I heard from JustAnotherOldGuy on Slashdot that "Peeple co-founder Julia Cordray is a greedy bitch who sees noting wrong with a platform that allows reliable, anonymous character assassination." and that he "[has] it on good authority that she also has sex with dogs while smoking crack and watching kiddie porn." I've seen nothing to contradict those claims."
... and be perfectly truthful and thus not libelous at all!
It is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner.
The entire basis and rationale for EULAs is that the act of installing the software on the user's PC involves making a copy and thus "would have been" copyright infringement, so a license would be necessary to cure that infringement. It's a "nice" side effect (from the copyright holder's perspective) that such a license requirement provides an opportunity for the copyright holder to impose additional restrictions to which he would not otherwise be entitled (if he were, for example, selling a book instead). But as you can see, that legal theory is wrong because the code I cited renders such licenses wholly unnecessary.
...all software licenses by US entities, that includes GPL, would be void.
Sigh... yet another person who doesn't understand the GPL.
Here's the difference between EULAs and the GPL: EULAs (attempt to) restrict mere use of the software -- a thing which copyright law (as I mentioned) already gives the owner [of the copy] the explicit right to do.
The GPL, on the other hand, has no affect on mere use of the software; in fact, the user does not need to agree to or even care about the GPL in order to do so. What the GPL does is restrict -- and enable -- distribution of the software, a right the owner [of a copy] does not have by default. In consideration for giving the owner [of a copy] the right to copy and redistribute, the GPL requires that said person agree to abide by its terms. That consideration is what makes the GPL valid. EULAs, in contrast, do not give the owner [of a copy] any rights he didn't already have, thus provide no consideration, and thus are not valid contracts.
All the none-user generated content costs money and bandwidth always costs money. If everyone blocked 100% of ads, the Internet would be a very different place.
Yes, an Internet where people would host what they create themselves or via distributed technologies like bittorrent or freenet (and demand symmetrical connections because of it), where only stuff worthwhile enough to be crowdfunded would survive, where ad-infested reposted shit on content farms would no longer be able to obscure primary sources... it would be glorious!
Copyright law does not force software to be licensed instead of sold. This BS got started because some people thought that (since, technically speaking, the software has to be copied into RAM in order to run), but US copyright law specifically says that sort of incidental copying doesn't count.
I don't know about Europe, but in the US Article 1, section 8, clause 8 of the Constitution gives Congress the power -- but not the obligation! -- to enact things like copyright law.
No. The GPL imposes license terms on distributors, not users. Users have no need to accept the terms of the GPL; they already have all the rights they need to use the software. But in order to re-distribute the software (modified or not), there needs to be additional permission given in order to supersede copyright law. The GPL does that, in consideration for the restrictions it imposes on said distribution.
Assimilation is racist and culturalist. Who is to say that Western culture is better than non-Western culture, and force it on immigrants?
The immigrants themselves did, by (literally!) voting with their feet. After all, they could have headed in any direction -- the Caucasus countries, Iran (and points east), the Arabian peninsula, Africa -- but they picked Europe.
There's little ethical difference between immigrants trying to import their culture and imperialists trying to export theirs. If you think the latter is wrong, then you should logically think the former is wrong too. The right of the newcomers not to have the existing culture forced upon them is trumped by the right of the existing people's right not to have their culture supplanted by the newcomers.
That said, I'm not at all convinced that (a) there are too many refugees to be assimilated or (b) that "but they might not assimilate" is a valid reason for refusing to accept refugees in the first place.
You miss the point. It is wrong that this guy -- or anyone else, for that matter -- is allowed to impose "license terms" on the users to begin with. It should have been a sale, subject only to copyright law and the [German equivalent of the] Uniform Commercial Code.
First, it is of course an owners right to limit distribution.
BULLSHIT!
The copyright holder only has limited permission (not a right) from the government to limit distribution only for so long as that arrangement is in the public interest. The government is free to revoke that permission (i.e., cause the work to enter the Public Domain) at any time. The only people with actual property rights to be considered are the people who bought copies.
IIRC these boxes were sold to us on the grounds that if we are paying for the services then we don't have commercials on them.
