A good point that TiVo has modules written
specifically using kernel headers and to fit into
Linux kernel code. This makes them clearly
derived works and the source must be free
software made available by TiVo to those
who buy it's machines. GPL. AFAIK, they do
this.
NVidia almost certainly did not write
their core graphics drivers with any knowledge or
intent they be used on a Linux system. So their
core is not a derived work, but the glue they
wrote to lash it into Linux obviously is,
and they do release it GPL.
Linus says that
userland is not derived works. I would agree,
but only insofar as userland uses standard public
library calls or calls against libs covered by
the LGPL (originally Library GPL, now "lesser"
GPL). The moment userland calls/uses code
covered by the GPL, then it becomes a derived
work of that code too! Whence the reason for the
LGPL.
I haven't seen TiVo's userland code, but
I expect it's tightly tied to their own libs and
module code. The modules are derived works of
the Linux kernel, so subject to the GPL,
which makes their libs derived works, also GPL,
and the userland likewise. Fruit of the vine.
Darl McBride and SCO are trolls in the USENET
sense of the term. They are posting for the
purposes of eliciting a reaction, not to
question, inform or debate.
Their latest was
issued hours before a _very_ adverse judge's
ruling, forcing SCO to comply with IBMs
discovery. Clearly, the letter was designed to
distract attention from the financial press.
USENET also has a response: "Don't feed the
Trolls"
The judge is far more likely to simply bar any evidence of
code leakage not provided in Discovery within the 30 days.
SCO won't be allowed to present it during Trial, so it's "put
up or shut up" time. No surprises in a well-lawyered lawsuit.
Not Perry Mason. Helps settlement which is by _far_ the
main goal.
Note SCO cannot simply withdraw their suit.
They've been cross-sued by IBM, and the case won't go away
without IBM agreement.
It's probably been said before, but SCO is really
just playing the odds. At first, they wanted
greenmail but IBM called their bluff. Now they
have to follow through, although it doesn't look
like IBM or anyone else will settle.
But if they have even a 10% chance of winning,
the prize (1+ G$) makes "investing" 5-30 M$ look
good. Sad to see the legal system abused this
way. Time for a "paying into court" mechanism
for the USA?
You don't trust your kids much, do you? Maybe they'll live down to your expectations.
My kids (s14, d12) each have their own computer, and I wouldn't dream of invading their privacy. The liklihood of catching something
that really needs to be caught is very small, while the cost of loss-of-trust is huge. I want my kids to grow to be responsible adults. That means learning self control, not fear of external control.
If I ever had cause to monitor my kids, then I'd just run `tcpdump` against their IPs from my Linux box. I would monitor everything without disrupting them.
Most of the HAZMAT isn't particularly hazardous. It's just not acceptable for landfills, usually because it leaches oil or metals.
The nasty McGuffins in movies just aren't. If it's unstable, no-one wants to transport it, and will neutralize on-site. About the worse thing I've seen is used transformer oils (PCBs) and cutting oils.
There _are_ serious road-vector hazards (LPG, halogens), but no one is talking of them.
If MAC/uid/pers.id were user-optional, I'd have nothing
against IPv6. It certainly isn't any different from a IPv4
static IP.
However, I strongly suspect that Crisco [sic]
and other HW vendors will require your MAC to facilitate
their routing. Why else is IPv6 128bit addrs? To have
lots to facilitate routing!
Remember, no one gets to
assign their own IPaddy. You have to use whatever your
ISP gives you if you expect packets to go out, let alone
return.
I find it somewhat farcical/Windowseque to compare distros on speed. Learn to tune what you've got.
I use and run Slackware. I installed 9.0 on my Compaq Aero (486sx33/8MB). X is unthinkable, but it runs text just fine. The biggest performance tuning
came from putting `noatime` in/etc/fstab . Those atime writes were hurting performance with the buffer shortage.
Is Forbes just baiting us? [Having us on in UK English]?
Surely this articles is not so poorly researched
that the writer didn't know that RMS started the GPL after frustrations with a Xerox printer.
Of course the FSF went after Linksys, and Cisco must have known about this from due diligence.
