Actually, for manufacturers, size matters in a big way.
Semiconductor manufacturing is, like with most manufacturing, an imperfect process. In general, for a given die (a die is one "chip" before it's placed in/on any kind of case) and a given manufacturing method there is going to be a manufacturing error rate that is measured in terms of errors per unit area.
These defects can stem from everything from a speck of dust getting into the system, all the way to a gas depositing process making a trace too thin (so the trace, and thus the chip, burns up during use.)
Therefore the bigger the die is the higher the likelihood that any one die will contain one of these manufacturing defects. Since a defect can occur at any point on the wafer, the less of the wafer that can be associated with any particular common point of failure (i.e. the smaller the die,) the more valuable any particular wafer can be and thus increase yield and profit of that product.
Don't forget to read the developer terms carefully. Under section 4 there's this nifty little bit there at the end (clause viii):
(viii) incorporates any Publicly Available Software, in whole or in part, in a manner that may subject the Tools or the AOL Services, in whole or in part, to all or part of the license obligations of any Publicly Available Software. As used herein, the term "Publicly Available Software" means any software that contains, or is derived in any manner (in whole or in part) from, any software that is distributed as free software, open source software or similar licensing or distribution models; and that requires as a condition of use, modification or distribution that such software or other software incorporated into, derived from or distributed with such software: (a) be disclosed or distributed in source code form; (b) be licensed for the purpose of making derivative works; or (c) be redistributable at no charge.
For the masses at large, this means you cannot use ANY GPLed code, or any code that causes you to redistribute your code freely.
This makes sense in the context of custom clients as you would be required to redistribute the client and the associated source code (which you cannot do because of closed source nature of the AOL libraries.) But as a consequence, it's worth paying attention to and will have some nasty effects on code reuse.
I'd suggest that he's partially right. And this itself is the fundamental issue with his complaint.
Typically the provisions of a given product's license are unspecified (except in the software industry) and as a consequence, if you want to do anything (even within fair use) you basically end up hiring a lawyer just to do simple basic things.
The whole idea of the creative commons license is that by labeling what is acceptable and unacceptable in clear, uncomplicated language, the author can clearly state exactly what you don't have to call them for. This simplifies the nature of copyright, and takes the rather shadowy part of copyright law out.
As for the infinite non-commercial zero commercial licensing process, I would think it important to note that this covers more than just Fox News quoting a blog. More importantly, this covers things like compilation and other derivatives. For example, an artist releases an image to the public. Then a publisher picks it up and includes it in a book of "Great Art of the Early 21st Century" Under a "full public" license, the bookseller could do nothing but compile these open licensed works into a document and having done little creatively on their own, reap strong profits with no royalties to the artists...... Artists whose commercial viability is impaired by this new book. (They too where going to compile their works and publish it) By enforcing a commercial limitation, these artists can allow people to enjoy their work, while simultaneously reserving the right to produce all associated merchandise. This allows them to be commercially lucrative without being exclusive. Everyone can see your art, but if they want the wall scroll, they've got to pay.
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Actually, for manufacturers, size matters in a big way.
Semiconductor manufacturing is, like with most manufacturing, an imperfect process. In general, for a given die (a die is one "chip" before it's placed in/on any kind of case) and a given manufacturing method there is going to be a manufacturing error rate that is measured in terms of errors per unit area.
These defects can stem from everything from a speck of dust getting into the system, all the way to a gas depositing process making a trace too thin (so the trace, and thus the chip, burns up during use.)
Therefore the bigger the die is the higher the likelihood that any one die will contain one of these manufacturing defects. Since a defect can occur at any point on the wafer, the less of the wafer that can be associated with any particular common point of failure (i.e. the smaller the die,) the more valuable any particular wafer can be and thus increase yield and profit of that product.
For the masses at large, this means you cannot use ANY GPLed code, or any code that causes you to redistribute your code freely.
This makes sense in the context of custom clients as you would be required to redistribute the client and the associated source code (which you cannot do because of closed source nature of the AOL libraries.) But as a consequence, it's worth paying attention to and will have some nasty effects on code reuse.
I'd suggest that he's partially right. And this itself is the fundamental issue with his complaint. Typically the provisions of a given product's license are unspecified (except in the software industry) and as a consequence, if you want to do anything (even within fair use) you basically end up hiring a lawyer just to do simple basic things. The whole idea of the creative commons license is that by labeling what is acceptable and unacceptable in clear, uncomplicated language, the author can clearly state exactly what you don't have to call them for. This simplifies the nature of copyright, and takes the rather shadowy part of copyright law out. As for the infinite non-commercial zero commercial licensing process, I would think it important to note that this covers more than just Fox News quoting a blog. More importantly, this covers things like compilation and other derivatives. For example, an artist releases an image to the public. Then a publisher picks it up and includes it in a book of "Great Art of the Early 21st Century" Under a "full public" license, the bookseller could do nothing but compile these open licensed works into a document and having done little creatively on their own, reap strong profits with no royalties to the artists... ... Artists whose commercial viability is impaired by this new book. (They too where going to compile their works and publish it) By enforcing a commercial limitation, these artists can allow people to enjoy their work, while simultaneously reserving the right to produce all associated merchandise. This allows them to be commercially lucrative without being exclusive. Everyone can see your art, but if they want the wall scroll, they've got to pay.