You're not stuck with it though - you can always buy a mouse with two, three, four, five or more buttons and a scroll wheel and attach it to a Mac and it will work out of the box.
Great! Can you tell me how to retrofit the mouse on my wife's iBook? (Which runs Yellow Dog Linux, BTW, since OS X was just too irritating).
Zeal doesn't win a court case, but perserverance, patience, and cold hard facts do.
Don't forget about lots and lots of money. That CAN be more important then anything else (especially in a war of attrition). Fortunately, IBM isn't lacking.
Go in to a jewelry store sometime and pretend to want to buy something. Have the clerk show you diamonds of varying quality (and price). You will soon understand what is meant by luster.
Grandparent: So, in summary, people should take responsibility for their own actions. What a concept!
Parent: It's a concept the Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon knew. The Greeks and Romans new it. The Saxons and Normans knew it. Even the founders of the US knew it. But somehow that concept has been lost in the modern US. It's truly sad.
I just wish I knew exactly where to place the blame.
My analogy is not flawed at all. Books and software are governed by the exact same laws.
Sorry, but your analogy is flawed. Books are not licensed, most software is. Since software is licensed it is covered under contract law in addition to copyright law.
The flaw is in your understanding of what "distribution" means in this context.
I admit that I'm pretty confused on what exactly constitutes distribution under the GPL anymore. I agree with you that it sounds like what IBM is doing is not distribution, they should be in the clear.
The important thing to remember about copyright in general is that you don't need a license to use a copyrighted work.
Unless the copyrighted work is also licensed, in which case they can certainly restrict you from using the software if you do not agree with the licensing terms (provided that the license is a valid contract).
You only need a license to publish it or a work substantially derived from it. You're probably thinking to yourself something like "why do I need to agree with EULAs to use most proprietary software?" The simple answer is: You don't! If you can find a way to use the software without agreeing to the license, that is perfectly legal.
You believe that most click-thru software EULAs are invalid (I assume because you did not agree to the license before purchase), but this has not been proven by the courts. In fact, I know there have been a couple court cases (sorry, don't have the links) where the judge ruled that the EULA was a valid contract particularily if you had to click thru to install (I know it's possible to install without clicking thru, but how many people actually do this?). Besides, many software licenses ARE reviewed and agreed to before purchase, such as volume purchases by businesses, so those licenses are certainly a legal and valid contract.
What IBM does is buy a copy of Linux from, say, Red Hat, install it on behalf of the customer as a value added service, and then ship that same copy of Linux to the customer as part of the total package the customer has purchased. At no point in this process does IBM do anything which would require them to agree to the terms of the GPL, since you only have to agree to it when you do something with the software that would otherwise be prohibited under copyright law.
I agree. It seems that IBM is in the clear with this approach.
Your local bookstore doesn't write or publish most of the books it sells. Does that mean it needs to get a license from from each and every author and publishing house whose books it sells? No, and for that reason there is no need for IBM to accept or comply with the GPL in order to resell Red Hat, SuSE, or any of the other Linux distros they offer.
Your analogy is flawed, primarily since books are not licensed. Once they are published they are standard physical objects and treated accordingly. The content is not under a license of any kind, it is however protected by copyright law which limits what you can do with the content. GPLed software IS licensed, and the license specifically lists what you must do if you distribute said software. If IBM sells hardware preloaded with GPLed software, I believe they would be considered to be distributing the software. This is similar to embedded devices, for example TiVo and certain routers which run on Linux. Since they are distributing Linux with every device they sell they are subject to the GPL. This usually means that they must provide the source to any GPL software they use, but they are subject to all of the terms of the GPL.
Another poster said that IBM works the system so that they sell you the hardware (sans OS), then you purchase the OS from Red Hat or Suse (IBM puts the order through for you) and then IBM installs it for you (as a contractor). By doing this they MAY be avoiding the distribution clause of the GPL, but I'm still not 100% sure. There's been quite a lot of debate on what exactly constitutes distribution lately. On another point, I'm not even sure if software stores which sell boxed versions of Linux are "distributing" the software. I believe they are, but since they likely have none of their IP in the software it's not really an issue.
