A TCP connection to port 53 could be someone looking for a zone transfer. That isn't anything to hide, you are publishing it to the world anyway.
A zone transfer *is* something to hide. The only people who should be looking for a zone transfer are your secondaries. Either they are already allowed, or you have none. No one else should be requesting a zone transfer. Allowing them is stupid because you now allow in any bugs that are associated with dns zone transfers.
I trust your RPC service (port 111) has suitable access controls that declines unauthorized access attempts. But it is not good to consider such connections "attacks," what if some new whizbang Internet P2P application uses RPC (ignoring the merits of using it). Are those users all of a sudden criminals because they had the nerve to ask your host if it could talk a particular protocol?
There are FAR FAR too many known attacks against both bind and rpc to assume that either of these are accidents! Should I assume that some luser is not trying to attack when I see ports: 31337, 27374, 12345?
I scan my home logs everyday. I see tons of attempts on all of these ports. I pretty much ignore them because I know that they're not succeeding. But that isn't the point. They are attacks. IMHO SensitivePortHits - Accidents is about equal to SensitivePortHits. --
As an aside, I think the potential risk for "infection" from Microsoft's shared source is minimal. A developer would be a complete moron to steal code from MS and use it in a project with publicly available source code. And if MS code was discovered it'd probably be fairly trivial to replace.
I don't think that's the case. The developer doesn't just have to steal code in order for it to be a problem. In the GPL world, you're correct. It takes stolen code. Even Microsoft is free to look at the code, not take the code, but reimpliment what they see with their own code. Under the shared source license, that's not the case. The developer only has to reimplement some MS technology, and M$ has 'em.
Let's suppose (hypothetically) that Jeremy Allison worked for MEGACORP and MEGACORP deicded to purchase a copy of M$ shared source. All M$ would have to argue is that Jeremy's not reverse engineering anymore. He's seen the code and is stealing ideas. Poof! Jeremy can't work on samba anymore.
Maybe I'm paranoid, but I wouldn't put this tactic beyond them.
--
It never ceases to amaze me that M$ proclaims that the GPL is "viral". Consider what kind of virus would attach to an open source developer, if he/she were ever to get a gander at some of M$'s "shared source" code?
That developer would effectively be forever forbidden from working on public project. The burden of proving that he didn't use any of M$'s code would fall on him/her. With M$'s history, if that developer's company had an license, even though he/she didn't look at the code, the developer would probably forever have to prove that he didn't look at the code!
IMHO, if I worked for a company that agreed to the shared source license, and I had an open source project going, I'd try and find a new job.
The more I read the decision, the more impressed I am that this court really does get it. From the decision (p. 22)
Microsoft next argues that the applications barrier to entry is not an entry barrier at all,but a reflection of Windows' popularity. It is certainly true that Windows may have gained its initial dominance in the operating system market competitively through superior foresight or quality. But this case is not about Microsoft's initial acquisition of monopoly power. It is about Microsoft's efforts to maintain this position through means other than competition on the merits. Because the applications barrier to entry protects a dominant operating system irrespective of quality, it gives Microsoft power to stave off even superior new rivals. The barrier is thus a characteristic of the operating system market, not of Microsoft's popularity, or, as asserted by a Microsoft witness, the company's efficiency.
What is somewhat problematic,however,is that just over six years have passed since Microsoft engaged in the first conduct plaintiffs allege to be anticompetitive.As the record in this case indicates,six years seems like an eternity in the computer industry.By the time a court can assess liability, firms,products,and the marketplace are likely to have changed dramatically.This,in turn,threatens enormous practical difficulties for courts considering the appropriate measure of relief in equitable enforcement actions,both in crafting injunctive remedies in the first instance and reviewing those remedies in the second.Conduct remedies may be unavailing in such cases,because innovation to a large degree has already rendered the anticompetitive conduct obsolete (although by no means harmless).And broader structural remedies present their own set of problems,including how a court goes about restoring competition to a dramatically changed,and constantly changing,marketplace.That is just one reason why we find the District Court s refusal in the present case to hold an evidentiary hearing on remedies to update and flesh out the available information before serious- ly entertaining the possibility of dramatic structural relief so problematic.
