But I do see.NET for what it could have been -- the application programming API for the migration to the next Windows OS which isn't Win32/64 compatible. Microsoft still doesn't have the balls to shift to a brand new OS the way Apple did. But they should have done that a long, long time ago.
It isn't that they don't "have the balls". The issue is that Microsoft cares more about keeping their clients/end users happy than they do about forcing you to buy a new OS. If you doubt this read Raymond Chen's blog some time. He has all kinds of stories regaling the lengths MS goes to make sure that random stupid ass program works on every OS version.
I think my subject line says it all. In fact if someone want to place a bet I'll take the it ain't happening line at 5 to 1 that at least 50% of people keep their wallet.
I average 280GB per month. The vast majority of it comes from netflix streaming to my xbox attached to the TV in my living room. I have no TV reception and don't want to pay 60+ for cable. Maybe 60 GB combined comes from other sources such as file transfers between work and home or the like.
Online gambling is not a Federal crime (some States have laws prohibiting it). The 2006 UIGA only prohibits international money transfers. Further the same day as the seizure and arrests, Congress passed a law specifically setting the tax rate for online gambling in Washington, District of Columbia.
I can say this as someone who has read the law numerous times since its passage and followed this issue and the relevant case law for years.
You can read it for your self in 31 U.S.C. ÂÂ 5361â"5367:
found in the unit test area? Does that mean EMI (who owns the copyrights for the Beatles songs) could sue Google for copyright violation and get a percentage for each android handset even though the song "All You Need is Love" is not used in Android in any way whatsoever?
If Google placed MP3 copies in the Android repository as is the case here, then yes, EMI should sue Google. =P
Wow Florian, that's a creative interpretation of "not deleted". I presume that you mean, a user can still check out an older repository version and that version would contain the files in question. Let me make an equally creative counter-proposition. If the files were deleted from the tip of the repository but not from the history, that simply provides a historical record of exactly what was deleted. You can't make the information vanish from the past you know, unless you are also proposing some kind of time travel. You can only make information vanish from the present, that is, tip of tree.
I think his point was that the files were still being distributed. Meaning Google would still be committing copyright infringement. Until the files can no longer be accessed from any method from Google, then Google will still be infringing the copyright and will there for be legally liable for the offense.
Google cannot stop distributing the code to Android if there is GPL in there, right? Must they not make it available per the GPL license?
The GPL only conveys rights that the distributor has. In this case, if Google did not have the copyright (via creation or being granted directly or indirectly from the creator) then they can not grant those rights to others under the GPL. Further, anyone who distributed these sections could be found liable of copyright infringement.
Then what steps should I take to prevent myself from coming up with the exact same thing at a later time through any method?
Let me ask you another question in response. What steps should you take from being shot in your living room? Drunk idiots, gangs, random nut jobs go on shooting sprees all the time. I live in a safe neighbor hood where this has never happened before but I am really concerned. So , "... what steps should I take to prevent myself from coming up with the exact same thing at a later time through any method?"
The law is simply a set of equitable rules that apply to everyone. If you really can't fathom that concept I don't know what to saw to you.
We are talking about legal definitions in a contract. If you want to use a word in a discussion about either topic in any serious way you really need to be specific. Just look into the whole issue with the word "distribution" in GPLv2 to get an idea why.
Statistically speaking if you put 500 monkeys in a room with typewriters for an infinite amount of time they will eventually write character by character all of War And Peace. HOW something is created is irreverent.
If someone owns the copyright to something then it is theirs for the duration of the copyright. If you come up with the exact same thing at a later time through any method then you have re-created their work and not created your own work. That is how the system work, it is very clear. If you don't like it, then work to change copyright law.
It places many restrictions on both derivative work and on the source (not just source code) work. Lets list some of them (we can just stick with v3 for now):
1) If you want to give a copy of any part of a work (say the binary executable), you MUST also give the source code and additional resources (via one of many methods).
2) If you convey (see v3 definition of convey) the work then you agree that any patent you own is licensed royalty free to any recipient of the work (at least while it relates to this work or a derivative of this work).
3) Unless every copy of a work that you convey under the GPL also includes the full source and other required items, you are required to keep conveyable copies of that source for the lifetime of the license (or until you or your company ceases as a legal being). (See GPLv3 6 d)
4) You must include or maintain "instillation instructions" for the work. If you have ever maintained a large software project you will understand that this is not by any means a simple task.
5) You are required to use proper attribution to previous authors as noted in the license.
