Very sad, given that Ian Anderson and Jethro Tull incorporated quite a bit of "traditional" music in the albums they have done over the years ("Cat's Squirrel" on This Was; "Bourée" on Stand Up and again on Living In The Past, Bursting Out, and many others; "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" on Bursting Out, "King Henry's Madrigal" on Stormwatch; a number of songs on their Christmas Album; and on and on.) I doubt they paid any royalties to someone owning J.S. Bach's copyrights 200+ years after Bach's death, but if things keep up this way, his decendants might not have the same freedom to build upon the works of others as he and his band did. Life of author + 70 years? Why should I be paying royalties to his great-great-grandchildren? Rather than extending the copyrights in the UK, we should be shortening them in the US. I love this part of the letter:
I would go even further to express the personal view that such copyright is as real to me as Real Estate. If I can own the freehold, and thus the investment, in my home property, why can't the value of the investment in my recordings be a longer-term or even indefinite heritable, saleable right? I would have better protection as the bricks-and-mortar builder of my house than a "builder" of recorded music.
Who could possibly argue that the Beatles' Sergeant Pepper album is worth less than the slab-sided freehold concrete-box semi down the Viaduct Road? After all, both probably cost less than £100,000 to build, even in today's money. Which would you rather see stand forever as a living testimony to the best of the 60's? Which would you rather protect in terms of its long-term asset value?
I bet that over the lifetime of the existing UK copyright of the Beatles' Sergeant Pepper album, the record company made a whole hell of a lot more than "the freehold" ever will sell for. Maybe the builders of the building should have had royalties that they got to charge all people who lived in the building for their lives + 70 years -- or maybe that would make it too expensive to live anywhere? And land is something that you can't copy -- it's a limited resource. If one person occupies it, others can't. To give it to someone, you must take it from someone else. That is not so with music, limitless copies can be made without taking copies away from anyone. The only restriction is that limited time monopoly granted by the government. And to believe that ending a copyright in a reasonable amount of time would impact something "stand[ing] forever as a living testimony to the best of [its time]", does that mean the works of Mozart are any less revered because anyone is free to perform them without paying his estate? You said it -- thick as a brick.
Finally, there's sneakemail.com, which is like mailnull, except you work with completely mangled names (aw4jo48esaf9@sneakemail.com), and it does proxy outgoing mail (so I use it when signing up for things where I may want to reply, i.e. mailing lists). At first, the sneakemail site is a complete turn-off, but the service is probably the closest to what I'd want to use.
I used sneakemail for free for years - the web interface is ugly, but I only use it for a few seconds, and you can probably do 99% of your activity from the login page (create a new address or find an existing one). I finally started paying for the service (heh, after a few years and a few hundred disposable addresses, I figured I'd try the pay features) and now I get the ability to create intelligible throwaways with a keyword. You give sneakemail a keyword (first come, first served, like logins) and all you have to do from then on is send email to <arbitrary>-keyword@sneakemail.com (e.g. slashdot-keyword@sneakemail.com), and it will create the email address on the fly when the first message is received. Free accounts have a fairly low bandwidth cap, though I suppose you could create several of them if you really wanted to. I haven't hit the cap on the pay account yet. Another cool feature I use sometimes (and it's available in the free account) is to have sneakemail forward the inbound messages to multiple addresses (like when I'm looking for an important message, and I don't know if it will come when I'm at work, where they won't let me access my home email, or at home, where I can't get to my work email).
I'm aware of the triple damages rule. It was the last bullet point in my list.
*hangs head in shame* D'OH! Ever think you read something, but you didn't?
There's a wiki about patents, called, appropriately enough, WikiPatents. I don't know much more about them; I just found them linked from pubpat.org today. They're looking at all US patents, not just those related to software. What's on the site might not be admissible in a court case, but it would certainly give a head start to a lawyer who's trying to get a patent invalidated.
Worthy though such projects are, they're treating the symptoms, not the disease. Why the hell should the public have to do the patent office's job for it? The real solution is to stop bad patents from being issued in the first place.
Well, the patent office isn't doing it -- and if it's hurting the public, maybe the public has to do something about it? "It's not my job" may be true, but I've done things before that weren't my job, because someone had to do them. Not that this is the only solution I'd recommend -- we should all be writing our legislators (both inside and outside the US, since our bad laws over here leak out).
