Malware means "bad software" so naturally all trojans, viruses, backdoors and worms are included in the term malware, but you can also add to that spyware, adware and unremovable software which may or may not contain trojan, virus or backdoor features.
Obviously, if you had adware that injected ads into unrelated programs, it'd be an adware virus, etc. But you can have something that's merely adware without it being a trojan or anything else.
I think I forgot to mention rootkits, a source of recent controversy. They're an advanced type of backdoor which cloak their presence on the system and thus have anti-removal features. This caused some confusion because a recent game had anti-removal features common to rootkits, but lacked the backdoor part. Further, a Sony USB stick had the cloaking features, but no known backdoor, although some, like F-Secure, called that a rootkit as well, which could be misleading because all traditional rootkits DO include a backdoor... otherwise they wouldn't give you root, and wouldn't that just make them a "kit" or something instead of a rootkit?
Naturally, you can call any unwanted instance of malware an 'infection', although some people are dense enough to knowingly install it on their machines, which could muddy the issue. Some people also might disagree with me for calling _all_ adware "malware" because legitimate programs can be ad-supported in that way. However, I maintain that I will NOT use adware not merely because I hate ads, but because many high profile ad networks have been hacked and made to serve up exploit code which has infected many PCs.
Frankly, I really wish that the media would get these things straight and just describe the bad features things have. E.G. they should issue reports like "infections of the FooBar malware are on the rise, it spreads via e-mail attachments that claim to be greeting cards, then uses a backdoor to connect your computer to the FooBar botnet."
* A worm infects without user intervention (e.g. SQL Slammer, which *was* a worm). * A trojan is a hidden "feature" of some otherwise legitimate software. * A virus is a program that attaches itself to other files. * A backdoor gives someone remote control of the machine. * A botnet is an advanced backdoor where one can control many machines at once, e.g. from an IRC channel. PCs infected by completely different malware can all join the same person's botnet. Conversely, PCs infected by customized versions of the same malware can join different botnets.
The problem is that the media doesn't understand ANY of this and that the categories aren't all mutually exclusive. This is a trojan & backdoor that spreads via dumb users executing attachments they shouldn't.
Does anyone sense a "perfect storm" brewing? OOXML is delayed (but not quite derailed, yet) and many want to standardize on ODF. Vista adoption is crap--moving requires a rewrite of all your business apps, anyhow, and the hardware drivers aren't stable yet, so if you're going to transition to something else, now is the time. Ubuntu is proving itself usable by the computer illiterate. Now we have the potential for good graphics drivers, not to mention major retailers selling Linux machines. Microsoft is bogged down with anti-trust suits everywhere and they're chasing Google's advertising dollars now, because growth is nearly impossible for them to find.
Don't get me wrong: Microsoft won't just implode suddenly. But it's pretty amazing that their lock-ins are weaker now than they've ever been and that they're only getting weaker, not to mention that they're trying to compete on so many fronts at once while their two profitable divisions, Office & Windows, are suffering.
Anyone else suspect that we might possibly be seeing the start of the slow decline of Microsoft's empire?
There WAS that request from some PR type in the Firehose to give Slashdot an interview over the subject. So I suspect that they plan to do something. Because if they're plotting a PR blitz over a lot of nothing, that'd only backfire.
Honestly, I suspect this has more to do with Dell selling Ubuntu than anything. Hopefully that'll at least get them to improve the drivers, although I wish we could get some open ones. I mean, the kernel team is willing to work under an NDA... what more do they need?
What's wrong with customizing an Ubuntu install, removing easy access to all the stuff they don't need? Pretty hard to install spyware when it's not compatible with the system.
Hell, you can run it from a live CD if you want, then they'd have a really hard time screwing it up.
"We had a situation where an employee sent a communication via e-mail that was inconsistent with our corporate policy," said Tom Robertson, general manager for interoperability and standards at Microsoft. "That communication had no impact on the final vote."
[...]
Besides Sweden, there are unconfirmed reports of last-minute appearances by Microsoft allies to vote in favor of Open XML in countries such as Norway, Colombia, Switzerland and Portugal.
Robertson dismissed the criticism. Most standards bodies are filled with "an old guard" membership that needs rejuvenation, he said.
