"Without longer than a century copyright, I would have no incentive to develop anything useful." "Without being able to patent walking using both feet, I wouldn't have incentive to make anything useful." "Without being able to grant myself a monopoly on something, I would have no incentive to create anything useful." "Without the Shoot Anyone Using Anything But My Stuff Act, I would have no incentive to develop anything useful."
I am getting quite tired of seeing that, and we should really quit listening. If you don't want to, then by all means, don't, and feel free to fade away. In the meantime, those who still have plenty of incentive to do so (by finding creative ways to make money off of it, out of simply enjoying it, out of their own need for a tool to do something or a wish to create something for their own enjoyment, what have you), will do so.
I'm getting less and less tolerant of this temper tantrum. And that's really all it is-"I don't WANNA share!!!!! I thought of it FIRST!!!!" If the dinosaurs mean it, then by all means, their time has come and we should let them go. Good riddance to them, something better suited to modern times will take their place. On the other hand, they do tend to like paying themselves those large bonuses, so I would wager they'll start getting really creative in the absence of these artificial restrictions enabling them to be lazy and rest on their laurels.
I think the point of ISP's suspecting copyright infringing users is pretty simple, and one that has yet to be tried out.
Real simple. There is no safe harbor for what your customers are doing. If they are doing illegal things that the ISP can detect and block - something that is probably not far off - they have an obligation to do so. Failure to do so means they are an accomplice and liable for damages, at least contributory damages.
Today nobody has tried this approach because it is not clear that an ISP can detect copyright infringement in a clear and unambiguous way. Should this change, ISPs will certainly be viewed differently in the US.
You are not correct on this, at least not in the US. One good thing that came out of the DMCA (continue reading once you get off the floor) is the "safe harbor" provision, aka OCILLA. An ISP is considered under section "a" in most cases, as they are providing only a connection, not hosting the material. If they are hosting the material (for example, an ISP who gives each user space to host a personal website), they can still follow the safe harbor provisions for that service under section "b", while remaining exempt under "a" for their normal connectivity service.
Under section "a", the ISP has effectively no liability. The copyright holder can sue the user if they believe the user is infringing, but that's it. Under section "b", since the ISP is hosting the material, they do have to take it down if they are sent an OCILLA request. The moment they do, they are immune from liability. If you, the user, believe that they are in error and that the material in question is not their copyrighted material, you may send a response for it to be put back up. Unless the copyright holder then files in court and gets an injunction, the ISP may then do so. At that point, it's again between you and the copyright holder, with the ISP out of the picture.
This is as it should be. If I threaten or harass someone over the telephone or by sending them mail, I can be sued or arrested, but you shouldn't be able to sue or prosecute the phone company or the post office. This is no different. An ISP should no more be monitoring your Internet communications than the telephone company or mailman should be monitoring your calls and letters.
If you're concerned about seeing foul language at work, I generally wouldn't advise visiting any site where public comments of any type are posted. Fortunately, my boss isn't going to come after me for randomly viewing the [a-z]-word, especially if I'm not the one who posted it in the first place. If yours is, this might not be the best place to browse.
That said, putting n----- and the rest of it in the tags is quite juvenile, but some people will be juvenile, and those people unfortunately tend to gravitate toward sites with relatively open policies. That doesn't mean open policies are bad, just that one has to get used to tuning out a certain level of noise.
Wish that the ethical definition of copyright violation were more important than the "definition" of theft as they are ethically the same.
A lot of people disagree with you. I know plenty of people who would never dream of stealing but have no issue with copying something. Stealing something is like me sneaking into your house and taking away your favorite shirt. Now (important point follows) you no longer have it, and I do. In that case, it's pretty clear I did something ethically wrong that did harm to you.
Copying, on the other hand, is like me making myself one that looks the exact same. It might annoy you that your favorite shirt is now less unique, and it might annoy the manufacturer that I made it myself rather than paying them for one, but you still have it, I didn't take one they made, and there's a much weaker case that I did anyone wrong in an ethical sense.
The copyright aspect doesn't change that here. A computer, in our analogy here, is like an extremely fast sewing machine that can make about any type of clothing at near zero marginal cost. Yes, in that world, you're going to have to be very inventive to sell clothing. It doesn't mean it's impossible, but doing it the way it was done before (packing millions of identical ones up and shipping them out to stores) isn't likely to work as well. Do custom design, or value added stuff the machine (or computer) cannot copy at zero cost. Invent, don't try to push the genie back in the bottle.
Laws that seem nonsensical and overly harsh lessen respect for all laws, even those which are fair and necessary. If Congress passed a law against rain, it would just make them seem foolish, even when they next pass a law to help stop murders. The weather's already rolled in, and the people have spoken-noncommercial copying is largely considered acceptable. It really always was. No one considered it wrong to videotape a TV show (or a movie on TV), copy a tape to a blank for a friend, or buy one copy of a book to pass around. It's on a larger scale now, but this isn't anything new. The only reason people are alarmed now is that they're being told they can't do something that they widely don't believe to be wrong. That's not a good recipe.
Wish that the ethical definition of copyright violation were more important than the "definition" of theft as they are ethically the same.
I wish people wouldn't state their opinion as fact, and then proceed as though it were so. I acknowledge your opinion that it is an "ethical lapse" to engage in noncommercial copying, and that this lapse is on par with stealing something. I do, however, disagree with it. I am not the only person who does.
Regardless, even if we presume you're right, the penalty for downloading a few CDs certainly should not be orders of magnitude more than walking out of a store with the physical copies would be.
Wish that the straw man of "non-commercial copying has no measurable impact on the sale" would be seen as the smoke and mirrors that it is.
