Re-iterating what the anonymous Coward said, it was the LZW algorithm that was patented, not the GIF image standard.
Unfortunately for CompuServ (who came up with the GIF standard), one of their employees discovered the LZW algorithm in an ACM journal article or something similar where no patent or other intellectual property claim was made and incorporated it into the GIF standard. CompuServ... the folks who put the standard together for GIF images... always intended the image standard to be available in what would be considered today to be an open source license. They encouraged widespread copying and distribution of the standard on the old dial-up BBSs and later on the early incarnations of the internet. It is for this reason that nearly all of the early images of the world-wide web were made using the GIF standard.... CompuServ didn't want any royalties for its usage.
It wasn't until much later that Unisys lawyers discovered that their patent on the LZW algorithm might apply to what was at the time nearly 90% of all internet traffic of images that their lawyers nearly had an orgasm with the thought they could start to demand royalties over the display of all of this content. Unisys did end up extorting some money based on this algorithm with some insane terms of use. I even tried to negotiate them on behalf of one company I worked form.
BTW, this is precisely the problem that may be lurking with any other standard. The Ogg Vorbis/Theora standard, PNG, MNG, or any other data formatting standard has the potential of having some sort of "submarine" patent that is hidden inside of it due to some mistaken oversight on the part of the participants. Even if everybody involved swears that they used a clean-room implementation of the standard, encryption or compression techniques (two infamously "dangerous" algorithm areas heavily encumbered by patents in computer science) can still be patented by multiple individuals. Unisys wasn't even the only company to potentially have a claim to the LZW algorithm, but was the only one to try and enforce the claim.
BTW, it should be noted that the Unisys patent on the LZW algorithm has now expired, but that doesn't keep other stuff from happening. The only way you know you are "safe" is to implement an older standard that has stood the test of time and the patents on it may have expired.
This is an issue of changing standards and forcing everybody to adapt to a new way of doing things.
I should note that in the entire history of television, going back to the era of Philo T. Farnsworth and the early broadcasts of electronic television, any changes to the signal have been backward compatible to the previous equipment to some degree or other.
Some big changes that did happen over the years to NTSC signals (the TV standard in North America) include adding color, stereo sound, close captioning information, and alternative languages. Remember the infamous "V-chip"? Even television "ratings" information is being broadcast in the older NTSC signals. Through ingenious tweaking of the original signal standards, all of this additional information has been added without really much of a sacrifice in the overall signal quality.
While earlier television equipment built in the 1940's and 1950's couldn't necessarily take advantage of all of these new features, it at is still usable and doesn't need anything more than original equipment and perhaps a stronger antenna.... until February 17th of this year. For the first time standards have changed so drastically that all of the older equipment has been made completely obsolete!
As far as comparing this to automobiles, this is more akin to saying that all private passenger vehicles are going to be put onto rails for safety purposes, and require these new automated driving computers in order to operate your vehicles on the road. Older vehicles simply can't even be driven upon the new roads as they would get stuck in the rails & ties. The basic fundamental structures for how these vehicles even operate has changed at a basic level so that the older vehicles simply can't be used... at least without a major retrofitting of the equipment. To continue the analogy, you can go to your local mechanic and add a "converter" to your vehicle to fit on the new road surfaces, but the conversion doesn't really work out that well, and the equipment that you purchase needs to be replaced every year because it was slapped together in a quick and dirty fashion.
Such a major and fundamental shift in highway infrastructure would never be contemplated, except as perhaps a theoretical exercise. I still have to see what real benefits come from digital television anyway, and from my own experience the experience is worse than having to deal with analog signals. There certainly wasn't any real pressing need for the switch other than as a quick "con game" to sell more equipment by electronics manufacturers. That is what most people are complaining about and why the whole thing is a farce in the first place. The switch to a new standard never needed to happen.
I don't mind the "promotion" of Ceres to the status of a planet. I think that is a long time coming.
Of course, I personally think that physical characteristics such as having hydrostatic equilibrium and perhaps a measurable atmosphere ought to be criteria for a planet instead of solar centric definitions.
If this means Mercury is "demoted" to dwarf planet status and Titan is "promoted" to the status of a full-fledged planet (thus having the Earth's Moon as a dwarf planet too) is also fine with me. These are all bodies of the solar system that are quite interesting in their own right, and having a couple dozen planets instead of the familiar nine would be a good thing.
Besides, a consistent metric for what is a "planet" would help for extra-solar planets, including planets in stellar systems that are still at early stages of development for things that haven't "cleared out their orbits" yet due to a lack of time.
The ISS is certainly much larger than this "asteroid", and it seems to have several interesting qualities about it. The ISS is also going to be "permanently" in space as nobody wants to see that thing come crashing back down to the Earth... ever.
The U.S. Department of Defense currently is tracking about 13,000 different items in orbit around the Earth. All of them are substantial enough to warrant concern if they pass near operational spacecraft.
So does this make moon #13001?
BTW, there is reason to believe that even this "asteroid" may be man-made, and merely something that achieved Earth escape velocity and is now merely orbiting the Sun instead, like the Apollo 12 3rd stage engine of the Saturn V. Not all of the objects that went into solar orbit have been tracked, so perhaps this is one coming back home?
This gets into really esoteric points here. You are arguing that such a search and seizure of what is obviously personal and private property is allowed by private individuals.
I am arguing that such an instructor or school administration that dares to take this sort of tactic without having a law enforcement officer present to make the search is asking for legal liability trouble to no end and is a fool's errand to try and accomplish. There are theft, assault, and other charges that can be filed against the instructor that they really wouldn't want to fight.
As for searching school dorms, you have in that situation a tenant/landlord situation where the legal situation is even more murky. Yes, I know that sometimes courts treat dorms different from typical apartment living arrangements, but it is a very fine line that doesn't always hold true.
These are fine arguments you are making here, but depending on this explanation and citations you are making here for authority and legality of an instructor to make such a search of notes is something I wouldn't want to depend upon, certainly as an instructor.
Basic items that are spelled out in the Bill of Rights are so fundamentally basic that it is implicit that they may not be violated under any circumstances unless there is a strong and compelling public interest to the contrary... aka yelling "FIRE!" in a public setting when nothing is burning (context applies here too!)
In terms of the application of the 1st and 4th amendment rights between private persons, any contract that would violate these basic rights including the right of search and seizure are invalid and would be found to be illegal. You can deny entry to somebody who chooses not to comply, but you can't do a search after you have let them onto your property without due process and just cause. It doesn't matter if this is a private school or an airport, the same principles apply.
