Furthermore, when the Law Lords were the ultimate court of appeal, this was true for all of Canada. It was never up to the individual provinces and territories.
What caused the trouble was not his intention of presenting at the conference. It was his intention of being paid to conduct a training workshop before the conference that caused the trouble. Presenting at the conference by itself would have been fine.
Surely just about everybody knows that if you're being paid to give a workshop you are working and probably need a visa that permits you to work.
Of course, often presenters at workshops are not paid, or they are given a relatively modest "honorarium" that doesn't count as pay.
Actually, this incident doesn't demonstrate any kind of problem with holding conferences in the US. If he had merely planned to attend the conference, he wouldn't have been denied entry. What got him in trouble was his plan to do training for two days prior to the conference, that is, to work in the United States. Granted, he was denied entry on a technicality that he should have been allowed to fix, but what that means is that if you want to work in the US you have to be careful.
It's a technicality because he wouldn't have needed a visa had the contract
been between Blackhat and his company. What determines whether he gets in is
whether he signed the contract as an individual or as the CEO of his company.
What bothers me about this is not so much that they picked up on this rather minor
technicality but that the response is extreme and inflexible. Why not let him fix the
technical flaw making the contract with his company? The reason they gave was that he couldn't do
this because he had already applied as an individual. So what? That may be immigration policy, but its a stupid, inflexible policy. Similarly, it is ridiculous to bar him forever from using the visa waiver program, though they are indeed applying their normal policy to him. The assumption is that any violation of the rules should be treated as evidence that the individual is untrustworthy and should therefore have to go through the full visa application process. That is an obviously unsound assumption - there are plenty of cases like this one in which the violation is trivial and/or unintentional. Exclusion from the visa waiver program should be restricted to serious, intentional violations.
This was only a test of whether Hotmail drops email with attachments, not a comparison of Hotmail with other services. There was therefore no need to include other free services. Moreover, the article explicitly states that the test was done using PAID accounts, not the free service.
I don't see how the picture is different from what I described. In Merle, what people are concerned with is the idea that the manufacturer can prevent resale on eBay even if the reseller did not interfere with the contract. My point is that the Supreme Court's decision in Leegin does not lead to this and that the manufacturer is not likely to win. If the manufacturer is able to prove interference, it may indeed win, but its victory will not have the broad consequences that people are worried about.
In the ITI case, they're trying to go well beyond the Leegin holding. Yes, it would be bad if they won, but the point is, Leegin doesn't by any means require the result they are asking for. It is a big stretch.
It is true that there is big trouble for sale of used goods IF these suits
are successful, but that is a very big if. The point is, what the Supreme Court
actually held in Leegin is not what these suits are claiming. They are
trying to use a slogan that characterizes Leegin, namely the idea that
companies may control the retail sale and distribution of their products, to justify
further changes in existing law. This slogan, however, is NOT what the Supreme Court actually held and is not an established legal principle.
In the makeup case, for example, the manufacturer's claim is that the person selling on eBay bought the makeup from a salon that was contractually obligated to sell only at retail, not for resale. The eBay seller denies this, and will win on the facts if the manufacturer fails to prove that the makeup came from the salon. Even if he did buy from the salon, in order to win the manufacturer is going to have to get the courts to override the long-settled doctrine of First Sale on the basis not of a holding but of a dictum in Leegin, one that, furthermore, was more in the line of a vague comment than a statement of legal principle. So, yes, it would be very unfortunate if the manufacturer won this case, but the case is quite a stretch, and the result desired by the manufacturer does not follow in any direct way from Leegin.
No, this is wrong. The agreements that the Supreme Court ruling allows are agreements between manufacturers and retailers that prevent the retailer from selling the goods at less than a certain minimum price. If you are a wholesaler who has been selling at a discount on eBay, this decision affects you because you enter, directly or indirectly, into a contract with the manufacturer to observe the minimum price.
However, if you are Joe consumer and you buy a hammer at a hardware store, or any other retail outlet, the contractual chain ends with the retailer who sells it to you.
The retailer fulfills his obligation by selling the hammer to you at no less than the minimum price set by the manufacturer. You do not enter into any contract concerning resale of the hammer when you buy it at retail. The doctrine of First Sale applies and you may now do whatever you like with the hammer, including reselling it for less than the manufacturer's minimum. What this decision does is it allows manufacturers to prevent discounting of the initial retail sale. That is probably a bad thing, though some economists argue otherwise. This decision has no effect on the sale of used goods.
You've made a good argument for the defaults being what they are. You haven't made any argument for making them hard to change for the 10% of users who want to.
The irony is that, although TeX produces very high quality documents, as a programming language it is horrible and reading TeX programs of any complexity is very difficult.
