Not that easy...but easIER
on
PressPlay + Roxio?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Along with wanting to give a strong push to the Apple platform, Apple did not immediately rush out a Windows version because they knew that it wasn't something they needed to rush. It is not that easy to create a fully integrated tool/service/device system like iTunes/Apple Music Store/iPod. Beyond the purely technical (frontend and backend, which are each daunting) there are the esthetic/UI functional elements and the business deals that had to be put in place to create the entity as a whole. This was a not a flash in the pan. It was a well thought out, well executed business plan.
That's true, but there's two mitigating circumstances:
1) they're buying pressplay - all jokes aside, I'm assuming they do have some know-how and architecture in place, even if they did shoot themselves in the foot with that subscription plan.
2) They have the benefit of seeing the reaction to Apple's site, to decide what to copy and what to change. Remember, "First to market" is as often a curse as a gift.
Bottom line, the 6-month lead that Roxio will have will definitely help them play catch-up, and I wouldn't bet against them being able to turn pressplay into something viable by the time Apple manages to port their system to windows. I know it'll take more than slapping a new front end, but it still could be do-able.
Only an idiot expects a slam-dunk in a court-you can hope, but judge and jury are notoriously unpredictable. The open source (and/or free software) community doesn't really have a say, it's down to IBMs lawyers. The OSI/EFF/FSF could file an amicus brief, but personally I suspect that the uncertainty has been to the advantage of GPL advocates so far, but this may need to change.
Exactly, that's the whole thing. GPL is critical to "Free" (as in Stallman) software, and if it doesn't stand, it's useless. So I'd rather have the spectre of it than have it tested. As for IBM, if they push linux, they have a vested interest in the GPL too. Although I've always wondered why they didn't just go with BSD...
I'm not sure but I think penalties may be on a per-infringement basis, e.g. 5 dollars per copy sold . Maybe.
Not to be a pundit or anything, but since SCO sold like 12 copies of their crappy SCO linux, I would fully expect them to go that route, assuming they have any patents (see below).
When I read all the references, including those to ESRs position paper I came to the conclusion that SCO were desperately trying to find something credible.
I was, initially, taking their word that, if they say they have patents, then they have patents. Seems like something stupid to lie about. Obviously, I overestimated that SCO legal "Dream Team." It seems that their best hope here is to be confused with another company whose name used to be SCO. Brilliant, guys.
I also found thier "101" retort humorous. Sometimes, it doesn't take a calculated response to destry a stupid claim. What were they expecting, Dickens?
As someone else posted, they have to publish details to get a patent so it can't hurt to say what it is. It's really hard to see what could be gained from secrecy here for SCO. The only thing I can think of is trade secret, and that cat is well and truly out of the bag anyway.
Yes and no. First, it assumes they actually plan to get a patent, as opposed to use it to threaten. Second, it assumes that what SCO does has reason, logic, and intelligence at heart - and I'm no longer willing to grant that. The only thing that might make sense is that IBM isn't off the hook for trade secret violations yet. Reason is that SCO doesn't make the matter moot by releasing their linux distro - if IBM CVS'd it first, then that is the violation as I understand it. Subsequently, what was secret is no longer, and SCO might as well release it.
Also, they do still have copyright on any code that was blatantly copied, and that's definitely not kosher.
If I had to guess, they're keeping quiet because they have absolutely no case, but that's just me. The only way to threaten in that case is to play coy.
I don't think that has much to do with the stuff you are *not* finding. The basic reason for that is just that a ton of stuff went away sometime in the last 2-3 years.
I'd agree if I didn't ultimately find what I'm looking for - it's just that it takes a hell of a lot longer now.
Man, what I wouldn't have given for a decent search engine back when Alta Vista was the best that we could scrape up!
I'll definitely grant that, as AV was, for the time before google, the best out there. But I swear, maybe I'm all rose-colored-glasses, but it takes the full power of google's boolean search with carefully-chosen keywords to find what I used to could with a half-assed AV search.
To me, the pinnacle of the internet was the day google was invented, before people learned to manipulate it, and before every toothless moron in Arkansas had a web page. Or worse yet, before every half-wit college freshman but up a blog giving his vacant opinion abut something, confounding my efforts to find actual information on the topic.
I know I sound like an old fogy yelling at passersby about the good-old-days, but that's not what I'm trying to say.
No, that's what I'm trying to say.;) I guess the best way I can say it is that I liked the internet better when it felt like a big, huge BBS - a great blend of community with resources. Now, the internet is mostly a sterile high-tech phone book, and that doesn't seem as cool to me.