Let's look at some possible scenarios here:
Band A releases a CD. I don't do noncommercial copying. I never hear of Band A either, or hear them but am not interested enough to pay for anything from them. Band A is no better or worse off than they would've been with copying.
Band A releases a CD. I do noncommercial copying. I already know of Band A and download Band A's CD. If I hadn't been able to do that, I would've bought it. Band A would have made money from me without the copying and didn't with, so they're worse for the copying.
Band A releases a CD. I do noncommercial copying. I download Band A's CD. I don't buy anything from them, but if I hadn't been able to do that, I never would've heard of them at all. Alternatively, without copying, I would've heard of them but would not have been interested enough to p
Seems to work fine to me as well, I'm on Comcast and OpenDNS is working the same as always. Just tested by going to a nonexistent page, I still get the same OpenDNS "page not found" message. I also haven't noticed any slowdown in DNS resolution, which I normally notice quite acutely using Comcast's DNS.
I'd love to smack Comcast as much as anyone, but if this was happening it doesn't seem to be anymore. Let's save smacking them for when they really do pull something stupid. I'm sure they won't let us down for long.
if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Library by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Library
See that word "if"? The patent license permits royalty-free redistribution of the Library... so it's not an issue.
Similarly, we've heard nothing from the authors of the Library - you know, the copyright owners, the only ones who have any legal standing? So maybe the peanut gallery should shut the hell up already.
By any downstream user whatsoever, and any possible one downstream from them? Even if I were to download this library from Google and resell it for profit? Even if IBM were to do the same?
If Google really does have me, and IBM, and any other possible reuser covered for distribution of any possible type, that's fine. Otherwise, if there are conceivable circumstances under which a patent could prohibit a downstream user from redistribution, they're violating the license. I don't know what's so hard about the terms here.
Exactly how is morality implicated here? Even if one accepts the argument that it is immoral to use software without payment (which many do not), it seems from your post that your mother-in-law did pay for it and was simply inconvenienced by a "feature" of it (being required to find a license).
How exactly is it immoral to use a workaround to use software you paid for the privilege of using?
Why? Seriously, why? What on earth can the "layman" possibly contribute to the process, being - by definition - someone who doesn't understand the subject at hand? Remember, these are the people who think that "stem cells" are something you get by hacking up small children with knives and that the LHC will destroy the earth.
You think they will be a valuable "check" on the scientific community, if scientists are forced to use simpler words?
Well, for one, isn't knowledge the best remedy for ignorance, and making knowledge more accessible the best remedy for the very problem you state (that non-scientists have no idea what science really is or really does)?
Aside from that, which could have significant benefits in itself, making knowledge more accessible to someone who's not a trained professional in the field just may mean that some talented amateurs might pick up enough to ask some very good questions. (They will also pick up enough to ask some very stupid questions, that's the nature of any field with amateurs, but usually the insight outweighs the idiocy by a good degree.)
Those two things aside, it's quite simply pretentious to make things more complex than they have to be in order to be precise. That's just a silly form of looking down your nose at the "little people" and is very childish. Any real scientist would want as many people as possible to be able to understand their work. Even when complexity is required for precision, a less-precise summary can always be presented that gets the main points across, with the full version accessible to those who really need the details.
Finally, having to put one's work into layman's terms can force one to think about the work at a high level. It's very easy to get into the fascinating details of a project, and not remember to look up every so often to make sure the whole thing is still on track. Having to keep a layman's explanation in mind helps with that.
Let's turn this around. Putting things in a form that's more readable to a layman may well have some benefits. So what would be the harm, why not do it?
It's not soothing my conscience, I've never done it and probably never will. I don't spend a lot of time in airports, and from what I've heard there the wifi isn't great even if you do pay or otherwise gain access. I just bring a book, it's easier to use on the plane then a laptop.
The misuse and overuse of the word "theft" (and synonyms), however, is irritating. Theft is not every class of misbehavior, it's a subset of possible types of misbehavior, and specifically involves taking something away from someone that, first, they already have, second, in such a manner that they no longer have it, and third, that you now do.
If I break into your house but don't take anything, that's not theft. If I throw a rock through your window for fun, that's not theft. If I drive drunk that's not theft. That doesn't mean any of those things are ethical, legal, or acceptable, just that they are not theft. Similarly, if I just make it so you don't make money you might have otherwise, that's not theft. I can only steal what you have, not what you hypothetically might have had. One can still debate whether there are circumstances under which that is unethical or should be illegal, but it's not theft.
That's why I said "find a different map", I think having them change existing maps would open up a can of worms. But when you're presenting a map for simple navigational purposes, rather than historical ones, I'd think you're best off to pick a modern one in any case.
Obviously, if it were on display in a museum (or presented online for historical purposes) it should be a fully accurate representation of the original.
Again, you can certainly argue as to whether the behavior in question is ethical or acceptable, but it's not stealing. The gentlemen from the CIA can arrest you because it's illegal to gain unauthorized access to classified data, whether you actually make it unavailable to the person who previously had it or not. It's still not stealing, though, even though it is a different crime. Many things, from speeding to murder, are illegal and yet are not theft.
Actually, the sad part is there is probably truth in the parent.
Somebody in the procurement department either
(a) Has a report from someone in their IT Department that erroneously states that they need won't work with Linux, and therefore has to be excluded from the procurement process.
or
(b) Has a report from someone in their IT Department that correctly states that they need won't work with Linux, and therefore has to be excluded from the procurement process.
Unfortunately, that's not a Microsoft Monopoly, in either case. If its (a) then their IT staff suck, not Microsoft's fault, and not making Microsoft a monopoly. If its (b) then Linux sucks for their needs, which again is not Microsoft's fault and does not make Microsoft a monopoly.
