they file the paperwork directly to the Federal Court of Appeals.
Are you sure of this? In Maryland, you must file a notice of appeal with the lower court before filing the appeal with the higher court. Is this different at the federal level?
Think about this. Why should Jackson be involved in MS submission of the appeal? He just ruled against them. They are appealing his decision.
Congress passed a law that would allow Jackson to decide if the government can skip the appealate court and go directly to the supreme court once the notice of appeal has been filed. That seems like an excellent reason why Jackson would be involved.
According to the AP story, three of the judges are disqualified from ruling on the case (no reason was given) that means only seven judges are available. This was one of the reasons the appelate court gave for hearing the case en banc.
Attorney-client may only apply to the discussions between the attorney and his client. However, the work-product privelege is much broader. It applies to any work done for the attonney in preperation for the case. Discussions between the attorney and the para-legels discussing startagey are privliged conversations. If the attorney hired a private decective to investigate the defendant, the results of his investigation would also be covered under the work-product privelege.
You are correct in that there are some undercurrents that I don't understand since expert witenses normally do not fall under the work-product privelege.
Thanks for the pointer. However, I was under the impression that the Second Decleration was already submitted at the time of the deposition. I seem to recall a couple of references to it. I will have to reread the deposition.
He mostly emphasizes that despite the dificulty of making pirated DVDs, there is a real danger of pirating DVD movies by compressing the DeCSS'd movie files with DivX, which he claims can currently compress a movie to 1.2Gb, small enough to put on two CDR's, or to send over a 100Mbs LAN in 7 minutes.
That would explain all the questions about DivX and CDRs. I seem to recall that the witness admitted that he has not actually viewed any movies that were compressed with DivX or put on a CDR.
He also attacks the argument that DeCSS has "legitimate academic, commercial or scientific value", noting that if this were the case, then it would only be available in source code, since, it is hard to learn how a program works from a compiled binary.
That also explains some of the questions. The witness kept referring to the.exe files. Which is probably why the lawyer asked exactly how he got the file. (I recall the witness saying that the MPAA provided them and he did not download them himself.) It also explains why the lawyer kept asking if the witness knew if the MPAA provided everything they downloaded.
For those critics saying this is boring: it is no more boring than watching a chess game. If you understand some of the startegy, it is extremely interesting. If you don't know anything about chess, it is extremely boring.
Most people are looking at this from the wrong prespective. It isn't a interview to obtain information about a subject. It is a deposition that will be used in a trial.
It is like a chess game where both sides are playing for position. The lawyer questioning the witness wants to 'lock-in' the witnesss into a particlular line of testimony without tipping his hand. The lawyer who represents the opposing side wants to avoid that from happening and give as little information as possible to his oppenents.
For example, if a lawyer catches a witness in a lie, he is not going to challenge him on the spot. Instead, he will rephrase the question a couple of different ways to ensure that the witness is truely lying. He will wait for the trial to impeach the witness giving the opposing side less time to react or minimize the damage.
While you are focusing on trivia about Linux/BSD and asking about the hard drive, the lawyer was nailing down certain facts. The witness has never played a copy of the movie. He only viewed the movie using the original DVD.
He also got the witness to declare that he thought DeCSS was not relevant to regional coding. (It doesn't matter whether the lawyer agreed or disagreed, the witness can not go back and change his position without losing credibility in the court room.
The lawyers were also probing the witness about the feasability of transferring files created by DeCSS and if he knew of any instances of a pirated movie being traded or sold. (The witness only knew of the ones from the Hong Kong pirate factories and did not know of any using the DeCSS.)
In my opinion, the biggest win was that the witness admitted that cryptographers learn from reading source code and that it is an 'axiom' of the cryptrophy field that a code that does not have peer review is weaker than one that does.
The witness also admitted that there was merit in a scolarly journal, e.g. ACM's, to include parts of the code in writing an article. In other words, there are other reasons, besides pirating movies to publish the DeCSS.
As for the objections, they basically fell into two catagories: attorney-client privilage and "form".
Reading between the lines, it appears that the witness was hired by the law firm to do some investigation into the case. Any work that was done for the lawyer would fall into the attorney-client privlilage and work-product category. In other words, you don't have to give the other side a blue-print of your case.
The other objections were related to the form of the question. If the question is too ambigious, too complecated, etc., the opposing side will object and the questioning lawyer will rephrase the question.
I defy anyone to find a person who is so clueless that they CAN'T install Caldera OpenLinux eDesktop on a VIRGIN drive.
You just met one! I was unable to install OpenLinux even though I successfully installed Slackware on the same machine. The problem had nothing to due with my cluefulness.
I had two drives (1 windows & 1 virgin) and was unable to install OpenLinux.
The problem was my CD-ROM. It hangs off the sound card. The kernal saw it as/dev/hde. However, OpenLinux did not have a mount point for/dev/hde. I worked with thier tech support for almost a week and clearly identified exactly what the problem was. They wouldn't escalte it to an engineer to create a new boot disk with a/dev/hde. Their solution was to keep mucking with the hardware. After a week, I took it back for a refund. (Yes, you CAN get a refund from Best Buy if you are willing to argue with the clerks for 1/2 hour before they will even go talk to the manager.)
It's about making them pay for the damage they've done. That's the whole point of a lawsuit, isn't it?
