I've updated the website a little bit, and here's the update copied from the website:
--Reprint follows-- I have received a ton of submissions, and have already replied to several submissions. My email box has about 100 or so emails sitting in it right now, and I'm slowly sifting through the recipes and adding things. There's about 26 pages printed so far, and I've got a lot of good ideas just waiting to be looked at. Keep 'em coming!
Also, for some help doing US to Metric conversions, I've found this site to be quite helpful. You may wish to use this to convert US units to Metric units and back again
The thing hasn't even been up for 24 hours and I have 75 email messages:P Seriously, though, I've scanned several of the recipes I got in my mailbox so far and many, many of them look good. I'll keep everyone posted.
Thank you for explaining things for me. It sounds like "derived" means you've used GPL source in your program instead of merely using a GPL program to create it.
Sounds like I read a somewhat "re-interpreted" summary of the GPL.
At the risk of being labeled Redundant, let's add a few more menutia to this tag:
Advantage of going Microsoft: Better business alignment with straightforward licensing and clarity of intellectual property ownership.
My esteemed colleague who posted the parent has provided a wonderful examination from a GPLer's point of view. Now let's look at it from the moronic business manager's point of view and see just why this FUD works as well as it does with some.
Point 1: 'Better Business Alignment.' In no uncertain terms, this means that your business will be better "in tune" with other businesses' operations. This, of course, means interoperability. Now, the informed manager (admittedly, these show up about as frequently as an original idea from M$) would say that Linux has had interoperability with many segments of the Windows community for a long time. Samba is proof of that. OpenOffice is proof of that. Heck, WINE is proof of that! However, the business manager who truly follows blindly will simply go, "Ooo, Windows clearly offers stability where Linux does not."
Point 2: 'Straightforward Licensing.' From the moronic business manager's point of view, this is a godsend. Anything that can be licensed to your company in an easy, straightforward manner is a wonderful thing because it minimizes the amount of legal mumbo-jumbo that your company has to deal with to get what it wants. Of course, this is "in an ideal world," and we all know we don't live in one of those. Now, the licensing, as so wonderfully put forth by the good Dr. Awktagon, is anything but simple. The informed business manager will take one look at the mess of ipso-factos and whys-and-wherefores that he'll essentially lose what mind he has left.
Point 3: 'Clarity of Intellectual Property Ownership.' Oh, now come on. This is just laughable. Anyone who's bought software from anyone knows that the infamous EULA is such an amazing mess of legalese that nobody ever reads it. Anyway, enough rant. The moronic business manager will see this too, as a godsend. "You mean that we actually own the software we bought? Amazing!" The informed business manager will see this and essentially laugh his ass off. No software maker actually sells a copy of the software to its users.
Now, in all honesty, the GPL's not perfect. No license model is. The thing that scares most business managers away from using GPLed software for development purposes is what M$ robots refer to as the GPL's "viral" quality. In nicer terms, it's the section of the GPL that says that all software created by GPL'ed software is subject to the terms of the GPL. Now there is an exception (caveat: IANAL) - if identifiable sections of a work incorporating GPL software are not derived from a GPL'ed work, then you don't have to disclose the source. The problem is that (as far as I know, someone with more experience, please correct me) if it was compiled with gcc, it's GPL software. Regardless, the GPL is a much better model to work from, despite what flaws it may have, because it really does spur innovation. --
Y'know, this really creeps me out. We are constantly bombarded with media telling us that we are inferior people if we don't buy their products, constantly reminded that the superior human being is two dress sizes smaller or has two times the muscle mass we do, and told that if we don't have the most advanced "stuff," we are somehow lesser beings.
I just finished taking a communications course - I needed it for my degree - and we examined the powerful effects that advertising has on us as consumers. While many people believe that they are not really affected by advertising, they are, on a subconscious level. Ask anyone if advertising defines the ideal person for them and most people will say no. But ask them what the definition of "the ideal woman" or "the ideal man" is and most assuredly, they will give you a definition that is right in line with the "standards" manufactured by advertising companies - men should have high muscle mass, broad shoulders, square chins, and generally look like something out of a muscle mag. Women should ideally weigh around 110-120, wear a dress size that is less than 5, the smaller the better, and be rather "curvaceous" in their builds. The "Barbie" look is especially good.
This fictional look into the future that Accord has so eloquently put forth may not be too far off from the truth. Simply read Huxley's Brave New World or Orwell's 1984 to get a good idea of the kind of control he foretells. As advertising and corporate interests intrude more on our lives, there will be only more negative effects.
