I think that if federal money, which comes from American citizens paying federal income tax, is used for scientific research, then it is only fair that American citizens be allowed to make free use of the results.
Grants with patent restrictions are not allowed at most universities. University scholars are required to predisclose conflicts of interest. Universities OWN patent licensing rights to patents created by their employees - ie: the professors and other researchers. That is how the system currently works in academia. The patent holder(s) typically receive less than half of the patent royalties.
The bottom line is that intellectual property is viewed as being held by the INVENTOR and the licensing is controlled by the INVENTOR's EMPLOYER. That is how intellectual property is conceptualized in the US today.
That federal money was used for the research is justifiable in that 20 years from now the patents will be public domain. The federal money was used to bring new technology into our society.
Feel free to disagree, but that is the current state of things. If federally funded grants had all thjir intellectual property public domain, then ALL of the monetary incentive for invention with federal funds would be gone. And there would be a tremendous shift of research out of academia. Maybe you view that as a good thing, but I do not.
It is wholely legal and aboveboard to tape cable TV, pay per view, regular TV, or ANYTHING that comes into your TV set, for your own personal use.
Now that has to be the biggest crock I have ever heard. Do you mean that if I take screenshots of The Simpsons and print them out and stick them to my cubicle, Fox can't bust me? Uhhh, hello, COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT. So many websites have been busted for this (taking screenshots of The Simpsons), there is even a special Fux-Hate website: http://nerd.simplenet.com
Now, there is a substantial difference between taping something so you can watch it later, and taping something to put it on your website. Within the realm of fair use, this would fall under the category of "use of the copyright, in particular whether is it commercial or nonprofit use."
The US copyright laws are posted on the web in pdf format, so that if you are really interested you may educate yourself.
If you insert comercials into your work, and decide to broadcast it one day, and one day only, and you NEVER want it seen at any other time, that is your right (by default). You don't have to put in any special restrictions. By recording such a program (which is all programs not specifically displaying a denial of right to copyright) you violate the right of the author to the restriction of the content to being viewed at a certain time. That is a copyright right (to the best of my knowledge).
You have the right, under fair use, to make copies of anything for which you have in some sense purchased copyright. It is wholely legal and aboveboard to tape cable TV, pay per view, regular TV, or ANYTHING that comes into your TV set, for your own personal use.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that recordtv merely wants to take this same right, under fair use, and allow someone else to tape it and rebroadcast it for use. Critical in this is that they may not 1) derive revenue from the copyright itself 2) Devalue the copyright compared to a person taping it at home and replaying it for personal use.
I think this will be an interesting case, as it walks a tightrope wrt fair use. Probably it would ultimately be legal, but probably the lawyer fees will overwhelm them.
If we are not careful the copyright moguls (RIAA, TV networks) will completely erode our rights to fair use through intimidation and money. You can see this happening everyday in cyberspace.
Aren't trade secrets the only things protected from reverse engineering? It seems pretty pointless to reverse engineer something that's patented, because the full text of the patent is already available to anyone.
A patent holder has the right to prevent anyone else from using the patent for 20 years. They can do this inconsistently - ie: RSA Data Securities allows Unix machines to use the RSA patent in SSH, but does not allow Windows and Mac machines to use it for free.
You can work around a patent by using a different technology/method to accomplish the same goal. For example, you could make a waterproof fabric that did not use PTFE and a water soluble fiber in layers to work around the Gore Tex fabric. For chips, and especially the ROM BIOS of original IBM machines, the input/output relations were first fully described by people who knew the patent, and then were mimicked in different chips by Compaq engineers who did not know the patent. The result was that a different method was used.
But I digress. The point is, that copyright does not protect against reverse engineering. Patents disclose claims and methods and allow the holder the right to indiscriminately refuse the combination of claims and methods to anyone else.
Many software companies would like to use copyright as patents. Think of the enormous leverage that allows them !!!!! If any software code I write can be given patent level protection through copyright, then I am set for life.
Copyright was never intended to provide that level of protection. And it never should. And the first time an EULA is seriously challenged, I predict software companies are in for a very rude awakening. I predict a judge will rule that such agreements can never be binding. Copyrights simply can never be afforded such a level of protection.
As it says in US copyright law section 102b (b) In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.
To think otherwise is to pervert copyright law, which extends through the lifetime of the copyright holder, into patent law, which is much stronger protection and lasts only 20 years.
It seems that the majority of what Microsoft complained about was the unauthorized reproduction of their materials. Quite frankly, this is illegal.
You need to have a good conceptualization of copyright law. Copyrighted materials are not intellectual property - they are signs of authorship of original material. As with ALL copyrights, reverse engineering is never protected. Only patents protect against reverse engineering.
