First, with respect to liability "defaults," how is UCITA any different from the status quo? Under the UCC, for example, there are implied warranties against infringement, of merchantability and suitability for a particular purpose. Present law also permits a contract to override this default. On the other hand, if the GNU license agreement is not binding, then you are stuck with all implied licenses (and if not a contract, perhaps a claim in tort in those states showing chinks in the armor of the Economic Loss Rule)! The risk of unlimited liabilty under the status quo is substantial -- and it is the need to reverse this risk of liability which typically forms the strongest argument for a pro-mass-market position UNDER THE STATUS QUO.
The problem is that "shrinkwrap licenses" are not contracts. IANAL, but I believe contracts require signatures to be legally binding. The UCITA, from what I've heard, wants to make clicking on the "I agree" button legally binding, as if you had signed a document.
The inherent problem with the concept of "clickthrough" licenses is that they are usually unique to the product, and are not readable prior to purchase. By contrast, the GPL is a public license. If the box says "this product is under the GPL" I can go home, connect to the internet, and view the GPL online without purchasing the program in question
A thick, syrupy substance slowly coats the glowing radar terminal. Dark Helmet walks over, drags a finger through it, and brings the finger to his lips.
Dark Helmet:(Smacking his lips)"Raspberry.. only ONE MAN would DARE give ME the raspberry... lonestar.. LONESTAR!!!"
Let's see, I've got this program that lets me decrypt the movie on the DVD to my hard disk. So now I've got the unencrypted data.. what can I do with it?
Can I burn it to a different DVD? Nope. Current DVD writable media don't have the capacity to store DVD movies. Even if they did, how many DVD players recognize unencrypted movies (since current and presumably future DVD writers cannot write the key block)? Few, I suspect.
Can I make a VHS copy? Well, if you want to create a significantly degraded version through your video card's TV out, go right ahead. It's gonna look a lot worse than it would if you simply linked 2 VCRs and made copies of the VHS release of the same movie (it'd be cheaper, too).
Can I view it? Absolutely. This is why DeCSS exists in the first place! It's been said before, but it bears repeating: CSS is not meant to protect against unauthorized copying, but against unauthorized viewing.
Getting rid of porn in public libraries is astonishingly easy. Just follow several easy steps:
1) Install your favorite OS and your favorite browser (I'll be evil, and we'll use Win98 and IE5).
2) Turn off image loading.
3) Completely lock down the computer so the users can't even double-click on "My Computer", much less do anything in the control panels.
Ta-da! No porn! Plus bandwidth usage would be dramatically reduced, pages will load quicker, and you can sue unnavigable sites for not being accessible to the blind;)
I think the problems with the license can pretty much be summarized into the following three points (two of which you mention above):
Arbitration, which as you point out could result in the little guys (read: us) getting walked on.
The specific mention of AAA holds zero weight outside of US borders.
Most importantly, like the GPL, the NCL is viral. That is, derivitave works must be licensed under the NCL. There is not even an exception clause for the GPL, which means not only does NCL alienate people who dislike the GPL for the same reason, it also effectively prevents using GPL code in an NCL project, or vice-versa.
If you look at this from Novell's point of view, this is a perfect spot to be in. They get all the good karma that comes with being a supporter of true "open source," but have put it under a license where none but the most mercenarial coders (i.e. those who will contribute to anything regardless of license) will even touch the code. On top of that, nobody from either of the other license camps can touch the code--the NCL will "infect" BSD programs, and NCL's "you can't relicense" clause prevents GPL programs from incorporating the code.
In short, it's good as far as being "open source," but it seems to have been purposely designed not to play well with existing OSS licenses. Interoperability among licences should be a higher priority for the OSS community in general, and this is a great example.
Because microsoft defines the API they are able to include hidden calls that only they know about. Some of these calls are simply faster implementations of other calls which are already documented. Others are unique. Either way it gives their applications an out of the box advantage over anything a competitor might develop.
I've seen various comments about the alleged "hidden API calls" in the win32 API that Microsoft uses to get an unfair edge over the competition. I think all these "hidden" calls are really just internal API calls being called directly, instead of going through the documented calls. Is it any wonder that old applications break when the DLL gets upgraded?
Instead of hating MS for using "hidden" calls, laugh at them for their poor coding methodology.
... is that the DOJ is likely to interpret the massive number of hits generated by the slashdot effect as a sign that their site is wildly successful. In other words, expect to see more drivel from the DOJ in the near future.
Ah, ATI. The acronym conjures up fuzzy images of OEM video products, poor performance, and semi-nifty niche market features.
ATI is also legendary for their abysmal driver support. First-generation drivers barely do anything more than basic GDI functions (i.e. enough to run the desktop and IE) but often crash and burn when you throw complex things at it like, say, an actual program.
