Bruce, I'm sorry but your comment doesn't respond to my point. It would be impossible to legally distribute a BSD-licensed command shell which uses the readline library, for example (unless you got specific permission from the authors of the readline library). People who say that BSD and GPL are "compatible" only mean that GPL'd projects can incorporate BSD code; they don't consider code moving in the other direction. Saying that they're "compatible" glosses over the one-way nature of the relationship.
The problem with licenses like that is that they don't do what you say they do. It's simply not the case that you "get to provide Free Software to folks who want to make Free Software with it" -- you only get to provide it to folks who want to make GPL software with it. Free programs under other Free licenses get shut out.
It's my opinion that the GPL should require true modifications to be GPL, and allow linking programs to be licensed under substantially similar conditions as any OSI-approved license.
That should be, "The only U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals cases on point within the last 15 years hold, unanimously...." I think I accidentally deleted an important part. Since the GP had cited to a Third Circuit case, and since I talked about how the case was old, I hope people caught the mistake and weren't confused. Either way, I'm sorry for my mistake.
Two other cases deserve mention. It turns out there is a Ninth Circuit case. The Ninth Circuit includes California and Washington, which is to say that it includes Silicon Valley and Redmond, and so is obviously quite important to the software industry. The Ninth Circuit has upheld a non-software EULA before:
We agree with the district court that Lexmark has presented sufficient unrebutted evidence to show that it has a facially valid contract with the consumers who buy and open its cartridges. Specifically, the language on the outside of the cartridge package specifies the terms under which a consumer may use the purchased item. The consumer can read the terms and conditions on the box before deciding whether to accept them or whether to opt for the non-Prebate cartridges that are sold without any restrictions.
Arizona Cartridge Remanufacturers Ass'n, Inc. v. Lexmark Intern., Inc., 421 F.3d 981 (9th Cir. 2005). There's no reason to believe that software would be treated any different, since the point of contention isn't the nature of software, but the nature of shrinkwrap/clickwrap licenses.
Another case arises out of the Second Circuit, which denies to enforce the arbitration clause in an EULA. However, the grounds for such a denial are not that EULAs aren't valid, but that the terms weren't conspicuous enough -- conspicuousness being a standard which any contract has to meet. In fact, the court was careful to avoid people misreading their case as saying EULAs aren't valid, citing Circuit cases I have already indicated as well as some state court decisions:
Defendants cite certain well-known cases involving shrinkwrap licensing.... For example, in Hill v. Gateway 2000, Inc., 105 F.3d 1147 (7th Cir.1997), the Seventh Circuit held that where a purchaser had ordered a computer over the telephone, received the order in a shipped box containing the computer along with printed contract terms, and did not return the computer within the thirty days required by the terms, the purchaser was bound by the contract. Id. at 1148-49. In ProCD, Inc. v. Zeidenberg, the same court held that where an individual purchased software in a box containing license terms which were displayed on the computer screen every time the user executed the software program, the user had sufficient opportunity to review the terms and to return the software, and so was contractually bound after retaining the product. ProCD, 86 F.3d at 1452; cf. Moore v. Microsoft Corp., 293 A.D.2d 587, 587, 741 N.Y.S.2d 91, 92 (2d Dep't 2002) (software user was bound by license agreement where terms were prominently displayed on computer screen before software could be installed and where user was required to indicate assent by clicking "I agree"); Brower v. Gateway 2000, Inc., 246 A.D.2d 246, 251, 676 N.Y.S.2d 569, 572 (1st Dep't 1998) (buyer assented to arbitration clause shipped inside box with computer and software by retaining items beyond date specified by license terms); M.A. Mortenson Co. v. Timberline Software Corp., 93 Wash.App. 819, 970 P.2d 803, 809 (1999) (buyer manifested assent to software license terms by installing and using software), aff'd, 140 Wash.2d 568, 998 P.2d 305 (2000); see also [i].Lan Sys., 183 F.Supp.2d [328, ]338 [(D.Mass. 2002)] (business entity "explicitly accepted the clickwrap license agreement [contained in purchased software] when it clicked on the box stating 'I agree' "). These cases do not help defendants. To the extent that they hold that the purchaser of a computer or tangible software is contractually bound after failing to object to printed license terms provided wit
This post is wrongly moderated. It is not informative. It is misinformative, or uninformative at best. The argument that the recognition of particular EULAs is distinct from recognition of the validity of EULAs "in general" betrays an ignorance of the judiciary and of contract law. This is simply not the way that the legal system works; courts must rule on an actual case or controversy and are not permitted to announce "general" rules of law. Furthermore, Step-Saver is anachronistic and the Third Circuit is relatively unpersuasive. In fact, there are NO major legal markets and NO major software companies within the Third Circuit's jurisdiction. ProCD v. Zeidenberg, 86 F.3d 1447 (7th Cir. 1996), however, has higher persuasive authority because it is (a) newer, (b) out of a major circuit, (c) written by an enormously influential appellate judge. In addition, it is the law in the entirety of the Seventh Circuit, which includes Chicago. Others may point to Klocek v. Gateway, 104 F. Supp.3d 1332 (D. Kan. 2000), but Klocek is a district court case, and therefore has no precedential value beyond its persuasiveness, which is in turn less than that of ProCD.
