"You can't just use GPL'd code as part of your project"
"Why would you be surprised? If you at all care about this issue I assume you have read the GPL? And if you have I assume you read the parts about derrivative works.."
I have, which is why I would be surprised that using (linking with) a piece of GPL code could be construed as derivation.
As an analogy, if I drive to work in a Ford, should all the things I do at work be somehow construed to be a derivative of intellectual property owned by Ford? I would think that Ford suddenly acquiring the ability to restrict how I can use what I do at work is somewhat contrary to freedom.
Now if my job was taking Fords, painting them puce and calling the Fjords and trying to sell them as my own product, THEN I think Ford would have some cause to come after me, but not otherwise.
But then AFAIK from my reading of the GPL linking with GPL code is not the same as a dervative work. If it is, then we are getting into SCO territory here.
Anyway...
From the LGPL "5. A program that contains no derivative of any portion of the Library, but is designed to work with the Library by being compiled or linked with it, is called a "work that uses the Library". Such a work, in isolation, is not a derivative work of the Library, and therefore falls outside the scope of this License."
So for the LGPL you can link without your code external to it being considered to be a derivative. This having been said, some of the wording is not clear, so it my only apply to dynamic linking. The LGPL needs some reworking to make it clear enough to have legal weight. As it is it is very open to interpretation now that I have reread it.
"You can't just use GPL'd code as part of your project"
"Why would you be surprised? If you at all care about this issue I assume you have read the GPL? And if you have I assume you read the parts about derrivative works.."
I have, which is why I would be surprised that using (linking with) a piece of GPL code could be construed as derivation.
As an analogy, if I drive to work in a Ford, should all the things I do at work be somehow construed to be a derivative of intellectual property owned by Ford? I would think that Ford suddenly acquiring the ability to restrict how I can use what I do at work is somewhat contrary to freedom.
Now if my job was taking Fords, painting them puce and calling the Fjords and trying to sell them as my own product, THEN I think Ford would have some cause to come after me, but not otherwise.
But then AFAIK from my reading of the GPL linking with GPL code is not the same as a dervative work. If it is, then we are getting into SCO territory here.
"Why would you be surprised? If you at all care about this issue I assume you have read the GPL?
And if you have I assume you read the parts about derrivative works.."
I have, which is why I would be surprised that using (linking with) a piece of GPL code could be construed as derivation.
As an analogy, if I drive to work in a Ford, should all the things I do at work be somehow construed to be a derivative of intellectual property owned by Ford? I would think that Ford suddenly acquiring the ability to restrict how I can use what I do at work is somewhat contrary to freedom.
Now if my job was taking Fords, painting them puce and calling the Fjords and trying to sell them as my own product, THEN I think Ford would have some cause to come after me, but not otherwise.
But then AFAIK from my reading of the GPL linking with GPL code is not the same as a dervative work. If it is, then we are getting into SCO territory here.
"David is not a reinvention of the wheel. It takes the best of breed pieces from previous attempts to simulate the Windows Subsystem, and integrates them into a single product."
It doesn't mention WINE, but it doesn't actually say it is all new, and in fact says it isn't.
Now it could be that Project David was trying to hide things, or the project organisers were going to wait until they were near to release and see what code they were actually using and then announce what they were using. They might be using a particular part of WINE today, but might replace that with proprietary code. If they base their code on WINE they will have to release it under the LGPL, but if it is entirely new, then they won't be bound by this. It isn't entirely impossible that by the time it is released they will have reinvented the wheel and there will be no WINE code left.
I thought the requirement was simply for the source code for GPL projects used to be made available for download, and for any modified GPL code to also be made available. I wasn't aware that simply doing -lsome_gpl_library was enough to drag proprietary code under the terms of GPL. If it is I am surprised and concerned.
"The first steam engine was invented in Greece in the 1st century as a toy."
Not actually a steam engine. You are correct about Papin, however. The British have invented a number of things, notably the electronic computer. Often people attribute inventions incorrectly and it becomes received wisdom (e.g. Bell and the telephone), though.
With regard to boiling food in Britain, primarily that is England, and was only really the case in the 20th century. If you look at recipes up to and including the 19th century they are very rich in flavour, and now we've essentially jettisoned the whole boiled veg culture, thank goodness! (It was grim growing up in the 1970s!)
