Can you give an example? I'd imagine for most of the non-USians here on Slashdot, the US Democratic Party is already so right-wing it's difficult to believe they gained almost half of the votes of the US populace (assuming political slant is like a one-dimensional bell-curve which is admittedly a simplistic viewpoint).
What does it mean to be pro-Republican? Are you a member of the PNAC organization? I'm not even trolling, just curious.
Oh and if you or anyone could bother to reply, another question: why doesn't that guy Kucinich (sp?), the only one who apparently publically called for an impeachment procedure against president GW Bush, run for president?
I wonder if Classpath wasn't functioning as some kind of warning sign to Sun, in the sense that if they *didn't* open-source Java (eventually), then (very much eventually) Classpath could mature to replace it 100% before that Duke Nukem game would be released.
In that sense, I'm very grateful to all Classpath developers for providing at least some of the impetus to Sun's management's decision. Even though I wonder what will now happen to all that effort.
Strange.. maybe you can check out if the battery on your motherboard isn't empty (symptoms: date starts out at 1st of january 2003 or some such). This always means you're fsck-ed:-)
Note to self: must buy new motherboard battery one day
On lwn.net, there's a discussion about gimp's (lack of a nice-) UI and human-computer interaction so maybe there is hope that they'll change the GUI around again to make it more human-usable. I don't use it often (can't draw worth shit) so for me it doesn't matter anyway.
usb drives: probably not a problem. A color laser printer that works: check out http://www.openprinting.org/ first! Shop for a supported printer; e.g. currently (27-07-2007) from brand "HP" I see color laserjet 2500 and higher rated as "perfectly", model 1600 and 2600n as "mostly" and model 1500 as "paperweight" so YMMV.
I didn't realize that iguest is going to be turned on by default. Oh wait.. it probably isn't.
If you ever did a
make xconfig
you can see that the very first option is "code maturity level options", and that there are hundreds of features which are by default NOT TURNED ON and therefore do not show up in "anything resembling a production environment". And I'm not talking about kernel modules here, but things like CONFIG_MATH_EMULATION (under "processor type and features" near the bottom of the page) which isn't necessary anymore since intel brought out the i486DX processor in 1989 or so.
IIRC,
anyone is allowed to take the standard, write a codec for it, and play mp3s as much as they like, legally, for either a royalty fee per copy or US $50 000. The license fees are here. (When it says US $2.50 - $5.00 per unit I presume it's per copy of the codec, not per song).
I believe the technical term is "RAND" (Reasonable and Non Discriminatory) licensing: Thomson S.A and the Fraunhofer Institute are playing nice, they don't refuse anyone who wants to license their invention (they have that monopoly right because it's a patent), and they don't change their mind about the license price when they don't like you (they have that monopoly right because it's a patent).
There's only one catch, that RAND doesn't resonate with F/LOSS software at all.
This is why it matters that standards are not only open but that also RAND is out of the question if you want to allow FLOSS to use your patented standard; Suppose you ask a license fee of only $5.00 per copy of the software distributed, who's going to pay it? Licenses such as the FSF's GPL state that (paragraph 10 GPL3)
You may not impose any further restrictions on the exercise of the rights granted or affirmed under this License. For example, you may not impose a license fee, royalty, or other charge for exercise of rights granted under this License, and you may not initiate litigation (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that any patent claim is infringed by making, using, selling, offering for sale, or importing the Program or any portion of it.
But, you want everyone who copies your program to pay you the $5.00 so you can pay Thomson back their rightful royalties! Do you see the problem?
Suddenly you need an administration organisation to count who has downloaded the FLOSS program. And you are not allowed to sanction them if they don't comply because the license forbids you that. And you'd need to monitor everyone who downloaded it to see whether they copy the program further (which is their right by the GPL anyway) otherwise YOU piss off Thomson. etc. etc. It's a nightmare.
This is why there are no legal GPL'ed mp3 players. Incidentally, I think this is also why some British linux and mac users complain that the BBC wants to use a proprietary video standard which they can't be allowed to play.
Think about using Ogg/Vorbis and Ogg/Theora, will you?
Now let's see if we can also tie in the raging ODF - OOXML battle and then this fanboi will shut up:-)
AFAIK, this is why there is such a difference between "real open" data interchange standards such as ODF (ISO/IEC 26300) which is free to use because Sun have made an irrevocable patent pledge that they won't sue anyone ever for implementing ODF, and on the other hand OOXML (ISO *DRAFT* international standard 29500) where Microsoft states that they'll grant a R.a.n.D license for Office XML Schema. So it's all good, you see!
