One of my peers in one of the research programs I'm in is doing simulation on using nanowire meshes to increase conversion.
His initial results show as high a conversion rate as 45% with this addition. (He's comparing against 30% as that's where the other research solar cells are at the moment.)
Naturally the processes of manufacturing are likely to degrade this a bit, but more efficient solar cells seem very much possible.
We're not talking about a near useless government here, we're talking about China. You know a government that if they decide it's going to rain somewhere, they simply make it rain.
There's a big difference in the capabilities for enforcement between China and Mexico. If China wanted to prohibit all vehicle transfers during this time, they could easily do that as well.
I understand this is a very personal and sticky issue for many, so in turn allow me to offer my apologies if I caused any offense. I don't follow this issue very closely.
Thank you for the information. I still think you'd find that quite a few of those families exceed the maximum amounts, but now we're out of an area in which I can say much.
As for your personal attack on whether or not I'm willing to consider information "from sources that don't wear Che T-shirts or who aren't fat, bearded, propagandist filmmakers"... it seems rather unnecessary.
I didn't say they were all the same, I said polls showed them in favor of the embargo.
As for the violation of the embargo, many cuban americans send money to relatives still residing in Cuba. This is a violation of the embargo and I would welcome you to tell me on how this might be misinformed.
If you have information to share feel free to do so.
> Can anyone tell me why we still have an embargo > with Cuba?
From what I understand the only people who care about this issue are the former cubans living in South Florida.
Polls show them all strongly in favor of the embargo... since this is a vital voting demographic for most politicians... very few people mess with the embargo.
Did I mention that the main people who break the embargo are those very same former cubans?
Unlikely, NBC is famous for the 20 minute biographicals and has exclusive rights to broadcast the Olympics in the US through the 2012 games. (So far...)
>So what does an intelligent but ignorant C beginner do if you want to go into writing drivers for LINUX?
You don't. Sorry, but "I took C in college years ago" isn't enough for driver development. You'll need a lot more OS and arch knowledge before you should venture there.
Which isn't to say you can't help. Just you won't be very useful for kernel code. There are plenty of open-source projects which would love to have a new developer. Cut your teeth here for several years here. Get as deep into these as you can, constantly move lower and lower into the guts and messy areas in the stack.
OS code, especially driver code, is all guts and messy. You need to learn to handle this in a userspace context first and you need to be able to write this type of code without much thought.
You'll know when you're ready.
(In fact, being ready is almost defined by the fact that you won't have to ask the question on where to start. Something will annoy you one day and suddenly you'll find yourself staring at a problem that you can only solve by diving into the kernel code. And if you feel comfortable about diving straight in... then you'll be ready. Then be prepared to start from the very beginning all over again with almost all of your patches not making it into the kernel at first.)
"The 'Corresponding Source' for a work in object code form means all the source code needed to generate, install, and (for an executable work) run the object code and to modify the work, including scripts to control those activities. However, it does not include the work's System Libraries, or general-purpose tools or generally available free programs which are used unmodified in performing those activities but which are not part of the work."
So exactly carefully enough to prevent exactly that abuse.
Ah hold on... I think I'm starting to get your argument here...
Three agreements: 1) The license for the original code from the originator to the distributor 2) An automatic license as provided by section 10 to the end-user from the originator 3) A license for the distributor's modifications from the distributor to the end-user.
I was blurring the last two.
However, it does still seem to me that not providing the third would revoke the distributor's rights under the first agreement automatically per Section 8 of the original agreement. This means that even though the end-user cannot directly involve themselves as a third-party in the first agreement, if a distributor says they are not granting them a copy under the GPL then their license under the first agreement is automatically revoked.
Which means... essentially that if the company wants to keep it's rights to distribute software under the first agreement, they comply with the end-user's request to honor the GPL.
Pretty good for an agreement you say doesn't exist.:)
>You're imagining the existence of an "implied" >second agreement. There is no such "implied" >agreement.
Have you not read Section 10 of the GPL?
>If they don't expressly offer this, in written >terms, it exists by no means.
The written offers are required by only some of the conveyance mechanisms of Section 6. The other conveyance mechanisms still allow distribution without a written offer of anything (particularly 6a) and just because a written offer is not in place does not mean the GPL is not in effect.
There is a very real second agreement or there is no first agreement.
There's two agreements involved here: * The original agreement between the copyright holder and the distributor * The agreement between the distributor and the distributee
That second agreement must exist if the first does and if a company argues that it does not, then the first agreement is automatically terminated and they become liable for copyright infringement.
Which is why I was saying that an end-user probably could get away with enforcing the license they received, because if a company were to say they did not receive such a license then they might as well be saying they knew they didn't have a license with the original distributor because at that point it was terminated under section 8.
