The problem here is that CherryOS "makers" are not admitting that they've taken code from pearpc. It's NOT that they've admitted taking code but they'll use it anyway to make money. So, in court, pearpc coders will have to first prove that cherryos does take code. Once it's proved, since cherryos makers won't have their defence anymore, I don't know whether the case will even continue, since IANAL. A better case to hold up GPL would be like that one regarding that telecom company or something which happened in europe. BTW, I don't think the GPL even needs to be held up, since it's just a license/agreement. It just stands. (but remember, IANAL)
People who "pirate" movies/music don't sell it for money. CherryOS is selling it for money. Do you see/.ers showing sympathy for those who sell pirated DVDs?
People pirating music or movies illegaly obtain and watch/listen to them. CherryOS is taking copyrighted material, modifying and selling it. One is using and distributing unmodified copyrighted material while the other is selling modified copyrighted material. There is not any similarity between these two, except that they both fall into the broad category of copyright infringement. So any comparision between the two is invalid. But if you want more...
GPLed software allows you to use, modify and redistribute the material. CherryOS, by not releasing its source code, is violating everyone's right to have the source code of CherryOS. OTOH, movies and music aren't free (speech and beer). By pirating them, you're just depriving the companies of a *potential* sale. Don't you see any legal, technical or moral differences between these two?
Don't all those ads saying "Your computer is infected! Clean it now!" (or something like that) and "Windows is running slow! speed it up Blah blah blah bullshit bullshit" fall into this same category?
I've heard some company (I think some embedded software company) spread FUD that the enemies of USA might purposefully introduce security holes in Linux to gain advantage over USA, so using Linux is not good for USA. But what's actually happening is almost the opposite. MS is giving patches early to USA so the systems of US enemies will still be vulnerable (but US goverment systems will be secure) and now USA will have the knowledge of how to exploit those systems. A reason for most countries not to use MS software (and who knows, maybe in the future, software of other US companies). Just like always. USA (government) cries that "bad guys" are going to do a certain "bad thing" to USA, but in reality it's USA who is the first one to do it and probably the only one to do it (nuclear bombs).
What about the goverment and people of other countries? They are not giving early patches to the "Government of The World", they are giving it only to USA. So now, all the US military system will be secure while the non-US military systems will be vulnerable. Although unintentional (or who knows), Microsoft is giving military advantage to USA and militarily deceiving (if that's a valid term) all other countries. I would want my country's goverment to consider Microsoft to be a military ally of USA giving USA a military advantage and to be weakening our country's defence on purpose (by delaying patches). I'm sure there are some defence related laws in most countries against this and this must be considered as treason. (OK, treason might not be the correct word, but you get the point. English is not my mother tongue)
Does this mean there will be no more Firefox and the whole mozilla/gecko/whatever has stopped or that only the bundled mozilla suite will stop and it will continue as firefox, thunderbird etc? If only the bundled suite has stopped, how does this affect firefox etc? Doesn't firefox etc benifit from the development of the mozilla suite by taking much code from mozilla suite?
It's obviously just an excuse. When the Google website itself has a page on googlebot explaining and telling about its user-agent string, how can they ignore the fact that giving different pages for googlebot will also give different pages for the main google crawler (along with the intended google search appliance)? They could have done something else like looking for ip addresses instead or modifying the user-agent in the google search appliance. (It probably would have been possible to do things inside the google search appliance itself to help indexing the concerned pages)
Says who? TFA just says that different pages were to be served for regular Google search and it's site search, but the same keyword loaded page was also served to the main Google search (which is just Google's version of the story). Can you please at least provide your source or explain how you derived your conclusion, if you came to it by yourself?
I'm thinking Washington Post has a "business presence" in Canada. Otherwise you can't sue anyone in the entire world. (At least not for this, there are some things over which you can do that)
I agree (except that it's Canadian). How is parent troll? This is not some international treaty signed by several countries. And the same thing goes for all "free speech", "journalistic freedom" etc., stories about USA that come on slashdot. It's just USA, it's not the entire world.
This can be compared to Tim Paterson suing over the "paternity" of MS-DOS. I don't know why no one made any issues about journalistic freedom over that case (even on slashdot).
Slashdot Mirror
The problem here is that CherryOS "makers" are not admitting that they've taken code from pearpc. It's NOT that they've admitted taking code but they'll use it anyway to make money. So, in court, pearpc coders will have to first prove that cherryos does take code. Once it's proved, since cherryos makers won't have their defence anymore, I don't know whether the case will even continue, since IANAL. A better case to hold up GPL would be like that one regarding that telecom company or something which happened in europe. BTW, I don't think the GPL even needs to be held up, since it's just a license/agreement. It just stands. (but remember, IANAL)
People who "pirate" movies/music don't sell it for money. CherryOS is selling it for money. Do you see /.ers showing sympathy for those who sell pirated DVDs?
