Re:Compatibility with patent-nullification license
on
RMS Explains GPLv3 Draft 3
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· Score: 4, Informative
My biggest question is whether GPL3 will be compatible with the many existing "GPL-esque" free licenses, which are currently GPL-incompatible, because they contain patent-nullification clauses?
As it is currently drafted, the GPL v3 has a patent-nullification clause itself: section 11. Furthermore, it allows under section 7 that derivative works have "Additional Terms" that are not in the GPL, but not incompatible with the idea of Free Software. The goal of section is to have less free software licenses that are GPL-incompatible; which directly addresses your question
Examples: (...) Apache License v2
Sadly, the Apache License v2 will probably remain incompatible with the GPL, even GPL v3. As desribed in the Rationale document, section 4.4, not because of the patent termination clause; but because Apache License v2's section 9 states that downstream redistributors must agree to indemnify upstream licensors under certain conditions.
In any case, if you have comments on the latest(L)GPL v3 draft, the FSF's comment page is the best place to do it. The reason this whole GPL v3 thing takes so much time (the first draft for GPL v3 was published Monday, January 16, 2006!) is that the FSF takes serious comments seriously (and of course, because of certain vendors' deals as well).
Incidentally, IIRC the script for Shada was completed, but not the filming; so Adams reused a lot of the plot in the first Dirk Gently book.
You recall correctly. The script was completed; the filming was not because of a strike at the BBC.
In 1993, the BBC commissioned Big Finish Productions to remake Shada as an audio play, accompanied by a Flash animation. You can still enjoy it on the BBC website - Shada.
I think part of the reason the $200 laptop costs $200 is that they're selling them in bulk to governments. (...) If that ends up bringing the cost of the laptop into the $300-$400 range, you're suddenly competing with the likes of Dell and other low-cost laptop manufacturers.
If I read the article correctly, US$200 is the price Quanta is planning to sell this XO-like device for to individuals. (I am wondering if a portion of the price goes directly to the OLPC project. Since the article does not mention it, I am inclined to think this is not the case.)
If I remember correctly from the OLPC talk at FOSDEM, the pricing of the OLPC project's actual XO (in bulk, to governments) is currently expected to start at around US$135-140 when production begins this year, which was slightly over the target. The goal is to reach the US$100 mark in 2008, which is why the XO is/was also known as "the $100 Laptop". Quite an impressive price, given the hardware specifications, in my opinion.
There is some truth in Dan Browns books, but he does make a lot of mistakes. They can be quite irritating to me when I'm reading his books.
Yes, antimatter + matter equates to boom.
In the book, Dan Brown states that a gram of antimatter meeting matter would result in a boom was 20 kiloton, the equivalent of the atom bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.
In explosions, a kiloton refers to the explosive release energy of an explosing of a kiloton of TNT, which is 4.2 x 10^12 joule. If you calculte E=mc^2, you'll find that a gram of matter (or antimatter) has the potential to release 90 terajoule, which is 21.4 kiloton. So Dan Brown was about right, you would think.
Actually, he wasn't. When a gram of antimatter meets matter, both the gram of antimatter and the gram of matter annihilate. So the explosive release of energy is twice as large: 42.8 kiloton.
Moodle (moodle.org) is great, but so is that other Free Software e-learning and course management web application Dokeos (dokeos.com). (A fork of ex-Claroline, by the original authors, who are no longer employed by the UCL who owns the trademark Claroline.)
Which one is the best, Moodle or Dokeos, ultimately comes down to personal preferences. In general Dokeos is more Blackboard-like, and I know several institutions who choose Dokeos because of the lower learning curve, having used Blackboard before.
Also worth noting is another free software package, a project funded by the (Mark) Shuttleworth Foundation: SchoolTool (schooltool.org), including SchoolBell. It's not an e-learning and course management web application, but rather a school infrastructure administration tool.
Sorry, said that backwards... If MS loses this, then software patents are confirmed.
Which is exactly why the The Software Freedom Law Center does not want Microsoft to loose, and entered an Amicus Curiæ Brief in favour of Microsoft, as noted about 6 weeks ago on Slashdot.