I would like to note that those "unconfirmed" reports have been confirmed by many sources at this point, and that the list given is FAR too short. Something like 40+ countries have decided they want a voting ("P" level, rather than "O" level) membership in the ISO and this interest corresponds with Microsoft's "voter registration drive."
Never mind such a drive being inconsistent with US anti-trust law. A few anti-trust settlements are merely a cost of doing business these days, and the Iowa settlement is an aberration. Most of them have settled for far less, like the Arizona settlement where they got to give away software that would not only cost them pennies on the dollar (actually, probably less than pennies) but would help further their lock-in in the educational market.
While there may be local laws that change things, and IANAL, people have lost several similar cases in the past, so there may be an uphill battle here. I know I personally wouldn't convict someone of a BS charge like 'resisting arrest' without some evidence of serious resistance (i.e. bruises or injuries) but beyond that...:[
It's the defendant (here, Microsoft) who has that right, and you still have to invoke it. If you want, you can waive it.
Further, it's in Microsoft's interests to stall these as long as possible, because that'll cost the plaintiff a lot of money in litigation expenses and deter people from suing them.
That said, at least this one is better than the previous ones. Other lawyers were settling for a few millions for themselves and coupons for everyone else, with the rest going to buy Microsoft software for the local schools.
I'm not sure you can simplify things to anything less than an N-dimensional space, where N is the number of issues and N is clearly very large. On all those political tests, I'm all over the map, because the ideals they're based on have absolutely nothing to do with my views.
My view is that all of these political axes are silly. You could just about simplify each of them down to something like: Us Hitler
You know how many versions of the HTTP protocol there are? What about HTML?
And yet, have you EVER seen an error saying that you cannot use this web page that was anything except someone making a page IE-only in the past 5 years?
Funny, that. That you don't have to break compatibility for new features. Especially for new documents not using the new features.
> The FSF will only work to enforce the GPL if the GPL code in question is signed over to the FSF.
They can't sue unless they own the copyrights or act as lawyers for someone who does. They don't have any legal standing to enforce the copyright, otherwise.
> This is the root of my problem with GNU in general: why show everybody how you achieved and developed a certain technological capability, without letting people actually use that method?
Now you reveal that your problem is with the GPL in general. People *can* use that method. They just can't use it in proprietary software. There's a world of difference. Anyhow, if it's your own software, feel free to release it under any license you want. But don't expect the FSF to act as free lawyers for just anyone. Besides, if you BSD license it, just how badly could they infringe, anyhow? At worst, you ask to have your name left in the credits? Whatever. You know that no one reads those things, right? It's like the list of patents Adobe puts on their splash screen: nobody even cares.
> I think that something like that is highly unlikely ("convince them to link to your site" just for the sake of pranking them? seriously? how does that really work out in reality).
It's not that hard. One way is to troll them into responding to some article on your site. Obviously, if you're on to the game, it won't work, but don't underestimate how little it takes when no one knows what's going on.
> However, I don't think the outcome of a situation like that is that you get your account canceled. I think you get your account canceled when the government breathes down LJs neck, and I think that only happens if the person who pranked you put up something extremely bad themselves, in which case I'm pretty sure they're going to get more than a warning from LJ -- they're going to get prosecuted by the government.
From what I've read, I'm less convinced of that. And given the motivation of many Slashdotters, I won't be surprised if something like I described above happens to that WFI site. Then again, because of the higher profile of that site, they may be more reluctant to do anything to it, even if there's good cause for it. You never know. A lot of it depends on which random support nobody answers the complaint and there's no good way to predict that.
But I can tell you that sites are generally deaf to any appeal of ToS violations, no matter how stupid the original case was.
To strike, here, means to cross out. I assume you know what that means when you edit a document--namely that that part of it is removed. Thus, that affirmative defense would be stricken (removed) if the RIAA's motion to strike was granted. There really isn't anything better to call a "motion to strike" though. That's what they're called and if there's another name for them, it's probably far more arcane.
I'm surprised you didn't ask about affirmative defenses, instead. If you're wondering, they're a defense where the defendant (person getting sued) would have to prove something. In the motion being discussed, the defendant have to prove something about the collusion among the RIAA's record labels.
