Not a new kind of troll, no, a new kind of crapflood.
As another poster has observed, someone is running bots that pick up comments that have been uprated in one story and repost them in another. They've been at it for awhile now.
As for motivation, I too have to shrug and wonder, but I'll also observe that this could wreak havoc with the metamod system if metamods don't pay close attention (and I'm betting many don't) so that may have something to do with it.
Seems to me that if an infringing company claims the Free Software Foundation is the licencor then they're screwed. Since the FSF has no legal right to grant a license for something they don't own the copyright to, the argument would indicate that the license is void. In which case copyright law kicks in and almost any usage becomes infringement.
Mr. Anonymous, you get my nomination for most insightful comment of the day.
Now the question I have is, who is this Ingrid Marson, is she accurately portraying the argument attributed to Lucie Guibault, and if so, how in the heck did someone get to be an assistant law professor without having the slightest clue how these things work?
The code is in both versions, which are copyrighted by the GPL, so whose code is it?
Umm no. They aren't 'copyrighted by the GPL' - thats silly. They're copyright (no -ed on that) the authors. Each author is owner of the copyright on the code they wrote. They are offered under the GPL license. The license is not the copyright, it's a license (the word is a synonym for permission) to use the copyrighted code in ways not otherwise permitted under copyright law.
We can disagree as to whether the Berne convention provision you refer to is a good idea or not, but that's beside the point. The grandparent poster was correct - if you don't explicitly claim your copyright it becomes more difficult to enforce. Under the Berne convention rules it's still possible - but that doesn't mean it doesn't get harder.
Correction - the FSF doesn't urge people to assign copyright to them on anything and everything, as you imply. They require copyright assignments on official FSF projects, of course, but there are many other Free Software projects they neither have nor want copyright on.
The stuff about french doctors doesn't seem to contribute to your post, and sounds a bit suspect, too.
Stability isn't such a bad thing on a workstation (I don't do "desktops") install either.
I haven't tried Ubuntu, I'm sure it's fine, but I've been really happy with Debian "unstable" in both server and desktop roles. It's not always necessary or even desirable to run the latest version of everything. Having the stable and reliable versions, with security fixes backported regularly, is ideal for many of us.
OpenBSD does this, not because it makes things simpler - but because (among other reasons) it helps them make sure they have simplified things. Similar concepts in a way, but also very different.
No, that's more than what the kernel does. The kernel does not, for instance, "present an interface to the user between applications." The shell does that. Just try to do anything with a system running linux (or any other kernel) and no shell.
Now, to be fair, I have to concede the man does have a point. Supporting several configuration options and several platforms increases complexity, if your goal is simply to get the thing running and marketable.
At the same time, though, dealing with that increased complexity can give a project the impetus it needs to clean up spaghetti code that 'just runs' and replace it with more auditable and correct code, which is really a gain in the long run. Assuming, of course, your goal is to write good software - not just to write 'good enough' software and get it out the door in line with a deadline from marketing.
There is precedent in usage both ways, of course, and plenty of textbooks make the distinction yours glosses over. But forget about the argument from authority for a moment, and *think* - by that definition the kernel is the OS, so why have two words? The root meaning of kernel is the same as core - the central or fundamental part of a whole - what's it the kernel of?
It is, of course, the kernel or core of the OS.
As the jargon file entry for Operating System puts it: operating system: n. [techspeak] (Often abbreviated 'OS') The foundation software of a machine; that which schedules tasks, allocates storage, and presents a default interface to the user between applications.
Please don't assume. The facts of this case are pretty well known since the court case.
I'm basing my assumption on my present state of knowledge about it, derived primarily from BBC reports of the case. If you have a link to the actual trial transcript or any other documents that are helpful, feel free to contributed them.
But the BBC is emphatically NOT on his side, so I'd be surprised if they have skipped anything that would make him look worse.
While he had been subject to crime before, local police have always denied that he went to the meetings about local crime management that he claimed to have attended before the event.
