How about for those of us who have to deal with internal and external IP addresses on websites as we move in and out of client networks. I have lots of hosts entries that *I* put there (and comment out, and uncomment) so that I can get to a site by one of several IP addresses without having to throw up an internal DNS server wherever one might be missing (like on a client's DMZ). If I understand this correctly, then are they saying that *my* entries will get deleted if I access them? If so, then I'm *really* glad I saw this article before I had to try and figure out what the hell was happening to my hosts file. Fortunately, I don't *need* to use Windows Defender, but man, that's a sucky new behavior.
This is interesting stuff...I had been laboring under an incorrect assumption for a while that linking to an external library is one of the things that the GPL typically refers to as "use". I can see how modifying existing source fits, but I'm not sure what I think about a program using an external library having the GPL imposed. Mainly because the workaround is silly (and it's *not* a good deal of effort...if you don't care about speed)...
If all I have to do is make a service that exposes the GPLed library via a network connection (127.0.0.1 is a network address, right?), then I can still release a proprietary blob that uses the library that way and that's viewed as not triggering the GPL? Web services are trivial to create these days.
Are we *really* saying "Yeah, you can still do it the slow way, but not via IPC or shared memory"? Why does that feel wrong?
Allow me to rephrase that, since I was obviously not accurate.
Sun accepted Google's path of action, since Google wasn't going to call what they were building "Java".
This isn't about how Google was screwing sun any more than it's about how Apache (Harmony) and GNU (Classpath) screwed Sun. This is about Oracle thinking it can get paid via stagecraft that implies that Sun got screwed by not convincing Google to pay for the privilege of calling Android "Java Compatible".
That's actually incorrect. You may modify (which is use) to your heart's content. You may not *release* a modified version of a GPL-licensed work without also releasing the source code.
Maybe so, but this case has nothing to do with those abuses. Google took Apache Harmony (you know, a free, open-source, Apache-licensed implementation of the Java APIs...not GPL, but still open source) and built Android.
Sun was happy about it, Google was happy about it, the Java language got more widely used...
Oracle had a different point of view, wanted money, and had trouble convincing a jury who was *told* to assume that the APIs were copyrightable that the few remaining copyright claims Oracle brought were valid.
...also, in Europe, they just decided rather definitively that APIs are not copyrightable.
The worst part of this all is that now we go on to the "patent" part of the trial, which is just silly because we're talking about software (turning one number into another number based on a set of rules...aka an algorithm, which is not patentable subject matter).
Actually, it sounds like it's even worse than that.
...Nomura's McCormack said carriers feel the need to have the iPhone to maintain their market share. But to make money on the devices, he thinks they will have to raise rates or get tough with Apple on reducing the subsidy...
OK. Charge people more for iPhones or get tough with Apple, got it.
...The latter is practically impossible. So carriers have been gradually hiking prices. Over the past year, Sprint increased its smartphone rates by $10 a month, Verizon ended its unlimited data offering and New Every Two deal, and AT&T ended its unlimited plan and raised its prices by $5 a month...
...Wait, what? Yes. Carriers have been hiking prices, but across the board. So now I'm subsidizing the people who want iPhones because the carriers want iPhone users? And iPhone users increase market share but not profit? Am I in bizzaro-world?
The situation here seems to be that not carrying the iPhone is profitable, since the subsidy cost is so high, but carriers *feel* like they need to carry it because otherwise people who won't end up making them profit will complain and not sign money-losing contracts that cause price hikes for non-apple customers that *do* make them money.
The main problem you noted (some proxy at your ISP set up to collect credit card info) isn't fixed by any CA setup that involves sending a cert from a site to a browser. If an ISP or network operator controls any part of the network between you and the site you are visiting, they can do absolutely anything with the data that passes through that portion of the network. They have very simple ways to grab copies of the certificate, modify responses from DNS servers, etc, etc...think "traffic shaping run amok".
Because of the way that SSL/TLS is implemented, the issue of identity is definitely an issue of trust, but if you can't trust every network between you and the site you hope to access, then it's all meaningless. For that matter, if you *could* trust every network between you and the website, certificates at the site you're visiting would still be meaningless, since you'd be sure that you had arrived at the right location. At that point, having your own certificate and using *that* to secure the communication would make more sense.
