Umm... this is not a troll, as it has been moderated, but is a VERY helpful problem-solver for people who haven't used a lot of the Mozilla builds and don't know a lot about its status. Some of the ultra-trolls have been getting moderator status and wreaking havoc with the moderation system. I think it's clear they should have their moderation ability revoked.
Here ya go... hot off the presses. Just got an email today from Lineo with the URL to the source for their GPLed components. Somebody else can go check it out: ftp://ftp.lineo.com/pub/embedix/v1.0 There's the love.
I just did the same as well. Downloaded the binary distribution, then sent out a very polite email asking for the source code to their modified version of the Linux kernel and any other GPLed components that they have modified. We'll see soon enough whether they reply. If they are intent on ignoring, I'll drop an email to Eric Raymond, who is quite good at dealing with companies like this and getting them to comply with the GPL.
The strange thing here is they know full well about the GPL (some people are just ignorant), as their own license refers to GPLed code that they use in their software, and explicitly directs source code requests to their embedix-support email address. Now that's perfectly within the legal boundaries of the GPL, but it seems a bit outside of the spirit of things, given how easy it is to just put the damn source up on their website.
Re:What was it Gandhi said?
on
Free Solaris 8
·
· Score: 1
It's not a contest in the sense that there is *ONE* winner only. There may, of course, be multiple winners. And multiple losers. My point about Linux is merely that as long as people are interested in Open Source software, there will be some product filling the role that Linux fills.
The current Linux code base may eventually be mostly scrapped, the world may move on as they say. But all the excellent Open Source developers out there who believe in Free software will pick up and build something better (maybe it'll be the Hurd, maybe something totally new). The point is that "Linux" can't go out of business, doesn't need venture backing and can't be crushed in the marketplace. Only companies are subject to those restrictions. Loosely affiliated organizations of developers operating together to build great software aren't.
Somebody please tell me where I can send money to help defend this kid. When I was 14 years old, I umm, well, got bullied around a bit by a corporation that I had perhaps obtained access to some of their computers. That was scary as hell (convinced me to stick to entirely legitimate operations).
But that's kinda outside the point. The real point here is that we want to stand up for this guy's right to reverse engineer DeCSS. There are dozens of posts here emphasizing how incredibly important this case could be. Well the industry and life have blessed me with some cash that I would love to put to good use defending this kid. I realize that joining the EFF here in America is a great way to support the fight against the MPAA and to press our rights to use DVD technology on the operating system of our choice and our right to understand and reverse engineer technology that we buy and use every day.
My point is, does anybody have an address I can send a US dollar denominated check to to support this case in Norway?
Re:What was it Gandhi said?
on
Free Solaris 8
·
· Score: 2
You're right that it isn't a contest for *US*. We don't "lose" anything, no matter what. There will still be people developing Open Source software for Free operating systems, no matter what. And all that code is irrevocably Free and out there. We can only get better, and thus win. But Sun can lose. Closed source software products can always lose in the marketplace. They are subject to the traditional rules here.
Where do you see the future of OS/hardware emulation and binary compatibility going, with more new architectures coming out (Crusoe, Merced, etc.)? Do stand-alone legacy OS clones like Free-DOS have a place in this evolving landscape or will backwards compatibility eventually become entirely modularized within compatibility layers in next generation OSes?
IceWM is nice, and probably better as a standalone WM. If you are still using GNOME though, the Sawmill/GNOME combo really rocks. Sawmill's footprint is a bit larger than IceWM, but not massively so, and it has really cool Lisp configurability for look+feel stuff, plus a great theming system, with some very nice themes out there. In terms of configurability, Sawmill has a much slicker config system than IceWM, and the config system is always up to date with the WM. I am not a big fan of the rather ugly IcePref... of course, I can always hack text files, but for some reason I feel like window manager configuration is one of those things that should be GUI-fied.
But, interestingly enough, most of the kinds of changes being talked about here wouldn't require kernel recompiles. Changing IP address, setting up a modem, etc. all are much faster to do in Linux than in Windows, where 3 or 4 reboots are sometimes required (Don't believe me? Try installing a Proxim Symphony card). In Linux it's as simple as editing the correct config files and ifdown/ifup. But the tools out there that do this stuff, Linuxconf being the most general purpose one, are inadequate or unwieldy.