It's when they don't acknowledge the second agreement exists that a copyright holder must get involved. So to some extent, you're right, to really enforce things at the end, you must be a copyright holder... but at that point the original end-user will have had an opportunity to prove infringement.
Since it would be a bad idea for a company to open themselves to that claim, many would likely be willing to recognize the second agreement and therefore enable the end-user to actually enforce it.
So yes... while at the end of the day, the first agreement is the one with the teeth and to actually use those teeth requires that you be a copyright holder, the second agreement can be enforced if the distributor decides they need the rights given to them by the first agreement.
You don't think you would be extremely hard pressed to argue that a deck of punchcards is a customary median for software distribution for most applications today? (In the '80s, sure... it was, but it's no longer customary now.) There are perhaps a very few niche applications where the argument might fly, the rest wouldn't even come close. I don't know of any GPL licensed applications which would be customarily distributed on punch cards.
You would be very hard pressed to say such a choice of software distribution was made in a good faith effort to comply with the license.
> They could also release their code in GCC assembly. Is there a line to avoid that one?
Yes, the very first sentence of section 1: "The 'source code' for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it."
What did I just tell you about the document being carefully written?
And also, what do you mean by "GCC assembly"? Perhaps you meant to talk about a specific architecture's assembly? Such as SPARC assembly, x86 assembly, ia64 assembly or MIPS assembly... among others?
One last bonus: "The 'Corresponding Source' for a work in object code form means all the source code needed to generate, install, and (for an executable work) run the object code and to modify the work, including scripts to control those activities."
A lot of people don't realize they must include their makefiles.
As for your paper suggestion... seems unlikely to fly given that it is no longer a "medium customarily used for software exchange" despite it's use as such in some rare cases or in the past and *never* has it been a customary median for software longer than a few pages. (Except, maybe Bruce Schneier's applied cryptography.)
Anyways, the point is you try and pull that too far and a judge is very much likely to conclude you have bad faith in the process and at that point I wouldn't want to be you. In fact, you could argue that source code distributed on paper wouldn't even meet the license's definition of source code as it's far from the preferred format for making modifications to it.
(I am, in case anyone is getting confused, not a laywer. I simply bothered to carefully read the license I use so often and understood some of the implications of the careful phrasing so many seem to skim right through. The fact that this is enough to correct so many misunderstandings with the GPL have led me to the conclusion that it's not that legal documents are written in confusing terms, but simply that the general public has a profound lack of understanding of anything.)
But that's just the thing. The agreement is between the distributor and the distributee. (The company and the end-user)
If the distributor refuses to admit they ever entered into such an agreement with the individual they've distributed GPL code to, then that is evidence of copyright infringement.
(I am not a laywer. I think I'm right here though...)
He doesn't actually lack legal standing to enforce the license... but he does lack legal standing to bring a claim of copyright infringement.
If they admit they are distributing the software under the GPL then anyone who receives it has enough standing to enforce the license.
It is when they say "no, we don't want to follow the GPL" that you need one of the original copyright holders to jump in. This usually doesn't happen as most companies realize this is an astronomically bad idea.
Point being... he actually could either enforce this himself or provide the copyright holders with an admission of copyright infringement.
I know you're joking, but section 6 of the GPL prevents this most commonly by using the phrase: "on a durable physical medium customarily used for software interchange."
One could argue sending an e-mail creates an implicit license to use portions of that e-mail for certain reasonable and limited functions. (I.E. Maybe not forwarding the attachments, but the textual content of the e-mail shouldn't be restricted from being forwarded just because of copyright law.)
Would depend on the judge, but certainly I think there's room in the law for sanity on a matter such as this....
As usual, I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me that your assertion that it's a clear cut legal issue is perhaps unsupported.
In general, your basic assertion that copyright law would restrict functions we all use on a daily basis is a perverse interpretation of the law. It might very well have some basis, but the law (at least from my bright eyed and idealistic view) generally is a framework for doing the right thing and is usually interpreted by judges in that manner. When there is no room in the law to do the right thing, the law tends to get changed to allow for such room.
Not at all. Though certainly students comprise a portion of the readership I think most of it is usually technical people reading during downtime at work. (For, as the stereotype goes, various definitions of downtime.)
Now which portion of the slashdot users actually post these days is a more difficult question to answer... I honestly have no idea. Awhile ago some folks looked at the oldest user's posting history and noticed that most old accounts don't post very much.
Would be interesting to actually try and figure out the demographics of the posters these days.
Slashdot Mirror
One of my peers in one of the research programs I'm in is doing simulation on using nanowire meshes to increase conversion.
His initial results show as high a conversion rate as 45% with this addition. (He's comparing against 30% as that's where the other research solar cells are at the moment.)
Naturally the processes of manufacturing are likely to degrade this a bit, but more efficient solar cells seem very much possible.
