"Do you have the executable if you use a washing machine running linux?"
By definition, YES! Let me give you a hint...YOU CAN'T RUN A PROGRAM FROM SOURCE! Besides, you are using it not distributing it (see below)...
"do you have the executable if you access a device of the LAn,"
You are using the program not distributing it (see below)...
"do you have a executable if you run an application on a gpl webserver?"
You are using it not distributing it (see below)...
Using a program is not covered by the GPL and shouldn't be covered by it. Distributing is however. If you distribute binaries then according to the GPL you also have to distribute source. It is that simple. So unless you were the manufacturer of the washing machine, LAN device, and web application then the GPL only applies to you if you modify and DISTRIBUTE.
"VNC is great for an occasional site or to push a file around, terminal service can actually be used to get work done."
There is a reason for this...."Undocumented API calls". It is one thing MS was found guilty of when convicted. They haven't complied with the "final settlement" in this area and in fact are still violating it with new products.
It is impossible to "interoperate" when you don't have all the documentation to do so. They have traditionally done this to make competing products appear sluggish, buggy, and "not as good" as the MS offering. Again, this is what they were convicted of...
"None of the people they sew manage to pay either, they just pay a large fine which is agreed to out of court and (if neccessary) declare bankruptcy afterwards."
Not any more in the US since the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2005 passed...
In either event, court ordered settlements and student loans have always been exempt from bankruptcy consideration. In short, the government always gets its cut first.
"Still a hell of a lot more people than have ever tried spamming."
Numbers please....
As to the OP and others wanting harsher punishments, that will go away when they are the target of the punishment because of infection. There are a vast number of zombies out there waiting like ticking time bombs to go off. Spam is spam in the eyes of the law and infection is only an excuse....
And therein lies the problem. Most, if not all, manpages were written by the very geeks that wrote the progam. Things that are obvious to the programmers may not be obvious to the end user. People get that glassy-eyed look when reading a program's documentation that has too many options especially if they get all technical in the docs.
"The other problem the patent system solves is related to useful products that are actually difficult to clone. If the secret of their manufacture is known only to one person who dies before the secret is passed on, the product doesn't stay around. This is probably less of an issue today, however."
So what you are saying is that only one entity can have the same idea? I think not.
"Sure, the current system allows companies to overreach, and get patents far broader than they should, but that is an implementation problem, and should be solved by tinkering with that implementation (5 year software patents anyone?). The idea that inventors should be assured reward for their inventions is still a good one."
I do not think it is a good idea any more. It was a good idea when products were made in the middle ages when apprenticeship was the way of manufacturing and trade secrets were passed down from master to apprentice. That kind of relationship doesn't exist today.
What I'm trying to say is that most of the "investment costs" associated with R&D is in the process of getting it patented before your competitor gets it patented. It is a sad state of affairs when the patent is more valuable than the product.
"...reduce the groundswell of the anti IP movement..."
The term "Intellectual Property" is the most devious of terms. It implies assigned value to ideas and then further goes on to try to restrict who can "own" those ideas. It also blurs 4 distinct areas of law that should never be blurred. Patent, copyright, trademark, and trade secret. So to clarify this "anti IP movement" is really about getting rid of the notion that ideas can be thought of only by one entity and only controlled by one entity. A culture stagnates when ideas and though processes are stifled.
"it's better to just keep your idea a secret, and that would be a huge detriment for those ideas that actually *are* new and innovative, as ideas kept secret tend to get lost over time."
Bull! If we were to abolish the patent system today how many PRODUCTS (notice my word there) would not be made because of it? I am willing to bet very few. If it is an item that is useful then cloners would insure it stayed around. Patents are only used as a weapon and do nothing for "promoting the progress of science and the arts". In fact, if you were to look at a patent before you make a product and you still make it you are now guilty of "willful violation" and triple damages against you.
"This is nothing new except for who is pushing it. This plays with the worried parents who think they can't shelter their children (or worse other peoples) from the evils of the world. Rewind 20 years and you'll see the same junk coming from the liberal left about music censorship. Rewind another 30 and see McCarthy in his prime. Keep the wheels a-spinning and you'll see someone raise some reason why information needs filtering to suit an agenda."
It is all smoke and mirrors really. It all boils down to money and who controls it. Those with the gold make the rules....
