Corporations don't make statements like this without an ulterior motive. This is Real's way of calling Apple out. Dropping a glove at their feet, so to speak.
I finally got around to reading the C&D letter. Yeah, I wouldn't try to defend myself against this, because, I'd have sense enough to know that ordering all those boxes from FedEx in order to use them for something besides FedEx shipping was *wrong*, and that the company's claim that it was in violation of an agreement that we had made would have a substantial amount of merit.
Like I said, it's not hard to defend yourself when you're right. But once you step into the area where you're not exactly innocent, but you still want some satisfaction, that's another ballgame -- one that I would not try to play.
I had originally believed that the furniture was being made from boxes the guy was collecting and recycling. If that were the case, then the whole argument would be about the fedexfurniture.com domain name -- a plain, simple domain name dispute.
As it stands, he is in a very weak bargaining position over the domain name dispute, due to his idiotic and abusive method of acquiring boxes. He's doing damage to society by driving up the cost of using FedEx, however small his impact may be.
"One thing you miss in your post is the cost associated with defending yourself against a giant company."
If you sue me, I'm entitled to a hearing. No amount of money can stop that hearing from being set on a court docket, and no company has the power to make the cost of that hearing any higher that the cost established for any other hearing in that venue.
You cannot put enough pressure on me to waive my right to a hearing. My attorney already works for me for a reasonable hourly rate.
Now the cost of litigation tends to be higher if you're not actually innocent or completely in the right. Most cases that drag out very expensively have greedy defendants or defendants who aren't exactly 100% in the right. That's different.
I'm reading a bit more into this FedEx box story. Turns out the guy is using fresh boxes taken for the purpose of building his furniture, and NOT using boxes that were sent to him via FedEx (presumably with some contents.) That's different. That's the difference between the case getting laughed off the docket at the first meeting with the bench, and the case having some merit that would involve the defendant being a little unreasonable by not complying with a cease and desist order.
If you're not in the right, or if you're being greedy, then yeah, your legal problems might be a lot more expensive than they would be otherwise.
Are you saying he's lifting the boxes from a FedEx agent? That's a whole different ball of yarn. It would not pass the test of what a reasonable person believes is right.
If I made a desk out of all the Amazon.com boxes I've received in the last year, or if I was taking the boxes from the recycle bin at my office, that would be one thing (reasonable). If I was taking fresh boxes from the FedEx agent, that's no longer reasonable, and I would not expect my position to prevail against a demand to cease.
"Reminds me of the skits on RedGreen show where he made furniture from milk crates."
Milk crates are some of the sturdiest containers you could ask for. They are virtually indestructible, a convenient size, they stand up to the sun, and they are not damaged by water. The only problem with them, is you can't buy them! Similarly sized containers that are sold in stores are nowhere near as rugged as milk crates.
Just because some lawyer writes you a letter doesn't mean you have to do anything asked. If that were the case, there would be pure anarchy.
A judgement, which generally comes after a hearing, is another matter.
There's no way they'd win any claim of damages, period. They might be able to persuade a network provider to remove a site, but that's only because the customer usually has signed a contract with the provider that waives any right to damages resulting from a site being taken down, not because lawyers get to make law merely by writing letters to people.
If he's violating copyright and trademark law, then why can't Ford sue me for driving a Ford with Ford trademarks all over it? If I put a picture of my Ford on the the web, can they take down my site?
"With well known companies like Google and IBM endorsing Linux, I wonder why it isn't more widely used in the enterprise?"
Why do you think it's not widely used in the enterprise? There may be as many as 30 million hosts running Linux. What was the estimate of the maximum number of OS/2 installations, by the way? How many businesses use Unixware? (A large supermaket chain in my region does, their inventory, bookkeeping and personnel systems run on it).
It's all over the "enterprise" where I work -- a very large, very well known publicly traded telecommunications company. Every place where we don't actually need huge Sun hardware or specific Solaris application support, we've got Linux.
Does the reader actually disable the OS's screen grabbing capability? Or is there a gigantic analog hole that they missed? It would not require all that much motivation to screen grab a 500 page book.
"Except we are dealing with real life, not Matlock fan fiction."
And I was quoting a real-life judge and speaking directly from years of experience as a legal professional (NAL). I've never watched a single episode of Matlock.
One thing I can guarantee, if you sit there during a deposition and object to every question that's asked, you will have problems with the adverse counsel who will take his complaints to the judge, you will no longer be in the advantageous position of giving your testimony by deposition, and you will have to give your testimony in court instead. If your lawyer tries too many frivolous objections in front of a judge, the judge is going to get annoyed, and take action. At first it will be a gently worded "we are not going to have a day of nothing but objections, please keep your examination on point."
