Semi-famous quote: (I don't know whether it's legit.)
"We're just sitting here trying to put our PCjrs in a pile and burn them.
And the damn things won't burn. That's the only thing IBM did right
with it, they made it fireproof."
-- William Bowman, Spinnaker Software
I've been wondering about that issue myself. I suppose that there might be certain conditions under which the code contribution might be defensible even if the employer was not aware of it. For example, if your employer instructs you to make some enhancements to a GPL'd software, and that enhanced version is to be distributed outside the company, then the company is legally required to make the source available per the GPL. The company owns the copyright on the modifications that you wrote, but that doesn't change the fact that the company is legally required to license it under the GPL. They still might fire you for it, especially if you sent it out without telling anyone you were doing so, but the project should still be legally ok, except maybe by just not having the resources to fight even a bogus attack. You might even have some legal recourse for a firing, since failure to release the source would have been illegal, so in effect, they would be firing you for failure to break the law.
On the other hand, if you were doing work on the OSS project without having been instructed to do so, and without clear authority to make that decision on the company's behalf, it would probably be a much worse situation.
Speak for yourself. I grew up with those things, and I find them quite remarkable. Have you never sat on an airplane, looking out at the wings, and thought about how much they can flex, or about how the engines work, or about the way stresses are distributed through the structure of the aircraft? It's quite amazing really.
And aside from technology, science brings us knowledge about the natural world that is even more awe inspiring. The process of nuclear fusion that powers stars. The hundreds of billions of stars in each one of hundreds of billions of galaxies.
No matter how many times I see it, I can't look at the famous Hubble Deep Field image, I mean really look at it and be aware of what it depicts, without being deeply moved with a sense of awe and wonder. The most remarkable thing about that is that the wonder comes not from the aesthetics of the image itself (it's not terribly spectacular, in itself), but from having a little knowlege about what it is. Knowing that it depicts things that no person in all of history ever saw before it was taken. Knowing that each of those fuzzy little patches of light is a galaxy that contains hundreds of billions of stars, and potentially nearly as many planetary systems. Knowing that this image recorded light that left these galaxies billions of years ago. It is knowlege, not faith, that makes it wondrous.
Do you really think that a man living one thousand years ago, secure in his faith that the lights in the heavens are affixed to spheres that are moved directly by the hand of God had a more wondrous view of the universe than the one provided by science? And wondrous or not, there remains the simple fact that it was a false view. Maybe that doesn't matter much to the faithful. But it matters to me.
As for art, IMHO, art ranks right up there with science as one of the most noble of human persuits. But since when is faith required for artistic creativity? Sure, much great art is religious in subject. But there is also much that isn't.
Faith has given us the most beautiful artwork, songs, and prose ever to have been created.
Don't you think it's more than slightly overreaching to ascribe all creativity to faith? Or did you only mean to claim the really good art for the faithful? Either way, a great many artists would (and should) be deeply offended by such a claim.
Faith gives us wonder. There is no wonder in science except when our understanding of it fails.
What exactly do you mean by this? That anything that is demonstrably real holds no attraction? That a sense of wonder can only be found in what we don't know? That ignorance is bliss?
I suppose that you might have a point though, even if not the one that you intended. For those unwilling or unable to sense the wonder or see the immense beauty in the real, scientifically testable, universe that surrounds us, faith might indeed be necessary to maintain an illusion of a meaningful existence. But it's just that: an illusion. And I think that this dependence on faith can be the cause of the blindness in the first place. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So, if the beholder looks at the observable, testable, universe and can see no beauty, it is not the universe that is lacking.
My data set has only one sample, so I have no idea how common this is, but a company getting an advanced screening can be a matter of the movie studio just returning a favor.
The company I worked for when the movie "The Sixth Day" came out got an advanced screening as thanks for having loaned Phoenix Pictures some high-tech looking equipment that was used in some of the sets. So, the company reserved a movie theater for a private screening for employees and friends. AFAIK, Phoenix only provided the film. I think the company paid for the theatre time. Some of our equipment also made brief appearances in sets of all three of The Matrix movies, and in "Mission to Mars", but there were no advanced screenings of those.
Ok, so maybe that could be considered 5 samples, only one of which resulted in an advanced screening. So it's probably not very likely without having some major, high-profile, connection to the movie. But it's definitely not impossible.
I see two different ways Phoenix could go about doing this. Either all BIOS changes will come from official sources and be signed by Phoenix (with the sigs checked in hardware), or the BIOS will be completely static, and users will be forced to buy a new mobo whenever something major changes.
