"The first person who gets thier disk back is going to post it to the internet..."
Better be careful. I don't think Castle is granting you any right to post that code, and by denying the GPL, then either it belongs to Castle completely (and you'd need permission to distribute) or it is a GPL violation (and Castle doesn't have the right to give you permission to redistribute, since they violated the GPL and lost distribution rights to that code). Either way, I don't see how you can legally post the code.
Yes, it was first reported as you state. Your parents question was "who was the guy". If you read the link you posted, you'd see that Russel King didn't find breach, but that "The guy who reported the problem to me has already tried to contact the company concerned to ask for the source under the terms of the GPL...", and thus the question is still open. Note that by phrasing the question as was done, your parent has obviously read the article.
Relaxing a restriction is a loosening, not a tighting. The act of loosening a restriction can only be considered constricting if you believe that loosening is constricting. And war is peace. And black is white. "We have always been at war with Iraq (Iran)/ Iran (Iraq) has always be an ally."
Complaining directly to their ISPs should get you squat, though. If you coerce ISPs into taking unlawful action, that should be actionable. Also,its not as though the web had no content before commercial interests became interested. The thing to remember is that you own your content and that gives you some say in how its distributed, but not mere data. You have no say in terms of what someone does with data even though they learned the facts from you.
Yeah but it matters if there is creative expression involved. No one is saying a webpage is in the public domain, but rather that no one can copyright a fact. TV shows are not in the public domain, but no one can stop me from reporting that Joe Blow said "such and such" last night at 8:00 PST on channel 5. Thus the responsibilities to which you refer do not exist and are contrary to the public good with respect to the topic at hand. So remember, when people give up their rights because they are made to feel its the responsible thing to do, they are being irresponsible.
Mod the AC up: "If the content is obtained in a manner that is not in violation of copyright, then *fair use* doesn't even enter into the equation." Since data can't be copyrighted, we don't need to invoke fair use.
And speaking of a car accident. Did you know that insurance companies are claiming that your credit rating is the best single indicator of whether you'll file a car insurance claim? An Actuary for one of the major companies came recruiting and gave a talk to interested math students.
Ok, so now they are moderating content. That means they aren't a common carrier. Now joeblow transers a metalica song. The RIAA now sues joeblow *and* DALnet. DALnet, by moderating content, is now legally responsible for content that slips by. Its not a question of legal problems from the people being banned. Its now a question of legal responsibility for the actions of people you didn't ban because you didn't catch.
"Though we respect the right of our users to transfer files between themselves on a limited basis, should our staff determine that a channel exists for the primary purpose of facilitating such transfers, it will be deemed in violation of our Acceptable Use Policy and closed. "
Sounds like DALnet disagrees with you, although it does seem to be a limited right.
As a non-traditional student, most of my school friends are 19-21. The Beatles are incredibly popular. So are The Doors, and Pink Floyd. Amazingly enough classical music is played more than modern music. This isn't nostalgia. These kids are discovering alot of this music.
Except that my university does port sniffing, and so its not possible to use the campus broadband as you suggest. Likewise they routinely inspect windows file sharing directories. Don't *even* lock them out, or your off the net. My running Norton Internet Security on my windows partition was a problem for them. I had to appeal being kicked off. (They also reserve the right to intercept email.)
My statistical thermodynamics prof. gave me a copy of Order Out of Chaos, and also The End of Certainty (both by Prigogine). Interesting laymen's texts. Worth reading. In terms of this topic, I'd recommend perusing
That Sneaky Exponential--Beyond
Metcalfe's Law to the Power of Community Building for an easy development of the equations involved in expressing, and the definition of, value, in (these types of) networks. This pretty much answers the arguement about value-added-per-new-node in the posted link Curtis
Frye's review of Smart Mobs
Emergence and Nexus look (from their amazon descriptions) like worthwhile texts at the level of Prigogine's. I came across related math in Numerical Analysis II (matrix) and the stochastic methods sections of Operations Research. I freely admit that networks pose an interesting topic for modeling. I only hope to find the time to devote more units to exploration in the future.:-)
Sarnoff's Law, which states that the value of a broadcast network is proportionate to the number of viewers.
Metcalfe's Law, which states that the value of a network where each node can reach every other node grows with the square of the number of nodes.
