You're right, I should have been paying more attention. The warning was (GCC) and is (clang) common to their C and their C++ modes, though, so it doesn't change much.
gcc used to have an -Wunreachable-code option, but it depended too heavily on the exact optimisations enabled, so you could never tell what it would and wouldn't warn about, so that was dropped in 4.5. gcc 4.4 and earlier were capable of warning about this. clang does still have a warning for this, with a somewhat different approach so that it should be far more reliable, and the option name is the same as what gcc used to have. It is still not reliable enough to get enabled by default, though, unfortunately.
C++ is simply a significantly more complex language than Java. This sometimes has its advantages, but it also has disadvantages, and unreachable code detection is one of the major disadvantages: there are just too many examples where the compiler can tell that code is unreachable, and optimise accordingly, but the developer won't want a warning. For a simple example, a check that a function parameter value is negative may appear in a template function, but if the parameter type is dependent, and in the only particular instantiation in the program it happens to be unsigned, then the code will clearly be unreachable, but should most likely not be removed. This is much less of a problem for Java, since Java does not have templates. It does have generics, but generics work differently, and suffer much less from this problem.
I do not know enough about the FCC investigation to comment on that part, but a cover-up attempt is definitely not what is happening. No one would have even known about this if Google had not voluntarily come forward with the information. Here is the blog post from four years ago, from Google themselves, and they did in fact work with relevant agencies in various countries to determine how to fix the mess they caused.
FTFA: "Google has admitted that its camera-equipped Street View cars inadvertently captured emails, passwords and other data from unprotected wireless networks as they drove by." The key word that should make all the difference is "inadvertently". It's up to you to choose whether you believe it (I do), but they claim they weren't looking at the private data at all, and only found out later that it had got recorded along with the data that was supposed to be recorded.
Another fun one is a password containing a backslash. To make matters worse, the customer support is not willing to reset the password, because the web site offers a way to retrieve the password already via e-mail, despite the fact that entering the exact password as it appears in the e-mail does not work. And the fact that the password can be retrieved at all (instead of only reset) is not a good sign either.
That's an understandable point of view. However, like it or not, if it's become part of our culture, you won't get much sympathy for an attempt to effectively destroy it, and that most definitely isn't what copyright laws were intended for. Don't worry about your reputation, even if you're right that it's potentially damaging (which I highly doubt), you can always say "I was young and foolish." People have been saying that and getting away with it for far worse things than making a game that others still show an interest in after many years.
Yes, I am. If you've got a valid patent, and hundreds of licensees, you wouldn't be able to go after one infringer, just on the off chance that you get a crazy judge and have to pay back the licensees before you even get the chance to appeal.
No, there really shouldn't be, that would be worse than the current situation. That would mean that to go after any infringers at all would be financial Russian roulette, no matter how valid the patent may be.
If I move and don't tell anyone, people who are looking for me will continue to ring the doorbell at my old address. If I want people to be able to find me, I should let them know I am going to move.
But that's not the same thing. This isn't about what will be happening on the old address, but about what has already happened on the new address.
...if the previous residents of my house liked to decorate the windows with pentagrams? Or do people understand that different people live at the same address at different times?
The White House plans to respond to each petition that crosses the signature threshold, which you can view on the Terms of Participation page. In a few rare cases (such as specific procurement, law enforcement, or adjudicatory matters), the White House response might not address the facts of a particular matter to avoid exercising improper influence. In addition, the White House will not respond to petitions that violate We the People’s Terms of Participation. In some cases, a single response may be used for similar petitions.
If they do not plan to respond to petitions, they should drop the claim that they plan to. This says nothing about a timeframe, though, so it is possible that they do plan to respond to the petitions, but not until we're in the year 2525.
Unless Xiaomi intends to develop a replacement for the Linux kernel, they need to make their modifications public.
From the article:
unless Xioami wants to develop a replacement for the Linux side of Android, they need to make their kernel modifications public.
The article is correct. Xioami only needs to make their kernel modifications public. The fact that there happens to be a GPL program in Android (the kernel) doesn't mean all of Android is tainted by it. Showing whatever else they've modified is nice, but not required.