We did invent the electronic computer, at least:-)
Actually British scientists were working on networking computers in the late 1960s along with those in the USA. The USA got to a practical solution first, though.
Anyway, none of this really matters unless inventions are so locked down that a country is heavily economically disadvantaged if it doesn't get to inventions first. I'd rather inventions be seen from the perspective of being able to enrich human existence through synergy with other developments, whatever the country of origin. We all stand on the shoulders of giants, after all.
"And we Brits invented electricity, the steam engine, television and radio. So we should have the right to control them"
Ah... if only we had. The television was seemingly first invented by the French during WW1, and Marconi was Italian. I'd have to check on the steam engine.
"They can actually be quite fast and responsive, if written correctly. I run eclipse on my PIII500Mhz on Fedora Core 1 and it runs very nicely."
You must tell me the secret, then! I like eclipse apart from the fact that on an AMD 950 running Suse 9.0 it sometimes grinds to a halt, putting the system load up to 1.50 such that I have to kill it.
Every country friendly fires itself or its
allies, and always has. War is a confusing
and fast moving thing and friendly fire is
pretty much inevitable. The
level of friendly fire among Western
armed forces has dramatically
reduced in the last 100 years. Back in WW2
we (the UK) bombed and shelled our own
troops or US troops with alarming regularity
as navigation and communications were not
sufficiently advanced to keep control of
things.
"Being an European myself, I'm not surprised. Europe as such had always less serious approach to habeas corpus than America. In many European countries, police needs no warrant to search & seize private property. Police is not obliged to read the arrested person "his Miranda". When you are arrested in Europe and you'll say "hey! I have a right to make a phone call", the policeman is quite likely to say "no, you don't - you're watching too much American flicks".
On the whole we do have something very close
to those rights, enshrined in the national law
of many EU nations before, and now further
protected by the (non-EU) convention on human
rights. It is possible to temporarily opt out
of the convention, though.
Certainly UK law proscribed various forms
of search and seizure (and the US law sometimes
allows it, against most interpretations of the
Bill of Rights) even prior to the convention,
and those arrested must be read their rights
and are entitled to legal representation during
questioning.
Does the USA have a specific right to a
phone call? I thought the right was to contact
a lawyer to arrange representation rather than
specifically a requirement to allow a phone call,
in which case UK law is very similar.
If a party was found in a court of law to
be infringing the GPL, this would presumably
allow the copyright holders to subsequently
seek restitution for violation of their
copyright if the defendant continued to use
the code. But the first court case would need
to be won before this could be done.
Under UK law at least any terms that are obviously
unreasonable (to a legally defined 'reasonable person' are invalid). It is on this basis that terms of some EULAs are invalid (possibly some Microsoft ones).
Under UK law at least, the test would be if the 'viral' nature of GPL is an unreasonable clause, so it is not entirely clear that the GPL itself cannot be challenged.
The question is whether code that was released under the GPL, if the GPL was declared invalid, would necessarily be returned to the original
copyright holder, or if a judge could (in a second case) rule that code released under the GPL was
effectively released to the public domain. I think this would have to be ruled on a case-by-case basis depending on the intentions of the authors.
Nmap can't revoke SCO's licence to redistribute the code unless they have specifically broken the terms of the GPL with respect to nmap. In fact if SCO haven't broken the terms with respect to nmap specifically then if the nmap team attempt to reterospectively impose additional terms on code that they have already released under the GPL and is in SCO's hands then the nmap team itself will be in violation of the GPL and will lose the right to use their own code.
Any new licence they issue new code on that specifically restricts SCO before they have had a chance to possibly break the GPL on nmap is not a GPL licence.
They may end up cutting their own nose off to spite their face if they are not careful. What they are doing is unwise, and is also bad PR.
Many countries in the Islamic world are multi
cultural - for example Iraq, Afghanistan, and
even Iran (which has a significant Jewish
community).
I don't think you can enforce democracy - forcing
free choice on a people that doesn't want it is
by definition anti democratic. You can encourage
it, though, and it does actually seem to be a
relatively popular concept in many areas of the
Islamic world, especially when there is a
relatively young population (e.g. Iran).
