Common law is that the finder of a lost item could claim the right to possess the item against any other person in the world except the true owner. If I find a phone on the street, it is mine unless someone who can prove ownership asks me for it. I am not obliged to look for them, and I am not obliged to return it in the absense of proof of their ownership.
I'm don't know anything about common law, I'll admitt it. But occasionaly, I do look up actual hard-written laws when I'm curious about things. In North Dakota, where I live, this is covered by NDCC 60-01-34 through 42. Here is a summary of this section of legislature:
60-01-34 Finder - Depositary for hire - Assumption of ownership by finder. One who finds a thing lost is not bound to take charge of it but, if the person does so, the person is thenceforward a depositary for the owner with the rights and obligations of a depositary for hire.... 60-01-35 Finder must notify owner. If the finder of a thing knows or suspects who is the owner, the finder must give such owner notice of the finding with reasonable diligence. If the finder fails to do so, the finder is liable in damages to the owner and has no claim to any reward offered by the owner for the recovery of the thing nor to any compensation for the finder's trouble or expenses. 60-01-36 Finder may require proof of ownership. The finder of a thing, before giving it up, may require in good faith, reasonable proof of ownership from any person claiming it. 60-01-37 Compensation and reward to finder. The finder of a thing is entitled to compensation for all expenses necessarily incurred by the finder in its preservation and for any other services necessarily performed by the finder about it and to a reasonable reward for keeping it. 60-01-38 Storing releases finder from liability. title tells all, no quote needed 60-01-39 When finder may sell. The finder of a thing may sell it, if it is a thing which is commonly the subject of sale, when the owner, with reasonable diligence, cannot be found, or, being found, refuses upon demand to pay the lawful charges of the finder in the following cases: 1. When the thing is in danger of perishing or of losing the greater part of its value; or 2. When the lawful charges of the finder amount to two-thirds of its value.
As soon as they picked up the phone they became responsible for it's care and legally bound to search for the owner. No, they aren't nessicarily bound to put up flyers but I'm sure it would require them to take it to a TMobile shop and have them find the person who's account is electronically bound to the device, or hand it over to the police. It's not like this was an unmarked sweater that would be difficult to asscertain ownership of.
In any event they definately suspected who the owner was since the person was text messaging the phone saying "I lost this found, return it and recieve a reward!" Had they responded to the text message and said "Hey, I found your phone" they could have demanded a reward, legally, even if the owner hadn't been offering one. Now, however, even though the owner was offering a reward they have no claim to it and are responsible for damages should something happen to the phone, especially since it was obviously in working order when found as they used it to take pictures.
And of course, IANAL and I don't know about NY Law. The above legal quote was from animalaw.info because a trip to the library is a little difficult at 12:30 am.
Most "articles" posted to slashdot are simply summaries linking to actual articles, such as the "mentioned here before" link you posted.
Book reviews and other articles such as this one are written entirely by the slashdot readers and/or staff. You'll notice there are no links in this article because it is an origional work. AFAIK, Zonk didn't just allow this article to be posted (as the editors do with most "articles") but actually read the book and wrote them summary.
You can't put the conspiracy theories to rest. They already believe you're covering something up, so if you release a report that shows......the conspiracy theorists will just claim you've fabricated or altered the "new" evidence.
I just can't believe it took them 5 years to produce that. The special effects were piss-poor at best.
Well, last time someone had a video that said you could do it, but they wouldn't release the firmware. This time someone has released the firmware and full instructions on how to make a backup and everything.
Therefore permission is not granted by the copyright holders of the Linux kernel to prepare a derivative work and the project's distribution of such a work (3) is copyright infringement.
That was a thought I had, however debian based distributions distribute the nvidia driver as a restricted-kernel-module package and a binary-driver package. The debian packages are compiled in full, thus already include the headers and I suppose should be considered derivative works. However, the people running the debian repositories have never gotten in trouble for this. If Kororra gets in trouble for distributing (3) on a CD then why don't the debian repositories get in trouble for distributing (3) via apt-get?
Patching doesn't and cannot invalidate the GPL because it doesn't have anything to do with the GPL- the GPL only affects redistribution and only GRANTS RIGHTS. At no point does the GPL take ANY rights away
You kinda stopped making sense in this post. I never said the GPL took away rights, nor did I say anything at all invalidated the GPL. I'm really not sure where you got that idea.