Maybe a third way: Future OS versions that won't run on anything but approved firmware (verified with some sort of secure signature). And correspondingly, firmware that won't run with anything other than an approved OS and protects itself against overwriting/updating until that condition is met.
A completeley alternative OS/Firmware combination might still be able to run on the hardware (unless authenticated in hardware, as you suggested, or a static piece of firmware that authenticates the non-static part). But consider another piece of the puzzle: A DRM scheme that A) makes any authentic and authorized copies of popular audio/video/whatever content unusable on unauthorized hardware/firmware/software combinations, and B) makes unauthentic or unofficial content unuseable on the authorized hardware/firmware/software (not just illegal copies, but anything not verifiably traceable to one of a small number of official sources). Of course, the "unauthentic" angle (aka "piracy") would be played up, while the "unofficial" angle would be played down. But it is the latter that is the bigger prize for the monopolists because that would limit competition by raising the bar of entry for non-established competitors, including, and maybe especially, content authors themselves.
So now, most will buy the authorized hardware/firmware/software combination because it's required to access their favorite media, and they'll buy only the authorized media because that's all that will work on their systems. Thus the dominant players in each of four markets (hardware/firmware/software/media) could work together to further increase each other's market dominance. None of the players directly attacking its own competitors, but instead acting to limit competition in one or more of the other markets.
And politicians who assist, or at least turn a blind eye, to this activity could have much to gain by doing so. Not only money, but more direct influence because this four-pronged* monopoly would control a very large portion of what people see, hear, and read.
(* five-pronged if you consider the buyable politicians themselves)
The above is admittedly very conspiratorial, entirely speculative, and without any hard evidence known to me. I'm probably (and hopefully) full of beans. But it does bear a little resemblance to current trends, doesn't it?
1. The quality offered doesn't result in better quality? Huh?
It might sound a little weird, but there's really nothing wrong with it. "Quality" by itself doesn't mean "good". It's something that is measured on a scale that has two extremes. What's truly meaningless is the all too common misuses, like "We sell only quality tools". That's like saying "We sell only speed cars".
Building codes aren't closed-source, but they can be copyrighted. Slashdot ran a story about this in 2001. Some company writes a section of the law, and if you want to read it, you have to pay. Many cities/states can't post their own building codes on the internet because they're copyrighted.
This is one case where you'll probably be happy to be proven wrong. Fortunately, Peter Veeck won that case on appeal, so the above is no longer true. Score one for the good guys.
EDITH H. JONES, Circuit Judge:
The issue in this en banc case is the extent to which a private organization may assert copyright protection for its model codes, after the models have been adopted by a legislative body and become "the law". Specifically, may a code-writing organization prevent a website operator from posting the text of a model code where the code is identified simply as the building code of a city that enacted the model code as law? Our short answer is that as law, the model codes enter the public domain and are not subject to the copyright holder's exclusive prerogatives. As model codes, however, the organization's works retain their protected status.
Yeah, I remember that one first-hand. Pissed me off royally, too. It was obviously deliberately designed to harm sales of DR's much superior product.
The most infuriating part was that these dirty tricks were so overwhelmingly successful. The phony error message in Win3.0 reinforced in a lot of people's minds the misconception that DR was a johny-come-lately with a cheap knock-off product. Then came the broken compatibility in Win3.1, which damaged DR immensely. It prompted many DR-DOS users to purchase MS-DOS immediately, and the bad experience soured the word-of-mouth reputation of DR-DOS (except for a few who recognized the true nature of the situation, for whom it soured the reputation of MS). And this, in turn, encouraged PC system vendors who were shipping DR-DOS pre-installed on their systems to stop doing so, since the public misperception of DR-DOS as an inferior immitator was growing. So, new machines with DR-DOS started disappearing from the market soon after that. Can't blame 'em really. Regardless of the right or wrongness of the situation, their business survival depended on providing what the market demanded. So, MS was doubly rewarded for their misbehavior. First, they made back some of the sales that were originally lost to DR. Second, they destroyed DR's viability as a competitor in the future
It's unfortunate that the Internet wasn't public and widespread back then. That could have mitigated some of the damage. Within a few weeks of the release of Win3.1, DR sent upgrade disks to registered DR-DOS users, and released DR-DOS 6.1. But many people don't send in software registration cards, so DR had no way to get the upgrade to may users, nor even a good way to let them know it existed. And I'm sure a significant portion of the time to get the patch out was just the time to print labels, write diskettes, pack'em up, ship 'em, etc. And a few weeks is longer than a lot of people were willing to wait to get their new Windows version to work. So many switched to MS-DOS, never to return.