I haven't personally been to Iran, but a friend
went there on earthquake relief in the early
1990s, and he reported that the mass of
ordinary people there did not seem to be
particularly anti-Western. This is something
to nurture and capitalise on, and to use to
encourage democratic expression.
You seem rather confused about Islam and arabs.
Most moslems are not arabs. Most arabs are
moslems, but a significant minority of arabs
are not moslems. Iranians, Afghanis, Turks,
Kurds, etc., aren't even arabs. It's even
debatable whether Palestinians are arabs. The
most populous Islamic country is not even in
the middle east.
There seem to be a number or people in the Islamic
world who are vocal and opposed to democracy.
However if you look at the what the mass of
people in these countries actually want, on the
whole it appears to be democracy - e.g. in Turkey,
Lebanon, Egypt (essentially democratic states,
although with flaws), Iran (still a way to go,
given the shameful disbarring of reformists),
Indonesia, Malaysia, etc., and Iraq.
I don't think you can impose democracy, but I
think it is well worth supporting the existing
democratic movements, and not doing anything
that might allow propaganda opportunities for
those in those countries that oppose democracy.
You don't really need a PDA capable of Linux
for that. Some very simply devices with around
32kb of memory would do the trick. Or a notebook.
Personally I want something portable that does
things more than a notebook can, so I can take it
on the road without needing a laptop. If you have to lug a backpack around with a laptop in to browse the web to check something when sitting in a conference, then we haven't really come very far.
UK teenage pregnancy rates as whole have been falling slowly, but more or less steadily for 30 years. It has fallen by 20 per cent since 1996.
For under 18s (the criterion used in the UK) the rate is about 42 per 1000.
The closest figures I can find for the USA are for 1999 from http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/teen_stats.html
and indicate approximately 10 per 1000 for
14 and under, and 50 per 1000 for 15 to 17, or
a total of about 60 per 1000 for all under 18.
This is about 40 per cent higher than the UK.
In the USA, as in the UK, the rates have dropped
over the last 15 or so years.
Slashdot Mirror
Ok - my error in slightly confusing the GPL and LGPL.
"You can't just use GPL'd code as part of your project"
"Why would you be surprised? If you at all care about this issue I assume you have read the GPL?
And if you have I assume you read the parts about derrivative works.."
I have, which is why I would be surprised that using (linking with) a piece of GPL code could be construed as derivation.
As an analogy, if I drive to work in a Ford, should all the things I do at work be somehow construed to be a derivative of intellectual property owned by Ford? I would think that Ford suddenly acquiring the ability to restrict how I can use what I do at work is somewhat contrary to freedom.
Now if my job was taking Fords, painting them puce and calling the Fjords and trying to sell them as my own product, THEN I think Ford would have some cause to come after me, but not otherwise.
But then AFAIK from my reading of the GPL linking with GPL code is not the same as a dervative work. If it is, then we are getting into SCO territory here.
Anyway...
From the LGPL
"5. A program that contains no derivative of any portion of the Library, but is designed to work with the Library by being compiled or linked with it, is called a "work that uses the Library". Such a work, in isolation, is not a derivative work of the Library, and therefore falls outside the scope of this License."
So for the LGPL you can link without your code external to it being considered to be a derivative. This having been said, some of the wording is not clear, so it my only apply to dynamic linking. The LGPL needs some reworking to make it clear enough to have legal weight. As it is it is very open to interpretation now that I have reread it.
"You can't just use GPL'd code as part of your project"
"Why would you be surprised? If you at all care about this issue I assume you have read the GPL?
And if you have I assume you read the parts about derrivative works.."
I have, which is why I would be surprised that using (linking with) a piece of GPL code could be construed as derivation.
As an analogy, if I drive to work in a Ford, should all the things I do at work be somehow construed to be a derivative of intellectual property owned by Ford? I would think that Ford suddenly acquiring the ability to restrict how I can use what I do at work is somewhat contrary to freedom.
Now if my job was taking Fords, painting them puce and calling the Fjords and trying to sell them as my own product, THEN I think Ford would have some cause to come after me, but not otherwise.
But then AFAIK from my reading of the GPL linking with GPL code is not the same as a dervative work. If it is, then we are getting into SCO territory here.
