Supreme Court Justice Breyer found that only about 2% of copyrights between 55 and 75 years old retain commercial value.
Meaning "2 % of stuff that was published 55 to 75 years ago." Also, some corporations will claim that all copyrights they own, have a commercial value.
I'd be might surprised if even 1% of books published 3 years ago still have any meaningful commercial value. If I remember correctly, only about 3% of book titles published find their way into a library.
BR> I'm expecting IBM to turn up to court with some big ammo; not much will happen before then unless SCO pisses off one of IBMs customers or something.
Having followed the events (or rather lack of) in the SCO/IBM case, I find SCO's behaviour highly suspicious.
They keep provoking IBM to take some action increasing the level of threats and insults as time passes.
SCO looks not unlike a guy who knows he is going to die, but is trying to go with a some kind of a "bang" by standing under a few thousand tons of huge boulders and throwing rocks upwards to try to dislogde a few of them.
Either that, or SCO has bought a protection from god almighty (Or Luzifer in SCO's case) and is testing how well it works.
Unless some secret deal will be made, the results will be spectacular..
One of the big problems with our legal system is that it is easy to bully someone with a frivolous lawsuit when they can't afford the time or money to defend themselves.
Exactly, some countries have 'justice system', USA has 'legal system'...
I believe nVidia's 'closed source'ism is due to the fact that their drivers for their video cards include code that is not theirs, and licensed from other companies, and thus not publishable...
If that was the reason then they could at least releast the specs for their chipset (the hardware interface, not the hardware's sourcecode).
I recently bought a MSI K7N2G-L motherboard, and saying that I was disappointed with nVidia when I discovered that the nForce2 chipset wasn't properly supported for Linux, is an understatement.
assuming we use a full 7 bit dynamic range (which we don't), the input space for most lines of code is then 112 bits, less than the 128 bit dynamic range of MD5.
Either you have absolutely no idea of how MD5 works, ot you're trying to pull my leg..
Even if you would limit the input alphabet to 4 bits, you would still get 128 bit, evenly distributed, output.
Meaning that you can't calculate, a subset of the 128 bit MD5 output, that those lines of code will give.
Which brings us back to the original point, that the words (meaning lines of code in this context) can have 2^128 different MD5 checksums.
Remember, far fewer than 2^128 lines of code have ever been written, or ever will be written.
True, but since the MD5 hash is only 16 bytes long, and a line of code can be 80 characters in length (or more, you should see how some people write).
It's like the lottery, the changes of winning are 2^128, you buy 300 tickets (small program), and each ticket can have the winning number.. Bu tthe changes are 1 to 2^128
That's assuming that any binary string can be a valid chunk of code. Given the more limited character set used in C code (a subset of ASCII 0x00-0x7f) and given that indentation styles will tend to introduce bytewise similarity, the number is probably a lot lower.
You fail to take into account that the MD5 checksum is only 16 bytes, but a line of code can be up to 70 characters in lenght. Given the numbert of collisions, I'd stil say the original number is correct.
If you can proove that limiting the character set in the input, will limit the number of different MD5 sums in the output, while the length of the input is still 3X-4X larger than the hash, you have fame and recognition ahead of you!
As all hashes go, and I know, it's mathimatically "very hard", two different byte segments CAN have the same md5 sum. Longer they get, harder it is...
Uhh, well, the probability that a given line of code has a certain MD5 checksum is 1 to 340282366920938463463374607431768211456.
That's way less probable than the probability of a false positive in a DNA test. (I.e. "Good enough" for a match)
So, unless I see a two headed guy with dark sunglasses, climb into his shiny spaceship and start it's engines, I belive SCO could very well use this technique to demonstrate what part of their code is in Linux.
why spend the money on fighting the lawsuit or paying a settlement - buy out SCO
SCO hasn't sued anybody yet..
And if their behaviour can be used as a indicator of how solid their case is, I'd say here is a good change they won't be suing anybody in the forseeable future.
Either that, or the case will be dismissed right after SCO has explained it's case and the judge has had a good belly laugh..
I fail to see where MS would come out ahead with that quote going around the IT circles. In fact, it just makes linux more powerful in the court room.