Specifically, IBM doesn't actually distribute Linux, it partners with Suse and RedHat who do that for them.
Well, if IBM sells hardware equiped with Linux then they ARE distributing it, aren't they? Remember, Red Hat and Suse don't write most of the code in Linux either, but they certainly distribute it.
Once again I have to remind the slashdot crowd that replacing the offending code *now* is not sufficient to relieve you of all damages up until now.
While you are correct, it is up to the courts to decide what damages to award, if any. SCO estimates the damages at 3 billion, but I'm sure a court would not agree. You see, a company must show that it tried to mitigate the damages as much as possible. Apparently, the alleged code in Linux is so damaging to SCO that they don't want it removed! Also, up until a few months ago SCO was selling Linux for money. Hard to say that Linux damaged SCO's business when they were making money off it. They also continue to distribute the code themselves to this day. Based on this utter lack of failure to mitigate any supposed damages, the damages could just be an order to remove the code. Besides, since when will Linux users have to pay damages? If anyone pays, it will be those who inserted the code, not those who used it in good faith.
Wait, wait, wait... Are you saying that Windows 2000 is like apples and XP is like oranges?.. or is gnome the apples and kde the oranges?.. or is windows the apples and linux the oranges?... or is it that other way round? or are you just saying you like citrus? I'm confused....
To solve this, open Regedit and go to this key:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/ Curr ent Version/Explorer/RemoteComputer/NameSpace
and delete this entry from there:
{D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF}
Ahh, I long for the day when it doesn't take a guru to configure Windows. 'Till then I'm not switching from Linux.
(Note for the humor impaired, this is meant as irony:)
I'm sure the F/A-22 will be a good plane, but this "most advance in the world" kind of thing is somewhat naive.
I am not naive, rather you have no idea what you're talking about. The F/A-22 is quite literally the most advanced fighter jet in the world, combining abilities such as supecruise, thrust vectoring, and advanced stealth technology to name a few. This is not an opinion, it is a fact.
I don't think there's that much differences between a F/A-22 and an older jet.
That's where you're wrong.
A minor bug could be acceptable but a reboot in the testing phase is not.
Okay, you lost me here. The software is supposed to be perfect before testing? I assure you all software was tested extensively on the ground, but there is much that can only be done on a real working jet in the air (which is what the tesing phase is for). There are no safety critical flaws (flight controls, etc.), primarily just the avionics (sensor fusion, etc.).
for flight systems to reboot 'on the fly' but I consider that unacceptable for mission critical systems.
It's the mentality that feels that 'good enough' is good enough that brings us this type of warm and comfy software.
Good enough isn't. Stable code can be written. It merely takes talented engineers, design time to conceptualize and architech the product up front before coding it and giving QA what they need to test and committment to FIXING the issues that QA identifies. It's not the cheapest or fastest way to deliver a product, but if I want cheap and fast I'll go to Taco Bell, not a jet fighter.
Given how expensive these planes are, does it make sense to go cheap on the software and risk crashing not only the software but the multi million/billion dollar plane too?
You are way off base with the F/A-22. The military are certainly not going "fast & cheap" on this one. It's been in developement since the late '80s and is the most expensive fighter ever (and the most advanced). However, it is not a finished product yet, and hasn't finished testing and developement. They do not think that the code is "good enough," and they will keep working on it until it is fixed. The military cares about this so much they gave the avionics team a dedicated aircraft to test out software changes to improve the stability. The article was pointing out how vastly improved the software stability is but it isn't done yet.
It did, however, surprise me that there was no attempt to sugar coat it, something more like "This is the 'kind gentle liberation of opressed people' software"
You're thinking of politicians. Politicians "liberate" foreign nations, the military kills people. It's all about marketing,
Re:LinuxBIOS in flight computers
on
In-Flight Reboot?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
It makes me wonder why the military has less stringent requirements.
