If this is correct, and reading the GPL it does seem to be, then it gives a huge dissincentive to use the GPL as a license for code, especially as the GPL faq states that you must be able to supply said copy of source through snail mail, if the person turns down the offer of having it via other methods.
Imagine this scenario, and understand that it is one that can happen very easily. Programmer A writes a very nice program and GPLs it, either because he is nice like that, or because it contains GPL code. A site (freshmeat etc) gets hold of it, and he gets an excellent review and 5000 binary (rpm, tgz etc etc) downloads occur. It also gets into the debian apt archive, where another 10,000 people install it. Thats 15,000 downloads, which is in all actuality low for a good program.
Now, 10% of those people who downloaded it request the source from this (unpaid) programmer via mail. Thats 1500 requests. a floppy disk costs $.20? and a stamp costs $.30? and packaging costs $.20? (Im guessing, since im in the UK). To fulfil these requests, that (unpaid) programmer now has to pay out a grand total of $1050.00 (not to mention his time), or face being in breach of the GPL. Yes the programmer can request a reasonable payment for the materials, but that opens up a whole new kettle of fish regarding receiving payment.
And now imagine a concerted effort on part of a faction of the OpenSource movement turning the above scenario into a organised attack on a company or programmer that has somehow become a target. Chaos ensues.
Also, and this is a direct question to you Bruce, what happens if I wrote a program 5 years ago, GPLed it, and have now lost the source code? Am I still liable for fulfilling the GPL?
Make no mistake, im all for opensource, and I wouldnt be without two of the best OSes I use (Openbsd and Linux), but it seems there are some scarey things lurking. None of the above has happened because people generally take the GPL to mean "Thou shalt make the source code available, somehow." or "Wow, im getting free software." and are not aware of the power they actually command with regards to source code. Really, ask a random selection of OpenSource users and see how many people actually read the GPL, I did (on IRC, so take it with a pinch of salt) and out of 40 users, 7 could pick out clauses that usually dont pop up.
wasn't a 66 year old man, it was a 66 year old grandma that couldn't possibly have been guilty because she only owns a mac, and the software the RIAA accused her of using doesn't have a mac version, only a windows version
To but to bed this fallacy once and for all, there IS software available for the mac to enable sharing on the Kazaa network. It is conceivable that she could have this software installed under Mac OSX (wether she did it or a visiting child did it).
THe OpenSource movement on slashdot should know that when there is a lack of software available, something always pops up soon.
VoiceStream were not advertising that the phones were capable of this (I almost purchased the same phone while staying in the US for 3 months), but the specs of the phone said it could do it. Therefor VoiceStream are not falsly advertising the capabilities of their phone. Phones sold by the networks are rarely the exact same as the ones the manufacturers advertise, for many reasons, and so long as the networks do not advertise the features that they dont have, then they havent falsely advertised anything.
He could have avoided this whole event by purchasing a sim-free phone, which is guarenteed to have all the features of the phone active, rather than purchasing a phone that was subsidised by the network (yes, they did it rather heavily until two years ago, you got upto 90% of the cost cut on the phone), who "cripple" phones in an effort to make it difficult for people to do the above as they lost money on the phones.
Sony seems skeptical as well, I just purchased a (very nice, i might add) Sony DRU-510a, and it supports +R/RW and -R/RW, some at 8x and others at 4x. So far, it is a very nice piece of kit, and i recommend it thoroughly.
Now this takes the biscuit!! Half the time the demographic on slashdot are moaning that MS 'illegally' bundles stuff with windows, the other half they complain that KDE/Gnome can, thanks to bundled software, do things that Windows cannot do without downloading and installing software!
Either accept that windows needs to include more and more functionality (can you imagine purchasing an OS these days without such an important component, integral or not, such as a web browser? neither can I), or stop bitching, please!
It doesnt, but in the same vein is the 200years+ that courts hand out in sentances to killers reasonable as well? This girl doesnt have $100million+ and a killer doesnt usually have more than 80 years.
Actually he would. If the codes ownership was in question (like it is here) and he had released it under an opensource license, then his ability to release that code under ANY license legally is also under question. Therefor all apple would have had to do was issue a statement to the effect of "This code is unlawfully licensed until further decided by a court of law blah blah blah" or such, and people using it under the OSS license would not have legal claim to run the code. Just because its under an Opensource license doesnt mean the person who licensed it that way had rights to do so, which means the license is potentially invalid.
