Who thinks it will take long for the hackers to create malware that sets OTHERS up as unwitting exit nodes?
Typical geek think. First you have to hack into someone's computer, then you have to notify the authorities, then you have to hope that they don't defend themselves. Next they convince the police of their innocence, the police figure out that the problem is not a relatively harmless exit node but a dangerous hacker, and the hacker gets the book thrown at him. (Hacking, perverting the couse of justice, plus tons of civil damages).
Like the panic that someone might hack into someone's heart pacer, while millions of people have a gun and could just shoot the person. Total and utter inability of correctly judging risks.
And people like you are a large part of what's wrong wth America. The founding fathers would start a new American revolution against the current government if they were alive and saw the shit government pulls these days...
Being not an American, articles like this remind me why I want to laugh hysterically when someone claims the USA are "the freest country in the world".
As does any kind of warrant. How is this any different than a search of a house, which will contain lots of materials that have nothing to do with the case?
A totally different situation actually. If there is a criminal case against you, and the state wants to get evidence against you, they need a search warrant.
This is a civil case. There is a plaintiff, and a defendant, and they are supposed to be treated equally. There's no "innocent until proven guilty". The judge has to decide who is more likely to be right. And both sides have to hand over any evidence the judge asks for. Well, they don't have to. If they destroy or hide evidence, the judge _will_ assume that the hidden evidence would work against them.
Reaction time matters, since you're not the only person on the road. Other things can demand a reaction that are outside your control.
I think reaction time is overrated. What's more important is being observant and noticing from a good distance who is going to make trouble, and then getting out of the way of trouble. And leaving yourself enough space so you don't have to rely on your (and anyone else's) good reaction times.
I don't think that MAC (Media Access Controller invented anything. I also don't think that Macs (Macintosh computers) invented anything. On the hand, Apple Inc., formerly Apple Computer Inc., invented a lot of things.
Yeah, I found out in college that you don't want to correct the teacher and then prove it mathematically. He was wrong about a crucial part of power supply design, but I quickly realized I should have kept my damned mouth shut and just gotten that question "wrong". It would have done less damage.
I suppose I was lucky having teachers who thought that having smart pupils meant they were good teachers.
I tend to agree. I believe the minimum altitude for operating an aircraft is 500 feet, so if it's under that altitude, I say it's fair game. But it would be interesting to see what would happen if someone shot down a government-owned drone. Anyone want to bet on how that would go down?
Well, no. Someone posted that link to "air rights" and not many followed it, apparently. There is one set of rules what aircraft are allowed to do, and these rules are mostly there to keep people safe. For example, a helicopter is allowed to fly lower than an aeroplane.
But just because they are flying too low doesn't mean you can shoot at them, just as you are not allowed to shoot at cars that are driving too fast. You only have the rights to the airspace above your land up to the point where you can make reasonable use of it. Shooting at aircraft is not "reasonable use". Flying kites probably is. Pigeon shooting is. And you can make reasonable use of that airspace, even if it affects air traffic. But it must be "reasonable" use.
Obligatory whiner question: "But who decides what is reasonable"? Answer: Whoever has the better lawyers.
You ever tried to offend a christian?
Trust me; you must not offend a christian. It's worse than offending a muslim.
If that is your experience, then the offended person probably wasn't a Christian but only called himself or herself one. (Of course you need to consider that the Christian principle of "love your neighbour as you love yourself" may include teaching your neighbour that offending others may have consequences. But that is the limit of it. )
I make my living writing software. I work for a highly successful software company, which for some reason uses SAP software for things like handling expenses. Among my colleagues the majority believe that the company uses SAP intentionally because it is so horrible to use that you'd rather not do your expense claims than suffering through the use of the SAP software.
I'll just say that if I worked for SAP, which I don't, and was developing software for them, I would be _ashamed_ to admit to it. That's how bad it is.
Why don't they use webkit themselves? Then they can spend their time, money, and energy on putting their crappy microsoft experience on top of it?
