"The people that want to do something really cool want to do it without Microsoft."
Another rephrasing of an unsupported argument.
Well you could try offering some support yourself. There's a limit to how much time people are willing to spend on a
discussion if the most they can expect in response is a sarcastic one-liner. Unless you're going to make an effort yourself,
then effectively you're just trolling, and you shouldn't be surprised if people don't spend a lot of time addressing your point.
The geek needs to let go of the idea that adoption in the office drives adoption in the home.
I'm sure The Geek does, and no doubt you'll say as much the next time you see him.
For the rest of,
perhaps the truth lies between the two extremes. Certainly there are computer out there which were bought
so that office workers could work from home using compatible systems; rather a lot of them, I expect. Even
if no one ever buys a computer for that purpose, those machines are going to represent a sizeable chunk of MS
userbase for some time to come.
Of course, if you want to argue that patterns of usage are changing - well how odd! That's
what I'm arguing too. Fancy that!
Sure, "Bright and innovative" people only use Macs. Buy a Mac and you can be bright and innovative too!
Well, speaking as a died-in-the-wool penguin-head, I'd obviously have to dispute that:)
Tell you what, think of it in terms of zeitgeist.
In the 90s MS had it, and the prospered, due in no small part to the fact that everyone wanted to use Windows.
These days, I don't think they do, and I think the talent in the industry is starting to look elsewhere.
Come on, 4% market share and you are surprised when a computer does not run OSX?
I think that tells you a lot about Paul Graham's everyday environment. He's working with startups, he's trying to put together teams of the bright and innovative, and what he's finding is that most of these people are not using Microsoft software.
I suppose you have to allow for a bit of statistical bias there. Since Mr, Graham is (presumably) involved in selecting these people,
it's entirely possible that a subconscious selection criteria might be "doesn't do windows" or something similar.
Even so, I think he's got a point. How much of that market share is down to corporations who bulk-order generic beige boxes based on buying guidelines that are fifteen to twenty years old? How much is down to private homes where someone wanted to "get a computer" without realising there was a choice, or where the major criteria was that it should be "the same as the one at work".
It wouldn't surprise me at all to find that the Microsoft market share among the up-and-coming wave of computer innovators is actually very slim. And if that is in fact the case, Microsoft should indeed be worried.
When content authors can replicate food, clothing, housing, and transportation I'd then consider the "content wants to be free" mantra worth considering. Until then, content authors need to be paid too, just like "normal" people.
Yep, I understand that, and I'm not disagreeing with you on that front. The trouble is that the laws of supply
and demand aren't going to wait for that to happen.
The trouble the record labels face is that they would like their business to be the
the ownership of music. But if you look at where their money comes
from, they're really in the distribution business.
And distribution just got a whole load cheaper.
What's happening to the record labels, and sadly to the music stores as well, could have been
predicted by anyone with a basic knowledge of economics.
Pobably bought a lot of pizzas too, but try going into Pizza Hut and telling 'em that because of that you're now entitled to a free one.
Not a good analogy, really. In order for pizzas to be considered to be in the same class as music recordings, we'd need to be
living in a star trek universe, with matter replicators. Then you could buy your pizza, scan it and replicate it at will. You
could also post the pattern on the internet so everyone could enjoy the benefits. You'd probably still get short shrift going
into pizza hit and demanding a free pizza - but then you wouldn't have too - which is kind pretty much the point.
And, yes, I'd expect the Pizza Huts of the world to try all sorts of tactics to stop people doing this. The trouble is that
there's also be people making their own pizza at home, and scanning then just so people could say "whoo - this lady cooks a mean pizza" - and we see that happening in the music biz too.
People with more money can create more of them and with better production values and with more celebrity endorsements or whatever. Access to YouTube for political statements still favors the wealthiest. A person with sufficient wealth can probably still out advertise and more importantly out smear their opponent.
Maybe. But you can't be locked out of a medium like YouTube on the grounds that channel time is limited. So it's still possible for an
outsider with limited resources, but a good platform and decent charisma to get his or her message over. On broadcast TV they might never
get on air in the first place.
As I see it, sites like YouTube lower the barriers to entry in politics. That's bad news for the established parties, and
for people with a vested interest in the status quo. We can expect all sorts of interesting reasons why YouTube is bad Bad BAD
in the future. Personally, I think YouTube and its ile are a breath of fresh air in a world of stale and corrupt media. But maybe that's just me.
