Fine. Novell can violate any microsoft IP with impunity.
My question is: Can they release that code under the GPL, knowing that it cannot be freely distributed?
This is the crux of the issue: if Novell develops code to extend any existing GPL program to be more compatible with MS software, they have to distribute it under the GPL. By doing this, they are granting everybody else the right to read, modify, redistribute their contributed code. If said Novell-contributed code makes use of MS protected intellectual property which Novell has the newly-acquired right to use, by redistributing it under the GPL Novell will be granting everybody the right to use such protected intellectual property —a right they do not have.
This actually means that Novell cannot legally distribute programs that they changed by adding MS protected intellectual property, if and when they will do such changes. The GPLv3 has nothing to do with it: Novell would be in breach of contract even for GPLv2 programs.
Indeed if Novell does make MS-IP-protected changes to GPL programs and if they do distribute such modified programs (which they must do under the GPL, if they do it at all), it's up to Microsoft to go after them, because Novell would be granting other people rights (the right to use MS protected IP) they (Novell) don't have the right to grant. That's because the Novell-MS deal only protects Novell customers, but the Novell-released GPL products would also be accessible to non-Novell customers, so by distributing such modified programs Novell would be breaking its side of the deal with Microsoft, and not just their contract (licence) with the copyright owners of the GPL programs they would have modified. The FSF (or any other GPL-program-copyright-holder) cannot prevent Novell from distributing their programs currently, but they can sue Novell for breach of contract if and when Novell starts distributing versions of GPL-protected programs modified to include MS-IP-protected changes.
IOW, Novell has wedged itself in a situation where they can't really exploit the potential benefits of their deal with Microsoft without getting sued by Microsoft, the FSF, or both.
Finally, a question for the lawyers, if there are any here: if Novell does distribute such conflicting changes and if MS chooses not to sue Novell over this, can they (MS) go after anybody else? Don't they lose the rights they choose not to defend?
I predict 2007 will be big for open source hardware.
Ok, you've been modded Funny and there is some obvious humo(u)r in what you said, but here's to hope that you are not too far from the truth.
There is at least one open source hardware project out there which I would really like to see succeed: the Open Graphics Project, aimed at developing a fully open source (from the hardware to the driver) 3D-capable graphics card.
So long, nVidia, ATI, and your idiotic 'protected secret intellectual property' excuses to be uncooperative to FLOS.
But people do. Why does everything we do have to be dictated by what a company would do? There are ways to achieve things in life other than to wait for a company to do it. Yes, like doing it yourself. Provided you have the resources (money, time, etc) to do it, of course. Which is, may I suggest, rarely the case.
I am a mathematician. I do a lot of "test writing" while working on something. After a while, unless that something I wrote turns out meaningful, I don't need it anymore. I don't have a blackboard or anything similar at home, so I have to use paper. I could spare a lot of paper by using this kind of stuff. The only problem would be that sometimes I need it for more than 16 hours.
Actually, if he hadn't intended us to look at porn, he wouldn't have given us eyes.
If you're talking about masturbation, on the other hand, other questions are raised. For example, women don't need thumbs to masturbate. So, if didn't have opposable thumbs, would that mean that women could masturbate but men couldn't?
And of course you have to consider that the thumb is not strictly necessary for masturbation (you could use all of your others fingers for a grip). And considering that even animals without hands masturbate, although not always to orgams.
But most of all, how the heck did you get modded Informative? Unless it's because of the information of you using the thumbs to masturbate...
To people in Europe, this is absolutely nothing new. OTOH, we have somewhat more experience about the dark sides of certain "mass pilot" feelings. This is what I had to say about it shortly after 9/11 to a US citizen who, grappled by fear, had fallen in the trap of blindly following whatever the Leader said about external threats. (Yeah, the blog post is from 2004, but the text is older, and was a post of mine on what is now the alt.corel newsgroup.)
In Germany the copy from a legally bought CD given to a close friend is legal. So the law was made according to the natural feeling of the public.
Are you sure about this? It would really surprise me. In Italy, even before they came up with more draconian laws, it was not legal to give away copies of copyrighted material you legally own. You can make personal copies for backup/listening on your CD stereo/whatever, but not give them away.
Skype is a security risk: see this talk (handout notes) for an analysis of how and why Skype is insecure and a potential vehicle for the most extensive botnet ever.
My thoughts as well: it shouldn't be too difficult since it has already been done; however, they might not be able to patent it, because of prior art...
(OTOH, in these days of sitting at my workstation a lot means I can only run for half an hour at most, so even the crappies rechargable battery is good enough for me)
I'm a newcomer to mode editing. I first got interested in it when I bought my laptop: on most laptop keyboards, the nonalphanumeric keys are absolutely clumsy and wrist-stressful to reach. This is what really got me into using Vim. A posteriori I realize that the benefit in terms of relax on the hands and in speed is enormous. The only problem are the spurious hjklxxxxiaddgg coming up when using other programs:)
So your problem with Opera being not open source is that there isn't an UltraSPARC/FreeBSD version... so what's this Intel kit you have to use? Can't you just compile an open source browser like, for example, Firefox or Konqueror? If you can't, I don't really see how you are benefitting from them being open source...
