Did D:C know that their comments would be publicly displayed with CmdrTaco's comments interspersed? If they would have known that would happen, would they have said things a little differently or asked for a chance to respond before they were posted publicly? --
we kept the best part and ditched what we consider the down-side
So? What's wrong with using only part of a product? There's no law that says that a product has to be used in the way that the manufacturer intended. --
1) no patent exists that covers the protocol, and
2) the direct object code wasn't disassembled and copied
then there can't be any problem. It doesn't matter if I buy a Ford, throw away everything but the motor, figure out how the motor was connected to the rest of the car, and create a different rest-of-the-car (without even looking at the origianl rest-of-the-car). Unless the interface between the moter and the rest-of-the-car is protected, I can do whatever the heck I want with it. I could pee on the motor if I wanted. I could record the electrical outputs of the motor and broadcast them on the internet.
It would be illegal for me to use a star-trek like replicator to exactly atom-for-atom replicate Ford many times, put my own brand name on them, and sell them as mine. Otherwise, it's legal. --
I made an implicit assumption that I'd like to clarify...
Thomas claimed that the protocol is IP. I think that's false. Even if it were, the actual embodiment of "the protocol" is not one specific string of bits that it spits out (no more than an image generated by a Adobe Photoshop is the IP of Adobe), but rather the set of rules for generating that string of bits, namely the logic/code stored in the CueCat and in the driver on the computer.
Additionally, if this were the case, I think they'd have to have a patent on the rules for the protocol. Otherwise, the rules for the protocol were independantly figured out, which is a legal way to get the information under trade secrets law. --
Cleanroom would only need to be used if this were done:
Examine software
Abstract to figure out how the software works
Write new implementation
because the problem there is that they directly saw DC's IP (their software source code).
But the FlyingButtMonkeys didn't reverse engineer the software, they reverse engineered the protocol and built their own software to use the protocols. So clearly they didn't copy any of DC's source code. --
Not to mention that/. will have a harder time of baiting/luring in outside interviewees if the editors get a reputation of shreading them to bits from the getgo. --
I'm not saying that intruder detection is a silver bullet. Just that the human body survived moderately well before the 1800s, largely due to its ability to recognize the difference between an outsider and itself, and to attack the outsiders. Intrusion detection is what evolution chose to do in the absence of doctors, so I don't think it's something that should be shunned.
Better intrusion detection isn't the answer... Secure software is.
The human body disagrees somewhat. The immune system detects intruders and stops them before they can cause damage. This allows security to be designed once and well, rather than requiring the additional overhead for each component. This becomes more important as programs get more complex and have more components. (more complex = less secure, but we can't mandate that all programs be simple, so we have to find another way).
Granted, there are other layers of security such as cell walls and nose hair, but the body still uses intrusion detection as a large part of its defense.
1) A technology race isn't necessarily bad. It increases the capability of the human race. Who knows, 100 years down the road, we might need super tough humans or really fast cars.
2) Car racing can also turn into a technology race or a race of who has the most money to put into hardware. But car racing has managed to keep the cars pretty even so they can compete mainly on driver skill.
Actually, I think they fear loss of control in all its forms. The internet is a proven way to lose control.
Control == best chance for long term profits. Everybody wants to control their destiny. They just want to control yours too if it'll profit them.
But in the end, control results in exclusive news deals rather than letting the best journalists get the money. It results in dictating what time the news is given out rather than the money going to the fastest news organization.
*smile* I realized my error over lunch, but was waiting in case nobody commented on it. Here's my lame excuse for the +5:
If an obviously evil and restrictive law such as the DMCA allows reverse engineering for interop, then I doubt that any other law (other than patent law) could possibly restrict it in any way.
At the very most, authors should get limited control for a limited amount of time.
You can't mandate that users stand on their heads to use it.
You shouldn't be able to control it forever... what's more important? That authors are able to restrict the use of their works 50 years down the road when people want to use it in situations the author never dreamed of, or that humanity is able to use its resources to the fullest extent? It's one author's benefit vs. many people's benefit. Still, the author's wishes should be respected for a time because their contributions are valuable to society. After that, it's impossible to restrict usage anyway because the copies are so far-flung and possibly incorporated into other works which were incorporated into other works...
it makes me think that the lawyers don't really know what's going on
Or... maybe it's like this:
Digital Convergence thinks they can successfully sue, tell lawyers to attack
Lawyers really know what going on, realize the suit is stupid and won't fly, but spend one minute doing the minimum requirements in notifying Airborne leTouche deMonkey.
Lawyers assume leMonkies will ignore the latter and send Digital Convergence a big bill
Exactly. Sega vs. Accolade established that reverse engineering was legal. DMCA says that reverse engineering isn't allowed except for the purpose of interoperability. I don't see libcue as doing anything besides allowing interoperability, so libcue seems to be legal even if DMCA is upheld.
I've been wanting to hack my body for a long time. I want to hook some unused nerves up as the input and output of a wearable computer with wireless internet access. That way, I could look up the definition of a word without anyone knowing I didn't know what it meant. Other applications include:
Woah there buddy... you're right, GAs are no silver bullet. But they can find rough approximate solutions in 10-12 orders of magnitude less time than biological evolution. Granted, the solutions are much less sophisticated, but for some problems, that's still better than what we could do without GAs.
How many generations have we existed without making a smarter machine? Not that the idea isn't appealing, just that it'd take a large number of CPU cycles.
Biological evolution's small parts are atoms. Computer evolution, on the other hand, can use anything a programmer can think of, such as objects that overlap each other, universes of pure thought, and universes where time is in a loop, where time is in a loop.
