even so, "Well, we think the problem may be related to something in your database - mind if we have a look?" would have been nice, rather than jumping straight in.
As far as I can tell, in California computer tampering is worth 16 months imprisonment. 3 counts = 48 months. How can any crime which could net him only 4 years imprisonment be so serious as to warrant $5m bail?
The point of bail is to have the accused put enough cash on the line that it becomes worth his while not to try and flee, it's not there so that if he does flee the state doesn't 'go home empty handed'. Thus it should be dependednt on the ability of the accused to pay. Wikipedia doesn't say much about the case law and how SCOTUS has interpreted it, so I won't say that you're wrong, just that I hope you're wrong and that you ought to be wrong.
imagine that you commission someone to produce a painting for you. The physcial work itself is yours. The copyright is yours (assume it's a work for hire), but no-one in ordinary parlance would refer to it as 'your painting'.
The Hardware may belong to the city, as may the schematics (if they exist), but it's still his network in as much as he deserves to be recognised as its creator, though this confers no legal rights upon him.
the 1.0 release is often the exception (and firefox, where 3.0 was seemingly very well tested with 5 betas and 2 RCs), but, for instance SuSE 10.0 was a complete mess. All the whizz-bang new stuff that's made this a new major version is in, but it's not really all working together yet.
You up your project to 1.0 once it's stable, but after that any x.0 release exists because you've changed something important.
For all we know, the password Childs gave to the Mayor was the password to some sort of password vault or truecrypt volume on his work PC, in which they have magically found this list. The whole case reaks of spin, lies, bluff, double bluff and FUD. Perhaps we hould stop going to see the media circus on this one and wait until the end of the show. (Yeah, ok I live in Britain, where law enforcement will happily shoot an unarmed man on the tube and then feed the public at least 3 lies about the incident in 24 hours, which the press rapidly lap up. Where the press also spent 3 weeks in a shocked daze that the Portugese police wouldn't tell them every detail of on ongoing inquiry like the British police do. Forgive me if I'm cynical about the one-sided information that law enforcement types tend to give the press about an investigation long before the fat lady has even arrived at the opera house.)
maybe it's a bluff. Now that they've put them in the public record, they can go to the judge and say "we KNOW he has access to this username\password list, because we just made it available to him, so you can't let him out incase he uses it to damage the network". Which would be very slimy indeed, but then they're lawyers, slimey is their modus operandi. On another note, isn't the POINT of the 8th amendment to stop bail deliberately set so high that the person being held cannot hope to post it? (which seems to be what the DA here wants)
1) C? Oh dear me no. You need too much understanding of computer science to get on with C - better to use a language that protects you from having to use pointers and the like. If the syntax for setting up an array, for instance, is complicated, he'll try to find a way to solve the problem without using an array, which will just end in disaster. 1)a) Fortran. Fortran is an awesome beginners language - it teaches good programming practice like explicit variable declarations (I'm looking at you, basic) and being absolutely damn certain that the code does what you think it does (I'm looking at you, matlab), whilst at the same time, not being hard and unforgiving like C. It's not case sensitive this means that you don't get into the habit of having a variable named 'i', and one named 'I', and since that's begging for hard-to-find bugs to crop up, not doing it in the first place is good.
2) Find something to do. I spent several years kicking about with QBasic and got nothing out of it. Why? Because I didn't have a problem to solve. Sitting down at the interpreter (or IDE) and not having a problem to solve just isn't productive.
Come up with a good list of problems to solve and algorithms to implement:
Bubble sort
Shaker sort
Root finding
Rectangle, trapezium, newton-raphson methods of numerical integration
Runge-Kutta
Random Walk
2D random walk
nD random walk (implement Box-Muller algorithm to distribute the step lengths on a non-lattice walk)
Statistical analysis - mean, median (requires one of the sort algorithms), mode, range (don't mention the minval() and maxval() intrinsics yet), standard deviation, standard error, variance, the last 3 again for correlated data
Einstenin's Nobel Prize was for his work on quantum mechanics (specifically, the photoelectric effect), not relativity.
