So, if I had the technical means [..] I could watch every single episode of anything ever broadcast, just by pointing my biiiig dish and hypersensitive reciever at some nearby (~40 lightyear) object and merely record the TV signal that got bounced back off it. Technical issues aside, would I be a pirate? I believe not.
Tell my why this is any different (legally,folks) to bittorrent.
Because you re-broadcast the original material without their permission?
And I'm not going to discuss whether the two would be the same in effect; in law, they wouldn't be and that's what you asked.
My point being that the "In Korea" 'joke' was deliberately conceived as a meme from the start, rather than some stupid expression that people repeated here and there to get a quick laugh, that *later* took a life of its own.
What you _want_ isn't what everyone wants. What you want isn't what everyone _expects_.
'Expects' is the key word here. McDonalds _admitted_ its coffee was 40-50 degrees hotter than is fit for human consumption. It's reasonable to assume that the coffee would be served around the temperature it was meant to be drunk at.
The coffee was clearly intended for taking away as well. It's reasonable to assume that if it's served in a container that might spill, that spillage would not result in severe burns.
To anyone thinking of replying "she shouldn't assume..."; don't give me that arrogant geek attitude. Life would be totally unworkable if we couldn't take anything for granted.
Sure, if the coffee had been normal temperature, she might have got some nasty burns, and would have deserved no sympathy.
Warning: Contrived and exaggerated example coming up. If you crash your car into a wall at 10MPH and damage it.... well, duh. Too bad, dumbass.
If you crash your car into a wall at 10MPH and the structure collapses, leading to sharp peices of metal being driven into the passengers, and the engine and fuel tank explodes, burning everyone alive.... I'd guess it was reasonable to be slightly pissed off at the manufacturers.
The fact that *you* want your coffee that hot is neither here or there; if you ask for and receive it that way, fine. I suspect that McDonalds may have been serving it that hot for this very reason.
If they'd made this clear, fine. If coffee was regularly served that hot, and people *should* expect that, fine.
They didn't, and it's not.
I'm not going to bite on the "nanny" state thing, because my original criticism was that this was a poor example against litigation culture, which *is* a nanny state thing. Or, more accurately, a lawyer-state; but that doesn't sound half as good.
The Golden Age of the slashmeme is over; it's getting too self-concious now.
I was there at the birth of the 'In Korea' meme, and it came across as a contrived attempt to create a meme and out-Soviet 'Soviet Russia'.
Seriously, this would be good if it were used in a manner displaying some insight into backward government legislation. But I suspect that hordes of fr157 p50t!!!!ers will simply say
"In Kansas, [Subject Matter] is illegal! Did i get it?!"
Hints such as no screws on the outer case are as likely to mean that the device was designed to either be made cheaply (snap-together assembly) or hard to fix/modify by end-users (keeps dealers in business and users buying new devices).
Conversely, I was able to unscrew the cover of my last CRT monitor and get inside quite easily (after it had been off for a week). Anyone who knows anything about monitors knows that an end-user should *not* be messing around inside on of these (ob-warning: The capacitors inside a CRT display can retain _lethal_ amounts of charge even days after being switched off).
Well, there has been very little hard evidence (from *anyone*, including myself) here.
However, if you have any clear evidence that this was *generally* the case, I'd be interested to see it.
(I'm not saying you're wrong; I'm saying if what I believe is a fallacy/urban-myth, I'd at least like to see some evidence of it beyond one or two isolated incidents- which were probably marketing-driven anyway (^_^) )
Actually, it is. The standard was updated in 1998 to avoid confusion. Having different name for different things can avoid an awful lot of confusion, so it would very much recommend using them.
Which is more important? The de facto standard that slightly misuses the 'kilo-' prefix, but *everyone* knows what it means; or something that was forced into place by marketing?
As I argued in more depth elsewhere, anyone who used computers *knew* what "kilobyte" and friends meant.
There was no confusion, because only the 1024-byte definition was widely used.
