Because nations agree to conduct themselves in accordance with free trade principles and then behave in a protectionist manner. This is the entire point of the WTO, to adjudicate in these cases as to whether the individual signatory nations are violating agreements or not.
Please don't resort to childish abuse in future replies.
I would say anyone with the remotest sympathy would agree that that is how the courts *should* view the matter. The only point I am trying to make is that they *needn't*. These are novel ideas about property that are being talked about here and it is *conceivable*, not likely, that a court might think we are better off without them.
An example of a fanning-the-flames slashdot story is the recent `interview' with John Vranesevich. Maybe good reason to give him a grilling: shame that isn't what he got. Instead just a lot of flames badly disguised as questions...
What the courts could regard as theft is that the GPL compromises ones right to the product of one's own labour, ie. changes that one has made to the source.
Yes it is absurd, for the reasons you argue, but while that is clear to people who are familiar with the ideals of the FSF, it may not be clear to someone whose legal education is grounded in principles with very little similarity to Richard Stallman's beliefs of how IP should work.
I think I may not have made myself clear: one *could* think about Linux in the same way that BSDers think about BSD, namely that the operating system is the whole distribution. However in practice that is not how most people do think of it, partly I think due to the workability of applying RPMs meant for one distribution to other distributions, giving rise to `mulatto Linux'.
Its amazing that this works without much difficulty, and I think it is one of the reasons why Linux is so innovation friendly: one doesn't need to wait until the new Redhat version of package XYZ is out, one can be truly bleeding edge and apply the SuSE RPM today. But it is anathema to the `systems integrity' mindset of BSD, and I think there is a case for that mindset with issues like security, etc.
I have to say that I find myself in two minds about the WTO. On the one hand I believe that, in the long run, free trade is a good thing for all parts of the world, rich and poor alike. An organisation like the WTO is needed in order to prevent national governments natural tendencies to succumb to special interest bargaining.
On the other hand I have to say I don't like the WTO's conduct or the way these treaties are negotiated. The The EU's ban on hormone treated beef may have been against free trade, but it was undoubtedly mitivated by a genuine concern for consumers health. The WTO ruling took no account of this. Similarly the negotiations on the MAI (mulitlateral agreement on investments) are deeply unopen.
People's fears about the effects of globalisation are real: some people do lose jobs as a result of cheap imports, and so the arguments about trade really should be made in the open. Maybe making trade negotioations more open will slow down the adoption of free trade measures. Even so, I think it is better than undermining democratic institutions in the way they do now.
Well, a consequence of Popper's position is that there is no such thing as knowledge of universals.
This is kind of a paradoxical position, since the statement itself (the negation of an existential) is universal, and so itself isn't knowledge. Philosophers tend not to like to built upon such self-defeating foundations...
I rather like Popper, and I think his argument (adapted from Hume) about the invalidity of induction is sound. But his alternative I don't think should be adopted uncritically.
It does seem conceivable to me that the courts could rule that, while the right to make software public domain is OK, the extra requirement that further modifications have to be made available amounts to theft. Not likely, but conceivable.
So I think there is some ineterst in seeing how the courts react. I am conscious that I am talking about `the courts' irrespective of national distinctions in IP law, but it seems a field in which the US is most likely to see a first challenge and other OECD countries are likely to follow suit.
I understood that they meant they were not cross-indexing this information to find out what peoples names and addresse are. A little bit disingenuous to say `they don't see that it is in anyones economic interest to do so': there is no doubt that efforts like these are making it easy for people who do want to do such cross-indexing easy.
I don't see that open source vs. closed source is an issue here: it is quite easy to provide unintelligible open source to satisfy any formal `visibility' requirement.
Takeovers and mergers generate lots of media coverage, but over half of all takeovers do not generate any shareholder value, suggesting that they are not justified on commercial grounds. On reflection I think I was overreacting with my post, but I think there are grounds to fear that RedHat are moving to a `being the biggest baddest software company in the Open Source world' rather than concentrating on what they should be, that is, generating the customer support mechanisms for free software world similar to those that exist for the big proprietary software products.
Native ports will tend to `furnish themselves' when it comes to free software, so emulation is crucial really only for commercial software.