Further revisions of the drivers provide minimal levels of functionality, but there are still obscure problems, some of them showstoppers. And we all know how useful Windows from a DOS prompt.
On top of providing shoddy driver support for Windows (the cards' native environment), they also keep their chipsets proprietary, not even allowing NDA access to the design. This means that ATI chipsets are entirely dependant on ATI to supply drivers, unless you don't mind using a reverse-engineered driver that may or may not provide 100% functionality.
ATI is outclassed on all fronts by the likes of S3, Nvidia, and even *spit* 3dfx. The only reason they have survived is because they are firmly entrenched in the OEM market. I will not use ATI products by choice, and I will not reccomend them to my friends. Spend your money on a TNT2.
Umm, I don't think you want that ! there. You don't want to change it if opensource already equals communism!
{ delete opensource; opensource = new char[11]; strncpy("communism",opensource,10); }
Okay, so you're deleting the old opensource string, allocating a new 11-byte string off the free store, then copying the first 10 bytes into the constant string "communism". I'm sure the compiler will have a field day with that.;)
else printf("opensource looks fine - %s hasn't gotten to it yet.", DEITY);
I see a lot of posts from people seeing GPL equated with free (as in free beer). They seem to have the idea that because the license requires you to distribute source, that it also requires you to give up intellectual property or that you cannot charge money for the program.
This simply is not the case. First, let's look at intellectual property.
Let's say you develop a whiz-bang Unreal-killing 3d engine, and decide to GPL it. Now you might be thinking, how do you prevent people from looking at the source and writing their own engine? Well, you don't. Of course, if they want to put in the time/effort to write their own engine from scratch, more power to them. By the time they finish their engine, yours will be obsolete anyway. If they actually decide to use your GPLed engine, you have two possible sources of income:
Sell them a closed license
Consultant fees for support of the engine
Now, for the myth that you cannot charge money for GPL software.
Well, Redhat seems to be doing okay charging $85 for a Redhat distro on CD. You can even take their distro, customize the default options/packages, rename it to BlueFez, and sell it yourself (or give it away!).
Sure, maybe nobody would shell out $50 for Enlightenment. But, they might shell out $50 for Enligtenment, printed manuals, 24/7 technical support, and an automated update utility. It's all in the value you provide along with the GPL'ed software that will determine wether people will buy it or not. In other words, it is market forces, not anything inherent in the GPL, that will limit what you can charge for GPL software.
Just remember: It's Free as in ideas, not as in free beer.
Oh boy, Microsoft is going to add Interix to their product line. Yippie. Pardon me if I don't start doing backflips and cartwheels.
I've been down the "run native unix apps in Windows!" road before. The results are not pretty.
The software in question is Cygnus' cygwin32 environment. Now, for what it does, it's actually kind of neat. You get to use bash, run shell scripts, and use the familiar UNIX development environment. You can even use special commandline options to the compiler to produce pure win32 code (read: no cygwin.dll dependencies).
The ugly part is when you try to do debugging. Debugging under cygwin is a nightmare. You don't get a corefile--you get a foo.exe.core file (where foo.exe is whatever program crashed). This core file contains a stack dump in raw hex addresses. You don't get any variables, function names, nada. In other words, it's pretty useless.
Running the program through gdb works, sometimes. Othertimes you get a blank call stack. Or the call stack is mangled beyond recognition.
Meanwhile, take the exact same code, upload it to a UNIX server, compile it, run it, crash it. A quick examination of the core tells you that you're dereferencing a null pointer, you fix the bug, you're done.
Microsoft wants to make Interix a migration tool to get UNIX programs ported quickly to Windows. In reality, it's likely to make developers realize why they don't develop for windows in the first place and go back from whence they came.
Anybody else remember the lady who sued McDonald's over their coffee? Condensed version: lady orders coffee in the drive-thru, puts it in her lap, opens the lid, and drives away... and sues McD's because it burned her.
That woman didn't sue simply because she was burned by hot coffee. That particular McDonalds had a history of overheating their coffee, and refused to act on complaints. This particular woman had her genitals scalded shut and required surgery if I remember correctly. It was a lot more serious than simply spilling coffee in her lap.
That said, this is still extremely idiotic. The laywers involved are infamous for bringing these types of lawsuits against sports cards manufacturers, and they haven't won yet. As someone in NGO's letters section said, "it's lawyers like those that give the legal profession a bad name."
