I am not a laywer. Nor am I embarassed by having been confused by these documents. They *are* confusing, as is evidenced by the spectrum of commentary we're now seeing here on slashdot.
Neither is michael a lawyer, which is why I sent my email requesting clarification to the FSF and not Slashdot, but that's neither here nor there. I welcome the additional exposure of my confusion to other people who may be able to provide a meaningful analysis.
I do not agree that the EULA and additional license cover only the services side of Red Hat's offering. In fact, to my eye the read exactly the opposite -- expressly disallowing the installation of the Red Hat product in the absence of a matching service agreement. These documents would appear to me to be specifically denying me the ability to install the software without buying services. I do not believe that the GPL permits such subversion and I am unconvinced that Red Hat has found a loophole that allows this sort of restriction on usage.
Even if they have found a loophole in the GPL, I think that most would agree that such restrictions on usage are not in keeping with the spirit of the GPL and I am very interested in hearing the FSF's opinion on the matter.
Thanks for all the feedback, those who provided reasoned commentary.
It's really funny how you describe yourself as "educated" but all the people who you disagree with are merely "opinionated." To quote a good friend of mine, "until you start making a point instead of just stating a point you're only ranting."
Again you've done nothing to enlighten readers on what you believe, you've simply stated your credentials as a sophmore who reads a lot and are now expecting us to accept your unjustified declarations as the truth. You'll have to do a lot more than just rant before you've earned anyone's attention or respect.
You went far beyond simply not "do[ing] a good job putting out your thoughts", you made no effort at all to state or defend your position. You still haven't. I'd welcome the opportunity to offer counterpoint to your ideas but you've thus far neglected to mention what they are.
Statements like "I'm not just another poster with an opinion off the top of my head", "How often do you read/think/question the subject of "IP"?", and "I love...educating others on what I've learned" are just invective and immature grandstanding to no effect. They harm your case.
sophomoric:
1. conceited and overconfident of knowledge but poorly informed and immature
You're certainly doing a fantastic job reinforcing the meaning of this word.
The fact that you think frequently on the subject of IP adds absolutely zero credibility to your opinions. The fact that you seem to think that it does adds negative credibility to your opinions.
I'm inclined to agree with the AC that until you've had the opportunity to live beyond the shelter of your parents and the academic lifestyle that you probably lack the perspective you need to have a well-formed opinion on the subject regardless of how much reading and thinking you may have done on the issue.
I also think it's telling that you haven't bothered to even explain what your thoughts are -- you've just quickly told the original poster that they are clearly wrong and you know better because you think a lot. If your views are so compelling, try explaining them. The fact that you're a sophmore in college hardly earmarks you as an authority on IP law nor does it absolve you from having to actually make an argument.
Your post is content-free and saturated with attitude -- youthful and arrogant. Again not doing much service towards your credibility.
Vernon Schryver keyed what is possibly my favorite quote ever on exactly this subject in 1997 in a usenet article posted to news.admin.net-abuse.mail:
"There is a style of design I call "wishful thinking engineering." It starts with something like "pigs can fly if you feed them enough beans" and develops utopian plans such as like having everyone commute to work riding on personal pigs, and along the way ignores minor details such as the consequent rain of the non-gaseous byproducts."
- Vernon Schryver
The full article is here on google if you want to read all his words on the subject. It's worth the time.
I've got nothing of value to add to Vernon's wise words on the subject.
No. When people say "Fuck Napster" they are saying that the people in our society who are creating should have a right to determine how their creations are used.
This is true for people who choose to restrict their creations with a license such as the GPL or for people who choose to restrict their creations by selling it for profit.
And the people who aren't creating but are rather just consuming should have fuck-all to say about it.
if you want the world to have more free music that's available to "the masses" then pick up the musical instrument of your choosing and start playing. You have no right to subvert other people's work.
The issue isn't to make make free beer legal, it is that we must sometimes let theives steal beer to retain our right to distribute software made free to everyone... Unfortunatly, some theives will join the fight to steal the beer. But I am all for speach, even if it means I have to listen to people with extreamly different veiws than I screaming from on high that they are right.
Here's a tip for you: Free beer is legal.
Free beer doesn't need to be "made legal" so I'm glad you don't think that's the issue. As to what you do feel is the issue -- I have no fucking clue. I get more coherency and lucidity from/dev/urandom than this scattershot of words you call a post.
At least you've done the community a service by adding anecdotal evidence in support of the original AC's premise.
Good lord, dude, you make absolutely no sense at all.
Re:Hurts fair use? Not really!
on
The Law and P2P
·
· Score: 1
I'd also add that if the public accepts a balanced solution then perhaps the content providers will not feel compelled to defend themselves by pushing for drastic legislation like the DMCA.
