Unfortunately, once SCO's allegations are proven spurious, there won't be any SCO left to sue. They more or less bet the company on this ill conceived initiative.
Having read the article, I'm certain that this does not refer to a foldable LCD screen. What they is that the base colapses flat against the screen for transport. This is the same design introduced by Samsung on the 152B. The base (stand) colapses flat against the back of the monitor, making a sort of lightweight tablet to cary around.
Mass pirating in Asia asside, why not look at this from another direction?
Instead of being sad when a person who "happens" to get a copy somehow phones with questions, I would be happy, thrilled even, to have a potential new customer who would probably otherwise never have heard of me or even considered buying my stuff!!!
As an indenpendant publisher, your biggest obstacle is probably obscurity, not piracy. The occasional 'casual' copy exchanged from friend to friend is the best advertising your going to get without having to pay for it.
As it happens, this topic gets lots of discussion on the baen web boards. Jim has about as much experience with e-publishing of fiction as anyone else, and has strong views about what works in the "real world" to make money.
Your missing lots of books that were on the CD but not included in the index.
See http://www.tigershaunt.com/baen/baen.html for a complete list. The files aren't linked, so visitors will have to figure out how to download them, or ask for an e-mail copy.
Large Chain electronic shops (Future Shop here in Canada, for example) typically have an *excellent* return policy for the first 5 to 15 days. They should have a satisfaction guarantee or your money back return policy. Don't be shy to take advantage of it!
AINL, If Microsoft is giving away these discs without making you agree to any kind of license (purchase contract), you can do just about anything you want to with them, including commerical use. I doubt the note on the top that about use of software is illegal is really applicable. After all, without a license, MS's only legal protection is copyright.
MS seems to be taking the opposite stance, that without a license, the person who was given the software can't do anything MS doesn't want them to do. I would love to hear on what legal basis or precedent that belief comes from!
If you have an LCD which doens't Auto Tune properly (Leaving weird zones of fuziness), Put up a dot on / dot off checkerboard pattern on the screen. (In linux, just run xinit. For Win95/98, click start shutdown. Unfortunately, your on your own for WinXP). You should now clearly see the out of focus areas. If the fuziness isn't even, (there are vertical bars of fuziness), navigate the LCD menus to find an option that lets you shrink the horizontal size. You probably only have to reduce it by 1 or 2. At this point, the fuziness should either be gone, or be uniform across the screen. Once you have the fuziness uniform across the screen, find the fine tune option that will let you adjust the focus, or the sync, or whatever they call it, until the dot on / dot off pattern is clear and sharp.
How long has it been since you examined prices on LCD displays?? A 15" Samsung SyncMaster 152B can be had for roughly $450US, and I doubt your $1000 notebook has a screen this good. (And I see various 17" models price at $600)
That's about the dumbest thing you can do. As soon as a spammer gets a hold of your domain name, they will send a "username" attack. They will try to send an e-mail to every comon username in their 'dictionary', and you'll receive hundreds of them. you have to explicitely enable every e-mail address you want to reach you, and create a new one each time you have to hand out your address.
The authors have made speculations about MS creating WMP for Linux et al, but I don't believe it myself. All that MS is really offering is licensing of the technology (codecs?). This is probably required by the anti-trust settlement, to provide open, non-discriminatory licensing for their data formats.
Question: Since most distros now include either Mplayer or Xine, which can play MS media files, will this give MS incentive to go after distros to charge licensing for the software sales?
A law that requires goverment to use Open Source computer software for security is a damn good idea, and does not in any way rule out propriatery software. In fact, I think all software companies should be required to publish source code, just the same as you expect packaged food to include an ingredients list, Restaurants to disclose what was used to prepare your meal, drugs to disclose what medical drugs a pill contains.... Etc Etc. for much the same reasons... There is no (IMNSHO)good reason for keeping source code secret. Copyright and licensing laws still apply.
Actually, an earlier version of Netscape 4.7 did, in fact, have a buffer overflow in JPG code.. Didn't you keep up with the Security buletins last year?
