The supposed weakness was that the guard was already there. Now, you need to bring both guard and tools with you (at gunpoint!). Wouldn't it be simpler to just bring the tools?
Separate buildings and geographical distance are irrelevant. You and your head office are both parts of the same organization. In this case, the contractor was from outside Connolly's organization. The crossing of organizational boundaries is what makes it distribution. You can see the FSF's position on this at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#InternalD istribution
To put it another way, did Connolly's company pay the contractor's social security? If not (and I would be very surprised if it did), then he was not an employee of the company. If he was not an employee of the company, then he had to distribute the code to get it to them. Remember, the company does *not* own all the code. Mambo owns most of it. The company owns a little piece that is only relevant when used with Mambo's code.
If Connolly's company owned the original code, it would be different. Then it could control the license under which it was distributed. However, all Connolly's company owned was a small modification to the original code (and not even the code that Mambo is distributing now, just similar code written by the same person). Thus, for the programmer to provide the code to the company, it had to go under the GPL to meet the copyright provisions. If that was unacceptable, then they shouldn't have started with Mambo.
Boxers very rarely die in the ring. It is not "likely" that it will cause (solely) death. It is only "likely" to cause injury. Muhammed Ali fought the strongest boxers of his day, and he is still alive. The brain damage is a cumulative result of the game, not something that could be attributed to one boxer.
Your parent is talking about something more on the lines of duelling with pistols, where the contestants goal is to kill each other.
"they *provenly* can't say with certainity that only the guys who really did the crime" spend life in prison. Sure, they were able to let Hurricane Carter out of jail when they found out that he was innocent, but they can never recompense him for the years that he was in jail. Yes, dead is worse, but is it enough worse to justify risking the lives of everyone around that person? E.g. prison guards, other inmates, etc.
"it just makes it damn fucking sure you don't allow yourself to get caught no matter what in certain situations(because you got nothing to lose because you think you'll fry anyways.. in 10 years)."
Yes, and the threat of spending the rest of your life in jail is so much less. Particularly when there is no chance that you will get a worse sentence: it's the max. But then, something always will be.
Lynch only directed six episodes (of 29) of Twin Peaks: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098936/fullcredits
He was one of the series creators and the executive producer. Executive producer is more what the original poster meant, not director. An executive producer is the one who controls story direction, etc. in most tv series.
"the GPL doesn't count if the person with the rights chooses not to redistribute the code" is a true statement. However, in this case, the code was distributed. The contractor distributed it to Connolly. As such, it is my opinion that *even if* the contractor had contributed *the identical code* (rather than new code) to Mambo, it still would have been GPLed. The fact that the contractor signed away his rights to the code is irrelevant; he could not sign away *Mambo's* rights (based on the code being a derivative work).
In this case, the contractor is actually using a different argument: that it's not the same code as what he sold to Connolly.
Connolly is not going to get damages from Mambo or anyone downstream of Mambo. Even if Connolly's claims had validity, at best, he could require them to take the code out. Any damages he would get would come from the programmer he hired.
The Eolas case demonstrates the fallacy of this argument. Microsoft continues to distribute with the code, because removing the code would be too expensive to do immediately. Further, the presence of the code does not hurt Eolas (just not getting paid for the presence of the code), it just helps Microsoft.
Btw, you didn't answer the actual objection, which was that if you Microsoft loses such a judgment, they will simply take out the offending code and replace it with something else.
The difference between inserting code in Linux vs MS Windows is that we can see the code in Linux; Microsoft could insert code without anyone being able to tell.
"Any operating system should come with a decent media player"
Why? It would be utterly useless to me on a server, since I only connect to servers via SSH or a text console. Further, many businesses (e.g. banks, sales centers) would probably like to keep them off their workstations as well. Why should people be using their work computer to see a news broadcast?
Smith is Microsoft General Counsel. He undoubtedly believes that Linux is a myth because the only way software can be written is if Bill Gates can make money from it.
"Stories about getting shot at in the jungle are simply more understandable and gripping than stories about a vote to kill instructions to send the bill back to committee with directions to report it back with an amendment (whatever the hell that all means)."
Voting No was a vote for raising the minimum wage. I can see how it could get tricky with all the double negatives, but that's the basic intent. Unsurprisingly, that's what he did.
