I agree, I first used Free software in 1987, at least Emacs, GCC, and a pile of BSD software. GCC was already considered one of the leading compilers out there, and the BSD software considered the way to go when it came to networking computers. It was at Carnegie Mellon, and they were just finishing up phasing out a TOPS network for a predominately BSD-licensed Unix network with a lot of home grown bells and whistles called Andrew.
In 1987, Sun Microsystems, the "young upstart" company of the data center, was shipping all of their Unix servers and workstations with SunOS, their own take on BSD Unix. They were beating established companies by strategic use of heavy cost cuts both in hardware and in software, partially by co-opting large amounts of Free Software code for their commercial ends (mostly BSD software).
By 1995, Fortune 500 companies were already seeing Linux in their companies. 1994 also was the year that the Free/Open/NetBSD codebases were truly freed of all the prior legal complications, increasing the freedom and popularity of those systems.
Free Software was certainly a very real and growing part of the American computer industry in the 80's and 90's, and the author does his readers a disservice by ignoring this.
Open Source? That was a marketing term invented in 1998, not particluarly relevant for a book that stops in 1995.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, I am certainly not a maritime lawyer. The above should not be interpreted as legal advice. If you intend to land any space capsules, please double check where it's likely to go before you launch.
Just so you know, there's an excellent fan site for Jayce and the Wheeled warriors called The Root. A friend of mine is a huge Jayce fan and showed me the site a while ago. Enjoy.
Can someone spread some light on how they'd prove how old their code is?
In this day and age, there's no such thing as proof. There are ways (both low and high tech) to falsify almost any piece of evidence. Thankfully, the court system is already set up to handle this.
From what I understand, in most trials there are issues of fact (he did this to them at this time) and issue of law (and because of that he should be convicted of this charge). Early in the process, SCO is supposed to file documents asserting (among other things) the facts as they understand them. IBM is supposed to reply with (among other things) the facts as they understand them, including pointing out where the agree (eg. IBM stipulates that the plaintiff is, in fact, called the Santa Cruz Organization, Inc), and where they disagree (eg. IBM at no point transmitted any part of foo.c to persons outside the company).
If they disagree on significant factual issues (and don't settle, and IBM doesn't eat SCO to make the headache go away), then the case will eventually end up in a trial by jury. The jury's main job is to listen to both sides evidence regarding the facts of the case, and decide whose evidence is more convincing.
If there's no dispute on the facts, juries can be dispensed with, and a judge can just decide how the law applies. You get fun things like Summary Judgements as in the Grokster case if everyone's on the same page as far as facts go.
If SCO produces a falsified source document from 1998 with GPL code pasted in, IBM can rebut with a witness from IBM showing that in 1998 they received a different document, including the SCO (Novell?) branded CD and the matching checksums from the printed and dated documentation. They could also add a witness from a third company showing that in 1998 they received a different document too. I don't think a jury will have a hard time deciding relative merits of such evidence.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, the above should not be considered to be legal advice. Some states may permit Judges to determine issues of fact and not require a Jury for that under some circumstances.
Even if this is true, shouldn't they have contacted Linus and had him remove the offending code? I'm sure he would have.
Since they are claiming Trade Secret status on the System V code, isn't failure to perform even basic attempts (such as contacting Linus) to minimise the impact of this leak enough to void the Trade Secret status of their code?
The more SCO speaks, the less credible this lawsuit sounds.
Overall conclusion:.Net is *NOT* a competitor for Java, it *IS* a wholesale replacement for Win32 and the current Windows operating systems.
Large aspects of.Net make it seem like a competitor to Java (eg. CLR, C#), but you also make a decent case for it to be the replacement for the aging and hard-to-scale Win32 API.
I suspect that it was designed to be both, to replace Win32, and compete with Java. Time will tell which is more important to them, when they have a design decision that involves the two goals resulting in conflicting answers. I suspect you're right, though, they have more need to dump Win32 then they have to compete with Java.
99% of software is not distributed under copyright laws anyway
Wrong. Well over 99% of software is distributed under copyright law. The only software not covered by copyright law is software in the Public Domain, either by age or by explicitly being released to the Public Domain. Since as far as I know, the only software old enough to be public domain by age is Ada Byron's guide and some loom cards, that's pretty much limited to the tiny handful that's been explicitly released. Everything else is covered by copyright law, regardless of EULA's, DRM, License servers, dongles, trade secrets, whatever.
In fact, the copyright laws are the original reason for the license agreements. With the exception of game consoles, most software is distributed in a form different than the form you need to use it in (CD, compressed executable, historically 9-track tape or a pile of floppies, whatever). To install the software, you have to copy it. The license explicitly grants you the right to do so, under copyright law, and describes in detail what rights you have and have not been granted.
The biggest problem with EULA's is that companies use them to take away rights unrelated to copyrights. People have to put up with them, because without an EULA, because of copyright law, any software installation can erupt into a legal battle where the user has to establish fair use. Companies don't want to put up with that, so they deal with bad EULA's because they don't like the alternative.
If copyright law were to go away entirely, there would be no need to deal with EULA's. Sure, there still would be software that's only offered with a contract shackling it, but they will be at an economic disadvantage to software that's just plain sold, since you can do more with software that isn't shackled by a contract.
And the GPL is replaced by the General Public EULA. If copyright law were to go away, the GPL will be moot, nobody would need to accept it to modify or redistribute the program. Software currently distributed under the GPL would lose their copyleft nature, but that's a small price to pay for the overall gain in freedom.
Q: How would the lack of copyright laws promote source code distribution? Because software distributed without source code would have no different protection under the law than software with source code, but software with source code would help the customer more. Customers like it when the companies they do business with give them flexibility and self-control. Software distributed with source code would be at an economic advantage to software without source code.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, the above should not be considered legal advice.
