When will we be seeing the first major political party to take a stance against this disgusting corporate abuse (or, equally as good, a party that is pro-free software)?
On both those points, in the European Parliament, that would be the Green/EFA alliance (although many other individual MEPs did work on the swpat issue).
The main point of the EU is to ensure that trade rules (e.g.: patent rules) don't differ between the member states so there can be an efficient common market. Not having lots of different complicated legal systems is probably a good thing (whatever the system is), and, whatsmore, most of the EU institutions (e.g.: the parliament; most member states) went against software patents in the end. The unaccountable EPO (who are more like a Quango full of civil servants than a democratic government or parliament) won't give up though.
I'm not, in favour, generally, of extension of the the powers of EU instutions or the proposed EU constitution. However, surely if your state were to drop out of the EU, these trade deals would still happen but in an untransparent, unaccountable way with no parliament or constitution involved (and more likely to involve the receipt of nice pretty brown envelopes from everyone's favourite monopoly).
Aah, but according to the RIAA linking to copyrighted material (that's like when you give directions to lost souls in the tubes) is copyright infringement, you pirate, you.
I don't think the shareholders would be happy about Microsoft pulling out of the largest single market in the world, and fail to see what possible hypothetical reason anyone in Microsoft might have for doing so. Microsoft's EU profits are much higher than their US ones. Also, if they pulled out, everyone in the EU would start migrating to GNU/Linux which would probably cause a snowball effect elsewhere in the world.
The EU does things slowly. However the EC have made it clear that if MS continues not to comply the daily fine will increase until they do (and indeed already has increased).
As to who are witnesses for the defence behind the complaint, I think it might just be the FSFE and Samba now (as MS blackmailed/bribed the rest to drop out).
It's not the UK. It's the EU. The EU doesn't have to do anything to the directors in the US. They can just stop MS doing business in the EU. The EU is the largest single market in the world with some of the most technologically advanced states in the world. MS would not be able to bring any money or assets in or out of the EU until they complied.
...but obviously that is a computer crime as phone lines are digital now (and routed through computers). By lying he was misusing the phone company's computers and unlawfully trespassing on those computers with lies!
Hopefully those computers were made in somewhere were they don't have the rule of law so he can be extradited to that country (that the victim computers were nationals of) and punished severely...oh wait...he was already in the US anyway...never mind.
He also endangered national security, cracked into the Pentagon and co-operated with and glorified "terrorists" by lying on the telephone causing the NSA's computers to store an incorrect record of what he was talkng about (which might later be needed to take out dangerous un-American "terrorists").
Not that our (UK) laws aren't just as crazy (some less so; some more so) than yours, but when was the last time your government took any notice of that antiquated document which I think they've made clear they don't think applies to this 21st century cyber world, which, if you believe Bush, is full of "un-American" "hackers" [sic] and "terrorists" [sic] out to do unspecified really Bad Stuff? In fact, I think many recent presidents have made breaking the constitution their top challenge in office (as, I would assume, they've got nothing better to do).
On topic, although I think, in principal, a simple way to punish anti-social behaviour is useful in some situations (though not much as the police should be prosecuting people for actual crimes), the ASBO is clearly totally disproportianate and does not go near offering a fair trial. The real problem is the police being too lazy to discover crime, find evidence and bring prosecutions. Instead they go after what are usually easy targets with punishments which are passed on the nod without a trial.
guess what it seems that the GPL is indeed legally enforcable
You are mistaken. The GNU GPL, unlike Microsoft's EULA, does not attempt to enforce anything on the user and therefore can never be enforcable (thank goodness). (Of course, the MS EULA may be unenforcable too but that would be due to invalidity and unlawful contract terms as opposed to its fundamental nature.)
However, copyright law (which says one cannot usually copy and distribute without a valid license such as the GNU GPL) is very much enforcable.
Assuming licenses are covered by copyright (which is debatable), I don't think not giving permission for modification under copyright law is effective at stopping anyone doing this. If it was close enough to be considered a modified version under copyright law*, one would have to read a reasonable proportion of the rogue license and already know the exact terms of the GNU GPL in order to notice it was different.