Yup. There are some lesser-known MS-Win trojans that
do exactly this. This led to AOL and some others blacklisting DHCP broadband IPs.
Since my kids run MS-Win poxen, I block their outbound SMTP at the router. The responsible thing to do. They don't notice because they use Yahoo webmail.
I loved the final quote from Linus:
Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect.
It really sums up the whole exercise.
Right now, I'm writing this with `vim`, having
hit ^Xe in the textbox that `lynx` opened up. I
have all the unimaginable power of vim at my
disposal.:)
The internet (www) is so valuable because it's
largely a medium wherein the receiver selects
what they want to see. Rather like being in a
very large library with efficient assistants.
All prior media, from speech and the printing
press onwards (including email) have been media
wherein the transmitter attemps to force
information upon an audience, many tune out.
If you want help the artists, go to their concerts or buy legit band merchandise (web).
Bands (unlike book authors) typically receive pitiful royalties ($0.50/CD) on CD sales. They get much more from concerts/merch.
Bands don't tour to support their CD sales, they launch CDs to support their Tours!
Music sharing may be legal in US too! 17 USC 1008
on
Canada Immune From RIAA?
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
There is currently alot of controversy around the "sharing" of
digital music files over the objections of the copyright holders
(RIAA for short). Some users feel guilt (occasionally shown as
defiance) over having received something valuable so cheaply.
I'd like to calm the rhetoric. Sure, common sense would indicate
the RIAA's copyrights have been violated. But copyright has been
heavily legislated over the past century to the point that
common sense or common law is nearly absent. It has such things
as compulsory licences and device royalties. Morality should be
confined to governing personal actions and advocating revisions
to intellectual property law. It is disingenuous for the RIAA to
invoke morality when if anything they have had excessive influence
in crafting legislation.
IANAL but lets look at the law. Once you know the tokens,
legalese is not usually harder to parse than APL:) Apologies for a
US-centric viewpoint but I believe a statutory situation exists in
all other common-law countries with different details. There's an
excellent copy of the United States Code, Title 17 - Copyrights at Cornell.
Chapter 10 covers DIGITAL AUDIO RECORDING DEVICES AND MEDIA .
Particularly interesting is:
Sec. 1008. - Prohibition on certain infringement actions...
No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of
copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution
of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording
medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium,
or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device
or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical
recordings
Simply breathtaking! The words "this title" mean Title 17,
which contains all of US copyright law. The first "based on"
means these things are not actionable as contributory negligence
("burglars tools"). The second "based on" means non-commercial
use of these things does not violate copyright. Wow!
The definitions in Sec.1001 would seem to include computers.
They sure are designed, advertised and used that way amongst others.
But all is not [Guns'N'] roses. The manufacturers of these recording
devices would seem to owe a device tax that gets paid through the
Librarian-of-Congress (of all people!) to the RIAA as specified.
There are also requirements related to the Serial Copy Management
System. I trust that RIAA have settled this with their long-standing
antagonists, appliance manufacturers, now including Dell, HP, et al.
But even if not, how does it affect me?
The term "noncommercial use" would almost certainly cover receiving
music files to make recordings on a hard-disk. Offering to
transmit music files might not be covered and fall under
the exceptionally byzantine Sec.114 as an "interactive service".
But a lawyer specialising in Copyright law should be able to
give a better interpretation including case precedents. The
Diamond Rio MP3 player case is probably relevant. Is there a lawyer
in the house?
I saw the sarcasm, but also thought there was a legitimate point.
The RIAA certainly will take $2000 if they can get it. Suing your customers is a going-out-of-business model.
MIT will have to get involved because how else can anyone hope to tie an IP to meatspace? Not that there's much hope anyways, depending on the network model and logging.
Why would the guy settle? The RIAA may need to abandon the case
to avoid an adverse ruling. IANAL, in some states they might not be able to simply abandon without Respondant consent.
With the RIAAs gill-net fishing technique, they're bound to catch some innocents.
The real question is how long this sort of trawling will be allowed. The student could get the case dismissed on summary judgement, and the RIAA seriously admonished about bringing frivolous lawsuits.