The rise of Linux means more and more free software is being written. For applications software like star office it is likely we will have to rely on emulation, but I don't really see what the issue is: it isn't harder to use shrinkwrapped software under an emulator than it is `native code'. I don't see why `mission critical' is an issue if one trusts the emulator.
Packages used to run other packages, like VMware, is a different matter: this I would like to see run native code.
There seems to be something of a difference between the Linux and BSD worlds as to what the `natural unit' of an operating system is. In the Linux world it seems that the kernel is regarded as the operating system, and the various different distributions are regarded as flavours of Linux with their component parts being expected to be as interchangeable as possible.
In the BSD world the whole distribution as deployed is held to be the OS, and moving a piece of software from one distribution to another has a bit of the flavour of a port. I think there are advanatages to the BSD way of looking at things, since some properties of OSs, especially security, make sense only when applied to the system as a whole.
I am concerned, therefore, that the port of the Debian distribution to the FreeBSD kernel might undermine this view. Is the Debian port going to be positioned as an entirely new branch of BSD (say DebianBSD), or is it going to be regarded more in the Linux way of doing things? If the latter, how seriously do the Debian team take these cultural differences between the BSD and Linux world? Who do you see as your target user?
Thought provoking post, but I disagree with the pessimism. FreeBSD and Linux appeal to different kinds of user: Linux appeals more to the innovation hungry user, whilst FreeBSD appeals more to users who care more about the robustness of the whole system.
I also think that free software is much more able to weather a decline in fashionability: FreeBSD doesn't *need* to be the hippest OS on the block for year in, year out incremental development to be made by the people who value its strengths.
I am delighted to see that VM ware now works with FreeBSD: this was the one piece of software that I really regretted not being able to run under FreeBSD.
I suppose it is too early to hope that there is much user experience of the port in terms of robustness?
I'm surprised at this. I studied business law (for a rpofessional qualifiocation, not as a lawyer) in the UK, and the law for minors was certainly as I described. The law between UK and the US tends to be the roughly the same on matters of contract law, (though of course some states have bizarre things on their statute books).
Was the Dean's actions ever challenged on legal grounds? I'd be surprised if the Dean's actions as described were not illegal.
I half agree, but I think that there should be formal recognition of overtime worked, since it goes beyond the contracted hours.
Another system is TOIL (time off in lieu), where if someone works 5 hours overtime, then they have 5 hours that they can take off at another time. In places where this system is used (I have sometimes seen it in financial advice companies), there are usually maximum amounts of TOIL that one can amount, and excess is paid in overtime.
Not invalid: voidable. Ie. minors *can* choose to be bound by the agreement in order to enforce the contract against others, but may at any time void the contract to avoid having the terms enforced against themselves.
So in other words, you don't see that the possibility that copyleft could be unenforceable is an issue? That it is reasonable for any 16 year old can download it, and then sell their modifications to a commercial company who release it under a proprietary license.
This is potentially a substantial problem in GPL, and we should be getting the legal opinions out in the public for discussion, not launching the machinery of a lawsuit.
On the difference between a monarchy and a republic: isn't this just legal metaphysics? The things that matter are what the people's, corporation's and state's powers are, and how conflicts between them are resolved.
If only there was an non-elisp web browser that could call up emacs for composing text. Alas, no, but it is not just the wintel mindset: even lynx doesn't do this...
I have to apologise for the tone of my post: I thought you were the same person as the person at whom I first directed my question, and not a helpful interlocutor. The original poster `Disco Stu' wrote:
However, I think he may be a little too quick to scream "hands off!" to the government. (I'm sure he's read Hobbes, but if he has, either he saw serious problems that I totally missed or it just doesn't show).
I rather took this to be unfair: Hobbes' view of the world is not a particularly nice one, and I think it leads one down a somewhat totalitarian line of thought. Hobbes is interesting, sure, so is Plato, but neither of them wrote *the truth* about how the world came to be the way it is, and someone who does not share their view is under no obligation to argue why they disagree with either of them. They are useful intellectual resources, not layers down of the default view of the world.
I think the licensing issue is in fact a non-issue: proprietary branches of the BSD kernel are not where the open source development effort will be. If customers want to buy proprietary operating versions of open source software, and the orginal designers don't have a problem, I don't see where the crime is.