Relativity wasn't really a breakthrough - it was just a logical progression of the work of Newton, Lorentz & Maxwell - Fundamentally changing the way that we view matter - that's a breakthrough.
if you did apply it yourself, you can't be sure that it's been done correctly! On the first system I built; I put the heat sink on pi radians rotated from where it was supposed to be, and without thermal paste at all. (How was I supposed to know?)
since when? Unless you had a good reason to suspect that it was stolen and didn't ask (i.e. you were negligent) it's not a crime to be in possession of it, but you do have to give it back (and try to pursue whoever sold it to you to recover what you paid). Incompetent prosecutors may try to string innocent mugs up for it, but not having known (and not having been reasonably expected to know, or find out) is a defence. IANAL, etc, etc.
but the desktop is the machine with the beasty graphics card and water cooling. I've been pricing up a new computer recently and a moderately powerful system (but by no means bleeding edge), without a case or monitor (or water cooling) comes to just shy of the sterling equivalent of $1000. I can't see an entirely nicked desktop (can you include software in that $1000? "That machine has got office on it, add $100s") coming out under $1000, and certainly not much under.
Crappy about the lack of police response that you had.
I haven't read it, I was just answering the question. I don't know if I'd want a judiciary which knuckles under to abusive letters either, (though I would like one which won't wave a piece of paper about shouting 'we must do X because the paper says so' when X is clearly wrong), that's why I gave a low percentage chance of something being done. You can replace it with 0.0000001% if you want.
well, a flurry of letters politely explaining why the 9 judges are breathtakingly incompetent, dangerous morons, not fit to breath the same air as the rest of us has a 1% chance of getting something changed, and a 100% of making the person who sent them feel like they've got something changed.
What's that got to do with it? I'm explaining why it's fair to call accepting GPL source on the agreement that you release modifications and then not doing it stealing, while it's not ok to describe any and all copyright infringement as stealing. I know that the GPL's teeth come from copyright, and that a violation of it would have to be prosecuted as a copyright infringement. That would be the formal legal position.
I'm not constructing a formal legal position, if I were; this discussion would not be happening - neither example constitutes theft, legally speaking, and I challenge you to produce a single example of a sucessful prosecution, for theft, of someone copying works without permission.
I'm explaining why, in the ordinary sense of the word 'steal', hiding GPL code away that you've agreed to release is 'stealing', and different from copying without permission, which isn't. (And if you get it without making such an agreement, it's copying without permission, and not stealing)
The formal legal position isn't up for discussion, it's a mostly settled question. Neither would constitute stealing. This is a philosophical question of whether one is more wrong than the other, and so more worthy of being described as 'stealing'.
I happen to think that aceepting software for free on the condition that you release the source of modifications and then don't do it is worse than being offered software in exchange for money and getting it elsewhere without paying. That's my opinion, and if your differs, I don't think either of us will be able to argue the other into changing.
If you have a modified version of my code (having released the binaries) then those modifications are as much mine as yours as per the agreement we made when I have you the source in the first place. If you acquired the source elsewhere, where you didn't come under such an agreement, that's a diferent problem. Those modifications are mine, and you're 'stealing' them by not turning them over.
In the sale of software example, I haven't accepted your agreement. The money in my wallet is not, by default, yours, so I'm not stealing it by not handing it over. The problem boils down to exactly the same one as the above situation of acquiring the source code elsewhere.
They're both copyright infringements because the software was acquired without an agreement being made. But, in the former situation, assuming that the source was acquired without a copyright infringement, you are 'stealing' because we had a deal that you'd release source with binaries and you haven't honoured it.
Copyright infringement exists because no deal was made. GPL theft exists because an agreement was made and subsequently broken. Neither is right, but they are different.
ok, first, let's assume that copyright is good and right, and ought to exist (and does), etc, etc.
If you want to sell me some software, and I copy it from someone else, you've not been deprived of anything which you had in the first place (only expected income).