Further, there is fair use. In judging fair use, one must consider 1) Has the monetary value of the copyright been decreased by its use ? 2) The nature of the use ie: are you making money from it ?? 3) The amount of copyrighted material used relative to the whole 4) the nature of the copyrighted work itself
Now, in this case, Microsoft was GIVING the material away FREELY from their website. There is no damage to the copyright value, and no money is being made from Slashdot carrying it. Since it was FREELY available to anyone, it can even be argued that carrying it in its entirety is a case of fair use.
You do not own a copyright in the same way that you own a car. No one stole Microsoft's car. They reprinted their copyright - without damage to Microsoft or its copyright in so doing.
Since copyright violations are civil cases and no damages could be named, there is no violation. This is very different from someone posting something like the Windows source code, which WOULD decrease its value.
Microsoft is trying not only to prevent the carrying of their copyrighted material, but also to prevent carrying of people saying you can use WINZIP TO OPEN THE EXECUTABLE AND EXTRACT THE PDF WITHOUT AGREEING TO THE BOGUS AND WORTHLESS LICENSE AGREEMENT ANYWAY.
You see, in the license agreement, Microsoft wants to forbid you from reverse engineering its protocol by your click through. In short, by use of its copyright, it wants to deprive you from the ability to reverse engineer copyrighted materials. Guess what - that makes a copyright into a patent that NEVER expires. There is absolutely no way that is legal. No sirree Bob.
Microsoft, please clarify your stance on copyright. By clicking the EULA, the user agrees to a right that copyright NEVER protects - that of reverse engineering of described methods.
From section 102b of US Copyright law (b) In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.
It would seem you would like to allow users to view the methods while not allowing them to reverse engineer the methods. That is precisely the role of a patent under US law - to allow the free propagation of IDEAS and METHODS while giving the INVENTOR a monopoly on its use for a limited period. You would instead seek to accomplish the same thing with a copyright.
You might also recall that copyrights extend for the lifetime of the holder.
If the Microsoft corruption of Kerberos is protected by copyright, you have posted the methods to the web, and you can expect they will be reverse engineered. Copyright provides you no protection against reverse engineering of the described methods.
If, instead, these methods are protected by patent, please inform the world. And stop trying to pervert our copyright law to further your corporate desires - at the expense of the rights of the consumer to reverse engineer copyrighted methods.
As for posting the methods on/., that is clearly a case of fair use.
hoping the Linux port of Quicktime ever gets completed
What is wrong with xanim ?? It plays quicktime movies, and uses ALL available codecs. Apple is preventing usage of the most common Sorensen codec under linux, and also failing to port their player to linux. In short, they are trying to dominate online movies while ACTIVELY blocking any use of their movie format under linux. Several other codecs provide Mark Podlipec with NDAs, and he links their codecs in as binary libraries - thus not revealing their source.
From the xanim home page I have contacted Sorenson about licensing their codec. They responded that Apple won't allow them to license it to others. You may want to nicely send a single email message to Sorenson and Apple asking about unix and/or xanim support for the Sorenson video codec.
Microsoft is _not_ to blame for the recent ILOVEYOU trojan horse. (1) This is a trojan horse that takes advantage of attachments, regardless of OS or mail reader, someone could mail you a trojan horse. It is up to the user to avoid trojan horses.
This is quite simple not true. On a system with a concept of different security levels, the user can only affect things writeable by that user. The user could hose himself, but not the computer. As a bonus Unix mailreaders are set up by default to save executables to files, not to execute them. Some of them are set up to display DATA, but NONE are set up to automatically run powerful executables.
So no, you cannot write an effective trojan horse virus on any system. Just any system designed without ANY security concept in mind.
(2) People claim that MS Outlook's easy access to the address book is a bug. Does that also make the vast majority of unix based mail readers (pine,elm,mutt) buggy since I could easily write a trojan horse to take advantage of their address books?
Again, you CANNOT write an executable that will automatically be executed by the users of pine, mutt, and elm. Maybe you should try it. For me it goes something like this.
Step 1). Save executable to disk Step 2). Think if there is a REALLY good reason to run the executable. Step 3). Think about how trusted the source is. Step 4). Delete executable.
The basic point is that the Unix mailreader is set up BY DEFAULT NOT TO EXECUTE CODE. That is a safe default, and it is one of the strong points of a SECURE operating system (see openbsd.org for discussion).
This problem has one and only one cause - an operating system and mailreader designed without thinking about security AT ALL.
As a bonus it is always fun to watch the marketing scams pulled in the aftermath of such a debacle. Microsoft KNOWS their users, by and large, will NEVER patch anything, and will NEVER change most shipped defaults. And they set up the machines insecure by default anyway.
MS isn't stupid though.. they have to want to patent this for a reason.
Of course. Anyone who writes software for Windows will have to license the patent to make their software automatically upgrade. Just another way to milk your monopoly.
Of course this is a totally obvious extension of dpkg-ftp, or apt for debian. But for that to apply the patent checkers would need to have their heads out of their butts.
This brings up the entire - what is copyright anyway ?? question.