Er... No. That's one thing that he gets right. How widespread use of SSL is should be irrelevant. If a patent is crap, and there are less than ten people worldwide claimed to violate the patent, the fact that the patent is crap should still get them off the hook.
No, they weren't ordered to make that statement. They were ordered to make a statement that a UK court had ruled that Samsung had not copied the iPad. It is perfectly clear from their legal judgement page that the UK court had done so. It was a dick move, and I'm not sorry they're called on it, but I don't see how it fails to comply with the court order.
What definition of troll do you use? I would consider being abusive as one particular, not necessarily very effective, form of trolling. Just like the messages we both agree on as trolls, being abusive also can be done in order to get you to ignore a rational discussion and just flame me as a response. If that's the goal of the message, why isn't it a troll?
Remember, Youtube doesn't have any special legal status. Any rules that you apply to Youtube apply to everyone. If you run a blog, someone sends you a DMCA takedown notice for a comment posted on your blog, and the commenter sends a counternotice, what do you want to have to do? Leave the comment deleted? That's so wide open to abuse it's not even funny. Make a random guess whether the comment should be restored? Ditto. Pay a lawyer to look at the comment and determine whether it's likely within the bounds of the law? Why should you spend hundreds of dollars on a matter that has so very little to do with you? What other options are there but to restore the comment and leave the matter for someone else to handle?
What difference does that make? There are cases when it's okay to upload material containing copyrighted works for which you are not the copyright holder. Again, a judge can determine whether the material is appropriately licensed / ineligible for copyright protection / covered by fair use. That's not Youtube's job.
Either you're telling the truth, or they're telling the truth. I don't want to judge that, Youtube doesn't want to judge that, a judge should be the judge of that. And until a judge has looked at it, what reason is there to take down the video again?
IMO, the effort to make sites, even intranet sites, work on other browsers, or at least other IE versions, would have been worthwhile as soon as IE7 was released. But that's opinion, and others, including some of the people who make the calls, disagree.
Slashdot Mirror
You're right, I should have been paying more attention. The warning was (GCC) and is (clang) common to their C and their C++ modes, though, so it doesn't change much.
gcc used to have an -Wunreachable-code option, but it depended too heavily on the exact optimisations enabled, so you could never tell what it would and wouldn't warn about, so that was dropped in 4.5. gcc 4.4 and earlier were capable of warning about this. clang does still have a warning for this, with a somewhat different approach so that it should be far more reliable, and the option name is the same as what gcc used to have. It is still not reliable enough to get enabled by default, though, unfortunately.
C++ is simply a significantly more complex language than Java. This sometimes has its advantages, but it also has disadvantages, and unreachable code detection is one of the major disadvantages: there are just too many examples where the compiler can tell that code is unreachable, and optimise accordingly, but the developer won't want a warning. For a simple example, a check that a function parameter value is negative may appear in a template function, but if the parameter type is dependent, and in the only particular instantiation in the program it happens to be unsigned, then the code will clearly be unreachable, but should most likely not be removed. This is much less of a problem for Java, since Java does not have templates. It does have generics, but generics work differently, and suffer much less from this problem.
I do not know enough about the FCC investigation to comment on that part, but a cover-up attempt is definitely not what is happening. No one would have even known about this if Google had not voluntarily come forward with the information. Here is the blog post from four years ago, from Google themselves, and they did in fact work with relevant agencies in various countries to determine how to fix the mess they caused.
FTFA: "Google has admitted that its camera-equipped Street View cars inadvertently captured emails, passwords and other data from unprotected wireless networks as they drove by." The key word that should make all the difference is "inadvertently". It's up to you to choose whether you believe it (I do), but they claim they weren't looking at the private data at all, and only found out later that it had got recorded along with the data that was supposed to be recorded.
Another fun one is a password containing a backslash. To make matters worse, the customer support is not willing to reset the password, because the web site offers a way to retrieve the password already via e-mail, despite the fact that entering the exact password as it appears in the e-mail does not work. And the fact that the password can be retrieved at all (instead of only reset) is not a good sign either.