Where I think there might be an issue is that the BSD world does not have this idea that the operating system is the kernel, but rather the operating system is the whole distribution. A debian distribution based on the FreeBSD kernel is not the Debian distribution of FreeBSD but a completely different branch, which one might call DebianBSD.
I think there are advantages to the BSD way of looking at things: security issues around OSs are not issues of the kernel, but issues about the whole system as deployed. I would rather the BSD vision of the operating system was not buried because it is not the same as the Linux vision.
Slashdot Mirror
trade principles and then behave in a protectionist manner. This is
the entire point of the WTO, to adjudicate in these cases as to
whether the individual signatory nations are violating agreements or
not.
Please don't resort to childish abuse in future replies.
I would say anyone with the remotest sympathy would agree that that is how the courts *should* view the matter. The only point I am trying to make is that they *needn't*. These are novel ideas about property that are being talked about here and it is *conceivable*, not likely, that a court might think we are better off without them.
An example of a fanning-the-flames slashdot story is the recent
`interview' with John Vranesevich. Maybe good reason to give him a
grilling: shame that isn't what he got. Instead just a lot of flames
badly disguised as questions...
right to the product of one's own labour, ie. changes that one has
made to the source.
Yes it is absurd, for the reasons you argue, but while that is
clear to people who are familiar with the ideals of the FSF, it may
not be clear to someone whose legal education is grounded in
principles with very little similarity to Richard Stallman's beliefs
of how IP should work.
Linux in the same way that BSDers think about BSD, namely that the
operating system is the whole distribution. However in practice that
is not how most people do think of it, partly I think due to the
workability of applying RPMs meant for one distribution to other
distributions, giving rise to `mulatto Linux'.
Its amazing that this works without much difficulty, and I think it
is one of the reasons why Linux is so innovation friendly: one doesn't
need to wait until the new Redhat version of package XYZ is out, one
can be truly bleeding edge and apply the SuSE RPM today. But it is
anathema to the `systems integrity' mindset of BSD, and I think there
is a case for that mindset with issues like security, etc.
one hand I believe that, in the long run, free trade is a good thing
for all parts of the world, rich and poor alike. An organisation like
the WTO is needed in order to prevent national governments natural
tendencies to succumb to special interest bargaining.
On the other hand I have to say I don't like the WTO's conduct or
the way these treaties are negotiated. The The EU's ban on hormone
treated beef may have been against free trade, but it was undoubtedly
mitivated by a genuine concern for consumers health. The WTO ruling
took no account of this. Similarly the negotiations on the MAI
(mulitlateral agreement on investments) are deeply unopen.
People's fears about the effects of globalisation are real: some
people do lose jobs as a result of cheap imports, and so the arguments
about trade really should be made in the open. Maybe making trade
negotioations more open will slow down the adoption of free trade
measures. Even so, I think it is better than undermining democratic
institutions in the way they do now.
This is kind of a paradoxical position, since the statement itself (the negation of an existential) is universal, and so itself isn't knowledge. Philosophers tend not to like to built upon such self-defeating foundations...
I rather like Popper, and I think his argument (adapted from Hume) about the invalidity of induction is sound. But his alternative I don't think should be adopted uncritically.
the right to make software public domain is OK, the extra requirement
that further modifications have to be made available amounts to theft.
Not likely, but conceivable.
So I think there is some ineterst in seeing how the courts react.
I am conscious that I am talking about `the courts' irrespective of
national distinctions in IP law, but it seems a field in which the US
is most likely to see a first challenge and other OECD countries are
likely to follow suit.
information to find out what peoples names and addresse are. A little
bit disingenuous to say `they don't see that it is in anyones economic
interest to do so': there is no doubt that efforts like these are
making it easy for people who do want to do such cross-indexing easy.
I don't see that open source vs. closed source is an issue here: it is
quite easy to provide unintelligible open source to satisfy any formal
`visibility' requirement.
Takeovers and mergers generate lots of media coverage, but over half
of all takeovers do not generate any shareholder value, suggesting
that they are not justified on commercial grounds. On reflection I
think I was overreacting with my post, but I think there are grounds
to fear that RedHat are moving to a `being the biggest baddest
software company in the Open Source world' rather than concentrating
on what they should be, that is, generating the customer support
mechanisms for free software world similar to those that exist for
the big proprietary software products.
archetypal `buy up lots of small companies to boost the CEO's ego'.