Well, copyright identifies a piece of work as yours. Your way of saying/writing/painting something. It is NOT your ideas or methods that are copyrighted - there is the patent system for that. That is why software barons are so hip on anti-reverse engineering clauses in EULAs. Copyright is NOT about intellectual property. It is about identity. It is totally unclear to me how software barons could think that you would agree to treat their copyright like a patent in order to use it. It is kind of ridiculous.
If you want to protect your methodology, patent it. If you don't, there is nothing to keep people from copying it. And there is really nothing to keep someone else from using GPLd code as a code base and rewriting the routines. Only the form of expression is protected - NOT any intellectual property. Methods are specifically NOT protected in US Copyright law.
Exactly correct. This works easily, if you can get your users savvy enough to do it.
Basically, you first establish an ssh connection from client to server. Then set up the client SMTP to go to port 25 on localhost. You configure ssh to forward port 25 on localhost to port 25 on the server. When the email is sent, it goes to port 25 on localhost, where ssh picks it up, encrypts it, and sends it to a nonprivileged port on the server. There, ssh decrypts it, and forwards it to port 25 on the server, and the mail is sent. And you don't need to be a relay.
The pitfall in all this is that it places the onus on the user to be savvy enough, and also requires ssh (which is only free for SOME people).
I'm pretty sure you need to apply some kind of license to be able to download XServer module for nVidia powered card. And just that license especially denies your right to reverce engineer it - if you don't apply it you cannot legally download module. Of course IANAL.
Except that you can download the rpms without accepting the license. Of course, the page says that by downloading you are accepting the license, but that is also a load of bull. No price, and no restrictions on access, and no signature equals no license. They make NO attempt to make you read the license, and place NO restrictions on license acceptance in order to receive the rpms.
Again, this is quite simply nonsense being pushed with the idea that you will not see through it. Besides, the drivers are copyrighted, and copyright NEVER protects against reverse engineering of the methods that are copyrighted (only copyright protection mechanisms may not be reverse engineered, and only in the US).
This entire change in public perception on the actual value of copyright is ridiculous. For example, Microsoft claims they have the right, through copyright protection, to mandate certain things occur on first bootup. The judge thinks that is ridiculous. Copyright provides NO such protections. The software industry stands to make a TREMENDOUS amount of money if things like UCITA and DMCA are upheld and/or extended. They would like to make money by taking rights you currently hold.
They cover this in the first part of the license... They are not _selling_ you anything, they are licensing it to you.
Also a total crock that would never hold up. If you stop licensing it, can you give it back to them ?? Are there any continued costs of usage ?? There are NO licensing fees, a critical aspect to licensing. You do not pay per unit time. You pay to be able to use software ad infinitum. The software company meets NO criteria for ownership even if their software EULA says so. These agreements are not worth the electrons used to print them. They can not and would not hold up in any court.
Consider this. You buy an NVIDIA card, but never read the licensing agreement. You instead scan the media that came with the card (that you bought), and download the XServer module and dump it into/usr/X11R6/bin. You use it, and reverse engineer it, and contribute the code to XFree86. And you post the code on the web. Of what, exactly, are you liable, if anything. You accepted no agreements. In fact, to gain access to the driver you need not accept ANY agreement.
The EULA is quite simply the result of software barons trying to extend their protection by bluffing people who don't know better.
Isn't that how it works though? The EULA forces you to If you won't agree to the restrictions, you are violating the license, just as signing a non-disclosure agreement removes some of your "freedom of speech" because you can't talk or write about what you've learned.
There is also fair use in the purchase of copyrighted material. Can you imagine buying a cookbook and not being able to use any of the recipes because reverse engineering of its methods was prohibited ?? There is no aspect of copyright law that protects against reverse engineering of the methods used in that copyright (only against reverse engineering measures designed to protect copyright itself, such as DMCA).
I cannot imagine a judge upholding that an EULA actually does prohibit reverse engineering. It is a pretty absurd notion, and makes copyrights into patents. That is a large portion of the reason that copyright does NOT protect against reverse engineering - there is an entirely much more stringent form of protection for that - the patent. You actually have to apply for a patent, and be reviewed. I can scribble my name on the wall and copyright it. It is taking a triviality and trying to make it into a patent. It is just plain wrong, and I find it hard to believe any copyright scholar would argue the point. There are some rights that cannot be placed in EULAs by law, and I think reverse engineering is one of them.
Section 10.0b, US copyright law
In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.
Well, unix.com is slashdotted, so for this post I'll assume that it is not being sold by Open Group, the rightful owners of the trademark on the name "unix".
Trademarks are contextual. If someone has a business with the name unix that has nothing to do with operating systems (or probably even computers), they can ALSO have a trademark for the name unix. Trademarks only own a name for specific contexts. For example, ever been to soundgarden.com ?? How about soundgarden.net ? The band wants the names since they have the name trademarked. Others have valid uses of those names that have nothing to do with the band. As such, the band CANNOT retrieve the domain names.