"If you think it is getting worse, your wrong. Remember that Tom Sawyer, catcher in the rye, and others to numerous to mention were banned from public libriaries in the past. Whenever people feel helpless to stop change they lash out at whatever cultural thing that is blame-du-jour."
It is human nature to blame some other thing for our own failings. Set aside moral issues like birth and gun control and there is no difference between the democrats & republicans. Both parties are owned by big business and one of the biggest is the boob tube....
"Having said that, the great thing about america is that we can all talk about it without worry of having your family off-ed or yourself tortured for your thoughts"
Tell that to all those detainees arrested under the patriot act after 9/11 and are being held without charge or representation or to Japanese sent to camps in WW-II.
"Telephone, radio, television, etc are all going to be distributed across the net."
I sure as shit hope not! Trying to turn the net into an end all be all for every type of media puts a huge burden on the entire ball of wax. Why else do you think DDoS attacks work?
It is a lot like those OfficeJet printer/scanner/copier/fax machines. When you attempt to do many things it turns out that it often winds up that you do none of them well.
"And if there weren't it'd be ok? If you wrote a book and wanted to sell it, would you be just fine and dandy if nobody bought it because some guy copied it and posted it online for all to read for free? Does he have the right to do that, in your eyes?"
Is it right that fair use and the public domain is being stolen out from under us? Nothing you read, hear, or see today will be public domain in your or your grandkids lifetime. Where is the "limited time" the constitution guarantees To really fix the problem, the copyright laws need revamped to put the "limited" back in.
"I think the GP has an interesting point. Not one that I imagine would ever brought up in a legal setting of course; it still tickles me though."
Courts have traditionally recognized that evidence held against you must be obtained in a legal way. One of the defenses that can be used against the MPAA suit of a turrent user is "unclean hands". What this means is that the person doing the suing is also guilty of the same offense (that of sharing "illegal material"). Unless turrents allow downloading without uploading anything, the MPAA attack dogs are just as guilty of doing what they are accusing the ohter end user of.
"dll hell is caused by one thing and one thing only. using one name for all versions of a shared dynamically loadable library."
I agree and I disagree....Now before you get that look let me explain....
It is poor programming practice to link to a specific version of a lib. The reason programmers do it is to use an "undocumented feature" that lib provides. This is dangerous as it leads to program bugs that require repair and monitoring of the lib. In the windows world it is much worse because the install program will package in the lib and install it when the program is setup. As an example, your c:\windows\system32\comdlg.dll 1.23 version may be overwritten with 2.31 and later overwritten by 3.21 thus breaking both programs requiring the older versions of the dll.
Another fact of dll hell is that dll's residing outside of their usual place in c:\windows\system[32] is a security risk and makes it impossible to enforce strict security rules on file permissions (such that they are in windows). This is why programs for win9x are NOT recommended for NT based systems. But even those that are still suffer from dll hell simply becuase of the installer.
To be quite honest, IANAL and all, I have no clue if you can slander a profession. I'm sure if there was a way it has been tried though and a little research should see.
"Defaming must have the ability to hurt the person when heard by others."
I agree with you here too...
"What does that have to do with the price of eggs?"
I was responding to the OP whose example DID single out one Lawyer in an elevator. He wasn't talking about this case in specific and neither was I. As for whether jokes constitute slander it depends if that joke is targeted to an individual. As I said, intent is considered in slander cases. The burden of proof is high for the plantiff but if proven then the defendant has an even tougher road. As to your hospital example, there is no intent to slander an individual in that case and 1st ammendment rights hold. It all goes back to that intent again.
"They weren't talking TO him in the elevator. They're passing the jokes between each other. In fact, they don't even know he's in the elevator with them (yes, change the scenario).
Is it still harassment?"
I never said it was "harassment". Those are your words. But since you changed the scenario I'll work in the new framework....
In the US there are laws that limit what you can and cannot say. Notable among these are libel (written) and slander (spoken). The law recognizes intent. If the intent was to slander then they can be held to account. In short, there are limits to "free speech".
"Read bash.org, find the racist jokes. What if you're a person of color? Is bash.org liable?"
They very well can be. It depends on the context and intent.
"I hope not. If you don't like what you hear... GROW UP AND DON'T LISTEN."
That's all well and good to say when YOU aren't the target of slander. Let me give you another context...