There is a world of diffeence between a civilian plane which only has to fly from point A to B and the F/A-22. The F/A-22 is the most advance fighter jet in the world and can literally do things that no other plane can do. There is no way they can develope three separate software suits for a system this complex. But trust me, there is plenty of redundancy built in. Besides, the F/A-22 hasn't finished testing yet, it is not a finished product and so of course still contains bugs.
allowing you to actually own the music you purchase is the selling point.
Ahh, but that's where you're wrong. Didn't you see this story on/.? Haven't you read Apple's Terms of Sale for your purchases? You are licensing the right to listen to the music, you do not own it. If you need to reinstall your operating system (which isn't all that unusual) Apple requires you to re-authenticate your purchases. Same if you want to switch priamry computers (and who won't in a few years). If you no longer have a valid US credit card registered with iTMS you can no longer listen to the music you "own." If I buy a stereo from Best Buy (or a CD, or whatever), even if I purchase it with a credit card, they do not require me to keep a valid credit card registered with them for perpetuity just so I can continue to use the item I own.
And please don't give me any crap about how lax Apple's DRM policy is. (Not necesarily directed at you, just trying to forestall some arguements). It's true that it is easy to circumvent (burn to a CD, re-encode as AAC with little to no quality loss) but doing so violates the Terms of Sale you agreed to when purchasing the music. CSS is easy to circumvent too, but it is quite illegal to do so. If you are going to make unauthorized copies of the music, why don't you just use Kazaa and be done with it?
Some choice quotes from the Terms of Service:
Purchases from the iTunes Music Store are available only in the United States and are not available in any other location....Apple may use technologies to verify such compliance.
All Sales are final.
You agree that you will not attempt to, or encourage or assist any other person to, circumvent or modify any software required for use of the Service or any of the Usage Rules.
Apple reserves the right to change the terms and conditions of sale at the iTunes Music Store at any time. Customers are encouraged to review the Sales Policies on a periodic basis for modifications.
Apple's DRM is not in your face and doesn't affect you most of the time, leading people to believe that they have more rights then they actually have. But make no mistake, you do not own your iTMS purchases, not as long as you need to re-authenticate. This is why I will not use iTMS or any other DRM crippled system. Until I can buy my music and truly own it, as I can today with CDs, then I am not interested.
Alcohol consumption was illegal too, but everybody kept doing it anyway.
FYI, AFAIK alcohol consumption was not illegal during prohibition, nor was buying alcohol. Only the manufacture, transportation, and sale of alcohol was illegal (rather a big loophole as it turned out). You could buy alcohol from someone and they would get in trouble while you wouldn't.
Your 100% correct. They should stop building their PI-PII class microprocessors and stick to buying 10 Teraflop Supercomputers from the USA. That'll keep them from exercising their preffered IT policies!
How about porting KHTML and implementing frontend for win32? Something like this to build on?
I'm curious, the Sourceforge page says that the KHTML Win32 Native port is licensed under the Apple Public Source License, but I was pretty sure that Konqueror & KHTML are licensed under the GPL. What's going on?
I can't think of any large successfull company that hasn't tried to screw over customers, employees, or other companies during it's lifetime.
Yes, but the parent wasn't talking about a large, successfull company, they were talking about a small, relatively unsuccessfull company. The point is that Microsoft has been playing dirty from the beginning and has only gotten worse.
Slashdot Mirror
Great! Can you tell me how to retrofit the mouse on my wife's iBook? (Which runs Yellow Dog Linux, BTW, since OS X was just too irritating).
Do you also think it would be a priority to properly test the patches first? For a mission-critical safety system, 4 weeks may not be enough.
Don't forget about lots and lots of money. That CAN be more important then anything else (especially in a war of attrition). Fortunately, IBM isn't lacking.
{Arnold_voice}My eyes! The goggles do nothing!{/Arnold_voice}
Go in to a jewelry store sometime and pretend to want to buy something. Have the clerk show you diamonds of varying quality (and price). You will soon understand what is meant by luster.
Carbon, is there anyhing it can't do?
