I have absolutely no problems with them teaching creationism in science classes, so long as they also agree to teach mathematics during music lessons and history during sport.
You can test for it - do you want to guess at what the results of those tests are going to be? This is what *science* is all about, testing what is accepted as fact in order to see if it holds up or falls over, and if it falls over then science keeps on going to determine a new fact, and tests that and so on.
If the two events were to be truly compared, then the First Amendment should have made anyone with a printing press unable to refuse to print and distribute whatever someone else wants based on content, and that includes the major newspapers of the time - the First Amendment did no such thing, but network neutrality will do if it were to be implemented as trumpeted on Slashdot.
Once again someone complains about the Awesomebar and once again someone says to turn off maxRichResults - it doesn't work, it doesn't return the URL bar to how it was before they stuck us with the new feature, it only gimps the Awesomebar somewhat in one aspect. Please stop suggesting it.
Why is it insane, it's basic law whether you like it or not. I'm amused by the number of people who think that the Internet is a special magical place where jurisdiction doesn't hold, and that is just plain ignorance.
If you posted pictures of Mohammed on a website or forum that falls inside the jurisdiction of a Saudi court, then I see no reason why they should not be able to apply for extradition and prosecute the case. You are conveniently forgetting that a crime occurred within the jurisdiction of the US courts here - the servers in question were on US soil, and thus they have grounds for jurisdiction.
Unfortunately you cannot QA 100% of everything you ship without significantly affecting costs - as the article states, Dell is saying that this affects a small number of motherboards sent out in a particular manner, so its quite possible that this slipped through a random item QA testing net out into the open without there being any real QA procedure issue.
So, as long as it's not in court, a company can tell lies... because most stories they tell about their products and business model are in the media basically for aesthetic purposes.
But nothing in my post relies on there being a law protecting the information - regardless of whether the US has a database rights law, the collection of information is still valuable and can indeed be sold on for lots of money, so it should be a protected asset of the company in liquidation circumstances, which was the original point.
You seem to be deliberately missing my point - no one is guaranteeing anything, value or absence of value. There is no requirement that something has value once it passes into the public domain, it's a crap shoot that society take part in with regard to the granting of copyright. Just because a binary would be useless to you doesn't mean that you should have an entitlement to anything other than what was distributed.
Mirrors schmirrors. A 1 tonne slug of lead dropped from 50,000ft at Mach 3 would have enough energy to sink an aircraft carrier, and there's nothing even these lasers could do about it - even ablation would barely change the projectile mass.
Given that reasoning, are you suggesting that the code isn't protected by copyright since it wasn't published? Because traditionally copyright protections have applied to both published and unpublished works.
I'd say that that is a good point and also the point I am trying to make - on expiration of copyright, you are entitled to whatever was distributed and nothing else (IE what you can get hold of), regardless of whether that makes the distributed portion pointless or not.
I'd also argue that the source code is a fundamental component of the information needed to reproduce the work, which is the basis of copyright protections. Using the book analogy, it's not only possible to photograph and re-print a book on new paper, but also to typeset the underlying text and reproduce the story in another form. Isolating the source code from the binary is like limiting reproductions of books to photographs only, and making it illegal to re-typeset the text because the original TXT files were never made public.
See my other comment about movies being a better example - there are lots of resources produced during the making of a movie that would be beneficial to the public domain, but you are never going to get. Should Hollywood be required to archive every shot, every stage design, every script notation, every special effect application shot, every lighting shot etc etc?
The comparison I was thinking of personally was film making - lots of 'source' material involved in making a film that will never see the light of day when copyright expires on it, especially with more modern digital and animated films (the model and textures for Shrek for example).
I agree with everything except the 'a full copy (including source and binaries, in the case of software) of any copyrighted work be placed in government escrow' - my personal opinion is that binaries and source code are two separate entities, and I see no reason why someone who has the public binary should get the private source when the copyright expires.
A former employer of mine spent thousands of hours, and thousands of GB Pounds putting together a very comprehensive list of commercial vehicle fleets in the UK. This list included such things as type of vehicle, maintenance history and periods, fleet age etc etc - the sort of stuff that you can only get from the long hard slog of research.
They sold access to this information for quite a large amount of money - it was a valued resource.