Which is why Switzerland is being sued, not Microsoft. The summary is actually somewhat erroneous here, because this has little to do with Microsoft or its monopoly, they just happen to be the bidder here.
Most government departments have mandatory open bidding processes for procurement of everything from software to roads. If they had, in violation of these rules, given a no-bid contract to Red Hat, Microsoft could've sued the Swiss government on the exact same grounds and forced them to use a competitive bidding process. If the same process occurred in roadbuilding, and they gave a no-bid to Contractor A when Contractor B also wanted a shot to bid, Contractor B can sue. So it's true that Microsoft isn't really in the wrong here, a Swiss government agency is.
That being said, however, as to your "a" and "b" scenarios, it really doesn't matter. The way the bidding process works is that they present a set of requirements as to what the product being procured must do. Anyone who is willing to fill those requirements (either by using what they've already got or developing something new to fill them) may bid. In your "b" scenario, they would have to know not only that "Red Hat's software is currently incapable of doing something we need", but also that "Red Hat is unwilling or unable to develop that functionality." Apparently, that's not the case, since it seems Red Hat certainly does want a stab at it.
That's called silly. What are you stealing? Are they going to run out of packets more quickly that way?
It is cracking, and certainly one can call into question the ethics of cracking into a network when you clearly know you are not supposed to be accessing it. One can also question the ethics of charging outrageously more for wifi than it costs to set it up and run it. One can also make a good case that the network is not meant to be closed to the public, it's simply meant to be paywalled, and so bypassing that paywall is not invading anyone's privacy. So even the ethical question is not as clear cut as you might think at first.
Regardless, however, words have meanings. Stealing is taking something away from you that's exclusive (you and I can't both have it) without your consent. It's not a synonym for "conduct I dislike" or "conduct I find unethical".
Hrm, I've heard that before. Let's go look it up. Hey, look!
1657, from Gk. oxymoron, noun use of neut. of oxymoros (adj.) "pointedly foolish," from oxys "sharp" (see acrid) + moros "stupid." Rhetorical figure by which contradictory terms are conjoined so as to give point to the statement or expression; the word itself is an illustration of the thing. Now often used loosely to mean "contradiction in terms." (emphasis added)
So, yes, it is an oxymoron, moron. Even if it is used as a rhetorical device (which is, after all, what it is to start with).
Sorry, but that's an oxymoron. It may be tamper-resistant (and some wireless devices have pretty good tamper resistance), but nothing that can be controlled wirelessly is tamper proof. Especially not when even the entity that has legitimate access (presumably the Turkish government) is entirely trustworthy to begin with.
Knowledge is knowledge. How a bunch of inbred tribals use that knowledge isn't the responsibility of the people who discover and/or make it available.
The Japanese have a problem with discrimination, not Google, not the web, and not the United States. Let Japan solve the problem, don't make it a Google problem, a web problem, or a United States problem.
It is true that racism is ultimately a problem with the racist. However, that doesn't mean there's not any issue here. The maps Google is using use what is apparently a racial slur to describe these areas.
That's probably unintentional, and I doubt they had any idea that the term was a slur. However, if it was brought to Google's attention that a map overlay in America referred to certain areas as "nigger ghettos", do you think people wouldn't expect Google to find a map that didn't use such terms, even if their use of that map was through oversight rather than malice?
Other free software licenses have no similarly forgiving language
That's because other (read: legitimate) free software licenses generally don't need them.
I'm tired of hearing people claim that the FSF is anything other than a disease, to be honest. Maybe back when they were still actually developing or maintaining software, you might have been able to claim that they were doing something useful; but these days they don't really do anything other than rabble rouse and occasionally legally harass people.
I know, I know...you're going to say that the only reason why the FSF goes after people in court is because they violate the GPL. If the GPL wasn't blatantly anticommercial, however, it wouldn't be an issue; if Cisco had simply used something BSD licensed, they could have done what they liked and the court case never would have happened.
Of course, we know the reason why people who have no intention of complying with the GPL use it; it's because they want to curry favour with the freaks who've drunk sufficient amounts of Stallman's Kool Aid that they actually think it's a genuinely worthwhile license.
The GPL 2 I can tolerate, but the GPL 3, no. The license aside, however, one thing that has always been true is that the FSF are a textbook destructive cult, and Stallman himself is the proverbial aspirant cult leader; he's the computing world's answer to Lefayette Ronald Hubbard.
Development of the GNU project has been primarily handed over to Red Hat at this point, and as I've already said, I consider the GPL 3 a bad and overly restrictive license, even if v2 wasn't. Given those two points, the FSF have been reduced to not much more than a group of low budget terrorists, and the organisation should thus be abolished at this point. If it has ceased maintaining software or generating real code, it has outlived its' usefulness.
Little bitter?
The canard that the GPL is "anticommercial" is silly, but it's repeated often enough it's worth dismantling.
The GPL is not in any way anticommercial. It explicitly permits commercial use. When I license my code under the GPL, I'm accepting that someone can take that code and make billions from it, and they will not owe me a nickel. I'm not presenting that as a negative, mind you. When one licenses under any free license, that is one of the freedoms one is granting to everyone in the world.
Many proprietary licenses, on the other hand, are "blatantly anticommercial", in that they contain restrictions or additional payment/royalty requirements for commercial use, or ban various types of commercial use entirely. Try making an improved version of the Windows kernel and offering it for sale. You will very quickly see "blatantly anticommercial", and I would venture a guess that this would come in the form of "legally harass[ing]" that would be quite swift and more than occasional. It will happen every time.
