The initial claim was that the GPL didn't add any restrictions that weren't already in copyright law. That's obviously not true
Yes, it is. Show me a sequence of actions that would violate the GPL but would not violate copyright law.
because copyright law makes no mention of not distributing source code, or making a program closed-source.
Source code is automatically copyrighted by the author. The default state of copyright is that if you aren't the copyright holder, you can't redistribute it at all. (With exceptions for fair use, which the GPL doesn't attempt to remove). The GPL grants users the right to do some but not all of the actions normally prohibited by copyright.
Utter horsepucky. Even if you don't accept the GPL, you can still be sued for violating it.
You're actually sued for violating copyright. The GPL only enters into it in that if you had followed its terms, you could point to it as a defense. But if you haven't, then you can't, and standard copyright applies.
And the GPL says "if you redistribute, you can't do a, b, c, d, e, f, g,..." - what's the difference?
Once again, the difference is that the GPL does not attempt to remove any of your existing rights. The GPL is a unilateral grant of privileges that you normally wouldn't have.
The GPL does impose restrictions that aren't mentioned in copyright law.
No.
Where in copyright law does it state that one is required to distribute source code with copies?
Copyright law says that you can't distribute binaries at all. The GPL weakens that restriction and says that you can distribute under certain conditions, one of which is that the source has to be available. Your rights under the GPL are a strict superset of your rights under copyright law.
Here's a hint - one of the words "GPL" stands for is "license."
Yes, and the GPL actually uses the term correctly. You are "licensed" to use the software in ways that would normally not be permitted. Contrast that to a typical EULA, which purports to remove rights that you would normally have, in exchange for nothing.
Right. I love their engineering, and increasingly dislike their marketing and business side.
This is a perfect example as disabling support for the Atom is an *active* change that affords the company absolutely nothing.
That depends. If the change was to remove "dead" code that was specifically there for the Atom (created when they were considering doing a netbook) then it's entirely reasonable. If somebody was actually ordered to go write code like "if (cpu_type==ATOM) {fail();}", then that's crappy.
You can't legally buy OS X for something other than a Mac. It doesn't have to get to the EULA, its clearly stated on the outside of the box.
System requirements are not a legally binding contract. Or do you think it's illegal to try to run software on a machine that doesn't meet the official minimum specs?
If Apples' license isn't valid, neither is GPL, and I can take any GPL app and distribute binaries with proprietary code without any source.
Um, no. The GPL depends only on copyright law. Apple's EULA attempts to impose restrictions that go beyond that.
Don't like it? Change the law, until then, shut the fuck up, we're tired of the broken record.
The law is clear, see 17 USC 117. What we need is for judges to strike down the loopholes that publishers have come up with to remove property rights from software purchasers. And I'm tired of Apple fanboys blindly defending everything Apple does and selling out our rights in the process. Oh, and I have 3 Macs.
I'm talking about the iPhone, not the Mac. (And the iPod touch as well, where any arguments about what the big bad carriers are making them do goes out the window). Apple does exactly what they should do with the Mac; they sell a subset of the available software, but make no attempt to close off other distribution methods.
The complaint is not the store exists. It's that Apple goes out of their way to prevent you from getting software from any other source, and claims that you're a criminal if you try.
Sure, someone could pick their own code, but that was playing dice with the desktop universe.
The AC is obnoxious but essentially correct. Apple had no way of stopping anybody from releasing their app with an unapproved creator code; it's not at all comparable to their control over iPhone apps.
Just simple: don't violate trademarks, don't duplicate generic device functionality, play in your own snadbox, don't cause security issues.
None of those are "simple" criteria. Especially for the first two, Apple has denied apps using ludicrous reasoning, and developers have no recourse.
Apple is the same way; either pay to unlock it, wait your 2 years, or simply jailbreak... Do whatever you want, but no warranty if you do.
Car dealers don't go out of their way to prevent you from going to unapproved mechanics, and don't try to convince the government that you're a criminal if you do.
