I'd still have been forced to crop them down to what a smaller sensor would have produced to get uniformly-sharp results.
I'm curious about this. Do you think it's due to the depth of the photosites or lenses that have classic flatness of field problems and edge/corner softness? Have you seen any pictures taken on film with the same lenses?
I certainly notice the difference between shots on film with my 50mm at f/1.4 and f/8, but that doesn't make me crop the corners off-- I try to stop down or I live with the softness because I don't want to use flash.
I agree with the other poster about the irritating multiplying effect of smaller sensors. Maybe I'm delusional, but I think I'll do OK with corner-to-corner sharpness with a 24mm and 35mm non-zoom lens vs. some freakish 15-24mm zoom used with an APS-sized sensor DSLR.
These two (and the economy) are keeping me away from APS-sized sensor SLRs like the Canon EOS-10D at US$1.5K, 6 megapixels. Instead I'm going to get an Elan and start building a lens collection for when the full-frame cameras are less than $3k.
I was interested by the 4/3 system (I thought making a still camera using C-mount video camera lenses would be cool), but 1) it's too expensive and 2) 35mm is a great imager size for lens design. The depth of focus at a given aperture is better than medium format but it's possible to get it short if you want. The weeny 6mm lenses on consumer digicams keep the background in focus even at f/2.0, so they aren't great for portraiture.
When the full-frame sensors get cheaper, I hope Cosina makes a Leica screw-mount "digital rangefinder" for nice wide-angle digital without the compromise of a mirror box between the lens and sensor. Maybe they'll use our chip in it.
When the makers of the Nomad were sued, I thought the courts ruled that while fair-use allows you to make MP3s of CDs you own, you are not required to make the MP3s yourself.
Not Nomad, but the first portable mp3 player: the Diamond Rio.
[10] In fact, the Rio's operation is entirely consistent with the Act's main purpose -- the facilitation of personal use. As the Senate Report explains, "[t]he purpose of[the Act] is to ensure the right of consumers to make analog or digital audio recordings of copyrighted music for their private, noncommercial use." S. Rep. 102-294, at *86 (emphasis added). The Act does so through its home taping exemption, see 17 U.S.C.S 1008, which "protects all noncommercial copying by consumers of digital and analog musical recordings, " H.R. Rep. 102-873(I), at *59. The Rio merely makes copies in order to render portable, or "space-shift," those files that already reside on a user's hard drive. Cf. Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, 464 U.S. 417, 455 (1984) (holding that "time-shifting" of copyrighted television shows with VCR's constitutes fair use under the Copyright Act, and thus is not an infringement). Such copying is paradigmatic non-commercial personal use entirely consistent with the purposes of the Act.
US Code chapter 17, section 1008 seems to allow home copying, even from your friends' music when you don't have a copy. If this exception doesn't apply, Fair Use should, particularly if you're replacing a friend's damaged disc instead of simply sharing a single copy (by duping) between the two of you. These defenses didn't work for my.mp3.com's Beamer/Beam-It service because it wasn't non-commercial.
Sec. 1008. - Prohibition on certain infringement actions
No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings
This decision seems to legalize "space-shifting" as the Betamax case did "time-shifting." That case is great (actually most of the good stuff is the District Court's findings which the Supreme Court affirms). The decision reads in part:
"the court found that the purpose of this use served the public interest in increasing access to television programming, an interest that "is consistent with the First Amendment policy of providing the fullest possible access to information through the public airwaves."
and
"Selling a staple article of commerce -- e. g., a typewriter, a recorder, a camera, a photocopying machine -- technically contributes to any infringing use subsequently made thereof, but this kind of 'contribution,' if deemed sufficient as a basis for liability, would expand the theory beyond precedent and arguably beyond judicial management.
. . ..
". . . Commerce would indeed be hampered if manufacturers of staple items were held liable as contributory infringers whenever they 'constructively' knew that some purchasers on some occasions would use their product [p.427] for a purpose which a court later deemed, as a matter of first impression, to be an infringement." Ibid.
Unfortunately, though a decision was reached in court, the parties still settled with undisclosed terms. This seems to be common in these cases which you might hope would provide some guidance. Sony v. Connectix (Playstation emulator, reverse-engineering & transitory copies as infringing) has a pretty clear cut decision, but evidently, Sony came back with a new set of complaints & Connectix finally settled.
MMC/SD slot (that does NOT honor the DRM of SD cards, btw
Unless they're using the key storage area as general-purpose storage, this isn't saying much.
The card and the spec are divided into pieces. Most of the card is just sectors with no authentication to access them and no encryption done on the contents.
