"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
I don't see nothin in there about backing up SCRATCHY DVDs.
I think they're gonna get THE BIG BUZZER when the judge hears this one!
Yes, but Closed Source can be Enforced too
on
GPL's Strength
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· Score: 1
The GPL does not rely on "clickwrap" acceptance to obtain its binding effect. Instead, it offers you a bundle of rights - rights that you would not have, absent an agreement. If you accept these rights (such as by exercising them with knowledge of the offer), then you've accepted them according to their terms.
One could quibble about users who never access the source (not Slashdot readers, of course). How are they any different than closed-source distributees? Well, those users almost all download or install from someone (mirror, CD, etc.) who clearly IS exercising the extended rights of the GPL (e.g., to freely copy and distribute), so even THOSE users are the beneficiaries of the permissive GPL terms.
On the other hand, this does not mean that closed source licenses are unenforceable. It just means that company trying to enforce a closed source license must prove some "acceptance" by user in order for the user to have gotten something that the user was not already entitled to.
For example, if a physical download is conditioned on clicking an "I Accept" button, then it seems to me that as a result of the affirmative "click," the user gets access to the (closed source) binary that he/she would not otherwise have had.
Basically, the deal is, "I'll give you ACCESS to my closed source binaries if you agree to my very restrictive terms. Click 'OK' if you're amenable to that. Otherwise, go away." Absent the "agreement" the user would not even have ACCESS to the binaries, so (arguably) the user got something of value as a result of clicking "OK".
Bottom line is that there are good arguments for why both the GPL and well-constructed closed source licenses would be upheld in court.
The only rub here is that all of this analysis is pretty technical (the pejorative is "Hohfeldian"), and courts often like to mix things up with "policy." (Wesley Hohfeld was a Yale Law professor from the late 1800's who was often faulted during the last century for being TOO logical.) Then too, there are often little factual wrinkles that get in the way of a neat analysis.
So in any real case, expect the waters to be considerably more murky than portrayed on these pages.
1. A method of encrypting an electronic document which is open in an application program running in a general purpose computer, the general purpose computer including a display, a user input device, a crypto module and a processor, the method comprising:
(a) from within the application program running in the general purpose computer, a user issuing one of a "close," "save" or "save as" command for the document using the user input device;
(b) automatically translating the command into an event;
(c) the crypto module automatically trapping the event;
(d) the crypto module automatically obtaining an encryption key value;
(e) the crypto module automatically encrypting the document using the encryption key value;
(f) the crypto module automatically passing control to an electronic document management system; and
(g) the electronic document management system executing the issued "close," "save" or "save as" command;
whereby the electronic document is automatically encrypted.
First off, fopen() is not the "crypto module" in your description, the block driver is. But it's the crypto module that has to trap the call.
Second, the patent goes out of its way to define "electronic document management system." You can't ignore its definition and just say that it's synonymous with "any file system."
Also, according to the claim, the EDMS is the entity that has to execute the "save" or similar command. A file system doesn't do that.
In short, the claim fits where you have an encryption add-on module for something like PC DOCS. It seems to be a bit of a stretch when applied to a garden variety file system.
Somebody ought to try READING these patents before going off in hysterical flames. The claims of this patent seem to be limited to the situation where there is an application client and a backend "Document Management System" (DMS) in which there is a crypto module that intervenes when a file-save command or the like is issued from the client, which then encrypts the data with an appropriate key and hands off control to the DMS.
This is just too cool. Poor man's tempest snooping. The equipment to do this is trivial. It looks like you can get started with this in just a few minutes with some Radio Shack parts and an oscilloscope.
However, in quickly perusing the article, I didn't see any detailed description for decoding software, though I would think it would be very straightforward DSP.
Expect to see ads for these within days (popup ads, no doubt).
