This is related to the reason why, even though the Amiga is now *obviously* a little bit outdated, there are still people out there claiming it's better than everything else.
Many Mac users are incapible of realizing that they're buying from a crappy company. Heck, if people were sane, Microsoft would never be able to sell any copys of Windows because people wouldn't agree to the licence agreement (What do you mean I just spent $200 on a cardboard box, a manual, some marketing propaganda, and the ability to use these bits until Microsoft says I can't?)
More regulation is bad - If "e-mail sites like hotmail" were disallowed from disclaiming responsibility for their *free* service, then that aso means that if you wanted to offer a similar free service--- you'd be responsible if it screwed up. They're charging $0, the service is offered "as is, with no warranty", what's the problem?
People shouldn't sign away their rights and then complain when they don't have them any more. Before you press "Agree", read what you're agreeing to, and only press "Agree" if you agree!
Nah, it *still* has the *primary* problem that RMS was trying to solve with the GPL... it can be incorporated into commercial software.
RMS is a crusader against those evil licence agreememnt thingies you have to agree to when you get commercial software that say "Thou shalt not be nice to thy friends by leting them have a copy of this software". RMS doesn't want to ever have to sign away his right to be nice.
If you're working on a Free Software project, just do it, and if you think you'd have legal problems just deny that you contributed code to that project. Stupid laws aren't worth obeying!
The ITAR prohibits the export of 'crypto-enabled' software.
I don't get this. Is EMACS illegal to export? (It sure as heck has "hooks" to plug strong crypto into). What about Microsoft Word. (I wouldn't want to code an implementation of IDEA or something in VB for Apps scripty things, but...). Mabie you see my point... but if those are allowed, then any crypto hook would have to be allowed as long as the interface was sufficiently general.
One obnoxious thing about patents is that *any* work derived from a patent can be patented, as long as that additional work looks like an innovation.
You gain patent rights to the origional work that you have thus improved. This means that if someone were to say increase LZW compression by 3% while increasing the speed as well, they could patent the new compression meathod, *and they would now own rights to LZW compression as well*. At least that's what my knowledge of patent law is.
Actually, RMS "LGPL is good to increase acceptance of the GNU OS by allowing commercial software to link with core GNU librarys - Non core librarys should be GPL, to promote the usage of the GPL".
BSD Licence promotes fragmentation by allowing changes to be made without these changes being released back to the "open changes pool", this will cause multiple groups to have their own little *BSD.
Any development done on a BSD licenced program is then open to the world to take, as long as they specify "Parts taken from X by X" in the credits. This makes it so that if a company improves a BSD licenced program and then refuses to release their changes, their version will always be superior in featureset then the free and open version.
Hey, I could grab FreeBSD, call it "Seldnix" and release it under the GPL. As long as I "Duplicated the above notice, the two conditions, and the disclaimer" the FreeBSD people could, at worst, make loud rude noises in my direction. However neat it would be to have a *nix named after me, it'd piss people off, and the fact that I could release it under the MS-Windows EULA as easily as the GPL makes that capacity a Bad Thing(TM).
Microsoft sole the FreeBSD TCP/IP stack, made it crufty, and put it in NT5. Does this *help* society, or hurt it?
Yes, knowledge of history is good before a rant. Things like the following should be avoided.
Well, you see, this country was founded, entirely, because, well, like I'm pretty sure that it was all a plot, by the french government, to get atomic bombs built, so they wouldn't loose world war one.
Another important element of English common law, the legal system that is arguably the best that has ever existed, is that the common man generally does a pretty good job of deciding issues of law. This is at the root of the idea of trial by jury. This concept is also suffering erosion at present. See the Fully Informed Jury Association.
I disagree with this theory, because juries have a tendancy to judge a case on the basis of their emotions, their set of morals, and which side of the case has the neatest looking props - as opposed to actualy judging the case on the basis of the laws relevent to the case. The fact that the jury can't possibly have any clue as to what these laws actualy are contributes to this problem.