While normal words do have arcane legal meanings, this particular case is quite tame for legalese. I understood it just fine, and I'm not a lawyer of any kind. If you really need help, try an online legal dictionary.
I made a steganography program once (hidden message) that hid a message in spam. It didn't and couldn't send email to anyone, but you could hide short messages in a "spam" email and copy/paste it to your friends. It got taken down as a "spam tool" even though I can't imagine it could ever be helpful to spammers.
Anyhow, now that we've established that ToS violations can occur for stupid things, have you never heard of trolls? Apparently, all one needs to do is get someone to link to some site they control, then change that site & report the person who linked it. Certainly not out of the question if you have anyone on the internet who hates you (yes, that might require that your blog have readers, so many LiveJournals will be immune...). Even on Slashdot, people like to submit links to things like TinyURL, then swap them out for Goatse after they get modded up. Hell, at least one troll group put out a random redirector that would send you to Goatse some % of the time while giving you normal content the rest. They could redirect all traffic from the LJ ToS enforcers to porn/Goatse/whatever with a simple modification of a script like that.
Got any LJ blogs you hate? Just convince them to link to you, report them, and they'll be down in no time at all, apparently.
> Look, if you provide the facilities for someone to copy copywritten material, you should be liable.
So why not tell that to all those libraries out there with photocopiers in them? Or anyone who has ever let someone else use their computer (I mean, hey, that person could've copied files off of it!).
> There is no other way for copyright to work.
Well, that's the real problem, isn't it? As enforced by the RIAA, copyright doesn't, it can't work, and it's pretty damn stupid to pretend it even could work in the real world.
There's a "Platform Limitation" saying you can only use it on Windows systems in the MS-LPL & MS-LCL, which are also Microsoft "open"^W Shared Source licenses. But because you apparently ignored the links in the sidebar of the page you quoted that lead to those licenses, I'll quote them for you, adding emphasis to the part you appear to have missed.
Platform Limitation- The licenses granted in sections 2(A) & 2(B) extend only to the software or derivative works that you create that run on a Microsoft Windows operating system product.
Reference use" means use of the software within your company as a reference, in read only form, for the sole purposes of debugging your products, maintaining your products, or enhancing the interoperability of your products with the software, and specifically excludes the right to distribute the software outside of your company.
I mean, you can't even redistribute that code. And the rest are GPL-incompatible last I heard and don't really offer anything you can't with a BSD license. After all, if you want to make patent grants, you don't *have* to do that as part of a EULA, you can do a true license and just make a public promise not to sue over some matter. I believe IBM and others have done something like that with respect to Linux.
>> The terrorists won; we have lost our freedoms. They have changed our way of life.
> The only way this statement could possibly be true is if the terrorists you mention are actually elected U.S. officials.
While many seem to think that a terrorist is "someone who blows themselves up" the actual definition is more along the lines of "one who achieves a political objective through fear or intimidation" and violence, while effective, is not strictly necessary. With that in mind, I can't think of a more apt way to describe those in power (and I have no need to single anyone out; too many currently in power are guilty of this so I don't mean to excuse anyone by omission).
However, I prefer not to use that term because it has been watered down to the point where it is devoid of almost all meaning. But yes, we have elected them. They have changed our way of life. I don't think anything more needs to be said.
We don't need more licenses. Don't we have enough?
What's wrong with, say, BSD instead of the Permissive License? And why shouldn't we have other vendors going all "me too" and saying we need a set of Google, Apple, Sun, Intel, HP, Lenovo, Joe's Smoked Meats & Fishes brand open source licenses? If all they become is a rubber stamp that says "this license fits a set of criteria you can read on our website" instead of "this license is actually useful and contributes something" then I might listen.
And I'm totally ignoring the fact that it's vague, introduces new incompatibilities where we were seeking greater harmony--you know, like how GPLv3 was made compatible with the Apache license? Yes, they DID get that into the final version.
So why do we need the license? Everyone is all focused on questions of bias and whether or not it looks "fair" and nobody seems to even give a damn about what this license is good for and why the existing ones aren't good enough.
Umm, every one of my accusations has been well-documented on Groklaw. And don't give me some crappy excuse like "oh, I disagree with PJ so I can ignore all that Groklaw stuff" because every last story cites its sources.
