When a "work that uses the Library" uses material from a header file that is part of the Library, the object code for the work may be a derivative work of the Library even though the source code is not.
I thought AT&T vs BSD case settled this. Header files aren't protectable. Of course it gets unclear what happens if header files contain inline functions (whoever puts code to header file should be shot at noon:) but function signatures or class definitions aren't copyrightable code.
The device drivers for the iphone must be rewritten to run on a 64 bit OS
Not if you did it the right way at the beginning. MSDN has contained information on this one for quite a time. I remember that back in 2000, when I was writing network driver for Windows 2000, I thought "What are these stupid macros, why I can't just write unsigned int instead of that ugly looking DWORD." Luckily my code wasn't compiled to any 64 bit Windows since I think I unintentionally left couple of mines there:)
But device drivers are just a small part of "iPhone software" what ever that is. I can envision that GUI and data transfer parts are much bigger things. User-space components are much easier to write to be 32/64-bit compatible unless you really don't know what you are doing.
I don't know why Apple can't produce quality stuff for Windows (and many other companies). Or maybe they are and this is just a marketing decision "See? It doesn't run nicely on Windows because Windows sucks. Luckily we have nice OS X here for you..."
Vista still encourages users to run with higher privileges than necessary
What the heck are you smoking? I'm running Vista with normal user rights (before Vista I did same with XP) and last time when I needed elevated rights was when I installed SQL Server 2005 Express some month ago. UAC prompted for administrator password, I entered it, installer continued and so on. In no way I was using higher privileges that I needed. Or do you have some magical way to install system wide components with normal user rights?
If Vista is asking admin password every other minute then you are doing some seriously wrong! There's no need for after initial configurations to elevate to admin privileges unless you are doing some system wide stuff. And if you turned off UAC go back to your Linux or whatever you like and have a nice day.
Then tell us how MS is keeping Google out of desktop search business. From what I see, it is MS that's providing platform for Google apps to work on. Have you actually read what Google is arguing about? It's ridiculous! They complain that it's too hard to shut down indexing service. I've written several services and programs that control other services. There's nothing magical in it, just tell Service Manager to stop that particular service and it will stop it if you have sufficient rights (user can't stop system services, UAC to the rescue). Google is complaining that end-users don't know how to do it but fails to mention that Google's installer app, which is used to install Google search, can pretty well do it. Google is whihing that OEMs don't know how to do it. Oh gimme a break.
Everyone's yelling about monopolies and stuff but nobody's actually focusing on the subject at hand.
It's interesting to see what they'll do. There's numerous things to do just the thing Google asked. There's at least 4 different ways to stop Vista's search, all accessible by installer software. There's at least 2 different ways to make queries to Vista's search and a way to plugin 3rd party search agents (I don't think this was requested by Google but some were asking this in the previous Slashdot article).
So unless they remove Vista search alltogether, what's there to do? Tell Google's developers how to read MSDN?
So you want same laws for computers that concern cars? Since its law(s) that's regulating car modifications, not some EULA or any other contract. So everytime you do some modification you have to get some authority to check if it was OK. Personally I would find it annoying if I was to bring my computer to inspection after every software I install or write myself.
Yep. That simulator is pretty awful piece of... something that stinks awful.
It runs on your PC processor (phones runs on different processor type) so it doesn't catch any, for example, memory misalignment errors. Same goes for Windows emulator but you can do actual on-device debugging on Windows thingies.
It doesn't have GSM or SMS functionality! At least last time I checked it. Of course normally PC's doesn't have GSM card in it but how about if I attach my GSM into PC, why couldn't simulator use it to make calls?
Two way constructors and those exception look-alikes are awful. I know there wasn't exceptions in C++ at the time when Symbian was made but there was experimental stuff and there sure is now!
Does it still use Perl and whole bunch of weird scripts in compile? Can't they even write a fricking native Windows program to handle this. It was pain to hassle with those scripts.
