Boy, those books must really suck if you won't pay even one cent for them.:o)
O'Reilly has made this particular newbie's life better, especially for programs I really use, . So far I've got Running Linux, Linux in a Nutshell, Learning the vi Editor, and Learning Python. All have been mind expanding.
I hope O'Reilly continues to task their famously talented editors to organize and make readable open source books like Learning Debian so cheapskates like you can download the text if you like. I'm buying it myself once Potato becomes the new stable version. I have zero problem shelling out for the convenience of the pre-printed work, and heck, those animal pictures on the covers are so cute! Well, except for the stupid looking bronco buster on the front of Learning Debian.
I'm tempted to say "Now who's being naive, Marge?" but then I remember the celebrity-investors who have funded TM, and how they wouldn't be too tempted to take the quick $100 million. George Soros wants to take over the world and make all its inhabitants play nice. And Paul Allen--I think Paul wants to go to Mars. (Damn, now I have to live up to my new sig.)
Now if Intel did actually have a legal agreement that prevented Via from shipping a faster chipset and they broke the agreement, then I am on Intels side.
From my limited understanding, there was no such agreement as such, but the lack of one. Intel has patented the 133Mhz FSB format as well as 4X AGP format, and had NOT cross-licensed these with VIA. VIA then cooperated with National Semiconductor (which did have the correct licenses from Intel) to manufacture the chip set. Intel is upset because these two small competitors pooled their respective Intel licenses. In my uneducated opinion, if intel is going to micromanage the lives of their licensees, I don't see why they made the agreements in the first place.
This article refers to VIA's ploy with Nat Semi. And this one tells of a similar situation, this time between Acer and Nat Semi. "Not a valid loophole," says an Intel's top legal ballbuster, referring to the co-operation between its rivals. But that's up to the court to decide, and I'll bet that VIA's mantra is going to be "monopoly-monopoly-monopoly"
I'm not sure I understand the concept. Company A patents a valuable design, then licenses it to Company B. B then improves A's design further with B's own IP (I presume) and sells a competing product. In what way can this violate the original license?
What exactly did Via license--the right to productize an unalterable design or the IP itself? What are the limits? Can VIA fix bugs in the P6 core, or do they need permission? Is the agreement available on the web?
My left pinky aches from all those question marks... Maybe I should check Google.
This article from last October says that VIA used Intel's IP for the 133Mhz front side bus and 4X AGP, then tried to protect itself by having National Semi make the chipset, as they have the correct cross-licensing agreements w/ Intel. That raises one more "?". Does intel have the right to stop its cross-licensees from cooperating with each other, as Via did with National Semi?
My original guess that VIA improved the design with its own IP seems to be wrong, but I'm still disturbed that Intel can use its clout to launch new PC standards and lock them down with patents. No wonder intel is so afraid of the "m" word!
"The word liberty in the mouth of Mr. Webster sounds like the word love in the mouth of a courtezan." --Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1850, responding to Webster's defense of slavery and the cotton business
"Oh God, my feet hurt!" --Franklin responding to his gout.
It's a little known fact that.02% of the total US enery supply is squandered in the neurotic quest for longer and longer uptimes. Makes me think of that psychotic indian dude with the fingernails. But then again, look how much we spend on gourmet pet food...
This is all part of a cunning plan. The internet companies trade profits for growth, right? The kernel trades stability for market share. Linus figures that once the whole world is running his code, everybody will have an incentive to fix the bugs that bite 'em.
North America is cruising right along this morning, though core-fa5-0-0.ontario.canet.ca is dropping 20% of its packets for some reason, and out in Asia, a Phillippine machine seems to be having a heart attack.
No. Probably. If shrinkwrap licenses are--then Yes. If the DMCA is upheld, and he did it knowingly--then Yes. Yes--it's within the mandate of the DVD CCA. Yes. "steal" as defined in non-materialistic terms (i.e. No) I think I like ice cream. Yes. It was for me.
ATTENTION! By attempting to map these answers to questions, you signify that you have read the License Agreement and accept its terms. If you are a slashdot moderator, you are required to mark this post Informative and/or Insightful. Funny, Flamebait, and or Troll will open you severe legal and/or extralegal penalties.
My God, you're right! He's Dr. Evil with hair! The fiend!