Then cover it with a layer of clear acrylic spray. There may be some vertical deviance, but most players are made to correct for up to somewhere between.3mm and.5mm vertical dev. Translation: as long as you get an even coat, it should play nicely (unless the acrylic is permeable to O2 or has a chemical that itself reacts with the disc).
Yep, an airbrush would work. With mine, three passes from about 8 inches away gives 200 nm (about), so you could go apeshit with the thing and never get 300 microns.
I wouldn't use acrylic - it's going to be fairly permeable to oxygen, and some of the solvents you might use to dissolve it contain oxygen as well. I would use something like polypropylene (soluble in xylene), which is fairly resistant to oxygen.
Question still becomes, how long can you extend the lifetime? I'm still not betting on forever. However, as I have access to a variety of polymers, solvents, and airbrshes, I'll be playing with this when it comes out.;)
True enough...I know the GPL *says* that. However, I also know that a court has never tested it and upheld it. And it is a pretty unique license, you know? So I don't know what a judge would do, faced with it. And I'd rather not find out.
Also, is there a penalty portion of the GPL? I know that you're not allowed to use GPL code unless you release your stuff, but what if you do? Logically, it seems like their patents should then be free, but could someone decide that they'd rather take a breach-of-contract judgement than succumb to forced release? I'm speculating big time (as if that weren't clear), but still. I'm wondering if SCO would have another way out that would let them maintain patent status despite publishing.
Here's what it boils down to - does the open source community really want this case to end up being a test of the GPL? Because I don't think that would be a slam-dunk, not like people seem to think. All of this assuming that SCO has anything remotely resembling evidence. Or even patents, their claims to which I've since read look bogus.
(c)Riding on the sidewalk doesn't necessarily make you safer. I have been nailed by a car TWICE in the same year while riding my bike, and both times is was ON THE SIDEWALK! Both times, the driver in question tried to make a quick turn, coming in from an oblique angle at me. I'm just glad that I had enough reaction time to jump off of my bike and clear of the "action" from the first incident so that I lived to see the second.
Don't know your circumstances, but I'd definitely recommend slowing down big time at intersections, because drivers just don't expect anything moving faster than 3 mph on a sidewalk. That said, pedestrians get hit at 3 mph too, so that's not a failsafe;)
Does bring up a fair point in that US streets are meant for one thing - driving. I drive a car, I run, I bike on both streets and sidewalks - and the only place I feel comfortable, unfortunately, is in my car.
Caldera/SCO had 12 years to explore these concerns.
I'm not saying I agree with SCO/Caldera/bunch of retards, it's a question of whether a judge will believe them. They're going to contend that IBM snuck that code in there. And the question is, should they really have to check the whole code base that they take from linux to see that someone hasn't pretty much trojan-horse'd them? Is that reasonable? And does reasonability even matter there?
See, here's the problem. If SCO loses that argument, companies with software patents that they intend on keeping have two choices: 1) Develop everything related to that patent in-house, or 2) Never release anything under the GPL. Because otherwise, you have to check to see that your former partners didn't sneak something in there, and that's a pretty tough burden.
I'm not saying I don't find the GPL argument compelling, just that making it could do a hell of a lot more harm than good.
Never (and I mean never) do I encounter this "useless" Internet that people keep talking about.
Really? Cuz I use google all the time, and it's gotten progressively harder over time to find anything even approaching a primary source. It's all shitty blogs, domain squatters, and the like.
I'll grant that a world given a voice says a lot of stupid crap, but that's the nature of a world given a voice, and I do have to put up with the fact that the guy down the way thinks that "news" is what happened to Britteny Spears this week, because he has to put up with the face that I think that "news" is what happened on some Internet pundit's blog this week....
Well, see, that's the thing. That guy didn't use to be on the internet. Used to, it took at least some *effort,* if not intelligence, to throw up a web page, so people who had them at least made them somewhat worth the time. Not so now.
die...pigdog() is a function, which all developers can completely ignore if they like but without forking. EDOOFUS is an error code that will have to be tested for quite a bit, without choice (well, unless you consider not error checking a choice). Therefore, it will be impossible to ignore DOOFUS without forking.
It is damned funny. But I do think it at least supports his contention that he does, in fact, have a sense of humor.
The day that slashdot announces that a tactile sensor can distinguish between my girlfriend's nipple and her elbow, then I will be sufficiently impressed!
Considering all the body parts on a blow-up doll are made of plastic, that will be a good trick indeed.