Hmm, yes, skip a meeting, forfeit your rights. That's fair.
The firearm he used was illegally owned,
As I said, the UK government started by forbidding him the means to effectively defend himself and his property.
he had a history of hostile behaviour
Yep, he was an antisocial old coot. That must mean he forfeits his rights as a human being too, right?
and supporting the British National Party.
Ahh yes, another important exception to the doctrine of human rights - people whose politics you don't like forfeit their rights as well! How could I forget that one?
This isn't some innocent angel we're talking about.
No, it's a human being.
And they didn't prosecute him for the actions he took to defend himself, nor (IIRC) for the possession of an illegal firearm,
Oh yes they did. Martin was jailed for life for the murder of Barras, with 10 years to run concurrently for the wounding offence and a further 12 months for possession of an illegal firearm.
A cross-compiler, and an editor on the system running the cross-compiler, and a shell on the system running the editor and the cross-compiler... see a pattern here?
Fact is, Stallman set out many years ago to make a Free OS. He worked hard on it, both coding himself, and getting others to help with it. He drove this idea for years. All that was lacking was a kernel, and that was being worked on. But Linus finished his kernel first, and Stallmans dream was now reality - a complete Free OS now available. Can you blame him for wanting a little credit? Can you blame him for wanting people using the OS he worked so hard for so many years to create to have a clue where it came from?
I also used to teach self defense, and our background sounds similar in that respect at least. I think you misunderstand my argument regarding the timing of their break-in, it's not statistical (though I wouldn't be surprised if statistics would back it up, they aren't the crux here) the point is rather what reasonable inference can be made from their behaviour. The man was on his property, and they were breaking and entering, so any benefit of the doubt has to be on his side. How is it unreasonable for him to infer that if they were willing to break and enter when they knew he was probably home that they were prepared for a confrontation and willing to harm him?
As to the guy being shot in the back, sure that doesn't look good. But when they are on his property, three to one, he has every reason to consider himself in danger and every right to use force to defend himself. And remember this was at night, in the dark. Did the homeowner *know* the intruder had his back turned? It seems unlikely. Was the guy trying to run away permanently, or just trying to get behind cover so he could sneak around and take the old guy out from behind? I don't know, you don't know, no one knows. The homeowner had the right, in that situation, to take action to defend himself, and no duty whatsoever to err on the side of giving them a chance to kill him.
However, it is not guilty of abusing his human rights, and this is absolutely clear to anyone taking the time to study the case. Introducing such hype is unconstructive, both in this case, and more generally where it diminshes to effect of cases that really are a government abusing an individual's rights.
I disagree. I see clear violation of his human rights, starting with the initial legal situation you yourself criticised rather nonspecifically. There is no more important and basic human right than the right to defend oneself. The UK government started by forbidding him the means to do that, and continued to violate his human rights every step of the way after that.
When someone breaks into another persons home at night, they are willingly committing not just a property crime, but a crime that shows a willingness to do far more.
Burglars that are unwilling to harm or kill someone don't break in at night. They wait until the resident leaves for work, *then* break in.
Not only that, he was outnumbered three to one.
No one forced those men to break into his home. They had no right to do so, and the very act of doing so implied a threat to his life.
The right to defend oneself with all appropriate means is a basic and fundamental, inalienable human right. Tony Martin did nothing wrong. The UK Government, on the other hand, is guilty of egregious violations of his human rights.
When the games I want to play stop working on windows 98, they'll either run under WINE, on my Mac, have a GNU/Linux version - or do without my business.
The whole 'tabbed browsing' thing is just a poor attempt to copy Operas MDI interface anyway.
And yes, I use Firefox as my primary browser now - not Opera - but for other reasons than this. No other browser yet has gotten that part of the interface as usable as Opera had several years ago. And I really think conceiving of it as 'tabs' has something to do with it.
I don't want tabs, I want a decent MDI interface for my browser.
Slashdot Mirror
Not a new kind of troll, no, a new kind of crapflood.
