The lawyers are concerned that a manual might be altered in some way and that a customer who downloaded an altered manual might suffer harm because of it. The customer could then sue Toshiba and claim that since they knew the site existed and was hosting their manuals that they had an obligation to ensure that the manuals were accurate.
It's paranoia in the extreme, but attorneys are paid to be paranoid. They need someone else to reign them in, and apparently in this case, that hasn't happened.
Apple is awfully damned arrogant thinking that another company that had the name for years before they introduced the product should have to stop using it's name just because Apple came along.
The intent doesn't matter, if it did it would have been written into the law. Besides, someone scanning wifi channels cannot know with certainty what the intent of someone who hasn't encrypted a particular network is.
How do you define "sloppy coding" and do you really want a jury of likely mostly non-technical people determining what is and is not sloppy?
adding that known flaws can be exposed by running code through commonly available security tools and validation suites.
Which will drive lots of small developers out of business because they can't afford the tools. Tools such as Coverity and Fortify are fairly expensive.
He says if you’re going to 'give up four billion dollars to avoid a one in seven chance of killing an astronaut, you’re basically saying an astronaut’s life is worth twenty-eight billion dollars.'
Only if you ignore the other costs a disaster entails, e.g. fewer candidate astronauts, less qualified candidates, a perception of the program as being a failure which could end up in reduced funding, etc.
"You seem to care more about NVIDIA's image than about what the Linux community actually needs."
Of course they do. Why in the world would this surprise you? It's a public, for-profit company. The vast majority of contributions to open source by companies are not done out of altruism. They're done out of self-interest.
"I truly don't understand what the big deal is. Just open up your damn specifications already."
There's probably something in how they do things that they think (rightly or wrongly) that gives them an advantage over their competition that either isn't patented or can't be patented (or maybe violates someone else's patents).
Think about the business model: They're probably providing the authentication (i.e. you're really talking to whoever you think you're talking to). If they provided a way around that then you wouldn't need their subscription, would you?
"It's unclear to me if that's kosher, as the closed variant must contain code that had been GPLed at one point."
It's absolutely fine. They own the code, they can publish it under whatever license they want. They can also stop publishing a GPL'd version if they want. Anyone who received the GPL version can continue to use it, modify it, etc. under the GPL. They cannot revoke that.
Slashdot Mirror
"But as a example of an implementation its still very useful/educational."
And opens you up to the possibility of being accused of creating a derivative work, which violates "All Rights Reserved".
"and a gigabyte is a gigabyte."
Ever look at how HD manufacturers measure a GB? A GB of RAM is not the same as a GB of disk (ignoring the formatted vs unformatted capacity issue).
The lawyers are concerned that a manual might be altered in some way and that a customer who downloaded an altered manual might suffer harm because of it. The customer could then sue Toshiba and claim that since they knew the site existed and was hosting their manuals that they had an obligation to ensure that the manuals were accurate.
It's paranoia in the extreme, but attorneys are paid to be paranoid. They need someone else to reign them in, and apparently in this case, that hasn't happened.
Apple is awfully damned arrogant thinking that another company that had the name for years before they introduced the product should have to stop using it's name just because Apple came along.
Broken As Designed
Apple's arrogance knows no bounds.
I can see possibly ordering the deletion of a Facebook posting, but an entire account? Not as long as the person isn't violating FB's TOS.
A carrier can hit you hard with missles/guns
Reality check: Carriers dont' carry guns or missiles (directly). They carry planes that carry guns and missiles.
Anything that was close enough to a carrier that it could hit it with a gun would be too close.
The intent doesn't matter, if it did it would have been written into the law. Besides, someone scanning wifi channels cannot know with certainty what the intent of someone who hasn't encrypted a particular network is.
DO NOT do a CRC, do a hash. Too many chances of collision with a CRC.
But that still won't fix his real problem - he's got lots of data to process and only one system to process it with.
It would also raise prices significantly to help pay for that insurance, the tools to find the issues and the extra time to run them.
How do you define "sloppy coding" and do you really want a jury of likely mostly non-technical people determining what is and is not sloppy?
adding that known flaws can be exposed by running code through commonly available security tools and validation suites.
Which will drive lots of small developers out of business because they can't afford the tools. Tools such as Coverity and Fortify are fairly expensive.
TOS specifically mentions that disputes go to arbitration. Don't know how binding that is in California.
but not because this footage has been re-copyrighted by the addition of the logo.
That should not attach copyright. It could be a trademark issue, but one that is easily remedied.
He says if you’re going to 'give up four billion dollars to avoid a one in seven chance of killing an astronaut, you’re basically saying an astronaut’s life is worth twenty-eight billion dollars.'
Only if you ignore the other costs a disaster entails, e.g. fewer candidate astronauts, less qualified candidates, a perception of the program as being a failure which could end up in reduced funding, etc.
... but it's a policy problem that should be solved be the legislative and executive branches, not the judicial branch.
Your Citizens United ruling has made companies think they can get away with anything now.
One of the very best ways to obtain a good image is to provide what your customers actually need.
True, but what percent of their customers need a fully functioning Linux driver? I'm betting it's less than 1%.
"You seem to care more about NVIDIA's image than about what the Linux community actually needs."
Of course they do. Why in the world would this surprise you? It's a public, for-profit company. The vast majority of contributions to open source by companies are not done out of altruism. They're done out of self-interest.
"I truly don't understand what the big deal is. Just open up your damn specifications already."
There's probably something in how they do things that they think (rightly or wrongly) that gives them an advantage over their competition that either isn't patented or can't be patented (or maybe violates someone else's patents).
Think about the business model: They're probably providing the authentication (i.e. you're really talking to whoever you think you're talking to). If they provided a way around that then you wouldn't need their subscription, would you?
Not a chance. Too expensive to do that.
Reminds me of this Dilbert comic
Since they guy admits he violated the Terms of Service by tethering, is it really a surprise?
"It's unclear to me if that's kosher, as the closed variant must contain code that had been GPLed at one point."
It's absolutely fine. They own the code, they can publish it under whatever license they want. They can also stop publishing a GPL'd version if they want. Anyone who received the GPL version can continue to use it, modify it, etc. under the GPL. They cannot revoke that.
There are Photoshop plugins that do this, e.g. Topaz InFocus: http://www.topazlabs.com/infocus/
If you mean keep something from being patented or least being well enforced later then yes, just publish your source code. It then becomes prior art.