Transmitting signals wirelessly through ocean water presents many of the same difficulties. There is already a very well developed technology for doing this based on sound. The transmitters are usually trivial to build. The tough part is the receiver because in order to get high data rates, you have to go to great lengths to compensate for extreme multipath distortion (echoes).
The DMCA is not supposed to apply to situations where your actions would otherwise be legal. There are plenty of high resolution monitors with DVI input but not HDMI. Just because Intel and friends don't want me to use my legally purchased monitor with my legally purchased bluray player to watch legally purchased blurays does not make it illegal.
In 1984, the US Supreme Court ruled that video cassette recorders were perfectly legal because recording tv shows for purposes of time shifting constitutes fair use, not copyright violation. Even though VCRs could be used for making illegal copies of copyrighted material, the court ruled that VCRs had significant non-infringing uses. ISTM that a device that lets me connect a monitor to a bluray player so I can watch a movie has a heck of a lot more non-infringing use than a recorder.
The only reason I say this will be an interesting test case and not a slam dunk win for the good guys is because the US Supreme Court (and the US in general) has shifted dramatically rightward since 1984. Particularly in situations where corporate profits conflict with personal freedoms.
I'm using MakeMKV to stream blurays on Linux. No ripping to disk needed. MakeMKV is proprietary and costs $50 but the beta is free. It makes viewing blurays really easy. If I buy it, it will be the first proprietary program I've bought in many years. It is a trade-off. For me, convenient breaking of DRM is worth supporting this particular proprietary effort. Also the dev seems like a nice guy and the program is not all obnoxious about being proprietary. I actually had to do some digging to find out how to buy it and how much it costs.
I have no doubt HDCP-SuperPlusGood is already in the works but I have a feeling the pooch has been screwed and will remain screwed for a number of years. Dropping support for the current HDCP would be extremely stupid because it would really piss off end users and it would force them to buy an HDCP cracker box to use their current equipment with an upgraded component. IMO high def (including bluray) was the lure to get people to start using HDCP crippled devices. What the heck are they going to use to lure people into using HDCP-SuperPlusGood? What is going to be the next technical leap that will make the current high def obsolete?
It is going to be interesting to see if the DMCA comes into play now that people will be able to buy a little device that cracks HDCP. It's not clear those little cracker boxes would be illegal under the DMCA because they can certainly be used for purposes that would otherwise be legal (e.g. legally viewing bluray movies on a non-HDCP display). It could be a lose-lose for the media companies.
Interesting points. I hadn't thought of a private announcement to their licensees. ISTM the end users will be affected by this too. People who want to create devices that break HDCP encryption won't be slowed down or sped up by the announcement. They were going to go ahead at full speed to see if this master key was valid. I still think the public announcement was the only right thing for Intel to do at this point. IIUC, the stock market hates uncertainty so creating a haze of uncertainty by delaying the public announcement had no up-side for Intel.
We disagree about whether Intel did something wrong. Perhaps they had an exchange program between marketing and engineering because as much as I admire their recent admission of defeat, I find their HDCP implementation technically deplorable**.
They really should have known that it was going to be trivial to crack. As I've mentioned elsewhere, one of the main reasons they chose such a weak system was to keep hardware implementations cheap and easy. Their HDCP algorithm requires only 20 56-bit additions to create the private shared key. In contrast, 1024-bit RSA key exchange requires 512 1024-bit multiplications.
** I also find it morally deplorable so I'm glad it's been broken. I wonder if during the internal Intel debate on the technical merits, the people who knew how weak it was, didn't have the belly for a drawn out fight with marketing because they too had qualms about the morality of DRM. Engineers are are always striving to make their creations robust, it goes against the grain to make something that is "broken by design".
Intel is manning up and admitting that something terrible just happened. It is the smart thing to do. If they had hemmed and hawed and delayed admitting the key was genuine then all their customers who had bought in on this DRM scheme would have gotten pissed off and felt jerked around.
