You've completely missed the point. Literally overnight (that particular night following Mayor Newsome's announcement) gay marriages went from a controversial subject to something you cannot question without risk of ostracism.
The issue of slavery involved years of debate. Women's suffrage involved years of debate. Even multiracial buses and restaurants riled people up for more than a year or two. The reason these debates took time was because people were thinking about them. But there has been no time to even think about gay marriages.
If this issue is to blazingly obvious that it needs no thought expended on it at all, then why did it only happen a few months ago? Why wasn't it a normal part of history? Why didn't it happen in progressive forward thinking liberal Europe instead of warmongering imperialist conservative US? Why didn't it happen last year or last decade?
Why should any time be spent thinking on this issue, you ask? So you can provide more meaningful arguments in favor of it than merely ridiculing the opposition with second rate sarcasm.
I should point out that his "opinion" was sarcasm. However it is puzzling to me the extreme rapidity in which gay marriage became a fundamental right to be championed. Before three months ago it did not exist anywhere in the world. Now it's considered a prerequisite to civilization.
It's easy to understand, if only you would stop to see what they're watching on television. The statistics aren't talking about just real murders, but talking about fictional murders. Since I don't watch cable or public broadcasts I don't know what current television is like, but merely watching "From Russia With Love" last night on DVD I witnessed at least six first degree murders, and several dozen cases of manslaughter.
I was starting to get persuaded by your arguments, until I got to the point where you talked about wonderous Japanese television. Sheesh, you had me going for a while...
Yes, the desktop. The pinnacle of software. I was in University twenty years ago. At the time I was given a twenty year old computer science textbook. The first sentence in that textbook was "it's all about the desktop, stupid". Richard stallman started the GNU project after Xerox wouldn't give him access to its desktop. In Linus Torvald's second autobiography, he wrote, "Minix didn't have a desktop, so I started Linux." AT&T/USL sued BSDi because it was shipping BSD UNIX with a desktop. That lawsuit is now strangly mirrored in SCO's lawsuit against IBM, in which they claim they own the desktop.
Yes it was sarcasm! Of course they're going to get reamed because they are wrong! Sheesh...
Let me rephrase my arguments so that even Slashdotters can understand it:
1) The grandparent post said "I think the US courts (and AG's) stance on bad behavior by software companies can be proven by their actions with the MS anti-trust trials".
2) I stated that you cannot predict the government's behavior towards software companies based on one case, especially one case involving a software company that is grossly unlike any other software company.
3) Since Slashdotters believe that Microsoft should have been drawn and quartered by the government because they are a huge monopoly, I attempted to inject some humour be contrasting tiny SCO with huge and (ex-)monopolistic IBM.
4) Postscript: They're also going to get reamed simply because IBM is in the other side of the courtroom. This is a company that has more lawyers than the State of Utah has prairie dogs.
If you can't, you just lose what you did not have in the first place.
If the GPL is overturned, then I lose the right to copy, modify and distribute a GPL library. But I STILL have the right to use it and link to it!
p.s. Of course, I have to first legally aquire the library. If it is no longer freely redistributable, then I may be obliged to enter into a contract in order to obtain it.
Except that dynamic shared libraries are not incorporated INTO other programs.
The FSF regards dependency as a sign of derivation, but copyright law does not imply this. Until a court specifically rules on this point, it's a matter of their opinion against mine. The fact that they have more lawyers than me does not give their opinion any more weight, because their lawyers were retained on the basis of that bias.
It's obvious you didn't even bother reading my post
And you didn't bother reading my reply. It's obvious because you keep insisting that there are two crimes here, regardless of whether you think they should have different penalties.
So where is the dividing line between these two crimes. Where do you dissect copyright into two? While it may seem obvious to you, it is not obvious how one creates objective distinctions between them. Is it the music vs software? Is it private copyright holders versus corporate copyright holders? Should violating "copyleft" be a different (and more severe) crime than violating copyright?
Merely saying these are different isn't good enough, because the law currently says that they are the same.
Next time, don't be so eager to click the submit button right away.
By "use", I mean "utilize for the purpose in which it was created". While the GPL does use [sic] the word "use" without an explicit definition, it also says that it only covers copying, modification and distribution. "Using" a library is none of the above three things.
Your comment about "in a commercial way" is completely irrelevant, because the GPL does not distinguish between commercial and non-commercial use. Have YOU read the GPL?