But really, as this comment points out, since Microsoft have made the allegation, it's up to them to prove it. The free software community doesn't have to disprove it. We don't have to do anything beyond saying (repeatedly), "Tell us which features of which projects infringe which of your patents. Then we will get those patents invalidated, or work around them, or remove the infringing code, in that order. Until you give us the information we have asked for, we will have to assume that either there is no infringement, or you do not want the infringement cured. Both alternatives imply you are acting in bad faith."
I would agree that LEGALLY, the F/OSS community doesn't have to do anything. Unfortunately, most CIOs aren't taking the "It's not proven legally" position -- they're influenced by the FUD. I've already seen "patent indemnification" appear on an OS trade criteria sheet, I'm sure I'm not the first. Maybe the benefit of such a patent info project is primarily against the FUD, and secondarily as a resource for legal defense. Maybe it also serves a tertiary purpose in illustrating the brokenness of the existing patent system, especially with respect to software patents.
Anyone could drive a stake through the heart of Microsoft's FUD campaign by getting a list of all patents held by Microsoft and proving, for each patent, either (a) Linux does not infringe the patent or (b) the patent is invalid. I suspect this will not happen, for any or all of the following reasons:
One I think you forgot is this: Assuming that software patents continue to plague US developers, knowing anything about those patents opens you to triple damages -- that's right, if you were familiar with the patent (which you would be if you contributed to such a project), you would open yourself / your employer to triple damages should your software be found to infringe. This is one more way the system is broken -- it actually encourages ignorance of work done by others.
Anyway, I've been wondering if anyone would, if it was created, contribute to a Wiki where users would provide reasons why each of Microsoft's thousands of patents didn't apply to the core set of GNU/Linux software (obviously it would be difficult to cover all F/OSS projects simultaneously) or were invalid in the first place. Users could contribute examples of prior art, examples of how the GNU/Linux implementations differ from the descriptions in the patent (and I'm sure there would be disagreements there), etc. Would anyone do it, given the penalty of being aware of the patents, the work involved, etc? Would it be valuable if any litigation actually occurred?
unless there is some specific indication that it is intended for open, public use (perhaps the SSID could be something like "FREEWIRELESS").
There is already a mechanism for indicating that the network is open and public. It's called broadcasting an SSID. If I littered my lawn with 100s of signs that said "kommen Sie bitte herein", I doubt I'd be able to claim that all the German people in my kitchen were trespassing just because I can't speak German (apologies to German speakers, that's a babel translation, I REALLY don't speak German.) If you don't speak WiFi, don't put up signs in WiFi inviting people in. Either learn what you are saying, or don't be surprised when they're sitting on your couch. Wouldn't it be ethical for those people to take down the signs if they don't mean it?
Now, what is really an example of an ethical problem is that the big WiFi vendors (Linksys, Netgear, DLink, etc.) sell these big signs in languages they know their customers don't understand, and no one thinks maybe THEY should be responsible. Every power tool or appliance in my house except for the computer equipment is literally wallpapered with useless warning labels telling me not to do obviously stupid things like using the hair dryer in the shower. I'd trade those 10-for-1 for sensible warning labels or just a proper default on these WiFi routers. With uPnP (assuming it works -- I don't actually use it), shouldn't they be able to (upon first connection) pop up a "Hi! I'm Buzzy! I see you're trying to use a new WiFi router! I'm going to assume you want that to be secure! If that's not the case, click 'No' below!" *
I don't mean to make an argument that someone should be able to use your private network, or any private network. I don't even think it needs to have encryption on it. It just needs to not be broadcasting that it is an open network. These ARE. They do it the same way that the Panera down the road does. They do it just like the lobby of the hotel. They do it just like the local bookstore and the library. My PC connects to them automatically - it's set to do THAT by default. If it didn't, Panera, the hotel, the bookstore and the library might as well not bother -- most of their clientèle wouldn't be able to figure out how to connect to the service they want to offer. If private networks would stop broadcasting that they're open networks, THAT would take ALL, not most, of the second guessing out of the situation. So educate people. Tell them they're literally screaming "Come on in!" to anyone nearby. Write the vendors. Complain about the defaults. Complain that the vendors should warn their customers of the risks their product opens their network to. These are all good ideas. Changing the protocol because some vendors made stupid defaults is a bad idea. What do we do when CheapNetSys starts selling routers with FREEWIRELESS** as the default? Change it again? Put people in jail for using networks with FREEWIRELESS as the SSID? Believe me, most people will have just as much clue about the SSID then as they do now (none).