What I have been responding to is the idea that Kororaa can't put the ATI/nVidia drivers on a CD because they are derivative works of the Kernel and thus need to be GPL in order to be distributed. This is a comment made in the origional complaint letter (RTFA) and is the comment I made in my post that you first responded to where I said "If the ati/nvidia drivers are derivative works, you couldn't even use them."
I still stand by my statement. Why? Because I made neither the nVidia nor the ATI drivers. If I wrote them and they were derivative works of the Kernel, then sure, I could use them but not distribute them, just like you said. However, someone else made them. If they are derivative works of the Kernel and someone else made them, they would have to DISTRIBUTE them to me in order for me to use them. Like you said, that person wouldn't be able to distribute them to ANYONE so
I couldn't get them
. If I couldn't get them, I couldn't use them. That's why I said that IN THIS CASE distribution =~ usage. If the ATI/nVidia drivers were deemed derivative works, then ATI/nVidia couldn't distribute them and I wouldn't be able to get them. I can use my quantum nuclear death ray all I want, but first I have to get one, and if no one distributes them it will be tough for me to use one. That's all I'm saying.
Why did I make that statement? Because the only reason that I see as valid in the origional letter's complaint was that the nVidia/ATI drivers might be derivative works and thus can't be distributed without source. However, the nVidia and ATI drivers have been distributed for quite a long time and nobody has filed suit, so I feel it's safe to assume they are not derived works and ATI/nVidia can go ahead and distribute them all they want. Since at least nVidia says that I can distribute them all I want, why can't I put them on a DVD that also happens to contain the linux kernel? nVidia says I can, and the GPL only says I can't if it's a derived work and I don't include the source code. Since it's not a derived work, I don't need to include the source.
Now, it can be noted that nVidia/ATI's drivers are distributed as an installer that compiles the module on a persons system, but also as a precompiled module that one can get through apt-get or other means. Either way ones kernel is never altered. The nVidia/ATI drivers never alter the kernel source or kernel image on disk. They are strictly modules.
If Linksys (and others) can sell routers with GPL Linux firmwares that hold a closed source module (BroadComm driver), pre-installed with no intervention or downloading by the user, how is the Kororaa live DVD any different? Both distribute close source binary modules along with GPL code, neither alter the kernel to make the modules work.
Why should Kororaa stop distributing their LiveDVD? I don't think they have to, I don't feel they are at fault. And I have no idea what you're talking about anymore.
You're confused. The GPL isn't a usage-license, it's a redistribution license. You're free to download ATI or NVidia's copyrighted work (as they say- that's their distribution) and compile and link them into your kernel. You cannot redistribute your binary modules, or your built kernel with them, because you cannot satisfy the requirement of the GPL that says you need to be able to provide source code for those things.
Usage and distribution are essentially the same in this case. nVidia and ATI make the drivers. IF they are derived works, they can't legally distribute them without the source code which means that I can't legally GET it and thereby can't possible even consider using it.
Since ATI and nVidia have been distributing their drivers for quite some time and there hasn't been any suit or anything, I can only assume that those who are lawyers have decided it's not a derived work.
If the ATI and nVidia drivers aren't derived works, then I don't understand what the difference is between distruting them as install.sh scripts or precompiled *.deb pacakges or even preinstalled on an LiveCD.
If the ATI and nVidia drivers ARE derived works, why are we going after the guy making the LiveCD and not the companies that are violating the GPL by distributing derived works.
Either way, I don't think the guy making the LiveCD can possibly be at fault.
You can work around this by including the drivers in the distribution as separate files and loading them dynamically
They are. If you have an nVidia graphics card, it modprobe's the nVidia driver. If you have an ATI graphics card, it modprobe's the ATI driver. If you have neither it loads whichever OSS driver fits best. Or are you saying the files have to be distributed on seperate CDs?
Maybe they don't anymore, but RHEL used to be full of closed source tools to run on the OS. Suse's YAST used to be in this category, and I know RedHat had their own stuff.
Nope. You have to provide every piece of source code necessary to build it. The maintainers of KORORAA don't have the source code to NVidia and ATI drivers. Hence the violation.
No, that's blatently wrong. OpenWRT includes the closed source BroadComm network driver, and RedHat Enterprise includes lots of Redhat only software that isn't GPL.