Any contract that requires you to either perform or go through a process that is illegal is null and void. This is like saying that it is valid to sign a contract permitting you to get raped whenever you get onto some piece of private property. Yeah, I'd like to see that one get enforced.
BTW, the 1st amendment issue here is in regards to the use, transcription, and publication of lecture notes. I am asserting here that the student is free to take legitimate scholarly quotes of the professor and to use them in the process of note-taking that not only can't be confiscated, but can even be published commercially if the student desires. There is nothing even a private school can do to stop such actions by a student, as it wouldn't even be copyright infringement as long as the student follows legitimate fair-use practices. A school policy to the contrary would be found to be illegal, even at a completely 100% privately (not even federal student aid) funded institution.
By accepting the tuition and application of the student, the school/university has an implied contract to teach the student, so they can't even expel a student for violating such a policy that prohibits the keeping of notes.
Please don't confuse copyright with patents. They are two completely different things for different reasons. BTW, I happen to think that patents are complete nonsense and a waste of your time and effort, and would prefer that patent law be completely eliminated, just on the basis of consumer protection and removing a venue for scam artists that take advantage of otherwise ignorant people who think patents are still worth pursuing. I have yet to meet a single person who has made more than the filing fees and litigation costs for filing a patent in the first place, including former employers. Patents may prevent litigation, but that isn't the same thing.
Copyright is the "right to make copies". Nothing more, nothing less. The role of copyright law ought to be set up to encourage those with artistic talent of some sort (to write books, compose music, etc.) to be able to earn some income from the application of those talents. "Ownership" of those works, however, is not the same thing, and I certainly fail to see how museums assert "copyright" over 200 year old paintings or sculptures (yet they do!)
I suppose that a museum could "own" a painting. OK, they own the canvas it is on and the paint that is on the canvas, but they don't "own" the image. This is one way that copyright is being extended, however, without actually giving any real reward for creating new art.
The point about copyright being an incentive for a limited time is about creating new art.
BTW, one of the best systems for limiting copyright terms I've ever heard of was one what had copyright filing fees that were $1 * 10^(decades) that you wanted protecting over the work. This means that for most mundane things you can file for a 10-year protection for a mere $1, but for 60 years of protection required $1 million. If you think it is of monumental value and want to keep it another 30 years longer (aka 90 or 100 years), that becomes $1 billion. I'm sure most governments wouldn't mind that sort of income. Copyright could be extended for another 10 years by 10x more filing fee.
This would also let most mundane works of art go into the public domain without having to worry about what may be legitimate protection of commercial products that can have value years after their creation. If a studio like Disney is wanting to throw money at the government to keep its copyright claims, they should be blunt and honest about who they are giving the money to and at least have the money do some good along the way. I'd rather have the money be spent as a filing fee than as a bribe or lobbying effort.
I believe the UK is life+75 years, but I may be mistaken. The problem is trying to define how long somebody's lifetime actually is if they aren't a very famous person.
What is worse in the USA is the perpetual copyright due to the constant changing and back-dating copyrighted material to the new laws, so that in effect the copyright is perpetual even if on paper it seems to be "for a limited time".
Just wait, "Steamboat Willy" is due to have protection extended again about the year 2020. Bet on it.
I know... off topic as heck, but I can't help it here.
GEOS was eventually developed and marketed for the PC market... as a GUI operating system that actually worked on a 640k non-protected memory model (meaning it worked on all of the ancient x86 computers like the original IBM-PC).
There were two problems with GEOS for the PC:
1) The licensing terms for the API were horrendous so nobody really cared to develop any applications for it
2) The folks marketing GEOS did a lousy job of getting anybody to use it.
GEOS did get bundled with a few PC makers (Magnavox is one that I'm aware of that did sell it with their computers), but it wasn't wide-spread. I did see a last ditch effort before the company that made GEOS went under to try and compete with MS-Windows 3.1, but they completely missed the mark on getting support for it.
I've threatened my kids that may even think about using drugs to spend some time volunteering at a drug rehab center. If you can see first hand how messed up people's lives can get from "recreational drug use", you begin to see how bad it can get.
While some drugs don't have immediate ill effects, there are some that after one usage can get you permanently addicted or have long term consequences that can even be life-threatening years after their usage.
I do agree with you, however, that education about the issue is the key and not just blind obedience to authority on the issue. Illegal drugs, for the most part, are illegal for a damn good reason and not just the whimsical notion of an over-protective government. It may be useful to teach kids what the problem is, and perhaps in some cases why legal controls are put on any and all chemical substances which can be ingested.
Of course, I try to avoid even medicines like pain relievers except when absolutely necessary, and have tried to teach that attitude to my kids.
One of the best examples of this was a high school teacher that had a mid-term right before Christmas break.
The answer key ended up spelling out the words "Merry Christmas" if you answered the questions correctly. Most kids got the joke and turned in the test with a 100% correct test score for the day.
For the afternoon classes, the teacher changed the test to spell out "Happy Holidays". The students who "cheated" by thinking it was the original answer key ended up with a low score (or a complete failure). I thought it was a cleaver way to flush out potential cheaters who didn't really look at the questions in the first place.
From a purely ethical and academic viewpoint, I don't understand the concept of restricting the sharing of information in the first place.
To me, the role of a university ought to be about a concentration and sharing of information between fellow scholars, of which the professor is merely the more experienced and knowledgeable about the subject than those of the students (usually).
This incident, to me, sounds more like a professor on a massive power trip trying to assert authority that doesn't exist in the first place. Copyright authority may be grounds to prevent a verbatim publication of what was said in class from being made outside of the classroom, but note taking is clearly acceptable under numerous clauses of nearly any copyright legislation that has ever existed. Fair use rationale alone should be plenty of reason for why a student can and should be able to take notes home and do with them as you please.
I really don't understand what the rationale is that a professor can demand that all notes be returned for destruction, or what good it actually accomplishes. To me, you should be strongly encouraged to organize your notes in such a way that you can refer to them, potentially, in future professional situations if such a need arises... even if you never really look at them again after the class is over.
Even a completely verbatim duplication or even recording of the lecture (aka with an MP3 player or some other similar device) is legitimate fair-use for educational and personal use. You just don't have the right to in turn post that recording on a website without permission, but that isn't the issue being addressed here.
...You still cant violate the protections of the Fourth Amendment...