One of the reasons that lawmakers often "don't speak geek" is that they "speak law" instead. Many of us in the computer world do not realize the inordinate amount of work that these people must go through to get a law degree. One might even say that the profession of law is even more bloated with jargon than our own profession is - a quick look at the infamous Jargon File [warning, 2.2MB link] will prove that. (incidentally, if printed, it's about 785 pages of stuff!)
While I may give the legislators this chip to bargain with, it is taken away just as quickly by telling them that if they are to make laws that govern the fruits of our profession, (by "our profession" I mean programmers, primarily) they must understand it. It is this core point that legislators fail to accept. It is also this core point that lawyers often refuse to accept.
The only solution in this matter is to educate - and for that to happen, those of us who are so quick to judge people who do not intrinsically understand the ways computers work (and lawmakers often understand less about computers than the average bear) must put aside some of that cynicism and try to teach these people enough so that their laws not only are effective, but enforceable.
Note the difference - these people are not your 90 year old grandmas who only use their computers as a glorified typewriter!! Especially in reading some posts here, we are quick to rail away against our legislators because they do not seem to understand the ramifications of their actions. I am not discounting that the mafia-boss style tactics of the MPAA and RIAA, for example, have an effect on our legislators' votes, because they do, but maybe by giving our legislators enough good information about how computers work and how these things can actually be managed, the legislators might actually be able to out-think idiots like Hilary Rosen and Jack Valenti.
This is a bit of an overreaction, but given how quickly lawyers tend to "overreact," one could really pervert this case.
See, Cage's 4'33" was intended to be an insight into what we perceive as "music." It is typically performed in 3 unbroken movements of specific time-lengths (down to the 1/1000th of a second) and can involve as many or as few players as is necessary. The "silence" is not actually silence at all - it is the ambient sound in the hall, the room, or enclosure it is performed in. It really is quite remarkable if you think about it long enough. Then again, this piece is from a man who used the I Ching and a bunch of sticks to determine how he composed music.
The implications, sadly only begin there. By allowing Cage's 4'33" to be perceived as silence or ambient noise and then copyrighted, a lawyer who's gone completely off his rocker could theoretically sue every person on the face of the planet, including himself, for violation of IP rights - because silence and ambient noise are used by everyone in everyday life.
The rational human being would state that silence and ambient noise are a natural part of everyday life and thus cannot be copyrighted - and if the Cage estate really really really whined and groaned enough, someone might say that 4'33" is indeed copyrighted, but only the instances where it has been recorded (someone might argue that it's whenever it's been explicitly performed, but just about every performance everywhere has been recorded in some way or another).
It just goes to show that lawyers who deal in copyright suits tend to look for every instance they can to sue someone and justify their overinflated paychecks.
[insanity]Incidentally, this is copyrighted, using any of the above words (with the exception of prepositions), reading this post, or looking at its headline is a violation of copyright and is strictly prohibited under copyright law.[/insanity]
--
True, but there are other factors to consider
on
Analyzing Palladium
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
The infamous Halloween Documents (granted, they're from 1998, but the MO hasn't changed a bit - it's just being approached from a different angle) out-and-out prove that MS perceives Linux as a threat - MS honestly sees Linux as a true threat to its stranglehold on market share, and with shifts in corporate IT departments to Linux and other UNIX-based systems in favour of XP or 2k-based systems, MS clearly thinks that Linux is an obstacle to be steamrolled in the process of gaining back lost market share.
With the Macintosh crowd turning firmly toward UNIX-based systems with the release of MacOS X, it's all the more clear that UNIX is beginning to win back all the space it lost through the 90s.
What's more, the application suites in Linux are quickly beginning to rival those developed by MS for its own OS - I've tried OpenOffice 1, and it's just as good as its Microsoft-produced counterpart.
There's just one more hurdle to clear - getting independent software developers to see things the same way. Games make the system, and this is one area where Linux is lacking. Smash-hit store-bought games is one major reason why Windows took off. Linux still doesn't have the wealth of games that Windows has, unfortunately.
Here's my suggestion. Make inroads into the home market - get the average Joe User to see how well Linux performs - and word will spread like wildfire. As long as the only people who proselytise Linux are IT directors, it won't achieve the one thing we all want - the downfall of the Big Redmond Machine.
Linux has made considerable gains in recent years - and this is largely attributable to its consistently top-notch development system and the initiative to develop applications that compete head-on with similar Windows products. But it's not over yet.
As the columnist said, Tuxers, it's time for the gloves to come off.