The whole setup is so secondary to the functional workings of the internet that there's no real way to ever trust anything, when you get down to it. Who here can say there's no way for some rogue ISP with a peering agreement to intercept, modify, mangle, and misuse whatever packets it wants?
Allow me to ramble a bit...Mr. Goetz says that software and (certain) hardware should be thought of in the same way, and that his sorting algorithm was the first to be implemented based on use with a general-purpose computer.
The algorithm was a set of instructions for a general-purpose computer. Those instructions don't perform any work themselves. The apparatus involved in doing the work is the computer, and not the algorithm. The apparatus could have just as easily been my youngest son...it would take him longer to perform the same operation as the computer, but he's equally capable.
If we're saying that there's a whole new class of patents waiting to be filed just by replacing "general purpose computer" with "organic calculating unit", then I guess I'll just throw my hands up in the air and try to never write software that does anything useful.
I'm guessing that to most people, the obviousness of a human completing a calculation not being an invention is higher than for a computer (a magical electronic do-everything machine) doing the same.
The question of hardware circuits being patentable may be the big one here. If we're asking if a hardware circuit that is nothing more than the embodiment of a mathematical algorithm should be patentable, then I'm more inclined to say "probably not", after reading his article than I was before. Just because there has never been a question about whether such a collection of logic gates should be patentable, doesn't mean that the question needn't be asked.
If mathematical algorithms are not patentable, and a machine invention is an embodiment of a mathematical alogorithm that could also be implemented by a general purpose computer running a program or a human being following a set of instructions, then I guess I would have to say that no, it shouldn't be patentable either.
I say this because I deal with consumer credit every day. I'm not speaking for you, but I am making a qualitative statement about the economics of the average household in the US. That statement (whether it applies to you specifically or not) is true. Most people are (or were) living beyond their means. I'm not accusing you of it, I'm saying something I know to be true. Some people were caught short immediately, and some had a bit more time to fret. I know it sounds crappy, and it is. It's also true.
Put me down on the list of people who would gladly give up his social security benefits and pay double his current tax rate if my government would build research stations on the moon and/or mars. I'd bump that up to 2.5x my current rate if they'd relax FAA restrictions on private spaceflight and pump cash into commercial spacecraft development.
If an arsonist sets fire to your house, we should prosecute the company that sold him the matches, and the store where he bought the gasoline. Why should they make money from your house burning down?
If we're talking layers of complexity as being the important thing, then not only is one additional layer not enough, neither are 20 additional layers.
Many people speak about the current economy as if they have nothing to do with it, aside from being harmed. Are we really saying that this 1% of the population is to blame for what the other 99% is pissed about?
The economy isn't 1% of people playing with money. The economy is 100% of people getting paychecks, making investments, buying durable and non-durable goods, paying back loans, defaulting on loans, managing or mismanaging credit, etc, etc. There is a reason that there are so many credit repair, mortgage renegotiation, and payday lending places around today. You want to know why the economy's in the crapper? Because nobody wants to wait for anything anymore. We all want it now, and we'll pay for it later (maybe, if we can't declare bankruptcy...later is a long way off, so who cares).
Sure, mortgage lenders made bad loans. Lots of them. To lots of people. That was bad.
So was taking out an unaffordable mortgage with a variable rate.
We are most definitely all feeling the pain from this, and that's largely because a majority of us are (or were) living far beyond our means. *WE* hurt us every bit as much as that insidious 1% did.
How much you wanna bet there won't be a "Boycott Maple Drive" campaign (assuming a hypothetical Maple Drive where 90% of the homes are in foreclosure due to the mortgage-holders over-extending themselves). This is simple, classic, "trash big business because they make lots of money" action, and nothing more meaningful than that.
It's not. vyew, gotomeeting, or whatever web conferencing software you're familiar with is prior art. Is the USPTO honestly saying that having an avatar in the conference window and it having something to do with an entertainment event makes this novel and some important advancement of the arts?
For the same reason that complaining about graphics or a paucity of new online content or performance is relevant to each and every discussion about SC-II likes and dislikes, complaining about the lack of LAN play is relevant.