Cable TV service was sold on those grounds. Set top boxes, however, were foisted upon us even through they provide exactly zero benefit to anybody but the Cable Cartel. It used to be that almost every TV sold was "cable ready," which means you just plugged the coax into the back of it and it Just Worked. Or you plugged the coax into your VCR or DVR or computer TV tuner card or whatever, and you could do whatever you wanted (including blocking ads). Then the digital transition happened, and -- despite the existence of the clearQAM digital tuner standard -- the Cable Cartel used the confusion as an excuse to pretend we all suddenly needed set-top boxes for cable "because digital" when it was really "because encryption" and "because tracking" and "because extra-cost services."
The time to oppose this SHIT was before the Cable Cartel bribed the FCC to effectively overturn Carterphone decision (at least as it ought to apply to cable networks, as well as phone networks)
In other words, the cable companies should never have been allowed to require "set top boxes" in the first place, but now they can, so now we're fucked (except for those of us smart enough to ditch cable entirely).
Granted, chances are the guy doesn't actually have the right to cancel people's purchases like this. However, the fact that it's halfway-reasonable for him to think he has that right is yet another illustration of how ridiculously overreaching copyright has become.
Again and again, we're seeing a thing that is (a) a government-granted monopoly, not a right, (b) only supposed to be temporary, and (c) not designed for the benefit of the author, but rather for the benefit of society, perverted to the point where people think it trumps actual property rights!
This guy's attitude is fucking sick and disgusting, and that's before I even take the bigotry into account!
They talk about choosing this corporate structure (in part) to prevent themselves from exploiting tax loopholes, yet they incorporated in Delaware (rather than the state their main office is actually in -- New York, apparently), which could be construed as exploiting loopholes (at least regulatory, if not directly tax-related) in and of itself. What gives?
The main problem for doctors is the huge amount of money software companies are charging for the icd10 update, which has caused some doctors I see to join a group of doctors so they can spread the cost of the software update over a larger group of doctors.
What did you expect? At the medical billing software company I used to work for, we had an entire team (of maybe 10 people) devoted for several months to implementing the damn thing!
They're still a court even if no defense counsel is present.
BULLSHIT.
Star chamber, kangaroo "court," FISA "court"... they're all the same. Any institution that contemptible does not deserve to be called a "court" at all!
Are you saying that there are only two candidates on the ballot?
By the time of the runoff, yes. And even a candidate who 60, 70, or even 80% of the voters hate could still get to that runoff, if his opposition is divided enough.
You know, the candidate who gets the most votes [after the good candidates were eliminated in the primary because we're too stupid to use a preferential voting system] still wins.
Slashdot Mirror
That doesn't mean the French McDonald's sells the same shit the American McDonald's does.
Ah, but now the rest of us can say:
... and be perfectly truthful and thus not libelous at all!
Excuse me. "Effect," not "affect."
Alright, I decided to look up the section of law I was referring to. See 17 USC ss. 117, Limitations on exclusive rights: Computer programs:
The entire basis and rationale for EULAs is that the act of installing the software on the user's PC involves making a copy and thus "would have been" copyright infringement, so a license would be necessary to cure that infringement. It's a "nice" side effect (from the copyright holder's perspective) that such a license requirement provides an opportunity for the copyright holder to impose additional restrictions to which he would not otherwise be entitled (if he were, for example, selling a book instead). But as you can see, that legal theory is wrong because the code I cited renders such licenses wholly unnecessary.
Sigh... yet another person who doesn't understand the GPL.
Here's the difference between EULAs and the GPL: EULAs (attempt to) restrict mere use of the software -- a thing which copyright law (as I mentioned) already gives the owner [of the copy] the explicit right to do.
The GPL, on the other hand, has no affect on mere use of the software; in fact, the user does not need to agree to or even care about the GPL in order to do so. What the GPL does is restrict -- and enable -- distribution of the software, a right the owner [of a copy] does not have by default. In consideration for giving the owner [of a copy] the right to copy and redistribute, the GPL requires that said person agree to abide by its terms. That consideration is what makes the GPL valid. EULAs, in contrast, do not give the owner [of a copy] any rights he didn't already have, thus provide no consideration, and thus are not valid contracts.
Yes, an Internet where people would host what they create themselves or via distributed technologies like bittorrent or freenet (and demand symmetrical connections because of it), where only stuff worthwhile enough to be crowdfunded would survive, where ad-infested reposted shit on content farms would no longer be able to obscure primary sources... it would be glorious!
What's your point?
Copyright law does not force software to be licensed instead of sold. This BS got started because some people thought that (since, technically speaking, the software has to be copied into RAM in order to run), but US copyright law specifically says that sort of incidental copying doesn't count.