Can you still see under which walnut shell the pea is?
If I'm not horribly mistaken:
Office XML (R.a.n.D licensed)
=
Office 2003 XML
!=
Office 2007 XML
which is
Office Open XML (= nothing to do with OpenOffice.org which uses Open Document Format)
No worries!
I actually think they've amended their ways because on this page it states in quite reasonable terms that Office Open XML 1.0 (ECMA-376) is now a Covered Specification. Still I wouldn't trust it as far as I can throw a printed 6000 page document because on that same page it says:
This promise applies to the identified version of the following specifications. New versions of previously covered specifications will be separately considered for addition to the lis
OK, I think I see what you mean; something more along the lines of "In the newspaper it says that Microsoft is bankrupt! Who'd a thunk!" i.e. "the world" more as a passive audience to the whole spiel then doing the active "banning", yes?
Hm. I think you're probably right, "banning" sounds implausible.
Well I'm not sorry for posting the poem anyway, I see it as a nice image of (Microsoft's) hubris.
OK, I think I finally got the point, and no, I don't know the answer for the case of mirroring which the AC post in this thread mentions. Sorry. Ask the FSF (because it would be a pity IMHO if those universities decided to withdraw their gracious offers to mirror FLOSS because of patents).
First before I answer your questions let me tell you that as a developer I personally believe all software patents shouldn't exist, because they stifle innovation (and luckily in my country which has one of the EPO headquarters the patent treaty says they don't exist, although the EPO probably disagrees strongly with this viewpoint; google "computer-implemented invention" and "fisheries" for a laugh).
Ok.
1) If I have a patent, and don't do any GPLv3 contribution or distribution, and some GPLv3 code infringes my patent, in your opinion, would I be able to successfully sue people (or at least, large companies) who infringe my patent via use of the GPLv3 software? If not, please state why not and skip question 2. If so, go to question 2.
The way I understand it, in a country which believes in software patents (such as the USA) I think you can successfully sue the infringers which (in the case of patents) means both the authors and *all* users of the GPLv3 software that you allege infringes your patent. Even if you're a company and have software patents in the USA where they're considered valid. It's then up to the defendants to try to prove that there exists prior art for your patent, and I pray that they have enough money to do so. In the meantime you can probably get an injunction that forbids the use of that software USA-wide, at least until somebody rips the alleged patented bit out. If the functionality is not too important it can be removed, otherwise it might even be very difficult to "code around".
If you're from Microsoft BTW, I hope your company quickly gives evidence what those 235 alleged patents are that Ballmer mentioned (FAT filenames? give me a break) and not leave us all in suspense for several years over the alleged perpetrations, just like your business partner SCO did.
So on to your question 2,
2) You imply that slipping this infringing code into a GPLv3 package and then tricking the patent holder into automatically distributing it "does not reduce their rights to sue, because they don't have them in the first place." I'm not sure what you mean. They would have had rights if they weren't helping out the community with a mirror. Do you believe distributing ANY GPLv3 code automatically removes your right to sue over infringement of ANY patent, or what?
I think you mixed up my two responses where I tried to make a clean separation between section-11 "patent contributors" and section-10 "conveyors" because you say
They would have had rights if they weren't helping out the community with a mirror.
, implying that they fell under section-11 as contributors who deliberately distributed source code which their own patents in it. But for now I'll assume that you mean a much more elaborate scenario:
The way I see it, if they provide source code under GPLv3 which does *NOT* implement their own patents (so they're not contributors in this sense), and somebody else slips in a "poison pill" of code implementing their software patents, then they can most likely refuse to distribute any versions from when that poison pill was slipped into their version control system's bloodstream, and furthermore I would say they can still sue everyone who downloaded the "poison pill" version for patent infringement, as a result get slapped with a copyright violation because they lose the GPLv3 aegis on the parts of the code that are not from them, and successfully defend themselves against this copyright violation suit by trying to prove to the judge that somebody else set them up and they didn't mean to "contribute" their software patents to this GPL-ed software.
I think your example is all a bit far-fetched though and that the world would be much better of by just not believing in software patents anymore, but then IANAL. Have you e-mailed the counsel of the FSF about this? They're probably in the bes
I indeed misread that you were talking about section 10.