Vendor lock in? I tell you what, I'd rather have a "restrictive" app market on a stable device I like holding in my hand for which under heavy use I get a full day's battery, and continual free software upgrades, vs an Android where the apps are limited, buggy, expensive, and suck the phone dry in 4-6 hours.
And that's a fine reason for Apple maintaining a store with approved software. It's not a reason to prevent me from installing software from other sources if I choose to do so.
I'm not defending him, but it's silly to think the MAFIAA wouldn't push for draconian copyright laws in the absence of piracy. Region coding is exhibit A; by definition it has nothing to do with stopping piracy and is purely a market segmentation scheme.
then I should be doing everything I can to get Microsoft to pay as much of the tax burden as possible, for exactly the same reasons that you assert that they should attempt to shift the burden onto me.
And that's fine, if by "everything you can" you mean lobbying to have their loopholes removed, rather than retroactively punishing them for actions that were legal when they occurred. And yes, that is in your best interests; you really don't want politicians being able to throw you in prison because something you legally did last year is now illegal.
Most don't. The ones who do are either confused by the occasional Marxist-sounding rhetoric used by some free software advocates, or are actually corporate shills pretending to be libertarians. The Cato Institute has some excellent papers on the topic: they support free software in general, and oppose software patents and the DMCA because they stifle innovation and competition.
Funny how most of the time, an unregulated market increases the cost of items taht should be dirt-cheap, until they're an unaffordable luxury to most people.
I don't even know where to start with this. Have you ever been to an Apple store? What exactly "should" be cheap that "most people" can't afford, and how will the situation improve when you abolish free markets?
Is Office 7 worth $400? Nope
Not to you or me perhaps, but there are other people in the world who value different things.
There's a world of difference between what you describe, and a 60-70hrs work week.
Why? I could easily be spending an extra 20 hours a week on things that improve my career, when according to you I should be with my (possibly nonexistent) family or volunteering for Greenpeace or something. That gives me an advantage over those who do have other obligations, so why isn't that unfair?
Well, let me try: the reason why sane countries deny their citizens the "freedom" to overwork themselves is fundamentally the same one because of which those same countries deny their citizens the "freedom" to sell themselves into slavery.
I've often wondered why the US produces a disproportionate share of companies like Apple, Intel, and Google. If your attitude is prevalent in the rest of the world that would explain a great deal.
See, if everyone else is doing it "to get ahead in their career", and you alone don't, then guess who's the underperformer?
Trying to enforce mediocrity is silly. Should I not be allowed to read technical articles or do personal software projects when I'm not at my job? That might help me in my career, so presumably it's unfair to people who don't.
We can start with a money-free economy, that'll remove 95% of the sociopathy discussed here.
True, in the sense that 95% of the population would be dead not too long after. There are lots of jobs that a functioning society needs done that are not inherently fun or rewarding. To get those things done you have to either pay people, or enslave them.
Pretty much. I'd put it as "women have lives". Men are much more likely than women to heavily focus on narrow fields of interest, which mostly a requirement for FOSS.
It's funny how people who are allegedly against stereotypes and bigotry have no problem condemning an entire group because of the moronic actions of a small minority.
I would definitely love to live longer then 100 years, but consider what would happen if a person could live indefinitely. they'd have to have some pile of savings to support themselves, they'd have to have a pile of people in the supporting generation to support them or they'd have to continue to work as long as you were alive.
#3 sounds fine to me. Work for 30 years, take a mini-retirement for 3 years, then start a different career, repeat as often as you like. If your body and mind stay healthy there's no reason for permanent retirement.
Slashdot Mirror
Congratulations, you've discovered that conservatives aren't anarchists. In other shocking news, the other day I saw a liberal buying a MacBook.
Well yes, if you take a percentage of every sale, higher prices will lead to higher profits.
As opposed to what? If they have the power you seem to think they do, why do prices ever fall?
The initial claim was that the GPL didn't add any restrictions that weren't already in copyright law. That's obviously not true
Yes, it is. Show me a sequence of actions that would violate the GPL but would not violate copyright law.
because copyright law makes no mention of not distributing source code, or making a program closed-source.