Now, if you created your own custom kernel in order to make the binary drivers work, but then didn't include the source code for that, I would agree with you. But they didn't modify the kernel at all. They just compiled kernel modules.
If the drivers themselves were "Derived works" then that would prohibit distribution. However, that would also prevent people from using them at all and require ATI and nVidia open sourced the drivers. This is not the case, though. The drivers contain a GPL kernel interface and a binary only driver. The kernel interface that the ATI and nVidia drivers use is the derived work, and is opensource. You can get it in the respective packages from ATI and nVidia's websites.
Companies like ATI and Nvidia basically survive on their trade-secrets and it would not be reasonable to ask either of these companies to put their IP in jeapordy just so we could have a fully open-source video drivers
I really don't think this will happen at all. What makes their graphics cards work is all of the inards, not the way it interfaces with the rest of the software on the computer (the driver). Both Intel and AMD have completely open interfaces and many people have written "drivers" for these products, but that hasn't hurt Intel or AMD at all... It's what's inside that counts, not how you talk to it.
RedHat, SuSe, LinSpire and every other company that makes a profit selling Linux Distros include lots of binary only proprietary software that is not GPL, and Linus has said for years that they are perfectly alright in doing so.
Even if it's a driver only issue, the Linksys WRT54G and other BroadComm based routers, WAPs, etc that run linux all include a closed source, binary only BroadComm driver with their distributions. This is even re-distributed in OpenWRT.
I'm pretty sure Kororaa is not in violation simply by distributing non-GPL software with their works.
I always thought it was ok as long as they provided everything necessary to build the CD on your own, IE all of the GPL code that was used and which non-GPL packages (the nVidia and ATI drivers) were used.
If anything I would have expected this to be a violation of nVidia and ATI's copyright, distributing their drivers rather than sending people to their respective websites to download.
Antibiotics are much more controlled (if ingested, they only affect organisms within your body) and targeted (there are different antibiotics that do affect bacteria in different ways, exploiting differet weaknesses that bacteria have).
DDT pretty much just kills things. It's not only affective against Mosquitoes, but also many important insects. And once those insects die, they become food for other animals which tends to cause them to disappear enmasse causing population spikes in other populations and lots of problems overall.
But I don't know. In the states they often spray ditch water with some sort of chemical to kill insect larva. Seems like it'd be hard to do such controlled spraying in the rain forests, though.
I like his design best of the three. It's stylish while retaining the feel of the original.
I think his design looks the best, but I like the collapsible containers that the other two have. In fact, I like them a LOT. If Mike's had the collapsibles I'd vote for him, otherwise I like Jasons. Peter's is just too green and flat. Sorry Peter!
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, never mind... it looked like the parent was someone else. I'd blame the new discussion system, but I'm probably just dumb.
That's right! You tell him! He should have never posted that helpful link!!
Who are you replying to?
Hey! That's not fair! That elevator is really super confusing. It has all of these buttons you have to push... It's hard.
I was just going to do something like that myself. 5 minutes without discussion is pretty bad for slashdot...
I'm don't know anything about common law, I'll admitt it. But occasionaly, I do look up actual hard-written laws when I'm curious about things. In North Dakota, where I live, this is covered by NDCC 60-01-34 through 42. Here is a summary of this section of legislature:
As soon as they picked up the phone they became responsible for it's care and legally bound to search for the owner. No, they aren't nessicarily bound to put up flyers but I'm sure it would require them to take it to a TMobile shop and have them find the person who's account is electronically bound to the device, or hand it over to the police. It's not like this was an unmarked sweater that would be difficult to asscertain ownership of.
In any event they definately suspected who the owner was since the person was text messaging the phone saying "I lost this found, return it and recieve a reward!" Had they responded to the text message and said "Hey, I found your phone" they could have demanded a reward, legally, even if the owner hadn't been offering one. Now, however, even though the owner was offering a reward they have no claim to it and are responsible for damages should something happen to the phone, especially since it was obviously in working order when found as they used it to take pictures.
And of course, IANAL and I don't know about NY Law. The above legal quote was from animalaw.info because a trip to the library is a little difficult at 12:30 am.
DirectX 9 never came to Win98. It was one of the major reasons many gamers upgraded to WinXP. (Well, that and stability).
Most "articles" posted to slashdot are simply summaries linking to actual articles, such as the "mentioned here before" link you posted.
