> If you are a lone programmer (or a small independent group) who comes up with > something that you need to make money out of, patents genuinely help you.
Nope. In practice, if I patent some software, and then Microsoft rips me off. I have the following options:
a) Sue Microsoft, and run out of money
b) Sue Microsoft, and be sued in return for voilating thousands of their trivial patents
Great choice!
The spirit of software patents IS wrong. You can not patent mathematics.
Furthermore, you can not say that the spirit of patents in general is a good idea. In every field where you want to implement patents, you must investigate, independantly, whether they do more harm than good.
While technically correct, it's misleading to say that the Council of Ministers have voted against it. It implies that they don't want the legislation pushed through, whereas in reality they do.
Decisions made by the Council must be unanimous. The Software Patents directive has been placed on the agenda as an A-list item (one that is passed without discussion unless a council member vetos it). Previously it has been prevented from passing by Poland, twice, and Denmark, once (I think).
The flowchart says "approves all the EP's ammendments" but (I believe that) the Parliament didn't make any modifications to the directive at the time of the first reading, because it predates any of our lobbying to make them aware of how bad the directive will be for the European software industry.
In theory it would be great to make the BBC television service into a subscription only service. However in practice our TV would go the way of American TV. If that happened I would just stop watching it alltogether.
This is not correct. If you don't *use* your TV equipment to recieve (broadcast) television signals, then you don't have to pay the license fee.
Getting rid of the TVLA is a simple matter of not letting them in your house. Return their mail full of pennies (postage due) if you want. Finally, if they are below quota in your area and actually bother getting a warrent, you can let them in and show them your TV, including how it neither has any channels tuned in, nor is connected to an ariel.
Common sense says nothing at all. But to get an accurate answer, you'll have to hire a lawyer. Plus, if he's wrong, can you afford to defend yourself if Macromedia take you to court?
Can anyone give me a brief outline of the differences between Director and Flash? All I know is that Director is a lot older, and used to be able to do more stuff; but recent versions of Flash seem to have caught up with it, at least from the end user POV.
-- Annoyed that he can't play iSketch on Linux, UK
2. Licenses. Pursuant to the terms and conditions of this License, you are granted a nonexclusive license to use the Specification
for the sole purposes of developing Products that output SWF.
Plus there's the usual bullshit I'd expect in clauses 3 and 5.
What I didn't find was a clause that basically said "If our implementation differs from the spec, our implementation is correct, the spec is wrong and you are screwed". I seem to remember that being there in the past, but I might be wrong.
Embarrassing is perhaps not quite the correct word to use. If Macromedia provided up to date, accurate specs of the file format, that would help.
Actually, the following has just occured to me: the kind of people who want to use Flash tend to be the kind of people who have a bog standard i386 machine, and so can just use Macromedia's own player.
Oh definatly. I wasn't explicit about this, but I meant that commercial channels are better at broadcasting utter tripe to pacify the masses. Sadly, for the last few years, the BBC has been started to compete with ITV and Channel 4 for the 'shite' market. Hopefully the changes made to it will end this, and the BBC will begin to experiment with shows that commercial broadcasters wouldn't/couldn't ever air.
You should welcome these changes, because one of the conditions the BBC agreed to in order to keep the license fee is to scrap makeover shows, shows about houses and clones of other shit like stars in their eyes. Basically anything that commercial broadcasters can do better.
TYpical Slashdot hyperbole! I went without a TV set for three years while I was at university. I got one letter a year from the TVLA saying that it was illegal to operate a TV set without paying the license fee. That was it.
It's good we have lynch mobsters such as yourself willing to replace a rational legal system with multiple redundant methods to ensure that justice (and not revenge) is enacted.
By default, Firefox will only allow extensions (XPIs) to be installed from a whitelist of sites that starts out as (update.mozilla.org).
For you to become infested with spyware by viewing a web site, you either added that site to the whitelist, or you were a victim of an unreported security problem. Did you report the site that infected you to bugzilla.mozilla.org?
Believe me I've tried. Unfortunatly most people don't give a shit. They seem to think it's much more important that we waste dozens of man-years and million of taxpayers' pounds making fox hunting illegal. FOR FUCK'S SAKES. Now I'm angry again.:/
"In the mean time, highly placed government sources have also confirmed that the directive will once more appear as an A-item on 7 March, this time on the agenda of the responsible Competition Council formation. All hope for a democratic and balanced resolution now rests on the shoulders of the ministers and officials who will attend that Council meeting."
