There's a similar problem here in the UK. Everyone knows what the british pound notes (5, 10, 20, 50 [rarely]) look like. Unfortunately, not so many people know that scottish pound notes are also legal tender in the UK. Once I was standing in a queue at a Cafe Nero here in London - someone ahead of me tried to pay with 5 scottish pound note, and the cashier (of southern european origin, so note too familiar with UK currency) refused to take the note. The customer protested. The cashier still refused. Others in the queue, including me, pointed out that the note was legal. The cashier still refused to take it, he didn't want to wear the risk (someone else behind the counter, also of southern european origin, shrugged their shoulders of the problem -- i.e. because if it were a dud note, the cashier would see it come out of his minimum wage). Someone else in the queue offered to swap him for a 5 british pound note, which they did, and the cashier was happy.
It sounds like a dirty word, but it's probably your solution: outfit your storage area with RFID, and put a sensor on the forklift so that when the forklift drops the item off, you can sense which RFID tag the forklift is close to.
The RFID tag may need to be in the floor, on the shelves, or whatever else: the beauty of this solution is that it's cheap: the tags are cheap and small and just need to be embedded around the floor: you then need to manually associate the tags with a location (shelf, etc).
What you need on the forklift is the sensor, which only needs to read the current tag and the current height of the forklift tray (not necessary if the tags are in the shelves themselves where height is implicit): the forklift then simply needs to transfer that information back to a base station, and 802.11 would probably be suitable (unless there's a ot of industrial noise). You could further automate the process by putting weight sensors onto the forklift to tell whether things have been loaded or unloaded and what weight is being transferred.
This would be a an alternative to using some sort of positioning system where you try to triangulate the position of the forklift / etc, which to me would seem to have greater probability of error.
if they made it a bit cheaper it would be better though?
Sure, and it be better if high-end computing servers were cheaper too, but really: a global plane based relatively high speed internetwork is not cheap to build and run: we're talking about fitting equipment into planes, trials and testing, satellite bandwidth, the cost of satellite services, etc. This is not inexpensive.
I actually think $30 is not too bad for what you're getting. It's not for everyone, but it's within the reach of many people, considering many of us think nothing about easily spending $30 on a restaurant meal.
Not only this, but international airlines are not actually loaded with revenue that they could absorb the cost of this service into existing price you pay, and really, I wouldn't want my mother (a non internet user) to pay higher trans-atlantic fares so that she can subsidise web browsers: user pays!
I'm sure we'll see the service expand and improve in the future, but for now, it's a fairly decent start. I'm not on a 6 figure salary, yet I'd have no problems paying for this service on the 2-3 12+ hour flights I make per year.
No, but Europe has equivalent legislation that implements equivalent protection for "rights management information"; so even if you were avoid the ToS for iTMS, then using the software is breaking the law.
Re:Avoidance and respect as alternatives to coerci
on
Tracking GPL Violators
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· Score: 1
(I am not the grandparent poster.)
"You complain, try to shame, etc. "
Perhaps that's what you would do. Perhaps there those of us who are above that.
RTFP you AC: the upper poster (UP) said that's what _he_ would do as a "viable" model for avoiding copyright laws. I completely disagree with the UP.
"The music industry is never going to collapse just because songs are traded online"
Of course, but they are never going to die if you continue to steal their rights and give them an excuse to toughen laws, file law suits and invade your rights. And artists will be continually attracted to them because they offer big money, not just from album sales (even if they are dwindling from file sharing) but big advertising clout, access to large scale resources, and so on.
By stealing music with file sharing, you're actually helping them become stronger and harsher.
The better approach is not to steal or file share music: but seek out, cultivate and support the artists that actualyl support a free-distribution-model. That'll mean more artists using the free approach, more touring of them, more gigs, and in fact, they'll start to see a lot more money, and then, because money is flooding into this new approach, we'll see all sorts of interesting and new opportunities and approaches.
