This reminds me of an altercation on one of the newsgroups a few years back, and I quote:
> > In article eugene@ames.UUCP (Eugene Miya) writes: > > >We have just received a letter from Japan that a newer record for > > >computation of digits of Pi was accomplished. Previously David Bailey > > >here at Ames did a 30 million digit computation on the Cray-2. > > >The new computation was done on an older Hitachi 810 supercomputer > > >using extended storage. The new record is 33 million digits. > > >Dave replied, "This means war!" > > > > I think NASA should pay more attention to launching rockets and less attention > > to calculating the next million digits of pi. > > -- > > Greg > > gjk%a@lanl.arpa and greg@harvard.harvard.edu> > > I think Los Alamos should pay more attention to developing high tech methods > of mass destruction and less attention to flaming NASA in net.math. > > Hugs and kisses, > Calum > Calum T Dalek, chairentity
While I agree with your argument that scrutiny of algorithms leads to better security, the issue here is that private seeds may have been obtained by those who broke into the systems. Even in an open source security scenario, there still has to be private information (such as the private keys used for signing).
The 'First Sale Doctrine' is a US specific thing; while there is similar "exhaustion of rights" law elsewhere, these laws are not general principles that allow arbitrary copying of software. These decisions and laws treat software as a 'product' rather than as information, which is a legal fiction; it is not a very strong protection for the consumer and soon or or later will be challenged.
My actual words were "physical CDs with copies of Microsoft Windows"; I used the word 'copies' deliberately to make the point clearer. In the Telstra example, they are distributing copies of GPL software; just because someone else installed the firmware for them does not clear them of all obligations. I cannot sell pirate software just because someone else burned it for me!
If the DRM contract requires you to protect the code by obscuring all of it, then it is incompatible with the licence contract that has been made with the owners of the GPL code that is in the machine.
You make it sound like there is no alternative other than to break the DRM contract. In fact, there are two alternatives: don't use code that is under a GPL licence; or don't make contracts that you cannot fulfil.
Making a contract does not invalidate all the licence agreements you have entered into; if you are going to make a product, you have obligations to all stakeholders, including those people who put effort into the GPL code that you are using.
While I agree with you that the GPLv3 is preferable, the GPLv2 is not completely worthless even when DRM tricks are being used. The GPLv2 still makes the source available, and allows some freedoms - to study and share the code, even when the hardware is locked down. The Tivo legal trick has created the major problem that the user can no longer modify the code and use it on the existing hardware; but even Tivo was still required to make source available.
I did not write my post to support GPLv2 over GPLv3, I wrote it to point out the obligations of the OEM and vendor to make the source and modifications available; the PVR poster appeared to be saying that the end customer was not even getting this much. Only by insisting on this (as limited as the GPLv2 might be in the embedded sphere), wiill we make manufacturers aware of their obligations.
Since the OEM is distributing the software to the vendor customer, the OEM should already be aware of the licence issues surrounding that redistribution. If the software had all been proprietary, you would have been making sure you didn't break the licence agreements. Why would the free licences be treated differently - just because the OEM can't be bothered with an audit?
If the OEM was following the licences, then it would already have supplied (or made available) the GPL portions of the code to the vendor customer. And it would be simplicity itself for the customer to redistribute those; there would be no need to go back through the OEM.
You talk about things that are 'probably built on uclibc'. You make it sound like the OEM doesn't even know the licences of the software it is using.
> Is a shop selling physical objects a GPL licensee if the manufacturer of one of its physical object happened to include some GPL code?
You seem to be implying that a reseller is not governed by the licence! Actually, resellers/redistributors are the one of the addressees of the GPL licence, otherwise copyright law would prevent resale of the software. The licence is granting a right, not removing it, which is why it is called a licence!
If I sell physical CDs with copies of Microsoft Windows on them, I can only do so if Microsoft allows (licenses) me to do so. The beauty of the GPL is that the GPL explicitly licenses both the free use and the redistribution of the software, so you don't need to negotiate separate licenses (as you would with proprietary software). And all the redistributors have to do is provide the source and not remove any freedoms! I can't believe that Telstra would be unaware that a network device would have software on it, so the onus was always on them to negotiate relicensing of that software.
It isn't strictly true that all geothermal energy comes from lava. Some of the 'hot rocks' style geothermal projects are tapping heat that has been at least in part produced by radioactive decay of Uranium, Thorium and Potassium. Of course, that means they also have a limited life span, because they will be exhausting heat faster than it is produced.
Having a different perspective on the best way to achieve freedom is not the same as 'hating' the revised BSD license. Why would Richard Stallman have a problem using software with a revised BSD license? It provides all the freedoms that he espouses. He would obviously believe it is better to distribute under the GPL, but despite trolling to the contrary, he is not forcing that on anyone.
And secondly, Debian is not the 'flagship' of GPL. The Debian philosophy is probably closer to the FSF one than many distros, but it is not in their list of free distros (though gNewSense is of course based on Debian). The Debian distro has always included components distributed under a myriad of different licenses, so nothing has changed. If anything, Debian has become more purist, now they have separated out the proprietary firmware blobs from the main distro.