"Why would you be surprised? If you at all care about this issue I assume you have read the GPL? And if you have I assume you read the parts about derrivative works.." I have, which is why I would be surprised that using (linking with) a piece of GPL code could be construed as derivation. As an analogy, if I drive to work in a Ford, should all the things I do at work be somehow construed to be a derivative of intellectual property owned by Ford? I would think that Ford suddenly acquiring the ability to restrict how I can use what I do at work is somewhat contrary to freedom. Now if my job was taking Fords, painting them puce and calling the Fjords and trying to sell them as my own product, THEN I think Ford would have some cause to come after me, but not otherwise. But then AFAIK from my reading of the GPL linking with GPL code is not the same as a dervative work. If it is, then we are getting into SCO territory here.
"David is not a reinvention of the wheel. It takes the best of breed pieces from previous attempts to simulate the Windows Subsystem, and integrates them into a single product." It doesn't mention WINE, but it doesn't actually say it is all new, and in fact says it isn't. Now it could be that Project David was trying to hide things, or the project organisers were going to wait until they were near to release and see what code they were actually using and then announce what they were using. They might be using a particular part of WINE today, but might replace that with proprietary code. If they base their code on WINE they will have to release it under the LGPL, but if it is entirely new, then they won't be bound by this. It isn't entirely impossible that by the time it is released they will have reinvented the wheel and there will be no WINE code left.
I thought the requirement was simply for the source code for GPL projects used to be made available for download, and for any modified GPL code to also be made available. I wasn't aware that simply doing -lsome_gpl_library was enough to drag proprietary code under the terms of GPL. If it is I am surprised and concerned.
"The first steam engine was invented in Greece in the 1st century as a toy."
Not actually a steam engine. You are correct about Papin, however. The British have invented a number of things, notably the electronic computer. Often people attribute inventions incorrectly and it becomes received wisdom (e.g. Bell and the telephone), though.
With regard to boiling food in Britain, primarily that is England, and was only really the case in the 20th century. If you look at recipes up to and including the 19th century they are very rich in flavour, and now we've essentially jettisoned the whole boiled veg culture, thank goodness! (It was grim growing up in the 1970s!)
"The first steam engine was invented in Greece in the 1st century as a toy." Not actually a steam engine. You are correct about Papin, however.
We did invent the electronic computer, at least :-)
Actually British scientists were working on networking computers in the late 1960s along with those in the USA. The USA got to a practical solution first, though.
Anyway, none of this really matters unless inventions are so locked down that a country is heavily economically disadvantaged if it doesn't get to inventions first. I'd rather inventions be seen from the perspective of being able to enrich human existence through synergy with other developments, whatever the country of origin. We all stand on the shoulders of giants, after all.
"And we Brits invented electricity, the steam engine, television and radio. So we should have the right to control them" Ah... if only we had. The television was seemingly first invented by the French during WW1, and Marconi was Italian. I'd have to check on the steam engine.
"They can actually be quite fast and responsive, if written correctly. I run eclipse on my PIII500Mhz on Fedora Core 1 and it runs very nicely."
You must tell me the secret, then! I like eclipse apart from the fact that on an AMD 950 running Suse 9.0 it sometimes grinds to a halt, putting the system load up to 1.50 such that I have to kill it.
It was about 8% before the Tories got into power at the end of the 70s...
Lying to customs... hmmm... Do you like body cavity searches?
Every country friendly fires itself or its allies, and always has. War is a confusing and fast moving thing and friendly fire is pretty much inevitable. The level of friendly fire among Western armed forces has dramatically reduced in the last 100 years. Back in WW2 we (the UK) bombed and shelled our own troops or US troops with alarming regularity as navigation and communications were not sufficiently advanced to keep control of things.
"Being an European myself, I'm not surprised. Europe as such had always less serious approach to habeas corpus than America. In many European countries, police needs no warrant to search & seize private property. Police is not obliged to read the arrested person "his Miranda". When you are arrested in Europe and you'll say "hey! I have a right to make a phone call", the policeman is quite likely to say "no, you don't - you're watching too much American flicks".
On the whole we do have something very close to those rights, enshrined in the national law of many EU nations before, and now further protected by the (non-EU) convention on human rights. It is possible to temporarily opt out of the convention, though.
