I don't know much about Spring in particular, but depending on the license it's perfectly legal to download it, learn how to build it, and make someone pay you to install it. Charge whatever you can get; try to keep a lid on how easy it is. Attributing it to yourself would break the license, but it would be *your breach, not the client's.
"If you use any open source code in your company's software, your failure to comply with the legal conditions for doing so (such as the GPL) can and will put you in close communication with your lawyers if the original coder ever finds out you've ripped his code in secret."
The good news is that policy from the highest levels at the free software foundation is "never let a request for damages interfere with a settlement for compliance." So if a manager finds that they are noncompliant, they will get guidance (from Moglen) about how to get back into compliance, rather than a lawsuit.
On the whole, it seems like a much friendlier proposition that having a team of attorneys crawl over every vendor's EULA with a microscope.
The artists formerly known as ISPs would like very much for us to think that the Internet is something that they provide to us, rather than what it is: an increasingly-all-pervasive state of affairs where everyone is connected to everyone else -- with or without Verizon, ATT, and friends.
I'm not saying a cabal of these guys got together and tried to revamp our way of speaking. I'm just saying, words have meanings and we forget that at our own peril.
I'm not gonna do 'em all 'cause this article makes my head a splode. I'll just do the 'Security' section.
"Issue #4 (or 3 or whatever). Security "People say Linux is more secure, but they are forgetting that lots of people on Groklaw use pseudonyms. If this doesn't amount to a serious security vulnerability, I don't know what does." (note: paraphrased, not actually a direct quote)
Truly. There isn't even any point (that I can see) in responding to it; the guy's ignorance does all the work for you... I mean, do you respond to the guy on the street who's howling "I'm a buffalo! I'm a buffalo!"
Get on the phone and/or drive around. If you're not out in Butte, Montana, there will be a quality locally owned shop within a few miles. Worth using the phone, even. And I hate phones.
"This way, what I want is there in WRITING, plain as day." "S-h-i-t-t-y P-i-z-z-a"
TFA: "In the Privacy Statement of Windows Update Microsoft grants itself fairly far-reaching rights. Thus the information collected by the Redmond-based behemoth includes the computer make and model, version information for the operating system, browser, and any other Microsoft software for which updates might be available, Plug&Play ID numbers of hardware devices, region and language setting, Globally Unique Identifier (GUID), Product ID and Product Key, BIOS name, revision number, and revision date"
Kinda sad that we just assume letting vendors capture all this info is part of the game (i.e. necessary to make the update work right). Wrong. When I do "yum upgrade" -- as far as I know -- not a single piece of information about my system goes up the wire. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Namely: It wasn't CSPAN that went after Pelosi for posting vids. Summary is incorrect.
"This follows the network claiming Speaker of the House Pelosi's use of C-Span videos on her site violated their copyright."
Linked article makes clear: "The House Republican Study Committee is accusing the California Democrat of illegally pilfering video content from C-Span and using it on that blog for partisan purposes."
I've always been of two minds about whether the drug industry was a good example of patents being cost-effective, because I suspect that very good technology will soon emerge that makes pharma R&D less expensive, by making it primarily a data-processing (esp. simulation) issue. Seems like this tech might be the first piece of that puzzle?
"the world would be a whole lot better off. No pressure calls (just to touch base, yeah right) would mean people would only buy what they needed, not what they were talked into buying."
You're describing a large-scale movement from "push" technology and marketing to "pull" mechanisms. I advise you and OP to read Cluetrain: http://www.cluetrain.com/book/index.html
I agree with your assessment of the situation that would ensue. But I think the net effect (pun intended) would basically be that a whole new generation of creators use CC or other sharing-friendly licenses for their work. Also, these creators would more-or-less *only be looking to free culture for input material -- it just wouldn't be worth the legal wrangling to figure out how one can use/remix/etc. a conventionally-copyrighted work.
Since we're talking about big pictures, I could see a real "fork" developing between those who cling to the old ways and those who embrace net mentality. Since I'm a free-culture advocate, I suspect the latter would outperform the former and become dominant (this is a 30-40 year process)
It is true that greater Lx adoption may start to look enticing to the crapware guys, but don't forget that an OEM can compete on things other than price. Namely: *features.
Dell or HP could easily develop a GNU/Linux system optimized for their hardware. It would run circles around a comparable XP installation, and it would include with an Office Suite.