Copyright law wouldn't stop anyone from putting "GNU General Public License" on top of a different license and/or just saying their work was under the GNU GPL when they were talking about a different `GNU GPL'. Depending on jurisdiction, they'd probably be allowed to copy the few paragraphs of the GNU GPL under fair use too.
However, I'd imagine a court would find anyone pulling this stunt to be guilty of criminal deception, fraud, passing off and/or trademark infringement. In which case, whether they broke copyright would become rather irrelevant.
BTW, I think the reason the FSF stated they took that decision was actually to stop the propogation of similar, incompatible licenses (which I don't think it is effective at doing either, as, if it is coverable by copyright, one can just rewrite it in one's own words or rely on fair use) and to stop people removing the preamble; as opposed to people passing off another license as the GNU GPL.
Although, it is rather unimportant, it does seem, especially given its ineffectiveness, rather awkward of the FSF to not release the GNU GPL under a free license. Having said that, I think RMS has now backed down by saying that he won't enforce the FSF's copyright on the GPL against people modifying the terms (as opposed to the preamble) of the license, but he still expects people to get the FSF's permission before modifying the terms to create a similar license (as was done, with permission, by Afferro).
[* Consider that what one would consider a modified version is probably less clear or wide with a copyright license than a computer program.]
Why are they called 'podcasts' if they're in OGG format
A podcast just means an Internet broadcast (so named because people commonly download them to play them back on iPods or othe portable player). If you're going to be pedantic, Ogg is not capitalised as it isn't an acronym.
Can't you play back Ogg Vorbis on iPod Linux, anyway?
If anyone is looking for videos of RMS, the movie, RevolutionOS (2 CSS-free DVDs for $27) has a lot of footage of RMS as well as other pioneers in the movement.
Hopefully the FSF will take videos of talks in the future now. I suspect this hasn't been done before due to practical reasons (e.g.: needing a good videocam & cameraman).
The reason is that big business fear the three `Great Evils' of fair use, the public domain and those authors who won't hand over their copyrights to the proper copyright hoarders/cartel for `protecting' (but instead do silly things like freely license their work).
As explained by Professor Lessig in his freely-licensed Free Culture, the copyright hoarders (i.e.: those force third parties to transfer their copyrights to them--usually as part of a protection racket) don't want there to be a public domain, fair use or a body of freely licensed expressive works out there; so they lobby to get the public domain and fair use removed, and try to buy up all the works out there (even those they have no interest in using).
As he explains there, the logic behind this is that public domain (or freely licensed) works many reduce their sales (probably not a significant factor), and, far more importantly, they will lose their control of the information channels (i.e.: these companies want to collude together to ensure that all expression/speech, at least in the US, is controlled by their cartel) which gives great control of the public (similar to slavery).
The first amendment and the limited times clause are in the Constitution because the founding fathers of the US (who I greatly admire, though I am not in the US) foresaw such a situation.
>>Where does it say that if company X gives money to company Y that company X suddenly becomes liable for any of company Y's actions?<<
Did you only read the first few words of my post before responding or are you intentionally creating straw men? I was saying that, in most jurisdictions, in the case of lawsuits, if X do that with the intention that Y use the money for that purpose and without legitimate reason for giving Y the money, and Y then becomes bankrupt, then they are liable for the lawsuit costs.
That is why it is advised that individuals who give to lawsuit funds should make sure that the source of any money they donate cannot be traced.
>>So if my dad were to give me 5000$, and I go buy a car and hit some old lady with it - does that mean my dad is liable to the old lady and her family?<<
That analogy doesn't really fit this situation, but, anyway, remember your dad (~=MS) *intent* was to murder the old lady, you are beyond the reach of the law because--say--you are a minor (~=bankrupt in civil law), both you and your dad will financially gain from the lady's death and the transfer of money to you was fraudulent. I'm not in the US, but I guess that would probably be first-degree homicide there.
