EULA == nonbinding, unenforceable, illegal contract. Sorry bug, try again. The right to reverse engineer a product for interoperability is a fundamental right, and without it, we'd have no technology industry, period. Those who try to take this right will reap what they sow. Fuck em.
Sorry dude, this is not insightful. Reverse engineering is a sacred right. The DMCA is wrong, period, in all its uses. The bnetd folks wrote their product from scratch. If the Blizzard people couldn't make a secure system on their own, fuck em. The law should not be used to prevent people from using products as they see fit, as long as they legally purchased the software. Bnetd was never a copyright circumvention device. Was it needed? It was certainly useful for those of us who wanted to play the beta before the official release. Did many of us still go out and buy the final release? Of course. And those of us who didn't would have warezed the final release before we bought it anyway. Bnetd didn't cost the Blizzard folks much UNTIL they turned it into a publicity nightmare for themselves. Fuck em, serves 'em right, and I hope they rot in hell.
Leverage victimhood? I'm not trying to leverage anything. Who's the fuckwit here, dickhead? Please tell me where your insightful analysis came from. It's a word in the dictionary. I'm not making it up. The word came about because of a social phenomena in Europe over many centuries whereby Jews were discriminated against. Is it a form of racism? Well, it's a form of arbitrary prejudice and hated based on ethnic and religious factors. Strictly speaking, is it racism? Are the Jewish "people" a "race"? I don't know, it's a term loaded out the ass. I didn't make up the fact that race is considered so problematic, it's hard to define what a race is. According to the traditional European scientific definition: caucasoid, negroid, mongoloid, etc. According to the modern social theorist's definition, race is a purely social construct, and thus "racism" can describe pretty much any form of dislike or bias against any group of people.
I generally associate "racism" with anti-Black sentiment here in the US. I use the more specific anti-Semitism because it avoids the problematic issue of whether Jews are a race and because it accurately describes a European social phenomena that seems to keep reappearing, especially among the supposedly left-leaning bleeding heart liberals. And as far as I know, there is no general purpose world for "religionism", and I wouldn't use it when discussing the particulars anyway.
So, in short, if you think I'm a fuckwit just because I've thought about something more deeply than you have, then you can blow me.
Very simple. The guy didn't say "I don't approve of the actions of the current Israeli government". Instead he implied that Israelis are behind the WTC bombing, and implied strongly in several of his statements that Israelis are prone to dishonesty and deception (no, he didn't say Jews, but for those of us who have the ability to read the subtext of the post, it's pretty clear). If you want a more complete treatment of why that post was antisemitic, see my other post.
How can I buy a license if I don't know what it is? Why is all the marketing made to sound like I'm buying the software? If it looks, acts, talks, and quacks like a duck, than a court will usually hold that it should be treated like one. A lease is different - you go into the situation knowing you are paying periodically for the right to use a car as you see fit, subject to the terms of the contract, but the vehicle is still owned in title by somebody else. You put your signature to a document. Imagine if you will, when you are purchasing (not leasing) a car, they acted like you were buying a car, then after you took possession of the car, they sent you a document and said "oh by the way, you didn't buy the car _really_, you just bought the license to use the car, which is mostly like owning the car, except that if you drive the car places we don't like, we can take back the car from you, or at least you lose the legal right to drive the car, and if you keep the car, we presume you consent to this license".
Any judge would and should presumably laugh that out of court. I would hope the same would hold for software - I am buying the right to use it as I see fit within the normal understanding of the law. In other words, I can't violate copyright law and sell or make unauthorized copies of it. I can't redistribute it or make derived works from it for redistribution.
Is there fuzziness about the definition of copying with respect to software? Sure. I shouldn't be allowed to make use of the same software on more than one computer at the same time, since that is clearly "copying" the copyrighted work, unless I specifically buy the right to do that from the copyright holder. Do I need an EULA to tell me that? No. If there's no EULA is it legal for me to use on more than one computer? It shouldn't be - that goes beyond what a reasonable person would expect that use of the copyrighted work (without copying) entails.
I still fail to see why you need the EULA, and what the EULA gives you that simple possession of a copyrighted piece of software gives you. If there is a flaw with the law and the way it treats software, let's fix it, but we don't need EULAs to do so.
Sure, good job, bring my intellect into it - ad hominem attacks really bolster an argument founded initially on racism. First of all, you picked a bad morning to pick on my intellect. Do you want me to resort to credentialism? I don't really know how else to prove my intelligence to somebody clearly incapable of judging it by way of their own observation.
You seem to fail to understand the difference between honest criticism of governmental policies, which do have a place in public discourse, and anti-semitism. I'll assume you're just not that bright, and that you don't intend the racism. Let me start:
"pull the blinkers over the eyes of Americans regarding whatever Israel is doing at the moment"
Well, if there is an organization that promotes technology companies and the tech industry in India, would you use phrases like this to describe them? Would you say "those devious little Indians are trying to blind us to their oppression in Kashmir and bedazzle us with their exploitative accomplishments in the tech industry"? Well, you'd be taking a pretty racist position if you said that too. You start from the assumption of deception, that lobbying for industry in a nation is somehow pulling the wool over people's eyes, some sort of conspiracy. Gee, where does that point of view derive from? Perhaps centuries of anti-semitic propaganda?
"Rather, they propagandize for the Israeli high-tech industry, an industry largely created by American taxpayers and which directly competes with American companies. We won't talk about the underhanded way that came about."
Oh yes, I mean, this isn't racist or anything. First, this is out and out xenophobia, directed specifically at Israelis. I'm sure that's just coincidental, and your probably generally xenophobic, so we need not assume any racism on those grounds. Second, you need to describe everything as underhanded. Why? Perhaps because you are reverting to racial stereotyping, hrmm? I mean, if I said "we don't need to talk about why those African countries are so poor, I mean, it's obvious that those people are fundamentally lazy" that's a pretty damned racist comment as well. Not to mention that the statement is fundamentally untrue - we all know that Israel does in fact receive a large volume of foreign aid from the US, and that money does have overall economically stimulating effects, but that hardly means that this industry was created by American taxpayers, at least not in the negative sense you seem to suggest. Furthermore, the Israeli tech industry primarily sells stuff to, oh, say, American companies? And other companies around the globe? This is a global economy, buddy boy, you compete based on the merits of your products. Just because you personally have been driven to xenophobia, perhaps because you lack the skills to personally compete, doesn't mean shit. Protectionism is dead.
