That stuff's too ephemeral. After all, SCOX is trading high now in spite of all this evil crap, so I'd rather not be part of a system that tainted divorced from reality. Might get my soul dirty. >;)
If this does go to court, I can see where quite a few people would be willing to contribute money to the RH side. I know I'd pony up some cabbage to help scuttle the sinking SCO ship. Think they'll set up a donate link at some point?
The Reg has just posted an article about anti-spam activists outing some potential future spammers. Give it a read, and if you're sufficiently motivated, join the battle.
Dang, I know I read the answer to this somewhere, but I don't have a link anymore. I believe it was that "Open Source vs The RIAA"-type debate a while back though (there was one guy from each side in that one).
Anyway, the answer is "no, you can't download the songs legally", though it may not be for the reason you think. The reason the RIAA guy gave was basically this:
The MP3s from CD are of a higher audio quality than the original vinyl, so you are not getting substantially the same product when you download them, but rather a superior one. You have to pay for that.
Can you explain the practical and legal necessity for the extension of copyright dates beyond those originally formulated? In particular, the extension of copyrights to the point where public domain works have reverted back into copyright status.
I have seen several breakdowns which show that the extensions do not significantly monetarily benefit the creator or their descendants, and the public perception is that copyright extensions are enacted at the behest of a few large corporations.
If you can, please provide any information that indicates why copyright extensions are needed, to whom they are truly useful and why, and how (if ever) they can be beneficial to the public commons.
Thank you.
Man, I hate writing back to "Anonymous Coward". Get an account, people, it ain't that hard to work out.
Anyway...
I doubt that Sun has every [sic] succeeded on technical merits alone.
Mostly I was talking about Solaris, not the boxen themselves, though I like their hardware too. Everybody has a different benchmark for what they find meritorious, so your statement is pretty irrelevant.
I would get used to it or you're going to be a flag flapping in the wind.
With respect, that's bullshit. Just because a lot of people do it, that doesn't mean you have to condone it by giving them your business. I do my research in advance when I can, but every now and again a company I respect does something like this and puts a blotch on their escutcheon.
When Exxon had the Valdez accident, I refused from then on to ever buy gas from them (which I've maintained, to the point of almost running out is some remote places). When it came out that Dominos gave money to what I consider to be "christofascist" organizations, they lost my business. The same thing applies here - Sun makes motions that threaten my (open source) way of life, and they therefore lose my patronage until they rectify that posture.
Don't confuse the resignation of your position with the flexibility of mine.
After a Sun letter about IBM's dispute with a technology vendor over software licenses you've decided to buy some 3rd party hardware?
Just from that? No. It's one of many factors, but enough to push a close race away from them. They were barely ahead, and are now behind.
Are you changing due to technical merit?
Again, that's one of a group of factors. It is neither the only nor the paramount concern.
What about the Linux camp's denegrating Sun's performance, cost, features, etc.? Does that earn your disapproval?
No, since it is largely justified and accurate, from my experience. (Keeping Java closed source has distanced me from Sun as well.) And there is a good deal of difference between arguing your relative merits in the public space and attempting to use a disinformation campaign to sway the less informed, such as easily spooked bosses.
I hope this has clarified my position, and I will continue to place my principles to the fore when making decisions like this. To do otherwise compromises the integrity of the technological world where I work and play.
IANA(scumbag)L, but I expect the answer involves legal verminitude.
Say SCO wins above and beyond the contract dispute with IBM and is somehow able to declare Linux illegal. Then they turn around and say, "Well, if you use Sun Linux, we won't indemnify you". Which is like saying it's still illegal, but they won't prosecute. And therefore Sun Linux becomes the only allowed Linux.
I know virtually nothing about the laws here, and certainly this doesn't deal with the whole GPL/copyright law issue, but in America's famously money-friendly court system, I can imagine a weird scenario like this actually coming to pass if the payout is big enough.
Agreed. As a Java developer and Solaris admirer, this is terrible news. (I was another of the people who submitted this link as a story, by the way, so I've been feeling sick about this since early this morning.)
While Sun's SCO technology acquisitions, and even stock buying, I could excuse, the apparent letters to AIX customers that others here have mentioned is a disgusting attempt to prey on IT department uncertainty and management fears. Sure, that kind of tactic is par for the course in capitalism, but still, I remember the days when Sun could succeed on technical merits alone.
I'm sorry to realise that the days of Sun's excellence may be waning. I certainly will be discarding my proposal for buying Sun blade servers now and will probably go with Penguin instead.