The whole thing is a _very_ sorry affair. MS destroyed a competitor, not by poviding a better product (DR-DOS was easily the superior), but by highly unethical, and almost certainly illegal, business practices.
MS cares nothing about ethics, nor even legality. I really think the only illegal actions that MS will not commit are those that they think will cost them more than they'll gain. It's purely cost vs. benefit. Right vs. wrong is not a factor.
I have little tolerance for conspiracy theories myself as well. But damn! this is suspicious.
At the moment, I can think of only two plausible motivations for this latest move by SCO. One is that it is driven by hatred of the open-source movement and/or philosophy. The other is that someone is paying SCO to do their dirty work for them. Maybe in the form of stock purchases, or licensing fees, or something else.
I just can't see how this could be financially beneficial to SCO directly. Only indirectly via a benefactor who can directly benefit from damaging Linux as a competitor. And I think most of us can name a few companies in that position.
I don't know if this is really what's going on. But whatever it is, it is very, very dirty.
That means some sort of usage fee -- tolls. The problem with old-style tolls is that the transaction costs were too high (i.e. there's always a backup at the tollbooth). What we need is anonymous, electronic cash-based tolls.
Electronic tolls also make it easy to charge an arm and a leg during peak times and "bargain rates" at other times.
Other than the anonymous part, toll tags like the ones used in Dallas and some other cities address that issue rather well.
The lack of anonymity also resolves the "How do you deal with people who are out of electronic cash?" problem that you mentioned. Which is not to say that I wouldn't prefer an anonymous system.
One possible solution for an anonymous system is to take a photo of offending vehicles so the owners can be identified via license plate numbers. This way anonymity is sacrificed only in the case of violation (and occasionally equipment malfunction). Not a new idea, of course. Many toll booths already have this ability.
Statistics are notoriously suspect, but the best estimate is that the average everyday bicycle rider has a 1 in 133 chance of dying while riding a bike, while the lifetime risk of dying in a motor vehicle is about 1 in 70 (source: www.kenkifer.com/bikepages/health/risks.htm).
Lifetime risk doesn't seem like a very meaningful comparison to me. Risk per mile would be better.
You're certainly right about the unreliability of subjective impressions. But I suspect that the original poster understands that as well. I also share his subjective impression about being at greater risk when biking in a city that lacks bicicyle friendly infrastructure. But no way to be certain without studying some numbers.
Would the extreme gamer rather sign up, hand out their credit card number, and buy 60 Atari 2600 games for a sum price of about $320, or illegally download a small zip file containing 500 of them in about 30 seconds after 2 minutes of searching on Google?
No, but I think quite a few people might be willing to pay a few bucks each for the 5 or 6 classic games that they like enough to play often.
The problem with media sales nowadays is that there are no bulk discounts, in a time where reproduction costs nothing and the aim should be to get the max of price time quantity from each consumer. Someone who wants 60 games rather than 6 is willing to pay more than the person who wants 6, but not 10 times more, because the average enjoyment they'll get out of each is less.
Once they've tested the market enough to find the point where that's profitable, it may happen. If the average buyer stops buying games after spending $30, then charging $50 for the whole lot might make them more money. Of course, it also depends on whether Star Roms is paying per-game royalties, but they may be able to renegotiate that. If there's money to be made in offering bundles, it will probably happen. Especially if the intitial venture is successful
I think what Star Roms is doing is excellent. I wish them much success.
Close enough. The 6510 is just a 6502 with an integrated I/O port. The C64 used that to switch between ROM and RAM, and to select pages of memory in cartridges. This is how it was able to access more memory than it could directly address.
So, with that line of thinking, C++ should have been "P" (insert favorite "P Object-Oriented Programming" acronym joke here), and C# (although it shouldn't have been created at all, but was) should have been "L".
I wonder how many people today realise that MS-DOS (and the DOS-based Windows 9x series) came with a machine code monitor/assembler/disassembler as standard? It was pretty feeble but it was always there and it taught me a lot. debug it was called. Those were the days...
It was also handy for capturing a copy of the BIOS to a file. Which was useful for backup purposes, or if you wanted to make a customized version of it.
