The point that some people seem to be missing is that the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act only refers to copyrighted material. As such it cannot be applied to the pricing information in this case, because that information is not the subject of any copyright: only the creative content of the advertising flier {artwork, presentation style &c.} are copyrightable. The prices themselves are automatically in the public domain.
However, the flier was almost certainly subject to an embargo. If someone has disclosed information before it came due for release, then they probably have breached a contract. But that is a simple issue of contract law, and has nothing to do with copyright.
{Another oft-forgotten point: Copyright law only applies to material which is intended eventually to enter the public domain: copyright provides a temporary monopoly on your work in exchange for you making it available to everyone. A trade secret is not intended to enter the public domain and therefore would not be covered by copyright law.}
Suppose you live in a place with heavy-handed building control laws that allow for the demolition of unapproved buildings on summary judgement. Now your neighbour parks his car, perfectly legally, but in such a place that you have to have to walk a few metres further to get to your front door. Would it be fair for you to claim that the car was in fact a building that had been improperly erected without due authorisation, and order it removed? That is exactly what this case smacks of to me.
There is a difference between what copyright law permits / forbids, and what the GPL permits / forbids. This is a source of much confusion.
Neither copyright law nor the GPL forbid you from using legitimately-acquired software.
Copyright law says "you need permission to make copies beyond Fair Dealing". {What constitutes fair dealing is determined by the courts.}
The GPL gives you permission to make and distribute verbatim copies and distribute them subject to the GPL. {If the licence is changed the copy would not be verbatim.}
Copyright law does not forbid you from making derivative works, but the copyright in such derivative works is not transferred to you {unless so little remains of the original that your use would qualify as fair dealing}; so you must obtain permission from the original copyright holder if you wish to distribute such derivative works to others.
The GPL gives you permission to distribute derivative works {in which you do not own the copyright} to others, as long as such distribution is subject to the GPL.
Nothing forbids you from making a derivative work and using it for your own purposes without distributing it to others. In most jurisdictions, this is a statutory right and cannot be abridged by the terms of a licence. However, the copyright on the derivative work most probably still belongs to the original copyright holder. If you wish to do something with this derivative work that neither copyright law nor any applicable licence permits, then you must first seek permission from the copyright holder.
Me being me, I'd write the whole lot from scratch so it didn't look like anything existing. I'd use a MySQL database and Perl or PHP scripts. Probably PHP for the easy file upload interface. There is a command called "mogrify" [in imagemagick or imagemagick-devel] that you can use to resize images for thumbnails. Any decent ISP will have it installed. The syntax you need is something like
mogrify -geometry 160x120! foo
160x120 is the size you want [width x height]; the ! forces mogrify to override the initial aspect ratio. If you omit it, it will keep the aspect ratio and just treat the measurements as a maximum. Note that mogrify overwrites files by default, so you might want to do
cp foo bar && mogrify -geometry 160x120! bar
Want to show off your l337 H4x0r 5|<!11Z? A field of type BLOB can hold up to 64K, so you should be able to fit the thumbnails actually in the database - just write a script to spit out the headers
followed by a blank line and the image data. It's entirely legal to say
<IMG SRC="display.jpg?id=20">
where "display.jpg" is actually a script that accepts parameters..... you have to give it the.jpg extension for the benefit of lame browsers that ignore MIME-types in favour of extensions. But of course, that would just be pointless willy-waggling, because you could just put the filename in the database and it wouldn't be any worse, less to go wrong too:-)
Re:What I want in 2004 . . .
on
Linux in 2004?
·
· Score: 1
oh and by the way... using tar.gz files and compiling from source is what screws up your system... cos what you're doing is sticking libraries in that are not covered in the rpm database. No wonder your system gets [its] knickers in a twist and you consider rpms to be unreliable..
Not exactly..... that is what/usr/local/ is for, after all. The package manager doesn't touch it, but it's in the path, and the configure script in the library tarball will simply put the new version in/usr/local/lib/. The configure script for the dependent package will search the path, checking for version numbers, till it finds the one in/usr/local/lib/. So the theory goes, anyway, but I guess in practice, theory and practice are not always the same.
I'll try using urpmi though, rather than go installing tarballs willy-nilly..... I'm installing it onto a bigger HDD than my old 8.2, so nothing is lost if I have to go back to square one.
I think the common problem with broken packages is that the package builder simply omits to mention a necessary file in the dependency list; so when you come to install it, if you haven't got that same file in the same place as the packager originally had it, then it won't work. Installing a totally different package that happens to provide that file cures everything. So how about a tool which would allow users to search on the internet for packages where "missing" files can be found, install them and notify the package maintainers as to how they managed to fix it? Semi-automatic user contributions, almost.....
Re:What I want in 2004 . . .
on
Linux in 2004?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
This is why I like Slackware's simple packaging system. But I am no longer a newbie.
RPMs are dire, unless they are the common ones included in the distro. On my Mandrake box, I seriously prefer tar.gz packages because they are just more reliable.
The problem is maintaining an accurate database of what depends on what. Debian have rigorous testing procedures, they test everything so many times that it get out-of-date.
Two ways out of it:
sell CD-ROMs containing collections of packages proven to work when installed on anything with a kernel, because every dependency would already be meetable from the CD contents.
set up an online package base which automatically reports any installation difficulties to a forum where other users can offer suggestions, and once a solution is found, update the dependencies for that package for the benefit of the next person.
Option 1 has the disadvantage that you have to sell many copies of the CD to break even out of it, because you have to sell it cheaply enough that people will buy it from you rather than anyone else. Option 2 has the disadvantage that if it's reporting users' config info, it looks a bit like spyware {but from the practical standpoint, you can't just go to the vet and say "my dog is poorly", not take the dog with you, not describe its symptoms, and still expect a cure. But if you s/dog/PC/ and s/vet/phone support/ it's a different matter in most people's eyes}.
and like most homemade projects (ie beer) while it tastes nice, it will always seem to have something wrong with it.
WTF? Homemade tastes better than store-bought every time, and if it doesn't then you're doing something seriously wrong.
<tangent>I wonder if it is possible that a child raised on store-bought crap might get the impression that things were supposed to be that way? Could someone be so brainwashed as to believe that only a big corporation could do anything properly? Order two babies from lab supplies house, for experiment.</tangent>
I bake all my own bread and cakes, I have brewed my own {rather lethal} booze, and next year {it's winter here now} I'm going to be growing my own vegetables. and probably brewing even more booze. In the 8-bit days I wrote my own software, when all there was was BASIC and machine code.