...the internet as we know it is dying. The spam-filled, commercialized to death, every-other-idiot-is-an-AOL'er internet is dying? That the "old school" internet will only persist for those with access to (or know people who run, or pay for access on) relatively open servers?
Gee, sounds horrible. The internet might be useable again.
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That's not necessarily wrong
on
Nanotechnology
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· Score: 1
Someone I know is a grad student at a prestigious university that shall remain nameless. He's doing research that is supposed to somehow be "nanotechnology." However, the size of devices he's dealing with is huge, about 50 to 100 microns.
I take your point about using the "nano" buzzword for mindless grant-spamming, but he could be right. The definition of nanotech is typically a material that has at least one dimension containing features that are designed and controlled at a resolution below 200 nanometers.
The definition might change a bit with who you talk to, but the key point is feature control. I could have something that's 10 feet on a side, but if I carefully control the feature size/resolution at a level of 100 nm, that could appropriately be called "nanotech."
This cuts both ways. SCO distributed it's disputed IP under the GPL after they publicly claimed that Linux had been contaminated. Despite their clear concerns, they chose to distribute their IP under a "viral license".
Yeah, this one's going to be interesting to see play out, because it can go so many ways. First, as someone said on here (can't remember who), since the GPL and Open Source licensing is under such public perception attacks, that might be an argument of last resort. Imagine some MS shill journalist: "GPL causes respected business to lose copyrights." That wouldn't be so super even if it's bullshit.
Additionally, I'm not sure how the defense to that attack would go. Can SCO make an argument that they were unwitting in their error, and that they can't check every line of every release of a semi-public project like linux? A judge might buy that argument, but I have no idea what the legal precedent would be because there probably isn'tany.
And finally, this is one of the instances where they would be forced to go after "trade secret" arguments, having effectively nuked their own copyright (if a judge doesn't buy the previous argument). One could compellingly argue that their unwitting release of their own code is irrelevant to a trade secret argument because IBM (or someone they talked to) CVS'd the code first. That would be the latest date of a trade secret violation - and SCO wouldn't lose a trade secret argument for releasing their own secrets after the initial divulsion.
However, for them to want to go after trade secret arguments, they'd have to be in pretty deep shit already, because the burden/difficulty of proof there is highest. They'd have to point out specific sections of violating code, prove that there's no way that an independently-developed version would be so similar, show contact between who CVS'd the code and IBM, and finally show that IBM didn't appropriately keep a boundary between "Monterrey" and Linux developers. Then, they'd have to show that what they had was really secret before IBM's divuslion, and that it wasn't a blatantly obvious approach. Their problem is that, since all of these "trade secrets" are conceptual in nature and not unique to how SCO does business, the standard for "secrets" here may end up being similar as that for patents!
For a copyright argument, SCO can stop simply at the point where the linux code is implausibly similar and skip the rest, as it doesn't matter to a copyright argument whether the material was secret or how it was attained.
So pull up a chair, grab a beer, and check/. every half hour for the latest SCO story.;)
Right, but have you ever encountered copy protection that didn't reduce the functionality of the software or cause security or stability problems--yet wasn't trivial to break?
Well, naturally, tradeoffs do come in to play. I would still say that copy protection that is trivial to the more educated slashdot user isn't necessarily trivial to the general populace. Forced reg. always works. CD-in-drive works pretty well - it'll get hacked, but most users aren't going to go to the trouble. It could do the WinXP-style "hash your hardware" approach.
I think any of these are better than the "all your boot sector are belong to us" trick.
Their DRM was so potentially dangerous it was silly. Good to see that they are pulling back from their stance. I don't see microsoft taking the hint, though.
Right, but I think they misread the consumer response, which is unfortunate. They think people are telling them to get copy-protection off their products. Actually, most of us (I think) were saying, "Stay off our boot sector."
Problem there is that those of us who don't like software that screws with boot sectors and AV protection get lumped in with software pirates in their eyes. They've said that they think there were ulterior motives behind the "no bootsector" complaints, sort of in the same way that pot smokers support the hemp fabric industry - and it ain't because they have any vested interest in rope.
It would be nice for somebody like the EFF or whatever to really sit down with companies like Intuit and convince them that most of us don't at all have a problem with copy protection that doesn't reduce the functionality of the software or cause security/stability problems.
As some other people have mentioned, in a case like this you have an obligation to reduce damages if you're going to ask for them from the courts - you can't refuse to allow people the opportunity to cease the violation but still claim damages. So the extent of damages they could claim is severely damaged by the way they're handling this case. Then again, IANAL, and SCO does have some, so they must know something I don't.