Parent: It's a concept the Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon knew. The Greeks and Romans new it. The Saxons and Normans knew it. Even the founders of the US knew it. But somehow that concept has been lost in the modern US. It's truly sad.
I just wish I knew exactly where to place the blame.
Too funny!
Sorry, but your analogy is flawed. Books are not licensed, most software is. Since software is licensed it is covered under contract law in addition to copyright law.
The flaw is in your understanding of what "distribution" means in this context.
I admit that I'm pretty confused on what exactly constitutes distribution under the GPL anymore. I agree with you that it sounds like what IBM is doing is not distribution, they should be in the clear.
The important thing to remember about copyright in general is that you don't need a license to use a copyrighted work.
Unless the copyrighted work is also licensed, in which case they can certainly restrict you from using the software if you do not agree with the licensing terms (provided that the license is a valid contract).
You only need a license to publish it or a work substantially derived from it. You're probably thinking to yourself something like "why do I need to agree with EULAs to use most proprietary software?" The simple answer is: You don't! If you can find a way to use the software without agreeing to the license, that is perfectly legal.
You believe that most click-thru software EULAs are invalid (I assume because you did not agree to the license before purchase), but this has not been proven by the courts. In fact, I know there have been a couple court cases (sorry, don't have the links) where the judge ruled that the EULA was a valid contract particularily if you had to click thru to install (I know it's possible to install without clicking thru, but how many people actually do this?). Besides, many software licenses ARE reviewed and agreed to before purchase, such as volume purchases by businesses, so those licenses are certainly a legal and valid contract.
What IBM does is buy a copy of Linux from, say, Red Hat, install it on behalf of the customer as a value added service, and then ship that same copy of Linux to the customer as part of the total package the customer has purchased. At no point in this process does IBM do anything which would require them to agree to the terms of the GPL, since you only have to agree to it when you do something with the software that would otherwise be prohibited under copyright law.
I agree. It seems that IBM is in the clear with this approach.
Your analogy is flawed, primarily since books are not licensed. Once they are published they are standard physical objects and treated accordingly. The content is not under a license of any kind, it is however protected by copyright law which limits what you can do with the content. GPLed software IS licensed, and the license specifically lists what you must do if you distribute said software. If IBM sells hardware preloaded with GPLed software, I believe they would be considered to be distributing the software. This is similar to embedded devices, for example TiVo and certain routers which run on Linux. Since they are distributing Linux with every device they sell they are subject to the GPL. This usually means that they must provide the source to any GPL software they use, but they are subject to all of the terms of the GPL.
Another poster said that IBM works the system so that they sell you the hardware (sans OS), then you purchase the OS from Red Hat or Suse (IBM puts the order through for you) and then IBM installs it for you (as a contractor). By doing this they MAY be avoiding the distribution clause of the GPL, but I'm still not 100% sure. There's been quite a lot of debate on what exactly constitutes distribution lately. On another point, I'm not even sure if software stores which sell boxed versions of Linux are "distributing" the software. I believe they are, but since they likely have none of their IP in the software it's not really an issue.
It's right here or here.
Well, if IBM sells hardware equiped with Linux then they ARE distributing it, aren't they? Remember, Red Hat and Suse don't write most of the code in Linux either, but they certainly distribute it.
D'oh!
While you are correct, it is up to the courts to decide what damages to award, if any. SCO estimates the damages at 3 billion, but I'm sure a court would not agree. You see, a company must show that it tried to mitigate the damages as much as possible. Apparently, the alleged code in Linux is so damaging to SCO that they don't want it removed! Also, up until a few months ago SCO was selling Linux for money. Hard to say that Linux damaged SCO's business when they were making money off it. They also continue to distribute the code themselves to this day. Based on this utter lack of failure to mitigate any supposed damages, the damages could just be an order to remove the code. Besides, since when will Linux users have to pay damages? If anyone pays, it will be those who inserted the code, not those who used it in good faith.
So what would Apple be?
