300.
Well, I only bought 25 shares at $110 as I thought it might drop down a bit, then picked up 75 shares at $25 and now the 100 shares at $21 5/8. But it could go down more, mostly due to the whole drag coefficient of tech stocks in general.
It's called speculation in that you're speculating which way the price will go. It could go to zero.
In general, if you start wondering if it's overvalued or undervalued, it probably is. But that doesn't mean the market will react that way. Bank stocks are down right now due to silly reasons that a long-term investor could care less about, plus they have low P/Es and high dividend rates. They could go down more. And I'll buy more.
The problem with buying RHAT for me is that I do get a little emotionally attached to the company. Which is a risk in itself.