Actually, if you don't like the bloat, you don't even have to recompile. Distributions generally build their drivers as modules. You can even delete the unused ones to save disk space. Of course, that would really only be an issue for embedded devices. If you're running an enterprise server and you can't spare a few MB for drivers, you're probably doing something wrong.
Acrobat 7 includes spyware right out of the box. When you open certain tagged pdfs, it reports this to a remote server. It appears to just be logging your IP address and reader info -- for now -- but it's javascript based, so any information that Adobe chooses to present to their scripting API is available to it. You can disable javascript, but it will suggest that you re-enable it every time you launch the program, which doesn't constitute disabling as far as any system administrator with lots of users is concerned. There are a variety of hacks that will make this go away. One is listed in the comments of this article:
If you've read patents, you know how vague and dry they usually are. If you think you're going to get volunteers and the academic community to do prior art research for you in a structured way, on all patent applications, you're nuts.
I can understand IBM's interest in patent reform. Maintaining a patent portfolio like theirs is not cheap, and they're a giant litigation target. Given their R&D, they're likely going to remain the 800-pound gorilla in patents no matter what the rules are.
A much better solution would be to place more of the burden of the patent process on the applicant, in a way that's easily verifiable. If an applicant was forced to more thoroughly justify why their work is exceptional, with a bias towards granting a patent as specific to the reference implementation as possible, we'd see fewer applications, which would give more review time to the examiners, and less patent collision, where multiple vague patents cover the same thing.
The record companies do loads of market research. They probably know that the sales impact of P2P is minimal. So, why are they fighting so hard to stop it?
The better question would be to ask why they've been dragging their feet so much on stopping it. Napster was up and running and quite popular before they filed suit. My conspiracy theory guess is they wanted us to get hooked on immediate and fine-grained (to the song, rather than album) music distribution. To feed the addiction, we've now got DRM-encumbered pay services. The ultimate goal is the Celestial Jukebox.
For those unfamiliar, it is a content-distribution paradigm where everything is DRM encumbered and available on demand at the most fine-grained level possible. Every time you listen triggers a micropayment. The system would of course be monopolistic, without alternative methods that have that pesky right of first sale.
What's the greatest threat to the Celestial Jukebox? Free music! As in, fully legal free music. Who in their right mind would put up with such a right-stripping scheme when they can get the music straight from the artist and the artist's other fans, never paying a cent to any label. How do the artists make money? They sell concert tickets, merchandise, etc., things that are not troubled by copyright concerns.
So far, free content doesn't yet dominate many of the P2P networks because many of the things people want to hear are still distributed conventionally. Watch big name artists rebel and customers turn away in droves as the DRM gets more and more restrictive. When that happens, the labels want P2P to be quite completely banned, or they will be obsolete.
Thanks for that. I was under the (mistaken) impression that cancellation of debt by refusal of legal tender was established by implication of federal legal tender laws. I know that it is in fact established in some jurisdictions, but I suppose those are established by state laws, or by case law that has not remained uniform since 1872. As legal tender laws have changed substantially in the past century, I'm a bit surprised that there haven't been any authoritative cases since 1872.
Yeah. My point was that the legal tender applied to his situation, but not the vast majority of transactions we might undertake at Best Buy. Furthermore, they had no cause to be threatening to have him arrested. All they could have done was sue him. Of course, with these idiotic police, anything could have happened.
There's a very important distinction to be made here. Legal Tender is only guaranteed for debts. This means that if you walk into Best Buy with a fistful of $2 bills and walk up to the register with the bills and merchandise, they are perfectly free to refuse to do business with you.
Legal Tender only comes into play when there is a debt. In this case, the man was being billed for a service that had already been voluntarily performed. This constitutes a debt, so unlike every other transaction this poorly trained cashier handles, the tender must be accepted. Refusal to accept the tender is equivalent to forgiving the debt under common law in many places. Really the man should have just walked out with his money the first time. That he offered to pay a second time shows his exceptional generosity. See here:
Legal Tender issues aside, and the matter of stupid cashiers not recognizing $2 bills aside, there's another critical problem that everyone but our protagonist seemed to miss. It is impossible, by definition, to steal something you are permitted to enter into debt for. It can be fraud if you had no intent to pay, but bear in mind that most fraud is still a civil matter, not a criminal matter. It's not something you lock someone up for, unless they're in contempt of court for refusing to pay a judgement you have the means to pay.
That Best Buy hasn't already fallen all over themselves trying to appease him and close up this PR nightmare is worrisome. Not only did they screw up big time, but they don't seem to see anything wrong with it.
If I write an entirely new application using GPLv3 code from several different sources, and someone modifies my code and uses it internally without contributing source back to me, do they have to pay me, or the original authors of the pieces?
This is completely infeasible. Licenses with terms like this generally get categorized as non-Free by the FSF itself. While it may be true that they can enforce copyright for undistributed modifications, they'd have to resort to BSA-style raids to enforce this.
Slashdot Mirror
...he'll just go away.
Seriously. Can anyone here think of anything even the slightest bit controversial that Dvorak has said in the past ten years that has made any sense?
Nothing was equally bad as Catwoman.
