The jury saw that, and decided that that was wrong.
And therein lies the problem. The point of a trial is to decide what is LEGAL. It's great when Right and Wrong correspond to Legal and Illegal, but it doesn't always work out that way. One reason it doesn't is because right vs. wrong can be very subjective, but legal vs. illegal is supposed to be very objective.
I'm concerned that this jury simply got offended that "Samsung copied Apple", and didn't fully consider the prior art that would make such copying perfectly legal. The foreman saying they wanted to "send a message", in clear violation of the judge's instructions, calls the result into question.
From a purely technical perspective, Microsoft's proposal may actually be the better choice. The problem is that CU-RTC-Web doesn't mandate a codec, and lets the peers negotiate. Microsoft spins this as being flexible, and at a purely technical level, it is. The problem is that if the standard doesn't mandate some reasonable baseline codec, you're going to end up with implementations that can't talk to each other. Microsoft knows this, and they doesn't care.
Google isn't exactly a Saint either. They know full well that Microsoft and Apple won't implement VP8 (for semi-defensible technical/legal reasons, as well as evil intent). WebRTC with VP8 is unlikely to ever be available on iDevices, and that's a significant chunk of the market. Google knows this, and they don't care.
Really, the FCC and/or the GPS equipment manufacturer should be the ones being penalised.
As a practical matter, there's no way to do that. If you allow Lightspeed to operate, you penalize the USERS of the (allegedly) badly designed GPS devices. It does suck to be Lightspeed, because GPS really is much more important than them.
GPL advocates never complain about the BSD license. It's only BSD advocates that complain about the GPL.
The GPL advocates are definitely more subtle about it -- they usually don't stage frontal assaults on BSD. They don't have to. GPL advocates have successfully created an environment where their concept of "freedom" is widely taken to be the one and only true definition. Any attempt by BSD advocates to challenge the GPL definition of freedom is seen as trolling. Like many "hot button" social issues, it's difficult to have a reasoned discussion, and even when you do, few minds are ever changed.
Just because you want to use other people's code without having to respect their conditions doesn't give you the grounds to demean the GPL, dude.
I believe free software (whether as in speech or beer) is a gift, and the person giving the gift has an absolute right to impose whatever conditions they want on recipients. People who can't/won't accept the conditions must decline the gift. Taking the gift and not abiding by the conditions is not a morally acceptable alternative.
I also believe that giving gifts doesn't create immunity from criticism. People who don't like the conditions attached to a gift have an absolute right to complain. If enough people agree that the conditions are unreasonable, pressure from the community may convince the giver to modify their terms. If few people agree, pressure from the community may convince the complainer to sit down and shut up.
Let me know when your favorite MS Office alternative can open and flawlessly display every Office file that I have, or may receive from somebody else. I also need a guarantee that files I create with it can be sent to people using MS Office, and they'll be able to use them without incident.
The network effect isn't fair, but it is reality. I absolute hate the ribbon UI, but not enough to suffer the compatibility issues of switching to something else.
Would Dell then sell AMD chips to other (competing) manufacturers?
Dell would probably be happy to sell the chips. The real question is, would competing manufacturers want to buy them? For example, I'm quite sure that HP would phase out and eventually stop selling systems with AMD processors. Big companies don't like sending money to their competitors.
Google seems to have recently started enforcing AsSense TOS in ways that they were never enforced them before. It's their business, and they have the right to set whatever TOS they want. I also have the right to think they're a bunch of assholes.
Does anybody know of a similar device that includes Homeplug?
No, unfortunately. There also aren't any plug computers that can run off POE (Power Over Ethernet).
Being small and cheap is a key part of plug computers appeal. There are many technologies that would go well with a plug (e.g. WiFi, Homeplug, POE, USB, ESATA, RS232, RS422, I2C, etc.), but including them all would be size/cost prohibitive. The manufacturers have to make a judgment call about where the "sweet spot" lies. The result is often a "one size fits nobody" situation, where the plug is 90% right for your application, but the missing 10% is a deal killer. Building a custom plug is impractical at low volumes.
P.S. I bought a Shevaplug last year. I had no idea what I'd do with it, but it sounded cool. Honestly, I still don't know what to do with it. Luckily I can afford to blow ~$100.
Even atheists like to hedge their bets. Read about the soul catcher software license, featuring the SBDAWF.
(As a certified Old Fart, I actually remember MJSS and their "unique" EULA. I thought it was hilarious. I also never pirated their software, just in case!)
It's interesting that you take another blog as the gospel here.
I quoted from another blog that I've come to trust over a period of time. YMMV. That's why I provided the link. Feel free to form your own opinion.