Now, much of the rest of your original post is reasonable, and I agree with. Up until you start talking about the Israeli intelligence apparatus. I mean, you seem to be a reasonably bright fellow, but your logical thinking seems to get shut out by emotionalism when you start getting riled up with racist conspiracy theories. Does Israel spy on the US? Yes, definitely. And I'm quite sure the same goes for the US spying on Israel. Intelligence on your enemies is important, but intelligence on your friends is equally important. I don't know if it's the most agressive spying program or have any reason to believe that without evidence. And of course, Israel has a powerful intelligence agency, period.
The Israelis in the van? That's been suspect all along. Come on, think about it. It doesn't add up. These guys were movers. They worked for a moving company. If I owned that moving company and was receiving death threats, I'd make it disappear too. Give me a break. Were the guys released and sent back to Israel? Yes, but then again, they didn't do anything illegal. They were reported by some observer to be "cheering" as they watched the WTC collapse. It's easy perhaps to imagine somebody who doesn't understand what language is being spoken or the emotional content of the speakers to mistake what's being said. Especially if perhaps the observer assumed it was Arabic and was reading into it something that wasn't there. If you think you have a better explanation, let me introduce you to Mr. Occam and his razor. The only people obsessed with that particular story seem to be anti-semitic conspiracy theorist wackos. All former IDF members - yah, and so is almost every Israeli male of military age.
So perhaps it's difficult for you to see, but your comments all seep of racism, my friend. It is pretty much impossible to be blanket anti-Israel without it. Opposed to the foreign policy of the current Israeli government is one thing. Saying you are opposed to an entire, democratic nation? If you say you are opposed to America and Americans in general you are equally a blanket purveyor of hatred. You perhaps fail to see the difference between this and Iraq. I don't think most Americans hate Iraqis, or have any problem at all with the Iraqi people. The current, non-democratic government perpetrates violence and destabilizes the region. That's all. I frankly think that Ariel Sharon destabilizes Israel and isn't a productive influence there - the difference is that the Israeli people have been on the receiving end of a tremendous amount of violence, hated and terrorism as well as being purveyors of military rule. Iraq's government is, historically, an aggressor without provocation - and their government in no way is democratically elected. We don't go and kick out governments that are democratically elected.
In short, your post can stand on its own merit without the anti-semitism. I too am concerned about the idea that we would award government contracts for encryption or security software development to foreign firms, simply because any sort of classified government information should not be transmitted over channels developed by other countries. Period. Too much of an incentive for bad things to happen there. And obviously non-peer reviewed methods should never be used for such applications either (well, unless developed in-house at the NSA). I think this argument stands on its own right - there is absolutely no merit to bringing in statements that are tinged by racism and stereotypes to the discussion. I suggest in the future that you consider refraining from framing your comments at the top and bottom with such tripe if you want to be taken seriously by anybody with a sufficient intellect to appreciate the real content and skip over the paranoid delusional crap.
And that is the most far-fetched argument ever. It's not making a copy if it's required for the normal, expected _use_ of the software. Again, it's a product I buy in a store. If I obtained it legally I must have the right to use it. No different than a book, which I legally obtained. Obviously, the primary use of a book is reading it. I have to make a copy of the words in the book into my cornea and into my brain's memory to use it too, but that's irrelevant, since that's just the standard mechanism by which we use books. "Copying" has always meant, according to any standards of common sense, making an exact duplicate of the original material, or a new derived work of your own. If the original work, through its normal usage, emits copies or modified versions of portions of itself at different times, that doesn't entail "copying" as any reasonable person would understand it.
This guy is a fucking antisemite troll. Anybody with an inkling of a clue can see this company is a scam. So what? There are lots of scam companies out there in every country. The fact that he has to interlace his argument with antisemitic rhetoric when the argument is trivial to make on its own proves that he's just karma whoring to the contingent of antisemitic moderators. My recommendation: when you get mod points, use them to slam down posters like that.
I just skimmed it. One of the worst reasoned decisions I've ever seen. Should make any lawyer ashamed of their profession. The argument seems to hinge on the assertion that EULAs keep software prices down and the briefly mentioned fact that you accept the license because you choose not to return the software after opening the box. That's identical to giving a check to somebody and then sending them a contract in the mail and telling them that by accepting my check they agreed to these terms - it's outrageous and ridiculous. The contract was negotiated at the time the purchase was made, and can't be modified afterwards on the assumption that you will undo the transaction if you don't agree to the ex post facto terms. Especially note the fact that most EULAs explicitly give the manufacturer the right to change the terms pretty much any time they want. In other words, they can "renegotiate" your contract whenever they want. That's not a contract, that's a fucking edict.
And the cost argument makes little sense to me. We don't provide professionals in most industries the right to disclaim their work in this way. If there's a problem with liability for defective products and excessive tort awards, then let's address that problem, not try to give software products the right to bundle in licenses in a way that other products can't. And of course, I'd also like to point out that most of us don't really have any problem with a Disclaimer of Liability statement. The problem is that those are generally by far the least offensive terms in the EULAs we are talking about. And those are terms that are, at least arguably, reasonable for a purchaser to expect - in other words, we might allow such terms in a contract of adherence.
The terms found in many modern EULAs run so contrary to basic understanding of property law and copyright law (that if I buy a product I can use it as I see fit, I can comment on and review it as I see fit, etc.) that they have a substantially negative public policy impact. This ruling seems to neglect this gaping, glaring aspect of EULAs (and again, that's only if you are willing to assume that we should treat EULAs as contracts of adherence - and as I pointed out previously, I fail to see in any way how they have argued successfully that EULAs bear the attributes of a contract that I mentioned previously).
In short, this decision is a laughable piece of trash. If lawyers brains are so defective that they can't see that, then this country is in more trouble than I thought.