Lessig keeps appealing to those "conservative judges" -- Posner, Kozinski, etc., who he thinks have sympathies with his reasoning. They might, but as a group they probably have much more sympathy for their "core value" of "judicial restraint". You can't expect that guys like that are going to overrule Congressional enactments like the DMCA -- not unless there is a very clear constitutional violation that hits you (actually, them) over the head, and in this case I'm afraid there isn't. Right now, our judiciary is dominated by conservative judges. It's just the way it is.
So with the judicial system an unlikely source for help, what's left?
There's Congress. There, the rights holders have grossly disproportionate access. It's just a fact. If you contribute you get a lot of access. If you don't, you get very little.
So, fight where you have the advantage, which is on the Net. Politicians need money, for sure, but they also need votes. At the end of the day (at least until all this destroys our political system as well), that is where the power is.
It's nice to lay out the legalities, and even necessary to do so, but there is a political aspect to this that in my view is much more important.
Retro games? Nobody's going to pay for a lot of this stuff. Who could afford it, anyway? Impose charges across the board and watch this medium die. The pity is that the rights owners don't care, because they believe (and in the short run they are right) that there is little if any profit for them in the new media. Better just to kill it.
I was close (damn close!) to ditching Windows completely from my home network - until I realized that I'd have to shitcan my HP ScanJet 2200c because there ain't no working Linux drivers for it (beyond some 100 dpi alpha attempts). Face it, there will always be stuff like that for the foreseeable future, so I'm going to have to run a Win2K partition on one machine. I can set this up, no prob., but the average user couldn't do it in a million years. For that user, Linux is simply not a serious option.
In the office, forget it. At work I get attachments coming in all day that are MS Word files, and people want them back with my comments. They are not going to tolerate the mess they would get if I read their file into, say OpenOffice.org, and than saved it out in OO.org's rather funky rendition of an MS "doc" file. My son could get away with that with his homework (he does, in fact), but a business correspondent would just puke.
So, unless you work for a company with a strong political reason to ban MS products from its premises, and customers who accept that, we're not getting away from MS Office any time soon.
For Linux to suceed on the office desktop, therefore, the MS Office "filter" support would have to be essentially flawless - so clients could not readily tell that I was using an alternative product (and would NEVER be inconvenienced by it). The latest releases are getting good, but we're not really there. At least the whole thing didn't change again in Office XP, but there is still considerable catching up to do.
At home, we will need broader driver support before users will be comfortable with a default installation of a slick Linux distro and forego windows on their machines completely. My scanner is just one example out of many.
One more thing. I use Mandrake and Debian (at two different locations). Mandrake is very slick, easy to install, intuitive, well set up, etc. HOWEVER, it is RPM based and breaks all to hell when you try to upgrade it. Not good.
Debian is a bear to set up, especially if you have closed hardware like NVIDIA and new stuff like AC97 sound. On the other hand, if you persist and consistently do things the "Debian Way" you can upgrade it all you want and things rarely break (they probably don't break at all if you stick with their "stable" distro, but that one's just too out of date for me). Apt-get install whatever is on (or is added to) their extensive "packages" page -- hooha!! If someone could only stay in the game with an easy to use distro based on Debian, that could be "it". (Then again, some of the semi-religious restrictions about what can go in Debian put up their own roadblocks -- for example, Java is not that well supported, as far as I've been able to get into it.)
Then there is DirectX-8. I haven't seen that on Linux (not counting emulation), just OpenGL, which isn't the same. Have I missed something? It's a major gaming issue.
So we are tantalizingly close, yet I am afraid so far. ..
I guess I'll see how I like Win2K (I couldn't bring myself to accept the idea of XP and its Activation). (Yes, I just spent $140 on Windows 2000 so I could continue using a $69 scanner, but no doubt other things will come along that will justify the expenditure.) Right now I plan it to be the secondary partition on one box, but you never know. ..
Maybe this is obvious, but you're not going to get a definitive answer to a question like this without an in-depth consultation with a competent IP attorney.