Could it be that you want this study to be flawed, so you're looking for any tenuous excuse to discredit the methodology?
Actually, the poll results are basically in alignment with my personal biases. I think it's the right result, reached the wrong way. That kind of thing bothers me more than outright fabrication. I hate it when "my side" uses bogus arguments to advance the cause.
since when is advancing human rights a liberal agenda? I thought both liberal and conservative ends of the political spectrum were human rights advocates.
It all depends on how to you define "human rights", and what means you advocate to achieve them. For example, my personal definition of human rights includes freedom OF speech, specifically including speech that is hateful and offensive. Other people define human rights to include freedom FROM that kind of speech.
The fatal flaw in the poll is sample bias. The membership of AAAS is not representative of "scientists" as a whole. There are no requirements to join this organization, other than a willingness to pay a ~$150 annual fee. It's likely that members have an "interest" in science, but may not be scientists themselves. Also, the organization clearly has a "liberal" political orientation, which likely discourages "conservative" scientists from joining. This is a classic case of self-selection.
I'm not passing any judgment on AAAS or it's members. I'm saying that it's wrong to represent a poll of AAAS members as a "poll of scientists". The statement may be literally true, but it's extremely misleading, to the point of intellectual dishonesty. It's like taking a poll of NAACP members, and then reporting that "90% of People strongly approve of President Obama".
The Half Sigma blog points out a serious flaw in the design of this poll...
There is a Pew research study purporting to poll "scientists." The question I immediately want answered is, what's a "scientist?" The answer, as far as Pew is concerned, is anyone who is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
The AAAS is a liberal organization with stated goals such as "Increase diversity in the scientific community," "Use science to advance human rights" (sometimes in collaboration with leftist-sympathizing Amnesty International), "Sustainable Development" and "Women's Collaboration".
You don't in any way have to be a real scientist to be a member of this organization. All you need to do is send them $146. School teachers are especially encouraged to join, and no one should confuse a grade K-12 school teacher with a real scientist.
You don't grant yourself rights. In the U.S., we have the notion that The Creator grants people "certain inalienable rights...
You make my point for me. My inalienable rights exist independent of the government. If's up to me to choose what rights *I* grant *to*
the government. Deciding what I get to read (on the Internet or otherwise) is not one of the rights I've given away.
Every nation has a different mix, and you get to choose where you live.
Not true. See also: Illegal Immigration. As accidents of birth go, being born in the USA is certainly a much better
deal than being born in most other places on Earth. I freely admit I've got a much better situation than somebody born
in $(Random_Hell_Hole). That I have it better than most doesn't preclude me from pointing out the imperfections, or
require me to accept them.
Believe me, there are plenty of people in the US who would happily give up their "right" to an all-access Internet in exchange for their "right" to free healthcare.
Apples and Oranges. Everybody in the US has a right to health care. They just don't have a right to require somebody
else pay for it. I'm not asking taxpayers to fund my Internet surfing -- I'm saying that the government has no
business deciding what I'll read.
... some people will always find a way to do evil but let's make it as difficult as reasonably possible for them.
I agree, right up until the point where making things difficult for evil people impinges on the freedom of non-evil
people. When forced to make that choice, I always choose the rights of the non-evil, even if it means allowing some
evil to exist. Others, apparently including you, would optimize in the other direction. I doubt anything either of
us could say would change the other's mind.
most governments do have the right to determine what you look at
No, they don't. I never granted them that right. That they do it anyways is
due to an imbalance in power. As a practical matter, I have no effective way
to stop them (e.g. their army is bigger than mine). That doesn't make it right.
I have Comcast cable TV and Internet service. I have personal experience with them, and don't like 'em very much. It pains me to defend their sorry asses, but in the interest of intellectual honesty, I'll do it.
Comcast doesn't offer a "VOIP product" -- they offer phone service. The handoff to the consumer is an analog POTS connection. Using VOIP as the transport mechanism is an implementation detail. As a facilities-based carrier, they have every right to dedicate bandwidth on their network to carry this phone traffic. It's no different than AT&T dedicating bandwidth on their networks to carry traditional circuit switched voice traffic.
Slashdot Mirror
The jury saw that, and decided that that was wrong.
And therein lies the problem. The point of a trial is to decide what is LEGAL. It's great when Right and Wrong correspond to Legal and Illegal, but it doesn't always work out that way. One reason it doesn't is because right vs. wrong can be very subjective, but legal vs. illegal is supposed to be very objective.
