But all of this misses the fundamental point: locks have never been enough to keep thieves out.
But this misses an even more fundamental point: locks help.
They don't stop robberies (as evidenced by the existance of robberies), but if they didn't do anything then why use them? I think you'd be hard pressed to find many people who don't live in a rural area who leave their houses or apartments unlocked when no one's home. Do you lock your house? If you do, you are admitting that at least part of you thinks that locks help.
Let's look at the three [main] possible vectors for how to get into someone's locked house, and compare to bumping:
Pick the lock. This is possible, but most theives aren't gonna put in the time toward learning this skill. Learning to lock pick isn't easy. Granted, it's certainly possible with practice, and it's not even in the same playing field as some other skills (say playing an instrument), but it still takes quite a bit of work to get to the point where you can reliably open fairly easy locks given plenty of time, let alone opening both a deadbolt and normal door lock with a very real time constraint. (You don't want to be standing around too long or you start to look suspicious. Again, doesn't apply really in rural areas.)
Break a window. This requires little in the way of tools -- just something so that you can hit the window. The big benefit is that it's easy. You don't need to spend a couple weeks practicing how to break a window. The big drawbacks are that it's noisy and leaves plain evidence visible from the outside (in non-rural areas) that might trigger a neighbor or passing car to call the police. It also presents an opportunity to cut yourself. Finally, the more you disrupt when breaking in, the more evidence you're likely to leave. If you cut yourself for instance, there's a good chance you're gonna miss some blood and the police will get your DNA.
Come in an unlocked route, such as through an unlocked window. This has the benefits of the last point without as many drawbacks. In many cases, this might be preferable to even bumping (which I'll argue would be the most preferable entry method). One potential drawback is that it's not always easy though; I've had to break into my house a couple times when I forgot keys, and my usual entry point was a kitchen window. This is a good 6 feet off the ground though, so it's no doorway.
Bumping. This has essentially all of the benefits that appear above, and essentially none of the drawbacks. From what I know of bumping, it requires little practice or skill. It's very fast, almost as fast as using the proper key, so it can be done without attracting attention. It leaves no visible trace such as a broken window that might be noticed. It's quiet, so it won't wake any occupants.
If I were trying to break into something, I would choose bumping with almost no question.
I just got a Kryptonite lock and, near as I can tell, it's just a standard cylinder lock. It's certainly got a normal-looking key. Five pins, so assuming everything else is equal, just as easy or hard to break as most house locks.
I can't confirm that this is true across the line, that kryptonite changed a couple years ago, or even that they didn't offer these locks before they knew about the bic vulnerability, but it's at least clear that not all Kryptonite locks are vulnerable.
Um, which is [one reason] why we have to worry more. More people know about it. (Though I don't really know how widespread the knowledge is. For all I know it could be confined to geeks still.) When I saw a video about it some time ago I thought that if it is anywhere as close to as easy as they make it out to be, I can't imagine why intruders bother to break windows, locks, etc. to get inside places, other than that they don't know this technique. And yet the above happens. My conclusion then is that the simplest explanation is that they don't know this technique.
The second possible reason is that perhaps you feel that it has *always* been something to worry about, but you didn't know better before recently.
I don't think that's true, for a couple reasons, and even if it were, it's not enough to get the MS license thrown out of the OSI-approved arena.
Point 1: MS claiming infringement based upon use of the software would be self contradictorary. If it's possible to infringe one of MS's patents by using their software, then that patent is covered by 2(B) and there's no infringement. The only thing that would make this possible would be if you added 3rd party functionality that infringes on the patent that MS originally thought was covered by 2(B) but then decided that the software they were distributing didn't use that patent and thus rights were not granted.
Point 2: It's not MS's decision to make as to which patents are being infringed; it's the courts'.
Point 3: You wouldn't have to sue them immediately when they start demanding royalties; just don't pay them. When and if they sue you, you can make your claim that the original software uses the functionality covered by the patent they are demanding royalties for. If you word it right, I think you bypass the invalidation claim.