Apart from the snarkyness at the end, this is actually a very good question. Webkit source is available as open source in a form that can be used by proprietary applications, and since Safari runs on Windows I suppose there is already a version out there that could be put directly into a Microsoft-created browser. The only "disadvantage" is that any improvements by Microsoft could be picked up by Apple to improve Safari. And since Webkit works already on iOS and Android, I suppose it is quite portable and making it work on Windows 8 shouldn't be too difficult.
No. You want me to play a lawyer. I am not a lawyer. I know enough to explain to some clueless people the difference between a utility patent and a design patent. What you are asking for is the advice of a lawyer.
The important thing to know is: That blogger who started this is a clueless twat, and Apple does not own "turning pages" or even "turning pages on eBooks", they own "one particular animation for turning pages in an eBook", which means any competitor can animate page turns as much as they like, just instead of choosing between a million possible animations, they only have a choice of 999,999 animations.
Who decides what is "close enough"? If i want to make a page animation, how do I know I am not infringing?
First, you shouldn't try copying the original and modifying it slightly. That is (1) unoriginal and (2) risky. You could look at the design patent and the prior art that it quotes. When prior art is quoted, it means "we know this looks a bit similar, but it's really different, so it doesn't affect us getting the patent". So you have two images now: One that is patented, and one that is definitely not infringing. That could give you some direction.
On the other hand, if someone is willing to kill to get away, there's a chance that with one officer approaching they would do it, but with two officers they'd think that their chances are too low.
I read the actual article now, and anyone who read the article, and believed what it said, would rightfully be annoyed with the patent system and with Apple. The problem is not with Slashdot readers. The problem is with the author of the article, one Nick Bolton, who is for all I know one f***ing bloody clueless idiot.
To you, Nick Bolton, you will enjoy reading here that you have the intelligence of a gnat. At most. You should really, really stop blogging anything until you know the difference between a patent and a design patent. It's like the difference between a goldfish and a silverfish. One is a stupid fish, one is a stupid insect. Your article is just idiotic and totally wrong, starting with the headline "Apple now owns the page turn".
Now, Nick Bolton, I'll give you an opportunity to respond. It is obvious to anyone that you are either an idiot, or you are intentionally spreading lies. Please tell us what it is. Looking forward to your reply.
Didn't this game have page turning animations in it back in '83?
Quite possibly. I don't know it. However, this isn't a "patent on page turning animations". It is a _design patent_ (which is a totally different kind of thing than a _utility patent_), and it covers the design of one specific animation, that means how this specific animation looks. You could even use the exact some algorithm that Apple uses, changing some parameters to make the animation look different, and it wouldn't be covered by this patent. Unless the animation in this game looks _exactly_ the same, it doesn't invalidate this design patent. And if you create a new animation, unless it looks _exactly_ the same, it is not infringing on this design patent. What you are _not_ allowed to do now is to make an exact copy of this animation.
Circus Ponies' Notebook.app has had a very similar animation from the beginning and has been continuously available on the NeXT/OSX platform for about twenty years. It was announced for iPad on 2011-08-11, three months before Apple filed.
It's a design patent. If the other animation that you mention is very similar, then an exact copy of that other animation is not infringing (on Apple's design patent); an exact copy of Apple's animation is infringing, and something that is close would be difficult to judge.
Guys, remember that this is a _design_ patent. And it protects the design of _one_ way to animate turning over a simulated page in an eBook reader. There are gazillions of ways to do such an animation. Some look better, some look less good. One of them is now covered by a design patent, that's all.
If you can make clear the kid 'knew what it did was bad/evil/a crime' _but_ at the moment where it happened you had no controll over it, then you insurance will pay (not the same as being liable).
If the kid causes monetary damage and you are not insurrd, you are liable.
Careful. In Germany, where this happened, a child under 7 years is not responsible for anything. If damage happened because you as the parent were negligent, you are liable. If the damage happened without you being negligent, nobody is liable. Like holding your child by the hand, it tears itself lose, runs into the street, causes a pileup. You were not negligent, nobodies fault. If you had no control because these things just happen, not your fault. If you had no control because you were negligent, your fault.
