So, you say you're going to sell me your vote for $10. I pay you $10 and tell you to vote for X. Election day comes, you vote for Y. I ask you, did you vote for X? You say yes. I'm an idiot.
When you have a secret ballot, who is stupid enough to purchase a vote. I'd love to sell mine, though, since I could still vote for whomever I wanted.
Usually these decisions are made based on familiarity, availability, and the like. If you're staff and you are all really familiar with RedHat, why would you force them to run BSD or Debian? Each system has pros and cons, but to be honest, the largest pro or con is usually familiarity. It's really easy to get familiar enough with any *nix to get Apache running. The issue is whether you have the knowledge to deal with it when your live webserver suddenly stops responding to requests.
Stability and familiarity are more important than the latest cool distro. Is there a reason that they should have picked BSD over RedHat? Of course there are some. There are others to pick RedHat over a BSD. In the end, you have to go with what you're comfortable and familiar with in order to ensure that you can deal with sudden, unexpected problems.
Really, what is stopping the company behind QUID from offering 6.25 pounds for every QUID? Nothing. So long as you can forever exchange them for 6.25 pounds, a QUID will be worth that much. The only hitch comes when the company says that they will not take your QUID back and give you 6.25 pounds for it.
Say, for example, that I'm behind the QUID. You order 5 QUID from me and I charge you 31.25 pounds. I can take that 31.25 pounds and stick it in a vault and anytime you wish to cash out, I will have the pounds to pay you 6.25 pounds per QUID. In fact, since I can earn interest off the money in the bank account, it could conceivably cover costs.
The reason that most currencies fluctuate is because they're currency by fiat (in whole or in part). That means that they aren't backed by anything. Many countries try to partially back their currency since confidence in their government and economy isn't so high. In these cases, they keep foreign reserves. For example, let's say that Argentina wants to back its currency, it could hold 50% of the value of its currency in US Dollars in a vault. While this doesn't stop fluctuations, it does stabilize the currency (to an extent less than the USD's stability, but still does stabilize it a good deal). This works because a lot of the value of the Argentinian currency has a stable value - at least in respect to the USD - and one can assume that there will not be a greater than 50% run at any time.
So, currencies fluctuate because they lack backing. Once you add a backing (be it gold, foreign reserves, or pogs), the currency will only fluctuate as much as that backing fluctuates - I vote for pogs backing the USD (they couldn't devalue faster than what's happening now). So, as long as the company is responsible, they can create a currency that does not fluctuate (at least in terms of the other currencies).
The big problem they would face is counterfitting. If someone can figure out a way to make more of those plastic disks, they would be in trouble. Oh, the other problem would be that they're backing it in three ways - which can't be done since people who bought in dollars might exchange for euros if they appreciate in value. They'd have to mandate a peg that would be the average appreciation/depreciation of the three currencies for future exchanges.
I've always been worried that heat-images of myself might be displayed to the public. Nothing is scarier than images that can identify me as well as a silhouette.
As disgusting as this might be, it's going to have very little impact on Linux. It's marketing and unfortunately even Free Software is not immune from marketing. RedHat markets as well with slogans like "more than mission critical".
While I can't defend what Novell is doing here, I do want to point out that after buying SuSE, they created an open-source community project around a distribution that was one of the most closely kept. The openSUSE project now releases free SUSE downloads - something SUSE had been against. Novell also bought Ximian which I think has a great reputation in open-source development and Novell has been continuing the work that they have done.
Is it possible that Novell needs this marketing to overcome the fact that it is a late entrant? Maybe, judging by the other things that Novell has done (opening up a formerly closed distro and continuing important work on open-source projects) it is ok to forgive them for this highly annoying example of stupidity? Maybe I'm just naive and this actually is a bigger deal.
Well, 1 kilowatt for an hour costs me 25 cents (thereabouts). To make a kilowatt, I would need to spend $1,000 on these. That means that they would have to operate for 4,000 hours for me to make my money back (well, 4,000 hours of electric usage).
Basically, it looks like, if they last a couple years, they would pay for themselves (166 days of full utilization, but that's not going to happen in the real world). Not bad. If they're durable (and last 5-10 years), they could really cut down on electric costs.