As another poster has observed, someone is running bots that pick up comments that have been uprated in one story and repost them in another. They've been at it for awhile now.
As for motivation, I too have to shrug and wonder, but I'll also observe that this could wreak havoc with the metamod system if metamods don't pay close attention (and I'm betting many don't) so that may have something to do with it.
Mr. Anonymous, you get my nomination for most insightful comment of the day.
Now the question I have is, who is this Ingrid Marson, is she accurately portraying the argument attributed to Lucie Guibault, and if so, how in the heck did someone get to be an assistant law professor without having the slightest clue how these things work?
Umm no. They aren't 'copyrighted by the GPL' - thats silly. They're copyright (no -ed on that) the authors. Each author is owner of the copyright on the code they wrote. They are offered under the GPL license. The license is not the copyright, it's a license (the word is a synonym for permission) to use the copyrighted code in ways not otherwise permitted under copyright law.
We can disagree as to whether the Berne convention provision you refer to is a good idea or not, but that's beside the point. The grandparent poster was correct - if you don't explicitly claim your copyright it becomes more difficult to enforce. Under the Berne convention rules it's still possible - but that doesn't mean it doesn't get harder.
Correction - the FSF doesn't urge people to assign copyright to them on anything and everything, as you imply. They require copyright assignments on official FSF projects, of course, but there are many other Free Software projects they neither have nor want copyright on.
The stuff about french doctors doesn't seem to contribute to your post, and sounds a bit suspect, too.
Why do you people think that to criticise Clinton means to defend Bush, or vice versa?
I'm against Bush for the same reasons I was against Clinton. Bush is just Clinton on a grander scale, and without the polish.
Stability isn't such a bad thing on a workstation (I don't do "desktops") install either.
I haven't tried Ubuntu, I'm sure it's fine, but I've been really happy with Debian "unstable" in both server and desktop roles. It's not always necessary or even desirable to run the latest version of everything. Having the stable and reliable versions, with security fixes backported regularly, is ideal for many of us.
I believe that's what I said. ;)
OpenBSD does this, not because it makes things simpler - but because (among other reasons) it helps them make sure they have simplified things. Similar concepts in a way, but also very different.
What an utterly ludicrous implication.
No, that's more than what the kernel does. The kernel does not, for instance, "present an interface to the user between applications." The shell does that. Just try to do anything with a system running linux (or any other kernel) and no shell.
Indeed.
Now, to be fair, I have to concede the man does have a point. Supporting several configuration options and several platforms increases complexity, if your goal is simply to get the thing running and marketable.
At the same time, though, dealing with that increased complexity can give a project the impetus it needs to clean up spaghetti code that 'just runs' and replace it with more auditable and correct code, which is really a gain in the long run. Assuming, of course, your goal is to write good software - not just to write 'good enough' software and get it out the door in line with a deadline from marketing.
Textbooks are hardly immune to mistakes.
There is precedent in usage both ways, of course, and plenty of textbooks make the distinction yours glosses over. But forget about the argument from authority for a moment, and *think* - by that definition the kernel is the OS, so why have two words? The root meaning of kernel is the same as core - the central or fundamental part of a whole - what's it the kernel of?
It is, of course, the kernel or core of the OS.
As the jargon file entry for Operating System puts it:
operating system: n.
[techspeak] (Often abbreviated 'OS') The foundation software of a machine; that which schedules tasks, allocates storage, and presents a default interface to the user between applications.
I'm basing my assumption on my present state of knowledge about it, derived primarily from BBC reports of the case. If you have a link to the actual trial transcript or any other documents that are helpful, feel free to contributed them.
But the BBC is emphatically NOT on his side, so I'd be surprised if they have skipped anything that would make him look worse.
Hmm, yes, skip a meeting, forfeit your rights. That's fair.
As I said, the UK government started by forbidding him the means to effectively defend himself and his property.
Yep, he was an antisocial old coot. That must mean he forfeits his rights as a human being too, right?
Ahh yes, another important exception to the doctrine of human rights - people whose politics you don't like forfeit their rights as well! How could I forget that one?
