I agree with everything you said, except for this:
...you are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You are a member of a mass, you do not stand out.
You are unique, whoever you are. And it is at least arguable that everybody is beautiful in their own way. Sadly, nobody does care about you or what you are doing, despite your uniqueness and your (perhaps well-hidden) beauty.
The underlying problem comes from 2 different directions. The first comes from the problem of that spread by political correctness. The public and the police have to be so careful when dealing with yobs because the way their rights and laws are written you can hardly lay a finger on them. The best you "legally" do is to try and talking them down.
Aaargh!! Please don't use the term "politcal correctness" here. The standards of evidence required to convict someone are what they are. It's not a question of "political correctness" to insist that yobs should get a fair trial. I write as one who would happily lock up a lot of these kids and throw away the key; but when people tell me that that is impossible, it is not because they are being "politically correct". It is because they are paying attention to what the law says, which is what the accuseds' lawyers will do. Which is as it should be.
So the "legal" choice for the average member of the public is to be nice to them and understanding. Off course they can stab your guts, rip off your head and skull fuck you. Its got to the point where social services are recommending to judges that prison sentences should not be handed down for violent murder but given community service or fines.
It's hard to have much confidence in your opinion if you don't even read the contents of the link you posted. If you did read the link, you would have seen that the social services report did not recommend probation or a fine; the report considered these possibilities. The judge was making the point that it was a waste of time to even consider such things for a murder case.
The tabloid press in this country can be a nice balancing force at times because the people with the power still fear those wanting to publish a dirty story on them.
I presume you're joking (or at least half joking) here. The tabloid press is not useful for anything except selling "newspapers". I think that the country is in serious trouble if we need the tabloid press to help us with social policy.
Come on, it's not that hard. This took me less than five minutes to find, including loading up the 3MB pdf and searching for "pacific": National Geographic Survey
If the GPL did end up being ruled on by the judge, about the only ruling I could see is that the GPL is valid and therefore SCO has not infringed IBM's copyrights--but IANAL, so what do I know?
The Memorandom of Support makes this clearer. Either: (a) SCO's claim that the GPL is invalid and unconstitutional etc etc is true, in which case the only legal basis for SCO distributing IBM's work is destroyed. So they've been distributing IBM's work illegally. Or: (b) SCO's claim that the GPL is invalid is false, in which case they have breached the GPL by demanding license fees (from Autozone amongst others). Breaching the GPL in this fashion means that SCO loses the right to redistribute the GPL'ed software (per the GPL, which is valid in this line of argument). So they've been distributing IBM's work illegally.
Nobody has 'shown that it's possible to create a new file with the same hash key as some other file'.
You're right of course, I worded that poorly. I think that what is being reported is the ability to generate to order a file which matches a given hash key.
These are hashing functions. The creator of some file can run a program against that file to create a "hash key". This hash-key is supplied with (separate to) the file and someone who downloads the file can run the same program as the originator and confirm that the hash-key he gets is the same as the one the originator provided. In principle, if a bad person were to change even one bit in the file, it would generate a different hash key and therefore the receiver would know that it had been tampered with.
What has happened here (IIUC) is that somebody has shown that it's possible to create a new file with the same hash key as some other file. Which means that I could put up a file for download and provide a hash key for it, but someone could "mirror" the file and change it to something different which still generates the same hash key. Which means that the "guarantee" that the hash-key gives is broken - a receiver can no longer be sure that a matching hash key means a matching file.
This sounds like Wally's philosophy. If you need to know who Wally is, shame on you. Follow this link to the world of Dilbert and read the last month's strips before returning, suitably chastened, to Slashdot.
This presents a fairly striking point about the majority of Linux/"free software" people. They're also largely proprietors of warez and other forms of copyright violation/property 'theft'.
Would you care to cite a reference for this? Or did you just make it up to support your other points? Seriously, the rest of what you say seems perfectly reasonable (or at least arguable), so there is no need to put a huge, unsubstantiated accusation right in the middle of your post. You will find that people look at that and decide that the rest of what you said is likely to be useful.
No they are not still working on it. The page you cited is from a long time ago. They finished that project after the last, successful match against Kasparov.
Of course, but the end result will be that almost no one is willing to post a bond of any kind.
Why not? I would post a bond of £0.05 to email a friend, any time. The chances are, she will email me back and we'll be all square. Afterwards, I get added to her whitelist and we're fine. What's the problem?