Reed's Law, which states that, for a network where members of the network can form groups within the network, the value of that network will grow exponentially. That is, the value of the network is equal to the number of nodes raised to the power of the number of nodes, instead of just the square of the number of nodes.
That would be N^N which is faster than exponential
http://www.epublicrelations.org/Reedlaw.html
Dr. David P. Reed, former vice president and chief scientist for Lotus Development
Corporation, has developed the idea of Group Forming Networks to explain
the enormous power of the internet to facilitate the formation of networked
groups. These groups could include the numerous special interest groups,
which are attacking the biotech industry. The Group Forming Law (or, Reed?s
Law) calculates the number of groups of two or more people which can be formed
a single group.
For example, how many groups of two or more people can be formed with
an initial group of three? According to Reed?s Law is 2^N-N-1
Substituting 3 for N the answer is 4. Not a very impressive number. However,
the answer grows dramatically as N grow. For example, how many groups of
two or more people can be formed in a classroom of 20 students? The answer?
1,048,555!!!
More interesting statements @ http://www.epublicrelations.org/Reedlaw.html
Reed notes:
"As the internet continues to expand, investments
in Group-Forming Networks are likely to produce the biggest returns. As the
scale increases, what important also shifts?When the Group-Forming Law takes
hold, communities are king."
Also:
"The obvious conclusion is that whoever forms the
biggest, most robust communities will win."
These statements are surprisingly similar to those made
by RAND in its discussion of netwars.
RAND notes:
"Whoever masters the network form first and best will
gain major advantages."
Also:
"The information revolution favors and strengthens
networks, while it erodes hierarchies."
"Hierarchies have a difficult time fighting networks."
"It takes networks to fight networks."
Finally, RAND states:
"Today, those who want to defend against netwar will,
increasingly, have to adopt weapons, strategies, and organization designs
like those of their adversaries. This does not mean mirroring the adversary,
but rather learning how to draw on the same design principles that he has
already learned about the rise of network from in the information age. These
principles depend to some extent upon technological breakthroughs, but mainly
on a willingness to innovate organizationally."
Democracy isn't orthoganal to a republic. Thats a myth.
republic
Pronunciation: ri-'p&-blik
Function: noun
Etymology: French rpublique, from Middle French republique,
from Latin respublica, from res thing, wealth + publica,
feminine of publicus public -- more at REAL, PUBLIC
Date: 1604 1 a (1): a government having a chief of state who is not a
monarch and who in modern times is usually a president
(2): a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government
b (1):a government in which supreme power resides in a body
of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives
responsible to them and governing according to law
(2): a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government
c: a usually specified republican
government of a political unit <the French Fourth Republic> 2: a body of persons freely engaged in a specified activity
<the republic of letters> 3: a constituent political and territorial unit of the former
nations of Czechoslovakia, the U.S.S.R., or Yugoslavia
democracy
Pronunciation: di-'m-kr&-sE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural-cies
Etymology: Middle French democratie, from Late Latin democratia,
from Greek dEmokratia, from dEmos + -kratia -cracy
Date: 1576 1 a: government by the people; especially:
rule of the majority
b:a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people
and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation
usually involving periodically held free elections 2: a political unit that has a democratic
government 3capitalized: the principles and policies of the Democratic
party in the U.S. 4: the common people especially when constituting the source
of political authority 5: the absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions
or privileges
"This reduces the value of the music, and in turn reduces the value of the artist's contribution to society."
I'm reminded of a story I read of an artist whose friend was expressing an interest in art. He bought her a Piccaso sketch. She thought it wasn't an especially pretty reproduction, but it was a gift (and her "values" put an obligation on her), so she found a place to hang it were only family members were likely to notice. A few weeks later a professor visiting her for dinner happened to catch sight of it. "Why are you displaying an original Picasso there!" Realizing it was "valuable", she redisplayed it proudly. She made everyone look at it who came over.
Now the question. What is the inherent artist "value" of the artist's contribution? Can it be related in a meaningful way to the *market value*? To such that the reducing the market value of music reduces the value of the artist's contribution to society implies the artists contribution is merely to increase the GNP. Might as well sell pretzels, then. Wrong. "As a musician" seems to me to be "as an MBA" in artists clothing.
