As a followup to my own post, this seems to be the issue of contention:
If Microsoft distributes our [the FSF] works licensed under GPLv3, or pays others to distribute them on its behalf, it is bound to do so under the terms of that license. (my emphasis added)
I'm not so sure paying others to distribute works in this manner is an infringement of copyright. Again, I hope a lawyer will clear this up.
As we all know, the GPL relies on copyright for enforcement. If I distribute GPL'd software, and I do not accept the GPL, then I have committed a copyright violation as nothing but the GPL allows me to distribute the software.
To be sued for copyright infringement, I must have actually made copes of and distributed GPL'd software, not "conveyed" or "propagated" or any other such language. Unless Microsoft has actually redistributed (not caused someone else to distribute, like Novell*) GPLv3 software without abiding by its terms, they are off the hook for copyright violations. They'd only be on the hook for a contract violation.
Again as we all know Microsoft has not signed the GPLv3, so it is not a party to it and does not need to abide by it.
*Unless my understanding of copyright law is wrong, one must make copies of a work and/or distribute them to be on the hook for infringement. The FSF might have a contributory copyright infringement case, but that would be much harder to prove, AFAIK. Of course, I'm an armchair lawyer, so hopefully someone who actually has a law degree will clear this up.
You've deflected my logic by saying that it's under some other law...
Actually, you've changed the question.
Our objection is that offering to commit copyright infringement should not be prosecuted the same and certainly isn't the same as actually committing copyright infringement. No one here has said anything about attempted copyright infringement or conspiracy to commit copyright infringement, neither of which are crimes (yet) under US law. Willfully enabling infringement isn't the same as actually infringing. Infringement doesn't occur until a copy is made, not when you offer to make a copy.
What the judge did was say murder and attempted murder are the same thing. There is no need for two different laws or two different punishments for it. Same with any sort of "attempted X" vs. "X".
If you believe that attempted copyright infringement and/or conspiracy to commit copyright infringement should be illegal, I direct you to HR 3155, which aims to do just that.
The point is that effectively saying "I'll make you a copy of the NYT if you ask me" is considered copyright infringement. That is, simply offering to make an illegal copy is enough to get you in trouble for copyright infringement even if no actual copying has taken place. That is where your logic breaks down.
As another poster said, using the logic of the judge, libraries are making available copyrighted works. Therefore, they would all need to be prosecuted for copyright infringement.
AFAIK, the Wal-Marts in Quebec are all unionized (or at least a few are). Wal-Mart closes down stores if their employees unionize. Certainly that is their right, but it's damn cold.
Correct. The only thing we need to decide is if we're going to pull ourselves down to the wages of other countries or pull them up to ours. I choose the latter.
If you want to improve the conditions of Walmart employees in 3rd world countries then buy products from that country.
Not necessarily. China, for example, isn't a free market country. Only in a (relatively) free market do free market principles work, and even then, they only work some of the time.
I don't see what's so bad about Walmart. At least from my experiences here in Canada,
Stop right there. in Canada. In the states, Wal-mart is known for their horrid labor practices. I haven't stepped inside one for over 5 years, nor have I needed to. I might be dead broke, but I'm not going to give any of my money to the Waltons if I can help it.
I continually upgrade, but the processor in question has been in my machine for a really long time (it has a copyright date of 1999, so that is 8 years old).
I'm 23 years old, but I had several hard drives in the sub 100MB range sitting around until I threw them out. My first PC was an old Acer. Pentium 100 with 8MB RAM if I recall correctly. I just stole the keyboard from it the last time I was at my mom's. I love it. They don't make keyboards like they used to...
OK, so yeah it's not too old, but then again some of these kids upgrade every 8 months or so. To each his own, I guess.
However, some users over at the 2CPU forums have discovered an unexplained connection with audio playback resulting in a cap at approximately 5%-10% of total network throughput.
"The connection between media playback and networking is not immediately obvious. But as you know, the drivers involved in both activities run at extremely high priority. As a result, the network driver can cause media playback to degrade. This shows up to the user as things like popping and crackling during audio playback. Users generally hate this, hence the trade off."
Granted, I don't want my audio stuttering, but the idea that the CPU can't keep up because of file transfer is insane. Maxing out an ethernet connection doesn't take much CPU. Even if we put the audio at a very high priority, I don't see how that would immediately degrade ethernet performance by 90%. I could accept no more than about 5% in a worse case scenario.
To be fair if I renice rhythmbox to 18 and transfer a file, things go to hell. Renicing to 10 clears it up. I saw no degradation of speed. Apparently Debian can do file transfers at full speed while playing an mp3 on a rather old PC*. Something isn't right here...
No, I'm implying that the bug isn't due to Vista's hated DRM.