Also of interest is the 1949 CSIR Mark 1 (CSIRAC), which is held at the Museum of Victoria in Melbourne (unfortunately no longer on display). Because of its historical value, there is no intention to restore it to working order.
I'd love to visit Bletchley Park one day though if I'm ever on that side of the world.
by "urban legend", I guess you don't mean this key then: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Bayer had a press release in 2008 after the loss of bees in Baden-Württemberg. Notice that they do not deny that the loss was caused by clothianidine, though they do blame process issues leading to higher concentrations in the environment. So it would appear that caution should have already been in order.
While it tells you nothing about the short term relationship, it does tell you that the chance of a major terrorist incident is more likely than it would be if these attacks followed a normal distribution.
If it were a normal distribution, the World Trade Centre attack would be an aberration, orders of magnitude bigger than typical terrorist attacks. There would be no need to preempt such attacks.
But the scale invariance shows us that we should be prepared for the possibility of an attack of this magnitude happening again, and take necessary measures to prevent it. The probabilities are small and not something to live in fear of, but we cannot dismiss it as a freak occurrence.
Cookbooks are amongst the best-sellers of the publishing world; makes sense that they would be a focus. Anyway, the e-ink display sizes are a tad small for textbooks.
Slashdot Mirror
This reminds me of an altercation on one of the newsgroups a few years back, and I quote:
> > In article eugene@ames.UUCP (Eugene Miya) writes:
> > >We have just received a letter from Japan that a newer record for
> > >computation of digits of Pi was accomplished. Previously David Bailey
> > >here at Ames did a 30 million digit computation on the Cray-2.
> > >The new computation was done on an older Hitachi 810 supercomputer
> > >using extended storage. The new record is 33 million digits.
> > >Dave replied, "This means war!"
> >
> > I think NASA should pay more attention to launching rockets and less attention
> > to calculating the next million digits of pi.
> > --
> > Greg
> > gjk%a@lanl.arpa and greg@harvard.harvard.edu>
>
> I think Los Alamos should pay more attention to developing high tech methods
> of mass destruction and less attention to flaming NASA in net.math.
>
> Hugs and kisses,
> Calum
> Calum T Dalek, chairentity
Seems a bit naive to think that there is a single language called 'aborigine'.
Controlled English is probably referring to the subset of English that is a formal language developed at the University of Zurich.
Consistent across all platforms that start with 'W'.
While I agree with your argument that scrutiny of algorithms leads to better security, the issue here is that private seeds may have been obtained by those who broke into the systems. Even in an open source security scenario, there still has to be private information (such as the private keys used for signing).
and you thought getting married was expensive...
The 'First Sale Doctrine' is a US specific thing; while there is similar "exhaustion of rights" law elsewhere, these laws are not general principles that allow arbitrary copying of software. These decisions and laws treat software as a 'product' rather than as information, which is a legal fiction; it is not a very strong protection for the consumer and soon or or later will be challenged.
My actual words were "physical CDs with copies of Microsoft Windows"; I used the word 'copies' deliberately to make the point clearer. In the Telstra example, they are distributing copies of GPL software; just because someone else installed the firmware for them does not clear them of all obligations. I cannot sell pirate software just because someone else burned it for me!
If the DRM contract requires you to protect the code by obscuring all of it, then it is incompatible with the licence contract that has been made with the owners of the GPL code that is in the machine.
You make it sound like there is no alternative other than to break the DRM contract. In fact, there are two alternatives: don't use code that is under a GPL licence; or don't make contracts that you cannot fulfil.
Making a contract does not invalidate all the licence agreements you have entered into; if you are going to make a product, you have obligations to all stakeholders, including those people who put effort into the GPL code that you are using.
While I agree with you that the GPLv3 is preferable, the GPLv2 is not completely worthless even when DRM tricks are being used. The GPLv2 still makes the source available, and allows some freedoms - to study and share the code, even when the hardware is locked down. The Tivo legal trick has created the major problem that the user can no longer modify the code and use it on the existing hardware; but even Tivo was still required to make source available.
I did not write my post to support GPLv2 over GPLv3, I wrote it to point out the obligations of the OEM and vendor to make the source and modifications available; the PVR poster appeared to be saying that the end customer was not even getting this much. Only by insisting on this (as limited as the GPLv2 might be in the embedded sphere), wiill we make manufacturers aware of their obligations.
Since the OEM is distributing the software to the vendor customer, the OEM should already be aware of the licence issues surrounding that redistribution. If the software had all been proprietary, you would have been making sure you didn't break the licence agreements. Why would the free licences be treated differently - just because the OEM can't be bothered with an audit?
If the OEM was following the licences, then it would already have supplied (or made available) the GPL portions of the code to the vendor customer. And it would be simplicity itself for the customer to redistribute those; there would be no need to go back through the OEM.
You talk about things that are 'probably built on uclibc'. You make it sound like the OEM doesn't even know the licences of the software it is using.
> Is a shop selling physical objects a GPL licensee if the manufacturer of one of its physical object happened to include some GPL code?