Oh, plus the whole saving the planet from destruction thing. I guess that might have some value.
Looking at O2's website, we see this breakdown in plans:
200min plus 400 text: 25pounds
750min plus 100 text: 35pounds
1350min plus 100 text: 50pounds
http://shop.o2.co.uk/tariffs/18_months/Talkerhttp://shop.o2.co.uk/tariffs
THESE ARE ONLINE-ONLY SPECIALS. One has to assume that the iPhone will cost 10pounds more per month than the normal plans (since they cost an extra $20 more per month over here).
So, the iPhone charges 10pounds more at the 200min level (but you loose half the texts), 10 pounds more at the 750 minute level (loosing 150 minutes, but gaining 400 texts), and 5pounds more at the 1350 minute level (again loosing 150 minutes and gaining 400 texts).
They MIGHT be a worse deal than the AT&T plans over here, but not by much. They're pretty much standard O2 rates plus 10 pounds. Since the AT&T plans are the standard AT&T plans plus $20, that's pretty equivalent.
NOTE: In both cases, the premium you're paying for an iPhone plan is getting you unlimited data and so if you're already paying for that, you might not consider it an increase in fee at all.
Constitution states that habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless in cases of rebellion and invasion when the public safety may require it.
See, the Republicans just need some creativity to get around the constitution. For example, the United States is being "invaded" by cold Canadian air this winter. Scary thought. Oh, and I heard that my local electronics store is "rebelling" against high prices. Both clear justifications for the suspension of habeas corpus.
It isn't necessarily bad for Canadian corporations.
When something like this happens, it changes things. Canadian companies now get less money for final goods and services provided to Americans because of the exchange rate. BUT, Canadian companies can get intermediate things for cheaper.
So, let's say that Bombardier (a Canadian train/plane manufacturer) buys components (like Aluminum) from the US. They get that cheaper. Then they sell that plane to the US which they earn less money for. That comes out as a wash.
It really just shifts income from those who export to those who import. But in the long run, it doesn't even change that. As the demand for American goods in Canada rises, the price level of American goods will rise and along with it the currency. Things in economics tend toward equilibrium in the long run.
After all, you can hardly secure a system if you do not know what is going on it.
So, I should manually pick each and every package that is installed on my computer. Wait, that won't do it. I need to read and audit the source and then compile that source to be completely sure!
I understand where the author is going here, but that's one of the great things about GNU/Linux. I can have my Ubuntu that gives me a good system in 15 minutes and he can use Gentoo, Slackware, or Linux From Scratch to create a system where he can account for everything on it.
One distribution doesn't have to be everything to everyone. Lucky for us, because of the nature of open-source, a plurality of distributions is easy which closer meet the needs of our diverse uses. Many users don't want or care about a lot of the choices offered (heck, most of the world uses Windows). Thankfully, Linux is open-source and allows us to choose as much or as little configuration, selection, and customization as we want to deal with.
According to Catbert, cynicism is almost the same thing as experience. Therefore, we can conclude that Dan Rather has a lot of experience in designing and building planes.
http://www.answers.com/topic/y2k-dilbert-episode
I'm not advocating copyright at all.
The bookstore had to pay someone to organize all that data on the tags, get the books together by course, etc. For someone to just come in and duplicate that data seems like cheating.
OK, for a better example. Google allows me to geocode addresses for the purposes of showing points on their Google Maps product - just as the bookstore makes their organization available for the purposes of buying the books. Google's terms of service prohibit me from using their geocoding service as just a source of data for something unrelated to Google Maps. None of that geocoding data is copyrighted - you can't copyright the fact that zip code 11111 is located at long x and lat y. Nonetheless, it took Google a considerable amount of work (or money) to geocode all those zip codes, addresses, etc. Should I just be able to query their API and take it? It isn't Google's data. They merely organized it in a convenient fashion - something that is hard to do and takes time and money.
Likewise, what if I want to compete with Amazon and just screen scrape their data about the book that they had someone enter from the publisher? None of that is Amazon's copyright. I definitely have the right to create a competing book webiste that has the same book data. But Amazon has hired people to input data from publishers, ensure it's accuracy, etc. Should I not have to hire staff to do that because I can leech off of Amazon's work?