Mean is 100. 15 points per standard deviation. There's a huge difference between 130 and 95.
Actually, if you don't like the bloat, you don't even have to recompile. Distributions generally build their drivers as modules. You can even delete the unused ones to save disk space. Of course, that would really only be an issue for embedded devices. If you're running an enterprise server and you can't spare a few MB for drivers, you're probably doing something wrong.
Acrobat 7 includes spyware right out of the box. When you open certain tagged pdfs, it reports this to a remote server. It appears to just be logging your IP address and reader info -- for now -- but it's javascript based, so any information that Adobe chooses to present to their scripting API is available to it. You can disable javascript, but it will suggest that you re-enable it every time you launch the program, which doesn't constitute disabling as far as any system administrator with lots of users is concerned. There are a variety of hacks that will make this go away. One is listed in the comments of this article:
http://lwn.net/Articles/129729/
If you've read patents, you know how vague and dry they usually are. If you think you're going to get volunteers and the academic community to do prior art research for you in a structured way, on all patent applications, you're nuts.
I can understand IBM's interest in patent reform. Maintaining a patent portfolio like theirs is not cheap, and they're a giant litigation target. Given their R&D, they're likely going to remain the 800-pound gorilla in patents no matter what the rules are.
A much better solution would be to place more of the burden of the patent process on the applicant, in a way that's easily verifiable. If an applicant was forced to more thoroughly justify why their work is exceptional, with a bias towards granting a patent as specific to the reference implementation as possible, we'd see fewer applications, which would give more review time to the examiners, and less patent collision, where multiple vague patents cover the same thing.
...that Han gets to shoot first this time?
The record companies do loads of market research. They probably know that the sales impact of P2P is minimal. So, why are they fighting so hard to stop it?
The better question would be to ask why they've been dragging their feet so much on stopping it. Napster was up and running and quite popular before they filed suit. My conspiracy theory guess is they wanted us to get hooked on immediate and fine-grained (to the song, rather than album) music distribution. To feed the addiction, we've now got DRM-encumbered pay services. The ultimate goal is the Celestial Jukebox.
For those unfamiliar, it is a content-distribution paradigm where everything is DRM encumbered and available on demand at the most fine-grained level possible. Every time you listen triggers a micropayment. The system would of course be monopolistic, without alternative methods that have that pesky right of first sale.
What's the greatest threat to the Celestial Jukebox? Free music! As in, fully legal free music. Who in their right mind would put up with such a right-stripping scheme when they can get the music straight from the artist and the artist's other fans, never paying a cent to any label. How do the artists make money? They sell concert tickets, merchandise, etc., things that are not troubled by copyright concerns.
So far, free content doesn't yet dominate many of the P2P networks because many of the things people want to hear are still distributed conventionally. Watch big name artists rebel and customers turn away in droves as the DRM gets more and more restrictive. When that happens, the labels want P2P to be quite completely banned, or they will be obsolete.
Thanks for that. I was under the (mistaken) impression that cancellation of debt by refusal of legal tender was established by implication of federal legal tender laws. I know that it is in fact established in some jurisdictions, but I suppose those are established by state laws, or by case law that has not remained uniform since 1872. As legal tender laws have changed substantially in the past century, I'm a bit surprised that there haven't been any authoritative cases since 1872.
Yeah. My point was that the legal tender applied to his situation, but not the vast majority of transactions we might undertake at Best Buy. Furthermore, they had no cause to be threatening to have him arrested. All they could have done was sue him. Of course, with these idiotic police, anything could have happened.
There's a very important distinction to be made here. Legal Tender is only guaranteed for debts. This means that if you walk into Best Buy with a fistful of $2 bills and walk up to the register with the bills and merchandise, they are perfectly free to refuse to do business with you.
Legal Tender only comes into play when there is a debt. In this case, the man was being billed for a service that had already been voluntarily performed. This constitutes a debt, so unlike every other transaction this poorly trained cashier handles, the tender must be accepted. Refusal to accept the tender is equivalent to forgiving the debt under common law in many places. Really the man should have just walked out with his money the first time. That he offered to pay a second time shows his exceptional generosity. See here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_tender
Legal Tender issues aside, and the matter of stupid cashiers not recognizing $2 bills aside, there's another critical problem that everyone but our protagonist seemed to miss. It is impossible, by definition, to steal something you are permitted to enter into debt for. It can be fraud if you had no intent to pay, but bear in mind that most fraud is still a civil matter, not a criminal matter. It's not something you lock someone up for, unless they're in contempt of court for refusing to pay a judgement you have the means to pay.
That Best Buy hasn't already fallen all over themselves trying to appease him and close up this PR nightmare is worrisome. Not only did they screw up big time, but they don't seem to see anything wrong with it.
If I write an entirely new application using GPLv3 code from several different sources, and someone modifies my code and uses it internally without contributing source back to me, do they have to pay me, or the original authors of the pieces?
This is completely infeasible. Licenses with terms like this generally get categorized as non-Free by the FSF itself. While it may be true that they can enforce copyright for undistributed modifications, they'd have to resort to BSA-style raids to enforce this.
I hope this is just a bad joke.