Re:CARP compromise designed to stifle sm. 'net rad
on
Shocked, Shocked at Payola
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I have an article on the same topic submitted but undecided upon - and from the way I read things, there's some other shady business practices happening in addition to the things you mentioned -- Cuban goes on to state that he had worked with Yahoo to undercut the royalty payout as well by using multicasting and then only paying royalties based on the single stream being broadcast, and forcing those webcasters who needed percentage-of-revenue rates to subsist and were bound and determined to stay on the air to pay fees to Yahoo to have their material broadcast.
This whole mess just reeks of Mafia boss tactics. You pay us a "protection" fee, and we'll make sure your bandwidth doesn't get cut off.
Oh, and for a good read on the whole "media control" thing, check out The Media Monopoly by Ben Bagdikian. It was written in the 80s, but has been updated since to include new mediums of communication. Very interesting read.
--
This has already been mentioned in another thread, but the fix for this on Apples w/o pinhole eject buttons is to boot into Open Firmware by pressing Opt+Cmd+O+F as the Mac boots, then at the > prompt, type "eject cd" then "boot-mac" to reboot the Mac. There's an Apple kbase article on this, available at this link
If for some reason the link doesn't work, the article number to search for is #106752.
They are not courts, they cannot judge what is and is not legal copying, particularly when you factor in that the copyright will ultimately expire.
--
There's one problem here. Copyrights can be renewed by the holder of that copyright, so given the fact that artists must effectively sign away all ownership rights to the record companies just to get discs pressed, if the record companies persist for any length of time (based on the amount of money they swindle from the public every day, they'll be around awhile) the record companies can renew their copyrights virtually indefinitely.
Now, what can happen is a situation similar to some of the video-game makers of the 1980s, like Exidy: They simply went out of business with nobody to buy the IP rights. Once that happens, all that work reverts to either the original creators, or the public domain (I don't remember which, but both are possible).
Regardless, it's not a pretty picture.
Almost makes me wonder what's next...the resurrection of the UNIVAC? Seriously, though, this is great. Imagine what they could do with a simple ream of paper! 120GB/sq.inch, times 93.5 square inches per sheet, times 500 sheets in a ream...good god that's a huge disk...120GB/sq.in. * 93.5 sq.in. = 11220 GB = 11.2TB per sheet * 500 sheets = 561EB of space!! Oy!
Slashdot Mirror
I've updated the website a little bit, and here's the update copied from the website:
--Reprint follows--
I have received a ton of submissions, and have already replied to several submissions. My email box has about 100 or so emails sitting in it right now, and I'm slowly sifting through the recipes and adding things. There's about 26 pages printed so far, and I've got a lot of good ideas just waiting to be looked at. Keep 'em coming!
Also, for some help doing US to Metric conversions, I've found this site to be quite helpful. You may wish to use this to convert US units to Metric units and back again
The thing hasn't even been up for 24 hours and I have 75 email messages :P
Seriously, though, I've scanned several of the recipes I got in my mailbox so far and many, many of them look good. I'll keep everyone posted.
"Teacher, my laptop needs a drink."
Or better yet, when your laptop gets low, it asks for a Dasani.
--
Thank you for explaining things for me. It sounds like "derived" means you've used GPL source in your program instead of merely using a GPL program to create it.
Sounds like I read a somewhat "re-interpreted" summary of the GPL.
My esteemed colleague who posted the parent has provided a wonderful examination from a GPLer's point of view. Now let's look at it from the moronic business manager's point of view and see just why this FUD works as well as it does with some.
Point 1: 'Better Business Alignment.'
In no uncertain terms, this means that your business will be better "in tune" with other businesses' operations. This, of course, means interoperability. Now, the informed manager (admittedly, these show up about as frequently as an original idea from M$) would say that Linux has had interoperability with many segments of the Windows community for a long time. Samba is proof of that. OpenOffice is proof of that. Heck, WINE is proof of that! However, the business manager who truly follows blindly will simply go, "Ooo, Windows clearly offers stability where Linux does not."
Point 2: 'Straightforward Licensing.'
From the moronic business manager's point of view, this is a godsend. Anything that can be licensed to your company in an easy, straightforward manner is a wonderful thing because it minimizes the amount of legal mumbo-jumbo that your company has to deal with to get what it wants. Of course, this is "in an ideal world," and we all know we don't live in one of those. Now, the licensing, as so wonderfully put forth by the good Dr. Awktagon, is anything but simple. The informed business manager will take one look at the mess of ipso-factos and whys-and-wherefores that he'll essentially lose what mind he has left.
