Help populate BMG's database of CD playters that are incompatible with copy protection. Enter all of your devices today! Bonus points to the first submission of a perl script that uploads CD players listed in a file.
Open Source distribution is not the same as purchasing closed-source software. I believe their may even be a "Bright Line" leagal distinction between closed source distribution and source code distribution that requires compilation prior to being used. This very same distinction is what allows amateurs to build and fly experimental aircraft from kits and instructions without the inventor incurring leagal liability - and aviation is a mature arena for product liability! OSS could fly under the "Ralph Nadar Radar" by positioning itself as "experimental".
I also wish to extend a sincere Thank-You to everyone that pokes at commercial software with debugger and exposes these security weaknesses. Although malicious intrusion is probably a crime, so are product defects. Hackers are forcing the commercial software industry to address these issues, a task our government appears either uninterested in performing or literaly too weak to accomplish.
The White House NEEDS a Micro$oft security expert in order to accomplish one specific goal:
Absolve corporate responsibility for the failures of network security and instead install Government Thugs to enforce network security. The idea here is NOT to develop technology that thwarts miscreants, but instead rely on Society's Thugs to enforce fair play! Hey, the Government always NEEDS new growth and what could be better than to accomplish this by following Micro$oft's lead on security issues and rely on the CyberCops to clean up the mess.
Well guess what buddy, I not gonna do what you're suggesting I do... you sound like Micro$haft running in here ordering people around.
I hate Micro$haft, and I'm not going to hide my hatred of Micro$haft. I will do what I please, and that includes any and every irrational act based on my hatred of all things Micro$haft.
IT IS A VIOLATION OF LAW for people who reside in the US state of Maryland to utilize Microsoft's Passport service. Passport's service contract changes the legal juristiction for resolving disputes between Passport users and Microsoft to Washington State contrary to Maryland's (new) UCITA rules that affirm Maryland's athority for people living in Maryland. Microsoft CANNOT change the legal venue with EULA contracts and is VIOLATING MARYLAND LAW with Passport's terms of service contract .
Once again the (ignored) voice of your favorite/dispised Luddite: Boycott Boycott Boycott! Stop buying DVD's... stop buying content protected audio devices... stop buying products from members of the RIAA and MPAA... stop going to movies.... and bail out of Microsoft's Product Gestapo! (Ooops, this IS slashdot - I forgot that everybody here uses GNU/Linux)
Tune into independent sources of information and media. Run a FreeNet node. Hack on Gnutella, and keep thoes P2P MP3's alive. Thank You Slashdot for creating my favorite Independent Technical News site. We should ALL be doing as much to create alternatives to CNN/TimeWarner/AOL.
There are additional measures some can take by targeting their investments against these Media Interests. Divest from any fund or stock associated with the Media Monoliths bent on evisceration of Fair Use and the First Sale Doctrine.
And if you plan to purchase that new car containing an Engine Management Unit, insist that the dealer provide you with precise and specific technical details of the Diagnostic Port so that you can examine your own vehicle's diagnostics without using the dealer's Liscensed Diagnostic Equipment. Surprised? Automobile manufacturers purpetrate the same Ruse as the RIAA and MPAA! Bet you didn't know that your car's hood is already welded shut by the manufacturer, did you?
(Ooops.... off topic)
Could an artistic work, such as a film or recording, be of such great value to the public that the responsibility of archiving such a work cannot be trusted to the sole copyright owner? The idea being that the work in question is of such immense community value that it is in some sense property of the community as a whole?
The US Government is going to stridently defend CopyRights, Patents, and any other form of Intellectual Property lawyers can dream up. With all of the "well-heeled" owners of IP out there screeming that the sky is falling, which it very well may be for purveyors of IP, most Politicians seeking campaign funds will reflexively rush to their "rescue". I do not expect any Congress or Court in this country to even contemplate the original intent of CopyRight Law...
"...to promote Creativity and Authorship by securing FOR A LIMITED TIME the distribution rights..."
Heck, the last Congress EXPANDED CopyRight periods mainly to rescue the USA's beloved Micky Mouse from going Public Domain! We can rest assured that IP Law is illegitemate because Creativity and Authorship are freqently SUPPRESSED by IP Law.