Each of those topics address an area of the game that affects its perceived depth and long-term playability. If it wasn't a big deal to people who dearly love(d) playing the original, then I'd maybe agree with you, but clearly, it is still a big deal.
Just as with other things that we'd like to see improved in some way, it "needs" to be talked about until the franchise is done with, or the problem is fixed.
To be fair, TFS didn't say that that IT was going to or had already opened the port. They simply wouldn't consider it without getting access and info on the machine first.
As other posts said, sounds like IT is actually being nicer than they have to, and could have just taken the machine and given a reprimand.
(Actually, in many of these shops, nobody has authority to reprimand a PhD or "head of a division".)
You're right...they hadn't already opened the port, but the question asked said:
...After I tested it out, I emailed IT to ask to allow port 8443 through the hospital firewall to this server. The tech (after asking what port 8443 was for), said he would unblock the port after I provide him with a login account on the machine (though 'I don't need root access')...
The *only* thing IT asked for was a login (and not root!) and then they'd unblock the port, which, IMHO is a sign of missing grey matter in the IT dept.
I can see how reprimanding the division head might present an obstacle, but a mandatory HIPAA refresher might be possible.
...But the security should be intrinsic to the data management system, and not dependent on 'crunchy security' (hard on the outside and soft on the inside). Rogue server or no server, if someone plugs a machine in the internal network and can read the database from there, game over...
Security isn't a static thing, and all threats on an interconnected network are related threats.
I could have the most well-secured locked-down database imaginable, in order to be useful, it needs to provide access to users on that network. If someone outside the network gets access to the network, then I have a problem. The rogue server increases the attack surface of my network by an unknown amount. The "unknown" aspect of that change is something that's important and impossible to account for. If you're in charge of network security on a network with sensitive information in it, and you're willing to allow someone who is not a formal part of your IT/IS team to install a piece of hardware and configure it for them in the manner requested, then you're either nutty, hopelessly naive, dangerous, or hoping to make some money (possibly all of the above).
The level of risk doesn't have anything to do with how secure the data management system is, it has to do with how well the vulnerabilities of that system are known and mitigated for. Adding in an attack vector of unknown scope makes mitigation of threats from it impossible.
Actually, you're giving IT access to a server for a service that they were not required to provide, and probably would have to a lot of asking for.
Seriously, people...a hospital stores confidential, privileged data about patients and medical conditions that is supposed to have certain safeguards applied to it in order to protect that confidentiality.
As has been repeated here already (and will be plenty more), placing an piece of personal network equipment on a medical network is bad enough. Asking for no oversight, giving your good word that everything will be OK, and requesting a port in the firewall be opened up to the public internet is lunacy.
Even if you're well-intentioned, capable, and reasonable about what you're asking for, this isn't a home server and family pictures you're providing access to.
The most disturbing thing to me about this story and question is that someone in the IT department was willing to open the port and allow the machine to stay connected without having root access, intimate knowledge of all installed versions of software and packages, and without relocating the server to an access-controlled datacenter. If I'm the head of IT, first I unplug and remove the box, then I talk to legal to see what needs to be done (audits, interviews, scans, etc), and then I reprimand the person in IT who said it could be done.
Not Hercules, TurboHercules...the company, not the project.
IBM listed patents that TurboHercules' platform was in violation of. They were (are?) selling a turnkey hardware/software platform that did the same stuff as the hardware platform IBM built. This is not a case about software patents. If it were, I would be arguing strongly against them, in fact.
The IBM software I'm talking about isn't the emulator, it's the software that runs on *top* of the emulator. That's what TurboHercules doesn't have a license for. It's not the software that's in violation of anything, it's a vendor who desires a license to run another vendor's software that was written for that same vendor's hardware *by* that same vendor on the new hardware/software emulation platform of the first vendor.
If IBM had said "The hercules emulator infringes on our hardware patents...", I'd be hard pressed to agree with them, but they're not saying that!
You can still use Herc on commodity hardware, and you can still run IBM's software on it, but IBM won't support it, and they won't grant TurboHercules a license to sell you a complete solution either. What exactly are you talking about holding IBM accountable for? Saying "no" to a third-party trying to elbow in on their hardware sales?