Point 4: Even throwing all this out, the existance of this clause I think is *still* not enough to disqualify this license. Manyotherapprovedlicenses have very similar clauses to the one in question. (Okay, looking back through the last three might be almost the same, but on the other hand, I only went through about 1/5 of the licenses.) The main difference is that they limit the revocation clause to MS. I don't think that this would be enough to get it disqualified though. It's objectively in between other licenses; it's less powerful than the ones linked above (which revoke rights if you sue any contributor for patent stuff) but more powerful than other licenses that are patent neutral (BSD, GPL, etc.). The situation is subjectively unfair though, and I think it would hurt the license's chances. (But again, not enough to get it disqualified.)
so long as you grant a specific set of copyrights and patents ("you must grant all recipients the copyright and patent licenses in sections 2(A) & 2(B) for any file that contains code from the software"), likely including things you don't own
If you don't have the authority to grant patent use, then you don't have the authority to distribute the part of the software that infringes that patent. This ensures that you don't distribute supposedly Free software that is, in fact, encumbered in patents, and thus for all intents and purposes not Free. (Because you can't exercise your rights without infringing the patents.) Some OSS liceneses have patent provisions, some don't, there's not really anything wrong with this one I think.
At least in theory... Rereading it the wording is a little off though. It's very clear (I think anyway) what the spirit of that part ("you must grant all recipients the copyright and patent licenses in sections 2(A) & 2(B) for any file that contains code from the software") is, and I think that even the letter of the wording could hold up to that interpretation, but I could see some lawyer try to argue that secondary distributers can't grant the copyright and patent rights held by the primary author. I doubt it would fly.
(Not all of that is directed at you... it seems you have the knowledge in the first paragraph.)
Please (Physical) Do (Data link) Not (Network) Throw (Transport) Stale (Session) Pizza (Presentation) Away (Application)
I do not know why this is still in my brain, I learned it 5+ years ago and have essentially never used it. It's like what Dave Barry said: "[W]hen I was in college, I had to memorize -- don't ask me why -- the names of three metaphysical poets other than John Donne. I have managed to forget one of them, but I still remember that the other two were named Vaughan and Crashaw. Sometimes, when I'm trying to remember something important like whether my wife told me to get tuna packed in oil or tuna packed in water, Vaughan and Crashaw just pop up in my mind, right there in the supermarket. It's a terrible waste of brain cells."
Couldn't the OSI say "here's the text of the license as of today, this version is/is not certified open source."
If MS then went and changed it, that version would be different from what the OSI approved, and the decision based on the old version would cease to be valid. However, the old version of the license wouldn't suddenly become invalid.
There might be some confusion as to the naming of them, but I think that could be easily overcome. The OSI could say "The MS Shared Source License as of Aug. 22, 2006" is approved, and as long as MS didn't come along and make changes later and say it was as of Aug. 22, 2006, there should be no confusion. (I'm not sure if I would put that last thing beyond MS or not.)
You didn't answer the poster's question. You answered why MS wouldn't want it submitted, and how EU people might go about applying pressure to get it submitted. You didn't, however, talk AT ALL about why the OSI needs MS's go-ahead to review it, why it can't review licenses at the request of people other than the author of the license, or why the OSI can't even just spontaneously review licenses even without someone's request.
If MS themselves disclosed the source code then they've broken what is most likely their own trade secret and copyright no longer applies.
Neeehuh?
Trade secrets and copyrights are entirely different. You can have one without the other. Even if they show the Mozilla devs IE source and thereby break their trade secret, it's still all covered by copyright.
(After all, if what you said is true, then releasing software would certainly count as breaking trade secrets, and thus any copyright over the binaries would be invalidated, and thus you would be able to do anything you want with them.)
Agreed. I know of very few projects that has the level of documentation provided by MSDN. The only one that comes to mind is Sun's Java API reference, though I'm sure there are others. The internals of the Linux kernel, by point of comparison, often have no documentation besides the source itself.
Ah, yeah, rereading my post I didn't word what I was saying right. I didn't mean to say "Am I a bigot for thinking we didn't land on the moon", I meant to say "Am I a bigot for thinking that someone who thinks we didn't land on the moon is stupid."
Just to clear that up.;-) (And yeah, I'm quite familiar with the Bad Astronomy link. I'm also a fan of this site for actually demonstrating some of the stuff.)
You know, saying someone is stupid for disagreeing isn't necessarily bigotry. Am I a bigot for thinking someone who thinks the Earth is flat is stupid? That we didn't land on the moon? Heck, that guy over there insisting that two plus two equals five (for normal values of two) deserves his fair shake.
Granted, you can't go out and observe evolution like you could any of those things (though observing that the bottom half of the LEM is left might be hard, you could do it), but it's not bigotry; it's just drawing a line.
Heck, for that matter, why not 50 cents for half the song? You give it a range of times during the track. Prorate the price according to the fraction of the duration you want.