Now, my employer certainly didn't own the names and addresses, or even the fleet details - anyone can do the same research and invest the same time and money to gather the same information without issue - but they do own the collection of details that their investment resulted in.
Its not the individual facts that are valued, its the collection together that has value. A sorted and filtered marketing list is the same sort of deal.
Yes, in a business where most things are considered obsolete after 5 years, and ancient at 10, a 20 year patent life time is extremely excessive.
That statement is ironic when you consider this exact case - TrueType, still in primary use today, still valid, still relevant, not obsolete or ancient and still sought after.
Virgin Media's cables go to BT's LLU exchanges, and their packets pass over BT's maintained ATM. And they pay them for that.
That is true *only* where Virgin have not extended their cable network - I for example have nothing installed that has anything to do with BT, all the equipment and all the lines coming into my house are owned and operated by Virgin Media 100%.
Virgin are also not stopped by either Ofcom or the UK Government from expanding their network across the UK - they simply do not want to. For example, 5 years ago I was living across the country from where I am now, and Telewest (the company that became Virgin Media) put my town through considerable inconvenience when they put in the central fibre loops up every main road which took about 6 months. Of course, we accepted it because it meant we were getting cable! But they never followed through - they never used the fibre.
You cannot claim that as someone who produced some creative work, you have the absolute right to dictate that some group of people is allowed to have it, and some group is never allowed to have it. In fact, we have a requirement that copyrights expire and that creative works enter the public domain for that very reason: people who make creative works are not gods.
No, people who make creative works are not gods, but you seem to be confused - yes, copyrights expire and creative works do enter the public domain, but until then yes the producer (or copyright owner if that copyright has been sold by the producer) certainly has the right to dictate exactly which group of people can have the work, and which cannot.
Part of copyright is the right to not to distribute, and that right is just as valid as being able to distribute.
Slashdot Mirror
I have absolutely no problems with them teaching creationism in science classes, so long as they also agree to teach mathematics during music lessons and history during sport.
You can test for it - do you want to guess at what the results of those tests are going to be? This is what *science* is all about, testing what is accepted as fact in order to see if it holds up or falls over, and if it falls over then science keeps on going to determine a new fact, and tests that and so on.
If the two events were to be truly compared, then the First Amendment should have made anyone with a printing press unable to refuse to print and distribute whatever someone else wants based on content, and that includes the major newspapers of the time - the First Amendment did no such thing, but network neutrality will do if it were to be implemented as trumpeted on Slashdot.
The first amendment wouldn't apply here - a private employer has every right to block whatever they wish, it's not a freedom of speech issue.
Once again someone complains about the Awesomebar and once again someone says to turn off maxRichResults - it doesn't work, it doesn't return the URL bar to how it was before they stuck us with the new feature, it only gimps the Awesomebar somewhat in one aspect. Please stop suggesting it.
People keep asking that, but what I want to know is - is there a particular reason why he should have?
Why is it insane, it's basic law whether you like it or not. I'm amused by the number of people who think that the Internet is a special magical place where jurisdiction doesn't hold, and that is just plain ignorance.
If you posted pictures of Mohammed on a website or forum that falls inside the jurisdiction of a Saudi court, then I see no reason why they should not be able to apply for extradition and prosecute the case. You are conveniently forgetting that a crime occurred within the jurisdiction of the US courts here - the servers in question were on US soil, and thus they have grounds for jurisdiction.
Is it really a coincidence that these boards missed QA? I doubt it.
Is it really a coincidence that *any* of the publicly reported faults with anything missed QA? Does everything have to be a conspiracy these days?
Unfortunately you cannot QA 100% of everything you ship without significantly affecting costs - as the article states, Dell is saying that this affects a small number of motherboards sent out in a particular manner, so its quite possible that this slipped through a random item QA testing net out into the open without there being any real QA procedure issue.
So, as long as it's not in court, a company can tell lies... because most stories they tell about their products and business model are in the media basically for aesthetic purposes.
Ever seen a woman wear makeup...?
But nothing in my post relies on there being a law protecting the information - regardless of whether the US has a database rights law, the collection of information is still valuable and can indeed be sold on for lots of money, so it should be a protected asset of the company in liquidation circumstances, which was the original point.