Remember that PJ worked for something like 2 weeks at ODSL...
Actually, I was looking to see if Timesprout could defend his allegation that PJ had been "hugely evasive" about working for IBM, rather than asking if there were any grounds (however flimsy) for the BSF motion.
I mean if she has been "hugely" evasive, it should be easy to dig up a few specific instances of her aoiding the question.
So far, no support has been forthcoming.
On the other hand, it's not hard to find instances of her being hugely un-evasive on the subject. A couple of minutes googling got me
this:
Well, the joke is on them. I am a paralegal with nothing better to do than Groklaw, and there is no Big Blue looming behind me. ibiblio hosts literally thousands of websites. IBM had nothing to do with Groklaw getting started, and we were already a force before we moved to ibiblio, and IBM had nothing to do with ibiblio accepting Groklaw. We were accepted because we qualified. Just because ibiblio hosts Groklaw doesn't mean I work for IBM. I don't. And I'd like to say thank you to ibiblio for hosting us. I'm deeply grateful that they don't allow the nonstop slime to cloud their vision.
That doesn't sound particularly evasive to me; rather more like a categorical denial.
(I know you're not trying to support BSF and SCO - I'm just having problems keeping the tone non-confrontational.
Put it down to annoyance at SCO and BSF.)
I think they likely saw that she was on a break, and decided to try and serve her then, so they could say she was avoiding it.
It's also most unlike her. She's always the first to point out that you don't get anywhere by trying to fool the judge or the court.
I don't get the lack of ability to contact her. I've sent 5 emails to her over the years, and received responses by next day every time.
hmmm.... suppose you want to depose a blogger, but don't have any grounds
Spread the word that you're trying to server a subpoena
make no effort to serve it
file a motion in court to compel appearance. "I sent her an email, your honour. She must be deliberately evading the servers"
... and then you're left with the task of convincing the judge that your target *must* have known about the summons.
and with a bit of luck you can sidestep entirely the issue of whether the groundless deposition.
It'd be about par for the course, based on what we've seen from SCO and BSF so far
Can you support that, in any shape way or form? I've seen her deny working for IBM, quite unambiguously too. On the other hand
the only thing resembling support for the proposition that she works for IBM is that she hosts Groklaw in ibiblio, to which IBM
have occasionally contributed money.
I'm with you as far as the "SCO are assholes" comment however.
since she has so much to say re SCO why not just accept the supoena and nail them in the courtroom.
Well...
Firstly, it's far from clear that she's deliberately tried to evade it.
Secondly, she wouldn't get to appear in court; deposition just means being grilled for hours by SCO's lawyers.
Thirdly she's trained as a paralegal, not an lawyer. Writing a scholarly paper on the martial arts will not turn you into Bruce Lee. Paralegal training doesn't imply skill in verbal debate.
As metrics go, that's not a particularly useful one. Millimetres are a useful metric, since if I measure
something and if you measure the same thing we, should get the same result. Seconds are a useful metric,
KLOC (thousands of lines of code) is a useful metric.
And while you could certainly measure the time it takes you to perform two tasks using both old and new menus,
it's not really reproducible since I'm likely to get a different value from the one you get. You could take a sample
population and average the times it took for each of them in both cases, and if this is what you have done, then
I will admit to being impressed, albeit with certain reservations.
But if, as I suspect, all we're doing is talking about our subjective impression of the time taken in using
these menus, then as a metric it's pretty much useless for the simple reason that we do, in fact, get different
results: I find the old style menu faster and easier to use.
I'll turn it about: how is the new Start Menu _worse_ ?
:D I never said it was worse. Personally, I don't like it at all, but that's not the same thing as worse.
What I was really getting at was the word "measurable" which I took to suggest that
there was some objective basis for your preference, rather than personal like and dislike.
I think I was hoping that you did have some actual measurements that could be applied.
Studying software metrics can do this to a chap, I'm afraid.
Now personally, I find the more-recently-used program feature a constant and ongoing irritation; I don't know what's supposed to be so
problematic about editing your menu tree to reflect your normal usage, but with these stupid adaptive menus,
nothing is ever where I expect to find it. Similarly, I have my own ideas about where to keep my various documents,
and I do most of my document processing under Linux anyway. And while the old menu is still broken with this most-recent-program
business, at least the overall layout is more or less as I expect and I don't have all the unnecessary and distracting clutter of
the new thing.