Actually, that is not the point of the lawsuit. The remedy has to be done to restore competition in the marketplace. It is not meant to punish Microsoft.
As some commentators have pointed out, the split up might increase the worth of stockholders like it did during the AT&T breakup and might make Gates even wealthier. But it is irrelevant.
Which is why the government can't just fine Microsoft. If Microsoft is not willing to change its business practices, as they have repeatedly said they wouldn't, then DOJ had to come up with a way to force Microsoft to change.
The choices were to regulate Microsoft or break them up.
It's interesting to speculate what kind of 'bias' the folks on this forum would be ranting about if Microsoft bought a full page ad and the editors of the paper tucked a praiseful article in so conveniently.
First, where does it say that the ad was purched? My impression was that the editorial staff included it on their own as an illustration to the story. I recall reading an article about Microsoft's taking over a couple of Metro stations with their job advertisements. The article included a large photo of one of the Metro stations. Nobody cried foul.
Second, there are many cases where their are favorable product reviews, articles, and opinion pieces that accompany an advertising campaign. When Window's 95 was rolled out, Microsoft had taken lots of full page ads and the papers included a lot of favorable articles and reviews. I don't recall anyone crying foul over that either.
The only time it would raise ethical questions is when the company paid the paper for the favorable article without it being pointed out that it was paid for.
Considering Microsoft's EULA, (you can not publish a review or benchmark without Microsoft's permission), I am suspicious of all reviews of Microsoft's products, whether or not Microsoft actually paid for it.
Another reason is the anti-trust trial. Regardless of what happens on appeal, the damage has been done.
Boise, who also represented IBM in their big anti-trust case, told Neukom before chagres were files, "You know, once the United States government files suit against you, everything changes. People are more willing to come forward and testify against you. Others are more willing to question you, resist you. The whole world changes."
Microsoft's biggest asset before the trial was that it was preceived as being invincable. Nobody has betten Microsoft. Even IBM has lost to Microsoft. That perception has changed after Microsoft's bumbling defense.
Now Dell, Compaq, etc. are willing to risk Microsoft's wrath by offerring alternative OSs on their computer. Something they would have never doen before the trial. AOL and Gateway have even gone as far as to totally eliminate the Wintel duopoly from their set-top box.
And, don't forget the free publicity Linux has received because of the trial. I don't recall seeing any article even mention Linux before the trial. However, the week after Microsof's lawyers haeld up a box of RedHat in the courtroom and declared that "This is our competition", almost every newspaper carried at least a "What is Linux" sidebar. Redhat, SuSe, Caldera, etc. can't purchase that kind of advertising.
Microsoft's defenders still continue to increase the Linux mindshare. Almost every article or opinion piece I have read attacking the court's remedy as "too draconian" point to linux as a viable competitor.
This presents Microsoft with a no-win PR problem. On one hand, they must portray Linux as a viable competitor in order to attack the court's remedies. On the other, they must belittle Linux as a toy OS written by long-hair kids in their basements and garages.
Indeed, Apache/*nix has much the same share of the server market as IE/Windows does on the client side.
I would like to see how you arrived at this conclusion. Apache runs on about 55% of the web servers. However, that includes all operating systems, not only the *nix OS.
Does it not then make *more* sense for the free "bundled" distribution of Apache to be banned?
Contraary to Microsoft's spin, they were not hauled into court because of their size or market share. They were taken to court because they used their monopoly in one market to gain a monolpoly in a second market. How has Apache levered their 'monopoly' of the web server market to any other market?
Have they demanded that you buy a particuler OS or client in order to buy Apache? Do they extend the protocols so that you are locked into Apache and a particular OS or browser? Do they tweek the protocols so that it works best with Apache's other software while giving degraded performaance to Apache's compititor's?
There is even a bigger problem with having an anti-trust case against Apache. Who are you going to take to court? It is not owned or sold by an particular company. Anybody can download and install it. Any company can include it with their own software.
Hate to show my age, but in the 60's (when I started playing pin ball machines) all machines were muli-ball machines. Each machine had five balls. Drop in your nickle and the five balls would drop into a 'resovior'. Below the plunger was a second lever which you pushed to raise a ball from the resiovior to the front of the plunger. If you were hard core, or just bored, you could put all five balls in play, one right after the other.
The only problem is that when 99.9% of computers sold to consumers WANT windows
I don't think 99.95 of the consumers who buy computers WANT windows. They want a computer. They go to the local Sears, Staples, Compusa, etc. and compare models and talk to the salesman. When they finally make their choice, it is not based on what OS the computer is running, since they all run Windows. They base it on processor speed, RAM, color of the case, etc. However, they don't compare OSes since most stores sell only one OS.
Hell, a large number of consumer's don't even know what an OS is! I run a local ISP. I ask every new user, what OS they are using. About 20% to 30% say HP, Compaq, Gateway, etc. They equate the OS with the manufacturor of the computer.
">Ebay is free to post or cancel from their site whatever action they want, despite their policy statements (which they are free to change anytime)."
Not true. The Terms of Service is a contract. According to contract law, a party must explicitly agree to any modification of the origianl contract. eBay can not arbitrarily change its terms of service.
