Yes! I agree, lawyers should offer their services for free. Except then maybe nobody would want to argue cases anymore. And then none of the victims would get compensated, and none of the perpetrators punished. Yeah, that sounds like a better system to me too. Idiot.
Did you try blowing up at the AppleCare representative? Seriously. A friend of mine had an issue with her iBook that required her to send it in for repair multiple times, and the last time before she sent it in she completely blew her cool at the rep. "I can't afford to have this keep happening! I'm a fucking journalist and I'm leaving on assignment! You sold me a fucking LEMON!!"
She received a new iBook the next day.
As for my 12" PowerBook, I've had it six months and counting, and no issues so far. Maybe I should try this stunt when the new models come out, hmm?:-)
You know, that's pretty cool, but what I'd really like to see is transparent windows with opaque text and other foreground elements. For instance, I think you'll find the shell in that screenshot there would be a little more legible if the text were opaque white instead of translucent.
You mention on your webpage window transparency is a feature of 2000/XP. I don't know anything about those OSes, but I'm just curious--is it possible using the system window manager to make the text opaque and keep the background transparent?
No court would force MS to release Windows source just because some engineer included gzip, readline, or a few GPL'd source files.
Perhaps, but it's not as if the prosecution couldn't make a legitimate effort:
"Consider this, Your Honor. The authors of GPLed software expect no reward other than to see their work go forth and multiply in the manner proscribed by the contract. After all, do the authors of the Linux kernel stand to gain anything financially by seeing Microsoft release the source to Windows? No. So Microsoft owes nothing in financial damages from breaking the contract. The only appropriate remedy, therefore, is to force Microsoft to comply with the contract and release the Windows sources. Prosecution rests."
On second thought, you're probably right that there's not a judge in the land who would force Microsoft to gut itself like that, but I still think it's too big a risk for Microsoft to take. If there's one thing Microsoft hates, it's risk. Besides, even punitive damages, which is probably what would be awarded, is more than Microsoft wants to pay.
And I hardly think Microsoft relishes the prospect of being tangled up in the first case to validate the GPL in court. This would lend Linux an air of legitimacy money can't buy--the stuff Mr. Ballmer's nightmares are made of.
Oh, grow the fuck up. The sphere of public debate today encompasses issues like abortion, gay marriage, stem-cell research, environmental protections, etc. If these issues don't matter to you at all, and you'd rather keep beating your lonely drum with your mangy crew of drug policy reformists and death-penalty opponents and antiwar activists off in the corner where it's easy for mainstream society to ignore you, then yeah, (R) and (D) are exactly identical.
But most people past the age of twelve understand there are times when you have to compromise. Just because neither (R) nor (D) support your pet issue doesn't mean there's no difference between the two. What matters most, like I said, is what's in the sphere of public debate.
if it does happen, they can legitimately claim that it was a terrible accident etc.
Not to mention, if someone found GPLed code in Windows, Microsoft themselves would sue the shit out of whatever clueless employee checked it into the source tree. I'd bet my pants it's not just policy not to do it, but that it's in the employee contract too.
Where did you get the impression that copyright law is merely a civil matter? Yes, this seems to be the general consensus here on Slashdot; still, the uninformed opinions of a thousand babbling idiots do not reality make. It's true that copyright is often enforced through the civil court system here in the U.S., but you should be aware that copyright infringement is also a federal criminal offense, and has been practically since the beginning of time.
But that's not the real issue you raised. You mentioned something about the consequences of violating the GPL, which, as you said, is a contract between private parties and therefore enforceable under civil law:
it's a contract dispute and a civil case. The worst that can happen is a financial judgement
If Microsoft (or any other party) is found to have violated the terms of the GPL, the court can order financial restitution--you're right about that. But it doesn't have to stop there. Besides awarding damages, the judge can choose from a veritable cheese platter of remedies to impose on the party in violation, including, in contract disputes, something called specific performance. This forces the party found to be in violation of the contract to comply with its terms.
Now, specific performance is rarely ordered as a part of judgments outside property-sale disputes, mainly because (a) plaintiffs usually care less about adherence to the contract than about receiving compensation for their financial loss, and (b) monitoring compliance is often impractical. However, if someone brought suit against Microsoft for violating the GPL, I imagine neither of these would be the case. Moreover, the clause mandating distribution of the source along with compiled binaries is arguably the GPL's primary raison d'etre, so the remedy of specific performance would seem especially appropriate here.