Anybody that is not part of any governmental body is NOT bound by the fourth or any other amendment. Congress can and has made laws that extend specific portions of the constitution to states and in some cases to private entities. So a private school can make rules that public schools are forbidden to make. Private schools are allowed to and do teach religion as part of their curriculum and may allow their teachers to confiscate student notes. Such policies are generally bad even though legal.
If someone in my house gets loud and boisterous and refuses to shut up, I have the option of picking such a one up by the collar of their shirt and throwing them out of the house just like I might do to my cat when he gets obnoxious. It is probably a good idea to first ask such a person nicely to leave on their own two legs. The cat has learned make a quick exit on his own in the meantime, knowing what may come next.
On this, you are flat out wrong on almost every point you have made here. No organization, public or private (at least in the USA) has the authority to usurp fundamental human rights as guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution, and particularly the 14th Amendment has been used to imply that federal authority on this matter as supreme precedence. State governments are bound by things like freedom of the press, freedom of speech, rights to peaceably assemble, and yes, require judicial oversight (aka a warrant) for search and seizure. You as a private citizen can't deny these "rights" to others either by your explicit actions either, through contract, employment, or other rationale.
Private schools are given more latitude in terms of teaching religion or other similar academic subjects because they aren't an arm of the government and indeed the schools are protected because they are free to worship religion and give instruction about it as they are not establishing a state religion through such actions. That isn't the same thing, and BTW, public schools can and do teach about religion as well. One of the best theological classes I ever had was a course on the History of Christianity at a state-run university.
As for private schools permitting instructors to confiscate student notes, I contend that is an illegal act based upon the 1st amendment clauses of "freedom of the press" and "freedom of speech" that exist in most modern democracies today, and not just the USA. The fourth amendment is just icing on the cake as the instructor shouldn't have even attempted to confiscate the notes except by getting the "university police" or some other agent of the school involved, or by at least allowing the student to appeal the action to the department head, school dean, or other university official.
As for what you can do if somebody gets loud, obnoxious, or refuses to leave your house once you ask them to go, you can't just "throw them out". Asking politely is nice, but if they are being intransigent and refuse to leave it is your option to call in law enforcement officers to escort them off your property. You can't lay a hand on them without you in turn being guilty of assault.
This also applies to a professor at a school, as they shouldn't go in and take things. If a university police officer does that, then the officer is the one who can get into trouble for an illegal seizure and not the professor... when the officer with proper training is likely to tell the professor to get a life in that sort of situation.
As for your cat, you may be subject to animal cruelty laws for your actions as well. Yes, I toss cats out of my house too, but a gentle shove out the door is all that is usually needed for my cats.
Since there are no Federal Universities, only partially federally funded universities, the point is moot--faculty, etc. fall under the work for hire exemption, just like Harris does when it writes software for a radar under contract.
Actually, there are federal universities of various sorts, and schools where 100% of the employees and funding come from federal sources.
To name off the top, the military service academies like West Point, Annapolis, the Air Force Academy, the Coast Guard Academy, and the Merchant Marine Academy are all federal facilities who answer only to the U.S. President and Congress. There are also schools within the various federal departments intended mainly for internal training, like the FBI Academy, the Forest Service Fire Fighting Academy, or schools under TRADOC for the Department of Defense.
This doesn't imply that professors at these schools (yes, many of them have PhDs or the strong equivalent) have to give up all intellectual property by teaching at federal schools, but federal universities do exist in the USA.
Unfortunately that is true, and that is only the federal government as well.
I wish state governments were forced to relinquish copyright for "content" developed while performing official duties, but that is usually not the case. I think California does prohibit the copyright of official government documents as well, but not all states are so enlightened.
Trust me, if there was a "but I didn't sign anything agreeing to the rules" defense a student would have used it years ago when they were getting booted out of school for drinking, streaking, urinating in the hall, swearing, cheating or some other stupid offense. Just because you don't remember signing it specifically, doesn't mean you didn't.
The issues of drinking, streaking, and the other things you've mentioned can mostly be found to be illegal and/or disruptive behavior in the first place. I would like to see you go before a judge with a straight face and suggest that defecating in a hallway is a legal action or something constitutionally protected as free speech. Yes, I know that was used in defense of streaking back in the 1970's, but idiots who did that legitimately ended up in jail under indecency laws that had nothing to do with university standards. Expelling a student for becoming a criminal was then completely justified as well.
The taking of notes, however, is a common act that is normally encouraged and even expected of most students. In this case, I think it is the instructor who would have a hard time trying to explain to a judge (who has had plenty of experience as a college student themselves from first-hand knowledge) that a student wanting to keep notes is wrong. Certainly the act of taking notes could be considered normal and not an illegal activity, and it would be the confiscation of the notes that would be unusual and have to be defended.
The other issue here is in terms of changing the rules after you have started. I have had employers and even landlords who have tried to amend a contract after I have signed on the line, suggesting new policies or conditions to the contract. It may be a similar kind of condition that exists here for the note taking unless it was clearly expressed at the beginning when the syllabus was disclosed to the student (typically on the first class session). Even then, such rules established by a single instructor may be contrary to school policy, law, or even unconstitutional as the prohibition of note taking may be seen.
Such school's rules and regulations may be illegal and unenforceable, however. Even if there are rules in place, if those rules contradict general public laws they would be found to be unenforceable.
In terms of note taking, a defensible argument could be made under the terms of a "freedom of the press" situation, where not only are confiscation of notes illegal, but prohibiting the dissemination and publication of those notes could be illegal or even unconstitutional. Basic civil rights don't end when you become a student.
I find this whole situation to be appalling from a purely academic viewpoint as well, as a school/university ought to be a place to encourage the sharing and exploration of knowledge, not a place to demand "rights" that are non-existent on the part of a professor to shut down the sharing of knowledge.
I understand issues of academic integrity and worries about students "cheating" on exams, but a good professor who has professional competence has many more tools available to deal with those issues without having to resort to confiscation of notes. Having multiple exam texts with randomized placement of questions or even wholly different questions that vary from one student to the next are just a couple of examples. But I guess that takes work on the part of the professor to put something like that together.
The teacher can ask you to destroy the notes, but s/he cannot confiscate anything belonging to you, nor use your notes in any way without your permission. If s/he destroys them or takes them, it is theft/conversion and you can sue or press criminal charges.
A teacher/professor can ask you to destroy the notes, but unless there is a formal contract or blatantly stated department/university policy that explicitly requires you to do so (upon condition of being able to attend), there is no legal basis to enforce such a request and a student can simply say "No".