I have one suggestion for this Micky Mouse Country we happen to call the USA... <B>BOYCOTT!</B> Say goodbye HollyWood, you may be enjoying victory on the Battlefield - but you've lost the war because you are now my enemy and I happen to hold your purse strings! No more movies for me - my last theater visit was over 1 year ago. No DVDs either - I don't even own a player although I was tempted to purchase an APEX. No more music CDs, and definately NO Cable Television. I won't do Windoz either - Thank You GNU/Linux!
The Legal Battlefield may be important, but the Marketplace is now the venue of choice for this battle. We need to get IP alternatives in front of consumers so that the public is aware of this important choice. We need to have more people clicking on "I DO NOT AGREE". We need to force perveyors of IP to provide "I DO NOT AGREE" alternatives. And we could use a strong punative class action lawsuit that punishes perveyors of IP for forcing consumers to sholder the responsibility of protecting IP. We need a boilerplate contract consumers can use to eviscerate this burden. I can hardly contain my excitement at the prospect of introducing a dozen pages of dense leagalese into my next "Purchasing Negotiation"! This IS the new battleground: "Purchasing Negotiations!"
Am I a Luddite?? Say what you want, but I'm out to keep my money away from perveyors of Proprietary Information - AND IT HAPPENS TO BE MY MONEY!
Now that the US Courts have clearly announced their allegience to the moneyed interests piloting HollyWood, the need for CopyLeft content is even greater. Let's not forgent that we all ultimately hold HollyWood's "Purse Strings", giving us the power to punish the perveyors of Proprietary Content. Can we all declare a Boycott? Can we all create CopyLeft forms of entertainment? I happen to believe we can and that audiences will approve with resounding athority. HollyWood is truly History.
are the Public Safety issues introduced. The first high profile fatality following the systems introduction will spark a fierce backlash. Arbitrary speed control can prove dangerous depending on the situation, like the vehicle's speed relative to others - especially APPROACHING vehicles!! Public Safety Officials piloting these programs best have all possible contingencies excecuted.....
Excellent observations! This is proof that hardware based consumer controls are here to say and we can expect to see even more "technology assisted law enforcement" in the future.
Future HaXorS will require hardware/firmware curcumvention techniques in order to maintain the current flexibility enjoyed by today's software based circimvention techniques.
If the US public decides to remain allied with Micky Mouse and Hollywood, we may well end up with "Government Sanctioned Codes" along with "Computing Facility Liscensure" before too long.
I'll not be purchasing any of these new TV sets,
and I'm not planning on purchasing a DVD player either.
No more CDs for me once copy protection is foisted on that medium,
and I plan to make do as best I can without any gizmos that feature a spiffy new EULA.
My Cable service has to go too, and soon "over the air" digital broadcasting as well.
I suppose my determination will be greatly tested once EULA's are required to obtain
computing machinery, a viable future situation unless the "open hardware"
effort makes significant market penetration.
Hmmm....maybe I should have held onto that old i486
Anonymous client misbehavior via CyberCafe, or (name your favorite public access flavor).
How is the chain of accountability maintained in these arrangements where the public can temporarily connect to the net using their own systems? At home, I have a permanent relationship to my ISP, so my misbehavior is easily punished by terminating my service! I just can't imagine how this Starbucks service provider can control "foreign" clients - they just stroll in from the street and connect!
Maybe this could prove to be a useful form of civil protest in the future - especially if this break in accountability is never addressed.
A forward looking statement. Secure hardware is coming, and secure hardware WILL contstrain what can be performed with a personal computer. My own fear is that "government sanctioned codes" may one day be the only legal programs we're allowed to run on "our computers", enforced by secure hardware initiatives that give some government sacntioned third party the athority to maintain a virtual "Traffic Cop" inside our personal computer systems.
Consider the Automotive Engine Management system for a moment and realize the EPA's interest in preventing consumers from reprogramming the fuel mixture for enhanced performance, an activity that now can be considered a felony violation thanks to the DCMA. The motivation to develop computing platforms "with no user servicable software" inside in intense, and I fear will ultimately become successful primarily because of the huge financial interest from HollyWood. Sadly, our only defense in the future may become gurrilla harware hacking!
Untrue! This is really a GOOD thing! Micro$haft can't help but shoot itself in the foot, this time by impeding the dissemination of security information by adopting an uncooperative position with the Internet's Security Community. Let's all admit that Billy Boy Gates dislikes playing with other children in the same sandbox. Just another Micro$haft marketing gem, right up there with Liscensing Audits and Law Suits!
