Still, they aren't legally responsible for the bugs. If you read most licenses, they say "this software is provided as is." Everybody makes mistakes and even though software creators should make more effort to stamp out bugs, no code of a certain level's complexity is perfect.
A disclaimer in the licence--even the GNU licence--isn't enough to exempt a software manufacturer from legal responsibility. I suspect that some time a contributor of free software is going to be judged to be legally liable for defects in his products. This isn't a good reason not to contribute to free software, but it is something to be aware of.
If these two factions ever come to an agreement, fair use as we know it is dead (even more than it is already!).
I don't think that's necessarily true, at least as applies to printed matter. However, what is at stake is more than just fair use (where you quote another work) but rather the ability of the consumer to use a copy that he or she has paid for. And it doesn't even stop the pirate from pirating, since all the pirate has to do is construct equipment to perform the copy, and that can be done illegally just once to produce software that will have far more intrinsic value (because of the absence of copy restrictions) than the legitimately bought product. The consumer of the pirated copy then simply runs it on normal equipment without restrictions.
I don't think the content owners have thought this one through, somehow.
If the hardware manufacturers are serious in wanting to pursue technically feasible means of embedding copy protection in hardware, it seems to me that this will still probably be useless to the copyright holders, unless every single step along the way from recording substrate to display device embodies some kind of encryption mechanism and the production of normal, unencrypted systems is outlawed.
At the most stupid, this would mean that it would become illegal to produce a device capable of presenting a normal monitor-out signal to show a movie, on the grounds that this signal could conceivably be used to produce high quality digital copies.
In the US it's apparently already against the law to write a normal computer program to decode a recording that you own legally, but outlawing CPUs and video cards seems even more ambitious and even more foolish. There is no practical means of stopping a hobbyist consumer doing what he likes with his own property and sharing his knowledge with others, nor would it be in the public interest to do so.
It depends how significant the signature is. Any legal investigation would take probably into account the current knowledge of decryption software and hardware. Either way, if it's important enough, you can consider making bipartisan manuscript endorsements of electronic signatures--witness one another's signatures.
You can bitch and moan about it, or jump on board. Either way you're not going to stop the righteous momentum.
Oddly enough, there has never been a better time to be a person with my software skills. Open source is nice, but it's something I do _after_ I put bread on the table.
And I'm certainly not one to bitch and moan, I simply point out that I couldn't make much of a living solely by writing open source software (at this point you might like to check the subject line, the bit that claims that oss *is* a job).
I think open source software is a job for quite a few people, but worldwide the software industry needs millions of code monkeys. What we do for the most part simply isn't worthy of publication, we're implementing and gluing, we're producing just that little bit more and we're chasing a market, always finding an app that nobody else has found, always trying to keep our competitors from having what we have. You can have the code _after_ we've cornered the market.
I'll come home and find a few hours to mess with a bit of code. And you get that for free, but that isn't what feeds my kids.
Open Source as programming experience? Excuse me, but Open Source development is not just a playground to warm up on before moving on to a "real job" writing proprietary software. If you desire to program for a living you can and should make a career out of doing Open Source development.
No will do. Like it or not, software is intellectual property. *My* intellectual property, the stuff that keeps food on the table and my kids warm and dry. *I* write it, *I* decide how to license it. Open source is an option. One option.
There is absolutely NO need for ANY proprietary software in this world.
Of course not, but there is a need to feed programmers, and one option for that is to pay us to write software which is distributed without source. Then we have lots of money and spare time to spend on open source projects.
Assuming we're talking about talented coders who have knowledge of computer science but want experience, some logical places to start are Linux Kernel Mailing List, the various monolithic BSD projects, Debian and WineHQ. These are two ongoing open source areas where new blood is always welcome and the best of open source coders gravitate.
Others will suggest starting with sourceforge, but in my experience a young coder doesn't want to pick somebody else's ideas and run with them s/he wants to find a way to test out new ideas and see if they'll work. Avoid isolation, try to find a team that has an agenda but permits arguments and discussion. Open source is a must, because you're always free to veer off on your own development tree if your ideas diverge from or are preempted by the requirements of the project.
I was a little disappointed by this, for two reasons.
Firstly, the writer has donned blinkers and cannot see outside the very limited problem of the quick construction of client-server systems based on reusable components.
Secondly, it really doesn't matter what the implementation language is. It never did. A talented programmer will use what is there. In the course of my career I have used everything from PDP11 assembler to perl by way of Cobol, Pascal, C/C++ and Java. The writer just doesn't seem to appreciate how much code holding the internet together is in languages that are rather more mature and fitter for purpose than the latest craze has a chance to be.
Color me cynical, but I suspect he's only talking about this particular thing because that's the kind of thing that gets convention-goers to bug their bosses to send them to.
If you're relying on crypto for normal purposes, don't get worried because even Dan Bernstein doesn't know if cracking your private key is feasible, yet.
If you're really worried that someone could crack your crypto and do great harm, you should probably switch to a more secure form, such as one-time pad if this is practicable in your environment. The main attractions of public key crypto are the ease of use and the readily available implementations. It isn't the only game in town.