It's not software patents that are being asserted. The company trying to snipe IBM big iron customers had a good idea, but no permission, and now there's a problem with their chosen business model.
If, by "neither is it so innocent", you mean the position of the company attempting to distribute IBM software without a valid license, then I'd say you're right.
Keep reading about the disagreement. There has been a lot of press about it, and the long and short of it is that TH got stuck with it's hand in the cookie jar.
The project itself has never been a problem...the other company selling emulator-based platforms of their own and asking for IBM to support it was a problem for IBM (in that saying yes meant that the hardware they developed could be replaced with a competitor's commodity box).
Imagine that I create an iPod/gamecube/xbox/PS3 emulator and ask apple/nintendo/Microsoft/Sony to support it and license the platform OS to run on it. Same scenario.
okay, if we're trolling...iPhone sucks, android is much better despite the multiple manufacturers putting custom skins on devices. My son had two iphones in the past and keeps telling me that he wants my droid when it's time for me to upgrade. This is a bonehead move by Motorola as now they will be throwing away the momentum they had from the droid phones that sold so well for them.
...Unfortunately, any OS vendor that wants to deploy Samba cannot require that it be signed by a proper, valid code signing cert because those cost money, and would represent an additional restriction on the end user's ability to recompile Samba and run the new version. This makes the GPLv3 fundamentally antithetical to proper security as written, at least by my reading. And I'm not the only one who interprets it this way...
You're also not the only one who's patently wrong on that point.
The restrictions on code in GPLV2 or V3 don't prevent a downstream user from creating a signed binary. What they *do* is prevent the downstream user from creating a signed binary without also providing the source code for said binary. The signature is completely aside from the compilation. All the signature says is "I started with some code, ran it through some other code, and it gave me this third code". None of that relates to the freedom of the initial code.
What GPLv3 *does* do is prevent downstream users from modifying source code, forcing it to rely on other proprietary, unavailable software or hardware in order to function, and only distributing the non-proprietary bits in source-code form. Signing software doesn't do that (or at least doesn't have to, any more than an MD5 hash does).
Let's say I build a signed copy of Samba and pony up the cash myself to buy a "real" cert. I make use of it on my NAS appliance, and make the source code for what I built along with any modifications available for download. Does that mean nobody gets the benefit of the changes I made? No. It just means that they don't get to leverage the marketing power of the signed blob I paid for, *based on* that source code. They can build their own signed blob, or not bother with it and just point out to people that the MD5 hashes on the source code are the same.
There may well be internal reasons inside Apple that make them not want to use GPL-licensed software (hello app store), but saying the GPL is anti-security is just not right.
Slashdot Mirror
Not sort of...exactly like a Fresnel Lens
How about for those of us who have to deal with internal and external IP addresses on websites as we move in and out of client networks. I have lots of hosts entries that *I* put there (and comment out, and uncomment) so that I can get to a site by one of several IP addresses without having to throw up an internal DNS server wherever one might be missing (like on a client's DMZ). If I understand this correctly, then are they saying that *my* entries will get deleted if I access them? If so, then I'm *really* glad I saw this article before I had to try and figure out what the hell was happening to my hosts file. Fortunately, I don't *need* to use Windows Defender, but man, that's a sucky new behavior.
My all-time favorite sci-fi author. A thoughtful writer that is equally good at characters and dilemmas.
This is interesting stuff...I had been laboring under an incorrect assumption for a while that linking to an external library is one of the things that the GPL typically refers to as "use". I can see how modifying existing source fits, but I'm not sure what I think about a program using an external library having the GPL imposed. Mainly because the workaround is silly (and it's *not* a good deal of effort...if you don't care about speed)...
If all I have to do is make a service that exposes the GPLed library via a network connection (127.0.0.1 is a network address, right?), then I can still release a proprietary blob that uses the library that way and that's viewed as not triggering the GPL? Web services are trivial to create these days.
Are we *really* saying "Yeah, you can still do it the slow way, but not via IPC or shared memory"? Why does that feel wrong?
Maybe, maybe not...it depends on how the library is used. See Prelinking and Aggregation.