Indeed, that's just one of the many Opera features that make it so much more extremely convenient that any other browser I've used (IE, Mozilla Navigator (now in SeaMonkey), Mozilla Firefox, Konqueror...).
(It's not open source? Who gives a damn, it's still light years ahead.)
I'm reply to my own post because this is supposed to answer all three of the comments.
To rufty rufty: the problem is exactly the effect on the environment and ultimately on us. Energy consumption is not a 'bad thing' abstractly, per se. It's the depletion of all available energy to the detriment of the environment we live in, the problem. And it has nothing to do with tree-hugging or anything. It has to do with breathing clean air, swimming in a clean sea, sunbathing without getting roasted, skiing without having to worry the next year there won't be snow, and so on and so forth.
If we had hypothetical ways of producing and consuming energy without having such a tremendous and horrible impact on what's around us, the problem wouldn't even arise. The matter is, we don't. So Dastardly's suggestion makes sense.
The Anonymous Coward seems to miss a few things like the standard of living depending on way many more things than just energy consumption (I can consume three times the energy you do, but if I have to wear an oxygen mask to go downtown and it takes four hours to drive a distance which I could walk in thirty minnutes, has my life quality improved? What if there is no clean beaches, no clean water, no natural green in a hundred kilometers radius?). Sure, some aspects of what is today considered a better living standard depend on a higher energy consumption than the past. Too bad a tenfold increment in life quality came with a hundredfold increase in energy consumption most of which is simply wasted.
And to quote a recent italian comic "Globalization is an african boy not driking water for one day so that a westerner boy can keep his sink tap running while brushing his teeth".
There is no way to safely and durably sustain the energy consumption rates of the so-called Western civilization. We can go by with it only because we really are a very small minority. If the whole world switched to the same lifestyle...
Really, it's all about consuming less, not producing more.
If I write an article with a certain number of errors, and the rewrite the same article with the exact same conceptual content, but in a much more verbose manner, the article hasn't improved: it's still as right (or wrong) as the short version was. If the errors are conceptual or factual, the total length of the article is absolutely irrelevant. The only thing that is important is the number of concepts or facts expressed, and how many of them are right. So unless the additional length introduces more facts, more examples and similar (and is therefore 'valuable' additional content, and not just verbose verbiage) the length of the articles is not significant.
The only case in which error/length ratio is meaningful is when you are only considering grammar or typographical mistakes: badly formed phrases, missing or additional or misplaced letters, dates with inverted numbers, and so on and so forth.
Note how this post is rather verbose. I could come up with a much longer or a much shorter one, with the same content, and I would still be equally wrong (or right).
Very smart from Microsoft: keep the competition close, prepare for the next backstab. I'm not sure what the other two gain as a benefit from the deal, though.
Slashdot Mirror
This is the crux of the issue: if Novell develops code to extend any existing GPL program to be more compatible with MS software, they have to distribute it under the GPL. By doing this, they are granting everybody else the right to read, modify, redistribute their contributed code. If said Novell-contributed code makes use of MS protected intellectual property which Novell has the newly-acquired right to use, by redistributing it under the GPL Novell will be granting everybody the right to use such protected intellectual property —a right they do not have.
This actually means that Novell cannot legally distribute programs that they changed by adding MS protected intellectual property, if and when they will do such changes. The GPLv3 has nothing to do with it: Novell would be in breach of contract even for GPLv2 programs.
Indeed if Novell does make MS-IP-protected changes to GPL programs and if they do distribute such modified programs (which they must do under the GPL, if they do it at all), it's up to Microsoft to go after them, because Novell would be granting other people rights (the right to use MS protected IP) they (Novell) don't have the right to grant. That's because the Novell-MS deal only protects Novell customers, but the Novell-released GPL products would also be accessible to non-Novell customers, so by distributing such modified programs Novell would be breaking its side of the deal with Microsoft, and not just their contract (licence) with the copyright owners of the GPL programs they would have modified. The FSF (or any other GPL-program-copyright-holder) cannot prevent Novell from distributing their programs currently, but they can sue Novell for breach of contract if and when Novell starts distributing versions of GPL-protected programs modified to include MS-IP-protected changes.
IOW, Novell has wedged itself in a situation where they can't really exploit the potential benefits of their deal with Microsoft without getting sued by Microsoft, the FSF, or both.
Finally, a question for the lawyers, if there are any here: if Novell does distribute such conflicting changes and if MS chooses not to sue Novell over this, can they (MS) go after anybody else? Don't they lose the rights they choose not to defend?
Ok, you've been modded Funny and there is some obvious humo(u)r in what you said, but here's to hope that you are not too far from the truth.
There is at least one open source hardware project out there which I would really like to see succeed: the Open Graphics Project, aimed at developing a fully open source (from the hardware to the driver) 3D-capable graphics card. So long, nVidia, ATI, and your idiotic 'protected secret intellectual property' excuses to be uncooperative to FLOS.
Yes, like doing it yourself. Provided you have the resources (money, time, etc) to do it, of course. Which is, may I suggest, rarely the case.
I didn't know you could be productive on the internet ...