Even in the case of a formal policy requiring such destruction of class notes, the most that a school could do is simply dismiss the student from the school... and even that would have shaky grounds that may be challenged on a legal basis in terms of "freedom of the press" arguments.
The first amendment has been found enforceable in the classroom, even to the point that note passing between students during class is found to be legal (aka passing a joke or a love letter), with the only defense for confiscation of notes to be a "disturbing the peace" type of situation where a student may be disruptive during the act. Yes, that was the U.S. Supreme Court that found note passing to be legal, and it went that far.
Frankly, I don't think even formal publication of excerpts from a class and a scholarly compilation of other class resources like slides, multimedia content, and textbooks could be stopped. Far from being wrong, such compilations and scholarly review is explicitly mentioned in most copyright law as permitted and encouraged. That most students wouldn't bother is besides the point, but it can't be stopped. An example of this is a classic term paper, where the student (not the instructor) retains copyright. If you happen to cite the professor in that term paper, they should be flattered, not angry.
If you, as a student, decided to publish and share with fellow students your notes done in some semi-polished manner and even made a little money off of the project (aka to help fellow students to "cram" for the final), there is nothing any school could do to stop that sort of activity, even if formal school policies prohibit such activity. Such prohibitions would be found to be illegal, although you may have to take it to court.
Had copyright law ever been about the creators it would have been formulated to ensure the author got a cut of every book or product sold, and let the publishers battle it out in the free market. The very design and effects of the laws belies the claim that they're intended for the benefit of the creators.
Other than the antagonistic attitude here, I happen to agree with you. Authors and those who actually get involved with the creation of the content can and ought to get a rather reasonable portion of whatever it is that they've been involved with. If that were the case for myself, I would be quite a bit more wealthy than I am today. I'm not asking for much, just a half a percent cut event, split between all of the other collaborators I've been involved with. That wouldn't be too harsh.
American copyright law was specifically put into place, BTW, to counter the influence of "the crown" and put constitutional certain provisions that it was supposed to explicitly protect the creator of the content, and that it was supposed to be for a limited time (unlike the crown copyright on the JKV Bible, to give an example of perpetual copyright). Discussion about copyright during the American constitutional convention centered around abuses that happened in England, how it impacted merchants and folks like Benjamin Franklin (both an author and a publisher in his own right... quite familiar with the concept at the time) and in terms of what role such a law could beneficially play out.
It should be noted that there are only four kinds of laws that directly impact individual citizens in the U.S. Consitution (originally just three):
Copyright
Patents
Counterfeiting coins
Transportation of alcohol
The issue with alcohol was an experiment in the early 20th Century that was later ignored, although it is still heavily regulated.
I put that in a rather short list of items, and it is interesting that it was given such weight. The U.S. Copyright Act of 1790 also gives some interesting insight on what form the early founders of the U.S. Constitution thought copyright law ought to take, and I certainly wouldn't mind some stepping back to at least the principles of that early law. There was quite a bit done correctly there in terms of protecting individual authors from exploitation by publishers and limiting the scope of copyright authority.
I certainly disagree in the strongest terms of this silly life+75 years copyright term that is ill-defined and may as well be perpetual. It is ill-defined as you have to assume the term to be 175 years unless you can find some clear bibliographic information about the author to prove when in fact they died. Even 50 years after something has been published, shown, or recorded... it is very hard to prove that the original author is getting even a single red cent for continuing copyright any further, or to show that such extreme lengths of term are a valid incentive to produce more content.
That really was the stated goal in at least the U.S. Constitution.... to encourage authors and creative folks an incentive to create even more stuff. Or to put it in the language of the constitution, to promote the useful arts and sciences.
The GPL does not require the user of the software to release anything. Certainly not a complete distro. The NSA distro used internally for many of the top secret American government computers certainly is not distributed publicly or intended for wide general consumption.
If they do make it something as a more general purpose distro to compete with the other commercial distros currently in the marketplace, that would be something else to consider. Then again, I think there are plenty of Russian software developers that could do a pretty fine job of keeping such a distro up and running smoothly. I don't see this as a problem.
"Ppl won't create the *correct number of books/movies/etc. unless the government 'incentivizes' the production thereof by enforcing the creators' exclusive rights to copy/modify/etc."
*where "correct" is determined by said government...
I don't understand where you get this idea. Copyright at its most fundamental level is a legal enforcement of proper attribution. Don't claim to be somebody who you are not, and certainly don't assert that you wrote something or made something when you had absolutely nothing to do with it in the first place.
Are there abuses of copyright? Absolutely! Many of the major media distributors (RIAA members, MPAA members, ASCAP members, and members of other similar groups) assert and claim rights they simply don't have, or in a few cases are able to get political mussel to get laws changed in their favor that don't make sense. Just look at DAT (Digital Audio Tape) and see how the recording industry ruined a perfectly find and indeed useful technology through boneheaded legislation.
Protecting the actual artists, composers, writers, producers and filmmakers through copyright for a limited time is for me something very useful, and something that I personally depend upon for my very livelihood. The problem comes when limited time == forever, and the rights of those who have purchased or received a creative work are trampled to death and declared non-existent. Among those include the right to use the work of art as you please, to be able to enjoy and share that work with others, and to review and express your opinion about that work of art.
Copyright law sets limits about what these right might be, and establishes a way to provide incentives that date back to the 18th Century and earlier. Unfortunately, many of those drafting copyright legislation today are not familiar with nor understand the problems that happened in the 18th Century that led to current copyright laws in the first place.
I find the Russian attitude toward copyright to be mostly refreshing. They do want to give incentives for people to make a little money from creative works, but there isn't the perpetual and infinite lifetime to creative works that seems to be prevalent in western Europe and has infected legal circles within the USA.
The way that Russians treat copyrighted material of others is pretty much how they want to have their own content treated. At least they are consistent in this manner. It certainly doesn't compare to the blatant copyright infringements that happen in China.
Russians tend to be methodical, careful, and pragmatic when it comes to engineering and research. The Soyuz spacecraft shows all of this and much, much more, with a proven track record of more spaceflights than any other manned spacecraft ever developed, and is currently the standard by which all other spacecraft are being compared... both for price and reliability.
Rocket scientists are noted as being smart because their research domain is incredibly tough. If similar kind of standards can be applied to Linux from developers with a similar mindset, this is going to be an excellent distro... at least something I (from America) would even be interested in looking at.
If the Soyuz is also used as a standard, this would show that Russians can be into this for the long haul, in spite of any changing economic, political, or social changes that may occur as well.
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Re-iterating what the anonymous Coward said, it was the LZW algorithm that was patented, not the GIF image standard.