Well in this case it's sort of a "duh" position to take.
Still, the SFLC takes a very different position compared to Microsoft, although technically on the same side. Microsoft argues that U.S. patents have no right to cover activity outside of the United States, especially in places that have specifically rejected software patents.
The SFLC argues that software patent are not valid at all under U.S. laws (specifically 35 U.S.C. 101) and prior Supreme Court decisions (Gottschalk v. Benson, 409 U.S. 63 (1972)). The Federal Circuit has repeatedly decided otherwise (In re Alappat, disregarding the Supreme Court's precedent as unclear); the Amicus Brief challenges this practice. (Go ahead and read the Brief, it's pretty readable even by non-lawyer standards.)
So although Microsoft and the SFLC are on the same side, I'm quite sure Microsoft would have preferred stating its case without this brief.
Please describe, in a repeatable, objectively testable way, how to tell the difference between living and dead matter at the quantum level.
You don't even have a clue what "quantum level" means. You might as well ask me how to tell the difference between apples and oranges at the "astrophysical level" for all the sense you're making. Throwing together random technobabble does not meaning make.
Why wouldn't grandfather have a clue what quantum level means? Just because he asked for a repeatable testable way?
Even if you could describe, in a repeatable, objectively testable way, how to tell the difference between living and dead matter at a sub-atomic level, I'd be very impressed.
Even on atomic level: how does a atom belonging to a living body differ from one that doesn't? Just when do food-parts or drinks or derivatives absorbed by the body become part of the body? (Ignoring for the moment the issue of determining just when exactly the body a dying person becomes completely dead.)
A planet is a celestial body that (a) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (b) is in orbit around a star, and is neither a star nor a satellite of a planet.
Pluto would continue to be a planet, and Ceres, Charon and 2003 UB313 would become planets. However, this criterium is reached by hundreds, even thousands of other celestial bodies in our solar system. Under that proposal, all could gain planet status.
The final text is:
A planet is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit.
A dwarf planet is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, (c) has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit, and (d) is not a satellite.
Pluto is a dwarf planet by the above definition and is recognized as the prototype of a new category of trans-Neptunian objects.
All other objects orbiting the Sun shall be referred to collectively as "Small Solar System Bodies".
This definition does not define the terms "nearly round", nor "neighbourhood". But having a definition, rather than just an enumeration, is in my opinion a big leap forward. Demoting Pluto is a small price to pay.
I quite like the additional criterion of dominance of a body in its neighbourhood. It's not as arbitrary as simply requiring a minimum mass or size.
On the other hand, I do not like the fact that a planet should orbit to Sun to be called a planet. On this point, I preferred the original proposal in orbit around a star. I don't see why our solar system should be any different, why planet-like celestial bodies orbitting other stars are not called planets.
guess the Doctor will be taking SG-1s time slot on fridays.
That would be cool. The timeslot of the longest-running sci-fi show on American television (200+ episodes since 1997) taken over by the longest-running sci-fi show of British television (720+ episodes since 1963, although not continuously).
We have an entire full set of numbers right where they've always been, at the top of the keyboard, as well as the various mathematical signs in their normal locations. Theres no need to duplicate those keys elsewhere.
If you have to type a lot of numbers, having a numeric pad is very handy. My laptop doesn't have a numeric pad at the right side of its keyboard, so the first thing I did (after buying the laptop- was to by an external USB one.
There's a second reason why I dislike the numbers above the letter keyboards. On my keyboard layout (Belgian version of AZERTY, but numerous other layouts have the same problem), these keys have accented letters and interpunction signs on them. I need SHIFT to typ the numbers there. If you have to type a lot of numbers, always pressing SHIFT is not very handy.
While we're at it, can we get rid of NUM LOCK too? At least on normal 100+ key keyboards.
It should be on, not only by default, but all the time. We have arrow keys, Page up and down, Home and End, Insert and Delete between the letters and the right-side number pad. There's no need to duplicate those keys just beside it.
Only negative point: it was up to now a cool hack to make flash the LEDs indicating CAPS and NUM LOCK, like the Knight Rider car, or make it send messages in Morse.