What the GPL does require is quite simple. If you're going to take my code, improve it, and profit from it, you're required to share those improvements, just as I did for you in the first place. And even that's only true if you redistribute. If you improve my code and use it for your own in-house purposes, but do not distribute it, you don't even have to follow that requirement. It's only when you start distributing that code that the requirement to share the source kicks in.
There are anticommercial licenses out there, including effectively all proprietary licenses and many others. One Creative Commons license (CC-NC) is quite explicitly anticommercial. That's its very name, "noncommercial"! That does not of course mean commercial use is impossible, as anyone who wants to use material licensed under such a license is free to contact the copyright holder and work out terms for it to be licensed to them for commercial distribution. This license serves those who are willing to say "I will let you redistribute and modify this if not for a profit, but if you intend to ma
Ubuntu? Really? Try clicking the "system" option, then "Synaptic Package Manager". As you would've found had you paid any attention, you click the pretty box for the software you want, and your system installs the precompiled binaries along with any dependencies. No files (not even the equivalent of a.exe or.msi) required.
Your description of installing software on Linux is one way to do it, but it has not been the only way and certainly not the easiest way for a very long time.
How can warrantless GPS tracking be legal while warrantless car searching is illegal.
Police don't need a warrant to follow a car, and in my opinion, GPS tracking is more akin to tailing a car than searching through it. I'm not thrilled by this ruling, but it doesn't seem blatantly unconstitutional.
I'm not quite sure you're correct there. It's rather ironic that the case here involved someone suspected of stalking. Stalking also can be no more than following someone around and watching them in public places, yet it's something most areas have laws against. The only difference here is that the "stalker" is a police officer. Do you have any doubts that if it were found that the person suspected of "stalking" had covertly put GPS trackers on his victim's cars, they wouldn't nail him in a second? It would seem to me that if this type of behavior would be potentially criminal if done by someone who's not a police officer, it should take a warrant for a police officer to engage in it.
The clear intent of the Fourth Amendment is that the police can't pry into our lives without convincing a judge they have probable cause to believe we're involved in a crime. Even then, they can't just fish, they have to tell the judge exactly what crime, why they believe we're involved in it, and what evidence they believe their search will find.
Just because technology may now allow them to do such prying without physically kicking in a door doesn't mean we should allow surveillance on anyone at any time. As far as I'm concerned, gathering data on a specific person's movements, habits, etc., through surveillance, is a type of search (one is checking into that person's personal life, using methods that would routinely be thought to be invasive even if they are in public, and ironically here most of those methods would trigger the very anti-stalking laws being enforced here), and should be subject to Fourth Amendment protection, including the requirement for a warrant.
What you call "greed" I call "putting the food on the table". A desire to gather money to feed, shelter, and clothe my family is personal responsibility, not greed. And putting any excess money into a retirement plan, instead of spending it, is just good ole' common sense.
Making a decent living is not greed, you're correct on that. However, in the case of corporation higher-up types, we're not talking about a decent living. We're talking about, well, obscene greed, to the tune of multi-million-to-billion dollar salary and compensation packages with tremendous "golden parachutes" even if you screw everything up. This usually while paying your employees minimum wage or as little over it as possible, and having a good number of them on some type of welfare, while not even paying them sufficiently to save for retirement.
That's not responsibility. It's greed. There does come a point at which you can make money to the point it's obscene and more than anyone could possibly deserve. It's doubly obscene if you're also using tax shelters for most of it, so that you're not even paying for that welfare that's supporting your employees in the absence of you doing it.
Actually (to extend the analogy until it's beyond the point of screaming), it would be like not only leaving the mower in the yard, but putting a "Please take me!" sign on it. If you take something with the owner's permission, you cannot be accused of wrongdoing.
If the copyright holders, or third parties they have authorized to do so, are putting these files on filesharing networks, you are taking these with their knowledge and permission if you take the supposed "bait". How do they claim wrongdoing when they've put the file up on the network themselves?
If they had a search warrant, and you did not open the door, they would probably bust the door to get in.
Actually, that's probably closer to this situation than you think. If they have a warrant to gain access, they can forcibly gain access if you won't allow it voluntarily, but that doesn't mean they can force you to help them.
In the case of an encrypted hard drive, however, it may well be impossible for them to gain access forcibly ("break the door down" so to speak). There's a good case to be made that forcing you to give the password would be self-incrimination, as in not only are you allowing access to potentially incriminating data, but in giving the password, you are admitting that the data is yours and is under your control. The question "Is this data yours?" is a question you could pretty clearly refuse to answer under the 5th Amendment if the answer could be self-incriminating (imagine "data" is replaced with "gun" and it's pretty clear how one could remain silent there), but asking for the password is effectively the same as asking that question directly.
Keep in mind that most judges do try to strike a balance between allowing parties to gather necessary evidence and ensuring that there's a reasonable likelihood what's being subpoenaed is relevant and necessary, and at least in theory aren't supposed to allow subpoenas just to fish.
That being said, when one is facing a criminal conviction largely based upon the results from an electronic device, "I want to know exactly how that device works, including its source code", seems on its face to be a request of relevance to the case, as showing that the device is flawed could have major ramifications as to whether a jury could reasonably doubt guilt. On the other hand, having it audited and tested and no flaws found could strengthen the prosecution's reliance on it. Without that ability to audit, we don't know if that electronic device in our case is more valid than a magic 8-ball.