If I give you some software (with source) for free, on the understanding that if you release a modified version of the software, you'll release the source to that, and you don't; you've deprived me of the modifications, because they're mine (or at least, they're as much mine as they are yours).
In the former example the money isn't yours until I go through with the deal and that fact that I've got the software without accepting your deal doesn't mean that I'm depriving you of the specific money in my wallet that you were eyeing when you offered me the original deal. In the latter example the modifications are as much mine as yours, they don't become 'not mine' just because you've retained them in your sole posession, by depriving me of them, you are stealing them. (with appropriate fuzziness of the defintion of 'steal' to include 'keeping something that isn't yours')
Ok, now assume that copyright doesn't exist.
You offer to sell me software, I get it elsewhere. Tough.
I give you software (and source) on the understanding that if you release a modified version you'll release the source to that, and you don't; Tough.
if you take GPLed code, modify it, and then release only binaries, you ARE depriving the rest of the world of something - the source code of your modifications. In that case, the word 'steal' is appropriate.
Re: your second link Oral argument was scheduled for 1st July, a week ago. Any news on the outcome? (Or do we have to wait a while?) I don't know if, in your dilligent efforts to keep the/. crowd informed of developments, you have to pick & choose what you think is worth submitting, but if you do, can I pre-flag the outcome of this development for submission?
That the whole 'making available' theory, after having been accepted, could be subsequently chucked (presumably invalidating the entire outcome of the case), looks like it might be a significant nail in the coffin of the RIAA's war on the public.
I'm fairly sure that I've just installed this patch. BUT, I haven't rebooted yet. (I'm using ZA, obviously). How can I stop the process of the patch being applied before I reboot so I don't fritz my computer?
Thanks
zackly!
The 900MHz Celery, 512MB of RAM, 2GB or 4GB SSD, WiFi, Webcam, and the 8.9" screen is the ideal combination.
So, I want the 2G surf's RAM, on what is otherwise a 4G, but with the 2nd Gen screen. Why is that so much to ask?
Slashdot Mirror
even so, "Well, we think the problem may be related to something in your database - mind if we have a look?" would have been nice, rather than jumping straight in.
As far as I can tell, in California computer tampering is worth 16 months imprisonment. 3 counts = 48 months. How can any crime which could net him only 4 years imprisonment be so serious as to warrant $5m bail?
The point of bail is to have the accused put enough cash on the line that it becomes worth his while not to try and flee, it's not there so that if he does flee the state doesn't 'go home empty handed'. Thus it should be dependednt on the ability of the accused to pay. Wikipedia doesn't say much about the case law and how SCOTUS has interpreted it, so I won't say that you're wrong, just that I hope you're wrong and that you ought to be wrong.
imagine that you commission someone to produce a painting for you. The physcial work itself is yours. The copyright is yours (assume it's a work for hire), but no-one in ordinary parlance would refer to it as 'your painting'.
The Hardware may belong to the city, as may the schematics (if they exist), but it's still his network in as much as he deserves to be recognised as its creator, though this confers no legal rights upon him.
the 1.0 release is often the exception (and firefox, where 3.0 was seemingly very well tested with 5 betas and 2 RCs), but, for instance SuSE 10.0 was a complete mess. All the whizz-bang new stuff that's made this a new major version is in, but it's not really all working together yet.
You up your project to 1.0 once it's stable, but after that any x.0 release exists because you've changed something important.
For all we know, the password Childs gave to the Mayor was the password to some sort of password vault or truecrypt volume on his work PC, in which they have magically found this list. The whole case reaks of spin, lies, bluff, double bluff and FUD. Perhaps we hould stop going to see the media circus on this one and wait until the end of the show.