I don't know about Europe, but in the US Article 1, section 8, clause 8 of the Constitution gives Congress the power -- but not the obligation! -- to enact things like copyright law.
On the contrary; WinRAR sucks because it isn't open source. Instead, it's proprietary, spammy nag-ware.
7Zip, the actual open source competitor to WinRAR, is much better.
No. The GPL imposes license terms on distributors, not users. Users have no need to accept the terms of the GPL; they already have all the rights they need to use the software. But in order to re-distribute the software (modified or not), there needs to be additional permission given in order to supersede copyright law. The GPL does that, in consideration for the restrictions it imposes on said distribution.
The immigrants themselves did, by (literally!) voting with their feet. After all, they could have headed in any direction -- the Caucasus countries, Iran (and points east), the Arabian peninsula, Africa -- but they picked Europe.
There's little ethical difference between immigrants trying to import their culture and imperialists trying to export theirs. If you think the latter is wrong, then you should logically think the former is wrong too. The right of the newcomers not to have the existing culture forced upon them is trumped by the right of the existing people's right not to have their culture supplanted by the newcomers.
That said, I'm not at all convinced that (a) there are too many refugees to be assimilated or (b) that "but they might not assimilate" is a valid reason for refusing to accept refugees in the first place.
You miss the point. It is wrong that this guy -- or anyone else, for that matter -- is allowed to impose "license terms" on the users to begin with. It should have been a sale, subject only to copyright law and the [German equivalent of the] Uniform Commercial Code.
And this is why EULAs (all of them, not just this one) are evil and must be abolished.
BULLSHIT!
The copyright holder only has limited permission (not a right) from the government to limit distribution only for so long as that arrangement is in the public interest. The government is free to revoke that permission (i.e., cause the work to enter the Public Domain) at any time. The only people with actual property rights to be considered are the people who bought copies.
Cable TV service was sold on those grounds. Set top boxes, however, were foisted upon us even through they provide exactly zero benefit to anybody but the Cable Cartel. It used to be that almost every TV sold was "cable ready," which means you just plugged the coax into the back of it and it Just Worked. Or you plugged the coax into your VCR or DVR or computer TV tuner card or whatever, and you could do whatever you wanted (including blocking ads). Then the digital transition happened, and -- despite the existence of the clearQAM digital tuner standard -- the Cable Cartel used the confusion as an excuse to pretend we all suddenly needed set-top boxes for cable "because digital" when it was really "because encryption" and "because tracking" and "because extra-cost services."
The time to oppose this SHIT was before the Cable Cartel bribed the FCC to effectively overturn Carterphone decision (at least as it ought to apply to cable networks, as well as phone networks)
In other words, the cable companies should never have been allowed to require "set top boxes" in the first place, but now they can, so now we're fucked (except for those of us smart enough to ditch cable entirely).
Granted, chances are the guy doesn't actually have the right to cancel people's purchases like this. However, the fact that it's halfway-reasonable for him to think he has that right is yet another illustration of how ridiculously overreaching copyright has become.
Again and again, we're seeing a thing that is (a) a government-granted monopoly, not a right, (b) only supposed to be temporary, and (c) not designed for the benefit of the author, but rather for the benefit of society, perverted to the point where people think it trumps actual property rights!
This guy's attitude is fucking sick and disgusting, and that's before I even take the bigotry into account!
They talk about choosing this corporate structure (in part) to prevent themselves from exploiting tax loopholes, yet they incorporated in Delaware (rather than the state their main office is actually in -- New York, apparently), which could be construed as exploiting loopholes (at least regulatory, if not directly tax-related) in and of itself. What gives?
I don't use wireless charging (yet), but it seems for me the best advantage would be less wear and tear on the connector.
That just means your company's management is incompetent. Therefore, either it's not your problem, or (if you're in charge) your own damn fault.
Not only that, but the original deadline was last year! It's already been pushed back once because of people whining that they're not ready.
What did you expect? At the medical billing software company I used to work for, we had an entire team (of maybe 10 people) devoted for several months to implementing the damn thing!
BULLSHIT.
Star chamber, kangaroo "court," FISA "court"... they're all the same. Any institution that contemptible does not deserve to be called a "court" at all!
In places like Ferguson and Baltimore, one could argue that it's already happened (unofficially, of course).
By the time of the runoff, yes. And even a candidate who 60, 70, or even 80% of the voters hate could still get to that runoff, if his opposition is divided enough.
FTFY.