You're exactly right - what I mentioned was more of a "finding of fact/law" kind of thing, but I would definitely say their handling would play out in a penalty phase.
The more I think about it, the more I'm willing to accept that this is some sort of scam to destroy corporate acceptance of Linux - FUD taken to a whole new level.
Yeah - I tend to be avoid the tinfoil-hat club, but I agree, this one could be legit. They have more motive than *anyone* to kill/inhibit linux (except maybe Sun), since they own much of what's left of unix. Doesn't mean that their goals are realistic, but they don't seem real rational anyway.
it's like they have a magic ace up thier sleeve. And yet, as others have pointed out, dropping bombshells like that secretly is actually a pretty poor legal tactic. So I'm confused.
No, I'd say you have it figured out, which is to say it doesn't make sense for a company trying to stay in business. My four theories are that they're attemption to 1) inhibit linux adoption (as you point out), 2) extort unix licenses out of linux vendors, 3) get bought out, or 4) make lawsuits their entire revenue stream. My personal guess right now is 2, but that could change.
Recall, as you read this, that my point is whether or not SCO will lose this suit because of a "due diligence" issue...
Hmm supposedly sounds like hard facts too, that will play well in court.
I'm not commenting regarding the factual basis of SCO's suit, which as we all know probably doesn't have any. As you mention, they've been pretty vague regarding what violations actually exist, and they also claim that they have patents that have been compromised,a as well as any possible "trade secrets" that don't manage to fall into either category. As you point out in your link, their claims are probably bogus. No surprise there. If OSI is right and SCO has nothing, then all this is irrelevant anyway.
Whether any of this is true is completely irrelevant to whether they failed in any sort of "due diligence" requirement to avoid forfeiting their IP in this case (recall, that was your original contention that I posted about). My point was simply that there is nothing in any statute that I have seen or you have shown that their right to not have their code copied is compromised or revoked by lack of due diligence on their part.
I didn't mention copyright did I? Checks posts No, didn't think so.shrugs
I know you didn't. However, copyright is what SCO's most recent complaint is about. From one of the articles:
"Although SCO's claims about Linux developers copying from SCO's proprietary UnixWare have been vague in the past, this time Sontag specifically claimed that there is 'significant copyrighted and trade secret code within Linux.'"
Here, he's hedging his bets by using both terms, but believe it, he'd rather nail this under copyright if he can.
Copying code is a copyright violation, copyright is easier to prove than trade secret violations, and copyright has a longer duration. Whether you choose to focus on other things is completely up to you. However, that's the issue here today. It might not be tomorrow, knowing that crack SCO legal team, but it is for now.
As far as trade secret and due diligence are concerned, the only way I know of that they could lose on that basis is for some nebulous trade secret that 1) didn't come under copyright, and 2) they made non-secret by actually giving away without concern to where it went (ie, non-secret). So, effectively, it would have to have been non-published, but pretty freely given away without an NDA. And there's a difference between "giving something away" and "due diligence." The latter typically implies a higher standard.
To summarize:
1) If SCO has no evidence, this discussion is irrelevant anyway.
2) If SCO is correct, then linux contains copied code.
3) Copied code is a copyright violation.
4)Copyrights last as close to forever as is relevant to us.
5)Copyrights are not revoked through lack of due diligence.
6)Any trade secret issues are secondary, and only come into play if 2) above does not hold.
You will discover, that in some less meticulous countries, e-voting has already been a reality.
Guess that explains how a tool like Chirac got elected. Seriously, who the hell brags that their country's voting system isn't as meticulous as the US's?
As far as I can make out this isn't a patent issue.
Yes, it is. They have patents, which they plan to enforce, namely with regard to multi-processor stuff. They also have copyright. Both of these supercede "trade secrets," and neither can be revoked due to any presence or lack of "due diligence."
If you have a source that suggests copyright (NOT TRADEMARKS) can be revoked by lack of due diligence, I'd definitely like to see it, because everything I've seen states clearly that copyrights are protected for Life+70. Otherwise, do musicians who allow their songs to be traded on Napster-clones lose copyright? No.
Any due diligence issues might play out in a penalty phase, but in terms of guilt and innocence, it's irrelevant.
There have been a jillion articles on this thing, including with SCO officials, so it's not a matter of more data. They claim that both patents and copyrights have been violated. Patents supposedly got leaked through IBM's AIX collaboration with SCO. Copyrights supposedly did because they claim that a lot of pre-IBM linux developers were privy to unix code that they were NDA'd from using elsewhere.