US Copyright law specifically allows reverse engineering of any methods described in copyrighted material. I think most of these EULAs are pretty off on this one, and that they will get hosed pretty hard if they are ever challenged.
I mean, the entire purpose of the patent system is providing limited protection on implementations with claims. If you somehow contort the law to allow the same level of protection for copyrighted materials, it makes a mockery of the entire patent system. Now, some aspects of patent law deserve such mockery, but I doubt anyone will challenge the right of people who invest SUBSTANTIAL time and effort in developing intellectual property to have it protected.
Put another way, if I buy a new VW bug, I can unbuild it, measure its parts, and reassemble it. I can even BUY manuals made by third parties that tell me exactly how to do it. But, for some reason, if I buy an NVIDIA card, I don't have those same rights ?!@?!?
Good systems use shadow passwords. So the real passwords go in/etc/shadow, which is unreadable by anyone but root and anyone but root can't even look at the encrypted passwords.
Shadow passwords are only a small advance in security. A better hash function would work better. See The Srp Project for more details on this important consideration.
Still, QNX looks pretty pathetic by todays standards.
I don't agree with the reasoning that breaking something open is justified if it is easy to do so. If people are going to reverse engineer things, it needs to be done because they believe the software is infringing on someone's rights.
If there is one truth in cryptography, it is that people LOVE to break cryptography. Cryptography not protected by patent can be reverse engineered. Reverse engineering is ABSOLUTELY not forbidden on things only protected by copyright. Even DMCA does not forbid reverse engineering in general.
So we are left with - bad crypto program made to censor the web has crypto broken and poor censoring exposed. And made public domain. There is really no way to undo what has been done.
The cp4hack was not GPLd, as anyone who took a look at the original source could easily see. They basically released it under a public domain type of license. From the original release
"The source is included, and you can do whatever you want with it"
Given that, ANYONE can modify and claim copyright on the software. I see no legal way that Mattel could use copyright law to revoke anyone's use of this software for any reason. They really need the judge to rule that the software is illegal for some reason and thus give a justification for someone to pull it from a web site. As it stands now, Mattel has no leg to stand on.
Let's face it, they wrote a pathetically weak program, and they deserved to have it reverse engineered.
This is an issue for the folks at NVIDIA, and not really one for mass arbitration. They created the video card, and they created the drivers, and they should be able to control the licensing.
That being said, it is kind of sad that they would handicap themselves in this way. They deprive the end users of the ability to compile the driver for their platform's available optimization. They will release their drivers after all other upgrades for XFree86 are available. And it is quite likely that their drivers will not work as well as other platforms under {free,net,open}BSD and linux.
Also, I've now seen things like the guy at U Michigan who hacked the ATI Mach64 driver for his Mobility card to get XFree86 working with something other than the VFB driver. Nice work if you can get it from your users.
Not for Nvidia. I hope this is not the demise of their drivers.
I once read someone say that without very strict patent laws, open source would be impossible. And I agree. The GPL is based on those laws, and others like it. If they didn't exist, there would be nothing stopping people from using code developed in a free and encouraging community in their own proprietary works, without recognition, without compensation.
Open source is based on COPYRIGHT laws, not patent laws. In fact, patent law allows the creation of something of which the source is available, but it is illegal to use (such as RSA encryption). Remember, patent law grants you the right to prevent others from using your invention - it in no way facilitates others being able to use it, except that it encourages you to bring it in the open during the patent protection period.
The SIR patents seem to be a windfall to the open source community.
They provide no measure of protection that well defined prior art does not provide. The only issue is that they will be easily accessible to the patent office (whereas prior art may not always be).
The pdf format has a few problems with being viewable by all. The largest is the LZW compression algorithm, which is patented. Adobe, of course, has a license. Not all pdfs must use LZW - zlib is also supported and better.
The second problem is that it CAN use protected encryption. In that case, no US free software can read it. Xpdf international can. Acrobat reader can.
The spec for pdf is proprietary but open. And downloadable from Adobe. The main issue is that Adobe's software for reading it sucks rocks. Xpdf is much better, but its font rasterizer sucks rocks. It'd be cool if someone built Freetype's rasterizer into xpdf - maybe next weekend's project:)
Which basically means the only really nice way to read a pdf now is to print it.
Of course all this consumer oriented software looks better under Windows, but then you have to put up with the OS sucking rocks.
Slashdot Mirror
I think that if federal money, which comes from American citizens paying federal income tax, is used for scientific research, then it is only fair that American citizens be allowed to make free use of the results.
Grants with patent restrictions are not allowed at most universities. University scholars are required to predisclose conflicts of interest. Universities OWN patent licensing rights to patents created by their employees - ie: the professors and other researchers. That is how the system currently works in academia. The patent holder(s) typically receive less than half of the patent royalties.
