Wouldn't pulling off something like this require a level of knowledge and togetherness more in line with a government agency, rather than a "terrorist" group? The results would also be more in line with what a government agency would want ("we have your secrets, ha!"), rather than what a terrorist would want ("Maybe I can't blow up a bridge / poison your water supply / whatever. But then maybe I can. So while you're deciding whether to go do things or hide under your bed all day, I have a question for you: do you feel lucky?").
It seems to me that too many times identities have been concealed, preventing true community backlash against perpetrators.
Um, yeah, that's kinda the point. "community backlash" (aka "lynch mobs") has approximately nothing to do with justice, and everything to do with revenge and "moral outrage" and generally feeling good about yourself.
The problem is that these bloggers are usually people who don't agree with or understand the position that even those who commit moral "faux-pas" (for a lack of a better term - since I honestly don't know if the woman's actions constituted a crime) have these rights to privacy. They either a) don't understand that revealing this information will expose the subject(s) in question to huge risks; or b) WANT the subject(s) in question to be exposed to huge risks.
/me wonders what it would take for this sort of thing to be considered reckless (or willful?) endangerment or similar, and get the bloggers in trouble.
That must have been one killer foosball table, because the Sheriff, the DA, and the Drews all think it's worth more than Megan Meiers life.
When your camel's back breaks, do you blame the one straw that was added last or the twelve tons it was already carrying?
I am highly skeptical of any claims that a disappearing online friend could drive someone to suicide unless there were already some very, very major issues where just about anything else could also have that result.
Specter suggested granting "indemnification" to telephone companies who allegedly cooperated with the government's surveillance regimes in violation of federal privacy laws. That would mean lawsuits could go forward, but taxpayers would be responsible for covering any legal expenses or damage awards against the communications companies. Damages could run into the tens of billions of dollars if the suits are successful, according to Senate Intelligence committee estimates.
... you know, that *almost* makes sense. "Sorry, our bad. Since it's our fault, we'll take any punishments for you." Which might actually be OK, except for the conflict of interest from this being the government saying that and the fact that any punishments will be much less effective deterrents against a government than against a corporation.
If anyone was interested in Ben Worthen's moronic grasp of open-source, its pasted below. E-mail your tirades to biztech@wsj.com, of which Ben Worthen is the lead writer, and ask him about how he got his job in the first place.
Information-technology departments will ban employees from connecting phones that run Google's operating system to their computers or the corporate network. The reason is that Google's operating system is open, meaning anyone can write software for it. That includes bad guys, who will [...]
He isn't talking about open source. He's talking about it being an open platform like Windows or BSD instead of locked down like game consoles are and the iPhone tried to be. Is the difference really that incomprehensible?
So can anyone here be bothered to explain to the ignorant what a datacenter is? I'd never had need to think about this concept until I RTFA. Is it really a place that people rent real estate to put their equipment?
It's not about the real estate, it's about redundant everything and lots of backup systems. If an idiot with a backhoe cuts their uplink, they have a couple more so that you don't lose connectivity. If someone flys a kite into the power lines, they have generators to keep things running until power is restored. If a squirrel eats a hole in the air conditioner, they have another one so things don't melt.
Or is it for third-party security, which really makes this bad.
Computer equipment is expensive and a data center has a lot of this, so their security compared to what you would have should be a similar relation as a bank's security compared to your sock drawer. That's when it's not a selling point. When it is advertized as a selling point, it sounds like something out of Mission Impossible.
Suppose, for instance, one had absolutely no knowledge of the Constitution, but was well versed in philosophy; Sartre and Kant and Plato and so on. One could recite the Magna Carta from memory (which, despite being foundational to the US Constitution you fail to mention). One was versed in economics and math and biology and psychology and some parts of history - saving anything U.S. related. Let us further suppose that one is even secular. Such a person could easily exist in today's world - it's unlikely in the U.S., but there are many well-developed countries in the world for which all of that could be true.
But what you're saying is that such a person is unfit to have a say in their government, if they happened to, of a sudden, be a citizen here. Simply because even though they may have been exposed to the principles of a document, they're not familiar with that document. And it's simply not true.