That's where it currently stands. Much of this was in the articles attached to this discussion, which you might have considered reading first.
SCO's decision to hold off this long and not even provide potential future litigants with the opportunity to remove the code from their systems and minimise the alleged damage suggests, to me, that they really don't have a case.
No, it just suggests that their product is worthless and they're after monetary damages rather than an injunction against use of the code. This is not mutually exclusive with "having a case."
Despite this, it is pretty damned unlikely that they have a case unless they fake CVS commission dates. Assuming they're competent enough to keep track of that.
Alternatively it could be argued, possibly by shareholders in a due diligence case, that SCO lost any IP by not exercising proper care over what they were selling.
Due diligence doesn't really apply to patents, I don't believe. Does with trademark, which doesn't apply here.
If due diligence did apply (and you could argue it should), then the whole Rambus fiasco wouldn't have happened
You can't really keep them secret, so "trade secret" is right out. It's not a identifying mark
Obviously, you're right. The four biggies (patent, trademark, copyright, and trade secret) all eat it. So why does shit like this happen? Because the judges in these cases half of the time have never used email. Their aides do it for them. Computers are nebulous devices that other people use. When you get right down to it, they don't have the experience to see the obvious analogies that you made and we all understand.
In 20 years when we get rid of these dipshits, maybe crap like this won't happen. Might be too late by then, but oh well.
RPM's are for pussies. Real men install everything using.tar.gz. On their Slackware box.
No, wait, that's too easy. Real men code their Linux from scratch. Without a compiler. Straight machine code. Input by ASCII.
Naturally, this prevents holding down a real job. So real men also live in their parents' basement. And priorities prevent time for useless things like girls. So real men masturbate. A lot. While looking at a picture of Stallman. Naked. Fucking that queer GNU ox mascot.
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That's true, but there's two mitigating circumstances:
1) they're buying pressplay - all jokes aside, I'm assuming they do have some know-how and architecture in place, even if they did shoot themselves in the foot with that subscription plan.
2) They have the benefit of seeing the reaction to Apple's site, to decide what to copy and what to change. Remember, "First to market" is as often a curse as a gift.
Bottom line, the 6-month lead that Roxio will have will definitely help them play catch-up, and I wouldn't bet against them being able to turn pressplay into something viable by the time Apple manages to port their system to windows. I know it'll take more than slapping a new front end, but it still could be do-able.
Exactly, that's the whole thing. GPL is critical to "Free" (as in Stallman) software, and if it doesn't stand, it's useless. So I'd rather have the spectre of it than have it tested. As for IBM, if they push linux, they have a vested interest in the GPL too. Although I've always wondered why they didn't just go with BSD...
I'm not sure but I think penalties may be on a per-infringement basis, e.g. 5 dollars per copy sold . Maybe.
Not to be a pundit or anything, but since SCO sold like 12 copies of their crappy SCO linux, I would fully expect them to go that route, assuming they have any patents (see below).
When I read all the references, including those to ESRs position paper I came to the conclusion that SCO were desperately trying to find something credible.
I was, initially, taking their word that, if they say they have patents, then they have patents. Seems like something stupid to lie about. Obviously, I overestimated that SCO legal "Dream Team." It seems that their best hope here is to be confused with another company whose name used to be SCO. Brilliant, guys.
I also found thier "101" retort humorous. Sometimes, it doesn't take a calculated response to destry a stupid claim. What were they expecting, Dickens?
As someone else posted, they have to publish details to get a patent so it can't hurt to say what it is. It's really hard to see what could be gained from secrecy here for SCO. The only thing I can think of is trade secret, and that cat is well and truly out of the bag anyway.
Yes and no. First, it assumes they actually plan to get a patent, as opposed to use it to threaten. Second, it assumes that what SCO does has reason, logic, and intelligence at heart - and I'm no longer willing to grant that. The only thing that might make sense is that IBM isn't off the hook for trade secret violations yet. Reason is that SCO doesn't make the matter moot by releasing their linux distro - if IBM CVS'd it first, then that is the violation as I understand it. Subsequently, what was secret is no longer, and SCO might as well release it.
Also, they do still have copyright on any code that was blatantly copied, and that's definitely not kosher.
If I had to guess, they're keeping quiet because they have absolutely no case, but that's just me. The only way to threaten in that case is to play coy.
I'd agree if I didn't ultimately find what I'm looking for - it's just that it takes a hell of a lot longer now.
Man, what I wouldn't have given for a decent search engine back when Alta Vista was the best that we could scrape up!