* BTW, this goes DOUBLE for the WiFi routers that come bundled with the cable / DSL modem from the ISP.
** I know it was just an example, but I feel compelled to point out that this particular solution won't work because it doesn't address the default behavior of most current WiFi clients, which is to connect to all open networks, and it wouldn't work where different adjacent public WiFi systems exist.
Why don't you wait until your own culture is guilt-free, before you go criticizing the cultural practices of an East Asian nation? This just makes me so angry when white people do this.
Hey, what clued you in to the GP's whiteness? Do all white people post alike? And what clued you into his/her culture? Do all white people have the same culture? Maybe the poster's culture IS one that is guilt-free. If there aren't any that are guilt-free, no one can discuss these things? That's pretty silly. If we all wait until we are 100% guilt-free before discussing these things, they'll probably never end. How about instead we shine the light of truth on all of them? Like we just shined the light of truth on your racism.
All it's gonna do is result in more people warezing the business version instead of the home version.
I'm wondering if it's just a license thing, or if they're actually going to try to figure out if you are running on a VM. I'm guessing that they're not going to be detecting it, or if they do, that they won't be able to tell for long. If the OS won't run in the VM, it's a bug someone will fix, license or no license.
1. The benchmark testing and posting applies to.NET Framework components. I do not see this being some great ending of benchmarking the Windows OS. Also, the link for further information does not (currently?) work. So, this could just be an issue that isn't an issue at all.
Or, it could be that you're agreeing to a blank check. If you have no problem with that, we can privately exchange information -- I'd appreciate if you'd send me one! Seriously, why can't I tell anyone how long something took or how many iterations of an algorithm occurred in a specific block of time without getting their permission? On.NET or the whole OS, that's just ridiculous. Next thing you know, Ford will prohibit you from telling your neighbors what your gas mileage was yesterday.
2. This version argument is really tiring. In some ways I see their logic, in other ways I think the six version idea is stupid. Actually, there are more versions of XP then two. Technically, there are four. Windows Media Center Edition and Starter Edition. I imagine Starter Vista will be virtually unseen like XP SE. As for Win MCE, I suppose that would be Home Premium. XP Home = Vista Home, XP Pro = Vista Business. Guess this only leaves two extraneous versions...
I have to agree with you here. They have a right to sell as many different versions as they like, though it means I have more work in testing software and in support. I do wish it was obvious, though, what the differences are between the versions without reading through the EULAs. I mean, who would KNOW you can't run Vista Home on virtualization without this article? I would never have guessed. I tend not to read all the fine print in every EULA. Don't tell anyone, let it be our secret.
3. The Virtualization argument is pointless. How many home users do virtualization? How many business (which do the most virtualization) actually use XP Home licenses? I really think this is a non-issue like #1.
While I own more PCs than the average Joe, I don't own enough of them to have one running each flavor of Microsoft's operating systems. I can, however, load any software I write into a VM with each flavor, and see if it works with each of those 6 different versions, and not have to own separate PCs to do it. Another feature is that all I need to do is reset to my VM savepoint, and any botched installation nightmare I might have created goes away (anyone researching viruses also know how valuable this is). I guess following this license means I need more PCs and I have to find another, less convenient way to reset them, or alternatively not test on any of the OSes that can't be run on virtualization. I guess that means I won't be supporting anyone on Vista Home.
4. The license transfer is more stringent version of the current license transfer. The example they give is a bit weak. At work, if you get a new workstation? I seriously think that corporate licensing will have provisions for this sort of thing. How many people buy their own work computer licenses? Unless you own your own business, not many. Most home users keep a machine for several years. If you assume a home user is on a 3-year replacement cycle (the most common business practice I have found), they will probably only need a single transfer before the new OS is out (though after this, you never know.) Also, how many new PC purchases do not come with a new license?
