Though GPL will likely not affect this case, it will affect SCO's attempts to extort licensing fees for their "binary" licence (assuming of course there is at least some truth to their code being in linux). If they can collect such a fee, then the GPL is essentially useless as people could get away with adding proprietary code to a GPL'ed project and then demand money (and perhaps any other restrictions the company wishes) to use it.
From what I understand of the GPL, any source code that had these addition restrictions would be GPL (and/or copyright) infringement against the GPL'd code as code that could not be used freely can't be mixed with that code. While some sort of "binary" licence from SCO might protect you from legal actions from SCO, it does not make the program fully legal.
People are nice to me on irc.debian.org, in #debian. I go there asking pointed questions, with specific error messages/log entries, after I have already fiddled for some time with the system. Sometimes the answer to a problem is not immediately obvious - the advice I get usually broadens my knowledge of the system, which helps solve other problems.
The people in #debian are probably among the most helpful I've come across on IRC. This might in part be because the average person that comes in to ask questions may be a little more knowledgeable than most, but either way they don't seem to have a hostile attitude towards people asking for help. In channels I've been ops in I've unfortunately found regularls tend to get more and more hostile the more questions they get that could be easily answered elsewhere.
IRC is definately a mixed bag when it comes to asking for help. My personal rule when it comes to asking for help on IRC is to first try to figure things out on my own, and only ask in channels that appear to acceptful of others asking questions. If you follow both of these rules and are still treated like shit, just move on and don't waste your time.
Assuming everyone is playing fairly, this setup gets most of the benefits of both client server and peer to peer. Taken to the extreme, it could allow for massively multiplayer games to be run cheaply (perhaps with no monthly fee) with lots of the processing being done on the clients.
Unfortunately, giving clients such control over the state of the game opens up serious issues with cheating. For example, in the article it appears that the client would have control over AI ground units it is flying above. What's to stop the client from disabling the ground unit so that it doesn't attack? When two clients are attacking each other, assuming peer-to-peer interaction, which client controls who hits who? A cheater could setup their client to make all their shots "hit" and their enemies shots "miss".
(Note that I may be making some wrong assumptions about how this particular game works. I'm just going by the article and what I know about networking and games in general.)
I would be very interested to see this type of network setup in a manner where it could prevent or stop cheating altogether. Perhaps for any entity in a game require multiple controlling clients (clients acting as servers for that entity), and see if there is any clients that is constantly comes up with a different opinion on the state of the game and kick them out. I believe similar techniques are used for non-game P2P networks, such as SETI (correct me if I'm wrong about this).
Another possible option might be using something like Palladium to ensure clients are running the exact same code, though I'd have to know more about it to know how feasible that would be.
I wouldn't be horribly suprised if there is something to their case against IBM, but if there is anything it will be quickly removed and fixed.
Meanwhile, SCO is going around spreading unwarrented fear about Linux. By trying to help their own profits by spreading this garbage, they are likely openning themselves up to lawsuits from companies trying to profit off of Linux.
I know this point comes up countless times, but just because something can send files doesn't make it illegal. If anything, Freenet is less of a threat than both FTP and HTTP for sending around MP3s/videos, as it was not particularly designed to send large files. FTP and HTTP aren't illegal, so why should Freenet be? There is no reason any file sharing system should be illegal unless it's intent is for piracy (which is why Napster got in trouble, due to the emails floating around about that fact. Why aimster got in trouble, I still don't understand and I hope they win on appeal).
Oppenheim seems to suggest that Freenet is just as much a threat as any file sharing tool, no matter the fact that it's "clunky". I've always thought that the best the RIAA can hope for is to make this kind of music piracy clunky, as there will always be some sort of file sending service and copy protection can always be broken (audio-in to audion out). The RIAA and the music industry need to come up with realistic view of the world, before they lose all their sales to services like Kazaa.
SARS spread as rapidly as the cold, and is more deadly than the normal flu and way more deadly than the cold. If it were allowed to spread (and this could still happen, I'm in Toronto and we just finished "ridding" ourselves of this for the second time) there could be millions of people dead from it. There is roughly a ~10% death rate... if it were to spread like a cold to hundreds of millions of people, we could have something as bad or worse than the flu epidemic. I don't mean to be a fear monger, but this isn't "nothing to worry about". If people weren't so vigilent about this we could have been in that situation by now.