A better analogy is setting up a company that you pretend has legitimate business but is really a front which you use to place gambling bets on your behalf and then allow it to go bankrupt when the bets go against you.
As is being discussed on Groklaw, assuming MS did intentionally fund this suit, it is probable that TSG, MS and Canopy directors could be jailed under Sarbane Oxley. And, don't forget the SEC's Royal Bank of Canada investigation.
>>I am not forgetting anything, except this case has nothing to do with DOJ vs MS in their anti-trust ruling.<<
I haven't checked the ruling, but given the fact that it is supposed to have limits on what would in normal circumstances be lawful behaviour against competitors, I doubt that that court are going to be very pleased if they find Microsoft has, as we believe, been involved in serious crimes (which they would be, even if done by a company who is not an unlawful monopolies) against the judicial system with the intent of harming their competitors.
Manynewssourcesarereporting that Microsoft has released their full reponse (defence) to the EC's antitrust charges (in the existing case). The documents include an exchange of letters between Neelie Kroes and Steve Ballmer.
Microsoft's general counsel said "Transparency is vitally important in what can be a very opaque process in Brussels. We've decided to open this up so people can understand the issues."
ZDNet report that George Greve said in a blog entry that "[the] FSFE has been working on this case for many years, from the original investigation, over the 2004 decision, to the European Court case where it is now one of two [active] remaining third parties on the side of the European Commission. I only hope that more companies will help us defending their interests in this -- to this date, FSFE has received virtually no support for this case from the industry. Consequently, all the credit belongs to the free software community, including in particular the Fellows of the FSFE."
Greve also responds to the new EU complaint by ECIS applauding it, but pointing out that this may seem inconsistent as Microsoft has already reached individual settlements with ECIS members such as RealNetworks and Sun.
Also there is a good Guardian article from a few days ago which summarises and criticises recent rebuffs by MS to the EC's decision.
Also there is an entry on Tod Bishop's Microsoft Blog, Lessig advocates Microsoft, reporting that Lessig supports Microsoft's InfoCard project.
GL reports that IBM have now subpoenas Houlihan Valuation Advisers which did an evaluation of Caldera before Darl took over and started the lawsuits.
The evaluation concludes (in contradiction to what TSG told the judge) that "the recent overall financial performance of [Caldera/TSG] was inferior to that of the average company in the industry in many respects. Its income statement was weaker in terms of gross sales, operating margin and net margins; its asset composition was less liquid; fixed asset and total asset turnover ratios were lower indicating less efficiency in operations; and its profitability was considerably lower." You get the idea.
It also concludes that GNU/Linux is going to drive Unix systems out of the market based on it being a better product.
One has to ask the question why the hell did they start the lawsuit?
Maybe because I'm not an Apple user(?), I have no idea what this story is about. What on earth is OSx86 piracy?
"Aye...my hearties...I'm a pirate from the good ship, OSx86, a catchy name for my ship....aaaarrrrh...and I always eat an apple everyday 'cause remember a good apple assists in keeping the scurvy away....arrrhh." No...really...that's my best guess.
OK. It was an off-the-cuff remark. I accept it wasn't really accurate. "Notorious" probably wasn't the right word, although I have heard of trading standards deptartments being investigated. Also "untransparent" or "maladministrating" would probably be a better than "corrupt"--although what I was insinuating is that there may be some reason why TS are so much more willing to follow up complaints from big business (or even ask businesses if they want to complain about something that could be unlawful) than complaints from consumers, esp. those against big businesses. That's why I made a comment about freedom of information.
FTR, I think that this officer broadly did the right thing. However, her shock at someone allowing third parties to make copies of something they hold the copyright on (and her implication that Gervese was making her job difficult and demands that he proof he works for MoFo) suggest some ignorance on her part about copyright. Having said that Trading Standards probably rarely deal with copyright cases, so this isn't that unexpected.
To be honest, I think like all discussions on/., way too much is being read into this. After all, we don't know exactly what she said or the context.