6) Section 7 also adds in multiple additional restrictions that are optional to each copyright holder to their works. These are restrictions that are specifically listed as being acceptable as part of the GPL.
Each of these items is by definition a restrictions on your "rights". I am NOT stating that this is bad. It is simply insane to try and prove your argument by stating things that are unarguably false. It hurts the case of the GPL and undermines the support of the OSS community (regardless of what camp you are in).
The GPL is a useful tool exactly because it DOES place specific restrictions on what you can do with a work and its derivations. Your argument should not be that it does not act in this way, it should be that the restrictions are reasonable, useful and outweigh any negative factors.
This fixes a fatal flaw in BSD: in BSD, anyone can place copyright restrictions back.
Again this is false. If I write a section of code and distribute it with a BSD license, no restriction can ever be placed on MY code by anyone else (I can still release it again with other conditions). Others can take my code and modify it and then place restrictions on what THEY wrote. But no restrictions can ever be placed on what *I* wrote. This is similar to me walking through the park and picking up litter, I don't care what other people use the park for, I am merely giving myself and everyone else a gift.
Again, I am sure you don't like this method, but that has nothing to do with statements of fact. In this case you weaken your argument (and that of the OSS community) by making statements that are simply and provably untrue.
It has happened. See SunTrust v. Houghton Mifflin over The Wind Done Gone.
Notice that in this case the author was found to have plagiarized and copied large parts of the story. Or in other words, they were substantially guilty of what they were accused of. Finally the case was settled with the author and publishing company paying the plaintiff in order to continue publishing the book. Also note that in this case the issue of fair-use as a parody were brought up. The court held that in large part the new work failed to qualify as such.
Good luck getting to that first motion on an indie budget, and good luck defending the appeals of the throwing out.
I think your a bit unclear on how such a motion works and what can be appealed. The appeals process does not examine the facts it examines if the proper procedure was followed (defined by both statutory and case law). They can also be asked to clarify an issue if multiple precedents exist, but mainly just by picking between the existing precedents. If the issue is as simple as the one you first suggested then the appeal will never be granted. (The higher court has to agree to examine the case before you need to do anything.)
So how do I prevent copies of my work from being sold in Great Britain and Northern Ireland so as not to attract British jurisdiction? How should I know in advance which jurisdictions are least friendly to criticism of a copyrighted work?
This is irrelevant, if you are not in Britain (or the EU) then you are not subject to their foreign libel laws. More specifically if you are a US citizen then this issue has been recently re-codified in Title 28, USC. For an interesting look at the issue in more detail look into the debate in the EU and EU Parliament.
...then magical unicorns exist. Substantially pro-consumer changes to United States copyright law aren't going to happen in the next decade because the MPAA-owned news media control who can run for Congress.
I do agree that change is not likely. I disagree as to why. The reason is not that a group owns the media. It is that no one cares. 15 years ago 99% of people did not understand or care one wit about copyright. The majority of those that did were pro-copyright. Now 95% of people do not know or care about copyright. The majority that do know or care still support the current system (although the numbers have balanced out much more). (By people I am stating US citizens with voting rights, those who actually vote are even more apathetic on this issue.) Unless you can get people to care about this subject at all then there will be no change ever.
What was Harrison supposed to have done first in order not to get sued by Mack's publisher?
Not use the other person's song. Facts: Person A writes a song. Person B uses parts of that song. Person B pays royalties to person A. That is how the system is supposed to work. Just because Harrison copied the works by accident does not change the fact that he did copy work by another person and should pay that person for it.
If you create and publish a work critical of another work, expect the copyright owner of the other work to sue you. Sure, such suits are winnable, but only for people who have beaucoup bucks for a good lawyer.
Not really, this just does not happen. If it did any such action is almost certainly going to be thrown out on the first motion (assuming US jurisdiction - in Brittan your fucked). You basically don't hear about cases such as you've described unless it is disgustingly messy, the person is guilty or the plaintiff is insane (which ALWAYS looses and fast, usually on the first motion which costs pennies to have prepared).
Copyright on the firmware of a computing platform allows the firmware to be used as a technical protection measure, restricting who may talk using that platform. And if all similar platforms have analogous restrictions, such as all major set-top video game consoles using signature verification and blanket policies against individual developers working from home, it restricts who may talk.
This you have a point with (again assuming US jurisdiction), but only since the DMCA. If the DMCA's anti-circumvention clauses gets removed then this is no longer a copyright issue.