If Madonna creates a new recording, and it is not explicitly released to the Public Domain, it is copyrighted. Whether she owns the copyright or someone else does is a different question; as I understand it, the producer traditionally owns the copyright to a music recording, not the artist, but the industry is known for complicated contracts so it's anybody's guess who actually owns the copyrights.
If the RIAA has a license with the right parties to redistribute this work without restriction, then I would think it would be perfectly legal for them to put up a Grokkster node and distribute it. Users downloading the file would be downloading it legally. The legality of such users redistributing it is a complex legal question that I'm not going to try to properly answer. I would presume that the RIAA would say redistribution was illegal, but your argument that under the circumstances, sharing was assumed and therefore allowed might hold real water here. If the RIAA is working in certain ways with the police, Entrapment may also be a defense.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, the above should not be interpreted as legal advice. Redistributing copyrighted works over the internet without a license carries with it a high risk of legal complications, I suggest getting professional legal advice before considering it.
A copyright is any of the exclusive rights granted to the author of a work under the Berne Convention, or under local copyright laws, such as USC Title 17 for those of us in the US. These exclusive rights can be transferred, as occurs with Copyright Assignment to the Free Software Foundation, but even such a transfer isn't the copyright itself, but a transfer of ownership of copyright.
The GPL not a copyright, it is a license, and a non-exclusive one at that. A person who makes use of the GPL to redistribute or modify software doesn't have a copyright for the software, they have permission from the copyright holder to do certain things under certain conditions. The GPL makes use of copyright law, but that doesn't make it a copyright.
Music licensing is more complicated. Sometimes a license is given to redistribute a work, or to use a sample in a recording; sometimes music is licensed en masse. Sometimes copyright is assigned to various parties, sometimes it isn't, sometimes it is assumed as part of a "work-for-hire" contract. Sometimes the copyright is split, the songwriter having copyrights for the lyrics, the band having copyrights for the score, the producer having copyrights for the studio recording, and these can get licensed in whatever ways. But, again, the license is not the copyright.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, the above should not be interpreted as legal advice. Determining which parties own which copyrights can be a complicated issue demanding professional legal help.
Re:Nothing happened to OS/2
on
Winex 3.0 Released
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· Score: 3, Informative
HanzoSan wrote:
OS/2 only lost because they didnt try. I didnt see a single OS/2 on any computer except for maybe IBMs computers and eventually IBM even took it off their own computers.
IBM certainly tried with OS/2, but not until it was too late.
OS/2 version 1 was too slow for the machines of the day, and shipped without a GUI partially because Microsoft fscked IBM over on their joint development deal. IBM pushed this version, but got laughed at because nobody wanted to run it.
Version 2 was much better, and had a good GUI but developers and IBM marketing really didn't get behind it, feeling burned from Version 1.
Version 3 (The first OS/2 Warp) was even better, it was faster, the machines were faster, the GUI was really polished, critical apps had native versions, developers started getting interested, IBM's marketting really pushed it well. OS/2 Warp sold more retail copies in its first year than its contemporary, Windows 95. The problem was, that was the year that the heavy duty Windows OEM licensing really started, OS/2 was flooded out of the market by computers shipped with Windows 95 preinstalled.
By Version 4, IBM knew that OS/2 really couldn't compete in the wild against Microsoft's OEM deals, so they focusesed their marketing on their core strength, corporate sales, and did reasonably well.
So if OS/2 did bad it was because of IBM, I had wanted to get OS/2 Warp and an IBM but the cost was ridiculous, this is why I never purchased it and its the same reason I never owned a mac.
While IBM certainly holds most of the responsibility for OS/2's failure, Microsoft shares some of the blame too, for backing out of their codevelopment contract, and anticompetitive OEM deals.
Granted, none of this is stuff I would expect a gas station attendant to be playing with, but it's apparently increasingly important for researchers and engineers.
Actually, the reason you use the electoral college I assume that, from the "you" and the Australian web address for your account, that you're not in the US. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
had to do with the mechanics of actually running an election back in the 1800s. It was deemed (probably rightly) far to difficult to orchestrate an election for President amongst all of the States, so they fobbed off to the lesser task of electing the electoral college. The college then get together, several months later, to elect the President. While this was certainly part of the inspiration behind the Electoral College, the big reason for rejecting the popular vote was to prevent New York and Virginia (the two biggest states at the time) from running off with the elections (Virginia got a surprising number of early presidents anyway).
The electoral college was always expected to closely tally with the popular vote; this is one reason why the electoral college gets adjusted from time to time, based on population shifts. The Electoral College is expected to deviate from the popular vote in a very predictable manner (a slight shift in the favor of small states). If they wanted it to closely tally with the popular vote, they simply would have made it the number of Representatives, rather than the number of Representatives plus Senators. Taking out the "Senatoral" EC votes, the 2000 election would have had Gore win with 225 or 224 votes (depending on Delaware, who had one abstention) to Bush's 211. An even closer match to popular vote can be had if states broke down their EC represntation by congressional district.
It doesn't get adjusted to correct for on population shifts, it gets adjusted based on the total number of Senators and Representatives. The number of Senators gets adjusted due to adding (or removing) states, the number of Representatives gets adjusted due to population shifts.
The checks and balances to prevent targetted pork-barelling is actually the domain of the Senate. Because the more populated states have the same amount of representation as the less populated states, the smaller states have a much higher representation per capita. There are no checks and balances to prevent targetted pork-barrelling, that's why it happens so often.
Unfortunately, the concentration of political power into two mainstream parties causes all sorts of break downs in the checks and balances... Yes, sadly it does.
Popular elections, legislative elections, gubanatorial appointment, those are pretty much the only ones I can think of. My point is, if the goal is to have the senators represent the state, wouldn't it also make sense to have the state choose how to select its representatives?
Yes, voting is a state matter, but Article I Section 4 of the constitution gives Congress substantial powers to regulate voting. I have not yet researched as to if or to what extent such regulations may affect voting reform issues such as these.