I'll definitely grant that, as AV was, for the time before google, the best out there. But I swear, maybe I'm all rose-colored-glasses, but it takes the full power of google's boolean search with carefully-chosen keywords to find what I used to could with a half-assed AV search.
To me, the pinnacle of the internet was the day google was invented, before people learned to manipulate it, and before every toothless moron in Arkansas had a web page. Or worse yet, before every half-wit college freshman but up a blog giving his vacant opinion abut something, confounding my efforts to find actual information on the topic.
I know I sound like an old fogy yelling at passersby about the good-old-days, but that's not what I'm trying to say.
No, that's what I'm trying to say. ;) I guess the best way I can say it is that I liked the internet better when it felt like a big, huge BBS - a great blend of community with resources. Now, the internet is mostly a sterile high-tech phone book, and that doesn't seem as cool to me.
Yep, an airbrush would work. With mine, three passes from about 8 inches away gives 200 nm (about), so you could go apeshit with the thing and never get 300 microns.
I wouldn't use acrylic - it's going to be fairly permeable to oxygen, and some of the solvents you might use to dissolve it contain oxygen as well. I would use something like polypropylene (soluble in xylene), which is fairly resistant to oxygen.
Question still becomes, how long can you extend the lifetime? I'm still not betting on forever. However, as I have access to a variety of polymers, solvents, and airbrshes, I'll be playing with this when it comes out. ;)
True enough...I know the GPL *says* that. However, I also know that a court has never tested it and upheld it. And it is a pretty unique license, you know? So I don't know what a judge would do, faced with it. And I'd rather not find out.
Also, is there a penalty portion of the GPL? I know that you're not allowed to use GPL code unless you release your stuff, but what if you do? Logically, it seems like their patents should then be free, but could someone decide that they'd rather take a breach-of-contract judgement than succumb to forced release? I'm speculating big time (as if that weren't clear), but still. I'm wondering if SCO would have another way out that would let them maintain patent status despite publishing.
Here's what it boils down to - does the open source community really want this case to end up being a test of the GPL? Because I don't think that would be a slam-dunk, not like people seem to think. All of this assuming that SCO has anything remotely resembling evidence. Or even patents, their claims to which I've since read look bogus.
Don't know your circumstances, but I'd definitely recommend slowing down big time at intersections, because drivers just don't expect anything moving faster than 3 mph on a sidewalk. That said, pedestrians get hit at 3 mph too, so that's not a failsafe ;)
Does bring up a fair point in that US streets are meant for one thing - driving. I drive a car, I run, I bike on both streets and sidewalks - and the only place I feel comfortable, unfortunately, is in my car.
I'm not saying I agree with SCO/Caldera/bunch of retards, it's a question of whether a judge will believe them. They're going to contend that IBM snuck that code in there. And the question is, should they really have to check the whole code base that they take from linux to see that someone hasn't pretty much trojan-horse'd them? Is that reasonable? And does reasonability even matter there?
See, here's the problem. If SCO loses that argument, companies with software patents that they intend on keeping have two choices: 1) Develop everything related to that patent in-house, or 2) Never release anything under the GPL. Because otherwise, you have to check to see that your former partners didn't sneak something in there, and that's a pretty tough burden.
I'm not saying I don't find the GPL argument compelling, just that making it could do a hell of a lot more harm than good.
Really? Cuz I use google all the time, and it's gotten progressively harder over time to find anything even approaching a primary source. It's all shitty blogs, domain squatters, and the like.
I'll grant that a world given a voice says a lot of stupid crap, but that's the nature of a world given a voice, and I do have to put up with the fact that the guy down the way thinks that "news" is what happened to Britteny Spears this week, because he has to put up with the face that I think that "news" is what happened on some Internet pundit's blog this week....
Well, see, that's the thing. That guy didn't use to be on the internet. Used to, it took at least some *effort,* if not intelligence, to throw up a web page, so people who had them at least made them somewhat worth the time. Not so now.
And don't get me started on newsgroups.
It is damned funny. But I do think it at least supports his contention that he does, in fact, have a sense of humor.
Considering all the body parts on a blow-up doll are made of plastic, that will be a good trick indeed.
Gee, sounds horrible. The internet might be useable again.
The internet is dead, long live the internet.
would like to share the joy of their newborn son,
Weightlifter Cx.
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I take your point about using the "nano" buzzword for mindless grant-spamming, but he could be right. The definition of nanotech is typically a material that has at least one dimension containing features that are designed and controlled at a resolution below 200 nanometers.