What you said in the first two paragraphs I agree with entirely. It is exactly what I've been trying to say in my last couple of posts. You put it cleanly - thanks, I'll be borrowing that wording now =)
I propose that the only way to make it possible for everyone to know what laws affect them, is for the total number and complexity of the body of law affecting them to be as minimal and simple as possible. If the law isn't absolutely nessisary to the survival of the society, I say ditch it. The KISS principal applies to legal systems too.
I'm just going to send them an email saying that software patents are bad and they should outlaw them, and I'm going to sign it "Chandon Seldon, 15 year old computer geek and free software zealot".
Software patents should be illegal within hours! =P
Sicking the tax crazy politicians is evil, it's along the same lines as summoning the evil demon to fight your enimy, once the demon has been summoned...
The supreme court is not a body of politicians, they are a body that exists to prevent the politicans from doing lameness. The supreme court is our only defense against the onslaught of lame laws - It's just a question of convincing them that they need to rule that software patents are illegal.
IE 5 and Netscape-4.x-for-*NIX cleanly and correctly support PNG, at least in my testing.. whereas Netscape for Windows only picks up PNG support later in the 4.x series (Newest 4.6x does support PNG on all Platforms, AFAIK)
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This is related to the reason why, even though the Amiga is now *obviously* a little bit outdated, there are still people out there claiming it's better than everything else.
Many Mac users are incapible of realizing that they're buying from a crappy company. Heck, if people were sane, Microsoft would never be able to sell any copys of Windows because people wouldn't agree to the licence agreement (What do you mean I just spent $200 on a cardboard box, a manual, some marketing propaganda, and the ability to use these bits until Microsoft says I can't?)
More regulation is bad - If "e-mail sites like hotmail" were disallowed from disclaiming responsibility for their *free* service, then that aso means that if you wanted to offer a similar free service--- you'd be responsible if it screwed up. They're charging $0, the service is offered "as is, with no warranty", what's the problem?
People shouldn't sign away their rights and then complain when they don't have them any more. Before you press "Agree", read what you're agreeing to, and only press "Agree" if you agree!
Nah, it *still* has the *primary* problem that RMS was trying to solve with the GPL... it can be incorporated into commercial software.
RMS is a crusader against those evil licence agreememnt thingies you have to agree to when you get commercial software that say "Thou shalt not be nice to thy friends by leting them have a copy of this software". RMS doesn't want to ever have to sign away his right to be nice.
If you're working on a Free Software project, just do it, and if you think you'd have legal problems just deny that you contributed code to that project. Stupid laws aren't worth obeying!
#!/usr/bin/perl
$post_number = 7;
if($post_number != 1) {
print "You are a fragging moron!\n";
}
#!/usr/bin/perl
$post_number = 7;
if($post_number != 1) {
$nbsp;print "You are a fragging moron!\n";
}
The ITAR prohibits the export of 'crypto-enabled' software.
I don't get this. Is EMACS illegal to export? (It sure as heck has "hooks" to plug strong crypto into). What about Microsoft Word. (I wouldn't want to code an implementation of IDEA or something in VB for Apps scripty things, but...). Mabie you see my point... but if those are allowed, then any crypto hook would have to be allowed as long as the interface was sufficiently general.
Porn in GIF format? Damn, you need more than 256 colors for porn, with that few colors it'd look realy crappy.
Oops, my bad. I'm wrong about gaining rights to LZW.
One obnoxious thing about patents is that *any* work derived from a patent can be patented, as long as that additional work looks like an innovation.
You gain patent rights to the origional work that you have thus improved. This means that if someone were to say increase LZW compression by 3% while increasing the speed as well, they could patent the new compression meathod, *and they would now own rights to LZW compression as well*. At least that's what my knowledge of patent law is.
Uh huh. You should also make sure to check out why RMS designed the LGPL to begin with.
Actually, RMS "LGPL is good to increase acceptance of the GNU OS by allowing commercial software to link with core GNU librarys - Non core librarys should be GPL, to promote the usage of the GPL".