It is quite possible to interpret statements like that. Ted Kennedy wanted to increase the minimum wage, so he tried to have the relevant committee rewrite that bill with a provision to increase the minimum wage. Someone else set up a vote to end dicussion (preventing a vote). Kerry voted no: i.e. he wanted the bill rewritten.
The real question is why doesn't someone in the media (or even someone with Vote Smart) go through and summarize all Kerry's positions (without all the double negatives or intrigue). It's quite possible, especially if you ask the Kerry campaign to double check it to see if you misunderstood anything (for example, one might vote to replace a horrible bill with a bad bill in some circumstances; not a vote for the bad bill; a vote against the horrible bill).
"After you sign up, you work directly from NORFED."
That doesn't make it not a pyramid scheme. It just makes it a very short pyramid (three levels: you, the associate who signs you up, and them). It still uses Multi-Level Marketing to expand. It compares itself to PayPal or Amazon, but it is very different.
PayPal and Amazon collects money for services and goods. They then take a portion of the money that they collect and use it for marketing. One method of marketing is to pay for referrals. Note that you don't have to pay anything to get in the Amazon or PayPal programs. They make their money from the referred customers, not from selling you the right to sell for them.
By contrast, the liberty program is a club. You pay in $250 of real money and get back $100 of their money. They then take $100 of their money and give it to whomever signed you up. This can only be justified if you believe that $100 of their money plus the right to exchange real money for their money in the future is worth $150. However, they don't try to argue that. Instead they tell you to refer two more people, so that you can get paid $100 of their money.
Calling it a non-profit doesn't matter. There are all sorts of ways to make money off a non-profit. For example, one can simply get paid a salary by the non-profit. Someone is coining the silver money.
Pages like http://www.norfed.org/html/silvertwice.asp are what really indicate that this is not a good idea. Of the $100 of their money that they are giving you, $40 is in the form of silver coins that contain (drumroll please) about $20 of silver. Also the bizarre claim to be "inflation-proof." What are they saying? That inflation didn't exist prior to fiat money? That's bull. Look at the affect the gold rush had on prices. New sources of precious metal (or a drop in demand) cause inflation in metal backed currencies. Heck, I looked all over the public parts of the site, and I can't find a listing of the exchange rates (how much liberty money for a real $1; how many really dollars for liberty money).
This group gets you coming, going, and in the middle.
"far far fewer developers than it took to turn windows 2000 into XP."
ObNitPick: Turning 2000 into XP is almost trivial. It's just adding some extra doodads. All XP is is what 2000 and WinME were supposed to be: an NT based OS that is compatible with many win9x programs. They did not finish XP Home in time, so they released WinME instead. The next year, when they finished XP Home, they tweaked 2000 slightly and produced a new business version as well.
The hard things to do were turning NT and win9x into XP.
Linus continues to determine what does and does not get into the official Linux kernel. Mostly based on the advice of others, but his is the final decision.
That only applies to *existing* patents. The system can always be changed as regards new patents. Also, it's worth noting that patent abuses are in fact patent abuses. If the patent is not legal in the first place, then nothing is taken away.
Copyright is different in that the primary concern is the lengthy term of the copyright. It may in fact be very difficult to shorten that term and it would take over a century to let the existing copyrights run out. Existing patents would be gone within twenty years.
"Typically, a drug has about 5 years on the market now to recoup it's costs before the patent runs out. So what you're suggesting is actually more generous than the system today."
The line you quoted said 2 years on the market (with 8 or 13 years of premarket activity allowed). This would be less generous than 5 years (with 12 years of premarket activity).
Pharmaceuticals are almost unique among products. They are trivially difficult to reverse engineer compared to the cost to develop a new one (including FDA trials, etc.). It's also worth noting that many fail without ever reaching the market or are brought to market for something different than their original purposes (Viagra's primary purpose was originally an observed side effect).
"Knowing that my intellectual fruit is worth something in the open market and that it *is* protected better than by copyright. Furthermore, *all* software patents expire eventually, and then the software is in the public domain."
Err...no. Software patents are on abstract methods, not software. At expiration, no software becomes publicly available, just a method that was only unavailable because of the patent. Further, the copyright on the software will apply long after the patent expires, so even if they do publish it, it still won't be public domain.