That's why you get 62MB on a 64MB card (for something typically more expensive than SmartMedia or CompactFlash, grrr).
The other 2MB or so is for key storage, is spec'd in a different volume & uses crypto tricks to try to avoid giving up keys to those who shouldn't have them. [I'm guessing here. I have the crypto part of the spec, but I won't read it unless I actually need to implement those features.]
If you could get that 2MB back when you aren't doing DRM (e.g. in the digital cameras I do firmware for) it would be great, but not likely to be interoperable.
Instead I wish mfg.s would just make cards with no crypto. I think the spec allows this. That works against the goals of the SD forum though.
MMC doesn't reserve space for keys, but it's a 1 bit wide interface. SD can transfer up to 12.5 megabytes/second. -M
This License applies to any program or other work which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of this General Public License. The "Program", below, refers to any such program or work, and a "work based on the Program" means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law: that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it, either verbatim or with modifications....
In TiVo's case, people seem to go along with TiVo's claim that "the work" is the modified kernel which TiVo does provide source for.
I think "the work" is the whole box. What good does a modified kernel do without the apps on that box. Are the apps "merely aggregated" (GPL's exception for derivative works) with the kernel? Not in such a closed box (no "ls" to see those parts and these parts).
What's Linksys's "work?" Once again, I claim it's the whole access point/router. They don't sell the kernel binary by itself and firmware updates are distributed with GPL and proprietary code in one lump (maybe not statically linked, but I don't think that's a reasonable exception).
In a Linux-equipped PC, it's pretty easy to keep work one might want to distribute binary-only as separate modules and programs, but in embedded systems, it doesn't seem that easy to me to "merely aggregate" code into a ROM or even a non user-accessible hard disk (TiVo).
Even static linking could be called aggregation as the caller & callee don't change each other-- they aren't fused by just mixed up together. The better the interface, the less changed the parts need to be.
However, dynamically linked code is given exception to the "extend to the whole" reach of GPL'd code.
It's obvious to me that someone's trying to draw a line here to prevent what some have called "slavery."
That line is a defined a lot looser than people claim. "Merely" is pretty slippery.
You say TiVo can't be considered a "whole" work, so I suggest that I'll release an MORGAN# compiler, binary only, that uses a parser by me but the code generation & optimization from g++. If you don't like it statically linked, I'll create an interface to the g++ opimizer that let's me hand it three-address code & release the dynamically-linkable modified code's source.
I don't think my contribution of adding a hack layer into g++ is worth the benefit I get from all the work others put into g++, but it seems the rules allow this. I think it's simply a trick as is the binary kernel modules trick.
TiVo contributed access through the serial port for fun hacking, but that's not what the GPL requires them to contribute.
These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.
The GPL *is* viral and a huge pain in the ass for embedded companies if you follow it's spirit (we use MQX, but because it's real time, not because it's not GPL). In my opinion, TiVo is violating the GPL by not releasing source to their applications.
From term #2 of the GPL (emphasis added):
In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License.
I've asked it before and here I go again: "What the hell is a volume of a storage or distribution medium and what's aggregation?"
When the (first) GPL was written a "volume of distribution medium" was a tape snail-mailed from the FSF in Boston, or for work-derivers, a tape or maybe as Castle is doing, a floppy.
I understand that this exception is how binary kernel modules (NVidia) can be distributed in a CD-ROM with the GPL'd Linux kernel, gcc, emacs, etc.
However, what about vendors who put their code and GPL'd code into a Flash ROM? Even if they aren't statically linked together (1), is this mere aggregation? One can extract a single file from a tape or CD-ROM, but can you un-aggregate a ROM?
Consider TiVo: is the closed-source application "merely aggregated" with the GPL'd kernel? You can put the hard drive in a PC & un-aggregate, but this violates your warranty and is not as trivial as grabbing a file from a CD-ROM.
When does "aggregation" end as "volume of storage medium" becomes more deeply embedded? If the ROM is soldered down instead of socketed? If it's inside a microcontroller with the security fuse thrown so it can't be read out?
(1) (proprietary) bootloader uncompresses kernel image into RAM, then jumps, kernel loads (proprietary) applications from a ROM filesystem
Probably because there are already two different small USB implementations,
Two? I'm aware of one smaller-connector standard. There are two plug types just as there are for the full-sized connectors, the mini-A and mini-B, but the role of the device (host or target) makes it clear which one to use. The watch is a target so it could have a mini-A plug (for which there are supposed to be adapters to A) or a mini-B socket.
I wish these smaller connectors would get more traction because though the cameras we design all come with Mass Storage Class, some manufacturers still choose to use proprietary connectors.
If you give GSH a little credit, you might see an explanation for the poem that you could agree with.