This kinda reminds me of a recent LKML quote posted on kerneltrap: "You know, you really are supposed to understand the code you are modifying.". If someone can't be bothered to spend a week learning the basics of how the government is set up, why should they have a say in how to change it?
So, you must think that if I take, say, MIT Kerberos and change nothing but the license, that this is permissible under the terms of the MITL? So far I have not heard anyone make that argument seriously outside the FSF and Mr Moglen (in fact the SFLC specifically advises against it). This relates to the GPLv3 and section 7 how? This is another discussion, the one about taking non-copyleft code and stripping the licence away since it's "allowed". I don't think that it's allowed - but I'm open to different views- but this doesn't relate to the GPLv3 since the same doubt occurs with the GPLv2. It relates to section 7 because it says "When you convey a copy of a covered work, you may at your option remove any additional permissions from that copy, or from any part of it. [...] Additional terms, permissive or non-permissive, may be stated in the form of a separately written license, or stated as exceptions; the above requirements apply either way.". So you have a dpendency of your GPLv3 work, which is under a separately written license (BSDL). Section 6 says that when distributing compiled versions of your work you have to provide this dependency under GPLv3, which makes it a "covered work" for the quote from section 7 above. So that means that you can remove the BSDL from that dependency when you distribute it, because it grants additional permissions... except that the BSDL doesn't permit this.
I would argue that the MIT license is incompatible for the same reason. Namely because one cannot take BSD or MIT-licensed copyrights and change the terms on them later because the author grants these rights to all downstream users. The only answers that I have been able to get from Mr Moglen seem to be that it doesn't matter because you could get such a suit dismissed for reasons of standing, but that ought to make people nervous. ...Did he say what those reasons would be? Does a suit maybe have to wait until someone actually *does* remove the permissions like they've been told they can, or something?
I'm curious to see if there were any answers about how section 7 interacts with BSD or other licensed dependencies, or how "you can distribute this freely, except that you can't distribute it loaded on to a certain class of device" doesn't infringe freedom to redistribute, or why the patent stuff is so very specific in what kind of deals it affects.
I'm also curious about how "the source is out there, but patented and unusable" is an OK result for the patent issue (as per the article), but "the source is out there, but my device won't run it" is not OK. Or even how it makes sense considered with claims that companies can remove your freedom by making closed-source programs based on an open program. The source is still out there, what freedom's been lost (share-and-share-alike is a good reason for not allowing this, but making it an issue of freedom kinda makes me think WTF)?
You can use GPLd (any version) software to build anything you like. The license doesn't come into play until you distribute the software.
Why do people find this so hard to understand? Its a simple concept.
Because "use" is not some nice, clearly defined term like "distribute" or "execute" is, and actually includes parts of both. A restriction on distribution is a restriction on "use", because one of the zillion ways to "use" software is as a building block for something else you're selling.
You know those Best Buy gift cards that are all over the store? Well those are just American Express cards, with a Best Buy face. So, we'd go through the motions of selecting your address but when it asked for your credit card, we'd swipe through a gift card. Since it was an American Express card in reality, the system took it and you were signed up. The customer had to deal with the late fees because they couldn't charge the credit card the provided. Not our problem.
I thought gift cards generally were completely useless unless activated, to make stealing them pointless? Is this a recent thing, or are the Best Buy cards not like this, or something?
Good point. Microsoft is certainly NOT involved or responsible. Best Buy probably did not DIRECT it's employees to do this. The employees are probably most responsible, but Best Buy bears some responsibility for failing to control it's employees.
If it's common enough for a class-action suit, I'd tend to suspect that they're at the very least strongly encouraging (entirely informally, of course) their employees to do this. I mean, scamming people, at your personal risk but for no benefit to yourself, can't be *that* attractive a form of entertainment for the store employees.
That's a really good point. The problem comes up with who sets the price for the patented part. [...] Taking away someone's ability to sell, or not sell, their property has some issues, at least in the US.