Exactly where MS want's Linux to look strong, (anti-trust cases against Microsoft). The iminent SCO-death will also be used extensively by Microsoft as a warning to corporations about what happends to code that gets in bed with GPL software.
I.e. "Don't develop or use open-source code, it can kill your company". That example will be worth to Microsoft whatever they paid SCO, many times over.
Of course *we* will know that's BS, but the average top-level manager in a company generally has only some vague information about "some case SCO brought against Linux".
Whatever makes you think it's just the Open Source movement that's after SCO's hide?
It doesn't matter if God almighty is also after SCO. As long as it *looks like* SCO is fighting "the evil open-source movement", Microsoft will happily pay whatever necessary for the change of using them as a an example of "Open Source Road-Kill".
Wouldn't surprise me a bit if microsoft used exactly those words "Open Source Road-Kill", when refering to SCO in the future.
Given the fact that Microsoft is financing SCO's anti-Linux crusade (or do you really believe that they pay millions for a license they don't need?),
Even if SCO has a reason a and SCO's code is in the Linux kennel, I think SCO will have a hard time finding a judge who will be simpathetic with SCO, after seeing how they have behaved.
SCO has done absolutely nothing to explain the problem to Linus, let alone given him enough information to correct the problem.
If SCO can't proove that Linus (or some other kernel maintainer) knew that the code in question was SCO's property, at some time or another, it will be very difficult to claim any meaningful damages from Linus or the other Kernel maintainers.
Likely the Judge will simply order Linus to remove the offending code without demanding any damages paid to SCO.
Either way, win or loose, SCO is fucked.. and that is the reason Micro$oft is paying. It's easily worth 100 milions to M$ to be able to point to the SCO case and say : "You can't fight the Open Source movement, just look at what they did to SCO!"
There are consequences to actions. Unfortunately the American people cannot seem to draw a line between point A and point B.
It was funny when I first heard it, but as time passes It is starting to scare me a lot: "The average american atually belives everything his 'authority' tells him.".
I don't think that GWB is a unusually bad leader, in France we know the Presient is a lying corrupt thief, (as opposed to religious extreemist corrupt sadistic alcoholic (and murderer ?)). Hmmm, well baybe he *is* unusually bad..
The problem with Services contracts for Linux boxes is that you're allowed to install as many machines as you want (obviously - its GPL software).
Well, that's what everybody belives.. But then there is THIS clause in the RedHat's EULA:
"If Customer wishes to increase the number of Installed Servers, then
Customer will purchase from Red Hat additional Services for each
additional Installed Server."
For me, this means that you can't have a installed server without a service contract..
Or at least the meaning of this is not clear..
How can you collect sales tax on a used item? The tax was already paid here by the original purchaser
Everybody pays sales tax, when the farmer sells his apples to the distributor, the distributor has to pay sales tax to the farmer, when the supermarket buys the apples from the distributor, the supermarket has to pay sales tax to the distributor, and when you, the consumer, buys the apples from the supermarket, you have to pay sales tax to the supermarket.
Everyone who sells anything has to collect sales tax for the governament, the difference in collected and paid tax (usually a positive number) is then paid to the goverment by the seller.
The same rule applies if you sell a 500 year old painting, you have to pay sales tax..
Economic sciences define monopoly market-position to be :
"When a company can, by means of market position or money, prevent normal competition in a market."
Now, there is no question that Microsoft holds such a power in the PC/OS market, and I think it's very hard to see this move by Microsoft (if true) as something else than using it's monopoly power to prevent "normal competition".
Lip service or not, these developers have in their job description to be scapegoats. That is not an enviable position.
Absolutely, as everybody, with even the slightest sense of how software security works, knows, you can't just *add* security afterwards as Microsoft seems to be proposing with this "code review".
. The fact is the customers were deprived of a service they paid money for not to mention the costs incurred by the company itself.
The customers weren't deprived of any service at all. At least not any service they paid for. They could still connect to the servers, and "play the game". The complains are about the game not being according to expectations.
It's most likely the "cackers" just found a uncommented feature in the game (bug) that gave them access to "game controller" functions.