The 'need' to use the '1000 byte' definition was created by marketing, not computer people. THEY caused the confusion for their (short term) gain by exploiting the old meaning of 'kilobyte' to make their drives seem larger.
Marketing do not give a flying **** about correctness or clarity; if there was any problem, *they* created it. Computer people knew what kilobyte meant.
Fact of it is that *anyone* who knew enough about computers for it to matter would have known and agreed on this standard anyway, right or wrong.
They came along and messed up a standard that everyone had agreed upon and was happy with. Don't even *think* of saying that using decimal kilobytes et al had any purpose other than making drives seem bigger than they were; that trick only worked because everyone had previously agreed that a kilobyte was 1024 bytes.
If the industry was *so* damn keen to get the 'correct' meaning of the words, they wouldn't still be using the 'incorrect' versions when selling memory.
Simple fact; anyone who wants to be pedantic about it can correctly argue that the 1024 definition of kilobyte is wrong. What they can't do is give any proper justification for changing a definition that everyone knew and understood to mean 1024 bytes.
Marketing bullshit, pure and simple; in fact, I propose the phrase "marketing gigabyte", just to make it absolutely clear which definition is in use...
Disabling Flash does have an effect on a *large* number of worthwhile sites; namely, you can't see the ads.
Of course, the editorial is still normally usable. Even worse, by using Flash instead of animated GIFs for their annoying ads (I already had GIF-animation disabled; I disabled Flash *specifically* when they started using it for pseudo-animated-GIFs), I don't see *anything* except the "missing plugin" message.
An animated GIF that is prevented from animating can still intrigue (often more so than if it were allowed to move, since I get to see the enticing first frame, but have to click on it to find out the punchline). The disabled Flash replacement, OTOH, is 100% useless for selling to me. I know *nothing* about the ad that's meant to be there.
If I ever need Flash, I'll use IE under Windows, but otherwise, it's just not worth the hassle 99% of the time.
And I doubt that *any* 19 or 22 inch screen is going to be 'portable' in the sense that I was discussing. You still have to take it with you if you want to use it away from home; the availability of others' screens might blur the edge a bit, but it's still not a truly 'portable' solution.
It might be fine for a luggable, but as I mentioned, I was concerned with something to be used as a genuine laptop.
A deity that would deceive me is a sadistic, sociopathic motherfucker.
I saw that, you little git.
Well, I'll deceive you no more; I *am* that deity, and you're right- I'm one sadistic, sociopathic motherfucker. I've hacked this user's account ('Dogtanian' seemed appropriate because it had my name in it backwards.... ha ha, just my little joke. LAUGH you pitiful humans, or I'll smite you with that plague thing again).
Why? Just to let you know that pissing me off is a *really* bad idea; when the DEITY hates you, you're *really* in the shit. Muwahahahahah! We're talking Old Testament-style punishment here.
You wait till I find you. Hang on.... Anonymous Coward?.... ANONYMOUS COWARD??! You little #$$^#^!!!!!!!! When I find out who you are, I'm gonna wring your damn neck...
What do you *mean* "If you're really ominpotent, you should be able to find me easily?"
I guess the bottom line is we'd have to see how this would wash in a court of law; as IANAL and YANAL either;)
It does assume that the company didn't implicitly accept the GPL when they knowingly redistributed the code though. However it plays in court, consider this:-
I take a GPL program, make some changes and redistribute it. Others start working on and redistributing the code as if it were GPLed. Later on, I say, "Hang on, I didn't accept the GPL, so you can't do that with the code."
Hmmm. It might make a difference whether the GPL notice was removed or not. If the notice was removed, I'd hope the violator had their ass sued off, but that's not really my point.
One thing about your Windows example though; there isn't a license that comes 'with' Windows by default that allows you to modify and redistribute the code; there *is* with GPLed code. So, the Windows case is "you did something illegal regardless, you can't do that with the code."
OTOH, you have the option of accepting the GPL when redistributing. I *suspect* (again, IANAL) that distributing the offending software commercially, without source or acknowledgement would not constitute acceptance of the GPL, whereas making changes to GPLed code and including the license with it almost certainly would.