You completely misunderstood. The original thesis was that whoever got a court decision first gets to impose their interpretation on everyone else. I simply don't believe that this is true.
This is different than how precedence works. You guys are merely seeing a minor win for the GPL and extrapolating it into the ultimate win. This is patently false!
Your explanation is even more spurious. There are many corporations releasing software under the GPL, and many people distributing unauthorized copies of music on a massive scale.
Are you telling me that I have to follow the GPL for software written by Linus Torvalds, but I don't have to follow it for software written by Redhat, Trolltech and SuSE?
Or conversely, are you telling me that it's okay to create proprietary derivative works of the GPL as long as I make those unauthorized derivativation available to others at no cost?
You don't get to pick and choose who gets to obey the law. Either copyright law applies to everyone or it applies to no one.
The GPL specifically says that it does not cover use. So why are you telling me not to use the code if I don't agree with the license? Let me guess, you've never actually read the GPL yourself!
The GPL covers whatever the FSF wants it to cover. Even though the GPL specifically says it only covers copying, modification and distribution, and specifically denies any regulation over usage, the FSF considers the use of GPL licensed libraries to trigger the terms of the GPL. Write an applications that does not copy, modify or distribute GPL code, but causes a GPL library to be loaded at runtime, and the FSF will demand that the GPL apply.
It all depends on a future court's ruling of whether a patch is a derative work. Most people on the GNU side of the fence will disagree with me, but I would argue that it is not. In addition, I think that quite a large number of those on the GNU side would argue likewise of the GPL were not involved, but proprietary license instead. For example, think of a binary patch that enables burned copies of games to be used.
While you're probably legal on this one, be aware that the FSF has more lawyers than you. Most North American and European nations have tort systems that favor those with the biggest and loudest lawyers. Might makes right, and the FSF has more might than you.
International treaties will require that, should the GPL be upheld in Germany, that other signatories of the Berne Convention respect it
And what if France (purely as an example) had beat Germany to this by saying the GPL was baseless. Would you then be arguing that the US would have to respect the baselessness of the GPL? Somehow I don't think so.
That was one software company. While there may have been problems with that one software company, you can extrapolate from that to the government attitude on all software companies, not even fly-by-night software firms from Utah. Currently SCO is in court, and from all appearances they are going to get reamed by the government on this one.
Which of course proves that the government favors large software companies like IBM.
There is this thing called "culture". Traditionally females, like your mother, have been in charge of guarding it. One of the elements of culture is a common set of mores and decorum. Calling people "fucktards" is against our culture's standards of decorum. The word is not what offends mothers, it's the demonstration that they raised uncouth louts that offends them.
Calling people fucktards is like not bathing, not shaving, peeing in the street, and flipping off little children. How dare the parents of those children teach them to be offended by hairy smelling men pissing in the gutter!
No, before every other modern culture as well. Is gay marriage popular in Bhuddist, Hindu and Shintoist cultures? Even in the ancient Rome mentioned earlier it wasn't popular outside of a narrow decadent nobility.
A libertarian believes in all people should be able to do whatever they want, so long as they do not hinder other people from doing whatever they want. This is in stark contrast to the typical Slashdot poster who believes that he should be able to do whatever he wants regardless of how it affects other people. In short, libertarians argue for the rights of everyone, slashdotters argue for only their own rights or that of their narrow clique.
Except that it is the customer that is buying their product. Like it or not, 98% of software customers are choosing to purchase Microsoft products. Ban Microsoft from selling Windows, and you end up hurting these customers.
Make Microsoft give away its software instead? Or provide a huge discount? That will only increase their marketshare. Not, I presume, what you want.
The solution is to do what we are already doing: create Free Software alternatives. The market will take care of Microsoft, but it needs an alternative to that Microsoft can't suffocate. Preferably we need more than one alternative, which is why we need both Linux and *BSD, Mozilla and Konqueror, KDE and Gnome. The concept of choice needs to be reinserted into the software consumer's consciousness.
The problem is that if you fine Microsoft 20 billion in cash, the ruling will instantly get overturned. A fine of that size is so far out of whack that it won't stand.
Slashdot Mirror
You've completely missed the point. Literally overnight (that particular night following Mayor Newsome's announcement) gay marriages went from a controversial subject to something you cannot question without risk of ostracism.