Re:Good reasons for chosing GPL over BSD
on
Tracking GPL Violators
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· Score: 3, Insightful
"Despite his claims to the contrary, there is NOTHING in teh BSD license to stop hiom from relicensing his code and selling it commercially. "
Umm, except for common sense, which you seem to be missing?
Why would someone pay him for unecumbered code, when they could simply take the BSD licensed version for free.
His approach, which is very smart in fact, means that they are paying him for the cost of not having to fulfull GPL obligations (not only that, but also they are probably reducing their indemnification risks).
Re:Avoidance and respect as alternatives to coerci
on
Tracking GPL Violators
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
"So, if you use the public domain, how do you prevent people from abusing your work? By naming them when they take work without credit, by avoiding them and refusing to cooperate with them in any way, by expressing respect for people who share work freely and who give proper credit, and by gently trying to convince others to do so. "
That's never going to work.
Scenario: you write a successive UNIX derivative, and it is put into the public domain, then installed into a successful embedded product that is sold by the millions across the world.
You find that it includes your public domain work, entirely abused and not credited.
What do you do?
You complain, try to shame, etc.
What do they do?
Nothing, because nothing compels them to, and they continue to ship millions of this product, because all the people that like it, either can't hear you, or simply don't care.
At least with the backing of legislative statute (i.e. copyright law) you can _compel_ them to do something, with the foundation of hundreds of years of law and courts behind you.
"The best response is: "No, we don't. We use the public domain. So there.""
Very immature, and little wonder your opinions aren't taken highly.
"The whole twisted idea of trying to disassociate ownership from original works is a very selfish position."
It's not selfish if you are the ceator of the original work, and you disassociate ownership so that you can give it away for everyone to use; or, it's not selfish, if our entire social model is one where there is no individual ownership in the first place (the first part of the sentence assumes there is ownership in the first place).
However, while these are nice points, they are simply not the reality of today's world, and if we want to change today's world, we don't change it by abusing other peoples rights: we change it by respecting their rights, and convincing them that there is a better way, and showing them the better way.
The OP has no idea: he suggests that some "public good" comes out of trampling over other peoples rights. That only creates social disharmony, and its no way to reach fundamental change.
"Personally I'm a prolific writer and programmer and I do think that I have the right to do what I want with my work, but within reason. If I can't maintain my source code, improve and invest in it, I should lose the rights to it."
Then copyright provides you with a way to do this: license your code under a "free-if-I-fail-to-maintain-it" license. There's nothing stopping you doing this.
"Property rights should, morally, be tied to stewardship. Take care of something, and we the people grant you the right to "own" it."
If you want to change the default law to make this happen, then you need to convince the rest of society that it's a good model. They don't get convinced that it's a good model if you're not respecting their rights and plundering their goods.
You (and the couple of others that responded to me) are not listening either.
You moved onto the philosophical debate about "property" and "ownership" and whether intellectual property and music/software does have these properties. This is a good debate to have.
However, if you pay attention: we are in a free society where not everyone agrees to your view about property. The IP system, and copyright, allows individuals to make the choice either way. It's obvious that some other people have chosen to protect their property, and some have given it away (GPL). The most important thing for you is to respect their choice, not trample all over their choice and their rights to satisfy your own view of how things should work.
Back to the OP: social arguments about whether something should be free or not are good arguments: but they come before the point at which someone decides to apply GPL or other rights restrictions. Once they do decide to apply their choice of licensing, you should, as a mature and civil person, accept their choice. Otherwise, quite simply, you (or a large enterprise) are trampling over those rights for your (or the enterprise) benefit, against the wishes of the licensor.
Now we can all sleep with a conscience, knowing that we've reasoned ourselves around how theft of music/software copyright is "okay" because it "broadens its access", but theft of GPL works is not okay because it "restricts its access".
Superficially, that looks like a great argument. However, you forgot something important: fundamental rights of freedom and choice, because in both cases, the theft is ignoring the original choice and intentions of the copyright holder. You simply optioned for some so called "public good" at the expense of the creative individual, but really, your "public good" is just your own justification to suggest that music/software theft is acceptable.