But now you have probably a much larger box (unless you go with MiniATX, which can get even more expensive) that costs more (unless you pull it from old computers you no longer use), requires you to install the software yourself, get a switch unless you want to put multiple NICs in the computer, and probably eats up a lot more power. Compare that to a nearly plug-and-play cable modem router that you can go grab for $40. (In this case, $260; but this is still less than a full-blown PC.)
Sure, there are plenty of uses for setting up a Linux box to act as router. But there are plenty of reasons why that's too heavyweight a solution in other instances.
The problem is that viruses and rootkits can hook into the kernel too. If detectors are really to have a reasonable chance of detecting these sorts of malware, they need to play on equal footing, i.e. hook into the kernel too.
Without that ability, a well-written piece malware can hook into the routines that the anti-virus program uses and filter results or otherwise disable its detection mechanisms. Even if the anti-virus tries to hook the kernel, and is loaded after the malware, it's starting from a severe disadvantage.
But if the anti-virus is loaded, it can hook the routines that malware uses to install its hooks and use them as a detection point.
I think you're right, but the question still has merit. There are plenty of times you'd like (or at least I would like) a hard case for a laptop besides throwing it in the cargo hold. I said in another reply that I just got a Pelican case (BTW, remembering a similar ask/. question ages ago; thanks to the probably several people who suggested it); this was for a trip to Norway I just had. I used the case even though I carried it as checked luggage.
Second, why would you link to a website "halliburton" site? Are you fearmongering (ala Republican: let's scare people and take their civil rights), or are you a Democrat: we're not afraid of being blown up in an airplane (because we know the statistical odds)?
What the hell does politics have to do with this? Halliburton Zero cases are often thought of in the same class as Pelican cases. It's an option for the original poster. If said poster has a moral objection to Halliburton, then that's fine, they don't have to buy from them. But it's a legitimate answer to the question.
I recently bought a Pelican case for my camera and would whole-heartedly recommend them. My only complaint is that, at least with the model I have (the 1450) there is no place to clip a shoulder strap. But at least the outside of the case can take just about anything. (I regularily used it as a chair.) I don't think you'll get much better than them.
Though I do find the restrictions on their guarantee amusing: The guarantee does not cover shark bite, bear attack and children under five.
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Locks? Locks mean nothing even if they can't be bumped or picked (although so many can, this is trivial).
Nothing?
Do you lock your house or apartment? If you *truely* thought they meant nothing, you wouldn't. Is that true?
But this misses an even more fundamental point: locks help.
They don't stop robberies (as evidenced by the existance of robberies), but if they didn't do anything then why use them? I think you'd be hard pressed to find many people who don't live in a rural area who leave their houses or apartments unlocked when no one's home. Do you lock your house? If you do, you are admitting that at least part of you thinks that locks help.
Let's look at the three [main] possible vectors for how to get into someone's locked house, and compare to bumping:
If I were trying to break into something, I would choose bumping with almost no question.
I just got a Kryptonite lock and, near as I can tell, it's just a standard cylinder lock. It's certainly got a normal-looking key. Five pins, so assuming everything else is equal, just as easy or hard to break as most house locks.
I can't confirm that this is true across the line, that kryptonite changed a couple years ago, or even that they didn't offer these locks before they knew about the bic vulnerability, but it's at least clear that not all Kryptonite locks are vulnerable.
Um, which is [one reason] why we have to worry more. More people know about it. (Though I don't really know how widespread the knowledge is. For all I know it could be confined to geeks still.) When I saw a video about it some time ago I thought that if it is anywhere as close to as easy as they make it out to be, I can't imagine why intruders bother to break windows, locks, etc. to get inside places, other than that they don't know this technique. And yet the above happens. My conclusion then is that the simplest explanation is that they don't know this technique.
The second possible reason is that perhaps you feel that it has *always* been something to worry about, but you didn't know better before recently.
I don't think that's true, for a couple reasons, and even if it were, it's not enough to get the MS license thrown out of the OSI-approved arena.
Point 1: MS claiming infringement based upon use of the software would be self contradictorary. If it's possible to infringe one of MS's patents by using their software, then that patent is covered by 2(B) and there's no infringement. The only thing that would make this possible would be if you added 3rd party functionality that infringes on the patent that MS originally thought was covered by 2(B) but then decided that the software they were distributing didn't use that patent and thus rights were not granted.
Point 2: It's not MS's decision to make as to which patents are being infringed; it's the courts'.
