" They can use it on exactly the same terms as everyone else. There is no sense in which they are being dsciminated against."
I repeast, no, they cannot use it in their product while the OSS developer can.
"Or that the government building roads is discriminating against people who don't have drive cars."
The reason we let the government help build roads despite that fact is because there is no viable alternative way to get the job done. That is not the case with software development. They could easily have released the code for everyone to use.
First, the origional claim was not about federal income takes at all, but rather about all taxes that go to the federal government.
Some guy responded saying by claiming that MS might not pay any federal income tax at all.
I pointed out that just because MS takes deductions on income tax does not mean they don't pay any taxes at all. I then elaborated after it became apparent that you or whoever replied to me didn't get it and pointed out they pay other taxes, plus their investors and employees pay huge amounts of taxes. Thus MS income goes to Uncle Sam to pay for this software.First, the original claim was not about federal income takes at all, but rather about all taxes that go to the federal government. Try hitting that little "parent" link on the post next time.
Some guy responded saying by claiming that MS might not pay any federal income tax at all because they make deductions.
I pointed out that just because MS takes deductions on income tax does not mean they don't pay any taxes at all. I then elaborated after it became apparent that you or whoever replied to me didn't get it and pointed out they pay other taxes, plus their investors and employees pay huge amounts of taxes. Thus MS income goes to Uncle Sam to pay for this software.
Any big words you need help with in there little buddy?
I know I'm being mean to him, but morons like this tend to piss me off. Sorry mods.
If you RTFA, the novel part of this isn't that the software is in the public domain. In fact, all government software is in the public domain (you just don't often know about it so you can't access it). Its that the software is licensed under the restrictive GPL.
Well why the fuck do you think I said "Except the public includes corporations who sell proprietary software" if I wasn't talking about their proprietary projects?
If I said "The prosecution's lawyer cannot bring up the defendant's past record", you claiming "Sure he can, just not in court" would not refute my point.
You can nitpick all you want, that does not change the fact that funding GPL code discriminates against commercial companies who sell proprietary software as they cannot use it in their products while OSS developers can.
Strange, the article I read only speculated that the corporation did not pay federal income taxes (there are a lot of other ways Uncle Sammy gets money from corporations). Maybe you got a different article. If so, please provide the article you read that says the company and its employees/investors paid no taxes at all as I would like to read it. Really, it sounds very interesting.
Anyways, here is MS's Annual Report which seems to state they paid nearly $5 billion in income taxes. Maybe you don't think $5 billion is that much, in which case can I borrow $20?
It is illegal to use GPL code in proprietary software. Read the license next time you get the chance. Sure, they can use it on the side, but not in their software.
No, its not MS, its SCO. But anyways, that does not involve MS or anyone passing laws or pushing Congress to pass laws that will hold back OSS. The lawsuit is based on existing intellectual property laws (which BTW support OSS as well as closed source).
I think what he was trying to say was that the loophole exploited in this case should be closed. If the government funds a project with tax dollars the project should not have GPL-like restrictions placed on it.
"Govt should fund open source SW, as closed source SW vendors will use their power and money to create laws that will close down OSS. "
Really? How are companies like IBM using their power and money to create laws that will close down OSS? I want specific references, not vague conspiracy theories.
Come to think of it, can you give an example of Microsoft enacting laws to close down OSS? I've heard them make a lot of speeches but nothing really on the legal front.
"If we want an increasingly high standard of living, then we have to engineer a government that will give it to us..."
...at the expense of others. Bill Gates is an American citizen too. Why restrict his right to produce inferior software products? Because you don't like Microsoft? Well neither do I but I still respect MS's right to exist. Your engineered government inherently infringes on the rights of other people, and the fact that they are rich doesn't make that a good thing.
Except the public includes corporations who sell proprietary software who cannot use GPL code. In fact, they spend more on government products than private citizens.
GPL does not mean it is free and you can do whatever the hell you want with it. It has many restrictions.
I agree, though with a few exceptions (clearly some government projects need to remain behind closed doors). The public funds these projects, thus the public should be able to use them however we wish. Keeping the code under the GPL keeps a large segment of the public who paid for it (corporations looking to sell proprietary software) from using it.
As the article states, the government is supposed to be required to put out code in the 'public domain', it appears they had to use a loophole in the law to get this done.
Perhaps an exception for the LGPL would work here. The code could be used with commericial products while still keeping with the copy-left philosophy.
Indent lengths are also inconsistent. Some use indent lengths of 2, some 3, some 4, some even longer. Even if length of code were a valid way to measure the quality of a scripting language, these guys do a piss poor job of doing it.