Your position is understandable, but does not reflect the way things are usually handled in the larger public forum. Look at the whole "inventor of the radio" business. We know that, without the work of Tesla, Marconi would have never gotten anywhere, but nevertheless you will most often hear of Marconi as the "father of radio". That is merely the way public acknoledgement tends to work. Names get shortened to the easiest version ("Linux", not "GNU/Linux", which could be likened to how many people say "Windows" rather "Microsoft Windows" in general conversation). So too do inventions get attached to an individual, particularly if they are the one who added something resulting in the invention's popularity.
So while Linus didn't invent the GNU software, he did create the kernel that catapulted the whole synthesis of GNU and Linux to the fore. And in so doing, became popularly linked with the composite entity we know hear called simply "Linux". As with the Marconi/Tesla example, those of us who are more than passingly interested in the field know the deeper details, but it is always going to be a Sisyphean task to get the casual users similarly engaged.
Howard Kistler
PS - Your Newton/Leibniz analogy, while enlightening, is not very useful here, as Linux and GNU were not simultaneous developments of the same thing, but rather complimentary ones.
...how come commands like ls, vi, and grep work? They don't in an M$-DO$ prompt. (Of course, what does work there?)
Oh, and since I had always though Linux stood for "Linux Is Not UniX" (more syntatically euphonious than "GNU's Not Unix" I feel), how about we settle the whole GNU/Linux naming quandry by gene-splicing the two at the "n" overlap to GNUX. That way our enemies have handy rhyme for SUX.
Sounds like the M$ "language development labs" are feeling left out of the biannual forced-upgrade cycle. So why not join the bandwagon instead by introducing a new programming language every 2 years to replace the previous one? That way you obsolesce both the existing codebase and the existing developers (not to mention all those MC$E certifications) and obliterate any mindshare built up during that period.
It's thinking like this that has made Windows the stable, long-haul product it is today.
Stanley G. Weinbaum, most famous for the story "Martian Odyssey", a very early pulp writer who created an amazing array of alien life and worlds. Get his old "Best Of" Del Rey book (Alibris has some here).
The prolific Naomi Mitchison, who wrote in many genres, wrote two of the best scifi novels - "Memoirs Of A Spacewoman", which is a catalog of alien contacts with a memorable main character, and "Solution Three", an amazingly prophetic future history novel. She is spot on about genetic engineering in particular there.
Lastly, the horror master William Hope Hodgson, who along with Robert Chambers influenced Lovecraft and that whole movement. While "House On The Borderland" has stayed in print for a long time, "Boats Of The 'Glen Carrig'" (personal favorite) and "The Night Land" have only recently come back into print as library editions. Get them before they go under for another 20 years.
Slashdot Mirror
That stuff's too ephemeral. After all, SCOX is trading high now in spite of all this evil crap, so I'd rather not be part of a system that tainted divorced from reality. Might get my soul dirty. >;)
If this does go to court, I can see where quite a few people would be willing to contribute money to the RH side. I know I'd pony up some cabbage to help scuttle the sinking SCO ship. Think they'll set up a donate link at some point?
The RIAA can use the help with the lawsuit backlog, and the ex-telemarketers already have "worked for huge evil industry" on their resumes.
The Reg has just posted an article about anti-spam activists outing some potential future spammers. Give it a read, and if you're sufficiently motivated, join the battle.
Anyway, the answer is "no, you can't download the songs legally", though it may not be for the reason you think. The reason the RIAA guy gave was basically this:
The MP3s from CD are of a higher audio quality than the original vinyl, so you are not getting substantially the same product when you download them, but rather a superior one. You have to pay for that.
Makes sense (to their lawyers, at least).
I have seen several breakdowns which show that the extensions do not significantly monetarily benefit the creator or their descendants, and the public perception is that copyright extensions are enacted at the behest of a few large corporations.
If you can, please provide any information that indicates why copyright extensions are needed, to whom they are truly useful and why, and how (if ever) they can be beneficial to the public commons. Thank you.
Anyway...
I doubt that Sun has every [sic] succeeded on technical merits alone.
Mostly I was talking about Solaris, not the boxen themselves, though I like their hardware too. Everybody has a different benchmark for what they find meritorious, so your statement is pretty irrelevant.
I would get used to it or you're going to be a flag flapping in the wind.