I can't find the link right now, but I also believe that a company has to take appropriate steps to ensure that trade secrets are kept secret, otherwise they can't sue someone for disclosure. This might include the necessity for monitoring email.
This document has a number of good links related to this story.
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The software on the CD might have been licensed, but they can take that back if they want. *smile*
--
Did D:C know that their comments would be publicly displayed with CmdrTaco's comments interspersed? If they would have known that would happen, would they have said things a little differently or asked for a chance to respond before they were posted publicly?
--
Oh, c'mon, news organizations have been passing off commentary as news for a long time now. Why does CmdrTaco have to be above that?
--
Especially if they're tools you developed, and not an atom-for-atom copy of the company's tool.
--
So? What's wrong with using only part of a product? There's no law that says that a product has to be used in the way that the manufacturer intended.
--
Yes, but if:
1) no patent exists that covers the protocol, and
2) the direct object code wasn't disassembled and copied
then there can't be any problem. It doesn't matter if I buy a Ford, throw away everything but the motor, figure out how the motor was connected to the rest of the car, and create a different rest-of-the-car (without even looking at the origianl rest-of-the-car). Unless the interface between the moter and the rest-of-the-car is protected, I can do whatever the heck I want with it. I could pee on the motor if I wanted. I could record the electrical outputs of the motor and broadcast them on the internet.
It would be illegal for me to use a star-trek like replicator to exactly atom-for-atom replicate Ford many times, put my own brand name on them, and sell them as mine. Otherwise, it's legal.
--
Thomas claimed that the protocol is IP. I think that's false. Even if it were, the actual embodiment of "the protocol" is not one specific string of bits that it spits out (no more than an image generated by a Adobe Photoshop is the IP of Adobe), but rather the set of rules for generating that string of bits, namely the logic/code stored in the CueCat and in the driver on the computer.
Additionally, if this were the case, I think they'd have to have a patent on the rules for the protocol. Otherwise, the rules for the protocol were independantly figured out, which is a legal way to get the information under trade secrets law.
--
- Examine software
- Abstract to figure out how the software works
- Write new implementation
because the problem there is that they directly saw DC's IP (their software source code).But the FlyingButtMonkeys didn't reverse engineer the software, they reverse engineered the protocol and built their own software to use the protocols. So clearly they didn't copy any of DC's source code.
--
Not to mention that /. will have a harder time of baiting/luring in outside interviewees if the editors get a reputation of shreading them to bits from the getgo.
--
That's because the immune system plays such an important role. But it's not invincible.
I'm not saying that intruder detection is a silver bullet. Just that the human body survived moderately well before the 1800s, largely due to its ability to recognize the difference between an outsider and itself, and to attack the outsiders. Intrusion detection is what evolution chose to do in the absence of doctors, so I don't think it's something that should be shunned.
The human body disagrees somewhat. The immune system detects intruders and stops them before they can cause damage. This allows security to be designed once and well, rather than requiring the additional overhead for each component. This becomes more important as programs get more complex and have more components. (more complex = less secure, but we can't mandate that all programs be simple, so we have to find another way).
Granted, there are other layers of security such as cell walls and nose hair, but the body still uses intrusion detection as a large part of its defense.
2) Car racing can also turn into a technology race or a race of who has the most money to put into hardware. But car racing has managed to keep the cars pretty even so they can compete mainly on driver skill.
Actually, I think they fear loss of control in all its forms. The internet is a proven way to lose control.
Control == best chance for long term profits. Everybody wants to control their destiny. They just want to control yours too if it'll profit them.
But in the end, control results in exclusive news deals rather than letting the best journalists get the money. It results in dictating what time the news is given out rather than the money going to the fastest news organization.
- Carbon-14: 5730 years
- Uranium-235: 704 million years
- Potassium-40: 1.3 billion years
- Uranium-238: 4.5 billion years
- Thorium-232: 14 billion years
- Rubidium-87: 48.8 billion years
So if some other isotopes are present, they could easily do the dating.If an obviously evil and restrictive law such as the DMCA allows reverse engineering for interop, then I doubt that any other law (other than patent law) could possibly restrict it in any way.
You can't mandate that users stand on their heads to use it.
You shouldn't be able to control it forever... what's more important? That authors are able to restrict the use of their works 50 years down the road when people want to use it in situations the author never dreamed of, or that humanity is able to use its resources to the fullest extent? It's one author's benefit vs. many people's benefit. Still, the author's wishes should be respected for a time because their contributions are valuable to society. After that, it's impossible to restrict usage anyway because the copies are so far-flung and possibly incorporated into other works which were incorporated into other works...
Or... maybe it's like this:
Lawyers really know what going on, realize the suit is stupid and won't fly, but spend one minute doing the minimum requirements in notifying Airborne leTouche deMonkey.
Lawyers assume leMonkies will ignore the latter and send Digital Convergence a big bill
Exactly. Sega vs. Accolade established that reverse engineering was legal. DMCA says that reverse engineering isn't allowed except for the purpose of interoperability. I don't see libcue as doing anything besides allowing interoperability, so libcue seems to be legal even if DMCA is upheld.
MP3 player (with remote control), radio and TV, videoconferencing, multiplayer games, and emergency beacons.
Woah there buddy... you're right, GAs are no silver bullet. But they can find rough approximate solutions in 10-12 orders of magnitude less time than biological evolution. Granted, the solutions are much less sophisticated, but for some problems, that's still better than what we could do without GAs.
How many generations have we existed without making a smarter machine? Not that the idea isn't appealing, just that it'd take a large number of CPU cycles.
Biological evolution's small parts are atoms. Computer evolution, on the other hand, can use anything a programmer can think of, such as objects that overlap each other, universes of pure thought, and universes where time is in a loop, where time is in a loop.
This document has a number of good links related to this story.