Yeah, I saw the apology, I meant to reply but I must have gotten distracted by something (probably shouldn't post after drinking...). Sorry (an apology over an apology, this trend could go on for a while).
A bit OT, but as far as ogg vorbis is concerned, in order to get decent quality from mp3s I find I have to use a rather high bitrate of around 128 kbps as opposed to my ogg vorbis files which are at 64 kbps and sound fine. That means my CD collection takes up half the space now as it would has I used mp3s. And as far as which is easier to play, ogg vorbis is open source while mp3 is patented. That means some Linux distros (such as Red Hat/Fedora) do not support mp3s out of the box, while they support oggs just fine.
Not sure how advocating policies in Washington is the equivalent to dictating the terms of the industry or what OPEC does, but lets not get into an OT debate on the many aspects of the record industry and stick to the topic on hand. The fact remains, the RIAA has no control over which bands are signed, the individual labels do.
"Um okay. Never mind that it'd be far faster and easier to just download the songs I've got. Seriously man, imagine ripping a single CD, then imagine just typing in a few search terms, highlighting them and saying "download". Then it's off on its own."
You know its because of thinking like that that causes my university network to slow to a crawl while everyone is sitting at home downloading movies and songs in their dorms. Not to mention the security risks associated with p2p filesharing, and the potential qualtiy control problems, etc.
It takes maybe two minutes for me to rip a five minute song into an ogg vorbis file. And I probably could rip an mp3 much quicker if for some reason I prefered an inferior format.
Why is it that whenever one group gives donations to another, people cry foul? Anyone stop to think that maybe, just maybe those groups give donations to each other because they share common interests? Is it really so bad that Diebold gives money to the National Federation for the Blind?
BTW, paper trails are not infallible either. This guy questions the disability advocacy group's backgrounds on security. Well I question his background on security if he thinks paper trails are some magic key to ensure fair voting.
At the risk of getting modded down for trolling (though I take that risk with any post considering some of the mods out there)...
Ok, I understand you now. You are not mad at the RIAA because they won't let you download their songs for free, you are an incompetent fool who can't figure out how to rip a CD.
Calm down kid. I was not making a claim about the opinions of every./er as that would be a long ass post. Nor was I making a claim about your personal opinions. But believe me, there are a lot of people out there who are just pissed off because the RIAA opposes letting them get free music. That sentiment causes people to be unable to evaluate any issue involving the RIAA objectively, which causes a lot of misconceptions and propaganda. This story is one example. Your claim that they consider owners of CD burners thieves is another.
The world does not revolve around you, so stop taking every post personally.
"The simple problem he has, and which I share, is that the right to privacy is divisible into the right to privacy from observation, and the right to privacy against tracking."
They are interconnected, if not the same thing. If I can observe you I can track you. And I need to be able to observe at least some aspect of your life in order to track you.
Not only can you be observed with the current system, you can be tracked as well.
"When the something you're doing wrong is having the wrong color skin walking through a neighborhood policed by a prejudiced camera operator, or being near the girlfriend of a jealous police officer, then you can begin to see why there are those who don't like being tracked."
Yeah, like those problems don't exist with traditional law enforcement. If anything they are less of a problem with video as now the officer can't lie and say they saw the black guy trying to steal a car or whatever excuse they think up.
Besides, those are based on observation, not tracking, which blows a hole wide open in your division theory.
The small indie labels lose out because they may not be able to afford to compete with the labels owned by major record companies.
The larger labels lose out because they have to pay big bucks just to get heard, plus they can usually only get a small portion of their music on the air.
The listeners lose out because of the lack of diversity being played as the result of these policies.
The radio stations lose out because,... well ok they are the ones who benefit from payola.
Believe it or not, there are these things called 'indie labels' that many of us buy from. In fact, Brittney Spears, the Backstreet Boys, and a number of other crappy pop groups got famous with Zomba long before they were bought by BMG.
And I know I've said this a million times, but the RIAA does not own any labels. They are a trade group, not a record company. Big difference between the two.
Listening to you people one would think that record labels support spending money just to get their songs played on the radio. The fact of the matter is that this is a practice pushed by the big bad radio stations in order to get money, not by the big bad record labels to lose money. The labels have even launched challenges against payola. Believe it or not, they prefer to get their songs played for free.
You people can't even get your villains straight.