"he is taking his own situation"
Perhaps he's writing this from the point of view of a fictional character or perhaps it's documentary. First person != autobiographical.
GSH is college educated (my dad taught at Lincoln when he was a student there) and might not even have a sister named Nell.
"a gross oversimplification"
Hyperbole maybe? Consider that GSH might be smart enough to know it's not that simple, but is highlighting a single issue on purpose to make you listen, to provoke.
GSH can express the anger that people living in a tenement seeing the moon landing feel without agreeing with it. Maybe its a warning that inequity breeds resentment or a comment on fiscal policy in general rather than a slam against big science in particular.
By mistaking this for a copyright case, many are ignoring the most dangerous part of Fox's claim: trademarks don't expire as long as they're defended.
Another poster pointed out that there won't be any new works entering the public domain for a while (2018).
Even then there may be problems. Suppose the Harry Potter books enter the public domain in 2123. If "Harry Potter" and "Hogwarts" haven't become generic terms, can AOL/T-W come after you if you publish your own edition or make your own H-P toy or movie?
Not only do consumers only get what AOL wants, but they don't even get to keep it long without resorting to VHS
You won't even get that if your cable box Macrovisions its outputs. Most of the Explorers that AOL/TWC use have a Macrovision generator in the DENC (digital encoder), though it's usually (always?) turned off presently.
Ogle and xine will play unencrypted DVDs if you are missing libdvdcss. In fact, xine has libdvdread and libdvdnav (and liba52?) in the main build now, so xine is all you need if you're playing libre discs.
There aren't many region free and CSS free discs in the US, but The Man Who Fell to Earth (VALIS) is one.
Revolution OS has been available from Netflix as a single disc since at least Christmas. My parents & sister watched it while visiting & learned more in 86 minutes about the open source movement than I could have told them in three hours.
My mother had to quit a job teaching Windows apps because they crashed so much she was embarrased. She consults on medical billing stuff running on MUMPS & VAXen (i.e. stable), so she was happy to learn that an alternative to Microsoft has some real momentum.
This Rube Goldberg kind of connectivity seems to be catching on, I guess because each step seems cool, no one notices the whole thing is silly.
San Francisco Police radio -> trunking scanner -> Real Audio -> bunch of listeners transcribing -> chat -> Danger HipTop held by a protester down the street from the cop with the radio.
Why the protestors can't get some family radio service or CB walkie-talkies instead of cellphones for voice & SMS is beyond me. With all the tall buildings, cell sites connected by landlines might have better coverage (esp. in the financial district), but it's simple to relay messages manually.
Carrying a scanner while committing "illegal acts" is dangerous, but someone could leave a scanner hooked up to CB with a linear amplifier running somewhere in the city instead of this nutty circuitous route.
Also, whatever happened to underground micropower (FM) radio?
HD DVD is still in a blue-laser MPEG-2 vs. red-laser MPEG-4 fight, but digital VCRs already exist and do let you record high definition programming.
It's called D-VHS. D-Theater is a standard on top of that that adds tough encryption for distribution of Wacky Jack V.'s movies so they'll be hard to back up.
The limitation of D-VHS in recording is that you're depending on a tuner to give you signals. 8VSB-broadcast-only (OTA or "over the air") tuners may never be DRM-crippled by the proposed broadcast flag, but satellite and combo HD-OTA/sat tuners are subject to nasty firmware upgrades with Digital Restrictions Managed. It's possible that even OTA-only tuners will be upgraded with MPEG private section data, but that reqires cooperation of broadcasters.
There are also OTA-onlyHDtunercardsfor PCs. Whether there are backdoors for "upgrading" the DRM if the broadcast flag flies is left as an exercise (try SoftICE). The streams that at least one of the cards captured are not "in the clear," which gives you an idea of the mfg.'s intentions. There are no open source drivers for any of these cards working yet. The Telemann "independent developer" project for HiPixrequires an NDA to get source access. Teralogic who makes the chip on that board has been bought by Oak, BTW.
LinITX is about running Linux on VIA's Mini-ITX motherboards which use the BGA version of the C3 (soldered down rather than socketed).
The older boards use the PLE133 chipset & the newer "M" series use the same CLE266 as your board.
Warning that not only does i686 not work for C3 because of cmov, but the FPU in the Ezra parts runs at half the clock speed. The new Nehemiah parts will have full-speed FPU. The latest EPIA ME10000s boards at iDot (which were supposed to be Nehemiah) are just M9000s with 1GHz rather than 933MHz Ezras.