The court seems to be directly expressing concern of the effectiveness of either conduct remedies, or structural remedies in such a rapidly changing market. I wonder if the new judge reviewing the case will look at this, and interpret it as, "Hey, find a solution that really does prevent Microsoft from continuing to be a monopoly."
We begin by considering whether Microsoft possesses monopoly power,see infra Section II.A,and finding that it does, we turn to the question whether it maintained this power through anticompetitive means.Agreeing with the District Court that the company behaved anticompetitively,see infra Section II.B,and that these actions contributed to the maintenance of its monopoly power,see infra Section II.C,we affirm the courts finding of liability for monopolization.
They're still a monopoly. They're still an illegal monopoly. The ONLY question is what to do about it. --
Does anyone else find it funny to see the very first/. article talking about how VA is going to give up their HW biz, and then right above that is a banner ad extoling the virtues of a VA 1RU or 2RU server?
Ooh... now it says, "Need a VA Linux server? GREAT DEALS on VA Linux servers - CHECK 'EM OUT!". Well, yeah, I'd think if you're getting outta the biz, that you should be offering tremendous deals! --
So I called Cisco tech support. I wish had done this sooner. I was amazed first of all by how you can talk to a qualified Cisco tech immediately... we're talking an 800 number that you dial and within less than a minute you are talking to a technician.
While I agree that I usually get someone at cisco who knows what they're talking about, it is very rare in my experience that it happens in only a minute, although it does occasionally happen. A much more common experience is to wait on hold for 15-20 minutes, but I have waited on hold as long as an hour with them.
All of that being said, I would have to agree that cisco's TAC is probably one of the best tech support groups I've ever worked with. --
How long before they get sued for violation of DMCA.
Uhhmmm... the guy who wrote this lives in Montreal, as in Canada. The DMCA is a US law. I'm sure that the guy will get sued for something, but I doubt it will be using the provisions of the DMCA.
The fact that this is in Canada makes it very interesting, IMHO. I remember that there was some guy who used to rebroadcast NFL games on the Internet. He was allowed to do this in Canada, but not allowed to do it in the US. If I remember correctly, he was successfully shut down. But then he convinced the courts that if he put in protections for the streams so that they wouldn't reach US customers, he could continue to operate, because the NFL rules applied only in the US, not in Canada.
The NFL, of course objected saying that the protections wouldn't work (they were right). But I remember thinking that he was allowed to turn his stuff back on.
I wish I could remember the name of the service, then I could get the details a little bit more accurate. But I wonder how that case as a precedent is going to effect the current situation.
--
Yeah, now that I've spent literally weeks, running cat5 cable to every nook and cranny of my house, so that I could use my linux firewall, and my cable modem to get access in any room, now you're telling me I coulda just used the existing powerlines, which are ALREADY IN EACH FSCKING ROOM I WANT!?!?
</rant>
On another note, I wonder how reliable this is. I'm already using X10 stuff through my house. And I get very strange continuity problems. There is one switch that I have in my house, that when it's on, the X10 stuff doesn't work on this one light that I have. But when that switch is off, everything works great.
But it's actually not that simple. Sometimes it does work with the switch on. Most of the time it doesn't, but occasionally it does. I have yet to figure out the combination of things that make it work when the switch is on.
I wonder how reliable in home powerline networks are going to be and if you'll end up running into strange problems like this. --
Not only do I agree with you, but I think that this is a good thing. If you don't like Caldera, then don't use it. If you don't like the licensing terms, then don't use it. There are a gazillion other choices out there, and Caldera is now in the unenviable position of having to maintain huge parts of their code completely seperate from the community and with fewer users because of their licensing restrictions.
However, this is a good thing! In the very least it gives a no-brainer, one-liner counter-example to the rantings of some lunatics about whether or not proprietary code can be integrated with GPL'd code. This is so simple that even PHB's will be able to get this. It'll work like this:
Lunatics: Linux is bad for your biz because you forces you to open up your proprietary code.
PHB: Holy Schnikies!
LinuxGeek: It's not true, and I can prove it. Caldera does proprietary linux with licenses similar to the Lunatics, and no one is suing them, even though everyone knows about it.