Problem is, we are doing the old/. trick of hypothetical arguments about the "law", but when it comes down to it, the "law" is what courts rule, not what *we* say...
Uh... the company have *already* 'released' the modified code. In the situation described (everyone aware and approving of what was going on), they can't realistically claim that they didn't read the license.
Not if, as I said, the screen was flexible. It could wrap round like cloth. This would still require some sort of frame to hold the flexible screen and protect it from damage; and also to allow it some flexibility to bend back when necessary, and pull it taut when on display.
That's not a trivial piece of design, but it's doable if the screen technology is already there.
I also think it would be desirable to have the setup such that the screen 'overhang' was evenly split between the left and right of the keyboard (this was what I originally had in mind).
Yes; so long as they follow the conventional design, a 19" laptop is always going to be, in effect, a luggable.
What is needed is (e.g.) flexible screen technology that allows you to fit a large screen in a smallish space, and to have it fold in the middle so it isn't any larger than (e.g.) my 14" Compaq laptop.
This still begs the question of how it would unfold; and even if it could be unfolded, would it be usable on (e.g.) a train or an aeroplane?
The other alternative is to have an inbuilt mini-projector, that you simply project against a suitable wall; and retain the existing 14" LCD for regular use.
The final alternative is to have special glasses which superimpose a VR image on top of the real world; you type on a real keyboard, but you look at a virtual screen. This would require very accurate match-up for day-to-day use, as I suspect any noticeable 'juddering' of the virtual screen against the real world would cause motion sickness otherwise.
I'm not sure how this ties in with what I was saying. Actually, I wasn't considering damages; I was considering that, if someone at a company, with the implicit approval of their bosses, repeatedly includes GPLed code in their company's own app, with clear knowledge of what this (legally) entails and what they are doing, doesn't this imply they accept that their whole app is GPL?
BTW, I assume that if (say) a subcontractor of a subcontractor to company X inadvertantly included GPL code that was subsequently included in X's product, that a reasonable judge would not force the entire app to become GPL. He might require damages or payment, though.
I also assume that the same would apply to Linux, if "infringing" code (whatever the heck that would be) was found; the code should be removed (and replaced), but if the infringement wasn't intentional (or was the work of a one-off rogue developer), I would hope that damages (if any) and actions were limited, and taken in the light of a genuine mistake/oversight/betrayal.
This doesn't (or rather, shouldn't) apply to people intentionally, and systematically ripping off large chunks of code with full knowledge of what they are doing; regardless of what they are contributing to (see above!)
What are the implications in terms of GPL-virality if it can be shown that not only was GPL code *deliberately* incorporated into a company's product, but that such inclusion was sanctioned either implicitly or explicitly by senior figures within the company?
Put another way, if one rogue programmer inadvertantly (or even deliberately) includes GPL code, a reasonable judge will probably reject the GPL covering the whole product (although the violating code will have to be removed). If it is clear that this is a pattern across the company's products by many programmers, and chances are that management knew about it, then we have proof of an unwritten policy to include GPLed code.
Now, to me, this strongly suggests that those involved knew what they were doing and deliberately ignored the license. In such cases, would the whole code become GPL (excluding other companies' code included in the product and released under GPL-incompatible licenses)?
If they want to violate the GPL, fine.... so long as they have to (at least) pay the other side's legal bills when they lose, refund the customers who paid for code they were entitled to free, and have to release their entire application (*with* source code) under the GPL.
Oh, and to the parent poster. Hope you kept a record of that company and (at least) notified (or are intending to notify) someone in a position to do something about it.
Yes; what you say is correct to some extent. The privatisation was more likely to succeed if they did not split BT up, and they sold it in a manner highly likely to make it a success (IIRC it was sold pretty damn cheaply).
If memory serves correctly, one of the later privatisations was a relative failure; this couldn't be allowed to happen with BT.