>Do all current Harvar undergraduates have as poor >a grasp of English grammer? That's Harvard, and grammar, while you're at it, shithead.
And I finished my undegraduate work in physics last year. I am currently taking some graduate classes in computer science. I am currently working for a company with a group of folk from Harvard, MIT, and some industry people. Previously, I have consulted for some local startups.
My command of the english language is clearly better than yours, and I don't generally take exacting care to check all of my sentences on/. for grammatical correctness. I believe the sentences you're referring to were probably simply using colloquial expressions.
But, Mr. Troll Shitface AC, that has absolutely nothing to do with the point of my post. Which was that AOL has its uses. If you are going to flame me, at least flame me for the post's relevant content by telling me how much AOL sucks.
Well, I will put in a halfway decent word for AOL here and stand against the grain (which is kinda funny, cuz a guy from my class in high school started the www.aolsucks.com website years ago when we were at high school together and I was a big supporter of this at the time).
But I admit it, I have an AOL account. Why? Well about 70% of the time I am here at school (Harvard) where we have the fat pipe bandwidth kicking it live. And the rest of the time I am either on the road for business or at home in New York. At home, I have BellAtlantic DSL. But for a period of about 2 months this service was going down every other day (until I finally got through to somebody who could fix it).
What's the point? Well, when I'm on the road for business or at home and the DSL goes down, I need something that will work, let me use an SSH/telnet client and check stuff on the web. Nothing fancy. AOL does this. Since my VAIO notebook runs Windows, AOL is fine for on-the-road usage, and it has all the access numbers there.
Is AOL a good general usage ISP? No, definitely not. My Linux boxen would all be stranded if that's all I had. I don't even really consider AOL to be an ISP per se. But AOL has been a shitpot more reliable than other dialup services for me, and they make taking my notebook on the road ridiculously easy.
Right. So a bit-by-bit copy, plus use of CSS authentication protocol to get the DVD key which can be writtento the new DVD. You still don't actually need to do CSS decryption to copy anything. And the CSS authentication protocol was reverse engineered for compatibility. Every piece of DVD decoder software out there has to engage in a series of transactions by whatever method to get the damned key from the DVD drive. Regardless of this, the media you have purchased has the DVD key in plaintext stored in a sector that is rigged in DVD drives to be readable only for the authentication protocol. Well, I forgot what my original point was. In any case, you could still build a device to copy DVDs without CSS authentication or decryption. All the data is stored as bits on the DVD readable through optical methods. And such a theoretical copying device would probably even have legal use, under fair user clauses (there are certainly CD copier devices out there that do the same). This theoretical device does not require CSS decryption or authentication to copy DVDs. QED.
Okay let's make a few points about why that makes no sense fundamentally. Either a) then the key area on a DVD is irrelvant to viewing the DVD or b) the key area is indeed read by the DVD player/drive for authentication/key lookup/whatever silly thing it does so that it can use the key to decrypt the DVD stream. The fact is it HAS to look at that damned key. Maybe it won't normally treat the key as part of the filesystem data that you can just view from a DVD-ROM drive. I could believe that. But the idea that DVD players are "incapable of reading the key area" just makes no sense. How exactly do you think they play the DVDs, huh?
See what the AC just said. When we do get to the point that copying DVDs is economically more feasible than buying them (i.e. blank DVD-R media for under 5 dollars, DVD burners for a few hundred dollars), it won't matter a drap whether or not Linux CSS decryption exists. You can still copy it bit-by-bit. All CSS does is provide player authentication, essentially. It's a way to keep a tight rein on the player (hardware and software) market. It doesn't prevent people from copying the contents of the media (this has been hashed out before, if you want people to be able to view it freely, you need to let them have access to the content). The copy protection schemes used in software aren't particularly effective, and almost exclusively rely on license keys and the like (they used to use things like defective tracks in floppies and the like). Neither of these methods are particularly appropriate for consumer electronic type products, such as DVDs (well, the funky track thing doesn't really work with optical media I don't think). Anyway, point is, you can't do what they claim CSS does, without being too burdensome to the consumer.