Please note, I no way condone the actions of apple here, and have made it clear in my contract with my employers that I own any code that I do in my own time and on my own equipment. (This actually means I own the company intranet, as I got bored one weekend.... ahem). I am jsut pointing out that an Opensource license would not have prevented anything in this case.
Sorry to reply again, missed this out on my last post. Redepmtion Ark is most definately out in paperback at the moment, it must be as I have it on my bookshelf at the moment in paperback format.
For much of the technology in Revelation Space, see its sequal Redepmtion Ark. It explains where the conjoiner drives came from, and mostely how they work and why only the conjoiners can make them. (I could tell you now, but I dont want to spoil, post back if you want to know.) The final book in the loose Revelation Space trilogy is out at the end of this month, and I recommend buying it.
Hmm, not how I remember it, but close. The show was always 4 seasons + 1 optional, and the optional season wasnt to be decided on until well into the 4th season. So JMS concluded the series in the 4th season, with the last episode that was to be screened filmed near the end of the third season. This was always going to be the way, and various things were filmed in a way that they could put back from season 4 and inserted into season 5 with minimal fuss if the extra season was decided upon, but this was not the route JMS took.
He then took B5 in a new direction in the 5th season, with some pretty good stuff coming out (deconstruction of falling stars was one of my favourite eps, with the conclusion that humans become a race much like the vorlons).
I must say tho, his conclusion of the shadow-vorlon war was wholly dissappointing, with nothing nearing a climatic battle that destroys much of the known galaxy (which is what is hinted at earlier in the series). Basically it ended up in a talk, and a kiss-and-make-up scenario between the vorlons and the shadows.
Same as the high reward for your employers or someone in your employers accounting office giving me most of the contents of your paycheck before you get it. None for the person giving me it, some for me as I have money, and you are definately getting buttfucked fourways to hell.
If prerelease movies are floating around then the people who produced that movie are going to see a reduced revenue stream. Now this may be a bad business model, but people have already shown distaste for authentication schemes so that is out. Anything else you would like to suggest? Producing good movies I hear someone shout! Of course, produce a good movie, and people will want to go see it. Wrong, I can point to at least 30% of my (rather large) network of friends and acquantences and say they havent been to a cinema in 5 years, not bought a DVD or Video in the same amount of time, and yet still see the latest films before they are on general release. People will get what they can for free any way possible.
Pretty much, if this goes the way people on slashdot want it to, you are going to stop seeing the likes of "The Matrix" or The LOTR trilogy being released because the big companies dont see any revenue in it, just losses where people copy the film and dont go to the cinema to see it (now, this isnt happening so much currently, but I have noticed it on the increase. People see prereleases and then decide not to go to the cinema, or go to see it at a price-reduced matinee. People dont get the DVD because they already have the DiVx and dont care about the extras. Ive seen more and more of my friends pass copied films around in the past year. People who wouldnt ask for them a year ago are now asking for the latest films.)
If we are not careful, our entertainment in the form of movies is going to turn into something like sourceforge, where people see the void where the pay for movies have left and anyone and everyone thinks they can produce something on the cheap and get it seen. Now this may bring some good talent too the surface, but please, the majority of sourceforge is worse than a public toilet that hasnt been flushed for a week.
Problem is, Congress and governments in general pass laws all the time that are designed to sustain revenue flows.
For example, current Steel import duties that the US has raised, jsut to protect revenue streams of the US steel producing industry ( even though it isnt at all, its raising prices for both the producers and consumers and is making it hard for the US industry to compete world wide. Good link if anyone asks.) This has now backfired because the WTO has declared them illegal, and has given the OK for foreign countries to raise legal import duties on US goods to counter. Case in point, when China joined the WTO not so long ago it had to lower its import duties on steel to a point which is well below half of what the US charges now.
The US government, like many governments around the 1st world, provides vast subsidies to farmers to boost their incomes and allow them to stay solvent. This has the effect of stimulating overproduction in a market that cannot sustain domestic growth, and thus is imported into 3rd world countries which destroys the lives of their domestic producers, and lowers their GPA.
Yes, because the copyright holders will withhold permission from the graphics artists to do their job just so your comment is true. And I suppose that the film crew will have to cover their eyes so that they cannot view the film before its released, or the producers will have to edit the film with their TV sets turned off. Grow up, please.
