Here's my understanding of the situation: In both the Glider case and this one, we're talking about the original software being loaded into RAM potentially with third-party modifications to parts of it. This means that, even if the original software (the WoW client, and Mac OS X) was bought and paid for, and a RAM copy at runtime would be subject to the section 117 exception, there is room to argue that what is being loaded is not the bought and paid for authorized copy, but an unauthorized derivative work made by adding the third party modifications.
"Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided: (1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner, or [...]"
So an "adaptation" of the software is allowed if it is necessary to use the software with a machine. Now a court could easily whinge its way around interpreting this as a compatibility measure, but if it doesn't, then in Psystar's case, as long as the third-party modifications are deemed by the court to be only for the purpose of enabling Mac OS X to run on a general purpose PC, then the RAM copy (and potentially all the modified copies) aren't infringing.
Anyway, I don't think this is a big obstacle to Apple; there seems to be enough case law in the US that has allowed for very broad enforceability of software licensing agreements that Apple can still probably out-lawyer Psystar into the dust for breaking their "Apple-labeled" license provision, even without a finding of copyright infringement.
It's that part of the case I'm most interested in, as "Apple-labeled" is a strange choice of wording, and Apple has in the past employed it willy-nilly (for instance in the license of Safari for Windows when they pushed out millions of copies as a selected-by-default Quicktime/iTunes upgrade [http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9904445-7.html])
In many organizations the size of eBay, the front line support staff has more of a chance of having the pope over for dinner than they have getting specs for their company's software changed to incorporate user feedback. All they can do is accept the software, broken-as-designed and all, and help users work around or cope with the brokenness.
Is there a better summary of events available somewhere? A lot of people are talking about the original buyer of the work having re-sold it, and there's nothing about that in the linked article. Also it mentions the DMCA without explaining how that could be relevant.
Basically if you are the owner of the copyright to the code, you can copy/distribute it however you like. By default, everyone else has no permission to copy/distribute it. If you release it under the GPL, what you're doing is giving other people permission to copy/distribute the code only if they follow the terms of that license. That doesn't in any way affect your original rights to copy/distribute the code however you like.
Maybe... In the trenches you can learn from your co-workers, and you can learn from your mistakes. But it's often lonely at the top, "White boy welfare" makes even the latter difficult.
The first thing to learn about RAID or any other technology that you're using for enhanced reliability: If you use it without first testing it in failure scenarios you might encounter and figuring out exactly what you need to do to fix it (e.g. How do you tell which piece of hardware has failed? How will you know to respond if the automatic failover doesn't work? etc.), you might as well just pretend that instead of spending your time and/or money on a redundant solution you just took a vacation and/or lit the money on fire because that's effectively what you will have done.
With that in mind, although I tend to think I know what I'm talking about, you can take the rest of my advice as help brainstorming those failure scenarios and hints about answering those how-will-I-fix-it questions, but it's no substitute for knowing and testing your own set-up and checking the answers yourself. Okay?
Good.
After having been burned by a not-so-cheap, dedicated RAID controller, I have been pointed to software RAID solutions
Gross generalization for the short attention span crowd: RAID 1 seems simple, but there are lots of options and lots of details to get right. And if you've run into the limits of your knowledge dealing with RAID 1 on a dedicated RAID controller, then going to a software RAID 1 solution (which often doesn't secure against all the same problems and gives you more things to troubleshoot directly when things go wrong) may not make your life simpler...
In particular, remember that although your RAID 1 array stores some metadata, it probably doesn't keep track of which disk has the most up-to-date copy of each block, so if you manage to get two working but out-of-sync disks, take care when you're deciding which disk to restore the set from. Also remember that as we approach 1 unrecoverable read error per disk territory, the same wisdom about replacing RAID 5 with RAID 6 also applies to 2-disk RAID 1.
Moving on... =)
In the world of always-busy transactional databases and server systems, RAID is seen as part of complete breakfast of 100% storage reliability, and people want it to guarantee that whenever a program's explicit request to sync a disk write goes through, the data is definitely going to make it to disk despite a power or equipment failure. This means:
Using journaling file systems
Turning OFF all disks' on-board write caches (i.e. disk write buffers)
And usually for decent performance, a hardware RAID controller with a long enough battery backup of its cache, or long enough UPS + generator coverage, or both)
Disk/RAID controllers and drive module/bays that support for hot swapping
Software tools on the system for controlling the hot swapping/recovery
Monitoring/notification software to tell someone about the failure so that the dead drive can be swapped before the other one fails too
Spares on hand
Perhaps also hot standby drives in place
At the other end of the spectrum, RAID 1 is sometimes used on desktop PCs as a real-time 'backup' solution for people who are too 'busy' (i.e. lazy) to make real backups. In the world of single-user PCs, the conventional wisdom is that most applications operate on documents in RAM (where they are vulnerable to power failures anyway), and only write them to disk occasionally when the user explicitly asks for it, so it has become common practice to leave disk buffers on for better write performance at the risk of data loss if a file is being written during a power failure. Application-level recovery features and journaling file systems have allowed this approach to survive into the era of PCs with modern multitasking operating systems. If you're willing to take the performance hit, you
Political fortunes are low, and so the risky somewhat-anti-populist business has to be shelved. But the media companies still have money, and so after the next election, when once again the contributors' favours are to be repaid, they'll be pulled back off the shelf no matter who wins. Just you wait.