People pirating music or movies illegaly obtain and watch/listen to them. CherryOS is taking copyrighted material, modifying and selling it. One is using and distributing unmodified copyrighted material while the other is selling modified copyrighted material. There is not any similarity between these two, except that they both fall into the broad category of copyright infringement. So any comparision between the two is invalid. But if you want more...
GPLed software allows you to use, modify and redistribute the material. CherryOS, by not releasing its source code, is violating everyone's right to have the source code of CherryOS. OTOH, movies and music aren't free (speech and beer). By pirating them, you're just depriving the companies of a *potential* sale. Don't you see any legal, technical or moral differences between these two?
Yes, parent is correct. It's not "theft". Just like pirated movies/mp3s are not "stolen".
Everyone already knows that their project was a ripoff of PearPC
Correction: Everyone on Slashdot and the PearPC forums.
Don't all those ads saying "Your computer is infected! Clean it now!" (or something like that) and "Windows is running slow! speed it up Blah blah blah bullshit bullshit" fall into this same category?
People like cute little hobbits and the movie makers want to sell them to the people. You should have figured that out after watching LOTR.
Exactly. They are comparing copyright infringers ot Attila the Hun.
I've heard some company (I think some embedded software company) spread FUD that the enemies of USA might purposefully introduce security holes in Linux to gain advantage over USA, so using Linux is not good for USA. But what's actually happening is almost the opposite. MS is giving patches early to USA so the systems of US enemies will still be vulnerable (but US goverment systems will be secure) and now USA will have the knowledge of how to exploit those systems. A reason for most countries not to use MS software (and who knows, maybe in the future, software of other US companies). Just like always. USA (government) cries that "bad guys" are going to do a certain "bad thing" to USA, but in reality it's USA who is the first one to do it and probably the only one to do it (nuclear bombs).
What about the goverment and people of other countries? They are not giving early patches to the "Government of The World", they are giving it only to USA. So now, all the US military system will be secure while the non-US military systems will be vulnerable. Although unintentional (or who knows), Microsoft is giving military advantage to USA and militarily deceiving (if that's a valid term) all other countries. I would want my country's goverment to consider Microsoft to be a military ally of USA giving USA a military advantage and to be weakening our country's defence on purpose (by delaying patches). I'm sure there are some defence related laws in most countries against this and this must be considered as treason. (OK, treason might not be the correct word, but you get the point. English is not my mother tongue)
Longhorn!
A distro added a package. Why is this being reported on slashdot?
steve jobs 3
Wow, I just spent 10 minutes thinking that BOTH was an acronym and trying to figure out its full form.
USA is a democracy. The goverment represents the people. If the government does something wrong, the blame should go to the people.
Does this mean there will be no more Firefox and the whole mozilla/gecko/whatever has stopped or that only the bundled mozilla suite will stop and it will continue as firefox, thunderbird etc? If only the bundled suite has stopped, how does this affect firefox etc? Doesn't firefox etc benifit from the development of the mozilla suite by taking much code from mozilla suite?
Thanks for the source. Now...
It's obviously just an excuse. When the Google website itself has a page on googlebot explaining and telling about its user-agent string, how can they ignore the fact that giving different pages for googlebot will also give different pages for the main google crawler (along with the intended google search appliance)? They could have done something else like looking for ip addresses instead or modifying the user-agent in the google search appliance. (It probably would have been possible to do things inside the google search appliance itself to help indexing the concerned pages)
Says who? TFA just says that different pages were to be served for regular Google search and it's site search, but the same keyword loaded page was also served to the main Google search (which is just Google's version of the story). Can you please at least provide your source or explain how you derived your conclusion, if you came to it by yourself?
What a publicity stunt!
I'm not sure whether you're being sarcastic or serious.
Would slashdot have reported this if it was Yahoo (or something else) which did this instead of Google?
I'm thinking Washington Post has a "business presence" in Canada. Otherwise you can't sue anyone in the entire world. (At least not for this, there are some things over which you can do that)
I agree (except that it's Canadian). How is parent troll? This is not some international treaty signed by several countries. And the same thing goes for all "free speech", "journalistic freedom" etc., stories about USA that come on slashdot. It's just USA, it's not the entire world.
This can be compared to Tim Paterson suing over the "paternity" of MS-DOS. I don't know why no one made any issues about journalistic freedom over that case (even on slashdot).
It's called "joke". Look it up in the dictionary.