So instead of "Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't after you.", we now have "They're only after you because you're paranoid."?
That's an understandable point of view. However, like it or not, if it's become part of our culture, you won't get much sympathy for an attempt to effectively destroy it, and that most definitely isn't what copyright laws were intended for. Don't worry about your reputation, even if you're right that it's potentially damaging (which I highly doubt), you can always say "I was young and foolish." People have been saying that and getting away with it for far worse things than making a game that others still show an interest in after many years.
Yes, I am. If you've got a valid patent, and hundreds of licensees, you wouldn't be able to go after one infringer, just on the off chance that you get a crazy judge and have to pay back the licensees before you even get the chance to appeal.
No, there really shouldn't be, that would be worse than the current situation. That would mean that to go after any infringers at all would be financial Russian roulette, no matter how valid the patent may be.
Do you? Or is it simply in your best interests to do so, since they would otherwise be allowed to use force to get what they need?
If I move and don't tell anyone, people who are looking for me will continue to ring the doorbell at my old address. If I want people to be able to find me, I should let them know I am going to move. But that's not the same thing. This isn't about what will be happening on the old address, but about what has already happened on the new address.
...if the previous residents of my house liked to decorate the windows with pentagrams? Or do people understand that different people live at the same address at different times?
If porn were illegal, there would not be a story about banning it. If porn is legal, what part of using it to pay the bills isn't?
If they do not plan to respond to petitions, they should drop the claim that they plan to. This says nothing about a timeframe, though, so it is possible that they do plan to respond to the petitions, but not until we're in the year 2525.
From the article:
The article is correct. Xioami only needs to make their kernel modifications public. The fact that there happens to be a GPL program in Android (the kernel) doesn't mean all of Android is tainted by it. Showing whatever else they've modified is nice, but not required.
Er... No. That's one thing that he gets right. How widespread use of SSL is should be irrelevant. If a patent is crap, and there are less than ten people worldwide claimed to violate the patent, the fact that the patent is crap should still get them off the hook.
No, they weren't ordered to make that statement. They were ordered to make a statement that a UK court had ruled that Samsung had not copied the iPad. It is perfectly clear from their legal judgement page that the UK court had done so. It was a dick move, and I'm not sorry they're called on it, but I don't see how it fails to comply with the court order.
14pt is a fixed size, independent of resolution. 1pt is 1/72 inch (12 points per pica, 6 picas per inch).
What definition of troll do you use? I would consider being abusive as one particular, not necessarily very effective, form of trolling. Just like the messages we both agree on as trolls, being abusive also can be done in order to get you to ignore a rational discussion and just flame me as a response. If that's the goal of the message, why isn't it a troll?
Remember, Youtube doesn't have any special legal status. Any rules that you apply to Youtube apply to everyone. If you run a blog, someone sends you a DMCA takedown notice for a comment posted on your blog, and the commenter sends a counternotice, what do you want to have to do? Leave the comment deleted? That's so wide open to abuse it's not even funny. Make a random guess whether the comment should be restored? Ditto. Pay a lawyer to look at the comment and determine whether it's likely within the bounds of the law? Why should you spend hundreds of dollars on a matter that has so very little to do with you? What other options are there but to restore the comment and leave the matter for someone else to handle?
What difference does that make? There are cases when it's okay to upload material containing copyrighted works for which you are not the copyright holder. Again, a judge can determine whether the material is appropriately licensed / ineligible for copyright protection / covered by fair use. That's not Youtube's job.
Either you're telling the truth, or they're telling the truth. I don't want to judge that, Youtube doesn't want to judge that, a judge should be the judge of that. And until a judge has looked at it, what reason is there to take down the video again?
IMO, the effort to make sites, even intranet sites, work on other browsers, or at least other IE versions, would have been worthwhile as soon as IE7 was released. But that's opinion, and others, including some of the people who make the calls, disagree.
The second result of a Google search for "chrome program files" points to this download page. I can't verify this exact page still works (I'm on Linux right now, so Google doesn't give me a Windows download), but I do have Chrome installed in Program Files on my Windows system.