Perhaps the problem is with considering knowledge and ideas to be "property" that can be owned by someone. Owning property implies some amount of absolute control over it, which is really quite absurd in cases like this.
For instance, I tend to think that the "compulsory licensing" for music is bad terminology for a good idea -- it shouldn't be "copyright holder must license for $X amount", it should be "copyright holder can demand payment of up to $X amount". ie, only giving limited rights in the first place, rather than giving full control and then taking bits of that away.
Ideally, if these two people actually invented the technology, then they should get paid for it. If people get paid for inventions, then they are more likely to continue to invent, as are others.
That's the general idea, yes. But on the other side of it, ensuring that everyone gets paid for "their" inventions seriously increases the overhead of trying to do anything new and useful. You can't just say "hey, that's a useful idea, let's do it that way", you have to track down everyone who came up with all the different parts of the idea and pay them off first. Even if you came up with the idea yourself, you still have to find out if anyone else came up with it first. So the benefit in one area (more inventions) comes with a cost in another area (harder to actually use those inventions). Which effect is actually larger?
There's also the basic assumption that getting paid is an essential motivator for inventing things. Presumably it's actually about as essential for getting people to invent things as it is for getting them to write software... which could make patents a net hindrance, since they increase overhead to the point that the fun of inventing things is outweighed by the annoyance of paperwork and having to pay up to random people.
Seriously, why would any developer waste time and money multi-threading something as inherantly serial as an event loop that doesn't come anywhere near saturating even a single core? Responsiveness. If my GUI program will occasionally do things that take a second or two, those things should be done in a second thread so the interface doesn't freeze up.
What does a web browser need more than one core for? Because when I open some huge page (something like a big slashdot discussion) in a second tab, it freezes for a few seconds trying to render it. That sort of thing should go in an extra thread to prevent this.
It doesn't restrict hardware. You can make your hardware DRMed like hell. You just can't run GPLv3ed software on that DRMed hardware. That's a restriction on the software (don't run it on DRMed hardware). Vista doesn't downgrade content. You can watch all the hi-def you want, you just can't watch it on Vista. That's a restriction on the OS (don't watch hi-def content with it).
43% will never use GPLv3. How does this compare to the number who will never use GPLv2 either (ie, the BSD folks)?
23% might use GPLv3, but not this year. Because there's really no reason to rush and/or the "improvement" might just not be worth the hassle of relicensing.
Using GPLv3 scares away twice as many people as it attracts. Using it instead of what? If this wasn't specified then people are probably comparing it to their "normal" license, in which case BSD people will be scared away and GPL people mostly won't care.
Only 6% have adopted GPLv3. Because really, what's the rush?
Really, I don't see that this says much of anything. They should ask better questions next time.
I don't understand why this was tagged as FUD. For those that can't stand the light of truth, they may strike out with such a tag, but the truth remains.
The truth is that the article is a load of crap, and you are a troll.
The only way to take down Microsoft, or make them improve their ways is through serious competition. And, I means s e r i o u s.
What do you mean by "serious", lots of marketing and flashy attack ads? Or do you mean having products that are better, cheaper, and easier to get and install? We already have "cheaper" (free) for most things, "easier to get and install" for a lot of things, and "better" for quite a few.
Current legal action cannot change Microsoft. Nor should it. In a capitalist system, the market is going to have to do that. And that empowers people. Always has. But, first, you have to offer the alternative.
Normal markets DO NOT WORK very well when you have vendor lock-in. The legal action isn't directly what will change things. But it will greatly help in removing the lock-in, which will allow competition to change things.
You know... A while back I rambled on about lazy ass engineers who have the capability to stop botnet DDoS traffic. Went unanswered,....
Funny. What makes you think that they have that capability? Even when the traffic is distinct enough to filter, I'd think inspecting it all would take quite a lot more hardware than they're used to using...
But you have to admit, Microsoft helped bring computing to the masses. If there had been no Microsoft, the internet would be what USENET was back in the day: something used by geeks and scientists and not much else.
No. If there had been no Microsoft, someone else would have done that. Maybe Apple, maybe BSD, maybe Linux/GNU/etc, maybe some company we've never heard of. Maybe OS/2 would have taken off.