I'm concerned that this jury simply got offended that "Samsung copied Apple", and didn't fully consider the prior art that would make such copying perfectly legal. The foreman saying they wanted to "send a message", in clear violation of the judge's instructions, calls the result into question.
From a purely technical perspective, Microsoft's proposal may actually be the better choice. The problem is that CU-RTC-Web doesn't mandate a codec, and lets the peers negotiate. Microsoft spins this as being flexible, and at a purely technical level, it is. The problem is that if the standard doesn't mandate some reasonable baseline codec, you're going to end up with implementations that can't talk to each other. Microsoft knows this, and they doesn't care.
Google isn't exactly a Saint either. They know full well that Microsoft and Apple won't implement VP8 (for semi-defensible technical/legal reasons, as well as evil intent). WebRTC with VP8 is unlikely to ever be available on iDevices, and that's a significant chunk of the market. Google knows this, and they don't care.
Really, the FCC and/or the GPS equipment manufacturer should be the ones being penalised.
As a practical matter, there's no way to do that. If you allow Lightspeed to operate, you penalize the USERS of the (allegedly) badly designed GPS devices. It does suck to be Lightspeed, because GPS really is much more important than them.
I'm tired of this sad trolling.
Then why are you on /. ?
GPL advocates never complain about the BSD license. It's only BSD advocates that complain about the GPL.
The GPL advocates are definitely more subtle about it -- they usually don't stage frontal assaults on BSD. They don't have to. GPL advocates have successfully created an environment where their concept of "freedom" is widely taken to be the one and only true definition. Any attempt by BSD advocates to challenge the GPL definition of freedom is seen as trolling. Like many "hot button" social issues, it's difficult to have a reasoned discussion, and even when you do, few minds are ever changed.
Just because you want to use other people's code without having to respect their conditions doesn't give you the grounds to demean the GPL, dude.
I believe free software (whether as in speech or beer) is a gift, and the person giving the gift has an absolute right to impose whatever conditions they want on recipients. People who can't/won't accept the conditions must decline the gift. Taking the gift and not abiding by the conditions is not a morally acceptable alternative.
I also believe that giving gifts doesn't create immunity from criticism. People who don't like the conditions attached to a gift have an absolute right to complain. If enough people agree that the conditions are unreasonable, pressure from the community may convince the giver to modify their terms. If few people agree, pressure from the community may convince the complainer to sit down and shut up.
Let me know when your favorite MS Office alternative can open and flawlessly display every Office file that I have, or may receive from somebody else. I also need a guarantee that files I create with it can be sent to people using MS Office, and they'll be able to use them without incident.
The network effect isn't fair, but it is reality. I absolute hate the ribbon UI, but not enough to suffer the compatibility issues of switching to something else.
Would Dell then sell AMD chips to other (competing) manufacturers?
Dell would probably be happy to sell the chips. The real question is, would competing manufacturers want to buy them? For example, I'm quite sure that HP would phase out and eventually stop selling systems with AMD processors. Big companies don't like sending money to their competitors.
Google seems to have recently started enforcing AsSense TOS in ways that they were never enforced them before. It's their business, and they have the right to set whatever TOS they want. I also have the right to think they're a bunch of assholes.
See also: the-great-google-adsense-purge-of-2010
I eagerly anticipate a PayPal transaction.
Sorry, I can' do PayPal. However, if you post your checking account and bank routing number, I will arrange an ACH transfer.
Does anybody know of a similar device that includes Homeplug?
No, unfortunately. There also aren't any plug computers that can run off POE (Power Over Ethernet).
Being small and cheap is a key part of plug computers appeal. There are many technologies that would go well with a plug (e.g. WiFi, Homeplug, POE, USB, ESATA, RS232, RS422, I2C, etc.), but including them all would be size/cost prohibitive. The manufacturers have to make a judgment call about where the "sweet spot" lies. The result is often a "one size fits nobody" situation, where the plug is 90% right for your application, but the missing 10% is a deal killer. Building a custom plug is impractical at low volumes.
P.S. I bought a Shevaplug last year. I had no idea what I'd do with it, but it sounded cool. Honestly, I still don't know what to do with it. Luckily I can afford to blow ~$100.
So I should dumb myself down with a hammer before writing code?
You can do it that way, but I prefer whiskey.
(Obligitory XKCD reference)
Even atheists like to hedge their bets. Read about the soul catcher software license, featuring the SBDAWF.
(As a certified Old Fart, I actually remember MJSS and their "unique" EULA. I thought it was hilarious. I also never pirated their software, just in case!)
Android phones have an open development model. What stops somebody from writing their own tethering or Exchange app?
It's interesting that you take another blog as the gospel here.