With respect, that's bullshit. Just because a lot of people do it, that doesn't mean you have to condone it by giving them your business. I do my research in advance when I can, but every now and again a company I respect does something like this and puts a blotch on their escutcheon.
When Exxon had the Valdez accident, I refused from then on to ever buy gas from them (which I've maintained, to the point of almost running out is some remote places). When it came out that Dominos gave money to what I consider to be "christofascist" organizations, they lost my business. The same thing applies here - Sun makes motions that threaten my (open source) way of life, and they therefore lose my patronage until they rectify that posture.
Don't confuse the resignation of your position with the flexibility of mine.
After a Sun letter about IBM's dispute with a technology vendor over software licenses you've decided to buy some 3rd party hardware?
Just from that? No. It's one of many factors, but enough to push a close race away from them. They were barely ahead, and are now behind.
Are you changing due to technical merit?
Again, that's one of a group of factors. It is neither the only nor the paramount concern.
What about the Linux camp's denegrating Sun's performance, cost, features, etc.? Does that earn your disapproval?
No, since it is largely justified and accurate, from my experience. (Keeping Java closed source has distanced me from Sun as well.) And there is a good deal of difference between arguing your relative merits in the public space and attempting to use a disinformation campaign to sway the less informed, such as easily spooked bosses.
I hope this has clarified my position, and I will continue to place my principles to the fore when making decisions like this. To do otherwise compromises the integrity of the technological world where I work and play.
IANA(scumbag)L, but I expect the answer involves legal verminitude.
Say SCO wins above and beyond the contract dispute with IBM and is somehow able to declare Linux illegal. Then they turn around and say, "Well, if you use Sun Linux, we won't indemnify you". Which is like saying it's still illegal, but they won't prosecute. And therefore Sun Linux becomes the only allowed Linux.
I know virtually nothing about the laws here, and certainly this doesn't deal with the whole GPL/copyright law issue, but in America's famously money-friendly court system, I can imagine a weird scenario like this actually coming to pass if the payout is big enough.
Agreed. As a Java developer and Solaris admirer, this is terrible news. (I was another of the people who submitted this link as a story, by the way, so I've been feeling sick about this since early this morning.)
While Sun's SCO technology acquisitions, and even stock buying, I could excuse, the apparent letters to AIX customers that others here have mentioned is a disgusting attempt to prey on IT department uncertainty and management fears. Sure, that kind of tactic is par for the course in capitalism, but still, I remember the days when Sun could succeed on technical merits alone.
I'm sorry to realise that the days of Sun's excellence may be waning. I certainly will be discarding my proposal for buying Sun blade servers now and will probably go with Penguin instead.
So while Linus didn't invent the GNU software, he did create the kernel that catapulted the whole synthesis of GNU and Linux to the fore. And in so doing, became popularly linked with the composite entity we know hear called simply "Linux". As with the Marconi/Tesla example, those of us who are more than passingly interested in the field know the deeper details, but it is always going to be a Sisyphean task to get the casual users similarly engaged.
Howard Kistler
PS - Your Newton/Leibniz analogy, while enlightening, is not very useful here, as Linux and GNU were not simultaneous developments of the same thing, but rather complimentary ones.
Oh, and since I had always though Linux stood for "Linux Is Not UniX" (more syntatically euphonious than "GNU's Not Unix" I feel), how about we settle the whole GNU/Linux naming quandry by gene-splicing the two at the "n" overlap to GNUX. That way our enemies have handy rhyme for SUX.
</silly>
Try Offline CD Browser if you've got a Window$ box. It's free and easy.
http://hem.spray.se/anders.peterson/ocdb.html
It's thinking like this that has made Windows the stable, long-haul product it is today.
-----
What has a two-year lifespan? Rats and Windows.
Stanley G. Weinbaum, most famous for the story "Martian Odyssey", a very early pulp writer who created an amazing array of alien life and worlds. Get his old "Best Of" Del Rey book (Alibris has some here).
The prolific Naomi Mitchison, who wrote in many genres, wrote two of the best scifi novels - "Memoirs Of A Spacewoman", which is a catalog of alien contacts with a memorable main character, and "Solution Three", an amazingly prophetic future history novel. She is spot on about genetic engineering in particular there.
Lastly, the horror master William Hope Hodgson, who along with Robert Chambers influenced Lovecraft and that whole movement. While "House On The Borderland" has stayed in print for a long time, "Boats Of The 'Glen Carrig'" (personal favorite) and "The Night Land" have only recently come back into print as library editions. Get them before they go under for another 20 years.