The Council is not unelected: it is made up of government ministers from each nation of the EU. I think (though I'm not sure) that any decision made by the council must be unanimous.
Of course, that doesn't prevent the same ministers from turning round as soon as they return to their home countries, and blaming unpopular legislation on the EU council...
Fair enough, I assumed you meant that it can't be copied/modified at all. I hope you see the need to keep the fact that the recipient of a work can tinker with it in public view, lest all the propoganda spread by media companies and software producers take hold, and people start assuming that they can't tinker... when that happens, the corporations will follow up swiftly with changes to the law.:)
As for jurisdiction, I was only talking about US copyright law; this is an American centric site, after all. As for our own august laws, I'm unfamiliar with the details. All I know is that our copyright laws are a lot more shit than the US ones. Except for that DMCA crap. Oh wait, lobbyists got in there anyway, with the EUCD.
Ah, but you aren't granting them any rights at all.
Consult the Free Software Definition from http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/free-sw.html. Freedom 0 is a part of copyright law, as is Freedom 1, insofar as the recipient is able to modify/tinker with the software without access to the source code.
The fact that you seem to believe that you are granting the recipient these rights, as opposed to the rights being received automatically, indicates that you believe that you are able to take them away, which is of course incorrect.
Access to the source code, and Freedoms 2 and 3, are not statutory rights; they must be specifically granted by the copyright holder, via a license like the GPL or otherwise.
RMS' position is that you restrict the freedom of your user if you don't grant him these additional rights.
I never said the GPL was an EULA, and I understand the difference (EULA attempts to remove your rights; the GPL grants you additional rights).
You say that you can decline the additional rights granted by the GPL and fall back to your statutory rights; this is quite correct. However, those rights do not include the right to distribute derived works; otherwise I could sell a remix of a track from a CD I bought.
What we appear to disagree about is whether a binary linked to a dynamic library is a derived work of that library. Now, we can debate for hours about whether it is or isn't. Popular consensus appears to be that it is; otherwise, there is nothing preventing companies from selling binaries linked against GPL libraries, and there is no difference between the GPL and the LGPL.
At the end of the day, the binary is a derivative work if one of the copyright holders of a GPL library you linked it to says it is, and they sue you and win. Until it decided in court, we can't know the answer for sure. And even then, the decision will be contested at every level. And will only apply to the country in which the court resides.
I should probably have stated in my original post that I am only really familiar with US copyright laws. I know that in my own country, there are no statutory rights granted to recipients of works ("Fair Use"); for all I know, it might technically be illegal to copy a work from your hard disk to RAM, and then to the processor's caches...;)
By selling your source code, instead of just your binaries, you aren't granting the recipient any rights at all. So you're not granting the recipient the rights that RMS considers necessary for the recipient's freedom to be protected.
Not quite corrent; if you give me a copy of a work, I can back it up, compile it, modify it, otherwise tinker with it, and so on. See http://cr.yp.to/softwarelaw.html for more info. The only thing I can't do is distribute it, or works derived from it.
This is the difference between click-through bullshit EULAs and licenses such as the GPL. EULAs try to take away your rights; the GPL grants you additional rights: mainly the right to redistribute the original works, and the right to distribute derived works, as long as you license such works under the GPL.
> This means, essentially, that if you don't distribute a GPL'd library, but > dynamically link to one, you're essentially in the clear.
This is flat out wrong! If you actually read the GPL, it never mentions the process of linking object code to libraries. It only talks about derivative works.
By creating a binary linked to a library, you are creating a derivative work of that library. By default, you have no right to distribute such a derivative work.
The GPL grants you the right to distribute such derivative works, on the condition that you also distribute the material that you used to create the work in question. In the case of a computer program, this means the source code.
Because he believes that the statutory rights granted to the person who recieves your product do not sufficiently protect that person's freedom. If you actually want to know more, feel free to visit fsf.org.
> Upon purchase, the source code would be freely available, modifiable, and so on.