IANAL, but as I understand it, even if CSS *IS* a trade secret by that definition, it's just plain NOT RELEVANT. Because nobody is even claiming that trade secret misappropriation (see comment above for exact text) has ever occurred. The definition of trade secret misappropriation involves stealing of information from a corporate headquarters, violation of NDA, etc. That did not occur here as far as I know. The CSS algorithm was reverse engineered and cryptoanalytically attacked and compromised. These are all legal processes in the countries in which they occurred, as I understand the laws. The subsequent distribution of DeCSS and the LiViD project source is just tough turkey for the MPAA. In the end, some kick ass lawyers will take this case on and the MPAA will lose. There will be appeals, and it will be ugly though.
You can also try here. You will find my mirror of Sig11's stuff, but I updated it with the latest CVS tarball of the LiViD project. When will these people learn that using CSS decryption is fscking necessary to play the DVDs. Who the hell wants to make illicit copies of DVDs anyway? All you can do is reencode the MPEG stream at small crappy resolution to send around the net (this is never going to threaten the movie industry...) or save the whole thing on your hard drive (I only have 11 gigs of space in toto). I'd rather just buy them for 15 dollars. Jeez.
I'm one of the people that was harassing (no, not really, actually politely emailing) back and forth with Aureal tech and management people at least a year ago trying to convince them to release Linux drivers and/or specs to write drivers. It actually does make a difference... admittedly, we have Creative to thank for this in a way, since releasing, then Open Sourcing the SB Live drivers forces Aureal's hand, it only forces Aureal's hand BECAUSE they know there is a significant undercurrent of interest in using Linux with their products BECAUSE people like myself and others have been lobbying them for ages. Too bad I trashed my Aureal Vortex 6 months ago in favor of an SB Live.:) Guess Aureal should have moved faster...
Ah, sorry. I guess I should have qualified my claim about when you write the software. I take it for granted that people know they don't hold the copyright when they are writing the software under the employ of somebody else *for* that legal entity. Of course, if these people write software themselves, on their own time, that doesn't relate to their employers' products, then they usually can keep copyright to that (this is always one of those key things to check for in an employment agreement... that your employer doesn't get to steal any ideas/coding you do for yourself on your own time). If that fails, you prolley have to get permission on a case-by-case basis from your employer before writing your own software outside of the realm of the company, if you want to avoid them claiming copyright to it.
If you write the software you hold the copyright. Thus you can license it any way you want. If you want two different classes of license, two slightly different code bases, fine. The only problem is if people submit code/patches, then those can only be folded back into the GPL fork, unless those people know and consent to the second license (perhaps you offer them a share of your profits based on the # of lines of their code that you use). The problems only arise when you have multiple copyright holders though.
Lets not forget that judges do have some common sense, generally too. Any such program to enlist purchasers as employees or any such thing would never hold up on a large scale if the intention was to violate GPL (I swear, your honor, the $10 employment contract wasn't *really* selling the software).
Now, the issue isn't really resolved for inhouse developed products and the employees. But no matter how the binary was obtained, the recipient still has the right to demand source. If the binary is leaked, then the recipient can demand source. If it is denied, then the GPL is being violated. The legal intracacies are somewhat more extreme of course... this all really needs a decent court test.
I don't think anybody thinks Linux is a superior general purpose desktop OS to Win2000, *YET*. Win2000 is playing catchup in terms of server features and stability, etc (I personally don't forsee Windows catching up anytime soon in these areas). As far as general purpose corporate desktop apps, nobody doubts that linux is a ways off yet. Office clones are out there (StarOffice does mostly everything I need it to do), but nothing beats or meets Microsoft Office, yet.
Anyway, on the one hand, we shouldn't claim Linux is something it isn't, but on the other hand, we shouldn't put ourselves down too much. Hey, even my mom has started to like using Linux (which is on my computer at home, but not hers). We are making headway in the desktop arena, but we without a doubt are ahead in the server realm.
I no longer have time to play games nowadays, as I am a full time student and have a job at a startup company as well.:( So I dunno about Q3A. And I only use X at 1024x768, due to my crappy monitor. But I know it supports at least 1280x1024, and I think 1600x1200 as well (although I dunno if that works in X for sure). I use 75hz refresh. On the whole the Voodoo3 is good in X, but not perfect. I think there are better cards out there, Matrox maybe? The Voodoo3 should get as good FPS scores in 3d games as anything in Linux though, until the GeForce drivers are MUCH improved (the GeForce hardware is defintely superior, but the Linux drivers suck).