The question being asked here is what is the civil responsibility of parents when their children are taken to civil court and loose. It seems that in Germany, the collection of civil judgments against minors just got a lot more difficult. Given that most 13 year old kids don't usually own that much or even have a job, I suspect this will pretty much squash any attempts to sue kids for sharing music in Germany at least.
No, collecting money for causing criminal damage for example is no problem. They will wait until you make enough money. The problem with a 13 year old will be that you have problems holding him responsible in the first place, which is why they tried to go after the parents. And another problem will be to get a huge monetary amount for copying music in Germany, against anyone. I would be quite sure that if a fourteen year old smashes up your car intentionally, he'll pay for it. Eventually.
So the problem is not collecting, the problem is convicting.
OP is trying to understand the German liability laws for parents, not make a moral comparison between the two
A parent is liable if they neglect to supervise their children properly. Courts will take a common sense approach to this. A 13 year old is capable of making their own decisions, and capable of doing things on their own. You are not neglecting to supervise them if you tell a 13 year old what to do and he secretly does it.
Many people in Germany have liability insurance. So if your five year old scratches your neighbour's car, the liability insurance will ask if you neglected to supervise your child properly. The correct answer is YES. Because it is then your fault, you are liable, and the liability insurance pays the damage. If you say NO, then it was nobody's fault, a five year old is not responsible for what they are doing, and it's just tough luck for the neighbour.
Hey, remember 1945? Don't make me open up another can o' whoop-ass on you.
Assuming that you were 18 years old in 1945, you'd be born in 1927, which makes you about 85. Would be a shame if someone pushed you out of your wheelchair when you threaten them.
But it's not up to US law to decide what is a derivitive work, its up to the GPL.
Not quite. Creating a derivative work is one of the exclusive rights of the copyright holder, and copyright law says what a derivative work is. Let's say I buy Microsoft Office and install it. Deleting copyrighted works is _not_ an exclusive right of the copyright holder, so I'm allowed to do it without any permission. Creating derivative works _is_ an exclusive right, so I don't have the right to modify Microsoft Office on the computer where it is legally installed (unless what I do is not legally a "derivative work", or there are other laws allowing it).
Now if I write software and say "you may make any number of unmodified copies, but you are not allowed to make modified copies" then _I_ can state what I mean by "modified copies".
It's not a creative step - it's done completely automatically by the linker: it's mechanical. Thew cannot be any copyright in anything that comes from such a step. Therefore I claim that linking cannot, in an of itself, result in a derivative work.
If you have A and B, then linking them creates a work that is a derivative of A, because B has been added, and a work that is a derivative of B, because A has been added. You need both permission to create works derived from A, and permission to create works derived from B.
Even if I gave you the compiled object files for A, then linking them together wouldn't be _adding_ anything, but it would still be something different, and therefore could be argued to be derivative. Or if the work A consists of a main application and plugins, then removing a plugin would create a derivative work. Possibly one with less value, but still derivative.
So, to sum it up: it looks like they distribute the Linux kernel, bundled with a bunch of dynamically loadable proprietary modules of their own authorship. They claim that said bundling does not produce a derived work, because the modules are not physically part of the kernel, and they can load into any Linux kernel, not just this particular one (i.e. they're written against an interface). This is exactly equivalent to claiming that it's okay to use a GPL'd library so long as you dynamically link to it, something that FSF has long claimed is a no-no. Similarly, kernel developers have also claimed that making a module dynamic rather than compiling it directly into the kernel does not change its status as a derived work. It is this claim which is being disputed here, and if it is successfully defended, then it makes GPL effectively identical to LGPL in practice.
What NVidia does is very simple: They ship a binary module that _you_ can add to your Linux installation. The binary module is _not_ derived from anything GPL. Once you install it, that Linux installation _is_ derived from GPL. Which is fine, you are allowed to create derived works, which you just did. You just can't distribute it, because the distribution would have to be GPL licensed, and you have no right to distribute NVidia's code under the GPL license.
Since this method is quite obvious, I would suspect that RTS might do the same if needed to avoid license problems. Ship a plain Linux, together with an installer that adds the proprietary bits.
Slashdot Mirror
Who thinks it will take long for the hackers to create malware that sets OTHERS up as unwitting exit nodes?
