When you publish something on the web, it is publicly available via HTTP. End of story.
I don't think that that is a good enough standard. When a television show is broadcast, or when a book is published, it is publicly available -- but we don't think that the publisher looses their right to copyright protection in these cases. Publishing on the web is similar. The creator wants people to see his/her creation, but does not automatically give visitors the right to archive and retransmit the works.
Please remember two points when talking about copyright:
It was never intended to protect publishers, but to protect authors from publishers and plagiarists.
It has always been an artificial scheme to try to encourage the production of more creative works.
Why, oh why, do we insist on changing the meanings of words again and again and again?
I believe the major points of confusion here are the words "respecting" and "establishment".
In this context, "respecting" has a very similar meaning to "regarding". So, translated into slightly more common terminology, we now have, "Congress shall make no law regarding an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
Next, "establishment" as in "establishment of religion". Establishment can mean many things, and we must decide which is meant here. For the complete information, look it up at http://www.m-w.com/. In summary, "something established" is different from "the act of establishing", and the former is meant by this phrase.
Making our substitutions, we now have the rather clear and understandable:
"Congress shall make no law regarding an established religion, or prohibit the free exercise thereof."
In other words, congress can't make any laws to affect the free practice of religion, period.
Privacy advocates are sure to be screaming as loudly as they can over this one.
"How dare they use my whereabouts!" "What gives them the right to track me?" "What is to prevent inappropriate use of this information?"
While there are valid concerns, there is a problem with them.
They assume, first of all, that it would be the government doing the monitoring, but even that is actually fine when you realize that the roads are owned, built, maintained, and patrolled by the government anyway. In practice, however, this will be used primarily for exactly what the article states.
Second of all, an assumption is made that we have privacy. This will shock many people, but privacy is going away, and I'm not sure that that's a terribly bad thing. The important battle here is not how much information about us becomes available, but how that information is used.
As technology increases, more information will be available to more people. Even mind-reading technology, should it be developed, should not be feared, but embraced for the increased communication, and the reduction of misunderstanding. This, in my opinion, is much better than fearing it because someone might learn that you don't like them, have never liked them, and don't ever want to like them.
As privacy erodes, people will begin to see more of the persons who surround them, and less of the outward faces worn to hide who we are. True, it will show us early on just how insecure we are about ourselves as individuals and as a society, but this erosion is still an important step in our development.
First, the ads don't show up on the start page, which is a good thing. That way you don't lose people right out of the chute.
Second, the ads that they do feature don't look like ads. They're plain text. This is accomplished through their AdWords service which allows prominent placement just above the search results for companies whose chosen profile matches your search.
This provides better speed, less frustration, and helps eliminate the feeling that you and your precious bandwidth are being sold indiscriminately.
The point is not that they can enforce the license agreement against individuals. They don't even try now, although they want everyone to believe otherwise.
The money, and hence their focus, revolves around business users. And business users are quite careful about such things.
You can take as an example anything you wish. You don't go after one person for an infringement of $15-500. Takes much too much effort to do it, unless you want to make an example, which has proven ineffective.
Now, suppose you also have the option to target a corporate user with 100, or even 100,000 individuals using the software. Besides, they have deeper pockets, and it has been shown repeatedly that deep pockets are easier targets. Unfortunately, unless we can make Open Source work in the corporate environment as well (it already does to a great extent), the entire movement is doomed to remain "a thing of geeks."
Besides, there are still individuals who get duped into paying for information such as operating systems, office suites, and games (take note, gamers). We need a stronger education campaign to battle the FUD-slinging that's currently going around.
I think one big point that Gates is missing here is that the GPL relies on exactly the same principles that Microsoft's licenses do.
Both models are founded with the intent that the original creator maintains some control over the future use of the code. The only remaining issue is whether these license terms are created to give Microsoft complete ownership of every purchased copy and any works that may conceivably have been developed based on ideas gleaned from Microsoft source (which may have previously been under the BSD license, BTW) or whether the ideas stay a free part of the community.
It's also interesting that he's not willing to test the GPL in court, which speaks rather highly of the GPL. If he were to allow his developers to include GPL code in software that Microsoft sells, then we could have a real test. Instead, he's resorting to a FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt for the uninitiated) campaign to sway public opinion.