Please tell me why I would want something to look like an MS product?
I don't think you would, or that you should, but millions of people are used to the way MS products look, so it's not surprising to see that there's a niche for people who are used to Windows but would like to try out this LUNIX thing. Most existing Linux users probably got there from Windows, originally, even those of us who also programmed Solaris and HP-UX for a living.
There are also aspects of the user interface that Microsoft has gotten right. Having a uniform standard for clipboard editing is good, as is having (fairly) common standards for menu access keypresses and even for keyboard shortcuts.
So if this patch, which was given as an example of an unsubmitted patch, a no-brainer, was in submitted and delayed for very good reasons, how can we get a handle on the magnitude of the problem, or be sure that there is, in fact, a substantive problem? I wouldn't expect that every single commercial distribution patch would be submitted to the kernel maintainers, for reasons that others have given on this thread. So is there really a huge amount of kernel patches that the lkml and kernel maintainers have the capacity to deal with, but are not getting submitted because kernel janitors don't have the numbers or time?
I don't doubt that the kernel janitors does a great job and that it's a useful resource for kernel maintainers, but the article seems to have given a false impression of the nature, and possibly the scale, of the work to be done.
Based on that sample patch they gave it seems that an unpatched system allocates one more page of memory than it actually uses
I'm no kernel expert, and this is no place for a kernel argument, but doesn't that code actually fail to reserve a page that it's supposed to? It looks like a potentially serious bug, though I'd have to see the reserve loop in context to decide one way or the other. What if eidx is stored somewhere as the highest reserved page, and some other code relies on that page being available for use? We'd have the kernel overwriting a page that may contain vital data.
"My mailbox is clear! How can we thank you, Spam Assassin?"
Seriously, I downloaded this and it looks like fun to use. I'll definitely give it a go. Thanks for posting this advice.
Users of Debian unstable can apparently just apt-get install spamassassin. Great stuff, but I'm paranoid enough to want to keep running potato for now.
The problem with proteins is that they're rather too complex to have formed by the kind of accident that the creationists (and panspermist steady-staters like Hoyle) like to deride. We do know of some self-replicating short chain and
cyclic polypeptides that are candidates for precursors of modern life, for instance. If you're interested, there's a good FAQ on this here A bit heavy on anti-creationist polemic, but it still contains a readable introduction to modern abiogenesis theory.
Dig your user name btw.. what Banks book is that from? Exession?
As a GSV I get to choose my own name <grin>. It's inspired by Excession, as you guessed. The conversations between the Minds in that book are very reminiscent of internet/usenet/webforum culture.
Yeah, it doesn't pass my "Dad" test either. When you have to talk someone through opening a console window, ungzipping a file, untarring the file, running make... you realize how wonderful Windows Install programs are.
Apart from being fastinating and a sign that further evolved life forms may exist, are there any potential advantages for finding extraterestrial bacteria?
Looking at signs of life that evolved on another planet might tell us a lot about how early life on earth may have evolved. The problem with life on earth is that it's a palimpsest--a tablet overwritten so many times that the original message has been effectively erased. We can be sure that modern proteins didn't just happen by accident, but on the other hand we don't yet know how they did come about. If signs of life should turn out to remain on Mars, particularly if that life took a different turning than life on earth did, it would show us one more trace through the maze, one more way of existing than the one we know about. And we'd learn a lot more about life in general.
You make some good points, but I must say that the vast bulk of the spam I get seems to come from servers in the.com top-level domain. It's little consolation to me that some of it is via fixed IP and can be blocked.
Slashdot Mirror
A disclaimer in the licence--even the GNU licence--isn't enough to exempt a software manufacturer from legal responsibility. I suspect that some time a contributor of free software is going to be judged to be legally liable for defects in his products. This isn't a good reason not to contribute to free software, but it is something to be aware of.
I don't think that's necessarily true, at least as applies to printed matter. However, what is at stake is more than just fair use (where you quote another work) but rather the ability of the consumer to use a copy that he or she has paid for. And it doesn't even stop the pirate from pirating, since all the pirate has to do is construct equipment to perform the copy, and that can be done illegally just once to produce software that will have far more intrinsic value (because of the absence of copy restrictions) than the legitimately bought product. The consumer of the pirated copy then simply runs it on normal equipment without restrictions.
I don't think the content owners have thought this one through, somehow.
At the most stupid, this would mean that it would become illegal to produce a device capable of presenting a normal monitor-out signal to show a movie, on the grounds that this signal could conceivably be used to produce high quality digital copies.
In the US it's apparently already against the law to write a normal computer program to decode a recording that you own legally, but outlawing CPUs and video cards seems even more ambitious and even more foolish. There is no practical means of stopping a hobbyist consumer doing what he likes with his own property and sharing his knowledge with others, nor would it be in the public interest to do so.
It depends how significant the signature is. Any legal investigation would take probably into account the current knowledge of decryption software and hardware. Either way, if it's important enough, you can consider making bipartisan manuscript endorsements of electronic signatures--witness one another's signatures.