I completely disagree with that the current system is better, but I don't see why your question merits the moderation (-1, Troll).
It's completely unsatisfactory to talk about "planets" when we don't know what is meant by a planet. Simply enumerating the ones in our solar system makes it very clear for our system, as we did so far, gives clarity for our solar system: the nine ones are planets, all others aren't. It doesn't state a reason. If asked why Pluto is a planet, and the very similar 2003 UB313 ("Xena") isn't, all we can say is: "historical reasons" or "convention".
When describing other solar systems, it is very normal to describe celestial bodies which are similar to the planets of our solar system, as "planets". But when is a body sufficiently like a planet of our own, to merit this description?
Really, it was high time we got a workable definition. Anything. Anything is better than an enumeration.
So, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) currently holds a highly-anticipated conference on the definition in Prague. It started last Monday, and a final decision is expected by next Thursday August 24, 2006.
The current proposal is:
A planet is a celestial body that (a) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (b) is in orbit around a star, and is neither a star nor a satellite of a planet.
It has the added benefit that the minimum size (to exclude most Kuiper belt objects etc.) is not an arbitrary number, but a physical condition. The shape of objects with mass above 5 × 10^20 kg and diameter greater than 800 km would normally be determined by self-gravity. In borderline cases, we now must observe the roundness.
The pluton definition does have an arbitrary figure in its proposed definition: orbits around a star that takes longer than 200 years to complete.
The World RPS Society writes (in an update to this story):
Pro Player Mr. C. Urbanus quickly offered his consulting series to one of the lawyers and received the following response from one of them: Fortunately, we, the attorneys have worked out our differences by agreement. We will not have to resort to combat by RPS. Thanks again and best of luck.
Sidenote: "Combat" is that what lawyers are calling "conflict resolution" these days??
Personally, I was more surprised by the existance of pro RPS players than by the use of the word combat in legal conflict resolution.
I have tons of online help BS on my computer but when I really need to figure something out, I still reach for Kerningham's C book or Knuth's Art of Computer Programming.
Sigh... I'm like sooo last century.
If you have Knuth's complete monograph The Art of Computer Programming, then you must be sooo next century.
When I think about the human factor in TOC, I see 2 issues:
How many human intervention (administration, helpdesk,...) is necessary to run the system and keep in running and functional?
How much does this human intervention cost?
In the second issue, do you think there's a significant positive feedback loop? And is this significant compared to the entire TCO? I'm thinking about something like:
The more Linux is used in the corporate world => the more students and people will study and practice Linux technologies and skills to have an advantage in the work market (and the more universities and schools will use Linux) => the easier and the less expensive it will be to find and hire Linux skilled employees => the lower the TCO => the bigger the advantage to use Linux => the more Linux is used in the corporate world
Because of monopoly issues, Microsoft was forced to disclose complete and accurate interface information to allow non-Microsoft workgroup servers to receive full interoperability with Windows PCs and servers. The European Commission/courts/... did not force them to licence the source. However, the European Commission deems the disclosure of Microsoft's documentation so far insufficient.
Microsoft's press announcement even states that Microsoft goes beyond the EU decision with this voluntary move to licence (for a price) Windows source code to for the technologies covered by the European Commission's Decision of March 2004.
In the Business Week article, Microsoft's chief counsel Brad Smith warns that which "open source advocates will not be allowed to publish for free". This probably means one will have to sign non-disclosure agreements in order to see the source, and who knows what will be in there. And as already mentioned, we also don't know the licence fee yet.
I have the feeling that the reason why Java-based web programming never really took off, and PHP is being widely used so widely, lies in the fact that PHP is freely shipped with the most popular web server.
So, the popularity of PHP (compared to Java) is more due to the popularity of Apache than the other way around.
It gets progressively more difficult to create seamless solutions when there are nearly infinite possibilities for customization and tweaking of settings.
It's called bloat. It happened to Red Hat. It happened to SuSE and it happened to Opera.
No, it's called bloat when the nearly infinite possibilities are part of the default application - the base set.