C++ interface is awful but that's just my opinion.
Documentation is pure sh*t. It's easier to read.h headers and poke around with method calls at random than trying to understand what the heck they wrote on docs.
Yes, I once was Symbian coder. I did code for Nokia and SE. Then I quit and never go back, no matter how much they offer me.
"Due to the lack of nonverbal cues, conversations on cellular telephones demand more cognitive resources than conversations with passengers," the study notes. "More working memory is consumed by cell phone conversations relative to passenger conversations, and fewer resources are available for the driving task."
Does this mean that if I don't see the person I'm talking with (like in phone) I need to visualize him/her in my head and this way I'm using less attention to driving? So how's this any different if I'm talking to passenger sitting right behind me? I mean you can't see person behind you unless you turn around but then you can't possibly see the road ahead of you.
From my experiences with other Nokia's deparments that could be really close the truth:) One team, which I was supposed to lead, was totally moved to some foreign country where people doesn't even speak english. It's been 3-4 years now and I'm not sure if they have made any real development so far.
This brings really silly, maybe stupid even, idea to my mind. I close my monitor when installation program is about to display EULA. Then I randomly click left mouse button every now and then and jerk mouse around and hope I hit the "Agree" button. Am I bound to EULA now when I clicked "I agree" but didn't actually saw the EULA?:)
Luckily here in Finland one can wipe his/her virtual ass with EULA. I'm thinking about writing a software which allows one to drag'n'drop the text of EULA to a picture that looks like an person's rear end:)
I tried to ask this in another discussion here but noone answered. I'll try again here...
In Finland lower court decided that CSS mechanism used in DVDs does not make an effective technological protection mechanism (exact wording from GPL v3 latest draft). Court even raised an question about if there is any such mechanism or ever will be. If this gets to high court and it decides that there's no effective mechanism what happens to GPL v3 anti-DRM clause?
What I mean is if court decides there's not such thing could DRM code be distributed under/with GPL v3 because... there's no effective technological protection mechanism in the first place (which is a good thing of course that there is no such thing).
That page was updated 2007-05-28, when was it written in the first place? Before or after current GPL version was written? FSF can't change the meaning of GPL on-the-fly with FAQs and such. If I decide to run, copy, distribute, study, change or improve some GPL software, I comply with the GPL license text which comes with the software, not with some FAQ or article in some website. I mean if I read the license, see it's OK to me and follow it, how the heck I'm supposed to know that there's also some mysterious page in FSF's (or any other's) web site that talks something about "four freedoms" which I'm also supposed to follow (maybe not legally bound to it but in some strange moral way)?
In Finland lower court decided that CSS protection used in DVDs isn't "effective technological measure" and even raised the question if there is any such thing. Doesn't this mean that you are allowed to distribute any DRM code under GPLv3 at least in Finland beacause... there's no effective DRM?
I think this moves forward to higher court and maybe even to highest court (I don't know what they are called in english). If highest court decides that there is no effective measure to protect content, what happens to this clause then?
Exactly what switch are you talking about? Do you mean that all the sudden VB6 compilers or runtimes stopped working when VB.NET came out?
I work in a team that uses solely MS products. I haven't heard any "howling" when VB.NET came out. In fact I was writing VB6, VB.NET and C# code at the same time in different projects about a year ago. VB6 project which I was on was started on 1993 and it is still used and developed. Some of the oldest codes were rewritten in 1995 I think. Because of some stupid decisions it propably wont work in Vista but it shouldn't be too much of an hassle to fix those issues. I'd like to see Java project started 1993 which is still under active use and development.
Also I would like to see Java project where you can just copy everything to new server and "it just works." There's couple of hardcore Java coders sitting right in front of me who are constantly whining about how different Java versions on different Linux servers is causing some weird issues with their code. I don't know what they are doing and I really don't care. My apps works nicely on different Windows servers. All I have to do is change DB parameters in web.config when moving to new environment.