There's actually a good plugin for supporting dependencies. We used it on a past project with some success: http://trac-hacks.org/wiki/MasterTicketsPlugin
We're not talking about a near useless government here, we're talking about China. You know a government that if they decide it's going to rain somewhere, they simply make it rain.
There's a big difference in the capabilities for enforcement between China and Mexico. If China wanted to prohibit all vehicle transfers during this time, they could easily do that as well.
Thanks for setting me straight, I wasn't aware of the complex demographics here. :)
Apology very much accepted.
I understand this is a very personal and sticky issue for many, so in turn allow me to offer my apologies if I caused any offense. I don't follow this issue very closely.
Thank you for the information. I still think you'd find that quite a few of those families exceed the maximum amounts, but now we're out of an area in which I can say much.
As for your personal attack on whether or not I'm willing to consider information "from sources that don't wear Che T-shirts or who aren't fat, bearded, propagandist filmmakers"... it seems rather unnecessary.
I didn't say they were all the same, I said polls showed them in favor of the embargo.
As for the violation of the embargo, many cuban americans send money to relatives still residing in Cuba. This is a violation of the embargo and I would welcome you to tell me on how this might be misinformed.
If you have information to share feel free to do so.
> Can anyone tell me why we still have an embargo
> with Cuba?
From what I understand the only people who care about this issue are the former cubans living in South Florida.
Polls show them all strongly in favor of the embargo... since this is a vital voting demographic for most politicians... very few people mess with the embargo.
Did I mention that the main people who break the embargo are those very same former cubans?
Funny, that.
Unlikely, NBC is famous for the 20 minute biographicals and has exclusive rights to broadcast the Olympics in the US through the 2012 games. (So far...)
>So what does an intelligent but ignorant C beginner do if you want to go into writing drivers for LINUX?
You don't. Sorry, but "I took C in college years ago" isn't enough for driver development. You'll need a lot more OS and arch knowledge before you should venture there.
Which isn't to say you can't help. Just you won't be very useful for kernel code. There are plenty of open-source projects which would love to have a new developer. Cut your teeth here for several years here. Get as deep into these as you can, constantly move lower and lower into the guts and messy areas in the stack.
OS code, especially driver code, is all guts and messy. You need to learn to handle this in a userspace context first and you need to be able to write this type of code without much thought.
You'll know when you're ready.
(In fact, being ready is almost defined by the fact that you won't have to ask the question on where to start. Something will annoy you one day and suddenly you'll find yourself staring at a problem that you can only solve by diving into the kernel code. And if you feel comfortable about diving straight in... then you'll be ready. Then be prepared to start from the very beginning all over again with almost all of your patches not making it into the kernel at first.)
Section 1, paragraph 4, sentences 1 and 2:
"The 'Corresponding Source' for a work in object code form means all the source code needed to generate, install, and (for an executable work) run the object code and to modify the work, including scripts to control those activities. However, it does not include the work's System Libraries, or general-purpose tools or generally available free programs which are used unmodified in performing those activities but which are not part of the work."
So exactly carefully enough to prevent exactly that abuse.
This has been an enjoyable and educational discussion. Thank you.
Mind if I ask if you have a background in this sort of thing? Or perhaps you are just a very careful reader?
No, I'm saying paper isn't customarily used for software interchange.
Keep up. :)
Ah hold on... I think I'm starting to get your argument here...
Three agreements:
1) The license for the original code from the originator to the distributor
2) An automatic license as provided by section 10 to the end-user from the originator
3) A license for the distributor's modifications from the distributor to the end-user.
I was blurring the last two.
However, it does still seem to me that not providing the third would revoke the distributor's rights under the first agreement automatically per Section 8 of the original agreement. This means that even though the end-user cannot directly involve themselves as a third-party in the first agreement, if a distributor says they are not granting them a copy under the GPL then their license under the first agreement is automatically revoked.
Which means... essentially that if the company wants to keep it's rights to distribute software under the first agreement, they comply with the end-user's request to honor the GPL.
Pretty good for an agreement you say doesn't exist. :)
>You're imagining the existence of an "implied"
>second agreement. There is no such "implied"
>agreement.
Have you not read Section 10 of the GPL?
>If they don't expressly offer this, in written
>terms, it exists by no means.
The written offers are required by only some of the conveyance mechanisms of Section 6. The other conveyance mechanisms still allow distribution without a written offer of anything (particularly 6a) and just because a written offer is not in place does not mean the GPL is not in effect.
There is a very real second agreement or there is no first agreement.
There's two agreements involved here:
* The original agreement between the copyright holder and the distributor
* The agreement between the distributor and the distributee
That second agreement must exist if the first does and if a company argues that it does not, then the first agreement is automatically terminated and they become liable for copyright infringement.
Which is why I was saying that an end-user probably could get away with enforcing the license they received, because if a company were to say they did not receive such a license then they might as well be saying they knew they didn't have a license with the original distributor because at that point it was terminated under section 8.