But what about all the thousands of GPL developers? Don't they realize they do the bidding of Dr. Evil-With-Hair? The fools! Look! RMS is nibbling his pinky!
(whew, I'm all out of sacrasm. can't...even...hold...down...the...shift key. oh, well, better eat some more doritos.)
from the complaint: This proprietary technology, including trade secrets, is currently being licensed by DVD CCA, as the sole duly authorized licensing entity for the CSS technology.
Is this "technology" patented? Nobody stole the code itself. They just re-implemented the algorithm, so copyright isn't an issue (not directly anyway). Every DVD on earth contains the keys, no trade secrets there. If no patents are involved, what need is there for licensing?
The list of "defendants" fills me with pride to be an american. Call out the honor roll!
California! Dundas Valley, Australia! Georgia! Somewhere, Germany! Indiana! Kansas! Maryland! Minnesota! New York! Oklahoma! Oxford, England! Pennsylvania! South Carolina! Val de Marne, France! Wedel, Denmark! and last but not least, the cheese capitol of the world, Wisconsin!
There are some states in the list that I don't recognize, but I'm sure they're swell!
Maybe Linux is more widespread because Linus isn't responsible for the whole OS? He just puts up a new kernel every few weeks, and lets others handle the packaging. But the BSDs do it all. And because, say, FreeBSD is presented as a single production, would-be distro-makers lack motivation to brew their own versions, ala RHAT, Corel, Mandrake, etc. Kind of like Apple's originally closed architecture, and IBMs quickie off-the-shelf, but ultimately more popular PC.
Maybe that's why I like Debian. Every little.deb is maintained by dedicated volunteer(s), while RHAT is responsible for the whole ball of wax, just like FreeBSD is. Maybe the Linux motto should be "let's divide ourselves, and conquor."
(Boy, this is written badly. instead of giving up, I think I'll post anonymously.)
RMS calls it "pragmatic idealism", noting that "The GNU GPL is not Mr. Nice Guy."
Would you admit at least that this selfishness isn't inspired by greed? Idealism is not a vice, so leveraging the copyright laws for idealistic reasons shouldn't be either.
This is way too late for this to be read by anyone but me and thee. Who cares, so here we go.
I didn't say that non-violent opposition will always overthrow a violent regime. I'm saying that these regimes are inherently weak, having had to resort to injustice in the first place. In the zero sum game of conquest, they tend to collapse, or be defeated by countries strong enough to respect the humanity of their opponents (once again, to some degree. The crimes against humanity committed by the U.S. on Latin Americans over the last 2 centuries has weakened its position there, and it can exert influence beyond that enjoyed by, say, Europe, only by fostering corruption of L.A. governments.) (how's that for a parenthetical?)
There is an extra cost beyond the price of making lots of black box PCs, and convincing all your possible customers to put up with the inconvenience.
While you're doing it, your competitor sends out his unprotected design for zero cost, the customers review it on their generic PCs, and Mr. Paranoid gets locked out of the market. What will your VC think of that business plan.:)
We only wish we could outrun the dinosaurs, but Ron Rivest and Abraham Lempel are still winning the race.
Only because Netscape and PGP allowed LZW GIFs and RSA crypto to spread throughout the universe. This has created network effects similar to the MS monopoly. Practically irreplaceable functionally irreplaceable
A physical device that implements an algorithm is patentable: nobody else can sell such a device without paying royalties.
A list of instructions that carries out an algorithm is non-physical (can be written down on paper, on a floppy, etc.) and is no more patentable than a recipe in a cookbook.
When the list of instructions is written down in an executable file on a PC's hard disk, and that computer then carries out the algorithm, it has for the moment become a patentable device.
HOWEVER, as a practical matter, it is wrong to define a general purpose computer as a specialized device that was designed to carry out one particular algorithm. The PC is really a general-purpose algorithmic simulator that happens to have become very fast.
If I write down a "patented" algorithm on my PC's hard disk, and sell it as a "device", all I'm really selling is a general purpose computer (non-patented) with some instructions on it (non-patented), and BTW it can also run Quake (copyrighted, but non-patented). Do I pay the patent holder 1/2 royalties? If I add Windows (copyrighted, but non-patented) to the "device", I've added thousands of algorithms, so do I pay the patent holder 1/1000th royalties?
