That may be true. Frankly, I don't give a rat's ass because Microsoft will never, ever go after an insignificant, individual end user like me for patient infringement.
If you're thinking of GNOME in a business setting or are are distributing Mono, you may want to think twice. However, for as long as Mono exists under a free license, I'm happy to use it.
To put this in a car analogy, we shouldn't have driver's education classes in school (or apparently at all according to our friendly DA), because doing so would teach people to become carjackers. I mean, you start teaching them to lock their car doors and they'll go off stealing people's cars if their doors aren't locked.
I could just as easily say that the six counties of Northern Ireland are controlled by Monarchist bandits and that the national capital of Northern Ireland is Dublin.
Obviously we're talking about who has the monopoly of violence in the case of the ROC v. the PRC. For all intents and purposes they're separate countries, but if you want to play that game the Communists successfully overthrew the Nationalists quite a long time ago. It was a net negative for the people of China, but it is an accurate representation of the facts.
Better, but still not perfect. Even in a 2-clause BSD, I'm still not allowed to strip the copyrights or the license notice. That's controlling what I can do with the code.
I really wish the GPL zealots and the BSD zealots could realize that the world is big enough for two FOSS licenses. They each have their strengths and weaknesses. Which is better is only a matter of opinion and goals for one's project. There is no One True License.
Individuals cannot be turned down (in the US) for membership in an employer-sponsored group.
Well, until you start costing the insurer a hell of a lot of money. They go back through your app and find out that you didn't disclose that hangnail that you had in 8th grade. From there they drop you for filing a fraudulent application and no other insurer will pay for your pre-existing condition (except Medicaid). So you get to declare bankruptcy for your mounting bills and the taxpayer is on the hook for your care.
You're covered by your insurer until you start costing them too much money, then they'll drop you when they find a reason to do so.
That's the kicker and something no-one talks about.
Flash does some poor-man's DRM that can be bypassed with the proper tools. <video> has as much DRM capability as <img> and for that reason will get very little traction among the major content players.
However if we really believe "Congress shall make no law" means "Congress shall make no law" then the restrictions on tobacco and alcohol advertising are right out. If we believe the 14th Amendment means "and state legislatures shall also make no law" then the restrictions on slander and libel are right out in addition to any "fighting words". Obscenity statutes go down everywhere as well.
I think this was the proper decision given the original intent of the Constitution, but I also think this decision doesn't square very well with much of the court's other rulings. Roberts and friends are just as bad as the liberal wing for practicing results-based jurisprudence.
Your point is well taken if you automatically assume that everything is copyrighted. It technically is today, but not in practice.
Lincoln's estate should not be required to make his journals available because he never sought copyright protection for them. Same goes for your private works.
CBS did seek such protections for their works, therefore, they should be required to make them available if they are the only copies in existence.
If you want the power of copyright, you must release your works (that's the point of copyright), and should be required to make a copy on demand if your copy is the only one available. Preferably we'd have a copy on file at the Library of Congress, but we're not there yet.
This is a problem with the current copyright system as well. There is no mandate that a copy be put on file with the Library of Congress so that when the copyright does expire, someone might have access to it.
By my calculations, the copyright on Windows 1.0 expires in 2080. Do you think anyone will have a binary sitting around, much less the source to that program at that date? Highly doubtful.
Since when is someone liable for what someone else does with a copy sold or loaned to someone else? If I run down to the local library and make a copy of a CD, is the library on the hook? Definitely not.
CBS can sell or lend their reels to this group and say "oh, by the way, the music might still be copyrighted, so you might want to check on that if you're going to make copies".
Odd. Assembler was a required course at my college for CS/CEG students. Of course, they taught m68k assembler because it was a lot easier, but that was our class.
What kind of security am I lacking under the current regime? My disc + my BR player + my television. I don't see why there needs to be any "security" in that step unless I'm worried about people breaking into my house and trying to rip my collection.
Thanks for the Info. If I feel like committing Murder I will make sure to stop by Finland as it will only cost me 10 years. Can I also torture the murder victim and only get 10 years? What a wonderful system for repeat offenders.
Yeah, oddly enough their system doesn't make for repeat offenders like ours. I wonder if that is something to look at mimicking or just go with our gut and create harsher penalties.