Re:What will drive Linux adoption
on
Linux in 2004?
·
· Score: 1
Learn your history and your geography, and realise that your ISP, your workplace's ISP, your mother's ISP and if your dog had an ISP then probably your dog's ISP as well, already use the open-source product sendmail to send you your mail. Exchange Server is used internally in only a few crappy corporations who have already forgotten about the product they sell / service they provide, let alone the poor sods who have to work there; they think only about the money they are making, and will soon be going bust.
Drop-in replacements? Don't make me laugh. Where can you get an electric light bulb from that fits in a candle holder? Sometimes you have to break your compatibilities with the past, and break them good and hard.
for punters just to go to a licenced turf accountant if they wanted to place a bet? I know I'm lucky having a bookie's right at the end of my street {it's where next door's kids can usually find their dad if he's not home!} but surely licenced betting shops can't be so thin on the ground, or have so much else wrong with them, that people actually prefer to use the unlicenced ones? After all, you wouldn't expect criminal gangs to tax bookies' profits any less heavily than the Government does.....
I like the sound of this. How long till someone replicates its functionality, but based on a bootable GNU/Linux OS on the CD? Yes yes yes, I know about Knoppix and Slackware LiveCD - but I'm thinking of a much closer correspondence between the two editions. Ideally to the point where the user would neither know nor care whether they were using the Windows or the Linux version.
I agree with you wholeheartedly. Computers have no place in most classrooms. Before you attempt to do anything the machine-way, you should first understand how to do it the hand-way. That means you don't let your kids have a digital watch till they can tell the time by an analogue watch, you don't let them use a calculator till they can do long multiplication and division, and so forth. That was how it was done in my day, and it never did me any harm. I learned to write with a pencil {and learned to spell during the process}, then a fountain pen when I could use a pencil and not break the lead or make too many mistakes, then a mechanical typewriter, then a word processor. And over my time I have used home-made word processing software and Wordwise Plus on the BBC; Scribble, Wordworth and Protext on the Amiga; New York Word, WordStar, WordPerfect and MS Word for DOS; EVE on a VAX 11/750; MacWrite and MS Word for Mac; WordStar, WordPerfect, Ami, MS Word and OpenOffice.org Writer on Windows; and Open Office, AbiWord and KWord on Linux. In my experience, there is not a great deal of relearning to be done whn moving from any one to any other {though I confess, I still have to spend a few minutes remembering it is not ctrl-A and ctrl-E for beginning and end of line everyt ime I use MS Word immediately after Pico}.
When I was at school, it was all BBC computers {shows my age} and anyone who used a computer had no choice but to be a hacker. The manual shew you how to write simple programmes and how to talk to the I/O ports {actually BBC BASIC was a very nice programming language - calculated GOTO and all, nice to be able to avoid but indispensable when you really needed it}, then pretty much left you to it. So in the chemistry labs we rigged up a pH meter to a computer and got it plotting a graph of pH against time for a simple acid-alkali titration {open burette valve when computer beeps, close after 0.5ml of solution has gone in, wait for pH to stabilise, keep going} and in CDT we even had a BBC Master controlling a mini-lathe {not built in-house - even by that stage there were a few readymade applications}. I remember seeing it used for making adaptors that would screw into a generic light fitting to make a table lamp.
The difference was that we were not forced to use our computers in a way that conformed to someone else's ideals. There was less raw power, but what there was was better utilised. With today's closed-source software and proprietary interfaces, doing anything like that would be a nightmare today. {Actually the software then was closed source, but the APIs and buses were fully documented, and 6502 assembly language was pretty understandable to the hackers of the day.}
You don't have a right to have me give you source code. That's not a right. It might be a nice thing for me to do. I might be a bastard for not doing it. But it's not a right.
Yes it is a right. That is my point. I already said it above. Ever since we first climbed down from the trees, used our opposable thumbs and made stone tools and fire, everything humankind has achieved has been a huge collarorative effort. All the fruits of all human endeavour rightfully belong to all of humankind. Hoarding your source code harms other people. Releasing your source code does not harm you, but it does help others - therefore you are obliged, as a human being, to do it.
When you write a programme, it rightfully belongs to all of humankind. You call it "yours" because you wrote it, but that is not to say you have any kind of absolute ownership over it, any more than you have absolute ownership over "your" uncle! The possessive pronoun is merely a linguistic convenience {and no doubt there is a language spoken somewhere that draws a distinction between absolute ownership and mere relationship}.
All of humankind has a right to that programme, including the source code. If you don't like it, you don't have to write the programme in the first place. Or you can seek a special concession from everyone else in the whole world, which isn't that much harder than improving on a programme when somebody didn't give you the source code.
Saying that just because you wrote software it's yours and you can do what you like with it whether or not other people like it, is a lot like saying that your dick is yours and you can use it to have sex with anyone you like whether or not other people like it.
[W]hy would you want to release something in binary form only?
For profit, of course.
Ah. I rather think you are in danger of succumbing to the great Capitalist myth -- you see other people as being nothing more than a source of money for you.
Huh? So when I downloaded Mozilla onto my uncle's computer, I violated someone's rights?
Well, technically, yes, but the practical matters depend on whether or not your uncle would have done anything with the source code. If your uncle was a hardcore programmer and wanted to actively make contributions to the Mozilla project then yes, you have violated his rights by not giving him the source {although your obligation probably would have been satisfied by telling him truthfully where he could have obtained it}. However, if your uncle simply wanted to use a standards-compliant web browser that did not suck and had no interest in programming, then he {for it is he who is the injured party} is likely to forgive you that minor infraction. That is the problem, not just in the Free Software community but in the world at large: where rights are little-used and easily violated, someone somewhere is trying to take them away.
The users of software have an absolute right to the source code by sole virtue of the software's existence. Just because most of them aren't going to make any use of it doesn't mean you can get away with not giving it to any of them!
[L]ack of source code does not prevent you from making derivative works. It may be easier to create certain types of derivative works with source code, but nothing in the license agreement says anything about making things easy.
