By law, the DMCA requires them to make the declaration under penalty of perjury, and they explicitly stated that in their letter. IANAL, but doesn't that effectively make it a statement under oath already?
Even if the files they identify aren't what they say they are [...] I think going after them for perjury in the place you're looking is not on the right track.
From the order:
Specifically, we have identified the following material as infringing: [...] Infringement Detail: Infringing Work: X-FILES, THE Season 1-7 Filepath:/pub/tcl/sorted/file/X-Files1.21b/ Filename: X-Files1.21b.tar.gz [...] Also pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we hereby state, und er penalty of perjury, that we are authorized to act on behalf of the owner s of the exclusive rights being infringed as set forth in this notification
They've identified some works (a bunch of TCL code, though they have gotten the title of it wrong) for which they claim copyright is being infringed, and futher claim that they represent the owners. This seems like a pretty open-and-shut perjury case to me, in addition to acting in bad faith.
I don't think the fact that they didn't bother to make sure they had CORRECTLY identified the files should excuse them from this. When you make a statement under penalty of perjury, it is your responsibility to have your facts straight. The MPAA has obviously failed to do so.
Feeling like having a totally pointless discussion, huh?
No.
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that we believed that all users should get the vi editor by default.
If so, it would be reasonable for a distribution to automatically install vi. But would that mean that vi should become part of Gnome? Or part of the kernel? Or part of any other particular package?
The decisions about what packages to include in a Linux distribution, and what which packages that
distribution should install by default, are independent of the decisions about what components should be in a particular package.
I don't see any reason why it is desirable for an email client to be an official part of Gnome, any more than an accounts payable package, first person shooter, or nuclear reactor design program should be official parts of Gnome. Gnome shouldn't be the dumping ground for any random program that we decide users might like.
A significant portion of users need a mail client, so it makes sense to include one
Just because a lot of users need (or want) something, doesn't make Gnome the right place to put it. Your same argument would just as easily suggest that a driver for an Ethernet card should come with a mail client. After all, most people that use Ethernet need a mail client.
I have nothing against mail clients. In fact, I like Evolution reasonably well. But making it a standard part of Gnome doesn't offer any advantage I can see. Distributions already install Gnome either by default or when the user requests it.
You do know that you don't have to use it, don't you? I mean it's not like disk space is as major an issue as it used to be.
That's not a good reason for throwing more stuff into Gnome. You might as easily justifying including Helix Player and Quake in the Linux kernel tarball. Some people would use them, and those that don't could simply ignore or delete them.
good reason why Evo is being included -- having the contact information centralized and standard in every Gnome installation means that other Gnome applications can use that data.
If having that data is valuable for other applications, then it would be reasonable to include a system component that provides the storage and APIs for that data. Then Evolution and other Gnome applications could use it. But that doesn't justify including the entire Evolution client as a standard part of Gnome.
False. There are many small internets. (Generally very small by comparison to the Internet.)
The fact that there exist internets distinct from the Internet, or even that it this is possible, makes it all the more important to carefully distinguish them.
it has a name. Of course it should be capitalised.
Definitely!
Even if similar systems are created in the future, they will be called something different from "the Internet".
Doubtful. For instance, if someone invented a new communication system tomorrow using third order quantum negative flux gradients (or whatever Star Trek technobabble you prefer), and it was useful for networking, it would be used by the Internet. It wouldn't be some entirely separate new network.
Or, if the people owning the patents were stupid, they might deliberately keep it completely separate, in which case it would not be commercially successful.
It could be argued that because university geeks were passing out AT&T UNIX between themselves freely during the early 1970s, the free software movement actual pre-dates any ideas of commercial software-only vendors.
That isn't an example of free software or open source software.
I was thinking of things like TECO and DDT, developed at MIT in 1961 for the DEC PDP-1. And the original Emacs, which considerably predates GNU Emacs.
There are also many examples with early software for IBM computers. IBM themselves gave out a lot of free/open source software for their computers in the 1950s and 1960s, so open source isn't even a new discovery for IBM.