I was thinking that, too...I don't see anyone saying that they shipped *modified* versions of GPLed code.
Allow me to rephrase that, since I was obviously not accurate.
Sun accepted Google's path of action, since Google wasn't going to call what they were building "Java".
This isn't about how Google was screwing sun any more than it's about how Apache (Harmony) and GNU (Classpath) screwed Sun. This is about Oracle thinking it can get paid via stagecraft that implies that Sun got screwed by not convincing Google to pay for the privilege of calling Android "Java Compatible".
That's actually incorrect. You may modify (which is use) to your heart's content. You may not *release* a modified version of a GPL-licensed work without also releasing the source code.
Maybe so, but this case has nothing to do with those abuses. Google took Apache Harmony (you know, a free, open-source, Apache-licensed implementation of the Java APIs...not GPL, but still open source) and built Android.
Sun was happy about it, Google was happy about it, the Java language got more widely used...
Oracle had a different point of view, wanted money, and had trouble convincing a jury who was *told* to assume that the APIs were copyrightable that the few remaining copyright claims Oracle brought were valid.
...also, in Europe, they just decided rather definitively that APIs are not copyrightable.
The worst part of this all is that now we go on to the "patent" part of the trial, which is just silly because we're talking about software (turning one number into another number based on a set of rules...aka an algorithm, which is not patentable subject matter).
Actually, it sounds like it's even worse than that.
OK. Charge people more for iPhones or get tough with Apple, got it.
...Wait, what? Yes. Carriers have been hiking prices, but across the board. So now I'm subsidizing the people who want iPhones because the carriers want iPhone users? And iPhone users increase market share but not profit? Am I in bizzaro-world?
The situation here seems to be that not carrying the iPhone is profitable, since the subsidy cost is so high, but carriers *feel* like they need to carry it because otherwise people who won't end up making them profit will complain and not sign money-losing contracts that cause price hikes for non-apple customers that *do* make them money.
WTF???
The main problem you noted (some proxy at your ISP set up to collect credit card info) isn't fixed by any CA setup that involves sending a cert from a site to a browser. If an ISP or network operator controls any part of the network between you and the site you are visiting, they can do absolutely anything with the data that passes through that portion of the network. They have very simple ways to grab copies of the certificate, modify responses from DNS servers, etc, etc...think "traffic shaping run amok".
Because of the way that SSL/TLS is implemented, the issue of identity is definitely an issue of trust, but if you can't trust every network between you and the site you hope to access, then it's all meaningless. For that matter, if you *could* trust every network between you and the website, certificates at the site you're visiting would still be meaningless, since you'd be sure that you had arrived at the right location. At that point, having your own certificate and using *that* to secure the communication would make more sense.
The whole setup is so secondary to the functional workings of the internet that there's no real way to ever trust anything, when you get down to it. Who here can say there's no way for some rogue ISP with a peering agreement to intercept, modify, mangle, and misuse whatever packets it wants?
There is, of course, a past-tense reading of the contraction "it's"...how about "it has".
Allow me to ramble a bit...Mr. Goetz says that software and (certain) hardware should be thought of in the same way, and that his sorting algorithm was the first to be implemented based on use with a general-purpose computer.
The algorithm was a set of instructions for a general-purpose computer. Those instructions don't perform any work themselves. The apparatus involved in doing the work is the computer, and not the algorithm. The apparatus could have just as easily been my youngest son...it would take him longer to perform the same operation as the computer, but he's equally capable.
If we're saying that there's a whole new class of patents waiting to be filed just by replacing "general purpose computer" with "organic calculating unit", then I guess I'll just throw my hands up in the air and try to never write software that does anything useful.
I'm guessing that to most people, the obviousness of a human completing a calculation not being an invention is higher than for a computer (a magical electronic do-everything machine) doing the same.
The question of hardware circuits being patentable may be the big one here. If we're asking if a hardware circuit that is nothing more than the embodiment of a mathematical algorithm should be patentable, then I'm more inclined to say "probably not", after reading his article than I was before. Just because there has never been a question about whether such a collection of logic gates should be patentable, doesn't mean that the question needn't be asked.