Maybe Micro$haft is in league with the DOJ/FBI - both intent on heightening cybercrime hysteria. By protecting software with weak security from timely peer review, if Micro$haft is able to deliver "The Global Internet Meltdown", Imagine the powerful and draconinan cybercrime laws John Q. Public would rush to embrace!
Don't laugh! The Micro$ahft Outlook vunerabilities have already delivered the very same Law Enforcement Quid Pro Quo.
Replace the Login widget with a keyboard graphic that randomizes the position of the keys and use the mouse to enter password information. To sniff out passwords under such a scheme would require monitoring mouse events along with a map of the graphic keyboard layout. Protecting the keyboard map is a problem assuming that the graphic display is also snooped. To protect against snoopers decoding the map directly from the Graphic Display's Memory may require eliminating the keyboard map from the display and instead scotch taping a transparet image of the map onto the monitor's screen. The problem then becomes keeping these keyboard maps safe - not entirely impossible if they are made to be temporary, limited use items.
Maybe sensitive information should be entered with a graphic display of a keyboard along with mouse input. Randomization of the keyboards's layout (QWERTY) along with the position of the graphical keyboard on the screen would further frustrate FBI keyboard snooping efforts.
WOW! What a Great New Marketing Angle! Open Source vendors can now proclaim a new advantage over their Closed Source Commercial competitors: "No Hidden Liscensing Liabilities for using Open Source"! Linux, BSD, and GNU advocates can wield the "Fair Use", and "First Sale Doctrine" issue too, and Unscrupulous Commercial Vendors will be punished by the clearly unpopular position put forth by UCITA. Maybe Virginia will rethink their strategy and repeal this law!?!
I want to applaud Microsoft too. Auditing and threatening customers is such a disasterous marketing strategy! Good Going Microsoft!
Not only has Quova misused directory information in order to compile a Direct Marketing Database, but they've used The Public Internet to perform this data compilation. What is the "LAW" on ownership of this form of information? IANAL, but to me this is a pure form of Public Domain information so we all should be free to DOWNLOAD QUOVA'S DATABASE! Obviously they won't allow that, so maybe we should compile our own form of Quova's database and make it available for free!
As large and delectible a target as Micro$oft IS, I wonder why it's taken this long for an Internal Penetration to happen? Maybe these things have been happening all along, only now Micro$oft has decided to go public! If this is the case, why would Micro$oft choose this particular moment in time to acknowledge what for them may amount to a routine penetration? Speculative Esoteric Musings??
Micro$soft stands to offer the US Justice Department substantial public support for Draconian Internet Regulations against these "Wiley Haquers" - a "favor" to the US Justice Department of enormous proportions in their world wide effort to regulate the Internet. It certainly would not hurt Micro$oft's AntiTrust position were they to be intrumental in the course of events leading up to expanded US Law Enforcement Control of the Internet. A Quid-Pro-Quo with the US Justice Department of this size might even earn Micro$oft the proverbial "slap on the wrist" resolution to the AnitTrust case!
Some time ago, I submitted a question to slashdot about the feasibility of an ODP based on a distributed database archetecture. My hope was that an open discussion of the technical merits of this idea would lead to a fledgling project, but unfortunately, Slashdot Editorial channeled my ideas into the bit bucket. Surprise Surprise! Now we really do need that Gnutella of Directories!
I've used the following technique to revitalize my laptop batteries. This also works for NMiH batteries too!
1) Discharge completely.
2) Shock the battery with a large DC voltage.
3) Recharge!
Use 2x or 4x the battery's rated voltage. Only apply pulses - continuous application will destroy the battery! I've used a car battery charger and "touched" the battery's contacts several times (12-24) with the charger leads. (Your battery says: "Short Pulses Please!")
I'm annoyed at this boilerplate language SUN used to apologize:
"It says (SUN) that anyone using its kit is responsible for ensuring that how it's use doesn't violate licenses, and that's not Sun's problem."
This is NOT how things (CopyRight) work. Everyone sholders serious responsibilities by using and owning commercial software. (Have you read your EULA?) Not only can the usage contract be modified at anytime WITHOUT NOTICE, but monitary damages usually ensue! Free Software should be standing by Strict Interpretations, certainly while the opposition is maintaining the same posture.
Slashdot Mirror
Help populate BMG's database of CD playters that are incompatible with copy protection. Enter all of your devices today! Bonus points to the first submission of a perl script that uploads CD players listed in a file.