You don't have to agree with or believe PJ, you just have to take a look at the sources she cites and connect the dots for yourself.
Actually, the most recent Groklaw story already provided covers most of my allegations. The fact that SCO cited DL's blog is a matter of public record (it's in one of their motions trying to depose PJ, IIRC) but you can make up your own mind as to its purpose. I know there was a whole article on it. The "trolling" bit is a matter of personal opinion not really subject to libel, per my understanding (i.e. it's not capable of being 'true' or 'false'). And... what else is there? He wrote articles in Forbes talking about how great SCO's case was, so far as I know, he might *still* believe in it. I think that covers the rest.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, you haven't been paying attention.
Dan Lyons was that guy who schilled for SCO, repeating their press releases as if they were news, helping to stalk PJ of Groklaw, creating a blog that seemed to serve little purpose except to give SCO a "source" to cite in its litigation, calling us all fools for thinking SCO had no case, etc.
Finding out that he's been out trolling some more only makes sense. I mean, the guy is one great big douchbag and he loves getting people riled up. Doesn't Forbes want him publishing under his real name any more? I don't blame them. He's like a Dvorak clone who likes to rile anti-SCO people instead of Apple fans.
Won't comment on the moderation there, but as for whether or not Microsoft likes open source, I believe that at just the last Financial Analysts meeting, Ballmer told them that "open source is not a business model we can embrace" and that it's "inconsistent with shareholder value" (i.e. we're not doing it & we won't make any money off it).
In that light, this move only looks even more suspicious to me. If they're not going to embrace OSS, what are they doing here? Hoping to strangle it?
> 'Pirateer' is not a word ('privateer' is, of course, a word, but clearly not meant here).
I apologize for the following in advance, but in my defense, they started it with the insipid "Captain Copyright" (I wonder if he was based on Captain Planet, too?) But all that "Pirateer" talk made me think of the following:
-----
Captain Pirate, he's our hero, Gonna take copyright down to zero, He's our distribution magnified, And he's fighting on the pirate's side
Captain Pirate, he's our hero, Gonna take copyright down to zero, Gonna help him put us under, Bad guys who like to sue and plunder.
(MAFIAA exec shouting:) "You'll pay for this Captain Pirate!"
(chanting) We're the Pirateers, You can be one too! 'Cause saving our network is the thing to do, Looting the public is not the way, Hear what Captain Pirate has to say:
Slashdot Mirror
Malware means "bad software" so naturally all trojans, viruses, backdoors and worms are included in the term malware, but you can also add to that spyware, adware and unremovable software which may or may not contain trojan, virus or backdoor features.
Obviously, if you had adware that injected ads into unrelated programs, it'd be an adware virus, etc. But you can have something that's merely adware without it being a trojan or anything else.
I think I forgot to mention rootkits, a source of recent controversy. They're an advanced type of backdoor which cloak their presence on the system and thus have anti-removal features. This caused some confusion because a recent game had anti-removal features common to rootkits, but lacked the backdoor part. Further, a Sony USB stick had the cloaking features, but no known backdoor, although some, like F-Secure, called that a rootkit as well, which could be misleading because all traditional rootkits DO include a backdoor... otherwise they wouldn't give you root, and wouldn't that just make them a "kit" or something instead of a rootkit?
Naturally, you can call any unwanted instance of malware an 'infection', although some people are dense enough to knowingly install it on their machines, which could muddy the issue. Some people also might disagree with me for calling _all_ adware "malware" because legitimate programs can be ad-supported in that way. However, I maintain that I will NOT use adware not merely because I hate ads, but because many high profile ad networks have been hacked and made to serve up exploit code which has infected many PCs.
Frankly, I really wish that the media would get these things straight and just describe the bad features things have. E.G. they should issue reports like "infections of the FooBar malware are on the rise, it spreads via e-mail attachments that claim to be greeting cards, then uses a backdoor to connect your computer to the FooBar botnet."
Conjecture: SCO was denied the ability to appeal part of the ruling because they'll get to appeal the whole thing soon.
Fact: The meatbags deserve it.
* A worm infects without user intervention (e.g. SQL Slammer, which *was* a worm).
* A trojan is a hidden "feature" of some otherwise legitimate software.
* A virus is a program that attaches itself to other files.
