You don't need a license, because 117 says you don't.
No offense, but maybe you should actually read things before you respond? You need a license to copy software, and 117 does not say that you don't need a license to copy software. That's the deal with copyrights. You can't copy the work unless you're the copyright holder or you've been given license by the copyright holder. 117 also does not say that installing software doesn't constitute "copying". It spells out a particular circumstance: you're allowed to do what's necessary to get software installed or to create backups.
But then notice that it still puts restrictions on what kind of copying you can do and what you can do with those copies? How could they do that if, otherwise, installation wouldn't be copyright infringement.
It's because this is essentially spelling out an instance of what people around here typically call "fair use". It's not saying that you don't need a license to copy, not saying that that installation isn't copying, and not granting you unfettered rights to copy however you want.
The owner of a work has a legitimate copy, the one they own.
Sorry, I forgot I was talking to people who don't know jack about software. Ok, so let me explain. Sometimes when you buy software, you want to actually use it in some way other than not-using it. In order to do that, we do what's called "installing", where we make one copy from another copy. Sometimes, in the case of something called "volume licensing", we may use one copy to make lots of other copies. Many people would call that "copying", and we have something called a "copyright" which says that you're not allowed to make copies without a license.
You said it yourself, the software was sold. Under a sale there are no further conditions upon the software's use.
No, the software was not sold. The particular copy of the software was sold. So yeah, if you buy a CD with copyrighted software on it, then the vendor can't control what you do with that CD. You can use it as a frisbee or coaster or however you want-- just so long as you don't copy any copyrighted contents from that CD at all. As soon as you're copying the copyrighted contents, you have to deal with the idea that what you're doing might not be legal.
It's a good joke, but in case anyone is too convinced by this, there's a key difference. In the case of building a machine where a dog can cause a gun to be fired, I would think that setting that machine up and making it functional might itself be a crime, whether there's any intent to harm a particular person and whether or not anybody is actually harmed. I believe "reckless endangerment" is a crime all on its own, and giving a dog the ability to shoot a gun would probably constitute "reckless endangerment".
However, devising a means for your cat to operate a keyboard is not a crime in itself.
I wouldn't stick too hard to the signature. Signatures can be forged. The bigger issue might be "contracts where there's no real evidence of who, if anyone, actually agreed to the terms."
The most a software developer can prove-- at least as it seems to me-- is that it's unlikely that the installation progressed without someone clicking on "Agree". But IANAL, and I'm not sure if that would actually mean anything in court. Like what if someone else installs the software on my computer for me? Is he responsible for adhering to the EULA since he clicked "Agree", or am I responsible just for owning the computer it's installed on?
That's the only part that you really got right. It's an issue of marketing. They know that they can give crappy service to most people, and most people won't notice. So they do that, and then if you want decent service, they hold you hostage for a higher price-- not necessarily because it costs them any more, but because they can. If they could get away with charging you $10/byte, they would. If these companies could turn the Internet into a broadcasting system where they controlled what you saw, they would.
It's an issue of what they can get away with, and nothing else.
Oh, right, we should just rely on the benevolence of big media companies to provide forums for us to interact. I'm sure they'll never use our reliance as leverage to get what they want.
Home internet connections are not to run servers on.
What, is that a rule of some kind? I guess home internet connections are just meant for media companies to broadcast out to you, and not for you to participate on the Internet, right? We probably don't need to be able to get good upload rates either, or anything like that. Hell, let's just block all ports, and make traffic completely one-way unless it's traveling through ISP-approved servers.
Funny, my digital cameras seem to have the same functionality over a standard USB connector. You plug in a different cable, you get A/V output.
Is that according to the USB standard spec?
They aren't amplifying the dock audio?
I'm not claiming to get the whole deal here-- I'm not an audiophile and such things aren't my specialty-- but I've read that the audio fed out through the dock connector is different from what's put out through the headphone jack. Something about amplification, but the idea is, what's coming out of the dock connector would be bad for headphones, but is better for plugging into your stereo. The explanation I read was something about it not being run through a certain kind of amplifier, which meant you got cleaner output for a stereo. Just passing that information along...
In this case, Apple ignored the standard and went with their own connector, specifically to produce vendor lock-in.