Typical geek think. First you have to hack into someone's computer, then you have to notify the authorities, then you have to hope that they don't defend themselves. Next they convince the police of their innocence, the police figure out that the problem is not a relatively harmless exit node but a dangerous hacker, and the hacker gets the book thrown at him. (Hacking, perverting the couse of justice, plus tons of civil damages).
Like the panic that someone might hack into someone's heart pacer, while millions of people have a gun and could just shoot the person. Total and utter inability of correctly judging risks.
Schools, even public ones, are permitted to have dress codes,
And where I was brought up, not one parent and not one kid would put up with that bullshit.
And people like you are a large part of what's wrong wth America. The founding fathers would start a new American revolution against the current government if they were alive and saw the shit government pulls these days...
Being not an American, articles like this remind me why I want to laugh hysterically when someone claims the USA are "the freest country in the world".
As does any kind of warrant. How is this any different than a search of a house, which will contain lots of materials that have nothing to do with the case?
A totally different situation actually. If there is a criminal case against you, and the state wants to get evidence against you, they need a search warrant.
This is a civil case. There is a plaintiff, and a defendant, and they are supposed to be treated equally. There's no "innocent until proven guilty". The judge has to decide who is more likely to be right. And both sides have to hand over any evidence the judge asks for. Well, they don't have to. If they destroy or hide evidence, the judge _will_ assume that the hidden evidence would work against them.
Reaction time matters, since you're not the only person on the road. Other things can demand a reaction that are outside your control.
I think reaction time is overrated. What's more important is being observant and noticing from a good distance who is going to make trouble, and then getting out of the way of trouble. And leaving yourself enough space so you don't have to rely on your (and anyone else's) good reaction times.
Completed in 1941.
Yes because MAC invented small PC's
I don't think that MAC (Media Access Controller invented anything. I also don't think that Macs (Macintosh computers) invented anything. On the hand, Apple Inc., formerly Apple Computer Inc., invented a lot of things.
Yeah, I found out in college that you don't want to correct the teacher and then prove it mathematically. He was wrong about a crucial part of power supply design, but I quickly realized I should have kept my damned mouth shut and just gotten that question "wrong". It would have done less damage.
I suppose I was lucky having teachers who thought that having smart pupils meant they were good teachers.
I tend to agree. I believe the minimum altitude for operating an aircraft is 500 feet, so if it's under that altitude, I say it's fair game. But it would be interesting to see what would happen if someone shot down a government-owned drone. Anyone want to bet on how that would go down?
Well, no. Someone posted that link to "air rights" and not many followed it, apparently. There is one set of rules what aircraft are allowed to do, and these rules are mostly there to keep people safe. For example, a helicopter is allowed to fly lower than an aeroplane.
But just because they are flying too low doesn't mean you can shoot at them, just as you are not allowed to shoot at cars that are driving too fast. You only have the rights to the airspace above your land up to the point where you can make reasonable use of it. Shooting at aircraft is not "reasonable use". Flying kites probably is. Pigeon shooting is. And you can make reasonable use of that airspace, even if it affects air traffic. But it must be "reasonable" use.
Obligatory whiner question: "But who decides what is reasonable"? Answer: Whoever has the better lawyers.
You ever tried to offend a christian?
Trust me; you must not offend a christian. It's worse than offending a muslim.
If that is your experience, then the offended person probably wasn't a Christian but only called himself or herself one. (Of course you need to consider that the Christian principle of "love your neighbour as you love yourself" may include teaching your neighbour that offending others may have consequences. But that is the limit of it. )
I make my living writing software. I work for a highly successful software company, which for some reason uses SAP software for things like handling expenses. Among my colleagues the majority believe that the company uses SAP intentionally because it is so horrible to use that you'd rather not do your expense claims than suffering through the use of the SAP software.
I'll just say that if I worked for SAP, which I don't, and was developing software for them, I would be _ashamed_ to admit to it. That's how bad it is.
Why don't they use webkit themselves? Then they can spend their time, money, and energy on putting their crappy microsoft experience on top of it?