Why such a tight release schedule? Version 1.9.2.6 automatically and permanently removes the cotroversial NoScript Development Support Filterset deployed with NoScript 1.9.2.4. I sincerely apologize with those ABP users who missed the information about it given on the AMO install page, on this site's install page, on this very release note page and in the FAQ. Not including a prompt asking for permission beforehand from the start has been a very bad omission, and I want all the ABP users who felt betrayed to know how much I'm sorry for that. As a sign of good will, current NoScript 1.9.2.6 completely removes the filterset itself, if found there, on startup with no questions asked. Thanks for your patience.
-- Giorgio
Slashdot Mirror
"Without longer than a century copyright, I would have no incentive to develop anything useful." "Without being able to patent walking using both feet, I wouldn't have incentive to make anything useful." "Without being able to grant myself a monopoly on something, I would have no incentive to create anything useful." "Without the Shoot Anyone Using Anything But My Stuff Act, I would have no incentive to develop anything useful."
I am getting quite tired of seeing that, and we should really quit listening. If you don't want to, then by all means, don't, and feel free to fade away. In the meantime, those who still have plenty of incentive to do so (by finding creative ways to make money off of it, out of simply enjoying it, out of their own need for a tool to do something or a wish to create something for their own enjoyment, what have you), will do so.
I'm getting less and less tolerant of this temper tantrum. And that's really all it is-"I don't WANNA share!!!!! I thought of it FIRST!!!!" If the dinosaurs mean it, then by all means, their time has come and we should let them go. Good riddance to them, something better suited to modern times will take their place. On the other hand, they do tend to like paying themselves those large bonuses, so I would wager they'll start getting really creative in the absence of these artificial restrictions enabling them to be lazy and rest on their laurels.
I think the point of ISP's suspecting copyright infringing users is pretty simple, and one that has yet to be tried out.
Real simple. There is no safe harbor for what your customers are doing. If they are doing illegal things that the ISP can detect and block - something that is probably not far off - they have an obligation to do so. Failure to do so means they are an accomplice and liable for damages, at least contributory damages.
Today nobody has tried this approach because it is not clear that an ISP can detect copyright infringement in a clear and unambiguous way. Should this change, ISPs will certainly be viewed differently in the US.
You are not correct on this, at least not in the US. One good thing that came out of the DMCA (continue reading once you get off the floor) is the "safe harbor" provision, aka OCILLA. An ISP is considered under section "a" in most cases, as they are providing only a connection, not hosting the material. If they are hosting the material (for example, an ISP who gives each user space to host a personal website), they can still follow the safe harbor provisions for that service under section "b", while remaining exempt under "a" for their normal connectivity service.
Under section "a", the ISP has effectively no liability. The copyright holder can sue the user if they believe the user is infringing, but that's it. Under section "b", since the ISP is hosting the material, they do have to take it down if they are sent an OCILLA request. The moment they do, they are immune from liability. If you, the user, believe that they are in error and that the material in question is not their copyrighted material, you may send a response for it to be put back up. Unless the copyright holder then files in court and gets an injunction, the ISP may then do so. At that point, it's again between you and the copyright holder, with the ISP out of the picture.
This is as it should be. If I threaten or harass someone over the telephone or by sending them mail, I can be sued or arrested, but you shouldn't be able to sue or prosecute the phone company or the post office. This is no different. An ISP should no more be monitoring your Internet communications than the telephone company or mailman should be monitoring your calls and letters.
If you're concerned about seeing foul language at work, I generally wouldn't advise visiting any site where public comments of any type are posted. Fortunately, my boss isn't going to come after me for randomly viewing the [a-z]-word, especially if I'm not the one who posted it in the first place. If yours is, this might not be the best place to browse.
That said, putting n----- and the rest of it in the tags is quite juvenile, but some people will be juvenile, and those people unfortunately tend to gravitate toward sites with relatively open policies. That doesn't mean open policies are bad, just that one has to get used to tuning out a certain level of noise.
Point stands. This is news that mostly no one cares about. I'm sorry but its true.
A better headline would be "Microsoft figures out how to write a great OS"... That would be far more useful to MOST people, than USB 3.0 in linux.
If Microsoft figured out how to write a great OS, that would definitely be worth a headline. But I'm not figuring on seeing it anytime soon.
Personally, I:
Let's go bit by bit here.
Wish that the ethical definition of copyright violation were more important than the "definition" of theft as they are ethically the same.
A lot of people disagree with you. I know plenty of people who would never dream of stealing but have no issue with copying something. Stealing something is like me sneaking into your house and taking away your favorite shirt. Now (important point follows) you no longer have it, and I do. In that case, it's pretty clear I did something ethically wrong that did harm to you.
Copying, on the other hand, is like me making myself one that looks the exact same. It might annoy you that your favorite shirt is now less unique, and it might annoy the manufacturer that I made it myself rather than paying them for one, but you still have it, I didn't take one they made, and there's a much weaker case that I did anyone wrong in an ethical sense.
The copyright aspect doesn't change that here. A computer, in our analogy here, is like an extremely fast sewing machine that can make about any type of clothing at near zero marginal cost. Yes, in that world, you're going to have to be very inventive to sell clothing. It doesn't mean it's impossible, but doing it the way it was done before (packing millions of identical ones up and shipping them out to stores) isn't likely to work as well. Do custom design, or value added stuff the machine (or computer) cannot copy at zero cost. Invent, don't try to push the genie back in the bottle.
Laws that seem nonsensical and overly harsh lessen respect for all laws, even those which are fair and necessary. If Congress passed a law against rain, it would just make them seem foolish, even when they next pass a law to help stop murders. The weather's already rolled in, and the people have spoken-noncommercial copying is largely considered acceptable. It really always was. No one considered it wrong to videotape a TV show (or a movie on TV), copy a tape to a blank for a friend, or buy one copy of a book to pass around. It's on a larger scale now, but this isn't anything new. The only reason people are alarmed now is that they're being told they can't do something that they widely don't believe to be wrong. That's not a good recipe.
