Microsoft destroyed Quarterdeck, which made DESQview, by giving away a free knock-off of Quarterdeck's QEMM memory management software
But if Microsoft had no monopole I don't see why it would do it. For me this story makes rather a good argument against monopole than pro patents.
Patents would turn software design -- which usually carries innovation in a large number of small little things -- into a dreadful legal battle. Let us stay away from it.
But now Microsoft says code forking is bad, so that means it is really good?
The good thing is not to fork, it's to have the right to fork.
Forking should only happens in a extreme situation where the development of the software is not satisfactory. This is your guaratee as a user, if you depend on a software you are not a slave of its authors.
(B) such act is necessary to conduct such encryption research;
This law is a joke. Every reverse engeneering of encryption methods could be said to be research.
IP laws have less and less meaning. The only thing they say is that "if you want to be ellegible for any of the exception clauses we offer you need a damn good crew of laweyrs".
For me the answer for this question is simple: there should be no copyright for scientific articles. For books, copyright makes more sense.
Authors and referees don't get paid for the article they produce (at least in the scientific community I belong to, I believe it is the case in most fields). The only justification for the copyright comes from the editing cost. This cost is reletively small and could be paid by the authors, IMO. Authors already have to pay in many cases.
Voiding copyright of scienfic publications would produce an enormous benefit for the openess of science. And science, perhaps more than anhything else, needs to be open.
Freedom already exists to a some extend. Usually you can download published articles from the authors homepage. They are either violating the copyright or making use of a special clause in the copyright which allows this exception. For this erason some people say that the copyright of scientific articles are not an issue, "if you really want you can always get it on the web or emailing the author". Well, geeks know the how half-freedoms differ from entire freedoms. In the case of articles such clauses forbids the creation of databases which are invaluable.
Imagine how nice would it be to have a single database of all scientific results. There is no doubt universities would be willing to offer such systems for free if there was no copyright. Imagine finding an article and jumping to a reference with a hyperlink.
I can easily admit the need of copyright for software, art. Scientific books -- contrary to articles -- involves a work of surveying other results, organizing theories. A copyright for such works yielding a monetary refund to the author makes sense for me. The essential function of articles is to announce new results. Copyrithing them in our time is clearly an absurd for me.
This is how the French people feel about it... Germans are less worried, I would say, but the best anti-paranoia example seems to be the Dutch. They have a strong cultural identity, speak their own language, and besides are comfortable with English almost as much as native speakers...
Some time ago I realised that even if I were close friend of many European governors and of many important journal editorilists I would not know what to send them...
I have never seen an article with enough good arguments for this case, explained to someone who is not a computer expert. In particular I would like to see a document which do not mix this case with the case for free software. Do you?
There is a movie based on that book
on
Solaris
·
· Score: 1
Tarkovsky's movie, also named Solaris, is one of the rare cases where the movie is superior to the book itself (IMHO).
For me the movie is a masterpiece.
Has someone considered writing a GPL faq? Are there not people in the community courageous enough?...:)
Hey, Bruce (are you listening?), you seem to be the best GPL evangelist around. Have you considered writing such a document? You could leave many questions unanswered, like "dunno, this is a grey area, ask RMS...":) Even so such a faq would be of great help.
With or without a board if I were ESR I would privately contact prominent people in the hacker community before making such big steps.
Is this asking for permission? No, it's avoiding the damage he mentions... And who is "prominent"? Well, those who can make that damage, I for instance certainly can't...:)
What is your opinion about the licenses which allow OS freedom only to academics? There are very nice libraries like LEDA (see here the license), which attract the contribution of many programmers. They bother me a lot (mostly because I wouldn't like to write a code which I couldn't use freely once I finish the university). I wonder if you care about this subject, if you have already addressed arguments against that practice, or if you just consider it a reasonable alternative to OS and commercial software.
At first sight the main reason they have for not using an OS license like GPL is that they care about the money they expect to get from commercial licensing... But I doubt it. It really seems to me that they ask companies to pay simply because they are stuck with the idea of "those who can should pay" and so for them OS doesn't seem fair enough. Sadly this seems to be a common critic to OS licenses, don't you agree?
For an interesting example of academic license see the ZIB Academic License which is applied to many mathematical programming software like SoPlex.
OK, let's assume that COREL has nice reasons not to make the code public by now. And that it will go only to a very limited number of beta testers... And that this is just like the code being developed by an internal programmer (a code which you don't see)...