Can somebody point me to some case law that implies that EULAs ARE enforceable under current legislation? I fail to see why we need to sit around worrying about it, since to the best of my ability to see, there isn't the foggiest hint of a legal leg to stand on for purveyors of EULAs. I'm not really aware of any situation where these have been considered contracts. They seem to almost universally fail the standards for contract existance -
1) Intention to create legal relations (huh? When I go to a store an buy a product, I don't intend to create legal relations)
2) Agreement, offer and acceptance (huh? When did I agree to the contract? Oh, after I bought the software and opened up the box. But if I don't accept, that doesn't change the fact that I own the software and can use it as I please, within the bounds of copyright law)
3) Certainty of Terms (well, they are certain, but only after you've already made your purchase) and
4) Consideration - as far as I know, most EULAs provide no consideration - you don't get anything in addition to the rights you would get to use a normal product or copyrighted work (like a book or piece of art) as you see fit, as long as you don't redistribute except as permitted by first sale doctrine, etc.
In short, unless you are in a UCITA state, EULAs are meaningless. Not only are they contracts of adhesion (i.e. non-negotiated and non-negotiable), but they aren't signed, and they fail to meet pretty much all the other standards for what makes a contract a contract.
Jesus dude, my fucking grandparents can browse to a directory and create a new directory. Beginners? Sounds like you were teaching fucktards. But you're right, an hour on the details of what the filesystem is just ain't worth it. Basic users shouldn't have to worry about the filesystem - turning on and off, browsing the web, sending an email sounds like it might have been a stretch.
4) Some people here have said that EULAs are invalid: Bullshit. There have been court decisions going BOTH ways, but the more recent antecedents have all been in favor of EULA validity. It can't get much clearer: If you agree to the EULA terms, you are bound by them.
You simply don't know what you are talking about here. An EULA is a contract of adhesion, and an unsigned one at that. This makes it one of the weakest types of contract. Contracts of adhesion regularly have terms that a "reasonable person" would not expect to find in there thrown out. Thus any judge would throw out an EULA that allowed a vendor trespass rights on your property to do audits for software licensing.
The BSA are scum, but they aren't idiots. They know this. That's why they are only going to explicitly come after you if you 1) Signed a formal contract with a BSA member for large enterprise licensing deals. These contracts DO allow the BSA to demand audits, and those terms are definitely enforceable (i.e. not allowing them in is breach of contract, and you could be liable for lots of punitive damages and the like). 2) Somebody has explicitly reported you for violations egregious enough that a judge and the police consider that there is probably cause for a search warrant (i.e. that criminal laws have been broken, not just a few contract violations here or there).
If there is no explicit contract, and there is no evidence to provide probable cause (or the police just have better things to do in your jurisdiction), then there is nothing to worry about.
Ah... there's the problem (or at least I consider it a problem). Many seem to believe that the economy should be push-driven (companies "sell shit") versus a pull-driven one (people "buy shit").
I don't think I said that anything *should* be anything. That would be placing a normative judgement on it. I didn't do that. The undeniable fact is that for a substantial majority of products brand awareness and marketing *DO* affect purchasing decisions. For large ticket items, people do of course do a lot more research, and product quality is genuinely important. But product quality alone doesn't cinch the deal. For example, a BMW 325 and an Acura 3.2TL - very similar cars in specs and capabilities - nonetheless, I'd get the BMW 325 anyday (assuming I had the money).
I agree and understand that stupid annoying advertising can drive away consumers. Not all brand awareness is necessarily good brand awareness - I am not sure what the truth on this issue is, but I suspect it depends greatly on the individual and the type of product you are talking about. So yes, perhaps having a terrible, unprofessional looking trade show booth is worse than having none at all. And no, nobody buys software or hardware *solely* based on a trade show booth. But if two competitors have very similar products, and one has a very slick, professional, organized presentation at their trade show booth, and gives away cool widgets, well, they might find that they get more attention and more people want to talk business with them.
Altruism is really easy when the economy is flying high and we are all getting rich. Altruism is much more difficult when we are struggling to hold on to or obtain jobs, when VC money doesn't fall of trees, when customers go out of business dragging down otherwise solid companies and so on.
Altruism is important, but ultimately people make most decisions on an economic basis. And people develop Open Source software for the recognition and geek-chic fame they get, for the opportunity to be the key player in a project when perhaps they are more of a cog in their day job (and it can be a great way to up your perceived value to saavy employers). The fact that economic decisions are behind a lot of the success of Open Source software (do you think IBM supports Linux out of altruism?) doesn't make it less of a good or diminish the positive value it provides to the community. So there.
Well, because marketing, while it may seem silly and unimportant to you, is what makes companies sell shit. And good presence at a trade show can lead to good writeups and reviews and lots of general industry press attention. Which of course is useful because it helps you close the deals that bring in money. Which in turn pays your salary, and if you have options or an ESOP plan, might give you a really big payout. Of course, this is the money that puts all that food on your table, buys that car you drive, pays for your kids to go to that nice private school, etc.
Of course, I merely justified why trade show booths do serve a purpose. The competitiveness you observed is a basic part of human nature - if you are a marketing person for a company, you want it to be known that you are better at your job than the marketing people at your competitor company. The same applies to all people on the evolutionary track to success. If you just don't care about competing and winning, well, you are probably on one of those lines of evolution that will die out sooner or later and make room for those who do. Capitalism is a reflection of nature, which is why it works. Is it always a moral good? No - that's why we need laws and governments to keep it from being too destructive. But trying to impose systems fundamentally at odds with human nature seems to be a guaranteed failure.
Sorry bud. MS is in the console business for the long haul. You see, Xbox isn't really a console at all. It's the first step to a set top digital media entertainment hub. This is the battle to control the pipe to your eyeballs, children, and MS is determined to win. You didn't honestly think they were throwing away hundreds of millions of dollars per quarter just to give you consoles at below cost? And they recognize that they *might* eventually make it up in game license sales, but even if it turned into a nice little profitable enterprise, it would hardly justify the BILLIONS they've poured into R&D on the product.
The killer app is selling video on demand and music on demand down a broadband pipe and putting on your TV. MS is determined to be the lynchpin to that business. They want to make the cable companies and media companies their bitches. And they have the cash money in the bank to throw away at this, as long as that long term goal looks attainable.