The article is a historical overview of the open source revolution, starting in the 80s with the GNU Project, BSD, and TCP/IP
A historical overview of the open source revolution should start in the late 1950s or early 1960s. Open source isn't something that was invented in the 1980s.
and it comes with IBM's WebSphere and Microsoft's MCSD certification
When I'm interviewing someone for a job requiring a CS degree (or equivalent experience), I expect them to know some CS. I'd like them to be able to explain the halting problem, how an LALR(1) parser works, when to use semaphores, how to fix the priority inversion problem, etc.
Whether they know WebSphere and Microsoft stuff is entirely irrelevant. So if the top bullet item of a BSCS degree from Northface is these certifications, I'm unimpressed.
If I have a job that just needs a code monkey, I can hire any of a zillion people that read "Learn C++ in 21 days" for that.
If its patented then its publically documented. You do understand what you need to do to get a patent don't you?
Yes, I understand patents quite well. Apparently you do not. There is not a single patent, or even a group of patents, from which you can extract the precise details of how MPEG 2 video bitstreams are encoded. All of the relevant patents cover techniques that are involved in the encoding process. The patents are useful, but not sufficient, to implement an MPEG 2 encoder or decoder. But the standard is published.
For VC-9, there are also relevant patents. But as with MPEG-2, the patents do not tell you everything you need to know to implement VC-9.
Because there is not a published VC-9 standard,
the possibility of a free software or open source VC-9 decoder has been vanishingly small.
However, as noted elsewhere in this thread, there may actually be a published SMPTE standard for VC-9 in the not-too-distant future.
Anyways, I thought HD-DVD was using microsofts implementation of the Mpeg4 standard which is just as open as Mpeg2 and owned by the same organization.
Microsoft uses MPEG 4, but they use their own codec, VC-9. The fact that MPEG 4 is standardized certainly helps, but it is not sufficient.
In theory, fingerprints and surface scratches don't matter much because the laser is focused on the data layer below the surface of the disc.
In practice, rental DVDs are frequently damaged, and a cartridge would prevent that.
Moreover a cartridge has moving parts and it's also fragile in a different way. I've had countless floppies destroyed by my toddler just by hacking the case (the disk was untouched).
And you think your toddler would be less likely to damage a disc that was not protected by a cartridge?
If the cartridge breaks, you can put the disk in another cartridge, which costs a lot less than a new prerecorded disc.
What makes you think consumers care? It's just a hunk of plastic they insert into a player. In that regard it's no different than a VHS tape, audio cassette, game cartridge, etc.
If the cartridge is successful at preventing damage to discs, consumers may actually prefer it. I've heard numerous people complaining about renting DVDs that were damaged, and I've had that happen myself.
Wrong, wrong, absolutely brimming over with wrongability, as Rimmer would say.
HD-DVD and Blu-ray are two competing disc formats, both of which use blue lasers.
Blu-ray uses MPEG 2 encoding.
HD-DVD can use MPEG-2, H.264, or Microsoft's VC-9 encoding. While supporting more encodings might at first seem like an advantage, the problem is that the prospective buyer of a particular prerecorded disc is not likely to be able to determine which encoding is actually used. This is potentially a big problem for free software or open source software, though DRM may be an even bigger problem.
However, elsewhere in this thread we were informed that VC-9 actually has been submitted to SMPTE for standardization. If that is successful, it eliminates my main complaint.
Ah, finally someone posts a useful reply to my posting. Thank you! You're correct that I had not seen this news.
If they really do open it up, I'll be impressed. But given their track record, I'll believe it when I see the actual SMPTE standard published, and the details of the license fees.
Geez, didn't anbody bother to carefully read what I said?
Yes, MPEG-2 is patented, and there are royalties on it. But the documentation is publicly available (for less than $200), and there are existing free software and open source implementations. The patents will expire in a few years, leaving MPEG-2 unencumbered.
WMA will *always* be proprietary. Even when the patents expire, the details will remain a trade secret of Microsoft.