Considering the original allegation and the press release, they are not inconsistent, but bring up an important question for the GPL. If we accept that the GPL'd code only went into the HAL, not the kernel and Castle is willing to distribute source for the whole HAL (actually, it seems like they're distributing part which is not OK), why don't they have to distribute source to their kernel?
In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribution mediumdoes not bring the other work under the scope of this License.
I've asked it before and here I go again: "What the hell is a volume of a storage or distribution medium and what's aggregation?"
When the (first) GPL was written a "volume of distribution medium" was a tape snail-mailed from the FSF in Boston, or for work-derivers, a tape or maybe as Castle is doing, a floppy.
I understand that this exception is how binary kernel modules (NVidia) can be distributed in a CD-ROM with the GPL'd Linux kernel, gcc, emacs, etc.
However, Castle is putting the HAL and kernel into a Flash ROM. Even if they aren't statically linked together (not hard to imagine: HAL boots & uncompresses kernel image into RAM, then jumps), is this mere aggregation? One can extract a single file from a tape or CD-ROM, but can you un-aggregate a ROM?
Consider TiVo: is the closed-source application "merely aggregated" with the GPL'd kernel? You can put the hard drive in a PC & un-aggregate, but this violates your warranty and is not as trivial as grabbing a file from a CD-ROM.
When does "aggregation" end as "volume of storage medium" becomes more deeply embedded? If the ROM is soldered down instead of socketed? If it's inside a microcontroller with the security fuse thrown so it can't be read out?
If it was so easy, why do people who get Musicmatch free with their mp3 player or CD-ROM drive bother to go get EAC or cdparanoia? Why do they go get LAME and maybe a front-end like RazorLAME? Why do you see complaints about bad rips and bad encodes on the p2p networks?
Because it's not that easy to make good mp3s!
I finally got fed up with my incredibly shitty CD-ROM drive taking 12 hours to rip using EAC in its most careful mode and got a Plextor that supports C2.
I'd like to see two or three versions of a CD encoded. Give me a two-disc release with SHN, good-ogg, small-ogg, good-mp3 (320kbps max VBR) and small-mp3 (96 or 128kbps CBR).
if taken to an extreme it would appear to prohibit people from telling other people how to do patches
I see this as prohibiting people from distributing patches to GPL'd code privately and telling the recipient that they may not pass the patch to others. Just posting a patch, no matter how egregious, in a "public" place, should be OK, though it seems the patch would have to be GPL'd.
Hey Joe Buck! I remember you from the old days on comp.dsp. Remember this thread? I was so much younger then....
Well, taking a quick glance at BestBuy.com, you can get a 120GB hard drive for $190. That works out to about 3.8 GB per $6. How much do those tapes hold?
DV is 3.6 megabytes (not bits!) per second. That's ~13GB on a 60 minute tape. Only 3.4x savings for giving up random access, but you can do DV on 8mm video tape using Sony's Digital8. You don't even need Hi8 tapes, D8 works on $3 Video8 tapes for 6.8x the savings or still 4.3x the savings if you can get a hard drive for a dollar a megabyte.
Whether you want to trust your data to that is another matter....
I like the random access, so wouldn't mind the media cost bump, but I'd rather stay with DV and lug around 3.5" 2E11 drives than use MPEG-4 with 2E10 drives. I realize I'm not in the majority.
(2) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that-
(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;
a work protected under this title... OK,
What the complaint seems to be saying is that the portion of the code in the reciever that actually opens the door is protected by the technological measure. You can execute those instructions only by supplying a correct code.
This is kind of a leap. If you circumvent a DRM system, you'll be attacked for gaining access to, say a Liquid Audio song, not the code that decrypts the song.
It does make some sense, though.
Many are confused because the judgement makes the leap in one place & screws up horribly in another, where it seems to claim that
Leap: "II Thus the protectecive measure in Chamberlain's receiver rolling code computer program controlls access to Chamberlain's copyrighted computer program in the receiver that operates Chamberlain's GDOs. The computer program does not execute if an improper rolling code is received from an unauthorized transmitter."
Insanity: "III Skylink's transmission [...] circumvents Chamberlain's rolling code technology, thereby eliminating the important protective measure that prevents burglars with a code grabber from gaining unauthorized access to garages...."
Slashdot Mirror
I'd still have been forced to crop them down to what a smaller sensor would have produced to get uniformly-sharp results.
I'm curious about this. Do you think it's due to the depth of the photosites or lenses that have classic flatness of field problems and edge/corner softness? Have you seen any pictures taken on film with the same lenses?
I certainly notice the difference between shots on film with my 50mm at f/1.4 and f/8, but that doesn't make me crop the corners off-- I try to stop down or I live with the softness because I don't want to use flash.