Look at the metric shitload of bad press BP got when they tried to lie and evade regarding their recent oil leak. I believe the people responsible for that are no longer with the company.
It is interesting that someone would question why on Earth Intel would step up and do the right thing that will be best for the company in the coming weeks and months. I think this is because we have come to expect large corporations to act with all the integrity and intelligence of a retarded dinosaur after it has had its brains knocked out by a piece of asteroid shrapnel. Apparently real engineers continue to work at Intel and for some unknown reason, at least one of was placed in a position of authority.
So, can Linux playback BluRay movies now? Or does that still require Rube Goldberg contortions to get poor quality playback?
I use MakeMKV to stream Bluray content to xbmc. I have an nvidia card that enables hardware decoding via vdpau. The streaming means I don't have to rip Blurays to a hard drive and the hardware decoding means that my cpu is coasting at about 15% usage. The quality is fabulous, xbmc is really slick. I'm planning to use the wonderful Bluray playback to show off my Linux system as a media center to my friends who still use Windows.
I start the streaming from the command line. If you think typing is a Rube Goldberg contortion, you could use the GUI that lets you start the streaming with just a few mouse clicks. It is now very easy and the quality is excellent.
The biggest problem I have is that most of the movies I like aren't yet available on Bluray. If you like movies with lots of violence and action, you probably don't have this problem.
As an added bonus, I don't have to screw around with firmware updates to my Bluray drive.
Someone asked why the matrix wasn't symmetric as per the master matrix in Blom's Scheme.
I figured out the answer by reading the three short articles linked to from HDCP: Why So Weak?. The deal is that they placed severe hardware constraints on themselves. They were only allowed to require devices to do addition, no multiplication. Therefore the implementation in the Wiki article was not acceptable.
The HDCP scheme only allows "sources" to create a shared private key with "sinks", not other sources. Each source (sink) gets a private key that is a sum of 20 rows (columns) of the master matrix mod(P) where P seems to be 2^56 (which is not prime). Their public key is not a vector of integers like in the Wiki article. It is a vector of 40 zeros or ones with a total of 20 zeros and 20 ones. It is the same vector that selected their 20 rows (columns).
If you look at how an arbitrary source's 20 rows overlap with an arbitrary sink's 20 columns in the master matrix, they will intersect at exactly 400 (= 20 x 20) numbers. The shared private key is the sum mod(P) of these 400 numbers. The source's private key is the 40 word vector containing the sum of its 20 rows. So the 400 numbers at the intersections have been summed into 20 numbers out of the 40 numbers of the source's private key. The sink tells the source which of the 20 of the 40 numbers in the source's private key to sum. These correspond to the 20 bits that were set (out of 40 bits) to select the 20 columns that make up the sink's private key. When the sources adds the 20 numbers from its private key it gets the sum of the 400 numbers in the intersection between the source's rows and the sinks columns.
The sink does the same thing. It gets told by the source which 20 of the 40 numbers in it's private key correspond to the sources 20 rows. The sink adds up these 20 numbers and it too gets the sum of the 400 numbers that are in the intersection of the sources rows and the sinks columns. This way each one uses their own private key (the sum of their 20 rows or columns which is a vector of 40 numbers) combined with the public key of the other (which 20 out of 40 numbers to sum) in order to find a shared private key. They both end up with the same number which is called the shared private key. It is the sum of the 400 numbers where the source's rows intersect the sink's columns in the master matrix.
Receiving a good education does not ensure that you are right or wrong, but it means you are very highly trained in the existing hubris of your culture.
The theme of this book is that the universe in which we live,
or think we live, is mostly a thing of our own making. The
underlying idea is the distinction between Universe and
universes. It is a simple idea having many consequences.
... the Universe is everything. What it is... we never
fully know.
... the universes are our models of the Universe. They are
great schemes of intricate thought -- grand belief systems --
that rationalize human existence.... Each determines what
is perceived and what constitutes valid knowledge, and the
members of a society believe what they perceive and perceive
what they believe.