The definition might change a bit with who you talk to, but the key point is feature control. I could have something that's 10 feet on a side, but if I carefully control the feature size/resolution at a level of 100 nm, that could appropriately be called "nanotech."
But naturally, it's just a word.
Yeah, this one's going to be interesting to see play out, because it can go so many ways. First, as someone said on here (can't remember who), since the GPL and Open Source licensing is under such public perception attacks, that might be an argument of last resort. Imagine some MS shill journalist: "GPL causes respected business to lose copyrights." That wouldn't be so super even if it's bullshit.
Additionally, I'm not sure how the defense to that attack would go. Can SCO make an argument that they were unwitting in their error, and that they can't check every line of every release of a semi-public project like linux? A judge might buy that argument, but I have no idea what the legal precedent would be because there probably isn'tany.
And finally, this is one of the instances where they would be forced to go after "trade secret" arguments, having effectively nuked their own copyright (if a judge doesn't buy the previous argument). One could compellingly argue that their unwitting release of their own code is irrelevant to a trade secret argument because IBM (or someone they talked to) CVS'd the code first. That would be the latest date of a trade secret violation - and SCO wouldn't lose a trade secret argument for releasing their own secrets after the initial divulsion.
However, for them to want to go after trade secret arguments, they'd have to be in pretty deep shit already, because the burden/difficulty of proof there is highest. They'd have to point out specific sections of violating code, prove that there's no way that an independently-developed version would be so similar, show contact between who CVS'd the code and IBM, and finally show that IBM didn't appropriately keep a boundary between "Monterrey" and Linux developers. Then, they'd have to show that what they had was really secret before IBM's divuslion, and that it wasn't a blatantly obvious approach. Their problem is that, since all of these "trade secrets" are conceptual in nature and not unique to how SCO does business, the standard for "secrets" here may end up being similar as that for patents!
For a copyright argument, SCO can stop simply at the point where the linux code is implausibly similar and skip the rest, as it doesn't matter to a copyright argument whether the material was secret or how it was attained.
So pull up a chair, grab a beer, and check /. every half hour for the latest SCO story. ;)
Well, naturally, tradeoffs do come in to play. I would still say that copy protection that is trivial to the more educated slashdot user isn't necessarily trivial to the general populace. Forced reg. always works. CD-in-drive works pretty well - it'll get hacked, but most users aren't going to go to the trouble. It could do the WinXP-style "hash your hardware" approach.
I think any of these are better than the "all your boot sector are belong to us" trick.
Right, but I think they misread the consumer response, which is unfortunate. They think people are telling them to get copy-protection off their products. Actually, most of us (I think) were saying, "Stay off our boot sector."
Problem there is that those of us who don't like software that screws with boot sectors and AV protection get lumped in with software pirates in their eyes. They've said that they think there were ulterior motives behind the "no bootsector" complaints, sort of in the same way that pot smokers support the hemp fabric industry - and it ain't because they have any vested interest in rope.
It would be nice for somebody like the EFF or whatever to really sit down with companies like Intuit and convince them that most of us don't at all have a problem with copy protection that doesn't reduce the functionality of the software or cause security/stability problems.
You're exactly right - what I mentioned was more of a "finding of fact/law" kind of thing, but I would definitely say their handling would play out in a penalty phase.
The more I think about it, the more I'm willing to accept that this is some sort of scam to destroy corporate acceptance of Linux - FUD taken to a whole new level.
Yeah - I tend to be avoid the tinfoil-hat club, but I agree, this one could be legit. They have more motive than *anyone* to kill/inhibit linux (except maybe Sun), since they own much of what's left of unix. Doesn't mean that their goals are realistic, but they don't seem real rational anyway.
it's like they have a magic ace up thier sleeve. And yet, as others have pointed out, dropping bombshells like that secretly is actually a pretty poor legal tactic. So I'm confused.
No, I'd say you have it figured out, which is to say it doesn't make sense for a company trying to stay in business. My four theories are that they're attemption to 1) inhibit linux adoption (as you point out), 2) extort unix licenses out of linux vendors, 3) get bought out, or 4) make lawsuits their entire revenue stream. My personal guess right now is 2, but that could change.
Recall, as you read this, that my point is whether or not SCO will lose this suit because of a "due diligence" issue...
Hmm supposedly sounds like hard facts too, that will play well in court.