That's why Mozilla and Firefox work with extensions. Users can personalise their application, add the missing features they need (or think they need). But without the overhead of the missing features they don't need.
That's particularly true for a light-weight browser as Firefox.
But because the fact that lots of extensions exists and lots of combinations of extensions are possible, the problem of the nearly infinite possibilities for customization and tweaking of settings is as real in such a customisable application with extensions as it is in a bloated application.
It still works. The latest warning is for W32/Mydoom.bb@MM, rather similar to the earlier and better known WORM_MYDOOM.M, and dates from last week: Thursday, February 17, 2005, 09:45 CET. It has medium urgency.
It's not too bad a service, but not perfect either. I don't believe lost of people subscribed; I think it's mostly sysadmins.
I assume Slashdot editors use some kind of (graphical?) interface to quickly publish submitted stories to Slashdot; correctly attributed to the correct submittor; in selected categories, section and topics; and with a certain how-will-I-call-the-dept.-this-time-string.
It shouldn't be to hard to add to this interface a list with previous stories with lots of keyworks in common (where recent stories and stories with a lot of URLs in common get a higher this-might-be-the-same-story-percentage) and the question "Are you bloody sure this story isn't a fucking dupe of these ones?".
If Google News can rather effectively fully automatically decide whether 2 stories are the same or not, it shouldn't be too hard for a human editor, assisted by computer algorithms.
Then again, who am I kidding? These "humans" are Slashdot editors;-)
Slashdot Mirror
As it is currently drafted, the GPL v3 has a patent-nullification clause itself: section 11. Furthermore, it allows under section 7 that derivative works have "Additional Terms" that are not in the GPL, but not incompatible with the idea of Free Software. The goal of section is to have less free software licenses that are GPL-incompatible; which directly addresses your question
Sadly, the Apache License v2 will probably remain incompatible with the GPL, even GPL v3. As desribed in the Rationale document, section 4.4, not because of the patent termination clause; but because Apache License v2's section 9 states that downstream redistributors must agree to indemnify upstream licensors under certain conditions.In any case, if you have comments on the latest(L)GPL v3 draft, the FSF's comment page is the best place to do it. The reason this whole GPL v3 thing takes so much time (the first draft for GPL v3 was published Monday, January 16, 2006!) is that the FSF takes serious comments seriously (and of course, because of certain vendors' deals as well).
You recall correctly. The script was completed; the filming was not because of a strike at the BBC.
In 1993, the BBC commissioned Big Finish Productions to remake Shada as an audio play, accompanied by a Flash animation. You can still enjoy it on the BBC website - Shada.
If I read the article correctly, US$200 is the price Quanta is planning to sell this XO-like device for to individuals. (I am wondering if a portion of the price goes directly to the OLPC project. Since the article does not mention it, I am inclined to think this is not the case.)
If I remember correctly from the OLPC talk at FOSDEM, the pricing of the OLPC project's actual XO (in bulk, to governments) is currently expected to start at around US$135-140 when production begins this year, which was slightly over the target. The goal is to reach the US$100 mark in 2008, which is why the XO is/was also known as "the $100 Laptop". Quite an impressive price, given the hardware specifications, in my opinion.
There is some truth in Dan Browns books, but he does make a lot of mistakes. They can be quite irritating to me when I'm reading his books.
Yes, antimatter + matter equates to boom.
In the book, Dan Brown states that a gram of antimatter meeting matter would result in a boom was 20 kiloton, the equivalent of the atom bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.
In explosions, a kiloton refers to the explosive release energy of an explosing of a kiloton of TNT, which is 4.2 x 10^12 joule. If you calculte E=mc^2, you'll find that a gram of matter (or antimatter) has the potential to release 90 terajoule, which is 21.4 kiloton. So Dan Brown was about right, you would think.
Actually, he wasn't. When a gram of antimatter meets matter, both the gram of antimatter and the gram of matter annihilate. So the explosive release of energy is twice as large: 42.8 kiloton.
Does this mean metavid can resume its activities (in high quality ogg theora, as always) using C-SPAN material without problems?