Those are weasel words. Easier yes, but without the source code, it is frankly next to impossible to create a derivative work. Ask anyone who actually programs as opposed to pontificating. Without the source code, your only way to make a derivative work is first to disassemble the binary and then work out what the machine code does. If you want to just change a message or add a few extra lives to a game, that is trivial; but if you want to add extra functionality it can be a ball-ache. You probably -- and if you want to port to another architecture, make that certainly -- are going to end up having to rewrite the whole thing in a higher-level language. And the only consolation is that under fair dealing provisions, the end result most probably would be all your own work and you could release it under an open-source licence.
It may be easier to create certain types of derivative works with source code, but nothing in the license agreement says anything about making things easy.
More weasel words. Why should it say so in the licence? It is an implicit assumption. Every human being is obliged to help every other being to the fullest extent possible without actually harming themself. If I can give you my source code without hurting myself, and that would help you, then I must.
See also this essay - choice quote "Freedom is being able to make decisions that affect mainly you. Power is being able to make decisions that affect others more than you. If we confuse power with freedom, we will fail to uphold real freedom."
The real question I find myself asking is why would you want to release something in binary form only? What is in your source code that you are so desperate for me not to see, and why? Are you ashamed of it? Scared it won't work? Do you think people will laugh at your commenting style or the way you use curly brackets?
OK. So I can distribute linux binaries without distributing the source, then?
NO, the source code is the original, pure form. You would of course be free to distribute the source code without including a binary, otherwise many software authors would be in trouble. But creating a binary from the source code is mutilating it. Such munging is necessary to the purpose of running the software; but as the process of turning source into binary is effectively irreversible, it is not enough to distribute binaries alone. The right to modify a program requires you to have the source code in order to exercise that right.
Is a bucket of chewed-up stomach contents equivalent to a three course meal? This is the form in which your body needs to have it to obtain the nutrients and energy, but it is not the form in which most people would like to see it, talk about it and generally appreciate it in other respects than the merely nutritional.
I agree with you that the GPL is not the only form of copyleft, but I don't believe for one instant that you can distribute binaries without source and not violate someone's rights. In fact, both the Qing and C.C. licences grant you permission to make derivative works, which sort of implies an obligation to distribute the source code; as not to do so would prevent someone from creating the very derivative work you just authorised.
Cut the FUD, will you? If you know the basics of word processing, it makes little difference whether you are using MS Word, KWord, Abiword, Open Office Writer or Pico. The typing keys, which are what you are using most of the time, do not change places. The same applies to spreadsheets; Excel, Gnumeric, KSpread, Open Office Calc are all pretty similar. Formulas are entered in the same way they have been since Lotus 1-2-3. As for databases, Microsoft Access and MySQL are actually both forked from the same original source - but SQL is pretty much SQL wherever you go, and SELECT * means SELECT *. Of course there are dialects, but to expect otherwise would be like expecting the language of Mexico City to be the same as that of Madrid. And I'll pre-empt the inevitable responses now by saying MS and MY have a more limited vocabulary than PG or Oracle.
You say that schools are teaching Microsoft because industry uses Microsoft, but couldn't it equally be said that industry uses Microsoft because schools are teaching Microsoft? It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. And it wasn't that long ago that Microsoft was not the de facto standard - there were several competing word processors. WordStar {those dot commands were nice - almost TeX-like}, WordPerfect, MS Word for DOS, Ami; then on the Mac there were MacWrite and MS Word for Mac, and on the Amiga there were Wordworth, Protext, Scribble and Kindwords. Plus a new PD or shareware word processor on a cover disc of one magazine every month. But maybe back then we were just better survivors than the current namby-pamby, hold-my-hand-mummy-i'm-scared, see-you-in-court generation of spoilt gutless milksops.
Another point is that schools are not Microsoft training centres, and neither should they be. If Microsoft want people taught to use their software then it should be at Microsoft's - not the taxpayer's - expense and outside of the comprehensive* school system.
* Comprehensive school - British name for a school paid for by the state, opp. public school - British name for a school paid for privately, and reckoned to give a more comprehensive education. US terminology would be public school, private school respectively.
Doesn't the FSF deny people the right to copy and distribute software, unless they agree to the GPL?
No. The GNU General Public Licence uses the same copyright law that has traditionally been used to deny users of software their rights, to protect those same rights. The FSF does not insist that anyone use the GPL for software written from scratch. What the FSF does insist is that if you incorporate source code covered by the GPL into a project of your own, and that usage exceeds your statutory rights of fair dealing {which vary among jurisdictions, check with a local expert, but basically you are usually allowed to lift a small amount of someone else's material verbatim, whether they like it or not}, then you should either release your work under the GPL or seek special permission from the copyright holder. It's really not much different than, say, if you wanted to use code from Windows in something else -- you would have to seek special permission from Microsoft {and hell will thaw out* before they give you it, but that's beyond the point}.
The only way to be moral about software is to allow people to copy and distribute it without restriction.
Although the law says that you can't use more than a small percentage of someone's copyright material without permission, there is no law that stops you taking some public domain work, making a tiny change {leaving much more unaltered than the "fair dealing" limit on copyright material} and copyrighting it in your own name. That is why the GPL was created. As long as there is copyright on software, there is a need for the GPL.
If your enemy has a weapon, insists on using it against you and will only stop when either you or they are dead, then your only chance of survival is to arm yourself. Cf. the late buddhist monk who refused medicine because he believed that germs were living creatures and it was not morally acceptable to kill them.
It's up to the creator what they do with their source code
You are falling victim here to the exact same fallacy that lies behind "It's my knife, therefore it's up to me who I stab with it". Don't confuse freedom over your own destiny with power over other people's destinies. Your {real} right not to get stabbed overrules my {false} right to stab you. And your {real} right to use software overrules anyone else's {false} right to try to stop you from using it.
The benefits of all human endeavour belong to all of humankind. If we are to expect that our fellow human beings will help us to the furthest extent possible short of actually harming themselves, then it follows that we are all obliged to help our fellow human beings to the furthest extent possible short of actually harming ourselves. If we expect any less, then we may as well not have bothered with the whole evolution thing.
Even if the kernel developers didn't exercise due diligence, then that would not affect the GPL's validity, because of its wording. The GPL does not give you permission to distribute code that is not covered by the GPL, and if you haven't the authority to release code under the GPL then the GPL can't be applied to that code. If one person violates the law on which the licence is built, that doesn't invalidate the licence!
