Well, I guess there are possibilities, like interfering with DNS lookup, or adding a slight bug into the IE query URL composition which doesn't harm most web sites but "coincidentally" affects some of the Google queries.
But then, I think Google is already popular enough that this strategy wouldn't work. For IE based attacks, the most probable user reaction would probably not be "Oh no, Google suddenly sucks, let's try MS instead". The most probable reaction would likely be "Oh no, the new IE cannot even load Google, maybe I should really give Firefox a try!"
No, I guess MS will more likely fight this with the well-proven integration path. Integrate MS web search with standard Windows Desktop search (of course in a way that it is "obviously impossible to remove without breaking the OS"). Add some ActiveX to MS search to interact with your local environment in unprecedented ways (as usual, don't worry about the security problems this causes). Google Ads? MS could theoretically sell targeted ads depending on what you typed in Word lately! (What? Privacy concerns? But it's for the best of the consumer!)
So graphics algorithms used in ordinary computer software (say, Photoshop) would not be patentable, but using the same algorithm in a printer driver (which controls hardware, namely the printer) would be?
Of course. Except that the roles would be taken by other people: The Linux zealots would play the "it's a major security problem" role, while the MS zealots would play the "there's no real exploit here" role.
Except that for MS problems you'd probably not actually hear about it unless an exploit has been found (MS would of course keep quiet about it, and others would probably not find out other than by creating an exploit).
Ok, then he'll write truthfully e.g. "The e-mail trader called himself "spammer's heaven" and was somewhere in the caribic. The payment went through a throw-away bank account on the phillipines. More info is not available to me." And now?
BTW, you didn't address the first two questions (without which the third one is actually irrelevant anyway).
Disclaimer: The e-mail trader's name was completely made up, I don't know any e-mail trader, and any similarity to existing e-mail traders would be pure coincidence.
Well, someone already posted the "standard reply form". I advise you to fill it out for your suggestion yourself. This way you'll probably find out where the problem is.
Or maybe it would already help if you just copnosider the following questions:
* Who's the spammer? And how do you find out? * Where's the spammer? And how will an US law affect him? * And what if the spammer truthfully writes "Your e-mail address foo@bar.xy was obtained from a list of e-mail addresses bought from an e-mail address trader"?
Well, you just use two email addresses: One to get and bill for spam, and one for your normal communications. The opening of those messages could be done automatically by a program. You don't waste your time, only your processor's.
The way Opera handles tabbed browsing and the way Firefox handles tabbed browsing are so different, grouping them both under the header "tabbed browsing" make little sense.
So what's the difference? (I don't know Opera's TB, and I'm not sure I know Firefox's; what I do know is Mozilla's with Tabbrowser Extensions)
Unfortunatly, because of this, it'll be near impossible to impliment registry-like setups within Linux because of the insane number of short-hairy trolls that'll come out of the woodwork.
Well, just don't call it registry. Call it "configuration database" or something similar.
Well, you can improve the taste by pasting some Wine code into it. PearPC code may also give an interesting note. However, you have to be careful, because the code might have bugs in it, and licking a bug probbably isn't the experience you'll like.
Teacher: Sorry, you failed that test. Pupil: But, I haven't put much effort into learning, and for that, I think it was quite good!
Now, what's the most likely reaction of the teacher? A: "Oh, sorry, I didn't know that. Well, for not learning much, that work was definitely not bad! I'll correct your grade immediatly!" B: "So you didn't put much effort in it? Ok, well, then you just got what you deserve." C: "Well, I'm not sure what I should do now. Maybe I'll make it an AskSlashdot question..."
Well, the computing equivalent would probably be: In an encrypted file stored in sectors marked as unused in the file system, on a hard disc labelled "Warning: Virus infected!" Ah, and of course the superblock had gone. As well as the partition table.
Part of this license states that any changes to the kernel are to be made freely available.
This is not completely true. You are only required to give the modified source to people to whom you give the modified kernel, at no additional cost. Of course they have the right to distribute it further.