I'm not commenting regarding the factual basis of SCO's suit, which as we all know probably doesn't have any. As you mention, they've been pretty vague regarding what violations actually exist, and they also claim that they have patents that have been compromised,a as well as any possible "trade secrets" that don't manage to fall into either category. As you point out in your link, their claims are probably bogus. No surprise there. If OSI is right and SCO has nothing, then all this is irrelevant anyway.
Whether any of this is true is completely irrelevant to whether they failed in any sort of "due diligence" requirement to avoid forfeiting their IP in this case (recall, that was your original contention that I posted about). My point was simply that there is nothing in any statute that I have seen or you have shown that their right to not have their code copied is compromised or revoked by lack of due diligence on their part.
I didn't mention copyright did I? Checks posts No, didn't think so.shrugs
I know you didn't. However, copyright is what SCO's most recent complaint is about. From one of the articles:
"Although SCO's claims about Linux developers copying from SCO's proprietary UnixWare have been vague in the past, this time Sontag specifically claimed that there is 'significant copyrighted and trade secret code within Linux.'"
Here, he's hedging his bets by using both terms, but believe it, he'd rather nail this under copyright if he can.
Copying code is a copyright violation, copyright is easier to prove than trade secret violations, and copyright has a longer duration. Whether you choose to focus on other things is completely up to you. However, that's the issue here today. It might not be tomorrow, knowing that crack SCO legal team, but it is for now.
As far as trade secret and due diligence are concerned, the only way I know of that they could lose on that basis is for some nebulous trade secret that 1) didn't come under copyright, and 2) they made non-secret by actually giving away without concern to where it went (ie, non-secret). So, effectively, it would have to have been non-published, but pretty freely given away without an NDA. And there's a difference between "giving something away" and "due diligence." The latter typically implies a higher standard.
To summarize:
1) If SCO has no evidence, this discussion is irrelevant anyway.
2) If SCO is correct, then linux contains copied code.
3) Copied code is a copyright violation.
4)Copyrights last as close to forever as is relevant to us.
5)Copyrights are not revoked through lack of due diligence.
6)Any trade secret issues are secondary, and only come into play if 2) above does not hold.
Guess that explains how a tool like Chirac got elected. Seriously, who the hell brags that their country's voting system isn't as meticulous as the US's?
Yes, it is. They have patents, which they plan to enforce, namely with regard to multi-processor stuff. They also have copyright. Both of these supercede "trade secrets," and neither can be revoked due to any presence or lack of "due diligence."
If you have a source that suggests copyright (NOT TRADEMARKS) can be revoked by lack of due diligence, I'd definitely like to see it, because everything I've seen states clearly that copyrights are protected for Life+70. Otherwise, do musicians who allow their songs to be traded on Napster-clones lose copyright? No.
Any due diligence issues might play out in a penalty phase, but in terms of guilt and innocence, it's irrelevant.
There have been a jillion articles on this thing, including with SCO officials, so it's not a matter of more data. They claim that both patents and copyrights have been violated. Patents supposedly got leaked through IBM's AIX collaboration with SCO. Copyrights supposedly did because they claim that a lot of pre-IBM linux developers were privy to unix code that they were NDA'd from using elsewhere.
That's where it currently stands. Much of this was in the articles attached to this discussion, which you might have considered reading first.
No, it just suggests that their product is worthless and they're after monetary damages rather than an injunction against use of the code. This is not mutually exclusive with "having a case."
Despite this, it is pretty damned unlikely that they have a case unless they fake CVS commission dates. Assuming they're competent enough to keep track of that.
Due diligence doesn't really apply to patents, I don't believe. Does with trademark, which doesn't apply here.
If due diligence did apply (and you could argue it should), then the whole Rambus fiasco wouldn't have happened
Obviously, you're right. The four biggies (patent, trademark, copyright, and trade secret) all eat it. So why does shit like this happen? Because the judges in these cases half of the time have never used email. Their aides do it for them. Computers are nebulous devices that other people use. When you get right down to it, they don't have the experience to see the obvious analogies that you made and we all understand.
In 20 years when we get rid of these dipshits, maybe crap like this won't happen. Might be too late by then, but oh well.
RPM's are for pussies. Real men install everything using .tar.gz. On their Slackware box.
No, wait, that's too easy. Real men code their Linux from scratch. Without a compiler. Straight machine code. Input by ASCII.
Naturally, this prevents holding down a real job. So real men also live in their parents' basement. And priorities prevent time for useless things like girls. So real men masturbate. A lot. While looking at a picture of Stallman. Naked. Fucking that queer GNU ox mascot.
Any more questions?
...you dipshit, your swastika's backwards. If you're going to be a racist moron, at least do it right.