But it's entirely possible for the kernel developers to show due diligence. PGP-signed e-mails, for a start.
Furthermore, the Linux kernel developers are not the only people who would be susceptible to this sort of thing. How does anyone know, for example, that Microsoft have not incorporated some of SCO's proprietary code into Windows? It could easily be there, but protected from SCO's prying eyes by Microsoft's closed-source practices. It's only the unique nature of Open Source Software that has allowed them to complain about code in the Linux kernel - because with Linux, everything is done out in broad daylight. If there is nothing the Linux kernel developers could have done to guard against proprietary code finding its way into the kernel, then it follows that there is nothing anybody else could do to prevent the same thing either.
SCO were in the better position all along, because they could see both their code and Linux, whereas the Linux people did not have access to SCO's code. As soon as they spotted their code entering a release candidate, they should have had a polite word with the kernel team right then and the whole mess would have been sorted. They missed an opportunity to nip it in the bud, and must carry at least some of the blame for what happened after it could have been fixed.
Example: your neighbour's dog shits in your garden. You spot it, but don't mention it to the neighbour until it has already turned your lawn yellow, given your kids diseases, and your wife has slipped on it and banged her arse good and proper. Some of the responsibility must be yours, because you could have taken action sooner -- you could have pointed it out to your neighbour and asked what they were going to do about it, but instead you chose to wait until the problem had escalated.
If I thought that it was remotely feasible to tax e-mail, I might support it. However, I'd be more in favour of the more radical solution, which would be banning advertising on the Internet altogether, which I think would make many people very happy {except the advertising industry; but hey, remember the slave trade? Or the fur farming industry? Exactly} and in all probability won't affect anyone's sales one iota; people eat because they are hungry, not because some billboard tells them to eat. I set my proxy up to block all known advertisement servers as a matter of routine.
But if there was a pie-in-the-sky pipedream I'd really like to see made reality, it would be a Networthiness Test. Most countries have a roadworthiness test for cars, and nobody minds it for the benefits it brings. In this country, the police have the authority to order any vehicle to be moved off the road if they believe it is not in a roadworthy condition. By analogy, ISPs should have the power to disconnect computers being used for antisocial activities - specifically, spamming and virus propagation.
If you run a mailing list, you might have to tell your ISP about it, in order to avoid a nasty surprise, but you can't hide the fact anyway {ssh into your ISP's server and tail -f/var/spool/maillog if you don't believe me; this may not work with free accounts}. And there would have to be laws giving ISPs certain obligations {otherwise they could block you from running proftpd, apache, irc or game servers, for example; and there should be a reasonable attempt made to contact you before disconnection, and reconnection should be within a reasonable time frame}.
It opens up a whole swathe of questions, of course, and the answers will not be easy. But the longer we keep avoiding them, the worse it will get; till we end up with a tub of minging rancid bathwater and a dead baby.
The GPL is absolutely watertight. It in no way abridges anyone's statutory rights {which would invalidate a contract in most countries, including this one} but, rather, gives you explicit written permission to perform certain acts.
Anyone who disputes this please state which of the following facts you object to:
Copyright law grants copyright holders the right to decide, for a limited time, who should and who should not copy their work.
Without explicit permission from the copyright holder or their authorised agent, it would be an offence to make and distribute copies - whether verbatim or modidied - of a copyrighted work.
Section 1 of the GPL gives users explicit permission to distribute verbatim copies as per (2) above provided that certain conditions are met.
Sections 2 and 3 of the GPL give users explicit permission to make and distribute modified copies and derivative works as per (2) above provided that certain conditions are met.
You may already have certain fair dealing rights in relation to software licenced under the GPL, but such rights vary from one jurisdiction to another. Many copyright holders don't give out permission so freely, but the law doesn't stop you letting other people copy your work if you want them to. All that could ever possibly happen from the GPL coming to court would be vindication for the GPL. Contrast that with certain EULAs being tested in court. The MS EULA, for instance, would almost certainly be laughed out of UK or German courts. That would hurt the GPL's credibility, but it wouldn't do Microsoft any favours either.
If IBM, or anyone, has knowingly placed source code in the Linux kernel {and therefore subjected it to the GPL} without having the right to, then they have violated copyright law. This will have to be debated in court, and then the disputed code will have to come to light, otherwise the case will be summarily dismissed. The Kernel Developers - who can show that they have acted in good faith and exercised due diligence at every stage - will then be able to remove any infringing code. In the unlikely event that the kernel developers are ordered to pay damages, they will have the right to sue whoever committed the original infringement. However, such damages are likely to be for a nominal sum {$1?} on account of SCO's refusal to show the code in question sooner.
And if the unthinkable happens - if, and it could only ever happen by some massive brain-fart, the GPL is ruled invalid, the disputed source code is not shown and Linux is declared illegal in all versions - then there is always FreeBSD, already proven not to be SCO's property.
Back in the days when I was growing up in what was then a peaceful little village on the outskirts of Derby, kids could be kids, paedophiles had not been invented, all that mattered was that Forest lost and if the Rams won, well, that was a bonus. But regardless what was happening at the Baseball Ground, if anyone tried shoplifting from the local newsagent's, they were in for a surprise a few weeks down the line. Because the paper lady had eyes like a hawk, and if she spotted you doing something -- and if you did anything, she would spot it -- she would just add it on to your parents' paper bill, and when they got the bill they could deal with you as they saw fit -- which usually meant you had to write a letter of apology to the newsagent, and you'd probably have to stand up to write it. If you ever gave her a mouthful, other people in the village would express disapproval - "There goes that Alice, do you know what she said to Mrs W. the other day?" - until you felt you had no choice but to make your peace with her. She knew how old you were, whether your parents smoked and what brand -- and she would also know if a packet of fags or a can of booze was really for someone else {though I suspect the real explanation was that the parent in question would simply phone the newsagent while you were on the way and say they had sent you. Most of the people in my end of the village were on the phone}. They don't make them like her anymore.
It's my contention that no automated system will ever be as good as our old paper lady, may she rest in peace. She may have had a vulnerability, but either nobody dared exploit it, or they were just too amazed by her apparent superhuman powers to bother. Why can't we just go back to using human beings to do jobs human beings are good at and use machines for jobs machines are good at?
Here is the reason why this doesn't affect me at work, and the reason why it doesn't affect any decent ISP. And here is the reason why it doesn't affect me on my LAN at home.