Unfortunately for CompuServ (who came up with the GIF standard), one of their employees discovered the LZW algorithm in an ACM journal article or something similar where no patent or other intellectual property claim was made and incorporated it into the GIF standard. CompuServ... the folks who put the standard together for GIF images... always intended the image standard to be available in what would be considered today to be an open source license. They encouraged widespread copying and distribution of the standard on the old dial-up BBSs and later on the early incarnations of the internet. It is for this reason that nearly all of the early images of the world-wide web were made using the GIF standard.... CompuServ didn't want any royalties for its usage.
It wasn't until much later that Unisys lawyers discovered that their patent on the LZW algorithm might apply to what was at the time nearly 90% of all internet traffic of images that their lawyers nearly had an orgasm with the thought they could start to demand royalties over the display of all of this content. Unisys did end up extorting some money based on this algorithm with some insane terms of use. I even tried to negotiate them on behalf of one company I worked form.
BTW, this is precisely the problem that may be lurking with any other standard. The Ogg Vorbis/Theora standard, PNG, MNG, or any other data formatting standard has the potential of having some sort of "submarine" patent that is hidden inside of it due to some mistaken oversight on the part of the participants. Even if everybody involved swears that they used a clean-room implementation of the standard, encryption or compression techniques (two infamously "dangerous" algorithm areas heavily encumbered by patents in computer science) can still be patented by multiple individuals. Unisys wasn't even the only company to potentially have a claim to the LZW algorithm, but was the only one to try and enforce the claim.
BTW, it should be noted that the Unisys patent on the LZW algorithm has now expired, but that doesn't keep other stuff from happening. The only way you know you are "safe" is to implement an older standard that has stood the test of time and the patents on it may have expired.
This is an issue of changing standards and forcing everybody to adapt to a new way of doing things.
I should note that in the entire history of television, going back to the era of Philo T. Farnsworth and the early broadcasts of electronic television, any changes to the signal have been backward compatible to the previous equipment to some degree or other.
Some big changes that did happen over the years to NTSC signals (the TV standard in North America) include adding color, stereo sound, close captioning information, and alternative languages. Remember the infamous "V-chip"? Even television "ratings" information is being broadcast in the older NTSC signals. Through ingenious tweaking of the original signal standards, all of this additional information has been added without really much of a sacrifice in the overall signal quality.
While earlier television equipment built in the 1940's and 1950's couldn't necessarily take advantage of all of these new features, it at is still usable and doesn't need anything more than original equipment and perhaps a stronger antenna.... until February 17th of this year. For the first time standards have changed so drastically that all of the older equipment has been made completely obsolete!
As far as comparing this to automobiles, this is more akin to saying that all private passenger vehicles are going to be put onto rails for safety purposes, and require these new automated driving computers in order to operate your vehicles on the road. Older vehicles simply can't even be driven upon the new roads as they would get stuck in the rails & ties. The basic fundamental structures for how these vehicles even operate has changed at a basic level so that the older vehicles simply can't be used... at least without a major retrofitting of the equipment. To continue the analogy, you can go to your local mechanic and add a "converter" to your vehicle to fit on the new road surfaces, but the conversion doesn't really work out that well, and the equipment that you purchase needs to be replaced every year because it was slapped together in a quick and dirty fashion.
Such a major and fundamental shift in highway infrastructure would never be contemplated, except as perhaps a theoretical exercise. I still have to see what real benefits come from digital television anyway, and from my own experience the experience is worse than having to deal with analog signals. There certainly wasn't any real pressing need for the switch other than as a quick "con game" to sell more equipment by electronics manufacturers. That is what most people are complaining about and why the whole thing is a farce in the first place. The switch to a new standard never needed to happen.
I don't mind the "promotion" of Ceres to the status of a planet. I think that is a long time coming.
Of course, I personally think that physical characteristics such as having hydrostatic equilibrium and perhaps a measurable atmosphere ought to be criteria for a planet instead of solar centric definitions.
If this means Mercury is "demoted" to dwarf planet status and Titan is "promoted" to the status of a full-fledged planet (thus having the Earth's Moon as a dwarf planet too) is also fine with me. These are all bodies of the solar system that are quite interesting in their own right, and having a couple dozen planets instead of the familiar nine would be a good thing.
Besides, a consistent metric for what is a "planet" would help for extra-solar planets, including planets in stellar systems that are still at early stages of development for things that haven't "cleared out their orbits" yet due to a lack of time.
Do man-made objects count?
The ISS is certainly much larger than this "asteroid", and it seems to have several interesting qualities about it. The ISS is also going to be "permanently" in space as nobody wants to see that thing come crashing back down to the Earth... ever.
The U.S. Department of Defense currently is tracking about 13,000 different items in orbit around the Earth. All of them are substantial enough to warrant concern if they pass near operational spacecraft.
So does this make moon #13001?
BTW, there is reason to believe that even this "asteroid" may be man-made, and merely something that achieved Earth escape velocity and is now merely orbiting the Sun instead, like the Apollo 12 3rd stage engine of the Saturn V. Not all of the objects that went into solar orbit have been tracked, so perhaps this is one coming back home?
This gets into really esoteric points here. You are arguing that such a search and seizure of what is obviously personal and private property is allowed by private individuals.
I am arguing that such an instructor or school administration that dares to take this sort of tactic without having a law enforcement officer present to make the search is asking for legal liability trouble to no end and is a fool's errand to try and accomplish. There are theft, assault, and other charges that can be filed against the instructor that they really wouldn't want to fight.
As for searching school dorms, you have in that situation a tenant/landlord situation where the legal situation is even more murky. Yes, I know that sometimes courts treat dorms different from typical apartment living arrangements, but it is a very fine line that doesn't always hold true.
These are fine arguments you are making here, but depending on this explanation and citations you are making here for authority and legality of an instructor to make such a search of notes is something I wouldn't want to depend upon, certainly as an instructor.
Basic items that are spelled out in the Bill of Rights are so fundamentally basic that it is implicit that they may not be violated under any circumstances unless there is a strong and compelling public interest to the contrary... aka yelling "FIRE!" in a public setting when nothing is burning (context applies here too!)
In terms of the application of the 1st and 4th amendment rights between private persons, any contract that would violate these basic rights including the right of search and seizure are invalid and would be found to be illegal. You can deny entry to somebody who chooses not to comply, but you can't do a search after you have let them onto your property without due process and just cause. It doesn't matter if this is a private school or an airport, the same principles apply.