And don't get me started about Oracle. It works and I can live with it but I've watched people trying to configure it for hours to get it into somewhat working state. I admit that I haven't done any really low-level configuring on SQL Server 2000/2005 but on the other hand, I haven't had to.
If you think about it, copyright itself is actually "anti-capitalist." It is an artificial restriction placed on the market to give an advantage to a particular entity (the copyright holder).
This goes little offtopic and I'm sure this has been discussed here earlier but...
You're propably right. This is one reason why if I ever release any code into the "wild" I use BSD license. But without copyright laws I don't think I could add any restrictions to my code and how it is distributed among people and I would have to take extra measures to prevent my code from leaking outside my domain. I'm not a lawyer, but I've taken couple of lessons on business law, and my understanding is that if there is no law preventing copying (copyright law) then it's OK to copy whatever you like and this prevents GPL or any other license from working since there is no-one holding rights to that copy. At least here in Finland where anything that is not explicitly forbidden is implicitly permitted:)
FSF writes GPL and FSF holds copyrights to GNU software? This means that FSF has very large influence on GPL licensed software. Not directly of course but when they choose to move GNU stuff from v2 to v3 others are most likely to follow, some maybe even forced to. Could one even say FSF has monopoly on GPL? Just kidding:)
So FSF isn't actually forcing developers to move to v3 but they sure has a strong influnce on this matter. Maybe that's what's bugging some people?
I personally don't know anybody with iPod, Zune, Archos, Creative or any other player. Does this mean they don't exist? Or that they don't exist in Finland?
And what I remember reading here at Slashdot is that IBM didn't even know hot to deal with businesses. If memory serves me well, OS/2 run on 80286 somewhat well but not so well in 80386. This caused MS to move to Win API which broke compatibility with OS/2 and gave rise to Windows NT line. But my memory is faint about this, so please correct me if I'm wrong (and please, come up with facts and links, not speculation and conspiracy theories).
Slashdot Mirror
You know that Win32 API is little bit older than 1999? It wouldn't be very nice to change the API every other year.
You are talking about IE6. That website is talking about something dated 2004! It's 2007 and IE7 has been out for a while.
I thought AT&T vs BSD case settled this. Header files aren't protectable. Of course it gets unclear what happens if header files contain inline functions (whoever puts code to header file should be shot at noon:) but function signatures or class definitions aren't copyrightable code.
Not if you did it the right way at the beginning. MSDN has contained information on this one for quite a time. I remember that back in 2000, when I was writing network driver for Windows 2000, I thought "What are these stupid macros, why I can't just write unsigned int instead of that ugly looking DWORD." Luckily my code wasn't compiled to any 64 bit Windows since I think I unintentionally left couple of mines there :)
But device drivers are just a small part of "iPhone software" what ever that is. I can envision that GUI and data transfer parts are much bigger things. User-space components are much easier to write to be 32/64-bit compatible unless you really don't know what you are doing.
I don't know why Apple can't produce quality stuff for Windows (and many other companies). Or maybe they are and this is just a marketing decision "See? It doesn't run nicely on Windows because Windows sucks. Luckily we have nice OS X here for you..."
Case solved ;)
What the heck are you smoking? I'm running Vista with normal user rights (before Vista I did same with XP) and last time when I needed elevated rights was when I installed SQL Server 2005 Express some month ago. UAC prompted for administrator password, I entered it, installer continued and so on. In no way I was using higher privileges that I needed. Or do you have some magical way to install system wide components with normal user rights?
If Vista is asking admin password every other minute then you are doing some seriously wrong! There's no need for after initial configurations to elevate to admin privileges unless you are doing some system wide stuff. And if you turned off UAC go back to your Linux or whatever you like and have a nice day.