Wish that the ethical definition of copyright violation were more important than the "definition" of theft as they are ethically the same.
I wish people wouldn't state their opinion as fact, and then proceed as though it were so. I acknowledge your opinion that it is an "ethical lapse" to engage in noncommercial copying, and that this lapse is on par with stealing something. I do, however, disagree with it. I am not the only person who does.
Regardless, even if we presume you're right, the penalty for downloading a few CDs certainly should not be orders of magnitude more than walking out of a store with the physical copies would be.
Wish that the straw man of "non-commercial copying has no measurable impact on the sale" would be seen as the smoke and mirrors that it is.
Let's look at some possible scenarios here:
Seems to work fine to me as well, I'm on Comcast and OpenDNS is working the same as always. Just tested by going to a nonexistent page, I still get the same OpenDNS "page not found" message. I also haven't noticed any slowdown in DNS resolution, which I normally notice quite acutely using Comcast's DNS.
I'd love to smack Comcast as much as anyone, but if this was happening it doesn't seem to be anymore. Let's save smacking them for when they really do pull something stupid. I'm sure they won't let us down for long.
if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Library by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Library
See that word "if"? The patent license permits royalty-free redistribution of the Library... so it's not an issue.
Similarly, we've heard nothing from the authors of the Library - you know, the copyright owners, the only ones who have any legal standing? So maybe the peanut gallery should shut the hell up already.
By any downstream user whatsoever, and any possible one downstream from them? Even if I were to download this library from Google and resell it for profit? Even if IBM were to do the same?
If Google really does have me, and IBM, and any other possible reuser covered for distribution of any possible type, that's fine. Otherwise, if there are conceivable circumstances under which a patent could prohibit a downstream user from redistribution, they're violating the license. I don't know what's so hard about the terms here.
Exactly how is morality implicated here? Even if one accepts the argument that it is immoral to use software without payment (which many do not), it seems from your post that your mother-in-law did pay for it and was simply inconvenienced by a "feature" of it (being required to find a license).
How exactly is it immoral to use a workaround to use software you paid for the privilege of using?
Why? Seriously, why? What on earth can the "layman" possibly contribute to the process, being - by definition - someone who doesn't understand the subject at hand? Remember, these are the people who think that "stem cells" are something you get by hacking up small children with knives and that the LHC will destroy the earth.
You think they will be a valuable "check" on the scientific community, if scientists are forced to use simpler words?
Well, for one, isn't knowledge the best remedy for ignorance, and making knowledge more accessible the best remedy for the very problem you state (that non-scientists have no idea what science really is or really does)?
Aside from that, which could have significant benefits in itself, making knowledge more accessible to someone who's not a trained professional in the field just may mean that some talented amateurs might pick up enough to ask some very good questions. (They will also pick up enough to ask some very stupid questions, that's the nature of any field with amateurs, but usually the insight outweighs the idiocy by a good degree.)
Those two things aside, it's quite simply pretentious to make things more complex than they have to be in order to be precise. That's just a silly form of looking down your nose at the "little people" and is very childish. Any real scientist would want as many people as possible to be able to understand their work. Even when complexity is required for precision, a less-precise summary can always be presented that gets the main points across, with the full version accessible to those who really need the details.
Finally, having to put one's work into layman's terms can force one to think about the work at a high level. It's very easy to get into the fascinating details of a project, and not remember to look up every so often to make sure the whole thing is still on track. Having to keep a layman's explanation in mind helps with that.
Let's turn this around. Putting things in a form that's more readable to a layman may well have some benefits. So what would be the harm, why not do it?
It's not soothing my conscience, I've never done it and probably never will. I don't spend a lot of time in airports, and from what I've heard there the wifi isn't great even if you do pay or otherwise gain access. I just bring a book, it's easier to use on the plane then a laptop.
The misuse and overuse of the word "theft" (and synonyms), however, is irritating. Theft is not every class of misbehavior, it's a subset of possible types of misbehavior, and specifically involves taking something away from someone that, first, they already have, second, in such a manner that they no longer have it, and third, that you now do.
If I break into your house but don't take anything, that's not theft. If I throw a rock through your window for fun, that's not theft. If I drive drunk that's not theft. That doesn't mean any of those things are ethical, legal, or acceptable, just that they are not theft. Similarly, if I just make it so you don't make money you might have otherwise, that's not theft. I can only steal what you have, not what you hypothetically might have had. One can still debate whether there are circumstances under which that is unethical or should be illegal, but it's not theft.
That's why I said "find a different map", I think having them change existing maps would open up a can of worms. But when you're presenting a map for simple navigational purposes, rather than historical ones, I'd think you're best off to pick a modern one in any case.
Obviously, if it were on display in a museum (or presented online for historical purposes) it should be a fully accurate representation of the original.
Again, you can certainly argue as to whether the behavior in question is ethical or acceptable, but it's not stealing. The gentlemen from the CIA can arrest you because it's illegal to gain unauthorized access to classified data, whether you actually make it unavailable to the person who previously had it or not. It's still not stealing, though, even though it is a different crime. Many things, from speeding to murder, are illegal and yet are not theft.