All patents have a chilling effect on development. The possibility that someone else has *already* patented the method that you seek reduces the incentive to work on it (you might not be able to use your work). The claim is that this is outweighed by the desire to get the monopoly first. In some cases (e.g. pharmaceuticals), this is true. Research is so costly and reverse engineering is so simple that a patent monopoly is required to get any results at all. In other cases (e.g. software), the balance goes the other way. Software is generally cheaper to develop than to reverse engineer.
"Our argument is that there is no difference between the two, so no clear reason why both questions couldn't be decided by judges,"
Actually, there is. The (constitutional) rule is that people have the right to a jury trial to determine questions of fact. A question of validity is a question of fact (interpretation of claims is an interpretation of law). Both sides would have to waive their right to a jury trial to allow a judge to rule on the facts of the case (as opposed to the legal aspects).
My personal suggestion for patent system overhaul would be to eliminate the initial review and only review patents when they are applied (i.e. when someone is using their patents to restrict someone else or to acquire patents). At the time of use, there is someone involved who has both technical expertise and incentive to find the problems with the patent.
Ambulance chasers deal with insurance companies. They do not actually sue people (or even the insurance companies) if they can avoid it. Lawyers only take cases that they expect to win on contingency. Your average ambulance chaser will bow out if they can't negotiate a pre-trial settlement, as trials are expensive.
Loser pays could actually increase litigation. Note that currently it is unprofitable to sue for small amounts. A loser pays system makes it possible for the lawyer to make money even if the disputed amount is too small. Further, loser pays makes it more feasible to take cases to court rather than settle.
In general, the people suing feel that right is on their side. Changing the incentives for them doesn't matter, as they are not capable of evaluating the incentives. To have an effect, you need to change the incentives for the lawyers.
Slashdot Mirror
The supposed weakness was that the guard was already there. Now, you need to bring both guard and tools with you (at gunpoint!). Wouldn't it be simpler to just bring the tools?
Separate buildings and geographical distance are irrelevant. You and your head office are both parts of the same organization. In this case, the contractor was from outside Connolly's organization. The crossing of organizational boundaries is what makes it distribution. You can see the FSF's position on this at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#InternalD istribution
To put it another way, did Connolly's company pay the contractor's social security? If not (and I would be very surprised if it did), then he was not an employee of the company. If he was not an employee of the company, then he had to distribute the code to get it to them. Remember, the company does *not* own all the code. Mambo owns most of it. The company owns a little piece that is only relevant when used with Mambo's code.
If Connolly's company owned the original code, it would be different. Then it could control the license under which it was distributed. However, all Connolly's company owned was a small modification to the original code (and not even the code that Mambo is distributing now, just similar code written by the same person). Thus, for the programmer to provide the code to the company, it had to go under the GPL to meet the copyright provisions. If that was unacceptable, then they shouldn't have started with Mambo.
Lynch, Joss Whedon, and James Cameron (Dark Angel) were all listed as executive producers. Whedon especially is described as very hands on.
"Expensive paintings are always locked to the wall and difficult to take down without proper tools."
And a security guard would be more likely to bring these than a thief?
Boxers very rarely die in the ring. It is not "likely" that it will cause (solely) death. It is only "likely" to cause injury. Muhammed Ali fought the strongest boxers of his day, and he is still alive. The brain damage is a cumulative result of the game, not something that could be attributed to one boxer.
Your parent is talking about something more on the lines of duelling with pistols, where the contestants goal is to kill each other.
"they *provenly* can't say with certainity that only the guys who really did the crime" spend life in prison. Sure, they were able to let Hurricane Carter out of jail when they found out that he was innocent, but they can never recompense him for the years that he was in jail. Yes, dead is worse, but is it enough worse to justify risking the lives of everyone around that person? E.g. prison guards, other inmates, etc.
"it just makes it damn fucking sure you don't allow yourself to get caught no matter what in certain situations(because you got nothing to lose because you think you'll fry anyways.. in 10 years)."
Yes, and the threat of spending the rest of your life in jail is so much less. Particularly when there is no chance that you will get a worse sentence: it's the max. But then, something always will be.
"they can come in and tell the guard to take the painting down on gunpoint"
Yes, because thieves are usually incapable of taking down paintings.
The guard exists to mark off the false alarms; the cameras exist so that people can't just have the guard mark a real alarm as a false alarm.
No, no.
...