It's a really grey area. On the one hand, it certainly isn't copyrightable. It isn't original, it should be able to be duplicated. On the other hand, it seems wrong to duplicate it right from a competing source that spent the time/effort/money organizing it. If you believe that (morally) I should be able to just screen scrape Amazon's data to create a competitor, I would love to hear your perspective. If not, what are the limits of stealing a competitor's organizational work? These are serious questions not to be dismissed as "oh, the bookstore is just evil" or "people are stealing". They require intelligent thought.
Incidents like this show that change is needed in the way that we handle intellectual property.
On the one hand, we're giving monopoly profits to the entertainment industry against the public good. On the other hand, a retailer who has spent a fair amount of time and money can just have that work copied.
In some ways I feel bad for the Coop. They had to pay someone (or multiple people) money to assemble all of this data in an easy to use format. Should others simply be allowed to copy their work? If so, how is this different from me cutting and pasting Linux code into a new kernel under my own license? One can make the argument that the Linux kernel is an original, creative work and that what the bookstore has is merely an assembled set of data - in fact, I'm sure that's what that intellectual property lawyer would correctly argue in a court.
But isn't it a moral faux-pas to just steal someone's assembled set of data? It cost them money to assemble the data. Maybe you should have to do just as much work?
We really need a better system of compensating people for the work that they do when it isn't a tangible object. With a greater and greater percentage of our economic output becoming these intangible items, we desperately need a structure that would fairly compensate both parties for the work they've put in rather than the current system of unfairly helping one side or the other based on lobbyist-written laws.
Linux (Xorg, really) does configure touchpads to be too sensitive and some things still can't be configured graphically, but the fact that Dell is willing to sell a computer with Linux is a big step. It isn't perfect, but it is getting there. Frankly, reviews like his are what Linux really needs. Linux isn't deficient, but when people point out these things, it tells us "oh, maybe we can set more user-friendly defaults for touchpads in the xorg.conf - or create a small front end to edit them".
Comcast should have put the limits in terms of GB, but I think we can understand the limits they have put down.
Songs are considered (by non/. people) to be around 4MB. It's what Apple uses as a benchmark as well as many others. It's a decent estimation. That puts Comcast's limit at 120GB per month. If you assume 2-3MP images of around 1MB a piece, the limit is around 250GB.
Those are limits that the vast majority of people will not come up against. If you downloaded Ubuntu every single day for a month, you would hit 21GB. If you downloaded a high res Xvid movie every day for a month (1.4GB a piece), you would hit 42GB.
Suffice it to say, the limit is high. It's high enough that for almost everyone, it doesn't matter that it exists.
Oh, for comparison's sake, you would have to fully load a T1 connection over a quarter of a month to hit the 120GB limit. You would have to be using more than half a T1 connection to hit the 250GB mark. Cable is a shared resource. If you need a dedicated resource, maybe a T1 is right for you. At some point, nothing is unlimited. We're lucky that the internet adapts so well to sharing that 99.9% of people can pay very little for a lot, but some people need dedicated resources.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
* Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
* Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
* Neither the name of the nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.
If you are using a piece of BSD-licensed code, you must forever obey those three terms. They allow you to LINK code against any code - GPL, proprietary, whatever. BUT, you must always reproduce the copyright notice and the list of conditions. Nothing gives you the right to remove them.
So, you can create a derivative work that uses both GPL and BSD code, but that BSD code hasn't become GPL'd and you must still obey the terms of the BSD license. This is a common misconception because the BSD license's terms are so liberal. So, Linux (and other GPL projects) can appropriate code from the BSD world provided that they obey the three terms listed in the BSD license. GPL projects can add GPL code to BSD code in the same file, but until the BSD code is gone from that file - which would probably happen over years of rewrites - they have to obey those three clauses. No where does the BSD license say "you can disobey these clauses because you've changed the license."
Enforceability of contracts is what makes the GPL work. If the GPL world says it doesn't work when it's someone else's license, their projects are in deep trouble. And to think, this whole mess could be solved by simply removing that stupid relicense crap which has almost no practical implication other than GPL-ego.