For internal projects (where you don't distribute binaries at all), this means that you don't have any obligations at all. Only if you distribute the compiled code, you have to distribute the source along with it.
But of course, if you base your business on distributing binaries based on secret proprietary changes of existing code, then GPLed code isn't for you.
Furthermore, after reviewing this GPL our lawyers advised us that any products compiled with GPL'ed tools - such as gcc - would also have to its source code released. This was simply unacceptable.
And this one is completely wrong. There are absolutely no requirements on code compiled by gcc or other GPLed compiler, except if that requirement comes from elsewhere (if you link a GPLed library, compiling with gcc will of course not void the requirements from that). Moreover the libraries which come with GCC have an explicit exception so that linking to them (which is more or less unavoidable) will not cause your code to be covered by the GPL).
Although it was tought to do, there really was no option: We had to rewrite the code, from scratch, for Windows 2000.
Why didn't you just use some BSD variant? This would have given you all you wanted: Ability to freely modify the source code, and the ability to distribute the resulting binary code without passing on the source modifications. Moreover, being also an Unix-workalike, you probably wouldn't even have had to rewrite most of your code from scratch (of course those parts dealing directly with the kernel would have to be rewritten anyway).
You know, there's more in the Open Source world than GPL and Linux. Sometimes you can have your cake (keep your changes for yourself) and eat it, too (get source code for free, with the right to modify as you please).
BTW, it's just silly to base development on some code before checking the license. You cannot blame the GPL for not making your homework of actually examining it. I hope for you that you didn't make the same error again, and this time asked your lawyers about the details of (now Microsoft's) license in advance.
I may reconsider if Linux switches its license to something a little more fair, such as Microsoft's "Shared Source".
So what exactly is unfair with the GPL? It didn't fit your business model, that's all. And what's more fair on MS's "Shared Source"? I don't think I'd be able to freely distribute modified versions of it in source form, so I could as well consider it unfair that I may not just distribute my own work based on it freely. If you want something with no strings attached, go BSD.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe they should get their own section at dupe.slashdot.org (after all, you can already read this article there.).
Well, if you prefer it, you can also read the IT version of the story. Or maybe you prefer Your Rights Online?
Well, I guess there are possibilities, like interfering with DNS lookup, or adding a slight bug into the IE query URL composition which doesn't harm most web sites but "coincidentally" affects some of the Google queries.
But then, I think Google is already popular enough that this strategy wouldn't work. For IE based attacks, the most probable user reaction would probably not be "Oh no, Google suddenly sucks, let's try MS instead". The most probable reaction would likely be "Oh no, the new IE cannot even load Google, maybe I should really give Firefox a try!"
No, I guess MS will more likely fight this with the well-proven integration path. Integrate MS web search with standard Windows Desktop search (of course in a way that it is "obviously impossible to remove without breaking the OS"). Add some ActiveX to MS search to interact with your local environment in unprecedented ways (as usual, don't worry about the security problems this causes). Google Ads? MS could theoretically sell targeted ads depending on what you typed in Word lately! (What? Privacy concerns? But it's for the best of the consumer!)
So did you already patent her?
So graphics algorithms used in ordinary computer software (say, Photoshop) would not be patentable, but using the same algorithm in a printer driver (which controls hardware, namely the printer) would be?
Well, I'll probably patent whitespace. Thenifyoudon'twanttowritelikethis,you'llhavetopay.
Of course. Except that the roles would be taken by other people: The Linux zealots would play the "it's a major security problem" role, while the MS zealots would play the "there's no real exploit here" role.
Except that for MS problems you'd probably not actually hear about it unless an exploit has been found (MS would of course keep quiet about it, and others would probably not find out other than by creating an exploit).
However, IANASE
Ok, then he'll write truthfully e.g. "The e-mail trader called himself "spammer's heaven" and was somewhere in the caribic. The payment went through a throw-away bank account on the phillipines. More info is not available to me." And now?
BTW, you didn't address the first two questions (without which the third one is actually irrelevant anyway).