Nevertheless, I don't consider a private monopoly to be in any way desirable. You missed my point about the false dichotomy; there were two other alternatives- to privatise it properly (arguably an ideal rather than something practical) or to keep it government-owned, but *run the damn thing properly*.
I accept that it would have been impossible to create a 'perfect' market in a reasonable time-frame, but I still think they could have done it better. Whether this would have been politically expedient is debatable.
However, I consider 15 years or for any notable competition to arrive to be one *heck* of a long time.
You say that we have "more and more alternatives to BT coming onstream". Yes, we do. However, that's 21 years later. The children born at the time of the privatisation will now be graduating university... ideally, I'd like to see results quicker than that.
Let's get one thing straight; I'm not really old enough to remember the pre-privatisation days, but I'm perfectly willing to accept that the GPO/BT was crap then.
Your rebuttal is flawed because it assumes that I was anti-privatisation and/or considered the results to be worse to what they were before. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume this isn't intentional straw-man tactics; but go back and read the post again.
I'll also assume that you weren't attempting a false dichotomy (half-arsed privatisation vs. incompetent public ownership being the choice we are presented with). Of course, the GPO were indirectly under the control of the government beforehand; the same government that privatised BT. I doubt they were that motivated to improve the performance of the GPO-owned BT; that would provide a case against privatisation.
My gripe was that the quick-n'-dirty privatisation resulted in a private monopoly that didn't do what it claimed to do and required extensive regulation.
If they'd done the job properly, the free market should have evolved much quicker. Does *anyone* consider BT to be the right way to do a privatisation?
Obviously those that marked my original post "flamebait" did.
You didn't think the Conservative policy on asylum was bad/stupid enough then?
Let me refresh your memory; they intend having a fixed quota for genuine asylum seekers.
Let's clarify this. If, for whatever reason, the number of genuine asylum seekers hits the quota by September (say there was a mass *genocide* in another country), if you want in to the country after that, it's "Tough luck. Please try again next year." (*)
And try not to get killed if you have to return to your own country.
Howard actually weaseled an attack on Blair out of this. The interviewer made the above (before (*)) point and Howard confirmed that this was indeed the case. He then said that they could wait abroad in another country, and was asked "Where?". He said something about them staying in another country, the interviewer said "But wasn't that what Blair did?", and Howard replied along the lines of "Yes, and he didn't do very well at it either."
So; what he's saying is that his 'idea' was the same as Blair's, which he's also saying wasn't any good?
This is the most damn reprehensible policy ever; placing a limit on *genuine* asylum seekers because they come up against some arbitrarily imposed limit.
And this is *not* the same as not being able to support refugees. If it was necessary, Britain could support a lot more, for a limited term; it might be necessary to take drastic steps, but it would be do-able. (Though if that many people are coming in, we should be considering doing something about the root cause). Only if Britaini was in genuine danger of being unable to support the number of people coming in would this be acceptable. That's "unable to support" as in the African countries who receive *many times* more refugees from neighbouring countries but can barely support themselves. Think Britain's doing the majority of refugee support? No. African countries are doing way more.
This policy is about imposing some stupid, arbitrary limit on people who have a genuine reason to seek asylum; not economic migrants. If Howards thinks he can't tell the difference, he should be setting up a better system.
Slashdot Mirror
So, if I had the technical means [..] I could watch every single episode of anything ever broadcast, just by pointing my biiiig dish and hypersensitive reciever at some nearby (~40 lightyear) object and merely record the TV signal that got bounced back off it. Technical issues aside, would I be a pirate? I believe not. Tell my why this is any different (legally,folks) to bittorrent.
Because you re-broadcast the original material without their permission?
And I'm not going to discuss whether the two would be the same in effect; in law, they wouldn't be and that's what you asked.
My point being that the "In Korea" 'joke' was deliberately conceived as a meme from the start, rather than some stupid expression that people repeated here and there to get a quick laugh, that *later* took a life of its own.
T'Pau. Jeri Ryan is made of plastic. Jolene Blalock might not be.