As the good Senator from Virgina, Mr. Webb once said, either we're the most evil country in the world or something is wrong with our prison system.
Dude, I'm more than happy to take people's property away from them.
A very great deal of success is luck. Some of it is hard work. However, no amount of hard work, innovation, etc. justifies the insane amount of wealth some people have. And to quote the late Bill Hicks, it's a judgment call and I'm making it. It also happens to be right, which gives it that extra "oomph".
If I ever get to be a little too rich for my own good, I hope the government takes my money and gives it to people who are less fortunate. They're not perfect and they'll probably give it to people who don't really deserve it, but I'll sleep well knowing that I'm doing my part to make planet Earth a slightly better place. Since I have something called a "moral compass" I'll never get too rich for my own good. Part of that moral compass also believes in directing my government to confiscate the property of those who don't in order to provide a more equitable economic balance.
You have fun growsing about the evil government coming and taking your property. We're all dead in the long run, friend. Try to leave the world better than how you found it.
I never really fully understood this line of attack on C#/.NET/Mono. Yeah, if MS wakes up one day and starts suing distros for using patented CLI stuff (or whatever the patents are on), most of the world really doesn't care. What the US and Japan recognize software patents? That's it, right?
I'm from the US and I'm not worried. There are two different ways to combat this:
1) Move servers out of the affected countries. 2) Don't distribute binaries.
Now, #2 might not work. I've always thought that you can't infringe on a patent simply by implementing a patented algorithm because all the patents state that the patent includes that the algorithm be running on a computer. That's how they get around the "patenting math" stuff -- you can't patent an algorithm, but you can patent an algorithm running on a computer. So as long as you don't distribute a binary, you're just describing a patent (which the text of patents are in the public domain).
Red Hat may very well be screwed, but most of the rest wouldn't be. Especially not Debian.
In any case, Microsoft won't come after end-users for patent infringement. It simply won't happen.
I will give you that the extensiveness of our highway system is unmatched, but the quality of some of our roads are very poor.
Come over to the Midwest sometime and drive on our highways. The freeze/thaw cycle along with copious amounts of salt wreak havoc on our roads, interstate or otherwise.
In most cases the monopoly is not statutory but natural. I'm lucky enough to live in Columbus, OH, where we have 2 cable companies (Insight and WOW). There won't be a third because of the up-front costs of rolling out and maintaining the infrastructure. Most everywhere else there is only the one, and no one bothers to compete with them because it would be unprofitable to do so.
Econ 101 tells you that if the monopoly is natural, the government ought to own the infrastructure (see sewers and roads for examples) and let private business compete for customers over that infrastructure.
My stepfather has an extensive collection of CDs he bought in the mid-to-late 80s that play as well today as they did back when he bought them. I ripped a Cars album without need for any cdparanoia correction. The resulting file played fine.
Lets put it this way: If this plan is unconstitutional, then so is Medicare.
My beliefs about the actual text and meaning of the Constitution notwithstanding, a challenge to Medicare is a 7-2 vote in favor of Medicare (Scalia and Thomas dissenting).
I never said they did. In fact my response is in direct opposition to that statement:
So long as enough people agree on what rights we have, those are the ones we have.
In a state of nature, we have the right to do anything. We give up some of those rights in order to protect others when we join civil society. Which ones we give up and which ones we protect are hashed out via social contract.
All rights are up to a vote. Albeit some (for instance revoking freedom of religion) would require the affirmation by 38 state legislatures as well as by 290 House members and 67 Senators, but it's still up to a vote. To think otherwise is to delude oneself.
The courts have consistently ruled that the commerce clause gives congress very broad authority to poke and prod at the economy, regardless if what they're poking and prodding is interstate or intrastate or even a commercial transaction.
Read Gonzalez v. Raich sometime. Raich grew marijuana legally under California law. The marijuana was for personal use, never crossed a state line, and was never sold. However, the SCOTUS ruled 6-3 that this was a permissible exercise of the commerce clause.
Pardon the pun, but believing that this will be knocked down is nothing more than a pipe dream. It won't even get an appeals court hearing, much less to the SCOTUS.