For these reasons, I happen to think it rather likely that if judgment went against Microsoft in a case over a violation of the GPL, the judge would in fact order the company to release the source of the affected software. In any event, the court would certainly at least have the option of ordering Microsoft to comply with the GPL's terms.
Anyhow, IANAL either, but I do have an ego the size of a corporate lawyer's paycheck. Does that count?
The issue is that most financial companies, for whatever reason, would rather not keep logs at all. The law requiring IM loggging only came into effect a few weeks ago, and until then most companies treated IM like phone calls. Now companies who want to minimize their risk to insider-trading charges (spurious or not) are requiring business to be conducted over the phone, since phone calls still don't need to be recorded. This way there's no permanent record of what was said, and therefore it's much harder to build a case against the parties involved. That's business in the 21st century.
people want to install Linux... ssh from home... use a PHP interface... VNC+SSH tunnel...
I can assure you that people do not have a burning desire to do these things you mentioned. Unless what you meant is that you expect the entire IT industry to move to IPv6, just to suit a few lonely geeks?
I'm pretty sure "I could care less" derives from "As if I could care less," except somewhere along the line everyone stopped saying "As if." Maybe it was the late 80s.
So don't take it at face value. You can call it sarcasm if you like. As far as I'm concerned, the self-proclaimed popes of grammar who get uptight about things like this make themselves look stupider than the people they attack... but then, I could really give a shit.
I know that. The public kiosks you're talking about are the ones AcIS calls "ColumbiaNet terminals," and of course you can get to them without swiping, and of course they're running Mozilla. They're in the lobbies of most buildings.
But I wasn't talking about those, and neither was the poster I was replying to. What I meant to say is that you DO need swipe access for the computer labs in Lerner, Butler, Mudd, etc, and furthermore, I am almost positive none of the PCs in those labs have Mozilla set as the default. None of the Macs even have Mozilla installed. Of course, if you're on a Windows machine, you can launch Mozilla from the desktop--but that's not the same as having it as the default, is it? No offense.
Are you sure? I don't think the computers there default to Mozilla, but I could be wrong. Definitely not the Macs, at any rate.
Besides, the locations you named aren't exactly public... you still need swipe access and a UNI to get in. I should know. I'm a summer student living off campus (read: no swipe access). Major pain in the ass.
luv
Slashdot Mirror
Yes! I agree, lawyers should offer their services for free. Except then maybe nobody would want to argue cases anymore. And then none of the victims would get compensated, and none of the perpetrators punished. Yeah, that sounds like a better system to me too. Idiot.
Did you try blowing up at the AppleCare representative? Seriously. A friend of mine had an issue with her iBook that required her to send it in for repair multiple times, and the last time before she sent it in she completely blew her cool at the rep. "I can't afford to have this keep happening! I'm a fucking journalist and I'm leaving on assignment! You sold me a fucking LEMON!!"
:-)
She received a new iBook the next day.
As for my 12" PowerBook, I've had it six months and counting, and no issues so far. Maybe I should try this stunt when the new models come out, hmm?
yours
(offtopic--if this doesn't interest you, move along...)
You know, that's pretty cool, but what I'd really like to see is transparent windows with opaque text and other foreground elements. For instance, I think you'll find the shell in that screenshot there would be a little more legible if the text were opaque white instead of translucent.
You mention on your webpage window transparency is a feature of 2000/XP. I don't know anything about those OSes, but I'm just curious--is it possible using the system window manager to make the text opaque and keep the background transparent?
yours
No court would force MS to release Windows source just because some engineer included gzip, readline, or a few GPL'd source files.
Perhaps, but it's not as if the prosecution couldn't make a legitimate effort:
"Consider this, Your Honor. The authors of GPLed software expect no reward other than to see their work go forth and multiply in the manner proscribed by the contract. After all, do the authors of the Linux kernel stand to gain anything financially by seeing Microsoft release the source to Windows? No. So Microsoft owes nothing in financial damages from breaking the contract. The only appropriate remedy, therefore, is to force Microsoft to comply with the contract and release the Windows sources. Prosecution rests."
On second thought, you're probably right that there's not a judge in the land who would force Microsoft to gut itself like that, but I still think it's too big a risk for Microsoft to take. If there's one thing Microsoft hates, it's risk. Besides, even punitive damages, which is probably what would be awarded, is more than Microsoft wants to pay.
And I hardly think Microsoft relishes the prospect of being tangled up in the first case to validate the GPL in court. This would lend Linux an air of legitimacy money can't buy--the stuff Mr. Ballmer's nightmares are made of.
yours,
your fellow babbling idiot.