In case it escaped your notice, Slashdot is more a discussion site than a news site. The question is, is it interesting / important enough to the Slashdot crowd to be discussion worthy. I think the number of comments posted by the end of the day will answer that question decisively. RMS is almost always disucussion worthy.:)
Because, most people who download from P2P don't bother to check gpg signatures (or checksum if you prefer). If people start using P2P networks to download executable code (either binary or source code), it's going to make Outlook Express look like a securely designed e-mail client. All existing P2P network are desinged to deliever content, where security is not a large concern. This proposes a system to deliver code, which requires a tie-in to a master server that verifies authenticity of files on behalf of the clients.
Maybe not legal, but what about PR?
on
Abusing the GPL?
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
As far as I can tell, AINL, as long as you do in fact release the source code (and all linked pieces... must be careful about this), you are in compliance with the GPL, even if the souce code has been obsufacated as much as possible. Just remember though, *everyone* will get to see this source code. They will either know that 1. You are ripping them off by 'working around' the GPL. Or 2. Think your company is staffed with the most incompetent imbecil programmers anyhwere. So my question for you is... Why would *any* company want to release something that makes them look bad??? What exactly is the advantage they think they will get from this?
Dude, I hate to tell you this, but Slashdot doesn't use pop up ads (or pop unders, either). Chances are, you have one of those Gator programs that pop's up ads for you. Strongly suggest you download Ad-Aware to get rid of the intruding virus.
Anyone else think Norton Et-Al should get on the ball and add these to their signatures? They could even make it as part of an alternative signature file for you to download that includes traditional viruses *and* spyware / adware.
Reading the FSF Affitdavit addressed some of my concerns. In
particular, #25:
FSF's policy with respect to GPL violations is to secure
compliance, not damages. When a party has violated GPL, and the
violation is called to our attention (which happens on the
average
some dozens of times each year), we inform the party in
violation
of its responsibilities, and advise it on the steps necessary
to
come into compliance. It is our practice that once a party has
taken steps to comply, and has entered into confidence-building
measures to ensure that future non-compliance will be avoided
wherever possible, and rapidly discovered and remedied where
inadvertently reproduced, distribution rights under GPL 4 are
restored on a cooperative non-judicial basis. In this fashion,
I
have secured compliance with the license in dozens of cases
over
the past decade, and have never had to resort to judicial
measures
of mandatory enforcement. Without the leverage provided by 4,
however, parties would resort to repetitive partial compliance,
``capable of repetition but evading review,'' in language the
Supreme Court has applied to a different sort of situation,
substantially if not overwhelmingly complicating the task of
securing reliable compliance with the license.
In this case, since the FSF does not own copyright to MySQL, their
usual policy doesn't apply. I still think what MySQL AB is doing is
wrong, and is abusing the spirit of GPL, however. Just as
importantly, using such a convoluted case to test the GPL in court for
the first time seriously jeopardizes the license. (If it is not
upheld in this case because of the strange circumstances, where will
that leave FSF in enforcing GPL in other, more clear cut instances?)
Basically, MySQL AB is arguing that because NuSphere violated the
GPL *in the past*, they have forfeited their right to distribute a GPL
app, even though the source code in question has since been released in
compliance with the terms of the GPL. What are the ramifications if
they succeed? Does this mean NuSphere will be unable to distribute
any GPL applications? Will the NuSphere contributions be deemed
invalid? Will MySQL AB then distribute MySQL with Gemini tables while
NuSphere is not allowed to? (Gemini tables are a NuSphere
contribution.)
Isn't it sadly ironic? The first time GPL is tested in court, and
I hope they loose, for all our sakes. No matter which way the
decision goes, the dispute hurts the entire free software community,
and will make corporate contributions to code base that much harder to
come by. And think of what Craig Mundie from Microsoft will have to
say about this! All over what was originally a domain name dispute.
(If your new to this conflict, NuSphere paid MySQL a huge chunk of
change for the right to distribute MySQL, (that's right, paid for the
right to distribute a GPL app.). In the process, they created a
mysql.org web page that did not give any credit to MySQL AB, and
indeed, only made SQL Source Code available to registered users. MySQL
AB charged NuSphere with GPL violation. In response, NuSphere made
the source code more available and released the source code for their
own proprietary modules. It is still not clear to me, however, what
exactly MySQL AB thinks the millions they were paid by NuSphere was
supposed to be for. Somehow, the right to distribute a GPL app for a
limited time just doesn't make sense.)