I saw something about this a couple of weeks ago and blogged about it because the numbers
seemed off. The cited chart, which is the same one I used, gives the volumetric coefficient of thermal expansion for gasoline at 20C as 950e-6, which is 9.5e-4 per degree C. Dividing by 1.8 to convert degrees C to degrees F, we get a coefficient of 5.2e-4 per degree F. For an increase of 5F, that's an expansion of 2.6e-3. If gasoline is $3 per gallon, the difference is 7.8e-3 dollars per gallon, that is, about 3/4 of a cent. That's an order of magnitude less than the 3 to 9 cents per gallon that people are talking about. One or the other of us has got a decimal point in the wrong place.
I question the conclusion here, for two reasons. First, the license that the contributor grants to Red Hat is non-exclusive. If you want your software to be distributable to countries embargoed by the United States, all you have to do is provide it via an additional route. Second, since the hardware is provided by a US source, it is subject to US trade restrictions, so I don't see how restrictions on software further restrict the distribution of OLPCs. If the project can't supply the machines to, e.g., Syria, does it matter if a piece of software cannot be exported to Syria?
Another possibility to consider is to package an existing project. For example, if you like Debian, you could find a program that interests you that is not yet available in a Debian package and package it yourself. You'll have to learn your way around the code to some extent, learn how the build system works, etc. You may have to write some documentation. You'll also learn about a bug control system and patching. (Debian requires a man page, for example, which not all projects provide.) Initially you'll have to submit the package for someone else's approval, but in time you can become a full-fledged package maintainer in your own right if you want to.
Actually, this is not necessarily true. There are some projects that
solicit code from anyone and have mechanisms for dealing with that. There are other projects that want people to sign up and interact with the rest of the group in particular ways. There are also those that are in between. For example, Tcl is maintained by a self-perpetuating core team that has the decision-making power. Non-members can submit proposals and patches, and doing enough of this of high enough quality is the route to joining the core team, but you only actually get onto the core team by being invited.
There are also a fair number of open source projects that are one or two person projects. They may be happy to receive bug reports, suggestions, and patches, but they aren't necessarily set up for significant contributions by others, and may not necessarily want them (if they enjoy coding and have their own vision for the project).
RMS thinks that a set of tools is more important than every other function of the operating system.
I don't think that this is a fair characterization of RMS' view. Rather, he thinks that the overall project of creating a free Unix-like operating system is more important than the proper subpart known as the kernel.
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Furthermore, when the Law Lords were the ultimate court of appeal, this was true for all of Canada. It was never up to the individual provinces and territories.
What caused the trouble was not his intention of presenting at the conference. It was his intention of being paid to conduct a training workshop before the conference that caused the trouble. Presenting at the conference by itself would have been fine.
Surely just about everybody knows that if you're being paid to give a workshop you are working and probably need a visa that permits you to work. Of course, often presenters at workshops are not paid, or they are given a relatively modest "honorarium" that doesn't count as pay.
That may be true, but according to his post it isn't Halvar's understanding of the situation.
Actually, this incident doesn't demonstrate any kind of problem with holding conferences in the US. If he had merely planned to attend the conference, he wouldn't have been denied entry. What got him in trouble was his plan to do training for two days prior to the conference, that is, to work in the United States. Granted, he was denied entry on a technicality that he should have been allowed to fix, but what that means is that if you want to work in the US you have to be careful.
It's a technicality because he wouldn't have needed a visa had the contract been between Blackhat and his company. What determines whether he gets in is whether he signed the contract as an individual or as the CEO of his company.
What bothers me about this is not so much that they picked up on this rather minor technicality but that the response is extreme and inflexible. Why not let him fix the technical flaw making the contract with his company? The reason they gave was that he couldn't do this because he had already applied as an individual. So what? That may be immigration policy, but its a stupid, inflexible policy. Similarly, it is ridiculous to bar him forever from using the visa waiver program, though they are indeed applying their normal policy to him. The assumption is that any violation of the rules should be treated as evidence that the individual is untrustworthy and should therefore have to go through the full visa application process. That is an obviously unsound assumption - there are plenty of cases like this one in which the violation is trivial and/or unintentional. Exclusion from the visa waiver program should be restricted to serious, intentional violations.
Those New Zealand MPs really have a sense of humour. This is self-parody.
The article does not say this. You're reading into it something it doesn't say.
This was only a test of whether Hotmail drops email with attachments, not a comparison of Hotmail with other services. There was therefore no need to include other free services. Moreover, the article explicitly states that the test was done using PAID accounts, not the free service.
You're assuming that things are like they are on earth. Air brakes won't work because the atmosphere is too thin. Retrorockets require a lot of fuel.
I don't see how the picture is different from what I described. In Merle, what people are concerned with is the idea that the manufacturer can prevent resale on eBay even if the reseller did not interfere with the contract. My point is that the Supreme Court's decision in Leegin does not lead to this and that the manufacturer is not likely to win. If the manufacturer is able to prove interference, it may indeed win, but its victory will not have the broad consequences that people are worried about.
In the ITI case, they're trying to go well beyond the Leegin holding. Yes, it would be bad if they won, but the point is, Leegin doesn't by any means require the result they are asking for. It is a big stretch.