* A backdoor gives someone remote control of the machine.
* A botnet is an advanced backdoor where one can control many machines at once, e.g. from an IRC channel. PCs infected by completely different malware can all join the same person's botnet. Conversely, PCs infected by customized versions of the same malware can join different botnets.
The problem is that the media doesn't understand ANY of this and that the categories aren't all mutually exclusive. This is a trojan & backdoor that spreads via dumb users executing attachments they shouldn't.
Does anyone sense a "perfect storm" brewing? OOXML is delayed (but not quite derailed, yet) and many want to standardize on ODF. Vista adoption is crap--moving requires a rewrite of all your business apps, anyhow, and the hardware drivers aren't stable yet, so if you're going to transition to something else, now is the time. Ubuntu is proving itself usable by the computer illiterate. Now we have the potential for good graphics drivers, not to mention major retailers selling Linux machines. Microsoft is bogged down with anti-trust suits everywhere and they're chasing Google's advertising dollars now, because growth is nearly impossible for them to find.
Don't get me wrong: Microsoft won't just implode suddenly. But it's pretty amazing that their lock-ins are weaker now than they've ever been and that they're only getting weaker, not to mention that they're trying to compete on so many fronts at once while their two profitable divisions, Office & Windows, are suffering.
Anyone else suspect that we might possibly be seeing the start of the slow decline of Microsoft's empire?
There WAS that request from some PR type in the Firehose to give Slashdot an interview over the subject. So I suspect that they plan to do something. Because if they're plotting a PR blitz over a lot of nothing, that'd only backfire.
Honestly, I suspect this has more to do with Dell selling Ubuntu than anything. Hopefully that'll at least get them to improve the drivers, although I wish we could get some open ones. I mean, the kernel team is willing to work under an NDA... what more do they need?
What's wrong with customizing an Ubuntu install, removing easy access to all the stuff they don't need?
Pretty hard to install spyware when it's not compatible with the system.
Hell, you can run it from a live CD if you want, then they'd have a really hard time screwing it up.
I thought you were going to say it was because they hacked into Mr. Gates' computer...
I would like to note that those "unconfirmed" reports have been confirmed by many sources at this point, and that the list given is FAR too short. Something like 40+ countries have decided they want a voting ("P" level, rather than "O" level) membership in the ISO and this interest corresponds with Microsoft's "voter registration drive."
Never mind such a drive being inconsistent with US anti-trust law. A few anti-trust settlements are merely a cost of doing business these days, and the Iowa settlement is an aberration. Most of them have settled for far less, like the Arizona settlement where they got to give away software that would not only cost them pennies on the dollar (actually, probably less than pennies) but would help further their lock-in in the educational market.
While there may be local laws that change things, and IANAL, people have lost several similar cases in the past, so there may be an uphill battle here. I know I personally wouldn't convict someone of a BS charge like 'resisting arrest' without some evidence of serious resistance (i.e. bruises or injuries) but beyond that... :[
Dudley Hiibel in Nevada
John Gilmore & his Supreme Court case
It's the defendant (here, Microsoft) who has that right, and you still have to invoke it. If you want, you can waive it.
Further, it's in Microsoft's interests to stall these as long as possible, because that'll cost the plaintiff a lot of money in litigation expenses and deter people from suing them.
That said, at least this one is better than the previous ones. Other lawyers were settling for a few millions for themselves and coupons for everyone else, with the rest going to buy Microsoft software for the local schools.
I'm not sure you can simplify things to anything less than an N-dimensional space, where N is the number of issues and N is clearly very large. On all those political tests, I'm all over the map, because the ideals they're based on have absolutely nothing to do with my views.
My view is that all of these political axes are silly. You could just about simplify each of them down to something like:
Us Hitler
You know how many versions of the HTTP protocol there are? What about HTML?
And yet, have you EVER seen an error saying that you cannot use this web page that was anything except someone making a page IE-only in the past 5 years?
Funny, that. That you don't have to break compatibility for new features. Especially for new documents not using the new features.
> The FSF will only work to enforce the GPL if the GPL code in question is signed over to the FSF.
They can't sue unless they own the copyrights or act as lawyers for someone who does. They don't have any legal standing to enforce the copyright, otherwise.