Competition Commission Victoria House Southampton Row London WC1B 4AD
Although I doubt it will be possible to change Labour's mind on the issue, council decisions must be unanimous; that's how Poland and Denmark(?) managed to block the decisions before.
AFAIK, Poland has stopped the law getting as far as 5 twice, and Denmark(?) once. Then the Parliament's legal affairs comitte (JURI) decided almost unanimously that the legislation should be scrapped. But the commission doesn't actually have to listen to the democratic parts of the EU, so now we are at 9-10.
If we are very lucky, MEPs will be angered by the comission's undemocratic actions and reject the common position at 11. Unfortunatly this requires a 70% absolute majority, meaning that 70% of all MEPs (not just those who turn up) have to vote against the legislation. If this happens then we will be proceed to 15, and the European software industry will be saved.
Write to your MEP today! Even if they are neutral on the SWPat issues, they are likely to be angry at how the commission is trying to ignore the entire parliamentry institution.
To answer this question, we look at the reason why you would have difficuly distributing A in the first place.
A, B and C are the source code for three software projects. (A) represents the result of compiling A into object code. (A+B) represents the binary you get when you link together (A) and (B).
Copyright law prevents you from distributing a work derived from someone else's work. If you want to do so, you must obtain the copyright holder's permission. So, What contributes a derived work?
Most people seem to agree with RMS' opinion, that compiling A against (the headers of) B/C makes the resultant object code, (A), into a derived work (Otherwise, there is no difference between the GPL and LGPL). Continuing, (B) is obviously derived from B. Finally, (A+B+C) is derived from (A), (B) and (C).
Therefore, if you don't own the copyrights on B and C, you may not distribute (A+B+C) unless you get permission from the copyright holders of B/C. If B/C are under the GPL, then you can obtain that permission by releasing A under the GPL as well. Some projects (e.g., QT, MySQL) will also grant you permission if you buy a license from them.
Note that if you don't *distribute* (A+B+C), then you don't have to make A available under the GPL. It is perfectly safe to use GPL'd components for internal projects.
Now, if you own the copyrights on B and C then you are free to distribute any derived work in any way you you wish. But you must be careful to ensure that you really *are* the copyright holder.
Say you merged a patch from someone else into B. Now the copyright holders of B is the set (you, someone else). You must therefore obtain the permission of the other guy before you can distribute something derived from *their* work. Or, you could create (A) from a version of B that does not contain the problematic code. This is why many projects require you to sign over the copyright on any code you contribute to them.
So far, this has been pretty simple. However, the above is only my understanding of how people treat code that is compiled into object code, and then linked together at compile time to create a binary executable; the C/C++ case. To consider other languages requires us to look at *who* is creating the derived works.
For example, with Java and Java-like systems, (A+B+C) is created by the user at runtime. (A) and (B) and (C) are created by the person who ran javac. Is (A) derived from B or C? You'd have to ask the copyright holders of B and C.
What about Python/Perl/Shell? Different again. Ask your lawyer.;)
Finally, I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, it is merely a random rambling that is worth precicely what you paid for it.
Most of this remains untested in a court. For a 100% correct answer to "what makes a work derived" you must ask the copyright holders of the work you may be deriving from, and hope they don't change their minds and sue you anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
> If you are a lone programmer (or a small independent group) who comes up with
> something that you need to make money out of, patents genuinely help you.
Nope. In practice, if I patent some software, and then Microsoft rips me off. I have the following options:
a) Sue Microsoft, and run out of money
b) Sue Microsoft, and be sued in return for voilating thousands of their trivial patents
Great choice!
The spirit of software patents IS wrong. You can not patent mathematics.
Furthermore, you can not say that the spirit of patents in general is a good idea. In every field where you want to implement patents, you must investigate, independantly, whether they do more harm than good.
While technically correct, it's misleading to say that the Council of Ministers have voted against it. It implies that they don't want the legislation pushed through, whereas in reality they do.
i agram_en.htm.
Decisions made by the Council must be unanimous. The Software Patents directive has been placed on the agenda as an A-list item (one that is passed without discussion unless a council member vetos it). Previously it has been prevented from passing by Poland, twice, and Denmark, once (I think).