Great, and you think Linux is going to "win the desktop" by breaking laws and distributing legally-grey-area software all over the place? I hate to tell you, but that's not going to convince corporate backers. I think a big part of the value Debian provides in separating out Free and Non-Free is by clarifying that Debian is the core of a legally compliant Linux operating system. If I were a company looking to distribute a commercial desktop Linux distro, I'd consider using Debian as the starting point - great package system, and you know the license-legality of all the Free packages is going to be on the up-and-up.
Debian carries a lot of moral weight and positive connotations to people in the Linux and Free Software communities because of their social contract and quality software release process. They don't make the most user-friendly distro, but then again, neither does Gentoo. And the fact that Gentoo throws in lots of legally grey software is nice for the end user in the short term, but it'll guarantee no company wants to install it, and prevent anybody from basing other distributions on Gentoo (then again, who the hell would want to make a desktop distro for granny where you had to compile every package you want to download? That's the wrong solution to the packaging problem).
I think you just reiterated the point of post.:) This is not a good compromise. Period. It does nothing to guarantee that shorter copyright terms will stick around past the current batch of legislators and and does everything to remove rights that would be VERY hard to get back.
I respect and admire Larry Lessig immensely, and a good friend of mine (currently at Harvard Law School) did some work on your case. I've been following and reading Lessig's blog for some time, and I felt the same emotional downfall when the decision came back from the Supremes. However, I think you and he are thinking a bit too small here if you think we need to make such strong compromises so soon. I see a trend, and I see momentum gaining. People like my mother who read the New York Times but not Slashdot are reading editorials about Eldred v. Ashcroft, and realizing, to some small extent, what the Sonny Bono Act was all about. What we need to do is keep the pressure and attention in the public eye and make it part of the discourse of the intellectual elite of this country.
We will have to make compromises. But don't be too ready to give in too soon. I understand that for you, this seems like it's been a long battle already. For the rest of the country, the battle's just getting started. Lessig's copyright extension tax is a fabulous idea, but let's not let them force an unreasonable state of DRM-enforced lack-of-rights on us in exchange for it. Talk about winning the battle and losing the war.
They already have legal backing. They have the DMCA. The most outrageously anti-consumer copyright law yet. If the deal is repeal the Sonny Bono/Mickey Mouse Copyright Extension Act in return for making an even stronger/worse version of the DMCA, hell no. I and most reasonable people have no problem with the idea that copyright holders get a limited term right to their works. While I think it would be nice to have that term reduced to something more reasonable to encourage greater creative use of materials in the public domain, the hindrance to technological development caused by the radical enforcement of DMCA terms and a stronger, much scarier form of the DMCA far outweighs that.
Copyright extension should be halted because it drains the public domain of material. Period. We shouldn't have to bargain for that one. 75 years was plenty of time, we had settled into that time frame, and we had plenty of older literature and materials flowing into the public domain. Then along came the DMCA - reverse engineering, making compatible devices and software, using your own media (that you legally purchased) in other devices of your choosing - all these basic property rights and common law understandings of what people can do with things they own flew out the goddamned window.
I'm not willing to cut a deal with the devil, or the so-called content industry in this scenario, to bring back reduced timespans for copyrights. Cut copyrights back, abolish the DMCA (perhaps some parts are not unreasonable, but as I see it, everything in there is either not needed because it was covered by existing jurisprudence, or is flat out morally wrong), and THEN we can have an intelligent debate and discussion as a society about what kind of legislation should be in place to help protect content producers from unreasonable amounts of piracy, IF in fact existing laws don't provide them that protection already.
If in fact the problem is an economic one (people are pirating because it is economically sensible for them to do so) why not try modifying your business model to one that doesn't so strongly encourage such illegal copying? You're never going to eliminate it entirely. Sorry, but we don't want and won't take crippled devices. If the content industry hasn't figured that out yet, then fuck them. I'd rather have a crippled, less profitable, re-organized content industry with my rights intact, than have mandated, legally enforced DRM embedded in my hardware, and have Disney's profits secured so they keep pushing their schwag out on audiences. Oh yeah, and what do we get out of it? Copyright terms are only 14 years. Of course, that doesn't apply retroactively, it only applies to new content. Oh, so sorry about that. And in 14 years what happens? Copyrights get extended again, without public debate, once the sheep have gotten used to ubiquitous DRM.
Sorry, but I'll go down with guns blazing before I accept this "compromise". Right now, we are getting the strength of momentum behind us. The popular press is buying into it. Copyright term extensions are going down, though it may take a while. As for the DMCA - it's not going away just yet, but the debate in the public forum is just starting, and we'll get there eventually too. Once the content industry realizes how shaky the ground they are walking on is, perhaps we will hear a real compromise deal out of them, hrrmmm?
Sometimes I agree with Joel, this is not one of them. That is not an argument at all. An argument would refer to a sampling of perceptions of "goodness" of the look of the text, measurements of actual reading rates of aliased and anti-aliased text, and examine the relative effects of sub-pixel rendering and hinting on the quality and benefits (or hindrances) associated with anti-aliasing. The fact is most people disagree with him. And him examples are laughable - those look like the shittiest anti-aliasing algorithms imaginable. Nothing like ClearType, or Mac OS X text rendering, or even the hacked Xft (which looks pretty good these days).
Joel is usually right when he talks about managing software projects. He clearly has a shit aesthetic sense, and is talking out of his ass on this one.
Probably FreeType. FreeType sucks with the default settings. Looks much better with the hacked "patent-violating" version installed on my Mandrake 9 box (like 2-3 times better - it's shocking). And though nobody has ever discussed it, FreeType fucks up kerning like there's no tomorrow. The font support in X windows is still the thing that keeps me running back to Windows XP - though it's much closer to usable, my anti-aliased Phoenix/Mozilla fuck up the text when scrolling (lines of pixels lost), kerning is screwed up (particularly OpenOffice - there must be something wrong with the way it uses FreeType).
Linux apps will keep sucking as long as each and every app does font rendering its own goddamned way. The app should tell the server what fucking text to render and where, and the server should anti-alias it and render it, and we should toss out the old apps that use the antiquated X rendering system to draw glyphs in the X client. Then just focus on making Xft/FreeType rock.
I've used wxPython to build a fairly large GUI application. It was actually an annoyingly complicated project, for reasons that were not really the fault of wxWindows, and Python probably wasn't the right language to use (sometimes strong typing and compile-time type checking are really nice to have around).