Point 3: 'Clarity of Intellectual Property Ownership.'
Oh, now come on. This is just laughable. Anyone who's bought software from anyone knows that the infamous EULA is such an amazing mess of legalese that nobody ever reads it. Anyway, enough rant. The moronic business manager will see this too, as a godsend. "You mean that we actually own the software we bought? Amazing!" The informed business manager will see this and essentially laugh his ass off. No software maker actually sells a copy of the software to its users.
Now, in all honesty, the GPL's not perfect. No license model is. The thing that scares most business managers away from using GPLed software for development purposes is what M$ robots refer to as the GPL's "viral" quality. In nicer terms, it's the section of the GPL that says that all software created by GPL'ed software is subject to the terms of the GPL. Now there is an exception (caveat: IANAL) - if identifiable sections of a work incorporating GPL software are not derived from a GPL'ed work, then you don't have to disclose the source. The problem is that (as far as I know, someone with more experience, please correct me) if it was compiled with gcc, it's GPL software. Regardless, the GPL is a much better model to work from, despite what flaws it may have, because it really does spur innovation.
--
Y'know, this really creeps me out. We are constantly bombarded with media telling us that we are inferior people if we don't buy their products, constantly reminded that the superior human being is two dress sizes smaller or has two times the muscle mass we do, and told that if we don't have the most advanced "stuff," we are somehow lesser beings.
I just finished taking a communications course - I needed it for my degree - and we examined the powerful effects that advertising has on us as consumers. While many people believe that they are not really affected by advertising, they are, on a subconscious level. Ask anyone if advertising defines the ideal person for them and most people will say no. But ask them what the definition of "the ideal woman" or "the ideal man" is and most assuredly, they will give you a definition that is right in line with the "standards" manufactured by advertising companies - men should have high muscle mass, broad shoulders, square chins, and generally look like something out of a muscle mag. Women should ideally weigh around 110-120, wear a dress size that is less than 5, the smaller the better, and be rather "curvaceous" in their builds. The "Barbie" look is especially good.
This fictional look into the future that Accord has so eloquently put forth may not be too far off from the truth. Simply read Huxley's Brave New World or Orwell's 1984 to get a good idea of the kind of control he foretells. As advertising and corporate interests intrude more on our lives, there will be only more negative effects.
--
One of the reasons that lawmakers often "don't speak geek" is that they "speak law" instead. Many of us in the computer world do not realize the inordinate amount of work that these people must go through to get a law degree. One might even say that the profession of law is even more bloated with jargon than our own profession is - a quick look at the infamous Jargon File [warning, 2.2MB link] will prove that. (incidentally, if printed, it's about 785 pages of stuff!)
While I may give the legislators this chip to bargain with, it is taken away just as quickly by telling them that if they are to make laws that govern the fruits of our profession, (by "our profession" I mean programmers, primarily) they must understand it. It is this core point that legislators fail to accept. It is also this core point that lawyers often refuse to accept.
The only solution in this matter is to educate - and for that to happen, those of us who are so quick to judge people who do not intrinsically understand the ways computers work (and lawmakers often understand less about computers than the average bear) must put aside some of that cynicism and try to teach these people enough so that their laws not only are effective, but enforceable.
Note the difference - these people are not your 90 year old grandmas who only use their computers as a glorified typewriter!! Especially in reading some posts here, we are quick to rail away against our legislators because they do not seem to understand the ramifications of their actions. I am not discounting that the mafia-boss style tactics of the MPAA and RIAA, for example, have an effect on our legislators' votes, because they do, but maybe by giving our legislators enough good information about how computers work and how these things can actually be managed, the legislators might actually be able to out-think idiots like Hilary Rosen and Jack Valenti.
Or am I being too optimistic?
--
This is a bit of an overreaction, but given how quickly lawyers tend to "overreact," one could really pervert this case.
See, Cage's 4'33" was intended to be an insight into what we perceive as "music." It is typically performed in 3 unbroken movements of specific time-lengths (down to the 1/1000th of a second) and can involve as many or as few players as is necessary. The "silence" is not actually silence at all - it is the ambient sound in the hall, the room, or enclosure it is performed in. It really is quite remarkable if you think about it long enough. Then again, this piece is from a man who used the I Ching and a bunch of sticks to determine how he composed music.
The implications, sadly only begin there. By allowing Cage's 4'33" to be perceived as silence or ambient noise and then copyrighted, a lawyer who's gone completely off his rocker could theoretically sue every person on the face of the planet, including himself, for violation of IP rights - because silence and ambient noise are used by everyone in everyday life.