I'm all for hating Microsoft and Vista for their heavy-handed DRM, but let's at least look at the facts before going off half-cocked and blaming the DRM implementation for this bug.
The forum goers seem to think the problem lays with something called MMCSS that boosts audio priority when files are being played back. This looks to be a buggy scheduler rather than nefarious DRM checks mucking up performance. The problem hasn't been pinned down by a long shot, but the scheduler makes the most sense.
With all carriers that I know of, there is no way to stop unwanted text messages, and yes, we have to pay for each one.
AFAIK, if there is a consistent pattern of abuse, you can call your carrier and they might make concessions. Similarly, the FCC and your state attorney general will be interested in text message spamming. I don't see how this would stop someone from outside the US from simply spamming the crap out of us. Similarly, I can just use the SMS option on most modern IM clients these days.
Yeah, the state of cell phone usage in general in the US is shit.
No ID would be fine with me. I just want to be sure that you're not taking any bombs on the plane. Please read Bruce Schneier's take on ID's as a security measure.
That's not a case where the federal government is restricting you from getting papers to travel; it's the *state* government refusing to issue you the appropriate ID.
That is a very backwards way of looking at it. Why should the states have to jump through arbitrary hoops put in place by the feds? In fact, let me take a look at my constitution...yep, just as I thought. I don't see any provisions in the constitution that give the federal government the power to tell the states what needs to be in their IDs. Oddly enough, the feds, knowing they don't have this power, are just withholding funds to states who don't go along with their unfunded mandate (similar to the universal drinking age of 21).
The old "Papers, Please" line implies some sort of federal control over who is allowed to travel and who isn't.
No not directly, but it's only one level of indirection. The feds are saying "if you states don't do as we say, then we aren't letting your citizens travel freely". The states have no obligation to do as the feds say. If the feds want to restrict your rights because they don't take your ID to mean squat, that is their problem.
You know what I needed to get my birth certificate, which counts for the most points in documents?
Picture ID with my name on it. Didnt matter from where. And could have been easily forged.
Once I lost my wallet and needed a duplicate of my driver's license. I went to the BMV with a birth certificate and my social security card. No beans says the lady. The birth certificate needs a seal. Mind you that I graduated with this girl and she knew who I was.
So I drove down to the county seat, which took about 30 min. I went to get my birth certificate. They didn't ask to see ID, who I was, or anything. I just asked for it and they gave it to me.
This kind of bureaucratic BS seems to be par for the course then.
In general, people tend to like their senator or representative (if they can even name them), but want someone else's congressman to be defeated. Common wisdom says that if a particular congressman's approval rating is near 50% they are vulnerable.
Andrew Tannenbaum of Minix fame has a website that tracks such poll numbers.
Slashdot Mirror
Good thing that the FSF and the GPL has nothing to do with the open source movement, otherwise that might have been a problem.
As a followup to my own post, this seems to be the issue of contention:
If Microsoft distributes our [the FSF] works licensed under GPLv3, or pays others to distribute them on its behalf, it is bound to do so under the terms of that license. (my emphasis added)
I'm not so sure paying others to distribute works in this manner is an infringement of copyright. Again, I hope a lawyer will clear this up.
I'm at a loss there too.
As we all know, the GPL relies on copyright for enforcement. If I distribute GPL'd software, and I do not accept the GPL, then I have committed a copyright violation as nothing but the GPL allows me to distribute the software.
To be sued for copyright infringement, I must have actually made copes of and distributed GPL'd software, not "conveyed" or "propagated" or any other such language. Unless Microsoft has actually redistributed (not caused someone else to distribute, like Novell*) GPLv3 software without abiding by its terms, they are off the hook for copyright violations. They'd only be on the hook for a contract violation.
Again as we all know Microsoft has not signed the GPLv3, so it is not a party to it and does not need to abide by it.
*Unless my understanding of copyright law is wrong, one must make copies of a work and/or distribute them to be on the hook for infringement. The FSF might have a contributory copyright infringement case, but that would be much harder to prove, AFAIK. Of course, I'm an armchair lawyer, so hopefully someone who actually has a law degree will clear this up.
Our objection is that offering to commit copyright infringement should not be prosecuted the same and certainly isn't the same as actually committing copyright infringement. No one here has said anything about attempted copyright infringement or conspiracy to commit copyright infringement, neither of which are crimes (yet) under US law. Willfully enabling infringement isn't the same as actually infringing. Infringement doesn't occur until a copy is made, not when you offer to make a copy.
What the judge did was say murder and attempted murder are the same thing. There is no need for two different laws or two different punishments for it. Same with any sort of "attempted X" vs. "X".
If you believe that attempted copyright infringement and/or conspiracy to commit copyright infringement should be illegal, I direct you to HR 3155, which aims to do just that.