When crdit cards change their interest rates, they send you a notice notifing you of the change. The notice states that your acceptence of the new terms is to continue to using your credit card. If you do not use the credit card after receiving the notice, you continue to pay the old interest rate.
Many software and internet companies claim that they reserve the right to change the terms of service by merely changing the web page without explicitly notifing you. However, this has not been tested in court. I would think they will have a tough time selling this in court. It seems unreasonable to expect the user to read the terms of service everytime they log onto the network and try to figure out if any thing has changed since the last time.
On the other hand, I think what Bidder's Edge does is really indefensible from an ethical standpoint and I am rooting for them to lose because they are in effect *competing* with eBay for advertising dollars by *using* eBay's content.
What percentage of its income comes from advertisinge? And, what percentage of its income comes from the commission on sales?
It is the old story of the leader in the market trying to keep users locked into their product. AOL does it with Instant Messaging. Microsoft does it with their file fomrates.
Most other Auction Sites welcome Bidder's Edge's robot. Why? It gives a wider exposure to their auctions meaning that more bidders will see it and raise the price of the item under sale.
Why does eBay object? Because they are the market leader and don't want bidders to see alternate auction sites. If eBay prevails in this case, then bidders will have to search eBay themselves. eBay is betting that rather than check two seperate sites, the bidders will stay on their site.
What is the difference between Bidder's Edge automatically doing the searchs and my running a program for me to automatically do the searches?
Maybe we are getting into a semantical issue here. If you can sign away your right to damages and you can sign away all express and implied warrenties and you hold the vendor blameless even if they knew about the problem when you bought the product, you have effectively signed away your right to sue.
By signing away express and implied warrenties, you have signed away any grounds for suing. By signing away damages, there is no point in suing since the court can only grant damages in a civil case.
The posts Microsoft is objecting to do not contain any original opinions, thoughts or ideas , but rather a regurgitation of copyrighted material.
Not true. Some of the posts they objected to did contain the verbatim text, and most users had no problem with Slashdot taking down those particular posts.
However, they did not stop there. They also wanted posts that had links to the text. This is a gray area with, to quote Al Gore, "no controlling legal authority".
Plus, Microsoft also wanted Slashdot to delete posts that observed the FACT that if you use pkunzip to unzip the file, you do not see licensing agreement.
The last is definately a Free Speech issue and has nothing to do with copyright protection.
You should tell it to the company that lost in Washington a few days ago. The software they were using to write a quote made a minor error, a mere $1.9 million error. The judges ruled that because they clicked on "I Agree' they lost the ability to sue,
I disagree with you there, it would be like having an illegal copy of a cd or book. Still illegal..
Except for one minor problem. It has not been proben to be an illegal copy. The complaintent has alleged it is an illegal copy. According to the DMCA, a service-provider can claim 'Safe-Harbor' if they merely block access. The DMCA does not require that the actually destroy/erase the copy.
If the poster files a counter-notification that the material is not a copyright infringement, the service-provider has to restore/stop denying access in "not less then 10, but not greater than 14 days" if the complaint does not file suit with the poster.
If your interpetation is correct, then the site loses no matter what the site does. If he doesn't delete it, the complaintent takes him to court for not destroying the copy. If he does destroy it, the poster takes him to court for not restoring it.
This is the exact oppisite of what the 'Safe-Harbor' clause in the DMCA was trying to accomplish. It was trying to avoid sticking a service provier in that exact position.
What I do find bad is that because this is a digital medium, there is no way of getting it back again. Slashdot is by the same law obliged to remove it of their servers, no back ups etc. Therefore it might also be nice to give posterity a general idea of what was in the posting.
Not true. They are only obligated to remove access to it. Since they also have a legal requirement to restore it under certain circumstances, they can not just delete it.
One last thingy that I noticed. There is no digital signature appended to the message, not any other way to identify the writer of this e-mail. Ofcourse you could make a phonecall. But coming from MS one would expect better use of Outlook
It doesn't necessarily have to be signed. There are six requirements for the notificaiton to be effective, signing it is one of them. However, not all have to be met They only have to substantially meet the requirements. Of course, the word substantially is not defined.
The way I understand the DMCA, Slashdot is now obligated to block access to the material and notify the posters that it has blocked the access. Then the posters can notify, under penalties of perjury, that the material is not copyright protected. At this point, Slashdot must notify Microsoft of the counter notification. At that point, Microsoft has 10 days to file a suit against the poster. If they fail to file suit, Slashdot can legally put it back on the site.
Any that quote the entire text are obviously copyright infringments. But the other two categories: links and descriptions of how to unzip the file, are, argueably, protected under the first amendment. The posters could easily issue the counter notification.
If Andover set up a defense fund for any poster for the argueable defenses and every reader contributed $10, that would be a nice warchest for a defense fund.
Basically, the PO spells out quantity, price, delivery date, payment terms, etc. The desenting opinion and the judges in the Step Saver case said that the PO is a contract. And, the shrink-wrap licnese is a modification to that contract. Since the shrink-wrap has terms that are drastically different from the PO, e.g. you are not buying the software only licensing it, it has to be explicitly agreed to. If the seller does not make these terms known before they ship the software, it is much harder to have the shrink-wrap upheld in court.