A politician in the mid-west was running for election. His opponent had it spread that he had amorous affairs with farm animals. He spent the entire campaign defending against those aligations instead of focusing on the real issues. Consequently he lost the election. Was this slander or the exercise of free speech?
How would you feel if you had gotten turned down for a job becuase I was outside with a bull horn yelling that you were a theif?
"Everyone should just conform to your ideal then, LaTeX for secretaries! Fantastic. How about instead of paying more for people to learn how to use LaTeX they spend that extra money on, oh, I don't know a Video Card so they can run Microsoft Word."
Only in the MS world would a word processor require an accellerated 3D graphics card....Talk about waste of resources....
"Consider: If these two fellas had cornered the lawyer in an elevator, pushed stop, and hit him up with lawyer jokes, could he still go running to the officer's skirts when the elevator door eventually opened?"
In a word, yes. That is assuming they stopped the elevator. Wrongful imprisonment or similar comes to mind. If they touch him it becomes assault.
"A smart sysadmin keeps test servers around for when Microsoft releases patches because they don't dare install them blindly on production machines, but sometimes patches will break one computer while working just fine on a machine that's been updated exactly like the broken one."
This is just prudent administration even in FOSS. You never change a stable production environment unless you are 100% sure the changes won't trash your stable environment. That is what the word "stable" means. I have seen FOSS patches that trashed the program it was supposed to patch. Of course, they issued another "oops" patch the next day but still.
Slashdot Mirror
"Do you have the executable if you use a washing machine running linux?"
By definition, YES! Let me give you a hint...YOU CAN'T RUN A PROGRAM FROM SOURCE! Besides, you are using it not distributing it (see below)...
"do you have the executable if you access a device of the LAn,"
You are using the program not distributing it (see below)...
"do you have a executable if you run an application on a gpl webserver?"
You are using it not distributing it (see below)...
Using a program is not covered by the GPL and shouldn't be covered by it. Distributing is however. If you distribute binaries then according to the GPL you also have to distribute source. It is that simple. So unless you were the manufacturer of the washing machine, LAN device, and web application then the GPL only applies to you if you modify and DISTRIBUTE.
Hope that clears it up for you..
B.
"VNC is great for an occasional site or to push a file around, terminal service can actually be used to get work done."
There is a reason for this...."Undocumented API calls". It is one thing MS was found guilty of when convicted. They haven't complied with the "final settlement" in this area and in fact are still violating it with new products.
It is impossible to "interoperate" when you don't have all the documentation to do so. They have traditionally done this to make competing products appear sluggish, buggy, and "not as good" as the MS offering. Again, this is what they were convicted of...
B.
"None of the people they sew manage to pay either, they just pay a large fine which is agreed to out of court and (if neccessary) declare bankruptcy afterwards."
Not any more in the US since the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2005 passed...
In either event, court ordered settlements and student loans have always been exempt from bankruptcy consideration. In short, the government always gets its cut first.
B.
"Still a hell of a lot more people than have ever tried spamming."
Numbers please....
As to the OP and others wanting harsher punishments, that will go away when they are the target of the punishment because of infection. There are a vast number of zombies out there waiting like ticking time bombs to go off. Spam is spam in the eyes of the law and infection is only an excuse....
B.
"The man page explains everything..."
And therein lies the problem. Most, if not all, manpages were written by the very geeks that wrote the progam. Things that are obvious to the programmers may not be obvious to the end user. People get that glassy-eyed look when reading a program's documentation that has too many options especially if they get all technical in the docs.
B.
"dumbass, if you can't afford a lawyer, they will appoint one for you.."
Dumbass, not for a CIVIL case they dont. And trade secret *IS* a civil case.
B.
"The other problem the patent system solves is related to useful products that are actually difficult to clone. If the secret of their manufacture is known only to one person who dies before the secret is passed on, the product doesn't stay around. This is probably less of an issue today, however."
So what you are saying is that only one entity can have the same idea? I think not.
"Sure, the current system allows companies to overreach, and get patents far broader than they should, but that is an implementation problem, and should be solved by tinkering with that implementation (5 year software patents anyone?). The idea that inventors should be assured reward for their inventions is still a good one."
I do not think it is a good idea any more. It was a good idea when products were made in the middle ages when apprenticeship was the way of manufacturing and trade secrets were passed down from master to apprentice. That kind of relationship doesn't exist today.