I agree with the other poster about the irritating multiplying effect of smaller sensors. Maybe I'm delusional, but I think I'll do OK with corner-to-corner sharpness with a 24mm and 35mm non-zoom lens vs. some freakish 15-24mm zoom used with an APS-sized sensor DSLR.
Full-frame digital SLRs exist now and are well under $10k.
Kodak DCS-14n lists @ US$5k, 14 megapixels
Canon EOS-1Ds lists @ US$8k, 11 megapixels
These two (and the economy) are keeping me away from APS-sized sensor SLRs like the Canon EOS-10D at US$1.5K, 6 megapixels. Instead I'm going to get an Elan and start building a lens collection for when the full-frame cameras are less than $3k.
I was interested by the 4/3 system (I thought making a still camera using C-mount video camera lenses would be cool), but 1) it's too expensive and 2) 35mm is a great imager size for lens design. The depth of focus at a given aperture is better than medium format but it's possible to get it short if you want. The weeny 6mm lenses on consumer digicams keep the background in focus even at f/2.0, so they aren't great for portraiture.
When the full-frame sensors get cheaper, I hope Cosina makes a Leica screw-mount "digital rangefinder" for nice wide-angle digital without the compromise of a mirror box between the lens and sensor. Maybe they'll use our chip in it.
When the makers of the Nomad were sued, I thought the courts ruled that while fair-use allows you to make MP3s of CDs you own, you are not required to make the MP3s yourself.
.
Not Nomad, but the first portable mp3 player: the Diamond Rio.
The EFF's archive is here.
The decision is here and says in part:
[10] In fact, the Rio's operation is entirely consistent with the Act's main purpose -- the facilitation of personal use. As the Senate Report explains, "[t]he purpose of[the Act] is to ensure the right of consumers to make analog or digital audio recordings of copyrighted music for their private, noncommercial use." S. Rep. 102-294, at *86 (emphasis added). The Act does so through its home taping exemption, see 17 U.S.C.S 1008, which "protects all noncommercial copying by consumers of digital and analog musical recordings, " H.R. Rep. 102-873(I), at *59. The Rio merely makes copies in order to render portable, or "space-shift," those files that already reside on a user's hard drive. Cf. Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, 464 U.S. 417, 455 (1984) (holding that "time-shifting" of copyrighted television shows with VCR's constitutes fair use under the Copyright Act, and thus is not an infringement). Such copying is paradigmatic non-commercial personal use entirely consistent with the purposes of the Act.
US Code chapter 17, section 1008 seems to allow home copying, even from your friends' music when you don't have a copy. If this exception doesn't apply, Fair Use should, particularly if you're replacing a friend's damaged disc instead of simply sharing a single copy (by duping) between the two of you. These defenses didn't work for my.mp3.com's Beamer/Beam-It service because it wasn't non-commercial.
Sec. 1008. - Prohibition on certain infringement actions
No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings
This decision seems to legalize "space-shifting" as the Betamax case did "time-shifting." That case is great (actually most of the good stuff is the District Court's findings which the Supreme Court affirms). The decision reads in part:
"the court found that the purpose of this use served the public interest in increasing access to television programming, an interest that "is consistent with the First Amendment policy of providing the fullest possible access to information through the public airwaves."
and
"Selling a staple article of commerce -- e. g., a typewriter, a recorder, a camera, a photocopying
machine -- technically contributes to any infringing use subsequently made thereof, but this kind of 'contribution,' if deemed sufficient as a basis for liability, would expand the theory beyond precedent and arguably beyond judicial management.
. . .
". . . Commerce would indeed be hampered if manufacturers of staple items were held liable as
contributory infringers whenever they 'constructively' knew that some purchasers on some occasions would use their product [p.427] for a purpose which a court later deemed, as a matter of first impression, to be an infringement." Ibid.
Unfortunately, though a decision was reached in court, the parties still settled with undisclosed terms. This seems to be common in these cases which you might hope would provide some guidance. Sony v. Connectix (Playstation emulator, reverse-engineering & transitory copies as infringing) has a pretty clear cut decision, but evidently, Sony came back with a new set of complaints & Connectix finally settled.
MMC/SD slot (that does NOT honor the DRM of SD cards, btw
Unless they're using the key storage area as general-purpose storage, this isn't saying much.
The card and the spec are divided into pieces. Most of the card is just sectors with no authentication to access them and no encryption done on the contents.
That's why you get 62MB on a 64MB card (for something typically more expensive than SmartMedia or CompactFlash, grrr).
The other 2MB or so is for key storage, is spec'd in a different volume & uses crypto tricks to try to avoid giving up keys to those who shouldn't have them. [I'm guessing here. I have the crypto part of the spec, but I won't read it unless I actually need to implement those features.]