It is the Council that will pass the Software Patents directive on Monday, unless another Council member vetos it: stage 5 of the flowchart at http://europa.eu.int/comm/codecision/stepbystep/d
The flowchart says "approves all the EP's ammendments" but (I believe that) the Parliament didn't make any modifications to the directive at the time of the first reading, because it predates any of our lobbying to make them aware of how bad the directive will be for the European software industry.
$ cat /var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.uk.debian.org_debian_dists_ sarge_main_binary-i386_Packages | grep-dctrl -n --field=Package ruby --show=Size
... ...
Summing the output, yeilds 31806976 bytes or 30 MB.
$ aptitude show rails
Package: rails
Depends: ruby (> 1.8), ruby ( 0.10.7),
libyaml-ruby (> 1.8.2), rdoc (> 1.8.2), libtest-unit-ruby (> 1.8.2),
libdrb-ruby1.8, libsoap-ruby1.8, libxmlrpc-ruby (> 1.8)
Recommends: libwebrick-ruby1.8, irb (> 1.8)
Suggests: libapache-mod-ruby
Description: MVC ruby based framework geared for web application development
If you see a dependancy missing from that list, please file a bug.
You should be an editor. Seriously. Yours is the first (and only?) comment on the page that is worth reading.
In theory it would be great to make the BBC television service into a subscription only service. However in practice our TV would go the way of American TV. If that happened I would just stop watching it alltogether.
This is not correct. If you don't *use* your TV equipment to recieve (broadcast) television signals, then you don't have to pay the license fee.
Getting rid of the TVLA is a simple matter of not letting them in your house. Return their mail full of pennies (postage due) if you want. Finally, if they are below quota in your area and actually bother getting a warrent, you can let them in and show them your TV, including how it neither has any channels tuned in, nor is connected to an ariel.
That's on channel 4. ;)
Linking to Mirrordot instead of the actual site in story summaries would be cool as well.
Common sense says nothing at all. But to get an accurate answer, you'll have to hire a lawyer. Plus, if he's wrong, can you afford to defend yourself if Macromedia take you to court?
Can anyone give me a brief outline of the differences between Director and Flash? All I know is that Director is a lot older, and used to be able to do more stuff; but recent versions of Flash seem to have caught up with it, at least from the end user POV.
-- Annoyed that he can't play iSketch on Linux, UK
Now read the license for the Flash file format specification:
Plus there's the usual bullshit I'd expect in clauses 3 and 5.
What I didn't find was a clause that basically said "If our implementation differs from the spec, our implementation is correct, the spec is wrong and you are screwed". I seem to remember that being there in the past, but I might be wrong.
Embarrassing is perhaps not quite the correct word to use. If Macromedia provided up to date, accurate specs of the file format, that would help.
Actually, the following has just occured to me: the kind of people who want to use Flash tend to be the kind of people who have a bog standard i386 machine, and so can just use Macromedia's own player.
What the hell are people going to talk about in Firefox related Slashdot stories after 1.1 comes out? ;)
Oh definatly. I wasn't explicit about this, but I meant that commercial channels are better at broadcasting utter tripe to pacify the masses. Sadly, for the last few years, the BBC has been started to compete with ITV and Channel 4 for the 'shite' market. Hopefully the changes made to it will end this, and the BBC will begin to experiment with shows that commercial broadcasters wouldn't/couldn't ever air.
You should welcome these changes, because one of the conditions the BBC agreed to in order to keep the license fee is to scrap makeover shows, shows about houses and clones of other shit like stars in their eyes. Basically anything that commercial broadcasters can do better.
TYpical Slashdot hyperbole! I went without a TV set for three years while I was at university. I got one letter a year from the TVLA saying that it was illegal to operate a TV set without paying the license fee. That was it.
It's good we have lynch mobsters such as yourself willing to replace a rational legal system with multiple redundant methods to ensure that justice (and not revenge) is enacted.
By default, Firefox will only allow extensions (XPIs) to be installed from a whitelist of sites that starts out as (update.mozilla.org).
For you to become infested with spyware by viewing a web site, you either added that site to the whitelist, or you were a victim of an unreported security problem. Did you report the site that infected you to bugzilla.mozilla.org?
Wow, that is a scary, scary though. I thought I was paranoid!
For readers who haven't seen "Duck and Cover", check it out at http://www.archive.org/movies/details-db.php?colle ction=prelinger&collectionid=19069. Brought to you by the miracle of the Internet!
