As a condition of employment, most companies have their employees sign agreements that they will assign ownership of the patent to the company, in return for "valuable consideration". Here, I get a "bonus" for every patent filed, and an additional "bonus" when the USPTO actually accepts the patent. None of that happens (and my employer doesn't file the patent application) until I sign (in blue ink) the "assignment of invention" form.
First things first: If we're talking about an American politician, wouldn't it be most appropriate to classify him using the American sense of the terminology?
As for whether American and British senses of the terms "left wing" and "right wing" are reversed, I can't comment specifically. Here in the US, "right wing" is generally accepted to mean "Conservative" and "left wing" is generally accepted to mean "Liberal". And yes, I know the meanings of "Conservative" and "Liberal" are unclear as well. (Consider Japan's most conservative (by US definition) party, the so-called Liberal Democratic Party.)
The current US political definitions puts Liberals on the "gov't can solve social ills" stance, advocating civil rights, and often advocating bigger taxes to pay for it all. Similarly, it puts Conservatives on the "family values" plank, which ends up meaning "lets push the narrow minded religious views of a vocal minority on the nation as a whole", and are supposedly more fiscally minded (read: tax cuts for the rich). I don't subscribe to either side's beliefs 100%, but I lean further liberal than conservative. And I'm certainly not Libertarian. (And yes, I've taken the little "Are you a Libertarian?" political quiz that Libertarians are fond of handing out, and came out rather on the liberal axis, rather than the libertarian axis.)
The US's right wing is closest to Britain's Conservative Party, and the US's left wing is closest to Britain's Labour Party.
Anyway, that ends my politics discussion for today.
The number I heard was more like in the mid 500MHz territory, and then that was on the less-Crusoe-friendly benchmarks. Am I mistaken? (ie. do you have a link with hard data?)
Their technology should be able to do much better than a 400MHz Pentium II on non-synthetic benchmarks with a 700MHz part, otherwise the Crusoe isn't worth it. (That is, unless the 700MHz part is cheaper than the 400MHz part at the system level.)
Not quite. You can't exactly open up a Computer Shopper and point to a device carrying a Transmeta CPU. Nor were they shipping to OEMs on the day of the announce, IIRC.
That said, their product was alot more real than alot of companies' annoucements. *cough* Microsoft *cough*
Your example appears to work, but for the wrong reason. The `/bin/ls` gets executed before being assigned to foo in the first line. This is due to using back-ticks inside single-quotes. What you really want is double-quotes contained inside single-quotes (not back-ticks).
To mimic the AC's example, you need the following script:
foo='";/bin/ls; echo "' echo "stuff $foo stuff"
When you run this, you'll discover that quote pairing happens before variable expansion (as you'd expect), yielding the following output: stuff ";/bin/ls; echo " stuff .
The remainder of your post is correct, though. Oh, the horrors of csh and even some variants of sh!
LGPL used to mean Library GPL, and I'm sure a great many people still consider it as such. That change is recent, and was intended by RMS to stir people up a bit.
Sorta like his choice of free as in libris vs. free as in gratis.
I had a similar problem. In my case it was due to the fact that I had moved my ethernet card from one slot to another while installing another card. All networking stopped (I hadn't noticed right away either since I was spending time with that other card).
The worst of it was that I got NO error messages. Windows booted up and allowed me to log in with its usual charm. I go to device manager and the devices are all enumerated nicely, with no errors or problems. The ethernet card passes all its diagnostic tests. But, I can't connect anywhere.
Several dozen reboots later and I decide to try swapping the ethernet card back to its old home as a final resort. Voila, it all magically starts working again.
The most infuriating thing is that I got NO error messages or even hints of problems from Windows to the effect that my network card was misconfigured. It all came up clean. I just had no networking.
IANAL either, but GPL only applies to distribution. You can patch all you like, you can compile all you like. You can't give it to anyone else, though, under any license due to the conflict between GPL, and ISO.
People, get this through your heads: There is NOTHING in the GPL which says that if you mix GPL'd code with non-GPL-license compatible code, that you cannot USE the result. What it DOES say is that you cannot DISTRIBUTE the result.
Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to use GPL programs that were compiled with commercial compilers and linked against commercial libraries. (Redistributing those binaries, of course, is a different issue.)
If, however, your time is not free (most people value their time), then maybe getting the supported card is a better value. It really depends. If you're still in college, and so buying a Fastrak means eating Ramen for a month, then it's worth it. Otherwise, it's debatable.
The other section that applies, then (which occurred to me after I mashed the ol' submit button earlier) is this this paragraph (emphasis mine):
These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.