SCO is behaving bizarrely. They don't have a viable product
to sell, so they want to sue their customers. Brilliant!
A going-out-of-business model!
SCO seem to want to try their case
in the press. Maybe they've watched Chicago too many times.
They distort whatever case they have and deliberately misconstrue
opposing statements. A farce. They need the publicity. First it
was greenmail. Now, I don't see any exit strategy. Time to stop
playing in their circus.
SCO don't have a case, lets not act as
if they do. Time to stop worrying.
It's disingenuous in the extreme for women to complain men don't
want to "commit" [marry] when Family law is effectively stacked
in their favor. Men get a worse deal in Divorce Court than women
do in the workplace.
You can level the playing field a bit (but
not entirely CS) with a Prenuptual Agreement. Of course, it's a bit
unromantic. But a GF that wants to saddle me with the default law
is worse than unromantic -- she's being insensitive to _my_ needs
(unloving) and possibly grasping. I'd run.
The DMCA allows RIAA fishing expeditions. The RIAA has done this,
and entrapment/contributory negligence to boot. This brave lady
is therefore challenging the constitutionality of the DMCA.
Unfortunately, AFAIK lower courts seldom rule a law unconstitutional
without precedent. This one will have to be carried to the US
Supreme Court, a long haul. I wish her luck. I'm glad to see the
EFF there.
I can just echo the comments made in the media. SoBig is the worst email virus I've seen -- BY FAR.
Normally, I get about 30 spams per day and a few viruses. Not much harm to a Linux system running `mutt` as an MUA!. Yesterday, I received about 150 SoBig, plus maybe 30 automated msgs saying _I'd_ sent out such nastiness/bloat.
Slashdot Mirror
NVidia almost certainly did not write their core graphics drivers with any knowledge or intent they be used on a Linux system. So their core is not a derived work, but the glue they wrote to lash it into Linux obviously is, and they do release it GPL.
Linus says that userland is not derived works. I would agree, but only insofar as userland uses standard public library calls or calls against libs covered by the LGPL (originally Library GPL, now "lesser" GPL). The moment userland calls/uses code covered by the GPL, then it becomes a derived work of that code too! Whence the reason for the LGPL.
I haven't seen TiVo's userland code, but I expect it's tightly tied to their own libs and module code. The modules are derived works of the Linux kernel, so subject to the GPL, which makes their libs derived works, also GPL, and the userland likewise. Fruit of the vine.
Their latest was issued hours before a _very_ adverse judge's ruling, forcing SCO to comply with IBMs discovery. Clearly, the letter was designed to distract attention from the financial press.
USENET also has a response: "Don't feed the Trolls"
Note SCO cannot simply withdraw their suit. They've been cross-sued by IBM, and the case won't go away without IBM agreement.
But if they have even a 10% chance of winning, the prize (1+ G$) makes "investing" 5-30 M$ look good. Sad to see the legal system abused this way. Time for a "paying into court" mechanism for the USA?
If I ever had cause to monitor my kids, then I'd just run `tcpdump` against their IPs from my Linux box. I would monitor everything without disrupting them.
The nasty McGuffins in movies just aren't. If it's unstable, no-one wants to transport it, and will neutralize on-site. About the worse thing I've seen is used transformer oils (PCBs) and cutting oils.
There _are_ serious road-vector hazards (LPG, halogens), but no one is talking of them.
However, I strongly suspect that Crisco [sic] and other HW vendors will require your MAC to facilitate their routing. Why else is IPv6 128bit addrs? To have lots to facilitate routing!
Remember, no one gets to assign their own IPaddy. You have to use whatever your ISP gives you if you expect packets to go out, let alone return.
Whatever it's other advantages, IPv6 will greatly reduce privacy. One partion of the 128 bit source will be your MAC, there for all to see and log.
Dialup and DHCP give some piercable measure of anonymity. Somebody has to approach your ISP and get the logs manually.
I use and run Slackware. I installed 9.0 on my Compaq Aero (486sx33/8MB). X is unthinkable, but it runs text just fine. The biggest performance tuning came from putting `noatime` in /etc/fstab . Those atime writes were hurting performance with the buffer shortage.
