It's two different languages
on
The Euro
·
· Score: 2
(Sorry, hit enter too early on my previous reply.)
It's too different languages. In German, "US Dollars" are called "Amerikanische Dollar." The same way, in English, "Deutsche Mark" (and yes, that actually is the official name, it was never named just "Mark") is "Deutschmark." What's wrong about that?
You don't say swiss francs? I also use US$, and even those from the US frequently do so, to avoid confusion with Australian and Canadian dollars.
Also
Re:Different versions of the Euro...
on
The Euro
·
· Score: 2
Interestingly enough, each member of the EU has a series of euro coins for their own countries. Sort of like how the US has produced quarters for different states. It's quite nice and still perserves the autonomy.
Yes. I got some euro coins in december already (so-called "starter kits"), and they all show "German" symbols on the backside: an acorn leaf, the Brandenburg Gate, and the Bundesadler (federal eagle). The front is the same all over europe.
I had hoped to see at least some "foreign" coins in the starter kit. But on the other hand, now I am looking forward to getting some of the other coins over time.
Something that use to be appraised for 5.500 DM, will it be assessed at 2,811 EUROS
I guess you meant 5500 DM, not 5 point 5 DM? Yes, that's now 2812.11 EUR. But what's wrong about that? Over time, things will adapt to the new currency, e.g. the appraisal might become 2800 EUR or 2850 EUR.
One nice effect is that most of the tresholds for taxes etc. have been adapted to nice-looking numbers to the benefit of the taxpayer (at least in Germany).
With free, I was referring to software that is "free" as defined by the FSF (note that free does not imply copyleft) or the Debian project.
My point was not that you don't have to read the license and still know its exact terms. Of course you don't unless you read it. But if you don't and just use the software, you can be quite sure that you're not doing anything illegal. Whether you actually know that you're not doing anything illegal is a different question:-)
The point about GNU/Linux is not to demand credit. The point is simply that the system is called GNU, and its kernel is called Linux. You don't call OS X "Darwin", do you? Technically, GNU/Linux is simply the correct term. That's all. If you prefer to call the system Linux, simply ignore RMS.
With a free license, you don't need to read it. The point of a free software license is that all it does is remove certain copyright restrictions from you. So, if you just use the software, and don't redistribute or modify it, there is no need to read the license as the use is subject to normal copyright law.
In theory, you don't even have to agree to the license, i.e. you can decide to be subject to normal copyright restriction instead. The GPL explicitly offers you this possibility:
"You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License."
I think not having to worry about license issues if you just use the software is one of the biggest advantages of free software for non-developers. I also believe it is a good thing that Debian insists on 100% free software, because it makes sure that by just installing and using the software on as many computers as you like you will never violate any copyrights. I am however not so happy to see that Debian decides to enforce this policy two days before feature freeze...
... and if I believe the adverts from one of these organisation, I am getting clean water to 1500 or so children.
No. You are getting money to those who actually get water to 1500 or so children.
Don't get me wrong -- what you're doing is a good thing, it is needed, and you're probably donating a lot more than the average. But the organisations to whom you donate also need people who can spend the money where it is needed, to help building infrastructure, schools etc. These organisations need both voluntary work and donations -- do whatever you prefer.
Publishing information about this does qualify as providing a mechanism to circumvent a copy control mechanism.
Yeah, sure. You might also want to consider suing Xerox for shipping manuals with their photocopiers. And what about going after Intel? I've heard they provide documentation of the x86 instruction code, which supports copying bits from processor registers into memory without checking for a license first.
In their letter, they only talk about reverse engineering and modifying the software and such. Ok, so that's illegal. But no one modified any software here, you just say "hey, don't install this package."
I also don't see how this could violate Apple's license agreement. I'm sure that MacFixIt does have an OS X license, so it's not like they installed the software without a license -- they just chose to install it in a different way. A way that Apple made possible by making the package optional.
So if you hire private security guards to protect your house, do you expect them to forcibly keep out the FBI when they have a warrant?