Moodle (moodle.org) is great, but so is that other Free Software e-learning and course management web application Dokeos (dokeos.com). (A fork of ex-Claroline, by the original authors, who are no longer employed by the UCL who owns the trademark Claroline.)
Which one is the best, Moodle or Dokeos, ultimately comes down to personal preferences. In general Dokeos is more Blackboard-like, and I know several institutions who choose Dokeos because of the lower learning curve, having used Blackboard before.
Also worth noting is another free software package, a project funded by the (Mark) Shuttleworth Foundation: SchoolTool (schooltool.org), including SchoolBell. It's not an e-learning and course management web application, but rather a school infrastructure administration tool.
Still, the SFLC takes a very different position compared to Microsoft, although technically on the same side. Microsoft argues that U.S. patents have no right to cover activity outside of the United States, especially in places that have specifically rejected software patents.
The SFLC argues that software patent are not valid at all under U.S. laws (specifically 35 U.S.C. 101) and prior Supreme Court decisions (Gottschalk v. Benson, 409 U.S. 63 (1972)). The Federal Circuit has repeatedly decided otherwise (In re Alappat, disregarding the Supreme Court's precedent as unclear); the Amicus Brief challenges this practice. (Go ahead and read the Brief, it's pretty readable even by non-lawyer standards.)
So although Microsoft and the SFLC are on the same side, I'm quite sure Microsoft would have preferred stating its case without this brief.
Even if you could describe, in a repeatable, objectively testable way, how to tell the difference between living and dead matter at a sub-atomic level, I'd be very impressed.
Even on atomic level: how does a atom belonging to a living body differ from one that doesn't? Just when do food-parts or drinks or derivatives absorbed by the body become part of the body? (Ignoring for the moment the issue of determining just when exactly the body a dying person becomes completely dead.)
I wouldn't call it a screw-up.
The draft proposal was:
Pluto would continue to be a planet, and Ceres, Charon and 2003 UB313 would become planets. However, this criterium is reached by hundreds, even thousands of other celestial bodies in our solar system. Under that proposal, all could gain planet status.
The final text is:
This definition does not define the terms "nearly round", nor "neighbourhood". But having a definition, rather than just an enumeration, is in my opinion a big leap forward. Demoting Pluto is a small price to pay.
I quite like the additional criterion of dominance of a body in its neighbourhood. It's not as arbitrary as simply requiring a minimum mass or size.
On the other hand, I do not like the fact that a planet should orbit to Sun to be called a planet. On this point, I preferred the original proposal in orbit around a star. I don't see why our solar system should be any different, why planet-like celestial bodies orbitting other stars are not called planets.
If you have to type a lot of numbers, having a numeric pad is very handy. My laptop doesn't have a numeric pad at the right side of its keyboard, so the first thing I did (after buying the laptop- was to by an external USB one.
There's a second reason why I dislike the numbers above the letter keyboards. On my keyboard layout (Belgian version of AZERTY, but numerous other layouts have the same problem), these keys have accented letters and interpunction signs on them. I need SHIFT to typ the numbers there. If you have to type a lot of numbers, always pressing SHIFT is not very handy.
Of course, I could use CAPS LOCK...
While we're at it, can we get rid of NUM LOCK too? At least on normal 100+ key keyboards.
It should be on, not only by default, but all the time. We have arrow keys, Page up and down, Home and End, Insert and Delete between the letters and the right-side number pad. There's no need to duplicate those keys just beside it.
Only negative point: it was up to now a cool hack to make flash the LEDs indicating CAPS and NUM LOCK, like the Knight Rider car, or make it send messages in Morse.
I completely disagree with that the current system is better, but I don't see why your question merits the moderation (-1, Troll).
It's completely unsatisfactory to talk about "planets" when we don't know what is meant by a planet. Simply enumerating the ones in our solar system makes it very clear for our system, as we did so far, gives clarity for our solar system: the nine ones are planets, all others aren't. It doesn't state a reason. If asked why Pluto is a planet, and the very similar 2003 UB313 ("Xena") isn't, all we can say is: "historical reasons" or "convention".