Trial courts don't make law. The only U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals cases on point hold, unanimously, that EULAs are enforceable. The law is relatively clear here, and is unlikely to change unless and until the Ninth Circuit or the Supreme Court take up the issue. I'm sorry, but you're just wrong.
Oh my GOD, dude, I laughed so hard at that. Thank you!
Re:I'm not a copyright lawyer
on
Qt Becomes LGPL
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· Score: 1
No worries. I am a bit disappointed in the FSF's misleading and one-sided definition of "compatible" though.
Re:I'm not a copyright lawyer
on
Qt Becomes LGPL
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· Score: 3, Informative
Totally wrong. You didn't read the link.
What the FSF means by "compatible" is that you can include BSD code in GPL projects. However, you CANNOT include GPL code in BSD-licensed projects. My comment stands.
Re:I'm not a copyright lawyer
on
Qt Becomes LGPL
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· Score: 1, Troll
A BSD-licensed program cannot use a GPL'd library, either. GPL is license-incompatible with everything else, not just closed-source.
Really really terrible submission. Should have been rejected.
For those plaintively responding "But this is idle"... no it's not. It originated on Idle but it's on the front page, where it emphatically and utterly does not belong.
Some have described a tunnel of bright light where the code executes in an infinite loop forever.
As opposed to an infinite loop which doesn't last forever?:-)
int main(void) {
int i = 0;
while (1) {
if (i<10) {
doSomethingTenTimesInAnInfiniteLoopButNotForever();
i++;
}
doSomethingForever();
}
return 0;/* purely academic */ }
I hope it's not, too. It has very little to do with civics. What is Sputnik? What's the definition of business profit? A lot of these questions are from Business Economics 101 and have absolutely nothing to do with civics.
As a Switcheur of two years now, one thing that STILL bothers me is that I can't take screen grabs while a DVD is playing -- even if DVD Player is in a different space or on a different display!
Grrrrrrrr
On the other hand, DVD Player is lightweight enough and good enough at remembering where it is that I can cmd+tab/cmd+q/cmd+tab/cmd+shift+3/click and the movie interruption is something like 4-5 seconds.
And that performance hit was due to a lot more stuff going on in the background (Spotlight indexing, FSEvents). Leopard is, I believe, faster than Tiger on the same (newer, 64-bit Intel) hardware (Tiger is faster on PowerPC and maybe faster on 32bit Intel), and Snow Leopard is supposed to be faster than Leopard.
Slashdot Mirror
Bruce, I'm sorry but your comment doesn't respond to my point. It would be impossible to legally distribute a BSD-licensed command shell which uses the readline library, for example (unless you got specific permission from the authors of the readline library). People who say that BSD and GPL are "compatible" only mean that GPL'd projects can incorporate BSD code; they don't consider code moving in the other direction. Saying that they're "compatible" glosses over the one-way nature of the relationship.
The problem with licenses like that is that they don't do what you say they do. It's simply not the case that you "get to provide Free Software to folks who want to make Free Software with it" -- you only get to provide it to folks who want to make GPL software with it. Free programs under other Free licenses get shut out.
It's my opinion that the GPL should require true modifications to be GPL, and allow linking programs to be licensed under substantially similar conditions as any OSI-approved license.
That should be, "The only U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals cases on point within the last 15 years hold, unanimously...." I think I accidentally deleted an important part. Since the GP had cited to a Third Circuit case, and since I talked about how the case was old, I hope people caught the mistake and weren't confused. Either way, I'm sorry for my mistake.
Two other cases deserve mention. It turns out there is a Ninth Circuit case. The Ninth Circuit includes California and Washington, which is to say that it includes Silicon Valley and Redmond, and so is obviously quite important to the software industry. The Ninth Circuit has upheld a non-software EULA before:
Arizona Cartridge Remanufacturers Ass'n, Inc. v. Lexmark Intern., Inc., 421 F.3d 981 (9th Cir. 2005). There's no reason to believe that software would be treated any different, since the point of contention isn't the nature of software, but the nature of shrinkwrap/clickwrap licenses.