I hope it isn't true. Any ideas as to what started the rumour?
The rise of Linux means more and more free software is being written. For applications software like star office it is likely we will have to rely on emulation, but I don't really see what the issue is: it isn't harder to use shrinkwrapped software under an emulator than it is `native code'. I don't see why `mission critical' is an issue if one trusts the emulator.
Packages used to run other packages, like VMware, is a different matter: this I would like to see run native code.
worlds as to what the `natural unit' of an operating system is. In
the Linux world it seems that the kernel is regarded as the operating
system, and the various different distributions are regarded as
flavours of Linux with their component parts being expected to be as
interchangeable as possible.
In the BSD world the whole distribution as deployed is held to be
the OS, and moving a piece of software from one distribution to
another has a bit of the flavour of a port. I think there are
advanatages to the BSD way of looking at things, since some properties
of OSs, especially security, make sense only when applied to the
system as a whole.
I am concerned, therefore, that the port of the Debian distribution
to the FreeBSD kernel might undermine this view. Is the Debian port
going to be positioned as an entirely new branch of BSD (say
DebianBSD), or is it going to be regarded more in the Linux way of
doing things? If the latter, how seriously do the Debian team take
these cultural differences between the BSD and Linux world? Who do
you see as your target user?
and Linux appeal to different kinds of user: Linux appeals more to the
innovation hungry user, whilst FreeBSD appeals more to users who care
more about the robustness of the whole system.
I also think that free software is much more able to weather a decline
in fashionability: FreeBSD doesn't *need* to be the hippest OS on the
block for year in, year out incremental development to be
made by the people who value its strengths.
the one piece of software that I really regretted not being able to
run under FreeBSD.
I suppose it is too early to hope that there is much user experience
of the port in terms of robustness?
Was the Dean's actions ever challenged on legal grounds? I'd be surprised if the Dean's actions as described were not illegal.
overtime worked, since it goes beyond the contracted hours.
Another system is TOIL (time off in lieu), where if someone works 5
hours overtime, then they have 5 hours that they can take off at
another time. In places where this system is used (I have sometimes
seen it in financial advice companies), there are usually maximum
amounts of TOIL that one can amount, and excess is paid in overtime.
Not invalid: voidable. Ie. minors *can* choose to be bound by the
agreement in order to enforce the contract against others, but may at
any time void the contract to avoid having the terms enforced against
themselves.
could be unenforceable is an issue? That it is reasonable for any 16
year old can download it, and then sell their modifications to a
commercial company who release it under a proprietary license.
This is potentially a substantial problem in GPL, and we should
be getting the legal opinions out in the public for discussion, not
launching the machinery of a lawsuit.
What is GGI?
On the difference between a monarchy and a republic: isn't this just
legal metaphysics? The things that matter are what the people's,
corporation's and state's powers are, and how conflicts between them
are resolved.
If only there was an non-elisp web browser that could call up emacs for composing text. Alas, no, but it is not just the wintel mindset: even lynx doesn't do this...
However, I think he may be a little too quick to scream "hands off!" to the government. (I'm sure he's read Hobbes, but if he has, either he saw serious problems that I totally missed or it just doesn't show).
I rather took this to be unfair: Hobbes' view of the world is not a particularly nice one, and I think it leads one down a somewhat totalitarian line of thought. Hobbes is interesting, sure, so is Plato, but neither of them wrote *the truth* about how the world came to be the way it is, and someone who does not share their view is under no obligation to argue why they disagree with either of them. They are useful intellectual resources, not layers down of the default view of the world.
FreeBSD does have a centralised package management system, Jordan_hubbard's pkg_add system.
Where I think there might be an issue is that the BSD world does not have this idea that the operating system is the kernel, but rather the operating system is the whole distribution. A debian distribution based on the FreeBSD kernel is not the Debian distribution of FreeBSD but a completely different branch, which one might call DebianBSD.
I think there are advantages to the BSD way of looking at things: security issues around OSs are not issues of the kernel, but issues about the whole system as deployed. I would rather the BSD vision of the operating system was not buried because it is not the same as the Linux vision.