Slashdot Mirror
That may be true. Frankly, I don't give a rat's ass because Microsoft will never, ever go after an insignificant, individual end user like me for patient infringement.
If you're thinking of GNOME in a business setting or are are distributing Mono, you may want to think twice. However, for as long as Mono exists under a free license, I'm happy to use it.
Yeah, that's in the advanced class. *rimshot*
Agreed 100%.
To put this in a car analogy, we shouldn't have driver's education classes in school (or apparently at all according to our friendly DA), because doing so would teach people to become carjackers. I mean, you start teaching them to lock their car doors and they'll go off stealing people's cars if their doors aren't locked.
I could just as easily say that the six counties of Northern Ireland are controlled by Monarchist bandits and that the national capital of Northern Ireland is Dublin.
Obviously we're talking about who has the monopoly of violence in the case of the ROC v. the PRC. For all intents and purposes they're separate countries, but if you want to play that game the Communists successfully overthrew the Nationalists quite a long time ago. It was a net negative for the people of China, but it is an accurate representation of the facts.
Better, but still not perfect. Even in a 2-clause BSD, I'm still not allowed to strip the copyrights or the license notice. That's controlling what I can do with the code.
I really wish the GPL zealots and the BSD zealots could realize that the world is big enough for two FOSS licenses. They each have their strengths and weaknesses. Which is better is only a matter of opinion and goals for one's project. There is no One True License.
Pshaw. I telnet to port 80. You and your fancy wget!
Well, until you start costing the insurer a hell of a lot of money. They go back through your app and find out that you didn't disclose that hangnail that you had in 8th grade. From there they drop you for filing a fraudulent application and no other insurer will pay for your pre-existing condition (except Medicaid). So you get to declare bankruptcy for your mounting bills and the taxpayer is on the hook for your care.
You're covered by your insurer until you start costing them too much money, then they'll drop you when they find a reason to do so.
The gentleman is surely thinking of composite video rather than component.
That's the kicker and something no-one talks about.
Flash does some poor-man's DRM that can be bypassed with the proper tools. <video> has as much DRM capability as <img> and for that reason will get very little traction among the major content players.
I own a Ford Taurus, you insensitive clod!
Quite astute, sir.
However if we really believe "Congress shall make no law" means "Congress shall make no law" then the restrictions on tobacco and alcohol advertising are right out. If we believe the 14th Amendment means "and state legislatures shall also make no law" then the restrictions on slander and libel are right out in addition to any "fighting words". Obscenity statutes go down everywhere as well.
I think this was the proper decision given the original intent of the Constitution, but I also think this decision doesn't square very well with much of the court's other rulings. Roberts and friends are just as bad as the liberal wing for practicing results-based jurisprudence.
Your point is well taken if you automatically assume that everything is copyrighted. It technically is today, but not in practice.
Lincoln's estate should not be required to make his journals available because he never sought copyright protection for them. Same goes for your private works.
CBS did seek such protections for their works, therefore, they should be required to make them available if they are the only copies in existence.
If you want the power of copyright, you must release your works (that's the point of copyright), and should be required to make a copy on demand if your copy is the only one available. Preferably we'd have a copy on file at the Library of Congress, but we're not there yet.
This is a problem with the current copyright system as well. There is no mandate that a copy be put on file with the Library of Congress so that when the copyright does expire, someone might have access to it.
By my calculations, the copyright on Windows 1.0 expires in 2080. Do you think anyone will have a binary sitting around, much less the source to that program at that date? Highly doubtful.
Since when is someone liable for what someone else does with a copy sold or loaned to someone else? If I run down to the local library and make a copy of a CD, is the library on the hook? Definitely not.
CBS can sell or lend their reels to this group and say "oh, by the way, the music might still be copyrighted, so you might want to check on that if you're going to make copies".
Odd. Assembler was a required course at my college for CS/CEG students. Of course, they taught m68k assembler because it was a lot easier, but that was our class.
What kind of security am I lacking under the current regime? My disc + my BR player + my television. I don't see why there needs to be any "security" in that step unless I'm worried about people breaking into my house and trying to rip my collection.
Yeah, oddly enough their system doesn't make for repeat offenders like ours. I wonder if that is something to look at mimicking or just go with our gut and create harsher penalties.
