But since GPL code *IS* publically available (or should be) couldn't one simply point to their code and say "Microsoft, I have not used your proprietary code in this project"?
But, the settlement doesn't contain that sort of 'public release'. As I understand it (obligatory 'I am not a lawyer') the settlement calls for making the protocols available. I don't see why making them public per se is so important so long as they are available.
Not neccesarily. We don't what the terms of the NDA are, potentially the courts could be (and most likely would be) made party to the NDA, therefore oversite would be maintained.
However this is just conjecture as I haven't actually seen the NDA in question.
But once again, there is nothing 'evil' or illegal about requiring an NDA to view the licensing structure.
To say that 'we can't sign an NDA, therefore this is discriminatory against as' (as was implied in the article) is facetious. The Samba Team can sign an NDA, and it wouldn't violate GNU at all. They can even purchase access to the API's, they just can't release the aforementioned API's under GNU (as is spelled out in GNU)
...? So they are requiring an NDA and charging for the right to use the 'communications protocols'. There is no where in the proposed settlement that states they have to make their code "Open Source" is there?
Just because something isn't GNU doesn't make it illegal.
"...Remember, you don't buy anything anymore -- you license it..." That is a totally illogical statement. You never did buy copywritten content. The only thing you ever bought was the media upon which it came. Example: A CD of music. Your $15.00 bought you: 1) a LICENSE to listen to the music and 2) the media upon which it was recorded (plus any packaging or ancillary materials packaged / distributed with it) The license didn't give you the right to do whatever you wanted with the content (notice active word is "with" not "to".) but you could do whatever you wanted with the media / ancillary materials (not including copywriten content on the aforementioned anciallary materials). If you wanted to burn a CD or book, that is within your rights, copying the content however, except for archival purposes, is (generally) prohibited. People here tend to bandy about the words "fair use" but seem to not have a concept of what the fair use clause in U.S. Copyright law pertains to and just what it can be used for. It is not a license to copy material or any such thing. It is (once again generally) applicable to commentary and review. (for more information on Fair Use see Title 17, 107
I don't think you understand my point.
The Constitution does not describe what copyright should or should not entail.
It merely empowers the Congress to pass laws regulating it. The "Promote" part is superfelous to the meaning.
Rough interpretation of the Constitution would lead you believe that.
Let's read it shall we: Constitution of the United States of America
Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
To understand the clause you have to see it in context, namely the article to which it is attached. Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1 states, "Congress shall have the power to..." The subsequent clauses are attached to the first words as continuations of the thought (this means they all forgoe the "Congress shall have the power to" line. It is assumed).
All that this section entails is the powers and limitations of the Congress. It's merely authorizing them to create the copyright laws themselves. The copyrght laws that Congress passed are where the real copyright exists.
Now, the law basis upon which those copyright laws exist are English in origination, namely the Statute of Anne. The actual laws are covered under USC 17
That's a bad interpretation.
Copyright protection is described by the Library of Congress as: ...subsist[ing] from the time the work is created in fixed form. The copyright in the work of authorship immediately becomes the property of the author who created the work.
Seems pretty unequivocal to me. The author owns the work, not the people. It's all spelled out in Copyright Basics produced by the Copyright Office.
Actually, the record companies put in a huge amount of work to promote the musicians in their stable.
"Part of that increase in popularity comes from using public airwaves to broadcast the song on radio."
This isn't as easy as you would think. To get the song into heavy rotation, the music label may pay the radio station to broadcast the song or to place it in a different slot. Music that is played after midnight and before 6 a.m. generally doesn't get much of a following.
Also, there are CD's to print. Even at at modest.80 per CD at 1,000,000 copies, that's $800,000. Include in that the shipping, packaging, recording, artwork etc. and a CD release is rather expensive. Sure, you don't have to print one million copies, but if your band hits big you're going to look mighty dumb if you can't get the CD's out to the consumers.