So from my viewpoint, the old menu is the clear winner. The thing is though, it's just personal preference.
Measurement doesn't enter into it.
By the way, I think perhaps you meant to say, "the only situations where the the new GPLv3 draft prevents
a problem are essentially similar to the Microsoft/Novell one."
Well by all means, go right ahead and discourage people from trying to see your point of view.
So what was this hypothetical situation where the GPL causes or (depending on
your point of view) prevents problems? The one that isn't covered by the specifics of
the MS/Novell agreement, that is.
I was thinking more along the lines of "install Linux and run windows under KVM/QEMU". You can even keep a
windows dual boot partition so you still have windows installed. ostensibly as your main OS. It's just that somehow you end up spending most of your time booted into Linux...
It worked for me. With VMWare, admittedly. Mind you, when using VMWare, I find Linux Host/XP Guest configurations far less annoying than XP Host/Linux Guest setups. Maybe that's all that is needed.
Another approach might be KVM (the kernel module, not the hardware switch) and Qemu. Then the OP could, in theory anyway, run Win32 and Linux side by side on the same box and switch between them at need.
As I understand it, the KVM works a lot like Xen, except it doesn't need a modified version of windows like Xen does. And apparently the in-kernel support clears up Qemu's performance issues.
That said: I haven't got around to trying this myself yet. Still it might be a better solution than VMWare, which is what I'm currently using for such cases.
Another example: I use a form of DRM (password protection) on the *nix box that holds my web site.
A bit of a non-sequiteur that, don't you think? Never mind, let's pretend it wasn't.
The difference in your case is that you own the hardware, and you also control the encryption process.
In general, the use if encryption is not in itself sufficient to qualify as DRM; it is also required that
the encryption keys are controlled by another party.
This is a problem because the DRM controller can impose more or less arbitrary controls
over how someone else's equipment is used. This isn't the case for your password protection
since you control the keys and are unlikely to prevent yourself from using your computer
in any way you see fit.
I have to say it is pretty hard to defend the position that DRM is universally bad.
It's generally very difficult to defend any overly broad generalisation. On the other hand, I think I'd find it quite easy to defend the notion that DRM is almost universally bad.
It reminds me, (if I may be permitted a short digression), of
Robert Lory's Dracula books. In these, an obsessive paraplegic criminologist uncovers the Count's resting place and (as one does) implants a tiny remote control stake in the Vampire's heart. By doing so he hopes to force Dracula to become his instrument of revenge upon the criminal underworld that forty years earlier cost him the use of his legs. Worth reading, at least in a so-bad-they're-actually-good sort of way.
Lory's hero managed to take a great evil and force it into service in the cause of good. But that didn't make vampires stop being evil. Similarly just because someone is using DRM properly, that doesn't mean it isn't horribly open to abuse, and generally a bad idea.
Really at the end of the day the GPLv2 is a pretty good license
It's a problematic license for the reasons I described in the GP. If it was that good, we wouldn't have dozens of conflicting copyleft licenses...
Which works if we assume that they are all trying to achieve the same goals, but I don't think that is the case. Some of them want to further restrict the licensee's rights or impose additional obligations. Some of them, such as the BSD licence, find GPLv2 overly restrictive. Some of them almost certainly exist for no other reason than that some company's legal department refused to release a package unless they wrote the licence in-house. Some licences probably only exist because someone thought "licence writing looks fun - I want a go". Hackers are like that.
... and wouldn't be seeing both theoretical (DMCA) and real (TiVo) hacks against it.
Well, it's a bit early for a proven exploit, but there's already a theoretical hack against GPLv3. Let's say you sell GPLv3 software. Suppose I then claim to have a patent which your product infringes, and announce that I will not sue your customers, although I make no such promise with respect to downstream recipients. Hey presto: denial of service. How can that be distinguished from deliberate collusion such as the MS/Novell deal?
So I guess that v2 and v3 will have different vulnerabilities; but until we get v3 out in the wild and it sees some user testing, it's way to early to say of the licence is going to be more secure (to maintain your analogy) than v2
The original post was in regards to distribution of patent encumbered GPLed code, and the effect of the GPL3 there upon.