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Don't feed the trolls
To clarify, I was saying "with only a dock" as opposed to "when attached to a computer". If the iPod and iPhone had a standard USB connection, video out wouldn't be possible without some sort of other computer that could read the data off the drive, decode it, and feed it to a TV via some other AV cable (perhaps costing in the neighborhood of $50 itself).
(The ideal would be to allow outgoing, but cut people off if they spam. That would punish only the guilty, but I guess they're not so keen on that).
I'd be more content if they said, "You're blocked by default, but contact our support line and we'll open port 25 for you."
But I find it really frustrating when they block port 25. I use two different email services, and both of them require authentication and SSL, but do it via port 25, so I can't use them for outgoing SMTP if that port is blocked. I've had an ISP block port 25 on me, requiring me to use their SMTP server, but then they wouldn't let me use their SMTP server when I wasn't connecting through them. That's a pretty annoying problem, considering I have a laptop and have to manually change SMTP servers whenever I change locations. And even if ISPs let you use their SMTP server from other locations, if they're using port 25 and other ISPs are blocking that port, then you'll still have to manually change your SMTP server whenever you change locations. It's stupid.
I vaguely suspect that there's some kind of attempt here to get you to use your ISP's email address by making everything else not-work, thereby making it more difficult to change ISPs. Or maybe it's just a means to milk extra money by charging a fee for opening port 25. My old ISP charge $15 a month to open ports 25 & 80.
The point I was trying make is, if manufacturers made an effort to standardize trivial components like cables and interconnects then everybody would benefit.
Well, everyone except maybe the manufacturers, which might be the problem. But yes, of course there are benefits to standardization. But then of course, the problem always gets to be: which standard do you try to get everyone to use. And then the next problem is: what do you do when a manufacturer says, "Meh, I don't like that standard, I'm going to do my own thing." And maybe that vendor has a good reason for doing their own thing. Maybe their own thing is way better.
And that's the problem with standards. Good standards that people follow provide loads of benefits, while good standards that people don't follow are irrelevant and bad standards that people follow can turn into a big problem.
So though I'd be happy if more electronics could use some kind of a standard charger, I'm not convinced that micro-USB is the best option. I'm also not convinced that some vendors won't choose to use something else, and for good reason.
As for HDMI, I've looked for details and can't find any particular reason why they're so expensive. They're apparently not hard to manufacture, don't require expensive materials, and they have to be pretty bad or very long before you'll actually have any "quality" issues. I think they're just expensive because they are. People will pay it. Maybe it's because it's considered "high tech" and people will pay extra for them until they get used to the new cables. I don't know.
I'm just saying that everybody pretty much overcharges for cables, so to assign that to Apple and claim that it's because of trendiness or patents seems like a bit of an overreaction, like you're looking for reasons to be angry at Apple and looking for "trendiness" or "patent abuse" to be the reasons.
And no, there isn't really any reason for HDMI cables to be so expensive. People just overcharge when they think they can. If it's anything more than that, I would guess it's because if they don't mark the cables up a lot, then it won't be worth it for stores to even shelve those items.
I would like to know what justifies charging $30 for the cable?
Why is it that most HDMI cables cost something like $60? Same thing. I remember when Best Buy used to sell printers without USB cables and then charge you $40 for a USB cable (do they still do that?). Anyway, it's the same thing.
People overcharge for things like cables. I'm sure there are business/marketing reasons behind it, but no reason to single Apple out.
They do if you have movies on them, and want to output those movies onto a TV screen. People probably don't do that very often, but you can do that.
Audio input and output do not (or at least should not) use the same plug as power/data (otherwise you can't charge your phone and use the headset at the same time).
iPods and iPhones have 2 different audio outs-- one being the headphone jack, which on the iPhone can also be used for headsets. So you can use that headphone jack while charging. The other audio out is in the dock connector, and it makes it so you can drop the iPhone into the dock and have the dock connect to a stereo. If not for that audio out, you'd have to drop it into the dock and then plug an additional cable from your stereo into the headphone jack.
Not only would that be slightly annoying and inconvenient, but it's my understanding that the audio from the dock is also handled differently than the headphone jack. I'm not a real audiophile, so I don't remember what the deal is, but it's something like the dock connector not running the audio through the iPhone's built-in amp. The idea is you're going to feed it into a stereo and have volume control through that stereo anyway, so it shouldn't need to deal with that. Instead you (supposedly) get cleaner audio out to your stereo.