Oh, grow the fuck up. The sphere of public debate today encompasses issues like abortion, gay marriage, stem-cell research, environmental protections, etc. If these issues don't matter to you at all, and you'd rather keep beating your lonely drum with your mangy crew of drug policy reformists and death-penalty opponents and antiwar activists off in the corner where it's easy for mainstream society to ignore you, then yeah, (R) and (D) are exactly identical.
But most people past the age of twelve understand there are times when you have to compromise. Just because neither (R) nor (D) support your pet issue doesn't mean there's no difference between the two. What matters most, like I said, is what's in the sphere of public debate.
yours
Not to mention, if someone found GPLed code in Windows, Microsoft themselves would sue the shit out of whatever clueless employee checked it into the source tree. I'd bet my pants it's not just policy not to do it, but that it's in the employee contract too.
yours
Where did you get the impression that copyright law is merely a civil matter? Yes, this seems to be the general consensus here on Slashdot; still, the uninformed opinions of a thousand babbling idiots do not reality make. It's true that copyright is often enforced through the civil court system here in the U.S., but you should be aware that copyright infringement is also a federal criminal offense, and has been practically since the beginning of time.
But that's not the real issue you raised. You mentioned something about the consequences of violating the GPL, which, as you said, is a contract between private parties and therefore enforceable under civil law:
If Microsoft (or any other party) is found to have violated the terms of the GPL, the court can order financial restitution--you're right about that. But it doesn't have to stop there. Besides awarding damages, the judge can choose from a veritable cheese platter of remedies to impose on the party in violation, including, in contract disputes, something called specific performance . This forces the party found to be in violation of the contract to comply with its terms.
Now, specific performance is rarely ordered as a part of judgments outside property-sale disputes, mainly because (a) plaintiffs usually care less about adherence to the contract than about receiving compensation for their financial loss, and (b) monitoring compliance is often impractical. However, if someone brought suit against Microsoft for violating the GPL, I imagine neither of these would be the case. Moreover, the clause mandating distribution of the source along with compiled binaries is arguably the GPL's primary raison d'etre, so the remedy of specific performance would seem especially appropriate here.
For these reasons, I happen to think it rather likely that if judgment went against Microsoft in a case over a violation of the GPL, the judge would in fact order the company to release the source of the affected software. In any event, the court would certainly at least have the option of ordering Microsoft to comply with the GPL's terms.
Anyhow, IANAL either, but I do have an ego the size of a corporate lawyer's paycheck. Does that count?
yours
The issue is that most financial companies, for whatever reason, would rather not keep logs at all. The law requiring IM loggging only came into effect a few weeks ago, and until then most companies treated IM like phone calls. Now companies who want to minimize their risk to insider-trading charges (spurious or not) are requiring business to be conducted over the phone, since phone calls still don't need to be recorded. This way there's no permanent record of what was said, and therefore it's much harder to build a case against the parties involved. That's business in the 21st century.
yours
Heeey... looks like I missed your sarcasm. Sorry bout that, won't happen again. *bonk*
I can assure you that people do not have a burning desire to do these things you mentioned. Unless what you meant is that you expect the entire IT industry to move to IPv6, just to suit a few lonely geeks?
Would be nice, but it's not going to happen.
I'm pretty sure "I could care less" derives from "As if I could care less," except somewhere along the line everyone stopped saying "As if." Maybe it was the late 80s.
So don't take it at face value. You can call it sarcasm if you like. As far as I'm concerned, the self-proclaimed popes of grammar who get uptight about things like this make themselves look stupider than the people they attack... but then, I could really give a shit.
luv
I know that. The public kiosks you're talking about are the ones AcIS calls "ColumbiaNet terminals," and of course you can get to them without swiping, and of course they're running Mozilla. They're in the lobbies of most buildings.
But I wasn't talking about those, and neither was the poster I was replying to. What I meant to say is that you DO need swipe access for the computer labs in Lerner, Butler, Mudd, etc, and furthermore, I am almost positive none of the PCs in those labs have Mozilla set as the default. None of the Macs even have Mozilla installed. Of course, if you're on a Windows machine, you can launch Mozilla from the desktop--but that's not the same as having it as the default, is it? No offense.
luv
Are you sure? I don't think the computers there default to Mozilla, but I could be wrong. Definitely not the Macs, at any rate. Besides, the locations you named aren't exactly public... you still need swipe access and a UNI to get in. I should know. I'm a summer student living off campus (read: no swipe access). Major pain in the ass. luv