I am not in the least bit surprised that a closed-source product has problems. The only mystery to me is why anybody would pay good money after bad for a product and never be in total control of it. If you rent a house, you spend the whole of the rest of your life paying the rent and at the end of it, you have nothing to show for it. If you buy a house, you spend 25 years paying a mortgage, and then you get a piece of paper that says the house belongs to you and you don't pay anymore. If you use closed source software, you have to pay someone else for support and although you eventually get problems fixed, more or less, probably, you will still have to call The Man next time it goes T.U. If you use open source software, you can choose whether you pay for support in hard graft or in hard cash, and you get to keep everything you learned along the way.
Buy a litre of milk and you get to drink it once. Buy a cow and you get to drink all the milk you want. Easy decision, no?
Yes, but the Government could simply pass a law that there is no copyright on any computer software, software suppliers must release source code, and if they don't, then decompiling, reverse engineering &c. are explicitly permitted. And there would be nothing Microsoft's Brazilian division could do about it except supply their source code or hightail it out of Brazil.
What have you guys got against rats F.C.O.L.? Rats are lovely creatures. They are intelligent, adaptable, and they take care of their own. Stop maligning them.
is that, traditionally at least, laws in the UK have never counted for much. Bad laws get broken all the time - but only criminals and minor traffic offenders get punished. If the politicians want to make stupid laws, it's easier just to let them - and then go ahead and carry on doing what we used to do anyway. The police have a hard enough job dealing with real crimes that they haven't time to waste on trendy new crimes. I guess it comes from the same thinking that gave us the class system: there are Law Abiding Citizens {who like to remenisce about the old days when you could leave your front door unlocked} and there are Criminals {who shoplift, litter, vandalise property &c}. Even amongst Criminals, there are Good Criminals {stealing from the rich without hurting anyone} and Bad Criminals {stealing from the poor, violence, sex offences &c}. Merely re-branding something that Law Abiding Citizens do as a crime will not turn L.A.C.s into Criminals.
If the police don't actually want you for something, you're fine. What this law - or any new law passed since the infamous Criminal Justice Bill of '94 - actually means is that if they do want you for something, they will have an easier time pinning something on you. For instance, it's a common trick for the police to pick you up on a charge unrelated to your normal activities in order to be able to search your home without a warrant. This is usually a little easier than getting an actual warrant, but any evidence it turns up will be admissible in a court of law. Conversely, if a sufficiently high-ranking officer requests that the ordinary plods turn a blind eye to a particular activity, and they do, then the only thing the government could do would be to place the area under martial law - which would be political suicide and to the best of my knowledge has never happened outside N.I.
It's technically already against the law in the UK to make a copy of a CD or LP you own onto cassette in order to listen to it in your car. But I'll dare bet you what you like if you went through a copper's car, or even a government minister's car, you'd find something taped at home; and to the best of my knowledge nobody has ever been sent down for that. Nor are they likely ever to start.
Those at the top have lost the plot and the rest of us - who do all the real donkey work - just have to put on a bit of a show for them. It's a grossly inefficient system, and it carries with it the possibility of misuse; but as long as it works, it gets left as it is because any attempt to change it would probably make things worse.
Slashdot Mirror
The point that some people seem to be missing is that the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act only refers to copyrighted material. As such it cannot be applied to the pricing information in this case, because that information is not the subject of any copyright: only the creative content of the advertising flier {artwork, presentation style &c.} are copyrightable. The prices themselves are automatically in the public domain.
However, the flier was almost certainly subject to an embargo. If someone has disclosed information before it came due for release, then they probably have breached a contract. But that is a simple issue of contract law, and has nothing to do with copyright. {Another oft-forgotten point: Copyright law only applies to material which is intended eventually to enter the public domain: copyright provides a temporary monopoly on your work in exchange for you making it available to everyone. A trade secret is not intended to enter the public domain and therefore would not be covered by copyright law.}
Suppose you live in a place with heavy-handed building control laws that allow for the demolition of unapproved buildings on summary judgement. Now your neighbour parks his car, perfectly legally, but in such a place that you have to have to walk a few metres further to get to your front door. Would it be fair for you to claim that the car was in fact a building that had been improperly erected without due authorisation, and order it removed? That is exactly what this case smacks of to me.
There is a difference between what copyright law permits / forbids, and what the GPL permits / forbids. This is a source of much confusion.
Neither copyright law nor the GPL forbid you from using legitimately-acquired software.
Copyright law says "you need permission to make copies beyond Fair Dealing". {What constitutes fair dealing is determined by the courts.}
The GPL gives you permission to make and distribute verbatim copies and distribute them subject to the GPL. {If the licence is changed the copy would not be verbatim.}
Copyright law does not forbid you from making derivative works, but the copyright in such derivative works is not transferred to you {unless so little remains of the original that your use would qualify as fair dealing}; so you must obtain permission from the original copyright holder if you wish to distribute such derivative works to others.
The GPL gives you permission to distribute derivative works {in which you do not own the copyright} to others, as long as such distribution is subject to the GPL.
Nothing forbids you from making a derivative work and using it for your own purposes without distributing it to others. In most jurisdictions, this is a statutory right and cannot be abridged by the terms of a licence. However, the copyright on the derivative work most probably still belongs to the original copyright holder. If you wish to do something with this derivative work that neither copyright law nor any applicable licence permits, then you must first seek permission from the copyright holder.
I'll try using urpmi though, rather than go installing tarballs willy-nilly
I think the common problem with broken packages is that the package builder simply omits to mention a necessary file in the dependency list; so when you come to install it, if you haven't got that same file in the same place as the packager originally had it, then it won't work. Installing a totally different package that happens to provide that file cures everything. So how about a tool which would allow users to search on the internet for packages where "missing" files can be found, install them and notify the package maintainers as to how they managed to fix it? Semi-automatic user contributions, almost
RPMs are dire, unless they are the common ones included in the distro. On my Mandrake box, I seriously prefer tar.gz packages because they are just more reliable.
The problem is maintaining an accurate database of what depends on what. Debian have rigorous testing procedures, they test everything so many times that it get out-of-date.
Two ways out of it:
- sell CD-ROMs containing collections of packages proven to work when installed on anything with a kernel, because every dependency would already be meetable from the CD contents.