Another case arises out of the Second Circuit, which denies to enforce the arbitration clause in an EULA. However, the grounds for such a denial are not that EULAs aren't valid, but that the terms weren't conspicuous enough -- conspicuousness being a standard which any contract has to meet. In fact, the court was careful to avoid people misreading their case as saying EULAs aren't valid, citing Circuit cases I have already indicated as well as some state court decisions:
This post is wrongly moderated. It is not informative. It is misinformative, or uninformative at best. The argument that the recognition of particular EULAs is distinct from recognition of the validity of EULAs "in general" betrays an ignorance of the judiciary and of contract law. This is simply not the way that the legal system works; courts must rule on an actual case or controversy and are not permitted to announce "general" rules of law. Furthermore, Step-Saver is anachronistic and the Third Circuit is relatively unpersuasive. In fact, there are NO major legal markets and NO major software companies within the Third Circuit's jurisdiction. ProCD v. Zeidenberg, 86 F.3d 1447 (7th Cir. 1996), however, has higher persuasive authority because it is (a) newer, (b) out of a major circuit, (c) written by an enormously influential appellate judge. In addition, it is the law in the entirety of the Seventh Circuit, which includes Chicago. Others may point to Klocek v. Gateway, 104 F. Supp.3d 1332 (D. Kan. 2000), but Klocek is a district court case, and therefore has no precedential value beyond its persuasiveness, which is in turn less than that of ProCD.
Trial courts don't make law. The only U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals cases on point hold, unanimously, that EULAs are enforceable. The law is relatively clear here, and is unlikely to change unless and until the Ninth Circuit or the Supreme Court take up the issue. I'm sorry, but you're just wrong.
They are emphatically valid in most U.S. jurisdictions.
Very poor moderation. MichaelSmith, we salute you for your non-offtopic comment.
"A non compete clause in your contract perhaps ... so that Microsoft [could] sue you for copyright infringement, and win?"
Um. Not even wrong. Non-competes have absolutely nothing to do with copyright.
When has the U.S. done that in recent memory?
It hasn't. Dunno if you've noticed, but lots of Arab countries are our allies in the GWOT.
GNOME isn't uglier than Windows XP or Vista in the "classic" mode...
Yeah, you're right. The textflow and font-handling arent't ugly at all. </sarcasm>
GNOME has a LOOOOOOOOOONG way to go before it's as professional as System 7.x, let alone a "modern" UI.
Oh my GOD, dude, I laughed so hard at that. Thank you!
No worries. I am a bit disappointed in the FSF's misleading and one-sided definition of "compatible" though.
Totally wrong. You didn't read the link.
What the FSF means by "compatible" is that you can include BSD code in GPL projects. However, you CANNOT include GPL code in BSD-licensed projects. My comment stands.
A BSD-licensed program cannot use a GPL'd library, either. GPL is license-incompatible with everything else, not just closed-source.
That's a pretty egregious example of forum-shopping.
You can't patent content; your post is off-topic, meaningless, and flamebait.
Really really terrible submission. Should have been rejected.
For those plaintively responding "But this is idle" ... no it's not. It originated on Idle but it's on the front page, where it emphatically and utterly does not belong.
Congratulations on using "Jews" and "wholesale" in the same sentence without it being a racist joke.
Some have described a tunnel of bright light where the code executes in an infinite loop forever.
As opposed to an infinite loop which doesn't last forever? :-)
int main(void) {
int i = 0;
while (1) {
if (i<10) {
doSomethingTenTimesInAnInfiniteLoopButNotForever();
i++;
}
doSomethingForever();
}
return 0;
}
OH YEAH!
Your solution is fantastic, and you deserve a higher mod.
I hope it's not, too. It has very little to do with civics. What is Sputnik? What's the definition of business profit? A lot of these questions are from Business Economics 101 and have absolutely nothing to do with civics.
Let me know when the average Comcast customer has a vote on the board, because until he can elect a new CEO, your comparison falls flat.
As a Switcheur of two years now, one thing that STILL bothers me is that I can't take screen grabs while a DVD is playing -- even if DVD Player is in a different space or on a different display!
Grrrrrrrr
On the other hand, DVD Player is lightweight enough and good enough at remembering where it is that I can cmd+tab/cmd+q/cmd+tab/cmd+shift+3/click and the movie interruption is something like 4-5 seconds.
But still.
And that performance hit was due to a lot more stuff going on in the background (Spotlight indexing, FSEvents). Leopard is, I believe, faster than Tiger on the same (newer, 64-bit Intel) hardware (Tiger is faster on PowerPC and maybe faster on 32bit Intel), and Snow Leopard is supposed to be faster than Leopard.
Under Federal law, you have to be a licensed theoretical physicist if you want to begin a multi-billion-year chain fusion reaction.