Completely federalizing voting is almost guaranteed to be a mess, just trying to see if I could come up with a system that would work well simultaneously for Rhode Island and Montana hurt my head, not to mention Alaska and Hawaii.
I do feel that nationwide standards of voting are appropriate, and that would be a federal thing. For example, "each vote must directly result in a paper ballot, available to election officials for manual recounts" would rule out many of the worst computer voting systems I've heard about.
Hmm, things that got better after being federalized, you're right, that is a tough one. Highways definately got better after Eisenhower partially federalized them. Civil Liberties have clearly improved since the Federal Government took away some of the States' right to say that one person is worth less than another. Our military strength has clearly improved since the increased federalization after the Civil War, but that probably would have happened anyway with strong State Militias and a smaller US Army. I'm sure there are other examples, but they often pale in comparison to the things that Federalization made worse.
I'm definately glad to hear that others are also taking an interest in voting reform. I am seriously thinking of writing some party agnostic pamphlets to inform people on the benefits of certain voting reforms (voting as civic duty, splitting each State's EC ballot, and Condorcet voting). If I come up with them, I'll send you a link.
I find this discussion on topics that we mostly agree on very interesting, and don't want it to risk falling into a flame war on the things we strongly disagree on. In this vein, let me just say that, if you were to run for office, and were closely following the platform of the Constitution Party you link to in your signature, I would have many reasons not to vote for you. That doesn't mean we can't agree on the points we agree on, tho:-)
How about, rather than the original system, or the 17th amendment, just replace the 17th with an amendment saying that the states get to decide how their senators are elected?
And yes, I am definately for Condorcet voting, do you know if imlementing it is "just" a matter of convincing each state to change its voting methodology, or if Congress has made a law under Article I, Section 4 or something limiting the states ability to do this?
The media reporting the results of exit polls is not in and off itself a bad thing. The way the TV reported them was, they made it sound like states were already irrevocably committed to one candidate. What if one candidate was soundly favored by elderly and jobless who vote during the day, and the other was soundly favored by 9-to-5+overtimers (who miraculously started to vote again) who voted after work. Early exit polls could be reported accurately and still be a bad predictor of the result of the election.
I think the media has been scared away from reporting exit poll results altogether, for at least a while.
The nature of the ballots, and the fact that the whole excercise was legally moot pretty much meant that they had to say "probably" there. The fact that it was still very close clinched it.
I disagree when you say "The political pressure for having each state represented the same is far far less than it was during the first century of this country's existence" though. That is true only because the federal government has usurped much of the states' authority.
I didn't say that was good, merely that it was true. Mainstream opinion lost faith in States' Rights when it got tied too closely to slavery and later to organized racism. It's really unfortunate, since many things are really best handled on a state-by-state basis.
The 17th Amendment should be repealed immediately
You want to go back to the days when the State Legislatures rubber stamped the majority party's choice for Senator, and the people had little direct say in the process? I don't think you'll find a lot of people agreeing with you there. That also seriously hurts third party power.
the federal gov't shrunk to about 1/5 its size, and those responsibilities returned to the states.
A noble goal, but a potential economic disaster if not handled correctly. Given the current climate, just getting the State and Federal taxes reformed to the point where this is feasable would be a political nightmare.
There is a delicate balance at many points in the Constitution, between making sure each individual is represented the same, and making sure each state is represented the same. Since the states have always had differing populations, it is impossible to achieve both balances simultaneously. The electoral college system is an attempt to win at both, how well it succeeds is debatable.
Yes, it does make the individual in Montana have a marginally more significant vote than the individual in New York.
The political pressure for having each state represented the same is far far less than it was during the first century of this country's existence. While I'm pretty undecided as to whether dumping the electoral college is a good thing or not, I certainly think it is possible now, if enough people want it gone.
Yes, the Electoral College sometimes gets in the way of third party candidates, which IMHO is a bad thing. The Electoral College system as layed out in the constitution really isn't the biggest problem here, far bigger is how the states have decided to make their College votes all or nothing (Maine has a much more healthy system here, but it's so small and homogenous, nobody has seen it work yet), and how most states have the two main parties run their Boards of Elections.
While I certainly agree that the last presidential election had problems, your analysis of the problems could use a little help.
Our popular vote is deliberately irrelevant for the presidential election; this is to prevent a few populous states from running off with the election. Hypothetical situation: the electoral college is thrown out, and two candidates are running for the popular vote in an election. Candidate A has run a very tightly targetted (read: lots of gifts and pork to specific locations) campaign of promises to key population centers, and has almost 100% of the vote in California, Texas and New York, but has only about 40% of the vote in every other state. Even though 47 out of 50 states prefer B, A has a significant chance of winning. This is why we use the electoral college rather than popular vote. If you don't like it, changing the rule requires a constitutional amendment, by all means work towards getting it, many people agree with you.
The Governor of Florida has no obligation to pay attention to the popular vote of the nation, or even Florida (except during his own election, of course). The Governor of Florida is responsible for executing the laws passed by the Florida State Legislature to regulate operation of the election. There are those who allege that he did not do this, that he bent (or allowed his staff and allies to bend) these laws to benefit his brother at the expense of the Gore campaign. Any evidence along these lines is sparse, and it is doubtful that it will ever be proven one way or the other.
The "confusion of the divits" was tragic, and underscored the need of Florida (and most other states for that matter) to reevaluate the systems they use for voting. Many countries do fine just marking an X on a piece of paper and hand counting the pieces of paper. Some countries have interesting higher tech ideas that may be worth considering. Regardless of what gets chosen, it's clear that using a stylus to punch holes in a piece of paper leaves a lot of room for confusion, for not having a clear understanding of the intent of the voter. Minimizing this confusion in the future is very important.
The amount of time they spent investigating was not wasted time IMHO. The amount of time they spent bickering about how to investigate was, and I considered both candidates responsible for that.