Point 3: You wouldn't have to sue them immediately when they start demanding royalties; just don't pay them. When and if they sue you, you can make your claim that the original software uses the functionality covered by the patent they are demanding royalties for. If you word it right, I think you bypass the invalidation claim.
Point 4: Even throwing all this out, the existance of this clause I think is *still* not enough to disqualify this license. Many other approved licenses have very similar clauses to the one in question. (Okay, looking back through the last three might be almost the same, but on the other hand, I only went through about 1/5 of the licenses.) The main difference is that they limit the revocation clause to MS. I don't think that this would be enough to get it disqualified though. It's objectively in between other licenses; it's less powerful than the ones linked above (which revoke rights if you sue any contributor for patent stuff) but more powerful than other licenses that are patent neutral (BSD, GPL, etc.). The situation is subjectively unfair though, and I think it would hurt the license's chances. (But again, not enough to get it disqualified.)
so long as you grant a specific set of copyrights and patents ("you must grant all recipients the copyright and patent licenses in sections 2(A) & 2(B) for any file that contains code from the software"), likely including things you don't own
If you don't have the authority to grant patent use, then you don't have the authority to distribute the part of the software that infringes that patent. This ensures that you don't distribute supposedly Free software that is, in fact, encumbered in patents, and thus for all intents and purposes not Free. (Because you can't exercise your rights without infringing the patents.) Some OSS liceneses have patent provisions, some don't, there's not really anything wrong with this one I think.
At least in theory... Rereading it the wording is a little off though. It's very clear (I think anyway) what the spirit of that part ("you must grant all recipients the copyright and patent licenses in sections 2(A) & 2(B) for any file that contains code from the software") is, and I think that even the letter of the wording could hold up to that interpretation, but I could see some lawyer try to argue that secondary distributers can't grant the copyright and patent rights held by the primary author. I doubt it would fly.
(Not all of that is directed at you... it seems you have the knowledge in the first paragraph.)
Please (Physical)
Do (Data link)
Not (Network)
Throw (Transport)
Stale (Session)
Pizza (Presentation)
Away (Application)
I do not know why this is still in my brain, I learned it 5+ years ago and have essentially never used it. It's like what Dave Barry said: "[W]hen I was in college, I had to memorize -- don't ask me why -- the names of three metaphysical poets other than John Donne. I have managed to forget one of them, but I still remember that the other two were named Vaughan and Crashaw. Sometimes, when I'm trying to remember something important like whether my wife told me to get tuna packed in oil or tuna packed in water, Vaughan and Crashaw just pop up in my mind, right there in the supermarket. It's a terrible waste of brain cells."
Wow, that was (*ahem*)... a lucky guess.
(I apologize for that horrible pun. We now return you to your regularily scheduled programming.)
You seem sure.
Here's the definition of open source per the OSI.
Here's the MS "Community License".
What is in conflict?
Why would it have to guarantee that?
Couldn't the OSI say "here's the text of the license as of today, this version is/is not certified open source."
If MS then went and changed it, that version would be different from what the OSI approved, and the decision based on the old version would cease to be valid. However, the old version of the license wouldn't suddenly become invalid.
There might be some confusion as to the naming of them, but I think that could be easily overcome. The OSI could say "The MS Shared Source License as of Aug. 22, 2006" is approved, and as long as MS didn't come along and make changes later and say it was as of Aug. 22, 2006, there should be no confusion. (I'm not sure if I would put that last thing beyond MS or not.)
MS requires the license to USE the software.
Not by my reading. Where does it say that redistributions of it must require users to agree to the licenses to use the software?
Even if MS puts a click-through license at the beginning of the installations or whatever of the software doesn't mean that you have to comply.
(Note that the grant of priviledge to use patents is different.)
except Microsoft always keeps it's mits in your work and all the work that follows.
How so? There's the patent clause, but that's all I see. We'll get to that in a minute.
Microsoft removes your license if you think you need to sue them.. or even counter/cross sue in defense of them sueing you!
Only as it relates to the software that's covered by this license.
Regardless of how you feel about this clause, I see nothing that conflicts with the OSI definition of open source.
You didn't answer the poster's question. You answered why MS wouldn't want it submitted, and how EU people might go about applying pressure to get it submitted. You didn't, however, talk AT ALL about why the OSI needs MS's go-ahead to review it, why it can't review licenses at the request of people other than the author of the license, or why the OSI can't even just spontaneously review licenses even without someone's request.
If MS themselves disclosed the source code then they've broken what is most likely their own trade secret and copyright no longer applies.
