I'm going to leave alone the fact that I have never come across anybody that demands a convenient central storage mechanism for personal data. However, if we really wanted one, it would be trivial to program a content neutral freenet-client that made it easy for anyone to store vital information on a distributed, redundant, secure system. Of couse, a standardized and selective information retrieval mechanism would be a little more complicated, but it's doable.
You can't make a hero out of M$ by bringing up the fact that they defended themselves against an idiotic lawsuit. If M$ hadn't done it someone would have had to. Apple was wrong, and they were proven wrong. That doesn't mean that M$ gets any points.
Did you see the movie? Was it any good? I missed it when it came through my town. I saw that it was playing at one (and apparently only one theater) and the next week it was gone. I'd like to know if it's worth it for me to try to hunt it down..
Well, the underlying menu system is there for each window manager, but the packages don't automagically add themselves to them, so no. But you can do it by hand, which insures that you get what you want..
That's ridiculous. Bnetd does not in any way facilitate the illegal distribution of pirated versions of Warcraft or any other Blizzard product. Claiming that bnetd is like Napster is like saying that winamp is used for pirating. Though both bnetd and winamp can allow a pirate to use their pirated stuff, neither directly facilitate the act of piracy as Napster did.
The campaign contributions are likely a drop in the bucket compared to the unaccounted for gifts they likely shower on him. Nights out at titty clubs, as many hookers as he can handle, limo's to ride around town in with fully stocked bars and lines of coke already laid out. The things that really tip the scale are unlikely to show up on the balance sheet.
I had composed a very long and detailed rebuttal to your post, but either it was too long or it took me to long to compose it. I almost said, "Fuck it." But, then I read your post again.
I just had to say a few things:
Referencing a warning that predicts the death of a culture/civilization/way of life that is dead as proof that people who predict such things are wrong is rather unconvincing.
It's just that kind of "disaster never actually happens" attitude that causes more disasters to actually occur. Don't just stick your head in the sand. That's half-assed. Go ahead and stick it up your ass.
You claim that we're more educated than ever before. How so? Because more people have basic reading skills? More people can count? More people know the latest celebrity gossip? Bullshit. People today, as in the past, are "educated" with respect to the things that they need to know to survive. By contrast, if you take away the conveniences of our pampered modern society, how many people would be qualified to survive? Very few, IMO. Yet, the "uneducated" people of ancient cultures managed to learn many complex skills that allowed them to survive despite challenges that would easily best most people that I know. So, who's educated? It seems to me that rather than more educated, today's people have become more dependent on experts to provide them with the tools to survive. In the past, practical knowledge was passed down directly from people who knew to people who would HAVE to know. How many people do you know that know how to build a microwave from scratch. How many people do you know that can even cook a good meal? Forget about actually acquiring food stuff from the wild. Compare our people with the people of past generations and you'll find that they are invariably less capable human beings on the whole. And further, they don't even learn anything from the inadequate "education" they do recieve. And, do most of them learn anything from their parents? Likely not, since their parents are away working overtime at mindless corporate jobs all day. Instead, children learn that their parents are suckers (which is not far from the truth) by contrast with the cool, glamourous people that populate the lessons taught to them by their teacher: television.
I had to quote you on this one: "Do you think those textile workers were curious to know how the sewing machines really worked?"
I'm really not sure what you're referencing here. Which textile workers? Are we talking ancient times textile workers? I don't think they had sewing machines. Looms, maybe. How much do you know about looms, smarty pants? Today's textile workers? You mean the sweatshop laborers that provide us with cheap designer knockoffs at K-Mart? I'd venture a guess. I think they know more about how a sewing machine works than YOU do. Who do you think makes sure that that machine keeps knockin out cheap crap? They may not be curious, but they damn well do know how to keep that sewing machine running. That sewing machine is their livelihood. Have you EVER met a starving motherfucker who didn't make it his business to know what he needs to know to keep getting fed?
Things ARE getting worse, or at least more dangerous. We "may" not have more ignorant people on a percentage basis than in the past, though this is extremely debatable, but every single one of our current ignorant bastards has a billion times more destructive power.
Shit, all you have to do is be an unrepentant American consumer and you're already wasting a completely unsustainable amount of natural resources. Ignorance, apathy, complacency, and greed will make sure that this destruction continues.
So, say it and keep saying it. All you're really saying is that you are yet another one of the ignorant fools who are unwilling to see the writing on the wall until you drive into it at 60 miles per hour. Ignorance is bliss, right? Does it feel good?