The whole point of GPL is to make it impossible to put copyright restrictions on that piece of software. And unlike BSD/MIT, it cannot be trivially worked around.
That is patently false. The point of the GPL is to place copyright restrictions on further use of said work. If you wanted to prevent copyright restrictions on derivations of your work, then you want to use a close sourced license as you then have complete control of how it is used (including the right to give up that control). If you wanted to place no restrictions then you should release it to the public domain or use a BSD style license.
I am a fan of the GPL so don't get me wrong and misinterpret this as anti-GPL. That is not the point here, simply put most people have a very skewed understanding of what it does and how it works.
The GPL simply places specific restrictions on expansions of the work. Among those restrictions is adding additional restrictions via the GPL (if you obtain non-GPL copyrights then you can still add additional restrictions via non-GPL contract).
Lastly I have to point out that the GPL depends on copyright law (at least in the US) and as such it is only enforceable for the lifetime of the copyright. Any thoughts that the GPL forever protects anything is also misunderstood.
Actually if you look at the total personal budget for the life time of the Apollo missions it actually take considerably more time than 34,000 man years. First you take the actual NASA teams which included the mission staff, engineers, astronauts, support personnel and backup teams. Next you include all of the personnel needed to design, manufacture, transport and assemble all of the equipment. Lastly you have all of the military and recovery personnel.
The best number I have found quotes that more than 400,000 people were involved in the project for about 10 years. That gives us a total of about 4 million man years. (Citations 48 and 49)
I hosted a 300+ person MMO server from 2003 to 2005 on a home computer (not even a beefy one either). It never even came close to max load (peak was about 40% of CPU/RAM with almost all users on at once). They take less resources than you would think.
Most of the rated programs require a server cluster to run at high skill levels. While it is nice that they can reach a level to be competitive against strong players, it is really stretching the facts to claim a personal user couldn't easily crush a standard install of any of the above programs.
On February 14, 2009, Many Faces of Go running on a 32-core Xeon cluster provided by Microsoft won against James Kerwin (1p) with a handicap of seven stones. The game was played during the 2009 AAAS general meeting in Chicago.[9]
On August 7, 2009, Many Faces of Go (version 12) resigned against Myungwan Kim (8p) in a 7-stone handicap game.[10] Many Faces was playing on a 32 node system provided by Microsoft. The "Man vs. Machine" event was part of the 2009 US Go Congress, which was held in Washington DC from August 1 to August 9.[11]
Sun didn't have a problem marketing. EVERYONE knows who they are and what products they have. The problem is that in most situations the product is more expensive per unit of measurement over cost than competitors.
Of course I know what Solaris and Java are. If you don't know how to open the source of an OS, then port it to a new language, that can be compiled to a portable binary running on an embedded VM, then you evidently don't know any more about computers than you do about business.
I've written professionally in Java (amoung many other languages) for more than a decade. If you think that A) re-writting a OS written in C in Java or B) ANY OS should ever be written in Java; then you clearly have no idea about either.
For starters, the strength of Java is that you don't need to compile it to native machine code. This is almost 100% true. Conversely for an OS to function it MUST be compiled and assembled into machine code. If you are going to do that why use Java? There are many other languages better suited. C for example, which is what the vast majority of Solaris is written in.
Next, do you have any idea how much time, how many developers it takes to write an OS. Even re-writing verbatim? That does not even count testers. We are talking about more than the total yearly cost of running Sun. It is in the hundreds of millions if not billions or tens of billions.
All for what? A product that runs on a few more machines? Not to mention Solaris runs on 90+% of all machines out there now anyways. Your suggesting they add a insanely huge workload for almost zero return!?
Lastly on that subject, if you wanted Solaris running on an embedded device, why not just INSTALL IT. That is it, you don't need any VM, you don't need any third part intermediary. Just have the device run Solaris natively. It is how it is done now. You can order such things from Sun/Oricle now and have been able to for some time.
As for your suggestion that open sourcing was to late/to little. I disagree. It was done wrong. There were no income streams tied to open sourcing most of the projects. They simply said, "ok, this is open source now". What they should have done (as suggested in other posts) is offer to help customize their systems to specific clients. Or offer consultation work. Anything really. But just shouting "hey, its free now" is never going to do anything to bring in income for a company.
I think you are simplifying and ignoring the details.
It seems his point was that the company should have open sourced things at a correct time and did not. They should have open sourced some products more aggressively early on and NOT open sourced many products they did at the end.