- set up an online package base which automatically reports any installation difficulties to a forum where other users can offer suggestions, and once a solution is found, update the dependencies for that package for the benefit of the next person.
Option 1 has the disadvantage that you have to sell many copies of the CD to break even out of it, because you have to sell it cheaply enough that people will buy it from you rather than anyone else. Option 2 has the disadvantage that if it's reporting users' config info, it looks a bit like spyware {but from the practical standpoint, you can't just go to the vet and say "my dog is poorly", not take the dog with you, not describe its symptoms, and still expect a cure. But if you s/dog/PC/ and s/vet/phone support/ it's a different matter in most people's eyes}.Learn your history and your geography, and realise that your ISP, your workplace's ISP, your mother's ISP and if your dog had an ISP then probably your dog's ISP as well, already use the open-source product sendmail to send you your mail. Exchange Server is used internally in only a few crappy corporations who have already forgotten about the product they sell / service they provide, let alone the poor sods who have to work there; they think only about the money they are making, and will soon be going bust.
Drop-in replacements? Don't make me laugh. Where can you get an electric light bulb from that fits in a candle holder? Sometimes you have to break your compatibilities with the past, and break them good and hard.
Ah, that would half make sense then ..... Only half though, because the idea of betting shops being illegal doesn't make sense.
for punters just to go to a licenced turf accountant if they wanted to place a bet? I know I'm lucky having a bookie's right at the end of my street {it's where next door's kids can usually find their dad if he's not home!} but surely licenced betting shops can't be so thin on the ground, or have so much else wrong with them, that people actually prefer to use the unlicenced ones? After all, you wouldn't expect criminal gangs to tax bookies' profits any less heavily than the Government does .....
I like the sound of this. How long till someone replicates its functionality, but based on a bootable GNU/Linux OS on the CD? Yes yes yes, I know about Knoppix and Slackware LiveCD - but I'm thinking of a much closer correspondence between the two editions. Ideally to the point where the user would neither know nor care whether they were using the Windows or the Linux version.
I agree with you wholeheartedly. Computers have no place in most classrooms. Before you attempt to do anything the machine-way, you should first understand how to do it the hand-way. That means you don't let your kids have a digital watch till they can tell the time by an analogue watch, you don't let them use a calculator till they can do long multiplication and division, and so forth. That was how it was done in my day, and it never did me any harm. I learned to write with a pencil {and learned to spell during the process}, then a fountain pen when I could use a pencil and not break the lead or make too many mistakes, then a mechanical typewriter, then a word processor. And over my time I have used home-made word processing software and Wordwise Plus on the BBC; Scribble, Wordworth and Protext on the Amiga; New York Word, WordStar, WordPerfect and MS Word for DOS; EVE on a VAX 11/750; MacWrite and MS Word for Mac; WordStar, WordPerfect, Ami, MS Word and OpenOffice.org Writer on Windows; and Open Office, AbiWord and KWord on Linux. In my experience, there is not a great deal of relearning to be done whn moving from any one to any other {though I confess, I still have to spend a few minutes remembering it is not ctrl-A and ctrl-E for beginning and end of line everyt ime I use MS Word immediately after Pico}.
When I was at school, it was all BBC computers {shows my age} and anyone who used a computer had no choice but to be a hacker. The manual shew you how to write simple programmes and how to talk to the I/O ports {actually BBC BASIC was a very nice programming language - calculated GOTO and all, nice to be able to avoid but indispensable when you really needed it}, then pretty much left you to it. So in the chemistry labs we rigged up a pH meter to a computer and got it plotting a graph of pH against time for a simple acid-alkali titration {open burette valve when computer beeps, close after 0.5ml of solution has gone in, wait for pH to stabilise, keep going} and in CDT we even had a BBC Master controlling a mini-lathe {not built in-house - even by that stage there were a few readymade applications}. I remember seeing it used for making adaptors that would screw into a generic light fitting to make a table lamp.
The difference was that we were not forced to use our computers in a way that conformed to someone else's ideals. There was less raw power, but what there was was better utilised. With today's closed-source software and proprietary interfaces, doing anything like that would be a nightmare today. {Actually the software then was closed source, but the APIs and buses were fully documented, and 6502 assembly language was pretty understandable to the hackers of the day.}
When you write a programme, it rightfully belongs to all of humankind. You call it "yours" because you wrote it, but that is not to say you have any kind of absolute ownership over it, any more than you have absolute ownership over "your" uncle! The possessive pronoun is merely a linguistic convenience {and no doubt there is a language spoken somewhere that draws a distinction between absolute ownership and mere relationship}. All of humankind has a right to that programme, including the source code. If you don't like it, you don't have to write the programme in the first place. Or you can seek a special concession from everyone else in the whole world, which isn't that much harder than improving on a programme when somebody didn't give you the source code.
Saying that just because you wrote software it's yours and you can do what you like with it whether or not other people like it, is a lot like saying that your dick is yours and you can use it to have sex with anyone you like whether or not other people like it. Ah. I rather think you are in danger of succumbing to the great Capitalist myth -- you see other people as being nothing more than a source of money for you.
The users of software have an absolute right to the source code by sole virtue of the software's existence. Just because most of them aren't going to make any use of it doesn't mean you can get away with not giving it to any of them! Those are weasel words. Easier yes, but without the source code, it is frankly next to impossible to create a derivative work. Ask anyone who actually programs as opposed to pontificating. Without the source code, your only way to make a derivative work is first to disassemble the binary and then work out what the machine code does. If you want to just change a message or add a few extra lives to a game, that is trivial; but if you want to add extra functionality it can be a ball-ache. You probably -- and if you want to port to another architecture, make that certainly -- are going to end up having to rewrite the whole thing in a higher-level language. And the only consolation is that under fair dealing provisions, the end result most probably would be all your own work and you could release it under an open-source licence. More weasel words. Why should it say so in the licence? It is an implicit assumption. Every human being is obliged to help every other being to the fullest extent possible without actually harming themself. If I can give you my source code without hurting myself, and that would help you, then I must.
See also this essay - choice quote "Freedom is being able to make decisions that affect mainly you. Power is being able to make decisions that affect others more than you. If we confuse power with freedom, we will fail to uphold real freedom."
The real question I find myself asking is why would you want to release something in binary form only? What is in your source code that you are so desperate for me not to see, and why? Are you ashamed of it? Scared it won't work? Do you think people will laugh at your commenting style or the way you use curly brackets?