Source code is automatically copyrighted by the author. The default state of copyright is that if you aren't the copyright holder, you can't redistribute it at all. (With exceptions for fair use, which the GPL doesn't attempt to remove). The GPL grants users the right to do some but not all of the actions normally prohibited by copyright.
Utter horsepucky. Even if you don't accept the GPL, you can still be sued for violating it.
You're actually sued for violating copyright. The GPL only enters into it in that if you had followed its terms, you could point to it as a defense. But if you haven't, then you can't, and standard copyright applies.
And the GPL says "if you redistribute, you can't do a, b, c, d, e, f, g, ..." - what's the difference?
Once again, the difference is that the GPL does not attempt to remove any of your existing rights. The GPL is a unilateral grant of privileges that you normally wouldn't have.
No.
Copyright law says that you can't distribute binaries at all. The GPL weakens that restriction and says that you can distribute under certain conditions, one of which is that the source has to be available. Your rights under the GPL are a strict superset of your rights under copyright law.
Yes, and the GPL actually uses the term correctly. You are "licensed" to use the software in ways that would normally not be permitted. Contrast that to a typical EULA, which purports to remove rights that you would normally have, in exchange for nothing.
Right. I love their engineering, and increasingly dislike their marketing and business side.
This is a perfect example as disabling support for the Atom is an *active* change that affords the company absolutely nothing.
That depends. If the change was to remove "dead" code that was specifically there for the Atom (created when they were considering doing a netbook) then it's entirely reasonable. If somebody was actually ordered to go write code like "if (cpu_type==ATOM) {fail();}", then that's crappy.
You can't legally buy OS X for something other than a Mac. It doesn't have to get to the EULA, its clearly stated on the outside of the box.
System requirements are not a legally binding contract. Or do you think it's illegal to try to run software on a machine that doesn't meet the official minimum specs?
If Apples' license isn't valid, neither is GPL, and I can take any GPL app and distribute binaries with proprietary code without any source.
Um, no. The GPL depends only on copyright law. Apple's EULA attempts to impose restrictions that go beyond that.
Don't like it? Change the law, until then, shut the fuck up, we're tired of the broken record.
The law is clear, see 17 USC 117. What we need is for judges to strike down the loopholes that publishers have come up with to remove property rights from software purchasers. And I'm tired of Apple fanboys blindly defending everything Apple does and selling out our rights in the process. Oh, and I have 3 Macs.
I'm talking about the iPhone, not the Mac. (And the iPod touch as well, where any arguments about what the big bad carriers are making them do goes out the window). Apple does exactly what they should do with the Mac; they sell a subset of the available software, but make no attempt to close off other distribution methods.
The complaint is not the store exists. It's that Apple goes out of their way to prevent you from getting software from any other source, and claims that you're a criminal if you try.
Sure, someone could pick their own code, but that was playing dice with the desktop universe.
The AC is obnoxious but essentially correct. Apple had no way of stopping anybody from releasing their app with an unapproved creator code; it's not at all comparable to their control over iPhone apps.
Just simple: don't violate trademarks, don't duplicate generic device functionality, play in your own snadbox, don't cause security issues.
None of those are "simple" criteria. Especially for the first two, Apple has denied apps using ludicrous reasoning, and developers have no recourse.
Apple is the same way; either pay to unlock it, wait your 2 years, or simply jailbreak... Do whatever you want, but no warranty if you do.
Car dealers don't go out of their way to prevent you from going to unapproved mechanics, and don't try to convince the government that you're a criminal if you do.
Vendor lock in? I tell you what, I'd rather have a "restrictive" app market on a stable device I like holding in my hand for which under heavy use I get a full day's battery, and continual free software upgrades, vs an Android where the apps are limited, buggy, expensive, and suck the phone dry in 4-6 hours.
And that's a fine reason for Apple maintaining a store with approved software. It's not a reason to prevent me from installing software from other sources if I choose to do so.