Now you need to promote the band as well. Send them on the road to tour. Contrary to the Napster belief most large bands on tour do not make money from the tour. Even small bands have a hard time on the road because it is EXPENSIVE. How do small bands promote themselves? Here's a good hint..watch "Bands on The Run" on VH-1. Some of the stuff on that show was bogus, but their efforts at promotion and the turnouts they got are a good example of real life. Over 5 weeks the top band made what? $6000 bucks? Not bad if you don't include things like a hotel room, food, etc.
As for "being indebted to someone" you are indebted to them until the copyright expires and the item passes into the public domain. Copyrights do not exist to provide works to the "public at large" they exist to protect the works and allow those who created them to garner value from their work without someone else ripping them off.
Looking over the "paper" I noted some interesting things on just a quick viewing:
1)under "Performance Date" item 2 "GNU/Linux was the May 2001 performance leader in the TPC-H decision support (database) benchmark (``100Gb'' category)"
Um yes, they did, but they did it on a machine that costs $948966.00. System description
It was one of the most expensive machines in the running. The number 2 machine is an Win2k / SQL Server 2000 machine for a third the price. The Top Ten price / performance list is dominated by Windows 2000 / SQL Server 2000. TPC.org
2)The count of web servers in operation is a bit misleading as the source of the information states that "...host addresses of the.edu domain were used..." and if you look at the report there are NO.com domains represented. Well, gee. I wonder why there are so many linux boxes in the report?
Just pointing out that statistics represent those that present them.
I've seen plenty of posts on this subject implying that MMORPG's are not ready for prime time. I just wanted to point out that one or two 'failures' (AO / WWII) does not mean that there aren't plenty of other successful titles out there. As an example, Asheron's Call from Microsoft. 30,000 players and an average concurrent userbase of over 2000 per 'world'. Heck, even Everquest is still going.
Asheron's Call has been in continuous operation since 1999 with content and feature updates EVERY MONTH.
Slashdot Mirror
By making it the same for everyone naturally ;)
Simple logic dictates that if *everyone* has to sign an NDA it is therefore non-discriminatory.
And I should have said 'Protocol' earlier, not 'code' my apologies.
But since GPL code *IS* publically available (or should be) couldn't one simply point to their code and say "Microsoft, I have not used your proprietary code in this project"?
:)
I still don't see the problem
I might just be dense today
Yes, but if the Samba team releases the code under GNU then it *IS* open for review.
But, the settlement doesn't contain that sort of 'public release'. As I understand it (obligatory 'I am not a lawyer') the settlement calls for making the protocols available. I don't see why making them public per se is so important so long as they are available.
Not neccesarily. We don't what the terms of the NDA are, potentially the courts could be (and most likely would be) made party to the NDA, therefore oversite would be maintained.
However this is just conjecture as I haven't actually seen the NDA in question.
But once again, there is nothing 'evil' or illegal about requiring an NDA to view the licensing structure.
To say that 'we can't sign an NDA, therefore this is discriminatory against as' (as was implied in the article) is facetious. The Samba Team can sign an NDA, and it wouldn't violate GNU at all. They can even purchase access to the API's, they just can't release the aforementioned API's under GNU (as is spelled out in GNU)
Or am I wrong?
...?
So they are requiring an NDA and charging for the right to use the 'communications protocols'. There is no where in the proposed settlement that states they have to make their code "Open Source" is there?
Just because something isn't GNU doesn't make it illegal.
"...Remember, you don't buy anything anymore -- you license it..."
That is a totally illogical statement. You never did buy copywritten content. The only thing you ever bought was the media upon which it came.
Example: A CD of music. Your $15.00 bought you: 1) a LICENSE to listen to the music and 2) the media upon which it was recorded (plus any packaging or ancillary materials packaged / distributed with it)
The license didn't give you the right to do whatever you wanted with the content (notice active word is "with" not "to".) but you could do whatever you wanted with the media / ancillary materials (not including copywriten content on the aforementioned anciallary materials). If you wanted to burn a CD or book, that is within your rights, copying the content however, except for archival purposes, is (generally) prohibited.