The DMCA is the understandable backlash from the content providers in response to the rampant and widespread subversion of payment for copyrighted works that exists today. It, and the motivation behind it, wouldn't exist if the rampant piracy weren't taking place.
I haven't used a TiVo machine before, but I'd assume that...
So what compelled you to reply, then?
Good lord, man.
TiVos use the same phillips head screws that a PC uses. You may, at your option, replace them with thumbscrews if a screwdriver poses too much of a barrier to you.
Ignoring the unsupportable and counter-intuitive "most people" speculation, you're still not making a very strong case in favor of VCRs.
Even if a person is just "recording stuff" a VCR is a suboptimal solution in the face of constantly shifting network schedules and preemptions. There's a vast chasm of difference between telling a device "I sure like that show 'Ed'. If it comes on (and only if it's a new episode) please record it." and telling a device "record whatever is on channel 9 on Fridays at 8:00pm. If the schedule changes I'll be sure to remember to update it."
Try that for more than two or three programs and you've graduated to needing multiple VCRs or devising a complex tape-changing ritual to ensure they all get recorded.
VCRs are being replaced by better technology that does more, better, and provide a much more useful experience. VCRs perform only a small portion of what a PVR does that it's really unfair to compare them.
The real win of a PVR is being completely insulated from scheduling and the learning capabilities which are able to record programs which you'll enjoy but aren't aware of yet.
To stave off all the wankers sure to fire up with their superior "I don't watch TV!" pablum, here's the obligatory theonion.com article.
Grow up, folks. There's plenty of quality programming out there and PVR's (TiVo included) are a great tool to filter the good stuff out from the worthless programming.
Avoiding television because you don't like Survivor is like staying off the Internet because AOL is here. It just means you're incapable of scrutiny.
I'm very eager to give this package a shot because the OSX port of Quicken is just a pale shadow of its Win32 cousin. Quicken on MacOS has nothing even close to approximating the depth and features of the more established Windows offering.
It'll be nice to have some serious competition on the OSX side of things. (and, no, gnucash isn't and won't be serious competition until it gets online banking support)
Would you stop the guy outside from taking a picture of your car?
Would you try to stop Microsoft from using GPL'd code in a closed-source product? After all, if someone uses GPL'd code in a closed-source product it's just a copy.
I don't mean to rain on your enthusiasm and I sure don't intend to imply that I dislike Macs. I'm typing this up on my PowerBook.
Using RC5 as a benchmark is only relevant insofar as you want to compare RC5 processing speeds. There RC5 algorithm, as well as the specific implementation found in dnetc, contain many aspects which make the results you obtain insightful for general use. You simply cannot compare RC5 rates and hope to extrapolate or project them into general processor comparisons.
The RC5 algorithm relies heavily on bitwise rotates (left, if you're curious, ROTL) which is an operation that is not commonly found anywhere outside the world of RC5. This instruction is so underused, in fact, that many x86 architectures (AMD's K6 for instance) have taken to simply emulating the ROTL operation and eliminating true hardware support. This is why some conventionally powerful platforms (such as Sparc and Alpha based systems) do abysmally in RC5 as compared to x86 platforms containing a hardware ROTL implementation.
Then again, this level of detail is probably lost on someone trying to compare a 1GHz G4 against an "AMD motherboard". AMD has made quite a number of CPUs in the past few years and their range of performance on RC5 is very broad. At one time, the AMD K5 was, in fact, the best-performing architecture in RC5 with the most keys per clock. AMD doesn't make any motherboards as far as I know.
The core of dnetc is also small and lean, often fitting entirely in L2 cache on many architectures. This means that dnetc does not adequately (if at all) exercise memory bus bandwidth. The cores also tend to be hand-tuned assembly, so they aren't as likely to exercise a processor's speculative execution routines. RC5 uses absolutely zero floating point math, also an uncommon scenario and not representative of many apps you would traditionally think of when you think of apps which require strong CPUs to perform well.
Many people enjoy having machines which perform well at RC5 and generate impressive distributed.net stats. Consequently, RC5 shows up as a metric in a great number of reviews and analyses on architectures and CPUs. I'm tickled whenever I see it and I think it's a great addition to any CPU review. However, it's not valid to try to make the claim that RC5 performance rates mean anything more than RC5 performance rates.
Do you think all the reasons you've seen on Slashdot everytime this topic comes up would fly with you?
Imagine if it became known that huge, significant chunks of GPL'd Linux kernel code was used by Microsoft in their next release of Windows. When confronted by the Free Software Foundation, Microsoft claimed that it was ok because "they were never going to license their code under the GPL anyway, so nothing was really lost by the open source community." Do you think that the folks here on Slashdot would accept this argument and agree that it was OK for the GPL to be violated in this way? After all, it's not stealing, that's just an emotionally-charged word to make you feel bad about copyright infringement.