Yes that is what I thought, the domain is "detagged" for god knows how many years after it expires, and only then is put back into the pool.
It is very very strange and suspicious that this was put back into the registration pool on the day it expired, when I am still waiting for domains I registered 3 years ago to drop out of detag status and become available for registration. (cypheria.co.uk, registered august 2000, expired aug 2003, still listed as detagged, cant detag it as I have lost the cert and cant be arsed to do up a letter headed bit of paper).
When I queried nominet on this, they stated that to move a domain from detag to registration pool, it either had to have a signed corporate headed letter from the owner stating so, or be detagged for at least a year.
I thought the current issue with IPv4 was not the limited number of ip addresses, but the increased routing tables brought on by classless routing? These days, the central routers on the Internet have routing tables which are huge, which must cost someone somewhere to upgrade them.
IPv6 was supposed to deal with this issue as much as it dealt with the number of ip addresses available, in that it would revert back to a semi class based routing set, with ISPs being assigned a range of addresses.
They also had an SR-71, and I think it's predecessor, which I can't remember the name of (there are only like 3 in existence).
The YF-12A? That was the plane that the SR-71 is a variant of, first designed and built for the CIA, before the SR-71 variant was designed for the USAF. There were about 30 YF-12 and YF-12As built at various times, but when the arial recon program was handed over to the USAF most of them were junked in favour of the improved SR-71.
S/Key, works with telnet, ssh, ftp, and a ton of other things.
Basically you use a secure connection to the remote location to generate a list of one time passwords, which you then use on the unsecure connection when needed. Being onetime, it doesnt really matter if someone grabs the key you jsut used, and the keys have to be used in order of generation.
Right, thats passwords sorted, the only thing you have to worry about now is connection stealing, or man-in-the-middle attacks. Telnet is really open to these.
Slashdot Mirror
If this is correct, and reading the GPL it does seem to be, then it gives a huge dissincentive to use the GPL as a license for code, especially as the GPL faq states that you must be able to supply said copy of source through snail mail, if the person turns down the offer of having it via other methods.
Imagine this scenario, and understand that it is one that can happen very easily. Programmer A writes a very nice program and GPLs it, either because he is nice like that, or because it contains GPL code. A site (freshmeat etc) gets hold of it, and he gets an excellent review and 5000 binary (rpm, tgz etc etc) downloads occur. It also gets into the debian apt archive, where another 10,000 people install it. Thats 15,000 downloads, which is in all actuality low for a good program.
Now, 10% of those people who downloaded it request the source from this (unpaid) programmer via mail. Thats 1500 requests. a floppy disk costs $.20? and a stamp costs $.30? and packaging costs $.20? (Im guessing, since im in the UK). To fulfil these requests, that (unpaid) programmer now has to pay out a grand total of $1050.00 (not to mention his time), or face being in breach of the GPL. Yes the programmer can request a reasonable payment for the materials, but that opens up a whole new kettle of fish regarding receiving payment.
And now imagine a concerted effort on part of a faction of the OpenSource movement turning the above scenario into a organised attack on a company or programmer that has somehow become a target. Chaos ensues.
Also, and this is a direct question to you Bruce, what happens if I wrote a program 5 years ago, GPLed it, and have now lost the source code? Am I still liable for fulfilling the GPL?
Make no mistake, im all for opensource, and I wouldnt be without two of the best OSes I use (Openbsd and Linux), but it seems there are some scarey things lurking. None of the above has happened because people generally take the GPL to mean "Thou shalt make the source code available, somehow." or "Wow, im getting free software." and are not aware of the power they actually command with regards to source code. Really, ask a random selection of OpenSource users and see how many people actually read the GPL, I did (on IRC, so take it with a pinch of salt) and out of 40 users, 7 could pick out clauses that usually dont pop up.
wasn't a 66 year old man, it was a 66 year old grandma that couldn't possibly have been guilty because she only owns a mac, and the software the RIAA accused her of using doesn't have a mac version, only a windows version
To but to bed this fallacy once and for all, there IS software available for the mac to enable sharing on the Kazaa network. It is conceivable that she could have this software installed under Mac OSX (wether she did it or a visiting child did it).
THe OpenSource movement on slashdot should know that when there is a lack of software available, something always pops up soon.