Where are the "free flow of ideas" when MS takes BSD code and closes it? The GPL is not a "manifesto". It's a protective measure of a similar nature to MS using CD-keys to protect against software piracy. When a developer releases something under the GPL, he's saying, in effect: I'd like everyone to have this, so that they can use it and learn and change it if they want, but I won't let you profit from my "intellectual property" without compensation. Similar to MS's stance which is: Here, you can BUY this for an exhorbitant amount of money and use it in very specific ways that we approve of, but you cannot learn from it and you cannot change it. This is our "intellectual property" and if you want to benefit from it AT ALL you're going to have to pay, sucker!"
Now, who's more militant? Who actually goes to public schools and threatens to have them fined for licensing violations? Who goes out of their way to license a "standard" in such a way that the implementors of that standard cannot CHOOSE their own license?
MS has demonstrated a willingness to treat their customers like idiots and criminals. They have shown a willingness to embrace and extend standards to PREVENT interoperability.
GPL type people take the opposite attitude toward users as MS does. Developers who release under the GPL go out of their way to try to make sure that users of their software and software that is derived from that code base continue to have access to that code forever. They are gift givers. They understand the value of having source code for the software that runs your system and they show it with action. GPL software promotes the free flow of ideas because anybody can look at the source, figure out how it works and improve it. The GPL just asks that those who have already benefited from being GIVEN the source, return the favor. That's not unfair. It's the ONLY defense against greedy bastards who embrace and extend everything in their path.
I'm surprised every time I run across another person who has been duped by microsoft into thinking that the BSD-style license promotes free choice, while the GPL does not. That's so obviously ridiculous that it's funny. No one forces anybody to use or modify GPL'd code. So, NO ONE is ever bound by the terms of the GPL without their consent. If a programmer decides he wants to use a piece of GPL'd code in his program to save himself the time and expense of writing that code himself, then he receives a fair trade when he then releases his code. However, when a programmer decides to use a BSD-licensed piece of code he's saving himself a lot of time and effort, but returning nothing to the original author. That's ok, if it's ok with the original author. However, I can't help but think that MS's only reason for not liking the GPL and liking BSD (which they never actually use themselves) is that they can take advantage of the work of BSD authors for FREE, but the GPL doesn't let them STEAL intellectual property.
LOL. Yeah, except the GPL isn't normally applied to specifications of a protocol, in order to tell implementors how they can license their own code. That's why this whole thing doesn't make any sense.
I said, ""1. Continue to reverse-engineer CIFS and releasing Samba under the GPL. In which case they violate the DMCA, which states that reverse-engineering is legal as long as the interoperability info is not readily available.""
You said, "The only availability of the interoperability info is under a strict license that forbids them to use their current license. Therefore, the interoperability info is not readily available to the Samba team."
It depends on how you look at it. The only thing preventing Samba from looking at the doc is Samba's preference for a license that is forbidden by MS's license. So, if they didn't have this preference, it would be freely available to them. So, it could easily be considered "readily available" for the general public. This is likely what would be argued about in court if it came down to it.
Chances are that won't happen as the guy from Samba's reply to my original post indicates. He is of the opinion that none of this is going to affect Samba at all, since they don't need this data for anything. I'm just left with the question: Why would MS bother to create such a pointedly stupid licensing condition if they knew Samba had already implemented all of that stuff anyway? It's not like someone else is going to make another GPL'd Samba clone. This just makes it look like people at MS have WAY too much time on their hands..
Hmm. Okay. I'm wrong then. So, what do you think the point of this license is? If the stuff in it is already implemented and released under the GPL, what is the point of specifically denying that to new implementations? Is this just a way for MS to get another little jab in at the free software community?
That's irrelevant. Skylarov's Russia didn't have the DMCA either. And Samba can't claim that they don't do business in the US, so a court in the US could claim jurisdiction. Either way, it's going to cost the Samba Team a lot of money in lawyers fees to defend against, IMO.
This has nothing to do with linking to any MS code whatsoever. This license applies to the specification itself, in effect telling people that if they read the spec, any code they base off of it cannot be licensed under the GPL.
Yeah, but this isn't aimed at everyone. This license is aimed squarely at the Samba team. MS knows exactly where they are and likely have lawyers waiting in the wings for Samba to make the wrong move with this. The Samba team has three choices right now:
1. Continue to reverse-engineer CIFS and releasing Samba under the GPL. In which case they violate the DMCA, which states that reverse-engineering is legal as long as the interoperability info is not readily available.
2. Read the Doc and implement the spec, but release under GPL anyway. This would save the Samba Team for the DMCA problems of #1, but would expose them to a lawsuit based on the violation of a licensing agreement (however, ridiculous its terms are).