Book reviews and other articles such as this one are written entirely by the slashdot readers and/or staff. You'll notice there are no links in this article because it is an origional work. AFAIK, Zonk didn't just allow this article to be posted (as the editors do with most "articles") but actually read the book and wrote them summary.
No, that's no good. What Microsoft really needs right now are some quality partners.
You can't put the conspiracy theories to rest. They already believe you're covering something up, so if you release a report that shows... ...the conspiracy theorists will just claim you've fabricated or altered the "new" evidence.
I just can't believe it took them 5 years to produce that. The special effects were piss-poor at best.
Well, last time someone had a video that said you could do it, but they wouldn't release the firmware. This time someone has released the firmware and full instructions on how to make a backup and everything.
Therefore permission is not granted by the copyright holders of the Linux kernel to prepare a derivative work and the project's distribution of such a work (3) is copyright infringement.
That was a thought I had, however debian based distributions distribute the nvidia driver as a restricted-kernel-module package and a binary-driver package. The debian packages are compiled in full, thus already include the headers and I suppose should be considered derivative works. However, the people running the debian repositories have never gotten in trouble for this. If Kororra gets in trouble for distributing (3) on a CD then why don't the debian repositories get in trouble for distributing (3) via apt-get?
You kinda stopped making sense in this post. I never said the GPL took away rights, nor did I say anything at all invalidated the GPL. I'm really not sure where you got that idea.
What I have been responding to is the idea that Kororaa can't put the ATI/nVidia drivers on a CD because they are derivative works of the Kernel and thus need to be GPL in order to be distributed. This is a comment made in the origional complaint letter (RTFA) and is the comment I made in my post that you first responded to where I said "If the ati/nvidia drivers are derivative works, you couldn't even use them."
I still stand by my statement. Why? Because I made neither the nVidia nor the ATI drivers. If I wrote them and they were derivative works of the Kernel, then sure, I could use them but not distribute them, just like you said. However, someone else made them. If they are derivative works of the Kernel and someone else made them, they would have to DISTRIBUTE them to me in order for me to use them. Like you said, that person wouldn't be able to distribute them to ANYONE so
- I couldn't get them
. If I couldn't get them, I couldn't use them. That's why I said that IN THIS CASE distribution =~ usage. If the ATI/nVidia drivers were deemed derivative works, then ATI/nVidia couldn't distribute them and I wouldn't be able to get them. I can use my quantum nuclear death ray all I want, but first I have to get one, and if no one distributes them it will be tough for me to use one. That's all I'm saying.Why did I make that statement? Because the only reason that I see as valid in the origional letter's complaint was that the nVidia/ATI drivers might be derivative works and thus can't be distributed without source. However, the nVidia and ATI drivers have been distributed for quite a long time and nobody has filed suit, so I feel it's safe to assume they are not derived works and ATI/nVidia can go ahead and distribute them all they want. Since at least nVidia says that I can distribute them all I want, why can't I put them on a DVD that also happens to contain the linux kernel? nVidia says I can, and the GPL only says I can't if it's a derived work and I don't include the source code. Since it's not a derived work, I don't need to include the source.
Now, it can be noted that nVidia/ATI's drivers are distributed as an installer that compiles the module on a persons system, but also as a precompiled module that one can get through apt-get or other means. Either way ones kernel is never altered. The nVidia/ATI drivers never alter the kernel source or kernel image on disk. They are strictly modules.
If Linksys (and others) can sell routers with GPL Linux firmwares that hold a closed source module (BroadComm driver), pre-installed with no intervention or downloading by the user, how is the Kororaa live DVD any different? Both distribute close source binary modules along with GPL code, neither alter the kernel to make the modules work.
Why should Kororaa stop distributing their LiveDVD? I don't think they have to, I don't feel they are at fault. And I have no idea what you're talking about anymore.
You're confused. The GPL isn't a usage-license, it's a redistribution license. You're free to download ATI or NVidia's copyrighted work (as they say- that's their distribution) and compile and link them into your kernel. You cannot redistribute your binary modules, or your built kernel with them, because you cannot satisfy the requirement of the GPL that says you need to be able to provide source code for those things.
Usage and distribution are essentially the same in this case. nVidia and ATI make the drivers. IF they are derived works, they can't legally distribute them without the source code which means that I can't legally GET it and thereby can't possible even consider using it.