Open source wasn't the problem, as he freely admits. Doing it too late was the problem. By the time it was "near the end" it was too late to "take care of the shareholders" by doing anything different. Open source was the only thing keeping Sun relevant near the end, and therefore the only thing taking care of the shareholders.
What does relevance have to do with anything!? Income is what is relevant to a shareholder. NONE of the projects that Sun open sourced in the last few years increased income for the company. If anything, because of the way Sun did things, they decreased the income.
He should have opened the Solaris source, ported it to Java running on every CPU...
!?! Do you know what Solaris and Java are? I literally, have no idea what this is supposed to mean.
It's quite likely that the prosecution in this case deliberately torpedoed themselves so that they could have an excuse to dismiss the case and avoid setting exactly this precedent.
How does that make any sense? The prosecution could simply make a motion to withdraw the case at any time. All they have to do is stand up and say, "never mind" and the case is done. They don't have to introduce any testimony or evidence to do that.
What happened here is going to be a big negative on the prosecutors record. It is BAD for him. It is not far off of getting fired (for cause) from a job because you were watching porn at your desk.
While slightly amusing your story makes no sense. If the prosecution wanted to drop the case they would simply withdraw the charges. That simple. Also the prosecution can not make a motion to dismiss their own case, the defense has to do that. Lastly in this instance such an dismissal is going to remain as a giant stain on the prosecutor's record.
I am willing to bet that if you were there, you would not call what the judge actually did, "abuse" or a "tirade". Most likely he did use pretty strong language. Most likely this was also still appropriate to the situation AND professional.
My guess is this got coverage because you almost NEVER see a judge sternly reprimand a prosecutor. You have to mess up really bad to deserve one and any competent attorney is going to prepare ahead of time to avoid any such situation. Most likely they simply would not bring the case to trial if they thought such a situation was going to arise.
Even the example language quoted in the summary is reasonable and mild, "serious concerns about the government's case."
My personal belife is that we have far to little information to be conclusive about anything. Speculation and work based on that is good, but to assume anything is without flaws is dangerous.
Having said that, I just had to point out that even in the article you linked includes other quite plausible reasons:
However, while the Bullet Cluster phenomenon may provide direct evidence for dark matter on large cluster scales, it offers no specific insight into the original galaxy rotation problem. In fact, the observed ratio of visible matter to dark matter in a typical rich galaxy cluster is much lower than predicted.[12] This may indicate that the prevailing cosmological model is insufficient to describe the mass discrepancy on galaxy scales, or that its predictions about the shape of the universe are incorrect.
[edit] Alternative Interpretations
Critics of dark matter have cautioned that astronomers expect sizable quantities of non-luminous baryonic matter to reside in large galactic clusters, positing that the Bullet Cluster phenomenon can be explained without requiring non-baryonic dark matter.[13] However, this explanation requires that baryonic dark matter is of the same amount as the luminous baryonic matter in the Bullet Cluster. This means that ~6 times the visible galactic mass exists at the gravitational centroids, possibly in the galaxies as MACHOs, brown dwarves, or cold gas clouds.
Also note that one additional dim stars are the most likely non-dark matter reason for such an occurrence. We just added 3 times the visible mass to the galaxy at large, calculations only require 6 times the visible matter in that cluster for the same effect without dark matter.
You can stop them from a single action if you fight for years, but by then the damage is pretty well done. You'll notice all the previous lawsuits have done nothing to stop this latest abuse.
Again, as someone directly involved it is pretty obvious you have no idea what you are talking about. I can assure you that every time *I* have been involved in such a situation comcast continued until ordered to stop. They would have continue if not so ordered (or as part of the settlement).
To put it more concisely, without the two actions in question, comcast would have NEVER stopped the offending action. Your point is that they have done something bad for some time so there is no point in EVER doing anything about it. That makes no sense. While it is not good that comcast took egregiously bad actions in the first place it *is* good that they did stop those actions. Further more, both sets of actions are things that for the rest of time comcast can not do again without facing massive punitive damages.
Lastly neither set of lawsuits lasted even close to a year from inception. The first instance a restraining order was issued almost half a year from the start of the offending practice forcing them to stop. In the second instance comcast voluntarily stopped while the litigation was pending (part of the pre-settlement bargaining).
It is nice that you have opinions on these subjects, but when you are talking to a person who was actually involved please realize that making claims of fact *after* the person already stated what actually happened is pretty dumb.