If mathematical algorithms are not patentable, and a machine invention is an embodiment of a mathematical alogorithm that could also be implemented by a general purpose computer running a program or a human being following a set of instructions, then I guess I would have to say that no, it shouldn't be patentable either.
I say this because I deal with consumer credit every day. I'm not speaking for you, but I am making a qualitative statement about the economics of the average household in the US. That statement (whether it applies to you specifically or not) is true. Most people are (or were) living beyond their means. I'm not accusing you of it, I'm saying something I know to be true. Some people were caught short immediately, and some had a bit more time to fret. I know it sounds crappy, and it is. It's also true.
Put me down on the list of people who would gladly give up his social security benefits and pay double his current tax rate if my government would build research stations on the moon and/or mars. I'd bump that up to 2.5x my current rate if they'd relax FAA restrictions on private spaceflight and pump cash into commercial spacecraft development.
If we're talking layers of complexity as being the important thing, then not only is one additional layer not enough, neither are 20 additional layers.
Many people speak about the current economy as if they have nothing to do with it, aside from being harmed. Are we really saying that this 1% of the population is to blame for what the other 99% is pissed about?
The economy isn't 1% of people playing with money. The economy is 100% of people getting paychecks, making investments, buying durable and non-durable goods, paying back loans, defaulting on loans, managing or mismanaging credit, etc, etc. There is a reason that there are so many credit repair, mortgage renegotiation, and payday lending places around today. You want to know why the economy's in the crapper? Because nobody wants to wait for anything anymore. We all want it now, and we'll pay for it later (maybe, if we can't declare bankruptcy...later is a long way off, so who cares).
Sure, mortgage lenders made bad loans. Lots of them. To lots of people. That was bad.
So was taking out an unaffordable mortgage with a variable rate.
We are most definitely all feeling the pain from this, and that's largely because a majority of us are (or were) living far beyond our means. *WE* hurt us every bit as much as that insidious 1% did.
How much you wanna bet there won't be a "Boycott Maple Drive" campaign (assuming a hypothetical Maple Drive where 90% of the homes are in foreclosure due to the mortgage-holders over-extending themselves). This is simple, classic, "trash big business because they make lots of money" action, and nothing more meaningful than that.
It's not. vyew, gotomeeting, or whatever web conferencing software you're familiar with is prior art. Is the USPTO honestly saying that having an avatar in the conference window and it having something to do with an entertainment event makes this novel and some important advancement of the arts?
Bad patent.
I disagree.
For the same reason that complaining about graphics or a paucity of new online content or performance is relevant to each and every discussion about SC-II likes and dislikes, complaining about the lack of LAN play is relevant.
Each of those topics address an area of the game that affects its perceived depth and long-term playability. If it wasn't a big deal to people who dearly love(d) playing the original, then I'd maybe agree with you, but clearly, it is still a big deal.
Just as with other things that we'd like to see improved in some way, it "needs" to be talked about until the franchise is done with, or the problem is fixed.
You're right...they hadn't already opened the port, but the question asked said:
The *only* thing IT asked for was a login (and not root!) and then they'd unblock the port, which, IMHO is a sign of missing grey matter in the IT dept.
I can see how reprimanding the division head might present an obstacle, but a mandatory HIPAA refresher might be possible.
Security isn't a static thing, and all threats on an interconnected network are related threats.
I could have the most well-secured locked-down database imaginable, in order to be useful, it needs to provide access to users on that network. If someone outside the network gets access to the network, then I have a problem. The rogue server increases the attack surface of my network by an unknown amount. The "unknown" aspect of that change is something that's important and impossible to account for. If you're in charge of network security on a network with sensitive information in it, and you're willing to allow someone who is not a formal part of your IT/IS team to install a piece of hardware and configure it for them in the manner requested, then you're either nutty, hopelessly naive, dangerous, or hoping to make some money (possibly all of the above).
The level of risk doesn't have anything to do with how secure the data management system is, it has to do with how well the vulnerabilities of that system are known and mitigated for. Adding in an attack vector of unknown scope makes mitigation of threats from it impossible.
Actually, you're giving IT access to a server for a service that they were not required to provide, and probably would have to a lot of asking for.