If you could get that 2MB back when you aren't doing DRM (e.g. in the digital cameras I do firmware for) it would be great, but not likely to be interoperable.
Instead I wish mfg.s would just make cards with no crypto. I think the spec allows this. That works against the goals of the SD forum though.
MMC doesn't reserve space for keys, but it's a 1 bit wide interface. SD can transfer up to 12.5 megabytes/second.
-M
Did you really expect them to release proprietary intellectual property?
I sure do, because I read the GPL as requiring it.
GPL:
This License applies to any program or other work which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of this General Public License. The "Program", below, refers to any such program or work, and a "work based on the Program" means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law: that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it, either verbatim or with modifications....
In TiVo's case, people seem to go along with TiVo's claim that "the work" is the modified kernel which TiVo does provide source for.
I think "the work" is the whole box. What good does a modified kernel do without the apps on that box. Are the apps "merely aggregated" (GPL's exception for derivative works) with the kernel? Not in such a closed box (no "ls" to see those parts and these parts).
What's Linksys's "work?" Once again, I claim it's the whole access point/router. They don't sell the kernel binary by itself and firmware updates are distributed with GPL and proprietary code in one lump (maybe not statically linked, but I don't think that's a reasonable exception).
credit where it's due
She's already tried branching into movies and will try again.
That sounds uncannily ominous for some reason, like something out of an alien invasion movie from the 50's or the Terminator series.
In a Linux-equipped PC, it's pretty easy to keep work one might want to distribute binary-only as separate modules and programs, but in embedded systems, it doesn't seem that easy to me to "merely aggregate" code into a ROM or even a non user-accessible hard disk (TiVo).
Even static linking could be called aggregation as the caller & callee don't change each other-- they aren't fused by just mixed up together. The better the interface, the less changed the parts need to be.
However, dynamically linked code is given exception to the "extend to the whole" reach of GPL'd code.
It's obvious to me that someone's trying to draw a line here to prevent what some have called "slavery."
That line is a defined a lot looser than people claim. "Merely" is pretty slippery.
You say TiVo can't be considered a "whole" work, so I suggest that I'll release an MORGAN# compiler, binary only, that uses a parser by me but the code generation & optimization from g++. If you don't like it statically linked, I'll create an interface to the g++ opimizer that let's me hand it three-address code & release the dynamically-linkable modified code's source.
I don't think my contribution of adding a hack layer into g++ is worth the benefit I get from all the work others put into g++, but it seems the rules allow this. I think it's simply a trick as is the binary kernel modules trick.
TiVo contributed access through the serial port for fun hacking, but that's not what the GPL requires them to contribute.
-M
hahaahahahah!!! not.
grandparent was funny but not realistic. parent is accurate and curiously not funny at all.
Have you read the GPL?
(emphasis added)
These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If
identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program,
and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in
themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those
sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you
distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based
on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of
this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the
entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.
The GPL *is* viral and a huge pain in the ass for embedded companies if you follow it's spirit (we use MQX, but because it's real time, not because it's not GPL). In my opinion, TiVo is violating the GPL by not releasing source to their applications.
From term #2 of the GPL (emphasis added):
In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License.
I've asked it before and here I go again: "What the hell is a volume of a storage or distribution medium and what's aggregation?"
When the (first) GPL was written a "volume of distribution medium" was a tape snail-mailed from the FSF in Boston, or for work-derivers, a tape or maybe as Castle is doing, a floppy.
I understand that this exception is how binary kernel modules (NVidia) can be distributed in a CD-ROM with the GPL'd Linux kernel, gcc, emacs, etc.
However, what about vendors who put their code and GPL'd code into a Flash ROM? Even if they aren't statically linked together (1), is this mere aggregation? One can extract a single file from a tape or CD-ROM, but can you un-aggregate a ROM?
Consider TiVo: is the closed-source application "merely aggregated" with the GPL'd kernel? You can put the hard drive in a PC & un-aggregate, but this violates your warranty and is not as trivial as grabbing a file from a CD-ROM.
When does "aggregation" end as "volume of storage medium" becomes more deeply embedded? If the ROM is soldered down instead of socketed? If it's inside a microcontroller with the security fuse thrown so it can't be read out?
(1) (proprietary) bootloader uncompresses kernel image into RAM, then jumps, kernel loads (proprietary) applications from a ROM filesystem
Two? I'm aware of one smaller-connector standard. There are two plug types just as there are for the full-sized connectors, the mini-A and mini-B, but the role of the device (host or target) makes it clear which one to use. The watch is a target so it could have a mini-A plug (for which there are supposed to be adapters to A) or a mini-B socket.