Really: if you don't like copyright restrictions on works, choose alternatives, don't steal and then try to use a "robin hood" style argument to justify "public good". If you were stealing essential foodstuffs from wealthy to feed the poor, I could understand. However, music/software are not essential foodstuffs, and even if they were, there are plenty of free/share versions you can use without resorting to theft.
Bluntly: you don't need to steal music/software any more: there are a lot of free/share alternatives, and, the more you use those alternatives, the greater the critical mass, and the more they will grow and expand.
You're the worst type of citizen: you find something unknown and unlabelled on your property, and you assume your own lack of rights and the need to pay money to consult legal advice. What kind of society does that build?
Honestly, you find something in your house, in/on your property, etc, and it is unlabelled, unmarked -- there's absolutely no reason to assume, or defer, to the fact that it may be official.
What the poster should do is not tamper with it: simply take it off, and store it somewhere (preferrably, within metallic shielding). If no one claims it or asks about it within 6 months, then pull it apart and examine it.
Why _assume_ that it belongs to law enforcement? It could be a private investigator? Someone hired by her employees? Even just a _mistake_.
Even if you don't _assume_ that it belongs to law enforcement: why give them _the benefit of the doubt_?
We live in a relatively free society. You shouldn't go around giving authorities the benefit of the doubt all the time.
You state that the original heritage of the code was under GPL license: this means that yourself and your employer are bound to the GPL terms for that code and modifications. There's no question about this: sorry, both you and your employer have to release the code under GPL terms.
Secondly, the patent issue:
Unfortunately, there's nothing that stops your employer from taking out patents on the code or any improvements to it. They would not be able to get a patent on the original code, because it was already disclosed ot the public domain. They would be able to get patent on the modifications that have yet to be disclosed. You would need to look at the terms of your IP agreement for what it says about patent rights if you were the one that created the patentable code: e.g. you may have "shop rights" to the patent.
Third, liability issues:
There is a dangerous area of complication: you brought the code into your workplace, which was GPL, and neither you nor your employer seem to have properly understood what the full implications are. However, your IP agreement may say something about the liability falling back onto you: which may mean that your employer can sue you for failing to provide proper representation about the nature of the code. It's all a bit murky in here though.
These formats (rar, arj, 7zip, whatever) are not as widely supported as (a) tar/gz, tar/bz2, (b) gzip/bzip2, (c) zip. You can get (a)-(c) on just about every platform. Numerous times I've downloaded "unzip" to make (c) work. It's so simple.
Another point not mentioned elsewhere: virus scanners: at least with the popular tar/zip formats, you know that virus scanners understand them and can look for problems.
Sure, you may get a few extra features or a little more room out of non-standard archivers, but that's largely not an issue.
This defense doesn't make any sense. There is always a copying process involved in a download, because the song data is being copied in RAM by the HTTP server in order to transmit it to you. The process of deriving the copy from the original media takes place on AllOfMp3's servers, so they could still be held responsible for it if it was illegal.
You need to hit the law books: I can't speak about Russia or the US, but in the EU and UK, there are specific exceptions in the copyright law (in fact, the exceptions were introduced at the same time the DMCA style provisions were) that prevent any inconsequential and intermediate copying being an infringement of copyright law. What this means is that if you have a license to "make a copy" of a song by downloading it, then that licensing implicitly allows intermediate copying (network buffers, etc), even if the licensee doesn't specify it in the license conditions. Equally, it means that if you are "fair dealing" in a work, then intermediate copies in the process of that "fair dealing" are not an issue (e.g. if you have to copy the entire song to a buffer, just to take out a 1 second part of it).
This is probably a summary of other posts: this is only a production _announcement_, not a product _release_: they have no obligation to offer GPL code until they start offering binaries at the _release_.