Apart from the snarkyness at the end, this is actually a very good question. Webkit source is available as open source in a form that can be used by proprietary applications, and since Safari runs on Windows I suppose there is already a version out there that could be put directly into a Microsoft-created browser. The only "disadvantage" is that any improvements by Microsoft could be picked up by Apple to improve Safari. And since Webkit works already on iOS and Android, I suppose it is quite portable and making it work on Windows 8 shouldn't be too difficult.
Define '_exactly_'.
No. You want me to play a lawyer. I am not a lawyer. I know enough to explain to some clueless people the difference between a utility patent and a design patent. What you are asking for is the advice of a lawyer.
The important thing to know is: That blogger who started this is a clueless twat, and Apple does not own "turning pages" or even "turning pages on eBooks", they own "one particular animation for turning pages in an eBook", which means any competitor can animate page turns as much as they like, just instead of choosing between a million possible animations, they only have a choice of 999,999 animations.
Who decides what is "close enough"? If i want to make a page animation, how do I know I am not infringing?
First, you shouldn't try copying the original and modifying it slightly. That is (1) unoriginal and (2) risky. You could look at the design patent and the prior art that it quotes. When prior art is quoted, it means "we know this looks a bit similar, but it's really different, so it doesn't affect us getting the patent". So you have two images now: One that is patented, and one that is definitely not infringing. That could give you some direction.
On the other hand, if someone is willing to kill to get away, there's a chance that with one officer approaching they would do it, but with two officers they'd think that their chances are too low.
I read the actual article now, and anyone who read the article, and believed what it said, would rightfully be annoyed with the patent system and with Apple. The problem is not with Slashdot readers. The problem is with the author of the article, one Nick Bolton, who is for all I know one f***ing bloody clueless idiot.
To you, Nick Bolton, you will enjoy reading here that you have the intelligence of a gnat. At most. You should really, really stop blogging anything until you know the difference between a patent and a design patent. It's like the difference between a goldfish and a silverfish. One is a stupid fish, one is a stupid insect. Your article is just idiotic and totally wrong, starting with the headline "Apple now owns the page turn".
Now, Nick Bolton, I'll give you an opportunity to respond. It is obvious to anyone that you are either an idiot, or you are intentionally spreading lies. Please tell us what it is. Looking forward to your reply.
Didn't this game have page turning animations in it back in '83?
Quite possibly. I don't know it. However, this isn't a "patent on page turning animations". It is a _design patent_ (which is a totally different kind of thing than a _utility patent_), and it covers the design of one specific animation, that means how this specific animation looks. You could even use the exact some algorithm that Apple uses, changing some parameters to make the animation look different, and it wouldn't be covered by this patent. Unless the animation in this game looks _exactly_ the same, it doesn't invalidate this design patent. And if you create a new animation, unless it looks _exactly_ the same, it is not infringing on this design patent. What you are _not_ allowed to do now is to make an exact copy of this animation.
Circus Ponies' Notebook.app has had a very similar animation from the beginning and has been continuously available on the NeXT/OSX platform for about twenty years. It was announced for iPad on 2011-08-11, three months before Apple filed.
It's a design patent. If the other animation that you mention is very similar, then an exact copy of that other animation is not infringing (on Apple's design patent); an exact copy of Apple's animation is infringing, and something that is close would be difficult to judge.
Guys, remember that this is a _design_ patent. And it protects the design of _one_ way to animate turning over a simulated page in an eBook reader. There are gazillions of ways to do such an animation. Some look better, some look less good. One of them is now covered by a design patent, that's all.
If you can make clear the kid 'knew what it did was bad/evil/a crime' _but_ at the moment where it happened you had no controll over it, then you insurance will pay (not the same as being liable). If the kid causes monetary damage and you are not insurrd, you are liable.
Careful. In Germany, where this happened, a child under 7 years is not responsible for anything. If damage happened because you as the parent were negligent, you are liable. If the damage happened without you being negligent, nobody is liable. Like holding your child by the hand, it tears itself lose, runs into the street, causes a pileup. You were not negligent, nobodies fault. If you had no control because these things just happen, not your fault. If you had no control because you were negligent, your fault.