Here is a press release from Hilary Rosen herself, right off the RIAA's website: http://www.riaa.com/news/newsletter/013003.asp
Just because they won't let you download their songs for free does not mean that they are on the opposite side of every issue (although I'm betting some of you will quickly change your positions on payola once you here where Rosen really stands on the issue).
In theory, maybe. In reality, not a chance. If we block businesses from employing people over there, that won't encourage the governments to enact liberal social reforms. In will just bankrupt all those factories and force all the old employees back to the streets where they will be doomed to a life of poverty far worse than anything here in the States. If on the other hand businesses are allowed to hire their workers, they will have a chance of building up something at least resembling a working economy, which could grow into something that will allow kids to spend their childhood going to school and playing in the playground instead of working in factories.
Remember, these kids aren't starving because these societies have no conception of human rights. They are starving because they are poor. Shaking our fingers at them won't fix that problem.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Show me the part of that that says the government cannot passively watch you as you walk in public.
"That's why I said "damn near.""
And why I said "limited". You only has privacy as long as the cops don't suspect you of anything and don't have enough evidence to convince a judge to sign a warrant.
"Where can you go, without going out "in public" along the way??? "
Sit alone in your basement thinking up conspiracy theories. Otherwise, if you want to interact with the rest of the world, you have to give up some limited freedoms, such as the freedom not to be watched.
"No, you may have been talking about state government, but I'm referring to the Feds "
The article was referring to the state governments. The surveillance system being discussed is owned, maintained, and operated by the state of Maryland, which puts a strain on your theory that it will be linked up into a nationwide surveillance network.
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I repeast, no, they cannot use it in their product while the OSS developer can.
"Or that the government building roads is discriminating against people who don't have drive cars."
The reason we let the government help build roads despite that fact is because there is no viable alternative way to get the job done. That is not the case with software development. They could easily have released the code for everyone to use.
Some guy responded saying by claiming that MS might not pay any federal income tax at all.
I pointed out that just because MS takes deductions on income tax does not mean they don't pay any taxes at all. I then elaborated after it became apparent that you or whoever replied to me didn't get it and pointed out they pay other taxes, plus their investors and employees pay huge amounts of taxes. Thus MS income goes to Uncle Sam to pay for this software.First, the original claim was not about federal income takes at all, but rather about all taxes that go to the federal government. Try hitting that little "parent" link on the post next time.
Some guy responded saying by claiming that MS might not pay any federal income tax at all because they make deductions.
I pointed out that just because MS takes deductions on income tax does not mean they don't pay any taxes at all. I then elaborated after it became apparent that you or whoever replied to me didn't get it and pointed out they pay other taxes, plus their investors and employees pay huge amounts of taxes. Thus MS income goes to Uncle Sam to pay for this software.
Any big words you need help with in there little buddy?
I know I'm being mean to him, but morons like this tend to piss me off. Sorry mods.
If you RTFA, the novel part of this isn't that the software is in the public domain. In fact, all government software is in the public domain (you just don't often know about it so you can't access it). Its that the software is licensed under the restrictive GPL.
If I said "The prosecution's lawyer cannot bring up the defendant's past record", you claiming "Sure he can, just not in court" would not refute my point.
You can nitpick all you want, that does not change the fact that funding GPL code discriminates against commercial companies who sell proprietary software as they cannot use it in their products while OSS developers can.
Anyways, here is MS's Annual Report which seems to state they paid nearly $5 billion in income taxes. Maybe you don't think $5 billion is that much, in which case can I borrow $20?
It is illegal to use GPL code in proprietary software. Read the license next time you get the chance. Sure, they can use it on the side, but not in their software.
No, its not MS, its SCO. But anyways, that does not involve MS or anyone passing laws or pushing Congress to pass laws that will hold back OSS. The lawsuit is based on existing intellectual property laws (which BTW support OSS as well as closed source).
I think what he was trying to say was that the loophole exploited in this case should be closed. If the government funds a project with tax dollars the project should not have GPL-like restrictions placed on it.
Taking some deductions on income tax is not the same thing as not paying any taxes at all.
Really? How are companies like IBM using their power and money to create laws that will close down OSS? I want specific references, not vague conspiracy theories.
Come to think of it, can you give an example of Microsoft enacting laws to close down OSS? I've heard them make a lot of speeches but nothing really on the legal front.
"If we want an increasingly high standard of living, then we have to engineer a government that will give it to us..."
GPL does not mean it is free and you can do whatever the hell you want with it. It has many restrictions.
As the article states, the government is supposed to be required to put out code in the 'public domain', it appears they had to use a loophole in the law to get this done.