I think there is still a difference. A lot of web advertising is pay per click and not per impression so not seeing it does affect the site. There's also the fact that if users are blocking ads (yet they're still being downloaded), advertisers lower their cost per impression rates (at least in the long run).
While Viacom was stupid in this matter, they are techhnically correct (the best kind of correct;-)). He did infringe Viacom's copyright - they own everything surrounding his clip that was a part of that program.
Now, he could easily countersue Viacom for copyright infringement to the tune of lots of money, but that doesn't mean that Viacom doesn't still own that work they produced around the infringement.
Basically, you are allowed to link GPL'd code to BSD code. So if I wrote "The boy hit the baseball" under the BSD license and you alter it to "The large boy hit the baseball well" under the GPL, the original statement is still available for use under the BSD license - even in your second statement. As long as they remove your GPL'd addition (the intertwined words "large" and "well"), they are free to use it under the BSD's terms.
The practical point is that the BSD code, when linked with GPL code, must adhere to the restrictions of both licenses. Most people just say that it has been relicensed under the GPL. That isn't exactly true. From most practical standpoints, the BSD license has so few restrictions that it doesn't matter, but technically that BSD code is still under the BSD license and it's requirements must be met.
So, that BSD code can easily be linked and intertwined with GPL code, but those few requirements of the BSD license must be met so long as there is any BSD code in the GPL'd derivative work.
The issue is that Microsoft has given indemnities to customers of companies like Novell. Seeing that, the FSF decided "let's make it so that the GPL v3 means those indemnifications mean that M$ can never sue free software users even if they aren't Novell customers".
I guess I'm one of those ends don't justify the means people. M$ shouldn't be suing FOSS, but you can't create a new version of a license and retroactively apply it to M$. We'd all be yelling at the top of our lungs if MS retroactively altered their Windows XP license so that it, say, required to be renewed every year for a fee. And there are loopholes - how many agreements say things like "we can change this agreement without notifying users and continued use is considered agreement with the updated terms."
Let's fight for real progress rather than shady legal maneuvering - because, let's face it, the evil companies will always be better at it!
First, no one is talking about (or they shouldn't be if they are) a blank check to violate copyrights. They would be allowed to violate copyrights of a value equivalent to the estimated value of the loss created by the United States' alleged improper behavior. If that loss is estimated to be $3bn, they could be given permission to violate $3bn in copyrights.
The more important question is why does Antigua respect American copyrights at all? Well, because they gain from respecting them. It's part of free and fair trade. You aren't just allowed to take something from someone. Along the same lines, you aren't allowed to bar someone from importing goods or providing services to your citizens unless they is a defendable reason - such as an authentic health and safety standard.
The WTO is the body that makes sure everyone plays by the rules. It is a voluntary association and people can leave it - and then make whatever laws they want. So, Antigua can leave the WTO and violate copyrights as much as they want - the problem is that WTO countries then can't/won't trade with them and so they loose a lot more than they would gain.
In this case, the United States would have to prove that online gambling is sufficiently worse and different from traditional gambling (which is legal in the US) - a reason why traditional gambling doesn't pose a threat to their population, but that online gambling does. Antigua needs to prove that the US regulations on online gambling don't actually protect the American people, but are rather meant to give American companies the advantage over Antiguan companies.
This isn't some weird global government looking to get rid of sovereignty. This is about using logic to determine when rules are meant to be discriminatory based on national origin and when something is a genuine health or safety standard. The US can make the argument that online gambling becomes too accessible and is therefore a much greater danger than traditional gambling. Antigua can argue that it's the same thing that happens at casinos. A court will decide which arguments hold weight based on evidence.
No one will like this suggestion, but I think it's a valid one. ISPs should start charging for bandwidth used just like electric, gas, and other utilities.
Right now, they have "unlimited" plans. This gives ISPs a great incentive to try and control what you do online. It just doesn't cost the same to serve the user who just browses the web (at maybe 100k a page which happens sporadically as users have to take time to read the page) and the user who decides that they want to use their cable modem as a movie downloading service - or even legitimate uses like downloading a new Linux distro every week.