Ah! Zat charming T'Pau! She weell be like china in my hands...
What you _want_ isn't what everyone wants. What you want isn't what everyone _expects_.
'Expects' is the key word here. McDonalds _admitted_ its coffee was 40-50 degrees hotter than is fit for human consumption. It's reasonable to assume that the coffee would be served around the temperature it was meant to be drunk at.
The coffee was clearly intended for taking away as well. It's reasonable to assume that if it's served in a container that might spill, that spillage would not result in severe burns.
To anyone thinking of replying "she shouldn't assume..."; don't give me that arrogant geek attitude. Life would be totally unworkable if we couldn't take anything for granted.
Sure, if the coffee had been normal temperature, she might have got some nasty burns, and would have deserved no sympathy.
Warning: Contrived and exaggerated example coming up. If you crash your car into a wall at 10MPH and damage it.... well, duh. Too bad, dumbass.
If you crash your car into a wall at 10MPH and the structure collapses, leading to sharp peices of metal being driven into the passengers, and the engine and fuel tank explodes, burning everyone alive.... I'd guess it was reasonable to be slightly pissed off at the manufacturers.
The fact that *you* want your coffee that hot is neither here or there; if you ask for and receive it that way, fine. I suspect that McDonalds may have been serving it that hot for this very reason.
If they'd made this clear, fine. If coffee was regularly served that hot, and people *should* expect that, fine.
They didn't, and it's not.
I'm not going to bite on the "nanny" state thing, because my original criticism was that this was a poor example against litigation culture, which *is* a nanny state thing. Or, more accurately, a lawyer-state; but that doesn't sound half as good.
Sorry, but it always bugs me that this is brought up implicitly or explictly as an example of 'public stupidity' and 'bad lawsuits'.
Read this and note particularly point 12:-
McDonald's admitted that its coffee is "not fit for consumption" when sold because it causes severe scalds if spilled or drunk.
McDonalds admitted its coffee was 40 to 50 degrees hotter than is fit for human consumption (Google cache; article is gone from original website).
The Golden Age of the slashmeme is over; it's getting too self-concious now.
I was there at the birth of the 'In Korea' meme, and it came across as a contrived attempt to create a meme and out-Soviet 'Soviet Russia'.
Seriously, this would be good if it were used in a manner displaying some insight into backward government legislation. But I suspect that hordes of fr157 p50t!!!!ers will simply say
"In Kansas, [Subject Matter] is illegal! Did i get it?!"
Hints such as no screws on the outer case are as likely to mean that the device was designed to either be made cheaply (snap-together assembly) or hard to fix/modify by end-users (keeps dealers in business and users buying new devices).
Conversely, I was able to unscrew the cover of my last CRT monitor and get inside quite easily (after it had been off for a week). Anyone who knows anything about monitors knows that an end-user should *not* be messing around inside on of these (ob-warning: The capacitors inside a CRT display can retain _lethal_ amounts of charge even days after being switched off).
Well, there has been very little hard evidence (from *anyone*, including myself) here.
However, if you have any clear evidence that this was *generally* the case, I'd be interested to see it.
(I'm not saying you're wrong; I'm saying if what I believe is a fallacy/urban-myth, I'd at least like to see some evidence of it beyond one or two isolated incidents- which were probably marketing-driven anyway (^_^) )
No, I didn't kill *your* bunny.
Being viral, it's easy to get it to reproduce, so now I am a cute-bunny farmer.
I'm trying to work out if there's more profit in selling their feet, or keeping them whole, having them stuffed, and selling them as children's toys.
I love those cute bunnies (^_^)
Actually, it is. The standard was updated in 1998 to avoid confusion. Having different name for different things can avoid an awful lot of confusion, so it would very much recommend using them.
Which is more important? The de facto standard that slightly misuses the 'kilo-' prefix, but *everyone* knows what it means; or something that was forced into place by marketing?
As I argued in more depth elsewhere, anyone who used computers *knew* what "kilobyte" and friends meant.