The issue of slavery involved years of debate. Women's suffrage involved years of debate. Even multiracial buses and restaurants riled people up for more than a year or two. The reason these debates took time was because people were thinking about them. But there has been no time to even think about gay marriages.
If this issue is to blazingly obvious that it needs no thought expended on it at all, then why did it only happen a few months ago? Why wasn't it a normal part of history? Why didn't it happen in progressive forward thinking liberal Europe instead of warmongering imperialist conservative US? Why didn't it happen last year or last decade?
Why should any time be spent thinking on this issue, you ask? So you can provide more meaningful arguments in favor of it than merely ridiculing the opposition with second rate sarcasm.
I should point out that his "opinion" was sarcasm. However it is puzzling to me the extreme rapidity in which gay marriage became a fundamental right to be championed. Before three months ago it did not exist anywhere in the world. Now it's considered a prerequisite to civilization.
It's easy to understand, if only you would stop to see what they're watching on television. The statistics aren't talking about just real murders, but talking about fictional murders. Since I don't watch cable or public broadcasts I don't know what current television is like, but merely watching "From Russia With Love" last night on DVD I witnessed at least six first degree murders, and several dozen cases of manslaughter.
I was starting to get persuaded by your arguments, until I got to the point where you talked about wonderous Japanese television. Sheesh, you had me going for a while...
Ah.. the Linux desktop again.
Yes, the desktop. The pinnacle of software. I was in University twenty years ago. At the time I was given a twenty year old computer science textbook. The first sentence in that textbook was "it's all about the desktop, stupid". Richard stallman started the GNU project after Xerox wouldn't give him access to its desktop. In Linus Torvald's second autobiography, he wrote, "Minix didn't have a desktop, so I started Linux." AT&T/USL sued BSDi because it was shipping BSD UNIX with a desktop. That lawsuit is now strangly mirrored in SCO's lawsuit against IBM, in which they claim they own the desktop.
Yes it was sarcasm! Of course they're going to get reamed because they are wrong! Sheesh...
Let me rephrase my arguments so that even Slashdotters can understand it:
1) The grandparent post said "I think the US courts (and AG's) stance on bad behavior by software companies can be proven by their actions with the MS anti-trust trials".
2) I stated that you cannot predict the government's behavior towards software companies based on one case, especially one case involving a software company that is grossly unlike any other software company.
3) Since Slashdotters believe that Microsoft should have been drawn and quartered by the government because they are a huge monopoly, I attempted to inject some humour be contrasting tiny SCO with huge and (ex-)monopolistic IBM.
4) Postscript: They're also going to get reamed simply because IBM is in the other side of the courtroom. This is a company that has more lawyers than the State of Utah has prairie dogs.
The court is the government. It is the government that is going to decide the case. Do I need to explain seventh grade civics to Slashdot?
If you can't, you just lose what you did not have in the first place.
If the GPL is overturned, then I lose the right to copy, modify and distribute a GPL library. But I STILL have the right to use it and link to it!
p.s. Of course, I have to first legally aquire the library. If it is no longer freely redistributable, then I may be obliged to enter into a contract in order to obtain it.
Except that dynamic shared libraries are not incorporated INTO other programs.
The FSF regards dependency as a sign of derivation, but copyright law does not imply this. Until a court specifically rules on this point, it's a matter of their opinion against mine. The fact that they have more lawyers than me does not give their opinion any more weight, because their lawyers were retained on the basis of that bias.
It's obvious you didn't even bother reading my post
And you didn't bother reading my reply. It's obvious because you keep insisting that there are two crimes here, regardless of whether you think they should have different penalties.
So where is the dividing line between these two crimes. Where do you dissect copyright into two? While it may seem obvious to you, it is not obvious how one creates objective distinctions between them. Is it the music vs software? Is it private copyright holders versus corporate copyright holders? Should violating "copyleft" be a different (and more severe) crime than violating copyright?
Merely saying these are different isn't good enough, because the law currently says that they are the same.
Next time, don't be so eager to click the submit button right away.
By "use", I mean "utilize for the purpose in which it was created". While the GPL does use [sic] the word "use" without an explicit definition, it also says that it only covers copying, modification and distribution. "Using" a library is none of the above three things.
Your comment about "in a commercial way" is completely irrelevant, because the GPL does not distinguish between commercial and non-commercial use. Have YOU read the GPL?