I suppose that reverse engineering and modifying your BIOS is probably illegal now, even when strictly for personal use. May have been illegal then, but I don't really know. Sad. It would be like making it illegal to tinker with your own car. And with all the embedded computers and programming in modern cars, some kinds of car tinkering probably are illegal now.
I really think that exploring your world and figuring out how things work should not only be legally permitted, but should be a constitutionally protected right. Superceding and invalidating any license or contract language to the contrary.
As much as I think Iranians deserve privacy and personal freedom, I think it is incredibly hypocrit that the USA is doing this, against the will of another government, while at the same time it is bullying around individuals denying them other freedoms and privacy.
It might be wrong, but there's nothing hypocritical about it. If a government's primary interest is furthering it's own power, then intellectual freedom is detrimental to its interests. So perhaps the present US government promotes intellectual freedom in Iran, but not here, for the same reason that it dropped bombs on Baghdad, but not here.
On the plus side, this means that they are probably sincere in claiming to be against the governments of those countries, and not the people. But by the same token, it also means that they are looking out for the interests of the US government, and not its people. It's a power struggle amongst the rulers. On both sides, the people are merely pawns.
None of which is meant to imply that I consider these governments equal. I still vastly prefer this one to the those in Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan (and numerous others, I'm sure). But though the degree of oppression at home is miniscule compared to those, it is on the rise and it is a problem. Our government's primary interest should be our interests. We, the people. Not to increase its control over us, nor to further the power of the monopolists who feed it.
Be careful. Given the dirtiness of SCO's claims and tactics so far, I can't help wondering if SCO may have put the greeked comments on the slide to bait a trap aimed at giving them some ammo against their detractors.
It's already pretty well demonstrated that the non-greeked comments are free of copyright infringement, but what if the greeked comments are in fact unique to their code? So, though there wasn't any copyright infringement before, by ungreeking and posting those comments, there is now. Thus tainting Slashdot and other geekish news sources, numerous individuals, and of course, the minds of many developers. And they may even be able to claim a DMCA violation in having their copy protection scheme "cracked". Sure, as copy protection it approaches the ultimate in lameness, but remember that didn't prevent the misery inflicted on Dmitri Skylarov.
Deliberate entrapment? Certainly. But they have a much bigger legal budget than I, and quite likely you, could ever hope to afford.
Slashdot Mirror
Semi-famous quote: (I don't know whether it's legit.)
"We're just sitting here trying to put our PCjrs in a pile and burn them. And the damn things won't burn. That's the only thing IBM did right with it, they made it fireproof."
-- William Bowman, Spinnaker Software
I've been wondering about that issue myself. I suppose that there might be certain conditions under which the code contribution might be defensible even if the employer was not aware of it. For example, if your employer instructs you to make some enhancements to a GPL'd software, and that enhanced version is to be distributed outside the company, then the company is legally required to make the source available per the GPL. The company owns the copyright on the modifications that you wrote, but that doesn't change the fact that the company is legally required to license it under the GPL. They still might fire you for it, especially if you sent it out without telling anyone you were doing so, but the project should still be legally ok, except maybe by just not having the resources to fight even a bogus attack. You might even have some legal recourse for a firing, since failure to release the source would have been illegal, so in effect, they would be firing you for failure to break the law.
On the other hand, if you were doing work on the OSS project without having been instructed to do so, and without clear authority to make that decision on the company's behalf, it would probably be a much worse situation.
IANAL.
Speak for yourself. I grew up with those things, and I find them quite remarkable. Have you never sat on an airplane, looking out at the wings, and thought about how much they can flex, or about how the engines work, or about the way stresses are distributed through the structure of the aircraft? It's quite amazing really.
And aside from technology, science brings us knowledge about the natural world that is even more awe inspiring. The process of nuclear fusion that powers stars. The hundreds of billions of stars in each one of hundreds of billions of galaxies. No matter how many times I see it, I can't look at the famous Hubble Deep Field image, I mean really look at it and be aware of what it depicts, without being deeply moved with a sense of awe and wonder. The most remarkable thing about that is that the wonder comes not from the aesthetics of the image itself (it's not terribly spectacular, in itself), but from having a little knowlege about what it is. Knowing that it depicts things that no person in all of history ever saw before it was taken. Knowing that each of those fuzzy little patches of light is a galaxy that contains hundreds of billions of stars, and potentially nearly as many planetary systems. Knowing that this image recorded light that left these galaxies billions of years ago. It is knowlege, not faith, that makes it wondrous.