I wonder how Apple will feel about this? Will they finally realize that their oh-so-special adapter is nothing more than a fudged USB interface?"
Oh, like Apple is just using the dock connector to be "special"? It's true that the dock connector is *mostly* USB, but it also can carry audio and video so that, with only a dock, you can output to a stereo or TV. Also, the audio put out through the dock is supposedly different from what comes out of the headphone jack (I believe they aren't amplifying the audio from the dock), meaning you can get better quality for outputting to a stereo.
So I don't know why the submitter has to turn this into an Apple-bashing thing. Apple actually uses standards pretty often. And often, when they do stray from a standard, it's in order to provide specific functionality-- and even then they often release the specs for their version, allowing others to adopt it. For example, I believe they released the specs for their custom "mini display port" that they're using without requiring any kind of licensing fees or anything.
Well, confession: I didn't RTFA, at least not thoroughly, and so wasn't arguing with you per se.
Just the title, "How Many Open Source Licenses Do You Need?" seemed to me to imply that there are too many, similar to the way in which many people argue that there are too many Linux distributions. Whenever I hear that sort of complaint, I sympathize. By doing lots of different licenses or lots of different distributions, you are splitting your effort, introducing potential compatibility issues, and confusing people who don't know the right one to choose.
But then the questions inevitably pops up-- who chooses the winners, and how do you actually get people to only use those winners? The reason there are so many licenses and so many distributions-- to some degree, at least-- is because someone sat down, looked at the options, and decided that they didn't like the options. They wanted to come up with their own in order to serve their own purposes.
Yes, I'm sure that to some degree people are choosing different licenses without having a very good reason, and maybe your article will help people realize that. That could be good. At the same time, my immediate response is to question whether it's something that has to be pushed for, or rather it will sort itself out to some degree.
Not that I would oppose attempts to standardize and consolidate licensing for the sake of making it easier for people to know their rights, but why shouldn't developers/publishers be allowed to use whatever license they want, and make up their own if nothing else meets their needs?
I don't see the point of any attempt to artificially limit choice here.
This might perhaps be unconnected to your post (to be honest, I don't understand your post well-- I don't know that much about genetics), and perhaps just completely off-topic, but I've had a theory for a while that I've been waiting to hear of someone developing the same theory. Maybe it's already common but I just haven't heard of it.
So the theory is this: that we have evolved mechanisms that allow us to evolve better. I don't have any support for this theory except that it seems like it would make a lot of sense to me, and I've read that in some cases, scientists have been surprised at how quickly some inheritable traits can change.
It just seems somewhat natural to me that something like this should happen as a life form becomes more advanced. Whenever humans are refining their methods, it usually occurs to them at some point to refine the process of refining their process. What might start off as trial and error becomes more systematic, and as the whole thing becomes more refined, the way in which new changes are considered also changes.
It seems obvious to me that sufficiently advanced organisms would protect themselves against drastic changes, and I've read about several ways that DNA replication is regulated (details escape me) and things that happen in the womb that might abort drastic mutations. But I've never read any suggestions that there are mechanisms specifically to create/support other mutations, perhaps in a controlled way, so as to foster evolution. Everyone seems to still think that mutations are the result of random chance, which seems unlikely to me.
Not quite. At least not completely out the window.
Copyright says you need a license to create additional copies someone else's creative works. There are laws and legal precedents that give exceptions, providing the right to copy works under other specific circumstances, but that doesn't mean that copyrights don't apply to software anymore, nor does it mean that installation isn't considered "copying".
Also, a lot of issues are settled in court, where the intent of the law is considered as well as the letter of the law. I don't know how 17 USC 117 is being interpreted, but I doubt the intention was so bold as to say, "installation of software does not constitute 'reproduction' of a work and therefore isn't subject to licensing." I think it was more aimed at making it so you generally can't get sued for making backups of software or installing software in cases where there isn't a EULA that clearly and explicitly grants you that right. I think it still imagines, however, that you're talking about cases where you have a legitimate copy and are using the software in ways that are also legitimate.
So what I'm saying is, I wouldn't feel confident that it gives me a blanket right to install software in terms expressly forbidden by the license agreement under which the software is sold. I would expect instead that it's protecting a sort of "fair use" of installing the software and even modifying it during the normal install procedure as in line with what the developer had envisioned, though perhaps under circumstances the developer had not imagined.