There are questions here of co-ownership and co-inventorship (among others). While this could come out many ways, depending on the facts, it sounds for a certainty like your beta test agreement was woefully inadequate.
My *guess* though is that your client is blowing smoke and probably doesn't have a claim to anything. Co-ownership is not that easy to establish.
But even if this proves correct, you should probably at least think about spending some money on proper legal advice (and don't think that what you get here will substitute for that).
The model has always been that masses of information and content -- ever increasing volumes of it -- will be totally free, and that the value add, where you can charge money, will be for the "enhanced" content. People who try to charge for commodity content fail. To make it in this market you need a distinctive offering with consistent high quality and a market with a clear economic need for what is being offered.
This Yahoo pay-service has got to be pitched to businesses and professionals. Who else would pay for it? If so, then it's got to compete against the likes of Lexis-Nexis, D&B, Dialog, Delphion, etc., etc. Theoretically possible, but I don't see my company's librarian pushing for this any time soon unless Yahoo establishes a compelling reason to sign up. Most companies that pay for these services already pay for subscriptions that probably overlap what Yahoo has to offer in this category. Nobody is going to want to pay twice for access to the same content. I guess we'll see.
There is nothing in the slightest way unusual about this development.
Patent royalties are an important source of funding for universities with strong technological departments. The faculty people who are the inventors on the patents also get to participate very nicely in the revenue stream attributable to their patents. It is a good deal for them.
Universities license these patents all over the place, and sue when they have to in order to enforce them, such as where companies that need licenses (because they are practicing the patented technology) don't want to pay for them.
Stanford has been involved in quite a few of these suits, especially in the biotech area, where the patents are worth a lot because it's necessary to practice them in order to make a important drugs. There are plenty of other examples, including some computer-related ones, such as in the area of video compression.
We are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties annually, which means a lot to these institutions. As a method of funding technological research, I think this system has a lot going for it.
Any estimate of development time is a prediction of the future, and thus always subject to the impact of unforeseen events.
Nevertheless, it is possible to estimate many aspects of development, especially if there is a track record of similar jobs.
But . . . it seems to be in the interest of the developer, most of the time, to underestimate development time and cost. That way, you get the work. Too long or high estimates (even if honest) scare people away. Once the commitment is made to a lowball estimate, and time and money sunk, the organization doing the commissioning is to some extent over the barrel, and will have no choice but to accept some (sometimes substantial) delays and overruns.
The moral, I think, is don't rely on an estimate given by the people who are going to do the development.
For many if not most users in the world, Microsoft is free software. That is about to change, now that new MS releases are starting to enforce software that only works for the paid-for and registered installation.
This is going to be a sea change in the economics, folks.
When people find out that they really have to pay big bucks to have multiple copies (not to mention their OWN copies) of MS operating systems and applications on their various desktops, laptops, iPAQs, X-boxes, etc., and that they keep having to pay big bucks each time one of these is upgraded, they will quickly lose enthusiasm, no matter HOW user friendly and convenient Windows, MS Office, etc. seems to be. Maybe this gets moderated by reduced prices and incremental charges for services delivered over the Net, but it will still amount to a new and substantial drain of green dollars from the consumer to Microsoft.
As interested as I am in what I read of Windows XP and Office XP, I can't justify spending the money when there are so many other and better ways I could spend the same money (e.g., hardware upgrades, or even non-computer purchases) and just use Linux, Mozilla and OpenOffice.
I suspect many others will feel the same way, especially given the next year or so of relatively hard times that we all seem to be facing.
The coming months, in fact, is the time for Linux really to make some major strides on the Desktop.
I agree. There is even a big difference over the last two months (i.e., since build 628). I just downloaded OpenOffice.org Build 638 and started working, starting from a recent MS Word document. The import was clean (this time), and everything seems to be working.