It's when they don't acknowledge the second agreement exists that a copyright holder must get involved. So to some extent, you're right, to really enforce things at the end, you must be a copyright holder... but at that point the original end-user will have had an opportunity to prove infringement.
Since it would be a bad idea for a company to open themselves to that claim, many would likely be willing to recognize the second agreement and therefore enable the end-user to actually enforce it.
So yes... while at the end of the day, the first agreement is the one with the teeth and to actually use those teeth requires that you be a copyright holder, the second agreement can be enforced if the distributor decides they need the rights given to them by the first agreement.
You don't think you would be extremely hard pressed to argue that a deck of punchcards is a customary median for software distribution for most applications today? (In the '80s, sure... it was, but it's no longer customary now.) There are perhaps a very few niche applications where the argument might fly, the rest wouldn't even come close. I don't know of any GPL licensed applications which would be customarily distributed on punch cards.
You would be very hard pressed to say such a choice of software distribution was made in a good faith effort to comply with the license.
> They could also release their code in GCC assembly. Is there a line to avoid that one?
Yes, the very first sentence of section 1: "The 'source code' for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it."
What did I just tell you about the document being carefully written?
And also, what do you mean by "GCC assembly"? Perhaps you meant to talk about a specific architecture's assembly? Such as SPARC assembly, x86 assembly, ia64 assembly or MIPS assembly... among others?
One last bonus: "The 'Corresponding Source' for a work in object code form means all the source code needed to generate, install, and (for an executable work) run the object code and to modify the work, including scripts to control those activities."
A lot of people don't realize they must include their makefiles.
As for your paper suggestion... seems unlikely to fly given that it is no longer a "medium customarily used for software exchange" despite it's use as such in some rare cases or in the past and *never* has it been a customary median for software longer than a few pages. (Except, maybe Bruce Schneier's applied cryptography.)
Anyways, the point is you try and pull that too far and a judge is very much likely to conclude you have bad faith in the process and at that point I wouldn't want to be you. In fact, you could argue that source code distributed on paper wouldn't even meet the license's definition of source code as it's far from the preferred format for making modifications to it.
(I am, in case anyone is getting confused, not a laywer. I simply bothered to carefully read the license I use so often and understood some of the implications of the careful phrasing so many seem to skim right through. The fact that this is enough to correct so many misunderstandings with the GPL have led me to the conclusion that it's not that legal documents are written in confusing terms, but simply that the general public has a profound lack of understanding of anything.)
But that's just the thing. The agreement is between the distributor and the distributee. (The company and the end-user)
If the distributor refuses to admit they ever entered into such an agreement with the individual they've distributed GPL code to, then that is evidence of copyright infringement.
(I am not a laywer. I think I'm right here though...)
He doesn't actually lack legal standing to enforce the license... but he does lack legal standing to bring a claim of copyright infringement.
If they admit they are distributing the software under the GPL then anyone who receives it has enough standing to enforce the license.
It is when they say "no, we don't want to follow the GPL" that you need one of the original copyright holders to jump in. This usually doesn't happen as most companies realize this is an astronomically bad idea.
Point being... he actually could either enforce this himself or provide the copyright holders with an admission of copyright infringement.
I know you're joking, but section 6 of the GPL prevents this most commonly by using the phrase: "on a durable physical medium customarily used for software interchange."
The GPL is a very carefully written document.
One could argue sending an e-mail creates an implicit license to use portions of that e-mail for certain reasonable and limited functions. (I.E. Maybe not forwarding the attachments, but the textual content of the e-mail shouldn't be restricted from being forwarded just because of copyright law.)
Would depend on the judge, but certainly I think there's room in the law for sanity on a matter such as this....
As usual, I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me that your assertion that it's a clear cut legal issue is perhaps unsupported.
In general, your basic assertion that copyright law would restrict functions we all use on a daily basis is a perverse interpretation of the law. It might very well have some basis, but the law (at least from my bright eyed and idealistic view) generally is a framework for doing the right thing and is usually interpreted by judges in that manner. When there is no room in the law to do the right thing, the law tends to get changed to allow for such room.
Just recently passed that torch onto someone else. But you're welcome. It was a project I always enjoyed contributing to.
As for learning it... the annoying titled wikibook here is supposed to be a fairly good reference: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro
Not at all. Though certainly students comprise a portion of the readership I think most of it is usually technical people reading during downtime at work. (For, as the stereotype goes, various definitions of downtime.)
Now which portion of the slashdot users actually post these days is a more difficult question to answer... I honestly have no idea. Awhile ago some folks looked at the oldest user's posting history and noticed that most old accounts don't post very much.
Would be interesting to actually try and figure out the demographics of the posters these days.
I've never needed an audience to be an ass. :)
Apologies.