Parent +3 informative? sqlrob hit the nail on the head for +1 just 8 minutes later with the winning phrase: "common carrier". Lets me real here with our moderation. Thanks.
Power is not concentrated in the people who actually create things of value. Power is concentrated in those who own and control the production and distribution of things of value. Big difference.
This is a good question. I think its posed in a manner I'd choose to restate. "polished enough for the average joe" and "not many community projects have a professional look" suggest that the average joe is a professional. The professionals I know who use Linux are interested in TeX/LaTeX, not Word. A perfect example (from my point of view) of a professional application would be Emacs. Another would be Octave. Yet these wouldn't make your grade, I suspect. So disregarding what I consider an inherent bias in the wording of your question, there is still enough meat to require some chewing. With a somewhat modified definition of "professional", under what organizational structure are the good applications being written?
"The company has a flawed design. When you associate yourself with what is called "free software", then consumers will be confused and your product will not sell."
Except Mandrake does sell. Mandrake sells well. If it were just a matter of selling boxs Mandrake was already, and is still profitable now. So the "free software" model isn't even at issue. But thanks for caring enough to post.
Exactly! Its not about a problem with the Mandrake distribution, its a problem with hiring Professional Management and then letting the suits drive a stake through your heart. So the question now is whether its worth it to try to pay for playing the MBA way, or if its really feasible to spinoff a non-profit. Looking at PBS/NPR as a model, I'd say the quality is of the highest order and the community exemplary. But could it be done? And how to transition smoothly.
"Lindows is doing the same thing with their Lindows insiders and I dont see anyone complaining about Lindows business model. "
Actually it would seem that many people are upset with Lindows: Lindows'
Heavy Hand Leads to Summit Dropouts. Their GPL violations raise questions. Their disregard for the community raises questions. I might not think Lindows is a bloodsucking parasite, but its absolute ludicrus to suggest you don't see anyone complaining about Lindows business model.
"What do Eldred and Dred Scott have in common? More than you may think at first."
Am not expecting a Libertarian to be elected president any time soon, though. Not even sure if such popular cultural (r)-evolutions can occur in today's political system.
The Attorney General's suit alleges that such clauses --
legally known as "restrictive covenants" -- are illegal, and that they harm the public by censoring discussions of a product's flaws and defects.
Slashdot Mirror
"The first person who gets thier disk back is going to post it to the internet..."
Better be careful. I don't think Castle is granting you any right to post that code, and by denying the GPL, then either it belongs to Castle completely (and you'd need permission to distribute) or it is a GPL violation (and Castle doesn't have the right to give you permission to redistribute, since they violated the GPL and lost distribution rights to that code). Either way, I don't see how you can legally post the code.
Yes, it was first reported as you state. Your parents question was "who was the guy". If you read the link you posted, you'd see that Russel King didn't find breach, but that "The guy who reported the problem to me has already tried to contact the company concerned to ask for the source under the terms of the GPL...", and thus the question is still open. Note that by phrasing the question as was done, your parent has obviously read the article.
Relaxing a restriction is a loosening, not a tighting. The act of loosening a restriction can only be considered constricting if you believe that loosening is constricting. And war is peace. And black is white. "We have always been at war with Iraq (Iran)/ Iran (Iraq) has always be an ally."
Complaining directly to their ISPs should get you squat, though. If you coerce ISPs into taking unlawful action, that should be actionable. Also,its not as though the web had no content before commercial interests became interested. The thing to remember is that you own your content and that gives you some say in how its distributed, but not mere data. You have no say in terms of what someone does with data even though they learned the facts from you.
Yeah but it matters if there is creative expression involved. No one is saying a webpage is in the public domain, but rather that no one can copyright a fact. TV shows are not in the public domain, but no one can stop me from reporting that Joe Blow said "such and such" last night at 8:00 PST on channel 5. Thus the responsibilities to which you refer do not exist and are contrary to the public good with respect to the topic at hand. So remember, when people give up their rights because they are made to feel its the responsible thing to do, they are being irresponsible.
Mod the AC up: "If the content is obtained in a manner that is not in violation of copyright, then *fair use* doesn't even enter into the equation." Since data can't be copyrighted, we don't need to invoke fair use.