ISPs shouldn't care how you use your connection - they should only care how much bandwidth you use. ISPs shouldn't even care whether your bittorrents are illegal or legitimate. That has no affect on them. The amount of data transfered does.
So, for the sake of network neutrality, for the sake of our freedom to use the internet how we want to use it, we need usage fees.
Slashdot Mirror
So, you say you're going to sell me your vote for $10. I pay you $10 and tell you to vote for X. Election day comes, you vote for Y. I ask you, did you vote for X? You say yes. I'm an idiot. When you have a secret ballot, who is stupid enough to purchase a vote. I'd love to sell mine, though, since I could still vote for whomever I wanted.
Usually these decisions are made based on familiarity, availability, and the like. If you're staff and you are all really familiar with RedHat, why would you force them to run BSD or Debian? Each system has pros and cons, but to be honest, the largest pro or con is usually familiarity. It's really easy to get familiar enough with any *nix to get Apache running. The issue is whether you have the knowledge to deal with it when your live webserver suddenly stops responding to requests.
Stability and familiarity are more important than the latest cool distro. Is there a reason that they should have picked BSD over RedHat? Of course there are some. There are others to pick RedHat over a BSD. In the end, you have to go with what you're comfortable and familiar with in order to ensure that you can deal with sudden, unexpected problems.
Sort of.
Really, what is stopping the company behind QUID from offering 6.25 pounds for every QUID? Nothing. So long as you can forever exchange them for 6.25 pounds, a QUID will be worth that much. The only hitch comes when the company says that they will not take your QUID back and give you 6.25 pounds for it.
Say, for example, that I'm behind the QUID. You order 5 QUID from me and I charge you 31.25 pounds. I can take that 31.25 pounds and stick it in a vault and anytime you wish to cash out, I will have the pounds to pay you 6.25 pounds per QUID. In fact, since I can earn interest off the money in the bank account, it could conceivably cover costs.
The reason that most currencies fluctuate is because they're currency by fiat (in whole or in part). That means that they aren't backed by anything. Many countries try to partially back their currency since confidence in their government and economy isn't so high. In these cases, they keep foreign reserves. For example, let's say that Argentina wants to back its currency, it could hold 50% of the value of its currency in US Dollars in a vault. While this doesn't stop fluctuations, it does stabilize the currency (to an extent less than the USD's stability, but still does stabilize it a good deal). This works because a lot of the value of the Argentinian currency has a stable value - at least in respect to the USD - and one can assume that there will not be a greater than 50% run at any time.
So, currencies fluctuate because they lack backing. Once you add a backing (be it gold, foreign reserves, or pogs), the currency will only fluctuate as much as that backing fluctuates - I vote for pogs backing the USD (they couldn't devalue faster than what's happening now). So, as long as the company is responsible, they can create a currency that does not fluctuate (at least in terms of the other currencies).
The big problem they would face is counterfitting. If someone can figure out a way to make more of those plastic disks, they would be in trouble. Oh, the other problem would be that they're backing it in three ways - which can't be done since people who bought in dollars might exchange for euros if they appreciate in value. They'd have to mandate a peg that would be the average appreciation/depreciation of the three currencies for future exchanges.
The comment was actually meant as a joke, but it's good to see people taking it seriously :) Just wanted to get a little dig in at Novell.
knowing that Micro$oft won't sue me since I'm using an MS approved Linux from Novell! :)
I've always been worried that heat-images of myself might be displayed to the public. Nothing is scarier than images that can identify me as well as a silhouette.
As disgusting as this might be, it's going to have very little impact on Linux. It's marketing and unfortunately even Free Software is not immune from marketing. RedHat markets as well with slogans like "more than mission critical".
While I can't defend what Novell is doing here, I do want to point out that after buying SuSE, they created an open-source community project around a distribution that was one of the most closely kept. The openSUSE project now releases free SUSE downloads - something SUSE had been against. Novell also bought Ximian which I think has a great reputation in open-source development and Novell has been continuing the work that they have done.