When describing other solar systems, it is very normal to describe celestial bodies which are similar to the planets of our solar system, as "planets". But when is a body sufficiently like a planet of our own, to merit this description?
Really, it was high time we got a workable definition. Anything. Anything is better than an enumeration.
So, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) currently holds a highly-anticipated conference on the definition in Prague. It started last Monday, and a final decision is expected by next Thursday August 24, 2006.
The current proposal is:
It has the added benefit that the minimum size (to exclude most Kuiper belt objects etc.) is not an arbitrary number, but a physical condition. The shape of objects with mass above 5 × 10^20 kg and diameter greater than 800 km would normally be determined by self-gravity. In borderline cases, we now must observe the roundness.
The pluton definition does have an arbitrary figure in its proposed definition: orbits around a star that takes longer than 200 years to complete.
When I think about the human factor in TOC, I see 2 issues:
In the second issue, do you think there's a significant positive feedback loop? And is this significant compared to the entire TCO? I'm thinking about something like:
The more Linux is used in the corporate world => the more students and people will study and practice Linux technologies and skills to have an advantage in the work market (and the more universities and schools will use Linux) => the easier and the less expensive it will be to find and hire Linux skilled employees => the lower the TCO => the bigger the advantage to use Linux => the more Linux is used in the corporate world
Because of monopoly issues, Microsoft was forced to disclose complete and accurate interface information to allow non-Microsoft workgroup servers to receive full interoperability with Windows PCs and servers. The European Commission/courts/... did not force them to licence the source. However, the European Commission deems the disclosure of Microsoft's documentation so far insufficient.
Microsoft's press announcement even states that Microsoft goes beyond the EU decision with this voluntary move to licence (for a price) Windows source code to for the technologies covered by the European Commission's Decision of March 2004.
In the Business Week article, Microsoft's chief counsel Brad Smith warns that which "open source advocates will not be allowed to publish for free". This probably means one will have to sign non-disclosure agreements in order to see the source, and who knows what will be in there. And as already mentioned, we also don't know the licence fee yet.
I have the feeling that the reason why Java-based web programming never really took off, and PHP is being widely used so widely, lies in the fact that PHP is freely shipped with the most popular web server.
So, the popularity of PHP (compared to Java) is more due to the popularity of Apache than the other way around.
An open-source (GPL v 2) Content Based Image Retrieval program already exists: imgSeek .
To search a photo, you don't need a similar photo, simply draw a rough sketch. See this screenshot.
No, it's called bloat when the nearly infinite possibilities are part of the default application - the base set.
That's why Mozilla and Firefox work with extensions. Users can personalise their application, add the missing features they need (or think they need). But without the overhead of the missing features they don't need.
That's particularly true for a light-weight browser as Firefox.
But because the fact that lots of extensions exists and lots of combinations of extensions are possible, the problem of the nearly infinite possibilities for customization and tweaking of settings is as real in such a customisable application with extensions as it is in a bloated application.
The Belgian Institute for Postal services and Telecommunications also has this service for quite some time (since December 2000). You can subscribe to a mailing list, or receive the urgent virus warnings on your cell phone by SMS.
It still works. The latest warning is for W32/Mydoom.bb@MM, rather similar to the earlier and better known WORM_MYDOOM.M, and dates from last week: Thursday, February 17, 2005, 09:45 CET. It has medium urgency.
It's not too bad a service, but not perfect either. I don't believe lost of people subscribed; I think it's mostly sysadmins.
I assume Slashdot editors use some kind of (graphical?) interface to quickly publish submitted stories to Slashdot; correctly attributed to the correct submittor; in selected categories, section and topics; and with a certain how-will-I-call-the-dept.-this-time-string.
It shouldn't be to hard to add to this interface a list with previous stories with lots of keyworks in common (where recent stories and stories with a lot of URLs in common get a higher this-might-be-the-same-story-percentage) and the question "Are you bloody sure this story isn't a fucking dupe of these ones?".
If Google News can rather effectively fully automatically decide whether 2 stories are the same or not, it shouldn't be too hard for a human editor, assisted by computer algorithms.
Then again, who am I kidding? These "humans" are Slashdot editors ;-)