I quoted from another blog that I've come to trust over a period of time. YMMV. That's why I provided the link. Feel free to form your own opinion.
Could it be that you want this study to be flawed, so you're looking for any tenuous excuse to discredit the methodology?
Actually, the poll results are basically in alignment with my personal biases. I think it's the right result, reached the wrong way. That kind of thing bothers me more than outright fabrication. I hate it when "my side" uses bogus arguments to advance the cause.
since when is advancing human rights a liberal agenda? I thought both liberal and conservative ends of the political spectrum were human rights advocates.
It all depends on how to you define "human rights", and what means you advocate to achieve them. For example, my personal definition of human rights includes freedom OF speech, specifically including speech that is hateful and offensive. Other people define human rights to include freedom FROM that kind of speech.
The fatal flaw in the poll is sample bias. The membership of AAAS is not representative of "scientists" as a whole. There are no requirements to join this organization, other than a willingness to pay a ~$150 annual fee. It's likely that members have an "interest" in science, but may not be scientists themselves. Also, the organization clearly has a "liberal" political orientation, which likely discourages "conservative" scientists from joining. This is a classic case of self-selection.
I'm not passing any judgment on AAAS or it's members. I'm saying that it's wrong to represent a poll of AAAS members as a "poll of scientists". The statement may be literally true, but it's extremely misleading, to the point of intellectual dishonesty. It's like taking a poll of NAACP members, and then reporting that "90% of People strongly approve of President Obama".
The Half Sigma blog points out a serious flaw in the design of this poll...
There is a Pew research study purporting to poll "scientists." The question I immediately want answered is, what's a "scientist?" The answer, as far as Pew is concerned, is anyone who is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
The AAAS is a liberal organization with stated goals such as "Increase diversity in the scientific community," "Use science to advance human rights" (sometimes in collaboration with leftist-sympathizing Amnesty International), "Sustainable Development" and "Women's Collaboration".
You don't in any way have to be a real scientist to be a member of this organization. All you need to do is send them $146. School teachers are especially encouraged to join, and no one should confuse a grade K-12 school teacher with a real scientist.
Staying in shape is easy. Round is a shape.
It means that the Sci Fi channel will soon produce a really bad TV movie based on the idea.
You don't grant yourself rights. In the U.S., we have the notion that The Creator grants people "certain inalienable rights ...
You make my point for me. My inalienable rights exist independent of the government. If's up to me to choose what rights *I* grant *to* the government. Deciding what I get to read (on the Internet or otherwise) is not one of the rights I've given away.
Every nation has a different mix, and you get to choose where you live.
Not true. See also: Illegal Immigration. As accidents of birth go, being born in the USA is certainly a much better deal than being born in most other places on Earth. I freely admit I've got a much better situation than somebody born in $(Random_Hell_Hole). That I have it better than most doesn't preclude me from pointing out the imperfections, or require me to accept them.
Believe me, there are plenty of people in the US who would happily give up their "right" to an all-access Internet in exchange for their "right" to free healthcare.
Apples and Oranges. Everybody in the US has a right to health care. They just don't have a right to require somebody else pay for it. I'm not asking taxpayers to fund my Internet surfing -- I'm saying that the government has no business deciding what I'll read.
I agree, right up until the point where making things difficult for evil people impinges on the freedom of non-evil people. When forced to make that choice, I always choose the rights of the non-evil, even if it means allowing some evil to exist. Others, apparently including you, would optimize in the other direction. I doubt anything either of us could say would change the other's mind.
Does Goodwin's Law still apply even if references to Nazi Germany are factually correct? :-)
most governments do have the right to determine what you look at
No, they don't. I never granted them that right. That they do it anyways is due to an imbalance in power. As a practical matter, I have no effective way to stop them (e.g. their army is bigger than mine). That doesn't make it right.
I would rather have less government for less money.
There are "low tax/low service" states. Vote with your feet and move out of New York.
You must be new to /. Around here, we don't let facts get in the way of our opinions.
Just click the "Print this story" button and you can read the whole thing on one page, without ads. This trick works on many sites.
I have Comcast cable TV and Internet service. I have personal experience with them, and don't like 'em very much. It pains me to defend their sorry asses, but in the interest of intellectual honesty, I'll do it.
Comcast doesn't offer a "VOIP product" -- they offer phone service. The handoff to the consumer is an analog POTS connection. Using VOIP as the transport mechanism is an implementation detail. As a facilities-based carrier, they have every right to dedicate bandwidth on their network to carry this phone traffic. It's no different than AT&T dedicating bandwidth on their networks to carry traditional circuit switched voice traffic.