And speaking of a car accident. Did you know that insurance companies are claiming that your credit rating is the best single indicator of whether you'll file a car insurance claim? An Actuary for one of the major companies came recruiting and gave a talk to interested math students.
Allowing P2P would entail giving up control. No IP owner seems willing to let go... but its an interesting idea.
Ok, so now they are moderating content. That means they aren't a common carrier. Now joeblow transers a metalica song. The RIAA now sues joeblow *and* DALnet. DALnet, by moderating content, is now legally responsible for content that slips by. Its not a question of legal problems from the people being banned. Its now a question of legal responsibility for the actions of people you didn't ban because you didn't catch.
"Though we respect the right of our users to transfer files between themselves on a limited basis, should our staff determine that a channel exists for the primary purpose of facilitating such transfers, it will be deemed in violation of our Acceptable Use Policy and closed. "
Sounds like DALnet disagrees with you, although it does seem to be a limited right.
As a non-traditional student, most of my school friends are 19-21. The Beatles are incredibly popular. So are The Doors, and Pink Floyd. Amazingly enough classical music is played more than modern music. This isn't nostalgia. These kids are discovering alot of this music.
Except that my university does port sniffing, and so its not possible to use the campus broadband as you suggest. Likewise they routinely inspect windows file sharing directories. Don't *even* lock them out, or your off the net. My running Norton Internet Security on my windows partition was a problem for them. I had to appeal being kicked off. (They also reserve the right to intercept email.)
My statistical thermodynamics prof. gave me a copy of Order Out of Chaos, and also The End of Certainty (both by Prigogine). Interesting laymen's texts. Worth reading. In terms of this topic, I'd recommend perusing That Sneaky Exponential--Beyond Metcalfe's Law to the Power of Community Building for an easy development of the equations involved in expressing, and the definition of, value, in (these types of) networks. This pretty much answers the arguement about value-added-per-new-node in the posted link Curtis Frye's review of Smart Mobs
:-)
Emergence and Nexus look (from their amazon descriptions) like worthwhile texts at the level of Prigogine's. I came across related math in Numerical Analysis II (matrix) and the stochastic methods sections of Operations Research. I freely admit that networks pose an interesting topic for modeling. I only hope to find the time to devote more units to exploration in the future.
That would be N^N which is faster than exponential
http://www.epublicrelations.org/Reedlaw.html
Dr. David P. Reed, former vice president and chief scientist for Lotus Development Corporation, has developed the idea of Group Forming Networks to explain the enormous power of the internet to facilitate the formation of networked groups. These groups could include the numerous special interest groups, which are attacking the biotech industry. The Group Forming Law (or, Reed?s Law) calculates the number of groups of two or more people which can be formed a single group.
More interesting statements @For example, how many groups of two or more people can be formed with an initial group of three? According to Reed?s Law is 2^N-N-1 Substituting 3 for N the answer is 4. Not a very impressive number. However, the answer grows dramatically as N grow. For example, how many groups of two or more people can be formed in a classroom of 20 students? The answer? 1,048,555!!!
http://www.epublicrelations.org/Reedlaw.html
Reed notes:
"As the internet continues to expand, investments in Group-Forming Networks are likely to produce the biggest returns. As the scale increases, what important also shifts?When the Group-Forming Law takes hold, communities are king."
Also:
"The obvious conclusion is that whoever forms the biggest, most robust communities will win."
These statements are surprisingly similar to those made by RAND in its discussion of netwars.
RAND notes:
"Whoever masters the network form first and best will gain major advantages."
Also:
"The information revolution favors and strengthens networks, while it erodes hierarchies."
"Hierarchies have a difficult time fighting networks."
"It takes networks to fight networks."
Finally, RAND states:
"Today, those who want to defend against netwar will, increasingly, have to adopt weapons, strategies, and organization designs like those of their adversaries. This does not mean mirroring the adversary, but rather learning how to draw on the same design principles that he has already learned about the rise of network from in the information age. These principles depend to some extent upon technological breakthroughs, but mainly on a willingness to innovate organizationally."
This is absolutely a War On Drugs Part II. It is a cultural war. This is the Nixon-Phoenix reborn.