Well. I've just been up and down the thread, and that's not an angle that particularly leaps out at me, but fair enough.
The question at this point isn't if there is patent infringing code already present, but rather, what would be the consequences if someone (anyone) were to implement and market patent encumbered GPLed code.
mmm... but as far as I read it, the only situations where the the new GPLv3 draft causes a problem are essentially similar to the Microsoft/Novell one. I suppose we could all think up names for hypothetical corporations to discuss the case, but why bother?
And my point stands as well in the abstract case as it does when specifically discussing MS and Novell. If there was a specific known infringement,
then the software developers would almost certainly take action to resolve the problem. This situation only really comes into play when the
holder of the alleged patents refuses to provide specific details, and where the distributor isn't really interested in finding out.
So they are going to distribute software that is patented
I think you missed out the word "allegedly" before the word "patented". We've seen nothing concrete from Microsoft in terms of patents.
There's also considerable doubt as to whether many of MS' patents would withstand the most cursory review
and [software] their users have no rights under patent law to use?
Tell ya what: I've got a patent on some of the technology in all web browsers, and I'm going to sue you, personally, unless you give me twenty thousand dollars for permission to use my IP. However, I'm not going to what patent, nor am I willing to disclose what it does, or how it applies. Nevertheless, I can promise you that I have a rock solid case, and you're going to be really, really sorry unless you stump up.
Now: Do you suddenly feel like you just lost all your rights under patent law to use a web browser? Because at the moment, Microsoft's case is no stronger than my own.
Maybe the CDs will make pretty wall decorations? Protect coffee tables?
I like to think that Free Software encourages creativity on all levels, and of course, you should decorate your home in any way you see fit,
However, sensible people will install the software first.
What I find interesting here is that this seems to be largely a self inflicted wound.
As I see it, the problem started with CDs. The record companies want to push CD singles, but no one wanted to play three times the price for two tracks, so the format largely died.
This left DJs as the only people buying singles, so we had charted suddenly dominated by techno dance anthems that probably sound fantastic if you're off your head on a dance floor in Ibiza, but are kind of insane when played on breakfast radio as you're getting ready for work.
So, because the single market is dead, new bands have a harder job breaking into the market. In particular if a band has two good tracks and a couple of bad ones, where once they might have produced a single or maybe two, now they have to make it all into an Album and pad it out with a couple of over-length "dance remix" tracks and hope nobody notices. t.A.T.u spring to mind here.
Making matters worse, the demise of the singles chart as an accurate reflection of public tastes has led to a market increasingly controlled by the labels through channels like MTV. So it isn't like there's a lot of confidence in the quality of these albums, either. The only reason anyone is still buying that, rigged or not
there's only one game in town.
Enter the internet. Forget Napster and Kazaar, jsut consider ITunes. People can go and by a track if they like it. Not the whole album. Suddenly hte singles market is back, we have an emerging download chart that looks to again be a reasonable indicator of public interest. We even have good new groups releasing songs under
Creative Commons licences, free-to-download and legal.
And the record companies are wondering why no one is interested in albums any more...
[ All the above IMHO based on faulty memory and personal prejudice. Disagreement is welcome; demands for references will be met with mild derision. Thank you for your time ]
Today between the quagmire of I.P Law and the fact that our legal system has become deep-pockets based have driven us back in time, to Patronage.
By all means, let's fix the system. But any program of reform is going to be hard sell. On the one hand the various vested interests
are going to oppose anything that might remove their snouts from the gravy train. On the other, I think a lot of people are increasingly
sceptical of anyone throwing the word "reform" around, given the Orwellian usage favoured by modern politicians.
That said, I'm always interested in good ideas to improve the situation.
Slashdot Mirror
Well you could try offering some support yourself. There's a limit to how much time people are willing to spend on a discussion if the most they can expect in response is a sarcastic one-liner. Unless you're going to make an effort yourself, then effectively you're just trolling, and you shouldn't be surprised if people don't spend a lot of time addressing your point.
I'm sure The Geek does, and no doubt you'll say as much the next time you see him.
For the rest of, perhaps the truth lies between the two extremes. Certainly there are computer out there which were bought so that office workers could work from home using compatible systems; rather a lot of them, I expect. Even if no one ever buys a computer for that purpose, those machines are going to represent a sizeable chunk of MS userbase for some time to come.