Re:robin hood?
on
SARS Contained
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
How many people in the states died of it? Over 800 people died worldwide, and over 8000 had it. See here
SARS could have very well been the answer to China's overpopulation issues. I'm sorry, but I can't believe this shit has been modded as "insightful". I guess it doesn't matter as long as it's Asians.:P
This is a step up, in the notion that they actually have someone there whose job it is to protect people's privacy. The major concerns, however, are:
a) Will she be aggressive enough to actually make a difference? b) Will the Bush administration kick her out for doing her job "too well"?
It's a step in the right direction, but I'm not sure it will mean much unless those in power actually believe privacy is a good thing and not just something they need to get around.
> i think that argument has failed before: "it's okay because it's for a good cause"
The patent is rediculous, from my understanding covering on the idea of simply looking for this gene as a method of finding cancer. However, even if we were to ignore this, I think it is sad that you could possibly argue the value of intellectual property over that of LIFE.
Take the example of aids, which while a problem here is a *HUGE* problem in Africa. Governments there are given the choice of either:
a) Bankrupting themselves while trying to pay licencing fees for drugs necessary to SAVE LIVES
b) Allowing their citizens to die
c) Ignoring the patents and obtaining generic versions of the drugs
While I do agree there needs to be an incentive to make drugs, the patent system MUST either be reformed or replaced. Drug companies that bully people and governments are leading to people's death. While we all get our panties in a bunch whenever the MPAA/RIAA screw around, no one ever died because they couldn't play their DVDs in Linux.
Assuming the onboard card is AGP, I don't think you can have two AGP cards at the same time. They probably capped it so that people don't try connecting the monitor into a port that's been disabled. I imagine if you really wanted to you could remove the Geforce, enable the onboard card, and remove the cover on the VGA slot, there's very little reason to do that.
While this bill is quite a promising step, the section covering EULAs only covers such media as movies, music, and books:
Sec 3. SS123
"(c) As used in this section, the following terms have the following meanings: A 'digital work' is any literary (except a computer program), sound recording or musical work, or dramatic, motion picture or other audiovisual work, in whole or in part in a digital or other non-analog format. A 'digital media device' is any hardware or software that converts copyrighted works in digital form into a form whereby the images and sounds are visible or audible, or retrieves or accesses copyrighted works in digital form and transfers or makes available for transfer such works to such hardware or software.
Slashdot Mirror
Though GPL will likely not affect this case, it will affect SCO's attempts to extort licensing fees for their "binary" licence (assuming of course there is at least some truth to their code being in linux). If they can collect such a fee, then the GPL is essentially useless as people could get away with adding proprietary code to a GPL'ed project and then demand money (and perhaps any other restrictions the company wishes) to use it.
From what I understand of the GPL, any source code that had these addition restrictions would be GPL (and/or copyright) infringement against the GPL'd code as code that could not be used freely can't be mixed with that code. While some sort of "binary" licence from SCO might protect you from legal actions from SCO, it does not make the program fully legal.
The people in #debian are probably among the most helpful I've come across on IRC. This might in part be because the average person that comes in to ask questions may be a little more knowledgeable than most, but either way they don't seem to have a hostile attitude towards people asking for help. In channels I've been ops in I've unfortunately found regularls tend to get more and more hostile the more questions they get that could be easily answered elsewhere.
IRC is definately a mixed bag when it comes to asking for help. My personal rule when it comes to asking for help on IRC is to first try to figure things out on my own, and only ask in channels that appear to acceptful of others asking questions. If you follow both of these rules and are still treated like shit, just move on and don't waste your time.
Assuming everyone is playing fairly, this setup gets most of the benefits of both client server and peer to peer. Taken to the extreme, it could allow for massively multiplayer games to be run cheaply (perhaps with no monthly fee) with lots of the processing being done on the clients.