PHB: Hey, you mean the lunatics are lieing to me? End of discussion
Personally, I think it's really dumb for Caldera to be doing this, but I'm glad they're doing it, and not Red Hat. --
We have both sendmail AND exchange running. They both serve their purpose, and they are both stable *in their current state*.
The difference is that I *can* reconfigure the sendmail servers. I *can* perform upgrades. I *can* back it all off, and restore them, and expect them to come up just as they were. I *can* add different virus scanners. I *can* run other services on them.
The Exchange servers are black boxes. You don't run upgrades (of Exchange OR Win2k/NT) without testing them thouroughly on a control machine.
Dude, I hate to tell you this, but where I work if you don't do upgrades without testing them thouroughly on a control machine, you'll probably find yourself out of a job. It doesn't matter if the platform is windows, linux, mainframe, unix, or the doorlock on the bathroom. If it isn't tested before going into production, you are going to find trouble.
I am as big a linux zealot as they come. All of my home machines are linux-only machines, and I quickly repartition any work hard disk so that I can have a copy of linux on it. I publically hate microsoft. BUT I don't think that it's good advocacy to start telling people that our software can be used without extensive testing. Sure it's a worse plan for M$ software, but it's a bad plan for any software.
I do understand your point that Exchange is crappy software, especially when compared to some of the opensource/free alternatives. But that doesn't justify ignoring good change control and change management policy.
I just think the poster's bank analogy was really bad.
I'm sorry that you didn't like my analogy. The point that I was trying to make is that free software is a tool, just like toilets are tools. Micro$oft and the poster to whom I was responding, would have you believe that using any tools that don't directly pay is bad business practice.
They make the incredible leap from "companies selling GPL'd software are failing because of bad business plans" to saying that "using GPL'd software in your company will cause it to fail". If that's true, then using *ANYTHING* that doesn't pay you a profit will cause your company to fail. I don't know of too many companies who use their installed toilet base as a profit center. But just about every company has them and can't really survive without them.
I was only hoping to point out how misguided the leap of faith was that the poster was making. Others have already pointed out some of the other misconceptions that you have, so I'll leave that alone.
--
I started watching the RealVideo feed, and it appears that at this very moment, they're showing the entertainment and festivities that run up to the actual eclipse.
Folks, heed my warning: stay away! This is not pretty.
Right now, there's a couple of asian women singing bad Jazz. They have a synth and a vocalist (and someone in the background running sound). To say the least, this is not what I was hoping to see when I clicked on the feed.
It's the companies using the GPL that seem to be failing.
You are an id10t! Companies that are failing becuase of bad business plans deserve to fail. If that biz plan is that they sell software that anyone can get for free, well that's a bad biz plan. It doesn't add any value, and value is what people pay for.
Nevertheless, GPL'd software can be used by companies who are profitible, and it won't prevent them from staying profitible. I work for a bank. Your argument is akin to saying that since my company can't effectivly resell the toilets that it has, that it shouldn't install and use toilets for fear of going out of business!
GPL'd software is a tool. It's a free tool. It's a tool that can be used to help make businesses profitible.
--
While I would be one of the people who would try and sign up for this service, if it were available at my house, I find myself frustrated by their literature comparing the relative speeds of DSL, Cable Modem, etc. The comparo is here
This guy does a naptser download to compare the relative speeds of DSL, Cable and GigE to the house. While I agree with the basic conclusions (that symetric is going to be better than asymetric, and that GigE will be faster), some of the things he says stretches credibilty, and for obvious reasons.
It's just *NOT* a good test to use Napster as a mechanism for determing the relative speed of a first mile infrastructure. Or for that matter, any internet connected service. There are WAY too many variables in between me and the end site that I'm connected to on the Internet to be able to say that the underlying first mile infras is the problem. In particular the remote site may have an over subscription problem. Or the available internet bandwidth (beyond the first mile) may not be sufficient. NONE of these type of problems indicate anything about the capabilities of the first mile infrastructure.
If you want good tests for the first mile, stick a server on the other end of the first mile and do bandwidth tests to that. Otherwise, it's just useless hype, and it doesn't really tell you anything. The conclusion that a DSL or Cable modem really doesn't offer any speed advantages over a regular modem is just plain wrong.