I've tested this argument on a few people who aren't familiar with the computing industry: presented with the facts about Think Secret, and Apple pursuing the case, all of them thought that Apple had to do something _because_ of the PR: letting someone get away with breaking confidentiality is not good PR for your company, and neither for the shareholders: who invests in a company that lets trade secrets get out so that competitors can steal and pre-empt their innovation, in an industry that is largely about innovation?
Firstly, if you don't like iTunes DRM - "go and buy elsewhere"; iTunes doesn't have (or even try to have) a monopoly on digital music delivery. I don't see how you can fault Apple on this? As far as I know, Apple has engaged any sort of predatory pricing tactics or other techniques to push competitors out of the market. Sure, you may have to use iTunes, but, like I said - if you don't like that, go and use RealPlayer or WMP and buy elsewhere.
Secondly, you are wrong about your constititional claims: trade secrets and confidentiality are valid and important mechanisms for various commercial reasons, and to Apple is merely attempting to stop (and, more importantly, be _seen_ to stop) someone from agreeing to terms of confidentiality, and then breaking them by distributing the material.
I think the tone of your comment is far from objective, and in fact, leans towards flame bait, you're inciting a response, rather than presenting and engaging into an objective argument.
Neat idea, but I recently read a review stating that the Mini (at least the base version) lacked the processing testicular fortitude to be a full-blown media center.
Perhaps that is why it was dropped? Perhaps future revision of the hardware will offer the speed.
The NetBSD team were not criticising FreeBSD: basically, NetBSD stepped up their advocacy as part of NetBSD 2.0 release, including some whitepapers on performance comparision between NetBSD and FreeBSD. If anything, the BSD camps all have decent respect for each other, and honestly, Scott suggested that there was more animosity from the NetBSD camp that I think is the case in reality. All of the BSD camps could do with better advocacy, and Scott's post is more an indication that none of them are doing very good marketing, and as soon as NetBSD stepped up the marketing, the other camps (i.e. FreeBSD) felt they weren't getting a good rap: but really, the issue is, that FreeBSD guys just haven't been out there pushing their case as hard as they should really be.
The issue of what content is illegal, and whether it should be or not, is a separate one. The government is the one that's making the content rules, the search providers are just responding -- and doing so by forming a group because it probably makes technical and economic sense. The fact that they are forming a group has no real news in itself: presumably they were already having to supress the content, now they are just working together to lower their pain levels.
I tried to think of any negative consequences, and only that the group could get into trouble if they acted as a cartel and exchanged price or operating sensitive information, or worked together to filter out foreign competitors or foreign content. Cartel behaviour is a well known phenomena, and easily possibly in the realm of search and information rather than products and prices.
If the vendor makes it clear on the product that there is an expiration date, then there would seem to be no reason that they can't also enforce it by technical measures. I mean, when you buy a one year license key for a software product, you read and agree to the license that says that it will stop working after one year. If the consumable actually says that it will expire and stop working after 2.5 years (or whatever), then that's what it'll do, and this is what you are cogniziant of when you make the transaction!
There are some complications.
Firstly, if the time-expiring consumable is tied to the product and not available from any other vendor, there may be some sort of anti-trust issue here with "product tieing"; i.e. the vendor is trying to control the market more than is allowable: this is anti-competitive.
Secondly, if there are objective reasons for time-expiring, then the vendor may be okay: for example, if it can be shown that the the quality of the ink degrades to the point that after the expiration date, it would actually cause damage to the product it is used in. In this case, the vendor is making a fair and reasonable attempt to reduce damage caused by the item, which seems fair enough. Note again, there would need to be a provable reason for this, not just some kind of marketing spin.
Thirdly, it's a free market: if one vendor wants to offer a consumable with time-expiration built in, then there's nothing stopping other vendors from offer non-expiring products. As the consumer, provided you are given the knowledge up front (i.e. product labelling), it's then your free choice about which product you want to choose. There's no reason for the government or courts to step in and regulate this behaviour.
So without knowing a lot more facts, it's hard to understand what the exact position is here.