I don't think it's really the wrong battle. The big problem with DRM is that it arguably means that you're being sold a defective product. You're being sold something that's designed to break and ceases to serve its purpose under some circumstances.
I don't want to get into the particular argument here whether products with DRM are always defective, but it seems like a step in exactly the right direction for the government to recognize that DRM *can* constitute a defect in the product. Once there is some sense that DRM is not always valid, that it's possible for DRM to make a product so defective that they should be barred from selling it, then we can begin to talk about what, exactly, is "fair".
Personally, I don't think DRM is always awful. For example, companies putting DRM on movie rentals rather than movie sales seems fair. Although I didn't think I'd like Steam, once I tried it, it seemed to be a pretty reasonable use of DRM. In that particular situation, I view it this way: I've agreed to sign into a service before playing games, and in return, I have copies of my games hosted such that I have access to them wherever I want.
And I'm not sure where you draw the line on what's "fair" on DRM; I know plenty of people who just thing it's always bad. However, it would be a big win for consumers, for the government at least to recognize that it's not always acceptable. I would at least like to see a law that says that, if you're selling (not renting) products with DRM that checks against some server, then if you ever shut that server down, you are responsible for making available the means to permanently remove that DRM.
But why do you need a license? You need a license to copy. There really isn't a law that says "software use needs to be licensed". The reason why have software licenses is because you need a license to copy software, and installation is a form of copying. Even running software might be considered a form of "copying", since it requires copying some of the software into RAM.
IANAL, but that's how it's been explained to me in the past.
Well the complicate issue is that copyrights aren't meant to inhibit a person's right to distribute things. Whether or not something is distributed may be legally meaningful, but what the laws are really meant to inhibit is copying (and therefore also the creation of derivative work).
I agree that it seems like a strange thing these days, when digital copying is so simple. We copy things all the time without thinking of it, so the idea that making copies would be the illegal thing seems crazy. But if you think back to something like books-- if you own two books, why shouldn't you be able to sell them? It didn't make sense to legally prohibit people from selling or giving away books that they already had. The issue was as to whether people had the right to create a new copy or create a new derivative work in the first place.
I didn't say "free", I said "open". Google's recommendations for openness were basically (I'm paraphrasing from memory) that any device be allowed to connect to the service, and that any application be allowed to run. You'd still need to pay for the service, but you could then buy any phone you wanted and use the Internet how you wanted.
The questions at hand are, when Verizon (I think Verizon won the bid) builds out their wireless network, am I going to be forced to buy a Verizon-brand device to access that network? Could Apple just to put the right wireless chipset into their iPod Touch and have it work for anyone who has Verizon services, or does Apple need to ask Verizon for permission to build that device? Assuming Apple tries to make a deal with Verizon, does Verizon have the right to say, "Ok, you can enable the iPod Touch to connect to our network, but you can't have VoIP on the device."
Google's recommendations for openness were basically aimed at making it so, in this case, Verizon would just publish a spec of, "here's how you connect to our network," and that spec would be open to everyone. From there, Apple could follow those specs to build pretty much any device they wanted, and Verizon would have nothing to say about it. So if that happened, Apple could just build an iPod touch with a speaker/mic, build in a wireless networking chip, install VoIP software, and sell it as an iPhone. You would have to pay for the data services, and then you could pay a low flat fee for VoIP instead of being locked into an expensive cell contract.
It's unlikely that this will happen, in spite of being the best thing for consumers and for the economy. It would be as big of a threat to cell phones as VoIP is to landlines, and I can't imagine that Verizon will voluntarily allow it.
Well the right to free speech isn't unlimited according to current law. There are laws regarding defamation/libel/slander, for example, that could leave you open to a civil case. In this case, it's not really the government itself silencing you, but the government handling a dispute between two private parties.
But also, there are rules against "speech" that recklessly endangers others, the classic example being yelling "fire" in a crowded theater. Also, encouraging others to commit a crime or helping to plan a crime is not protected as "free speech". Conspiracy to commit murder, for example, is a very serious crime even though the action may have only been "speech".
Let's say I hire a nanny and ask her to read to my child. Is that nanny breaking the law?
I wonder if there's a distinction to be made in the idea that they aren't recording this text-to-speech stuff and then distributing the recording, but rather producing it on the fly.
Slashdot Mirror
You don't need a license, because 117 says you don't.