I don't have any problem with selling things 'as-is'. Hell, I have bought cars and a houses as-is. The seller did not make any express or implied warrenties about the items. But, and this is my main problem with shrink-wrap, it was known that 'as-is' was the terms of the sale BEFORE I paid any money.
If software companies want to sell their software as-is, then they sould be up front about it and stick a bright red sticker on the box. The reason software companies don't like this solution is that they are trying to have it both ways. All the protection of an 'as-is' sale while giving the illusion that they are standing behind their product.
My other problem with shrink-wrap is that you can't get your money back if you disagree with the terms of the contract. To me, this boarders on fraud.
It isn't clear at all from either the article nor the judge's opinions what the facts of the case were. There is a principle involving contracts and changes to contracts, but nowhere could I see an actual description of the original contract that the shrinkwrap license sought to "change".
Actually, the description of the original contract is in there. It is the Purchase Order which listed the quantity, price, hourly rate, etc. The majority said that, although other cases (Step Saver, etc.) said purchase orders were contracts, it isn't a contract because the PO came from the end user not a reseller. The dissenting opinion said that the merchant/user distinction ws not relevant and the PO is a contract.
The people who are complaining about bugs in software, and who think they should be able to sue companies who put out buggy software, should consider this: If the law changes to make software manufacturers liable then software would become too expensive for us all.
We are not talking about having to reboot a computer that locked up. We are talking about a $1.9 Million error in software that was specifically designed to calculate bids.
Another fact that has not been mentioned was that the software company was aware of the bug before the minor mistake happened and they did not send any notices or patches.
According to the opinions, the engineers decided that it would be easier to only replace the software for customers who complained.
If I recall correctly, a car manufacturer got fined big time for desiding that it was cheaper to pay for injuries caused by a defect than to issue a recall. Maybe car manufacturers should start their own version of 'shrink-wrap'. Put a notice on the steering wheel, "By starting this car, you agree..
As a side note, the court would have had to rule differently under Maryland's version of the UCITA since waivers of implied or express warrentee are not enforceable.
I think that this approach is defensable in court with or without UCITA. (Of course, IANAL)
Under existing contract law, you must agree with a contract in order to be bound by it.
In ProCD, the case that upheld shrinkwrap licenses, the judge relied on the fact that the buyer had to have clicked on the OK button in order to run the program. If you can unzip the program and read the document without clicking on "I Agree', then you have not agreed to the contract.
What is actually printed on the document does not make any difference, as others have pointed out.
Under UCITA, I believe the arguement is even stronger. Section 21-108 (of the Maryland version) states Authentication may be proven in any manner, including a showing that a party made use of information or access that could have been available only if it engaged in conduct or operations that authenticated the redord or term.
Clearly, unziping the file is a way way to use the information without agreeing, or even reading the terms.
Also, Maryland amended their version that makes any clauses prohibiting reverse engineering for compatability purposes unenforceable.
In order to be protected under trade secrets, a company must take reasonable precautions to protect their secrets. I don't think that putting a file on the web that is only protected by 'zip' would be considered reasonable.
Maryland put in an exception for beta software and software that is given away for free. Therefore, it won't effect GPL, except of the dirtros like Red Hat.
Re:Before you condemn, RTFB
on
Fighting UCITA
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· Score: 3
By passing UCITA, consumers will now be allowed to get their money back if the product does not work as advertised or was purchased in error even after having loaded on their computer.
But can you get your money back if you disagree with the license?
The way I read the bill is that nothing changes the status quo in this regard. Sure section 21-109 gives you the 'Right to Return'. However, it doesn't say who has to give the refund. Leaving us exactly where we are now.
Accorcing to Mr. Zellmor of the Maryland Retailers Association, retailers are allowed to set whatever conditions they want as long as their return policy is prominantly displayed. So Best Buy can continue to refuse to offer refunds on any opened software because they put their disclaimer on the back of the receipt.
And Refund Day has shown us what the vendors response will be.
You can see my letter to Senator Munson for a more detailed explaination of why I feel the 'Right to Return' is illusionary.
On another note, Maryland's version of UCITA allows beta software and software that is given away for free to disclaim warrenties. This means that writers of GPL software can still disclaim warrenties; but vendors of distributions, e.g. Red Har, can not.
Latency - It may or may not be a problem depending on the application. It will definately be useless for gaming. Geo-syncronous satellites have a 1/2 second round trip delay. This delay is even noticable in voice communications. Until the speakers get used to it, they have a tendency to both start speaking at the same time.
That is only the delay caused by distance. There may be additional delays due to the communication protocol.
Local Protocol - Their page says that they will support EVERY OS. I interpet this to mean that it will be a stond-alone box that will support the common LAN protocols (TCP?IP, ISX, etc.) and act as a router. Use your normal network software and point to the Isky box as your default router.
Satellite Protocol - As someone has already pointed out, TCP/IP is useless over a satellite. However, this is not a major problem since there are several existing protocols that do work well over satellite. The ISKY box will just convert between the protocols.
Hughes Network Systems already does this with their PES (Personal Earth Stations). It is called 'IP spoofing'. Basically, the box will act like the end connection and provide the ACKs and NACKs. It will keep the data in its memory until it has determined via the satellite protocol that it has been successfully transmitted.
Downlink - Nothing earth-shattering here. Hughes' DirectPC already does this. Just split the channel into time slots with an address field. As data comes in, stick it in a slot and put in the appropriate address field.