The point is that effectively saying "I'll make you a copy of the NYT if you ask me" is considered copyright infringement. That is, simply offering to make an illegal copy is enough to get you in trouble for copyright infringement even if no actual copying has taken place. That is where your logic breaks down.
As another poster said, using the logic of the judge, libraries are making available copyrighted works. Therefore, they would all need to be prosecuted for copyright infringement.
AFAIK, the Wal-Marts in Quebec are all unionized (or at least a few are). Wal-Mart closes down stores if their employees unionize. Certainly that is their right, but it's damn cold.
True enough.
I continually upgrade, but the processor in question has been in my machine for a really long time (it has a copyright date of 1999, so that is 8 years old).
I'm 23 years old, but I had several hard drives in the sub 100MB range sitting around until I threw them out. My first PC was an old Acer. Pentium 100 with 8MB RAM if I recall correctly. I just stole the keyboard from it the last time I was at my mom's. I love it. They don't make keyboards like they used to...
OK, so yeah it's not too old, but then again some of these kids upgrade every 8 months or so. To each his own, I guess.
No, it's not. Read the old FA:
However, some users over at the 2CPU forums have discovered an unexplained connection with audio playback resulting in a cap at approximately 5%-10% of total network throughput.
FTA:
"The connection between media playback and networking is not immediately obvious. But as you know, the drivers involved in both activities run at extremely high priority. As a result, the network driver can cause media playback to degrade. This shows up to the user as things like popping and crackling during audio playback. Users generally hate this, hence the trade off."
Granted, I don't want my audio stuttering, but the idea that the CPU can't keep up because of file transfer is insane. Maxing out an ethernet connection doesn't take much CPU. Even if we put the audio at a very high priority, I don't see how that would immediately degrade ethernet performance by 90%. I could accept no more than about 5% in a worse case scenario.
To be fair if I renice rhythmbox to 18 and transfer a file, things go to hell. Renicing to 10 clears it up. I saw no degradation of speed. Apparently Debian can do file transfers at full speed while playing an mp3 on a rather old PC*. Something isn't right here...
*Athlon XP 2400+, 1GB DDR
One look at my comment history should be enough to close any bets you might have.
Indeed. To boot the story was submitted anonymously.
If I was a betting man, I'd bet even money that the blogger himself submitted the story to make a few bucks.
That and the market for VPN tunnels to Antigua IP addresses.
I recall Adult Swim censoring "Sweet Zombie Jesus!". That has to be up there.
Fuck you. I won't do what you tell me. ;-)
My sig was originally:
Sisko > Picard > Kirk > Archer > null > Janeway
Someone pointed out that the null would likely mean "no one". So I was saying that no one was better than Janeway. I changed it to what you see today:
Sisko > Picard > Kirk > Archer > * > Janeway
The '*' is the Kleene star which is, more or less, a wildcard symbol.
Suffice it to say, I can't stand her; she is far and away my least favorite captain.
No, I'm implying that the bug isn't due to Vista's hated DRM.
I'm all for hating Microsoft and Vista for their heavy-handed DRM, but let's at least look at the facts before going off half-cocked and blaming the DRM implementation for this bug.
The forum goers seem to think the problem lays with something called MMCSS that boosts audio priority when files are being played back. This looks to be a buggy scheduler rather than nefarious DRM checks mucking up performance. The problem hasn't been pinned down by a long shot, but the scheduler makes the most sense.
With all carriers that I know of, there is no way to stop unwanted text messages, and yes, we have to pay for each one.
AFAIK, if there is a consistent pattern of abuse, you can call your carrier and they might make concessions. Similarly, the FCC and your state attorney general will be interested in text message spamming. I don't see how this would stop someone from outside the US from simply spamming the crap out of us. Similarly, I can just use the SMS option on most modern IM clients these days.
Yeah, the state of cell phone usage in general in the US is shit.
Granted.
But the idea that having to pay $75,000 in taxes is bankrupting the guy is incredible.
Actually, in the post I took my fiancee's wages into consideration. I'm actually unemployed at the moment.
No ID would be fine with me. I just want to be sure that you're not taking any bombs on the plane. Please read Bruce Schneier's take on ID's as a security measure.
So I drove down to the county seat, which took about 30 min. I went to get my birth certificate. They didn't ask to see ID, who I was, or anything. I just asked for it and they gave it to me.
This kind of bureaucratic BS seems to be par for the course then.
In general, people tend to like their senator or representative (if they can even name them), but want someone else's congressman to be defeated. Common wisdom says that if a particular congressman's approval rating is near 50% they are vulnerable.
Andrew Tannenbaum of Minix fame has a website that tracks such poll numbers.