Really, it tends to be complete garbage to say that a particular advance would not have happened if whoever did it hadn't been there. Once the foundations are in place things become pretty much inevitable, and being remembered for starting something is just a matter of out-competing everyone else and/or getting things working two weeks before the next guy.
The GPL(v3 and probably earlier) version of originally BSD-licensed code would necessarily contain the BSD copyright notices (as you pointed out) as an additional term (see section 7b) plus the standard GPL license stuff, none of which you would be allowed to remove if you intended to redistribute.
So how would this work with section 7 also saying that any additional permissions can be removed? A BSD license sure looks like "additional permissions" to me...
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Wouldn't pulling off something like this require a level of knowledge and togetherness more in line with a government agency, rather than a "terrorist" group? The results would also be more in line with what a government agency would want ("we have your secrets, ha!"), rather than what a terrorist would want ("Maybe I can't blow up a bridge / poison your water supply / whatever. But then maybe I can. So while you're deciding whether to go do things or hide under your bed all day, I have a question for you: do you feel lucky?").
Um, yeah, that's kinda the point. "community backlash" (aka "lynch mobs") has approximately nothing to do with justice, and everything to do with revenge and "moral outrage" and generally feeling good about yourself.
/me wonders what it would take for this sort of thing to be considered reckless (or willful?) endangerment or similar, and get the bloggers in trouble.
When your camel's back breaks, do you blame the one straw that was added last or the twelve tons it was already carrying?
I am highly skeptical of any claims that a disappearing online friend could drive someone to suicide unless there were already some very, very major issues where just about anything else could also have that result.
... you know, that *almost* makes sense. "Sorry, our bad. Since it's our fault, we'll take any punishments for you." Which might actually be OK, except for the conflict of interest from this being the government saying that and the fact that any punishments will be much less effective deterrents against a government than against a corporation.
He isn't talking about open source. He's talking about it being an open platform like Windows or BSD instead of locked down like game consoles are and the iPhone tried to be. Is the difference really that incomprehensible?
It's not about the real estate, it's about redundant everything and lots of backup systems. If an idiot with a backhoe cuts their uplink, they have a couple more so that you don't lose connectivity. If someone flys a kite into the power lines, they have generators to keep things running until power is restored. If a squirrel eats a hole in the air conditioner, they have another one so things don't melt.
Or is it for third-party security, which really makes this bad.Computer equipment is expensive and a data center has a lot of this, so their security compared to what you would have should be a similar relation as a bank's security compared to your sock drawer. That's when it's not a selling point. When it is advertized as a selling point, it sounds like something out of Mission Impossible.
Suppose, for instance, one had absolutely no knowledge of the Constitution, but was well versed in philosophy; Sartre and Kant and Plato and so on. One could recite the Magna Carta from memory (which, despite being foundational to the US Constitution you fail to mention). One was versed in economics and math and biology and psychology and some parts of history - saving anything U.S. related. Let us further suppose that one is even secular. Such a person could easily exist in today's world - it's unlikely in the U.S., but there are many well-developed countries in the world for which all of that could be true.
But what you're saying is that such a person is unfit to have a say in their government, if they happened to, of a sudden, be a citizen here. Simply because even though they may have been exposed to the principles of a document, they're not familiar with that document. And it's simply not true.
This kinda reminds me of a recent LKML quote posted on kerneltrap: "You know, you really are supposed to understand the code you are modifying.". If someone can't be bothered to spend a week learning the basics of how the government is set up, why should they have a say in how to change it?I'm curious to see if there were any answers about how section 7 interacts with BSD or other licensed dependencies, or how "you can distribute this freely, except that you can't distribute it loaded on to a certain class of device" doesn't infringe freedom to redistribute, or why the patent stuff is so very specific in what kind of deals it affects.
I'm also curious about how "the source is out there, but patented and unusable" is an OK result for the patent issue (as per the article), but "the source is out there, but my device won't run it" is not OK. Or even how it makes sense considered with claims that companies can remove your freedom by making closed-source programs based on an open program. The source is still out there, what freedom's been lost (share-and-share-alike is a good reason for not allowing this, but making it an issue of freedom kinda makes me think WTF)?