... This oldest of human conceits, which confuses universe with
Universe, is alive today as much as at any time in the past.
We are afflicted with the hubris that denies our descendants
the right to different and better knowledge.
You do know that both copyright law and patent law stem from the same clause in the Constitution, the one theaveng was suggesting we amend to bring it in line with the laws passed by our corporate controlled Congress, right?
After getting past the thought of "been there, done that with Battlestar Galactica", my next thought was of the orange cones that are put on roads to guide traffic and are constantly getting run over. They're also getting constantly run over in driver's ed classes. I couldn't imagine why some sick bastard wanted make those cones look like humans unless he really hated highway maintenance workers.
KDE 3 was professional and powerful. KDE 4 seems to have all the options I don't want, none of the options I actually used,...
Yep. This was my feeling exactly. I had been using KDE since 1.1 or earlier. I've now switched to Enlightenment e-16 (very old but still being maintained). It took some work to customize but now I'm happier with e-16 than I was with KDE-3.5.10. YMMVG.
The courts have established that in order to determine software copyright infringement (for non-literal copying, which is what we have here but filtration is required even for literal copying), one must perform what is called the
Abstraction, Filtration, Comparison Test. In court documents related to the code in question, SCO admitted the did not perform this test on this code. They claimed that that was IBM's job. The article linked to above explains the test:
1. break down the plaintiff’s program into its constituent structural parts (“abstraction”);
2. examine each part for incorporated “ideas,” elements taken from the public domain, methods of operation, processes or procedures, or otherwise unprotected material (“filtration”); and
3. compare the remaining kernel of creative expression, if any, to the work alleged to infringe at each level of abstraction (“comparison”).
They further explain:
The scenes à faire doctrine is often applied in software cases because it is frequently impossible to write a program in a particular computing environment without employing certain standard programming techniques and design elements. This is because certain functions, data elements, and the order of operation of a program can be dictated by such things as the type of computer on which the program will run, the programming language used, the operating system environment, governmental requirements, industry demands and standards, and widely accepted programming practices.
I suspect the reason SCO didn't filter this code is because if they did, there would be nothing at all left to present to the court as their fig leaf to avoid being charged with perpetrating a fraud on the court.
This code was the last big unknown in this long sorry saga. Even if SCO owned the copyrights, (and hadn't distributed it under the GPL, and hadn't signed the UnitedLinux agreement, etc.) it is now crystal clear that SCO's Microsoft-funded anti-Linux campaign was based on a stack of frivolous law suits.
I think Darl's brother is scrambling to cover his backside so that when the disbarments and criminal charges come down, he has a chance to escape.
Groklaw (of course) has IBM's response to SCO's claims that these paltry examples are worth BILLIONS of dollars in copyright damages. None of the code they offered is protectable under copyright law. Some of it is BSD code that everyone is free to use however they want (if they include the copyright notice). A lot of it is header files that were not copy-and-pasted which are nearly impossible to protect under copyright law. Then they have some snippets of generic code. Given the size of the source code for Linux, it would be astounding if there weren't some similar snippets. The idea that this is proof that Linux violated any Unix copyrights is totally absurd. The idea that these generic snippets are what made Linux enterprise-ready is beyond insane.
The recent SCO v. Novell case decided that SCO never even owned the copyrights it was suing about. And then instead of the millions of lines of code they claimed were infringing, they presented this meager collection of totally unprotectable snippets. I sure hope SCO's lawyers get severely punished for perpetrating this fraud on the court for the past seven years.
Computer programs pose unique problems for the application of the
"idea/expression distinction" that determines the extent of copyright
protection. To the extent that there are many possible ways of
accomplishing a given task or fulfilling a particular market demand,
the programmer's choice of program structure and design may be highly
creative and idiosyncratic. However, computer programs are, in essence,
utilitarian articles -- articles that accomplish tasks. As such, they
contain many logical, structural, and visual display elements that are
dictated by external factors such as compatibility requirements
and industry demands... In some circumstances, even the exact set of
commands used by the programmer is deemed functional rather than
creative for the purposes of copyright. When specific instructions,
even though previously copyrighted, are the only and essential means
of accomplishing a given task, their later use by another will not
amount to infringement.