In other words, this software is now starting to become actually usable. It is loading reasonably quickly, and doesn't have the weird UI that the SO 5.2 and the earlier OpenOffice builds had.
I am REALLY loath to shell out 500 bucks or so to "upgrade" to Windows XP and Office XP! I could actually use the money for other things!
If I really need Windows, I can use the nice Java client of Citrix to log into my company's Citrix server. Over a cable connection, it is pretty much like being on the LAN, and offers total 100% Windows functionality with minimal computer power required on the client end (sort of like a X terminal). Of course, you can also run Citrix over the LAN and chuck Windows entirely, even at the office. Then you ARE on the LAN.
I guess the acid test will be the filters. If my stuff turns out not to be readable by others who all use Windows, then I'll still have to use MS Office.
Anyway, what's going to happen with the new XP "proprietary XML" formats?
I can appreciate ESR's libertarian sentiment (people should be free to open source or not), but realize that you are facing determined adversaries with massive economic and political force.
To say "let the market decide" under those circumstances may be naive.
The Uniform Trade Secrets Act (adopted in the majority of states), says that if you acquire information by accident or mistake, and have reason to know it is a trade secret (e.g., because of a confidentiality legend, or even just because the information *looks* like the type of information that is usually confidential), then a legal duty of confidentiality may attach. This principle can apply to misdirected emails, faxes, things falling off of trucks, whatever. The same principle also applies as a matter of "common law" in most of those states that have not adopted the UTSA.
So, no, virus-spread documents cannot be considered liberated from trade secret restrictions, simply because they are zipping around uncontrolled on the Net as a result of the virus. But you would have to know the actual circumstances and contents in order to decide in any given situation if at the end of the day trade secrecy really applied.
Sure, it may be enforceable. You're certainly free not to use the MS modules if you don't like it.
On the other hand, it does not appear to be NECESSARY in order to protect MS's intellectual property rights, and should certainly not be seen as some kind of "best practices" licensing model!
*IF* parts of the MS SDK got incorported in the end product, and *IF* the GPL'd product were used in such a way the the resulting schmeer (end product) constituted a "derivative work" of the GPL'd product, then, yes, the GPL might well require source code availability for the resulting end product work, including the incorporated elements of the MS SDK.
However,
First, this type of situation would not result merely from, say, using Emacs to edit a program. Or even gcc to compile it (isofar as, in that case, the LGPL would apply).
Second, if this situation DID arise, it would simply highlight the fact that there was an incompatibility between MS's license and the GPL (surprise?). The "perpetrator" might be contractually obligated to the FSF to publish the entire source, but would STILL be liable to MS for breach of contract and/or infringement for doing so as to the embeded MS elements. So in the absence of this clause, our user/developer would not actually "get away" with anything.
It is not clear to me, therefore, why MS or anyone else would NEED to put in a provision like this in in their license agreement in order to prevent their software from losing IP protection.
Of course, if what you REALLY wanted to accomplish was to deny the availability of your proprietary software to anyone in the free software camp, for example, if you thought free software was a BIG THREAT, then you might well come up with an agreement like this to force the issue.
Maybe MS should go one step further, and go "VIRAL" itself (e.g., that anything you develop with THEIR SDK has to pass down this same restriction, so that YOUR USERS can't use "Publicly Available Software" either)! Why not go all the way?
MS probably just sees itself as fighting an aggressive license agreement (the GPL) with one of its own -- fighting fire with fire.
Now, if MS started doing this in all of its licenses, it could be pretty polarizing. I could see it leading to widespread corporate edicts (or attempted edicts) to banish open source. Or users could push back, or simply ignore either these provisions, or the fact that their people are using free development tools (Don't Ask, Don't Tell).
Slashdot Mirror
People, the 1st Amendment says:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
I don't see nothin in there about backing up SCRATCHY DVDs.
I think they're gonna get THE BIG BUZZER when the judge hears this one!