That page, with its gross inaccuracies, would make me skeptical, as a customer as to whether or not anything provided by this organization would be reliable.
But Gross said that by embedding Smart Tags on Web sites without the express permission of the site owners, Microsoft could be accused of creating "derivative works," that is, unauthorized, edited copies of the Web site content that users are attempting to visit.
Ok. So, can I apply the GPL to my website? If so, and if it turns out that M$ is creating a derivative work of my website, can I then force them to release the source code to that derivative work? And if so, what exactly would be the source code to the derivative work? --
I have not contributed any code to IPF, but I've contributed code to other projects. Imagine I contributed code to IPF under the assumption that IPF was being provided with a open/free software license. Suddenly the author changes his licensing terms, but continues to include my code contributions in his relicensed code. What happens? I doubt very seriously that I would have contributed code to a non-free non-opensource project solely so that the original author could userp my freedoms.
Does this mean that any code that I contribute needs to be contributed with a license? Is it not fair for me to assume that any code contributions that I make to an open source/free software project are licensed under the same terms that the original author offered me?
What this brings up, is whether or not the author of an opensource or free software project is really allowed to relicense the code. Especially if that code is GPL'd. Say for example Linus decided to make something proprietary with Linux. As the original author, he's got the right to relicense the code, right? Well if he does, then what about all the code that was contributed by someone else?
If you're saying that he doesn't have the right to relicense the code, doesn't this go against what
RMS says? Or is this only allowed for the initial release of the software. Does the original author have any rights to change the terms of the software license after someone else has contributed code?
Ahh... so the lady who spilled the coffee on herself should accept no responsibility? And airports spend all that extra money putting in a sound system and recording a friendly voice just so that they can give a "convenient HINT"?
I think that asking McDonald's to lower the temperature of their coffee is a fair thing to do. But to file a multi-million dollar lawsuit because of it? Sorry, that's just plain wrong. It's an unwillingness to accept responsibility. As for the airports, the *ONLY* reason that those things are there is to prevent lawsuits.
The fact of the matter is that our legal system promotes no sense of personal responsibility. That's why the laws in our country, w.r.t. teenagers are the way they are. Parents are 100% responsible for their children until they're 18. Thus, as you say in a previous post, children perceive would appear to have no rights. Where we disagree is that children (anyone under 18) also have no responsibilities.
Our system of government has regressed to the point where personal responsibility is non-existant. If something bad happens to you, sue. And irresponsibility is no longer limited to children. Those children who have lived irresponsible lives eventually grow up into irresponsible adults who then believe that they're entitled to everything, and write laws to try and make that happen.
I think it was good parenting; the raised us so we knew what was expected and what was right and wrong
Buddy, if no one else says it, let me be sure to tell you that you are 100% correct. Parenting where expectations are set is everything.
I have two children who have expectations put upon them. They either meet the expectations or suffer the consequences. I do this when I can control the consequences and I make the consequences annoying, but not something that will cause any sort of permanant damage (either physical or emotional). My hope is that learning from the relatively sedate consequences that I impose, will teach my children that the world works on consequences, and that when I'm not around, they'll think before they make a choice that carries a serious consequence.
If this isn't the goal of every parent, it ought to be.
The public schools and the government continues to tell parents that they don't have to properly raise their children; the schools will do it for them. And then in case they mess up, we'll just make sure they can't do anything bad. This results in adults who learned what not to do the same way our pets do.
I think that we see the same thing, although I wouldn't describe it that way. IMHO, the government and the public schools are saying that children have absolutely no responsibilities, and that children can not be expected to live with the consequences of choices that were made by the children themselves. This results in adults who don't feel any responsibility for anything they do. This results in an adult who sues someone when they spill their own coffee. Or airports with moving walkways and pre-recorded announcments at the end of the walkway saying "Walkway is about to end, look down." It doesn't take much imagination to realize that those announcments exist because someone filed a lawsuit because they fell, and weren't willing to take the responsibility for their own mistakes.