But why then do they need a beta LICENSE???
Internal programmers don't get the code with licenses, do they? Wouldn't it be better just to say to this very limited number of testers: "it is not good for Corel to open this code now. We can't stop you from doing this, but please don't. It won't be good for the image of the company...".
What is the advantage of using a license instead of simply asking? Would they be interested to sue beta testers if they don't follow this direction??? I don't think so...
Why do we always have to think in terms of licenses???
Slashdot Mirror
But if Microsoft had no monopole I don't see why it would do it. For me this story makes rather a good argument against monopole than pro patents.
Patents would turn software design -- which usually carries innovation in a large number of small little things -- into a dreadful legal battle. Let us stay away from it.
The good thing is not to fork, it's to have the right to fork.
Forking should only happens in a extreme situation where the development of the software is not satisfactory. This is your guaratee as a user, if you depend on a software you are not a slave of its authors.
This law is a joke. Every reverse engeneering of encryption methods could be said to be research.
IP laws have less and less meaning. The only thing they say is that "if you want to be ellegible for any of the exception clauses we offer you need a damn good crew of laweyrs".
Authors and referees don't get paid for the article they produce (at least in the scientific community I belong to, I believe it is the case in most fields). The only justification for the copyright comes from the editing cost. This cost is reletively small and could be paid by the authors, IMO. Authors already have to pay in many cases.
Voiding copyright of scienfic publications would produce an enormous benefit for the openess of science. And science, perhaps more than anhything else, needs to be open.
Freedom already exists to a some extend. Usually you can download published articles from the authors homepage. They are either violating the copyright or making use of a special clause in the copyright which allows this exception. For this erason some people say that the copyright of scientific articles are not an issue, "if you really want you can always get it on the web or emailing the author". Well, geeks know the how half-freedoms differ from entire freedoms. In the case of articles such clauses forbids the creation of databases which are invaluable.
Imagine how nice would it be to have a single database of all scientific results. There is no doubt universities would be willing to offer such systems for free if there was no copyright. Imagine finding an article and jumping to a reference with a hyperlink.
I can easily admit the need of copyright for software, art. Scientific books -- contrary to articles -- involves a work of surveying other results, organizing theories. A copyright for such works yielding a monetary refund to the author makes sense for me. The essential function of articles is to announce new results. Copyrithing them in our time is clearly an absurd for me.
This is how the French people feel about it... Germans are less worried, I would say, but the best anti-paranoia example seems to be the Dutch. They have a strong cultural identity, speak their own language, and besides are comfortable with English almost as much as native speakers...
Some time ago I realised that even if I were close friend of many European governors and of many important journal editorilists I would not know what to send them... I have never seen an article with enough good arguments for this case, explained to someone who is not a computer expert. In particular I would like to see a document which do not mix this case with the case for free software. Do you?
Tarkovsky's movie, also named Solaris, is one of the rare cases where the movie is superior to the book itself (IMHO). For me the movie is a masterpiece.
Hey, Bruce (are you listening?), you seem to be the best GPL evangelist around. Have you considered writing such a document? You could leave many questions unanswered, like "dunno, this is a grey area, ask RMS...":) Even so such a faq would be of great help.
Is this asking for permission? No, it's avoiding the damage he mentions... And who is "prominent"? Well, those who can make that damage, I for instance certainly can't...:)
At first sight the main reason they have for not using an OS license like GPL is that they care about the money they expect to get from commercial licensing... But I doubt it. It really seems to me that they ask companies to pay simply because they are stuck with the idea of "those who can should pay" and so for them OS doesn't seem fair enough. Sadly this seems to be a common critic to OS licenses, don't you agree?
For an interesting example of academic license see the ZIB Academic License which is applied to many mathematical programming software like SoPlex.
OK, let's assume that COREL has nice reasons not to make the code public by now. And that it will go only to a very limited number of beta testers... And that this is just like the code being developed by an internal programmer (a code which you don't see)...
..
But why then do they need a beta LICENSE???
Internal programmers don't get the code with licenses, do they? Wouldn't it be better just to say to this very limited number of testers: "it is not good for Corel to open this code now. We can't stop you from doing this, but please don't. It won't be good for the image of the company...".
What is the advantage of using a license instead of simply asking? Would they be interested to sue beta testers if they don't follow this direction??? I don't think so.
Why do we always have to think in terms of licenses???