You seem to be deliberately missing my point - no one is guaranteeing anything, value or absence of value. There is no requirement that something has value once it passes into the public domain, it's a crap shoot that society take part in with regard to the granting of copyright. Just because a binary would be useless to you doesn't mean that you should have an entitlement to anything other than what was distributed.
No, the binaries are certainly under copyright as well.
Mirrors schmirrors. A 1 tonne slug of lead dropped from 50,000ft at Mach 3 would have enough energy to sink an aircraft carrier, and there's nothing even these lasers could do about it - even ablation would barely change the projectile mass.
Given that reasoning, are you suggesting that the code isn't protected by copyright since it wasn't published? Because traditionally copyright protections have applied to both published and unpublished works.
I'd say that that is a good point and also the point I am trying to make - on expiration of copyright, you are entitled to whatever was distributed and nothing else (IE what you can get hold of), regardless of whether that makes the distributed portion pointless or not.
I'd also argue that the source code is a fundamental component of the information needed to reproduce the work, which is the basis of copyright protections. Using the book analogy, it's not only possible to photograph and re-print a book on new paper, but also to typeset the underlying text and reproduce the story in another form. Isolating the source code from the binary is like limiting reproductions of books to photographs only, and making it illegal to re-typeset the text because the original TXT files were never made public.
See my other comment about movies being a better example - there are lots of resources produced during the making of a movie that would be beneficial to the public domain, but you are never going to get. Should Hollywood be required to archive every shot, every stage design, every script notation, every special effect application shot, every lighting shot etc etc?
The purpose of copyright is to contribute value to the public domain.
But there is no guarantee of value, ever.
The comparison I was thinking of personally was film making - lots of 'source' material involved in making a film that will never see the light of day when copyright expires on it, especially with more modern digital and animated films (the model and textures for Shrek for example).
No one is required to ensure that something is of any *use* when copyright expires on it, so your argument about binaries doesn't hold water.
I agree with everything except the 'a full copy (including source and binaries, in the case of software) of any copyrighted work be placed in government escrow' - my personal opinion is that binaries and source code are two separate entities, and I see no reason why someone who has the public binary should get the private source when the copyright expires.
A former employer of mine spent thousands of hours, and thousands of GB Pounds putting together a very comprehensive list of commercial vehicle fleets in the UK. This list included such things as type of vehicle, maintenance history and periods, fleet age etc etc - the sort of stuff that you can only get from the long hard slog of research.
They sold access to this information for quite a large amount of money - it was a valued resource.
Now, my employer certainly didn't own the names and addresses, or even the fleet details - anyone can do the same research and invest the same time and money to gather the same information without issue - but they do own the collection of details that their investment resulted in.
Its not the individual facts that are valued, its the collection together that has value. A sorted and filtered marketing list is the same sort of deal.
Yes, in a business where most things are considered obsolete after 5 years, and ancient at 10, a 20 year patent life time is extremely excessive.
That statement is ironic when you consider this exact case - TrueType, still in primary use today, still valid, still relevant, not obsolete or ancient and still sought after.
Airbus or Boeing launch a new plane, and no one has one until several years later. I have no issues with the usage of the term here.
Virgin Media's cables go to BT's LLU exchanges, and their packets pass over BT's maintained ATM. And they pay them for that.
That is true *only* where Virgin have not extended their cable network - I for example have nothing installed that has anything to do with BT, all the equipment and all the lines coming into my house are owned and operated by Virgin Media 100%.
Virgin are also not stopped by either Ofcom or the UK Government from expanding their network across the UK - they simply do not want to. For example, 5 years ago I was living across the country from where I am now, and Telewest (the company that became Virgin Media) put my town through considerable inconvenience when they put in the central fibre loops up every main road which took about 6 months. Of course, we accepted it because it meant we were getting cable! But they never followed through - they never used the fibre.
You cannot claim that as someone who produced some creative work, you have the absolute right to dictate that some group of people is allowed to have it, and some group is never allowed to have it. In fact, we have a requirement that copyrights expire and that creative works enter the public domain for that very reason: people who make creative works are not gods.
No, people who make creative works are not gods, but you seem to be confused - yes, copyrights expire and creative works do enter the public domain, but until then yes the producer (or copyright owner if that copyright has been sold by the producer) certainly has the right to dictate exactly which group of people can have the work, and which cannot.
Part of copyright is the right to not to distribute, and that right is just as valid as being able to distribute.