If the company will sucessfuly sue anybody for this then there are real possibilities that those same arguments can (and will) be used to sue companies for software bugs in the future.
Why should computer game servers be exempt from the usual laws about hacking into peoples' systems? Those who break into banks are prosecuted, if caught.
The 'business operations' you are takling about consist of killing virtual vampires, imps and goblins...
Do you know of any lawyer who could present that to a judge without the whole courtroom going ROFL ?
If file sharing is helping them out, why are revenues down?
Crappy product ? Seriously how many artists have some kind of a "message" today ?? Very few, They all look alike and are as much food for the mind as corbonated water with colorants is to the stomach.
Your arguement makes no sense. They had no copy protection and revenue went down.
No, actually while they had no copy protection, the revenue was at a all time high. It didn't start going downhill until Napster was shut down..
Personally I think that's a coincidence but people should remember the things as they were.
Intuit started using copy protection and their revenue went down. Two entirely different situations.
Says who ? The recording industry for sure, but they (belive they) have a good reason to want you to belive that .
The other key point in the document is that the Spamhaus Black List (SBL) blocks spam at the destination, not the source.
"Black Lists" of this type don't block any mail. Not any more than the phonebook calls your number.
The "Black List" is only a tool, and the end user can do with it as he chooses.
The user of a Blacklist can "Whitelist" any network he wants. The Blacklist doesn't force the rejection of any email. It is 100% up to the user of the Blacklist what to do when a IP/Network is found in the Blacklist.
Hey, it's like Iraq... attack first, find no weapons of mass destruction, and apologize later! It's almost laughable!... if it wasn't so scary.
You are forgetting that having WMS wasn't sufficient enough reason to attack Iraq. The USA claimed that
1) Iraq Had WMD
2) Iraq had very friendly ties with terror groups
3) Iraq was ready to give WMD to those terror groups.
So, even if they find WMD, they still have to proove 2) and 3) to justify the war...
Slashdot Mirror
Supreme Court Justice Breyer found that only about 2% of copyrights between 55 and 75 years old retain commercial value.
Meaning "2 % of stuff that was published 55 to 75 years ago." Also, some corporations will claim that all copyrights they own, have a commercial value.
I'd be might surprised if even 1% of books published 3 years ago still have any meaningful commercial value. If I remember correctly, only about 3% of book titles published find their way into a library.
BR> I'm expecting IBM to turn up to court with some big ammo; not much will happen before then unless SCO pisses off one of IBMs customers or something.
Having followed the events (or rather lack of) in the SCO/IBM case, I find SCO's behaviour highly suspicious.
They keep provoking IBM to take some action increasing the level of threats and insults as time passes.
SCO looks not unlike a guy who knows he is going to die, but is trying to go with a some kind of a "bang" by standing under a few thousand tons of huge boulders and throwing rocks upwards to try to dislogde a few of them.
Either that, or SCO has bought a protection from god almighty (Or Luzifer in SCO's case) and is testing how well it works.
Unless some secret deal will be made, the results will be spectacular..
One of the big problems with our legal system is that it is easy to bully someone with a frivolous lawsuit when they can't afford the time or money to defend themselves.
Exactly, some countries have 'justice system', USA has 'legal system' ...
I believe nVidia's 'closed source'ism is due to the fact that their drivers for their video cards include code that is not theirs, and licensed from other companies, and thus not publishable...
If that was the reason then they could at least releast the specs for their chipset (the hardware interface, not the hardware's sourcecode).
I recently bought a MSI K7N2G-L motherboard, and saying that I was disappointed with nVidia when I discovered that the nForce2 chipset wasn't properly supported for Linux, is an understatement.
assuming we use a full 7 bit dynamic range (which we don't), the input space for most lines of code is then 112 bits, less than the 128 bit dynamic range of MD5.
Either you have absolutely no idea of how MD5 works, ot you're trying to pull my leg..
Even if you would limit the input alphabet to 4 bits, you would still get 128 bit, evenly distributed, output.
Meaning that you can't calculate, a subset of the 128 bit MD5 output, that those lines of code will give.
Which brings us back to the original point, that the words (meaning lines of code in this context) can have 2^128 different MD5 checksums.