Believe me I've tried. Unfortunatly most people don't give a shit. They seem to think it's much more important that we waste dozens of man-years and million of taxpayers' pounds making fox hunting illegal. FOR FUCK'S SAKES. Now I'm angry again. :/
Whoops! We're not facing a second reading by the parliament (11) just yet. From http://wiki.ffii.org/Com050228En:
o ntact_points.htm.
"In the mean time, highly placed government sources have also confirmed that the directive will once more appear as an A-item on 7 March, this time on the agenda of the responsible Competition Council formation. All hope for a democratic and balanced resolution now rests on the shoulders of the ministers and officials who will attend that Council meeting."
Like the article says, get in contact with whichever part of your government will be attending the Competition Council meeting: for UK readers, I believe that is these people: http://www.competition-commission.org.uk/footer/c
Competition Commission
Victoria House
Southampton Row
London
WC1B 4AD
Although I doubt it will be possible to change Labour's mind on the issue, council decisions must be unanimous; that's how Poland and Denmark(?) managed to block the decisions before.
For a simple flow chart demonstrating the wonder of modern, simple, transparent government, attend http://europa.eu.int/comm/codecision/stepbystep/di agram_en.htm.
AFAIK, Poland has stopped the law getting as far as 5 twice, and Denmark(?) once. Then the Parliament's legal affairs comitte (JURI) decided almost unanimously that the legislation should be scrapped. But the commission doesn't actually have to listen to the democratic parts of the EU, so now we are at 9-10.
If we are very lucky, MEPs will be angered by the comission's undemocratic actions and reject the common position at 11. Unfortunatly this requires a 70% absolute majority, meaning that 70% of all MEPs (not just those who turn up) have to vote against the legislation. If this happens then we will be proceed to 15, and the European software industry will be saved.
Write to your MEP today! Even if they are neutral on the SWPat issues, they are likely to be angry at how the commission is trying to ignore the entire parliamentry institution.
Because instead of having (say) 8 networks, you'd then have 9. You can't solve fragmentation with further fragmentation. :)
To answer this question, we look at the reason why you would have difficuly distributing A in the first place.
;)
A, B and C are the source code for three software projects. (A) represents the result of compiling A into object code. (A+B) represents the binary you get when you link together (A) and (B).
Copyright law prevents you from distributing a work derived from someone else's work. If you want to do so, you must obtain the copyright holder's permission. So, What contributes a derived work?
Most people seem to agree with RMS' opinion, that compiling A against (the headers of) B/C makes the resultant object code, (A), into a derived work (Otherwise, there is no difference between the GPL and LGPL). Continuing, (B) is obviously derived from B. Finally, (A+B+C) is derived from (A), (B) and (C).
Therefore, if you don't own the copyrights on B and C, you may not distribute (A+B+C) unless you get permission from the copyright holders of B/C. If B/C are under the GPL, then you can obtain that permission by releasing A under the GPL as well. Some projects (e.g., QT, MySQL) will also grant you permission if you buy a license from them.
Note that if you don't *distribute* (A+B+C), then you don't have to make A available under the GPL. It is perfectly safe to use GPL'd components for internal projects.
Now, if you own the copyrights on B and C then you are free to distribute any derived work in any way you you wish. But you must be careful to ensure that you really *are* the copyright holder.
Say you merged a patch from someone else into B. Now the copyright holders of B is the set (you, someone else). You must therefore obtain the permission of the other guy before you can distribute something derived from *their* work. Or, you could create (A) from a version of B that does not contain the problematic code. This is why many projects require you to sign over the copyright on any code you contribute to them.
So far, this has been pretty simple. However, the above is only my understanding of how people treat code that is compiled into object code, and then linked together at compile time to create a binary executable; the C/C++ case. To consider other languages requires us to look at *who* is creating the derived works.
For example, with Java and Java-like systems, (A+B+C) is created by the user at runtime. (A) and (B) and (C) are created by the person who ran javac. Is (A) derived from B or C? You'd have to ask the copyright holders of B and C.
What about Python/Perl/Shell? Different again. Ask your lawyer.
Finally, I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, it is merely a random rambling that is worth precicely what you paid for it.
Most of this remains untested in a court. For a 100% correct answer to "what makes a work derived" you must ask the copyright holders of the work you may be deriving from, and hope they don't change their minds and sue you anyway.