Any contract that requires you to either perform or go through a process that is illegal is null and void. This is like saying that it is valid to sign a contract permitting you to get raped whenever you get onto some piece of private property. Yeah, I'd like to see that one get enforced.
BTW, the 1st amendment issue here is in regards to the use, transcription, and publication of lecture notes. I am asserting here that the student is free to take legitimate scholarly quotes of the professor and to use them in the process of note-taking that not only can't be confiscated, but can even be published commercially if the student desires. There is nothing even a private school can do to stop such actions by a student, as it wouldn't even be copyright infringement as long as the student follows legitimate fair-use practices. A school policy to the contrary would be found to be illegal, even at a completely 100% privately (not even federal student aid) funded institution.
By accepting the tuition and application of the student, the school/university has an implied contract to teach the student, so they can't even expel a student for violating such a policy that prohibits the keeping of notes.
Please don't confuse copyright with patents. They are two completely different things for different reasons. BTW, I happen to think that patents are complete nonsense and a waste of your time and effort, and would prefer that patent law be completely eliminated, just on the basis of consumer protection and removing a venue for scam artists that take advantage of otherwise ignorant people who think patents are still worth pursuing. I have yet to meet a single person who has made more than the filing fees and litigation costs for filing a patent in the first place, including former employers. Patents may prevent litigation, but that isn't the same thing.
Copyright is the "right to make copies". Nothing more, nothing less. The role of copyright law ought to be set up to encourage those with artistic talent of some sort (to write books, compose music, etc.) to be able to earn some income from the application of those talents. "Ownership" of those works, however, is not the same thing, and I certainly fail to see how museums assert "copyright" over 200 year old paintings or sculptures (yet they do!)
I suppose that a museum could "own" a painting. OK, they own the canvas it is on and the paint that is on the canvas, but they don't "own" the image. This is one way that copyright is being extended, however, without actually giving any real reward for creating new art.
The point about copyright being an incentive for a limited time is about creating new art.
BTW, one of the best systems for limiting copyright terms I've ever heard of was one what had copyright filing fees that were $1 * 10^(decades) that you wanted protecting over the work. This means that for most mundane things you can file for a 10-year protection for a mere $1, but for 60 years of protection required $1 million. If you think it is of monumental value and want to keep it another 30 years longer (aka 90 or 100 years), that becomes $1 billion. I'm sure most governments wouldn't mind that sort of income. Copyright could be extended for another 10 years by 10x more filing fee.
This would also let most mundane works of art go into the public domain without having to worry about what may be legitimate protection of commercial products that can have value years after their creation. If a studio like Disney is wanting to throw money at the government to keep its copyright claims, they should be blunt and honest about who they are giving the money to and at least have the money do some good along the way. I'd rather have the money be spent as a filing fee than as a bribe or lobbying effort.
I believe the UK is life+75 years, but I may be mistaken. The problem is trying to define how long somebody's lifetime actually is if they aren't a very famous person.
What is worse in the USA is the perpetual copyright due to the constant changing and back-dating copyrighted material to the new laws, so that in effect the copyright is perpetual even if on paper it seems to be "for a limited time".
Just wait, "Steamboat Willy" is due to have protection extended again about the year 2020. Bet on it.
I know... off topic as heck, but I can't help it here.
GEOS was eventually developed and marketed for the PC market... as a GUI operating system that actually worked on a 640k non-protected memory model (meaning it worked on all of the ancient x86 computers like the original IBM-PC).
There were two problems with GEOS for the PC:
1) The licensing terms for the API were horrendous so nobody really cared to develop any applications for it
2) The folks marketing GEOS did a lousy job of getting anybody to use it.
GEOS did get bundled with a few PC makers (Magnavox is one that I'm aware of that did sell it with their computers), but it wasn't wide-spread. I did see a last ditch effort before the company that made GEOS went under to try and compete with MS-Windows 3.1, but they completely missed the mark on getting support for it.
I've threatened my kids that may even think about using drugs to spend some time volunteering at a drug rehab center. If you can see first hand how messed up people's lives can get from "recreational drug use", you begin to see how bad it can get.
While some drugs don't have immediate ill effects, there are some that after one usage can get you permanently addicted or have long term consequences that can even be life-threatening years after their usage.
I do agree with you, however, that education about the issue is the key and not just blind obedience to authority on the issue. Illegal drugs, for the most part, are illegal for a damn good reason and not just the whimsical notion of an over-protective government. It may be useful to teach kids what the problem is, and perhaps in some cases why legal controls are put on any and all chemical substances which can be ingested.
Of course, I try to avoid even medicines like pain relievers except when absolutely necessary, and have tried to teach that attitude to my kids.
One of the best examples of this was a high school teacher that had a mid-term right before Christmas break.
The answer key ended up spelling out the words "Merry Christmas" if you answered the questions correctly. Most kids got the joke and turned in the test with a 100% correct test score for the day.
For the afternoon classes, the teacher changed the test to spell out "Happy Holidays". The students who "cheated" by thinking it was the original answer key ended up with a low score (or a complete failure). I thought it was a cleaver way to flush out potential cheaters who didn't really look at the questions in the first place.
From a purely ethical and academic viewpoint, I don't understand the concept of restricting the sharing of information in the first place.
To me, the role of a university ought to be about a concentration and sharing of information between fellow scholars, of which the professor is merely the more experienced and knowledgeable about the subject than those of the students (usually).
This incident, to me, sounds more like a professor on a massive power trip trying to assert authority that doesn't exist in the first place. Copyright authority may be grounds to prevent a verbatim publication of what was said in class from being made outside of the classroom, but note taking is clearly acceptable under numerous clauses of nearly any copyright legislation that has ever existed. Fair use rationale alone should be plenty of reason for why a student can and should be able to take notes home and do with them as you please.
I really don't understand what the rationale is that a professor can demand that all notes be returned for destruction, or what good it actually accomplishes. To me, you should be strongly encouraged to organize your notes in such a way that you can refer to them, potentially, in future professional situations if such a need arises... even if you never really look at them again after the class is over.
Even a completely verbatim duplication or even recording of the lecture (aka with an MP3 player or some other similar device) is legitimate fair-use for educational and personal use. You just don't have the right to in turn post that recording on a website without permission, but that isn't the issue being addressed here.
...You still cant violate the protections of the Fourth Amendment ...
Anybody that is not part of any governmental body is NOT bound by the fourth or any other amendment. Congress can and has made laws that extend specific portions of the constitution to states and in some cases to private entities. So a private school can make rules that public schools are forbidden to make. Private schools are allowed to and do teach religion as part of their curriculum and may allow their teachers to confiscate student notes. Such policies are generally bad even though legal.