Anyway, you see a lot of Qt fans around here. Qt is nice, and is unbeatable for its documentation quality and the cleanness of extending the base widgets with new composite widgets, and extending the base objects with new behaviors. wxWindows can be a bit more awkward in these ways, isn't always quite so clean and well architected as Qt, and definitely isn't as well documented (especially if you are using the wxPython bindings - reading C++ docs with "annotations" is annoying).
However, wxWindows uses true native widgets, not rendered widgets that look and feel nearly native (Qt - it does a pretty damned good job of it, not like Swing or something, but it's still not using true native widgets on Windows). wxWindows is also free (as in beer) for use in commercial AND Free Software applications, licensed as LGPL with the exception that derived works in binary form may be distributed on any terms you want. In other words, no restrictions on commercial use or licensing. Qt is GPLed or commercial software. Meaning you can either use a GPL-compatible Free Software license, or you can license their commercial version, which is fairly expensive (for a hobbyist or private individual - and not exactly cheap for a company if you have to buy a bunch of seat licenses for your developers).
If you can afford it, and don't mind the fake painted widgets, then Qt is the way to go. If you want real native widgets on Windows, OS X, and X Windows, and you are on a budget, then wxWindows rules - just expect to sometimes have to bang your head against some annoying documentation or some unfinished features (wxGrid anybody? God fucking damn if I didn't build an entire app around a wxGrid only to find out it doesn't exactly work as advertised all the time... grr...).
Most importantly, ignore the posts about how the "feel" isn't quite right on some platforms. If you really want a slightly different menu layout or some such thing for each of the several platforms, it's pretty damned easy to add a few lines of conditional compilation (for a C++ program at least) to switch a few things around - and since the joy of Unix is that X apps have no fucking standards anyway, that app you wrote that looks good on Windows will probably look just as good in X - just make sure you test the OS X version out if that's a target platform, since I imagine you need some extra work to make things truly meet the Macintosh platform guidelines. Still a ton easier to maintain one wxWindows source base than to maintain a Gtk, MFC and Carbon/Cocoa GUI separately.
I already _AM_ a member of the Mandrake Club and have purchased Mandrake Linux 7.2 (I think that was the version), 8.0, and 8.2 in shrinkwrap versions. In short, I'm a huge supporter. But it is their embrace of the "gift economy" that has led them to being broke and having to file for Chapter 11 - that and their silly pursuit of some really irrelevant business opportunities (e-Education).
Though you resemble a troll in certain respects, I'm inclined to think you have some decent points (in fact, your insight into the mid-level management mindset leads me to believe you either are one yourself or have had an inordinate amount of experience with the most small-minded from that set).
MandrakeSoft has perhaps taken too strong of a position spouting off about Free-this, Free-that. You and I here on Slashdot understand that Linux is about Free Software (or Open Source, depending on which idealogical leaning you have, pro-RMS or anti-RMS). Freedom is important, Freedom is worthwhile. However, Freedom is not the same as Marketing. Selling a product is about Marketing. As I've stated before, I think MandrakeSoft would be much better off if they started charging for ISOs (or rather, making ISOs available only to MandrakeClub members), and starting focusing on marketing to businesses and home users, and spit-shining their product (get their fucking QA people in line for god's sake, and use your brain before you stamp a release as ready-to-go). If somebody in the community wants to put together a FreeDrake ISO with MandrakeSoft RPMS, let em. Hell, they could do that now, and put some spit-shine on the stuff. But they don't. People use Mandrake, and like it. They need to start capitalizing on their popularity among geeks who want a desktop Linux distro that Just Works (newbies and others), and broaden their damned market appeal and start selling some shit. If they don't, somebody else will. And my fear is that it will be Lindows or somebody equally smarmy. Ugh.
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EULA == nonbinding, unenforceable, illegal contract. Sorry bug, try again. The right to reverse engineer a product for interoperability is a fundamental right, and without it, we'd have no technology industry, period. Those who try to take this right will reap what they sow. Fuck em.
Sorry dude, this is not insightful. Reverse engineering is a sacred right. The DMCA is wrong, period, in all its uses. The bnetd folks wrote their product from scratch. If the Blizzard people couldn't make a secure system on their own, fuck em. The law should not be used to prevent people from using products as they see fit, as long as they legally purchased the software. Bnetd was never a copyright circumvention device. Was it needed? It was certainly useful for those of us who wanted to play the beta before the official release. Did many of us still go out and buy the final release? Of course. And those of us who didn't would have warezed the final release before we bought it anyway. Bnetd didn't cost the Blizzard folks much UNTIL they turned it into a publicity nightmare for themselves. Fuck em, serves 'em right, and I hope they rot in hell.
I generally associate "racism" with anti-Black sentiment here in the US. I use the more specific anti-Semitism because it avoids the problematic issue of whether Jews are a race and because it accurately describes a European social phenomena that seems to keep reappearing, especially among the supposedly left-leaning bleeding heart liberals. And as far as I know, there is no general purpose world for "religionism", and I wouldn't use it when discussing the particulars anyway.
So, in short, if you think I'm a fuckwit just because I've thought about something more deeply than you have, then you can blow me.
Very simple. The guy didn't say "I don't approve of the actions of the current Israeli government". Instead he implied that Israelis are behind the WTC bombing, and implied strongly in several of his statements that Israelis are prone to dishonesty and deception (no, he didn't say Jews, but for those of us who have the ability to read the subtext of the post, it's pretty clear). If you want a more complete treatment of why that post was antisemitic, see my other post.
Any judge would and should presumably laugh that out of court. I would hope the same would hold for software - I am buying the right to use it as I see fit within the normal understanding of the law. In other words, I can't violate copyright law and sell or make unauthorized copies of it. I can't redistribute it or make derived works from it for redistribution.
Is there fuzziness about the definition of copying with respect to software? Sure. I shouldn't be allowed to make use of the same software on more than one computer at the same time, since that is clearly "copying" the copyrighted work, unless I specifically buy the right to do that from the copyright holder. Do I need an EULA to tell me that? No. If there's no EULA is it legal for me to use on more than one computer? It shouldn't be - that goes beyond what a reasonable person would expect that use of the copyrighted work (without copying) entails.