Surely this articles is not so poorly researched that the writer didn't know that RMS started the GPL after frustrations with a Xerox printer. Of course the FSF went after Linksys, and Cisco must have known about this from due diligence.
Since my kids run MS-Win poxen, I block their outbound SMTP at the router. The responsible thing to do. They don't notice because they use Yahoo webmail.
Right now, I'm writing this with `vim`, having hit ^Xe in the textbox that `lynx` opened up. I have all the unimaginable power of vim at my disposal. :)
All prior media, from speech and the printing press onwards (including email) have been media wherein the transmitter attemps to force information upon an audience, many tune out.
Bands don't tour to support their CD sales, they launch CDs to support their Tours!
I'd like to calm the rhetoric. Sure, common sense would indicate the RIAA's copyrights have been violated. But copyright has been heavily legislated over the past century to the point that common sense or common law is nearly absent. It has such things as compulsory licences and device royalties. Morality should be confined to governing personal actions and advocating revisions to intellectual property law. It is disingenuous for the RIAA to invoke morality when if anything they have had excessive influence in crafting legislation.
IANAL but lets look at the law. Once you know the tokens, legalese is not usually harder to parse than APL :) Apologies for a
US-centric viewpoint but I believe a statutory situation exists in
all other common-law countries with different details. There's an
excellent copy of the United States Code, Title 17 - Copyrights at Cornell.
Chapter 10 covers DIGITAL AUDIO RECORDING DEVICES AND MEDIA .
Particularly interesting is:
Sec. 1008. - Prohibition on certain infringement actions... No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings
Simply breathtaking! The words "this title" mean Title 17, which contains all of US copyright law. The first "based on" means these things are not actionable as contributory negligence ("burglars tools"). The second "based on" means non-commercial use of these things does not violate copyright. Wow!
The definitions in Sec.1001 would seem to include computers. They sure are designed, advertised and used that way amongst others. But all is not [Guns'N'] roses. The manufacturers of these recording devices would seem to owe a device tax that gets paid through the Librarian-of-Congress (of all people!) to the RIAA as specified. There are also requirements related to the Serial Copy Management System. I trust that RIAA have settled this with their long-standing antagonists, appliance manufacturers, now including Dell, HP, et al. But even if not, how does it affect me?
The term "noncommercial use" would almost certainly cover receiving music files to make recordings on a hard-disk. Offering to transmit music files might not be covered and fall under the exceptionally byzantine Sec.114 as an "interactive service". But a lawyer specialising in Copyright law should be able to give a better interpretation including case precedents. The Diamond Rio MP3 player case is probably relevant. Is there a lawyer in the house?
MIT will have to get involved because how else can anyone hope to tie an IP to meatspace? Not that there's much hope anyways, depending on the network model and logging.
The real question is how long this sort of trawling will be allowed. The student could get the case dismissed on summary judgement, and the RIAA seriously admonished about bringing frivolous lawsuits.
SCO seem to want to try their case in the press. Maybe they've watched Chicago too many times. They distort whatever case they have and deliberately misconstrue opposing statements. A farce. They need the publicity. First it was greenmail. Now, I don't see any exit strategy. Time to stop playing in their circus.
SCO don't have a case, lets not act as if they do. Time to stop worrying.
You can level the playing field a bit (but not entirely CS) with a Prenuptual Agreement. Of course, it's a bit unromantic. But a GF that wants to saddle me with the default law is worse than unromantic -- she's being insensitive to _my_ needs (unloving) and possibly grasping. I'd run.
Unfortunately, AFAIK lower courts seldom rule a law unconstitutional without precedent. This one will have to be carried to the US Supreme Court, a long haul. I wish her luck. I'm glad to see the EFF there.
SoBig is the worst email virus I've seen -- BY FAR.
Normally, I get about 30 spams per day and a few viruses. Not much harm to a Linux system running `mutt` as an MUA!. Yesterday, I received about 150 SoBig, plus maybe 30 automated msgs saying _I'd_ sent out such nastiness/bloat.