The bottom line is that intellectual property is viewed as being held by the INVENTOR and the licensing is controlled by the INVENTOR's EMPLOYER. That is how intellectual property is conceptualized in the US today.
That federal money was used for the research is justifiable in that 20 years from now the patents will be public domain. The federal money was used to bring new technology into our society.
Feel free to disagree, but that is the current state of things. If federally funded grants had all thjir intellectual property public domain, then ALL of the monetary incentive for invention with federal funds would be gone. And there would be a tremendous shift of research out of academia. Maybe you view that as a good thing, but I do not.
It is wholely legal and aboveboard to tape cable TV, pay per view, regular TV, or ANYTHING that comes into your TV set, for your own personal use.
Now that has to be the biggest crock I have ever heard. Do you mean that if I take screenshots of The Simpsons and print them out and stick them to my cubicle, Fox can't bust me? Uhhh, hello, COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT. So many websites have been busted for this (taking screenshots of The Simpsons), there is even a special Fux-Hate website: http://nerd.simplenet.com
Now, there is a substantial difference between taping something so you can watch it later, and taping something to put it on your website. Within the realm of fair use, this would fall under the category of "use of the copyright, in particular whether is it commercial or nonprofit use."
The US copyright laws are posted on the web in pdf format, so that if you are really interested you may educate yourself.
If you insert comercials into your work, and decide to broadcast it one day, and one day only, and you NEVER want it seen at any other time, that is your right (by default). You don't have to put in any special restrictions. By recording such a program (which is all programs not specifically displaying a denial of right to copyright) you violate the right of the author to the restriction of the content to being viewed at a certain time. That is a copyright right (to the best of my knowledge).
You have the right, under fair use, to make copies of anything for which you have in some sense purchased copyright. It is wholely legal and aboveboard to tape cable TV, pay per view, regular TV, or ANYTHING that comes into your TV set, for your own personal use.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that recordtv merely wants to take this same right, under fair use, and allow someone else to tape it and rebroadcast it for use. Critical in this is that they may not
1) derive revenue from the copyright itself
2) Devalue the copyright compared to a person taping it at home and replaying it for personal use.
I think this will be an interesting case, as it walks a tightrope wrt fair use. Probably it would ultimately be legal, but probably the lawyer fees will overwhelm them.
If we are not careful the copyright moguls (RIAA, TV networks) will completely erode our rights to fair use through intimidation and money. You can see this happening everyday in cyberspace.
Aren't trade secrets the only things protected from reverse engineering? It seems pretty pointless to reverse engineer something that's patented, because the full text of the patent is already available to anyone.
A patent holder has the right to prevent anyone else from using the patent for 20 years. They can do this inconsistently - ie: RSA Data Securities allows Unix machines to use the RSA patent in SSH, but does not allow Windows and Mac machines to use it for free.
You can work around a patent by using a different technology/method to accomplish the same goal. For example, you could make a waterproof fabric that did not use PTFE and a water soluble fiber in layers to work around the Gore Tex fabric. For chips, and especially the ROM BIOS of original IBM machines, the input/output relations were first fully described by people who knew the patent, and then were mimicked in different chips by Compaq engineers who did not know the patent. The result was that a different method was used.
But I digress. The point is, that copyright does not protect against reverse engineering. Patents disclose claims and methods and allow the holder the right to indiscriminately refuse the combination of claims and methods to anyone else.
Many software companies would like to use copyright as patents. Think of the enormous leverage that allows them !!!!! If any software code I write can be given patent level protection through copyright, then I am set for life.
Copyright was never intended to provide that level of protection. And it never should. And the first time an EULA is seriously challenged, I predict software companies are in for a very rude awakening. I predict a judge will rule that such agreements can never be binding. Copyrights simply can never be afforded such a level of protection.
As it says in US copyright law section 102b
(b) In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.
To think otherwise is to pervert copyright law, which extends through the lifetime of the copyright holder, into patent law, which is much stronger protection and lasts only 20 years.
It seems that the majority of what Microsoft complained about was the unauthorized reproduction of their materials. Quite frankly, this is illegal.
You need to have a good conceptualization of copyright law. Copyrighted materials are not intellectual property - they are signs of authorship of original material. As with ALL copyrights, reverse engineering is never protected. Only patents protect against reverse engineering.
Further, there is fair use. In judging fair use, one must consider
1) Has the monetary value of the copyright been decreased by its use ?
2) The nature of the use ie: are you making money from it ??
3) The amount of copyrighted material used relative to the whole
4) the nature of the copyrighted work itself
Now, in this case, Microsoft was GIVING the material away FREELY from their website. There is no damage to the copyright value, and no money is being made from Slashdot carrying it. Since it was FREELY available to anyone, it can even be argued that carrying it in its entirety is a case of fair use.
You do not own a copyright in the same way that you own a car. No one stole Microsoft's car. They reprinted their copyright - without damage to Microsoft or its copyright in so doing.