"There have been many cases of stolen GPL code where the offending party was contacted and they agreed to release the source code instead of taking it to court. "
Yes, "they agreed", meaning all parties were amenable to an agreement. In other words, the party seeking damages had no desire to seek a prosecution to the fullest extent of the law, punitive damages, or discovery of the sort that would lead to criminal charges against the parties responsible for the infringement.
Those folks who ended up with out of court settlements didn't happen to be Darl McBride and SCO. This one could work out very differently, especially if IBM is still involved.
"Can anyone tell me why the GPL could be unconstitutional?"
A Constitutional Amendment could be passed that rescinds protections that are currently granted under copyright law, or that supersedes contract law in its current form. Then the doctrine of "ex post facto" could be abandoned.
Seriously, this is what would be required in order to make "the GPL" "unconstitutional".
The GPL is simple enough that any attack on it must also be applicable to any other software license that grants distribution rights under copyright law. That's pretty much all of them.
Do you think Microsoft, Sun, Oracle, Sony, Apple, or anyone else is willing to let that happen, even if there were a plausible scenario under which it could happen?
I don't disagree with you at all, and in fact I'm a little jealous.
Lately, most of my photography has been of a purely practical nature. I'm doing some real estate deals; taking lots and lots of photos for documentation purposes.
Also, I've been travelling to some really beautiful places, and getting good landscape photos. Doing it all with the same digital camera.
I *wish* I had a Hasselblad for my landscape opportunities, but that's not in the cards.
OTOH, I'm *so* glad I can take as many documentation shots as I'd like, and the quality is great, no marginal costs at all.
> An Epson 4990 flatbed scanner will give me over >100 megapixels from a scanned 4x5" large-format >negative.
That's large-format though, not really where a lot of consumers are these days. Consumer digital is finally starting to be reasonable. (That's right, I consider my Canon EOS 20D to only be the *first* generation of workable digital cameras).
Not everybody gets an Ikonta or a Speed Graphic for $16!!!!
I understand where you're coming from -- If I was a studio photographer I'd be shooting with an 8x10 view camera (but I'm sure I'd shoot with, say, a Canon 1DS *also*), and I'd be in the field with a Hasselblad (and likewise, I'm sure I'd have something like a Canon Powershot in my pocket too!)
I don't even take my F2 out of the drawer now. I don't want to spend the money on film processing (unless I can get K25), and I'm not going to put a darkroom together (got that out of my system 20-30 years ago.)
Nikon's not for sale, keeping it and all my lenses. You might notice I went with a Canon DSLR even though I have a fairly nice collection of Nikkor lenses.
"I think part of it is the convenience of using digital cameras"
A bigger part for me is the image quality.
I'm getting images with my Canon (EOS 20D) that render detailed enlargements to 20x30 prints. That's a trick I could NEVER do with 35mm, and it's been very gratifying.
That said, none of my Nikon film gear, or my Argus C3 would be for sale.
I don't want a media PC for consuming media, I want one for producing it. I don't really need high-end video at all, just a 1600x1200 desktop is fine. What I do need is silence. Silence in my case, means, a microphone being used to record piano and flute, which is sensitive to -60dB or so, must not pick up the sound of the PC that's being used to do the recording. The standard suggestion, "put it in another room" is well taken, please don't repeat that. It would be *very* convenient to be able to have this machine on the same rack as the other equipment.
Other users *Do* need video support because, unlke me, they work in the video domain as well as audio.
Anyway, I can deal with what I have today, but the length of USB and VGA cables are a problem, and also, access to the DVD drive is a nuisance.
Even when you use "Yahoo" to search for something, you're still googling it. Just like xeroxing on a Canon, or putting food in the frigidaire (even if it's a Kelvinator.)
Google has this kind of brand identity, for good or for worse. This is a status that both Napster and Tivo almost acheived, but fizzled just in time to escape the phenomenon.
Slashdot Mirror
Corporations don't make statements like this without an ulterior motive. This is Real's way of calling Apple out. Dropping a glove at their feet, so to speak.
"Or better yet when are actual users allowed to have anything to do with purchasing decisions?"
When they are successful in their careers. Until then, they usually just complain that the successful people making decisions above them are idiots.
...le déluge.
I finally got around to reading the C&D letter.