Then tell us how MS is keeping Google out of desktop search business. From what I see, it is MS that's providing platform for Google apps to work on. Have you actually read what Google is arguing about? It's ridiculous! They complain that it's too hard to shut down indexing service. I've written several services and programs that control other services. There's nothing magical in it, just tell Service Manager to stop that particular service and it will stop it if you have sufficient rights (user can't stop system services, UAC to the rescue). Google is complaining that end-users don't know how to do it but fails to mention that Google's installer app, which is used to install Google search, can pretty well do it. Google is whihing that OEMs don't know how to do it. Oh gimme a break.
Everyone's yelling about monopolies and stuff but nobody's actually focusing on the subject at hand.
It's interesting to see what they'll do. There's numerous things to do just the thing Google asked. There's at least 4 different ways to stop Vista's search, all accessible by installer software. There's at least 2 different ways to make queries to Vista's search and a way to plugin 3rd party search agents (I don't think this was requested by Google but some were asking this in the previous Slashdot article).
So unless they remove Vista search alltogether, what's there to do? Tell Google's developers how to read MSDN?
If you learn finnish first :)
So you want same laws for computers that concern cars? Since its law(s) that's regulating car modifications, not some EULA or any other contract. So everytime you do some modification you have to get some authority to check if it was OK. Personally I would find it annoying if I was to bring my computer to inspection after every software I install or write myself.
Yep. That simulator is pretty awful piece of ... something that stinks awful.
It runs on your PC processor (phones runs on different processor type) so it doesn't catch any, for example, memory misalignment errors. Same goes for Windows emulator but you can do actual on-device debugging on Windows thingies.
It doesn't have GSM or SMS functionality! At least last time I checked it. Of course normally PC's doesn't have GSM card in it but how about if I attach my GSM into PC, why couldn't simulator use it to make calls?
Two way constructors and those exception look-alikes are awful. I know there wasn't exceptions in C++ at the time when Symbian was made but there was experimental stuff and there sure is now!
Does it still use Perl and whole bunch of weird scripts in compile? Can't they even write a fricking native Windows program to handle this. It was pain to hassle with those scripts.
C++ interface is awful but that's just my opinion.
Documentation is pure sh*t. It's easier to read .h headers and poke around with method calls at random than trying to understand what the heck they wrote on docs.
Yes, I once was Symbian coder. I did code for Nokia and SE. Then I quit and never go back, no matter how much they offer me.
Even simplier:
Does this mean that if I don't see the person I'm talking with (like in phone) I need to visualize him/her in my head and this way I'm using less attention to driving? So how's this any different if I'm talking to passenger sitting right behind me? I mean you can't see person behind you unless you turn around but then you can't possibly see the road ahead of you.
From my experiences with other Nokia's deparments that could be really close the truth :) One team, which I was supposed to lead, was totally moved to some foreign country where people doesn't even speak english. It's been 3-4 years now and I'm not sure if they have made any real development so far.
This brings really silly, maybe stupid even, idea to my mind. I close my monitor when installation program is about to display EULA. Then I randomly click left mouse button every now and then and jerk mouse around and hope I hit the "Agree" button. Am I bound to EULA now when I clicked "I agree" but didn't actually saw the EULA? :)
Luckily here in Finland one can wipe his/her virtual ass with EULA. I'm thinking about writing a software which allows one to drag'n'drop the text of EULA to a picture that looks like an person's rear end:)
Heh. Nice. It's illegal to circumvent AACS and when you break the law (make method publicly available) it becomes legal to circumvent it :)
I tried to ask this in another discussion here but noone answered. I'll try again here...
In Finland lower court decided that CSS mechanism used in DVDs does not make an effective technological protection mechanism (exact wording from GPL v3 latest draft). Court even raised an question about if there is any such mechanism or ever will be. If this gets to high court and it decides that there's no effective mechanism what happens to GPL v3 anti-DRM clause?