Do you really think that a man living one thousand years ago, secure in his faith that the lights in the heavens are affixed to spheres that are moved directly by the hand of God had a more wondrous view of the universe than the one provided by science? And wondrous or not, there remains the simple fact that it was a false view. Maybe that doesn't matter much to the faithful. But it matters to me.
As for art, IMHO, art ranks right up there with science as one of the most noble of human persuits. But since when is faith required for artistic creativity? Sure, much great art is religious in subject. But there is also much that isn't.
I suppose that you might have a point though, even if not the one that you intended. For those unwilling or unable to sense the wonder or see the immense beauty in the real, scientifically testable, universe that surrounds us, faith might indeed be necessary to maintain an illusion of a meaningful existence. But it's just that: an illusion. And I think that this dependence on faith can be the cause of the blindness in the first place. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So, if the beholder looks at the observable, testable, universe and can see no beauty, it is not the universe that is lacking.
It was an attempt at humor. A failed attempt, apparently. No Apple slam intended.
You mean Xerox?
My data set has only one sample, so I have no idea how common this is, but a company getting an advanced screening can be a matter of the movie studio just returning a favor.
The company I worked for when the movie "The Sixth Day" came out got an advanced screening as thanks for having loaned Phoenix Pictures some high-tech looking equipment that was used in some of the sets. So, the company reserved a movie theater for a private screening for employees and friends. AFAIK, Phoenix only provided the film. I think the company paid for the theatre time. Some of our equipment also made brief appearances in sets of all three of The Matrix movies, and in "Mission to Mars", but there were no advanced screenings of those.
Ok, so maybe that could be considered 5 samples, only one of which resulted in an advanced screening. So it's probably not very likely without having some major, high-profile, connection to the movie. But it's definitely not impossible.
A completeley alternative OS/Firmware combination might still be able to run on the hardware (unless authenticated in hardware, as you suggested, or a static piece of firmware that authenticates the non-static part). But consider another piece of the puzzle: A DRM scheme that A) makes any authentic and authorized copies of popular audio/video/whatever content unusable on unauthorized hardware/firmware/software combinations, and B) makes unauthentic or unofficial content unuseable on the authorized hardware/firmware/software (not just illegal copies, but anything not verifiably traceable to one of a small number of official sources). Of course, the "unauthentic" angle (aka "piracy") would be played up, while the "unofficial" angle would be played down. But it is the latter that is the bigger prize for the monopolists because that would limit competition by raising the bar of entry for non-established competitors, including, and maybe especially, content authors themselves.
So now, most will buy the authorized hardware/firmware/software combination because it's required to access their favorite media, and they'll buy only the authorized media because that's all that will work on their systems. Thus the dominant players in each of four markets (hardware/firmware/software/media) could work together to further increase each other's market dominance. None of the players directly attacking its own competitors, but instead acting to limit competition in one or more of the other markets.
And politicians who assist, or at least turn a blind eye, to this activity could have much to gain by doing so. Not only money, but more direct influence because this four-pronged* monopoly would control a very large portion of what people see, hear, and read.
(* five-pronged if you consider the buyable politicians themselves)
The above is admittedly very conspiratorial, entirely speculative, and without any hard evidence known to me. I'm probably (and hopefully) full of beans. But it does bear a little resemblance to current trends, doesn't it?
Yeah, I remember that one first-hand. Pissed me off royally, too. It was obviously deliberately designed to harm sales of DR's much superior product.
The most infuriating part was that these dirty tricks were so overwhelmingly successful. The phony error message in Win3.0 reinforced in a lot of people's minds the misconception that DR was a johny-come-lately with a cheap knock-off product. Then came the broken compatibility in Win3.1, which damaged DR immensely. It prompted many DR-DOS users to purchase MS-DOS immediately, and the bad experience soured the word-of-mouth reputation of DR-DOS (except for a few who recognized the true nature of the situation, for whom it soured the reputation of MS). And this, in turn, encouraged PC system vendors who were shipping DR-DOS pre-installed on their systems to stop doing so, since the public misperception of DR-DOS as an inferior immitator was growing. So, new machines with DR-DOS started disappearing from the market soon after that. Can't blame 'em really. Regardless of the right or wrongness of the situation, their business survival depended on providing what the market demanded. So, MS was doubly rewarded for their misbehavior. First, they made back some of the sales that were originally lost to DR. Second, they destroyed DR's viability as a competitor in the future
It's unfortunate that the Internet wasn't public and widespread back then. That could have mitigated some of the damage. Within a few weeks of the release of Win3.1, DR sent upgrade disks to registered DR-DOS users, and released DR-DOS 6.1. But many people don't send in software registration cards, so DR had no way to get the upgrade to may users, nor even a good way to let them know it existed. And I'm sure a significant portion of the time to get the patch out was just the time to print labels, write diskettes, pack'em up, ship 'em, etc. And a few weeks is longer than a lot of people were willing to wait to get their new Windows version to work. So many switched to MS-DOS, never to return.