Incidentally, are you aware that, in 2001, a group of news agencies carefully examined all the "rejected" ballots in Florida and determined that: A) if Gore had successfully received the partial recount he had requested, he still would have lost; and B) if Bush received the statewide recount that he halfheartedly countersuggested, Gore probably would have won.
So, yes, I consider Bush to be an illegitimate president, simply because a thorough recount indicates that Gore won Florida, and therefore won the election. I don't blame any "ignoring" of the popular vote for the wrong person being in the White House, or any alleged corruption by Bush's brother or campaign manager. I blame simply the sorry state of our voting systems in this country, and the inadequate set of laws governing recounts in the state of Florida.
Just so you know, you don't need a PAC to lobby your own congresscritter. Many congresscritters are happy to hear from their constituents, and really give some consideration to what they have to say. Sadly, senators often have a much less substantial relation to their constituents.
Also, even without cash (well, other than to buy stamps and paper, or to pay the phone bill), you can get involved. A congressman almost always has a local office in their district that they visit, for at least a few weeks while Congress is not in session. You might want to talk to his staff about getting some time to visit and talk directly while your representative is in town. If you get access, do your homework ahead of time and bring copies of supporting documents that you can give (executive summaries are nice too here).
You can also offer time. If your congresscritter is doing a good job, volunteer to help on their campaign. If your congresscritter is doing a bad job, look over there opposition and see if there's someone there you'd like to help out instead. Nothing modifies a congresscritter's opinion faster than popular support for an opponent with a contrary opinion. If you hate all of these bozos, consider running yourself.
Basically, the more involved and visible you are (in a friendly, non-wacko, non-stalker sort of way), the more likely the congresscritter is to give credibility to your opinion. Involved people don't just vote, they influence other peoples' votes, and that means a lot to someone who is up for reelection every two years.
One bit I almost forgot: If you manage other people, and the bad decision affects any of your people in any of the above ways, I would say you have an obligation to report the effect this decision will have on your people.
My rule of thumb for this is pretty similar whether I'm operating as a consultant, a contract programmer, or a just plain employee:
As a professional, you have a duty to inform your client (or employer) when they have made a bad decision, or are about to do something to their detriment, provided the decision directly relates to your scope of work. Obviously, this should be done with some tact and diplomacy, but this is part of professional ethics
You have no duty to force them to do the right thing. If you have informed them of their error and they persist, I suggest you make sure to inform them in writing, and make sure you save a copy the document you use to inform them and any response to this document. If they respond verbally, take notes at the time and save them with the file. File this on paper at home.
You have no duty to inform them of past mistakes. If a past mistake is getting in the way of your work, it is often more constructive to ignore the fact that their judgement was flawed in the past, and just point out the ways that your work changes things so that their system needs to change in X way (which incidentally will mitigate their prior bad decision).
You have no duty to inform them of a boneheaded decision outside of your scope of work. If you are hired solely to map out a network and program switches and routers accordingly, and you find out that half their users have blank passwords, that just isn't your problem. You don't have to get involved unless it touches on your scope of work. Note that a contractor usually has a much more limited scope than a salaried employee, so your mileage may vary on this point.
You do have a duty to complete your scope of work. If their decision prevents that, or even increases the risk of failure or schedule slippage, you have an obligation to tell them that, explicitly and in some detail. Again, file this document and their responses.
If you are a consultant or contract programmer, they have a duty to not violate their contract with you. If their decision violates the contract, you should tell them exactly how it does so. You might also want to tell them whether you would enforce the contract immediately, or reserve the right for later action, depending on the circumstances. File everything.
You have a duty to yourself to keep yourself healthy and safe. They have a duty to you to not work you harder than appropriate labor laws allow. If any of these are threatened by their decision, you have an obligation to inform them of this, explicitly and in some detail. Again, file all.
When you get home after finding out about a boneheaded decision is a perfect time for making sure your resume is up to date. Regardless of whether or not you intend to start hunting, it's always good to know it's up to date.
If their decision will make your employment less enjoyable, that is the time to consider pushing beyond the above. There are three main risks to pushing: pushing itself can make your job less enjoyable, pushing can lead to retaliation that makes your job less enjoyable, and pushing can lead to you losing your job (fired, or put in a position where you must quit). You must examine these risks, and the risks involved in doing nothing, and then you can decide if pushing is right for you in that situation. There's no hard and fast rule for whether or not to press an issue, and don't be surprised or offended if your coworkers make a different choice here than you do, their risks and tolerances are different.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, the above is not legal advice. Under some of the above scenarios, you should seriously consider retaining a lawyer
The Napster network was not only created by Napster, but existed primarily through Napster's software on both the client and server side. File transfers on Napster were generally done through the software supplied by Napster. Napster was expecting to use this network
Wake didn't create the network, the exact same network exists and shares files just fine without Wake. File transfers are not done using Wake. The student had no financial interest in Wake. I think these are substantial enough grounds to make the Napster decision inapplicable, yes.
If you want to look at it another way, the Network that the RIAA describes in their suit is not Wake, it's Wake + Microsoft's SMB services. If this lawsuit should exist at all, Microsoft should be one of the defendants. They, after all, wrote the software that is sharing the files on most of these people's machines, and wrote software instrumental in Wake's searching the files. They also have a financial interest in this network, a lot of money was paid to them by infringing students.
Sorry to go against the grain here but I love mozilla, it does everything I want, and fast. Yes, but Phoenix is significantly faster.
I installed the browser and mail on my machine that I use for mail, and just the browser on my machine at work. After years of waiting, all the functionality I need is complete, close to perfect even. I've got tabs, popup, image, and spam blocking too! Personally, I couldn't care less about the mail client, but I'm still waiting for a calendar component good enough to drop needing a separate Netscape 4.6 install just for the calendar. Everyone's needs are different, and a more modular approach like this is more likely to meet everyone's needs.