[BTW, I'm not sure why everyone complains about pedantry if anyone points out the frequent factual innaccuracies on/. (e.g.: on copyright law), but when I express possibly unwarranted negative opinion about the government (as is the job of the citizen--hence them being exempt from libel or slander), everyone is up in arms.]
BTW, the officer was female and worked for trading standards (part of the local authority) as opposed to the police.
Also, I'm not in the US, but, if you are interested in police involvement in drug traffciking in the US, there is an ex-CIA agent called Mike Ruppert who reckons the CIA are heavily involved in drug trafficking. He has some good videos on Google Video and a website. Not sure if he is just a conspiracy theorists, but I looked up some of his references and they seem genuine.
Slashdot Mirror
I can only hope there are lots of zebra crossings in Luxembourg or Munich.
I'm not, in favour, generally, of extension of the the powers of EU instutions or the proposed EU constitution. However, surely if your state were to drop out of the EU, these trade deals would still happen but in an untransparent, unaccountable way with no parliament or constitution involved (and more likely to involve the receipt of nice pretty brown envelopes from everyone's favourite monopoly).
Aah, but according to the RIAA linking to copyrighted material (that's like when you give directions to lost souls in the tubes) is copyright infringement, you pirate, you.
I don't think the shareholders would be happy about Microsoft pulling out of the largest single market in the world, and fail to see what possible hypothetical reason anyone in Microsoft might have for doing so. Microsoft's EU profits are much higher than their US ones. Also, if they pulled out, everyone in the EU would start migrating to GNU/Linux which would probably cause a snowball effect elsewhere in the world.
The EU does things slowly. However the EC have made it clear that if MS continues not to comply the daily fine will increase until they do (and indeed already has increased).
No one is suing anyone. MS have been prosecuted.
As to who are witnesses for the defence behind the complaint, I think it might just be the FSFE and Samba now (as MS blackmailed/bribed the rest to drop out).
It's not the UK. It's the EU. The EU doesn't have to do anything to the directors in the US. They can just stop MS doing business in the EU. The EU is the largest single market in the world with some of the most technologically advanced states in the world. MS would not be able to bring any money or assets in or out of the EU until they complied.
...but obviously that is a computer crime as phone lines are digital now (and routed through computers). By lying he was misusing the phone company's computers and unlawfully trespassing on those computers with lies!
Hopefully those computers were made in somewhere were they don't have the rule of law so he can be extradited to that country (that the victim computers were nationals of) and punished severely...oh wait...he was already in the US anyway...never mind.
He also endangered national security, cracked into the Pentagon and co-operated with and glorified "terrorists" by lying on the telephone causing the NSA's computers to store an incorrect record of what he was talkng about (which might later be needed to take out dangerous un-American "terrorists").
Not that our (UK) laws aren't just as crazy (some less so; some more so) than yours, but when was the last time your government took any notice of that antiquated document which I think they've made clear they don't think applies to this 21st century cyber world, which, if you believe Bush, is full of "un-American" "hackers" [sic] and "terrorists" [sic] out to do unspecified really Bad Stuff? In fact, I think many recent presidents have made breaking the constitution their top challenge in office (as, I would assume, they've got nothing better to do).
On topic, although I think, in principal, a simple way to punish anti-social behaviour is useful in some situations (though not much as the police should be prosecuting people for actual crimes), the ASBO is clearly totally disproportianate and does not go near offering a fair trial. The real problem is the police being too lazy to discover crime, find evidence and bring prosecutions. Instead they go after what are usually easy targets with punishments which are passed on the nod without a trial.
However, copyright law (which says one cannot usually copy and distribute without a valid license such as the GNU GPL) is very much enforcable.
Copyright law wouldn't stop anyone from putting "GNU General Public License" on top of a different license and/or just saying their work was under the GNU GPL when they were talking about a different `GNU GPL'. Depending on jurisdiction, they'd probably be allowed to copy the few paragraphs of the GNU GPL under fair use too.
However, I'd imagine a court would find anyone pulling this stunt to be guilty of criminal deception, fraud, passing off and/or trademark infringement. In which case, whether they broke copyright would become rather irrelevant.