What I'm trying to say is that most of the "investment costs" associated with R&D is in the process of getting it patented before your competitor gets it patented. It is a sad state of affairs when the patent is more valuable than the product.
B.
"...reduce the groundswell of the anti IP movement..."
The term "Intellectual Property" is the most devious of terms. It implies assigned value to ideas and then further goes on to try to restrict who can "own" those ideas. It also blurs 4 distinct areas of law that should never be blurred. Patent, copyright, trademark, and trade secret. So to clarify this "anti IP movement" is really about getting rid of the notion that ideas can be thought of only by one entity and only controlled by one entity. A culture stagnates when ideas and though processes are stifled.
B.
"it's better to just keep your idea a secret, and that would be a huge detriment for those ideas that actually *are* new and innovative, as ideas kept secret tend to get lost over time."
Bull! If we were to abolish the patent system today how many PRODUCTS (notice my word there) would not be made because of it? I am willing to bet very few. If it is an item that is useful then cloners would insure it stayed around. Patents are only used as a weapon and do nothing for "promoting the progress of science and the arts". In fact, if you were to look at a patent before you make a product and you still make it you are now guilty of "willful violation" and triple damages against you.
B.
"A copier that couldn't print or scan would be pretty worthless, don't you think?"
I didn't say it couldn't do it. I did say it doesn't do it "well".
"Or maybe you want a fax machine that won't print or scan. That would also qualify as "broken.""
True.....But then again, I didn't say it couldn't do it I said it doesn't do it "well".
B.
"This is nothing new except for who is pushing it. This plays with the worried parents who think they can't shelter their children (or worse other peoples) from the evils of the world. Rewind 20 years and you'll see the same junk coming from the liberal left about music censorship. Rewind another 30 and see McCarthy in his prime. Keep the wheels a-spinning and you'll see someone raise some reason why information needs filtering to suit an agenda."
It is all smoke and mirrors really. It all boils down to money and who controls it. Those with the gold make the rules....
"If you think it is getting worse, your wrong. Remember that Tom Sawyer, catcher in the rye, and others to numerous to mention were banned from public libriaries in the past. Whenever people feel helpless to stop change they lash out at whatever cultural thing that is blame-du-jour."
It is human nature to blame some other thing for our own failings. Set aside moral issues like birth and gun control and there is no difference between the democrats & republicans. Both parties are owned by big business and one of the biggest is the boob tube....
"Having said that, the great thing about america is that we can all talk about it without worry of having your family off-ed or yourself tortured for your thoughts"
Tell that to all those detainees arrested under the patriot act after 9/11 and are being held without charge or representation or to Japanese sent to camps in WW-II.
B.
"Telephone, radio, television, etc are all going to be distributed across the net."
I sure as shit hope not! Trying to turn the net into an end all be all for every type of media puts a huge burden on the entire ball of wax. Why else do you think DDoS attacks work?
It is a lot like those OfficeJet printer/scanner/copier/fax machines. When you attempt to do many things it turns out that it often winds up that you do none of them well.
B.
No, it was "The Running Man". Wrong Arnold movie you got there...
BTW, The idea of "exploding collars" for felons is nothing new. Check out "Reefs of Space" by Fredrick Pohl at a library near you...
B.
Actually, it is Article I, Section 8, Clause 8.
U.S. Constitution.
B.
"Does this mean I have to worry about hackers turning my socks into spam zombies?"
It isn't my sock I would worry about.....Those long johns have my attention though....
B.
"And if there weren't it'd be ok? If you wrote a book and wanted to sell it, would you be just fine and dandy if nobody bought it because some guy copied it and posted it online for all to read for free? Does he have the right to do that, in your eyes?"
Is it right that fair use and the public domain is being stolen out from under us? Nothing you read, hear, or see today will be public domain in your or your grandkids lifetime. Where is the "limited time" the constitution guarantees To really fix the problem, the copyright laws need revamped to put the "limited" back in.
B.
"I think the GP has an interesting point. Not one that I imagine would ever brought up in a legal setting of course; it still tickles me though."
Courts have traditionally recognized that evidence held against you must be obtained in a legal way. One of the defenses that can be used against the MPAA suit of a turrent user is "unclean hands". What this means is that the person doing the suing is also guilty of the same offense (that of sharing "illegal material"). Unless turrents allow downloading without uploading anything, the MPAA attack dogs are just as guilty of doing what they are accusing the ohter end user of.