This analogy doesn't work because if the FBI presents a warrant I already know they're searching my house.
A more accurate analogy might be: What do you expect your security guards to do if they find out that your house is bugged? Should they not tell just because the bugs carry "FBI" labels?
Using a "looser" licence may help the adoption rate, initially, but you run the signifigant risk of having one of these adopters modify the code and refuse to fold those modifications back into the main tree. Once you have done that, then the project has forked, and it's whole purpose (a common standard that is sure to work anywhere) has been compromised.
A copyleft license is probably the most effective way to prevent forking of your project, but it's not the only protection. A well-known name can be used as a protection as well, by allowing use of the name only for compatible implementations.
Either trademark the name and license it only to those whose software is compatible. The problem is that in order to prevent the mark from becoming unenforcable, you'll have to enforce it against everyone who uses it without license (even against other free software projects). I don't know if you can grant a license for the trademark to anyone who uses an unmodified version of your code. Ask a lawyer about this if you like this idea.
The other option is to deny usage rights for the name in the software's license, similar to what the Apache license is doing. This is probably less safe than what trademark protection can offer, but it's also less work for you. Maybe you can rewrite that part of the Apache license so that users of unmodified versions of the library may use the name.
Note that either of these methods requires some marketing to be effective. Denying people to use the name is effective only if not using the name is a marketing disadvantage to them, which it is only if the name is well-known.
You should read this as "dot twelve," not "dot one two." The versions before were 0.11, 0.10, 0.9 etc. So this isn't a particularly impressive increase in version numbers. (In fact, it is one of the very few projects that didn't seem to feel the need to release 1.0 just because 0.9 was done.)
On the MPlayer News page, it is also claimed that WarpVision forgot to mention the authors of ffmpeg in their credits file. The strange thing is, ffmpeg is released under the GPL, and is also used by MPlayer -- then, I wonder, how can MPlayer not be released under the GPL?
Now who's in violation of the GPL here?
Re:By your silly definition, Mr. Editor,
on
Freedom or Power?
·
· Score: 2
true freedom would mean I can't be thrown in jail for murdering a bus full of kids.
To quote Thomas Jefferson: "Rightful liberty is unobstructed action, according to our will, within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others." Where in your scenario do you not restrict the equal rights of the kids? You are confusing absolute liberty with rightful liberty.
However. If I write software, with my time, and my effort, then nobody is going to tell ME under what terms I may let someone else use it.
If you don't want someone else to use it, don't give it to someone else. When you publish something, you make it subject to the laws of the public. If these laws grant you certain powers, that's fine, make use of them if you want. If they don't, well, too bad.
By your reasoning, can a car manufacturer license his car to you in a way that doesn't permit resale and restricts your usage to no more than 10.000 miles per year? You probably don't want to give such silly powers to car manufacturers, and, since most people don't want to, no laws granting them such powers are enacted. With software, things are a bit different -- such laws do exist. But this doesn't mean that they have to exist.
You can argue in favor of copyright law, that's ok. You can also support laws that give car manufacturers the right to restrict the distance you may legally travel with your car. That's ok. But it has nothing to do with communism or killing a bus full of people.
BTW, I am myself in favor of a copyright-like legislation. Take the example of cars -- usually, when you own a car, you are free to drive whereever you like. But for example when you're renting a car, you agree to certain restrictions, and the company that gives you the car in exchange doesn't demand the full purchase price of the car but only a relatively small fee. This is called a contract, and among other benefits being able to enter a contract gives you the ability to freely invent new business models (like letting people drive cars they don't own). I believe this is a good thing.
But, coming back to copyright, I think that current copyright law is wrong and doesn't fit with the technological possibilities that we have. Where does, for example, the purchaser of a software package have the right to invent a new business model, like letting others use software for rent? I'll have to admit that I have no idea how a better copyright law might look like, but I certainly do not like the current one.
Yes, but they do this for years now. It's not that every individual swastika has the right to appeal.
They do have the right to appeal, they just don't make use of it because they'd lose anyway.