Slashdot Mirror
I am not a laywer. Nor am I embarassed by having been confused by these documents. They *are* confusing, as is evidenced by the spectrum of commentary we're now seeing here on slashdot.
Neither is michael a lawyer, which is why I sent my email requesting clarification to the FSF and not Slashdot, but that's neither here nor there. I welcome the additional exposure of my confusion to other people who may be able to provide a meaningful analysis.
I do not agree that the EULA and additional license cover only the services side of Red Hat's offering. In fact, to my eye the read exactly the opposite -- expressly disallowing the installation of the Red Hat product in the absence of a matching service agreement. These documents would appear to me to be specifically denying me the ability to install the software without buying services. I do not believe that the GPL permits such subversion and I am unconvinced that Red Hat has found a loophole that allows this sort of restriction on usage.
Even if they have found a loophole in the GPL, I think that most would agree that such restrictions on usage are not in keeping with the spirit of the GPL and I am very interested in hearing the FSF's opinion on the matter.
Thanks for all the feedback, those who provided reasoned commentary.
Well, aside from the technicality that you're not supposed to make the call until the cabin door is opened at the jetway, nothing at all.
Personally, I'm way more eager to check my email, but I don't see any problem at all with someone who chooses to use their phone instead.
Again you've done nothing to enlighten readers on what you believe, you've simply stated your credentials as a sophmore who reads a lot and are now expecting us to accept your unjustified declarations as the truth. You'll have to do a lot more than just rant before you've earned anyone's attention or respect.
You went far beyond simply not "do[ing] a good job putting out your thoughts", you made no effort at all to state or defend your position. You still haven't. I'd welcome the opportunity to offer counterpoint to your ideas but you've thus far neglected to mention what they are.
Statements like "I'm not just another poster with an opinion off the top of my head", "How often do you read/think/question the subject of "IP"?", and "I love...educating others on what I've learned" are just invective and immature grandstanding to no effect. They harm your case.
You're certainly doing a fantastic job reinforcing the meaning of this word.
The fact that you think frequently on the subject of IP adds absolutely zero credibility to your opinions. The fact that you seem to think that it does adds negative credibility to your opinions.
I'm inclined to agree with the AC that until you've had the opportunity to live beyond the shelter of your parents and the academic lifestyle that you probably lack the perspective you need to have a well-formed opinion on the subject regardless of how much reading and thinking you may have done on the issue.
I also think it's telling that you haven't bothered to even explain what your thoughts are -- you've just quickly told the original poster that they are clearly wrong and you know better because you think a lot. If your views are so compelling, try explaining them. The fact that you're a sophmore in college hardly earmarks you as an authority on IP law nor does it absolve you from having to actually make an argument.
Your post is content-free and saturated with attitude -- youthful and arrogant. Again not doing much service towards your credibility.
la la la
No. When people say "Fuck Napster" they are saying that the people in our society who are creating should have a right to determine how their creations are used.
This is true for people who choose to restrict their creations with a license such as the GPL or for people who choose to restrict their creations by selling it for profit.
And the people who aren't creating but are rather just consuming should have fuck-all to say about it.
if you want the world to have more free music that's available to "the masses" then pick up the musical instrument of your choosing and start playing. You have no right to subvert other people's work.
Here's a tip for you: Free beer is legal.
Free beer doesn't need to be "made legal" so I'm glad you don't think that's the issue. As to what you do feel is the issue -- I have no fucking clue. I get more coherency and lucidity from /dev/urandom than this scattershot of words you call a post.
At least you've done the community a service by adding anecdotal evidence in support of the original AC's premise.
Good lord, dude, you make absolutely no sense at all.
I'd also add that if the public accepts a balanced solution then perhaps the content providers will not feel compelled to defend themselves by pushing for drastic legislation like the DMCA.
The DMCA is the understandable backlash from the content providers in response to the rampant and widespread subversion of payment for copyrighted works that exists today. It, and the motivation behind it, wouldn't exist if the rampant piracy weren't taking place.
...and just how is making a copyrighted song available to 40 million strangers even remotely the same things as "sharing with your neighbor".
Please don't use warm, friendly terms to describe your subversion of payment for commercial goods.
So what compelled you to reply, then? Good lord, man.
TiVos use the same phillips head screws that a PC uses. You may, at your option, replace them with thumbscrews if a screwdriver poses too much of a barrier to you.
Which brings us right back full circle to my "incapable of scrutiny" comment. Thank you, kind AC, for proving my point so effectively.
Please explain how this is more challenging than building an entire machine, hard drive and all, to host one of the opensource solutions?
Why not do both and lead a full and well-rounded life?