Of course, if you want to argue that patterns of usage are changing - well how odd! That's what I'm arguing too. Fancy that!
That's why the sentence starts with "I think..." It's to indicate personal opinion, you see.
Well, speaking as a died-in-the-wool penguin-head, I'd obviously have to dispute that :)
Tell you what, think of it in terms of zeitgeist. In the 90s MS had it, and the prospered, due in no small part to the fact that everyone wanted to use Windows. These days, I don't think they do, and I think the talent in the industry is starting to look elsewhere.
I think that tells you a lot about Paul Graham's everyday environment. He's working with startups, he's trying to put together teams of the bright and innovative, and what he's finding is that most of these people are not using Microsoft software.
I suppose you have to allow for a bit of statistical bias there. Since Mr, Graham is (presumably) involved in selecting these people, it's entirely possible that a subconscious selection criteria might be "doesn't do windows" or something similar.
Even so, I think he's got a point. How much of that market share is down to corporations who bulk-order generic beige boxes based on buying guidelines that are fifteen to twenty years old? How much is down to private homes where someone wanted to "get a computer" without realising there was a choice, or where the major criteria was that it should be "the same as the one at work".
It wouldn't surprise me at all to find that the Microsoft market share among the up-and-coming wave of computer innovators is actually very slim. And if that is in fact the case, Microsoft should indeed be worried.
Yep, I understand that, and I'm not disagreeing with you on that front. The trouble is that the laws of supply and demand aren't going to wait for that to happen.
The trouble the record labels face is that they would like their business to be the the ownership of music. But if you look at where their money comes from, they're really in the distribution business. And distribution just got a whole load cheaper.
What's happening to the record labels, and sadly to the music stores as well, could have been predicted by anyone with a basic knowledge of economics.
Not a good analogy, really. In order for pizzas to be considered to be in the same class as music recordings, we'd need to be living in a star trek universe, with matter replicators. Then you could buy your pizza, scan it and replicate it at will. You could also post the pattern on the internet so everyone could enjoy the benefits. You'd probably still get short shrift going into pizza hit and demanding a free pizza - but then you wouldn't have too - which is kind pretty much the point.
And, yes, I'd expect the Pizza Huts of the world to try all sorts of tactics to stop people doing this. The trouble is that there's also be people making their own pizza at home, and scanning then just so people could say "whoo - this lady cooks a mean pizza" - and we see that happening in the music biz too.
Maybe. But you can't be locked out of a medium like YouTube on the grounds that channel time is limited. So it's still possible for an outsider with limited resources, but a good platform and decent charisma to get his or her message over. On broadcast TV they might never get on air in the first place.
As I see it, sites like YouTube lower the barriers to entry in politics. That's bad news for the established parties, and for people with a vested interest in the status quo. We can expect all sorts of interesting reasons why YouTube is bad Bad BAD in the future. Personally, I think YouTube and its ile are a breath of fresh air in a world of stale and corrupt media. But maybe that's just me.
Actually, I was looking to see if Timesprout could defend his allegation that PJ had been "hugely evasive" about working for IBM, rather than asking if there were any grounds (however flimsy) for the BSF motion.
I mean if she has been "hugely" evasive, it should be easy to dig up a few specific instances of her aoiding the question. So far, no support has been forthcoming.
On the other hand, it's not hard to find instances of her being hugely un-evasive on the subject. A couple of minutes googling got me this:
That doesn't sound particularly evasive to me; rather more like a categorical denial.
(I know you're not trying to support BSF and SCO - I'm just having problems keeping the tone non-confrontational. Put it down to annoyance at SCO and BSF.)
It's also most unlike her. She's always the first to point out that you don't get anywhere by trying to fool the judge or the court.
hmmm.... suppose you want to depose a blogger, but don't have any grounds
It'd be about par for the course, based on what we've seen from SCO and BSF so far
Can you support that, in any shape way or form? I've seen her deny working for IBM, quite unambiguously too. On the other hand the only thing resembling support for the proposition that she works for IBM is that she hosts Groklaw in ibiblio, to which IBM have occasionally contributed money.
I'm with you as far as the "SCO are assholes" comment however.
Well...
Firstly, it's far from clear that she's deliberately tried to evade it.
Secondly, she wouldn't get to appear in court; deposition just means being grilled for hours by SCO's lawyers.