Disclaimer: The e-mail trader's name was completely made up, I don't know any e-mail trader, and any similarity to existing e-mail traders would be pure coincidence.
Well, someone already posted the "standard reply form". I advise you to fill it out for your suggestion yourself. This way you'll probably find out where the problem is.
Or maybe it would already help if you just copnosider the following questions:
* Who's the spammer? And how do you find out?
* Where's the spammer? And how will an US law affect him?
* And what if the spammer truthfully writes "Your e-mail address foo@bar.xy was obtained from a list of e-mail addresses bought from an e-mail address trader"?
Well, you just use two email addresses: One to get and bill for spam, and one for your normal communications. The opening of those messages could be done automatically by a program. You don't waste your time, only your processor's.
Or maybe they should have sent up an Apache?
In Korea, only old jokes are lame.
Well, it's the same: Worst case: Get fired (from life).
So what's the difference? (I don't know Opera's TB, and I'm not sure I know Firefox's; what I do know is Mozilla's with Tabbrowser Extensions)
Not to mention the 1.44 "Megabyte" floppy disk where "Megabyte" means 1024000 Bytes ...
Acording to the FSF, the Unisys patent already expired, but the IBM patent will expire at 2006-8-11.
Well, just don't call it registry. Call it "configuration database" or something similar.
Well, you can improve the taste by pasting some Wine code into it. PearPC code may also give an interesting note. However, you have to be careful, because the code might have bugs in it, and licking a bug probbably isn't the experience you'll like.
Well, it's good that those are hearings, not readings, since the lights are gone.
Free as in beer, or free as in speech?
Teacher: Sorry, you failed that test.
..."
Pupil: But, I haven't put much effort into learning, and for that, I think it was quite good!
Now, what's the most likely reaction of the teacher?
A: "Oh, sorry, I didn't know that. Well, for not learning much, that work was definitely not bad! I'll correct your grade immediatly!"
B: "So you didn't put much effort in it? Ok, well, then you just got what you deserve."
C: "Well, I'm not sure what I should do now. Maybe I'll make it an AskSlashdot question
GNU/Stallman!
Well, the computing equivalent would probably be: In an encrypted file stored in sectors marked as unused in the file system, on a hard disc labelled "Warning: Virus infected!"
Ah, and of course the superblock had gone. As well as the partition table.
This is not completely true. You are only required to give the modified source to people to whom you give the modified kernel, at no additional cost. Of course they have the right to distribute it further.
For internal projects (where you don't distribute binaries at all), this means that you don't have any obligations at all. Only if you distribute the compiled code, you have to distribute the source along with it.
But of course, if you base your business on distributing binaries based on secret proprietary changes of existing code, then GPLed code isn't for you.
And this one is completely wrong. There are absolutely no requirements on code compiled by gcc or other GPLed compiler, except if that requirement comes from elsewhere (if you link a GPLed library, compiling with gcc will of course not void the requirements from that). Moreover the libraries which come with GCC have an explicit exception so that linking to them (which is more or less unavoidable) will not cause your code to be covered by the GPL).
Why didn't you just use some BSD variant? This would have given you all you wanted: Ability to freely modify the source code, and the ability to distribute the resulting binary code without passing on the source modifications. Moreover, being also an Unix-workalike, you probably wouldn't even have had to rewrite most of your code from scratch (of course those parts dealing directly with the kernel would have to be rewritten anyway).
You know, there's more in the Open Source world than GPL and Linux. Sometimes you can have your cake (keep your changes for yourself) and eat it, too (get source code for free, with the right to modify as you please).
BTW, it's just silly to base development on some code before checking the license. You cannot blame the GPL for not making your homework of actually examining it. I hope for you that you didn't make the same error again, and this time asked your lawyers about the details of (now Microsoft's) license in advance.
So what exactly is unfair with the GPL? It didn't fit your business model, that's all. And what's more fair on MS's "Shared Source"? I don't think I'd be able to freely distribute modified versions of it in source form, so I could as well consider it unfair that I may not just distribute my own work based on it freely. If you want something with no strings attached, go BSD.