Does your entire business work for the lawyers, or do they work for you? I'm sure the janitors in my head office would love it if we stopped printing out book drafts that ended up going in the recycling bin, but that's not always entirely practical.
As this data is collected it would need to be placed in public view so that anyone who is attacked by, or planning an attack on MS, in the court system can simply retrieve the data then validate it in a legal manner so it can be used in court.
Unfortunately, this would expose all defendants to the risk of triple damages. US patent law is broken.
Unfortunately, I'm too much a historian to accept the idea of a constitutional right as a natural right.
Me too. I could support property rights as natural to some degree, but not copyright (and especially due to the explicit language in the Constitution explaining why copyright and patents are important). A natural right would seem to need no such explanation.
I honestly don't understand why the concept of a right is so hard for guys like this to understand.
I think you misunderstand. The point is that copyright is not (or may not be) a natural, inalienable right in the sense of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It's a right by fiat, de jure, and that may change. Perhaps it should change.
If, however, copyright is a natural right, then it's a grave mistake to abolish that right, and freedom-loving people should revolt against any ruling body which denies that right.
Yes, it's a technicality but I find it an important one. I hold several copyrights as an author and programmer, and I enjoy some benefits from them. I also support copyright reform (especially Founders' Copyright).
However, I do not support the RIAA or the MPAA, as I find their tactics indefensible. I also believe that it's completely inappropriate; copyright holders themselves should pursue violations, rather than pushing such dirty work to a second-party group.
I don't believe you can usefully generalize my opinions on copyright from my disagreement with groups such as the RIAA and the MPAA.
Like copyright, the GPL covers conditions of distribution. Those conditions only apply when you distribute a work--derivative or the original--not when you make a derivative work.
The post to which you replied chose the word "use" very carefully. You are indeed welcome to make derivative works of a GPLd work. It is only when you distribute those works that copyright applies, in which case you must either fulfill the requirements of the GPL and make the appropriate source code available to the recipients or negotiate otherwise with the copyright holder.
The efectiveness of these licenses (which overwhelmingly deal with distribution rather than use) wobbles on top of the very foundation they are trying to destroy.
Setting aside the postulate that the FSF is trying to destroy copyright (which I don't believe to be true), the word "copyleft" demonstrates that the use of copyright to achieve software freedom is deliberate irony. It's no accident. It's intentional.
Can you state a better case regarding why it should be off-limits to raise it again?
As much as anyone here may dislike Novell's actions, it's important to remember that Robert Love is a human being who declined to make his reasons public. Is disliking Novell's actions more important than respecting his decision?
It's unfair to ask people not to speculate, we just have to make it clear that such speculations are vapors until Love himself comments.
Suppose his reasons are none of our business, and he never shares. What use is it to speculate (other than my speculation that the anonymous story submitter wanted to kick the Novell pariah yet again)?
Perhaps it is some mild FUD towards Novell. If the target of FUD is behaving badly on the whole, I cannot see how FUD towards it is unfair.
If FUD is not universally unfair--if FUD is acceptable when applied against a group or individual with whom you disagree--then from a certain perspective, Microsoft FUD against Linux or F/OSS is completely fair.
I don't accept that. Therefore, however much I may disagree with a particular group or individual, I believe FUD against that group or individual is unfair. Certainly I hope to have a sounder basis for my disagreement than FUD.
Slashdot Mirror
Fraud remains illegal.
+2, Hilarious
Does your entire business work for the lawyers, or do they work for you? I'm sure the janitors in my head office would love it if we stopped printing out book drafts that ended up going in the recycling bin, but that's not always entirely practical.
Unfortunately, this would expose all defendants to the risk of triple damages. US patent law is broken.
How do you get "Evelyn" out of "Laura"? (If the answer is "forceps", I've heard that joke!)
They have a non-x86 Linux version now?
Finally, Java might be cross-platform after all!
Me too. I could support property rights as natural to some degree, but not copyright (and especially due to the explicit language in the Constitution explaining why copyright and patents are important). A natural right would seem to need no such explanation.
Precisely. It's a reasonable requirement. If software remains patentable, the patent application should include working source code.
I think you misunderstand. The point is that copyright is not (or may not be) a natural, inalienable right in the sense of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It's a right by fiat, de jure, and that may change. Perhaps it should change.
If, however, copyright is a natural right, then it's a grave mistake to abolish that right, and freedom-loving people should revolt against any ruling body which denies that right.
The dispute is over whether copyright is a natural right, in the Enlightenment sense of Kant, Hobbes, Locke, and Rosseau.
Yes, it's a technicality but I find it an important one. I hold several copyrights as an author and programmer, and I enjoy some benefits from them. I also support copyright reform (especially Founders' Copyright).
However, I do not support the RIAA or the MPAA, as I find their tactics indefensible. I also believe that it's completely inappropriate; copyright holders themselves should pursue violations, rather than pushing such dirty work to a second-party group.
I don't believe you can usefully generalize my opinions on copyright from my disagreement with groups such as the RIAA and the MPAA.
Can you give some examples of which copyrights the RIAA itself holds?
Did you mean "distributes" instead of "uses" and "that" instead of "his"?
I take my information in part from What is Copyleft?. Which writings gave you a different impression?
Like copyright, the GPL covers conditions of distribution. Those conditions only apply when you distribute a work--derivative or the original--not when you make a derivative work.
The post to which you replied chose the word "use" very carefully. You are indeed welcome to make derivative works of a GPLd work. It is only when you distribute those works that copyright applies, in which case you must either fulfill the requirements of the GPL and make the appropriate source code available to the recipients or negotiate otherwise with the copyright holder.
Some owners are long gone.
Source, please. I prefer statute, though I will accept case law.
Setting aside the postulate that the FSF is trying to destroy copyright (which I don't believe to be true), the word "copyleft" demonstrates that the use of copyright to achieve software freedom is deliberate irony. It's no accident. It's intentional.
Why should it? You can't copyright an idea.
The Vichy predates Rumsfeld, and that was only the first example that came to my mind.
As much as anyone here may dislike Novell's actions, it's important to remember that Robert Love is a human being who declined to make his reasons public. Is disliking Novell's actions more important than respecting his decision?
Suppose his reasons are none of our business, and he never shares. What use is it to speculate (other than my speculation that the anonymous story submitter wanted to kick the Novell pariah yet again)?
If FUD is not universally unfair--if FUD is acceptable when applied against a group or individual with whom you disagree--then from a certain perspective, Microsoft FUD against Linux or F/OSS is completely fair.
I don't accept that. Therefore, however much I may disagree with a particular group or individual, I believe FUD against that group or individual is unfair. Certainly I hope to have a sounder basis for my disagreement than FUD.