The GPL does not rely on "clickwrap" acceptance to obtain its binding effect. Instead, it offers you a bundle of rights - rights that you would not have, absent an agreement. If you accept these rights (such as by exercising them with knowledge of the offer), then you've accepted them according to their terms.
One could quibble about users who never access the source (not Slashdot readers, of course). How are they any different than closed-source distributees? Well, those users almost all download or install from someone (mirror, CD, etc.) who clearly IS exercising the extended rights of the GPL (e.g., to freely copy and distribute), so even THOSE users are the beneficiaries of the permissive GPL terms.
On the other hand, this does not mean that closed source licenses are unenforceable. It just means that company trying to enforce a closed source license must prove some "acceptance" by user in order for the user to have gotten something that the user was not already entitled to.
For example, if a physical download is conditioned on clicking an "I Accept" button, then it seems to me that as a result of the affirmative "click," the user gets access to the (closed source) binary that he/she would not otherwise have had.
Basically, the deal is, "I'll give you ACCESS to my closed source binaries if you agree to my very restrictive terms. Click 'OK' if you're amenable to that. Otherwise, go away." Absent the "agreement" the user would not even have ACCESS to the binaries, so (arguably) the user got something of value as a result of clicking "OK".
Bottom line is that there are good arguments for why both the GPL and well-constructed closed source licenses would be upheld in court.
The only rub here is that all of this analysis is pretty technical (the pejorative is "Hohfeldian"), and courts often like to mix things up with "policy." (Wesley Hohfeld was a Yale Law professor from the late 1800's who was often faulted during the last century for being TOO logical.) Then too, there are often little factual wrinkles that get in the way of a neat analysis.
So in any real case, expect the waters to be considerably more murky than portrayed on these pages.
I get it. The review was scheduled for April 1, but his editor made him use this word processor to write it, and it was a little SLOW. . .
I agree that the target here is ridiculous. After checking with a qualified lawyer, it may well be that PC Dynamics simply ignores the letter.
Correct. The point is you have to be doing exactly that in order to infringe. The patent doesn't cover as much as one might intuitively think.
I think you are glossing over a few details.
Here's the actual claim (claim 1):
1. A method of encrypting an electronic document which is open in an application program running in a general purpose computer, the general purpose computer including a display, a user input device, a crypto module and a processor, the method comprising:
(a) from within the application program running in the general purpose computer, a user issuing one of a "close," "save" or "save as" command for the document using the user input device;
(b) automatically translating the command into an event;
(c) the crypto module automatically trapping the event;
(d) the crypto module automatically obtaining an encryption key value;
(e) the crypto module automatically encrypting the document using the encryption key value;
(f) the crypto module automatically passing control to an electronic document management system; and
(g) the electronic document management system executing the issued "close," "save" or "save as" command;
whereby the electronic document is automatically encrypted.
First off, fopen() is not the "crypto module" in your description, the block driver is. But it's the crypto module that has to trap the call.
Second, the patent goes out of its way to define "electronic document management system." You can't ignore its definition and just say that it's synonymous with "any file system."
Also, according to the claim, the EDMS is the entity that has to execute the "save" or similar command. A file system doesn't do that.
In short, the claim fits where you have an encryption add-on module for something like PC DOCS. It seems to be a bit of a stretch when applied to a garden variety file system.
BFD.
Go read it here
Mod the parent up, it's one of the most informative posts I've ever seen on Slashdot
For that matter, how do you pronounce 'Warez'?
Does anyone PRONOUNCE Warez anyway?
This is just too cool. Poor man's tempest snooping. The equipment to do this is trivial. It looks like you can get started with this in just a few minutes with some Radio Shack parts and an oscilloscope.
However, in quickly perusing the article, I didn't see any detailed description for decoding software, though I would think it would be very straightforward DSP.
Expect to see ads for these within days (popup ads, no doubt).