Interesting that you appear to defend the inability to transfer the license by citing the Windows Tax. Remember, though, that it's not just buying a new machine that can count as a transfer. Some upgrades do it, too. Motherboard fails, but you want to keep everything else? That's probably a new workstation. Want to upgrade the hard-drive and have to swap out the old one due to no case room / power? Might be a new workstatio
And of course, your solution was all keystrokes too. D'OH!
<Hangs head in shame>
Still, the other remarks about output, remoting, scriptability, scheduling when no user is logged in, they still stand. Just ignore the part where I skipped the obvious.
OTOH, the GP's solution doesn't require switching back and forth from keyboard to mouse (and so is probably faster, at least for the touch typist), is scriptable, doesn't require the use of the mouse or screen, sends less useless output (important if you're remote admining over a dial-up line), and is possible to initiate remotely from practically any kind of PC that has networking, if you have SSH set up.
Now I could do your solution remotely with if I install a WinVNC server and use any browser that has Java support, but it would still suck royally over dial-up.
And I couldn't set it up to happen automatically every day at 0300h, because there's no one there to clicky the mousey.
I think the key here is that GUIs have their place making the common activities easy. Command lines have their place making the more complicated, probably less common activities easy (or at least possible). GUIs usually sacrifice flexibility and require greater resources to do even simple tasks, but they're easy for the novice. Command lines usually sacrifice simplicity for flexibility, and require fewer resources.
There are plenty of books on the subject if you're interested.
And lots of them come to different conclusions. If the bible is the divinely inspired word of god, shouldn't that be enough? None of those other books are divinely inspired, are they? I already have the bible. Several, actually. Maybe you can tell me which one is REALLY the word of god.
Basically though, you look at what the law is setting out to achieve and ask in what way this is fulfilled in Christ and therefore whether it is a law that still needs followed.
So why have you interpreted this supposed prohibition against homosexuality as anything other than identifying the act as unclean, and dealt with it the same way as the others in the same chapter of the same book? Or perhaps translated the passages as prohibitions against temple prostitution, as other scholars have? You do so because you have biases, and you're reading them into the text. So are the various authors (not divinely inspired) that wrote those books.
The food laws for instance were about cleanliness and uncleanliness, an issue dealt with by Christ on the cross, when he laid open the possibility of anyone being clean in God's sight.
OK, so we read that as to lie with a woman as you do with a man is unclean, anyone can be clean in God's sight, voila! Unless of course you don't like homosexuality, in which case you choose to interpret it differently.
The plain reading of the text is clear the homosexual actions are prohibited
Hmmm. These people seem to have found that there exist some disagreements on the subject. I'm sure you are positive that your interpretation is correct, but forgive me if I don't take your word that it's "clear". In fact, it seems that the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury doesn't agree with you. But, I'm sure he's a heretic. And I'd like to say that there are a lot of other ambiguities in there, otherwise there wouldn't be so many churches and Variances in belief. It's funny, when you read about all the different beliefs held by self-proclaimed Christians, besides the bible, the one most common seems to be that anyone who believes differently than them isn't a true Christian. Even the divinity of Christ isn't a constant.
[...]
Picking and choosing verses would be inconsistent. It's a question of correctly interpreting each verse in the light of the events of the cross.
A skill that you and like-minded individuals have, and those who disagree lack? If I had to choose between two authorities on the subject, I'd choose the Archibishop over you. You'll forgive me? As you get to choose your books and make the decision in your heart, so do I. I just don't claim that the bible told me so.
Defining what is right and wrong is different from determining the punishment that must be carried out. The church is not theocratic Israel. It is a family that leaves punishment to the state authorities.
A historically recent development. For an example, see Inquisition. Of course, when the church and state are intertwined, as they have been often over the last milennium or so, saying the church leaves such things to the state is disingenuous.
The translations we have are very good and the interpretations quite clear.
Again, that's not what I read. Perhaps the books you read say so, but then, I'm sure you read them with your biases as the filter. If anyone says differently, they should be discarded
Give me a break. Which part is the "moral law" and how do you tell it apart? Are you talking about the supposed prohibitions against homosexuality in Leviticus? I'm sure you pick-and-choose your verses carefully there, unless you stone wizards and shun those who touch women during their menstrual period? Or have you put anyone to death for cursing their parents lately? I'll take it that putting someone to death for cursing their parents is to set the Jews apart. Maybe it's Deuteronomy you're talking about? Convince me you haven't made any graven images or "the likeness of any thing" before I'll believe you don't pick and choose there. I suppose that graven image thing is just to set the Jews apart. Maybe it's your mistranslated Judges or Kings? Maybe your god should have been a little clearer. Apparently only the self-righteous can "properly" interpret these things.