Uplink - This is the tricky part, which is why DirectPC requires that you have a modem uplink.
There are two ways to share satellite bandwidth: Frequency sharing or time sharing. Satellite bandwidth is too expensive to give each user a dedicated chunk of the frequency.
Time sharing has another set of problems. How does the users box know when to transmit? If you assign each customer a slot, then you are back to the cost issue since the slot isn't unused if the customer has no data to send.
Another option is the ALOHA channel. This works similar to the CS/CD (Carrier Sense/Collision Detect) of ethernet. Because of the delay from when a station starts to transmit till the time others can sense the carrier, this is an ineffiient means of utilizing bandwidth. The maxium throughput is about 10% of the allocated bandwidth.
The only option that I can see is use an ALOHA channel with a small but reasonable data length. That way short transmissions, e.g. request a web page, would go through the ALHOA channel; while longer transfers, e.g. uploading through FTP, would be converted to a request for an assigned slot.
The major problem with this solution is that it adds to the latency. When data goes over the ALOHA channel, there is no guarentee that it will be received due to the possibility of a collision. Since the round trip delay is 1/2 second, the box would have to wait from 3/4 to 1 second for an ACK. If it doesn't receive it, it will have to retransmit.
Slashdot Mirror
Are you sure of this? In Maryland, you must file a notice of appeal with the lower court before filing the appeal with the higher court. Is this different at the federal level?
Think about this. Why should Jackson be involved in MS submission of the appeal? He just ruled against them. They are appealing his decision.
Congress passed a law that would allow Jackson to decide if the government can skip the appealate court and go directly to the supreme court once the notice of appeal has been filed. That seems like an excellent reason why Jackson would be involved.
According to the AP story, three of the judges are disqualified from ruling on the case (no reason was given) that means only seven judges are available. This was one of the reasons the appelate court gave for hearing the case en banc.
Attorney-client may only apply to the discussions between the attorney and his client. However, the work-product privelege is much broader. It applies to any work done for the attonney in preperation for the case. Discussions between the attorney and the para-legels discussing startagey are privliged conversations. If the attorney hired a private decective to investigate the defendant, the results of his investigation would also be covered under the work-product privelege.
You are correct in that there are some undercurrents that I don't understand since expert witenses normally do not fall under the work-product privelege.
He mostly emphasizes that despite the dificulty of making pirated DVDs, there is a real danger of pirating DVD movies by compressing the DeCSS'd movie files with DivX, which he claims can currently compress a movie to 1.2Gb, small enough to put on two CDR's, or to send over a 100Mbs LAN in 7 minutes.
That would explain all the questions about DivX and CDRs. I seem to recall that the witness admitted that he has not actually viewed any movies that were compressed with DivX or put on a CDR.
He also attacks the argument that DeCSS has "legitimate academic, commercial or scientific value", noting that if this were the case, then it would only be available in source code, since, it is hard to learn how a program works from a compiled binary.
That also explains some of the questions. The witness kept referring to the .exe files. Which is probably why the lawyer asked exactly how he got the file. (I recall the witness saying that the MPAA provided them and he did not download them himself.) It also explains why the lawyer kept asking if the witness knew if the MPAA provided everything they downloaded.
For those critics saying this is boring: it is no more boring than watching a chess game. If you understand some of the startegy, it is extremely interesting. If you don't know anything about chess, it is extremely boring.
Most people are looking at this from the wrong prespective. It isn't a interview to obtain information about a subject. It is a deposition that will be used in a trial.
It is like a chess game where both sides are playing for position. The lawyer questioning the witness wants to 'lock-in' the witnesss into a particlular line of testimony without tipping his hand. The lawyer who represents the opposing side wants to avoid that from happening and give as little information as possible to his oppenents.
For example, if a lawyer catches a witness in a lie, he is not going to challenge him on the spot. Instead, he will rephrase the question a couple of different ways to ensure that the witness is truely lying. He will wait for the trial to impeach the witness giving the opposing side less time to react or minimize the damage.
While you are focusing on trivia about Linux/BSD and asking about the hard drive, the lawyer was nailing down certain facts. The witness has never played a copy of the movie. He only viewed the movie using the original DVD.
He also got the witness to declare that he thought DeCSS was not relevant to regional coding. (It doesn't matter whether the lawyer agreed or disagreed, the witness can not go back and change his position without losing credibility in the court room.
The lawyers were also probing the witness about the feasability of transferring files created by DeCSS and if he knew of any instances of a pirated movie being traded or sold. (The witness only knew of the ones from the Hong Kong pirate factories and did not know of any using the DeCSS.)
In my opinion, the biggest win was that the witness admitted that cryptographers learn from reading source code and that it is an 'axiom' of the cryptrophy field that a code that does not have peer review is weaker than one that does.
The witness also admitted that there was merit in a scolarly journal, e.g. ACM's, to include parts of the code in writing an article. In other words, there are other reasons, besides pirating movies to publish the DeCSS.
As for the objections, they basically fell into two catagories: attorney-client privilage and "form".
Reading between the lines, it appears that the witness was hired by the law firm to do some investigation into the case. Any work that was done for the lawyer would fall into the attorney-client privlilage and work-product category. In other words, you don't have to give the other side a blue-print of your case.