Open Source distribution is not the same as purchasing closed-source software. I believe their may even be a "Bright Line" leagal distinction between closed source distribution and source code distribution that requires compilation prior to being used. This very same distinction is what allows amateurs to build and fly experimental aircraft from kits and instructions without the inventor incurring leagal liability - and aviation is a mature arena for product liability! OSS could fly under the "Ralph Nadar Radar" by positioning itself as "experimental".
I also wish to extend a sincere Thank-You to everyone that pokes at commercial software with debugger and exposes these security weaknesses. Although malicious intrusion is probably a crime, so are product defects. Hackers are forcing the commercial software industry to address these issues, a task our government appears either uninterested in performing or literaly too weak to accomplish.
The White House NEEDS a Micro$oft security expert in order to accomplish one specific goal:
Absolve corporate responsibility for the failures of network security and instead install Government Thugs to enforce network security. The idea here is NOT to develop technology that thwarts miscreants, but instead rely on Society's Thugs to enforce fair play! Hey, the Government always NEEDS new growth and what could be better than to accomplish this by following Micro$oft's lead on security issues and rely on the CyberCops to clean up the mess.
"People shouldn't hate microsoft..."
Well guess what buddy, I not gonna do what you're suggesting I do... you sound like Micro$haft running in here ordering people around.
I hate Micro$haft, and I'm not going to hide my hatred of Micro$haft. I will do what I please, and that includes any and every irrational act based on my hatred of all things Micro$haft.
Put that in your suggestion box.
IT IS A VIOLATION OF LAW for people who reside in the US state of Maryland to utilize Microsoft's Passport service. Passport's service contract changes the legal juristiction for resolving disputes between Passport users and Microsoft to Washington State contrary to Maryland's (new) UCITA rules that affirm Maryland's athority for people living in Maryland. Microsoft CANNOT change the legal venue with EULA contracts and is VIOLATING MARYLAND LAW with Passport's terms of service contract .
Once again the (ignored) voice of your favorite/dispised Luddite: Boycott Boycott Boycott! Stop buying DVD's... stop buying content protected audio devices... stop buying products from members of the RIAA and MPAA... stop going to movies.... and bail out of Microsoft's Product Gestapo! (Ooops, this IS slashdot - I forgot that everybody here uses GNU/Linux)
Tune into independent sources of information and media. Run a FreeNet node. Hack on Gnutella, and keep thoes P2P MP3's alive. Thank You Slashdot for creating my favorite Independent Technical News site. We should ALL be doing as much to create alternatives to CNN/TimeWarner/AOL.
There are additional measures some can take by targeting their investments against these Media Interests. Divest from any fund or stock associated with the Media Monoliths bent on evisceration of Fair Use and the First Sale Doctrine.
And if you plan to purchase that new car containing an Engine Management Unit, insist that the dealer provide you with precise and specific technical details of the Diagnostic Port so that you can examine your own vehicle's diagnostics without using the dealer's Liscensed Diagnostic Equipment. Surprised? Automobile manufacturers purpetrate the same Ruse as the RIAA and MPAA! Bet you didn't know that your car's hood is already welded shut by the manufacturer, did you?
(Ooops.... off topic)
Could an artistic work, such as a film or recording, be of such great value to the public that the responsibility of archiving such a work cannot be trusted to the sole copyright owner? The idea being that the work in question is of such immense community value that it is in some sense property of the community as a whole?
The US Government is going to stridently defend CopyRights, Patents, and any other form of Intellectual Property lawyers can dream up. With all of the "well-heeled" owners of IP out there screeming that the sky is falling, which it very well may be for purveyors of IP, most Politicians seeking campaign funds will reflexively rush to their "rescue". I do not expect any Congress or Court in this country to even contemplate the original intent of CopyRight Law...
"...to promote Creativity and Authorship by securing FOR A LIMITED TIME the distribution rights..."
Heck, the last Congress EXPANDED CopyRight periods mainly to rescue the USA's beloved Micky Mouse from going Public Domain! We can rest assured that IP Law is illegitemate because Creativity and Authorship are freqently SUPPRESSED by IP Law.
I have one suggestion for this Micky Mouse Country we happen to call the USA... <B>BOYCOTT!</B> Say goodbye HollyWood, you may be enjoying victory on the Battlefield - but you've lost the war because you are now my enemy and I happen to hold your purse strings! No more movies for me - my last theater visit was over 1 year ago. No DVDs either - I don't even own a player although I was tempted to purchase an APEX. No more music CDs, and definately NO Cable Television. I won't do Windoz either - Thank You GNU/Linux!