However: let's subdivide the people who "convey" the software into 2 categories: those who "convey" and are also "contributors" as in section 11, and those who "convey" and aren't (contributors).
Then section 11 says that the ones in the first group can't sue for patent infringement (because they are contributors they are either obliged to provide a patent license for the use of their own patents in their own GPL3-ed source code, or not bother distributing it at all under GPL3).
Also, for the second group ("conveyors"), which you are talking about: because they are not contributors in the sense of section 11 I believe that they have no "standing" to sue anybody over infringement of any patents at all! So the section 10 bit
you may not initiate litigation (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that any patent claim is infringed by making, using, selling, offering for sale, or importing the Program or any portion of it
does not reduce their rights to sue, because they don't have them in the first place:-). At least that's the way I understand it.
Because this is Slashdot, I'll end it with an insult:-) :
I think you attribute much too much value to acquiring software patents.
A contributor's "essential patent claims" are all patent claims owned or controlled by the contributor, whether already acquired or hereafter acquired, that would be infringed by some manner, permitted by this License, of making, using, or selling its contributor version, but do not include claims that would be infringed only as a consequence of further modification of the contributor version.
(emphasis mine)
So in your example where you sneak in the patented code, you're just not "the contributor" in the sense of the license, AFAIK, so your sneakily adding the patented code into the repository and subsequently downloading it doesn't imply that you can practice the patent license granted by the "contributor" because you're not the "contributor" of the patent.
It is actually scary to think what would happen to our world if this kind of mind-set would become prevalent. Since when do you have to ASK PERMISSION to do things not specifically forbidden by law? What kind of country do you want to live in?
I realize I've just quoted a part of your post out-of-context, but still.. progress is made by the people who see something (an object, say) and realize it can be used for different purposes, modified, improved, etc. That is where a lot of innovation comes from.
Imagine I bought a lawnmower, hand-driven, (no car analogies today) and I'd rig an electric motor to it, inventing the electric lawnmower in the process. Are you saying this should be illegal, because the seller didn't intend *MY* object to be used for such a purpose? Should they have added DRM so that it would take my head off when I try to mow my lawn with this device I illegally tampered with (USA DMCA law version 2, perhaps)?
I'll end this rant with a cryptic europe-specific slogan: Guust Flater for president!
Hi mr Disney, I'm the ghost of Charles Perrault and I'm suing you for ONE BILLION DOLLARS for misusing my Intellectual Property (TM) for the past 310 years. Pay up or I'll sic the Big Bad Wolf on you. You have been warned!
It costs money to develop drivers. As soon as they will make more money from offering Linux drivers than it costs them to produce Linux drivers - they will.
That factor is no longer in play since January this year, when Greg Kroah-Hartman publicly and officially offered free Linux driver development for all takers.
So what external factors are left to *not* give those specs to the kernel developers? How can you lose, as a hardware manufacturer?
That tired argument has been flogged to death already, but here's the counter argument anyway, just in case:
Probably a significant percentage of all webserver computers in the world run on Linux or one of the BSDs (all open source so vulnerable according to the FCC:-)). Those are more interesting targets qua hardware and network connectivity, for a set of zombie computers rather than just any old PC which gets turned off at night, has a slow connection, etc. etc.
I think it's a pity there are no good statistics. Netcraft has estimated numbers on the different webservers though (IIS = Microsoft, but Apache doesn't imply Linux or BSD). But lately those statistics have been polluted (look at the sudden bumps in the graph).
Slashdot Mirror
What does it mean to be pro-Republican? Are you a member of the PNAC organization? I'm not even trolling, just curious.
Oh and if you or anyone could bother to reply, another question: why doesn't that guy Kucinich (sp?), the only one who apparently publically called for an impeachment procedure against president GW Bush, run for president?
In that sense, I'm very grateful to all Classpath developers for providing at least some of the impetus to Sun's management's decision. Even though I wonder what will now happen to all that effort.
Note to self: must buy new motherboard battery one day
usb drives: probably not a problem. A color laser printer that works: check out http://www.openprinting.org/ first! Shop for a supported printer; e.g. currently (27-07-2007) from brand "HP" I see color laserjet 2500 and higher rated as "perfectly", model 1600 and 2600n as "mostly" and model 1500 as "paperweight" so YMMV.
make xconfig
you can see that the very first option is "code maturity level options", and that there are hundreds of features which are by default NOT TURNED ON and therefore do not show up in "anything resembling a production environment". And I'm not talking about kernel modules here, but things like CONFIG_MATH_EMULATION (under "processor type and features" near the bottom of the page) which isn't necessary anymore since intel brought out the i486DX processor in 1989 or so.