No offense, but maybe you should actually read things before you respond? You need a license to copy software, and 117 does not say that you don't need a license to copy software. That's the deal with copyrights. You can't copy the work unless you're the copyright holder or you've been given license by the copyright holder. 117 also does not say that installing software doesn't constitute "copying". It spells out a particular circumstance: you're allowed to do what's necessary to get software installed or to create backups.
But then notice that it still puts restrictions on what kind of copying you can do and what you can do with those copies? How could they do that if, otherwise, installation wouldn't be copyright infringement.
It's because this is essentially spelling out an instance of what people around here typically call "fair use". It's not saying that you don't need a license to copy, not saying that that installation isn't copying, and not granting you unfettered rights to copy however you want.
The owner of a work has a legitimate copy, the one they own.
Sorry, I forgot I was talking to people who don't know jack about software. Ok, so let me explain. Sometimes when you buy software, you want to actually use it in some way other than not-using it. In order to do that, we do what's called "installing", where we make one copy from another copy. Sometimes, in the case of something called "volume licensing", we may use one copy to make lots of other copies. Many people would call that "copying", and we have something called a "copyright" which says that you're not allowed to make copies without a license.
You said it yourself, the software was sold. Under a sale there are no further conditions upon the software's use.
No, the software was not sold. The particular copy of the software was sold. So yeah, if you buy a CD with copyrighted software on it, then the vendor can't control what you do with that CD. You can use it as a frisbee or coaster or however you want-- just so long as you don't copy any copyrighted contents from that CD at all. As soon as you're copying the copyrighted contents, you have to deal with the idea that what you're doing might not be legal.
It's a good joke, but in case anyone is too convinced by this, there's a key difference. In the case of building a machine where a dog can cause a gun to be fired, I would think that setting that machine up and making it functional might itself be a crime, whether there's any intent to harm a particular person and whether or not anybody is actually harmed. I believe "reckless endangerment" is a crime all on its own, and giving a dog the ability to shoot a gun would probably constitute "reckless endangerment".
However, devising a means for your cat to operate a keyboard is not a crime in itself.
I wouldn't stick too hard to the signature. Signatures can be forged. The bigger issue might be "contracts where there's no real evidence of who, if anyone, actually agreed to the terms."
The most a software developer can prove-- at least as it seems to me-- is that it's unlikely that the installation progressed without someone clicking on "Agree". But IANAL, and I'm not sure if that would actually mean anything in court. Like what if someone else installs the software on my computer for me? Is he responsible for adhering to the EULA since he clicked "Agree", or am I responsible just for owning the computer it's installed on?
It's about control and revenue.
That's the only part that you really got right. It's an issue of marketing. They know that they can give crappy service to most people, and most people won't notice. So they do that, and then if you want decent service, they hold you hostage for a higher price-- not necessarily because it costs them any more, but because they can. If they could get away with charging you $10/byte, they would. If these companies could turn the Internet into a broadcasting system where they controlled what you saw, they would.
It's an issue of what they can get away with, and nothing else.
Oh, right, we should just rely on the benevolence of big media companies to provide forums for us to interact. I'm sure they'll never use our reliance as leverage to get what they want.
Home internet connections are not to run servers on.
What, is that a rule of some kind? I guess home internet connections are just meant for media companies to broadcast out to you, and not for you to participate on the Internet, right? We probably don't need to be able to get good upload rates either, or anything like that. Hell, let's just block all ports, and make traffic completely one-way unless it's traveling through ISP-approved servers.
Funny, my digital cameras seem to have the same functionality over a standard USB connector. You plug in a different cable, you get A/V output.
Is that according to the USB standard spec?
They aren't amplifying the dock audio?
I'm not claiming to get the whole deal here-- I'm not an audiophile and such things aren't my specialty-- but I've read that the audio fed out through the dock connector is different from what's put out through the headphone jack. Something about amplification, but the idea is, what's coming out of the dock connector would be bad for headphones, but is better for plugging into your stereo. The explanation I read was something about it not being run through a certain kind of amplifier, which meant you got cleaner output for a stereo. Just passing that information along...
In this case, Apple ignored the standard and went with their own connector, specifically to produce vendor lock-in.
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Don't feed the trolls
Nicely ironic.
To clarify, I was saying "with only a dock" as opposed to "when attached to a computer". If the iPod and iPhone had a standard USB connection, video out wouldn't be possible without some sort of other computer that could read the data off the drive, decode it, and feed it to a TV via some other AV cable (perhaps costing in the neighborhood of $50 itself).