If someone in my house gets loud and boisterous and refuses to shut up, I have the option of picking such a one up by the collar of their shirt and throwing them out of the house just like I might do to my cat when he gets obnoxious. It is probably a good idea to first ask such a person nicely to leave on their own two legs. The cat has learned make a quick exit on his own in the meantime, knowing what may come next.
On this, you are flat out wrong on almost every point you have made here. No organization, public or private (at least in the USA) has the authority to usurp fundamental human rights as guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution, and particularly the 14th Amendment has been used to imply that federal authority on this matter as supreme precedence. State governments are bound by things like freedom of the press, freedom of speech, rights to peaceably assemble, and yes, require judicial oversight (aka a warrant) for search and seizure. You as a private citizen can't deny these "rights" to others either by your explicit actions either, through contract, employment, or other rationale.
Private schools are given more latitude in terms of teaching religion or other similar academic subjects because they aren't an arm of the government and indeed the schools are protected because they are free to worship religion and give instruction about it as they are not establishing a state religion through such actions. That isn't the same thing, and BTW, public schools can and do teach about religion as well. One of the best theological classes I ever had was a course on the History of Christianity at a state-run university.
As for private schools permitting instructors to confiscate student notes, I contend that is an illegal act based upon the 1st amendment clauses of "freedom of the press" and "freedom of speech" that exist in most modern democracies today, and not just the USA. The fourth amendment is just icing on the cake as the instructor shouldn't have even attempted to confiscate the notes except by getting the "university police" or some other agent of the school involved, or by at least allowing the student to appeal the action to the department head, school dean, or other university official.
As for what you can do if somebody gets loud, obnoxious, or refuses to leave your house once you ask them to go, you can't just "throw them out". Asking politely is nice, but if they are being intransigent and refuse to leave it is your option to call in law enforcement officers to escort them off your property. You can't lay a hand on them without you in turn being guilty of assault.
This also applies to a professor at a school, as they shouldn't go in and take things. If a university police officer does that, then the officer is the one who can get into trouble for an illegal seizure and not the professor... when the officer with proper training is likely to tell the professor to get a life in that sort of situation.
As for your cat, you may be subject to animal cruelty laws for your actions as well. Yes, I toss cats out of my house too, but a gentle shove out the door is all that is usually needed for my cats.
Since there are no Federal Universities, only partially federally funded universities, the point is moot--faculty, etc. fall under the work for hire exemption, just like Harris does when it writes software for a radar under contract.
Actually, there are federal universities of various sorts, and schools where 100% of the employees and funding come from federal sources.
To name off the top, the military service academies like West Point, Annapolis, the Air Force Academy, the Coast Guard Academy, and the Merchant Marine Academy are all federal facilities who answer only to the U.S. President and Congress. There are also schools within the various federal departments intended mainly for internal training, like the FBI Academy, the Forest Service Fire Fighting Academy, or schools under TRADOC for the Department of Defense.
This doesn't imply that professors at these schools (yes, many of them have PhDs or the strong equivalent) have to give up all intellectual property by teaching at federal schools, but federal universities do exist in the USA.
Unfortunately that is true, and that is only the federal government as well.
I wish state governments were forced to relinquish copyright for "content" developed while performing official duties, but that is usually not the case. I think California does prohibit the copyright of official government documents as well, but not all states are so enlightened.
Trust me, if there was a "but I didn't sign anything agreeing to the rules" defense a student would have used it years ago when they were getting booted out of school for drinking, streaking, urinating in the hall, swearing, cheating or some other stupid offense. Just because you don't remember signing it specifically, doesn't mean you didn't.
The issues of drinking, streaking, and the other things you've mentioned can mostly be found to be illegal and/or disruptive behavior in the first place. I would like to see you go before a judge with a straight face and suggest that defecating in a hallway is a legal action or something constitutionally protected as free speech. Yes, I know that was used in defense of streaking back in the 1970's, but idiots who did that legitimately ended up in jail under indecency laws that had nothing to do with university standards. Expelling a student for becoming a criminal was then completely justified as well.
The taking of notes, however, is a common act that is normally encouraged and even expected of most students. In this case, I think it is the instructor who would have a hard time trying to explain to a judge (who has had plenty of experience as a college student themselves from first-hand knowledge) that a student wanting to keep notes is wrong. Certainly the act of taking notes could be considered normal and not an illegal activity, and it would be the confiscation of the notes that would be unusual and have to be defended.
The other issue here is in terms of changing the rules after you have started. I have had employers and even landlords who have tried to amend a contract after I have signed on the line, suggesting new policies or conditions to the contract. It may be a similar kind of condition that exists here for the note taking unless it was clearly expressed at the beginning when the syllabus was disclosed to the student (typically on the first class session). Even then, such rules established by a single instructor may be contrary to school policy, law, or even unconstitutional as the prohibition of note taking may be seen.
Such school's rules and regulations may be illegal and unenforceable, however. Even if there are rules in place, if those rules contradict general public laws they would be found to be unenforceable.
In terms of note taking, a defensible argument could be made under the terms of a "freedom of the press" situation, where not only are confiscation of notes illegal, but prohibiting the dissemination and publication of those notes could be illegal or even unconstitutional. Basic civil rights don't end when you become a student.
I find this whole situation to be appalling from a purely academic viewpoint as well, as a school/university ought to be a place to encourage the sharing and exploration of knowledge, not a place to demand "rights" that are non-existent on the part of a professor to shut down the sharing of knowledge.
I understand issues of academic integrity and worries about students "cheating" on exams, but a good professor who has professional competence has many more tools available to deal with those issues without having to resort to confiscation of notes. Having multiple exam texts with randomized placement of questions or even wholly different questions that vary from one student to the next are just a couple of examples. But I guess that takes work on the part of the professor to put something like that together.
The teacher can ask you to destroy the notes, but s/he cannot confiscate anything belonging to you, nor use your notes in any way without your permission. If s/he destroys them or takes them, it is theft/conversion and you can sue or press criminal charges.
A teacher/professor can ask you to destroy the notes, but unless there is a formal contract or blatantly stated department/university policy that explicitly requires you to do so (upon condition of being able to attend), there is no legal basis to enforce such a request and a student can simply say "No".
Even in the case of a formal policy requiring such destruction of class notes, the most that a school could do is simply dismiss the student from the school... and even that would have shaky grounds that may be challenged on a legal basis in terms of "freedom of the press" arguments.