Surely you can see a qualitative difference between the two?
Also MPEG-2 is hardly 'non proprietary'. There is a fleet [mpegla.com] of patents that go with that bad boy...
I said that myself. But at the full technical details of MPEG 2 video are published. Free software and open source implementations exist. And when the patents expire in a few years, there will be no more problems with it.
The Windows Media code is secret, AND it is covered by patents. You can't learn everything you need to implement it from the patents, so it is a much worse format from the free software or open source viewpoint.
They want to release the damn things in cartridges of all things
But that is a GOOD THING (tm). I do a good job of handling discs without getting fingerprints on them, but other people in my household, and other people who have rented discs before me, do not. I've gotten bad rental discs on multiple occasions. The cartridge will largely prevent this.
Obviously consumers are willing to accept a cartridge. And it doesn't necessarily make the media overly expensive. Ordinary Philips audio cassettes and VHS tapes are cartridges, after all. As do 3.5-inch floppy diskettes.
Propritary technology for producing blue lasers is better?
The same technology is used to produce blue lasers for both HD-DVD and Blu-ray. That has NOTHING to do with my stated reason for preferring Blu-ray.
MPEG-2 is patented, but the details are public, and there are existing free software and open source implementations. Due to the patents, there may be legal problems with using that software. The patents will expire in a few more years.
But by comparison, the Microsoft codec is completely proprietary, undocumented, AND covered by patents. Even when the patents expire the codec will still be proprietary.
The HD-DVD standard does not REQUIRE the use of the Microsoft codec; it does also support MPEG 2 and H.26something. But consumers will likely have no way to know when purchasing an HD-DVD disc which codec is used.
Blu-ray discs use MPEG 2, so a consumer would know that it can be played with a non-proprietary codec.
There may be other problems such as DRM preventing play of prerecorded Blu-ray discs using free software, but that's true of HD-DVD as well, and of ordinary DVDs for that matter.
If we want a format that doesn't rely on a proprietary codec, we'd better pray that Sony and the rest of the Blu-ray camp step up their efforts!
Blu-ray does not require, or even support, MS proprietary codes; it uses good old MPEG 2 video.
MPEG video is encumbered by patents for a few more years, but at least the details are publicly available.
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By law, the DMCA requires them to make the declaration under penalty of perjury, and they explicitly stated that in their letter. IANAL, but doesn't that effectively make it a statement under oath already?
I don't think the fact that they didn't bother to make sure they had CORRECTLY identified the files should excuse them from this. When you make a statement under penalty of perjury, it is your responsibility to have your facts straight. The MPAA has obviously failed to do so.
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that we believed that all users should get the vi editor by default. If so, it would be reasonable for a distribution to automatically install vi. But would that mean that vi should become part of Gnome? Or part of the kernel? Or part of any other particular package?
The decisions about what packages to include in a Linux distribution, and what which packages that distribution should install by default, are independent of the decisions about what components should be in a particular package.
I don't see any reason why it is desirable for an email client to be an official part of Gnome, any more than an accounts payable package, first person shooter, or nuclear reactor design program should be official parts of Gnome. Gnome shouldn't be the dumping ground for any random program that we decide users might like.
(I actually hate vi, but that's not the point.)
I have nothing against mail clients. In fact, I like Evolution reasonably well. But making it a standard part of Gnome doesn't offer any advantage I can see. Distributions already install Gnome either by default or when the user requests it.
That being the case, it may well make sense to include evolution-data-server in Gnome. But it doesn't make sense to include all of Evolution.
The fact that there exist internets distinct from the Internet, or even that it this is possible, makes it all the more important to carefully distinguish them.
Definitely! Doubtful. For instance, if someone invented a new communication system tomorrow using third order quantum negative flux gradients (or whatever Star Trek technobabble you prefer), and it was useful for networking, it would be used by the Internet. It wouldn't be some entirely separate new network.Or, if the people owning the patents were stupid, they might deliberately keep it completely separate, in which case it would not be commercially successful.
My name is Bill Gates. You pirated my software. Prepare to die!