BTW, I think the reason the FSF stated they took that decision was actually to stop the propogation of similar, incompatible licenses (which I don't think it is effective at doing either, as, if it is coverable by copyright, one can just rewrite it in one's own words or rely on fair use) and to stop people removing the preamble; as opposed to people passing off another license as the GNU GPL.
Although, it is rather unimportant, it does seem, especially given its ineffectiveness, rather awkward of the FSF to not release the GNU GPL under a free license. Having said that, I think RMS has now backed down by saying that he won't enforce the FSF's copyright on the GPL against people modifying the terms (as opposed to the preamble) of the license, but he still expects people to get the FSF's permission before modifying the terms to create a similar license (as was done, with permission, by Afferro).
[* Consider that what one would consider a modified version is probably less clear or wide with a copyright license than a computer program.]
That could explain the delay (and buggy code)...or maybe they've been driven to it by upper management. Oh sorry, that Wine...
There is now a list, Audio and Video Recordings about our Philosophy, on the FSF website.
Can't you play back Ogg Vorbis on iPod Linux, anyway?
FTR, the FSF have released a video of that talk (about the GNU GPL v3 draft and very informative as well as funny). The torrent of the video is at http://gplv3.fsf.org/av/gplv3-draft1-release.ogg.t orrent.
If anyone is looking for videos of RMS, the movie, RevolutionOS (2 CSS-free DVDs for $27) has a lot of footage of RMS as well as other pioneers in the movement.
Hopefully the FSF will take videos of talks in the future now. I suspect this hasn't been done before due to practical reasons (e.g.: needing a good videocam & cameraman).
The UK is probably less imperialist (i.e.: use SI more) than the US.
As explained by Professor Lessig in his freely-licensed Free Culture, the copyright hoarders (i.e.: those force third parties to transfer their copyrights to them--usually as part of a protection racket) don't want there to be a public domain, fair use or a body of freely licensed expressive works out there; so they lobby to get the public domain and fair use removed, and try to buy up all the works out there (even those they have no interest in using).
As he explains there, the logic behind this is that public domain (or freely licensed) works many reduce their sales (probably not a significant factor), and, far more importantly, they will lose their control of the information channels (i.e.: these companies want to collude together to ensure that all expression/speech, at least in the US, is controlled by their cartel) which gives great control of the public (similar to slavery).
The first amendment and the limited times clause are in the Constitution because the founding fathers of the US (who I greatly admire, though I am not in the US) foresaw such a situation.
>>Where does it say that if company X gives money to company Y that company X suddenly becomes liable for any of company Y's actions?<<
Did you only read the first few words of my post before responding or are you intentionally creating straw men? I was saying that, in most jurisdictions, in the case of lawsuits, if X do that with the intention that Y use the money for that purpose and without legitimate reason for giving Y the money, and Y then becomes bankrupt, then they are liable for the lawsuit costs.
That is why it is advised that individuals who give to lawsuit funds should make sure that the source of any money they donate cannot be traced.
>>So if my dad were to give me 5000$, and I go buy a car and hit some old lady with it - does that mean my dad is liable to the old lady and her family?<<
That analogy doesn't really fit this situation, but, anyway, remember your dad (~=MS) *intent* was to murder the old lady, you are beyond the reach of the law because--say--you are a minor (~=bankrupt in civil law), both you and your dad will financially gain from the lady's death and the transfer of money to you was fraudulent. I'm not in the US, but I guess that would probably be first-degree homicide there.
A better analogy is setting up a company that you pretend has legitimate business but is really a front which you use to place gambling bets on your behalf and then allow it to go bankrupt when the bets go against you.
As is being discussed on Groklaw, assuming MS did intentionally fund this suit, it is probable that TSG, MS and Canopy directors could be jailed under Sarbane Oxley. And, don't forget the SEC's Royal Bank of Canada investigation.