Remember, far fewer than 2^128 lines of code have ever been written, or ever will be written.
True, but since the MD5 hash is only 16 bytes long, and a line of code can be 80 characters in length (or more, you should see how some people write).
It's like the lottery, the changes of winning are 2^128, you buy 300 tickets (small program), and each ticket can have the winning number.. Bu tthe changes are 1 to 2^128
That's assuming that any binary string can be a valid chunk of code. Given the more limited character set used in C code (a subset of ASCII 0x00-0x7f) and given that indentation styles will tend to introduce bytewise similarity, the number is probably a lot lower.
You fail to take into account that the MD5 checksum is only 16 bytes, but a line of code can be up to 70 characters in lenght. Given the numbert of collisions, I'd stil say the original number is correct.
If you can proove that limiting the character set in the input, will limit the number of different MD5 sums in the output, while the length of the input is still 3X-4X larger than the hash, you have fame and recognition ahead of you!
It is a nation of blondes after all..
As all hashes go, and I know, it's mathimatically "very hard", two different byte segments CAN have the same md5 sum. Longer they get, harder it is...
Uhh, well, the probability that a given line of code has a certain MD5 checksum is 1 to 340282366920938463463374607431768211456.
That's way less probable than the probability of a false positive in a DNA test. (I.e. "Good enough" for a match)
So, unless I see a two headed guy with dark sunglasses, climb into his shiny spaceship and start it's engines, I belive SCO could very well use this technique to demonstrate what part of their code is in Linux.
why spend the money on fighting the lawsuit or paying a settlement - buy out SCO
SCO hasn't sued anybody yet..
And if their behaviour can be used as a indicator of how solid their case is, I'd say here is a good change they won't be suing anybody in the forseeable future.
Either that, or the case will be dismissed right after SCO has explained it's case and the judge has had a good belly laugh ..
I fail to see where MS would come out ahead with that quote going around the IT circles. In fact, it just makes linux more powerful in the court room.
Exactly where MS want's Linux to look strong, (anti-trust cases against Microsoft). The iminent SCO-death will also be used extensively by Microsoft as a warning to corporations about what happends to code that gets in bed with GPL software.
I.e. "Don't develop or use open-source code, it can kill your company". That example will be worth to Microsoft whatever they paid SCO, many times over.
Of course *we* will know that's BS, but the average top-level manager in a company generally has only some vague information about "some case SCO brought against Linux".
Whatever makes you think it's just the Open Source movement that's after SCO's hide?
It doesn't matter if God almighty is also after SCO. As long as it *looks like* SCO is fighting "the evil open-source movement", Microsoft will happily pay whatever necessary for the change of using them as a an example of "Open Source Road-Kill".
Wouldn't surprise me a bit if microsoft used exactly those words "Open Source Road-Kill", when refering to SCO in the future.
Given the fact that Microsoft is financing SCO's anti-Linux crusade (or do you really believe that they pay millions for a license they don't need?),
Even if SCO has a reason a and SCO's code is in the Linux kennel, I think SCO will have a hard time finding a judge who will be simpathetic with SCO, after seeing how they have behaved.
SCO has done absolutely nothing to explain the problem to Linus, let alone given him enough information to correct the problem.
If SCO can't proove that Linus (or some other kernel maintainer) knew that the code in question was SCO's property, at some time or another, it will be very difficult to claim any meaningful damages from Linus or the other Kernel maintainers.
Likely the Judge will simply order Linus to remove the offending code without demanding any damages paid to SCO.
Either way, win or loose, SCO is fucked .. and that is the reason Micro$oft is paying. It's easily worth 100 milions to M$ to be able to point to the SCO case and say : "You can't fight the Open Source movement, just look at what they did to SCO!"
There are consequences to actions. Unfortunately the American people cannot seem to draw a line between point A and point B.
It was funny when I first heard it, but as time passes It is starting to scare me a lot: "The average american atually belives everything his 'authority' tells him.".
I don't think that GWB is a unusually bad leader, in France we know the Presient is a lying corrupt thief, (as opposed to religious extreemist corrupt sadistic alcoholic (and murderer ?)). Hmmm, well baybe he *is* unusually bad..