Looks like they might have folded in some of 3dfx's Voodoo3 improvements to the SVGA server, as screen updates and the like are definitely looking smoother and better now. Not perfect, but definite improvement.
Oops... well I ate some once, to prove my manhood to some friends, when I was about 15 or so. Didn't taste like much, but they did give me and the other guy (who ate much more than I did) quite an awful stomach ache. I wouldn't doubt if there's something a bit nasty in there, but not poisonous. See other posters comment on fungicide. I'd believe it, based on its effects on me.
*I* posted flamebait? That is a completely moronic moderation. Go read the post I replied to. It was racist and entirely ignorant. I was replying in an entirely appropriate fashion, and I will continue to post such replies. Somebody has to have the cojones to stand up to racists. Obviously it's not whoever incorrectly ended up with moderator points.
Slashdot Mirror
Umm... this is not a troll, as it has been moderated, but is a VERY helpful problem-solver for people who haven't used a lot of the Mozilla builds and don't know a lot about its status. Some of the ultra-trolls have been getting moderator status and wreaking havoc with the moderation system. I think it's clear they should have their moderation ability revoked.
Here ya go... hot off the presses. Just got an email today from Lineo with the URL to the source for their GPLed components. Somebody else can go check it out: ftp://ftp.lineo.com/pub/embedix/v1.0 There's the love.
The strange thing here is they know full well about the GPL (some people are just ignorant), as their own license refers to GPLed code that they use in their software, and explicitly directs source code requests to their embedix-support email address. Now that's perfectly within the legal boundaries of the GPL, but it seems a bit outside of the spirit of things, given how easy it is to just put the damn source up on their website.
The current Linux code base may eventually be mostly scrapped, the world may move on as they say. But all the excellent Open Source developers out there who believe in Free software will pick up and build something better (maybe it'll be the Hurd, maybe something totally new). The point is that "Linux" can't go out of business, doesn't need venture backing and can't be crushed in the marketplace. Only companies are subject to those restrictions. Loosely affiliated organizations of developers operating together to build great software aren't.
But that's kinda outside the point. The real point here is that we want to stand up for this guy's right to reverse engineer DeCSS. There are dozens of posts here emphasizing how incredibly important this case could be. Well the industry and life have blessed me with some cash that I would love to put to good use defending this kid. I realize that joining the EFF here in America is a great way to support the fight against the MPAA and to press our rights to use DVD technology on the operating system of our choice and our right to understand and reverse engineer technology that we buy and use every day.
My point is, does anybody have an address I can send a US dollar denominated check to to support this case in Norway?
You're right that it isn't a contest for *US*. We don't "lose" anything, no matter what. There will still be people developing Open Source software for Free operating systems, no matter what. And all that code is irrevocably Free and out there. We can only get better, and thus win. But Sun can lose. Closed source software products can always lose in the marketplace. They are subject to the traditional rules here.
Where do you see the future of OS/hardware emulation and binary compatibility going, with more new architectures coming out (Crusoe, Merced, etc.)? Do stand-alone legacy OS clones like Free-DOS have a place in this evolving landscape or will backwards compatibility eventually become entirely modularized within compatibility layers in next generation OSes?
IceWM is nice, and probably better as a standalone WM. If you are still using GNOME though, the Sawmill/GNOME combo really rocks. Sawmill's footprint is a bit larger than IceWM, but not massively so, and it has really cool Lisp configurability for look+feel stuff, plus a great theming system, with some very nice themes out there. In terms of configurability, Sawmill has a much slicker config system than IceWM, and the config system is always up to date with the WM. I am not a big fan of the rather ugly IcePref... of course, I can always hack text files, but for some reason I feel like window manager configuration is one of those things that should be GUI-fied.
But, interestingly enough, most of the kinds of changes being talked about here wouldn't require kernel recompiles. Changing IP address, setting up a modem, etc. all are much faster to do in Linux than in Windows, where 3 or 4 reboots are sometimes required (Don't believe me? Try installing a Proxim Symphony card). In Linux it's as simple as editing the correct config files and ifdown/ifup. But the tools out there that do this stuff, Linuxconf being the most general purpose one, are inadequate or unwieldy.