(FWIW, the parenting style that my wife & I practice is called Parenting with Love and Logic. I highly recommend this to anyone who is in any sort of authority role, not just parenting. It works for managers, team leads, just about anywhere that you have an supervisor and subordinate relationship. I have no affiliation with Love & Logic other than a satisfied customer.)
Slashdot Mirror
A zone transfer *is* something to hide. The only people who should be looking for a zone transfer are your secondaries. Either they are already allowed, or you have none. No one else should be requesting a zone transfer. Allowing them is stupid because you now allow in any bugs that are associated with dns zone transfers.
There are FAR FAR too many known attacks against both bind and rpc to assume that either of these are accidents! Should I assume that some luser is not trying to attack when I see ports: 31337, 27374, 12345?
I scan my home logs everyday. I see tons of attempts on all of these ports. I pretty much ignore them because I know that they're not succeeding. But that isn't the point. They are attacks. IMHO SensitivePortHits - Accidents is about equal to SensitivePortHits.
--
I don't think that's the case. The developer doesn't just have to steal code in order for it to be a problem. In the GPL world, you're correct. It takes stolen code. Even Microsoft is free to look at the code, not take the code, but reimpliment what they see with their own code. Under the shared source license, that's not the case. The developer only has to reimplement some MS technology, and M$ has 'em.
Let's suppose (hypothetically) that Jeremy Allison worked for MEGACORP and MEGACORP deicded to purchase a copy of M$ shared source. All M$ would have to argue is that Jeremy's not reverse engineering anymore. He's seen the code and is stealing ideas. Poof! Jeremy can't work on samba anymore.
Maybe I'm paranoid, but I wouldn't put this tactic beyond them.
--
It never ceases to amaze me that M$ proclaims that the GPL is "viral". Consider what kind of virus would attach to an open source developer, if he/she were ever to get a gander at some of M$'s "shared source" code?
That developer would effectively be forever forbidden from working on public project. The burden of proving that he didn't use any of M$'s code would fall on him/her. With M$'s history, if that developer's company had an license, even though he/she didn't look at the code, the developer would probably forever have to prove that he didn't look at the code!
IMHO, if I worked for a company that agreed to the shared source license, and I had an open source project going, I'd try and find a new job.
Now THAT is a viral license.
--
I'm sorry, someone has to say it: "frozen woody"? That's just plain wrong. I'm opposed.
--
Geez I wish I could mod this up! Very funny!
--
I'm not saying that being a monopoly is automatically a bad thing. But they are still an "illegal monopoly".
I leave it as an exercise for the reader as to whether or not this is a bad thing. (Hint: look very carefully at the word "illegal").
--
--
The court seems to be directly expressing concern of the effectiveness of either conduct remedies, or structural remedies in such a rapidly changing market. I wonder if the new judge reviewing the case will look at this, and interpret it as, "Hey, find a solution that really does prevent Microsoft from continuing to be a monopoly."
One can hope!
--
They're still a monopoly. They're still an illegal monopoly. The ONLY question is what to do about it.
--
Does anyone else find it funny to see the very first /. article talking about how VA is going to give up their HW biz, and then right above that is a banner ad extoling the virtues of a VA 1RU or 2RU server?
Ooh... now it says, "Need a VA Linux server? GREAT DEALS on VA Linux servers - CHECK 'EM OUT!". Well, yeah, I'd think if you're getting outta the biz, that you should be offering tremendous deals!
--
While I agree that I usually get someone at cisco who knows what they're talking about, it is very rare in my experience that it happens in only a minute, although it does occasionally happen. A much more common experience is to wait on hold for 15-20 minutes, but I have waited on hold as long as an hour with them.
All of that being said, I would have to agree that cisco's TAC is probably one of the best tech support groups I've ever worked with.
--
Uhhmmm... the guy who wrote this lives in Montreal, as in Canada. The DMCA is a US law. I'm sure that the guy will get sued for something, but I doubt it will be using the provisions of the DMCA.
The fact that this is in Canada makes it very interesting, IMHO. I remember that there was some guy who used to rebroadcast NFL games on the Internet. He was allowed to do this in Canada, but not allowed to do it in the US. If I remember correctly, he was successfully shut down. But then he convinced the courts that if he put in protections for the streams so that they wouldn't reach US customers, he could continue to operate, because the NFL rules applied only in the US, not in Canada.