As for the issue of our current Congress. Well, we will just have to disagree.
Slashdot Mirror
But I do see .NET for what it could have been -- the application programming API for the migration to the next Windows OS which isn't Win32/64 compatible. Microsoft still doesn't have the balls to shift to a brand new OS the way Apple did. But they should have done that a long, long time ago.
It isn't that they don't "have the balls". The issue is that Microsoft cares more about keeping their clients/end users happy than they do about forcing you to buy a new OS. If you doubt this read Raymond Chen's blog some time. He has all kinds of stories regaling the lengths MS goes to make sure that random stupid ass program works on every OS version.
I think my subject line says it all. In fact if someone want to place a bet I'll take the it ain't happening line at 5 to 1 that at least 50% of people keep their wallet.
I average 280GB per month. The vast majority of it comes from netflix streaming to my xbox attached to the TV in my living room. I have no TV reception and don't want to pay 60+ for cable. Maybe 60 GB combined comes from other sources such as file transfers between work and home or the like.
Online gambling is not a Federal crime (some States have laws prohibiting it). The 2006 UIGA only prohibits international money transfers. Further the same day as the seizure and arrests, Congress passed a law specifically setting the tax rate for online gambling in Washington, District of Columbia.
I can say this as someone who has read the law numerous times since its passage and followed this issue and the relevant case law for years.
You can read it for your self in 31 U.S.C. ÂÂ 5361â"5367:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/31/5361.html
found in the unit test area? Does that mean EMI (who owns the copyrights for the Beatles songs) could sue Google for copyright violation and get a percentage for each android handset even though the song "All You Need is Love" is not used in Android in any way whatsoever?
If Google placed MP3 copies in the Android repository as is the case here, then yes, EMI should sue Google. =P
Wow Florian, that's a creative interpretation of "not deleted". I presume that you mean, a user can still check out an older repository version and that version would contain the files in question. Let me make an equally creative counter-proposition. If the files were deleted from the tip of the repository but not from the history, that simply provides a historical record of exactly what was deleted. You can't make the information vanish from the past you know, unless you are also proposing some kind of time travel. You can only make information vanish from the present, that is, tip of tree.
I think his point was that the files were still being distributed. Meaning Google would still be committing copyright infringement. Until the files can no longer be accessed from any method from Google, then Google will still be infringing the copyright and will there for be legally liable for the offense.
Google cannot stop distributing the code to Android if there is GPL in there, right? Must they not make it available per the GPL license?
The GPL only conveys rights that the distributor has. In this case, if Google did not have the copyright (via creation or being granted directly or indirectly from the creator) then they can not grant those rights to others under the GPL. Further, anyone who distributed these sections could be found liable of copyright infringement.
In short, no.
Then what steps should I take to prevent myself from coming up with the exact same thing at a later time through any method?
Let me ask you another question in response. What steps should you take from being shot in your living room? Drunk idiots, gangs, random nut jobs go on shooting sprees all the time. I live in a safe neighbor hood where this has never happened before but I am really concerned. So , "... what steps should I take to prevent myself from coming up with the exact same thing at a later time through any method?"
The law is simply a set of equitable rules that apply to everyone. If you really can't fathom that concept I don't know what to saw to you.
We are talking about legal definitions in a contract. If you want to use a word in a discussion about either topic in any serious way you really need to be specific. Just look into the whole issue with the word "distribution" in GPLv2 to get an idea why.
Statistically speaking if you put 500 monkeys in a room with typewriters for an infinite amount of time they will eventually write character by character all of War And Peace. HOW something is created is irreverent.
If someone owns the copyright to something then it is theirs for the duration of the copyright. If you come up with the exact same thing at a later time through any method then you have re-created their work and not created your own work. That is how the system work, it is very clear. If you don't like it, then work to change copyright law.
1) If you want to give a copy of any part of a work (say the binary executable), you MUST also give the source code and additional resources (via one of many methods).
2) If you convey (see v3 definition of convey) the work then you agree that any patent you own is licensed royalty free to any recipient of the work (at least while it relates to this work or a derivative of this work).
3) Unless every copy of a work that you convey under the GPL also includes the full source and other required items, you are required to keep conveyable copies of that source for the lifetime of the license (or until you or your company ceases as a legal being). (See GPLv3 6 d)
4) You must include or maintain "instillation instructions" for the work. If you have ever maintained a large software project you will understand that this is not by any means a simple task.
5) You are required to use proper attribution to previous authors as noted in the license.