Perhaps an exception for the LGPL would work here. The code could be used with commericial products while still keeping with the copy-left philosophy.
Indent lengths are also inconsistent. Some use indent lengths of 2, some 3, some 4, some even longer. Even if length of code were a valid way to measure the quality of a scripting language, these guys do a piss poor job of doing it.
A bit OT, but as far as ogg vorbis is concerned, in order to get decent quality from mp3s I find I have to use a rather high bitrate of around 128 kbps as opposed to my ogg vorbis files which are at 64 kbps and sound fine. That means my CD collection takes up half the space now as it would has I used mp3s. And as far as which is easier to play, ogg vorbis is open source while mp3 is patented. That means some Linux distros (such as Red Hat/Fedora) do not support mp3s out of the box, while they support oggs just fine.
Not sure how advocating policies in Washington is the equivalent to dictating the terms of the industry or what OPEC does, but lets not get into an OT debate on the many aspects of the record industry and stick to the topic on hand. The fact remains, the RIAA has no control over which bands are signed, the individual labels do.
You know its because of thinking like that that causes my university network to slow to a crawl while everyone is sitting at home downloading movies and songs in their dorms. Not to mention the security risks associated with p2p filesharing, and the potential qualtiy control problems, etc.
It takes maybe two minutes for me to rip a five minute song into an ogg vorbis file. And I probably could rip an mp3 much quicker if for some reason I prefered an inferior format.
BTW, paper trails are not infallible either. This guy questions the disability advocacy group's backgrounds on security. Well I question his background on security if he thinks paper trails are some magic key to ensure fair voting.
Ok, I understand you now. You are not mad at the RIAA because they won't let you download their songs for free, you are an incompetent fool who can't figure out how to rip a CD.
Calm down kid. I was not making a claim about the opinions of every ./er as that would be a long ass post. Nor was I making a claim about your personal opinions. But believe me, there are a lot of people out there who are just pissed off because the RIAA opposes letting them get free music. That sentiment causes people to be unable to evaluate any issue involving the RIAA objectively, which causes a lot of misconceptions and propaganda. This story is one example. Your claim that they consider owners of CD burners thieves is another.
The world does not revolve around you, so stop taking every post personally.
They are interconnected, if not the same thing. If I can observe you I can track you. And I need to be able to observe at least some aspect of your life in order to track you.
Not only can you be observed with the current system, you can be tracked as well.
"When the something you're doing wrong is having the wrong color skin walking through a neighborhood policed by a prejudiced camera operator, or being near the girlfriend of a jealous police officer, then you can begin to see why there are those who don't like being tracked."
Yeah, like those problems don't exist with traditional law enforcement. If anything they are less of a problem with video as now the officer can't lie and say they saw the black guy trying to steal a car or whatever excuse they think up.
Besides, those are based on observation, not tracking, which blows a hole wide open in your division theory.
The larger labels lose out because they have to pay big bucks just to get heard, plus they can usually only get a small portion of their music on the air.
The listeners lose out because of the lack of diversity being played as the result of these policies.
The radio stations lose out because,... well ok they are the ones who benefit from payola.
And I know I've said this a million times, but the RIAA does not own any labels. They are a trade group, not a record company. Big difference between the two.
You people can't even get your villains straight.
Here is a press release from Hilary Rosen herself, right off the RIAA's website: http://www.riaa.com/news/newsletter/013003.asp
Just because they won't let you download their songs for free does not mean that they are on the opposite side of every issue (although I'm betting some of you will quickly change your positions on payola once you here where Rosen really stands on the issue).
I guess the mods this week aren't South Park fans.
Remember, these kids aren't starving because these societies have no conception of human rights. They are starving because they are poor. Shaking our fingers at them won't fix that problem.
Feel free to elaborate.
"starts to tread on our 4th Amendment rights."
Show me the part of that that says the government cannot passively watch you as you walk in public."That's why I said "damn near.""
And why I said "limited". You only has privacy as long as the cops don't suspect you of anything and don't have enough evidence to convince a judge to sign a warrant.
"Where can you go, without going out "in public" along the way??? "
Sit alone in your basement thinking up conspiracy theories. Otherwise, if you want to interact with the rest of the world, you have to give up some limited freedoms, such as the freedom not to be watched.
"No, you may have been talking about state government, but I'm referring to the Feds "
The article was referring to the state governments. The surveillance system being discussed is owned, maintained, and operated by the state of Maryland, which puts a strain on your theory that it will be linked up into a nationwide surveillance network.