Surely this can't be outside NASA's budget. Besides, landing would be much easier because of the reduced gravity.
IIRC, anyone is allowed to take the standard, write a codec for it, and play mp3s as much as they like, legally, for either a royalty fee per copy or US $50 000. The license fees are here. (When it says US $2.50 - $5.00 per unit I presume it's per copy of the codec, not per song).
I believe the technical term is "RAND" (Reasonable and Non Discriminatory) licensing: Thomson S.A and the Fraunhofer Institute are playing nice, they don't refuse anyone who wants to license their invention (they have that monopoly right because it's a patent), and they don't change their mind about the license price when they don't like you (they have that monopoly right because it's a patent).
There's only one catch, that RAND doesn't resonate with F/LOSS software at all.
This is why it matters that standards are not only open but that also RAND is out of the question if you want to allow FLOSS to use your patented standard; Suppose you ask a license fee of only $5.00 per copy of the software distributed, who's going to pay it? Licenses such as the FSF's GPL state that (paragraph 10 GPL3)
But, you want everyone who copies your program to pay you the $5.00 so you can pay Thomson back their rightful royalties! Do you see the problem? Suddenly you need an administration organisation to count who has downloaded the FLOSS program. And you are not allowed to sanction them if they don't comply because the license forbids you that. And you'd need to monitor everyone who downloaded it to see whether they copy the program further (which is their right by the GPL anyway) otherwise YOU piss off Thomson. etc. etc. It's a nightmare.
This is why there are no legal GPL'ed mp3 players. Incidentally, I think this is also why some British linux and mac users complain that the BBC wants to use a proprietary video standard which they can't be allowed to play.
Think about using Ogg/Vorbis and Ogg/Theora, will you?
Now let's see if we can also tie in the raging ODF - OOXML battle and then this fanboi will shut up :-)
AFAIK, this is why there is such a difference between "real open" data interchange standards such as ODF (ISO/IEC 26300) which is free to use because Sun have made an irrevocable patent pledge that they won't sue anyone ever for implementing ODF, and on the other hand OOXML (ISO *DRAFT* international standard 29500) where Microsoft states that they'll grant a R.a.n.D license for Office XML Schema. So it's all good, you see!
Can you still see under which walnut shell the pea is?
If I'm not horribly mistaken:
Office XML (R.a.n.D licensed)
=
Office 2003 XML
!=
Office 2007 XML
which is
Office Open XML (= nothing to do with OpenOffice.org which uses Open Document Format)
No worries!
I actually think they've amended their ways because on this page it states in quite reasonable terms that Office Open XML 1.0 (ECMA-376) is now a Covered Specification. Still I wouldn't trust it as far as I can throw a printed 6000 page document because on that same page it says:
apt-get install checksecurity
Of course its effectiveness depends on the system admin actually reading its report :-)
Oh look! a Wookieeeeee!
Hm. I think you're probably right, "banning" sounds implausible.
Well I'm not sorry for posting the poem anyway, I see it as a nice image of (Microsoft's) hubris.
OK, I think I finally got the point, and no, I don't know the answer for the case of mirroring which the AC post in this thread mentions. Sorry. Ask the FSF (because it would be a pity IMHO if those universities decided to withdraw their gracious offers to mirror FLOSS because of patents).
First before I answer your questions let me tell you that as a developer I personally believe all software patents shouldn't exist, because they stifle innovation (and luckily in my country which has one of the EPO headquarters the patent treaty says they don't exist, although the EPO probably disagrees strongly with this viewpoint; google "computer-implemented invention" and "fisheries" for a laugh).
Ok.
The way I understand it, in a country which believes in software patents (such as the USA) I think you can successfully sue the infringers which (in the case of patents) means both the authors and *all* users of the GPLv3 software that you allege infringes your patent. Even if you're a company and have software patents in the USA where they're considered valid. It's then up to the defendants to try to prove that there exists prior art for your patent, and I pray that they have enough money to do so. In the meantime you can probably get an injunction that forbids the use of that software USA-wide, at least until somebody rips the alleged patented bit out. If the functionality is not too important it can be removed, otherwise it might even be very difficult to "code around".