There can be only one Highlander film.
There can be only one
After all, there's only one Queen soundtrack.
Yes, he did so well with the Young Indiana Jones series. 28 whole episodes! http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103586/
Lynch only directed six episodes (of 29) of Twin Peaks: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098936/fullcredits
He was one of the series creators and the executive producer. Executive producer is more what the original poster meant, not director. An executive producer is the one who controls story direction, etc. in most tv series.
"the GPL doesn't count if the person with the rights chooses not to redistribute the code" is a true statement. However, in this case, the code was distributed. The contractor distributed it to Connolly. As such, it is my opinion that *even if* the contractor had contributed *the identical code* (rather than new code) to Mambo, it still would have been GPLed. The fact that the contractor signed away his rights to the code is irrelevant; he could not sign away *Mambo's* rights (based on the code being a derivative work).
In this case, the contractor is actually using a different argument: that it's not the same code as what he sold to Connolly.
Connolly is not going to get damages from Mambo or anyone downstream of Mambo. Even if Connolly's claims had validity, at best, he could require them to take the code out. Any damages he would get would come from the programmer he hired.
The Eolas case demonstrates the fallacy of this argument. Microsoft continues to distribute with the code, because removing the code would be too expensive to do immediately. Further, the presence of the code does not hurt Eolas (just not getting paid for the presence of the code), it just helps Microsoft.
Btw, you didn't answer the actual objection, which was that if you Microsoft loses such a judgment, they will simply take out the offending code and replace it with something else.
The difference between inserting code in Linux vs MS Windows is that we can see the code in Linux; Microsoft could insert code without anyone being able to tell.
"Any operating system should come with a decent media player"
Why? It would be utterly useless to me on a server, since I only connect to servers via SSH or a text console. Further, many businesses (e.g. banks, sales centers) would probably like to keep them off their workstations as well. Why should people be using their work computer to see a news broadcast?
A media player is not a critical component.
Smith is Microsoft General Counsel. He undoubtedly believes that Linux is a myth because the only way software can be written is if Bill Gates can make money from it.
"Stories about getting shot at in the jungle are simply more understandable and gripping than stories about a vote to kill instructions to send the bill back to committee with directions to report it back with an amendment (whatever the hell that all means)."
Voting No was a vote for raising the minimum wage. I can see how it could get tricky with all the double negatives, but that's the basic intent. Unsurprisingly, that's what he did.
It is quite possible to interpret statements like that. Ted Kennedy wanted to increase the minimum wage, so he tried to have the relevant committee rewrite that bill with a provision to increase the minimum wage. Someone else set up a vote to end dicussion (preventing a vote). Kerry voted no: i.e. he wanted the bill rewritten.
The real question is why doesn't someone in the media (or even someone with Vote Smart) go through and summarize all Kerry's positions (without all the double negatives or intrigue). It's quite possible, especially if you ask the Kerry campaign to double check it to see if you misunderstood anything (for example, one might vote to replace a horrible bill with a bad bill in some circumstances; not a vote for the bad bill; a vote against the horrible bill).
"After you sign up, you work directly from NORFED."
That doesn't make it not a pyramid scheme. It just makes it a very short pyramid (three levels: you, the associate who signs you up, and them). It still uses Multi-Level Marketing to expand. It compares itself to PayPal or Amazon, but it is very different.
PayPal and Amazon collects money for services and goods. They then take a portion of the money that they collect and use it for marketing. One method of marketing is to pay for referrals. Note that you don't have to pay anything to get in the Amazon or PayPal programs. They make their money from the referred customers, not from selling you the right to sell for them.
By contrast, the liberty program is a club. You pay in $250 of real money and get back $100 of their money. They then take $100 of their money and give it to whomever signed you up. This can only be justified if you believe that $100 of their money plus the right to exchange real money for their money in the future is worth $150. However, they don't try to argue that. Instead they tell you to refer two more people, so that you can get paid $100 of their money.
Calling it a non-profit doesn't matter. There are all sorts of ways to make money off a non-profit. For example, one can simply get paid a salary by the non-profit. Someone is coining the silver money.