But DMDs are not writable. The web page you referenced even brags about this fact, trying to appease the MPAA.
I was thinking of things like TECO and DDT, developed at MIT in 1961 for the DEC PDP-1. And the original Emacs, which considerably predates GNU Emacs.
There are also many examples with early software for IBM computers. IBM themselves gave out a lot of free/open source software for their computers in the 1950s and 1960s, so open source isn't even a new discovery for IBM.
Whether they know WebSphere and Microsoft stuff is entirely irrelevant. So if the top bullet item of a BSCS degree from Northface is these certifications, I'm unimpressed.
If I have a job that just needs a code monkey, I can hire any of a zillion people that read "Learn C++ in 21 days" for that.
For VC-9, there are also relevant patents. But as with MPEG-2, the patents do not tell you everything you need to know to implement VC-9. Because there is not a published VC-9 standard, the possibility of a free software or open source VC-9 decoder has been vanishingly small.
However, as noted elsewhere in this thread, there may actually be a published SMPTE standard for VC-9 in the not-too-distant future.
Microsoft uses MPEG 4, but they use their own codec, VC-9. The fact that MPEG 4 is standardized certainly helps, but it is not sufficient.In practice, rental DVDs are frequently damaged, and a cartridge would prevent that.
And you think your toddler would be less likely to damage a disc that was not protected by a cartridge?If the cartridge breaks, you can put the disk in another cartridge, which costs a lot less than a new prerecorded disc.
If the cartridge is successful at preventing damage to discs, consumers may actually prefer it. I've heard numerous people complaining about renting DVDs that were damaged, and I've had that happen myself.
HD-DVD and Blu-ray are two competing disc formats, both of which use blue lasers.
Blu-ray uses MPEG 2 encoding.
HD-DVD can use MPEG-2, H.264, or Microsoft's VC-9 encoding. While supporting more encodings might at first seem like an advantage, the problem is that the prospective buyer of a particular prerecorded disc is not likely to be able to determine which encoding is actually used. This is potentially a big problem for free software or open source software, though DRM may be an even bigger problem.
However, elsewhere in this thread we were informed that VC-9 actually has been submitted to SMPTE for standardization. If that is successful, it eliminates my main complaint.
If they really do open it up, I'll be impressed. But given their track record, I'll believe it when I see the actual SMPTE standard published, and the details of the license fees.
Yes, MPEG-2 is patented, and there are royalties on it. But the documentation is publicly available (for less than $200), and there are existing free software and open source implementations. The patents will expire in a few years, leaving MPEG-2 unencumbered.
WMA will *always* be proprietary. Even when the patents expire, the details will remain a trade secret of Microsoft.
Surely you can see a qualitative difference between the two?
The Windows Media code is secret, AND it is covered by patents. You can't learn everything you need to implement it from the patents, so it is a much worse format from the free software or open source viewpoint.
But it's not a "Sony technology". It's industry-standard MPEG 2. That's my whole point!
Obviously consumers are willing to accept a cartridge. And it doesn't necessarily make the media overly expensive. Ordinary Philips audio cassettes and VHS tapes are cartridges, after all. As do 3.5-inch floppy diskettes.
MPEG-2 is patented, but the details are public, and there are existing free software and open source implementations. Due to the patents, there may be legal problems with using that software. The patents will expire in a few more years.
But by comparison, the Microsoft codec is completely proprietary, undocumented, AND covered by patents. Even when the patents expire the codec will still be proprietary.
The HD-DVD standard does not REQUIRE the use of the Microsoft codec; it does also support MPEG 2 and H.26something. But consumers will likely have no way to know when purchasing an HD-DVD disc which codec is used.
Blu-ray discs use MPEG 2, so a consumer would know that it can be played with a non-proprietary codec.
There may be other problems such as DRM preventing play of prerecorded Blu-ray discs using free software, but that's true of HD-DVD as well, and of ordinary DVDs for that matter.
MPEG video is encumbered by patents for a few more years, but at least the details are publicly available.