Thirdly she's trained as a paralegal, not an lawyer. Writing a scholarly paper on the martial arts will not turn you into Bruce Lee. Paralegal training doesn't imply skill in verbal debate.
Fourthly, it's her decision to make.
Fifthly, she's entitled to her privacy.
For points six and onwards, see point five.
As metrics go, that's not a particularly useful one. Millimetres are a useful metric, since if I measure something and if you measure the same thing we, should get the same result. Seconds are a useful metric, KLOC (thousands of lines of code) is a useful metric.
And while you could certainly measure the time it takes you to perform two tasks using both old and new menus, it's not really reproducible since I'm likely to get a different value from the one you get. You could take a sample population and average the times it took for each of them in both cases, and if this is what you have done, then I will admit to being impressed, albeit with certain reservations.
But if, as I suspect, all we're doing is talking about our subjective impression of the time taken in using these menus, then as a metric it's pretty much useless for the simple reason that we do, in fact, get different results: I find the old style menu faster and easier to use.
What I was really getting at was the word "measurable" which I took to suggest that there was some objective basis for your preference, rather than personal like and dislike. I think I was hoping that you did have some actual measurements that could be applied. Studying software metrics can do this to a chap, I'm afraid.
Now personally, I find the more-recently-used program feature a constant and ongoing irritation; I don't know what's supposed to be so problematic about editing your menu tree to reflect your normal usage, but with these stupid adaptive menus, nothing is ever where I expect to find it. Similarly, I have my own ideas about where to keep my various documents, and I do most of my document processing under Linux anyway. And while the old menu is still broken with this most-recent-program business, at least the overall layout is more or less as I expect and I don't have all the unnecessary and distracting clutter of the new thing.
So from my viewpoint, the old menu is the clear winner. The thing is though, it's just personal preference. Measurement doesn't enter into it.
Right. So that'd be a total of zero ways in which the "new" start menu is superior.
Pretty much the conclusion I'd already arrived at, really. Unless you'd like to list your metrics, and explain how to measure them.
Well by all means, go right ahead and discourage people from trying to see your point of view.
So what was this hypothetical situation where the GPL causes or (depending on your point of view) prevents problems? The one that isn't covered by the specifics of the MS/Novell agreement, that is.
You never did get around to explaining that bit.
I was thinking more along the lines of "install Linux and run windows under KVM/QEMU". You can even keep a windows dual boot partition so you still have windows installed. ostensibly as your main OS. It's just that somehow you end up spending most of your time booted into Linux...
It worked for me. With VMWare, admittedly. Mind you, when using VMWare, I find Linux Host/XP Guest configurations far less annoying than XP Host/Linux Guest setups. Maybe that's all that is needed.
Oops. I meant to include a link
Another approach might be KVM (the kernel module, not the hardware switch) and Qemu. Then the OP could, in theory anyway, run Win32 and Linux side by side on the same box and switch between them at need.
As I understand it, the KVM works a lot like Xen, except it doesn't need a modified version of windows like Xen does. And apparently the in-kernel support clears up Qemu's performance issues.
That said: I haven't got around to trying this myself yet. Still it might be a better solution than VMWare, which is what I'm currently using for such cases.
A bit of a non-sequiteur that, don't you think? Never mind, let's pretend it wasn't.
The difference in your case is that you own the hardware, and you also control the encryption process. In general, the use if encryption is not in itself sufficient to qualify as DRM; it is also required that the encryption keys are controlled by another party.
This is a problem because the DRM controller can impose more or less arbitrary controls over how someone else's equipment is used. This isn't the case for your password protection since you control the keys and are unlikely to prevent yourself from using your computer in any way you see fit.
It's generally very difficult to defend any overly broad generalisation. On the other hand, I think I'd find it quite easy to defend the notion that DRM is almost universally bad.
It reminds me, (if I may be permitted a short digression), of Robert Lory's Dracula books. In these, an obsessive paraplegic criminologist uncovers the Count's resting place and (as one does) implants a tiny remote control stake in the Vampire's heart. By doing so he hopes to force Dracula to become his instrument of revenge upon the criminal underworld that forty years earlier cost him the use of his legs. Worth reading, at least in a so-bad-they're-actually-good sort of way.