Seriously, people...a hospital stores confidential, privileged data about patients and medical conditions that is supposed to have certain safeguards applied to it in order to protect that confidentiality.
As has been repeated here already (and will be plenty more), placing an piece of personal network equipment on a medical network is bad enough. Asking for no oversight, giving your good word that everything will be OK, and requesting a port in the firewall be opened up to the public internet is lunacy.
Even if you're well-intentioned, capable, and reasonable about what you're asking for, this isn't a home server and family pictures you're providing access to.
The most disturbing thing to me about this story and question is that someone in the IT department was willing to open the port and allow the machine to stay connected without having root access, intimate knowledge of all installed versions of software and packages, and without relocating the server to an access-controlled datacenter. If I'm the head of IT, first I unplug and remove the box, then I talk to legal to see what needs to be done (audits, interviews, scans, etc), and then I reprimand the person in IT who said it could be done.
Not Hercules, TurboHercules...the company, not the project.
IBM listed patents that TurboHercules' platform was in violation of. They were (are?) selling a turnkey hardware/software platform that did the same stuff as the hardware platform IBM built. This is not a case about software patents. If it were, I would be arguing strongly against them, in fact.
The IBM software I'm talking about isn't the emulator, it's the software that runs on *top* of the emulator. That's what TurboHercules doesn't have a license for. It's not the software that's in violation of anything, it's a vendor who desires a license to run another vendor's software that was written for that same vendor's hardware *by* that same vendor on the new hardware/software emulation platform of the first vendor.
If IBM had said "The hercules emulator infringes on our hardware patents...", I'd be hard pressed to agree with them, but they're not saying that!
You can still use Herc on commodity hardware, and you can still run IBM's software on it, but IBM won't support it, and they won't grant TurboHercules a license to sell you a complete solution either. What exactly are you talking about holding IBM accountable for? Saying "no" to a third-party trying to elbow in on their hardware sales?
It's not software patents that are being asserted. The company trying to snipe IBM big iron customers had a good idea, but no permission, and now there's a problem with their chosen business model.
If, by "neither is it so innocent", you mean the position of the company attempting to distribute IBM software without a valid license, then I'd say you're right.
Keep reading about the disagreement. There has been a lot of press about it, and the long and short of it is that TH got stuck with it's hand in the cookie jar.
The project itself has never been a problem...the other company selling emulator-based platforms of their own and asking for IBM to support it was a problem for IBM (in that saying yes meant that the hardware they developed could be replaced with a competitor's commodity box).
Imagine that I create an iPod/gamecube/xbox/PS3 emulator and ask apple/nintendo/Microsoft/Sony to support it and license the platform OS to run on it. Same scenario.
okay, if we're trolling...iPhone sucks, android is much better despite the multiple manufacturers putting custom skins on devices. My son had two iphones in the past and keeps telling me that he wants my droid when it's time for me to upgrade. This is a bonehead move by Motorola as now they will be throwing away the momentum they had from the droid phones that sold so well for them.
You're also not the only one who's patently wrong on that point.
The restrictions on code in GPLV2 or V3 don't prevent a downstream user from creating a signed binary. What they *do* is prevent the downstream user from creating a signed binary without also providing the source code for said binary. The signature is completely aside from the compilation. All the signature says is "I started with some code, ran it through some other code, and it gave me this third code". None of that relates to the freedom of the initial code.
What GPLv3 *does* do is prevent downstream users from modifying source code, forcing it to rely on other proprietary, unavailable software or hardware in order to function, and only distributing the non-proprietary bits in source-code form. Signing software doesn't do that (or at least doesn't have to, any more than an MD5 hash does).
Let's say I build a signed copy of Samba and pony up the cash myself to buy a "real" cert. I make use of it on my NAS appliance, and make the source code for what I built along with any modifications available for download. Does that mean nobody gets the benefit of the changes I made? No. It just means that they don't get to leverage the marketing power of the signed blob I paid for, *based on* that source code. They can build their own signed blob, or not bother with it and just point out to people that the MD5 hashes on the source code are the same.
There may well be internal reasons inside Apple that make them not want to use GPL-licensed software (hello app store), but saying the GPL is anti-security is just not right.