The NFL, of course objected saying that the protections wouldn't work (they were right). But I remember thinking that he was allowed to turn his stuff back on.
I wish I could remember the name of the service, then I could get the details a little bit more accurate. But I wonder how that case as a precedent is going to effect the current situation.
--
Yeah, now that I've spent literally weeks, running cat5 cable to every nook and cranny of my house, so that I could use my linux firewall, and my cable modem to get access in any room, now you're telling me I coulda just used the existing powerlines, which are ALREADY IN EACH FSCKING ROOM I WANT!?!?
</rant>
On another note, I wonder how reliable this is. I'm already using X10 stuff through my house. And I get very strange continuity problems. There is one switch that I have in my house, that when it's on, the X10 stuff doesn't work on this one light that I have. But when that switch is off, everything works great.
But it's actually not that simple. Sometimes it does work with the switch on. Most of the time it doesn't, but occasionally it does. I have yet to figure out the combination of things that make it work when the switch is on.
I wonder how reliable in home powerline networks are going to be and if you'll end up running into strange problems like this.
--
...it's replacing applix. So this is one office product running on linux for another. It's not that big of a deal, IMHO.
--
However, this is a good thing! In the very least it gives a no-brainer, one-liner counter-example to the rantings of some lunatics about whether or not proprietary code can be integrated with GPL'd code. This is so simple that even PHB's will be able to get this. It'll work like this:
Personally, I think it's really dumb for Caldera to be doing this, but I'm glad they're doing it, and not Red Hat.
--
Dude, I hate to tell you this, but where I work if you don't do upgrades without testing them thouroughly on a control machine, you'll probably find yourself out of a job. It doesn't matter if the platform is windows, linux, mainframe, unix, or the doorlock on the bathroom. If it isn't tested before going into production, you are going to find trouble.
I am as big a linux zealot as they come. All of my home machines are linux-only machines, and I quickly repartition any work hard disk so that I can have a copy of linux on it. I publically hate microsoft. BUT I don't think that it's good advocacy to start telling people that our software can be used without extensive testing. Sure it's a worse plan for M$ software, but it's a bad plan for any software.
I do understand your point that Exchange is crappy software, especially when compared to some of the opensource/free alternatives. But that doesn't justify ignoring good change control and change management policy.
$.02
--
I'm sorry that you didn't like my analogy. The point that I was trying to make is that free software is a tool, just like toilets are tools. Micro$oft and the poster to whom I was responding, would have you believe that using any tools that don't directly pay is bad business practice.
They make the incredible leap from "companies selling GPL'd software are failing because of bad business plans" to saying that "using GPL'd software in your company will cause it to fail". If that's true, then using *ANYTHING* that doesn't pay you a profit will cause your company to fail. I don't know of too many companies who use their installed toilet base as a profit center. But just about every company has them and can't really survive without them.
I was only hoping to point out how misguided the leap of faith was that the poster was making. Others have already pointed out some of the other misconceptions that you have, so I'll leave that alone.
--
Folks, heed my warning: stay away! This is not pretty.
Right now, there's a couple of asian women singing bad Jazz. They have a synth and a vocalist (and someone in the background running sound). To say the least, this is not what I was hoping to see when I clicked on the feed.
I thought you might like to be warned!
--
You are an id10t! Companies that are failing becuase of bad business plans deserve to fail. If that biz plan is that they sell software that anyone can get for free, well that's a bad biz plan. It doesn't add any value, and value is what people pay for.
Nevertheless, GPL'd software can be used by companies who are profitible, and it won't prevent them from staying profitible. I work for a bank. Your argument is akin to saying that since my company can't effectivly resell the toilets that it has, that it shouldn't install and use toilets for fear of going out of business!
GPL'd software is a tool. It's a free tool. It's a tool that can be used to help make businesses profitible.
--
...wonder if the stock will rise. At the time of this post, it was down $.19.
--
This guy does a naptser download to compare the relative speeds of DSL, Cable and GigE to the house. While I agree with the basic conclusions (that symetric is going to be better than asymetric, and that GigE will be faster), some of the things he says stretches credibilty, and for obvious reasons.