6) Section 7 also adds in multiple additional restrictions that are optional to each copyright holder to their works. These are restrictions that are specifically listed as being acceptable as part of the GPL.
Each of these items is by definition a restrictions on your "rights". I am NOT stating that this is bad. It is simply insane to try and prove your argument by stating things that are unarguably false. It hurts the case of the GPL and undermines the support of the OSS community (regardless of what camp you are in).
The GPL is a useful tool exactly because it DOES place specific restrictions on what you can do with a work and its derivations. Your argument should not be that it does not act in this way, it should be that the restrictions are reasonable, useful and outweigh any negative factors.
This fixes a fatal flaw in BSD: in BSD, anyone can place copyright restrictions back.
Again this is false. If I write a section of code and distribute it with a BSD license, no restriction can ever be placed on MY code by anyone else (I can still release it again with other conditions). Others can take my code and modify it and then place restrictions on what THEY wrote. But no restrictions can ever be placed on what *I* wrote. This is similar to me walking through the park and picking up litter, I don't care what other people use the park for, I am merely giving myself and everyone else a gift.
Again, I am sure you don't like this method, but that has nothing to do with statements of fact. In this case you weaken your argument (and that of the OSS community) by making statements that are simply and provably untrue.
It has happened. See SunTrust v. Houghton Mifflin over The Wind Done Gone .
Notice that in this case the author was found to have plagiarized and copied large parts of the story. Or in other words, they were substantially guilty of what they were accused of. Finally the case was settled with the author and publishing company paying the plaintiff in order to continue publishing the book. Also note that in this case the issue of fair-use as a parody were brought up. The court held that in large part the new work failed to qualify as such.
Good luck getting to that first motion on an indie budget, and good luck defending the appeals of the throwing out.
I think your a bit unclear on how such a motion works and what can be appealed. The appeals process does not examine the facts it examines if the proper procedure was followed (defined by both statutory and case law). They can also be asked to clarify an issue if multiple precedents exist, but mainly just by picking between the existing precedents. If the issue is as simple as the one you first suggested then the appeal will never be granted. (The higher court has to agree to examine the case before you need to do anything.)
So how do I prevent copies of my work from being sold in Great Britain and Northern Ireland so as not to attract British jurisdiction? How should I know in advance which jurisdictions are least friendly to criticism of a copyrighted work?
This is irrelevant, if you are not in Britain (or the EU) then you are not subject to their foreign libel laws. More specifically if you are a US citizen then this issue has been recently re-codified in Title 28, USC. For an interesting look at the issue in more detail look into the debate in the EU and EU Parliament.
...then magical unicorns exist. Substantially pro-consumer changes to United States copyright law aren't going to happen in the next decade because the MPAA-owned news media control who can run for Congress.
I do agree that change is not likely. I disagree as to why. The reason is not that a group owns the media. It is that no one cares. 15 years ago 99% of people did not understand or care one wit about copyright. The majority of those that did were pro-copyright. Now 95% of people do not know or care about copyright. The majority that do know or care still support the current system (although the numbers have balanced out much more). (By people I am stating US citizens with voting rights, those who actually vote are even more apathetic on this issue.) Unless you can get people to care about this subject at all then there will be no change ever.
What was Harrison supposed to have done first in order not to get sued by Mack's publisher?
Not use the other person's song. Facts: Person A writes a song. Person B uses parts of that song. Person B pays royalties to person A. That is how the system is supposed to work. Just because Harrison copied the works by accident does not change the fact that he did copy work by another person and should pay that person for it.
If you create and publish a work critical of another work, expect the copyright owner of the other work to sue you. Sure, such suits are winnable, but only for people who have beaucoup bucks for a good lawyer.
Not really, this just does not happen. If it did any such action is almost certainly going to be thrown out on the first motion (assuming US jurisdiction - in Brittan your fucked). You basically don't hear about cases such as you've described unless it is disgustingly messy, the person is guilty or the plaintiff is insane (which ALWAYS looses and fast, usually on the first motion which costs pennies to have prepared).
Copyright on the firmware of a computing platform allows the firmware to be used as a technical protection measure, restricting who may talk using that platform. And if all similar platforms have analogous restrictions, such as all major set-top video game consoles using signature verification and blanket policies against individual developers working from home, it restricts who may talk.
This you have a point with (again assuming US jurisdiction), but only since the DMCA. If the DMCA's anti-circumvention clauses gets removed then this is no longer a copyright issue.
