If Company A uses OSS Product B, and then several months later OSS Product C uses and abuses Company A's patent, then they have to drop Product B, even if it has nothing to do with their patent or Product C.
In theory if the people who wrote Product B could be convinced that the Company A was legitimate in protecting this particular patent, then they could agree a new licence with Company A.
Many people could well be convinced that some patents are valid and should be enforced and some not. There is a subjective scale from:
patenting part of the human genome (which most people would think wrong)
patenting Information Standards (GIF etc)--(which most people here think is wrong)
patenting Software
patenting Hardware / vacuum cleaners etc (which far more people would think fair enough)
Using a licence like this to punish people who would decide to suddenly restict use of accepted standards (GIF, MP3....) is a nice idea, but I'd hope some patents were deemed more allowable, and the licensors would be sympathetic to people (like say Dyson) who tried to enforce their patents against... say, Hoover, even if Hoover tried to release their new cleaner under the Open Software Licence. (yes I know this is a software license but I've used the strongest case I can think of to get some sympathy for patent use)
If you view all software patents as evil then you probably won't have a problem with this, but otherwise I'd think a licensee with any patents would have qualms about using this, and would at best try to negotiate a different licence or an individual exemption.
Amazon et al should simply split the commisions Kazaa etc have 'earned' between their real referers. The money should be split as a proportion of what each proper referer has already earn. (I know Kazaa does refer people directly too but...)
Still it would be very interesting to see how much kazaa(etc) users buy online, and its an entertaining PR problem does Kazaa state how much its users buy online and admit the scale of its dubious gains or does it downplay its gains and imply no-one who uses Kazaa buys from Amazon?
The moral is don't trust a computer with dodgy software (spyware, warez,... WinXP;-P ) to do anything except download stuff, certainly don't trust it with your credit cards or any financial transactions.
If you use a sufficiently zealous firewall/packet logging system checking what's coming out of your system, then you will know if you have any spyware. Surely spyware is only used if it can send the information back somewhere. It might be a real pain to do but would be perfectly possible to packetsniff out any spyware.
And yes you might have to turn down the logging afterwards...
My own approach is not to trust a machine with kazaa on but...
My PC is far quieter than my PS2. 1 fast Athlon, 1 zalman flower and case/psu fans in series = no fan noise just a slight sound from the air flow over the grills. Cost about 10 GBP more than a normal pc that sounds like a vacum cleaner. My PS2 on the otherhand is loud and isn't hooked up to a nice high resolution monitor. You can build fanless PCs with heatpipes and aluminium the size/shape of a VCR, that would look good in a living room. Why use a PS2 at all except for games/novelty?
Boson has very pretty looking screenshots but has no AI yet, so you could try to write some for them. If you do, try to make it modular so people can easily write their own AI and get them to compete.
Freecraft are advertising for some much needed artists to help them, but look good otherwise.
-- If you laid all the MicroSoft users in the world end to end around the equator, 2/3 of them would drown.
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In theory if the people who wrote Product B could be convinced that the Company A was legitimate in protecting this particular patent, then they could agree a new licence with Company A.
Many people could well be convinced that some patents are valid and should be enforced and some not. There is a subjective scale from:
Using a licence like this to punish people who would decide to suddenly restict use of accepted standards (GIF, MP3....) is a nice idea, but I'd hope some patents were deemed more allowable, and the licensors would be sympathetic to people (like say Dyson) who tried to enforce their patents against... say, Hoover, even if Hoover tried to release their new cleaner under the Open Software Licence. (yes I know this is a software license but I've used the strongest case I can think of to get some sympathy for patent use)
If you view all software patents as evil then you probably won't have a problem with this, but otherwise I'd think a licensee with any patents would have qualms about using this, and would at best try to negotiate a different licence or an individual exemption.
Amazon et al should simply split the commisions Kazaa etc have 'earned' between their real referers. The money should be split as a proportion of what each proper referer has already earn. (I know Kazaa does refer people directly too but...)
... WinXP ;-P ) to do anything except download stuff, certainly don't trust it with your credit cards or any financial transactions.
Still it would be very interesting to see how much kazaa(etc) users buy online, and its an entertaining PR problem does Kazaa state how much its users buy online and admit the scale of its dubious gains or does it downplay its gains and imply no-one who uses Kazaa buys from Amazon?
The moral is don't trust a computer with dodgy software (spyware, warez,
If you use a sufficiently zealous firewall/packet logging system checking what's coming out of your system, then you will know if you have any spyware. Surely spyware is only used if it can send the information back somewhere. It might be a real pain to do but would be perfectly possible to packetsniff out any spyware.
And yes you might have to turn down the logging afterwards...
My own approach is not to trust a machine with kazaa on but...
Yes you can get usb tv/radio cards.
My PC is far quieter than my PS2.
1 fast Athlon, 1 zalman flower and case/psu fans in series = no fan noise just a slight sound from the air flow over the grills. Cost about 10 GBP more than a normal pc that sounds like a vacum cleaner.
My PS2 on the otherhand is loud and isn't hooked up to a nice high resolution monitor.
You can build fanless PCs with heatpipes and aluminium the size/shape of a VCR, that would look good in a living room.
Why use a PS2 at all except for games/novelty?
Boson has very pretty looking screenshots but has no AI yet, so you could try to write some for them. If you do, try to make it modular so people can easily write their own AI and get them to compete.
Freecraft are advertising for some much needed artists to help them, but look good otherwise.
--
If you laid all the MicroSoft users in the world end to end around the equator, 2/3 of them would drown.