Since copyright violations are civil cases and no damages could be named, there is no violation. This is very different from someone posting something like the Windows source code, which WOULD decrease its value.
Microsoft is trying not only to prevent the carrying of their copyrighted material, but also to prevent carrying of people saying you can use WINZIP TO OPEN THE EXECUTABLE AND EXTRACT THE PDF WITHOUT AGREEING TO THE BOGUS AND WORTHLESS LICENSE AGREEMENT ANYWAY.
You see, in the license agreement, Microsoft wants to forbid you from reverse engineering its protocol by your click through. In short, by use of its copyright, it wants to deprive you from the ability to reverse engineer copyrighted materials. Guess what - that makes a copyright into a patent that NEVER expires. There is absolutely no way that is legal. No sirree Bob.
Microsoft,
/., that is clearly a case of fair use.
please clarify your stance on copyright. By clicking the EULA, the user agrees to a right that copyright NEVER protects - that of reverse engineering of described methods.
From section 102b of US Copyright law
(b) In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.
It would seem you would like to allow users to view the methods while not allowing them to reverse engineer the methods. That is precisely the role of a patent under US law - to allow the free propagation of IDEAS and METHODS while giving the INVENTOR a monopoly on its use for a limited period. You would instead seek to accomplish the same thing with a copyright.
You might also recall that copyrights extend for the lifetime of the holder.
If the Microsoft corruption of Kerberos is protected by copyright, you have posted the methods to the web, and you can expect they will be reverse engineered. Copyright provides you no protection against reverse engineering of the described methods.
If, instead, these methods are protected by patent, please inform the world. And stop trying to pervert our copyright law to further your corporate desires - at the expense of the rights of the consumer to reverse engineer copyrighted methods.
As for posting the methods on
hoping the Linux port of Quicktime ever gets completed
What is wrong with xanim ?? It plays quicktime movies, and uses ALL available codecs. Apple is preventing usage of the most common Sorensen codec under linux, and also failing to port their player to linux. In short, they are trying to dominate online movies while ACTIVELY blocking any use of their movie format under linux. Several other codecs provide Mark Podlipec with NDAs, and he links their codecs in as binary libraries - thus not revealing their source.
From the xanim home page
I have contacted Sorenson about licensing their codec. They responded that Apple won't allow them to license it to others. You may want to nicely send a single email message to Sorenson and Apple asking about unix and/or xanim support for the Sorenson video codec.
Sorensen email: support@s-vision.com
Apple: wish@hype.quicktime.apple.com
Microsoft is _not_ to blame for the recent ILOVEYOU trojan horse. (1) This is a trojan horse that takes advantage of attachments, regardless of OS or mail reader, someone could mail you a trojan horse. It is up to the user to avoid trojan horses.
This is quite simple not true. On a system with a concept of different security levels, the user can only affect things writeable by that user. The user could hose himself, but not the computer. As a bonus Unix mailreaders are set up by default to save executables to files, not to execute them. Some of them are set up to display DATA, but NONE are set up to automatically run powerful executables.
So no, you cannot write an effective trojan horse virus on any system. Just any system designed without ANY security concept in mind.
(2) People claim that MS Outlook's easy access to the address book is a bug. Does that also make the vast majority of unix based mail readers (pine,elm,mutt) buggy since I could easily write a trojan horse to take advantage of their address books?
Again, you CANNOT write an executable that will automatically be executed by the users of pine, mutt, and elm. Maybe you should try it. For me it goes something like this.
Step 1). Save executable to disk
Step 2). Think if there is a REALLY good reason to run the executable.
Step 3). Think about how trusted the source is.
Step 4). Delete executable.
The basic point is that the Unix mailreader is set up BY DEFAULT NOT TO EXECUTE CODE. That is a safe default, and it is one of the strong points of a SECURE operating system (see openbsd.org for discussion).
This problem has one and only one cause - an operating system and mailreader designed without thinking about security AT ALL.
As a bonus it is always fun to watch the marketing scams pulled in the aftermath of such a debacle. Microsoft KNOWS their users, by and large, will NEVER patch anything, and will NEVER change most shipped defaults. And they set up the machines insecure by default anyway.
MS isn't stupid though.. they have to want to patent this for a reason.
Of course. Anyone who writes software for Windows will have to license the patent to make their software automatically upgrade. Just another way to milk your monopoly.
Of course this is a totally obvious extension of dpkg-ftp, or apt for debian. But for that to apply the patent checkers would need to have their heads out of their butts.
This brings up the entire - what is copyright anyway ?? question.
Well, copyright identifies a piece of work as yours. Your way of saying/writing/painting something. It is NOT your ideas or methods that are copyrighted - there is the patent system for that. That is why software barons are so hip on anti-reverse engineering clauses in EULAs. Copyright is NOT about intellectual property. It is about identity. It is totally unclear to me how software barons could think that you would agree to treat their copyright like a patent in order to use it. It is kind of ridiculous.