From that standpoint, it seems to say to me that programs which adhere to an interface and can be run against any implementation of a given set of functions are not "GPL infected" by merely linking against a GPL implementation of those functions. However, if said linking makes the two functions inseparable (eg. I must download the GPL'd library in order to make use of your program), then this clause seems to take effect.
I've thought a little about the header issue as well: If RMS wants to be able to provide free implementations of code whose interface is described in non-free headers without being "tainted" by the non-free license, it also seems reasonable that others should be able to make non-free implementations that conform to the interface defined in GPL'd headers without being "tainted" by the GPL license.
It's somewhat subtle though. The argument that a given piece of work is a derivative work because it includes a header file is a tenuous one at best, but it seems to be the strongest argument in the "dynamic linking" scenario. Dynamic linking only resolves symbols, it does not import code, and so a GPL or non-GPL version may be used subsequently.
The fact, though, that static inline functions and macros may be present in the header does tilt the argument in favor of RMS, but similar to the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the tower may end up tilting the other way, and at any case isn't titling enough to fall one way or the other.
If you dynamically link against readline, and use none of readline's original source files, including headers in order to produce your application, then I don't see how the GPL can be violated. After all, the readline shared library presents an interface, and so conceivably you could produce your own, compatible interface and allow your application to work with either. You're outside of the GPLs scope in this case even if you do not ever produce this alternate implementation of readline, so long as you don't #include readline's headers in your code.
If, however, you include readline's headers in your code and/or you statically link in portions of readline, then your resulting binary object can be considered a derivative work of readline under the GPL. (If readline is under LGPL, it's a different story. I haven't looked, though.) In that case, you're bound by the GPL when you go to redistribute your program, since you're distributing a derivative work of a GPL'd piece of software.
First of all, the GPL does not restrict your right to use the software. It only places restrictions on your redistribution of the software, and it does that from the standpoint of granting you additional privileges that you would not otherwise have had under Copyright law. Let me quote the GPL directly, emphasis mine:
Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent of having been made by running the Program). Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.
The point is this: The GPL does not restrict the freedoms you are already granted under the law. The software itself is already protected from unauthorized duplication and distribution under the Copyright laws. Then, as an extension of your privileges, the GPL authorizes duplication and distribution provided certain conditions are met.
In contrast, users are compelled to "accept" so-called Shrink Wrap licenses before even being allowed to install the product. In many cases, these licenses limit the conditions under which the product may be used, copied, altered, or stored. They may seek to control how the user may use the results of the program (eg. publish benchmarks, reviews, etc.) Also, many of these licenses require the user to relinquish rights to recourse against the manufacturer. In other words, Shrink Wrap licenses abridge the user's rights in many ways, and leave the user no way to negotiate or rework the terms of the agreement. Rarely do they extend additional rights to the user that the user would not have had in the absence of the agreement.
The GPL is essentially a very specific permission statement. In contrast, most EULAs and other Shrink Wrap licenses are blanket prohibition statements.
That certainly can't be the case in all cases. If the program violates some other license or patent, and so was withdrawn from distribution, then (depending on the problem) the author CANNOT distribute the source.
Of course, that isn't the case here, but I was feeling a tad pedantic.
I recently was surveyed with a followup survey by the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88). This survey tracked several thousand (~40,000 at the start, ~25,000 as of the last followup) from high-school to present.
One of the questions in there was "How many days, on average, would you say you spend reading magazines, newspapers or other periodicals?" I had to as if online news websites counted. Without them, the answer would be 0, with them the answer is more like 6 or 7. The interviewer commented that they needed up update their survey. :-)
I find no reason to go back to paper news sources. They're too slow, too broad, and mostly pointless. I mainly browse over a newspaper if I'm stuck in line at Starbucks, and there I don't usually get past the headlines.
Cool. I just whipped up an entry. On my P-II 400MHz it runs in ~44ms with the supplied test vector, and the binary is ~5K bytes (when I compile it w/ the calls to gettimeofday in it).
Alot of this depends on what speed machine you have, though. What speed machine are you running on?
Slashdot Mirror
I smell sarcasm.... Obviously, so do the moderators....
--
As a condition of employment, most companies have their employees sign agreements that they will assign ownership of the patent to the company, in return for "valuable consideration". Here, I get a "bonus" for every patent filed, and an additional "bonus" when the USPTO actually accepts the patent. None of that happens (and my employer doesn't file the patent application) until I sign (in blue ink) the "assignment of invention" form.
--Joe--
First things first: If we're talking about an American politician, wouldn't it be most appropriate to classify him using the American sense of the terminology?
As for whether American and British senses of the terms "left wing" and "right wing" are reversed, I can't comment specifically. Here in the US, "right wing" is generally accepted to mean "Conservative" and "left wing" is generally accepted to mean "Liberal". And yes, I know the meanings of "Conservative" and "Liberal" are unclear as well. (Consider Japan's most conservative (by US definition) party, the so-called Liberal Democratic Party.)