Oh, now I see... if you want to follow it and impose it on others, then it's a "moral law". If you don't want to follow it, it's just something to set the Jews apart.
Providentially, I don't claim moral authority from a book made up of rules that even I don't want to follow!
There are a lot of people in this world who like to say "you attack Christianity without having made any attempt to understand it." I understand it perfectly -- you delude yourself.
I just hope you don't delude yourself the same way in Physics.
Slashdot Mirror
Let me be the first atheist to say "Amen!" to that.
Thanks for the link!
Anyway, I've been wondering if anyone would, if it was created, contribute to a Wiki where users would provide reasons why each of Microsoft's thousands of patents didn't apply to the core set of GNU/Linux software (obviously it would be difficult to cover all F/OSS projects simultaneously) or were invalid in the first place. Users could contribute examples of prior art, examples of how the GNU/Linux implementations differ from the descriptions in the patent (and I'm sure there would be disagreements there), etc. Would anyone do it, given the penalty of being aware of the patents, the work involved, etc? Would it be valuable if any litigation actually occurred?
Now, what is really an example of an ethical problem is that the big WiFi vendors (Linksys, Netgear, DLink, etc.) sell these big signs in languages they know their customers don't understand, and no one thinks maybe THEY should be responsible. Every power tool or appliance in my house except for the computer equipment is literally wallpapered with useless warning labels telling me not to do obviously stupid things like using the hair dryer in the shower. I'd trade those 10-for-1 for sensible warning labels or just a proper default on these WiFi routers. With uPnP (assuming it works -- I don't actually use it), shouldn't they be able to (upon first connection) pop up a "Hi! I'm Buzzy! I see you're trying to use a new WiFi router! I'm going to assume you want that to be secure! If that's not the case, click 'No' below!" *
I don't mean to make an argument that someone should be able to use your private network, or any private network. I don't even think it needs to have encryption on it. It just needs to not be broadcasting that it is an open network. These ARE. They do it the same way that the Panera down the road does. They do it just like the lobby of the hotel. They do it just like the local bookstore and the library. My PC connects to them automatically - it's set to do THAT by default. If it didn't, Panera, the hotel, the bookstore and the library might as well not bother -- most of their clientèle wouldn't be able to figure out how to connect to the service they want to offer. If private networks would stop broadcasting that they're open networks, THAT would take ALL, not most, of the second guessing out of the situation. So educate people. Tell them they're literally screaming "Come on in!" to anyone nearby. Write the vendors. Complain about the defaults. Complain that the vendors should warn their customers of the risks their product opens their network to. These are all good ideas. Changing the protocol because some vendors made stupid defaults is a bad idea. What do we do when CheapNetSys starts selling routers with FREEWIRELESS** as the default? Change it again? Put people in jail for using networks with FREEWIRELESS as the SSID? Believe me, most people will have just as much clue about the SSID then as they do now (none).
* BTW, this goes DOUBLE for the WiFi routers that come bundled with the cable / DSL modem from the ISP.
** I know it was just an example, but I feel compelled to point out that this particular solution won't work because it doesn't address the default behavior of most current WiFi clients, which is to connect to all open networks, and it wouldn't work where different adjacent public WiFi systems exist.
Where to start... ;)
Or, it could be that you're agreeing to a blank check. If you have no problem with that, we can privately exchange information -- I'd appreciate if you'd send me one! Seriously, why can't I tell anyone how long something took or how many iterations of an algorithm occurred in a specific block of time without getting their permission? On .NET or the whole OS, that's just ridiculous. Next thing you know, Ford will prohibit you from telling your neighbors what your gas mileage was yesterday.
I have to agree with you here. They have a right to sell as many different versions as they like, though it means I have more work in testing software and in support. I do wish it was obvious, though, what the differences are between the versions without reading through the EULAs. I mean, who would KNOW you can't run Vista Home on virtualization without this article? I would never have guessed. I tend not to read all the fine print in every EULA. Don't tell anyone, let it be our secret.