(Yeah, ok I live in Britain, where law enforcement will happily shoot an unarmed man on the tube and then feed the public at least 3 lies about the incident in 24 hours, which the press rapidly lap up. Where the press also spent 3 weeks in a shocked daze that the Portugese police wouldn't tell them every detail of on ongoing inquiry like the British police do. Forgive me if I'm cynical about the one-sided information that law enforcement types tend to give the press about an investigation long before the fat lady has even arrived at the opera house.)
maybe it's a bluff. Now that they've put them in the public record, they can go to the judge and say "we KNOW he has access to this username\password list, because we just made it available to him, so you can't let him out incase he uses it to damage the network". Which would be very slimy indeed, but then they're lawyers, slimey is their modus operandi.
On another note, isn't the POINT of the 8th amendment to stop bail deliberately set so high that the person being held cannot hope to post it? (which seems to be what the DA here wants)
what? the bubble sort is incredibly simple, but teaches you about:
It was also the first 'program' that we had to write in mathcad as undergraduate physicists
1) C? Oh dear me no. You need too much understanding of computer science to get on with C - better to use a language that protects you from having to use pointers and the like. If the syntax for setting up an array, for instance, is complicated, he'll try to find a way to solve the problem without using an array, which will just end in disaster.
1)a) Fortran. Fortran is an awesome beginners language - it teaches good programming practice like explicit variable declarations (I'm looking at you, basic) and being absolutely damn certain that the code does what you think it does (I'm looking at you, matlab), whilst at the same time, not being hard and unforgiving like C. It's not case sensitive this means that you don't get into the habit of having a variable named 'i', and one named 'I', and since that's begging for hard-to-find bugs to crop up, not doing it in the first place is good.
2) Find something to do. I spent several years kicking about with QBasic and got nothing out of it. Why? Because I didn't have a problem to solve. Sitting down at the interpreter (or IDE) and not having a problem to solve just isn't productive.
Come up with a good list of problems to solve and algorithms to implement:
etc, etc, etc.
Einstenin's Nobel Prize was for his work on quantum mechanics (specifically, the photoelectric effect), not relativity.
Relativity wasn't really a breakthrough - it was just a logical progression of the work of Newton, Lorentz & Maxwell - Fundamentally changing the way that we view matter - that's a breakthrough.
but Cork is the only bit of Ireland that will still float if the country falls into the sea!
if you did apply it yourself, you can't be sure that it's been done correctly! On the first system I built; I put the heat sink on pi radians rotated from where it was supposed to be, and without thermal paste at all. (How was I supposed to know?)
Talk about expensive mistake.
since when?
Unless you had a good reason to suspect that it was stolen and didn't ask (i.e. you were negligent) it's not a crime to be in possession of it, but you do have to give it back (and try to pursue whoever sold it to you to recover what you paid). Incompetent prosecutors may try to string innocent mugs up for it, but not having known (and not having been reasonably expected to know, or find out) is a defence. IANAL, etc, etc.
but the desktop is the machine with the beasty graphics card and water cooling. I've been pricing up a new computer recently and a moderately powerful system (but by no means bleeding edge), without a case or monitor (or water cooling) comes to just shy of the sterling equivalent of $1000. I can't see an entirely nicked desktop (can you include software in that $1000? "That machine has got office on it, add $100s") coming out under $1000, and certainly not much under.
Crappy about the lack of police response that you had.
I haven't read it, I was just answering the question.
I don't know if I'd want a judiciary which knuckles under to abusive letters either, (though I would like one which won't wave a piece of paper about shouting 'we must do X because the paper says so' when X is clearly wrong), that's why I gave a low percentage chance of something being done. You can replace it with 0.0000001% if you want.
well, a flurry of letters politely explaining why the 9 judges are breathtakingly incompetent, dangerous morons, not fit to breath the same air as the rest of us has a 1% chance of getting something changed, and a 100% of making the person who sent them feel like they've got something changed.
What's that got to do with it? I'm explaining why it's fair to call accepting GPL source on the agreement that you release modifications and then not doing it stealing, while it's not ok to describe any and all copyright infringement as stealing. I know that the GPL's teeth come from copyright, and that a violation of it would have to be prosecuted as a copyright infringement. That would be the formal legal position.