Slashdot Mirror
There's a similar problem here in the UK. Everyone knows what the british pound notes (5, 10, 20, 50 [rarely]) look like. Unfortunately, not so many people know that scottish pound notes are also legal tender in the UK. Once I was standing in a queue at a Cafe Nero here in London - someone ahead of me tried to pay with 5 scottish pound note, and the cashier (of southern european origin, so note too familiar with UK currency) refused to take the note. The customer protested. The cashier still refused. Others in the queue, including me, pointed out that the note was legal. The cashier still refused to take it, he didn't want to wear the risk (someone else behind the counter, also of southern european origin, shrugged their shoulders of the problem -- i.e. because if it were a dud note, the cashier would see it come out of his minimum wage). Someone else in the queue offered to swap him for a 5 british pound note, which they did, and the cashier was happy.
It sounds like a dirty word, but it's probably your solution: outfit your storage area with RFID, and put a sensor on the forklift so that when the forklift drops the item off, you can sense which RFID tag the forklift is close to.
The RFID tag may need to be in the floor, on the shelves, or whatever else: the beauty of this solution is that it's cheap: the tags are cheap and small and just need to be embedded around the floor: you then need to manually associate the tags with a location (shelf, etc).
What you need on the forklift is the sensor, which only needs to read the current tag and the current height of the forklift tray (not necessary if the tags are in the shelves themselves where height is implicit): the forklift then simply needs to transfer that information back to a base station, and 802.11 would probably be suitable (unless there's a ot of industrial noise). You could further automate the process by putting weight sensors onto the forklift to tell whether things have been loaded or unloaded and what weight is being transferred.
This would be a an alternative to using some sort of positioning system where you try to triangulate the position of the forklift / etc, which to me would seem to have greater probability of error.
if they made it a bit cheaper it would be better though?
Sure, and it be better if high-end computing servers were cheaper too, but really: a global plane based relatively high speed internetwork is not cheap to build and run: we're talking about fitting equipment into planes, trials and testing, satellite bandwidth, the cost of satellite services, etc. This is not inexpensive.
I actually think $30 is not too bad for what you're getting. It's not for everyone, but it's within the reach of many people, considering many of us think nothing about easily spending $30 on a restaurant meal.
Not only this, but international airlines are not actually loaded with revenue that they could absorb the cost of this service into existing price you pay, and really, I wouldn't want my mother (a non internet user) to pay higher trans-atlantic fares so that she can subsidise web browsers: user pays!
I'm sure we'll see the service expand and improve in the future, but for now, it's a fairly decent start. I'm not on a 6 figure salary, yet I'd have no problems paying for this service on the 2-3 12+ hour flights I make per year.
"The DMCA doesn't apply to Europe"
No, but Europe has equivalent legislation that implements equivalent protection for "rights management information"; so even if you were avoid the ToS for iTMS, then using the software is breaking the law.
(I am not the grandparent poster.)
"You complain, try to shame, etc. "
Perhaps that's what you would do. Perhaps there those of us who are above that.
RTFP you AC: the upper poster (UP) said that's what _he_ would do as a "viable" model for avoiding copyright laws. I completely disagree with the UP.
"The music industry is never going to collapse just because songs are traded online"
Of course, but they are never going to die if you continue to steal their rights and give them an excuse to toughen laws, file law suits and invade your rights. And artists will be continually attracted to them because they offer big money, not just from album sales (even if they are dwindling from file sharing) but big advertising clout, access to large scale resources, and so on.
By stealing music with file sharing, you're actually helping them become stronger and harsher.
The better approach is not to steal or file share music: but seek out, cultivate and support the artists that actualyl support a free-distribution-model. That'll mean more artists using the free approach, more touring of them, more gigs, and in fact, they'll start to see a lot more money, and then, because money is flooding into this new approach, we'll see all sorts of interesting and new opportunities and approaches.
"Despite his claims to the contrary, there is NOTHING in teh BSD license to stop hiom from relicensing his code and selling it commercially. "
Umm, except for common sense, which you seem to be missing?