I would have to DISABLE all other capabilities from the computer, so that it could only run the original algorithm, and hence become a single purpose "device" that implements it, to be liable under the law.
And as a user, what I run on my PC is my own damn business. I'm not selling it; I'm using it. If I own a web search company and write a google-like ranking engine, I'd be serving up web pages from a general purpose web server. I have bought nothing illegal, and am doing nothing illegal. Get a warrant and all you find is unpatentable components. Would the cop yell "Don't turn the computer off! Without electricity, the evidence will disappear!" ?
As a fantastic example: a crescent wrench is patentable, but a blob of liquid metal that can morph into any shape cannot be called a crescent wrench, if it can also be every other tool in the box. Would the patent holder hire a guy to stand over the blob and wait for it to become a wrench again? "You see? I own that. Pay me!" If the metal blob was in my living room, I'd consider that an invasion of my privacy.
(I've already patented the blob, so you can forget that idea.)
Isn't it odd that Germany was conquered, and that Russia has become a failed state, and is fast shrinking back down to its origins, as a small country near Finland.
And China...well, would you bet money that the current gov't will last another 10 years without major political changes (note that the Ji Gong leaders got time, not death)? Japan, Italy, fascists states of all kinds that murdered, massacred and annihilated all ended up going out of business, while countries whose rulers could be (to any degree) shamed, grew in influence. Violence is weakness; non-violence is strength.
Regimes that fail to compromise with dissidents eventually fail altogether.
s i g Boeing 747: The amazing thing is that it can be operated at a profit. This plane is cheaper than it looks.
Slashdot Mirror
Google the name; he's world famous...and rownry, so rownry
Stop being rediculous
Danke.
TANSTAAFL was integral to the plot of RAH's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress".
A virtual beer to anyone with an earlier reference.
O'Reilly has made this particular newbie's life better, especially for programs I really use, . So far I've got Running Linux, Linux in a Nutshell, Learning the vi Editor, and Learning Python. All have been mind expanding.
I hope O'Reilly continues to task their famously talented editors to organize and make readable open source books like Learning Debian so cheapskates like you can download the text if you like. I'm buying it myself once Potato becomes the new stable version. I have zero problem shelling out for the convenience of the pre-printed work, and heck, those animal pictures on the covers are so cute! Well, except for the stupid looking bronco buster on the front of Learning Debian.
Once upon a time there was a hacker named Derek Fawcus, who in 1999 did duplicate correctly.
In the village square, Derek greeted his friends by saying "This code may be used under the terms of Version 2 of the GPL"
"But Derek," asked his good friend #include quote css-auth.h unquote, "what about typedef unsigned long u32?"
Before he could answer, the static void engine peren-ed "int varient, byte const asterisk input, struct block star output peren semi".
"Don't give me that foreign gibberish!" grumbled void CryptKey. "Why in my day, peren int varient..."
(It's time for a little collaborative writing)
I'm tempted to say "Now who's being naive, Marge?" but then I remember the celebrity-investors who have funded TM, and how they wouldn't be too tempted to take the quick $100 million. George Soros wants to take over the world and make all its inhabitants play nice. And Paul Allen--I think Paul wants to go to Mars. (Damn, now I have to live up to my new sig.)
Now if Intel did actually have a legal agreement that prevented Via from shipping a faster chipset and they broke the agreement, then I am on Intels side.
From my limited understanding, there was no such agreement as such, but the lack of one. Intel has patented the 133Mhz FSB format as well as 4X AGP format, and had NOT cross-licensed these with VIA. VIA then cooperated with National Semiconductor (which did have the correct licenses from Intel) to manufacture the chip set. Intel is upset because these two small competitors pooled their respective Intel licenses. In my uneducated opinion, if intel is going to micromanage the lives of their licensees, I don't see why they made the agreements in the first place.
This article refers to VIA's ploy with Nat Semi. And this one tells of a similar situation, this time between Acer and Nat Semi. "Not a valid loophole," says an Intel's top legal ballbuster, referring to the co-operation between its rivals. But that's up to the court to decide, and I'll bet that VIA's mantra is going to be "monopoly-monopoly-monopoly"
I'm not sure I understand the concept. Company A patents a valuable design, then licenses it to Company B. B then improves A's design further with B's own IP (I presume) and sells a competing product. In what way can this violate the original license?