There was no confusion, because only the 1024-byte definition was widely used.
The 'need' to use the '1000 byte' definition was created by marketing, not computer people. THEY caused the confusion for their (short term) gain by exploiting the old meaning of 'kilobyte' to make their drives seem larger.
Marketing do not give a flying **** about correctness or clarity; if there was any problem, *they* created it. Computer people knew what kilobyte meant.
Maybe using kilo to mean 1024x is wrong.
Fact of it is that *anyone* who knew enough about computers for it to matter would have known and agreed on this standard anyway, right or wrong.
They came along and messed up a standard that everyone had agreed upon and was happy with. Don't even *think* of saying that using decimal kilobytes et al had any purpose other than making drives seem bigger than they were; that trick only worked because everyone had previously agreed that a kilobyte was 1024 bytes.
If the industry was *so* damn keen to get the 'correct' meaning of the words, they wouldn't still be using the 'incorrect' versions when selling memory.
Simple fact; anyone who wants to be pedantic about it can correctly argue that the 1024 definition of kilobyte is wrong. What they can't do is give any proper justification for changing a definition that everyone knew and understood to mean 1024 bytes.
Marketing bullshit, pure and simple; in fact, I propose the phrase "marketing gigabyte", just to make it absolutely clear which definition is in use...
Disabling Flash does have an effect on a *large* number of worthwhile sites; namely, you can't see the ads.
Of course, the editorial is still normally usable. Even worse, by using Flash instead of animated GIFs for their annoying ads (I already had GIF-animation disabled; I disabled Flash *specifically* when they started using it for pseudo-animated-GIFs), I don't see *anything* except the "missing plugin" message.
An animated GIF that is prevented from animating can still intrigue (often more so than if it were allowed to move, since I get to see the enticing first frame, but have to click on it to find out the punchline). The disabled Flash replacement, OTOH, is 100% useless for selling to me. I know *nothing* about the ad that's meant to be there.
If I ever need Flash, I'll use IE under Windows, but otherwise, it's just not worth the hassle 99% of the time.
No, that's solution 4; I already gave 3.
And I doubt that *any* 19 or 22 inch screen is going to be 'portable' in the sense that I was discussing. You still have to take it with you if you want to use it away from home; the availability of others' screens might blur the edge a bit, but it's still not a truly 'portable' solution.
It might be fine for a luggable, but as I mentioned, I was concerned with something to be used as a genuine laptop.
...the paperback version comes out in the UK this summer and this autumn (er, fall...) in the US.
I had second thoughts when I saw the hardback price; but I'll probably go for the paperback version.
A deity that would deceive me is a sadistic, sociopathic motherfucker.
I saw that, you little git.
Well, I'll deceive you no more; I *am* that deity, and you're right- I'm one sadistic, sociopathic motherfucker. I've hacked this user's account ('Dogtanian' seemed appropriate because it had my name in it backwards.... ha ha, just my little joke. LAUGH you pitiful humans, or I'll smite you with that plague thing again).
Why? Just to let you know that pissing me off is a *really* bad idea; when the DEITY hates you, you're *really* in the shit. Muwahahahahah! We're talking Old Testament-style punishment here.
You wait till I find you. Hang on.... Anonymous Coward?.... ANONYMOUS COWARD??! You little #$$^#^!!!!!!!! When I find out who you are, I'm gonna wring your damn neck...
What do you *mean* "If you're really ominpotent, you should be able to find me easily?"
Think you're clever, huh? Anonymous Coward.... uh... hmm.
I'll figure out who you are. Eventually.
Okay; I see what you're getting at now.
;)
/. trick of hypothetical arguments about the "law", but when it comes down to it, the "law" is what courts rule, not what *we* say...
I guess the bottom line is we'd have to see how this would wash in a court of law; as IANAL and YANAL either
It does assume that the company didn't implicitly accept the GPL when they knowingly redistributed the code though. However it plays in court, consider this:-
I take a GPL program, make some changes and redistribute it. Others start working on and redistributing the code as if it were GPLed. Later on, I say, "Hang on, I didn't accept the GPL, so you can't do that with the code."