Is a bucket of chewed-up stomach contents equivalent to a three course meal? This is the form in which your body needs to have it to obtain the nutrients and energy, but it is not the form in which most people would like to see it, talk about it and generally appreciate it in other respects than the merely nutritional.
I agree with you that the GPL is not the only form of copyleft, but I don't believe for one instant that you can distribute binaries without source and not violate someone's rights. In fact, both the Qing and C.C. licences grant you permission to make derivative works, which sort of implies an obligation to distribute the source code; as not to do so would prevent someone from creating the very derivative work you just authorised.
Cut the FUD, will you? If you know the basics of word processing, it makes little difference whether you are using MS Word, KWord, Abiword, Open Office Writer or Pico. The typing keys, which are what you are using most of the time, do not change places. The same applies to spreadsheets; Excel, Gnumeric, KSpread, Open Office Calc are all pretty similar. Formulas are entered in the same way they have been since Lotus 1-2-3. As for databases, Microsoft Access and MySQL are actually both forked from the same original source - but SQL is pretty much SQL wherever you go, and SELECT * means SELECT *. Of course there are dialects, but to expect otherwise would be like expecting the language of Mexico City to be the same as that of Madrid. And I'll pre-empt the inevitable responses now by saying MS and MY have a more limited vocabulary than PG or Oracle.
You say that schools are teaching Microsoft because industry uses Microsoft, but couldn't it equally be said that industry uses Microsoft because schools are teaching Microsoft? It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. And it wasn't that long ago that Microsoft was not the de facto standard - there were several competing word processors. WordStar {those dot commands were nice - almost TeX-like}, WordPerfect, MS Word for DOS, Ami; then on the Mac there were MacWrite and MS Word for Mac, and on the Amiga there were Wordworth, Protext, Scribble and Kindwords. Plus a new PD or shareware word processor on a cover disc of one magazine every month. But maybe back then we were just better survivors than the current namby-pamby, hold-my-hand-mummy-i'm-scared, see-you-in-court generation of spoilt gutless milksops.
Another point is that schools are not Microsoft training centres, and neither should they be. If Microsoft want people taught to use their software then it should be at Microsoft's - not the taxpayer's - expense and outside of the comprehensive* school system.
* Comprehensive school - British name for a school paid for by the state, opp. public school - British name for a school paid for privately, and reckoned to give a more comprehensive education. US terminology would be public school, private school respectively.
If your enemy has a weapon, insists on using it against you and will only stop when either you or they are dead, then your only chance of survival is to arm yourself. Cf. the late buddhist monk who refused medicine because he believed that germs were living creatures and it was not morally acceptable to kill them.
* Northern European Pagans will understand this.
See also here
The benefits of all human endeavour belong to all of humankind. If we are to expect that our fellow human beings will help us to the furthest extent possible short of actually harming themselves, then it follows that we are all obliged to help our fellow human beings to the furthest extent possible short of actually harming ourselves. If we expect any less, then we may as well not have bothered with the whole evolution thing.
Even if the kernel developers didn't exercise due diligence, then that would not affect the GPL's validity, because of its wording. The GPL does not give you permission to distribute code that is not covered by the GPL, and if you haven't the authority to release code under the GPL then the GPL can't be applied to that code. If one person violates the law on which the licence is built, that doesn't invalidate the licence!
But it's entirely possible for the kernel developers to show due diligence. PGP-signed e-mails, for a start.
Furthermore, the Linux kernel developers are not the only people who would be susceptible to this sort of thing. How does anyone know, for example, that Microsoft have not incorporated some of SCO's proprietary code into Windows? It could easily be there, but protected from SCO's prying eyes by Microsoft's closed-source practices. It's only the unique nature of Open Source Software that has allowed them to complain about code in the Linux kernel - because with Linux, everything is done out in broad daylight. If there is nothing the Linux kernel developers could have done to guard against proprietary code finding its way into the kernel, then it follows that there is nothing anybody else could do to prevent the same thing either.
SCO were in the better position all along, because they could see both their code and Linux, whereas the Linux people did not have access to SCO's code. As soon as they spotted their code entering a release candidate, they should have had a polite word with the kernel team right then and the whole mess would have been sorted. They missed an opportunity to nip it in the bud, and must carry at least some of the blame for what happened after it could have been fixed.
Example: your neighbour's dog shits in your garden. You spot it, but don't mention it to the neighbour until it has already turned your lawn yellow, given your kids diseases, and your wife has slipped on it and banged her arse good and proper. Some of the responsibility must be yours, because you could have taken action sooner -- you could have pointed it out to your neighbour and asked what they were going to do about it, but instead you chose to wait until the problem had escalated.
If I thought that it was remotely feasible to tax e-mail, I might support it. However, I'd be more in favour of the more radical solution, which would be banning advertising on the Internet altogether, which I think would make many people very happy {except the advertising industry; but hey, remember the slave trade? Or the fur farming industry? Exactly} and in all probability won't affect anyone's sales one iota; people eat because they are hungry, not because some billboard tells them to eat. I set my proxy up to block all known advertisement servers as a matter of routine.
/var/spool/maillog if you don't believe me; this may not work with free accounts}. And there would have to be laws giving ISPs certain obligations {otherwise they could block you from running proftpd, apache, irc or game servers, for example; and there should be a reasonable attempt made to contact you before disconnection, and reconnection should be within a reasonable time frame}.
But if there was a pie-in-the-sky pipedream I'd really like to see made reality, it would be a Networthiness Test. Most countries have a roadworthiness test for cars, and nobody minds it for the benefits it brings. In this country, the police have the authority to order any vehicle to be moved off the road if they believe it is not in a roadworthy condition. By analogy, ISPs should have the power to disconnect computers being used for antisocial activities - specifically, spamming and virus propagation.
If you run a mailing list, you might have to tell your ISP about it, in order to avoid a nasty surprise, but you can't hide the fact anyway {ssh into your ISP's server and tail -f
It opens up a whole swathe of questions, of course, and the answers will not be easy. But the longer we keep avoiding them, the worse it will get; till we end up with a tub of minging rancid bathwater and a dead baby.
Anyone who disputes this please state which of the following facts you object to:
- Copyright law grants copyright holders the right to decide, for a limited time, who should and who should not copy their work.