Is it possible that Novell needs this marketing to overcome the fact that it is a late entrant? Maybe, judging by the other things that Novell has done (opening up a formerly closed distro and continuing important work on open-source projects) it is ok to forgive them for this highly annoying example of stupidity? Maybe I'm just naive and this actually is a bigger deal.
The parent post is brought to you by: Gradma's old-fashioned posts. Remember a time when discussions weren't threaded? Gradma does.
Well, 1 kilowatt for an hour costs me 25 cents (thereabouts). To make a kilowatt, I would need to spend $1,000 on these. That means that they would have to operate for 4,000 hours for me to make my money back (well, 4,000 hours of electric usage).
Basically, it looks like, if they last a couple years, they would pay for themselves (166 days of full utilization, but that's not going to happen in the real world). Not bad. If they're durable (and last 5-10 years), they could really cut down on electric costs.
Oh, plus the whole saving the planet from destruction thing. I guess that might have some value.
Looking at O2's website, we see this breakdown in plans: 200min plus 400 text: 25pounds 750min plus 100 text: 35pounds 1350min plus 100 text: 50pounds http://shop.o2.co.uk/tariffs/18_months/Talker http://shop.o2.co.uk/tariffs THESE ARE ONLINE-ONLY SPECIALS. One has to assume that the iPhone will cost 10pounds more per month than the normal plans (since they cost an extra $20 more per month over here). So, the iPhone charges 10pounds more at the 200min level (but you loose half the texts), 10 pounds more at the 750 minute level (loosing 150 minutes, but gaining 400 texts), and 5pounds more at the 1350 minute level (again loosing 150 minutes and gaining 400 texts). They MIGHT be a worse deal than the AT&T plans over here, but not by much. They're pretty much standard O2 rates plus 10 pounds. Since the AT&T plans are the standard AT&T plans plus $20, that's pretty equivalent. NOTE: In both cases, the premium you're paying for an iPhone plan is getting you unlimited data and so if you're already paying for that, you might not consider it an increase in fee at all.
It isn't necessarily bad for Canadian corporations. When something like this happens, it changes things. Canadian companies now get less money for final goods and services provided to Americans because of the exchange rate. BUT, Canadian companies can get intermediate things for cheaper. So, let's say that Bombardier (a Canadian train/plane manufacturer) buys components (like Aluminum) from the US. They get that cheaper. Then they sell that plane to the US which they earn less money for. That comes out as a wash. It really just shifts income from those who export to those who import. But in the long run, it doesn't even change that. As the demand for American goods in Canada rises, the price level of American goods will rise and along with it the currency. Things in economics tend toward equilibrium in the long run.
According to Catbert, cynicism is almost the same thing as experience. Therefore, we can conclude that Dan Rather has a lot of experience in designing and building planes. http://www.answers.com/topic/y2k-dilbert-episode
I'm not advocating copyright at all. The bookstore had to pay someone to organize all that data on the tags, get the books together by course, etc. For someone to just come in and duplicate that data seems like cheating. OK, for a better example. Google allows me to geocode addresses for the purposes of showing points on their Google Maps product - just as the bookstore makes their organization available for the purposes of buying the books. Google's terms of service prohibit me from using their geocoding service as just a source of data for something unrelated to Google Maps. None of that geocoding data is copyrighted - you can't copyright the fact that zip code 11111 is located at long x and lat y. Nonetheless, it took Google a considerable amount of work (or money) to geocode all those zip codes, addresses, etc. Should I just be able to query their API and take it? It isn't Google's data. They merely organized it in a convenient fashion - something that is hard to do and takes time and money. Likewise, what if I want to compete with Amazon and just screen scrape their data about the book that they had someone enter from the publisher? None of that is Amazon's copyright. I definitely have the right to create a competing book webiste that has the same book data. But Amazon has hired people to input data from publishers, ensure it's accuracy, etc. Should I not have to hire staff to do that because I can leech off of Amazon's work? It's a really grey area. On the one hand, it certainly isn't copyrightable. It isn't original, it should be able to be duplicated. On the other hand, it seems wrong to duplicate it right from a competing source that spent the time/effort/money organizing it. If you believe that (morally) I should be able to just screen scrape Amazon's data to create a competitor, I would love to hear your perspective. If not, what are the limits of stealing a competitor's organizational work? These are serious questions not to be dismissed as "oh, the bookstore is just evil" or "people are stealing". They require intelligent thought.