Why would someone pay him for unecumbered code, when they could simply take the BSD licensed version for free.
His approach, which is very smart in fact, means that they are paying him for the cost of not having to fulfull GPL obligations (not only that, but also they are probably reducing their indemnification risks).
"So, if you use the public domain, how do you prevent people from abusing your work? By naming them when they take work without credit, by avoiding them and refusing to cooperate with them in any way, by expressing respect for people who share work freely and who give proper credit, and by gently trying to convince others to do so. "
That's never going to work.
Scenario: you write a successive UNIX derivative, and it is put into the public domain, then installed into a successful embedded product that is sold by the millions across the world.
You find that it includes your public domain work, entirely abused and not credited.
What do you do?
You complain, try to shame, etc.
What do they do?
Nothing, because nothing compels them to, and they continue to ship millions of this product, because all the people that like it, either can't hear you, or simply don't care.
At least with the backing of legislative statute (i.e. copyright law) you can _compel_ them to do something, with the foundation of hundreds of years of law and courts behind you.
"The best response is: "No, we don't. We use the public domain. So there.""
Very immature, and little wonder your opinions aren't taken highly.
"The whole twisted idea of trying to disassociate ownership from original works is a very selfish position."
It's not selfish if you are the ceator of the original work, and you disassociate ownership so that you can give it away for everyone to use; or, it's not selfish, if our entire social model is one where there is no individual ownership in the first place (the first part of the sentence assumes there is ownership in the first place).
However, while these are nice points, they are simply not the reality of today's world, and if we want to change today's world, we don't change it by abusing other peoples rights: we change it by respecting their rights, and convincing them that there is a better way, and showing them the better way.
The OP has no idea: he suggests that some "public good" comes out of trampling over other peoples rights. That only creates social disharmony, and its no way to reach fundamental change.
"Personally I'm a prolific writer and programmer and I do think that I have the right to do what I want with my work, but within reason. If I can't maintain my source code, improve and invest in it, I should lose the rights to it."
Then copyright provides you with a way to do this: license your code under a "free-if-I-fail-to-maintain-it" license. There's nothing stopping you doing this.
"Property rights should, morally, be tied to stewardship. Take care of something, and we the people grant you the right to "own" it."
If you want to change the default law to make this happen, then you need to convince the rest of society that it's a good model. They don't get convinced that it's a good model if you're not respecting their rights and plundering their goods.
You (and the couple of others that responded to me) are not listening either.
You moved onto the philosophical debate about "property" and "ownership" and whether intellectual property and music/software does have these properties. This is a good debate to have.
However, if you pay attention: we are in a free society where not everyone agrees to your view about property. The IP system, and copyright, allows individuals to make the choice either way. It's obvious that some other people have chosen to protect their property, and some have given it away (GPL). The most important thing for you is to respect their choice, not trample all over their choice and their rights to satisfy your own view of how things should work.
Back to the OP: social arguments about whether something should be free or not are good arguments: but they come before the point at which someone decides to apply GPL or other rights restrictions. Once they do decide to apply their choice of licensing, you should, as a mature and civil person, accept their choice. Otherwise, quite simply, you (or a large enterprise) are trampling over those rights for your (or the enterprise) benefit, against the wishes of the licensor.
Now we can all sleep with a conscience, knowing that we've reasoned ourselves around how theft of music/software copyright is "okay" because it "broadens its access", but theft of GPL works is not okay because it "restricts its access".
Superficially, that looks like a great argument. However, you forgot something important: fundamental rights of freedom and choice, because in both cases, the theft is ignoring the original choice and intentions of the copyright holder. You simply optioned for some so called "public good" at the expense of the creative individual, but really, your "public good" is just your own justification to suggest that music/software theft is acceptable.
Really: if you don't like copyright restrictions on works, choose alternatives, don't steal and then try to use a "robin hood" style argument to justify "public good". If you were stealing essential foodstuffs from wealthy to feed the poor, I could understand. However, music/software are not essential foodstuffs, and even if they were, there are plenty of free/share versions you can use without resorting to theft.