3. Switch the Samba license to a BSD-style license. This may not be possible, because many people have contributed code to the project over the years. In other words, the Samba team may not have the legal right to change the license.
So, from what I've been able to figure, the Samba Team is ROYALLY screwed right now. No matter which way they turn, they will be doing something wrong.
Microsoft is kicking back having a really big laugh right now.
What they've done is trap the Samba team in a little box. According to the DMCA, they are permitted to reverse-engineer for the purposes of interoperability as long as that info has "not been previously readily available to the person egaging in the circumvention". In the past, this was the case for the Samba team, so they could reverse-engineer all day. Now things have changed, because M$ has made the info publicly available. So, Samba can't reverse-engineer anymore, according to the DMCA. At the same time, MS has attached a license to this spec that prohibits the Samba team from releasing any code based off of it under the GPL. So, if they want to continue using the GPL, they can't read the doc, but it's illegal according to the DMCA for them to reverse-engineer the product. Doh!
It looks like the Samba team will have to switch to a BSD license in order to be able to add features to Samba. Otherwise, they could face a lawsuit under the DMCA or under a violation of licensing terms. I wouldn't want to be the one charged with figuring a way out of this one. Not that MS would win it legally, but they could bankrupt Samba trying..
No. They are saying that if you implement the spec, you cannot attach a license to it that requires your licensees to distribute it or it's derivative works for free.
In other words, they are saying: You can code up this spec. But if you do, and you choose to open source it, you cannot in any way prohibit others from taking your source code, closing it and charging for it.
Get it?
Re:Congress is interested, contact them, here is h
on
Web Radio and the RIAA
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· Score: 2, Informative
Uhh, that's interesting. Do you have any actual information on how and where to submit comments? Is there an online form or should comments be submitted via snail mail? Do you have an address for either?
When did the no t-shirt thing start? I've seen Fugazi shirts around for like 15 years. In fact, I used to have one. Is this a new movement among bands with integrity? Not allowing your fans to advertise for you?
Slashdot Mirror
I'm going to leave alone the fact that I have never come across anybody that demands a convenient central storage mechanism for personal data. However, if we really wanted one, it would be trivial to program a content neutral freenet-client that made it easy for anyone to store vital information on a distributed, redundant, secure system. Of couse, a standardized and selective information retrieval mechanism would be a little more complicated, but it's doable.
You can't make a hero out of M$ by bringing up the fact that they defended themselves against an idiotic lawsuit. If M$ hadn't done it someone would have had to. Apple was wrong, and they were proven wrong. That doesn't mean that M$ gets any points.
Did you see the movie? Was it any good? I missed it when it came through my town. I saw that it was playing at one (and apparently only one theater) and the next week it was gone. I'd like to know if it's worth it for me to try to hunt it down..
Thanks.
Lain DOES make sense. Pick your caliber
Are you sure it's inadvertently?
Well, the underlying menu system is there for each window manager, but the packages don't automagically add themselves to them, so no. But you can do it by hand, which insures that you get what you want..
That's ridiculous. Bnetd does not in any way facilitate the illegal distribution of pirated versions of Warcraft or any other Blizzard product. Claiming that bnetd is like Napster is like saying that winamp is used for pirating. Though both bnetd and winamp can allow a pirate to use their pirated stuff, neither directly facilitate the act of piracy as Napster did.
The campaign contributions are likely a drop in the bucket compared to the unaccounted for gifts they likely shower on him. Nights out at titty clubs, as many hookers as he can handle, limo's to ride around town in with fully stocked bars and lines of coke already laid out. The things that really tip the scale are unlikely to show up on the balance sheet.
I had composed a very long and detailed rebuttal to your post, but either it was too long or it took me to long to compose it. I almost said, "Fuck it." But, then I read your post again.
I just had to say a few things:
Referencing a warning that predicts the death of a culture/civilization/way of life that is dead as proof that people who predict such things are wrong is rather unconvincing.
It's just that kind of "disaster never actually happens" attitude that causes more disasters to actually occur. Don't just stick your head in the sand. That's half-assed. Go ahead and stick it up your ass.