If you don't want one of the other components, don't #@$#%ing install them! (And quit yer whining.) From the Roadmap document, it's less about not having to install components and more about: A) Speeding up the toolkit; B) Improving extensibility; and C) Reorganizing development so it flows and scales better. This sounds really good to me.
Why would I want to go back to another half finished browser?? What's half finished about Phoenix? I use it constantly, works better than Mozilla 1.2 (haven't really looked at 1.3).
I think this decision is a mistake, and just serves to lose momentum. Since most of the momentum lately has been in components and add-ons, and switching to Phoenix makes them easier to develop, I think that this serves to increase momentum.
I think a better idea would be to work on making mozilla more modular and making other performance tweaks. Why reinvent the wheel again? Um, did you read the roadmap? That's exactly what this is about, making Mozilla more modular. XFCE was getting in the way of modularity, and making the "performance tweaks" you desire harder to do. Don't think of this as reinventing the wheel, think of it as redesigning the suspension (MacPherson Struts anyone?).
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I agree, I first used Free software in 1987, at least Emacs, GCC, and a pile of BSD software. GCC was already considered one of the leading compilers out there, and the BSD software considered the way to go when it came to networking computers. It was at Carnegie Mellon, and they were just finishing up phasing out a TOPS network for a predominately BSD-licensed Unix network with a lot of home grown bells and whistles called Andrew.
In 1987, Sun Microsystems, the "young upstart" company of the data center, was shipping all of their Unix servers and workstations with SunOS, their own take on BSD Unix. They were beating established companies by strategic use of heavy cost cuts both in hardware and in software, partially by co-opting large amounts of Free Software code for their commercial ends (mostly BSD software).
By 1995, Fortune 500 companies were already seeing Linux in their companies. 1994 also was the year that the Free/Open/NetBSD codebases were truly freed of all the prior legal complications, increasing the freedom and popularity of those systems.
Free Software was certainly a very real and growing part of the American computer industry in the 80's and 90's, and the author does his readers a disservice by ignoring this.
Open Source? That was a marketing term invented in 1998, not particluarly relevant for a book that stops in 1995.
According to The United Nations Convention on The Law of the Sea, Article 3, a nation can claim only up to 12 nautical miles as it's territorial waters.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, I am certainly not a maritime lawyer. The above should not be interpreted as legal advice. If you intend to land any space capsules, please double check where it's likely to go before you launch.
Just so you know, there's an excellent fan site for Jayce and the Wheeled warriors called The Root. A friend of mine is a huge Jayce fan and showed me the site a while ago. Enjoy.
rmadmin asks:
Can someone spread some light on how they'd prove how old their code is?
In this day and age, there's no such thing as proof. There are ways (both low and high tech) to falsify almost any piece of evidence. Thankfully, the court system is already set up to handle this.
From what I understand, in most trials there are issues of fact (he did this to them at this time) and issue of law (and because of that he should be convicted of this charge). Early in the process, SCO is supposed to file documents asserting (among other things) the facts as they understand them. IBM is supposed to reply with (among other things) the facts as they understand them, including pointing out where the agree (eg. IBM stipulates that the plaintiff is, in fact, called the Santa Cruz Organization, Inc), and where they disagree (eg. IBM at no point transmitted any part of foo.c to persons outside the company).
If they disagree on significant factual issues (and don't settle, and IBM doesn't eat SCO to make the headache go away), then the case will eventually end up in a trial by jury. The jury's main job is to listen to both sides evidence regarding the facts of the case, and decide whose evidence is more convincing.
If there's no dispute on the facts, juries can be dispensed with, and a judge can just decide how the law applies. You get fun things like Summary Judgements as in the Grokster case if everyone's on the same page as far as facts go.
If SCO produces a falsified source document from 1998 with GPL code pasted in, IBM can rebut with a witness from IBM showing that in 1998 they received a different document, including the SCO (Novell?) branded CD and the matching checksums from the printed and dated documentation. They could also add a witness from a third company showing that in 1998 they received a different document too. I don't think a jury will have a hard time deciding relative merits of such evidence.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, the above should not be considered to be legal advice. Some states may permit Judges to determine issues of fact and not require a Jury for that under some circumstances.
Even if this is true, shouldn't they have contacted Linus and had him remove the offending code? I'm sure he would have.
Since they are claiming Trade Secret status on the System V code, isn't failure to perform even basic attempts (such as contacting Linus) to minimise the impact of this leak enough to void the Trade Secret status of their code?
The more SCO speaks, the less credible this lawsuit sounds.
Yay! Adbusters :-)
Sloppy Elvis writes:
.Net is *NOT* a competitor for Java, it *IS* a wholesale replacement for Win32 and the current Windows operating systems.
.Net make it seem like a competitor to Java (eg. CLR, C#), but you also make a decent case for it to be the replacement for the aging and hard-to-scale Win32 API.
Overall conclusion:
Large aspects of
I suspect that it was designed to be both, to replace Win32, and compete with Java. Time will tell which is more important to them, when they have a design decision that involves the two goals resulting in conflicting answers. I suspect you're right, though, they have more need to dump Win32 then they have to compete with Java.
Anonymous Coward wrote:
99% of software is not distributed under copyright laws anyway
Wrong. Well over 99% of software is distributed under copyright law. The only software not covered by copyright law is software in the Public Domain, either by age or by explicitly being released to the Public Domain. Since as far as I know, the only software old enough to be public domain by age is Ada Byron's guide and some loom cards, that's pretty much limited to the tiny handful that's been explicitly released. Everything else is covered by copyright law, regardless of EULA's, DRM, License servers, dongles, trade secrets, whatever.
In fact, the copyright laws are the original reason for the license agreements. With the exception of game consoles, most software is distributed in a form different than the form you need to use it in (CD, compressed executable, historically 9-track tape or a pile of floppies, whatever). To install the software, you have to copy it. The license explicitly grants you the right to do so, under copyright law, and describes in detail what rights you have and have not been granted.