Oddly enough, there has never been a better time to be a person with my software skills. Open source is nice, but it's something I do _after_ I put bread on the table.
And I'm certainly not one to bitch and moan, I simply point out that I couldn't make much of a living solely by writing open source software (at this point you might like to check the subject line, the bit that claims that oss *is* a job).
I think open source software is a job for quite a few people, but worldwide the software industry needs millions of code monkeys. What we do for the most part simply isn't worthy of publication, we're implementing and gluing, we're producing just that little bit more and we're chasing a market, always finding an app that nobody else has found, always trying to keep our competitors from having what we have. You can have the code _after_ we've cornered the market.
I'll come home and find a few hours to mess with a bit of code. And you get that for free, but that isn't what feeds my kids.
No will do. Like it or not, software is intellectual property. *My* intellectual property, the stuff that keeps food on the table and my kids warm and dry. *I* write it, *I* decide how to license it. Open source is an option. One option.
There is absolutely NO need for ANY proprietary software in this world.
Of course not, but there is a need to feed programmers, and one option for that is to pay us to write software which is distributed without source. Then we have lots of money and spare time to spend on open source projects.
Others will suggest starting with sourceforge, but in my experience a young coder doesn't want to pick somebody else's ideas and run with them s/he wants to find a way to test out new ideas and see if they'll work. Avoid isolation, try to find a team that has an agenda but permits arguments and discussion. Open source is a must, because you're always free to veer off on your own development tree if your ideas diverge from or are preempted by the requirements of the project.
Firstly, the writer has donned blinkers and cannot see outside the very limited problem of the quick construction of client-server systems based on reusable components.
Secondly, it really doesn't matter what the implementation language is. It never did. A talented programmer will use what is there. In the course of my career I have used everything from PDP11 assembler to perl by way of Cobol, Pascal, C/C++ and Java. The writer just doesn't seem to appreciate how much code holding the internet together is in languages that are rather more mature and fitter for purpose than the latest craze has a chance to be.
Color me cynical, but I suspect he's only talking about this particular thing because that's the kind of thing that gets convention-goers to bug their bosses to send them to.
If you're really worried that someone could crack your crypto and do great harm, you should probably switch to a more secure form, such as one-time pad if this is practicable in your environment. The main attractions of public key crypto are the ease of use and the readily available implementations. It isn't the only game in town.
I don't think you would, or that you should, but millions of people are used to the way MS products look, so it's not surprising to see that there's a niche for people who are used to Windows but would like to try out this LUNIX thing. Most existing Linux users probably got there from Windows, originally, even those of us who also programmed Solaris and HP-UX for a living.
There are also aspects of the user interface that Microsoft has gotten right. Having a uniform standard for clipboard editing is good, as is having (fairly) common standards for menu access keypresses and even for keyboard shortcuts.
No, but if you publish the IP we'll come over and Slashdot it for you. :)
I don't doubt that the kernel janitors does a great job and that it's a useful resource for kernel maintainers, but the article seems to have given a false impression of the nature, and possibly the scale, of the work to be done.
I'm no kernel expert, and this is no place for a kernel argument, but doesn't that code actually fail to reserve a page that it's supposed to? It looks like a potentially serious bug, though I'd have to see the reserve loop in context to decide one way or the other. What if eidx is stored somewhere as the highest reserved page, and some other code relies on that page being available for use? We'd have the kernel overwriting a page that may contain vital data.
Lighten up, it was just a joke. I use Debian and I no longer run any other Linux, but sometimes I like to poke fun at the long lead times to stable.
Seriously, I downloaded this and it looks like fun to use. I'll definitely give it a go. Thanks for posting this advice.
Users of Debian unstable can apparently just apt-get install spamassassin. Great stuff, but I'm paranoid enough to want to keep running potato for now.
Yep, now I know what kernel I'll be running on Debian Stable in 2005...
No wait, I can feel it solidifying into a deep and abiding contempt. Not for your country, it's much more personal than that.
I think I'm experiencing what we Europeans call an Ugly American moment.
It'll pass.
Oh really! :)
I liked the voice-over. It's the hard-boiled detective genre, dammit. I WANT MY VOICE-OVER!
Dig your user name btw.. what Banks book is that from? Exession?
As a GSV I get to choose my own name <grin>. It's inspired by Excession, as you guessed. The conversations between the Minds in that book are very reminiscent of internet/usenet/webforum culture.
I take it you haven't heard of Debian apt-get?
Looking at signs of life that evolved on another planet might tell us a lot about how early life on earth may have evolved. The problem with life on earth is that it's a palimpsest--a tablet overwritten so many times that the original message has been effectively erased. We can be sure that modern proteins didn't just happen by accident, but on the other hand we don't yet know how they did come about. If signs of life should turn out to remain on Mars, particularly if that life took a different turning than life on earth did, it would show us one more trace through the maze, one more way of existing than the one we know about. And we'd learn a lot more about life in general.
You make some good points, but I must say that the vast bulk of the spam I get seems to come from servers in the .com top-level domain. It's little consolation to me that some of it is via fixed IP and can be blocked.