- Without explicit permission from the copyright holder or their authorised agent, it would be an offence to make and distribute copies - whether verbatim or modidied - of a copyrighted work.
- Section 1 of the GPL gives users explicit permission to distribute verbatim copies as per (2) above provided that certain conditions are met.
- Sections 2 and 3 of the GPL give users explicit permission to make and distribute modified copies and derivative works as per (2) above provided that certain conditions are met.
You may already have certain fair dealing rights in relation to software licenced under the GPL, but such rights vary from one jurisdiction to another. Many copyright holders don't give out permission so freely, but the law doesn't stop you letting other people copy your work if you want them to. All that could ever possibly happen from the GPL coming to court would be vindication for the GPL. Contrast that with certain EULAs being tested in court. The MS EULA, for instance, would almost certainly be laughed out of UK or German courts. That would hurt the GPL's credibility, but it wouldn't do Microsoft any favours either.If IBM, or anyone, has knowingly placed source code in the Linux kernel {and therefore subjected it to the GPL} without having the right to, then they have violated copyright law. This will have to be debated in court, and then the disputed code will have to come to light, otherwise the case will be summarily dismissed. The Kernel Developers - who can show that they have acted in good faith and exercised due diligence at every stage - will then be able to remove any infringing code. In the unlikely event that the kernel developers are ordered to pay damages, they will have the right to sue whoever committed the original infringement. However, such damages are likely to be for a nominal sum {$1?} on account of SCO's refusal to show the code in question sooner.
And if the unthinkable happens - if, and it could only ever happen by some massive brain-fart, the GPL is ruled invalid, the disputed source code is not shown and Linux is declared illegal in all versions - then there is always FreeBSD, already proven not to be SCO's property.
Back in the days when I was growing up in what was then a peaceful little village on the outskirts of Derby, kids could be kids, paedophiles had not been invented, all that mattered was that Forest lost and if the Rams won, well, that was a bonus. But regardless what was happening at the Baseball Ground, if anyone tried shoplifting from the local newsagent's, they were in for a surprise a few weeks down the line. Because the paper lady had eyes like a hawk, and if she spotted you doing something -- and if you did anything, she would spot it -- she would just add it on to your parents' paper bill, and when they got the bill they could deal with you as they saw fit -- which usually meant you had to write a letter of apology to the newsagent, and you'd probably have to stand up to write it. If you ever gave her a mouthful, other people in the village would express disapproval - "There goes that Alice, do you know what she said to Mrs W. the other day?" - until you felt you had no choice but to make your peace with her. She knew how old you were, whether your parents smoked and what brand -- and she would also know if a packet of fags or a can of booze was really for someone else {though I suspect the real explanation was that the parent in question would simply phone the newsagent while you were on the way and say they had sent you. Most of the people in my end of the village were on the phone}. They don't make them like her anymore.
It's my contention that no automated system will ever be as good as our old paper lady, may she rest in peace. She may have had a vulnerability, but either nobody dared exploit it, or they were just too amazed by her apparent superhuman powers to bother. Why can't we just go back to using human beings to do jobs human beings are good at and use machines for jobs machines are good at?
Here is the reason why this doesn't affect me at work, and the reason why it doesn't affect any decent ISP. And here is the reason why it doesn't affect me on my LAN at home.
I am not in the least bit surprised that a closed-source product has problems. The only mystery to me is why anybody would pay good money after bad for a product and never be in total control of it. If you rent a house, you spend the whole of the rest of your life paying the rent and at the end of it, you have nothing to show for it. If you buy a house, you spend 25 years paying a mortgage, and then you get a piece of paper that says the house belongs to you and you don't pay anymore. If you use closed source software, you have to pay someone else for support and although you eventually get problems fixed, more or less, probably, you will still have to call The Man next time it goes T.U. If you use open source software, you can choose whether you pay for support in hard graft or in hard cash, and you get to keep everything you learned along the way.
Buy a litre of milk and you get to drink it once. Buy a cow and you get to drink all the milk you want. Easy decision, no?
Yes, but the Government could simply pass a law that there is no copyright on any computer software, software suppliers must release source code, and if they don't, then decompiling, reverse engineering &c. are explicitly permitted. And there would be nothing Microsoft's Brazilian division could do about it except supply their source code or hightail it out of Brazil.
What have you guys got against rats F.C.O.L.? Rats are lovely creatures. They are intelligent, adaptable, and they take care of their own. Stop maligning them.
is that, traditionally at least, laws in the UK have never counted for much. Bad laws get broken all the time - but only criminals and minor traffic offenders get punished. If the politicians want to make stupid laws, it's easier just to let them - and then go ahead and carry on doing what we used to do anyway. The police have a hard enough job dealing with real crimes that they haven't time to waste on trendy new crimes. I guess it comes from the same thinking that gave us the class system: there are Law Abiding Citizens {who like to remenisce about the old days when you could leave your front door unlocked} and there are Criminals {who shoplift, litter, vandalise property &c}. Even amongst Criminals, there are Good Criminals {stealing from the rich without hurting anyone} and Bad Criminals {stealing from the poor, violence, sex offences &c}. Merely re-branding something that Law Abiding Citizens do as a crime will not turn L.A.C.s into Criminals.
If the police don't actually want you for something, you're fine. What this law - or any new law passed since the infamous Criminal Justice Bill of '94 - actually means is that if they do want you for something, they will have an easier time pinning something on you. For instance, it's a common trick for the police to pick you up on a charge unrelated to your normal activities in order to be able to search your home without a warrant. This is usually a little easier than getting an actual warrant, but any evidence it turns up will be admissible in a court of law. Conversely, if a sufficiently high-ranking officer requests that the ordinary plods turn a blind eye to a particular activity, and they do, then the only thing the government could do would be to place the area under martial law - which would be political suicide and to the best of my knowledge has never happened outside N.I.
It's technically already against the law in the UK to make a copy of a CD or LP you own onto cassette in order to listen to it in your car. But I'll dare bet you what you like if you went through a copper's car, or even a government minister's car, you'd find something taped at home; and to the best of my knowledge nobody has ever been sent down for that. Nor are they likely ever to start.
Those at the top have lost the plot and the rest of us - who do all the real donkey work - just have to put on a bit of a show for them. It's a grossly inefficient system, and it carries with it the possibility of misuse; but as long as it works, it gets left as it is because any attempt to change it would probably make things worse.