It is nearly impossible to win a copyright suit over a header file. The only chance you would have would be if it was a straight copy-and-paste which this was clearly not. The reason for this is that there is just not much room for creative expression in header files. Likewise, you can't copyright a word or a short sentence.
There are a very limited number of ways to declare functions. If someone was allowed to copyright certain function declarations then they would have control over a large segment of the software industry. Likewise, if someone was allowed to copyright particular words, they would have control over a segment of the publishing industry.
My guess is they are from planet Microsoft. MS has a history of launching surreptitious lawsuits against its competitors. For example they provide the
bulk of the funding for the SCO anti-Linux lawsuit charade. Then there was the ridiculous Psystar lawsuits against Apple and then the Turbohercules claims against IBM. The ties to MS in this last two cases are not as clear but I find it hard to believe that all these high-profile wacko law suits against Microsoft's competitors are just an coincidence.
I lived in a centrally located but rather crummy neighborhood of NYC back in the early '80s. Late at night cars would be backed up up several blocks waiting in a line so they could turn down my street and pick up a hooker.
Funny thing is, the neighborhood seemed perfectly safe. I never had any trouble getting to or from my apartment at any hour of the day or night. I figured it was probably one of the safest areas of NYC because any crime would have been bad for business.
Kagen seems to think that the Government should have the power to outlaw the production of pornography altogether.
But Kagen said:
Statutes may be crafted in ways that prohibit the worst of hate speech and pornography, language that goes to sexual violence. Such statutes may still be constitutional...
Label me a freedom hating liberal if you wish but to me there is a world of difference between "outlawing $XXX altogether" and "prohibiting the worst of $XXX". In fact Kagan specifically said "language that goes to sexual violence" which is very different from your conclusion that she thinks we can or should outlaw the production of pornography altogether or outlaw whatever the government deems to be hate speech. Kagan specifically tied her argument to sexual violence.
In fact, your argument is so weak and distorted, if Kagan had made a similarly twisted and weak argument, I wouldn't be surprised if you used her use of a strawman argument as a basis for rejecting her.
IMO "the worst of pornography" certainly includes snuff films. ISTM the production of such films should be (and probably already is) illegal. The idea that you have a First Amendment right to kill someone for the purposes of sexual titillation is absurd. Therefore the issue is not nearly so black and white as you pretend it is. The question is not whether we can draw a line at all, the question is: where do we draw the line? If you think current laws offer ample protection from all forms of sexual violence that are used in the creation of the very worst of pornography, then say so and admit you have an honest disagreement with Kagan.
The problem created by your twisting of Kagan's words is easily seen in the responses to your post that quote your misinterpretation of her words as if they were a direct quote from Kagan.
There are plenty of valid objections to Kagan. I don't see why you felt compelled to just make stuff up.
If the interactions of particles are thought of as a movie, CPT symmetry requires that whatever physics occurs during the show must be the same whether the film is run forward or backward (time), viewed through a mirror (parity) and repopulated with each particle being replaced by an antiparticle (charge).
This is unclear at best. CPT symmetry says that when the film is run backward AND seen through a mirror AND all particles are replaced with the anti-particles (and vice versa) then the physics should be the same.
If you change just one, for example by running the film backward but without the mirror or the the particle exchange, or if you change two, for example, running the film backward and with the mirror but no particle exchange, then the physics will change.
I think many, perhaps most, human evils in this world are caused by poor approximate models of reality. For example, much of racism can be reduced to:
All $GROUP people have $TRAIT.
I was taught that economics is all about the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Money is a tool that was created, supposedly, to make all of the above more efficient and equitable. Many people seem to get caught up in the approximation that:
Profits are the ultimate economic good
and they've lost sight of the productions and distribution of goods and services. I'm reminded of a quote often attributed to Einstein:
The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.