The other objections were related to the form of the question. If the question is too ambigious, too complecated, etc., the opposing side will object and the questioning lawyer will rephrase the question.
You just met one! I was unable to install OpenLinux even though I successfully installed Slackware on the same machine. The problem had nothing to due with my cluefulness.
I had two drives (1 windows & 1 virgin) and was unable to install OpenLinux.
The problem was my CD-ROM. It hangs off the sound card. The kernal saw it as
Actually, that is not the point of the lawsuit. The remedy has to be done to restore competition in the marketplace. It is not meant to punish Microsoft.
As some commentators have pointed out, the split up might increase the worth of stockholders like it did during the AT&T breakup and might make Gates even wealthier. But it is irrelevant.
Which is why the government can't just fine Microsoft. If Microsoft is not willing to change its business practices, as they have repeatedly said they wouldn't, then DOJ had to come up with a way to force Microsoft to change.
The choices were to regulate Microsoft or break them up.
First, where does it say that the ad was purched? My impression was that the editorial staff included it on their own as an illustration to the story. I recall reading an article about Microsoft's taking over a couple of Metro stations with their job advertisements. The article included a large photo of one of the Metro stations. Nobody cried foul.
Second, there are many cases where their are favorable product reviews, articles, and opinion pieces that accompany an advertising campaign. When Window's 95 was rolled out, Microsoft had taken lots of full page ads and the papers included a lot of favorable articles and reviews. I don't recall anyone crying foul over that either.
The only time it would raise ethical questions is when the company paid the paper for the favorable article without it being pointed out that it was paid for.
Considering Microsoft's EULA, (you can not publish a review or benchmark without Microsoft's permission), I am suspicious of all reviews of Microsoft's products, whether or not Microsoft actually paid for it.
Another reason is the anti-trust trial. Regardless of what happens on appeal, the damage has been done.
Boise, who also represented IBM in their big anti-trust case, told Neukom before chagres were files, "You know, once the United States government files suit against you, everything changes. People are more willing to come forward and testify against you. Others are more willing to question you, resist you. The whole world changes."
Microsoft's biggest asset before the trial was that it was preceived as being invincable. Nobody has betten Microsoft. Even IBM has lost to Microsoft. That perception has changed after Microsoft's bumbling defense.
Now Dell, Compaq, etc. are willing to risk Microsoft's wrath by offerring alternative OSs on their computer. Something they would have never doen before the trial. AOL and Gateway have even gone as far as to totally eliminate the Wintel duopoly from their set-top box.
And, don't forget the free publicity Linux has received because of the trial. I don't recall seeing any article even mention Linux before the trial. However, the week after Microsof's lawyers haeld up a box of RedHat in the courtroom and declared that "This is our competition", almost every newspaper carried at least a "What is Linux" sidebar. Redhat, SuSe, Caldera, etc. can't purchase that kind of advertising.
Microsoft's defenders still continue to increase the Linux mindshare. Almost every article or opinion piece I have read attacking the court's remedy as "too draconian" point to linux as a viable competitor.
This presents Microsoft with a no-win PR problem. On one hand, they must portray Linux as a viable competitor in order to attack the court's remedies. On the other, they must belittle Linux as a toy OS written by long-hair kids in their basements and garages.
I would like to see how you arrived at this conclusion. Apache runs on about 55% of the web servers. However, that includes all operating systems, not only the *nix OS.
Does it not then make *more* sense for the free "bundled" distribution of Apache to be banned?
Contraary to Microsoft's spin, they were not hauled into court because of their size or market share. They were taken to court because they used their monopoly in one market to gain a monolpoly in a second market. How has Apache levered their 'monopoly' of the web server market to any other market?
Have they demanded that you buy a particuler OS or client in order to buy Apache? Do they extend the protocols so that you are locked into Apache and a particular OS or browser? Do they tweek the protocols so that it works best with Apache's other software while giving degraded performaance to Apache's compititor's?
There is even a bigger problem with having an anti-trust case against Apache. Who are you going to take to court? It is not owned or sold by an particular company. Anybody can download and install it. Any company can include it with their own software.
Hate to show my age, but in the 60's (when I started playing pin ball machines) all machines were muli-ball machines. Each machine had five balls. Drop in your nickle and the five balls would drop into a 'resovior'. Below the plunger was a second lever which you pushed to raise a ball from the resiovior to the front of the plunger. If you were hard core, or just bored, you could put all five balls in play, one right after the other.
I don't think 99.95 of the consumers who buy computers WANT windows. They want a computer. They go to the local Sears, Staples, Compusa, etc. and compare models and talk to the salesman. When they finally make their choice, it is not based on what OS the computer is running, since they all run Windows. They base it on processor speed, RAM, color of the case, etc. However, they don't compare OSes since most stores sell only one OS.
Hell, a large number of consumer's don't even know what an OS is! I run a local ISP. I ask every new user, what OS they are using. About 20% to 30% say HP, Compaq, Gateway, etc. They equate the OS with the manufacturor of the computer.
statements (which they are free to change anytime)."
Not true. The Terms of Service is a contract. According to contract law, a party must explicitly agree to any modification of the origianl contract. eBay can not arbitrarily change its terms of service.