Actually, the sad part is there is probably truth in the parent. Somebody in the procurement department either (a) Has a report from someone in their IT Department that erroneously states that they need won't work with Linux, and therefore has to be excluded from the procurement process. or (b) Has a report from someone in their IT Department that correctly states that they need won't work with Linux, and therefore has to be excluded from the procurement process. Unfortunately, that's not a Microsoft Monopoly, in either case. If its (a) then their IT staff suck, not Microsoft's fault, and not making Microsoft a monopoly. If its (b) then Linux sucks for their needs, which again is not Microsoft's fault and does not make Microsoft a monopoly.
Which is why Switzerland is being sued, not Microsoft. The summary is actually somewhat erroneous here, because this has little to do with Microsoft or its monopoly, they just happen to be the bidder here.
Most government departments have mandatory open bidding processes for procurement of everything from software to roads. If they had, in violation of these rules, given a no-bid contract to Red Hat, Microsoft could've sued the Swiss government on the exact same grounds and forced them to use a competitive bidding process. If the same process occurred in roadbuilding, and they gave a no-bid to Contractor A when Contractor B also wanted a shot to bid, Contractor B can sue. So it's true that Microsoft isn't really in the wrong here, a Swiss government agency is.
That being said, however, as to your "a" and "b" scenarios, it really doesn't matter. The way the bidding process works is that they present a set of requirements as to what the product being procured must do. Anyone who is willing to fill those requirements (either by using what they've already got or developing something new to fill them) may bid. In your "b" scenario, they would have to know not only that "Red Hat's software is currently incapable of doing something we need", but also that "Red Hat is unwilling or unable to develop that functionality." Apparently, that's not the case, since it seems Red Hat certainly does want a stab at it.
That's called stealing.
That's called silly. What are you stealing? Are they going to run out of packets more quickly that way?
It is cracking, and certainly one can call into question the ethics of cracking into a network when you clearly know you are not supposed to be accessing it. One can also question the ethics of charging outrageously more for wifi than it costs to set it up and run it. One can also make a good case that the network is not meant to be closed to the public, it's simply meant to be paywalled, and so bypassing that paywall is not invading anyone's privacy. So even the ethical question is not as clear cut as you might think at first.
Regardless, however, words have meanings. Stealing is taking something away from you that's exclusive (you and I can't both have it) without your consent. It's not a synonym for "conduct I dislike" or "conduct I find unethical".
It's not an oxymoron, moron.
Hrm, I've heard that before. Let's go look it up. Hey, look!
So, yes, it is an oxymoron, moron. Even if it is used as a rhetorical device (which is, after all, what it is to start with).
...64 wirelessly controlled, tamper-proof face-recognition cameras...
Sorry, but that's an oxymoron. It may be tamper-resistant (and some wireless devices have pretty good tamper resistance), but nothing that can be controlled wirelessly is tamper proof. Especially not when even the entity that has legitimate access (presumably the Turkish government) is entirely trustworthy to begin with.
Knowledge is knowledge. How a bunch of inbred tribals use that knowledge isn't the responsibility of the people who discover and/or make it available.
The Japanese have a problem with discrimination, not Google, not the web, and not the United States. Let Japan solve the problem, don't make it a Google problem, a web problem, or a United States problem.
It is true that racism is ultimately a problem with the racist. However, that doesn't mean there's not any issue here. The maps Google is using use what is apparently a racial slur to describe these areas.
That's probably unintentional, and I doubt they had any idea that the term was a slur. However, if it was brought to Google's attention that a map overlay in America referred to certain areas as "nigger ghettos", do you think people wouldn't expect Google to find a map that didn't use such terms, even if their use of that map was through oversight rather than malice?
Other free software licenses have no similarly forgiving language
That's because other (read: legitimate) free software licenses generally don't need them.
I'm tired of hearing people claim that the FSF is anything other than a disease, to be honest. Maybe back when they were still actually developing or maintaining software, you might have been able to claim that they were doing something useful; but these days they don't really do anything other than rabble rouse and occasionally legally harass people.
I know, I know...you're going to say that the only reason why the FSF goes after people in court is because they violate the GPL. If the GPL wasn't blatantly anticommercial, however, it wouldn't be an issue; if Cisco had simply used something BSD licensed, they could have done what they liked and the court case never would have happened.
Of course, we know the reason why people who have no intention of complying with the GPL use it; it's because they want to curry favour with the freaks who've drunk sufficient amounts of Stallman's Kool Aid that they actually think it's a genuinely worthwhile license.
The GPL 2 I can tolerate, but the GPL 3, no. The license aside, however, one thing that has always been true is that the FSF are a textbook destructive cult, and Stallman himself is the proverbial aspirant cult leader; he's the computing world's answer to Lefayette Ronald Hubbard.
Development of the GNU project has been primarily handed over to Red Hat at this point, and as I've already said, I consider the GPL 3 a bad and overly restrictive license, even if v2 wasn't. Given those two points, the FSF have been reduced to not much more than a group of low budget terrorists, and the organisation should thus be abolished at this point. If it has ceased maintaining software or generating real code, it has outlived its' usefulness.
Little bitter?
The canard that the GPL is "anticommercial" is silly, but it's repeated often enough it's worth dismantling.
The GPL is not in any way anticommercial. It explicitly permits commercial use. When I license my code under the GPL, I'm accepting that someone can take that code and make billions from it, and they will not owe me a nickel. I'm not presenting that as a negative, mind you. When one licenses under any free license, that is one of the freedoms one is granting to everyone in the world.
Many proprietary licenses, on the other hand, are "blatantly anticommercial", in that they contain restrictions or additional payment/royalty requirements for commercial use, or ban various types of commercial use entirely. Try making an improved version of the Windows kernel and offering it for sale. You will very quickly see "blatantly anticommercial", and I would venture a guess that this would come in the form of "legally harass[ing]" that would be quite swift and more than occasional. It will happen every time.