Lessig keeps appealing to those "conservative judges" -- Posner, Kozinski, etc., who he thinks have sympathies with his reasoning. They might, but as a group they probably have much more sympathy for their "core value" of "judicial restraint". You can't expect that guys like that are going to overrule Congressional enactments like the DMCA -- not unless there is a very clear constitutional violation that hits you (actually, them) over the head, and in this case I'm afraid there isn't. Right now, our judiciary is dominated by conservative judges. It's just the way it is.
So with the judicial system an unlikely source for help, what's left?
There's Congress. There, the rights holders have grossly disproportionate access. It's just a fact. If you contribute you get a lot of access. If you don't, you get very little.
So, fight where you have the advantage, which is on the Net. Politicians need money, for sure, but they also need votes. At the end of the day (at least until all this destroys our political system as well), that is where the power is.
It's nice to lay out the legalities, and even necessary to do so, but there is a political aspect to this that in my view is much more important.
Retro games? Nobody's going to pay for a lot of this stuff. Who could afford it, anyway? Impose charges across the board and watch this medium die. The pity is that the rights owners don't care, because they believe (and in the short run they are right) that there is little if any profit for them in the new media. Better just to kill it.
I was close (damn close!) to ditching Windows completely from my home network - until I realized that I'd have to shitcan my HP ScanJet 2200c because there ain't no working Linux drivers for it (beyond some 100 dpi alpha attempts). Face it, there will always be stuff like that for the foreseeable future, so I'm going to have to run a Win2K partition on one machine. I can set this up, no prob., but the average user couldn't do it in a million years. For that user, Linux is simply not a serious option.
.
.
In the office, forget it. At work I get attachments coming in all day that are MS Word files, and people want them back with my comments. They are not going to tolerate the mess they would get if I read their file into, say OpenOffice.org, and than saved it out in OO.org's rather funky rendition of an MS "doc" file. My son could get away with that with his homework (he does, in fact), but a business correspondent would just puke.
So, unless you work for a company with a strong political reason to ban MS products from its premises, and customers who accept that, we're not getting away from MS Office any time soon.
For Linux to suceed on the office desktop, therefore, the MS Office "filter" support would have to be essentially flawless - so clients could not readily tell that I was using an alternative product (and would NEVER be inconvenienced by it). The latest releases are getting good, but we're not really there. At least the whole thing didn't change again in Office XP, but there is still considerable catching up to do.
At home, we will need broader driver support before users will be comfortable with a default installation of a slick Linux distro and forego windows on their machines completely. My scanner is just one example out of many.
One more thing. I use Mandrake and Debian (at two different locations). Mandrake is very slick, easy to install, intuitive, well set up, etc. HOWEVER, it is RPM based and breaks all to hell when you try to upgrade it. Not good.
Debian is a bear to set up, especially if you have closed hardware like NVIDIA and new stuff like AC97 sound. On the other hand, if you persist and consistently do things the "Debian Way" you can upgrade it all you want and things rarely break (they probably don't break at all if you stick with their "stable" distro, but that one's just too out of date for me). Apt-get install whatever is on (or is added to) their extensive "packages" page -- hooha!! If someone could only stay in the game with an easy to use distro based on Debian, that could be "it". (Then again, some of the semi-religious restrictions about what can go in Debian put up their own roadblocks -- for example, Java is not that well supported, as far as I've been able to get into it.)
Then there is DirectX-8. I haven't seen that on Linux (not counting emulation), just OpenGL, which isn't the same. Have I missed something? It's a major gaming issue.
So we are tantalizingly close, yet I am afraid so far. .
I guess I'll see how I like Win2K (I couldn't bring myself to accept the idea of XP and its Activation). (Yes, I just spent $140 on Windows 2000 so I could continue using a $69 scanner, but no doubt other things will come along that will justify the expenditure.) Right now I plan it to be the secondary partition on one box, but you never know. .