This is the same as just including the source code with the binaries you sell to your customers.
You have no reason to grant the recipients any extra rights beyond the ones they get by default, and so don't need to use the GPL, or any other open source license.
They could allways Google for the organisation name displayed on the certificate. You know, do a little research.
The same people wouldn't go out and randomly buy a car, or a cooker, or a washing machine, without going to Which, Consumer Reports and so on check on the reputation of the company that makes the goods.
There is. Alter the settings for the Internet security zone to deny all activex content, etc etc. While you're there, you can turn off all the other shit that MICROS~1 has fucked up the 'net with.
> Global warming. It is near-universally accepted outside the US that this is > happening
*That* it is happening is not in dispute, anywhere, as far as I know.
> and that humankind is responsible.
This is where Americans, and most scientists, differ from the rest of the world's (hysterical?) views on the subject.
The entire point of global warming is that, yes, temperatures are rising. But we don't know why. It might be normal. We simply do not have enough data to say whether it's being caused by us, or some enormous and subtle, natural, process.
"I use the "maximise to available area" feature in the window manager I use to maximise the image window to be as large as possible without overlapping any of the palettes."
How does Steam decide if your 'internet connection' is working or not? If Steam's systems are down, it stands to reason that it can't contact them, so how can it tell the difference between:
* Steam being down
* one of your ISP's transit providers having problems shunting packets to the US
* your phone company doing work on your phone line, while you are still connected to your home network
Slashdot Mirror
The Council is not unelected: it is made up of government ministers from each nation of the EU. I think (though I'm not sure) that any decision made by the council must be unanimous.
Of course, that doesn't prevent the same ministers from turning round as soon as they return to their home countries, and blaming unpopular legislation on the EU council...
Fair enough, I assumed you meant that it can't be copied/modified at all. I hope you see the need to keep the fact that the recipient of a work can tinker with it in public view, lest all the propoganda spread by media companies and software producers take hold, and people start assuming that they can't tinker... when that happens, the corporations will follow up swiftly with changes to the law. :)
As for jurisdiction, I was only talking about US copyright law; this is an American centric site, after all. As for our own august laws, I'm unfamiliar with the details. All I know is that our copyright laws are a lot more shit than the US ones. Except for that DMCA crap. Oh wait, lobbyists got in there anyway, with the EUCD.
Ah, but you aren't granting them any rights at all.
Consult the Free Software Definition from http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/free-sw.html. Freedom 0 is a part of copyright law, as is Freedom 1, insofar as the recipient is able to modify/tinker with the software without access to the source code.
The fact that you seem to believe that you are granting the recipient these rights, as opposed to the rights being received automatically, indicates that you believe that you are able to take them away, which is of course incorrect.
Access to the source code, and Freedoms 2 and 3, are not statutory rights; they must be specifically granted by the copyright holder, via a license like the GPL or otherwise.
RMS' position is that you restrict the freedom of your user if you don't grant him these additional rights.
I never said the GPL was an EULA, and I understand the difference (EULA attempts to remove your rights; the GPL grants you additional rights).
;)
You say that you can decline the additional rights granted by the GPL and fall back to your statutory rights; this is quite correct. However, those rights do not include the right to distribute derived works; otherwise I could sell a remix of a track from a CD I bought.
What we appear to disagree about is whether a binary linked to a dynamic library is a derived work of that library. Now, we can debate for hours about whether it is or isn't. Popular consensus appears to be that it is; otherwise, there is nothing preventing companies from selling binaries linked against GPL libraries, and there is no difference between the GPL and the LGPL.
At the end of the day, the binary is a derivative work if one of the copyright holders of a GPL library you linked it to says it is, and they sue you and win. Until it decided in court, we can't know the answer for sure. And even then, the decision will be contested at every level. And will only apply to the country in which the court resides.