Keep up the good work, GPL developers! Our freedom (in all senses) relies on you.
Slashdot Mirror
Please remember two points when talking about copyright:
Thank you,
I stand corrected.
Why, oh why, do we insist on changing the meanings of words again and again and again?
I believe the major points of confusion here are the words "respecting" and "establishment".
In this context, "respecting" has a very similar meaning to "regarding". So, translated into slightly more common terminology, we now have, "Congress shall make no law regarding an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
Next, "establishment" as in "establishment of religion". Establishment can mean many things, and we must decide which is meant here. For the complete information, look it up at http://www.m-w.com/. In summary, "something established" is different from "the act of establishing", and the former is meant by this phrase.
Making our substitutions, we now have the rather clear and understandable:
"Congress shall make no law regarding an established religion, or prohibit the free exercise thereof."
In other words, congress can't make any laws to affect the free practice of religion, period.
Privacy advocates are sure to be screaming as loudly as they can over this one.
"How dare they use my whereabouts!" "What gives them the right to track me?" "What is to prevent inappropriate use of this information?"
While there are valid concerns, there is a problem with them.
They assume, first of all, that it would be the government doing the monitoring, but even that is actually fine when you realize that the roads are owned, built, maintained, and patrolled by the government anyway. In practice, however, this will be used primarily for exactly what the article states.
Second of all, an assumption is made that we have privacy. This will shock many people, but privacy is going away, and I'm not sure that that's a terribly bad thing. The important battle here is not how much information about us becomes available, but how that information is used.
As technology increases, more information will be available to more people. Even mind-reading technology, should it be developed, should not be feared, but embraced for the increased communication, and the reduction of misunderstanding. This, in my opinion, is much better than fearing it because someone might learn that you don't like them, have never liked them, and don't ever want to like them.
As privacy erodes, people will begin to see more of the persons who surround them, and less of the outward faces worn to hide who we are. True, it will show us early on just how insecure we are about ourselves as individuals and as a society, but this erosion is still an important step in our development.
This is actually fairly simple.
First, the ads don't show up on the start page, which is a good thing. That way you don't lose people right out of the chute.
Second, the ads that they do feature don't look like ads. They're plain text. This is accomplished through their AdWords service which allows prominent placement just above the search results for companies whose chosen profile matches your search.
This provides better speed, less frustration, and helps eliminate the feeling that you and your precious bandwidth are being sold indiscriminately.
The point is not that they can enforce the license agreement against individuals. They don't even try now, although they want everyone to believe otherwise.
The money, and hence their focus, revolves around business users. And business users are quite careful about such things.
You can take as an example anything you wish. You don't go after one person for an infringement of $15-500. Takes much too much effort to do it, unless you want to make an example, which has proven ineffective.
Now, suppose you also have the option to target a corporate user with 100, or even 100,000 individuals using the software. Besides, they have deeper pockets, and it has been shown repeatedly that deep pockets are easier targets. Unfortunately, unless we can make Open Source work in the corporate environment as well (it already does to a great extent), the entire movement is doomed to remain "a thing of geeks."
Besides, there are still individuals who get duped into paying for information such as operating systems, office suites, and games (take note, gamers). We need a stronger education campaign to battle the FUD-slinging that's currently going around.
I think one big point that Gates is missing here is that the GPL relies on exactly the same principles that Microsoft's licenses do.
Both models are founded with the intent that the original creator maintains some control over the future use of the code. The only remaining issue is whether these license terms are created to give Microsoft complete ownership of every purchased copy and any works that may conceivably have been developed based on ideas gleaned from Microsoft source (which may have previously been under the BSD license, BTW) or whether the ideas stay a free part of the community.
It's also interesting that he's not willing to test the GPL in court, which speaks rather highly of the GPL. If he were to allow his developers to include GPL code in software that Microsoft sells, then we could have a real test. Instead, he's resorting to a FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt for the uninitiated) campaign to sway public opinion.
Keep up the good work, GPL developers! Our freedom (in all senses) relies on you.