I still fail to see why you need the EULA, and what the EULA gives you that simple possession of a copyrighted piece of software gives you. If there is a flaw with the law and the way it treats software, let's fix it, but we don't need EULAs to do so.
You seem to fail to understand the difference between honest criticism of governmental policies, which do have a place in public discourse, and anti-semitism. I'll assume you're just not that bright, and that you don't intend the racism. Let me start:
"pull the blinkers over the eyes of Americans regarding whatever Israel is doing at the moment"
Well, if there is an organization that promotes technology companies and the tech industry in India, would you use phrases like this to describe them? Would you say "those devious little Indians are trying to blind us to their oppression in Kashmir and bedazzle us with their exploitative accomplishments in the tech industry"? Well, you'd be taking a pretty racist position if you said that too. You start from the assumption of deception, that lobbying for industry in a nation is somehow pulling the wool over people's eyes, some sort of conspiracy. Gee, where does that point of view derive from? Perhaps centuries of anti-semitic propaganda?
"Rather, they propagandize for the Israeli high-tech industry, an industry largely created by American taxpayers and which directly competes with American companies. We won't talk about the underhanded way that came about."
Oh yes, I mean, this isn't racist or anything. First, this is out and out xenophobia, directed specifically at Israelis. I'm sure that's just coincidental, and your probably generally xenophobic, so we need not assume any racism on those grounds. Second, you need to describe everything as underhanded. Why? Perhaps because you are reverting to racial stereotyping, hrmm? I mean, if I said "we don't need to talk about why those African countries are so poor, I mean, it's obvious that those people are fundamentally lazy" that's a pretty damned racist comment as well. Not to mention that the statement is fundamentally untrue - we all know that Israel does in fact receive a large volume of foreign aid from the US, and that money does have overall economically stimulating effects, but that hardly means that this industry was created by American taxpayers, at least not in the negative sense you seem to suggest. Furthermore, the Israeli tech industry primarily sells stuff to, oh, say, American companies? And other companies around the globe? This is a global economy, buddy boy, you compete based on the merits of your products. Just because you personally have been driven to xenophobia, perhaps because you lack the skills to personally compete, doesn't mean shit. Protectionism is dead.
Now, much of the rest of your original post is reasonable, and I agree with. Up until you start talking about the Israeli intelligence apparatus. I mean, you seem to be a reasonably bright fellow, but your logical thinking seems to get shut out by emotionalism when you start getting riled up with racist conspiracy theories. Does Israel spy on the US? Yes, definitely. And I'm quite sure the same goes for the US spying on Israel. Intelligence on your enemies is important, but intelligence on your friends is equally important. I don't know if it's the most agressive spying program or have any reason to believe that without evidence. And of course, Israel has a powerful intelligence agency, period.
The Israelis in the van? That's been suspect all along. Come on, think about it. It doesn't add up. These guys were movers. They worked for a moving company. If I owned that moving company and was receiving death threats, I'd make it disappear too. Give me a break. Were the guys released and sent back to Israel? Yes, but then again, they didn't do anything illegal. They were reported by some observer to be "cheering" as they watched the WTC collapse. It's easy perhaps to imagine somebody who doesn't understand what language is being spoken or the emotional content of the speakers to mistake what's being said. Especially if perhaps the observer assumed it was Arabic and was reading into it something that wasn't there. If you think you have a better explanation, let me introduce you to Mr. Occam and his razor. The only people obsessed with that particular story seem to be anti-semitic conspiracy theorist wackos. All former IDF members - yah, and so is almost every Israeli male of military age.
So perhaps it's difficult for you to see, but your comments all seep of racism, my friend. It is pretty much impossible to be blanket anti-Israel without it. Opposed to the foreign policy of the current Israeli government is one thing. Saying you are opposed to an entire, democratic nation? If you say you are opposed to America and Americans in general you are equally a blanket purveyor of hatred. You perhaps fail to see the difference between this and Iraq. I don't think most Americans hate Iraqis, or have any problem at all with the Iraqi people. The current, non-democratic government perpetrates violence and destabilizes the region. That's all. I frankly think that Ariel Sharon destabilizes Israel and isn't a productive influence there - the difference is that the Israeli people have been on the receiving end of a tremendous amount of violence, hated and terrorism as well as being purveyors of military rule. Iraq's government is, historically, an aggressor without provocation - and their government in no way is democratically elected. We don't go and kick out governments that are democratically elected.
In short, your post can stand on its own merit without the anti-semitism. I too am concerned about the idea that we would award government contracts for encryption or security software development to foreign firms, simply because any sort of classified government information should not be transmitted over channels developed by other countries. Period. Too much of an incentive for bad things to happen there. And obviously non-peer reviewed methods should never be used for such applications either (well, unless developed in-house at the NSA). I think this argument stands on its own right - there is absolutely no merit to bringing in statements that are tinged by racism and stereotypes to the discussion. I suggest in the future that you consider refraining from framing your comments at the top and bottom with such tripe if you want to be taken seriously by anybody with a sufficient intellect to appreciate the real content and skip over the paranoid delusional crap.
And that is the most far-fetched argument ever. It's not making a copy if it's required for the normal, expected _use_ of the software. Again, it's a product I buy in a store. If I obtained it legally I must have the right to use it. No different than a book, which I legally obtained. Obviously, the primary use of a book is reading it. I have to make a copy of the words in the book into my cornea and into my brain's memory to use it too, but that's irrelevant, since that's just the standard mechanism by which we use books. "Copying" has always meant, according to any standards of common sense, making an exact duplicate of the original material, or a new derived work of your own. If the original work, through its normal usage, emits copies or modified versions of portions of itself at different times, that doesn't entail "copying" as any reasonable person would understand it.
This guy is a fucking antisemite troll. Anybody with an inkling of a clue can see this company is a scam. So what? There are lots of scam companies out there in every country. The fact that he has to interlace his argument with antisemitic rhetoric when the argument is trivial to make on its own proves that he's just karma whoring to the contingent of antisemitic moderators. My recommendation: when you get mod points, use them to slam down posters like that.