When crdit cards change their interest rates, they send you a notice notifing you of the change. The notice states that your acceptence of the new terms is to continue to using your credit card. If you do not use the credit card after receiving the notice, you continue to pay the old interest rate.
Many software and internet companies claim that they reserve the right to change the terms of service by merely changing the web page without explicitly notifing you. However, this has not been tested in court. I would think they will have a tough time selling this in court. It seems unreasonable to expect the user to read the terms of service everytime they log onto the network and try to figure out if any thing has changed since the last time.
What percentage of its income comes from advertisinge? And, what percentage of its income comes from the commission on sales?
It is the old story of the leader in the market trying to keep users locked into their product. AOL does it with Instant Messaging. Microsoft does it with their file fomrates.
Most other Auction Sites welcome Bidder's Edge's robot. Why? It gives a wider exposure to their auctions meaning that more bidders will see it and raise the price of the item under sale.
Why does eBay object? Because they are the market leader and don't want bidders to see alternate auction sites. If eBay prevails in this case, then bidders will have to search eBay themselves. eBay is betting that rather than check two seperate sites, the bidders will stay on their site.
What is the difference between Bidder's Edge automatically doing the searchs and my running a program for me to automatically do the searches?
Maybe we are getting into a semantical issue here. If you can sign away your right to damages and you can sign away all express and implied warrenties and you hold the vendor blameless even if they knew about the problem when you bought the product, you have effectively signed away your right to sue.
By signing away express and implied warrenties, you have signed away any grounds for suing. By signing away damages, there is no point in suing since the court can only grant damages in a civil case.
Not true. Some of the posts they objected to did contain the verbatim text, and most users had no problem with Slashdot taking down those particular posts.
However, they did not stop there. They also wanted posts that had links to the text. This is a gray area with, to quote Al Gore, "no controlling legal authority".
Plus, Microsoft also wanted Slashdot to delete posts that observed the FACT that if you use pkunzip to unzip the file, you do not see licensing agreement.
The last is definately a Free Speech issue and has nothing to do with copyright protection.
You should tell it to the company that lost in Washington a few days ago. The software they were using to write a quote made a minor error, a mere $1.9 million error. The judges ruled that because they clicked on "I Agree' they lost the ability to sue,
Except for one minor problem. It has not been proben to be an illegal copy. The complaintent has alleged it is an illegal copy. According to the DMCA, a service-provider can claim 'Safe-Harbor' if they merely block access. The DMCA does not require that the actually destroy/erase the copy.
If the poster files a counter-notification that the material is not a copyright infringement, the service-provider has to restore/stop denying access in "not less then 10, but not greater than 14 days" if the complaint does not file suit with the poster.
If your interpetation is correct, then the site loses no matter what the site does. If he doesn't delete it, the complaintent takes him to court for not destroying the copy. If he does destroy it, the poster takes him to court for not restoring it.
This is the exact oppisite of what the 'Safe-Harbor' clause in the DMCA was trying to accomplish. It was trying to avoid sticking a service provier in that exact position.
Not true. They are only obligated to remove access to it. Since they also have a legal requirement to restore it under certain circumstances, they can not just delete it.
One last thingy that I noticed. There is no digital signature appended to the message, not any other way to identify the writer of this e-mail. Ofcourse you could make a phonecall. But coming from MS one would expect better use of Outlook
It doesn't necessarily have to be signed. There are six requirements for the notificaiton to be effective, signing it is one of them. However, not all have to be met They only have to substantially meet the requirements. Of course, the word substantially is not defined.
The way I understand the DMCA, Slashdot is now obligated to block access to the material and notify the posters that it has blocked the access. Then the posters can notify, under penalties of perjury, that the material is not copyright protected. At this point, Slashdot must notify Microsoft of the counter notification. At that point, Microsoft has 10 days to file a suit against the poster. If they fail to file suit, Slashdot can legally put it back on the site.
Any that quote the entire text are obviously copyright infringments. But the other two categories: links and descriptions of how to unzip the file, are, argueably, protected under the first amendment. The posters could easily issue the counter notification.
If Andover set up a defense fund for any poster for the argueable defenses and every reader contributed $10, that would be a nice warchest for a defense fund.
Basically, the PO spells out quantity, price, delivery date, payment terms, etc. The desenting opinion and the judges in the Step Saver case said that the PO is a contract. And, the shrink-wrap licnese is a modification to that contract. Since the shrink-wrap has terms that are drastically different from the PO, e.g. you are not buying the software only licensing it, it has to be explicitly agreed to. If the seller does not make these terms known before they ship the software, it is much harder to have the shrink-wrap upheld in court.
I don't have any problem with selling things 'as-is'. Hell, I have bought cars and a houses as-is. The seller did not make any express or implied warrenties about the items. But, and this is my main problem with shrink-wrap, it was known that 'as-is' was the terms of the sale BEFORE I paid any money.
If software companies want to sell their software as-is, then they sould be up front about it and stick a bright red sticker on the box. The reason software companies don't like this solution is that they are trying to have it both ways. All the protection of an 'as-is' sale while giving the illusion that they are standing behind their product.
My other problem with shrink-wrap is that you can't get your money back if you disagree with the terms of the contract. To me, this boarders on fraud.