I'm not constructing a formal legal position, if I were; this discussion would not be happening - neither example constitutes theft, legally speaking, and I challenge you to produce a single example of a sucessful prosecution, for theft, of someone copying works without permission.
I'm explaining why, in the ordinary sense of the word 'steal', hiding GPL code away that you've agreed to release is 'stealing', and different from copying without permission, which isn't. (And if you get it without making such an agreement, it's copying without permission, and not stealing)
The formal legal position isn't up for discussion, it's a mostly settled question. Neither would constitute stealing.
This is a philosophical question of whether one is more wrong than the other, and so more worthy of being described as 'stealing'.
I happen to think that aceepting software for free on the condition that you release the source of modifications and then don't do it is worse than being offered software in exchange for money and getting it elsewhere without paying. That's my opinion, and if your differs, I don't think either of us will be able to argue the other into changing.
so, you have AGAIN missed the argument.
If you have a modified version of my code (having released the binaries) then those modifications are as much mine as yours as per the agreement we made when I have you the source in the first place. If you acquired the source elsewhere, where you didn't come under such an agreement, that's a diferent problem. Those modifications are mine, and you're 'stealing' them by not turning them over.
In the sale of software example, I haven't accepted your agreement. The money in my wallet is not, by default, yours, so I'm not stealing it by not handing it over. The problem boils down to exactly the same one as the above situation of acquiring the source code elsewhere.
They're both copyright infringements because the software was acquired without an agreement being made. But, in the former situation, assuming that the source was acquired without a copyright infringement, you are 'stealing' because we had a deal that you'd release source with binaries and you haven't honoured it.
Copyright infringement exists because no deal was made. GPL theft exists because an agreement was made and subsequently broken. Neither is right, but they are different.
Mr. President; we must not allow a mine-shaft gap!
ok, first, let's assume that copyright is good and right, and ought to exist (and does), etc, etc.
If you want to sell me some software, and I copy it from someone else, you've not been deprived of anything which you had in the first place (only expected income).
If I give you some software (with source) for free, on the understanding that if you release a modified version of the software, you'll release the source to that, and you don't; you've deprived me of the modifications, because they're mine (or at least, they're as much mine as they are yours).
In the former example the money isn't yours until I go through with the deal and that fact that I've got the software without accepting your deal doesn't mean that I'm depriving you of the specific money in my wallet that you were eyeing when you offered me the original deal. In the latter example the modifications are as much mine as yours, they don't become 'not mine' just because you've retained them in your sole posession, by depriving me of them, you are stealing them. (with appropriate fuzziness of the defintion of 'steal' to include 'keeping something that isn't yours')
Ok, now assume that copyright doesn't exist.
You offer to sell me software, I get it elsewhere. Tough.
I give you software (and source) on the understanding that if you release a modified version you'll release the source to that, and you don't; Tough.
if you take GPLed code, modify it, and then release only binaries, you ARE depriving the rest of the world of something - the source code of your modifications. In that case, the word 'steal' is appropriate.
hey NYCL,
Re: your second link /. crowd informed of developments, you have to pick & choose what you think is worth submitting, but if you do, can I pre-flag the outcome of this development for submission?
Oral argument was scheduled for 1st July, a week ago. Any news on the outcome? (Or do we have to wait a while?)
I don't know if, in your dilligent efforts to keep the
That the whole 'making available' theory, after having been accepted, could be subsequently chucked (presumably invalidating the entire outcome of the case), looks like it might be a significant nail in the coffin of the RIAA's war on the public.
Thanks
-AC
Moebius strip of truth!
I'm fairly sure that I've just installed this patch. BUT, I haven't rebooted yet. (I'm using ZA, obviously). How can I stop the process of the patch being applied before I reboot so I don't fritz my computer? Thanks
zackly! The 900MHz Celery, 512MB of RAM, 2GB or 4GB SSD, WiFi, Webcam, and the 8.9" screen is the ideal combination. So, I want the 2G surf's RAM, on what is otherwise a 4G, but with the 2nd Gen screen. Why is that so much to ask?
I find your ideas intriguing and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.