Yeah, I wouldn't try to defend myself against this, because, I'd have sense enough to know that ordering all those boxes from FedEx in order to use them for something besides FedEx shipping was *wrong*, and that the company's claim that it was in violation of an agreement that we had made would have a substantial amount of merit.
Like I said, it's not hard to defend yourself when you're right. But once you step into the area where you're not exactly innocent, but you still want some satisfaction, that's another ballgame -- one that I would not try to play.
I had originally believed that the furniture was being made from boxes the guy was collecting and recycling. If that were the case, then the whole argument would be about the fedexfurniture.com domain name -- a plain, simple domain name dispute.
As it stands, he is in a very weak bargaining position over the domain name dispute, due to his idiotic and abusive method of acquiring boxes. He's doing damage to society by driving up the cost of using FedEx, however small his impact may be.
"One thing you miss in your post is the cost associated with defending yourself against a giant company."
If you sue me, I'm entitled to a hearing. No amount of money can stop that hearing from being set on a court docket, and no company has the power to make the cost of that hearing any higher that the cost established for any other hearing in that venue.
You cannot put enough pressure on me to waive my right to a hearing. My attorney already works for me for a reasonable hourly rate.
Now the cost of litigation tends to be higher if you're not actually innocent or completely in the right. Most cases that drag out very expensively have greedy defendants or defendants who aren't exactly 100% in the right. That's different.
I'm reading a bit more into this FedEx box story. Turns out the guy is using fresh boxes taken for the purpose of building his furniture, and NOT using boxes that were sent to him via FedEx (presumably with some contents.) That's different. That's the difference between the case getting laughed off the docket at the first meeting with the bench, and the case having some merit that would involve the defendant being a little unreasonable by not complying with a cease and desist order.
If you're not in the right, or if you're being greedy, then yeah, your legal problems might be a lot more expensive than they would be otherwise.
Are you saying he's lifting the boxes from a FedEx agent? That's a whole different ball of yarn. It would not pass the test of what a reasonable person believes is right.
If I made a desk out of all the Amazon.com boxes I've received in the last year, or if I was taking the boxes from the recycle bin at my office, that would be one thing (reasonable). If I was taking fresh boxes from the FedEx agent, that's no longer reasonable, and I would not expect my position to prevail against a demand to cease.
"Reminds me of the skits on RedGreen show where he made furniture from milk crates."
Milk crates are some of the sturdiest containers you could ask for. They are virtually indestructible, a convenient size, they stand up to the sun, and they are not damaged by water. The only problem with them, is you can't buy them! Similarly sized containers that are sold in stores are nowhere near as rugged as milk crates.
Just because some lawyer writes you a letter doesn't mean you have to do anything asked. If that were the case, there would be pure anarchy.
A judgement, which generally comes after a hearing, is another matter.
There's no way they'd win any claim of damages, period. They might be able to persuade a network provider to remove a site, but that's only because the customer usually has signed a contract with the provider that waives any right to damages resulting from a site being taken down, not because lawyers get to make law merely by writing letters to people.
If he's violating copyright and trademark law, then why can't Ford sue me for driving a Ford with Ford trademarks all over it? If I put a picture of my Ford on the the web, can they take down my site?
Precisely how is this different?
Your grandmother fits in where in the "IT Enterprise"?
"Why not just move the entire Google code base to Microsoft Cluster Server?"
The only reason you need is: You are not the CTO of Google. Get there, or some other position with decision making authority, and knock yourself out.
The guys at Google did stuff differently from the way you'd have done it if you had been in charge.
The only thing I take from that is, they were monumentally successful, and you're talking down to them about "putting food on the table."
"With well known companies like Google and IBM endorsing Linux, I wonder why it isn't more widely used in the enterprise?"
Why do you think it's not widely used in the enterprise? There may be as many as 30 million hosts running Linux. What was the estimate of the maximum number of OS/2 installations, by the way?
How many businesses use Unixware? (A large supermaket chain in my region does, their inventory, bookkeeping and personnel systems run on it).
It's all over the "enterprise"
where I work -- a very large, very well known publicly traded telecommunications company. Every place where we don't actually need huge Sun hardware or specific Solaris application support, we've got Linux.
Where do you believe Linux *isn't*?
I think the elephant in the living room might turn out to be that CTS comes from *driving.*
Does the reader actually disable the OS's screen grabbing capability? Or is there a gigantic analog hole that they missed? It would not require all that much motivation to screen grab a 500 page book.
"Except we are dealing with real life, not Matlock fan fiction."
And I was quoting a real-life judge and speaking directly from years of experience as a legal professional (NAL). I've never watched a single episode of Matlock.