The current US political definitions puts Liberals on the "gov't can solve social ills" stance, advocating civil rights, and often advocating bigger taxes to pay for it all. Similarly, it puts Conservatives on the "family values" plank, which ends up meaning "lets push the narrow minded religious views of a vocal minority on the nation as a whole", and are supposedly more fiscally minded (read: tax cuts for the rich). I don't subscribe to either side's beliefs 100%, but I lean further liberal than conservative. And I'm certainly not Libertarian. (And yes, I've taken the little "Are you a Libertarian?" political quiz that Libertarians are fond of handing out, and came out rather on the liberal axis, rather than the libertarian axis.)
The US's right wing is closest to Britain's Conservative Party, and the US's left wing is closest to Britain's Labour Party.
Anyway, that ends my politics discussion for today.
--Joe--
Uhm... you've got your wings reversed. Mr. Buchanan is rather right winged.
--Joe--
As long as their server only counts ad impressions or ad click-throughs for billing purposes, I'm not adding to their advertisement bottom line.
--Joe--
I've noticed that, within the same sentence, folks on Slashdot will oscillate between M I 5 and M 1 5. It's really annoying.
--Joe--
The number I heard was more like in the mid 500MHz territory, and then that was on the less-Crusoe-friendly benchmarks. Am I mistaken? (ie. do you have a link with hard data?)
Their technology should be able to do much better than a 400MHz Pentium II on non-synthetic benchmarks with a 700MHz part, otherwise the Crusoe isn't worth it. (That is, unless the 700MHz part is cheaper than the 400MHz part at the system level.)
--Joe--
Not quite. You can't exactly open up a Computer Shopper and point to a device carrying a Transmeta CPU. Nor were they shipping to OEMs on the day of the announce, IIRC.
That said, their product was alot more real than alot of companies' annoucements. *cough* Microsoft *cough*
--Joe--
Your example appears to work, but for the wrong reason. The `/bin/ls` gets executed before being assigned to foo in the first line. This is due to using back-ticks inside single-quotes. What you really want is double-quotes contained inside single-quotes (not back-ticks).
To mimic the AC's example, you need the following script:
When you run this, you'll discover that quote pairing happens before variable expansion (as you'd expect), yielding the following output: stuff "; /bin/ls; echo " stuff .
The remainder of your post is correct, though. Oh, the horrors of csh and even some variants of sh!
--Joe--
See? Microsoft discriminates against ugly people!
--Joe--
LGPL used to mean Library GPL, and I'm sure a great many people still consider it as such. That change is recent, and was intended by RMS to stir people up a bit.
Sorta like his choice of free as in libris vs. free as in gratis.
--Joe--
You sick bastard!
Serious, though, they may be going back to their "cuter" era, such as the one that begat Commander Keen. In the meantime:
--Joe--
The parent to this post is the one post on this entire article that is ACTUALLY RELEVANT and has a lot of meaty, relevant links .
--Joe--
I had a similar problem. In my case it was due to the fact that I had moved my ethernet card from one slot to another while installing another card. All networking stopped (I hadn't noticed right away either since I was spending time with that other card).
The worst of it was that I got NO error messages. Windows booted up and allowed me to log in with its usual charm. I go to device manager and the devices are all enumerated nicely, with no errors or problems. The ethernet card passes all its diagnostic tests. But, I can't connect anywhere.
Several dozen reboots later and I decide to try swapping the ethernet card back to its old home as a final resort. Voila, it all magically starts working again.
The most infuriating thing is that I got NO error messages or even hints of problems from Windows to the effect that my network card was misconfigured. It all came up clean. I just had no networking.
--Joe--
01011001
00001010
01101111
01110101
00100111
01110010
01100101
00100000
01101001
01101110
00100000
01110100
01101000
01100101
00100000
01110111
01110010
01101111
01101110
01100111
00100000
01100101
01101110
01100100
01101001
01100001
01101110
00100000
01100100
01110101
01100100
01100101
00101110
00100000
00100000
01011001
01101111
01110101
00100111
01110010
01100101
00100000
01100010
01101001
01110100
01110010
01100101
01110110
01100101
01110010
01110011
01100101
01100100
00101110
00001010
00101101
00101101
01001010
01101111
01100101
--
IANAL either, but GPL only applies to distribution. You can patch all you like, you can compile all you like. You can't give it to anyone else, though, under any license due to the conflict between GPL, and ISO.
People, get this through your heads: There is NOTHING in the GPL which says that if you mix GPL'd code with non-GPL-license compatible code, that you cannot USE the result. What it DOES say is that you cannot DISTRIBUTE the result.
Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to use GPL programs that were compiled with commercial compilers and linked against commercial libraries. (Redistributing those binaries, of course, is a different issue.)
--Joe--
...wish I had mod points to mark this funny!
--Joe--
If, however, your time is not free (most people value their time), then maybe getting the supported card is a better value. It really depends. If you're still in college, and so buying a Fastrak means eating Ramen for a month, then it's worth it. Otherwise, it's debatable.
--Joe--
The other section that applies, then (which occurred to me after I mashed the ol' submit button earlier) is this this paragraph (emphasis mine):
From that standpoint, it seems to say to me that programs which adhere to an interface and can be run against any implementation of a given set of functions are not "GPL infected" by merely linking against a GPL implementation of those functions. However, if said linking makes the two functions inseparable (eg. I must download the GPL'd library in order to make use of your program), then this clause seems to take effect.
I've thought a little about the header issue as well: If RMS wants to be able to provide free implementations of code whose interface is described in non-free headers without being "tainted" by the non-free license, it also seems reasonable that others should be able to make non-free implementations that conform to the interface defined in GPL'd headers without being "tainted" by the GPL license.
It's somewhat subtle though. The argument that a given piece of work is a derivative work because it includes a header file is a tenuous one at best, but it seems to be the strongest argument in the "dynamic linking" scenario. Dynamic linking only resolves symbols, it does not import code, and so a GPL or non-GPL version may be used subsequently.
The fact, though, that static inline functions and macros may be present in the header does tilt the argument in favor of RMS, but similar to the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the tower may end up tilting the other way, and at any case isn't titling enough to fall one way or the other.
--Joe--
If you dynamically link against readline, and use none of readline's original source files, including headers in order to produce your application, then I don't see how the GPL can be violated. After all, the readline shared library presents an interface, and so conceivably you could produce your own, compatible interface and allow your application to work with either. You're outside of the GPLs scope in this case even if you do not ever produce this alternate implementation of readline, so long as you don't #include readline's headers in your code.
If, however, you include readline's headers in your code and/or you statically link in portions of readline, then your resulting binary object can be considered a derivative work of readline under the GPL. (If readline is under LGPL, it's a different story. I haven't looked, though.) In that case, you're bound by the GPL when you go to redistribute your program, since you're distributing a derivative work of a GPL'd piece of software.
--Joe--
First of all, the GPL does not restrict your right to use the software. It only places restrictions on your redistribution of the software, and it does that from the standpoint of granting you additional privileges that you would not otherwise have had under Copyright law. Let me quote the GPL directly, emphasis mine:
The point is this: The GPL does not restrict the freedoms you are already granted under the law. The software itself is already protected from unauthorized duplication and distribution under the Copyright laws. Then, as an extension of your privileges , the GPL authorizes duplication and distribution provided certain conditions are met.
In contrast, users are compelled to "accept" so-called Shrink Wrap licenses before even being allowed to install the product. In many cases, these licenses limit the conditions under which the product may be used, copied, altered, or stored. They may seek to control how the user may use the results of the program (eg. publish benchmarks, reviews, etc.) Also, many of these licenses require the user to relinquish rights to recourse against the manufacturer. In other words, Shrink Wrap licenses abridge the user's rights in many ways, and leave the user no way to negotiate or rework the terms of the agreement. Rarely do they extend additional rights to the user that the user would not have had in the absence of the agreement.
The GPL is essentially a very specific permission statement. In contrast, most EULAs and other Shrink Wrap licenses are blanket prohibition statements.
Quite a large difference, if you ask me.
--Joe--
That certainly can't be the case in all cases. If the program violates some other license or patent, and so was withdrawn from distribution, then (depending on the problem) the author CANNOT distribute the source.
Of course, that isn't the case here, but I was feeling a tad pedantic.
--Joe--
I recently was surveyed with a followup survey by the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88). This survey tracked several thousand (~40,000 at the start, ~25,000 as of the last followup) from high-school to present.
One of the questions in there was "How many days, on average, would you say you spend reading magazines, newspapers or other periodicals?" I had to as if online news websites counted. Without them, the answer would be 0, with them the answer is more like 6 or 7. The interviewer commented that they needed up update their survey. :-)
I find no reason to go back to paper news sources. They're too slow, too broad, and mostly pointless. I mainly browse over a newspaper if I'm stuck in line at Starbucks, and there I don't usually get past the headlines.
--Joe--
Eschew obfuscation!
--Joe--
Cool. I just whipped up an entry. On my P-II 400MHz it runs in ~44ms with the supplied test vector, and the binary is ~5K bytes (when I compile it w/ the calls to gettimeofday in it).
Alot of this depends on what speed machine you have, though. What speed machine are you running on?
--Joe--