What exactly did Via license--the right to productize an unalterable design or the IP itself? What are the limits? Can VIA fix bugs in the P6 core, or do they need permission? Is the agreement available on the web?
My left pinky aches from all those question marks... Maybe I should check Google.
This article from last October says that VIA used Intel's IP for the 133Mhz front side bus and 4X AGP, then tried to protect itself by having National Semi make the chipset, as they have the correct cross-licensing agreements w/ Intel. That raises one more "?". Does intel have the right to stop its cross-licensees from cooperating with each other, as Via did with National Semi?
My original guess that VIA improved the design with its own IP seems to be wrong, but I'm still disturbed that Intel can use its clout to launch new PC standards and lock them down with patents. No wonder intel is so afraid of the "m" word!
"The word liberty in the mouth of Mr. Webster sounds like the word love in the mouth of a courtezan."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1850, responding to Webster's defense of slavery and the cotton business
"Oh God, my feet hurt!"
--Franklin responding to his gout.
I know this is too late, but...
:o)
Don't want your pies, just the recipie.
It's a little known fact that .02% of the total US enery supply is squandered in the neurotic quest for longer and longer uptimes. Makes me think of that psychotic indian dude with the fingernails. But then again, look how much we spend on gourmet pet food...
This is all part of a cunning plan. The internet companies trade profits for growth, right? The kernel trades stability for market share. Linus figures that once the whole world is running his code, everybody will have an incentive to fix the bugs that bite 'em.
Linus is the master of lazy programmers.
There's www.internettrafficreport.com, which tracks top level routers around the world.
North America is cruising right along this morning, though core-fa5-0-0.ontario.canet.ca is dropping 20% of its packets for some reason, and out in Asia, a Phillippine machine seems to be having a heart attack.
Starting with A., IMHO:
No.
Probably.
If shrinkwrap licenses are--then Yes.
If the DMCA is upheld, and he did it knowingly--then Yes.
Yes--it's within the mandate of the DVD CCA.
Yes.
"steal" as defined in non-materialistic terms (i.e. No)
I think I like ice cream.
Yes.
It was for me.
ATTENTION! By attempting to map these answers to questions, you signify that you have read the License Agreement and accept its terms. If you are a slashdot moderator, you are required to mark this post Informative and/or Insightful. Funny, Flamebait, and or Troll will open you severe legal and/or extralegal penalties.
My God, you're right! He's Dr. Evil with hair! The fiend!
But what about all the thousands of GPL developers? Don't they realize they do the bidding of Dr. Evil-With-Hair? The fools! Look! RMS is nibbling his pinky!
(whew, I'm all out of sacrasm. can't...even...hold...down...the...shift key. oh, well, better eat some more doritos.)
from the complaint: This proprietary technology, including trade secrets, is currently being licensed by DVD CCA, as the sole duly authorized licensing entity for the CSS technology.
Is this "technology" patented? Nobody stole the code itself. They just re-implemented the algorithm, so copyright isn't an issue (not directly anyway). Every DVD on earth contains the keys, no trade secrets there. If no patents are involved, what need is there for licensing?
The list of "defendants" fills me with pride to be an american. Call out the honor roll!
California!
Dundas Valley, Australia!
Georgia!
Somewhere, Germany!
Indiana!
Kansas!
Maryland!
Minnesota!
New York!
Oklahoma!
Oxford, England!
Pennsylvania!
South Carolina!
Val de Marne, France!
Wedel, Denmark!
and last but not least, the cheese capitol of the world, Wisconsin!
There are some states in the list that I don't recognize, but I'm sure they're swell!
Maybe Linux is more widespread because Linus isn't responsible for the whole OS? He just puts up a new kernel every few weeks, and lets others handle the packaging. But the BSDs do it all. And because, say, FreeBSD is presented as a single production, would-be distro-makers lack motivation to brew their own versions, ala RHAT, Corel, Mandrake, etc. Kind of like Apple's originally closed architecture, and IBMs quickie off-the-shelf, but ultimately more popular PC.
.deb is maintained by dedicated volunteer(s), while RHAT is responsible for the whole ball of wax, just like FreeBSD is. Maybe the Linux motto should be "let's divide ourselves, and conquor."