> This is the root of my problem with GNU in general: why show everybody how you achieved and developed a certain technological capability, without letting people actually use that method?
Now you reveal that your problem is with the GPL in general. People *can* use that method. They just can't use it in proprietary software. There's a world of difference. Anyhow, if it's your own software, feel free to release it under any license you want. But don't expect the FSF to act as free lawyers for just anyone. Besides, if you BSD license it, just how badly could they infringe, anyhow? At worst, you ask to have your name left in the credits? Whatever. You know that no one reads those things, right? It's like the list of patents Adobe puts on their splash screen: nobody even cares.
> I think that something like that is highly unlikely ("convince them to link to your site" just for the sake of pranking them? seriously? how does that really work out in reality).
It's not that hard. One way is to troll them into responding to some article on your site. Obviously, if you're on to the game, it won't work, but don't underestimate how little it takes when no one knows what's going on.
> However, I don't think the outcome of a situation like that is that you get your account canceled. I think you get your account canceled when the government breathes down LJs neck, and I think that only happens if the person who pranked you put up something extremely bad themselves, in which case I'm pretty sure they're going to get more than a warning from LJ -- they're going to get prosecuted by the government.
From what I've read, I'm less convinced of that. And given the motivation of many Slashdotters, I won't be surprised if something like I described above happens to that WFI site. Then again, because of the higher profile of that site, they may be more reluctant to do anything to it, even if there's good cause for it. You never know. A lot of it depends on which random support nobody answers the complaint and there's no good way to predict that.
But I can tell you that sites are generally deaf to any appeal of ToS violations, no matter how stupid the original case was.
To strike, here, means to cross out. I assume you know what that means when you edit a document--namely that that part of it is removed. Thus, that affirmative defense would be stricken (removed) if the RIAA's motion to strike was granted. There really isn't anything better to call a "motion to strike" though. That's what they're called and if there's another name for them, it's probably far more arcane.
I'm surprised you didn't ask about affirmative defenses, instead. If you're wondering, they're a defense where the defendant (person getting sued) would have to prove something. In the motion being discussed, the defendant have to prove something about the collusion among the RIAA's record labels.
While normal words do have arcane legal meanings, this particular case is quite tame for legalese. I understood it just fine, and I'm not a lawyer of any kind. If you really need help, try an online legal dictionary.
I made a steganography program once (hidden message) that hid a message in spam. It didn't and couldn't send email to anyone, but you could hide short messages in a "spam" email and copy/paste it to your friends. It got taken down as a "spam tool" even though I can't imagine it could ever be helpful to spammers.
Anyhow, now that we've established that ToS violations can occur for stupid things, have you never heard of trolls? Apparently, all one needs to do is get someone to link to some site they control, then change that site & report the person who linked it. Certainly not out of the question if you have anyone on the internet who hates you (yes, that might require that your blog have readers, so many LiveJournals will be immune...). Even on Slashdot, people like to submit links to things like TinyURL, then swap them out for Goatse after they get modded up. Hell, at least one troll group put out a random redirector that would send you to Goatse some % of the time while giving you normal content the rest. They could redirect all traffic from the LJ ToS enforcers to porn/Goatse/whatever with a simple modification of a script like that.
Got any LJ blogs you hate? Just convince them to link to you, report them, and they'll be down in no time at all, apparently.
> Look, if you provide the facilities for someone to copy copywritten material, you should be liable.
So why not tell that to all those libraries out there with photocopiers in them? Or anyone who has ever let someone else use their computer (I mean, hey, that person could've copied files off of it!).
> There is no other way for copyright to work.
Well, that's the real problem, isn't it? As enforced by the RIAA, copyright doesn't, it can't work, and it's pretty damn stupid to pretend it even could work in the real world.
MS-LPL, Section 3 (F) and MS-LCL, Section 3 (G) both contain:The others have other problems:
MS-RL, Section 1 I mean, you can't even redistribute that code. And the rest are GPL-incompatible last I heard and don't really offer anything you can't with a BSD license. After all, if you want to make patent grants, you don't *have* to do that as part of a EULA, you can do a true license and just make a public promise not to sue over some matter. I believe IBM and others have done something like that with respect to Linux.
>> The terrorists won; we have lost our freedoms. They have changed our way of life.