Slashdot Mirror
Transmitting signals wirelessly through ocean water presents many of the same difficulties. There is already a very well developed technology for doing this based on sound. The transmitters are usually trivial to build. The tough part is the receiver because in order to get high data rates, you have to go to great lengths to compensate for extreme multipath distortion (echoes).
The DMCA is not supposed to apply to situations where your actions would otherwise be legal. There are plenty of high resolution monitors with DVI input but not HDMI. Just because Intel and friends don't want me to use my legally purchased monitor with my legally purchased bluray player to watch legally purchased blurays does not make it illegal.
In 1984, the US Supreme Court ruled that video cassette recorders were perfectly legal because recording tv shows for purposes of time shifting constitutes fair use, not copyright violation. Even though VCRs could be used for making illegal copies of copyrighted material, the court ruled that VCRs had significant non-infringing uses. ISTM that a device that lets me connect a monitor to a bluray player so I can watch a movie has a heck of a lot more non-infringing use than a recorder.
The only reason I say this will be an interesting test case and not a slam dunk win for the good guys is because the US Supreme Court (and the US in general) has shifted dramatically rightward since 1984. Particularly in situations where corporate profits conflict with personal freedoms.
I'm using MakeMKV to stream blurays on Linux. No ripping to disk needed. MakeMKV is proprietary and costs $50 but the beta is free. It makes viewing blurays really easy. If I buy it, it will be the first proprietary program I've bought in many years. It is a trade-off. For me, convenient breaking of DRM is worth supporting this particular proprietary effort. Also the dev seems like a nice guy and the program is not all obnoxious about being proprietary. I actually had to do some digging to find out how to buy it and how much it costs.
I have no doubt HDCP-SuperPlusGood is already in the works but I have a feeling the pooch has been screwed and will remain screwed for a number of years. Dropping support for the current HDCP would be extremely stupid because it would really piss off end users and it would force them to buy an HDCP cracker box to use their current equipment with an upgraded component. IMO high def (including bluray) was the lure to get people to start using HDCP crippled devices. What the heck are they going to use to lure people into using HDCP-SuperPlusGood? What is going to be the next technical leap that will make the current high def obsolete?
It is going to be interesting to see if the DMCA comes into play now that people will be able to buy a little device that cracks HDCP. It's not clear those little cracker boxes would be illegal under the DMCA because they can certainly be used for purposes that would otherwise be legal (e.g. legally viewing bluray movies on a non-HDCP display). It could be a lose-lose for the media companies.
Interesting points. I hadn't thought of a private announcement to their licensees. ISTM the end users will be affected by this too. People who want to create devices that break HDCP encryption won't be slowed down or sped up by the announcement. They were going to go ahead at full speed to see if this master key was valid. I still think the public announcement was the only right thing for Intel to do at this point. IIUC, the stock market hates uncertainty so creating a haze of uncertainty by delaying the public announcement had no up-side for Intel.
We disagree about whether Intel did something wrong. Perhaps they had an exchange program between marketing and engineering because as much as I admire their recent admission of defeat, I find their HDCP implementation technically deplorable**. They really should have known that it was going to be trivial to crack. As I've mentioned elsewhere, one of the main reasons they chose such a weak system was to keep hardware implementations cheap and easy. Their HDCP algorithm requires only 20 56-bit additions to create the private shared key. In contrast, 1024-bit RSA key exchange requires 512 1024-bit multiplications.
** I also find it morally deplorable so I'm glad it's been broken. I wonder if during the internal Intel debate on the technical merits, the people who knew how weak it was, didn't have the belly for a drawn out fight with marketing because they too had qualms about the morality of DRM. Engineers are are always striving to make their creations robust, it goes against the grain to make something that is "broken by design".