The whole point of GPL is to make it impossible to put copyright restrictions on that piece of software. And unlike BSD/MIT, it cannot be trivially worked around.
That is patently false. The point of the GPL is to place copyright restrictions on further use of said work. If you wanted to prevent copyright restrictions on derivations of your work, then you want to use a close sourced license as you then have complete control of how it is used (including the right to give up that control). If you wanted to place no restrictions then you should release it to the public domain or use a BSD style license.
I am a fan of the GPL so don't get me wrong and misinterpret this as anti-GPL. That is not the point here, simply put most people have a very skewed understanding of what it does and how it works.
The GPL simply places specific restrictions on expansions of the work. Among those restrictions is adding additional restrictions via the GPL (if you obtain non-GPL copyrights then you can still add additional restrictions via non-GPL contract).
Lastly I have to point out that the GPL depends on copyright law (at least in the US) and as such it is only enforceable for the lifetime of the copyright. Any thoughts that the GPL forever protects anything is also misunderstood.
The Apollo missions probably didn't need that.
Actually if you look at the total personal budget for the life time of the Apollo missions it actually take considerably more time than 34,000 man years. First you take the actual NASA teams which included the mission staff, engineers, astronauts, support personnel and backup teams. Next you include all of the personnel needed to design, manufacture, transport and assemble all of the equipment. Lastly you have all of the military and recovery personnel.
The best number I have found quotes that more than 400,000 people were involved in the project for about 10 years. That gives us a total of about 4 million man years. (Citations 48 and 49)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_landing_conspiracy_theories#Critical_examination_of_hoax_accusations
I hosted a 300+ person MMO server from 2003 to 2005 on a home computer (not even a beefy one either). It never even came close to max load (peak was about 40% of CPU/RAM with almost all users on at once). They take less resources than you would think.
...And if they had any kind of self-awareness, they were shamed by how much they had acted like assholes when they were younger.
So what your really saying is that many of us younger /.ers could be great bosses some day... =P
Most of the rated programs require a server cluster to run at high skill levels. While it is nice that they can reach a level to be competitive against strong players, it is really stretching the facts to claim a personal user couldn't easily crush a standard install of any of the above programs.
Some examples from wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Go#Recent_results:
On February 14, 2009, Many Faces of Go running on a 32-core Xeon cluster provided by Microsoft won against James Kerwin (1p) with a handicap of seven stones. The game was played during the 2009 AAAS general meeting in Chicago.[9]
On August 7, 2009, Many Faces of Go (version 12) resigned against Myungwan Kim (8p) in a 7-stone handicap game.[10] Many Faces was playing on a 32 node system provided by Microsoft. The "Man vs. Machine" event was part of the 2009 US Go Congress, which was held in Washington DC from August 1 to August 9.[11]
Of course I know what Solaris and Java are. If you don't know how to open the source of an OS, then port it to a new language, that can be compiled to a portable binary running on an embedded VM, then you evidently don't know any more about computers than you do about business.
I've written professionally in Java (amoung many other languages) for more than a decade. If you think that A) re-writting a OS written in C in Java or B) ANY OS should ever be written in Java; then you clearly have no idea about either.
For starters, the strength of Java is that you don't need to compile it to native machine code. This is almost 100% true. Conversely for an OS to function it MUST be compiled and assembled into machine code. If you are going to do that why use Java? There are many other languages better suited. C for example, which is what the vast majority of Solaris is written in.
Next, do you have any idea how much time, how many developers it takes to write an OS. Even re-writing verbatim? That does not even count testers. We are talking about more than the total yearly cost of running Sun. It is in the hundreds of millions if not billions or tens of billions.
All for what? A product that runs on a few more machines? Not to mention Solaris runs on 90+% of all machines out there now anyways. Your suggesting they add a insanely huge workload for almost zero return!?
Lastly on that subject, if you wanted Solaris running on an embedded device, why not just INSTALL IT. That is it, you don't need any VM, you don't need any third part intermediary. Just have the device run Solaris natively. It is how it is done now. You can order such things from Sun/Oricle now and have been able to for some time.
As for your suggestion that open sourcing was to late/to little. I disagree. It was done wrong. There were no income streams tied to open sourcing most of the projects. They simply said, "ok, this is open source now". What they should have done (as suggested in other posts) is offer to help customize their systems to specific clients. Or offer consultation work. Anything really. But just shouting "hey, its free now" is never going to do anything to bring in income for a company.