Before I get flamed I should mention that, even for a javascript module where the source code is included by nature, there might still be some details that you'd need to get right to be within the license (for instance including the license and disclaimer text appropriately). However that should only amount to a few trivial changes, for a program in an interpreted language, since the hard part (including the source code) is already done.
You're missing the point. With GPLed software, when someone is distributing an altered copy of the software, it's whether they make the source code for their version available or not that makes _the_ difference between 'theft' (i.e. copyright violation) and them just taking advantage of their freedom to modify the software (what the GPL is all about).
Aside: For developers and advanced users who have been dealing with GPLed software for years, and even for many hangers-on who have followed the details of GPL-related news stories on/. for years, this point is so basic that it usually goes without saying. But the quirks and emergent properties of the GPL aren't common knowledge in the broader software development world or the internets in general, and so when it does go without saying, it could easily result in a -1 Troll when a reader doesn't make the connection.
Remember, even famous Eclipse doesn't use Java UI - regardless of platform it runs on. One can replace the Java's AWT and Swing with something tapping into native UI of platform it runs on... not really. Because it will not work. Mac OS X, KDE and Gnome are mostly asynchronous while X Window system and Windows UI are mostly synchronous. That means that it is impossible to make a decent portable Java UI toolkit: different native UIs work completely differently internally, essentially requiring different top-level design of whole application.
Er... I'm not sure what you mean... It looks like you went on for a paragraph about how it would be impossible to create a Java UI toolkit with native platform hooks, except that you gave an example of an app that uses one in the first sentence.
Heh... I'm not sure how complete Wikipedia's list of US school shootings is, but it suggests that Canada has about 1/7th the number of school shootings of the US with only 1/9th of the population.
Slashdot Mirror
Here's my understanding of the situation: In both the Glider case and this one, we're talking about the original software being loaded into RAM potentially with third-party modifications to parts of it. This means that, even if the original software (the WoW client, and Mac OS X) was bought and paid for, and a RAM copy at runtime would be subject to the section 117 exception, there is room to argue that what is being loaded is not the bought and paid for authorized copy, but an unauthorized derivative work made by adding the third party modifications.
However, the section 117 exception gives a specific reason that the software might be allowed to be altered. Take a look (from http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/usc_sec_17_00000117----000-.html ):
"Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:
(1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner, or [...]"
So an "adaptation" of the software is allowed if it is necessary to use the software with a machine. Now a court could easily whinge its way around interpreting this as a compatibility measure, but if it doesn't, then in Psystar's case, as long as the third-party modifications are deemed by the court to be only for the purpose of enabling Mac OS X to run on a general purpose PC, then the RAM copy (and potentially all the modified copies) aren't infringing.
Anyway, I don't think this is a big obstacle to Apple; there seems to be enough case law in the US that has allowed for very broad enforceability of software licensing agreements that Apple can still probably out-lawyer Psystar into the dust for breaking their "Apple-labeled" license provision, even without a finding of copyright infringement.
It's that part of the case I'm most interested in, as "Apple-labeled" is a strange choice of wording, and Apple has in the past employed it willy-nilly (for instance in the license of Safari for Windows when they pushed out millions of copies as a selected-by-default Quicktime/iTunes upgrade [http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9904445-7.html])
So what line of work are you in? =)
hehe... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRm5WcjOikQ
What does the fourth amendment have to do with whether or not the telcos broke the law?
In many organizations the size of eBay, the front line support staff has more of a chance of having the pope over for dinner than they have getting specs for their company's software changed to incorporate user feedback. All they can do is accept the software, broken-as-designed and all, and help users work around or cope with the brokenness.
Why do I have to understand that? Is it relevant somehow? I mean, I don't know anyone with a time machine...
This may be kind of a dumb question, but what does whether or not DC uses Gmail have to do with their deal for Google Apps?
Is there a better summary of events available somewhere? A lot of people are talking about the original buyer of the work having re-sold it, and there's nothing about that in the linked article. Also it mentions the DMCA without explaining how that could be relevant.
Is that a problem in some way?
Basically if you are the owner of the copyright to the code, you can copy/distribute it however you like. By default, everyone else has no permission to copy/distribute it. If you release it under the GPL, what you're doing is giving other people permission to copy/distribute the code only if they follow the terms of that license. That doesn't in any way affect your original rights to copy/distribute the code however you like.
Can you get another job when you're dead?
> normal diplomatic channels
Yahoo is not a country, no matter how swelled the egos of its current masters are.
Maybe... In the trenches you can learn from your co-workers, and you can learn from your mistakes. But it's often lonely at the top, "White boy welfare" makes even the latter difficult.