Ahh, I long for the day when it doesn't take a guru to configure Windows. 'Till then I'm not switching from Linux.
(Note for the humor impaired, this is meant as irony:)
Or an apple. ;)
I am not naive, rather you have no idea what you're talking about. The F/A-22 is quite literally the most advanced fighter jet in the world, combining abilities such as supecruise, thrust vectoring, and advanced stealth technology to name a few. This is not an opinion, it is a fact.
I don't think there's that much differences between a F/A-22 and an older jet.
That's where you're wrong.
A minor bug could be acceptable but a reboot in the testing phase is not.
Okay, you lost me here. The software is supposed to be perfect before testing? I assure you all software was tested extensively on the ground, but there is much that can only be done on a real working jet in the air (which is what the tesing phase is for). There are no safety critical flaws (flight controls, etc.), primarily just the avionics (sensor fusion, etc.).
You are way off base with the F/A-22. The military are certainly not going "fast & cheap" on this one. It's been in developement since the late '80s and is the most expensive fighter ever (and the most advanced). However, it is not a finished product yet, and hasn't finished testing and developement. They do not think that the code is "good enough," and they will keep working on it until it is fixed. The military cares about this so much they gave the avionics team a dedicated aircraft to test out software changes to improve the stability. The article was pointing out how vastly improved the software stability is but it isn't done yet.
You're thinking of politicians. Politicians "liberate" foreign nations, the military kills people. It's all about marketing,
There is a world of diffeence between a civilian plane which only has to fly from point A to B and the F/A-22. The F/A-22 is the most advance fighter jet in the world and can literally do things that no other plane can do. There is no way they can develope three separate software suits for a system this complex. But trust me, there is plenty of redundancy built in. Besides, the F/A-22 hasn't finished testing yet, it is not a finished product and so of course still contains bugs.
Ahh, but that's where you're wrong. Didn't you see this story on /.? Haven't you read Apple's Terms of Sale for your purchases? You are licensing the right to listen to the music, you do not own it. If you need to reinstall your operating system (which isn't all that unusual) Apple requires you to re-authenticate your purchases. Same if you want to switch priamry computers (and who won't in a few years). If you no longer have a valid US credit card registered with iTMS you can no longer listen to the music you "own." If I buy a stereo from Best Buy (or a CD, or whatever), even if I purchase it with a credit card, they do not require me to keep a valid credit card registered with them for perpetuity just so I can continue to use the item I own.
And please don't give me any crap about how lax Apple's DRM policy is. (Not necesarily directed at you, just trying to forestall some arguements). It's true that it is easy to circumvent (burn to a CD, re-encode as AAC with little to no quality loss) but doing so violates the Terms of Sale you agreed to when purchasing the music. CSS is easy to circumvent too, but it is quite illegal to do so. If you are going to make unauthorized copies of the music, why don't you just use Kazaa and be done with it?
Some choice quotes from the Terms of Service:
Apple's DRM is not in your face and doesn't affect you most of the time, leading people to believe that they have more rights then they actually have. But make no mistake, you do not own your iTMS purchases, not as long as you need to re-authenticate. This is why I will not use iTMS or any other DRM crippled system. Until I can buy my music and truly own it, as I can today with CDs, then I am not interested.FYI, AFAIK alcohol consumption was not illegal during prohibition, nor was buying alcohol. Only the manufacture, transportation, and sale of alcohol was illegal (rather a big loophole as it turned out). You could buy alcohol from someone and they would get in trouble while you wouldn't.
Your 100% correct. They should stop building their PI-PII class microprocessors and stick to buying 10 Teraflop Supercomputers from the USA. That'll keep them from exercising their preffered IT policies!
I'm curious, the Sourceforge page says that the KHTML Win32 Native port is licensed under the Apple Public Source License, but I was pretty sure that Konqueror & KHTML are licensed under the GPL. What's going on?
Yes, but the parent wasn't talking about a large, successfull company, they were talking about a small, relatively unsuccessfull company. The point is that Microsoft has been playing dirty from the beginning and has only gotten worse.