And the cost argument makes little sense to me. We don't provide professionals in most industries the right to disclaim their work in this way. If there's a problem with liability for defective products and excessive tort awards, then let's address that problem, not try to give software products the right to bundle in licenses in a way that other products can't. And of course, I'd also like to point out that most of us don't really have any problem with a Disclaimer of Liability statement. The problem is that those are generally by far the least offensive terms in the EULAs we are talking about. And those are terms that are, at least arguably, reasonable for a purchaser to expect - in other words, we might allow such terms in a contract of adherence.
The terms found in many modern EULAs run so contrary to basic understanding of property law and copyright law (that if I buy a product I can use it as I see fit, I can comment on and review it as I see fit, etc.) that they have a substantially negative public policy impact. This ruling seems to neglect this gaping, glaring aspect of EULAs (and again, that's only if you are willing to assume that we should treat EULAs as contracts of adherence - and as I pointed out previously, I fail to see in any way how they have argued successfully that EULAs bear the attributes of a contract that I mentioned previously).
In short, this decision is a laughable piece of trash. If lawyers brains are so defective that they can't see that, then this country is in more trouble than I thought.
1) Intention to create legal relations (huh? When I go to a store an buy a product, I don't intend to create legal relations)
2) Agreement, offer and acceptance (huh? When did I agree to the contract? Oh, after I bought the software and opened up the box. But if I don't accept, that doesn't change the fact that I own the software and can use it as I please, within the bounds of copyright law)
3) Certainty of Terms (well, they are certain, but only after you've already made your purchase) and
4) Consideration - as far as I know, most EULAs provide no consideration - you don't get anything in addition to the rights you would get to use a normal product or copyrighted work (like a book or piece of art) as you see fit, as long as you don't redistribute except as permitted by first sale doctrine, etc.
In short, unless you are in a UCITA state, EULAs are meaningless. Not only are they contracts of adhesion (i.e. non-negotiated and non-negotiable), but they aren't signed, and they fail to meet pretty much all the other standards for what makes a contract a contract.
Jesus dude, my fucking grandparents can browse to a directory and create a new directory. Beginners? Sounds like you were teaching fucktards. But you're right, an hour on the details of what the filesystem is just ain't worth it. Basic users shouldn't have to worry about the filesystem - turning on and off, browsing the web, sending an email sounds like it might have been a stretch.
You simply don't know what you are talking about here. An EULA is a contract of adhesion, and an unsigned one at that. This makes it one of the weakest types of contract. Contracts of adhesion regularly have terms that a "reasonable person" would not expect to find in there thrown out. Thus any judge would throw out an EULA that allowed a vendor trespass rights on your property to do audits for software licensing.
The BSA are scum, but they aren't idiots. They know this. That's why they are only going to explicitly come after you if you 1) Signed a formal contract with a BSA member for large enterprise licensing deals. These contracts DO allow the BSA to demand audits, and those terms are definitely enforceable (i.e. not allowing them in is breach of contract, and you could be liable for lots of punitive damages and the like). 2) Somebody has explicitly reported you for violations egregious enough that a judge and the police consider that there is probably cause for a search warrant (i.e. that criminal laws have been broken, not just a few contract violations here or there).
If there is no explicit contract, and there is no evidence to provide probable cause (or the police just have better things to do in your jurisdiction), then there is nothing to worry about.
I don't think I said that anything *should* be anything. That would be placing a normative judgement on it. I didn't do that. The undeniable fact is that for a substantial majority of products brand awareness and marketing *DO* affect purchasing decisions. For large ticket items, people do of course do a lot more research, and product quality is genuinely important. But product quality alone doesn't cinch the deal. For example, a BMW 325 and an Acura 3.2TL - very similar cars in specs and capabilities - nonetheless, I'd get the BMW 325 anyday (assuming I had the money).
I agree and understand that stupid annoying advertising can drive away consumers. Not all brand awareness is necessarily good brand awareness - I am not sure what the truth on this issue is, but I suspect it depends greatly on the individual and the type of product you are talking about. So yes, perhaps having a terrible, unprofessional looking trade show booth is worse than having none at all. And no, nobody buys software or hardware *solely* based on a trade show booth. But if two competitors have very similar products, and one has a very slick, professional, organized presentation at their trade show booth, and gives away cool widgets, well, they might find that they get more attention and more people want to talk business with them.
Altruism is important, but ultimately people make most decisions on an economic basis. And people develop Open Source software for the recognition and geek-chic fame they get, for the opportunity to be the key player in a project when perhaps they are more of a cog in their day job (and it can be a great way to up your perceived value to saavy employers). The fact that economic decisions are behind a lot of the success of Open Source software (do you think IBM supports Linux out of altruism?) doesn't make it less of a good or diminish the positive value it provides to the community. So there.
Of course, I merely justified why trade show booths do serve a purpose. The competitiveness you observed is a basic part of human nature - if you are a marketing person for a company, you want it to be known that you are better at your job than the marketing people at your competitor company. The same applies to all people on the evolutionary track to success. If you just don't care about competing and winning, well, you are probably on one of those lines of evolution that will die out sooner or later and make room for those who do. Capitalism is a reflection of nature, which is why it works. Is it always a moral good? No - that's why we need laws and governments to keep it from being too destructive. But trying to impose systems fundamentally at odds with human nature seems to be a guaranteed failure.
The killer app is selling video on demand and music on demand down a broadband pipe and putting on your TV. MS is determined to be the lynchpin to that business. They want to make the cable companies and media companies their bitches. And they have the cash money in the bank to throw away at this, as long as that long term goal looks attainable.
Debian carries a lot of moral weight and positive connotations to people in the Linux and Free Software communities because of their social contract and quality software release process. They don't make the most user-friendly distro, but then again, neither does Gentoo. And the fact that Gentoo throws in lots of legally grey software is nice for the end user in the short term, but it'll guarantee no company wants to install it, and prevent anybody from basing other distributions on Gentoo (then again, who the hell would want to make a desktop distro for granny where you had to compile every package you want to download? That's the wrong solution to the packaging problem).
I think you just reiterated the point of post. :) This is not a good compromise. Period. It does nothing to guarantee that shorter copyright terms will stick around past the current batch of legislators and and does everything to remove rights that would be VERY hard to get back.