You completely misunderstood. The original thesis was that whoever got a court decision first gets to impose their interpretation on everyone else. I simply don't believe that this is true.
This is different than how precedence works. You guys are merely seeing a minor win for the GPL and extrapolating it into the ultimate win. This is patently false!
Your explanation is even more spurious. There are many corporations releasing software under the GPL, and many people distributing unauthorized copies of music on a massive scale.
Are you telling me that I have to follow the GPL for software written by Linus Torvalds, but I don't have to follow it for software written by Redhat, Trolltech and SuSE?
Or conversely, are you telling me that it's okay to create proprietary derivative works of the GPL as long as I make those unauthorized derivativation available to others at no cost?
You don't get to pick and choose who gets to obey the law. Either copyright law applies to everyone or it applies to no one.
The GPL specifically says that it does not cover use. So why are you telling me not to use the code if I don't agree with the license? Let me guess, you've never actually read the GPL yourself!
The GPL covers whatever the FSF wants it to cover. Even though the GPL specifically says it only covers copying, modification and distribution, and specifically denies any regulation over usage, the FSF considers the use of GPL licensed libraries to trigger the terms of the GPL. Write an applications that does not copy, modify or distribute GPL code, but causes a GPL library to be loaded at runtime, and the FSF will demand that the GPL apply.
It all depends on a future court's ruling of whether a patch is a derative work. Most people on the GNU side of the fence will disagree with me, but I would argue that it is not. In addition, I think that quite a large number of those on the GNU side would argue likewise of the GPL were not involved, but proprietary license instead. For example, think of a binary patch that enables burned copies of games to be used.
While you're probably legal on this one, be aware that the FSF has more lawyers than you. Most North American and European nations have tort systems that favor those with the biggest and loudest lawyers. Might makes right, and the FSF has more might than you.
International treaties will require that, should the GPL be upheld in Germany, that other signatories of the Berne Convention respect it
And what if France (purely as an example) had beat Germany to this by saying the GPL was baseless. Would you then be arguing that the US would have to respect the baselessness of the GPL? Somehow I don't think so.
That was one software company. While there may have been problems with that one software company, you can extrapolate from that to the government attitude on all software companies, not even fly-by-night software firms from Utah. Currently SCO is in court, and from all appearances they are going to get reamed by the government on this one.
Which of course proves that the government favors large software companies like IBM.
According to the FSF, the GPL does cover use. Just not all uses. The FSF specifically regulates the use of libraries released under the GPL.
There is this thing called "culture". Traditionally females, like your mother, have been in charge of guarding it. One of the elements of culture is a common set of mores and decorum. Calling people "fucktards" is against our culture's standards of decorum. The word is not what offends mothers, it's the demonstration that they raised uncouth louts that offends them.
Calling people fucktards is like not bathing, not shaving, peeing in the street, and flipping off little children. How dare the parents of those children teach them to be offended by hairy smelling men pissing in the gutter!
No, before every other modern culture as well. Is gay marriage popular in Bhuddist, Hindu and Shintoist cultures? Even in the ancient Rome mentioned earlier it wasn't popular outside of a narrow decadent nobility.
A libertarian believes in all people should be able to do whatever they want, so long as they do not hinder other people from doing whatever they want. This is in stark contrast to the typical Slashdot poster who believes that he should be able to do whatever he wants regardless of how it affects other people. In short, libertarians argue for the rights of everyone, slashdotters argue for only their own rights or that of their narrow clique.
Except that it is the customer that is buying their product. Like it or not, 98% of software customers are choosing to purchase Microsoft products. Ban Microsoft from selling Windows, and you end up hurting these customers.
Make Microsoft give away its software instead? Or provide a huge discount? That will only increase their marketshare. Not, I presume, what you want.
The solution is to do what we are already doing: create Free Software alternatives. The market will take care of Microsoft, but it needs an alternative to that Microsoft can't suffocate. Preferably we need more than one alternative, which is why we need both Linux and *BSD, Mozilla and Konqueror, KDE and Gnome. The concept of choice needs to be reinserted into the software consumer's consciousness.
The problem is that if you fine Microsoft 20 billion in cash, the ruling will instantly get overturned. A fine of that size is so far out of whack that it won't stand.
Mary Jo doesn't think they're funny either.