I dunno nothin' about this attainder thingy (and my dictionary is no help), but I don't see where Art. 19 applies. Where is the individual case that is not allowed?
Bill of Attainder = Parlamentsverurteilung in German (dict.leo.org translation, it's a very recommendable German - English dictionary btw). If the legislative passed a law that is meant to decide a single case, that would be called a bill of attainder.
I'm aware of the fact that the Düsseldorf government did not pass a law, but still what they do is similar in effect, isn't it? You're right in that it might be compliant with the letter of the law, but I think that it violates at least the spirit of the constitution (as I interprete it, that is) by banning things without a court order and treating a whole domain as if it were a single publication, which it may or may not be.
This is law enforcement, nothing else. Nazi stuff is illegal by law, so no judge needs to be involved.
The judge is needed to decide what constitutes "illegal Nazi stuff" and what does not.
Since you asked, I am talking about the German constitution (Grundgesetz für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland), specifically I'm talking about the part that makes bills of attainder illegal (article 19, section 1) and the part the assigns the judicial power to the courts (article 92).
That's not the point. The point is that was is happening here is not that the government takes a specific publication, sues the publisher, and the court decides that further publication of this material should be illegal.
What is happening here is:
The goverment did, as far as I know, not sue anyone, so no court was involved in this case. It's the government who decides what sites are to be blocked.
The government is asking for a complete domain to be blocked. It's very questionable if you can view an entire domain as a single publication. Take Slashdot as an example -- should all of Slashdot's articles be blocked if there is a single "hate speech" article or comment?
The government asks for blocking nazi websites. This is a smart move, as the great majority of Germans is in favor of making the distribution of such material illegal. At least some providers, especially smaller ones, will block the content as soon as the goverment threatens to sue them, since not doing so would result in bad PR. The question is, will they stop here? I'm quite sure the next thing to be blocked will be content that is "not appropriate for children." Will they stop there?
I'd say that especially the first and the second point make the goverment's request unconstitutional, even though the German constitution does permit laws that make "hate speech" illegal.
Yes, of course. But would that work? Technically, it could, but it will cause a lot of user acceptance problems. Do you really want to reboot to send an email to someone who's not part of your private network?
Isn't hard-to-disrupt communication the reason that DARPA got involved in this "Internet" business anyhow?
Yes. And the internet itself is hard-to-disrupt.
However, a single server can be the target of an attack, and this is what they want to secure against now. The idea of the internet was to be able to communicate even if lots of nodes failed (i.e. got physically destroyed). The idea was not to secure every single node against destruction. Also note that the internet was designed with physical rather than digital attacks in mind.
The government certainly does have a point here, but I think you can reach security for each individual node only by securing those nodes, not by simply seperating them. How will they make sure that, for example, no email can get in from the internet? Have two computers at each user's desk?
Telefax over ISDN already works on Linux (well, I haven't tried it myself yet), at least with ISDN cards from AVM. They offer Linux drivers for their Fritz! Card series which implement CAPI 2.0, so the cards can be used by Hylafax.
AFAIK, it also works with active ISDN cards because they do the signal processing in hardware, but those cards are quite expansive.
How exactly will websites bill you a penny per page? Who will handle transactions so small because credit card companies and banks don't seem interested.
They won't. They'll inform central authority that you have viewed their page. At the end of each month, central authority will pay them for all visits, and visitors will pay central authority for all pages they visited.
What about frequently visited sites?
They'll be more expensive. Don't expect big corporations to care about comunity sites.
How will a person's web usage be metered for billing all across the internet without some sort of extensive and intrusive user monitoring?
The intrusive monitoring will be performed by central authority.
A penny per page would be expensive for people in third world countries?
If someone has the options to (a) run a profitable website and not care about the third world or (b) make a loss by offering services for the third world, what option do you think he'll chose?
How exactly are people who browse from internet kiosks or libraries supposed to be billed? Are websites supposed to now have front pages that lock you out until you enter your credit card number or must everyone who uses the 'net sign up with a central authority before being able to browse the web?