While I own more PCs than the average Joe, I don't own enough of them to have one running each flavor of Microsoft's operating systems. I can, however, load any software I write into a VM with each flavor, and see if it works with each of those 6 different versions, and not have to own separate PCs to do it. Another feature is that all I need to do is reset to my VM savepoint, and any botched installation nightmare I might have created goes away (anyone researching viruses also know how valuable this is). I guess following this license means I need more PCs and I have to find another, less convenient way to reset them, or alternatively not test on any of the OSes that can't be run on virtualization. I guess that means I won't be supporting anyone on Vista Home.
Interesting that you appear to defend the inability to transfer the license by citing the Windows Tax. Remember, though, that it's not just buying a new machine that can count as a transfer. Some upgrades do it, too. Motherboard fails, but you want to keep everything else? That's probably a new workstation. Want to upgrade the hard-drive and have to swap out the old one due to no case room / power? Might be a new workstatio
<Hangs head in shame>
Still, the other remarks about output, remoting, scriptability, scheduling when no user is logged in, they still stand. Just ignore the part where I skipped the obvious.
OTOH, the GP's solution doesn't require switching back and forth from keyboard to mouse (and so is probably faster, at least for the touch typist), is scriptable, doesn't require the use of the mouse or screen, sends less useless output (important if you're remote admining over a dial-up line), and is possible to initiate remotely from practically any kind of PC that has networking, if you have SSH set up. Now I could do your solution remotely with if I install a WinVNC server and use any browser that has Java support, but it would still suck royally over dial-up. And I couldn't set it up to happen automatically every day at 0300h, because there's no one there to clicky the mousey. I think the key here is that GUIs have their place making the common activities easy. Command lines have their place making the more complicated, probably less common activities easy (or at least possible). GUIs usually sacrifice flexibility and require greater resources to do even simple tasks, but they're easy for the novice. Command lines usually sacrifice simplicity for flexibility, and require fewer resources.
And lots of them come to different conclusions. If the bible is the divinely inspired word of god, shouldn't that be enough? None of those other books are divinely inspired, are they? I already have the bible. Several, actually. Maybe you can tell me which one is REALLY the word of god.
So why have you interpreted this supposed prohibition against homosexuality as anything other than identifying the act as unclean, and dealt with it the same way as the others in the same chapter of the same book? Or perhaps translated the passages as prohibitions against temple prostitution, as other scholars have? You do so because you have biases, and you're reading them into the text. So are the various authors (not divinely inspired) that wrote those books.
OK, so we read that as to lie with a woman as you do with a man is unclean, anyone can be clean in God's sight, voila! Unless of course you don't like homosexuality, in which case you choose to interpret it differently.
Hmmm. These people seem to have found that there exist some disagreements on the subject. I'm sure you are positive that your interpretation is correct, but forgive me if I don't take your word that it's "clear". In fact, it seems that the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury doesn't agree with you. But, I'm sure he's a heretic. And I'd like to say that there are a lot of other ambiguities in there, otherwise there wouldn't be so many churches and Variances in belief. It's funny, when you read about all the different beliefs held by self-proclaimed Christians, besides the bible, the one most common seems to be that anyone who believes differently than them isn't a true Christian. Even the divinity of Christ isn't a constant.
A skill that you and like-minded individuals have, and those who disagree lack? If I had to choose between two authorities on the subject, I'd choose the Archibishop over you. You'll forgive me? As you get to choose your books and make the decision in your heart, so do I. I just don't claim that the bible told me so.
A historically recent development. For an example, see Inquisition. Of course, when the church and state are intertwined, as they have been often over the last milennium or so, saying the church leaves such things to the state is disingenuous.
Again, that's not what I read. Perhaps the books you read say so, but then, I'm sure you read them with your biases as the filter. If anyone says differently, they should be discarded
Oh, now I see... if you want to follow it and impose it on others, then it's a "moral law". If you don't want to follow it, it's just something to set the Jews apart.
Providentially, I don't claim moral authority from a book made up of rules that even I don't want to follow!
There are a lot of people in this world who like to say "you attack Christianity without having made any attempt to understand it." I understand it perfectly -- you delude yourself.
I just hope you don't delude yourself the same way in Physics.