VoiceStream were not advertising that the phones were capable of this (I almost purchased the same phone while staying in the US for 3 months), but the specs of the phone said it could do it. Therefor VoiceStream are not falsly advertising the capabilities of their phone. Phones sold by the networks are rarely the exact same as the ones the manufacturers advertise, for many reasons, and so long as the networks do not advertise the features that they dont have, then they havent falsely advertised anything.
He could have avoided this whole event by purchasing a sim-free phone, which is guarenteed to have all the features of the phone active, rather than purchasing a phone that was subsidised by the network (yes, they did it rather heavily until two years ago, you got upto 90% of the cost cut on the phone), who "cripple" phones in an effort to make it difficult for people to do the above as they lost money on the phones.
Why would he have grounds to return it? Unless the store has a "no quibble" returns policy (and then I would say you are abusing it).
Sony seems skeptical as well, I just purchased a (very nice, i might add) Sony DRU-510a, and it supports +R/RW and -R/RW, some at 8x and others at 4x. So far, it is a very nice piece of kit, and i recommend it thoroughly.
Now this takes the biscuit!! Half the time the demographic on slashdot are moaning that MS 'illegally' bundles stuff with windows, the other half they complain that KDE/Gnome can, thanks to bundled software, do things that Windows cannot do without downloading and installing software!
Either accept that windows needs to include more and more functionality (can you imagine purchasing an OS these days without such an important component, integral or not, such as a web browser? neither can I), or stop bitching, please!
It doesnt, but in the same vein is the 200years+ that courts hand out in sentances to killers reasonable as well? This girl doesnt have $100million+ and a killer doesnt usually have more than 80 years.
www.tendra.org, dont worry, we are getting there.
Actually he would. If the codes ownership was in question (like it is here) and he had released it under an opensource license, then his ability to release that code under ANY license legally is also under question. Therefor all apple would have had to do was issue a statement to the effect of "This code is unlawfully licensed until further decided by a court of law blah blah blah" or such, and people using it under the OSS license would not have legal claim to run the code. Just because its under an Opensource license doesnt mean the person who licensed it that way had rights to do so, which means the license is potentially invalid.
Please note, I no way condone the actions of apple here, and have made it clear in my contract with my employers that I own any code that I do in my own time and on my own equipment. (This actually means I own the company intranet, as I got bored one weekend.... ahem). I am jsut pointing out that an Opensource license would not have prevented anything in this case.
Sorry to reply again, missed this out on my last post. Redepmtion Ark is most definately out in paperback at the moment, it must be as I have it on my bookshelf at the moment in paperback format.
For much of the technology in Revelation Space, see its sequal Redepmtion Ark. It explains where the conjoiner drives came from, and mostely how they work and why only the conjoiners can make them. (I could tell you now, but I dont want to spoil, post back if you want to know.) The final book in the loose Revelation Space trilogy is out at the end of this month, and I recommend buying it.
Hmm, not how I remember it, but close. The show was always 4 seasons + 1 optional, and the optional season wasnt to be decided on until well into the 4th season. So JMS concluded the series in the 4th season, with the last episode that was to be screened filmed near the end of the third season. This was always going to be the way, and various things were filmed in a way that they could put back from season 4 and inserted into season 5 with minimal fuss if the extra season was decided upon, but this was not the route JMS took.
He then took B5 in a new direction in the 5th season, with some pretty good stuff coming out (deconstruction of falling stars was one of my favourite eps, with the conclusion that humans become a race much like the vorlons).
I must say tho, his conclusion of the shadow-vorlon war was wholly dissappointing, with nothing nearing a climatic battle that destroys much of the known galaxy (which is what is hinted at earlier in the series). Basically it ended up in a talk, and a kiss-and-make-up scenario between the vorlons and the shadows.
What do you think coups or revolutions are? Very short civil wars :)
Well, they have certainly turned protecting a revenue stream into an art.
Same as the high reward for your employers or someone in your employers accounting office giving me most of the contents of your paycheck before you get it. None for the person giving me it, some for me as I have money, and you are definately getting buttfucked fourways to hell.