If you want to protect your methodology, patent it. If you don't, there is nothing to keep people from copying it. And there is really nothing to keep someone else from using GPLd code as a code base and rewriting the routines. Only the form of expression is protected - NOT any intellectual property. Methods are specifically NOT protected in US Copyright law.
Exactly correct. This works easily, if you can get your users savvy enough to do it.
Basically, you first establish an ssh connection from client to server. Then set up the client SMTP to go to port 25 on localhost. You configure ssh to forward port 25 on localhost to port 25 on the server. When the email is sent, it goes to port 25 on localhost, where ssh picks it up, encrypts it, and sends it to a nonprivileged port on the server. There, ssh decrypts it, and forwards it to port 25 on the server, and the mail is sent. And you don't need to be a relay.
The pitfall in all this is that it places the onus on the user to be savvy enough, and also requires ssh (which is only free for SOME people).
I'm pretty sure you need to apply some kind of license to be able to download XServer module for nVidia powered card. And just that license especially denies your right to reverce engineer it - if you don't apply it you cannot legally download module. Of course IANAL.
Except that you can download the rpms without accepting the license. Of course, the page says that by downloading you are accepting the license, but that is also a load of bull. No price, and no restrictions on access, and no signature equals no license. They make NO attempt to make you read the license, and place NO restrictions on license acceptance in order to receive the rpms.
Again, this is quite simply nonsense being pushed with the idea that you will not see through it. Besides, the drivers are copyrighted, and copyright NEVER protects against reverse engineering of the methods that are copyrighted (only copyright protection mechanisms may not be reverse engineered, and only in the US).
This entire change in public perception on the actual value of copyright is ridiculous. For example, Microsoft claims they have the right, through copyright protection, to mandate certain things occur on first bootup. The judge thinks that is ridiculous. Copyright provides NO such protections. The software industry stands to make a TREMENDOUS amount of money if things like UCITA and DMCA are upheld and/or extended. They would like to make money by taking rights you currently hold.
They cover this in the first part of the license... They are not _selling_ you anything, they are licensing it to you.
/usr/X11R6/bin. You use it, and reverse engineer it, and contribute the code to XFree86. And you post the code on the web. Of what, exactly, are you liable, if anything. You accepted no agreements. In fact, to gain access to the driver you need not accept ANY agreement.
Also a total crock that would never hold up. If you stop licensing it, can you give it back to them ?? Are there any continued costs of usage ?? There are NO licensing fees, a critical aspect to licensing. You do not pay per unit time. You pay to be able to use software ad infinitum. The software company meets NO criteria for ownership even if their software EULA says so. These agreements are not worth the electrons used to print them. They can not and would not hold up in any court.
Consider this. You buy an NVIDIA card, but never read the licensing agreement. You instead scan the media that came with the card (that you bought), and download the XServer module and dump it into
The EULA is quite simply the result of software barons trying to extend their protection by bluffing people who don't know better.
Isn't that how it works though? The EULA forces you to If you won't agree to the restrictions, you are violating the license, just as signing a non-disclosure agreement removes some of your "freedom of speech" because you can't talk or write about what you've learned.
There is also fair use in the purchase of copyrighted material. Can you imagine buying a cookbook and not being able to use any of the recipes because reverse engineering of its methods was prohibited ?? There is no aspect of copyright law that protects against reverse engineering of the methods used in that copyright (only against reverse engineering measures designed to protect copyright itself, such as DMCA).
I cannot imagine a judge upholding that an EULA actually does prohibit reverse engineering. It is a pretty absurd notion, and makes copyrights into patents. That is a large portion of the reason that copyright does NOT protect against reverse engineering - there is an entirely much more stringent form of protection for that - the patent. You actually have to apply for a patent, and be reviewed. I can scribble my name on the wall and copyright it. It is taking a triviality and trying to make it into a patent. It is just plain wrong, and I find it hard to believe any copyright scholar would argue the point. There are some rights that cannot be placed in EULAs by law, and I think reverse engineering is one of them.
Section 10.0b, US copyright law
In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.
Well, unix.com is slashdotted, so for this post I'll assume that it is not being sold by Open Group, the rightful owners of the trademark on the name "unix".
Trademarks are contextual. If someone has a business with the name unix that has nothing to do with operating systems (or probably even computers), they can ALSO have a trademark for the name unix. Trademarks only own a name for specific contexts. For example, ever been to soundgarden.com ?? How about soundgarden.net ? The band wants the names since they have the name trademarked. Others have valid uses of those names that have nothing to do with the band. As such, the band CANNOT retrieve the domain names.
2.1.2 Limitations. No Reverse Engineering.
US Copyright law specifically allows reverse engineering of any methods described in copyrighted material. I think most of these EULAs are pretty off on this one, and that they will get hosed pretty hard if they are ever challenged.