I wish these smaller connectors would get more traction because though the cameras we design all come with Mass Storage Class, some manufacturers still choose to use proprietary connectors.
If you give GSH a little credit, you might see an explanation for the poem that you could agree with.
"he is taking his own situation"
Perhaps he's writing this from the point of view of a fictional character or perhaps it's documentary. First person != autobiographical.
GSH is college educated (my dad taught at Lincoln when he was a student there) and might not even have a sister named Nell.
"a gross oversimplification"
Hyperbole maybe? Consider that GSH might be smart enough to know it's not that simple, but is highlighting a single issue on purpose to make you listen, to provoke.
GSH can express the anger that people living in a tenement seeing the moon landing feel without agreeing with it. Maybe its a warning that inequity breeds resentment or a comment on fiscal policy in general rather than a slam against big science in particular.
(please mod parent up)
By mistaking this for a copyright case, many are ignoring the most dangerous part of Fox's claim: trademarks don't expire as long as they're defended.
Another poster pointed out that there won't be any new works entering the public domain for a while (2018).
Even then there may be problems. Suppose the Harry Potter books enter the public domain in 2123. If "Harry Potter" and "Hogwarts" haven't become generic terms, can AOL/T-W come after you if you publish your own edition or make your own H-P toy or movie?
Not only do consumers only get what AOL wants, but they don't even get to keep it long without resorting to VHS
You won't even get that if your cable box Macrovisions its outputs. Most of the Explorers that AOL/TWC use have a Macrovision generator in the DENC (digital encoder), though it's usually (always?) turned off presently.
Ogle and xine will play unencrypted DVDs if you are missing libdvdcss. In fact, xine has libdvdread and libdvdnav (and liba52?) in the main build now, so xine is all you need if you're playing libre discs.
There aren't many region free and CSS free discs in the US, but The Man Who Fell to Earth (VALIS) is one.
Revolution OS has been available from Netflix as a single disc since at least Christmas. My parents & sister watched it while visiting & learned more in 86 minutes about the open source movement than I could have told them in three hours.
My mother had to quit a job teaching Windows apps because they crashed so much she was embarrased. She consults on medical billing stuff running on MUMPS & VAXen (i.e. stable), so she was happy to learn that an alternative to Microsoft has some real momentum.
This Rube Goldberg kind of connectivity seems to be catching on, I guess because each step seems cool, no one notices the whole thing is silly.
San Francisco Police radio -> trunking scanner -> Real Audio -> bunch of listeners transcribing -> chat -> Danger HipTop held by a protester down the street from the cop with the radio.
Why the protestors can't get some family radio service or CB walkie-talkies instead of cellphones for voice & SMS is beyond me. With all the tall buildings, cell sites connected by landlines might have better coverage (esp. in the financial district), but it's simple to relay messages manually.
Carrying a scanner while committing "illegal acts" is dangerous, but someone could leave a scanner hooked up to CB with a linear amplifier running somewhere in the city instead of this nutty circuitous route.
Also, whatever happened to underground micropower (FM) radio?
-M
HD DVD is still in a blue-laser MPEG-2 vs. red-laser MPEG-4 fight, but digital VCRs already exist and do let you record high definition programming.
It's called D-VHS. D-Theater is a standard on top of that that adds tough encryption for distribution of Wacky Jack V.'s movies so they'll be hard to back up.
The limitation of D-VHS in recording is that you're depending on a tuner to give you signals. 8VSB-broadcast-only (OTA or "over the air") tuners may never be DRM-crippled by the proposed broadcast flag, but satellite and combo HD-OTA/sat tuners are subject to nasty firmware upgrades with Digital Restrictions Managed. It's possible that even OTA-only tuners will be upgraded with MPEG private section data, but that reqires cooperation of broadcasters.
There are also OTA-only HD tuner cards for PCs. Whether there are backdoors for "upgrading" the DRM if the broadcast flag flies is left as an exercise (try SoftICE). The streams that at least one of the cards captured are not "in the clear," which gives you an idea of the mfg.'s intentions. There are no open source drivers for any of these cards working yet. The Telemann "independent developer" project for HiPix requires an NDA to get source access. Teralogic who makes the chip on that board has been bought by Oak, BTW.
LinITX is about running Linux on VIA's Mini-ITX motherboards which use the BGA version of the C3 (soldered down rather than socketed).
The older boards use the PLE133 chipset & the newer "M" series use the same CLE266 as your board.
Warning that not only does i686 not work for C3 because of cmov, but the FPU in the Ezra parts runs at half the clock speed. The new Nehemiah parts will have full-speed FPU. The latest EPIA ME10000s boards at iDot (which were supposed to be Nehemiah) are just M9000s with 1GHz rather than 933MHz Ezras.