(The ideal would be to allow outgoing, but cut people off if they spam. That would punish only the guilty, but I guess they're not so keen on that).
I'd be more content if they said, "You're blocked by default, but contact our support line and we'll open port 25 for you."
But I find it really frustrating when they block port 25. I use two different email services, and both of them require authentication and SSL, but do it via port 25, so I can't use them for outgoing SMTP if that port is blocked. I've had an ISP block port 25 on me, requiring me to use their SMTP server, but then they wouldn't let me use their SMTP server when I wasn't connecting through them. That's a pretty annoying problem, considering I have a laptop and have to manually change SMTP servers whenever I change locations. And even if ISPs let you use their SMTP server from other locations, if they're using port 25 and other ISPs are blocking that port, then you'll still have to manually change your SMTP server whenever you change locations. It's stupid.
I vaguely suspect that there's some kind of attempt here to get you to use your ISP's email address by making everything else not-work, thereby making it more difficult to change ISPs. Or maybe it's just a means to milk extra money by charging a fee for opening port 25. My old ISP charge $15 a month to open ports 25 & 80.
The point I was trying make is, if manufacturers made an effort to standardize trivial components like cables and interconnects then everybody would benefit.
Well, everyone except maybe the manufacturers, which might be the problem. But yes, of course there are benefits to standardization. But then of course, the problem always gets to be: which standard do you try to get everyone to use. And then the next problem is: what do you do when a manufacturer says, "Meh, I don't like that standard, I'm going to do my own thing." And maybe that vendor has a good reason for doing their own thing. Maybe their own thing is way better.
And that's the problem with standards. Good standards that people follow provide loads of benefits, while good standards that people don't follow are irrelevant and bad standards that people follow can turn into a big problem.
So though I'd be happy if more electronics could use some kind of a standard charger, I'm not convinced that micro-USB is the best option. I'm also not convinced that some vendors won't choose to use something else, and for good reason.
As for HDMI, I've looked for details and can't find any particular reason why they're so expensive. They're apparently not hard to manufacture, don't require expensive materials, and they have to be pretty bad or very long before you'll actually have any "quality" issues. I think they're just expensive because they are. People will pay it. Maybe it's because it's considered "high tech" and people will pay extra for them until they get used to the new cables. I don't know.
I'm just saying that everybody pretty much overcharges for cables, so to assign that to Apple and claim that it's because of trendiness or patents seems like a bit of an overreaction, like you're looking for reasons to be angry at Apple and looking for "trendiness" or "patent abuse" to be the reasons.
And no, there isn't really any reason for HDMI cables to be so expensive. People just overcharge when they think they can. If it's anything more than that, I would guess it's because if they don't mark the cables up a lot, then it won't be worth it for stores to even shelve those items.
I would like to know what justifies charging $30 for the cable?
Why is it that most HDMI cables cost something like $60? Same thing. I remember when Best Buy used to sell printers without USB cables and then charge you $40 for a USB cable (do they still do that?). Anyway, it's the same thing.
People overcharge for things like cables. I'm sure there are business/marketing reasons behind it, but no reason to single Apple out.
iPhones don't need RGB or S-Video
They do if you have movies on them, and want to output those movies onto a TV screen. People probably don't do that very often, but you can do that.
Audio input and output do not (or at least should not) use the same plug as power/data (otherwise you can't charge your phone and use the headset at the same time).
iPods and iPhones have 2 different audio outs-- one being the headphone jack, which on the iPhone can also be used for headsets. So you can use that headphone jack while charging. The other audio out is in the dock connector, and it makes it so you can drop the iPhone into the dock and have the dock connect to a stereo. If not for that audio out, you'd have to drop it into the dock and then plug an additional cable from your stereo into the headphone jack.
Not only would that be slightly annoying and inconvenient, but it's my understanding that the audio from the dock is also handled differently than the headphone jack. I'm not a real audiophile, so I don't remember what the deal is, but it's something like the dock connector not running the audio through the iPhone's built-in amp. The idea is you're going to feed it into a stereo and have volume control through that stereo anyway, so it shouldn't need to deal with that. Instead you (supposedly) get cleaner audio out to your stereo.
I wonder how Apple will feel about this? Will they finally realize that their oh-so-special adapter is nothing more than a fudged USB interface?"