People here tend to bandy about the words "fair use" but seem to not have a concept of what the fair use clause in U.S. Copyright law pertains to and just what it can be used for. It is not a license to copy material or any such thing. It is (once again generally) applicable to commentary and review. (for more information on Fair Use see Title 17, 107
I don't think you understand my point.
The Constitution does not describe what copyright should or should not entail.
It merely empowers the Congress to pass laws regulating it. The "Promote" part is superfelous to the meaning.
Rough interpretation of the Constitution would lead you believe that.
Let's read it shall we:
Constitution of the United States of America
Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
To understand the clause you have to see it in context, namely the article to which it is attached. Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1 states, "Congress shall have the power to..." The subsequent clauses are attached to the first words as continuations of the thought (this means they all forgoe the "Congress shall have the power to" line. It is assumed).
All that this section entails is the powers and limitations of the Congress. It's merely authorizing them to create the copyright laws themselves. The copyrght laws that Congress passed are where the real copyright exists. Now, the law basis upon which those copyright laws exist are English in origination, namely the Statute of Anne. The actual laws are covered under USC 17
That's a bad interpretation. Copyright protection is described by the Library of Congress as:
...subsist[ing] from the time the work is created in fixed form. The copyright in the work of authorship immediately becomes the property of the author who created the work.
Seems pretty unequivocal to me. The author owns the work, not the people. It's all spelled out in Copyright Basics produced by the Copyright Office.
Actually, the record companies put in a huge amount of work to promote the musicians in their stable. .80 per CD at 1,000,000 copies, that's $800,000. Include in that the shipping, packaging, recording, artwork etc. and a CD release is rather expensive.
"Part of that increase in popularity comes from using public airwaves to broadcast the song on radio."
This isn't as easy as you would think. To get the song into heavy rotation, the music label may pay the radio station to broadcast the song or to place it in a different slot.
Music that is played after midnight and before 6 a.m. generally doesn't get much of a following.
Also, there are CD's to print. Even at at modest
Sure, you don't have to print one million copies, but if your band hits big you're going to look mighty dumb if you can't get the CD's out to the consumers.
Now you need to promote the band as well. Send them on the road to tour. Contrary to the Napster belief most large bands on tour do not make money from the tour. Even small bands have a hard time on the road because it is EXPENSIVE. How do small bands promote themselves? Here's a good hint..watch "Bands on The Run" on VH-1. Some of the stuff on that show was bogus, but their efforts at promotion and the turnouts they got are a good example of real life. Over 5 weeks the top band made what? $6000 bucks? Not bad if you don't include things like a hotel room, food, etc.
As for "being indebted to someone" you are indebted to them until the copyright expires and the item passes into the public domain. Copyrights do not exist to provide works to the "public at large" they exist to protect the works and allow those who created them to garner value from their work without someone else ripping them off.
Looking over the "paper" I noted some interesting things on just a quick viewing: 1)under "Performance Date" item 2 "GNU/Linux was the May 2001 performance leader in the TPC-H decision support (database) benchmark (``100Gb'' category)" .edu domain were used..." and if you look at the report there are NO .com domains represented. Well, gee. I wonder why there are so many linux boxes in the report?
Just pointing out that statistics represent those that present them.
Um yes, they did, but they did it on a machine that costs $948966.00. System description It was one of the most expensive machines in the running. The number 2 machine is an Win2k / SQL Server 2000 machine for a third the price. The Top Ten price / performance list is dominated by Windows 2000 / SQL Server 2000. TPC.org
2)The count of web servers in operation is a bit misleading as the source of the information states that "...host addresses of the
I've seen plenty of posts on this subject implying that MMORPG's are not ready for prime time. I just wanted to point out that one or two 'failures' (AO / WWII) does not mean that there aren't plenty of other successful titles out there. As an example, Asheron's Call from Microsoft. 30,000 players and an average concurrent userbase of over 2000 per 'world'. Heck, even Everquest is still going. Asheron's Call has been in continuous operation since 1999 with content and feature updates EVERY MONTH.