It seems his point was that the company should have open sourced things at a correct time and did not. They should have open sourced some products more aggressively early on and NOT open sourced many products they did at the end.
Open source wasn't the problem, as he freely admits. Doing it too late was the problem. By the time it was "near the end" it was too late to "take care of the shareholders" by doing anything different. Open source was the only thing keeping Sun relevant near the end, and therefore the only thing taking care of the shareholders.
What does relevance have to do with anything!? Income is what is relevant to a shareholder. NONE of the projects that Sun open sourced in the last few years increased income for the company. If anything, because of the way Sun did things, they decreased the income.
He should have opened the Solaris source, ported it to Java running on every CPU...
!?! Do you know what Solaris and Java are? I literally, have no idea what this is supposed to mean.
It's quite likely that the prosecution in this case deliberately torpedoed themselves so that they could have an excuse to dismiss the case and avoid setting exactly this precedent.
How does that make any sense? The prosecution could simply make a motion to withdraw the case at any time. All they have to do is stand up and say, "never mind" and the case is done. They don't have to introduce any testimony or evidence to do that.
What happened here is going to be a big negative on the prosecutors record. It is BAD for him. It is not far off of getting fired (for cause) from a job because you were watching porn at your desk.
While slightly amusing your story makes no sense. If the prosecution wanted to drop the case they would simply withdraw the charges. That simple. Also the prosecution can not make a motion to dismiss their own case, the defense has to do that. Lastly in this instance such an dismissal is going to remain as a giant stain on the prosecutor's record.
I am willing to bet that if you were there, you would not call what the judge actually did, "abuse" or a "tirade". Most likely he did use pretty strong language. Most likely this was also still appropriate to the situation AND professional.
My guess is this got coverage because you almost NEVER see a judge sternly reprimand a prosecutor. You have to mess up really bad to deserve one and any competent attorney is going to prepare ahead of time to avoid any such situation. Most likely they simply would not bring the case to trial if they thought such a situation was going to arise.
Even the example language quoted in the summary is reasonable and mild, "serious concerns about the government's case."
Having said that, I just had to point out that even in the article you linked includes other quite plausible reasons:
However, while the Bullet Cluster phenomenon may provide direct evidence for dark matter on large cluster scales, it offers no specific insight into the original galaxy rotation problem. In fact, the observed ratio of visible matter to dark matter in a typical rich galaxy cluster is much lower than predicted.[12] This may indicate that the prevailing cosmological model is insufficient to describe the mass discrepancy on galaxy scales, or that its predictions about the shape of the universe are incorrect.
[edit] Alternative Interpretations
Critics of dark matter have cautioned that astronomers expect sizable quantities of non-luminous baryonic matter to reside in large galactic clusters, positing that the Bullet Cluster phenomenon can be explained without requiring non-baryonic dark matter.[13] However, this explanation requires that baryonic dark matter is of the same amount as the luminous baryonic matter in the Bullet Cluster. This means that ~6 times the visible galactic mass exists at the gravitational centroids, possibly in the galaxies as MACHOs, brown dwarves, or cold gas clouds.
Also note that one additional dim stars are the most likely non-dark matter reason for such an occurrence. We just added 3 times the visible mass to the galaxy at large, calculations only require 6 times the visible matter in that cluster for the same effect without dark matter.
You can stop them from a single action if you fight for years, but by then the damage is pretty well done. You'll notice all the previous lawsuits have done nothing to stop this latest abuse.
Again, as someone directly involved it is pretty obvious you have no idea what you are talking about. I can assure you that every time *I* have been involved in such a situation comcast continued until ordered to stop. They would have continue if not so ordered (or as part of the settlement).
To put it more concisely, without the two actions in question, comcast would have NEVER stopped the offending action. Your point is that they have done something bad for some time so there is no point in EVER doing anything about it. That makes no sense. While it is not good that comcast took egregiously bad actions in the first place it *is* good that they did stop those actions. Further more, both sets of actions are things that for the rest of time comcast can not do again without facing massive punitive damages.
Lastly neither set of lawsuits lasted even close to a year from inception. The first instance a restraining order was issued almost half a year from the start of the offending practice forcing them to stop. In the second instance comcast voluntarily stopped while the litigation was pending (part of the pre-settlement bargaining).
It is nice that you have opinions on these subjects, but when you are talking to a person who was actually involved please realize that making claims of fact *after* the person already stated what actually happened is pretty dumb.
As for the issue of our current Congress. Well, we will just have to disagree.