Replace "watching" with "reading about" and your quoted sentence suddenly tells us to stop reading too. Do you think reading is a waste of time, too?
Ignoring the unsupportable and counter-intuitive "most people" speculation, you're still not making a very strong case in favor of VCRs.
Even if a person is just "recording stuff" a VCR is a suboptimal solution in the face of constantly shifting network schedules and preemptions. There's a vast chasm of difference between telling a device "I sure like that show 'Ed'. If it comes on (and only if it's a new episode) please record it." and telling a device "record whatever is on channel 9 on Fridays at 8:00pm. If the schedule changes I'll be sure to remember to update it."
Try that for more than two or three programs and you've graduated to needing multiple VCRs or devising a complex tape-changing ritual to ensure they all get recorded.
Sounds like two very different experiences.
What happened?
VCRs are being replaced by better technology that does more, better, and provide a much more useful experience. VCRs perform only a small portion of what a PVR does that it's really unfair to compare them.
The real win of a PVR is being completely insulated from scheduling and the learning capabilities which are able to record programs which you'll enjoy but aren't aware of yet.
To stave off all the wankers sure to fire up with their superior "I don't watch TV!" pablum, here's the obligatory theonion.com article. Grow up, folks. There's plenty of quality programming out there and PVR's (TiVo included) are a great tool to filter the good stuff out from the worthless programming. Avoiding television because you don't like Survivor is like staying off the Internet because AOL is here. It just means you're incapable of scrutiny.
What does "non-merged" mean? I've been using FreeBSD since 2.2.5 and I have no idea what you're talking about.
I'm very eager to give this package a shot because the OSX port of Quicken is just a pale shadow of its Win32 cousin. Quicken on MacOS has nothing even close to approximating the depth and features of the more established Windows offering.
It'll be nice to have some serious competition on the OSX side of things. (and, no, gnucash isn't and won't be serious competition until it gets online banking support)
Clearly the solution to ROT13 insecurity is to use dual rounds of ROT13!
Would you stop the guy outside from taking a picture of your car?
Would you try to stop Microsoft from using GPL'd code in a closed-source product? After all, if someone uses GPL'd code in a closed-source product it's just a copy.
grub doesn't, but I do... ]:8)
I don't mean to rain on your enthusiasm and I sure don't intend to imply that I dislike Macs. I'm typing this up on my PowerBook.
Using RC5 as a benchmark is only relevant insofar as you want to compare RC5 processing speeds. There RC5 algorithm, as well as the specific implementation found in dnetc, contain many aspects which make the results you obtain insightful for general use. You simply cannot compare RC5 rates and hope to extrapolate or project them into general processor comparisons.
The RC5 algorithm relies heavily on bitwise rotates (left, if you're curious, ROTL) which is an operation that is not commonly found anywhere outside the world of RC5. This instruction is so underused, in fact, that many x86 architectures (AMD's K6 for instance) have taken to simply emulating the ROTL operation and eliminating true hardware support. This is why some conventionally powerful platforms (such as Sparc and Alpha based systems) do abysmally in RC5 as compared to x86 platforms containing a hardware ROTL implementation.
Then again, this level of detail is probably lost on someone trying to compare a 1GHz G4 against an "AMD motherboard". AMD has made quite a number of CPUs in the past few years and their range of performance on RC5 is very broad. At one time, the AMD K5 was, in fact, the best-performing architecture in RC5 with the most keys per clock. AMD doesn't make any motherboards as far as I know.
The core of dnetc is also small and lean, often fitting entirely in L2 cache on many architectures. This means that dnetc does not adequately (if at all) exercise memory bus bandwidth. The cores also tend to be hand-tuned assembly, so they aren't as likely to exercise a processor's speculative execution routines. RC5 uses absolutely zero floating point math, also an uncommon scenario and not representative of many apps you would traditionally think of when you think of apps which require strong CPUs to perform well.
Many people enjoy having machines which perform well at RC5 and generate impressive distributed.net stats. Consequently, RC5 shows up as a metric in a great number of reviews and analyses on architectures and CPUs. I'm tickled whenever I see it and I think it's a great addition to any CPU review. However, it's not valid to try to make the claim that RC5 performance rates mean anything more than RC5 performance rates.
Moo!
Do you think all the reasons you've seen on Slashdot everytime this topic comes up would fly with you? Imagine if it became known that huge, significant chunks of GPL'd Linux kernel code was used by Microsoft in their next release of Windows. When confronted by the Free Software Foundation, Microsoft claimed that it was ok because "they were never going to license their code under the GPL anyway, so nothing was really lost by the open source community." Do you think that the folks here on Slashdot would accept this argument and agree that it was OK for the GPL to be violated in this way? After all, it's not stealing, that's just an emotionally-charged word to make you feel bad about copyright infringement.