...why mandatory drug testing regimes for railroad employees should be extended to railroad management.
The first thing to learn about RAID or any other technology that you're using for enhanced reliability: If you use it without first testing it in failure scenarios you might encounter and figuring out exactly what you need to do to fix it (e.g. How do you tell which piece of hardware has failed? How will you know to respond if the automatic failover doesn't work? etc.), you might as well just pretend that instead of spending your time and/or money on a redundant solution you just took a vacation and/or lit the money on fire because that's effectively what you will have done.
With that in mind, although I tend to think I know what I'm talking about, you can take the rest of my advice as help brainstorming those failure scenarios and hints about answering those how-will-I-fix-it questions, but it's no substitute for knowing and testing your own set-up and checking the answers yourself. Okay?
Good.
After having been burned by a not-so-cheap, dedicated RAID controller, I have been pointed to software RAID solutions
Gross generalization for the short attention span crowd: RAID 1 seems simple, but there are lots of options and lots of details to get right. And if you've run into the limits of your knowledge dealing with RAID 1 on a dedicated RAID controller, then going to a software RAID 1 solution (which often doesn't secure against all the same problems and gives you more things to troubleshoot directly when things go wrong) may not make your life simpler...
In particular, remember that although your RAID 1 array stores some metadata, it probably doesn't keep track of which disk has the most up-to-date copy of each block, so if you manage to get two working but out-of-sync disks, take care when you're deciding which disk to restore the set from. Also remember that as we approach 1 unrecoverable read error per disk territory, the same wisdom about replacing RAID 5 with RAID 6 also applies to 2-disk RAID 1.
Moving on... =)
In the world of always-busy transactional databases and server systems, RAID is seen as part of complete breakfast of 100% storage reliability, and people want it to guarantee that whenever a program's explicit request to sync a disk write goes through, the data is definitely going to make it to disk despite a power or equipment failure. This means:
You can test that syncs are working properly by doing plug-pull tests (e.g. see http://brad.livejournal.com/2116715.html)
If uptime is important, they'll also have:
At the other end of the spectrum, RAID 1 is sometimes used on desktop PCs as a real-time 'backup' solution for people who are too 'busy' (i.e. lazy) to make real backups.
In the world of single-user PCs, the conventional wisdom is that most applications operate on documents in RAM (where they are vulnerable to power failures anyway), and only write them to disk occasionally when the user explicitly asks for it, so it has become common practice to leave disk buffers on for better write performance at the risk of data loss if a file is being written during a power failure. Application-level recovery features and journaling file systems have allowed this approach to survive into the era of PCs with modern multitasking operating systems. If you're willing to take the performance hit, you
Political fortunes are low, and so the risky somewhat-anti-populist business has to be shelved. But the media companies still have money, and so after the next election, when once again the contributors' favours are to be repaid, they'll be pulled back off the shelf no matter who wins. Just you wait.
Before I get flamed I should mention that, even for a javascript module where the source code is included by nature, there might still be some details that you'd need to get right to be within the license (for instance including the license and disclaimer text appropriately). However that should only amount to a few trivial changes, for a program in an interpreted language, since the hard part (including the source code) is already done.
You're missing the point. With GPLed software, when someone is distributing an altered copy of the software, it's whether they make the source code for their version available or not that makes _the_ difference between 'theft' (i.e. copyright violation) and them just taking advantage of their freedom to modify the software (what the GPL is all about).
Aside: For developers and advanced users who have been dealing with GPLed software for years, and even for many hangers-on who have followed the details of GPL-related news stories on /. for years, this point is so basic that it usually goes without saying. But the quirks and emergent properties of the GPL aren't common knowledge in the broader software development world or the internets in general, and so when it does go without saying, it could easily result in a -1 Troll when a reader doesn't make the connection.
Remember, even famous Eclipse doesn't use Java UI - regardless of platform it runs on. One can replace the Java's AWT and Swing with something tapping into native UI of platform it runs on ... not really. Because it will not work. Mac OS X, KDE and Gnome are mostly asynchronous while X Window system and Windows UI are mostly synchronous. That means that it is impossible to make a decent portable Java UI toolkit: different native UIs work completely differently internally, essentially requiring different top-level design of whole application.
Er... I'm not sure what you mean... It looks like you went on for a paragraph about how it would be impossible to create a Java UI toolkit with native platform hooks, except that you gave an example of an app that uses one in the first sentence.
It's all a fad.
Soon we'll be back to single-celled life.
How much of Iran's policy toward Israel is driven by the popular views about Jews in Iran?
Heh... I'm not sure how complete Wikipedia's list of US school shootings is, but it suggests that Canada has about 1/7th the number of school shootings of the US with only 1/9th of the population.
Grandstanding? It's like an AG candidate at a photo-op holding a large cardboard sign that says "I don't understand the First Amendment".
If it's grandstanding, who is the audience?
"though in just about every other aspect the operating system is beating Vista,"
Beating a dead horse: It's a feature, not a bug.
So, when August of this year rolls around, we'll see what's what. =)