The biggest problem with EULA's is that companies use them to take away rights unrelated to copyrights. People have to put up with them, because without an EULA, because of copyright law, any software installation can erupt into a legal battle where the user has to establish fair use. Companies don't want to put up with that, so they deal with bad EULA's because they don't like the alternative.
If copyright law were to go away entirely, there would be no need to deal with EULA's. Sure, there still would be software that's only offered with a contract shackling it, but they will be at an economic disadvantage to software that's just plain sold, since you can do more with software that isn't shackled by a contract.
And the GPL is replaced by the General Public EULA.
If copyright law were to go away, the GPL will be moot, nobody would need to accept it to modify or redistribute the program. Software currently distributed under the GPL would lose their copyleft nature, but that's a small price to pay for the overall gain in freedom.
Q: How would the lack of copyright laws promote source code distribution?
Because software distributed without source code would have no different protection under the law than software with source code, but software with source code would help the customer more. Customers like it when the companies they do business with give them flexibility and self-control. Software distributed with source code would be at an economic advantage to software without source code.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, the above should not be considered legal advice.
If Madonna creates a new recording, and it is not explicitly released to the Public Domain, it is copyrighted. Whether she owns the copyright or someone else does is a different question; as I understand it, the producer traditionally owns the copyright to a music recording, not the artist, but the industry is known for complicated contracts so it's anybody's guess who actually owns the copyrights.
If the RIAA has a license with the right parties to redistribute this work without restriction, then I would think it would be perfectly legal for them to put up a Grokkster node and distribute it. Users downloading the file would be downloading it legally. The legality of such users redistributing it is a complex legal question that I'm not going to try to properly answer. I would presume that the RIAA would say redistribution was illegal, but your argument that under the circumstances, sharing was assumed and therefore allowed might hold real water here. If the RIAA is working in certain ways with the police, Entrapment may also be a defense.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, the above should not be interpreted as legal advice. Redistributing copyrighted works over the internet without a license carries with it a high risk of legal complications, I suggest getting professional legal advice before considering it.
A copyright is any of the exclusive rights granted to the author of a work under the Berne Convention, or under local copyright laws, such as USC Title 17 for those of us in the US. These exclusive rights can be transferred, as occurs with Copyright Assignment to the Free Software Foundation, but even such a transfer isn't the copyright itself, but a transfer of ownership of copyright.
The GPL not a copyright, it is a license, and a non-exclusive one at that. A person who makes use of the GPL to redistribute or modify software doesn't have a copyright for the software, they have permission from the copyright holder to do certain things under certain conditions. The GPL makes use of copyright law, but that doesn't make it a copyright.
Music licensing is more complicated. Sometimes a license is given to redistribute a work, or to use a sample in a recording; sometimes music is licensed en masse . Sometimes copyright is assigned to various parties, sometimes it isn't, sometimes it is assumed as part of a "work-for-hire" contract. Sometimes the copyright is split, the songwriter having copyrights for the lyrics, the band having copyrights for the score, the producer having copyrights for the studio recording, and these can get licensed in whatever ways. But, again, the license is not the copyright.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, the above should not be interpreted as legal advice. Determining which parties own which copyrights can be a complicated issue demanding professional legal help.
HanzoSan wrote:
OS/2 only lost because they didnt try. I didnt see a single OS/2 on any computer except for maybe IBMs computers and eventually IBM even took it off their own computers.
IBM certainly tried with OS/2, but not until it was too late.
OS/2 version 1 was too slow for the machines of the day, and shipped without a GUI partially because Microsoft fscked IBM over on their joint development deal. IBM pushed this version, but got laughed at because nobody wanted to run it.
Version 2 was much better, and had a good GUI but developers and IBM marketing really didn't get behind it, feeling burned from Version 1.
Version 3 (The first OS/2 Warp) was even better, it was faster, the machines were faster, the GUI was really polished, critical apps had native versions, developers started getting interested, IBM's marketting really pushed it well. OS/2 Warp sold more retail copies in its first year than its contemporary, Windows 95. The problem was, that was the year that the heavy duty Windows OEM licensing really started, OS/2 was flooded out of the market by computers shipped with Windows 95 preinstalled.
By Version 4, IBM knew that OS/2 really couldn't compete in the wild against Microsoft's OEM deals, so they focusesed their marketing on their core strength, corporate sales, and did reasonably well.
So if OS/2 did bad it was because of IBM, I had wanted to get OS/2 Warp and an IBM but the cost was ridiculous, this is why I never purchased it and its the same reason I never owned a mac.
While IBM certainly holds most of the responsibility for OS/2's failure, Microsoft shares some of the blame too, for backing out of their codevelopment contract, and anticompetitive OEM deals.
Some uses for topology:
http://www22.pair.com/csdc/car/carhomep.htm
Granted, none of this is stuff I would expect a gas station attendant to be playing with, but it's apparently increasingly important for researchers and engineers.
RodgerDodger wrote:
l ege.html
Actually, the reason you use the electoral college
I assume that, from the "you" and the Australian web address for your account, that you're not in the US. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
had to do with the mechanics of actually running an election back in the 1800s. It was deemed (probably rightly) far to difficult to orchestrate an election for President amongst all of the States, so they fobbed off to the lesser task of electing the electoral college. The college then get together, several months later, to elect the President.
While this was certainly part of the inspiration behind the Electoral College, the big reason for rejecting the popular vote was to prevent New York and Virginia (the two biggest states at the time) from running off with the elections (Virginia got a surprising number of early presidents anyway).
A very good article on the history and functioning of the Electoral College can be found at http://www.truthinmedia.org/Columns/Electoral-Col
The electoral college was always expected to closely tally with the popular vote; this is one reason why the electoral college gets adjusted from time to time, based on population shifts.