Hmmm. It might make a difference whether the GPL notice was removed or not. If the notice was removed, I'd hope the violator had their ass sued off, but that's not really my point.
One thing about your Windows example though; there isn't a license that comes 'with' Windows by default that allows you to modify and redistribute the code; there *is* with GPLed code. So, the Windows case is "you did something illegal regardless, you can't do that with the code."
OTOH, you have the option of accepting the GPL when redistributing. I *suspect* (again, IANAL) that distributing the offending software commercially, without source or acknowledgement would not constitute acceptance of the GPL, whereas making changes to GPLed code and including the license with it almost certainly would.
Problem is, we are doing the old
Uh... the company have *already* 'released' the modified code. In the situation described (everyone aware and approving of what was going on), they can't realistically claim that they didn't read the license.
Any of these ways are going to have a seam, FWIW.
Not if, as I said, the screen was flexible. It could wrap round like cloth. This would still require some sort of frame to hold the flexible screen and protect it from damage; and also to allow it some flexibility to bend back when necessary, and pull it taut when on display.
That's not a trivial piece of design, but it's doable if the screen technology is already there.
I also think it would be desirable to have the setup such that the screen 'overhang' was evenly split between the left and right of the keyboard (this was what I originally had in mind).
Double-sided DVD? Isn't it actually cheaper to produce two single sided DVDs?
Yes; so long as they follow the conventional design, a 19" laptop is always going to be, in effect, a luggable.
What is needed is (e.g.) flexible screen technology that allows you to fit a large screen in a smallish space, and to have it fold in the middle so it isn't any larger than (e.g.) my 14" Compaq laptop.
This still begs the question of how it would unfold; and even if it could be unfolded, would it be usable on (e.g.) a train or an aeroplane?
The other alternative is to have an inbuilt mini-projector, that you simply project against a suitable wall; and retain the existing 14" LCD for regular use.
The final alternative is to have special glasses which superimpose a VR image on top of the real world; you type on a real keyboard, but you look at a virtual screen. This would require very accurate match-up for day-to-day use, as I suspect any noticeable 'juddering' of the virtual screen against the real world would cause motion sickness otherwise.
I'm not sure how this ties in with what I was saying. Actually, I wasn't considering damages; I was considering that, if someone at a company, with the implicit approval of their bosses, repeatedly includes GPLed code in their company's own app, with clear knowledge of what this (legally) entails and what they are doing, doesn't this imply they accept that their whole app is GPL?
BTW, I assume that if (say) a subcontractor of a subcontractor to company X inadvertantly included GPL code that was subsequently included in X's product, that a reasonable judge would not force the entire app to become GPL. He might require damages or payment, though.
I also assume that the same would apply to Linux, if "infringing" code (whatever the heck that would be) was found; the code should be removed (and replaced), but if the infringement wasn't intentional (or was the work of a one-off rogue developer), I would hope that damages (if any) and actions were limited, and taken in the light of a genuine mistake/oversight/betrayal.
This doesn't (or rather, shouldn't) apply to people intentionally, and systematically ripping off large chunks of code with full knowledge of what they are doing; regardless of what they are contributing to (see above!)
I've asked this before, and I'll ask this again.
What are the implications in terms of GPL-virality if it can be shown that not only was GPL code *deliberately* incorporated into a company's product, but that such inclusion was sanctioned either implicitly or explicitly by senior figures within the company?
Put another way, if one rogue programmer inadvertantly (or even deliberately) includes GPL code, a reasonable judge will probably reject the GPL covering the whole product (although the violating code will have to be removed). If it is clear that this is a pattern across the company's products by many programmers, and chances are that management knew about it, then we have proof of an unwritten policy to include GPLed code.
Now, to me, this strongly suggests that those involved knew what they were doing and deliberately ignored the license. In such cases, would the whole code become GPL (excluding other companies' code included in the product and released under GPL-incompatible licenses)?