What I mean is if court decides there's not such thing could DRM code be distributed under/with GPL v3 because... there's no effective technological protection mechanism in the first place (which is a good thing of course that there is no such thing).
That page was updated 2007-05-28, when was it written in the first place? Before or after current GPL version was written? FSF can't change the meaning of GPL on-the-fly with FAQs and such. If I decide to run, copy, distribute, study, change or improve some GPL software, I comply with the GPL license text which comes with the software, not with some FAQ or article in some website. I mean if I read the license, see it's OK to me and follow it, how the heck I'm supposed to know that there's also some mysterious page in FSF's (or any other's) web site that talks something about "four freedoms" which I'm also supposed to follow (maybe not legally bound to it but in some strange moral way)?
In Finland lower court decided that CSS protection used in DVDs isn't "effective technological measure" and even raised the question if there is any such thing. Doesn't this mean that you are allowed to distribute any DRM code under GPLv3 at least in Finland beacause... there's no effective DRM?
I think this moves forward to higher court and maybe even to highest court (I don't know what they are called in english). If highest court decides that there is no effective measure to protect content, what happens to this clause then?
Exactly what switch are you talking about? Do you mean that all the sudden VB6 compilers or runtimes stopped working when VB.NET came out?
I work in a team that uses solely MS products. I haven't heard any "howling" when VB.NET came out. In fact I was writing VB6, VB.NET and C# code at the same time in different projects about a year ago. VB6 project which I was on was started on 1993 and it is still used and developed. Some of the oldest codes were rewritten in 1995 I think. Because of some stupid decisions it propably wont work in Vista but it shouldn't be too much of an hassle to fix those issues. I'd like to see Java project started 1993 which is still under active use and development.
Also I would like to see Java project where you can just copy everything to new server and "it just works." There's couple of hardcore Java coders sitting right in front of me who are constantly whining about how different Java versions on different Linux servers is causing some weird issues with their code. I don't know what they are doing and I really don't care. My apps works nicely on different Windows servers. All I have to do is change DB parameters in web.config when moving to new environment.
And don't get me started about Oracle. It works and I can live with it but I've watched people trying to configure it for hours to get it into somewhat working state. I admit that I haven't done any really low-level configuring on SQL Server 2000/2005 but on the other hand, I haven't had to.
This goes little offtopic and I'm sure this has been discussed here earlier but...
You're propably right. This is one reason why if I ever release any code into the "wild" I use BSD license. But without copyright laws I don't think I could add any restrictions to my code and how it is distributed among people and I would have to take extra measures to prevent my code from leaking outside my domain. I'm not a lawyer, but I've taken couple of lessons on business law, and my understanding is that if there is no law preventing copying (copyright law) then it's OK to copy whatever you like and this prevents GPL or any other license from working since there is no-one holding rights to that copy. At least here in Finland where anything that is not explicitly forbidden is implicitly permitted :)
Just a thought. Something to discuss about...
FSF writes GPL and FSF holds copyrights to GNU software? This means that FSF has very large influence on GPL licensed software. Not directly of course but when they choose to move GNU stuff from v2 to v3 others are most likely to follow, some maybe even forced to. Could one even say FSF has monopoly on GPL? Just kidding :)
So FSF isn't actually forcing developers to move to v3 but they sure has a strong influnce on this matter. Maybe that's what's bugging some people?
I personally don't know anybody with iPod, Zune, Archos, Creative or any other player. Does this mean they don't exist? Or that they don't exist in Finland?
Yeah but that's so hideous and embarassing thing which should be kept hidden so that even Google shouldn't know about it ;)
And what I remember reading here at Slashdot is that IBM didn't even know hot to deal with businesses. If memory serves me well, OS/2 run on 80286 somewhat well but not so well in 80386. This caused MS to move to Win API which broke compatibility with OS/2 and gave rise to Windows NT line. But my memory is faint about this, so please correct me if I'm wrong (and please, come up with facts and links, not speculation and conspiracy theories).