Bluntly: you don't need to steal music/software any more: there are a lot of free/share alternatives, and, the more you use those alternatives, the greater the critical mass, and the more they will grow and expand.
You're the worst type of citizen: you find something unknown and unlabelled on your property, and you assume your own lack of rights and the need to pay money to consult legal advice. What kind of society does that build?
Honestly, you find something in your house, in/on your property, etc, and it is unlabelled, unmarked -- there's absolutely no reason to assume, or defer, to the fact that it may be official.
What the poster should do is not tamper with it: simply take it off, and store it somewhere (preferrably, within metallic shielding). If no one claims it or asks about it within 6 months, then pull it apart and examine it.
Why _assume_ that it belongs to law enforcement? It could be a private investigator? Someone hired by her employees? Even just a _mistake_.
Even if you don't _assume_ that it belongs to law enforcement: why give them _the benefit of the doubt_?
We live in a relatively free society. You shouldn't go around giving authorities the benefit of the doubt all the time.
Firstly, ownership of the code:
You state that the original heritage of the code was under GPL license: this means that yourself and your employer are bound to the GPL terms for that code and modifications. There's no question about this: sorry, both you and your employer have to release the code under GPL terms.
Secondly, the patent issue:
Unfortunately, there's nothing that stops your employer from taking out patents on the code or any improvements to it. They would not be able to get a patent on the original code, because it was already disclosed ot the public domain. They would be able to get patent on the modifications that have yet to be disclosed. You would need to look at the terms of your IP agreement for what it says about patent rights if you were the one that created the patentable code: e.g. you may have "shop rights" to the patent.
Third, liability issues:
There is a dangerous area of complication: you brought the code into your workplace, which was GPL, and neither you nor your employer seem to have properly understood what the full implications are. However, your IP agreement may say something about the liability falling back onto you: which may mean that your employer can sue you for failing to provide proper representation about the nature of the code. It's all a bit murky in here though.
Have you seen the US current account deficit? The rest of the world will soon own the US anyway, then we'll be able to take back control.
These formats (rar, arj, 7zip, whatever) are not as widely supported as (a) tar/gz, tar/bz2, (b) gzip/bzip2, (c) zip. You can get (a)-(c) on just about every platform. Numerous times I've downloaded "unzip" to make (c) work. It's so simple.
Another point not mentioned elsewhere: virus scanners: at least with the popular tar/zip formats, you know that virus scanners understand them and can look for problems.
Sure, you may get a few extra features or a little more room out of non-standard archivers, but that's largely not an issue.
That's why I keep my mobile in my front trousers-pocket. There's no chance I'll be laughed at by grandkids.
Are you sure you'll be able to have grandkids if you keep it in your front trousers-pocket?
(honestly: keep it in your back pocket: your ass has a lot of useless fat that can soak up radiation)
This defense doesn't make any sense. There is always a copying process involved in a download, because the song data is being copied in RAM by the HTTP server in order to transmit it to you. The process of deriving the copy from the original media takes place on AllOfMp3's servers, so they could still be held responsible for it if it was illegal.
You need to hit the law books: I can't speak about Russia or the US, but in the EU and UK, there are specific exceptions in the copyright law (in fact, the exceptions were introduced at the same time the DMCA style provisions were) that prevent any inconsequential and intermediate copying being an infringement of copyright law. What this means is that if you have a license to "make a copy" of a song by downloading it, then that licensing implicitly allows intermediate copying (network buffers, etc), even if the licensee doesn't specify it in the license conditions. Equally, it means that if you are "fair dealing" in a work, then intermediate copies in the process of that "fair dealing" are not an issue (e.g. if you have to copy the entire song to a buffer, just to take out a 1 second part of it).
This is probably a summary of other posts: this is only a production _announcement_, not a product _release_: they have no obligation to offer GPL code until they start offering binaries at the _release_.