Could be. I only used it on Windows, so this is probably why it didn't look that bad.
I am a mathematician. I do a lot of "test writing" while working on something. After a while, unless that something I wrote turns out meaningful, I don't need it anymore. I don't have a blackboard or anything similar at home, so I have to use paper. I could spare a lot of paper by using this kind of stuff. The only problem would be that sometimes I need it for more than 16 hours.
If you're talking about masturbation, on the other hand, other questions are raised. For example, women don't need thumbs to masturbate. So, if didn't have opposable thumbs, would that mean that women could masturbate but men couldn't?
And of course you have to consider that the thumb is not strictly necessary for masturbation (you could use all of your others fingers for a grip). And considering that even animals without hands masturbate, although not always to orgams.
But most of all, how the heck did you get modded Informative? Unless it's because of the information of you using the thumbs to masturbate ...
Well, Audacity's GUI is not that bad. However, interestingly, the VLC developers are working at a Qt-based GUI.
To people in Europe, this is absolutely nothing new. OTOH, we have somewhat more experience about the dark sides of certain "mass pilot" feelings. This is what I had to say about it shortly after 9/11 to a US citizen who, grappled by fear, had fallen in the trap of blindly following whatever the Leader said about external threats. (Yeah, the blog post is from 2004, but the text is older, and was a post of mine on what is now the alt.corel newsgroup.)
Are you sure about this? It would really surprise me. In Italy, even before they came up with more draconian laws, it was not legal to give away copies of copyrighted material you legally own. You can make personal copies for backup/listening on your CD stereo/whatever, but not give them away.
OTOH, if they get stolen ...
Skype is a security risk: see this talk (handout notes) for an analysis of how and why Skype is insecure and a potential vehicle for the most extensive botnet ever.
Like /.ers ever care to RTFA ...
Sheesh, where are my mod points when I need them? (I had them somewhere around here yesterday ...)
My thoughts as well: it shouldn't be too difficult since it has already been done; however, they might not be able to patent it, because of prior art ...
(OTOH, in these days of sitting at my workstation a lot means I can only run for half an hour at most, so even the crappies rechargable battery is good enough for me)
Actually, "a lot" is not a word either, it's two words.
I'm a newcomer to mode editing. I first got interested in it when I bought my laptop: on most laptop keyboards, the nonalphanumeric keys are absolutely clumsy and wrist-stressful to reach. This is what really got me into using Vim. A posteriori I realize that the benefit in terms of relax on the hands and in speed is enormous. The only problem are the spurious hjklxxxxiaddgg coming up when using other programs :)
So your problem with Opera being not open source is that there isn't an UltraSPARC/FreeBSD version ... so what's this Intel kit you have to use? Can't you just compile an open source browser like, for example, Firefox or Konqueror? If you can't, I don't really see how you are benefitting from them being open source ...
Indeed, that's just one of the many Opera features that make it so much more extremely convenient that any other browser I've used (IE, Mozilla Navigator (now in SeaMonkey), Mozilla Firefox, Konqueror ...).
(It's not open source? Who gives a damn, it's still light years ahead.)
I'm reply to my own post because this is supposed to answer all three of the comments. To rufty rufty: the problem is exactly the effect on the environment and ultimately on us. Energy consumption is not a 'bad thing' abstractly, per se. It's the depletion of all available energy to the detriment of the environment we live in, the problem. And it has nothing to do with tree-hugging or anything. It has to do with breathing clean air, swimming in a clean sea, sunbathing without getting roasted, skiing without having to worry the next year there won't be snow, and so on and so forth. If we had hypothetical ways of producing and consuming energy without having such a tremendous and horrible impact on what's around us, the problem wouldn't even arise. The matter is, we don't. So Dastardly's suggestion makes sense. The Anonymous Coward seems to miss a few things like the standard of living depending on way many more things than just energy consumption (I can consume three times the energy you do, but if I have to wear an oxygen mask to go downtown and it takes four hours to drive a distance which I could walk in thirty minnutes, has my life quality improved? What if there is no clean beaches, no clean water, no natural green in a hundred kilometers radius?). Sure, some aspects of what is today considered a better living standard depend on a higher energy consumption than the past. Too bad a tenfold increment in life quality came with a hundredfold increase in energy consumption most of which is simply wasted. And to quote a recent italian comic "Globalization is an african boy not driking water for one day so that a westerner boy can keep his sink tap running while brushing his teeth".
There is no way to safely and durably sustain the energy consumption rates of the so-called Western civilization. We can go by with it only because we really are a very small minority. If the whole world switched to the same lifestyle ...
Really, it's all about consuming less, not producing more.
So that's what they're talking about when they mention these diary products ... it did sound a little cheesy to me ...
The only case in which error/length ratio is meaningful is when you are only considering grammar or typographical mistakes: badly formed phrases, missing or additional or misplaced letters, dates with inverted numbers, and so on and so forth.
Note how this post is rather verbose. I could come up with a much longer or a much shorter one, with the same content, and I would still be equally wrong (or right).
Very smart from Microsoft: keep the competition close, prepare for the next backstab. I'm not sure what the other two gain as a benefit from the deal, though.