The question is, would a commerical company spend £0.05 to send me an unsolicited email? I don't know about you, but I rather like that question.
They propose an automatic bond posting system where for example if the bond is less than $0.50 (by the way what happens if I don't use dollars, who determines the the rate of exchange?) the bond is automatically posted. So:
1. Set bond to $ 0.01 to ensure automatic bond posting. 2. Subscribe to 10,000 different mailing lists. 3. Profit!
I'm not an expert, but this could be prevented by having the mailing list program refuse to post a bond. The effect of this would be that only someone who has the mailer in their whitelist would receive the mail. I think.
This is not a dupe! The story from March was a group of scientists at Ohio State University which disputed Hawking's position. This story is about Hawking himself giving a paper at a conference in Ireland, where he will presumably give his latest views on the topic.
I'm a little surprised that the parent poster got moderated up for this. It's not "informative" (IMO of course) to just call something a dupe without checking.
It's easy to bash Microsoft, but I think we should give credit where it is due. After all, Microsoft has acted very quickly to fix this problem; users who have patched their version of IE can no longer access the Department of Homeland Security's webpage.
Perhaps the work can be licensed to all third parties without being available to all third parties; under this interpretation the work would not need to be available to the public. But I would like to see a convincing resolution of this issue.
I think this means that if I offer you something under the GPL, I can't stop you from distributing it to everyone else. They get all the rights that you got under the GPL. This includes the right to get the source code from the supplier of the software; but of course the supplier of the software in this case isn't me. It is you. So you have the obligation under the GPL to supply the source code to whoever you distribute the software to.
He fakes his films - such as cutting together 2 week apart film to make it look as if you could walk into a bank and walk out with a gun, when, in fact, he arranged to have the gun delievered there, after his 2 week waiting period.
This is not true. The only set-up for that scene was the fact that he phoned the bank before going there to ask for permission to film the transaction. He picked up the gun on the same day as he opened the account. And that was the first time he had been inside the bank. The bank is a licensed gun dealer. There is no waiting period and they do the necessary check while-you-wait. Here is Moore's own description:
And more than anything, his 'need to be heard'. That smacks of a fat, lonely bastard, with a need to be the center of attention, and I hate that kind of person. He needs to go back to writing a weblog like a normal, attention-starved 14yr old girl.
If I didn't know any better, I would think that you didn't have any arguments at all. But that's not true... Is it?
They were funded by Bin Ladin and his network, who had support from Saddam Hussein.
The investigation into the September 11 attacks seems to believe that there was no link between Al Qaeda and Saddam. Do you know differently? Everything I've read about Bin Laden suggests that Saddam's secular view of Islam was anathema to him. No doubt you have some other source of information?
Well, even if YAST is GPLed, the company is not obliged to offer it to you for download. All that they're required to do is to offer the source code to anyone who they give the binary to. Perhaps the source is included on the CDs? Of course under the GPL, anyone who has obtained YAST from Novell/SUSE is allowed to distribute it to others. But it's not up to Novell to do this. Why should they?
The best thing about the GPL is that it's simply not possible for a company to then exploit it without giving some benefit back to the people who paid for it. (And yes, I understand that companies pay taxes too).
Why does this sound contradictory? You say you understand that companies pay taxes but in the same breath you imply that they did not pay for the software.
I don't know why it sounds contradictory. Perhaps I wasn't clear, so here we go again: All taxpayers paid for the development of the software; I don't think it's fair if some of the taxpayers can then modify the software in such a way that some other taxpayers no longer have access to the full benefit for it.
Yay, my favourite GPL FUD. "We must stop these nasty companies from selling the free code!" They are not charging money for the freely available code, they are charging for changes to the code. It doesn't matter how "meaningless" a change is, if the market decides it is worth paying for then that change has value.
It's a funny thing about the world we work in that you can make a worthless change and charge for it and make money from it, even though the market wouldn't choose to pay for that change if they knew what they were paying for. Effectively, if AOL bundles a modified version of the chat software, the people who get this version don't know or care about it. It's only when they find that they can't chat with non-AOL using friends that the problem starts. And if you say that AOL isn't that big so it doesn't matter, assume that it is Microsoft, with their 90%+ share of the market which does the bundling.