Actually, the description of the original contract is in there. It is the Purchase Order which listed the quantity, price, hourly rate, etc. The majority said that, although other cases (Step Saver, etc.) said purchase orders were contracts, it isn't a contract because the PO came from the end user not a reseller. The dissenting opinion said that the merchant/user distinction ws not relevant and the PO is a contract.
We are not talking about having to reboot a computer that locked up. We are talking about a $1.9 Million error in software that was specifically designed to calculate bids.
Another fact that has not been mentioned was that the software company was aware of the bug before the minor mistake happened and they did not send any notices or patches.
According to the opinions, the engineers decided that it would be easier to only replace the software for customers who complained.
If I recall correctly, a car manufacturer got fined big time for desiding that it was cheaper to pay for injuries caused by a defect than to issue a recall. Maybe car manufacturers should start their own version of 'shrink-wrap'. Put a notice on the steering wheel, "By starting this car, you agree..
As a side note, the court would have had to rule differently under Maryland's version of the UCITA since waivers of implied or express warrentee are not enforceable.
Under existing contract law, you must agree with a contract in order to be bound by it.
In ProCD, the case that upheld shrinkwrap licenses, the judge relied on the fact that the buyer had to have clicked on the OK button in order to run the program. If you can unzip the program and read the document without clicking on "I Agree', then you have not agreed to the contract.
What is actually printed on the document does not make any difference, as others have pointed out.
Under UCITA, I believe the arguement is even stronger. Section 21-108 (of the Maryland version) states Authentication may be proven in any manner, including a showing that a party made use of information or access that could have been available only if it engaged in conduct or operations that authenticated the redord or term.
Clearly, unziping the file is a way way to use the information without agreeing, or even reading the terms.
Also, Maryland amended their version that makes any clauses prohibiting reverse engineering for compatability purposes unenforceable.
In order to be protected under trade secrets, a company must take reasonable precautions to protect their secrets. I don't think that putting a file on the web that is only protected by 'zip' would be considered reasonable.
Maryland put in an exception for beta software and software that is given away for free. Therefore, it won't effect GPL, except of the dirtros like Red Hat.
But can you get your money back if you disagree with the license?
The way I read the bill is that nothing changes the status quo in this regard. Sure section 21-109 gives you the 'Right to Return'. However, it doesn't say who has to give the refund. Leaving us exactly where we are now.
Accorcing to Mr. Zellmor of the Maryland Retailers Association, retailers are allowed to set whatever conditions they want as long as their return policy is prominantly displayed. So Best Buy can continue to refuse to offer refunds on any opened software because they put their disclaimer on the back of the receipt.
And Refund Day has shown us what the vendors response will be.
You can see my letter to Senator Munson for a more detailed explaination of why I feel the 'Right to Return' is illusionary.
On another note, Maryland's version of UCITA allows beta software and software that is given away for free to disclaim warrenties. This means that writers of GPL software can still disclaim warrenties; but vendors of distributions, e.g. Red Har, can not.
Latency - It may or may not be a problem depending on the application. It will definately be useless for gaming. Geo-syncronous satellites have a 1/2 second round trip delay. This delay is even noticable in voice communications. Until the speakers get used to it, they have a tendency to both start speaking at the same time.
That is only the delay caused by distance. There may be additional delays due to the communication protocol.
Local Protocol - Their page says that they will support EVERY OS. I interpet this to mean that it will be a stond-alone box that will support the common LAN protocols (TCP?IP, ISX, etc.) and act as a router. Use your normal network software and point to the Isky box as your default router.
Satellite Protocol - As someone has already pointed out, TCP/IP is useless over a satellite. However, this is not a major problem since there are several existing protocols that do work well over satellite. The ISKY box will just convert between the protocols.
Hughes Network Systems already does this with their PES (Personal Earth Stations). It is called 'IP spoofing'. Basically, the box will act like the end connection and provide the ACKs and NACKs. It will keep the data in its memory until it has determined via the satellite protocol that it has been successfully transmitted.
Downlink - Nothing earth-shattering here. Hughes' DirectPC already does this. Just split the channel into time slots with an address field. As data comes in, stick it in a slot and put in the appropriate address field.
Uplink - This is the tricky part, which is why DirectPC requires that you have a modem uplink.
There are two ways to share satellite bandwidth: Frequency sharing or time sharing. Satellite bandwidth is too expensive to give each user a dedicated chunk of the frequency.
Time sharing has another set of problems. How does the users box know when to transmit? If you assign each customer a slot, then you are back to the cost issue since the slot isn't unused if the customer has no data to send.
Another option is the ALOHA channel. This works similar to the CS/CD (Carrier Sense/Collision Detect) of ethernet. Because of the delay from when a station starts to transmit till the time others can sense the carrier, this is an ineffiient means of utilizing bandwidth. The maxium throughput is about 10% of the allocated bandwidth.
The only option that I can see is use an ALOHA channel with a small but reasonable data length. That way short transmissions, e.g. request a web page, would go through the ALHOA channel; while longer transfers, e.g. uploading through FTP, would be converted to a request for an assigned slot.
The major problem with this solution is that it adds to the latency. When data goes over the ALOHA channel, there is no guarentee that it will be received due to the possibility of a collision. Since the round trip delay is 1/2 second, the box would have to wait from 3/4 to 1 second for an ACK. If it doesn't receive it, it will have to retransmit.