Intel is manning up and admitting that something terrible just happened. It is the smart thing to do. If they had hemmed and hawed and delayed admitting the key was genuine then all their customers who had bought in on this DRM scheme would have gotten pissed off and felt jerked around.
Look at the metric shitload of bad press BP got when they tried to lie and evade regarding their recent oil leak. I believe the people responsible for that are no longer with the company.
It is interesting that someone would question why on Earth Intel would step up and do the right thing that will be best for the company in the coming weeks and months. I think this is because we have come to expect large corporations to act with all the integrity and intelligence of a retarded dinosaur after it has had its brains knocked out by a piece of asteroid shrapnel. Apparently real engineers continue to work at Intel and for some unknown reason, at least one of was placed in a position of authority.
So, can Linux playback BluRay movies now? Or does that still require Rube Goldberg contortions to get poor quality playback?
I use MakeMKV to stream Bluray content to xbmc. I have an nvidia card that enables hardware decoding via vdpau. The streaming means I don't have to rip Blurays to a hard drive and the hardware decoding means that my cpu is coasting at about 15% usage. The quality is fabulous, xbmc is really slick. I'm planning to use the wonderful Bluray playback to show off my Linux system as a media center to my friends who still use Windows.
I start the streaming from the command line. If you think typing is a Rube Goldberg contortion, you could use the GUI that lets you start the streaming with just a few mouse clicks. It is now very easy and the quality is excellent. The biggest problem I have is that most of the movies I like aren't yet available on Bluray. If you like movies with lots of violence and action, you probably don't have this problem.
As an added bonus, I don't have to screw around with firmware updates to my Bluray drive.
Someone asked why the matrix wasn't symmetric as per the master matrix in Blom's Scheme.
I figured out the answer by reading the three short articles linked to from HDCP: Why So Weak?. The deal is that they placed severe hardware constraints on themselves. They were only allowed to require devices to do addition, no multiplication. Therefore the implementation in the Wiki article was not acceptable.
The HDCP scheme only allows "sources" to create a shared private key with "sinks", not other sources. Each source (sink) gets a private key that is a sum of 20 rows (columns) of the master matrix mod(P) where P seems to be 2^56 (which is not prime). Their public key is not a vector of integers like in the Wiki article. It is a vector of 40 zeros or ones with a total of 20 zeros and 20 ones. It is the same vector that selected their 20 rows (columns).
If you look at how an arbitrary source's 20 rows overlap with an arbitrary sink's 20 columns in the master matrix, they will intersect at exactly 400 (= 20 x 20) numbers. The shared private key is the sum mod(P) of these 400 numbers. The source's private key is the 40 word vector containing the sum of its 20 rows. So the 400 numbers at the intersections have been summed into 20 numbers out of the 40 numbers of the source's private key. The sink tells the source which of the 20 of the 40 numbers in the source's private key to sum. These correspond to the 20 bits that were set (out of 40 bits) to select the 20 columns that make up the sink's private key. When the sources adds the 20 numbers from its private key it gets the sum of the 400 numbers in the intersection between the source's rows and the sinks columns.
The sink does the same thing. It gets told by the source which 20 of the 40 numbers in it's private key correspond to the sources 20 rows. The sink adds up these 20 numbers and it too gets the sum of the 400 numbers that are in the intersection of the sources rows and the sinks columns. This way each one uses their own private key (the sum of their 20 rows or columns which is a vector of 40 numbers) combined with the public key of the other (which 20 out of 40 numbers to sum) in order to find a shared private key. They both end up with the same number which is called the shared private key. It is the sum of the 400 numbers where the source's rows intersect the sink's columns in the master matrix.
When the young lad was confronted, he said the FBI were a bunch of yanks.
Receiving a good education does not ensure that you are right or wrong, but it means you are very highly trained in the existing hubris of your culture.
Great phrase! Have you read Masks of the Universe? Here are some excerpts from the introduction (pdf):
The theme of this book is that the universe in which we live, or think we live, is mostly a thing of our own making. The underlying idea is the distinction between Universe and universes. It is a simple idea having many consequences.