Since ATI and nVidia have been distributing their drivers for quite some time and there hasn't been any suit or anything, I can only assume that those who are lawyers have decided it's not a derived work.
If the ATI and nVidia drivers aren't derived works, then I don't understand what the difference is between distruting them as install.sh scripts or precompiled *.deb pacakges or even preinstalled on an LiveCD.
If the ATI and nVidia drivers ARE derived works, why are we going after the guy making the LiveCD and not the companies that are violating the GPL by distributing derived works.
Either way, I don't think the guy making the LiveCD can possibly be at fault.
You can work around this by including the drivers in the distribution as separate files and loading them dynamically
They are. If you have an nVidia graphics card, it modprobe's the nVidia driver. If you have an ATI graphics card, it modprobe's the ATI driver. If you have neither it loads whichever OSS driver fits best. Or are you saying the files have to be distributed on seperate CDs?
Then why does everyone always report GPL violations to the FSF? Honestly, I don't understand how this works, I guess...
Maybe they don't anymore, but RHEL used to be full of closed source tools to run on the OS. Suse's YAST used to be in this category, and I know RedHat had their own stuff.
Nope. You have to provide every piece of source code necessary to build it. The maintainers of KORORAA don't have the source code to NVidia and ATI drivers. Hence the violation.
No, that's blatently wrong. OpenWRT includes the closed source BroadComm network driver, and RedHat Enterprise includes lots of Redhat only software that isn't GPL.
Now, if you created your own custom kernel in order to make the binary drivers work, but then didn't include the source code for that, I would agree with you. But they didn't modify the kernel at all. They just compiled kernel modules.
If the drivers themselves were "Derived works" then that would prohibit distribution. However, that would also prevent people from using them at all and require ATI and nVidia open sourced the drivers. This is not the case, though. The drivers contain a GPL kernel interface and a binary only driver. The kernel interface that the ATI and nVidia drivers use is the derived work, and is opensource. You can get it in the respective packages from ATI and nVidia's websites.
Companies like ATI and Nvidia basically survive on their trade-secrets and it would not be reasonable to ask either of these companies to put their IP in jeapordy just so we could have a fully open-source video drivers
I really don't think this will happen at all. What makes their graphics cards work is all of the inards, not the way it interfaces with the rest of the software on the computer (the driver). Both Intel and AMD have completely open interfaces and many people have written "drivers" for these products, but that hasn't hurt Intel or AMD at all... It's what's inside that counts, not how you talk to it.
The Free Software Foundation??
RedHat, SuSe, LinSpire and every other company that makes a profit selling Linux Distros include lots of binary only proprietary software that is not GPL, and Linus has said for years that they are perfectly alright in doing so.
Even if it's a driver only issue, the Linksys WRT54G and other BroadComm based routers, WAPs, etc that run linux all include a closed source, binary only BroadComm driver with their distributions. This is even re-distributed in OpenWRT.
I'm pretty sure Kororaa is not in violation simply by distributing non-GPL software with their works.
I always thought it was ok as long as they provided everything necessary to build the CD on your own, IE all of the GPL code that was used and which non-GPL packages (the nVidia and ATI drivers) were used.
If anything I would have expected this to be a violation of nVidia and ATI's copyright, distributing their drivers rather than sending people to their respective websites to download.
Antibiotics are much more controlled (if ingested, they only affect organisms within your body) and targeted (there are different antibiotics that do affect bacteria in different ways, exploiting differet weaknesses that bacteria have).
DDT pretty much just kills things. It's not only affective against Mosquitoes, but also many important insects. And once those insects die, they become food for other animals which tends to cause them to disappear enmasse causing population spikes in other populations and lots of problems overall.
But I don't know. In the states they often spray ditch water with some sort of chemical to kill insect larva. Seems like it'd be hard to do such controlled spraying in the rain forests, though.
Found your comment interesting, so I googled it and found this very interesting. Thought others might find it a good summary.
Click on the top link about borneo on this Harvard Page
I didn't notice that. That is really neat.
I like his design best of the three. It's stylish while retaining the feel of the original.
I think his design looks the best, but I like the collapsible containers that the other two have. In fact, I like them a LOT. If Mike's had the collapsibles I'd vote for him, otherwise I like Jasons. Peter's is just too green and flat. Sorry Peter!