The question being asked here is what is the civil responsibility of parents when their children are taken to civil court and loose. It seems that in Germany, the collection of civil judgments against minors just got a lot more difficult. Given that most 13 year old kids don't usually own that much or even have a job, I suspect this will pretty much squash any attempts to sue kids for sharing music in Germany at least.
No, collecting money for causing criminal damage for example is no problem. They will wait until you make enough money. The problem with a 13 year old will be that you have problems holding him responsible in the first place, which is why they tried to go after the parents. And another problem will be to get a huge monetary amount for copying music in Germany, against anyone. I would be quite sure that if a fourteen year old smashes up your car intentionally, he'll pay for it. Eventually.
So the problem is not collecting, the problem is convicting.
OP is trying to understand the German liability laws for parents, not make a moral comparison between the two
A parent is liable if they neglect to supervise their children properly. Courts will take a common sense approach to this. A 13 year old is capable of making their own decisions, and capable of doing things on their own. You are not neglecting to supervise them if you tell a 13 year old what to do and he secretly does it.
Many people in Germany have liability insurance. So if your five year old scratches your neighbour's car, the liability insurance will ask if you neglected to supervise your child properly. The correct answer is YES. Because it is then your fault, you are liable, and the liability insurance pays the damage. If you say NO, then it was nobody's fault, a five year old is not responsible for what they are doing, and it's just tough luck for the neighbour.
Hey, remember 1945? Don't make me open up another can o' whoop-ass on you.
Assuming that you were 18 years old in 1945, you'd be born in 1927, which makes you about 85. Would be a shame if someone pushed you out of your wheelchair when you threaten them.
But it's not up to US law to decide what is a derivitive work, its up to the GPL.
Not quite. Creating a derivative work is one of the exclusive rights of the copyright holder, and copyright law says what a derivative work is. Let's say I buy Microsoft Office and install it. Deleting copyrighted works is _not_ an exclusive right of the copyright holder, so I'm allowed to do it without any permission. Creating derivative works _is_ an exclusive right, so I don't have the right to modify Microsoft Office on the computer where it is legally installed (unless what I do is not legally a "derivative work", or there are other laws allowing it).
Now if I write software and say "you may make any number of unmodified copies, but you are not allowed to make modified copies" then _I_ can state what I mean by "modified copies".
It's not a creative step - it's done completely automatically by the linker: it's mechanical. Thew cannot be any copyright in anything that comes from such a step. Therefore I claim that linking cannot, in an of itself, result in a derivative work.
If you have A and B, then linking them creates a work that is a derivative of A, because B has been added, and a work that is a derivative of B, because A has been added. You need both permission to create works derived from A, and permission to create works derived from B.
Even if I gave you the compiled object files for A, then linking them together wouldn't be _adding_ anything, but it would still be something different, and therefore could be argued to be derivative. Or if the work A consists of a main application and plugins, then removing a plugin would create a derivative work. Possibly one with less value, but still derivative.
So, to sum it up: it looks like they distribute the Linux kernel, bundled with a bunch of dynamically loadable proprietary modules of their own authorship. They claim that said bundling does not produce a derived work, because the modules are not physically part of the kernel, and they can load into any Linux kernel, not just this particular one (i.e. they're written against an interface). This is exactly equivalent to claiming that it's okay to use a GPL'd library so long as you dynamically link to it, something that FSF has long claimed is a no-no. Similarly, kernel developers have also claimed that making a module dynamic rather than compiling it directly into the kernel does not change its status as a derived work. It is this claim which is being disputed here, and if it is successfully defended, then it makes GPL effectively identical to LGPL in practice.
What NVidia does is very simple: They ship a binary module that _you_ can add to your Linux installation. The binary module is _not_ derived from anything GPL. Once you install it, that Linux installation _is_ derived from GPL. Which is fine, you are allowed to create derived works, which you just did. You just can't distribute it, because the distribution would have to be GPL licensed, and you have no right to distribute NVidia's code under the GPL license.
Since this method is quite obvious, I would suspect that RTS might do the same if needed to avoid license problems. Ship a plain Linux, together with an installer that adds the proprietary bits.