No, it's a human being.
Oh yes they did. Martin was jailed for life for the murder of Barras, with 10 years to run concurrently for the wounding offence and a further 12 months for possession of an illegal firearm.
Ummm no.
If you want to get technical, the kernel is the kernel.
An OS is a kernel plus all the other tools that are necessary to actually do something with it.
A cross-compiler, and an editor on the system running the cross-compiler, and a shell on the system running the editor and the cross-compiler... see a pattern here?
Fact is, Stallman set out many years ago to make a Free OS. He worked hard on it, both coding himself, and getting others to help with it. He drove this idea for years. All that was lacking was a kernel, and that was being worked on. But Linus finished his kernel first, and Stallmans dream was now reality - a complete Free OS now available. Can you blame him for wanting a little credit? Can you blame him for wanting people using the OS he worked so hard for so many years to create to have a clue where it came from?
You can have a functioning OS without any GUI whatsoever. You can't have one without a shell, editor, and compiler. Period.
Uhuh. You are a great advocate of 'free software' and you start referring to it as 'Open Source' the next paragraph?
Well at least your troll shows a little more work than the one I first replied to.
I also used to teach self defense, and our background sounds similar in that respect at least. I think you misunderstand my argument regarding the timing of their break-in, it's not statistical (though I wouldn't be surprised if statistics would back it up, they aren't the crux here) the point is rather what reasonable inference can be made from their behaviour. The man was on his property, and they were breaking and entering, so any benefit of the doubt has to be on his side. How is it unreasonable for him to infer that if they were willing to break and enter when they knew he was probably home that they were prepared for a confrontation and willing to harm him?
As to the guy being shot in the back, sure that doesn't look good. But when they are on his property, three to one, he has every reason to consider himself in danger and every right to use force to defend himself. And remember this was at night, in the dark. Did the homeowner *know* the intruder had his back turned? It seems unlikely. Was the guy trying to run away permanently, or just trying to get behind cover so he could sneak around and take the old guy out from behind? I don't know, you don't know, no one knows. The homeowner had the right, in that situation, to take action to defend himself, and no duty whatsoever to err on the side of giving them a chance to kill him.
I disagree. I see clear violation of his human rights, starting with the initial legal situation you yourself criticised rather nonspecifically. There is no more important and basic human right than the right to defend oneself. The UK government started by forbidding him the means to do that, and continued to violate his human rights every step of the way after that.
Whenever Stallman gets mentioned here, the trolls come out in force. Nothing else seems to do half as well at motivating them.
I have to say, that's a pretty good indication the man is on the right side.
Rock on Richard.
Civil disobedience.
Rejecting the EU.
That's about it.
When someone breaks into another persons home at night, they are willingly committing not just a property crime, but a crime that shows a willingness to do far more.
Burglars that are unwilling to harm or kill someone don't break in at night. They wait until the resident leaves for work, *then* break in.
Not only that, he was outnumbered three to one.
No one forced those men to break into his home. They had no right to do so, and the very act of doing so implied a threat to his life.
The right to defend oneself with all appropriate means is a basic and fundamental, inalienable human right. Tony Martin did nothing wrong. The UK Government, on the other hand, is guilty of egregious violations of his human rights.
When the games I want to play stop working on windows 98, they'll either run under WINE, on my Mac, have a GNU/Linux version - or do without my business.
What an extraordinarly dull mind you must have, how frightfully submissive.
The whole 'tabbed browsing' thing is just a poor attempt to copy Operas MDI interface anyway.
And yes, I use Firefox as my primary browser now - not Opera - but for other reasons than this. No other browser yet has gotten that part of the interface as usable as Opera had several years ago. And I really think conceiving of it as 'tabs' has something to do with it.
I don't want tabs, I want a decent MDI interface for my browser.
Yes indeed, if you insist on working for a 'shrink wrap house' that's where it's going.
If you want to work on customisation and services around Free Software, of course, you'll have a better chance of working where the work is.