MySQL AB, I thank you very much for your hard work and development
of MySQL. But please, stop pissing on the GPL to advance your own
agenda. You can debate whether the money you were paid gave NuSphere
the right to hijack MySQL trademark until the cows come home; but all
GPL issues have been put to bed months ago!
TLD standards being destroyed.
on
VeriSign Buys .tv
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I think InterNIC should step in and stop this deal. 2 letter TLD's
are supposed to be used as contry TLD. This is a convention as old as
the Internet itself (and I'm sure will be in a RFC somewhere.) It does
not make sense for a TLD that was reserved for a country to be sold or
bargained for commercial interest..tv was 'given' to Tuvalu to
manage, not sell. It doesn't technically belong to them. The standard
belongs to everyone. If Tuvalu doesn't want to manage their
TLD, that's fine. But VeriSign should not be allowed to step in and
munge the standard to sell.tv the way you would a.com.
If a root server goes down, there are lots of redundant alternatives. However, the posability and damage of Domain name hijacking is much more serious... This is especially true since ICANN does not even operate the root servers!!. What's stopping one of the companies that operate root servers from suddenly deciding to take over the.uk top level domain? There is probably no law or contract stopping them from doing so.
Even though I'm sure we all had good intentions (if not complete thoughlessness) when all these cool features were added to JavaScript. But really, isn't it time that this gets fixed at the Browser end? I cannot think of *any* good reason for browsers to allow JavaScript to modify how buttons like Back and Close opperate without confirmation by the user. (it would also be trivial to apply a reasonable limit, like say 3, to pop-up windows). Microsoft and Netscape should both be *really* embarrassed that this issue is being addressed by the governent and potential legislation before they've even had a chance to suggest ways of fixing the situation.
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately, once SCO's allegations are proven spurious, there won't be any SCO left to sue. They more or less bet the company on this ill conceived initiative.
Having read the article, I'm certain that this does not refer to a foldable LCD screen. What they is that the base colapses flat against the screen for transport. This is the same design introduced by Samsung on the 152B. The base (stand) colapses flat against the back of the monitor, making a sort of lightweight tablet to cary around.
Mass pirating in Asia asside, why not look at this from another direction?
Instead of being sad when a person who "happens" to get a copy somehow phones with questions, I would be happy, thrilled even, to have a potential new customer who would probably otherwise never have heard of me or even considered buying my stuff!!!
As an indenpendant publisher, your biggest obstacle is probably obscurity, not piracy. The occasional 'casual' copy exchanged from friend to friend is the best advertising your going to get without having to pay for it.
As it happens, this topic gets lots of discussion on the baen web boards. Jim has about as much experience with e-publishing of fiction as anyone else, and has strong views about what works in the "real world" to make money.
Well damned, your right... Thanks for that :)
Your missing lots of books that were on the CD but not included in the index.
See http://www.tigershaunt.com/baen/baen.html for a complete list. The files aren't linked, so visitors will have to figure out how to download them, or ask for an e-mail copy.
Search for my comments, I posted instructions on how to focus a VGA LCD that doesn't auto-detect properly in a previous article.
Large Chain electronic shops (Future Shop here in Canada, for example) typically have an *excellent* return policy for the first 5 to 15 days. They should have a satisfaction guarantee or your money back return policy. Don't be shy to take advantage of it!
AINL, If Microsoft is giving away these discs without making you agree to any kind of license (purchase contract), you can do just about anything you want to with them, including commerical use. I doubt the note on the top that about use of software is illegal is really applicable. After all, without a license, MS's only legal protection is copyright.
MS seems to be taking the opposite stance, that without a license, the person who was given the software can't do anything MS doesn't want them to do. I would love to hear on what legal basis or precedent that belief comes from!