There are also other ways to compete on price: with kernel optimization, a 2 GHz/512MB RAM machine (read: cheap) can outperform an XP machine with higher specs. I'd even like some manufacturer to experiment with one of the business-card (50MB) distros that can be loaded completely into ram (with 400 MB left over). Try one of those if you haven't... talk about the Wow starting now...
Basically, it's normal for the co. to protect themselves against you going in there, learning how they do everything, then duplicating their business/technology models for their competitors. Not unfair, as far as that goes.
But the contract I was looking at overreached by a *shocking degree, claiming "exclusive ownership" of any *idea "capable of being used in, or in connection with, the business... " for a period of 6 months.
I was able to get them to adjust these terms, and in fact to admit that any programmer who signed such a thing had to be insane. But YMMV.
"In essence, Google is saying to you and to other copyright owners: 'Trust us -- you're protected. We'll keep the digital copies secure, we'll only show snippets, we won't harm you, we'll promote you,' "
Bad news, Rubin: Google is exactly right to say that. Fair Use Rule #4 evaluates "the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work." And I don't think it's hard to show that prominence on a Google property affects this potential market *extremely positively.
Yeah, I never understood the appeal of Ubuntu and am diehard Fedora. The sudo business was very odd to me. You can run a command as root by using "sudo", but you enter your *own password? What gives?
In other news, Most Annoying Distro of the Year award will always go to: *Any distro that tells me to insert the installation CD #1, at any time, for any reason. I don't have the installation CDs. Get it off the net.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know much about Spring in particular, but depending on the license it's perfectly legal to download it, learn how to build it, and make someone pay you to install it. Charge whatever you can get; try to keep a lid on how easy it is. Attributing it to yourself would break the license, but it would be *your breach, not the client's.
"If you use any open source code in your company's software, your failure to comply with the legal conditions for doing so (such as the GPL) can and will put you in close communication with your lawyers if the original coder ever finds out you've ripped his code in secret."
The good news is that policy from the highest levels at the free software foundation is "never let a request for damages interfere with a settlement for compliance." So if a manager finds that they are noncompliant, they will get guidance (from Moglen) about how to get back into compliance, rather than a lawsuit.
On the whole, it seems like a much friendlier proposition that having a team of attorneys crawl over every vendor's EULA with a microscope.
The artists formerly known as ISPs would like very much for us to think that the Internet is something that they provide to us, rather than what it is: an increasingly-all-pervasive state of affairs where everyone is connected to everyone else -- with or without Verizon, ATT, and friends.
I'm not saying a cabal of these guys got together and tried to revamp our way of speaking. I'm just saying, words have meanings and we forget that at our own peril.
I'm not gonna do 'em all 'cause this article makes my head a splode. I'll just do the 'Security' section.
"Issue #4 (or 3 or whatever). Security
"People say Linux is more secure, but they are forgetting that lots of people on Groklaw use pseudonyms. If this doesn't amount to a serious security vulnerability, I don't know what does."
(note: paraphrased, not actually a direct quote)
I loved that
I have decided that Mr Enderle deserves our pity, not our scorn. And I'm not kidding.
Truly. There isn't even any point (that I can see) in responding to it; the guy's ignorance does all the work for you... I mean, do you respond to the guy on the street who's howling "I'm a buffalo! I'm a buffalo!"
Hm. That site doesn't seem to like my browser. I believe they'll remain a fringe player in this space until they realize people like to have choices.
Um... you guys are both going to need a "-.5, Missed Very Dry Humor" to go with that. UbuntuDupe's post was clearly intended to be funny.
Yarg. That stuff is *barely pizza.
Get on the phone and/or drive around. If you're not out in Butte, Montana, there will be a quality locally owned shop within a few miles. Worth using the phone, even. And I hate phones.
"This way, what I want is there in WRITING, plain as day."
"S-h-i-t-t-y P-i-z-z-a"
'Yum says "Send me the package list for FC6 on the x86 architecture", and that's it.'