The Legal Battlefield may be important, but the Marketplace is now the venue of choice for this battle. We need to get IP alternatives in front of consumers so that the public is aware of this important choice. We need to have more people clicking on "I DO NOT AGREE". We need to force perveyors of IP to provide "I DO NOT AGREE" alternatives. And we could use a strong punative class action lawsuit that punishes perveyors of IP for forcing consumers to sholder the responsibility of protecting IP. We need a boilerplate contract consumers can use to eviscerate this burden. I can hardly contain my excitement at the prospect of introducing a dozen pages of dense leagalese into my next "Purchasing Negotiation"! This IS the new battleground: "Purchasing Negotiations!"
Am I a Luddite?? Say what you want, but I'm out to keep my money away from perveyors of Proprietary Information - AND IT HAPPENS TO BE MY MONEY!
Now that the US Courts have clearly announced their allegience to the moneyed interests piloting HollyWood, the need for CopyLeft content is even greater. Let's not forgent that we all ultimately hold HollyWood's "Purse Strings", giving us the power to punish the perveyors of Proprietary Content. Can we all declare a Boycott? Can we all create CopyLeft forms of entertainment? I happen to believe we can and that audiences will approve with resounding athority. HollyWood is truly History.
are the Public Safety issues introduced. The first high profile fatality following the systems introduction will spark a fierce backlash. Arbitrary speed control can prove dangerous depending on the situation, like the vehicle's speed relative to others - especially APPROACHING vehicles!! Public Safety Officials piloting these programs best have all possible contingencies excecuted.....
Excellent observations! This is proof that hardware based consumer controls are here to say and we can expect to see even more "technology assisted law enforcement" in the future.
Future HaXorS will require hardware/firmware curcumvention techniques in order to maintain the current flexibility enjoyed by today's software based circimvention techniques.
If the US public decides to remain allied with Micky Mouse and Hollywood, we may well end up with "Government Sanctioned Codes" along with "Computing Facility Liscensure" before too long.
I'll not be purchasing any of these new TV sets,
and I'm not planning on purchasing a DVD player either.
No more CDs for me once copy protection is foisted on that medium,
and I plan to make do as best I can without any gizmos that feature a spiffy new EULA.
My Cable service has to go too, and soon "over the air" digital broadcasting as well.
I suppose my determination will be greatly tested once EULA's are required to obtain
computing machinery, a viable future situation unless the "open hardware"
effort makes significant market penetration.
Hmmm....maybe I should have held onto that old i486
Anonymous client misbehavior via CyberCafe, or (name your favorite public access flavor).
How is the chain of accountability maintained in these arrangements where the public can temporarily connect to the net using their own systems? At home, I have a permanent relationship to my ISP, so my misbehavior is easily punished by terminating my service! I just can't imagine how this Starbucks service provider can control "foreign" clients - they just stroll in from the street and connect!
Maybe this could prove to be a useful form of civil protest in the future - especially if this break in accountability is never addressed.
A forward looking statement. Secure hardware is coming, and secure hardware WILL contstrain what can be performed with a personal computer. My own fear is that "government sanctioned codes" may one day be the only legal programs we're allowed to run on "our computers", enforced by secure hardware initiatives that give some government sacntioned third party the athority to maintain a virtual "Traffic Cop" inside our personal computer systems.
Consider the Automotive Engine Management system for a moment and realize the EPA's interest in preventing consumers from reprogramming the fuel mixture for enhanced performance, an activity that now can be considered a felony violation thanks to the DCMA. The motivation to develop computing platforms "with no user servicable software" inside in intense, and I fear will ultimately become successful primarily because of the huge financial interest from HollyWood. Sadly, our only defense in the future may become gurrilla harware hacking!
Untrue! This is really a GOOD thing! Micro$haft can't help but shoot itself in the foot, this time by impeding the dissemination of security information by adopting an uncooperative position with the Internet's Security Community. Let's all admit that Billy Boy Gates dislikes playing with other children in the same sandbox. Just another Micro$haft marketing gem, right up there with Liscensing Audits and Law Suits!