If you have an LCD which doens't Auto Tune properly (Leaving weird zones of fuziness), Put up a dot on / dot off checkerboard pattern on the screen. (In linux, just run xinit. For Win95/98, click start shutdown. Unfortunately, your on your own for WinXP). You should now clearly see the out of focus areas. If the fuziness isn't even, (there are vertical bars of fuziness), navigate the LCD menus to find an option that lets you shrink the horizontal size. You probably only have to reduce it by 1 or 2. At this point, the fuziness should either be gone, or be uniform across the screen. Once you have the fuziness uniform across the screen, find the fine tune option that will let you adjust the focus, or the sync, or whatever they call it, until the dot on / dot off pattern is clear and sharp.
Voila.
How long has it been since you examined prices on LCD displays?? A 15" Samsung SyncMaster 152B can be had for roughly $450US, and I doubt your $1000 notebook has a screen this good. (And I see various 17" models price at $600)
That's about the dumbest thing you can do. As soon as a spammer gets a hold of your domain name, they will send a "username" attack. They will try to send an e-mail to every comon username in their 'dictionary', and you'll receive hundreds of them. you have to explicitely enable every e-mail address you want to reach you, and create a new one each time you have to hand out your address.
The authors have made speculations about MS creating WMP for Linux et al, but I don't believe it myself. All that MS is really offering is licensing of the technology (codecs?). This is probably required by the anti-trust settlement, to provide open, non-discriminatory licensing for their data formats.
Question: Since most distros now include either Mplayer or Xine, which can play MS media files, will this give MS incentive to go after distros to charge licensing for the software sales?
A law that requires goverment to use Open Source computer software for security is a damn good idea, and does not in any way rule out propriatery software. In fact, I think all software companies should be required to publish source code, just the same as you expect packaged food to include an ingredients list, Restaurants to disclose what was used to prepare your meal, drugs to disclose what medical drugs a pill contains.... Etc Etc. for much the same reasons... There is no (IMNSHO)good reason for keeping source code secret. Copyright and licensing laws still apply.
Can someone clarify this for me? I've heard a few people mention it, but I've never seen a popup on NYT web page with Mozilla.
Actually, an earlier version of Netscape 4.7 did, in fact, have a buffer overflow in JPG code.. Didn't you keep up with the Security buletins last year?
In case it escaped your notice, Slashdot is more a discussion site than a news site. The question is, is it interesting / important enough to the Slashdot crowd to be discussion worthy. I think the number of comments posted by the end of the day will answer that question decisively. RMS is almost always disucussion worthy. :)
Because, most people who download from P2P don't bother to check gpg signatures (or checksum if you prefer). If people start using P2P networks to download executable code (either binary or source code), it's going to make Outlook Express look like a securely designed e-mail client. All existing P2P network are desinged to deliever content, where security is not a large concern. This proposes a system to deliver code, which requires a tie-in to a master server that verifies authenticity of files on behalf of the clients.
As far as I can tell, AINL, as long as you do in fact release the source code (and all linked pieces... must be careful about this), you are in compliance with the GPL, even if the souce code has been obsufacated as much as possible. Just remember though, *everyone* will get to see this source code. They will either know that 1. You are ripping them off by 'working around' the GPL. Or 2. Think your company is staffed with the most incompetent imbecil programmers anyhwere. So my question for you is... Why would *any* company want to release something that makes them look bad??? What exactly is the advantage they think they will get from this?
Dude, I hate to tell you this, but Slashdot doesn't use pop up ads (or pop unders, either). Chances are, you have one of those Gator programs that pop's up ads for you. Strongly suggest you download Ad-Aware to get rid of the intruding virus.
Anyone else think Norton Et-Al should get on the ball and add these to their signatures? They could even make it as part of an alternative signature file for you to download that includes traditional viruses *and* spyware / adware.