Also note that I can make yum say this even though my machine and OS are not like that. I can make yum say damn near anything
TFA: "In the Privacy Statement of Windows Update Microsoft grants itself fairly far-reaching rights. Thus the information collected by the Redmond-based behemoth includes the computer make and model, version information for the operating system, browser, and any other Microsoft software for which updates might be available, Plug&Play ID numbers of hardware devices, region and language setting, Globally Unique Identifier (GUID), Product ID and Product Key, BIOS name, revision number, and revision date"
Kinda sad that we just assume letting vendors capture all this info is part of the game (i.e. necessary to make the update work right). Wrong. When I do "yum upgrade" -- as far as I know -- not a single piece of information about my system goes up the wire. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Namely: It wasn't CSPAN that went after Pelosi for posting vids. Summary is incorrect.
"This follows the network claiming Speaker of the House Pelosi's use of C-Span videos on her site violated their copyright."
Linked article makes clear: "The House Republican Study Committee is accusing the California Democrat of illegally pilfering video content from C-Span and using it on that blog for partisan purposes."
The RSC was pist, not CSPAN
I might have been right about a prediction I made earlier today?
couldn't resist
I've always been of two minds about whether the drug industry was a good example of patents being cost-effective, because I suspect that very good technology will soon emerge that makes pharma R&D less expensive, by making it primarily a data-processing (esp. simulation) issue. Seems like this tech might be the first piece of that puzzle?
"the world would be a whole lot better off. No pressure calls (just to touch base, yeah right) would mean people would only buy what they needed, not what they were talked into buying."
You're describing a large-scale movement from "push" technology and marketing to "pull" mechanisms. I advise you and OP to read Cluetrain: http://www.cluetrain.com/book/index.html
If you haven't already
I agree with your assessment of the situation that would ensue. But I think the net effect (pun intended) would basically be that a whole new generation of creators use CC or other sharing-friendly licenses for their work. Also, these creators would more-or-less *only be looking to free culture for input material -- it just wouldn't be worth the legal wrangling to figure out how one can use/remix/etc. a conventionally-copyrighted work.
Since we're talking about big pictures, I could see a real "fork" developing between those who cling to the old ways and those who embrace net mentality. Since I'm a free-culture advocate, I suspect the latter would outperform the former and become dominant (this is a 30-40 year process)
It is true that greater Lx adoption may start to look enticing to the crapware guys, but don't forget that an OEM can compete on things other than price. Namely: *features.
Dell or HP could easily develop a GNU/Linux system optimized for their hardware. It would run circles around a comparable XP installation, and it would include with an Office Suite.
There are also other ways to compete on price: with kernel optimization, a 2 GHz/512MB RAM machine (read: cheap) can outperform an XP machine with higher specs. I'd even like some manufacturer to experiment with one of the business-card (50MB) distros that can be loaded completely into ram (with 400 MB left over). Try one of those if you haven't... talk about the Wow starting now...
I had a rejected /. story on this topic a couple weeks ago. Details here: http://btetc.blogspot.com/2007/02/have-you-sold-yo ur-brain.html
Basically, it's normal for the co. to protect themselves against you going in there, learning how they do everything, then duplicating their business/technology models for their competitors. Not unfair, as far as that goes.
But the contract I was looking at overreached by a *shocking degree, claiming "exclusive ownership" of any *idea "capable of being used in, or in connection with, the business... " for a period of 6 months.
I was able to get them to adjust these terms, and in fact to admit that any programmer who signed such a thing had to be insane. But YMMV.
"Wed, 17 May 95 13:44:40 EDT"
The bad news, of course, is that I haven't seen a tangible sign of change in the intervening 12 years.
I only ever seem to like the odd-numbered FC versions. Not sure why...
"In essence, Google is saying to you and to other copyright owners: 'Trust us -- you're protected. We'll keep the digital copies secure, we'll only show snippets, we won't harm you, we'll promote you,' "
Bad news, Rubin: Google is exactly right to say that. Fair Use Rule #4 evaluates "the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work." And I don't think it's hard to show that prominence on a Google property affects this potential market *extremely positively.
Okay, but I mean: /", enter her password, and I'm out of business?
My cat can log in with her account, type "sudo rm -Rf
Yeah, I never understood the appeal of Ubuntu and am diehard Fedora. The sudo business was very odd to me. You can run a command as root by using "sudo", but you enter your *own password? What gives?
In other news, Most Annoying Distro of the Year award will always go to:
*Any distro that tells me to insert the installation CD #1, at any time, for any reason. I don't have the installation CDs. Get it off the net.
This crap makes me love being a Texan