I mean, the entire purpose of the patent system is providing limited protection on implementations with claims. If you somehow contort the law to allow the same level of protection for copyrighted materials, it makes a mockery of the entire patent system. Now, some aspects of patent law deserve such mockery, but I doubt anyone will challenge the right of people who invest SUBSTANTIAL time and effort in developing intellectual property to have it protected.
Put another way, if I buy a new VW bug, I can unbuild it, measure its parts, and reassemble it. I can even BUY manuals made by third parties that tell me exactly how to do it. But, for some reason, if I buy an NVIDIA card, I don't have those same rights ?!@?!?
Something is seriously wrong.
Good systems use shadow passwords. So the real passwords go in /etc/shadow, which is unreadable by anyone but root and anyone but root can't even look at the encrypted passwords.
Shadow passwords are only a small advance in security. A better hash function would work better. See The Srp Project for more details on this important consideration.
Still, QNX looks pretty pathetic by todays standards.
I don't agree with the reasoning that breaking something open is justified if it is easy to do so. If people are going to reverse engineer things, it needs to be done because they believe the software is infringing on someone's rights.
If there is one truth in cryptography, it is that people LOVE to break cryptography. Cryptography not protected by patent can be reverse engineered. Reverse engineering is ABSOLUTELY not forbidden on things only protected by copyright. Even DMCA does not forbid reverse engineering in general.
So we are left with - bad crypto program made to censor the web has crypto broken and poor censoring exposed. And made public domain. There is really no way to undo what has been done.
The cp4hack was not GPLd, as anyone who took a look at the original source could easily see. They basically released it under a public domain type of license. From the original release
"The source is included, and you can do whatever you want with it"
Given that, ANYONE can modify and claim copyright on the software. I see no legal way that Mattel could use copyright law to revoke anyone's use of this software for any reason. They really need the judge to rule that the software is illegal for some reason and thus give a justification for someone to pull it from a web site. As it stands now, Mattel has no leg to stand on.
Let's face it, they wrote a pathetically weak program, and they deserved to have it reverse engineered.
Here is the only mention of licensing
"The source is included, and you can do whatever you want with it. "
AND
"You are allowed to mirror this document and the related files anywhere you see fit"
This is an issue for the folks at NVIDIA, and not really one for mass arbitration. They created the video card, and they created the drivers, and they should be able to control the licensing.
That being said, it is kind of sad that they would handicap themselves in this way. They deprive the end users of the ability to compile the driver for their platform's available optimization. They will release their drivers after all other upgrades for XFree86 are available. And it is quite likely that their drivers will not work as well as other platforms under {free,net,open}BSD and linux.
Also, I've now seen things like the guy at U Michigan who hacked the ATI Mach64 driver for his Mobility card to get XFree86 working with something other than the VFB driver. Nice work if you can get it from your users.
Not for Nvidia. I hope this is not the demise of their drivers.
I once read someone say that without very strict patent laws, open source would be impossible. And I agree. The GPL is based on those laws, and others like it. If they didn't exist, there would be nothing stopping people from using code developed in a free and encouraging community in their own proprietary works, without recognition, without compensation.
Open source is based on COPYRIGHT laws, not patent laws. In fact, patent law allows the creation of something of which the source is available, but it is illegal to use (such as RSA encryption). Remember, patent law grants you the right to prevent others from using your invention - it in no way facilitates others being able to use it, except that it encourages you to bring it in the open during the patent protection period.
The SIR patents seem to be a windfall to the open source community.
They provide no measure of protection that well defined prior art does not provide. The only issue is that they will be easily accessible to the patent office (whereas prior art may not always be).
Ghostview doesn't support much of anything - it is only a frontend for the ghostscript renderer underneath.
Ghostscript does not support many constructs in pdf format - it is horribly incomplete.
gs version 6 is better, but not there yet. The GNU version is now 5.5, and Aladdin's
version 6 differs in pdf compatibility by quite a bit.
Xpdf is by FAR the best at accessing the most of the pdf spec among free (as in speech, not beer) software.
None of these is as nice at the display as Acrobat Reader. And Acrobat Reader is a truly painful program to use in other respects.
Proprietary format != anti-consumer
:)
The pdf format has a few problems with being viewable by all. The largest is the LZW compression algorithm, which is patented. Adobe, of course, has a license. Not all pdfs must use LZW - zlib is also supported and better.
The second problem is that it CAN use protected encryption. In that case, no US free software can read it. Xpdf international can. Acrobat reader can.
The spec for pdf is proprietary but open. And downloadable from Adobe. The main issue is that Adobe's software for reading it sucks rocks. Xpdf is much better, but its font rasterizer sucks rocks. It'd be cool if someone built Freetype's rasterizer into xpdf - maybe next weekend's project
Which basically means the only really nice way to read a pdf now is to print it.
Of course all this consumer oriented software looks better under Windows, but then you have to put up with the OS sucking rocks.
The subject says it all.
Potato (web subsection) alread includes mozilla m-13.