As the good Senator from Virgina, Mr. Webb once said, either we're the most evil country in the world or something is wrong with our prison system.
Dude, I'm more than happy to take people's property away from them.
A very great deal of success is luck. Some of it is hard work. However, no amount of hard work, innovation, etc. justifies the insane amount of wealth some people have. And to quote the late Bill Hicks, it's a judgment call and I'm making it. It also happens to be right, which gives it that extra "oomph".
If I ever get to be a little too rich for my own good, I hope the government takes my money and gives it to people who are less fortunate. They're not perfect and they'll probably give it to people who don't really deserve it, but I'll sleep well knowing that I'm doing my part to make planet Earth a slightly better place. Since I have something called a "moral compass" I'll never get too rich for my own good. Part of that moral compass also believes in directing my government to confiscate the property of those who don't in order to provide a more equitable economic balance.
You have fun growsing about the evil government coming and taking your property. We're all dead in the long run, friend. Try to leave the world better than how you found it.
Meh...
I never really fully understood this line of attack on C#/.NET/Mono. Yeah, if MS wakes up one day and starts suing distros for using patented CLI stuff (or whatever the patents are on), most of the world really doesn't care. What the US and Japan recognize software patents? That's it, right?
I'm from the US and I'm not worried. There are two different ways to combat this:
1) Move servers out of the affected countries.
2) Don't distribute binaries.
Now, #2 might not work. I've always thought that you can't infringe on a patent simply by implementing a patented algorithm because all the patents state that the patent includes that the algorithm be running on a computer. That's how they get around the "patenting math" stuff -- you can't patent an algorithm, but you can patent an algorithm running on a computer. So as long as you don't distribute a binary, you're just describing a patent (which the text of patents are in the public domain).
Red Hat may very well be screwed, but most of the rest wouldn't be. Especially not Debian.
In any case, Microsoft won't come after end-users for patent infringement. It simply won't happen.
I will give you that the extensiveness of our highway system is unmatched, but the quality of some of our roads are very poor.
Come over to the Midwest sometime and drive on our highways. The freeze/thaw cycle along with copious amounts of salt wreak havoc on our roads, interstate or otherwise.
Not usually.
In most cases the monopoly is not statutory but natural. I'm lucky enough to live in Columbus, OH, where we have 2 cable companies (Insight and WOW). There won't be a third because of the up-front costs of rolling out and maintaining the infrastructure. Most everywhere else there is only the one, and no one bothers to compete with them because it would be unprofitable to do so.
Econ 101 tells you that if the monopoly is natural, the government ought to own the infrastructure (see sewers and roads for examples) and let private business compete for customers over that infrastructure.
Burned or stamped?
My stepfather has an extensive collection of CDs he bought in the mid-to-late 80s that play as well today as they did back when he bought them. I ripped a Cars album without need for any cdparanoia correction. The resulting file played fine.
Lets put it this way: If this plan is unconstitutional, then so is Medicare.
My beliefs about the actual text and meaning of the Constitution notwithstanding, a challenge to Medicare is a 7-2 vote in favor of Medicare (Scalia and Thomas dissenting).
I never said they did. In fact my response is in direct opposition to that statement:
In a state of nature, we have the right to do anything. We give up some of those rights in order to protect others when we join civil society. Which ones we give up and which ones we protect are hashed out via social contract.
All rights are up to a vote. Albeit some (for instance revoking freedom of religion) would require the affirmation by 38 state legislatures as well as by 290 House members and 67 Senators, but it's still up to a vote. To think otherwise is to delude oneself.
Not in a million years.
The courts have consistently ruled that the commerce clause gives congress very broad authority to poke and prod at the economy, regardless if what they're poking and prodding is interstate or intrastate or even a commercial transaction.
Read Gonzalez v. Raich sometime. Raich grew marijuana legally under California law. The marijuana was for personal use, never crossed a state line, and was never sold. However, the SCOTUS ruled 6-3 that this was a permissible exercise of the commerce clause.
Pardon the pun, but believing that this will be knocked down is nothing more than a pipe dream. It won't even get an appeals court hearing, much less to the SCOTUS.