And I finished my undegraduate work in physics last year. I am currently taking some graduate classes in computer science. I am currently working for a company with a group of folk from Harvard, MIT, and some industry people. Previously, I have consulted for some local startups.
My command of the english language is clearly better than yours, and I don't generally take exacting care to check all of my sentences on /. for grammatical correctness. I believe the sentences you're referring to were probably simply using colloquial expressions.
But, Mr. Troll Shitface AC, that has absolutely nothing to do with the point of my post. Which was that AOL has its uses. If you are going to flame me, at least flame me for the post's relevant content by telling me how much AOL sucks.
But I admit it, I have an AOL account. Why? Well about 70% of the time I am here at school (Harvard) where we have the fat pipe bandwidth kicking it live. And the rest of the time I am either on the road for business or at home in New York. At home, I have BellAtlantic DSL. But for a period of about 2 months this service was going down every other day (until I finally got through to somebody who could fix it).
What's the point? Well, when I'm on the road for business or at home and the DSL goes down, I need something that will work, let me use an SSH/telnet client and check stuff on the web. Nothing fancy. AOL does this. Since my VAIO notebook runs Windows, AOL is fine for on-the-road usage, and it has all the access numbers there.
Is AOL a good general usage ISP? No, definitely not. My Linux boxen would all be stranded if that's all I had. I don't even really consider AOL to be an ISP per se. But AOL has been a shitpot more reliable than other dialup services for me, and they make taking my notebook on the road ridiculously easy.
Now flame away. :)
Right. So a bit-by-bit copy, plus use of CSS authentication protocol to get the DVD key which can be writtento the new DVD. You still don't actually need to do CSS decryption to copy anything. And the CSS authentication protocol was reverse engineered for compatibility. Every piece of DVD decoder software out there has to engage in a series of transactions by whatever method to get the damned key from the DVD drive. Regardless of this, the media you have purchased has the DVD key in plaintext stored in a sector that is rigged in DVD drives to be readable only for the authentication protocol. Well, I forgot what my original point was. In any case, you could still build a device to copy DVDs without CSS authentication or decryption. All the data is stored as bits on the DVD readable through optical methods. And such a theoretical copying device would probably even have legal use, under fair user clauses (there are certainly CD copier devices out there that do the same). This theoretical device does not require CSS decryption or authentication to copy DVDs. QED.
Okay let's make a few points about why that makes no sense fundamentally. Either a) then the key area on a DVD is irrelvant to viewing the DVD or b) the key area is indeed read by the DVD player/drive for authentication/key lookup/whatever silly thing it does so that it can use the key to decrypt the DVD stream. The fact is it HAS to look at that damned key. Maybe it won't normally treat the key as part of the filesystem data that you can just view from a DVD-ROM drive. I could believe that. But the idea that DVD players are "incapable of reading the key area" just makes no sense. How exactly do you think they play the DVDs, huh?
See what the AC just said. When we do get to the point that copying DVDs is economically more feasible than buying them (i.e. blank DVD-R media for under 5 dollars, DVD burners for a few hundred dollars), it won't matter a drap whether or not Linux CSS decryption exists. You can still copy it bit-by-bit. All CSS does is provide player authentication, essentially. It's a way to keep a tight rein on the player (hardware and software) market. It doesn't prevent people from copying the contents of the media (this has been hashed out before, if you want people to be able to view it freely, you need to let them have access to the content). The copy protection schemes used in software aren't particularly effective, and almost exclusively rely on license keys and the like (they used to use things like defective tracks in floppies and the like). Neither of these methods are particularly appropriate for consumer electronic type products, such as DVDs (well, the funky track thing doesn't really work with optical media I don't think). Anyway, point is, you can't do what they claim CSS does, without being too burdensome to the consumer.
IANAL, but as I understand it, even if CSS *IS* a trade secret by that definition, it's just plain NOT RELEVANT. Because nobody is even claiming that trade secret misappropriation (see comment above for exact text) has ever occurred. The definition of trade secret misappropriation involves stealing of information from a corporate headquarters, violation of NDA, etc. That did not occur here as far as I know. The CSS algorithm was reverse engineered and cryptoanalytically attacked and compromised. These are all legal processes in the countries in which they occurred, as I understand the laws. The subsequent distribution of DeCSS and the LiViD project source is just tough turkey for the MPAA. In the end, some kick ass lawyers will take this case on and the MPAA will lose. There will be appeals, and it will be ugly though.