> The only way this statement could possibly be true is if the terrorists you mention are actually elected U.S. officials.
While many seem to think that a terrorist is "someone who blows themselves up" the actual definition is more along the lines of "one who achieves a political objective through fear or intimidation" and violence, while effective, is not strictly necessary. With that in mind, I can't think of a more apt way to describe those in power (and I have no need to single anyone out; too many currently in power are guilty of this so I don't mean to excuse anyone by omission).
However, I prefer not to use that term because it has been watered down to the point where it is devoid of almost all meaning. But yes, we have elected them. They have changed our way of life. I don't think anything more needs to be said.
We don't need more licenses. Don't we have enough?
What's wrong with, say, BSD instead of the Permissive License? And why shouldn't we have other vendors going all "me too" and saying we need a set of Google, Apple, Sun, Intel, HP, Lenovo, Joe's Smoked Meats & Fishes brand open source licenses? If all they become is a rubber stamp that says "this license fits a set of criteria you can read on our website" instead of "this license is actually useful and contributes something" then I might listen.
And I'm totally ignoring the fact that it's vague, introduces new incompatibilities where we were seeking greater harmony--you know, like how GPLv3 was made compatible with the Apache license? Yes, they DID get that into the final version.
So why do we need the license? Everyone is all focused on questions of bias and whether or not it looks "fair" and nobody seems to even give a damn about what this license is good for and why the existing ones aren't good enough.
Umm, every one of my accusations has been well-documented on Groklaw. And don't give me some crappy excuse like "oh, I disagree with PJ so I can ignore all that Groklaw stuff" because every last story cites its sources.
You don't have to agree with or believe PJ, you just have to take a look at the sources she cites and connect the dots for yourself.
Actually, the most recent Groklaw story already provided covers most of my allegations. The fact that SCO cited DL's blog is a matter of public record (it's in one of their motions trying to depose PJ, IIRC) but you can make up your own mind as to its purpose. I know there was a whole article on it. The "trolling" bit is a matter of personal opinion not really subject to libel, per my understanding (i.e. it's not capable of being 'true' or 'false'). And... what else is there? He wrote articles in Forbes talking about how great SCO's case was, so far as I know, he might *still* believe in it. I think that covers the rest.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, you haven't been paying attention.
Dan Lyons was that guy who schilled for SCO, repeating their press releases as if they were news, helping to stalk PJ of Groklaw, creating a blog that seemed to serve little purpose except to give SCO a "source" to cite in its litigation, calling us all fools for thinking SCO had no case, etc.
Finding out that he's been out trolling some more only makes sense. I mean, the guy is one great big douchbag and he loves getting people riled up. Doesn't Forbes want him publishing under his real name any more? I don't blame them. He's like a Dvorak clone who likes to rile anti-SCO people instead of Apple fans.
Won't comment on the moderation there, but as for whether or not Microsoft likes open source, I believe that at just the last Financial Analysts meeting, Ballmer told them that "open source is not a business model we can embrace" and that it's "inconsistent with shareholder value" (i.e. we're not doing it & we won't make any money off it).
In that light, this move only looks even more suspicious to me. If they're not going to embrace OSS, what are they doing here? Hoping to strangle it?
As far as I know, they have student legal services that are (supposed) to protect and advise students in any legal trouble.
The question then becomes, why cave just for the RIAA?
> 'Pirateer' is not a word ('privateer' is, of course, a word, but clearly not meant here).
I apologize for the following in advance, but in my defense, they started it with the insipid "Captain Copyright" (I wonder if he was based on Captain Planet, too?) But all that "Pirateer" talk made me think of the following:
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Captain Pirate, he's our hero,
Gonna take copyright down to zero,
He's our distribution magnified,
And he's fighting on the pirate's side
Captain Pirate, he's our hero,
Gonna take copyright down to zero,
Gonna help him put us under,
Bad guys who like to sue and plunder.
(MAFIAA exec shouting:)
"You'll pay for this Captain Pirate!"
(chanting)
We're the Pirateers,
You can be one too!
'Cause saving our network is the thing to do,
Looting the public is not the way,
Hear what Captain Pirate has to say:
"THE PUBLIC DOMAIN IS YOURS!!"