The first amendment has been found enforceable in the classroom, even to the point that note passing between students during class is found to be legal (aka passing a joke or a love letter), with the only defense for confiscation of notes to be a "disturbing the peace" type of situation where a student may be disruptive during the act. Yes, that was the U.S. Supreme Court that found note passing to be legal, and it went that far.
Frankly, I don't think even formal publication of excerpts from a class and a scholarly compilation of other class resources like slides, multimedia content, and textbooks could be stopped. Far from being wrong, such compilations and scholarly review is explicitly mentioned in most copyright law as permitted and encouraged. That most students wouldn't bother is besides the point, but it can't be stopped. An example of this is a classic term paper, where the student (not the instructor) retains copyright. If you happen to cite the professor in that term paper, they should be flattered, not angry.
If you, as a student, decided to publish and share with fellow students your notes done in some semi-polished manner and even made a little money off of the project (aka to help fellow students to "cram" for the final), there is nothing any school could do to stop that sort of activity, even if formal school policies prohibit such activity. Such prohibitions would be found to be illegal, although you may have to take it to court.
Had copyright law ever been about the creators it would have been formulated to ensure the author got a cut of every book or product sold, and let the publishers battle it out in the free market. The very design and effects of the laws belies the claim that they're intended for the benefit of the creators.
Other than the antagonistic attitude here, I happen to agree with you. Authors and those who actually get involved with the creation of the content can and ought to get a rather reasonable portion of whatever it is that they've been involved with. If that were the case for myself, I would be quite a bit more wealthy than I am today. I'm not asking for much, just a half a percent cut event, split between all of the other collaborators I've been involved with. That wouldn't be too harsh.
American copyright law was specifically put into place, BTW, to counter the influence of "the crown" and put constitutional certain provisions that it was supposed to explicitly protect the creator of the content, and that it was supposed to be for a limited time (unlike the crown copyright on the JKV Bible, to give an example of perpetual copyright). Discussion about copyright during the American constitutional convention centered around abuses that happened in England, how it impacted merchants and folks like Benjamin Franklin (both an author and a publisher in his own right... quite familiar with the concept at the time) and in terms of what role such a law could beneficially play out.
It should be noted that there are only four kinds of laws that directly impact individual citizens in the U.S. Consitution (originally just three):
The issue with alcohol was an experiment in the early 20th Century that was later ignored, although it is still heavily regulated.
I put that in a rather short list of items, and it is interesting that it was given such weight. The U.S. Copyright Act of 1790 also gives some interesting insight on what form the early founders of the U.S. Constitution thought copyright law ought to take, and I certainly wouldn't mind some stepping back to at least the principles of that early law. There was quite a bit done correctly there in terms of protecting individual authors from exploitation by publishers and limiting the scope of copyright authority.
I certainly disagree in the strongest terms of this silly life+75 years copyright term that is ill-defined and may as well be perpetual. It is ill-defined as you have to assume the term to be 175 years unless you can find some clear bibliographic information about the author to prove when in fact they died. Even 50 years after something has been published, shown, or recorded... it is very hard to prove that the original author is getting even a single red cent for continuing copyright any further, or to show that such extreme lengths of term are a valid incentive to produce more content.
That really was the stated goal in at least the U.S. Constitution.... to encourage authors and creative folks an incentive to create even more stuff. Or to put it in the language of the constitution, to promote the useful arts and sciences.
point take... 'tis true they pay with Russian currency.
That is such a cool name, it is too bad the domain "lenix.com" has been taken by a stupid cybersquatter.
The GPL does not require the user of the software to release anything. Certainly not a complete distro. The NSA distro used internally for many of the top secret American government computers certainly is not distributed publicly or intended for wide general consumption.
If they do make it something as a more general purpose distro to compete with the other commercial distros currently in the marketplace, that would be something else to consider. Then again, I think there are plenty of Russian software developers that could do a pretty fine job of keeping such a distro up and running smoothly. I don't see this as a problem.
Copyright etc. is a form of planned economy:
"Ppl won't create the *correct number of books/movies/etc. unless the government 'incentivizes' the production thereof by enforcing the creators' exclusive rights to copy/modify/etc."
*where "correct" is determined by said government...
I don't understand where you get this idea. Copyright at its most fundamental level is a legal enforcement of proper attribution. Don't claim to be somebody who you are not, and certainly don't assert that you wrote something or made something when you had absolutely nothing to do with it in the first place.
Are there abuses of copyright? Absolutely! Many of the major media distributors (RIAA members, MPAA members, ASCAP members, and members of other similar groups) assert and claim rights they simply don't have, or in a few cases are able to get political mussel to get laws changed in their favor that don't make sense. Just look at DAT (Digital Audio Tape) and see how the recording industry ruined a perfectly find and indeed useful technology through boneheaded legislation.
Protecting the actual artists, composers, writers, producers and filmmakers through copyright for a limited time is for me something very useful, and something that I personally depend upon for my very livelihood. The problem comes when limited time == forever, and the rights of those who have purchased or received a creative work are trampled to death and declared non-existent. Among those include the right to use the work of art as you please, to be able to enjoy and share that work with others, and to review and express your opinion about that work of art.
Copyright law sets limits about what these right might be, and establishes a way to provide incentives that date back to the 18th Century and earlier. Unfortunately, many of those drafting copyright legislation today are not familiar with nor understand the problems that happened in the 18th Century that led to current copyright laws in the first place.
I find the Russian attitude toward copyright to be mostly refreshing. They do want to give incentives for people to make a little money from creative works, but there isn't the perpetual and infinite lifetime to creative works that seems to be prevalent in western Europe and has infected legal circles within the USA.
The way that Russians treat copyrighted material of others is pretty much how they want to have their own content treated. At least they are consistent in this manner. It certainly doesn't compare to the blatant copyright infringements that happen in China.
Russians tend to be methodical, careful, and pragmatic when it comes to engineering and research. The Soyuz spacecraft shows all of this and much, much more, with a proven track record of more spaceflights than any other manned spacecraft ever developed, and is currently the standard by which all other spacecraft are being compared... both for price and reliability.
Rocket scientists are noted as being smart because their research domain is incredibly tough. If similar kind of standards can be applied to Linux from developers with a similar mindset, this is going to be an excellent distro... at least something I (from America) would even be interested in looking at.
If the Soyuz is also used as a standard, this would show that Russians can be into this for the long haul, in spite of any changing economic, political, or social changes that may occur as well.