The rational human being would state that silence and ambient noise are a natural part of everyday life and thus cannot be copyrighted - and if the Cage estate really really really whined and groaned enough, someone might say that 4'33" is indeed copyrighted, but only the instances where it has been recorded (someone might argue that it's whenever it's been explicitly performed, but just about every performance everywhere has been recorded in some way or another).
It just goes to show that lawyers who deal in copyright suits tend to look for every instance they can to sue someone and justify their overinflated paychecks.
[insanity]Incidentally, this is copyrighted, using any of the above words (with the exception of prepositions), reading this post, or looking at its headline is a violation of copyright and is strictly prohibited under copyright law.[/insanity]
--
The infamous Halloween Documents (granted, they're from 1998, but the MO hasn't changed a bit - it's just being approached from a different angle) out-and-out prove that MS perceives Linux as a threat - MS honestly sees Linux as a true threat to its stranglehold on market share, and with shifts in corporate IT departments to Linux and other UNIX-based systems in favour of XP or 2k-based systems, MS clearly thinks that Linux is an obstacle to be steamrolled in the process of gaining back lost market share.
With the Macintosh crowd turning firmly toward UNIX-based systems with the release of MacOS X, it's all the more clear that UNIX is beginning to win back all the space it lost through the 90s.
What's more, the application suites in Linux are quickly beginning to rival those developed by MS for its own OS - I've tried OpenOffice 1, and it's just as good as its Microsoft-produced counterpart.
There's just one more hurdle to clear - getting independent software developers to see things the same way. Games make the system, and this is one area where Linux is lacking. Smash-hit store-bought games is one major reason why Windows took off. Linux still doesn't have the wealth of games that Windows has, unfortunately.
Here's my suggestion. Make inroads into the home market - get the average Joe User to see how well Linux performs - and word will spread like wildfire. As long as the only people who proselytise Linux are IT directors, it won't achieve the one thing we all want - the downfall of the Big Redmond Machine.
Linux has made considerable gains in recent years - and this is largely attributable to its consistently top-notch development system and the initiative to develop applications that compete head-on with similar Windows products. But it's not over yet.
As the columnist said, Tuxers, it's time for the gloves to come off.
I have an article on the same topic submitted but undecided upon - and from the way I read things, there's some other shady business practices happening in addition to the things you mentioned -- Cuban goes on to state that he had worked with Yahoo to undercut the royalty payout as well by using multicasting and then only paying royalties based on the single stream being broadcast, and forcing those webcasters who needed percentage-of-revenue rates to subsist and were bound and determined to stay on the air to pay fees to Yahoo to have their material broadcast.
This whole mess just reeks of Mafia boss tactics. You pay us a "protection" fee, and we'll make sure your bandwidth doesn't get cut off.
Oh, and for a good read on the whole "media control" thing, check out The Media Monopoly by Ben Bagdikian. It was written in the 80s, but has been updated since to include new mediums of communication. Very interesting read.
--
This has already been mentioned in another thread, but the fix for this on Apples w/o pinhole eject buttons is to boot into Open Firmware by pressing Opt+Cmd+O+F as the Mac boots, then at the > prompt, type "eject cd" then "boot-mac" to reboot the Mac. There's an Apple kbase article on this, available at this link
If for some reason the link doesn't work, the article number to search for is #106752.
They are not courts, they cannot judge what is and is not legal copying, particularly when you factor in that the copyright will ultimately expire.
--
There's one problem here. Copyrights can be renewed by the holder of that copyright, so given the fact that artists must effectively sign away all ownership rights to the record companies just to get discs pressed, if the record companies persist for any length of time (based on the amount of money they swindle from the public every day, they'll be around awhile) the record companies can renew their copyrights virtually indefinitely.
Now, what can happen is a situation similar to some of the video-game makers of the 1980s, like Exidy: They simply went out of business with nobody to buy the IP rights. Once that happens, all that work reverts to either the original creators, or the public domain (I don't remember which, but both are possible). Regardless, it's not a pretty picture.
Almost makes me wonder what's next...the resurrection of the UNIVAC? Seriously, though, this is great. Imagine what they could do with a simple ream of paper! 120GB/sq.inch, times 93.5 square inches per sheet, times 500 sheets in a ream...good god that's a huge disk...120GB/sq.in. * 93.5 sq.in. = 11220 GB = 11.2TB per sheet * 500 sheets = 561EB of space!! Oy!