If they want to violate the GPL, fine.... so long as they have to (at least) pay the other side's legal bills when they lose, refund the customers who paid for code they were entitled to free, and have to release their entire application (*with* source code) under the GPL.
Oh, and to the parent poster. Hope you kept a record of that company and (at least) notified (or are intending to notify) someone in a position to do something about it.
Yes; what you say is correct to some extent. The privatisation was more likely to succeed if they did not split BT up, and they sold it in a manner highly likely to make it a success (IIRC it was sold pretty damn cheaply).
If memory serves correctly, one of the later privatisations was a relative failure; this couldn't be allowed to happen with BT.
Nevertheless, I don't consider a private monopoly to be in any way desirable. You missed my point about the false dichotomy; there were two other alternatives- to privatise it properly (arguably an ideal rather than something practical) or to keep it government-owned, but *run the damn thing properly*.
I accept that it would have been impossible to create a 'perfect' market in a reasonable time-frame, but I still think they could have done it better. Whether this would have been politically expedient is debatable.
However, I consider 15 years or for any notable competition to arrive to be one *heck* of a long time.
You say that we have "more and more alternatives to BT coming onstream". Yes, we do. However, that's 21 years later. The children born at the time of the privatisation will now be graduating university... ideally, I'd like to see results quicker than that.
Let's get one thing straight; I'm not really old enough to remember the pre-privatisation days, but I'm perfectly willing to accept that the GPO/BT was crap then.
Your rebuttal is flawed because it assumes that I was anti-privatisation and/or considered the results to be worse to what they were before. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume this isn't intentional straw-man tactics; but go back and read the post again.
I'll also assume that you weren't attempting a false dichotomy (half-arsed privatisation vs. incompetent public ownership being the choice we are presented with). Of course, the GPO were indirectly under the control of the government beforehand; the same government that privatised BT. I doubt they were that motivated to improve the performance of the GPO-owned BT; that would provide a case against privatisation.
My gripe was that the quick-n'-dirty privatisation resulted in a private monopoly that didn't do what it claimed to do and required extensive regulation.
If they'd done the job properly, the free market should have evolved much quicker. Does *anyone* consider BT to be the right way to do a privatisation?
Obviously those that marked my original post "flamebait" did.
You didn't think the Conservative policy on asylum was bad/stupid enough then?
Let me refresh your memory; they intend having a fixed quota for genuine asylum seekers.
Let's clarify this. If, for whatever reason, the number of genuine asylum seekers hits the quota by September (say there was a mass *genocide* in another country), if you want in to the country after that, it's "Tough luck. Please try again next year." (*)
And try not to get killed if you have to return to your own country.
Howard actually weaseled an attack on Blair out of this. The interviewer made the above (before (*)) point and Howard confirmed that this was indeed the case. He then said that they could wait abroad in another country, and was asked "Where?". He said something about them staying in another country, the interviewer said "But wasn't that what Blair did?", and Howard replied along the lines of "Yes, and he didn't do very well at it either."
So; what he's saying is that his 'idea' was the same as Blair's, which he's also saying wasn't any good?
This is the most damn reprehensible policy ever; placing a limit on *genuine* asylum seekers because they come up against some arbitrarily imposed limit.
And this is *not* the same as not being able to support refugees. If it was necessary, Britain could support a lot more, for a limited term; it might be necessary to take drastic steps, but it would be do-able. (Though if that many people are coming in, we should be considering doing something about the root cause). Only if Britaini was in genuine danger of being unable to support the number of people coming in would this be acceptable. That's "unable to support" as in the African countries who receive *many times* more refugees from neighbouring countries but can barely support themselves. Think Britain's doing the majority of refugee support? No. African countries are doing way more.
This policy is about imposing some stupid, arbitrary limit on people who have a genuine reason to seek asylum; not economic migrants. If Howards thinks he can't tell the difference, he should be setting up a better system.
But he's not. He's playing the BNP vote.