If you're from Microsoft BTW, I hope your company quickly gives evidence what those 235 alleged patents are that Ballmer mentioned (FAT filenames? give me a break) and not leave us all in suspense for several years over the alleged perpetrations, just like your business partner SCO did.
So on to your question 2,
I think you mixed up my two responses where I tried to make a clean separation between section-11 "patent contributors" and section-10 "conveyors" because you say
, implying that they fell under section-11 as contributors who deliberately distributed source code which their own patents in it. But for now I'll assume that you mean a much more elaborate scenario:
The way I see it, if they provide source code under GPLv3 which does *NOT* implement their own patents (so they're not contributors in this sense), and somebody else slips in a "poison pill" of code implementing their software patents, then they can most likely refuse to distribute any versions from when that poison pill was slipped into their version control system's bloodstream, and furthermore I would say they can still sue everyone who downloaded the "poison pill" version for patent infringement, as a result get slapped with a copyright violation because they lose the GPLv3 aegis on the parts of the code that are not from them, and successfully defend themselves against this copyright violation suit by trying to prove to the judge that somebody else set them up and they didn't mean to "contribute" their software patents to this GPL-ed software.
I think your example is all a bit far-fetched though and that the world would be much better of by just not believing in software patents anymore, but then IANAL. Have you e-mailed the counsel of the FSF about this? They're probably in the bes
However: let's subdivide the people who "convey" the software into 2 categories: those who "convey" and are also "contributors" as in section 11, and those who "convey" and aren't (contributors).
Then section 11 says that the ones in the first group can't sue for patent infringement (because they are contributors they are either obliged to provide a patent license for the use of their own patents in their own GPL3-ed source code, or not bother distributing it at all under GPL3).
Also, for the second group ("conveyors"), which you are talking about: because they are not contributors in the sense of section 11 I believe that they have no "standing" to sue anybody over infringement of any patents at all! So the section 10 bit
does not reduce their rights to sue, because they don't have them in the first place :-). At least that's the way I understand it.
Because this is Slashdot, I'll end it with an insult :-) :
I think you attribute much too much value to acquiring software patents.
So in your example where you sneak in the patented code, you're just not "the contributor" in the sense of the license, AFAIK, so your sneakily adding the patented code into the repository and subsequently downloading it doesn't imply that you can practice the patent license granted by the "contributor" because you're not the "contributor" of the patent.
Disclaimer: IANAL itsmonday iamverytired
I realize I've just quoted a part of your post out-of-context, but still.. progress is made by the people who see something (an object, say) and realize it can be used for different purposes, modified, improved, etc. That is where a lot of innovation comes from.
Imagine I bought a lawnmower, hand-driven, (no car analogies today) and I'd rig an electric motor to it, inventing the electric lawnmower in the process. Are you saying this should be illegal, because the seller didn't intend *MY* object to be used for such a purpose? Should they have added DRM so that it would take my head off when I try to mow my lawn with this device I illegally tampered with (USA DMCA law version 2, perhaps)?
I'll end this rant with a cryptic europe-specific slogan: Guust Flater for president!
Hi mr Disney, I'm the ghost of Charles Perrault and I'm suing you for ONE BILLION DOLLARS for misusing my Intellectual Property (TM) for the past 310 years. Pay up or I'll sic the Big Bad Wolf on you. You have been warned!
and you forgot to turn the interrupts off first for extra annoyance.
So where was the "Profit" option?
That factor is no longer in play since January this year, when Greg Kroah-Hartman publicly and officially offered free Linux driver development for all takers.
So what external factors are left to *not* give those specs to the kernel developers? How can you lose, as a hardware manufacturer?
(just kidding, and besides, Iraq doesn't seem to currently be a member of JTC1/SC34)
Hey, that's a nice bridge they have there.
a concerned dutch citizen.
Here you go. Good luck!
Probably a significant percentage of all webserver computers in the world run on Linux or one of the BSDs (all open source so vulnerable according to the FCC :-)). Those are more interesting targets qua hardware and network connectivity, for a set of zombie computers rather than just any old PC which gets turned off at night, has a slow connection, etc. etc.
I think it's a pity there are no good statistics. Netcraft has estimated numbers on the different webservers though (IIS = Microsoft, but Apache doesn't imply Linux or BSD). But lately those statistics have been polluted (look at the sudden bumps in the graph).