Example. Microsoft takes public domain (more likely BSDL) software, presses it onto CDs and drops it in a shiny box. No other changes. They charge $100 for it. If the market will bear this price then yes, the shiny box and convenience of a CD is worth $100. It doesn't matter how trivial the change is, if people will pay for that change then the change is worth the price. Value has been added.
This is not a counter-example. If they were charging $100 for the SW, there would be less of a problem, because people would actually have to make a positive decision to use it. But that's not the way they would do it. They could create value out of the SW without having to charge for it initially, because of their dominant position in the market. You might argue that they deserve to be able to do this because they've built up that position etc etc, but that is an ideological arguement; it is not value-free.
This is patently incorrect. If they want to use (in any way, shape or (modified) form) GPL-ed software, they can do so without restriction. However, if they distribute it to someone who is not in-house, and have made modifications, they must also make the source available to them (and for that matter, to anyone else).
What you say makes sense only because you didn't quote the whole of my post. The example I was talking about involved AOL distributing the "enhanced" chat application to all of their customers. So obviously they would have to distribute their new source. If they only intended to use it in-house it wouldn't make the slightest difference whether they used the GPL or some othe licence.
And, having had the cheek to correct me by quoting me out of context, you then go ahead and say something which is "patently" incorrect:
(and for that matter, to anyone else)
They are not obliged to make their sources available to anyone other than the people they have distributed their binaries to. They can't restrict the re-distribution of the source to people who are not customers, but it is not their responsibility supply the source to anyone else.
In future, please read the post you are responding to, and don't quote out of context in order to make some pettifogging (and incorrect) point. Thanks.
Slashdot Mirror
You are unique, whoever you are. And it is at least arguable that everybody is beautiful in their own way. Sadly, nobody does care about you or what you are doing, despite your uniqueness and your (perhaps well-hidden) beauty.
Aaargh!! Please don't use the term "politcal correctness" here. The standards of evidence required to convict someone are what they are. It's not a question of "political correctness" to insist that yobs should get a fair trial. I write as one who would happily lock up a lot of these kids and throw away the key; but when people tell me that that is impossible, it is not because they are being "politically correct". It is because they are paying attention to what the law says, which is what the accuseds' lawyers will do. Which is as it should be.
It's hard to have much confidence in your opinion if you don't even read the contents of the link you posted. If you did read the link, you would have seen that the social services report did not recommend probation or a fine; the report considered these possibilities. The judge was making the point that it was a waste of time to even consider such things for a murder case.
I presume you're joking (or at least half joking) here. The tabloid press is not useful for anything except selling "newspapers". I think that the country is in serious trouble if we need the tabloid press to help us with social policy.
How is it paid for in your city?
You could try StarOffice, which has a pretty good WordPerfect filter. One thing to watch out for, however, is that it's not installed by default.
Nope. It's an English article and in English a "bloomer" is a mistake.
Come on, it's not that hard. This took me less than five minutes to find, including loading up the 3MB pdf and searching for "pacific": National Geographic Survey
The Memorandom of Support makes this clearer. Either: (a) SCO's claim that the GPL is invalid and unconstitutional etc etc is true, in which case the only legal basis for SCO distributing IBM's work is destroyed. So they've been distributing IBM's work illegally. Or: (b) SCO's claim that the GPL is invalid is false, in which case they have breached the GPL by demanding license fees (from Autozone amongst others). Breaching the GPL in this fashion means that SCO loses the right to redistribute the GPL'ed software (per the GPL, which is valid in this line of argument). So they've been distributing IBM's work illegally.
You're right of course, I worded that poorly. I think that what is being reported is the ability to generate to order a file which matches a given hash key.
What has happened here (IIUC) is that somebody has shown that it's possible to create a new file with the same hash key as some other file. Which means that I could put up a file for download and provide a hash key for it, but someone could "mirror" the file and change it to something different which still generates the same hash key. Which means that the "guarantee" that the hash-key gives is broken - a receiver can no longer be sure that a matching hash key means a matching file.
This sounds like Wally's philosophy. If you need to know who Wally is, shame on you. Follow this link to the world of Dilbert and read the last month's strips before returning, suitably chastened, to Slashdot.
Would you care to cite a reference for this? Or did you just make it up to support your other points? Seriously, the rest of what you say seems perfectly reasonable (or at least arguable), so there is no need to put a huge, unsubstantiated accusation right in the middle of your post. You will find that people look at that and decide that the rest of what you said is likely to be useful.