IANAL and all but it sounds good to me...;-)
B.
"dll hell is caused by one thing and one thing only. using one name for all versions of a shared dynamically loadable library."
.02
I agree and I disagree....Now before you get that look let me explain....
It is poor programming practice to link to a specific version of a lib. The reason programmers do it is to use an "undocumented feature" that lib provides. This is dangerous as it leads to program bugs that require repair and monitoring of the lib. In the windows world it is much worse because the install program will package in the lib and install it when the program is setup. As an example, your c:\windows\system32\comdlg.dll 1.23 version may be overwritten with 2.31 and later overwritten by 3.21 thus breaking both programs requiring the older versions of the dll.
Another fact of dll hell is that dll's residing outside of their usual place in c:\windows\system[32] is a security risk and makes it impossible to enforce strict security rules on file permissions (such that they are in windows). This is why programs for win9x are NOT recommended for NT based systems. But even those that are still suffer from dll hell simply becuase of the installer.
Just my
B.
"Can you slander a profession?"
To be quite honest, IANAL and all, I have no clue if you can slander a profession. I'm sure if there was a way it has been tried though and a little research should see.
"Defaming must have the ability to hurt the person when heard by others."
I agree with you here too...
"What does that have to do with the price of eggs?"
I was responding to the OP whose example DID single out one Lawyer in an elevator. He wasn't talking about this case in specific and neither was I. As for whether jokes constitute slander it depends if that joke is targeted to an individual. As I said, intent is considered in slander cases. The burden of proof is high for the plantiff but if proven then the defendant has an even tougher road. As to your hospital example, there is no intent to slander an individual in that case and 1st ammendment rights hold. It all goes back to that intent again.
B.
"They weren't talking TO him in the elevator. They're passing the jokes between each other. In fact, they don't even know he's in the elevator with them (yes, change the scenario).
Is it still harassment?"
I never said it was "harassment". Those are your words. But since you changed the scenario I'll work in the new framework....
In the US there are laws that limit what you can and cannot say. Notable among these are libel (written) and slander (spoken). The law recognizes intent. If the intent was to slander then they can be held to account. In short, there are limits to "free speech".
"Read bash.org, find the racist jokes. What if you're a person of color? Is bash.org liable?"
They very well can be. It depends on the context and intent.
"I hope not. If you don't like what you hear... GROW UP AND DON'T LISTEN."
That's all well and good to say when YOU aren't the target of slander. Let me give you another context...
A politician in the mid-west was running for election. His opponent had it spread that he had amorous affairs with farm animals. He spent the entire campaign defending against those aligations instead of focusing on the real issues. Consequently he lost the election. Was this slander or the exercise of free speech?
How would you feel if you had gotten turned down for a job becuase I was outside with a bull horn yelling that you were a theif?
Think about it...
B.
"Everyone should just conform to your ideal then, LaTeX for secretaries! Fantastic. How about instead of paying more for people to learn how to use LaTeX they spend that extra money on, oh, I don't know a Video Card so they can run Microsoft Word."
Only in the MS world would a word processor require an accellerated 3D graphics card....Talk about waste of resources....
B.
"Consider: If these two fellas had cornered the lawyer in an elevator, pushed stop, and hit him up with lawyer jokes, could he still go running to the officer's skirts when the elevator door eventually opened?"
In a word, yes. That is assuming they stopped the elevator. Wrongful imprisonment or similar comes to mind. If they touch him it becomes assault.
B.
...are you on about?!?!? What has any of what you said have to do with the topic?
B.
"A smart sysadmin keeps test servers around for when Microsoft releases patches because they don't dare install them blindly on production machines, but sometimes patches will break one computer while working just fine on a machine that's been updated exactly like the broken one."
This is just prudent administration even in FOSS. You never change a stable production environment unless you are 100% sure the changes won't trash your stable environment. That is what the word "stable" means. I have seen FOSS patches that trashed the program it was supposed to patch. Of course, they issued another "oops" patch the next day but still.
B.
"I personally don't like these automated tools, but I'd probably use them before windows update on a critical security network."
Now that's an oxymoron..."Windows critical security network"....
I didn't think there was such a thing...
I would sure hate being the admin of that network...;-)
B.