Oh, like Apple is just using the dock connector to be "special"? It's true that the dock connector is *mostly* USB, but it also can carry audio and video so that, with only a dock, you can output to a stereo or TV. Also, the audio put out through the dock is supposedly different from what comes out of the headphone jack (I believe they aren't amplifying the audio from the dock), meaning you can get better quality for outputting to a stereo.
So I don't know why the submitter has to turn this into an Apple-bashing thing. Apple actually uses standards pretty often. And often, when they do stray from a standard, it's in order to provide specific functionality-- and even then they often release the specs for their version, allowing others to adopt it. For example, I believe they released the specs for their custom "mini display port" that they're using without requiring any kind of licensing fees or anything.
Well, confession: I didn't RTFA, at least not thoroughly, and so wasn't arguing with you per se.
Just the title, "How Many Open Source Licenses Do You Need?" seemed to me to imply that there are too many, similar to the way in which many people argue that there are too many Linux distributions. Whenever I hear that sort of complaint, I sympathize. By doing lots of different licenses or lots of different distributions, you are splitting your effort, introducing potential compatibility issues, and confusing people who don't know the right one to choose.
But then the questions inevitably pops up-- who chooses the winners, and how do you actually get people to only use those winners? The reason there are so many licenses and so many distributions-- to some degree, at least-- is because someone sat down, looked at the options, and decided that they didn't like the options. They wanted to come up with their own in order to serve their own purposes.
Yes, I'm sure that to some degree people are choosing different licenses without having a very good reason, and maybe your article will help people realize that. That could be good. At the same time, my immediate response is to question whether it's something that has to be pushed for, or rather it will sort itself out to some degree.
Not that I would oppose attempts to standardize and consolidate licensing for the sake of making it easier for people to know their rights, but why shouldn't developers/publishers be allowed to use whatever license they want, and make up their own if nothing else meets their needs?
I don't see the point of any attempt to artificially limit choice here.
This might perhaps be unconnected to your post (to be honest, I don't understand your post well-- I don't know that much about genetics), and perhaps just completely off-topic, but I've had a theory for a while that I've been waiting to hear of someone developing the same theory. Maybe it's already common but I just haven't heard of it.
So the theory is this: that we have evolved mechanisms that allow us to evolve better. I don't have any support for this theory except that it seems like it would make a lot of sense to me, and I've read that in some cases, scientists have been surprised at how quickly some inheritable traits can change.
It just seems somewhat natural to me that something like this should happen as a life form becomes more advanced. Whenever humans are refining their methods, it usually occurs to them at some point to refine the process of refining their process. What might start off as trial and error becomes more systematic, and as the whole thing becomes more refined, the way in which new changes are considered also changes.
It seems obvious to me that sufficiently advanced organisms would protect themselves against drastic changes, and I've read about several ways that DNA replication is regulated (details escape me) and things that happen in the womb that might abort drastic mutations. But I've never read any suggestions that there are mechanisms specifically to create/support other mutations, perhaps in a controlled way, so as to foster evolution. Everyone seems to still think that mutations are the result of random chance, which seems unlikely to me.
Not quite. At least not completely out the window.
Copyright says you need a license to create additional copies someone else's creative works. There are laws and legal precedents that give exceptions, providing the right to copy works under other specific circumstances, but that doesn't mean that copyrights don't apply to software anymore, nor does it mean that installation isn't considered "copying".
Also, a lot of issues are settled in court, where the intent of the law is considered as well as the letter of the law. I don't know how 17 USC 117 is being interpreted, but I doubt the intention was so bold as to say, "installation of software does not constitute 'reproduction' of a work and therefore isn't subject to licensing." I think it was more aimed at making it so you generally can't get sued for making backups of software or installing software in cases where there isn't a EULA that clearly and explicitly grants you that right. I think it still imagines, however, that you're talking about cases where you have a legitimate copy and are using the software in ways that are also legitimate.
So what I'm saying is, I wouldn't feel confident that it gives me a blanket right to install software in terms expressly forbidden by the license agreement under which the software is sold. I would expect instead that it's protecting a sort of "fair use" of installing the software and even modifying it during the normal install procedure as in line with what the developer had envisioned, though perhaps under circumstances the developer had not imagined.