Maybe this is obvious, but you're not going to get a definitive answer to a question like this without an in-depth consultation with a competent IP attorney.
There are questions here of co-ownership and co-inventorship (among others). While this could come out many ways, depending on the facts, it sounds for a certainty like your beta test agreement was woefully inadequate.
My *guess* though is that your client is blowing smoke and probably doesn't have a claim to anything. Co-ownership is not that easy to establish.
But even if this proves correct, you should probably at least think about spending some money on proper legal advice (and don't think that what you get here will substitute for that).
The model has always been that masses of information and content -- ever increasing volumes of it -- will be totally free, and that the value add, where you can charge money, will be for the "enhanced" content. People who try to charge for commodity content fail. To make it in this market you need a distinctive offering with consistent high quality and a market with a clear economic need for what is being offered.
This Yahoo pay-service has got to be pitched to businesses and professionals. Who else would pay for it? If so, then it's got to compete against the likes of Lexis-Nexis, D&B, Dialog, Delphion, etc., etc. Theoretically possible, but I don't see my company's librarian pushing for this any time soon unless Yahoo establishes a compelling reason to sign up. Most companies that pay for these services already pay for subscriptions that probably overlap what Yahoo has to offer in this category. Nobody is going to want to pay twice for access to the same content. I guess we'll see.
There is nothing in the slightest way unusual about this development.
Patent royalties are an important source of funding for universities with strong technological departments. The faculty people who are the inventors on the patents also get to participate very nicely in the revenue stream attributable to their patents. It is a good deal for them.
Universities license these patents all over the place, and sue when they have to in order to enforce them, such as where companies that need licenses (because they are practicing the patented technology) don't want to pay for them.
Stanford has been involved in quite a few of these suits, especially in the biotech area, where the patents are worth a lot because it's necessary to practice them in order to make a important drugs. There are plenty of other examples, including some computer-related ones, such as in the area of video compression.
We are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties annually, which means a lot to these institutions. As a method of funding technological research, I think this system has a lot going for it.
I would set up a Slashdot-like Weblog in order to collect people's learning during code review, and be able to browse and search the results later.
Any estimate of development time is a prediction of the future, and thus always subject to the impact of unforeseen events.
Nevertheless, it is possible to estimate many aspects of development, especially if there is a track record of similar jobs.
But . . . it seems to be in the interest of the developer, most of the time, to underestimate development time and cost. That way, you get the work. Too long or high estimates (even if honest) scare people away. Once the commitment is made to a lowball estimate, and time and money sunk, the organization doing the commissioning is to some extent over the barrel, and will have no choice but to accept some (sometimes substantial) delays and overruns.
The moral, I think, is don't rely on an estimate given by the people who are going to do the development.
For many if not most users in the world, Microsoft is free software. That is about to change, now that new MS releases are starting to enforce software that only works for the paid-for and registered installation.
This is going to be a sea change in the economics, folks.
When people find out that they really have to pay big bucks to have multiple copies (not to mention their OWN copies) of MS operating systems and applications on their various desktops, laptops, iPAQs, X-boxes, etc., and that they keep having to pay big bucks each time one of these is upgraded, they will quickly lose enthusiasm, no matter HOW user friendly and convenient Windows, MS Office, etc. seems to be. Maybe this gets moderated by reduced prices and incremental charges for services delivered over the Net, but it will still amount to a new and substantial drain of green dollars from the consumer to Microsoft.
As interested as I am in what I read of Windows XP and Office XP, I can't justify spending the money when there are so many other and better ways I could spend the same money (e.g., hardware upgrades, or even non-computer purchases) and just use Linux, Mozilla and OpenOffice.
I suspect many others will feel the same way, especially given the next year or so of relatively hard times that we all seem to be facing.
The coming months, in fact, is the time for Linux really to make some major strides on the Desktop.
I agree. There is even a big difference over the last two months (i.e., since build 628). I just downloaded OpenOffice.org Build 638 and started working, starting from a recent MS Word document. The import was clean (this time), and everything seems to be working.