Lory's hero managed to take a great evil and force it into service in the cause of good. But that didn't make vampires stop being evil. Similarly just because someone is using DRM properly, that doesn't mean it isn't horribly open to abuse, and generally a bad idea.
Which works if we assume that they are all trying to achieve the same goals, but I don't think that is the case. Some of them want to further restrict the licensee's rights or impose additional obligations. Some of them, such as the BSD licence, find GPLv2 overly restrictive. Some of them almost certainly exist for no other reason than that some company's legal department refused to release a package unless they wrote the licence in-house. Some licences probably only exist because someone thought "licence writing looks fun - I want a go". Hackers are like that.
Well, it's a bit early for a proven exploit, but there's already a theoretical hack against GPLv3. Let's say you sell GPLv3 software. Suppose I then claim to have a patent which your product infringes, and announce that I will not sue your customers, although I make no such promise with respect to downstream recipients. Hey presto: denial of service. How can that be distinguished from deliberate collusion such as the MS/Novell deal?
So I guess that v2 and v3 will have different vulnerabilities; but until we get v3 out in the wild and it sees some user testing, it's way to early to say of the licence is going to be more secure (to maintain your analogy) than v2
Well. I've just been up and down the thread, and that's not an angle that particularly leaps out at me, but fair enough.
mmm... but as far as I read it, the only situations where the the new GPLv3 draft causes a problem are essentially similar to the Microsoft/Novell one. I suppose we could all think up names for hypothetical corporations to discuss the case, but why bother?
And my point stands as well in the abstract case as it does when specifically discussing MS and Novell. If there was a specific known infringement, then the software developers would almost certainly take action to resolve the problem. This situation only really comes into play when the holder of the alleged patents refuses to provide specific details, and where the distributor isn't really interested in finding out.
I think you missed out the word "allegedly" before the word "patented". We've seen nothing concrete from Microsoft in terms of patents. There's also considerable doubt as to whether many of MS' patents would withstand the most cursory review
Tell ya what: I've got a patent on some of the technology in all web browsers, and I'm going to sue you, personally, unless you give me twenty thousand dollars for permission to use my IP. However, I'm not going to what patent, nor am I willing to disclose what it does, or how it applies. Nevertheless, I can promise you that I have a rock solid case, and you're going to be really, really sorry unless you stump up.
Now: Do you suddenly feel like you just lost all your rights under patent law to use a web browser? Because at the moment, Microsoft's case is no stronger than my own.
I like to think that Free Software encourages creativity on all levels, and of course, you should decorate your home in any way you see fit, However, sensible people will install the software first.
What I find interesting here is that this seems to be largely a self inflicted wound.
As I see it, the problem started with CDs. The record companies want to push CD singles, but no one wanted to play three times the price for two tracks, so the format largely died.
This left DJs as the only people buying singles, so we had charted suddenly dominated by techno dance anthems that probably sound fantastic if you're off your head on a dance floor in Ibiza, but are kind of insane when played on breakfast radio as you're getting ready for work.
So, because the single market is dead, new bands have a harder job breaking into the market. In particular if a band has two good tracks and a couple of bad ones, where once they might have produced a single or maybe two, now they have to make it all into an Album and pad it out with a couple of over-length "dance remix" tracks and hope nobody notices. t.A.T.u spring to mind here.
Making matters worse, the demise of the singles chart as an accurate reflection of public tastes has led to a market increasingly controlled by the labels through channels like MTV. So it isn't like there's a lot of confidence in the quality of these albums, either. The only reason anyone is still buying that, rigged or not there's only one game in town.
Enter the internet. Forget Napster and Kazaar, jsut consider ITunes. People can go and by a track if they like it. Not the whole album. Suddenly hte singles market is back, we have an emerging download chart that looks to again be a reasonable indicator of public interest. We even have good new groups releasing songs under Creative Commons licences, free-to-download and legal.
And the record companies are wondering why no one is interested in albums any more...
[ All the above IMHO based on faulty memory and personal prejudice. Disagreement is welcome; demands for references will be met with mild derision. Thank you for your time ]
By all means, let's fix the system. But any program of reform is going to be hard sell. On the one hand the various vested interests are going to oppose anything that might remove their snouts from the gravy train. On the other, I think a lot of people are increasingly sceptical of anyone throwing the word "reform" around, given the Orwellian usage favoured by modern politicians.
That said, I'm always interested in good ideas to improve the situation.