Pages like http://www.norfed.org/html/silvertwice.asp are what really indicate that this is not a good idea. Of the $100 of their money that they are giving you, $40 is in the form of silver coins that contain (drumroll please) about $20 of silver. Also the bizarre claim to be "inflation-proof." What are they saying? That inflation didn't exist prior to fiat money? That's bull. Look at the affect the gold rush had on prices. New sources of precious metal (or a drop in demand) cause inflation in metal backed currencies. Heck, I looked all over the public parts of the site, and I can't find a listing of the exchange rates (how much liberty money for a real $1; how many really dollars for liberty money).
This group gets you coming, going, and in the middle.
"far far fewer developers than it took to turn windows 2000 into XP."
ObNitPick: Turning 2000 into XP is almost trivial. It's just adding some extra doodads. All XP is is what 2000 and WinME were supposed to be: an NT based OS that is compatible with many win9x programs. They did not finish XP Home in time, so they released WinME instead. The next year, when they finished XP Home, they tweaked 2000 slightly and produced a new business version as well.
The hard things to do were turning NT and win9x into XP.
"Shouldn't this be modded funny?"
No, it really shouldn't. Joking is not like gift-giving; it's not the thought that counts.
Linus continues to determine what does and does not get into the official Linux kernel. Mostly based on the advice of others, but his is the final decision.
I figure that I will know too much when I know who Tove is. Fortunately, no one has posted that info.
That only applies to *existing* patents. The system can always be changed as regards new patents. Also, it's worth noting that patent abuses are in fact patent abuses. If the patent is not legal in the first place, then nothing is taken away.
Copyright is different in that the primary concern is the lengthy term of the copyright. It may in fact be very difficult to shorten that term and it would take over a century to let the existing copyrights run out. Existing patents would be gone within twenty years.
"Typically, a drug has about 5 years on the market now to recoup it's costs before the patent runs out. So what you're suggesting is actually more generous than the system today."
The line you quoted said 2 years on the market (with 8 or 13 years of premarket activity allowed). This would be less generous than 5 years (with 12 years of premarket activity).
Pharmaceuticals are almost unique among products. They are trivially difficult to reverse engineer compared to the cost to develop a new one (including FDA trials, etc.). It's also worth noting that many fail without ever reaching the market or are brought to market for something different than their original purposes (Viagra's primary purpose was originally an observed side effect).
"Knowing that my intellectual fruit is worth something in the open market and that it *is* protected better than by copyright. Furthermore, *all* software patents expire eventually, and then the software is in the public domain."
Err...no. Software patents are on abstract methods, not software. At expiration, no software becomes publicly available, just a method that was only unavailable because of the patent. Further, the copyright on the software will apply long after the patent expires, so even if they do publish it, it still won't be public domain.
All patents have a chilling effect on development. The possibility that someone else has *already* patented the method that you seek reduces the incentive to work on it (you might not be able to use your work). The claim is that this is outweighed by the desire to get the monopoly first. In some cases (e.g. pharmaceuticals), this is true. Research is so costly and reverse engineering is so simple that a patent monopoly is required to get any results at all. In other cases (e.g. software), the balance goes the other way. Software is generally cheaper to develop than to reverse engineer.
"Our argument is that there is no difference between the two, so no clear reason why both questions couldn't be decided by judges,"
Actually, there is. The (constitutional) rule is that people have the right to a jury trial to determine questions of fact. A question of validity is a question of fact (interpretation of claims is an interpretation of law). Both sides would have to waive their right to a jury trial to allow a judge to rule on the facts of the case (as opposed to the legal aspects).
My personal suggestion for patent system overhaul would be to eliminate the initial review and only review patents when they are applied (i.e. when someone is using their patents to restrict someone else or to acquire patents). At the time of use, there is someone involved who has both technical expertise and incentive to find the problems with the patent.
Ambulance chasers deal with insurance companies. They do not actually sue people (or even the insurance companies) if they can avoid it. Lawyers only take cases that they expect to win on contingency. Your average ambulance chaser will bow out if they can't negotiate a pre-trial settlement, as trials are expensive.
Loser pays could actually increase litigation. Note that currently it is unprofitable to sue for small amounts. A loser pays system makes it possible for the lawyer to make money even if the disputed amount is too small. Further, loser pays makes it more feasible to take cases to court rather than settle.
In general, the people suing feel that right is on their side. Changing the incentives for them doesn't matter, as they are not capable of evaluating the incentives. To have an effect, you need to change the incentives for the lawyers.