Democracy isn't orthoganal to a republic. Thats a myth.
: a government having a chief of state who is not a
monarch and who in modern times is usually a president : a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government
:a government in which supreme power resides in a body
of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives
responsible to them and governing according to law : a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government
c : a usually specified republican
government of a political unit <the French Fourth Republic> : a body of persons freely engaged in a specified activity
<the republic of letters> : a constituent political and territorial unit of the former
nations of Czechoslovakia, the U.S.S.R., or Yugoslavia
: government by the people; especially :
rule of the majority :a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people
and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation
usually involving periodically held free elections : a political unit that has a democratic
government : the principles and policies of the Democratic
party in the U.S. : the common people especially when constituting the source
of political authority : the absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions
or privileges
republic
Pronunciation: ri-'p&-blik
Function: noun
Etymology: French rpublique, from Middle French republique, from Latin respublica, from res thing, wealth + publica, feminine of publicus public -- more at REAL, PUBLIC
Date: 1604
1 a (1)
(2)
b (1)
(2)
2
3
democracy
Pronunciation: di-'m-kr&-sE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -cies
Etymology: Middle French democratie, from Late Latin democratia, from Greek dEmokratia, from dEmos + -kratia -cracy
Date: 1576
1 a
b
2
3 capitalized
4
5
So we in the USA live in a Democratic Republic .
"This reduces the value of the music, and in turn reduces the value of the artist's contribution to society."
I'm reminded of a story I read of an artist whose friend was expressing an interest in art. He bought her a Piccaso sketch. She thought it wasn't an especially pretty reproduction, but it was a gift (and her "values" put an obligation on her), so she found a place to hang it were only family members were likely to notice. A few weeks later a professor visiting her for dinner happened to catch sight of it. "Why are you displaying an original Picasso there!" Realizing it was "valuable", she redisplayed it proudly. She made everyone look at it who came over.
Now the question. What is the inherent artist "value" of the artist's contribution? Can it be related in a meaningful way to the *market value*? To such that the reducing the market value of music reduces the value of the artist's contribution to society implies the artists contribution is merely to increase the GNP. Might as well sell pretzels, then. Wrong. "As a musician" seems to me to be "as an MBA" in artists clothing.
Parent +3 informative? sqlrob hit the nail on the head for +1 just 8 minutes later with the winning phrase: "common carrier". Lets me real here with our moderation. Thanks.
Power is not concentrated in the people who actually create things of value. Power is concentrated in those who own and control the production and distribution of things of value. Big difference.
This is a good question. I think its posed in a manner I'd choose to restate. "polished enough for the average joe" and "not many community projects have a professional look" suggest that the average joe is a professional. The professionals I know who use Linux are interested in TeX/LaTeX, not Word. A perfect example (from my point of view) of a professional application would be Emacs. Another would be Octave. Yet these wouldn't make your grade, I suspect. So disregarding what I consider an inherent bias in the wording of your question, there is still enough meat to require some chewing. With a somewhat modified definition of "professional", under what organizational structure are the good applications being written?
"The company has a flawed design. When you associate yourself with what is called "free software", then consumers will be confused and your product will not sell."
Except Mandrake does sell. Mandrake sells well. If it were just a matter of selling boxs Mandrake was already, and is still profitable now. So the "free software" model isn't even at issue. But thanks for caring enough to post.
Exactly! Its not about a problem with the Mandrake distribution, its a problem with hiring Professional Management and then letting the suits drive a stake through your heart. So the question now is whether its worth it to try to pay for playing the MBA way, or if its really feasible to spinoff a non-profit. Looking at PBS/NPR as a model, I'd say the quality is of the highest order and the community exemplary. But could it be done? And how to transition smoothly.
"Lindows is doing the same thing with their Lindows insiders and I dont see anyone complaining about Lindows business model. "
Actually it would seem that many people are upset with Lindows: Lindows' Heavy Hand Leads to Summit Dropouts. Their GPL violations raise questions. Their disregard for the community raises questions. I might not think Lindows is a bloodsucking parasite, but its absolute ludicrus to suggest you don't see anyone complaining about Lindows business model.
http://www.canarsiecourier.com/News/2002/0221/Oth