If prerelease movies are floating around then the people who produced that movie are going to see a reduced revenue stream. Now this may be a bad business model, but people have already shown distaste for authentication schemes so that is out. Anything else you would like to suggest? Producing good movies I hear someone shout! Of course, produce a good movie, and people will want to go see it. Wrong, I can point to at least 30% of my (rather large) network of friends and acquantences and say they havent been to a cinema in 5 years, not bought a DVD or Video in the same amount of time, and yet still see the latest films before they are on general release. People will get what they can for free any way possible.
Pretty much, if this goes the way people on slashdot want it to, you are going to stop seeing the likes of "The Matrix" or The LOTR trilogy being released because the big companies dont see any revenue in it, just losses where people copy the film and dont go to the cinema to see it (now, this isnt happening so much currently, but I have noticed it on the increase. People see prereleases and then decide not to go to the cinema, or go to see it at a price-reduced matinee. People dont get the DVD because they already have the DiVx and dont care about the extras. Ive seen more and more of my friends pass copied films around in the past year. People who wouldnt ask for them a year ago are now asking for the latest films.)
If we are not careful, our entertainment in the form of movies is going to turn into something like sourceforge, where people see the void where the pay for movies have left and anyone and everyone thinks they can produce something on the cheap and get it seen. Now this may bring some good talent too the surface, but please, the majority of sourceforge is worse than a public toilet that hasnt been flushed for a week.
Problem is, Congress and governments in general pass laws all the time that are designed to sustain revenue flows.
For example, current Steel import duties that the US has raised, jsut to protect revenue streams of the US steel producing industry ( even though it isnt at all, its raising prices for both the producers and consumers and is making it hard for the US industry to compete world wide. Good link if anyone asks.) This has now backfired because the WTO has declared them illegal, and has given the OK for foreign countries to raise legal import duties on US goods to counter. Case in point, when China joined the WTO not so long ago it had to lower its import duties on steel to a point which is well below half of what the US charges now.
The US government, like many governments around the 1st world, provides vast subsidies to farmers to boost their incomes and allow them to stay solvent. This has the effect of stimulating overproduction in a market that cannot sustain domestic growth, and thus is imported into 3rd world countries which destroys the lives of their domestic producers, and lowers their GPA.
Yes, because the copyright holders will withhold permission from the graphics artists to do their job just so your comment is true. And I suppose that the film crew will have to cover their eyes so that they cannot view the film before its released, or the producers will have to edit the film with their TV sets turned off. Grow up, please.
What happens if BOTH are then Kid?! (brothers who worked in collusion)
bash.org dude! Bash.org!!
Yes that is what I thought, the domain is "detagged" for god knows how many years after it expires, and only then is put back into the pool.
It is very very strange and suspicious that this was put back into the registration pool on the day it expired, when I am still waiting for domains I registered 3 years ago to drop out of detag status and become available for registration. (cypheria.co.uk, registered august 2000, expired aug 2003, still listed as detagged, cant detag it as I have lost the cert and cant be arsed to do up a letter headed bit of paper).
When I queried nominet on this, they stated that to move a domain from detag to registration pool, it either had to have a signed corporate headed letter from the owner stating so, or be detagged for at least a year.
Yup, from here, and its extremely easy to setup.
I thought the current issue with IPv4 was not the limited number of ip addresses, but the increased routing tables brought on by classless routing? These days, the central routers on the Internet have routing tables which are huge, which must cost someone somewhere to upgrade them.
IPv6 was supposed to deal with this issue as much as it dealt with the number of ip addresses available, in that it would revert back to a semi class based routing set, with ISPs being assigned a range of addresses.
Thats how I understood it when I asked anyhow.
How many Libraries of Congress is an "Assload"? Is the data easily retrievable?
They also had an SR-71, and I think it's predecessor, which I can't remember the name of (there are only like 3 in existence).
The YF-12A? That was the plane that the SR-71 is a variant of, first designed and built for the CIA, before the SR-71 variant was designed for the USAF. There were about 30 YF-12 and YF-12As built at various times, but when the arial recon program was handed over to the USAF most of them were junked in favour of the improved SR-71.
S/Key, works with telnet, ssh, ftp, and a ton of other things.
Basically you use a secure connection to the remote location to generate a list of one time passwords, which you then use on the unsecure connection when needed. Being onetime, it doesnt really matter if someone grabs the key you jsut used, and the keys have to be used in order of generation.
Right, thats passwords sorted, the only thing you have to worry about now is connection stealing, or man-in-the-middle attacks. Telnet is really open to these.