In other words, this software is now starting to become actually usable. It is loading reasonably quickly, and doesn't have the weird UI that the SO 5.2 and the earlier OpenOffice builds had.
I am REALLY loath to shell out 500 bucks or so to "upgrade" to Windows XP and Office XP! I could actually use the money for other things!
If I really need Windows, I can use the nice Java client of Citrix to log into my company's Citrix server. Over a cable connection, it is pretty much like being on the LAN, and offers total 100% Windows functionality with minimal computer power required on the client end (sort of like a X terminal). Of course, you can also run Citrix over the LAN and chuck Windows entirely, even at the office. Then you ARE on the LAN.
I guess the acid test will be the filters. If my stuff turns out not to be readable by others who all use Windows, then I'll still have to use MS Office.
Anyway, what's going to happen with the new XP "proprietary XML" formats?
I can appreciate ESR's libertarian sentiment (people should be free to open source or not), but realize that you are facing determined adversaries with massive economic and political force. To say "let the market decide" under those circumstances may be naive.
The Uniform Trade Secrets Act (adopted in the majority of states), says that if you acquire information by accident or mistake, and have reason to know it is a trade secret (e.g., because of a confidentiality legend, or even just because the information *looks* like the type of information that is usually confidential), then a legal duty of confidentiality may attach. This principle can apply to misdirected emails, faxes, things falling off of trucks, whatever. The same principle also applies as a matter of "common law" in most of those states that have not adopted the UTSA.
So, no, virus-spread documents cannot be considered liberated from trade secret restrictions, simply because they are zipping around uncontrolled on the Net as a result of the virus. But you would have to know the actual circumstances and contents in order to decide in any given situation if at the end of the day trade secrecy really applied.
Sure, it may be enforceable. You're certainly free not to use the MS modules if you don't like it.
On the other hand, it does not appear to be NECESSARY in order to protect MS's intellectual property rights, and should certainly not be seen as some kind of "best practices" licensing model!
*IF* parts of the MS SDK got incorported in the end product, and *IF* the GPL'd product were used in such a way the the resulting schmeer (end product) constituted a "derivative work" of the GPL'd product, then, yes, the GPL might well require source code availability for the resulting end product work, including the incorporated elements of the MS SDK.
However,
First, this type of situation would not result merely from, say, using Emacs to edit a program. Or even gcc to compile it (isofar as, in that case, the LGPL would apply).
Second, if this situation DID arise, it would simply highlight the fact that there was an incompatibility between MS's license and the GPL (surprise?). The "perpetrator" might be contractually obligated to the FSF to publish the entire source, but would STILL be liable to MS for breach of contract and/or infringement for doing so as to the embeded MS elements. So in the absence of this clause, our user/developer would not actually "get away" with anything.
It is not clear to me, therefore, why MS or anyone else would NEED to put in a provision like this in in their license agreement in order to prevent their software from losing IP protection.
Of course, if what you REALLY wanted to accomplish was to deny the availability of your proprietary software to anyone in the free software camp, for example, if you thought free software was a BIG THREAT, then you might well come up with an agreement like this to force the issue.
Maybe MS should go one step further, and go "VIRAL" itself (e.g., that anything you develop with THEIR SDK has to pass down this same restriction, so that YOUR USERS can't use "Publicly Available Software" either)! Why not go all the way?
MS probably just sees itself as fighting an aggressive license agreement (the GPL) with one of its own -- fighting fire with fire.
Now, if MS started doing this in all of its licenses, it could be pretty polarizing. I could see it leading to widespread corporate edicts (or attempted edicts) to banish open source. Or users could push back, or simply ignore either these provisions, or the fact that their people are using free development tools (Don't Ask, Don't Tell).
Could be war. . . but probably not.
--Ron Abramson (ra@panix.com)