We will have to make compromises. But don't be too ready to give in too soon. I understand that for you, this seems like it's been a long battle already. For the rest of the country, the battle's just getting started. Lessig's copyright extension tax is a fabulous idea, but let's not let them force an unreasonable state of DRM-enforced lack-of-rights on us in exchange for it. Talk about winning the battle and losing the war.
Copyright extension should be halted because it drains the public domain of material. Period. We shouldn't have to bargain for that one. 75 years was plenty of time, we had settled into that time frame, and we had plenty of older literature and materials flowing into the public domain. Then along came the DMCA - reverse engineering, making compatible devices and software, using your own media (that you legally purchased) in other devices of your choosing - all these basic property rights and common law understandings of what people can do with things they own flew out the goddamned window.
I'm not willing to cut a deal with the devil, or the so-called content industry in this scenario, to bring back reduced timespans for copyrights. Cut copyrights back, abolish the DMCA (perhaps some parts are not unreasonable, but as I see it, everything in there is either not needed because it was covered by existing jurisprudence, or is flat out morally wrong), and THEN we can have an intelligent debate and discussion as a society about what kind of legislation should be in place to help protect content producers from unreasonable amounts of piracy, IF in fact existing laws don't provide them that protection already.
If in fact the problem is an economic one (people are pirating because it is economically sensible for them to do so) why not try modifying your business model to one that doesn't so strongly encourage such illegal copying? You're never going to eliminate it entirely. Sorry, but we don't want and won't take crippled devices. If the content industry hasn't figured that out yet, then fuck them. I'd rather have a crippled, less profitable, re-organized content industry with my rights intact, than have mandated, legally enforced DRM embedded in my hardware, and have Disney's profits secured so they keep pushing their schwag out on audiences. Oh yeah, and what do we get out of it? Copyright terms are only 14 years. Of course, that doesn't apply retroactively, it only applies to new content. Oh, so sorry about that. And in 14 years what happens? Copyrights get extended again, without public debate, once the sheep have gotten used to ubiquitous DRM.
Sorry, but I'll go down with guns blazing before I accept this "compromise". Right now, we are getting the strength of momentum behind us. The popular press is buying into it. Copyright term extensions are going down, though it may take a while. As for the DMCA - it's not going away just yet, but the debate in the public forum is just starting, and we'll get there eventually too. Once the content industry realizes how shaky the ground they are walking on is, perhaps we will hear a real compromise deal out of them, hrrmmm?
Joel is usually right when he talks about managing software projects. He clearly has a shit aesthetic sense, and is talking out of his ass on this one.
Linux apps will keep sucking as long as each and every app does font rendering its own goddamned way. The app should tell the server what fucking text to render and where, and the server should anti-alias it and render it, and we should toss out the old apps that use the antiquated X rendering system to draw glyphs in the X client. Then just focus on making Xft/FreeType rock.
Anyway, you see a lot of Qt fans around here. Qt is nice, and is unbeatable for its documentation quality and the cleanness of extending the base widgets with new composite widgets, and extending the base objects with new behaviors. wxWindows can be a bit more awkward in these ways, isn't always quite so clean and well architected as Qt, and definitely isn't as well documented (especially if you are using the wxPython bindings - reading C++ docs with "annotations" is annoying).
However, wxWindows uses true native widgets, not rendered widgets that look and feel nearly native (Qt - it does a pretty damned good job of it, not like Swing or something, but it's still not using true native widgets on Windows). wxWindows is also free (as in beer) for use in commercial AND Free Software applications, licensed as LGPL with the exception that derived works in binary form may be distributed on any terms you want. In other words, no restrictions on commercial use or licensing. Qt is GPLed or commercial software. Meaning you can either use a GPL-compatible Free Software license, or you can license their commercial version, which is fairly expensive (for a hobbyist or private individual - and not exactly cheap for a company if you have to buy a bunch of seat licenses for your developers).
If you can afford it, and don't mind the fake painted widgets, then Qt is the way to go. If you want real native widgets on Windows, OS X, and X Windows, and you are on a budget, then wxWindows rules - just expect to sometimes have to bang your head against some annoying documentation or some unfinished features (wxGrid anybody? God fucking damn if I didn't build an entire app around a wxGrid only to find out it doesn't exactly work as advertised all the time... grr...).
Most importantly, ignore the posts about how the "feel" isn't quite right on some platforms. If you really want a slightly different menu layout or some such thing for each of the several platforms, it's pretty damned easy to add a few lines of conditional compilation (for a C++ program at least) to switch a few things around - and since the joy of Unix is that X apps have no fucking standards anyway, that app you wrote that looks good on Windows will probably look just as good in X - just make sure you test the OS X version out if that's a target platform, since I imagine you need some extra work to make things truly meet the Macintosh platform guidelines. Still a ton easier to maintain one wxWindows source base than to maintain a Gtk, MFC and Carbon/Cocoa GUI separately.
I already _AM_ a member of the Mandrake Club and have purchased Mandrake Linux 7.2 (I think that was the version), 8.0, and 8.2 in shrinkwrap versions. In short, I'm a huge supporter. But it is their embrace of the "gift economy" that has led them to being broke and having to file for Chapter 11 - that and their silly pursuit of some really irrelevant business opportunities (e-Education).
MandrakeSoft has perhaps taken too strong of a position spouting off about Free-this, Free-that. You and I here on Slashdot understand that Linux is about Free Software (or Open Source, depending on which idealogical leaning you have, pro-RMS or anti-RMS). Freedom is important, Freedom is worthwhile. However, Freedom is not the same as Marketing. Selling a product is about Marketing. As I've stated before, I think MandrakeSoft would be much better off if they started charging for ISOs (or rather, making ISOs available only to MandrakeClub members), and starting focusing on marketing to businesses and home users, and spit-shining their product (get their fucking QA people in line for god's sake, and use your brain before you stamp a release as ready-to-go). If somebody in the community wants to put together a FreeDrake ISO with MandrakeSoft RPMS, let em. Hell, they could do that now, and put some spit-shine on the stuff. But they don't. People use Mandrake, and like it. They need to start capitalizing on their popularity among geeks who want a desktop Linux distro that Just Works (newbies and others), and broaden their damned market appeal and start selling some shit. If they don't, somebody else will. And my fear is that it will be Lindows or somebody equally smarmy. Ugh.