The problem with Services contracts for Linux boxes is that you're allowed to install as many machines as you want (obviously - its GPL software).
Well, that's what everybody belives.. But then there is THIS clause in the RedHat's EULA:
"If Customer wishes to increase the number of Installed Servers, then Customer will purchase from Red Hat additional Services for each additional Installed Server."
For me, this means that you can't have a installed server without a service contract ..
Or at least the meaning of this is not clear..
How can you collect sales tax on a used item? The tax was already paid here by the original purchaser
Everybody pays sales tax, when the farmer sells his apples to the distributor, the distributor has to pay sales tax to the farmer, when the supermarket buys the apples from the distributor, the supermarket has to pay sales tax to the distributor, and when you, the consumer, buys the apples from the supermarket, you have to pay sales tax to the supermarket.
Everyone who sells anything has to collect sales tax for the governament, the difference in collected and paid tax (usually a positive number) is then paid to the goverment by the seller.
The same rule applies if you sell a 500 year old painting, you have to pay sales tax ..
Economic sciences define monopoly market-position to be :
"When a company can, by means of market position or money, prevent normal competition in a market."
Now, there is no question that Microsoft holds such a power in the PC/OS market, and I think it's very hard to see this move by Microsoft (if true) as something else than using it's monopoly power to prevent "normal competition".
I've not read the TOS but I'd suspect it wouldn't include being able to hack the game and do a mass player killing (read: abuse the system).
So ?? I realy don't get this point since, as you know, you have the right to do everything that's not mentioned in the TOS.
Lip service or not, these developers have in their job description to be scapegoats. That is not an enviable position.
Absolutely, as everybody, with even the slightest sense of how software security works, knows, you can't just *add* security afterwards as Microsoft seems to be proposing with this "code review".
It just doesn't work that way !
. The fact is the customers were deprived of a service they paid money for not to mention the costs incurred by the company itself.
The customers weren't deprived of any service at all. At least not any service they paid for. They could still connect to the servers, and "play the game". The complains are about the game not being according to expectations.
It's most likely the "cackers" just found a uncommented feature in the game (bug) that gave them access to "game controller" functions.
If the company will sucessfuly sue anybody for this then there are real possibilities that those same arguments can (and will) be used to sue companies for software bugs in the future.
Why should computer game servers be exempt from the usual laws about hacking into peoples' systems? Those who break into banks are prosecuted, if caught.
The 'business operations' you are takling about consist of killing virtual vampires, imps and goblins...
Do you know of any lawyer who could present that to a judge without the whole courtroom going ROFL ?
Hey I live in America you insensitive clod!
Ok, so for you it's "FreedomGram" then.
If file sharing is helping them out, why are revenues down?
Crappy product ? Seriously how many artists have some kind of a "message" today ?? Very few, They all look alike and are as much food for the mind as corbonated water with colorants is to the stomach.
Your arguement makes no sense. They had no copy protection and revenue went down.
No, actually while they had no copy protection, the revenue was at a all time high. It didn't start going downhill until Napster was shut down..
Personally I think that's a coincidence but people should remember the things as they were.
Intuit started using copy protection and their revenue went down. Two entirely different situations.
Says who ? The recording industry for sure, but they (belive they) have a good reason to want you to belive that .
The other key point in the document is that the Spamhaus Black List (SBL) blocks spam at the destination, not the source.
"Black Lists" of this type don't block any mail. Not any more than the phonebook calls your number.
The "Black List" is only a tool, and the end user can do with it as he chooses.
The user of a Blacklist can "Whitelist" any network he wants. The Blacklist doesn't force the rejection of any email. It is 100% up to the user of the Blacklist what to do when a IP/Network is found in the Blacklist.
Hey, it's like Iraq... attack first, find no weapons of mass destruction, and apologize later! It's almost laughable!
You are forgetting that having WMS wasn't sufficient enough reason to attack Iraq. The USA claimed that
1) Iraq Had WMD
2) Iraq had very friendly ties with terror groups
3) Iraq was ready to give WMD to those terror groups.
So, even if they find WMD, they still have to proove 2) and 3) to justify the war ...