I should probably have stated in my original post that I am only really familiar with US copyright laws. I know that in my own country, there are no statutory rights granted to recipients of works ("Fair Use"); for all I know, it might technically be illegal to copy a work from your hard disk to RAM, and then to the processor's caches...
By selling your source code, instead of just your binaries, you aren't granting the recipient any rights at all. So you're not granting the recipient the rights that RMS considers necessary for the recipient's freedom to be protected.
Not quite corrent; if you give me a copy of a work, I can back it up, compile it, modify it, otherwise tinker with it, and so on. See http://cr.yp.to/softwarelaw.html for more info. The only thing I can't do is distribute it, or works derived from it.
This is the difference between click-through bullshit EULAs and licenses such as the GPL. EULAs try to take away your rights; the GPL grants you additional rights: mainly the right to redistribute the original works, and the right to distribute derived works, as long as you license such works under the GPL.
> This means, essentially, that if you don't distribute a GPL'd library, but
> dynamically link to one, you're essentially in the clear.
This is flat out wrong! If you actually read the GPL, it never mentions the process of linking object code to libraries. It only talks about derivative works.
By creating a binary linked to a library, you are creating a derivative work of that library. By default, you have no right to distribute such a derivative work.
The GPL grants you the right to distribute such derivative works, on the condition that you also distribute the material that you used to create the work in question. In the case of a computer program, this means the source code.
Because he believes that the statutory rights granted to the person who recieves your product do not sufficiently protect that person's freedom. If you actually want to know more, feel free to visit fsf.org.
> Upon purchase, the source code would be freely available, modifiable, and so on.
This is the same as just including the source code with the binaries you sell to your customers.
You have no reason to grant the recipients any extra rights beyond the ones they get by default, and so don't need to use the GPL, or any other open source license.
Presumably it's the same motivation they have for trying to ruin Slashdot.
Combining all your .class files into a JAR file is analogous to linking your .o files into an archive or executable, anyway.
If you are unable to keep track of the files installed on your system, why not use a package manager like dpkg or rpm?
They could allways Google for the organisation name displayed on the certificate. You know, do a little research.
The same people wouldn't go out and randomly buy a car, or a cooker, or a washing machine, without going to Which, Consumer Reports and so on check on the reputation of the company that makes the goods.
Ok, some would. But they get what they deserve.
There is. Alter the settings for the Internet security zone to deny all activex content, etc etc. While you're there, you can turn off all the other shit that MICROS~1 has fucked up the 'net with.
It still comes with Directshow, right? So we can continue to use good media players, like Media Player Classic.
> Global warming. It is near-universally accepted outside the US that this is
> happening
*That* it is happening is not in dispute, anywhere, as far as I know.
> and that humankind is responsible.
This is where Americans, and most scientists, differ from the rest of the world's (hysterical?) views on the subject.
The entire point of global warming is that, yes, temperatures are rising. But we don't know why. It might be normal. We simply do not have enough data to say whether it's being caused by us, or some enormous and subtle, natural, process.
FLASH NEWS: longer passwords more secure than shorter passwords.
I mean, COME ON!
Passphrases are still crap. What if the machine I'm on has a key logger?
Fortunatly it is stupidly easy to set up a one time password system on my (Debian) machine. How can I do this for Windows?
Color laser printer, max. 1200x1200 dpi, this is a Paperweight
Doh!
An apt-get upgrade fixed this (for _all_ my programs) last August. You have been vulnerable since then.
Great link, thanks for posting it.
'nv' now does OpenGL? Woo!
The UK is already a police state. No news there.
"I use the "maximise to available area" feature in the window manager I use to maximise the image window to be as large as possible without overlapping any of the palettes."
:(
Now, if only Metacity had such a feature!
They live at www.winsupersite.com :)
How does Steam decide if your 'internet connection' is working or not? If Steam's systems are down, it stands to reason that it can't contact them, so how can it tell the difference between:
* Steam being down
* one of your ISP's transit providers having problems shunting packets to the US
* your phone company doing work on your phone line, while you are still connected to your home network