You claim that we're more educated than ever before. How so? Because more people have basic reading skills? More people can count? More people know the latest celebrity gossip? Bullshit. People today, as in the past, are "educated" with respect to the things that they need to know to survive. By contrast, if you take away the conveniences of our pampered modern society, how many people would be qualified to survive? Very few, IMO. Yet, the "uneducated" people of ancient cultures managed to learn many complex skills that allowed them to survive despite challenges that would easily best most people that I know. So, who's educated? It seems to me that rather than more educated, today's people have become more dependent on experts to provide them with the tools to survive. In the past, practical knowledge was passed down directly from people who knew to people who would HAVE to know. How many people do you know that know how to build a microwave from scratch. How many people do you know that can even cook a good meal? Forget about actually acquiring food stuff from the wild. Compare our people with the people of past generations and you'll find that they are invariably less capable human beings on the whole. And further, they don't even learn anything from the inadequate "education" they do recieve. And, do most of them learn anything from their parents? Likely not, since their parents are away working overtime at mindless corporate jobs all day. Instead, children learn that their parents are suckers (which is not far from the truth) by contrast with the cool, glamourous people that populate the lessons taught to them by their teacher: television.
I had to quote you on this one:
"Do you think those textile workers were curious to know how the sewing machines really worked?"
I'm really not sure what you're referencing here. Which textile workers? Are we talking ancient times textile workers? I don't think they had sewing machines. Looms, maybe. How much do you know about looms, smarty pants? Today's textile workers? You mean the sweatshop laborers that provide us with cheap designer knockoffs at K-Mart? I'd venture a guess. I think they know more about how a sewing machine works than YOU do. Who do you think makes sure that that machine keeps knockin out cheap crap? They may not be curious, but they damn well do know how to keep that sewing machine running. That sewing machine is their livelihood. Have you EVER met a starving motherfucker who didn't make it his business to know what he needs to know to keep getting fed?
Things ARE getting worse, or at least more dangerous. We "may" not have more ignorant people on a percentage basis than in the past, though this is extremely debatable, but every single one of our current ignorant bastards has a billion times more destructive power.
Shit, all you have to do is be an unrepentant American consumer and you're already wasting a completely unsustainable amount of natural resources. Ignorance, apathy, complacency, and greed will make sure that this destruction continues.
So, say it and keep saying it. All you're really saying is that you are yet another one of the ignorant fools who are unwilling to see the writing on the wall until you drive into it at 60 miles per hour. Ignorance is bliss, right? Does it feel good?
.
Where are the "free flow of ideas" when MS takes BSD code and closes it? The GPL is not a "manifesto". It's a protective measure of a similar nature to MS using CD-keys to protect against software piracy. When a developer releases something under the GPL, he's saying, in effect: I'd like everyone to have this, so that they can use it and learn and change it if they want, but I won't let you profit from my "intellectual property" without compensation. Similar to MS's stance which is: Here, you can BUY this for an exhorbitant amount of money and use it in very specific ways that we approve of, but you cannot learn from it and you cannot change it. This is our "intellectual property" and if you want to benefit from it AT ALL you're going to have to pay, sucker!"
Now, who's more militant? Who actually goes to public schools and threatens to have them fined for licensing violations? Who goes out of their way to license a "standard" in such a way that the implementors of that standard cannot CHOOSE their own license?
MS has demonstrated a willingness to treat their customers like idiots and criminals. They have shown a willingness to embrace and extend standards to PREVENT interoperability.
GPL type people take the opposite attitude toward users as MS does. Developers who release under the GPL go out of their way to try to make sure that users of their software and software that is derived from that code base continue to have access to that code forever. They are gift givers. They understand the value of having source code for the software that runs your system and they show it with action. GPL software promotes the free flow of ideas because anybody can look at the source, figure out how it works and improve it. The GPL just asks that those who have already benefited from being GIVEN the source, return the favor. That's not unfair. It's the ONLY defense against greedy bastards who embrace and extend everything in their path.
I'm surprised every time I run across another person who has been duped by microsoft into thinking that the BSD-style license promotes free choice, while the GPL does not. That's so obviously ridiculous that it's funny. No one forces anybody to use or modify GPL'd code. So, NO ONE is ever bound by the terms of the GPL without their consent. If a programmer decides he wants to use a piece of GPL'd code in his program to save himself the time and expense of writing that code himself, then he receives a fair trade when he then releases his code. However, when a programmer decides to use a BSD-licensed piece of code he's saving himself a lot of time and effort, but returning nothing to the original author. That's ok, if it's ok with the original author. However, I can't help but think that MS's only reason for not liking the GPL and liking BSD (which they never actually use themselves) is that they can take advantage of the work of BSD authors for FREE, but the GPL doesn't let them STEAL intellectual property.
I dunno, maybe I'm just crazy.
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Hahahahaha!! Ok funny man, tell me another!
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What does that have to do with anything?