Yes, the stickers were released before the OS. They did a similar thing with Vista.
My kitchen garbage has been adorned with this sticker for over a decade.
You do know that both copyright law and patent law stem from the same clause in the Constitution, the one theaveng was suggesting we amend to bring it in line with the laws passed by our corporate controlled Congress, right?
After getting past the thought of "been there, done that with Battlestar Galactica", my next thought was of the orange cones that are put on roads to guide traffic and are constantly getting run over. They're also getting constantly run over in driver's ed classes. I couldn't imagine why some sick bastard wanted make those cones look like humans unless he really hated highway maintenance workers.
Defense Department spokesman Geoff Morrell admits publicly that the Pentagon is completely clueless about the internet and the Streisand effect.
KDE 3 was professional and powerful. KDE 4 seems to have all the options I don't want, none of the options I actually used, ...
Yep. This was my feeling exactly. I had been using KDE since 1.1 or earlier. I've now switched to Enlightenment e-16 (very old but still being maintained). It took some work to customize but now I'm happier with e-16 than I was with KDE-3.5.10. YMMVG.
1. break down the plaintiff’s program into its constituent structural parts (“abstraction”);
2. examine each part for incorporated “ideas,” elements taken from the public domain, methods of operation, processes or procedures, or otherwise unprotected material (“filtration”); and
3. compare the remaining kernel of creative expression, if any, to the work alleged to infringe at each level of abstraction (“comparison”).
They further explain:
The scenes à faire doctrine is often applied in software cases because it is frequently impossible to write a program in a particular computing environment without employing certain standard programming techniques and design elements. This is because certain functions, data elements, and the order of operation of a program can be dictated by such things as the type of computer on which the program will run, the programming language used, the operating system environment, governmental requirements, industry demands and standards, and widely accepted programming practices.
I suspect the reason SCO didn't filter this code is because if they did, there would be nothing at all left to present to the court as their fig leaf to avoid being charged with perpetrating a fraud on the court.
This code was the last big unknown in this long sorry saga. Even if SCO owned the copyrights, (and hadn't distributed it under the GPL, and hadn't signed the UnitedLinux agreement, etc.) it is now crystal clear that SCO's Microsoft-funded anti-Linux campaign was based on a stack of frivolous law suits.
I think Darl's brother is scrambling to cover his backside so that when the disbarments and criminal charges come down, he has a chance to escape.
Groklaw (of course) has IBM's response to SCO's claims that these paltry examples are worth BILLIONS of dollars in copyright damages. None of the code they offered is protectable under copyright law. Some of it is BSD code that everyone is free to use however they want (if they include the copyright notice). A lot of it is header files that were not copy-and-pasted which are nearly impossible to protect under copyright law. Then they have some snippets of generic code. Given the size of the source code for Linux, it would be astounding if there weren't some similar snippets. The idea that this is proof that Linux violated any Unix copyrights is totally absurd. The idea that these generic snippets are what made Linux enterprise-ready is beyond insane.
The recent SCO v. Novell case decided that SCO never even owned the copyrights it was suing about. And then instead of the millions of lines of code they claimed were infringing, they presented this meager collection of totally unprotectable snippets. I sure hope SCO's lawyers get severely punished for perpetrating this fraud on the court for the past seven years.
Computer programs pose unique problems for the application of the "idea/expression distinction" that determines the extent of copyright protection. To the extent that there are many possible ways of accomplishing a given task or fulfilling a particular market demand, the programmer's choice of program structure and design may be highly creative and idiosyncratic. However, computer programs are, in essence, utilitarian articles -- articles that accomplish tasks. As such, they contain many logical, structural, and visual display elements that are dictated by external factors such as compatibility requirements and industry demands... In some circumstances, even the exact set of commands used by the programmer is deemed functional rather than creative for the purposes of copyright. When specific instructions, even though previously copyrighted, are the only and essential means of accomplishing a given task, their later use by another will not amount to infringement.