Yes. You'll have to logon at central authority before viewing any web page. Libraries and kiosks don't exist in this new world. There won't be a middleman any more. Bill Gates calls this "friction free capitalism" in his books, I think.
You think central authority doesn't exist? Well, take a look at.net's Passport service.
...pretty soon, it will start experiencing its midlife crisis.
At Intel, they call it the Aging Microprocessor Depression.
Re:From the Site Director of SourceForge.net
on
SourceForge Drifting
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
* SourceForge.net is a service provided freely to Open Source
software development projects. SourceForge.net is not running
the SourceForge Enterprise Edition software. SourceForge.net is
a web site, which provides a service to the Open Source community.
So it's a service, not a software. That's interesting, because it implies that VA won't make its source code available, as a service doesn't have any source code. It is based on a software, but you didn't say that you'll continue to make its source code available as free software.
So I assume that the SourceForge software will become proprietary. Correct me if I'm wrong.
* SourceForge.net provides free hosting for Open Source Software
development projects. SourceForge.net is not now, or nor has it
ever been, exclusive to free software -- we accept hosting requests
from projects licensed under any OSI-approved Open Source License,
and projects whose licenses have not been directly approved,
but comply with the OSI Open Source Definition.
Read the FSF website some day -- free software does not refer to GPL only, it's basically a different term for open source (with some philosophical differences). E.g. the BSD license is an open source license as well as a free software license, but it is not "copyleft." I guess about 40% of the projects hosted by SF are free software, or open source, whichever term you prefer. (The other 60% are status 1, planning.)
Developers are choosing SourceForge.net because of the excellent
resources and service we give the community.
The more interesting question is, will they continue to do so?
Slashdot Mirror
(Sorry, hit enter too early on my previous reply.)
It's too different languages. In German, "US Dollars" are called "Amerikanische Dollar." The same way, in English, "Deutsche Mark" (and yes, that actually is the official name, it was never named just "Mark") is "Deutschmark." What's wrong about that?
You don't say swiss francs? I also use US$, and even those from the US frequently do so, to avoid confusion with Australian and Canadian dollars.
Also
Yes. I got some euro coins in december already (so-called "starter kits"), and they all show "German" symbols on the backside: an acorn leaf, the Brandenburg Gate, and the Bundesadler (federal eagle). The front is the same all over europe.
I had hoped to see at least some "foreign" coins in the starter kit. But on the other hand, now I am looking forward to getting some of the other coins over time.
I guess you meant 5500 DM, not 5 point 5 DM? Yes, that's now 2812.11 EUR. But what's wrong about that? Over time, things will adapt to the new currency, e.g. the appraisal might become 2800 EUR or 2850 EUR.
One nice effect is that most of the tresholds for taxes etc. have been adapted to nice-looking numbers to the benefit of the taxpayer (at least in Germany).
With free, I was referring to software that is "free" as defined by the FSF (note that free does not imply copyleft) or the Debian project.
My point was not that you don't have to read the license and still know its exact terms. Of course you don't unless you read it. But if you don't and just use the software, you can be quite sure that you're not doing anything illegal. Whether you actually know that you're not doing anything illegal is a different question:-)
The point about GNU/Linux is not to demand credit. The point is simply that the system is called GNU, and its kernel is called Linux. You don't call OS X "Darwin", do you? Technically, GNU/Linux is simply the correct term. That's all. If you prefer to call the system Linux, simply ignore RMS.
With a free license, you don't need to read it. The point of a free software license is that all it does is remove certain copyright restrictions from you. So, if you just use the software, and don't redistribute or modify it, there is no need to read the license as the use is subject to normal copyright law.
In theory, you don't even have to agree to the license, i.e. you can decide to be subject to normal copyright restriction instead. The GPL explicitly offers you this possibility:
"You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License."