The whole thing is a _very_ sorry affair. MS destroyed a competitor, not by poviding a better product (DR-DOS was easily the superior), but by highly unethical, and almost certainly illegal, business practices.
MS cares nothing about ethics, nor even legality. I really think the only illegal actions that MS will not commit are those that they think will cost them more than they'll gain. It's purely cost vs. benefit. Right vs. wrong is not a factor.
I have little tolerance for conspiracy theories myself as well. But damn! this is suspicious.
At the moment, I can think of only two plausible motivations for this latest move by SCO. One is that it is driven by hatred of the open-source movement and/or philosophy. The other is that someone is paying SCO to do their dirty work for them. Maybe in the form of stock purchases, or licensing fees, or something else.
I just can't see how this could be financially beneficial to SCO directly. Only indirectly via a benefactor who can directly benefit from damaging Linux as a competitor. And I think most of us can name a few companies in that position.
I don't know if this is really what's going on. But whatever it is, it is very, very dirty.
You must be bloc(k) 6.
The lack of anonymity also resolves the "How do you deal with people who are out of electronic cash?" problem that you mentioned. Which is not to say that I wouldn't prefer an anonymous system.
One possible solution for an anonymous system is to take a photo of offending vehicles so the owners can be identified via license plate numbers. This way anonymity is sacrificed only in the case of violation (and occasionally equipment malfunction). Not a new idea, of course. Many toll booths already have this ability.
You're certainly right about the unreliability of subjective impressions. But I suspect that the original poster understands that as well. I also share his subjective impression about being at greater risk when biking in a city that lacks bicicyle friendly infrastructure. But no way to be certain without studying some numbers.
And don't forget Wordstar, which thoroughly dominated before WP. Things can and do change.
I think what Star Roms is doing is excellent. I wish them much success.
Off topic? What idiot moderated this off topic?
Not everyone will agree with the post, but it would be difficult to be any more on topic.
My post, however, is admittedly off topic, so moderate as you see fit.
Close enough. The 6510 is just a 6502 with an integrated I/O port. The C64 used that to switch between ROM and RAM, and to select pages of memory in cartridges. This is how it was able to access more memory than it could directly address.
I suppose that reverse engineering and modifying your BIOS is probably illegal now, even when strictly for personal use. May have been illegal then, but I don't really know. Sad. It would be like making it illegal to tinker with your own car. And with all the embedded computers and programming in modern cars, some kinds of car tinkering probably are illegal now.
I really think that exploring your world and figuring out how things work should not only be legally permitted, but should be a constitutionally protected right. Superceding and invalidating any license or contract language to the contrary.
On the plus side, this means that they are probably sincere in claiming to be against the governments of those countries, and not the people. But by the same token, it also means that they are looking out for the interests of the US government, and not its people. It's a power struggle amongst the rulers. On both sides, the people are merely pawns.
None of which is meant to imply that I consider these governments equal. I still vastly prefer this one to the those in Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan (and numerous others, I'm sure). But though the degree of oppression at home is miniscule compared to those, it is on the rise and it is a problem. Our government's primary interest should be our interests. We, the people. Not to increase its control over us, nor to further the power of the monopolists who feed it.
Be careful. Given the dirtiness of SCO's claims and tactics so far, I can't help wondering if SCO may have put the greeked comments on the slide to bait a trap aimed at giving them some ammo against their detractors.
It's already pretty well demonstrated that the non-greeked comments are free of copyright infringement, but what if the greeked comments are in fact unique to their code? So, though there wasn't any copyright infringement before, by ungreeking and posting those comments, there is now. Thus tainting Slashdot and other geekish news sources, numerous individuals, and of course, the minds of many developers. And they may even be able to claim a DMCA violation in having their copy protection scheme "cracked". Sure, as copy protection it approaches the ultimate in lameness, but remember that didn't prevent the misery inflicted on Dmitri Skylarov.
Deliberate entrapment? Certainly. But they have a much bigger legal budget than I, and quite likely you, could ever hope to afford.