I've tested this argument on a few people who aren't familiar with the computing industry: presented with the facts about Think Secret, and Apple pursuing the case, all of them thought that Apple had to do something _because_ of the PR: letting someone get away with breaking confidentiality is not good PR for your company, and neither for the shareholders: who invests in a company that lets trade secrets get out so that competitors can steal and pre-empt their innovation, in an industry that is largely about innovation?
Firstly, if you don't like iTunes DRM - "go and buy elsewhere"; iTunes doesn't have (or even try to have) a monopoly on digital music delivery. I don't see how you can fault Apple on this? As far as I know, Apple has engaged any sort of predatory pricing tactics or other techniques to push competitors out of the market. Sure, you may have to use iTunes, but, like I said - if you don't like that, go and use RealPlayer or WMP and buy elsewhere.
Secondly, you are wrong about your constititional claims: trade secrets and confidentiality are valid and important mechanisms for various commercial reasons, and to Apple is merely attempting to stop (and, more importantly, be _seen_ to stop) someone from agreeing to terms of confidentiality, and then breaking them by distributing the material.
I think the tone of your comment is far from objective, and in fact, leans towards flame bait, you're inciting a response, rather than presenting and engaging into an objective argument.
Neat idea, but I recently read a review stating that the Mini (at least the base version) lacked the processing testicular fortitude to be a full-blown media center.
Perhaps that is why it was dropped? Perhaps future revision of the hardware will offer the speed.
The NetBSD team were not criticising FreeBSD: basically, NetBSD stepped up their advocacy as part of NetBSD 2.0 release, including some whitepapers on performance comparision between NetBSD and FreeBSD. If anything, the BSD camps all have decent respect for each other, and honestly, Scott suggested that there was more animosity from the NetBSD camp that I think is the case in reality. All of the BSD camps could do with better advocacy, and Scott's post is more an indication that none of them are doing very good marketing, and as soon as NetBSD stepped up the marketing, the other camps (i.e. FreeBSD) felt they weren't getting a good rap: but really, the issue is, that FreeBSD guys just haven't been out there pushing their case as hard as they should really be.
The issue of what content is illegal, and whether it should be or not, is a separate one. The government is the one that's making the content rules, the search providers are just responding -- and doing so by forming a group because it probably makes technical and economic sense. The fact that they are forming a group has no real news in itself: presumably they were already having to supress the content, now they are just working together to lower their pain levels.
I tried to think of any negative consequences, and only that the group could get into trouble if they acted as a cartel and exchanged price or operating sensitive information, or worked together to filter out foreign competitors or foreign content. Cartel behaviour is a well known phenomena, and easily possibly in the realm of search and information rather than products and prices.
If the vendor makes it clear on the product that there is an expiration date, then there would seem to be no reason that they can't also enforce it by technical measures. I mean, when you buy a one year license key for a software product, you read and agree to the license that says that it will stop working after one year. If the consumable actually says that it will expire and stop working after 2.5 years (or whatever), then that's what it'll do, and this is what you are cogniziant of when you make the transaction!
There are some complications.
Firstly, if the time-expiring consumable is tied to the product and not available from any other vendor, there may be some sort of anti-trust issue here with "product tieing"; i.e. the vendor is trying to control the market more than is allowable: this is anti-competitive.
Secondly, if there are objective reasons for time-expiring, then the vendor may be okay: for example, if it can be shown that the the quality of the ink degrades to the point that after the expiration date, it would actually cause damage to the product it is used in. In this case, the vendor is making a fair and reasonable attempt to reduce damage caused by the item, which seems fair enough. Note again, there would need to be a provable reason for this, not just some kind of marketing spin.
Thirdly, it's a free market: if one vendor wants to offer a consumable with time-expiration built in, then there's nothing stopping other vendors from offer non-expiring products. As the consumer, provided you are given the knowledge up front (i.e. product labelling), it's then your free choice about which product you want to choose. There's no reason for the government or courts to step in and regulate this behaviour.
So without knowing a lot more facts, it's hard to understand what the exact position is here.