>>I am not forgetting anything, except this case has nothing to do with DOJ vs MS in their anti-trust ruling.<<
I haven't checked the ruling, but given the fact that it is supposed to have limits on what would in normal circumstances be lawful behaviour against competitors, I doubt that that court are going to be very pleased if they find Microsoft has, as we believe, been involved in serious crimes (which they would be, even if done by a company who is not an unlawful monopolies) against the judicial system with the intent of harming their competitors.
Microsoft's general counsel said "Transparency is vitally important in what can be a very opaque process in Brussels. We've decided to open this up so people can understand the issues."
Also a ZDNet article, FSF berates apathy over Microsoft antitrust case , reports that the FSFE has criticised EU IT firms for not supporting the EC in its antitrust case against Microsoft.
ZDNet report that George Greve said in a blog entry that "[the] FSFE has been working on this case for many years, from the original investigation, over the 2004 decision, to the European Court case where it is now one of two [active] remaining third parties on the side of the European Commission. I only hope that more companies will help us defending their interests in this -- to this date, FSFE has received virtually no support for this case from the industry. Consequently, all the credit belongs to the free software community, including in particular the Fellows of the FSFE."
Greve also responds to the new EU complaint by ECIS applauding it, but pointing out that this may seem inconsistent as Microsoft has already reached individual settlements with ECIS members such as RealNetworks and Sun.
Also there is a good Guardian article from a few days ago which summarises and criticises recent rebuffs by MS to the EC's decision.
Also there is an entry on Tod Bishop's Microsoft Blog, Lessig advocates Microsoft , reporting that Lessig supports Microsoft's InfoCard project.
GL reports that IBM have now subpoenas Houlihan Valuation Advisers which did an evaluation of Caldera before Darl took over and started the lawsuits.
The evaluation concludes (in contradiction to what TSG told the judge) that "the recent overall financial performance of [Caldera/TSG] was inferior to that of the average company in the industry in many respects. Its income statement was weaker in terms of gross sales, operating margin and net margins; its asset composition was less liquid; fixed asset and total asset turnover ratios were lower indicating less efficiency in operations; and its profitability was considerably lower." You get the idea.
It also concludes that GNU/Linux is going to drive Unix systems out of the market based on it being a better product.
One has to ask the question why the hell did they start the lawsuit?
"Aye...my hearties...I'm a pirate from the good ship, OSx86, a catchy name for my ship....aaaarrrrh...and I always eat an apple everyday 'cause remember a good apple assists in keeping the scurvy away....arrrhh." No...really...that's my best guess.
I think there has only been one compliant in the EU before (which the court decided on in 2004 but MS still hasn't complied with the judgement).
OK. It was an off-the-cuff remark. I accept it wasn't really accurate. "Notorious" probably wasn't the right word, although I have heard of trading standards deptartments being investigated. Also "untransparent" or "maladministrating" would probably be a better than "corrupt"--although what I was insinuating is that there may be some reason why TS are so much more willing to follow up complaints from big business (or even ask businesses if they want to complain about something that could be unlawful) than complaints from consumers, esp. those against big businesses. That's why I made a comment about freedom of information.
/., way too much is being read into this. After all, we don't know exactly what she said or the context.
/. (e.g.: on copyright law), but when I express possibly unwarranted negative opinion about the government (as is the job of the citizen--hence them being exempt from libel or slander), everyone is up in arms.]
FTR, I think that this officer broadly did the right thing. However, her shock at someone allowing third parties to make copies of something they hold the copyright on (and her implication that Gervese was making her job difficult and demands that he proof he works for MoFo) suggest some ignorance on her part about copyright. Having said that Trading Standards probably rarely deal with copyright cases, so this isn't that unexpected.
To be honest, I think like all discussions on
[BTW, I'm not sure why everyone complains about pedantry if anyone points out the frequent factual innaccuracies on
Also, I'm not in the US, but, if you are interested in police involvement in drug traffciking in the US, there is an ex-CIA agent called Mike Ruppert who reckons the CIA are heavily involved in drug trafficking. He has some good videos on Google Video and a website. Not sure if he is just a conspiracy theorists, but I looked up some of his references and they seem genuine.