It is nearly impossible to win a copyright suit over a header file. The only chance you would have would be if it was a straight copy-and-paste which this was clearly not. The reason for this is that there is just not much room for creative expression in header files. Likewise, you can't copyright a word or a short sentence.
There are a very limited number of ways to declare functions. If someone was allowed to copyright certain function declarations then they would have control over a large segment of the software industry. Likewise, if someone was allowed to copyright particular words, they would have control over a segment of the publishing industry.
What planet are these people on?
My guess is they are from planet Microsoft. MS has a history of launching surreptitious lawsuits against its competitors. For example they provide the bulk of the funding for the SCO anti-Linux lawsuit charade. Then there was the ridiculous Psystar lawsuits against Apple and then the Turbohercules claims against IBM. The ties to MS in this last two cases are not as clear but I find it hard to believe that all these high-profile wacko law suits against Microsoft's competitors are just an coincidence.
I lived in a centrally located but rather crummy neighborhood of NYC back in the early '80s. Late at night cars would be backed up up several blocks waiting in a line so they could turn down my street and pick up a hooker.
Funny thing is, the neighborhood seemed perfectly safe. I never had any trouble getting to or from my apartment at any hour of the day or night. I figured it was probably one of the safest areas of NYC because any crime would have been bad for business.
Kagen seems to think that the Government should have the power to outlaw the production of pornography altogether.
But Kagen said:
Statutes may be crafted in ways that prohibit the worst of hate speech and pornography, language that goes to sexual violence. Such statutes may still be constitutional ...
Label me a freedom hating liberal if you wish but to me there is a world of difference between "outlawing $XXX altogether" and "prohibiting the worst of $XXX". In fact Kagan specifically said "language that goes to sexual violence" which is very different from your conclusion that she thinks we can or should outlaw the production of pornography altogether or outlaw whatever the government deems to be hate speech. Kagan specifically tied her argument to sexual violence.
In fact, your argument is so weak and distorted, if Kagan had made a similarly twisted and weak argument, I wouldn't be surprised if you used her use of a strawman argument as a basis for rejecting her.
IMO "the worst of pornography" certainly includes snuff films. ISTM the production of such films should be (and probably already is) illegal. The idea that you have a First Amendment right to kill someone for the purposes of sexual titillation is absurd. Therefore the issue is not nearly so black and white as you pretend it is. The question is not whether we can draw a line at all, the question is: where do we draw the line? If you think current laws offer ample protection from all forms of sexual violence that are used in the creation of the very worst of pornography, then say so and admit you have an honest disagreement with Kagan.
The problem created by your twisting of Kagan's words is easily seen in the responses to your post that quote your misinterpretation of her words as if they were a direct quote from Kagan.
There are plenty of valid objections to Kagan. I don't see why you felt compelled to just make stuff up.
If the interactions of particles are thought of as a movie, CPT symmetry requires that whatever physics occurs during the show must be the same whether the film is run forward or backward (time), viewed through a mirror (parity) and repopulated with each particle being replaced by an antiparticle (charge).
This is unclear at best. CPT symmetry says that when the film is run backward AND seen through a mirror AND all particles are replaced with the anti-particles (and vice versa) then the physics should be the same.
If you change just one, for example by running the film backward but without the mirror or the the particle exchange, or if you change two, for example, running the film backward and with the mirror but no particle exchange, then the physics will change.
I was taught that economics is all about the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Money is a tool that was created, supposedly, to make all of the above more efficient and equitable. Many people seem to get caught up in the approximation that:
and they've lost sight of the productions and distribution of goods and services. I'm reminded of a quote often attributed to Einstein:
Also, you might only get to pick one.
That seems to be what Atul Gawande was saying which prompted my response.
Many other countries have affordable and effective health care (but no obscene corporate health care profits).
2) Effective heath care
3) Obscene corporate profits from health care
As long as corporations control our government, number 3 is not optional.