Neeehuh?
Trade secrets and copyrights are entirely different. You can have one without the other. Even if they show the Mozilla devs IE source and thereby break their trade secret, it's still all covered by copyright.
(After all, if what you said is true, then releasing software would certainly count as breaking trade secrets, and thus any copyright over the binaries would be invalidated, and thus you would be able to do anything you want with them.)
Agreed. I know of very few projects that has the level of documentation provided by MSDN. The only one that comes to mind is Sun's Java API reference, though I'm sure there are others. The internals of the Linux kernel, by point of comparison, often have no documentation besides the source itself.
Ah, yeah, rereading my post I didn't word what I was saying right. I didn't mean to say "Am I a bigot for thinking we didn't land on the moon", I meant to say "Am I a bigot for thinking that someone who thinks we didn't land on the moon is stupid."
;-) (And yeah, I'm quite familiar with the Bad Astronomy link. I'm also a fan of this site for actually demonstrating some of the stuff.)
Just to clear that up.
You know, saying someone is stupid for disagreeing isn't necessarily bigotry. Am I a bigot for thinking someone who thinks the Earth is flat is stupid? That we didn't land on the moon? Heck, that guy over there insisting that two plus two equals five (for normal values of two) deserves his fair shake.
Granted, you can't go out and observe evolution like you could any of those things (though observing that the bottom half of the LEM is left might be hard, you could do it), but it's not bigotry; it's just drawing a line.
Heck, for that matter, why not 50 cents for half the song? You give it a range of times during the track. Prorate the price according to the fraction of the duration you want.
But now you have probably a much larger box (unless you go with MiniATX, which can get even more expensive) that costs more (unless you pull it from old computers you no longer use), requires you to install the software yourself, get a switch unless you want to put multiple NICs in the computer, and probably eats up a lot more power. Compare that to a nearly plug-and-play cable modem router that you can go grab for $40. (In this case, $260; but this is still less than a full-blown PC.)
Sure, there are plenty of uses for setting up a Linux box to act as router. But there are plenty of reasons why that's too heavyweight a solution in other instances.
Yeah, I saw the sibling of my post afterword. I didn't know about that when I posted, so, there's a bit of egg on my face.
I'd set up a VPN personally.
The problem is that viruses and rootkits can hook into the kernel too. If detectors are really to have a reasonable chance of detecting these sorts of malware, they need to play on equal footing, i.e. hook into the kernel too.
Without that ability, a well-written piece malware can hook into the routines that the anti-virus program uses and filter results or otherwise disable its detection mechanisms. Even if the anti-virus tries to hook the kernel, and is loaded after the malware, it's starting from a severe disadvantage.
But if the anti-virus is loaded, it can hook the routines that malware uses to install its hooks and use them as a detection point.
They have been the drug smuggler's cases of choice for years now, and have a tendancy to get pulled by drug agency enforcers with alarming frequency
I haven't had DEA issues, but I did have the TSA swab the outside and inside for explosives the one and only time I went through US security with it.
You can't lock checked bagage any more
Yes you can, if you get one of these locks. There are a few manufacturers of them. Pelican has some in their lineup.
I used the case even though I carried it as checked luggage.
And by "checked luggage" I of course mean "carry-on." I wish you could edit posts...
First of all, this "ban" won't last long.
/. question ages ago; thanks to the probably several people who suggested it); this was for a trip to Norway I just had. I used the case even though I carried it as checked luggage.
I think you're right, but the question still has merit. There are plenty of times you'd like (or at least I would like) a hard case for a laptop besides throwing it in the cargo hold. I said in another reply that I just got a Pelican case (BTW, remembering a similar ask
Second, why would you link to a website "halliburton" site? Are you fearmongering (ala Republican: let's scare people and take their civil rights), or are you a Democrat: we're not afraid of being blown up in an airplane (because we know the statistical odds)?
What the hell does politics have to do with this? Halliburton Zero cases are often thought of in the same class as Pelican cases. It's an option for the original poster. If said poster has a moral objection to Halliburton, then that's fine, they don't have to buy from them. But it's a legitimate answer to the question.
I recently bought a Pelican case for my camera and would whole-heartedly recommend them. My only complaint is that, at least with the model I have (the 1450) there is no place to clip a shoulder strap. But at least the outside of the case can take just about anything. (I regularily used it as a chair.) I don't think you'll get much better than them.
Though I do find the restrictions on their guarantee amusing:
The guarantee does not cover shark bite, bear attack and children under five.