You seem to be implying that a reseller is not governed by the licence! Actually, resellers/redistributors are the one of the addressees of the GPL licence, otherwise copyright law would prevent resale of the software. The licence is granting a right, not removing it, which is why it is called a licence!
If I sell physical CDs with copies of Microsoft Windows on them, I can only do so if Microsoft allows (licenses) me to do so. The beauty of the GPL is that the GPL explicitly licenses both the free use and the redistribution of the software, so you don't need to negotiate separate licenses (as you would with proprietary software). And all the redistributors have to do is provide the source and not remove any freedoms! I can't believe that Telstra would be unaware that a network device would have software on it, so the onus was always on them to negotiate relicensing of that software.
It isn't strictly true that all geothermal energy comes from lava. Some of the 'hot rocks' style geothermal projects are tapping heat that has been at least in part produced by radioactive decay of Uranium, Thorium and Potassium. Of course, that means they also have a limited life span, because they will be exhausting heat faster than it is produced.
Having a different perspective on the best way to achieve freedom is not the same as 'hating' the revised BSD license. Why would Richard Stallman have a problem using software with a revised BSD license? It provides all the freedoms that he espouses. He would obviously believe it is better to distribute under the GPL, but despite trolling to the contrary, he is not forcing that on anyone.
And secondly, Debian is not the 'flagship' of GPL. The Debian philosophy is probably closer to the FSF one than many distros, but it is not in their list of free distros (though gNewSense is of course based on Debian). The Debian distro has always included components distributed under a myriad of different licenses, so nothing has changed. If anything, Debian has become more purist, now they have separated out the proprietary firmware blobs from the main distro.
Also of interest is the 1949 CSIR Mark 1 (CSIRAC), which is held at the Museum of Victoria in Melbourne (unfortunately no longer on display). Because of its historical value, there is no intention to restore it to working order.
I'd love to visit Bletchley Park one day though if I'm ever on that side of the world.
Perhaps in the sense of 'holding a wake'.
by "urban legend", I guess you don't mean this key then: mQCPAzfTdH0AAAEEALqOFf7jzRYPtHz5PitNhCYVryPwZZJk2B7cNaJ9OqRQiQoi e1YdpAH/OQh3HSQ/butPnjUZdukPB/0izQmczXHoW5f1Q5rbFy0y1xy2bCbFsYij 4ReQ7QHrMb8nvGZ7OW/YKDCX2LOGnMdRGjSW6CmjK7rW0veqfoypgF1RaC0fABEB AAG0LU5TQSdzIE1pY3Jvc29mdCBDQVBJIGtleSA8cG9zdG1hc3RlckBuc2EuZ292 PokBFQMFEDfTdJE+e8qoKLJFUQEBHnsH/ihUe7oq6DhU1dJjvXWcYw6p1iW+0euR YfZjwpzPotQ8m5rC7FrJDUbgqQjoFDr++zN9kD9bjNPVUx/ZjCvSFTNu/5X1qn1r it7IHU/6Aem1h4Bs6KE5MPpjKRxRkqQjbW4f0cgXg6+LV+V9cNMylZHRef3PZCQa 5DOI5crQ0IWyjQCt9br07BL9C3X5WHNNRsRIr9WiVfPK8eyxhNYl/NiH2GzXYbNe UWjaS2KuJNVvozjxGymcnNTwJltZK4RLZxo05FW2InJbtEfMc+m823vVltm9l/f+ n2iYBAaDs6I/0v2AcVKNy19Cjncc3wQZkaiIYqfPZL19kT8vDNGi9uE=
You'd be surprised how many people implicitly apply normal distributions, using terms such as 'average' without thinking about whether they apply.
Bayer had a press release in 2008 after the loss of bees in Baden-Württemberg. Notice that they do not deny that the loss was caused by clothianidine, though they do blame process issues leading to higher concentrations in the environment. So it would appear that caution should have already been in order.
You want to be careful posting quotes about kookaburras and old gum trees, apparently there are some copyright issues :-)
While it tells you nothing about the short term relationship, it does tell you that the chance of a major terrorist incident is more likely than it would be if these attacks followed a normal distribution.
If it were a normal distribution, the World Trade Centre attack would be an aberration, orders of magnitude bigger than typical terrorist attacks. There would be no need to preempt such attacks.
But the scale invariance shows us that we should be prepared for the possibility of an attack of this magnitude happening again, and take necessary measures to prevent it. The probabilities are small and not something to live in fear of, but we cannot dismiss it as a freak occurrence.
and don't forget Catholeaks!
The 'dogma' concerns the direction of information flow (DNA <-> RNA -> proteins), not about how perfect it is.
Cookbooks are amongst the best-sellers of the publishing world; makes sense that they would be a focus. Anyway, the e-ink display sizes are a tad small for textbooks.
Cookbooks, the code snippets of the food world.
It's all a plot to try and make you read the article...
to be fair to Microsoft, when they say 'compatible', perhaps they actually mean 'interoperable'...
I guess you'd have to check with their Ministry of Standards.