Why do people find this so hard to understand? Its a simple concept.
Because "use" is not some nice, clearly defined term like "distribute" or "execute" is, and actually includes parts of both. A restriction on distribution is a restriction on "use", because one of the zillion ways to "use" software is as a building block for something else you're selling.
I thought gift cards generally were completely useless unless activated, to make stealing them pointless? Is this a recent thing, or are the Best Buy cards not like this, or something?
If it's common enough for a class-action suit, I'd tend to suspect that they're at the very least strongly encouraging (entirely informally, of course) their employees to do this. I mean, scamming people, at your personal risk but for no benefit to yourself, can't be *that* attractive a form of entertainment for the store employees.
Perhaps the problem is with considering knowledge and ideas to be "property" that can be owned by someone. Owning property implies some amount of absolute control over it, which is really quite absurd in cases like this.
For instance, I tend to think that the "compulsory licensing" for music is bad terminology for a good idea -- it shouldn't be "copyright holder must license for $X amount", it should be "copyright holder can demand payment of up to $X amount". ie, only giving limited rights in the first place, rather than giving full control and then taking bits of that away.
That's the general idea, yes. But on the other side of it, ensuring that everyone gets paid for "their" inventions seriously increases the overhead of trying to do anything new and useful. You can't just say "hey, that's a useful idea, let's do it that way", you have to track down everyone who came up with all the different parts of the idea and pay them off first. Even if you came up with the idea yourself, you still have to find out if anyone else came up with it first. So the benefit in one area (more inventions) comes with a cost in another area (harder to actually use those inventions). Which effect is actually larger?
There's also the basic assumption that getting paid is an essential motivator for inventing things. Presumably it's actually about as essential for getting people to invent things as it is for getting them to write software... which could make patents a net hindrance, since they increase overhead to the point that the fun of inventing things is outweighed by the annoyance of paperwork and having to pay up to random people.
Vista doesn't downgrade content. You can watch all the hi-def you want, you just can't watch it on Vista. That's a restriction on the OS (don't watch hi-def content with it).
43% will never use GPLv3. How does this compare to the number who will never use GPLv2 either (ie, the BSD folks)?
23% might use GPLv3, but not this year. Because there's really no reason to rush and/or the "improvement" might just not be worth the hassle of relicensing.
Using GPLv3 scares away twice as many people as it attracts. Using it instead of what? If this wasn't specified then people are probably comparing it to their "normal" license, in which case BSD people will be scared away and GPL people mostly won't care.
Only 6% have adopted GPLv3. Because really, what's the rush?
Really, I don't see that this says much of anything. They should ask better questions next time.
The truth is that the article is a load of crap, and you are a troll.
What do you mean by "serious", lots of marketing and flashy attack ads? Or do you mean having products that are better, cheaper, and easier to get and install? We already have "cheaper" (free) for most things, "easier to get and install" for a lot of things, and "better" for quite a few.
Normal markets DO NOT WORK very well when you have vendor lock-in. The legal action isn't directly what will change things. But it will greatly help in removing the lock-in, which will allow competition to change things.
Funny. What makes you think that they have that capability? Even when the traffic is distinct enough to filter, I'd think inspecting it all would take quite a lot more hardware than they're used to using...
No. If there had been no Microsoft, someone else would have done that. Maybe Apple, maybe BSD, maybe Linux/GNU/etc, maybe some company we've never heard of. Maybe OS/2 would have taken off.
Really, it tends to be complete garbage to say that a particular advance would not have happened if whoever did it hadn't been there. Once the foundations are in place things become pretty much inevitable, and being remembered for starting something is just a matter of out-competing everyone else and/or getting things working two weeks before the next guy.
"I can answer any question you care to ask. Unfortunately for you, however, the answer will most often be 'I don't know.'."
So how would this work with section 7 also saying that any additional permissions can be removed? A BSD license sure looks like "additional permissions" to me...