The Electoral College is expected to deviate from the popular vote in a very predictable manner (a slight shift in the favor of small states). If they wanted it to closely tally with the popular vote, they simply would have made it the number of Representatives, rather than the number of Representatives plus Senators. Taking out the "Senatoral" EC votes, the 2000 election would have had Gore win with 225 or 224 votes (depending on Delaware, who had one abstention) to Bush's 211. An even closer match to popular vote can be had if states broke down their EC represntation by congressional district.
It doesn't get adjusted to correct for on population shifts, it gets adjusted based on the total number of Senators and Representatives. The number of Senators gets adjusted due to adding (or removing) states, the number of Representatives gets adjusted due to population shifts.
The checks and balances to prevent targetted pork-barelling is actually the domain of the Senate. Because the more populated states have the same amount of representation as the less populated states, the smaller states have a much higher representation per capita.
There are no checks and balances to prevent targetted pork-barrelling, that's why it happens so often.
Unfortunately, the concentration of political power into two mainstream parties causes all sorts of break downs in the checks and balances...
Yes, sadly it does.
Popular elections, legislative elections, gubanatorial appointment, those are pretty much the only ones I can think of. My point is, if the goal is to have the senators represent the state, wouldn't it also make sense to have the state choose how to select its representatives?
:-)
Yes, voting is a state matter, but Article I Section 4 of the constitution gives Congress substantial powers to regulate voting. I have not yet researched as to if or to what extent such regulations may affect voting reform issues such as these.
Completely federalizing voting is almost guaranteed to be a mess, just trying to see if I could come up with a system that would work well simultaneously for Rhode Island and Montana hurt my head, not to mention Alaska and Hawaii.
I do feel that nationwide standards of voting are appropriate, and that would be a federal thing. For example, "each vote must directly result in a paper ballot, available to election officials for manual recounts" would rule out many of the worst computer voting systems I've heard about.
Hmm, things that got better after being federalized, you're right, that is a tough one. Highways definately got better after Eisenhower partially federalized them. Civil Liberties have clearly improved since the Federal Government took away some of the States' right to say that one person is worth less than another. Our military strength has clearly improved since the increased federalization after the Civil War, but that probably would have happened anyway with strong State Militias and a smaller US Army. I'm sure there are other examples, but they often pale in comparison to the things that Federalization made worse.
I'm definately glad to hear that others are also taking an interest in voting reform. I am seriously thinking of writing some party agnostic pamphlets to inform people on the benefits of certain voting reforms (voting as civic duty, splitting each State's EC ballot, and Condorcet voting). If I come up with them, I'll send you a link.
I find this discussion on topics that we mostly agree on very interesting, and don't want it to risk falling into a flame war on the things we strongly disagree on. In this vein, let me just say that, if you were to run for office, and were closely following the platform of the Constitution Party you link to in your signature, I would have many reasons not to vote for you. That doesn't mean we can't agree on the points we agree on, tho
How about, rather than the original system, or the 17th amendment, just replace the 17th with an amendment saying that the states get to decide how their senators are elected?
And yes, I am definately for Condorcet voting, do you know if imlementing it is "just" a matter of convincing each state to change its voting methodology, or if Congress has made a law under Article I, Section 4 or something limiting the states ability to do this?
The media reporting the results of exit polls is not in and off itself a bad thing. The way the TV reported them was, they made it sound like states were already irrevocably committed to one candidate. What if one candidate was soundly favored by elderly and jobless who vote during the day, and the other was soundly favored by 9-to-5+overtimers (who miraculously started to vote again) who voted after work. Early exit polls could be reported accurately and still be a bad predictor of the result of the election.
I think the media has been scared away from reporting exit poll results altogether, for at least a while.
The nature of the ballots, and the fact that the whole excercise was legally moot pretty much meant that they had to say "probably" there. The fact that it was still very close clinched it.
ChristTrekker wrote:
I disagree when you say "The political pressure for having each state represented the same is far far less than it was during the first century of this country's existence" though. That is true only because the federal government has usurped much of the states' authority.
I didn't say that was good, merely that it was true. Mainstream opinion lost faith in States' Rights when it got tied too closely to slavery and later to organized racism. It's really unfortunate, since many things are really best handled on a state-by-state basis.
The 17th Amendment should be repealed immediately
You want to go back to the days when the State Legislatures rubber stamped the majority party's choice for Senator, and the people had little direct say in the process? I don't think you'll find a lot of people agreeing with you there. That also seriously hurts third party power.
the federal gov't shrunk to about 1/5 its size, and those responsibilities returned to the states.
A noble goal, but a potential economic disaster if not handled correctly. Given the current climate, just getting the State and Federal taxes reformed to the point where this is feasable would be a political nightmare.
There is a delicate balance at many points in the Constitution, between making sure each individual is represented the same, and making sure each state is represented the same. Since the states have always had differing populations, it is impossible to achieve both balances simultaneously. The electoral college system is an attempt to win at both, how well it succeeds is debatable.
Yes, it does make the individual in Montana have a marginally more significant vote than the individual in New York.
The political pressure for having each state represented the same is far far less than it was during the first century of this country's existence. While I'm pretty undecided as to whether dumping the electoral college is a good thing or not, I certainly think it is possible now, if enough people want it gone.
Yes, the Electoral College sometimes gets in the way of third party candidates, which IMHO is a bad thing. The Electoral College system as layed out in the constitution really isn't the biggest problem here, far bigger is how the states have decided to make their College votes all or nothing (Maine has a much more healthy system here, but it's so small and homogenous, nobody has seen it work yet), and how most states have the two main parties run their Boards of Elections.
While I certainly agree that the last presidential election had problems, your analysis of the problems could use a little help.