... teach Brutus.1 how to do such basic things as verb tense agreement. To quote from "Betrayal":
"Dave Striver loved the university--its ivy-covered clocktowers, its ancient and sturdy brick, and its sun-splashed verdant greens and eager youth. The university, contrary to popular belief, is far from free of the stark unforgiving trials of the business world; academia has its own tests, and some are as merciless as any in the marketplace. A prime example is the dissertation defense: to earn the PhD, to become a doctor, one must pass an oral examination on one's dissertation. This was a test Professor Edward Hart enjoyed giving. "
(verbs hilighted for your convenience)
Brutus seems to have a problem keeping its verbs in the same tense.:) Worse, its stories read like a typical math textbook story problem. "Beth wants to make cookies, but only has 2 eggs. Eggs cost $0.25 each at the local supermarket. How much will a dozen eggs cost?" Needless to say, if Brutus wins, it's just more proof that the American public education system stinks.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem is that "shrinkwrap licenses" are not contracts. IANAL, but I believe contracts require signatures to be legally binding. The UCITA, from what I've heard, wants to make clicking on the "I agree" button legally binding, as if you had signed a document.
The inherent problem with the concept of "clickthrough" licenses is that they are usually unique to the product, and are not readable prior to purchase. By contrast, the GPL is a public license. If the box says "this product is under the GPL" I can go home, connect to the internet, and view the GPL online without purchasing the program in question
Nathan
The site: spaceballs.com
The smell: raspberry
As in:
Radar guy:"We're being.. jammed!"
A thick, syrupy substance slowly coats the glowing radar terminal. Dark Helmet walks over, drags a finger through it, and brings the finger to his lips.
Dark Helmet: (Smacking his lips)"Raspberry.. only ONE MAN would DARE give ME the raspberry... lonestar.. LONESTAR!!!"
Do I win?
NathanI don't possibly see how.
Let's see, I've got this program that lets me decrypt the movie on the DVD to my hard disk. So now I've got the unencrypted data.. what can I do with it?
Can I burn it to a different DVD? Nope. Current DVD writable media don't have the capacity to store DVD movies. Even if they did, how many DVD players recognize unencrypted movies (since current and presumably future DVD writers cannot write the key block)? Few, I suspect.
Can I make a VHS copy? Well, if you want to create a significantly degraded version through your video card's TV out, go right ahead. It's gonna look a lot worse than it would if you simply linked 2 VCRs and made copies of the VHS release of the same movie (it'd be cheaper, too).
Can I view it? Absolutely. This is why DeCSS exists in the first place! It's been said before, but it bears repeating: CSS is not meant to protect against unauthorized copying, but against unauthorized viewing.
NathanGetting rid of porn in public libraries is astonishingly easy. Just follow several easy steps:
;)
1) Install your favorite OS and your favorite browser (I'll be evil, and we'll use Win98 and IE5).
2) Turn off image loading.
3) Completely lock down the computer so the users can't even double-click on "My Computer", much less do anything in the control panels.
Ta-da! No porn! Plus bandwidth usage would be dramatically reduced, pages will load quicker, and you can sue unnavigable sites for not being accessible to the blind
Nathan
Bruce,
I think the problems with the license can pretty much be summarized into the following three points (two of which you mention above):
If you look at this from Novell's point of view, this is a perfect spot to be in. They get all the good karma that comes with being a supporter of true "open source," but have put it under a license where none but the most mercenarial coders (i.e. those who will contribute to anything regardless of license) will even touch the code. On top of that, nobody from either of the other license camps can touch the code--the NCL will "infect" BSD programs, and NCL's "you can't relicense" clause prevents GPL programs from incorporating the code.
In short, it's good as far as being "open source," but it seems to have been purposely designed not to play well with existing OSS licenses. Interoperability among licences should be a higher priority for the OSS community in general, and this is a great example.
Nathan StrongI've seen various comments about the alleged "hidden API calls" in the win32 API that Microsoft uses to get an unfair edge over the competition. I think all these "hidden" calls are really just internal API calls being called directly, instead of going through the documented calls. Is it any wonder that old applications break when the DLL gets upgraded?
Instead of hating MS for using "hidden" calls, laugh at them for their poor coding methodology.
Nathan... is that the DOJ is likely to interpret the massive number of hits generated by the slashdot effect as a sign that their site is wildly successful. In other words, expect to see more drivel from the DOJ in the near future.
Nathan
Ah, ATI. The acronym conjures up fuzzy images of OEM video products, poor performance, and semi-nifty niche market features.
ATI is also legendary for their abysmal driver support. First-generation drivers barely do anything more than basic GDI functions (i.e. enough to run the desktop and IE) but often crash and burn when you throw complex things at it like, say, an actual program.
Further revisions of the drivers provide minimal levels of functionality, but there are still obscure problems, some of them showstoppers. And we all know how useful Windows from a DOS prompt.
On top of providing shoddy driver support for Windows (the cards' native environment), they also keep their chipsets proprietary, not even allowing NDA access to the design. This means that ATI chipsets are entirely dependant on ATI to supply drivers, unless you don't mind using a reverse-engineered driver that may or may not provide 100% functionality.