Reading the FSF Affitdavit addressed some of my concerns. In particular, #25:
FSF's policy with respect to GPL violations is to secure compliance, not damages. When a party has violated GPL, and the violation is called to our attention (which happens on the average some dozens of times each year), we inform the party in violation of its responsibilities, and advise it on the steps necessary to come into compliance. It is our practice that once a party has taken steps to comply, and has entered into confidence-building measures to ensure that future non-compliance will be avoided wherever possible, and rapidly discovered and remedied where inadvertently reproduced, distribution rights under GPL 4 are restored on a cooperative non-judicial basis. In this fashion, I have secured compliance with the license in dozens of cases over the past decade, and have never had to resort to judicial measures of mandatory enforcement. Without the leverage provided by 4, however, parties would resort to repetitive partial compliance, ``capable of repetition but evading review,'' in language the Supreme Court has applied to a different sort of situation, substantially if not overwhelmingly complicating the task of securing reliable compliance with the license.
In this case, since the FSF does not own copyright to MySQL, their usual policy doesn't apply. I still think what MySQL AB is doing is wrong, and is abusing the spirit of GPL, however. Just as importantly, using such a convoluted case to test the GPL in court for the first time seriously jeopardizes the license. (If it is not upheld in this case because of the strange circumstances, where will that leave FSF in enforcing GPL in other, more clear cut instances?)
Basically, MySQL AB is arguing that because NuSphere violated the GPL *in the past*, they have forfeited their right to distribute a GPL app, even though the source code in question has since been released in compliance with the terms of the GPL. What are the ramifications if they succeed? Does this mean NuSphere will be unable to distribute any GPL applications? Will the NuSphere contributions be deemed invalid? Will MySQL AB then distribute MySQL with Gemini tables while NuSphere is not allowed to? (Gemini tables are a NuSphere contribution.)
Isn't it sadly ironic? The first time GPL is tested in court, and I hope they loose, for all our sakes. No matter which way the decision goes, the dispute hurts the entire free software community, and will make corporate contributions to code base that much harder to come by. And think of what Craig Mundie from Microsoft will have to say about this! All over what was originally a domain name dispute. (If your new to this conflict, NuSphere paid MySQL a huge chunk of change for the right to distribute MySQL, (that's right, paid for the right to distribute a GPL app.). In the process, they created a mysql.org web page that did not give any credit to MySQL AB, and indeed, only made SQL Source Code available to registered users. MySQL AB charged NuSphere with GPL violation. In response, NuSphere made the source code more available and released the source code for their own proprietary modules. It is still not clear to me, however, what exactly MySQL AB thinks the millions they were paid by NuSphere was supposed to be for. Somehow, the right to distribute a GPL app for a limited time just doesn't make sense.)
MySQL AB, I thank you very much for your hard work and development of MySQL. But please, stop pissing on the GPL to advance your own agenda. You can debate whether the money you were paid gave NuSphere the right to hijack MySQL trademark until the cows come home; but all GPL issues have been put to bed months ago!
I think InterNIC should step in and stop this deal. 2 letter TLD's are supposed to be used as contry TLD. This is a convention as old as the Internet itself (and I'm sure will be in a RFC somewhere.) It does not make sense for a TLD that was reserved for a country to be sold or bargained for commercial interest. .tv was 'given' to Tuvalu to
manage, not sell. It doesn't technically belong to them. The standard
belongs to everyone. If Tuvalu doesn't want to manage their
TLD, that's fine. But VeriSign should not be allowed to step in and
munge the standard to sell .tv the way you would a .com.
If a root server goes down, there are lots of redundant alternatives. However, the posability and damage of Domain name hijacking is much more serious... This is especially true since ICANN does not even operate the root servers!!. What's stopping one of the companies that operate root servers from suddenly deciding to take over the .uk top level domain? There is probably no law or contract stopping them from doing so.
You shouldn't bother with those 2 weeks programs. I've found all kinds of programs that will crack MS word, Excel and Access files in under 2 seconds.
Even though I'm sure we all had good intentions (if not complete thoughlessness) when all these cool features were added to JavaScript. But really, isn't it time that this gets fixed at the Browser end? I cannot think of *any* good reason for browsers to allow JavaScript to modify how buttons like Back and Close opperate without confirmation by the user. (it would also be trivial to apply a reasonable limit, like say 3, to pop-up windows). Microsoft and Netscape should both be *really* embarrassed that this issue is being addressed by the governent and potential legislation before they've even had a chance to suggest ways of fixing the situation.