I don't know if you are joking, but GNU/Chess is very badly outclassed by lots of amateur engines, let alone by these professionals.
No they are not still working on it. The page you cited is from a long time ago. They finished that project after the last, successful match against Kasparov.
Why not? I would post a bond of £0.05 to email a friend, any time. The chances are, she will email me back and we'll be all square. Afterwards, I get added to her whitelist and we're fine. What's the problem?
The question is, would a commerical company spend £0.05 to send me an unsolicited email? I don't know about you, but I rather like that question.
I'm not an expert, but this could be prevented by having the mailing list program refuse to post a bond. The effect of this would be that only someone who has the mailer in their whitelist would receive the mail. I think.
This is not a dupe! The story from March was a group of scientists at Ohio State University which disputed Hawking's position. This story is about Hawking himself giving a paper at a conference in Ireland, where he will presumably give his latest views on the topic.
I'm a little surprised that the parent poster got moderated up for this. It's not "informative" (IMO of course) to just call something a dupe without checking.
I think the article says the bluetooth hearing aid proposal wasn't patentable?
It's easy to bash Microsoft, but I think we should give credit where it is due. After all, Microsoft has acted very quickly to fix this problem; users who have patched their version of IE can no longer access the Department of Homeland Security's webpage.
I think this means that if I offer you something under the GPL, I can't stop you from distributing it to everyone else. They get all the rights that you got under the GPL. This includes the right to get the source code from the supplier of the software; but of course the supplier of the software in this case isn't me. It is you. So you have the obligation under the GPL to supply the source code to whoever you distribute the software to.
This is not true. The only set-up for that scene was the fact that he phoned the bank before going there to ask for permission to film the transaction. He picked up the gun on the same day as he opened the account. And that was the first time he had been inside the bank. The bank is a licensed gun dealer. There is no waiting period and they do the necessary check while-you-wait.
Here is Moore's own description:
If I didn't know any better, I would think that you didn't have any arguments at all. But that's not true... Is it?
The investigation into the September 11 attacks seems to believe that there was no link between Al Qaeda and Saddam. Do you know differently? Everything I've read about Bin Laden suggests that Saddam's secular view of Islam was anathema to him. No doubt you have some other source of information?
Would you mind explaining all that to my Mum, please?
Well, even if YAST is GPLed, the company is not obliged to offer it to you for download. All that they're required to do is to offer the source code to anyone who they give the binary to. Perhaps the source is included on the CDs? Of course under the GPL, anyone who has obtained YAST from Novell/SUSE is allowed to distribute it to others. But it's not up to Novell to do this. Why should they?
I don't know why it sounds contradictory. Perhaps I wasn't clear, so here we go again: All taxpayers paid for the development of the software; I don't think it's fair if some of the taxpayers can then modify the software in such a way that some other taxpayers no longer have access to the full benefit for it.
It's a funny thing about the world we work in that you can make a worthless change and charge for it and make money from it, even though the market wouldn't choose to pay for that change if they knew what they were paying for. Effectively, if AOL bundles a modified version of the chat software, the people who get this version don't know or care about it. It's only when they find that they can't chat with non-AOL using friends that the problem starts. And if you say that AOL isn't that big so it doesn't matter, assume that it is Microsoft, with their 90%+ share of the market which does the bundling.
This is not a counter-example. If they were charging $100 for the SW, there would be less of a problem, because people would actually have to make a positive decision to use it. But that's not the way they would do it. They could create value out of the SW without having to charge for it initially, because of their dominant position in the market. You might argue that they deserve to be able to do this because they've built up that position etc etc, but that is an ideological arguement; it is not value-free.
What you say makes sense only because you didn't quote the whole of my post. The example I was talking about involved AOL distributing the "enhanced" chat application to all of their customers. So obviously they would have to distribute their new source. If they only intended to use it in-house it wouldn't make the slightest difference whether they used the GPL or some othe licence.
And, having had the cheek to correct me by quoting me out of context, you then go ahead and say something which is "patently" incorrect:
They are not obliged to make their sources available to anyone other than the people they have distributed their binaries to. They can't restrict the re-distribution of the source to people who are not customers, but it is not their responsibility supply the source to anyone else.
In future, please read the post you are responding to, and don't quote out of context in order to make some pettifogging (and incorrect) point. Thanks.