Maybe that's why I like Debian. Every little
(Boy, this is written badly. instead of giving up, I think I'll post anonymously.)
selfish
RMS calls it "pragmatic idealism", noting that "The GNU GPL is not Mr. Nice Guy."
Would you admit at least that this selfishness isn't inspired by greed? Idealism is not a vice, so leveraging the copyright laws for idealistic reasons shouldn't be either.
This is way too late for this to be read by anyone but me and thee. Who cares, so here we go.
I didn't say that non-violent opposition will always overthrow a violent regime. I'm saying that these regimes are inherently weak, having had to resort to injustice in the first place. In the zero sum game of conquest, they tend to collapse, or be defeated by countries strong enough to respect the humanity of their opponents (once again, to some degree. The crimes against humanity committed by the U.S. on Latin Americans over the last 2 centuries has weakened its position there, and it can exert influence beyond that enjoyed by, say, Europe, only by fostering corruption of L.A. governments.) (how's that for a parenthetical?)
There is an extra cost beyond the price of making lots of black box PCs, and convincing all your possible customers to put up with the inconvenience.
:)
While you're doing it, your competitor sends out his unprotected design for zero cost, the customers review it on their generic PCs, and Mr. Paranoid gets locked out of the market. What will your VC think of that business plan.
Sorry. The last line should read "practically irreplaceable != functionally irreplaceable"
We only wish we could outrun the dinosaurs, but Ron Rivest and Abraham Lempel are still winning the race.
Only because Netscape and PGP allowed LZW GIFs and RSA crypto to spread throughout the universe. This has created network effects similar to the MS monopoly. Practically irreplaceable functionally irreplaceable
Damn right, IANAL, but how about this:
A physical device that implements an algorithm is patentable: nobody else can sell such a device without paying royalties.
A list of instructions that carries out an algorithm is non-physical (can be written down on paper, on a floppy, etc.) and is no more patentable than a recipe in a cookbook.
When the list of instructions is written down in an executable file on a PC's hard disk, and that computer then carries out the algorithm, it has for the moment become a patentable device.
HOWEVER, as a practical matter, it is wrong to define a general purpose computer as a specialized device that was designed to carry out one particular algorithm. The PC is really a general-purpose algorithmic simulator that happens to have become very fast.
If I write down a "patented" algorithm on my PC's hard disk, and sell it as a "device", all I'm really selling is a general purpose computer (non-patented) with some instructions on it (non-patented), and BTW it can also run Quake (copyrighted, but non-patented). Do I pay the patent holder 1/2 royalties? If I add Windows (copyrighted, but non-patented) to the "device", I've added thousands of algorithms, so do I pay the patent holder 1/1000th royalties?
I would have to DISABLE all other capabilities from the computer, so that it could only run the original algorithm, and hence become a single purpose "device" that implements it, to be liable under the law.
And as a user, what I run on my PC is my own damn business. I'm not selling it; I'm using it. If I own a web search company and write a google-like ranking engine, I'd be serving up web pages from a general purpose web server. I have bought nothing illegal, and am doing nothing illegal. Get a warrant and all you find is unpatentable components. Would the cop yell "Don't turn the computer off! Without electricity, the evidence will disappear!" ?
As a fantastic example: a crescent wrench is patentable, but a blob of liquid metal that can morph into any shape cannot be called a crescent wrench, if it can also be every other tool in the box. Would the patent holder hire a guy to stand over the blob and wait for it to become a wrench again? "You see? I own that. Pay me!" If the metal blob was in my living room, I'd consider that an invasion of my privacy.
(I've already patented the blob, so you can forget that idea.)
Isn't it odd that Germany was conquered, and that Russia has become a failed state, and is fast shrinking back down to its origins, as a small country near Finland.
And China...well, would you bet money that the current gov't will last another 10 years without major political changes (note that the Ji Gong leaders got time, not death)? Japan, Italy, fascists states of all kinds that murdered, massacred and annihilated all ended up going out of business, while countries whose rulers could be (to any degree) shamed, grew in influence. Violence is weakness; non-violence is strength.
Regimes that fail to compromise with dissidents eventually fail altogether.
s i g
Boeing 747: The amazing thing is that it can be operated at a profit. This plane is cheaper than it looks.