Certainly UK law proscribed various forms of search and seizure (and the US law sometimes allows it, against most interpretations of the Bill of Rights) even prior to the convention, and those arrested must be read their rights and are entitled to legal representation during questioning.
Does the USA have a specific right to a phone call? I thought the right was to contact a lawyer to arrange representation rather than specifically a requirement to allow a phone call, in which case UK law is very similar.
If a party was found in a court of law to be infringing the GPL, this would presumably allow the copyright holders to subsequently seek restitution for violation of their copyright if the defendant continued to use the code. But the first court case would need to be won before this could be done.
Under UK law at least any terms that are obviously unreasonable (to a legally defined 'reasonable person' are invalid). It is on this basis that terms of some EULAs are invalid (possibly some Microsoft ones).
Under UK law at least, the test would be if the 'viral' nature of GPL is an unreasonable clause, so it is not entirely clear that the GPL itself cannot be challenged.
The question is whether code that was released under the GPL, if the GPL was declared invalid, would necessarily be returned to the original copyright holder, or if a judge could (in a second case) rule that code released under the GPL was effectively released to the public domain. I think this would have to be ruled on a case-by-case basis depending on the intentions of the authors.
Nmap can't revoke SCO's licence to redistribute the code unless they have specifically broken the terms of the GPL with respect to nmap. In fact if SCO haven't broken the terms with respect to nmap specifically then if the nmap team attempt to reterospectively impose additional terms on code that they have already released under the GPL and is in SCO's hands then the nmap team itself will be in violation of the GPL and will lose the right to use their own code.
Any new licence they issue new code on that specifically restricts SCO before they have had a chance to possibly break the GPL on nmap is not a GPL licence.
They may end up cutting their own nose off to spite their face if they are not careful. What they are doing is unwise, and is also bad PR.
I don't see how the US government could claim eminent domain on software contributed by non-US citizens who wrote the code when not living in the USA.
Makes working for Initech seem good. "Well, I'm
going to have to... disagree with you there".
By the way - have you done those TPS reports yet?
Many countries in the Islamic world are multi cultural - for example Iraq, Afghanistan, and even Iran (which has a significant Jewish community). I don't think you can enforce democracy - forcing free choice on a people that doesn't want it is by definition anti democratic. You can encourage it, though, and it does actually seem to be a relatively popular concept in many areas of the Islamic world, especially when there is a relatively young population (e.g. Iran). I haven't personally been to Iran, but a friend went there on earthquake relief in the early 1990s, and he reported that the mass of ordinary people there did not seem to be particularly anti-Western. This is something to nurture and capitalise on, and to use to encourage democratic expression.
You seem rather confused about Islam and arabs. Most moslems are not arabs. Most arabs are moslems, but a significant minority of arabs are not moslems. Iranians, Afghanis, Turks, Kurds, etc., aren't even arabs. It's even debatable whether Palestinians are arabs. The most populous Islamic country is not even in the middle east. There seem to be a number or people in the Islamic world who are vocal and opposed to democracy. However if you look at the what the mass of people in these countries actually want, on the whole it appears to be democracy - e.g. in Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt (essentially democratic states, although with flaws), Iran (still a way to go, given the shameful disbarring of reformists), Indonesia, Malaysia, etc., and Iraq. I don't think you can impose democracy, but I think it is well worth supporting the existing democratic movements, and not doing anything that might allow propaganda opportunities for those in those countries that oppose democracy.
Guitarists are already using it, notably Jimmy Page.
You don't really need a PDA capable of Linux for that. Some very simply devices with around 32kb of memory would do the trick. Or a notebook.
Personally I want something portable that does things more than a notebook can, so I can take it on the road without needing a laptop. If you have to lug a backpack around with a laptop in to browse the web to check something when sitting in a conference, then we haven't really come very far.
UK teenage pregnancy rates as whole have been falling slowly, but more or less steadily for 30 years. It has fallen by 20 per cent since 1996. For under 18s (the criterion used in the UK) the rate is about 42 per 1000.
The closest figures I can find for the USA are for 1999 from http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/teen_stats.html and indicate approximately 10 per 1000 for 14 and under, and 50 per 1000 for 15 to 17, or a total of about 60 per 1000 for all under 18. This is about 40 per cent higher than the UK. In the USA, as in the UK, the rates have dropped over the last 15 or so years.