Incidents like this show that change is needed in the way that we handle intellectual property.
On the one hand, we're giving monopoly profits to the entertainment industry against the public good. On the other hand, a retailer who has spent a fair amount of time and money can just have that work copied.
In some ways I feel bad for the Coop. They had to pay someone (or multiple people) money to assemble all of this data in an easy to use format. Should others simply be allowed to copy their work? If so, how is this different from me cutting and pasting Linux code into a new kernel under my own license? One can make the argument that the Linux kernel is an original, creative work and that what the bookstore has is merely an assembled set of data - in fact, I'm sure that's what that intellectual property lawyer would correctly argue in a court.
But isn't it a moral faux-pas to just steal someone's assembled set of data? It cost them money to assemble the data. Maybe you should have to do just as much work?
We really need a better system of compensating people for the work that they do when it isn't a tangible object. With a greater and greater percentage of our economic output becoming these intangible items, we desperately need a structure that would fairly compensate both parties for the work they've put in rather than the current system of unfairly helping one side or the other based on lobbyist-written laws.
Linux (Xorg, really) does configure touchpads to be too sensitive and some things still can't be configured graphically, but the fact that Dell is willing to sell a computer with Linux is a big step. It isn't perfect, but it is getting there. Frankly, reviews like his are what Linux really needs. Linux isn't deficient, but when people point out these things, it tells us "oh, maybe we can set more user-friendly defaults for touchpads in the xorg.conf - or create a small front end to edit them".
These reviews will only make Linux stronger.
Comcast should have put the limits in terms of GB, but I think we can understand the limits they have put down.
/. people) to be around 4MB. It's what Apple uses as a benchmark as well as many others. It's a decent estimation. That puts Comcast's limit at 120GB per month. If you assume 2-3MP images of around 1MB a piece, the limit is around 250GB.
Songs are considered (by non
Those are limits that the vast majority of people will not come up against. If you downloaded Ubuntu every single day for a month, you would hit 21GB. If you downloaded a high res Xvid movie every day for a month (1.4GB a piece), you would hit 42GB.
Suffice it to say, the limit is high. It's high enough that for almost everyone, it doesn't matter that it exists.
Oh, for comparison's sake, you would have to fully load a T1 connection over a quarter of a month to hit the 120GB limit. You would have to be using more than half a T1 connection to hit the 250GB mark. Cable is a shared resource. If you need a dedicated resource, maybe a T1 is right for you. At some point, nothing is unlimited. We're lucky that the internet adapts so well to sharing that 99.9% of people can pay very little for a lot, but some people need dedicated resources.
If you are using a piece of BSD-licensed code, you must forever obey those three terms. They allow you to LINK code against any code - GPL, proprietary, whatever. BUT, you must always reproduce the copyright notice and the list of conditions. Nothing gives you the right to remove them.
So, you can create a derivative work that uses both GPL and BSD code, but that BSD code hasn't become GPL'd and you must still obey the terms of the BSD license. This is a common misconception because the BSD license's terms are so liberal. So, Linux (and other GPL projects) can appropriate code from the BSD world provided that they obey the three terms listed in the BSD license. GPL projects can add GPL code to BSD code in the same file, but until the BSD code is gone from that file - which would probably happen over years of rewrites - they have to obey those three clauses. No where does the BSD license say "you can disobey these clauses because you've changed the license."
Enforceability of contracts is what makes the GPL work. If the GPL world says it doesn't work when it's someone else's license, their projects are in deep trouble. And to think, this whole mess could be solved by simply removing that stupid relicense crap which has almost no practical implication other than GPL-ego.
I think there is still a difference. A lot of web advertising is pay per click and not per impression so not seeing it does affect the site. There's also the fact that if users are blocking ads (yet they're still being downloaded), advertisers lower their cost per impression rates (at least in the long run).