I think not having to worry about license issues if you just use the software is one of the biggest advantages of free software for non-developers. I also believe it is a good thing that Debian insists on 100% free software, because it makes sure that by just installing and using the software on as many computers as you like you will never violate any copyrights. I am however not so happy to see that Debian decides to enforce this policy two days before feature freeze...
No. You are getting money to those who actually get water to 1500 or so children.
Don't get me wrong -- what you're doing is a good thing, it is needed, and you're probably donating a lot more than the average. But the organisations to whom you donate also need people who can spend the money where it is needed, to help building infrastructure, schools etc. These organisations need both voluntary work and donations -- do whatever you prefer.
Yeah, sure. You might also want to consider suing Xerox for shipping manuals with their photocopiers. And what about going after Intel? I've heard they provide documentation of the x86 instruction code, which supports copying bits from processor registers into memory without checking for a license first.
In their letter, they only talk about reverse engineering and modifying the software and such. Ok, so that's illegal. But no one modified any software here, you just say "hey, don't install this package."
I also don't see how this could violate Apple's license agreement. I'm sure that MacFixIt does have an OS X license, so it's not like they installed the software without a license -- they just chose to install it in a different way. A way that Apple made possible by making the package optional.
This analogy doesn't work because if the FBI presents a warrant I already know they're searching my house.
A more accurate analogy might be: What do you expect your security guards to do if they find out that your house is bugged? Should they not tell just because the bugs carry "FBI" labels?
A copyleft license is probably the most effective way to prevent forking of your project, but it's not the only protection. A well-known name can be used as a protection as well, by allowing use of the name only for compatible implementations.
Either trademark the name and license it only to those whose software is compatible. The problem is that in order to prevent the mark from becoming unenforcable, you'll have to enforce it against everyone who uses it without license (even against other free software projects). I don't know if you can grant a license for the trademark to anyone who uses an unmodified version of your code. Ask a lawyer about this if you like this idea.
The other option is to deny usage rights for the name in the software's license, similar to what the Apache license is doing. This is probably less safe than what trademark protection can offer, but it's also less work for you. Maybe you can rewrite that part of the Apache license so that users of unmodified versions of the library may use the name.
Note that either of these methods requires some marketing to be effective. Denying people to use the name is effective only if not using the name is a marketing disadvantage to them, which it is only if the name is well-known.
You should read this as "dot twelve," not "dot one two." The versions before were 0.11, 0.10, 0.9 etc. So this isn't a particularly impressive increase in version numbers. (In fact, it is one of the very few projects that didn't seem to feel the need to release 1.0 just because 0.9 was done.)
On the MPlayer News page, it is also claimed that WarpVision forgot to mention the authors of ffmpeg in their credits file. The strange thing is, ffmpeg is released under the GPL, and is also used by MPlayer -- then, I wonder, how can MPlayer not be released under the GPL?
Now who's in violation of the GPL here?
To quote Thomas Jefferson: "Rightful liberty is unobstructed action, according to our will, within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others." Where in your scenario do you not restrict the equal rights of the kids? You are confusing absolute liberty with rightful liberty.
If you don't want someone else to use it, don't give it to someone else. When you publish something, you make it subject to the laws of the public. If these laws grant you certain powers, that's fine, make use of them if you want. If they don't, well, too bad.
By your reasoning, can a car manufacturer license his car to you in a way that doesn't permit resale and restricts your usage to no more than 10.000 miles per year? You probably don't want to give such silly powers to car manufacturers, and, since most people don't want to, no laws granting them such powers are enacted. With software, things are a bit different -- such laws do exist. But this doesn't mean that they have to exist.
You can argue in favor of copyright law, that's ok. You can also support laws that give car manufacturers the right to restrict the distance you may legally travel with your car. That's ok. But it has nothing to do with communism or killing a bus full of people.
BTW, I am myself in favor of a copyright-like legislation. Take the example of cars -- usually, when you own a car, you are free to drive whereever you like. But for example when you're renting a car, you agree to certain restrictions, and the company that gives you the car in exchange doesn't demand the full purchase price of the car but only a relatively small fee. This is called a contract, and among other benefits being able to enter a contract gives you the ability to freely invent new business models (like letting people drive cars they don't own). I believe this is a good thing.