What the GPL does require is quite simple. If you're going to take my code, improve it, and profit from it, you're required to share those improvements, just as I did for you in the first place. And even that's only true if you redistribute. If you improve my code and use it for your own in-house purposes, but do not distribute it, you don't even have to follow that requirement. It's only when you start distributing that code that the requirement to share the source kicks in.
There are anticommercial licenses out there, including effectively all proprietary licenses and many others. One Creative Commons license (CC-NC) is quite explicitly anticommercial. That's its very name, "noncommercial"! That does not of course mean commercial use is impossible, as anyone who wants to use material licensed under such a license is free to contact the copyright holder and work out terms for it to be licensed to them for commercial distribution. This license serves those who are willing to say "I will let you redistribute and modify this if not for a profit, but if you intend to ma
Ubuntu? Really? Try clicking the "system" option, then "Synaptic Package Manager". As you would've found had you paid any attention, you click the pretty box for the software you want, and your system installs the precompiled binaries along with any dependencies. No files (not even the equivalent of a .exe or .msi) required.
Your description of installing software on Linux is one way to do it, but it has not been the only way and certainly not the easiest way for a very long time.
How can warrantless GPS tracking be legal while warrantless car searching is illegal.
Police don't need a warrant to follow a car, and in my opinion, GPS tracking is more akin to tailing a car than searching through it. I'm not thrilled by this ruling, but it doesn't seem blatantly unconstitutional.
I'm not quite sure you're correct there. It's rather ironic that the case here involved someone suspected of stalking. Stalking also can be no more than following someone around and watching them in public places, yet it's something most areas have laws against. The only difference here is that the "stalker" is a police officer. Do you have any doubts that if it were found that the person suspected of "stalking" had covertly put GPS trackers on his victim's cars, they wouldn't nail him in a second? It would seem to me that if this type of behavior would be potentially criminal if done by someone who's not a police officer, it should take a warrant for a police officer to engage in it.
The clear intent of the Fourth Amendment is that the police can't pry into our lives without convincing a judge they have probable cause to believe we're involved in a crime. Even then, they can't just fish, they have to tell the judge exactly what crime, why they believe we're involved in it, and what evidence they believe their search will find.
Just because technology may now allow them to do such prying without physically kicking in a door doesn't mean we should allow surveillance on anyone at any time. As far as I'm concerned, gathering data on a specific person's movements, habits, etc., through surveillance, is a type of search (one is checking into that person's personal life, using methods that would routinely be thought to be invasive even if they are in public, and ironically here most of those methods would trigger the very anti-stalking laws being enforced here), and should be subject to Fourth Amendment protection, including the requirement for a warrant.
What you call "greed" I call "putting the food on the table". A desire to gather money to feed, shelter, and clothe my family is personal responsibility, not greed. And putting any excess money into a retirement plan, instead of spending it, is just good ole' common sense.
Making a decent living is not greed, you're correct on that. However, in the case of corporation higher-up types, we're not talking about a decent living. We're talking about, well, obscene greed, to the tune of multi-million-to-billion dollar salary and compensation packages with tremendous "golden parachutes" even if you screw everything up. This usually while paying your employees minimum wage or as little over it as possible, and having a good number of them on some type of welfare, while not even paying them sufficiently to save for retirement.
That's not responsibility. It's greed. There does come a point at which you can make money to the point it's obscene and more than anyone could possibly deserve. It's doubly obscene if you're also using tax shelters for most of it, so that you're not even paying for that welfare that's supporting your employees in the absence of you doing it.
Actually (to extend the analogy until it's beyond the point of screaming), it would be like not only leaving the mower in the yard, but putting a "Please take me!" sign on it. If you take something with the owner's permission, you cannot be accused of wrongdoing.
If the copyright holders, or third parties they have authorized to do so, are putting these files on filesharing networks, you are taking these with their knowledge and permission if you take the supposed "bait". How do they claim wrongdoing when they've put the file up on the network themselves?
If they had a search warrant, and you did not open the door, they would probably bust the door to get in.
Actually, that's probably closer to this situation than you think. If they have a warrant to gain access, they can forcibly gain access if you won't allow it voluntarily, but that doesn't mean they can force you to help them.
In the case of an encrypted hard drive, however, it may well be impossible for them to gain access forcibly ("break the door down" so to speak). There's a good case to be made that forcing you to give the password would be self-incrimination, as in not only are you allowing access to potentially incriminating data, but in giving the password, you are admitting that the data is yours and is under your control. The question "Is this data yours?" is a question you could pretty clearly refuse to answer under the 5th Amendment if the answer could be self-incriminating (imagine "data" is replaced with "gun" and it's pretty clear how one could remain silent there), but asking for the password is effectively the same as asking that question directly.
Keep in mind that most judges do try to strike a balance between allowing parties to gather necessary evidence and ensuring that there's a reasonable likelihood what's being subpoenaed is relevant and necessary, and at least in theory aren't supposed to allow subpoenas just to fish.
That being said, when one is facing a criminal conviction largely based upon the results from an electronic device, "I want to know exactly how that device works, including its source code", seems on its face to be a request of relevance to the case, as showing that the device is flawed could have major ramifications as to whether a jury could reasonably doubt guilt. On the other hand, having it audited and tested and no flaws found could strengthen the prosecution's reliance on it. Without that ability to audit, we don't know if that electronic device in our case is more valid than a magic 8-ball.
Giorgio released version 1.9.2.6 which disables the filter. I quote from http://noscript.net/?ver=1.9.2.6&prev=1.9.2.5
It seems that he eventually got it right.
It seems that he eventually got caught.