While Viacom was stupid in this matter, they are techhnically correct (the best kind of correct ;-)). He did infringe Viacom's copyright - they own everything surrounding his clip that was a part of that program.
Now, he could easily countersue Viacom for copyright infringement to the tune of lots of money, but that doesn't mean that Viacom doesn't still own that work they produced around the infringement.
Basically, you are allowed to link GPL'd code to BSD code. So if I wrote "The boy hit the baseball" under the BSD license and you alter it to "The large boy hit the baseball well" under the GPL, the original statement is still available for use under the BSD license - even in your second statement. As long as they remove your GPL'd addition (the intertwined words "large" and "well"), they are free to use it under the BSD's terms.
The practical point is that the BSD code, when linked with GPL code, must adhere to the restrictions of both licenses. Most people just say that it has been relicensed under the GPL. That isn't exactly true. From most practical standpoints, the BSD license has so few restrictions that it doesn't matter, but technically that BSD code is still under the BSD license and it's requirements must be met.
So, that BSD code can easily be linked and intertwined with GPL code, but those few requirements of the BSD license must be met so long as there is any BSD code in the GPL'd derivative work.
The issue is that Microsoft has given indemnities to customers of companies like Novell. Seeing that, the FSF decided "let's make it so that the GPL v3 means those indemnifications mean that M$ can never sue free software users even if they aren't Novell customers".
I guess I'm one of those ends don't justify the means people. M$ shouldn't be suing FOSS, but you can't create a new version of a license and retroactively apply it to M$. We'd all be yelling at the top of our lungs if MS retroactively altered their Windows XP license so that it, say, required to be renewed every year for a fee. And there are loopholes - how many agreements say things like "we can change this agreement without notifying users and continued use is considered agreement with the updated terms."
Let's fight for real progress rather than shady legal maneuvering - because, let's face it, the evil companies will always be better at it!
First, no one is talking about (or they shouldn't be if they are) a blank check to violate copyrights. They would be allowed to violate copyrights of a value equivalent to the estimated value of the loss created by the United States' alleged improper behavior. If that loss is estimated to be $3bn, they could be given permission to violate $3bn in copyrights.
The more important question is why does Antigua respect American copyrights at all? Well, because they gain from respecting them. It's part of free and fair trade. You aren't just allowed to take something from someone. Along the same lines, you aren't allowed to bar someone from importing goods or providing services to your citizens unless they is a defendable reason - such as an authentic health and safety standard.
The WTO is the body that makes sure everyone plays by the rules. It is a voluntary association and people can leave it - and then make whatever laws they want. So, Antigua can leave the WTO and violate copyrights as much as they want - the problem is that WTO countries then can't/won't trade with them and so they loose a lot more than they would gain.
In this case, the United States would have to prove that online gambling is sufficiently worse and different from traditional gambling (which is legal in the US) - a reason why traditional gambling doesn't pose a threat to their population, but that online gambling does. Antigua needs to prove that the US regulations on online gambling don't actually protect the American people, but are rather meant to give American companies the advantage over Antiguan companies.
This isn't some weird global government looking to get rid of sovereignty. This is about using logic to determine when rules are meant to be discriminatory based on national origin and when something is a genuine health or safety standard. The US can make the argument that online gambling becomes too accessible and is therefore a much greater danger than traditional gambling. Antigua can argue that it's the same thing that happens at casinos. A court will decide which arguments hold weight based on evidence.
No one will like this suggestion, but I think it's a valid one. ISPs should start charging for bandwidth used just like electric, gas, and other utilities. Right now, they have "unlimited" plans. This gives ISPs a great incentive to try and control what you do online. It just doesn't cost the same to serve the user who just browses the web (at maybe 100k a page which happens sporadically as users have to take time to read the page) and the user who decides that they want to use their cable modem as a movie downloading service - or even legitimate uses like downloading a new Linux distro every week. ISPs shouldn't care how you use your connection - they should only care how much bandwidth you use. ISPs shouldn't even care whether your bittorrents are illegal or legitimate. That has no affect on them. The amount of data transfered does. So, for the sake of network neutrality, for the sake of our freedom to use the internet how we want to use it, we need usage fees.