I don't think it's really the wrong battle. The big problem with DRM is that it arguably means that you're being sold a defective product. You're being sold something that's designed to break and ceases to serve its purpose under some circumstances.
I don't want to get into the particular argument here whether products with DRM are always defective, but it seems like a step in exactly the right direction for the government to recognize that DRM *can* constitute a defect in the product. Once there is some sense that DRM is not always valid, that it's possible for DRM to make a product so defective that they should be barred from selling it, then we can begin to talk about what, exactly, is "fair".
Personally, I don't think DRM is always awful. For example, companies putting DRM on movie rentals rather than movie sales seems fair. Although I didn't think I'd like Steam, once I tried it, it seemed to be a pretty reasonable use of DRM. In that particular situation, I view it this way: I've agreed to sign into a service before playing games, and in return, I have copies of my games hosted such that I have access to them wherever I want.
And I'm not sure where you draw the line on what's "fair" on DRM; I know plenty of people who just thing it's always bad. However, it would be a big win for consumers, for the government at least to recognize that it's not always acceptable. I would at least like to see a law that says that, if you're selling (not renting) products with DRM that checks against some server, then if you ever shut that server down, you are responsible for making available the means to permanently remove that DRM.
But why do you need a license? You need a license to copy. There really isn't a law that says "software use needs to be licensed". The reason why have software licenses is because you need a license to copy software, and installation is a form of copying. Even running software might be considered a form of "copying", since it requires copying some of the software into RAM.
IANAL, but that's how it's been explained to me in the past.
Well the complicate issue is that copyrights aren't meant to inhibit a person's right to distribute things. Whether or not something is distributed may be legally meaningful, but what the laws are really meant to inhibit is copying (and therefore also the creation of derivative work).
I agree that it seems like a strange thing these days, when digital copying is so simple. We copy things all the time without thinking of it, so the idea that making copies would be the illegal thing seems crazy. But if you think back to something like books-- if you own two books, why shouldn't you be able to sell them? It didn't make sense to legally prohibit people from selling or giving away books that they already had. The issue was as to whether people had the right to create a new copy or create a new derivative work in the first place.
I didn't say "free", I said "open". Google's recommendations for openness were basically (I'm paraphrasing from memory) that any device be allowed to connect to the service, and that any application be allowed to run. You'd still need to pay for the service, but you could then buy any phone you wanted and use the Internet how you wanted.
The questions at hand are, when Verizon (I think Verizon won the bid) builds out their wireless network, am I going to be forced to buy a Verizon-brand device to access that network? Could Apple just to put the right wireless chipset into their iPod Touch and have it work for anyone who has Verizon services, or does Apple need to ask Verizon for permission to build that device? Assuming Apple tries to make a deal with Verizon, does Verizon have the right to say, "Ok, you can enable the iPod Touch to connect to our network, but you can't have VoIP on the device."
Google's recommendations for openness were basically aimed at making it so, in this case, Verizon would just publish a spec of, "here's how you connect to our network," and that spec would be open to everyone. From there, Apple could follow those specs to build pretty much any device they wanted, and Verizon would have nothing to say about it. So if that happened, Apple could just build an iPod touch with a speaker/mic, build in a wireless networking chip, install VoIP software, and sell it as an iPhone. You would have to pay for the data services, and then you could pay a low flat fee for VoIP instead of being locked into an expensive cell contract.
It's unlikely that this will happen, in spite of being the best thing for consumers and for the economy. It would be as big of a threat to cell phones as VoIP is to landlines, and I can't imagine that Verizon will voluntarily allow it.
Well the right to free speech isn't unlimited according to current law. There are laws regarding defamation/libel/slander, for example, that could leave you open to a civil case. In this case, it's not really the government itself silencing you, but the government handling a dispute between two private parties.
But also, there are rules against "speech" that recklessly endangers others, the classic example being yelling "fire" in a crowded theater. Also, encouraging others to commit a crime or helping to plan a crime is not protected as "free speech". Conspiracy to commit murder, for example, is a very serious crime even though the action may have only been "speech".
Let's say I hire a nanny and ask her to read to my child. Is that nanny breaking the law?
I wonder if there's a distinction to be made in the idea that they aren't recording this text-to-speech stuff and then distributing the recording, but rather producing it on the fly.
Here's the key issue: There's little evidence that anything useful has come out of Microsoft Research. Ever.
Didn't Songsmith come out of their research labs?