ATI is outclassed on all fronts by the likes of S3, Nvidia, and even *spit* 3dfx. The only reason they have survived is because they are firmly entrenched in the OEM market. I will not use ATI products by choice, and I will not reccomend them to my friends. Spend your money on a TNT2.
Nathan
if(! strcmp(opensource,"communism"))
Umm, I don't think you want that ! there. You don't want to change it if opensource already equals communism!
{
delete opensource;
opensource = new char[11];
strncpy("communism",opensource,10);
}
Okay, so you're deleting the old opensource string, allocating a new 11-byte string off the free store, then copying the first 10 bytes into the constant string "communism". I'm sure the compiler will have a field day with that. ;)
else
Nathanprintf("opensource looks fine - %s hasn't gotten to it yet.", DEITY);
I see a lot of posts from people seeing GPL equated with free (as in free beer). They seem to have the idea that because the license requires you to distribute source, that it also requires you to give up intellectual property or that you cannot charge money for the program.
This simply is not the case. First, let's look at intellectual property.
Let's say you develop a whiz-bang Unreal-killing 3d engine, and decide to GPL it. Now you might be thinking, how do you prevent people from looking at the source and writing their own engine? Well, you don't. Of course, if they want to put in the time/effort to write their own engine from scratch, more power to them. By the time they finish their engine, yours will be obsolete anyway. If they actually decide to use your GPLed engine, you have two possible sources of income:
Sell them a closed license
Consultant fees for support of the engine
Now, for the myth that you cannot charge money for GPL software.
Well, Redhat seems to be doing okay charging $85 for a Redhat distro on CD. You can even take their distro, customize the default options/packages, rename it to BlueFez, and sell it yourself (or give it away!).
Sure, maybe nobody would shell out $50 for Enlightenment. But, they might shell out $50 for Enligtenment, printed manuals, 24/7 technical support, and an automated update utility. It's all in the value you provide along with the GPL'ed software that will determine wether people will buy it or not. In other words, it is market forces, not anything inherent in the GPL, that will limit what you can charge for GPL software.
Just remember: It's Free as in ideas, not as in free beer.
NathanOh boy, Microsoft is going to add Interix to their product line. Yippie. Pardon me if I don't start doing backflips and cartwheels.
I've been down the "run native unix apps in Windows!" road before. The results are not pretty.
The software in question is Cygnus' cygwin32 environment. Now, for what it does, it's actually kind of neat. You get to use bash, run shell scripts, and use the familiar UNIX development environment. You can even use special commandline options to the compiler to produce pure win32 code (read: no cygwin.dll dependencies).
The ugly part is when you try to do debugging. Debugging under cygwin is a nightmare. You don't get a corefile--you get a foo.exe.core file (where foo.exe is whatever program crashed). This core file contains a stack dump in raw hex addresses. You don't get any variables, function names, nada. In other words, it's pretty useless.
Running the program through gdb works, sometimes. Othertimes you get a blank call stack. Or the call stack is mangled beyond recognition.
Meanwhile, take the exact same code, upload it to a UNIX server, compile it, run it, crash it. A quick examination of the core tells you that you're dereferencing a null pointer, you fix the bug, you're done.
Microsoft wants to make Interix a migration tool to get UNIX programs ported quickly to Windows. In reality, it's likely to make developers realize why they don't develop for windows in the first place and go back from whence they came.
Nathan
Anybody else remember the lady who sued McDonald's over their coffee? Condensed version: lady orders coffee in the drive-thru, puts it in her lap, opens the lid, and drives away... and sues McD's because it burned her.
That woman didn't sue simply because she was burned by hot coffee. That particular McDonalds had a history of overheating their coffee, and refused to act on complaints. This particular woman had her genitals scalded shut and required surgery if I remember correctly. It was a lot more serious than simply spilling coffee in her lap.
That said, this is still extremely idiotic. The laywers involved are infamous for bringing these types of lawsuits against sports cards manufacturers, and they haven't won yet. As someone in NGO's letters section said, "it's lawyers like those that give the legal profession a bad name."
Nathan
Those who forget Amiga's IFF format are doomed to re-implement it, poorly.
"Dave Striver loved the university--its ivy-covered clocktowers, its ancient and sturdy brick, and its sun-splashed verdant greens and eager youth. The university, contrary to popular belief, is far from free of the stark unforgiving trials of the business world; academia has its own tests, and some are as merciless as any in the marketplace. A prime example is the dissertation defense: to earn the PhD, to become a doctor, one must pass an oral examination on one's dissertation. This was a test Professor Edward Hart enjoyed giving. "
(verbs hilighted for your convenience)
Brutus seems to have a problem keeping its verbs in the same tense.