Maybe Micro$haft is in league with the DOJ/FBI - both intent on heightening cybercrime hysteria. By protecting software with weak security from timely peer review, if Micro$haft is able to deliver "The Global Internet Meltdown", Imagine the powerful and draconinan cybercrime laws John Q. Public would rush to embrace!
Don't laugh! The Micro$ahft Outlook vunerabilities have already delivered the very same Law Enforcement Quid Pro Quo.
Replace the Login widget with a keyboard graphic that randomizes the position of the keys and use the mouse to enter password information. To sniff out passwords under such a scheme would require monitoring mouse events along with a map of the graphic keyboard layout. Protecting the keyboard map is a problem assuming that the graphic display is also snooped. To protect against snoopers decoding the map directly from the Graphic Display's Memory may require eliminating the keyboard map from the display and instead scotch taping a transparet image of the map onto the monitor's screen. The problem then becomes keeping these keyboard maps safe - not entirely impossible if they are made to be temporary, limited use items.
Maybe sensitive information should be entered with a graphic display of a keyboard along with mouse input. Randomization of the keyboards's layout (QWERTY) along with the position of the graphical keyboard on the screen would further frustrate FBI keyboard snooping efforts.
WOW! What a Great New Marketing Angle! Open Source vendors can now proclaim a new advantage over their Closed Source Commercial competitors: "No Hidden Liscensing Liabilities for using Open Source"! Linux, BSD, and GNU advocates can wield the "Fair Use", and "First Sale Doctrine" issue too, and Unscrupulous Commercial Vendors will be punished by the clearly unpopular position put forth by UCITA. Maybe Virginia will rethink their strategy and repeal this law!?!
I want to applaud Microsoft too. Auditing and threatening customers is such a disasterous marketing strategy! Good Going Microsoft!
Not only has Quova misused directory information in order to compile a Direct Marketing Database, but they've used The Public Internet to perform this data compilation. What is the "LAW" on ownership of this form of information? IANAL, but to me this is a pure form of Public Domain information so we all should be free to DOWNLOAD QUOVA'S DATABASE! Obviously they won't allow that, so maybe we should compile our own form of Quova's database and make it available for free!
As large and delectible a target as Micro$oft IS, I wonder why it's taken this long for an Internal Penetration to happen? Maybe these things have been happening all along, only now Micro$oft has decided to go public! If this is the case, why would Micro$oft choose this particular moment in time to acknowledge what for them may amount to a routine penetration? Speculative Esoteric Musings??
Micro$soft stands to offer the US Justice Department substantial public support for Draconian Internet Regulations against these "Wiley Haquers" - a "favor" to the US Justice Department of enormous proportions in their world wide effort to regulate the Internet. It certainly would not hurt Micro$oft's AntiTrust position were they to be intrumental in the course of events leading up to expanded US Law Enforcement Control of the Internet. A Quid-Pro-Quo with the US Justice Department of this size might even earn Micro$oft the proverbial "slap on the wrist" resolution to the AnitTrust case!
Absoulutely! Probably with assistance by the FBI to justify cracking down on Internet regulations!
Some time ago, I submitted a question to slashdot about the feasibility of an ODP based on a distributed database archetecture. My hope was that an open discussion of the technical merits of this idea would lead to a fledgling project, but unfortunately, Slashdot Editorial channeled my ideas into the bit bucket. Surprise Surprise! Now we really do need that Gnutella of Directories!
I've used the following technique to revitalize my laptop batteries. This also works for NMiH batteries too!
1) Discharge completely.
2) Shock the battery with a large DC voltage.
3) Recharge!
Use 2x or 4x the battery's rated voltage. Only apply pulses - continuous application will destroy the battery! I've used a car battery charger and "touched" the battery's contacts several times (12-24) with the charger leads. (Your battery says: "Short Pulses Please!")
We're there Dood! Yeee Haaa!!
#!/bin/sh
while (true)
do
w3c -n http://www.HackSDMI.org/
done
I'm annoyed at this boilerplate language SUN used to apologize:
"It says (SUN) that anyone using its kit is responsible for ensuring that how it's use doesn't violate licenses, and that's not Sun's problem."
This is NOT how things (CopyRight) work. Everyone sholders serious responsibilities by using and owning commercial software. (Have you read your EULA?) Not only can the usage contract be modified at anytime WITHOUT NOTICE, but monitary damages usually ensue! Free Software should be standing by Strict Interpretations, certainly while the opposition is maintaining the same posture.