It's just *NOT* a good test to use Napster as a mechanism for determing the relative speed of a first mile infrastructure. Or for that matter, any internet connected service. There are WAY too many variables in between me and the end site that I'm connected to on the Internet to be able to say that the underlying first mile infras is the problem. In particular the remote site may have an over subscription problem. Or the available internet bandwidth (beyond the first mile) may not be sufficient. NONE of these type of problems indicate anything about the capabilities of the first mile infrastructure.
If you want good tests for the first mile, stick a server on the other end of the first mile and do bandwidth tests to that. Otherwise, it's just useless hype, and it doesn't really tell you anything. The conclusion that a DSL or Cable modem really doesn't offer any speed advantages over a regular modem is just plain wrong.
That page, with its gross inaccuracies, would make me skeptical, as a customer as to whether or not anything provided by this organization would be reliable.
$.02
--
Ok. So, can I apply the GPL to my website? If so, and if it turns out that M$ is creating a derivative work of my website, can I then force them to release the source code to that derivative work? And if so, what exactly would be the source code to the derivative work?
--
Does this mean that any code that I contribute needs to be contributed with a license? Is it not fair for me to assume that any code contributions that I make to an open source/free software project are licensed under the same terms that the original author offered me?
What this brings up, is whether or not the author of an opensource or free software project is really allowed to relicense the code. Especially if that code is GPL'd. Say for example Linus decided to make something proprietary with Linux. As the original author, he's got the right to relicense the code, right? Well if he does, then what about all the code that was contributed by someone else?
If you're saying that he doesn't have the right to relicense the code, doesn't this go against what RMS says? Or is this only allowed for the initial release of the software. Does the original author have any rights to change the terms of the software license after someone else has contributed code?
Ahh... so the lady who spilled the coffee on herself should accept no responsibility? And airports spend all that extra money putting in a sound system and recording a friendly voice just so that they can give a "convenient HINT"?
I think that asking McDonald's to lower the temperature of their coffee is a fair thing to do. But to file a multi-million dollar lawsuit because of it? Sorry, that's just plain wrong. It's an unwillingness to accept responsibility. As for the airports, the *ONLY* reason that those things are there is to prevent lawsuits.
The fact of the matter is that our legal system promotes no sense of personal responsibility. That's why the laws in our country, w.r.t. teenagers are the way they are. Parents are 100% responsible for their children until they're 18. Thus, as you say in a previous post, children perceive would appear to have no rights. Where we disagree is that children (anyone under 18) also have no responsibilities.
Our system of government has regressed to the point where personal responsibility is non-existant. If something bad happens to you, sue. And irresponsibility is no longer limited to children. Those children who have lived irresponsible lives eventually grow up into irresponsible adults who then believe that they're entitled to everything, and write laws to try and make that happen.
Buddy, if no one else says it, let me be sure to tell you that you are 100% correct. Parenting where expectations are set is everything.
I have two children who have expectations put upon them. They either meet the expectations or suffer the consequences. I do this when I can control the consequences and I make the consequences annoying, but not something that will cause any sort of permanant damage (either physical or emotional). My hope is that learning from the relatively sedate consequences that I impose, will teach my children that the world works on consequences, and that when I'm not around, they'll think before they make a choice that carries a serious consequence.
If this isn't the goal of every parent, it ought to be.
I think that we see the same thing, although I wouldn't describe it that way. IMHO, the government and the public schools are saying that children have absolutely no responsibilities, and that children can not be expected to live with the consequences of choices that were made by the children themselves. This results in adults who don't feel any responsibility for anything they do. This results in an adult who sues someone when they spill their own coffee. Or airports with moving walkways and pre-recorded announcments at the end of the walkway saying "Walkway is about to end, look down." It doesn't take much imagination to realize that those announcments exist because someone filed a lawsuit because they fell, and weren't willing to take the responsibility for their own mistakes.
(FWIW, the parenting style that my wife & I practice is called Parenting with Love and Logic. I highly recommend this to anyone who is in any sort of authority role, not just parenting. It works for managers, team leads, just about anywhere that you have an supervisor and subordinate relationship. I have no affiliation with Love & Logic other than a satisfied customer.)