From term #2 of the GPL (emphasis added):
I've asked it before and here I go again: "What the hell is a volume of a storage or distribution medium and what's aggregation?"
When the (first) GPL was written a "volume of distribution medium" was a tape snail-mailed from the FSF in Boston, or for work-derivers, a tape or maybe as Castle is doing, a floppy.
I understand that this exception is how binary kernel modules (NVidia) can be distributed in a CD-ROM with the GPL'd Linux kernel, gcc, emacs, etc.
However, Castle is putting the HAL and kernel into a Flash ROM. Even if they aren't statically linked together (not hard to imagine: HAL boots & uncompresses kernel image into RAM, then jumps), is this mere aggregation? One can extract a single file from a tape or CD-ROM, but can you un-aggregate a ROM?
Consider TiVo: is the closed-source application "merely aggregated" with the GPL'd kernel? You can put the hard drive in a PC & un-aggregate, but this violates your warranty and is not as trivial as grabbing a file from a CD-ROM.
When does "aggregation" end as "volume of storage medium" becomes more deeply embedded? If the ROM is soldered down instead of socketed? If it's inside a microcontroller with the security fuse thrown so it can't be read out?
Making MP3s from CD audio is trivially easy
If it was so easy, why do people who get Musicmatch free with their mp3 player or CD-ROM drive bother to go get EAC or cdparanoia? Why do they go get LAME and maybe a front-end like RazorLAME? Why do you see complaints about bad rips and bad encodes on the p2p networks?
Because it's not that easy to make good mp3s!
I finally got fed up with my incredibly shitty CD-ROM drive taking 12 hours to rip using EAC in its most careful mode and got a Plextor that supports C2.
I'd like to see two or three versions of a CD encoded. Give me a two-disc release with SHN, good-ogg, small-ogg, good-mp3 (320kbps max VBR) and small-mp3 (96 or 128kbps CBR).
if taken to an extreme it would appear to prohibit people from telling other people how to do patches
I see this as prohibiting people from distributing patches to GPL'd code privately and telling the recipient that they may not pass the patch to others. Just posting a patch, no matter how egregious, in a "public" place, should be OK, though it seems the patch would have to be GPL'd.
Hey Joe Buck! I remember you from the old days on comp.dsp. Remember this thread? I was so much younger then....
-Morgan
---
Eisner vs. Eisner
They might claim a trademark just on the 'i' prefix.
I've heard it claimed that IBM claimed a trademark on '/2' as used in PS/2 and threatened Video7 or Acer when they tried to use it for a product name.
iCommune's real problem will be "contributory infrigement" (a bizarre legal fiction IMHO) as it was for Napster, Sony Betamax, etc.
Well, taking a quick glance at BestBuy.com, you can get a 120GB hard drive for $190. That works out to about 3.8 GB per $6. How much do those tapes hold?
DV is 3.6 megabytes (not bits!) per second. That's ~13GB on a 60 minute tape. Only 3.4x savings for giving up random access, but you can do DV on 8mm video tape using Sony's Digital8. You don't even need Hi8 tapes, D8 works on $3 Video8 tapes for 6.8x the savings or still 4.3x the savings if you can get a hard drive for a dollar a megabyte.
Whether you want to trust your data to that is another matter....
I like the random access, so wouldn't mind the media cost bump, but I'd rather stay with DV and lug around 3.5" 2E11 drives than use MPEG-4 with 2E10 drives. I realize I'm not in the majority.
Let's see, Chapter 17, section 1201:
(2) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that-
(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;
a work protected under this title... OK,
What the complaint seems to be saying is that the portion of the code in the reciever that actually opens the door is protected by the technological measure. You can execute those instructions only by supplying a correct code.
This is kind of a leap. If you circumvent a DRM system, you'll be attacked for gaining access to, say a Liquid Audio song, not the code that decrypts the song.
It does make some sense, though.
Many are confused because the judgement makes the leap in one place & screws up horribly in another, where it seems to claim that
Leap: "II Thus the protectecive measure in Chamberlain's receiver rolling code computer program controlls access to Chamberlain's copyrighted computer program in the receiver that operates Chamberlain's GDOs. The computer program does not execute if an improper rolling code is received from an unauthorized transmitter."
Insanity: "III Skylink's transmission [...] circumvents Chamberlain's rolling code technology, thereby eliminating the important protective measure that prevents burglars with a code grabber from gaining unauthorized access to garages...."
Umm... garage access isn't protected by the DMCA.
Is the USofA the only country that awards patents?