One thing I can guarantee, if you sit there during a deposition and object to every question that's asked, you will have problems with the adverse counsel who will take his complaints to the judge, you will no longer be in the advantageous position of giving your testimony by deposition, and you will have to give your testimony in court instead. If your lawyer tries too many frivolous objections in front of a judge, the judge is going to get annoyed, and take action. At first it will be a gently worded "we are not going to have a day of nothing but objections, please keep your examination on point."
"There have been many cases of stolen GPL code where the offending party was contacted and they agreed to release the source code instead of taking it to court.
"
Yes, "they agreed", meaning all parties were amenable to an agreement. In other words, the party seeking damages had no desire to seek a prosecution to the fullest extent of the law, punitive damages, or discovery of the sort that would lead to criminal charges against the parties responsible for the infringement.
Those folks who ended up with out of court settlements didn't happen to be Darl McBride and SCO. This one could work out very differently, especially if IBM is still involved.
"Can anyone tell me why the GPL could be unconstitutional?"
A Constitutional Amendment could be passed that rescinds protections that are currently granted under copyright law, or that supersedes contract law in its current form. Then the doctrine of "ex post facto" could be abandoned.
Seriously, this is what would be required in order to make "the GPL" "unconstitutional".
The GPL is simple enough that any attack on it must also be applicable to any other software license that grants distribution rights under copyright law. That's pretty much all of them.
Do you think Microsoft, Sun, Oracle, Sony, Apple, or anyone else is willing to let that happen, even if there were a plausible scenario under which it could happen?
I'd love to see another in the OddWorld series.
And another game like Fantasy General would be way cool too.
"But under no situation stick it in a human or into our ID cards. That crosses the line."
What line is that? The one that divides "persons and papers" from "effects?"
I don't disagree with you at all, and in fact I'm a little jealous.
Lately, most of my photography has been of a purely practical nature. I'm doing some real estate deals; taking lots and lots of photos for documentation purposes.
Also, I've been travelling to some really beautiful places, and getting good landscape photos. Doing it all with the same digital camera.
I *wish* I had a Hasselblad for my landscape opportunities, but that's not in the cards.
OTOH, I'm *so* glad I can take as many documentation shots as I'd like, and the quality is great, no marginal costs at all.
> An Epson 4990 flatbed scanner will give me over
>100 megapixels from a scanned 4x5" large-format
>negative.
That's large-format though, not really where a lot of consumers are these days. Consumer digital is finally starting to be reasonable. (That's right, I consider my Canon EOS 20D to only be the *first* generation of workable digital cameras).
Not everybody gets an Ikonta or a Speed Graphic for $16!!!!
I understand where you're coming from -- If I was a studio photographer I'd be shooting with an 8x10 view camera (but I'm sure I'd shoot with, say, a Canon 1DS *also*), and I'd be in the field with a Hasselblad (and likewise, I'm sure I'd have something like a Canon Powershot in my pocket too!)
I don't even take my F2 out of the drawer now. I don't want to spend the money on film processing (unless I can get K25), and I'm not going to put a darkroom together (got that out of my system 20-30 years ago.)
Nikon's not for sale, keeping it and all my lenses. You might notice I went with a Canon DSLR even though I have a fairly nice collection of Nikkor lenses.
"I think part of it is the convenience of using digital cameras"
A bigger part for me is the image quality.
I'm getting images with my Canon (EOS 20D) that render detailed enlargements to 20x30 prints. That's a trick I could NEVER do with 35mm, and it's been very gratifying.
That said, none of my Nikon film gear, or my Argus C3 would be for sale.
I don't want a media PC for consuming media, I want one for producing it. I don't really need high-end video at all, just a 1600x1200 desktop is fine. What I do need is silence. Silence in my case, means, a microphone being used to record piano and flute, which is sensitive to -60dB or so, must not pick up the sound of the PC that's being used to do the recording. The standard suggestion, "put it in another room" is well taken, please don't repeat that. It would be *very* convenient to be able to have this machine on the same rack as the other equipment.
Other users *Do* need video support because, unlke me, they work in the video domain as well as audio.
Anyway, I can deal with what I have today, but the length of USB and VGA cables are a problem, and also, access to the DVD drive is a nuisance.
Even when you use "Yahoo" to search for something,
you're still googling it. Just like xeroxing on a Canon, or putting food in the frigidaire (even if it's a Kelvinator.)
Google has this kind of brand identity, for good or for worse. This is a status that both Napster and Tivo almost acheived, but fizzled just in time to escape the phenomenon.