But, coming back to copyright, I think that current copyright law is wrong and doesn't fit with the technological possibilities that we have. Where does, for example, the purchaser of a software package have the right to invent a new business model, like letting others use software for rent? I'll have to admit that I have no idea how a better copyright law might look like, but I certainly do not like the current one.
They do have the right to appeal, they just don't make use of it because they'd lose anyway.
Bill of Attainder = Parlamentsverurteilung in German (dict.leo.org translation, it's a very recommendable German - English dictionary btw). If the legislative passed a law that is meant to decide a single case, that would be called a bill of attainder.
I'm aware of the fact that the Düsseldorf government did not pass a law, but still what they do is similar in effect, isn't it? You're right in that it might be compliant with the letter of the law, but I think that it violates at least the spirit of the constitution (as I interprete it, that is) by banning things without a court order and treating a whole domain as if it were a single publication, which it may or may not be.
The judge is needed to decide what constitutes "illegal Nazi stuff" and what does not.
Since you asked, I am talking about the German constitution (Grundgesetz für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland), specifically I'm talking about the part that makes bills of attainder illegal (article 19, section 1) and the part the assigns the judicial power to the courts (article 92).
That's not the point. The point is that was is happening here is not that the government takes a specific publication, sues the publisher, and the court decides that further publication of this material should be illegal.
What is happening here is:
I'd say that especially the first and the second point make the goverment's request unconstitutional, even though the German constitution does permit laws that make "hate speech" illegal.
Like unmaintained-free-software.org?
Yes, of course. But would that work? Technically, it could, but it will cause a lot of user acceptance problems. Do you really want to reboot to send an email to someone who's not part of your private network?
Yes. And the internet itself is hard-to-disrupt.
However, a single server can be the target of an attack, and this is what they want to secure against now. The idea of the internet was to be able to communicate even if lots of nodes failed (i.e. got physically destroyed). The idea was not to secure every single node against destruction. Also note that the internet was designed with physical rather than digital attacks in mind.
The government certainly does have a point here, but I think you can reach security for each individual node only by securing those nodes, not by simply seperating them. How will they make sure that, for example, no email can get in from the internet? Have two computers at each user's desk?
Telefax over ISDN already works on Linux (well, I haven't tried it myself yet), at least with ISDN cards from AVM. They offer Linux drivers for their Fritz! Card series which implement CAPI 2.0, so the cards can be used by Hylafax.
AFAIK, it also works with active ISDN cards because they do the signal processing in hardware, but those cards are quite expansive.
They should publicly burn those documents. It's the only way to be sure.
They won't. They'll inform central authority that you have viewed their page. At the end of each month, central authority will pay them for all visits, and visitors will pay central authority for all pages they visited.
They'll be more expensive. Don't expect big corporations to care about comunity sites.
The intrusive monitoring will be performed by central authority.
If someone has the options to (a) run a profitable website and not care about the third world or (b) make a loss by offering services for the third world, what option do you think he'll chose?
Yes. You'll have to logon at central authority before viewing any web page. Libraries and kiosks don't exist in this new world. There won't be a middleman any more. Bill Gates calls this "friction free capitalism" in his books, I think.
You think central authority doesn't exist? Well, take a look at .net's Passport service.
At Intel, they call it the Aging Microprocessor Depression.
So it's a service, not a software. That's interesting, because it implies that VA won't make its source code available, as a service doesn't have any source code. It is based on a software, but you didn't say that you'll continue to make its source code available as free software.
So I assume that the SourceForge software will become proprietary. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Read the FSF website some day -- free software does not refer to GPL only, it's basically a different term for open source (with some philosophical differences). E.g. the BSD license is an open source license as well as a free software license, but it is not "copyleft." I guess about 40% of the projects hosted by SF are free software, or open source, whichever term you prefer. (The other 60% are status 1, planning.)
The more interesting question is, will they continue to do so?