You are confused -> A trademark and a copyright differ.
You are deluded -> If you think that the USA would let the WTO screw around with somthing like the Linux trademark.
BSD Licence promotes fragmentation by allowing changes to be made without these changes being released back to the "open changes pool", this will cause multiple groups to have their own little *BSD.
Any development done on a BSD licenced program is then open to the world to take, as long as they specify "Parts taken from X by X" in the credits. This makes it so that if a company improves a BSD licenced program and then refuses to release their changes, their version will always be superior in featureset then the free and open version.
Hey, I could grab FreeBSD, call it "Seldnix" and release it under the GPL. As long as I "Duplicated the above notice, the two conditions, and the disclaimer" the FreeBSD people could, at worst, make loud rude noises in my direction. However neat it would be to have a *nix named after me, it'd piss people off, and the fact that I could release it under the MS-Windows EULA as easily as the GPL makes that capacity a Bad Thing(TM).
Microsoft sole the FreeBSD TCP/IP stack, made it crufty, and put it in NT5. Does this *help* society, or hurt it?
It is not an open standard, people can't write there own implementations of it, and you probly need a licence to make flash thingies.
And it ain't no good if it need some darn plug-in to work with the browser.
Oh, come off it. I'm not a troll. My evidence follows.
So there! =P
Yes, I do realze that that isn't the kind of troll you ment, but then I don't spend my free time trying to start flame wars on Slashdot eithor, so...
Oh well. I'm sure as heck always going to download the whole tree, even if it does take an hour to get it using my 33.6 modem.
Yes, knowledge of history is good before a rant. Things like the following should be avoided.
Well, you see, this country was founded, entirely, because, well, like I'm pretty sure that it was all a plot, by the french government, to get atomic bombs built, so they wouldn't loose world war one.
=)
That goes under "Ensuring personal freedom".
Another important element of English common law, the legal system that is arguably the best that has ever existed, is that the common man generally does a pretty good job of deciding issues of law. This is at the root of the idea of trial by jury. This concept is also suffering erosion at present. See the Fully Informed Jury Association.
I disagree with this theory, because juries have a tendancy to judge a case on the basis of their emotions, their set of morals, and which side of the case has the neatest looking props - as opposed to actualy judging the case on the basis of the laws relevent to the case. The fact that the jury can't possibly have any clue as to what these laws actualy are contributes to this problem.
What you said in the first two paragraphs I agree with entirely. It is exactly what I've been trying to say in my last couple of posts. You put it cleanly - thanks, I'll be borrowing that wording now =)
I propose that the only way to make it possible for everyone to know what laws affect them, is for the total number and complexity of the body of law affecting them to be as minimal and simple as possible. If the law isn't absolutely nessisary to the survival of the society, I say ditch it. The KISS principal applies to legal systems too.
I'm just going to send them an email saying that software patents are bad and they should outlaw them, and I'm going to sign it "Chandon Seldon, 15 year old computer geek and free software zealot".
Software patents should be illegal within hours! =P
That solves 1 problem and creates 2 more.
Sicking the tax crazy politicians is evil, it's along the same lines as summoning the evil demon to fight your enimy, once the demon has been summoned...
The supreme court is not a body of politicians, they are a body that exists to prevent the politicans from doing lameness. The supreme court is our only defense against the onslaught of lame laws - It's just a question of convincing them that they need to rule that software patents are illegal.
If somthing is patented in the US, and other countries don't agree it should be patented, the US is capible of being obnoxious.
The USA needs to be stopped before it gets further out of hand. (And yes, I'm saying this as a US citizen to someone who may be from Cuba =P )
It stores the same data as an identical TIFF, so it wouldn't print any differently.
IE 5 and Netscape-4.x-for-*NIX cleanly and correctly support PNG, at least in my testing.. whereas Netscape for Windows only picks up PNG support later in the 4.x series (Newest 4.6x does support PNG on all Platforms, AFAIK)