I'm not defending him, but it's silly to think the MAFIAA wouldn't push for draconian copyright laws in the absence of piracy. Region coding is exhibit A; by definition it has nothing to do with stopping piracy and is purely a market segmentation scheme.
then I should be doing everything I can to get Microsoft to pay as much of the tax burden as possible, for exactly the same reasons that you assert that they should attempt to shift the burden onto me.
And that's fine, if by "everything you can" you mean lobbying to have their loopholes removed, rather than retroactively punishing them for actions that were legal when they occurred. And yes, that is in your best interests; you really don't want politicians being able to throw you in prison because something you legally did last year is now illegal.
Well, no, but in general, property rights are the libertarian answer to everything.
As the Cato Institute and other libertarians have noted, unbalanced copyright laws interfere with the property rights of consumers.
I consider myself a libertarian and from what I know of ESR, I would consider him a libertarian.
He's actually an anarchist.
I don't see why libertarians object to this?
Most don't. The ones who do are either confused by the occasional Marxist-sounding rhetoric used by some free software advocates, or are actually corporate shills pretending to be libertarians. The Cato Institute has some excellent papers on the topic: they support free software in general, and oppose software patents and the DMCA because they stifle innovation and competition.
Funny how most of the time, an unregulated market increases the cost of items taht should be dirt-cheap, until they're an unaffordable luxury to most people.
I don't even know where to start with this. Have you ever been to an Apple store? What exactly "should" be cheap that "most people" can't afford, and how will the situation improve when you abolish free markets?
Is Office 7 worth $400? Nope
Not to you or me perhaps, but there are other people in the world who value different things.
There's a world of difference between what you describe, and a 60-70hrs work week.
Why? I could easily be spending an extra 20 hours a week on things that improve my career, when according to you I should be with my (possibly nonexistent) family or volunteering for Greenpeace or something. That gives me an advantage over those who do have other obligations, so why isn't that unfair?
Well, let me try: the reason why sane countries deny their citizens the "freedom" to overwork themselves is fundamentally the same one because of which those same countries deny their citizens the "freedom" to sell themselves into slavery.
I've often wondered why the US produces a disproportionate share of companies like Apple, Intel, and Google. If your attitude is prevalent in the rest of the world that would explain a great deal.
See, if everyone else is doing it "to get ahead in their career", and you alone don't, then guess who's the underperformer?
Trying to enforce mediocrity is silly. Should I not be allowed to read technical articles or do personal software projects when I'm not at my job? That might help me in my career, so presumably it's unfair to people who don't.
The profit motive leads ultimately to nothing but corruption and death.
How do you think the computer you typed that on came to exist?
These weren't great or particularly cutthroat men, but instead lucky men. Thousands of people could have been in their places and done the same thing
I agree with that: out of millions of people, thousands could have done what they did. In other words, you need to be both lucky and good.
We can start with a money-free economy, that'll remove 95% of the sociopathy discussed here.
True, in the sense that 95% of the population would be dead not too long after. There are lots of jobs that a functioning society needs done that are not inherently fun or rewarding. To get those things done you have to either pay people, or enslave them.
Pretty much. I'd put it as "women have lives". Men are much more likely than women to heavily focus on narrow fields of interest, which mostly a requirement for FOSS.
It's funny how people who are allegedly against stereotypes and bigotry have no problem condemning an entire group because of the moronic actions of a small minority.
Evolution and immortality wouldn't mix well.
True, and that's fine. Evolution is slow and stupid; it took billions of years to produce marginally intelligent apes. We can do better.
I would definitely love to live longer then 100 years, but consider what would happen if a person could live indefinitely. they'd have to have some pile of savings to support themselves, they'd have to have a pile of people in the supporting generation to support them or they'd have to continue to work as long as you were alive.
#3 sounds fine to me. Work for 30 years, take a mini-retirement for 3 years, then start a different career, repeat as often as you like. If your body and mind stay healthy there's no reason for permanent retirement.