Either way, the answer is no.
GNU isn't a competitor, they're not a commercial entity.
LOL. Yeah, except the GPL isn't normally applied to specifications of a protocol, in order to tell implementors how they can license their own code. That's why this whole thing doesn't make any sense.
I said,
""1. Continue to reverse-engineer CIFS and releasing Samba under the GPL. In which case they violate the DMCA, which states that reverse-engineering is legal as long as the interoperability info is not readily available.""
You said,
"The only availability of the interoperability info is under a strict license that forbids them to use their current license. Therefore, the interoperability info is not readily available to the Samba team."
It depends on how you look at it. The only thing preventing Samba from looking at the doc is Samba's preference for a license that is forbidden by MS's license. So, if they didn't have this preference, it would be freely available to them. So, it could easily be considered "readily available" for the general public. This is likely what would be argued about in court if it came down to it.
Chances are that won't happen as the guy from Samba's reply to my original post indicates. He is of the opinion that none of this is going to affect Samba at all, since they don't need this data for anything. I'm just left with the question: Why would MS bother to create such a pointedly stupid licensing condition if they knew Samba had already implemented all of that stuff anyway? It's not like someone else is going to make another GPL'd Samba clone. This just makes it look like people at MS have WAY too much time on their hands..
Hmm. Yeah that does sound familiar. Seems strange to me, still. I'm really not sure that I get the point.
Hmm. Okay. I'm wrong then. So, what do you think the point of this license is? If the stuff in it is already implemented and released under the GPL, what is the point of specifically denying that to new implementations? Is this just a way for MS to get another little jab in at the free software community?
That's irrelevant. Skylarov's Russia didn't have the DMCA either. And Samba can't claim that they don't do business in the US, so a court in the US could claim jurisdiction. Either way, it's going to cost the Samba Team a lot of money in lawyers fees to defend against, IMO.
This has nothing to do with linking to any MS code whatsoever. This license applies to the specification itself, in effect telling people that if they read the spec, any code they base off of it cannot be licensed under the GPL.
Yeah, but this isn't aimed at everyone. This license is aimed squarely at the Samba team. MS knows exactly where they are and likely have lawyers waiting in the wings for Samba to make the wrong move with this. The Samba team has three choices right now:
1. Continue to reverse-engineer CIFS and releasing Samba under the GPL. In which case they violate the DMCA, which states that reverse-engineering is legal as long as the interoperability info is not readily available.
2. Read the Doc and implement the spec, but release under GPL anyway. This would save the Samba Team for the DMCA problems of #1, but would expose them to a lawsuit based on the violation of a licensing agreement (however, ridiculous its terms are).
3. Switch the Samba license to a BSD-style license. This may not be possible, because many people have contributed code to the project over the years. In other words, the Samba team may not have the legal right to change the license.
So, from what I've been able to figure, the Samba Team is ROYALLY screwed right now. No matter which way they turn, they will be doing something wrong.
Microsoft is kicking back having a really big laugh right now.
What they've done is trap the Samba team in a little box. According to the DMCA, they are permitted to reverse-engineer for the purposes of interoperability as long as that info has "not been previously readily available to the person egaging in the circumvention". In the past, this was the case for the Samba team, so they could reverse-engineer all day. Now things have changed, because M$ has made the info publicly available. So, Samba can't reverse-engineer anymore, according to the DMCA. At the same time, MS has attached a license to this spec that prohibits the Samba team from releasing any code based off of it under the GPL. So, if they want to continue using the GPL, they can't read the doc, but it's illegal according to the DMCA for them to reverse-engineer the product. Doh!
It looks like the Samba team will have to switch to a BSD license in order to be able to add features to Samba. Otherwise, they could face a lawsuit under the DMCA or under a violation of licensing terms. I wouldn't want to be the one charged with figuring a way out of this one. Not that MS would win it legally, but they could bankrupt Samba trying..
.
No. They are saying that if you implement the spec, you cannot attach a license to it that requires your licensees to distribute it or it's derivative works for free.
In other words, they are saying: You can code up this spec. But if you do, and you choose to open source it, you cannot in any way prohibit others from taking your source code, closing it and charging for it.
Get it?
Uhh, that's interesting. Do you have any actual information on how and where to submit comments? Is there an online form or should comments be submitted via snail mail? Do you have an address for either?
Wow. Well said. I've never seen anyone on
.
When did the no t-shirt thing start? I've seen Fugazi shirts around for like 15 years. In fact, I used to have one. Is this a new movement among bands with integrity? Not allowing your fans to advertise for you?
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