Our popular vote is deliberately irrelevant for the presidential election; this is to prevent a few populous states from running off with the election. Hypothetical situation: the electoral college is thrown out, and two candidates are running for the popular vote in an election. Candidate A has run a very tightly targetted (read: lots of gifts and pork to specific locations) campaign of promises to key population centers, and has almost 100% of the vote in California, Texas and New York, but has only about 40% of the vote in every other state. Even though 47 out of 50 states prefer B, A has a significant chance of winning. This is why we use the electoral college rather than popular vote. If you don't like it, changing the rule requires a constitutional amendment, by all means work towards getting it, many people agree with you.
The Governor of Florida has no obligation to pay attention to the popular vote of the nation, or even Florida (except during his own election, of course). The Governor of Florida is responsible for executing the laws passed by the Florida State Legislature to regulate operation of the election. There are those who allege that he did not do this, that he bent (or allowed his staff and allies to bend) these laws to benefit his brother at the expense of the Gore campaign. Any evidence along these lines is sparse, and it is doubtful that it will ever be proven one way or the other.
The "confusion of the divits" was tragic, and underscored the need of Florida (and most other states for that matter) to reevaluate the systems they use for voting. Many countries do fine just marking an X on a piece of paper and hand counting the pieces of paper. Some countries have interesting higher tech ideas that may be worth considering. Regardless of what gets chosen, it's clear that using a stylus to punch holes in a piece of paper leaves a lot of room for confusion, for not having a clear understanding of the intent of the voter. Minimizing this confusion in the future is very important.
The amount of time they spent investigating was not wasted time IMHO. The amount of time they spent bickering about how to investigate was, and I considered both candidates responsible for that.
Incidentally, are you aware that, in 2001, a group of news agencies carefully examined all the "rejected" ballots in Florida and determined that: A) if Gore had successfully received the partial recount he had requested, he still would have lost; and B) if Bush received the statewide recount that he halfheartedly countersuggested, Gore probably would have won.
So, yes, I consider Bush to be an illegitimate president, simply because a thorough recount indicates that Gore won Florida, and therefore won the election. I don't blame any "ignoring" of the popular vote for the wrong person being in the White House, or any alleged corruption by Bush's brother or campaign manager. I blame simply the sorry state of our voting systems in this country, and the inadequate set of laws governing recounts in the state of Florida.
Just so you know, you don't need a PAC to lobby your own congresscritter. Many congresscritters are happy to hear from their constituents, and really give some consideration to what they have to say. Sadly, senators often have a much less substantial relation to their constituents.
Also, even without cash (well, other than to buy stamps and paper, or to pay the phone bill), you can get involved. A congressman almost always has a local office in their district that they visit, for at least a few weeks while Congress is not in session. You might want to talk to his staff about getting some time to visit and talk directly while your representative is in town. If you get access, do your homework ahead of time and bring copies of supporting documents that you can give (executive summaries are nice too here).
You can also offer time. If your congresscritter is doing a good job, volunteer to help on their campaign. If your congresscritter is doing a bad job, look over there opposition and see if there's someone there you'd like to help out instead. Nothing modifies a congresscritter's opinion faster than popular support for an opponent with a contrary opinion. If you hate all of these bozos, consider running yourself.
Basically, the more involved and visible you are (in a friendly, non-wacko, non-stalker sort of way), the more likely the congresscritter is to give credibility to your opinion. Involved people don't just vote, they influence other peoples' votes, and that means a lot to someone who is up for reelection every two years.
Personally, I've always been more fond of http://www.whitehouse.org than either of the other two :-)
One bit I almost forgot: If you manage other people, and the bad decision affects any of your people in any of the above ways, I would say you have an obligation to report the effect this decision will have on your people.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, the above is not legal advice. Under some of the above scenarios, you should seriously consider retaining a lawyer
The Napster network was not only created by Napster, but existed primarily through Napster's software on both the client and server side. File transfers on Napster were generally done through the software supplied by Napster. Napster was expecting to use this network
Wake didn't create the network, the exact same network exists and shares files just fine without Wake. File transfers are not done using Wake. The student had no financial interest in Wake. I think these are substantial enough grounds to make the Napster decision inapplicable, yes.
If you want to look at it another way, the Network that the RIAA describes in their suit is not Wake, it's Wake + Microsoft's SMB services. If this lawsuit should exist at all, Microsoft should be one of the defendants. They, after all, wrote the software that is sharing the files on most of these people's machines, and wrote software instrumental in Wake's searching the files. They also have a financial interest in this network, a lot of money was paid to them by infringing students.
mixmasta writes:
Sorry to go against the grain here but I love mozilla, it does everything I want, and fast.
Yes, but Phoenix is significantly faster.
I installed the browser and mail on my machine that I use for mail, and just the browser on my machine at work. After years of waiting, all the functionality I need is complete, close to perfect even. I've got tabs, popup, image, and spam blocking too!
Personally, I couldn't care less about the mail client, but I'm still waiting for a calendar component good enough to drop needing a separate Netscape 4.6 install just for the calendar. Everyone's needs are different, and a more modular approach like this is more likely to meet everyone's needs.
If you don't want one of the other components, don't #@$#%ing install them! (And quit yer whining.)
From the Roadmap document, it's less about not having to install components and more about: A) Speeding up the toolkit; B) Improving extensibility; and C) Reorganizing development so it flows and scales better. This sounds really good to me.
Why would I want to go back to another half finished browser??
What's half finished about Phoenix? I use it constantly, works better than Mozilla 1.2 (haven't really looked at 1.3).
I think this decision is a mistake, and just serves to lose momentum.
Since most of the momentum lately has been in components and add-ons, and switching to Phoenix makes them easier to develop, I think that this serves to increase momentum.
I think a better idea would be to work on making mozilla more modular and making other performance tweaks. Why reinvent the wheel again?
Um, did you read the roadmap? That's exactly what this is about, making Mozilla more modular. XFCE was getting in the way of modularity, and making the "performance tweaks" you desire harder to do. Don't think of this as reinventing the wheel, think of it as redesigning the suspension (MacPherson Struts anyone?).