It is true that there is big trouble for sale of used goods IF these suits are successful, but that is a very big if. The point is, what the Supreme Court actually held in Leegin is not what these suits are claiming. They are trying to use a slogan that characterizes Leegin, namely the idea that companies may control the retail sale and distribution of their products, to justify further changes in existing law. This slogan, however, is NOT what the Supreme Court actually held and is not an established legal principle.
In the makeup case, for example, the manufacturer's claim is that the person selling on eBay bought the makeup from a salon that was contractually obligated to sell only at retail, not for resale. The eBay seller denies this, and will win on the facts if the manufacturer fails to prove that the makeup came from the salon. Even if he did buy from the salon, in order to win the manufacturer is going to have to get the courts to override the long-settled doctrine of First Sale on the basis not of a holding but of a dictum in Leegin, one that, furthermore, was more in the line of a vague comment than a statement of legal principle. So, yes, it would be very unfortunate if the manufacturer won this case, but the case is quite a stretch, and the result desired by the manufacturer does not follow in any direct way from Leegin.
No, this is wrong. The agreements that the Supreme Court ruling allows are agreements between manufacturers and retailers that prevent the retailer from selling the goods at less than a certain minimum price. If you are a wholesaler who has been selling at a discount on eBay, this decision affects you because you enter, directly or indirectly, into a contract with the manufacturer to observe the minimum price.
However, if you are Joe consumer and you buy a hammer at a hardware store, or any other retail outlet, the contractual chain ends with the retailer who sells it to you. The retailer fulfills his obligation by selling the hammer to you at no less than the minimum price set by the manufacturer. You do not enter into any contract concerning resale of the hammer when you buy it at retail. The doctrine of First Sale applies and you may now do whatever you like with the hammer, including reselling it for less than the manufacturer's minimum. What this decision does is it allows manufacturers to prevent discounting of the initial retail sale. That is probably a bad thing, though some economists argue otherwise. This decision has no effect on the sale of used goods.
Microsoft can't make it part of my operating system. I won't let their system anywhere near my hardware.
You've made a good argument for the defaults being what they are. You haven't made any argument for making them hard to change for the 10% of users who want to.
Yes, I understand that. I just think it is somewhat ironic that the implementation of TeX is much prettier than the language itself.
The irony is that, although TeX produces very high quality documents, as a programming language it is horrible and reading TeX programs of any complexity is very difficult.
The source for Tcl is widely considered by those who have worked with it to be unusually clean and clear.
Ah, I see. I was assuming a base of 60F because that is what the pumps are said to be calibrated to.
I saw something about this a couple of weeks ago and blogged about it because the numbers seemed off. The cited chart, which is the same one I used, gives the volumetric coefficient of thermal expansion for gasoline at 20C as 950e-6, which is 9.5e-4 per degree C. Dividing by 1.8 to convert degrees C to degrees F, we get a coefficient of 5.2e-4 per degree F. For an increase of 5F, that's an expansion of 2.6e-3. If gasoline is $3 per gallon, the difference is 7.8e-3 dollars per gallon, that is, about 3/4 of a cent. That's an order of magnitude less than the 3 to 9 cents per gallon that people are talking about. One or the other of us has got a decimal point in the wrong place.
I question the conclusion here, for two reasons. First, the license that the contributor grants to Red Hat is non-exclusive. If you want your software to be distributable to countries embargoed by the United States, all you have to do is provide it via an additional route. Second, since the hardware is provided by a US source, it is subject to US trade restrictions, so I don't see how restrictions on software further restrict the distribution of OLPCs. If the project can't supply the machines to, e.g., Syria, does it matter if a piece of software cannot be exported to Syria?
I wonder if the downfall of Mike Nifong has given prosecutors a dose of humility.
Another possibility to consider is to package an existing project. For example, if you like Debian, you could find a program that interests you that is not yet available in a Debian package and package it yourself. You'll have to learn your way around the code to some extent, learn how the build system works, etc. You may have to write some documentation. You'll also learn about a bug control system and patching. (Debian requires a man page, for example, which not all projects provide.) Initially you'll have to submit the package for someone else's approval, but in time you can become a full-fledged package maintainer in your own right if you want to.
Actually, this is not necessarily true. There are some projects that solicit code from anyone and have mechanisms for dealing with that. There are other projects that want people to sign up and interact with the rest of the group in particular ways. There are also those that are in between. For example, Tcl is maintained by a self-perpetuating core team that has the decision-making power. Non-members can submit proposals and patches, and doing enough of this of high enough quality is the route to joining the core team, but you only actually get onto the core team by being invited.
There are also a fair number of open source projects that are one or two person projects. They may be happy to receive bug reports, suggestions, and patches, but they aren't necessarily set up for significant contributions by others, and may not necessarily want them (if they enjoy coding and have their own vision for the project).
I don't think that this is a fair characterization of RMS' view. Rather, he thinks that the overall project of creating a free Unix-like operating system is more important than the proper subpart known as the kernel.