You can also try here. You will find my mirror of Sig11's stuff, but I updated it with the latest CVS tarball of the LiViD project. When will these people learn that using CSS decryption is fscking necessary to play the DVDs. Who the hell wants to make illicit copies of DVDs anyway? All you can do is reencode the MPEG stream at small crappy resolution to send around the net (this is never going to threaten the movie industry...) or save the whole thing on your hard drive (I only have 11 gigs of space in toto). I'd rather just buy them for 15 dollars. Jeez.
I'm one of the people that was harassing (no, not really, actually politely emailing) back and forth with Aureal tech and management people at least a year ago trying to convince them to release Linux drivers and/or specs to write drivers. It actually does make a difference... admittedly, we have Creative to thank for this in a way, since releasing, then Open Sourcing the SB Live drivers forces Aureal's hand, it only forces Aureal's hand BECAUSE they know there is a significant undercurrent of interest in using Linux with their products BECAUSE people like myself and others have been lobbying them for ages. Too bad I trashed my Aureal Vortex 6 months ago in favor of an SB Live. :) Guess Aureal should have moved faster...
Ah, sorry. I guess I should have qualified my claim about when you write the software. I take it for granted that people know they don't hold the copyright when they are writing the software under the employ of somebody else *for* that legal entity. Of course, if these people write software themselves, on their own time, that doesn't relate to their employers' products, then they usually can keep copyright to that (this is always one of those key things to check for in an employment agreement... that your employer doesn't get to steal any ideas/coding you do for yourself on your own time). If that fails, you prolley have to get permission on a case-by-case basis from your employer before writing your own software outside of the realm of the company, if you want to avoid them claiming copyright to it.
If you write the software you hold the copyright. Thus you can license it any way you want. If you want two different classes of license, two slightly different code bases, fine. The only problem is if people submit code/patches, then those can only be folded back into the GPL fork, unless those people know and consent to the second license (perhaps you offer them a share of your profits based on the # of lines of their code that you use). The problems only arise when you have multiple copyright holders though.
Now, the issue isn't really resolved for inhouse developed products and the employees. But no matter how the binary was obtained, the recipient still has the right to demand source. If the binary is leaked, then the recipient can demand source. If it is denied, then the GPL is being violated. The legal intracacies are somewhat more extreme of course... this all really needs a decent court test.
Anyway, on the one hand, we shouldn't claim Linux is something it isn't, but on the other hand, we shouldn't put ourselves down too much. Hey, even my mom has started to like using Linux (which is on my computer at home, but not hers). We are making headway in the desktop arena, but we without a doubt are ahead in the server realm.
I no longer have time to play games nowadays, as I am a full time student and have a job at a startup company as well. :( So I dunno about Q3A. And I only use X at 1024x768, due to my crappy monitor. But I know it supports at least 1280x1024, and I think 1600x1200 as well (although I dunno if that works in X for sure). I use 75hz refresh. On the whole the Voodoo3 is good in X, but not perfect. I think there are better cards out there, Matrox maybe? The Voodoo3 should get as good FPS scores in 3d games as anything in Linux though, until the GeForce drivers are MUCH improved (the GeForce hardware is defintely superior, but the Linux drivers suck).
Looks like they might have folded in some of 3dfx's Voodoo3 improvements to the SVGA server, as screen updates and the like are definitely looking smoother and better now. Not perfect, but definite improvement.
Oops... well I ate some once, to prove my manhood to some friends, when I was about 15 or so. Didn't taste like much, but they did give me and the other guy (who ate much more than I did) quite an awful stomach ache. I wouldn't doubt if there's something a bit nasty in there, but not poisonous. See other posters comment on fungicide. I'd believe it, based on its effects on me.
*I* posted flamebait? That is a completely moronic moderation. Go read the post I replied to. It was racist and entirely ignorant. I was replying in an entirely appropriate fashion, and I will continue to post such replies. Somebody has to have the cojones to stand up to racists. Obviously it's not whoever incorrectly ended up with moderator points.