Unfortunately, giving clients such control over the state of the game opens up serious issues with cheating. For example, in the article it appears that the client would have control over AI ground units it is flying above. What's to stop the client from disabling the ground unit so that it doesn't attack? When two clients are attacking each other, assuming peer-to-peer interaction, which client controls who hits who? A cheater could setup their client to make all their shots "hit" and their enemies shots "miss".
(Note that I may be making some wrong assumptions about how this particular game works. I'm just going by the article and what I know about networking and games in general.)
I would be very interested to see this type of network setup in a manner where it could prevent or stop cheating altogether. Perhaps for any entity in a game require multiple controlling clients (clients acting as servers for that entity), and see if there is any clients that is constantly comes up with a different opinion on the state of the game and kick them out. I believe similar techniques are used for non-game P2P networks, such as SETI (correct me if I'm wrong about this).
Another possible option might be using something like Palladium to ensure clients are running the exact same code, though I'd have to know more about it to know how feasible that would be.
I wouldn't be horribly suprised if there is something to their case against IBM, but if there is anything it will be quickly removed and fixed.
Meanwhile, SCO is going around spreading unwarrented fear about Linux. By trying to help their own profits by spreading this garbage, they are likely openning themselves up to lawsuits from companies trying to profit off of Linux.
I know this point comes up countless times, but just because something can send files doesn't make it illegal. If anything, Freenet is less of a threat than both FTP and HTTP for sending around MP3s/videos, as it was not particularly designed to send large files. FTP and HTTP aren't illegal, so why should Freenet be? There is no reason any file sharing system should be illegal unless it's intent is for piracy (which is why Napster got in trouble, due to the emails floating around about that fact. Why aimster got in trouble, I still don't understand and I hope they win on appeal).
Oppenheim seems to suggest that Freenet is just as much a threat as any file sharing tool, no matter the fact that it's "clunky". I've always thought that the best the RIAA can hope for is to make this kind of music piracy clunky, as there will always be some sort of file sending service and copy protection can always be broken (audio-in to audion out). The RIAA and the music industry need to come up with realistic view of the world, before they lose all their sales to services like Kazaa.
SARS spread as rapidly as the cold, and is more deadly than the normal flu and way more deadly than the cold. If it were allowed to spread (and this could still happen, I'm in Toronto and we just finished "ridding" ourselves of this for the second time) there could be millions of people dead from it. There is roughly a ~10% death rate... if it were to spread like a cold to hundreds of millions of people, we could have something as bad or worse than the flu epidemic. I don't mean to be a fear monger, but this isn't "nothing to worry about". If people weren't so vigilent about this we could have been in that situation by now.
How many people in the states died of it?
:P
Over 800 people died worldwide, and over 8000 had it. See here
SARS could have very well been the answer to China's overpopulation issues.
I'm sorry, but I can't believe this shit has been modded as "insightful". I guess it doesn't matter as long as it's Asians.
This is a step up, in the notion that they actually have someone there whose job it is to protect people's privacy. The major concerns, however, are:
a) Will she be aggressive enough to actually make a difference?
b) Will the Bush administration kick her out for doing her job "too well"?
It's a step in the right direction, but I'm not sure it will mean much unless those in power actually believe privacy is a good thing and not just something they need to get around.
The patent is rediculous, from my understanding covering on the idea of simply looking for this gene as a method of finding cancer. However, even if we were to ignore this, I think it is sad that you could possibly argue the value of intellectual property over that of LIFE.
Take the example of aids, which while a problem here is a *HUGE* problem in Africa. Governments there are given the choice of either:
- a) Bankrupting themselves while trying to pay licencing fees for drugs necessary to SAVE LIVES
- b) Allowing their citizens to die
- c) Ignoring the patents and obtaining generic versions of the drugs
While I do agree there needs to be an incentive to make drugs, the patent system MUST either be reformed or replaced. Drug companies that bully people and governments are leading to people's death. While we all get our panties in a bunch whenever the MPAA/RIAA screw around, no one ever died because they couldn't play their DVDs in Linux.Assuming the onboard card is AGP, I don't think you can have two AGP cards at the same time. They probably capped it so that people don't try connecting the monitor into a port that's been disabled. I imagine if you really wanted to you could remove the Geforce, enable the onboard card, and remove the cover on the VGA slot, there's very little reason to do that.