I assume that the situation you describe is in the US, mainly because outside of car insurance, I have not seen an insurance policy rise after a claim has been made against it, both personally and anecdotally. I seems that if insurance companies are not having to pay for small items (well items whose replacement value is greater than any excess you may be required to pay) then their cover is pretty much worthless.
The amount you spend on contents insurance is typically enough that you cover the any one claim in a given number of years, so if you don't ever claim for items that are damaged or stolen you may as well just bank the premiums yourself. Obviously buildings insurance is a different matter you wont pay out the value of your home in insurance premiums in the 60 odd years you are likely to own it, and vehicle insurance is mandatory (at least for third party cover).
In fact far from seeing premiums rise over a period in which claims have been made I have seen them reduce, not to mention the fact that things like travel insurance are practically free (although the cover does vary significantly). The only elements that I have seen to have an impact on premiums are environmental (living on a flood plain or on ground that has been undermined) or social (living in an area with a high burglary rate for example.). I have never heard of someone being either dropped or refused cover based on the claims that they have made (again other than with regard to vehicle insurance), I have only ever seen companies refuse to cover specific items (designer sunglasses and mobile phones for example) where the risk is deemed too high.
Given that it is generally the same companies in the UK and in the US I wonder if the difference in approach is due to regulation, the (perceived from a UK point of view) litigious nature of the US or simply a rumour spread by insurers to reduce claims.
Its interesting because when I was about 20 I tried to get insurance for a large amount of high value equipment that I had responsibility for but that didn't belong to me, total value of about 4k (GBP) the crux was that I had to move it around a lot and of course it was more likely to be held somewhere less secure than my home.
I couldn't get 4k's worth of insurance and had to settle for 20k's worth of insurance, legal cover (something ridiculous like 10 million), and a large number f other bonuses (the only one I ever made use of was a discount at a national retailer..). All of that for less than the cost of replacing the cheapest piece of kit I had to insure over the 4 year period I had it.
In short there is so much competition that the insurers seem to really try hard to get custom, including little (and fairly valueless) enticements and grander than required sounding policies, Hell I cant get contents insurance that covers less than 60k with my building cover, and that's more than 3 times the value of everything I own, in fact its more than the rebuild cost of my house (although not its market value, and that is obviously covered by my buildings insurance anyway)
I probably should have responded to a previous post, but that is beyond the point...
In this case a single private company made a mess because the government allowed it to do so, however most countries that I know of have a similar, if slightly less major problem with their basic public infrastructure.
I wondered what your solution would be, the problem runs something like this:
First, A private organisation pioneers something on a small scale (Telecommunications, Railways, Water, Electricity etc..). There is fierce competition, and a lack of standards.
Next (usually) government either nationalise or semi nationalise these organisations in order to create a larger network that is standardised and available to as many people as possible, this usually involves government (read taxpayer) investment, and subsidies. This of course means that areas that would not otherwise be economical to connect to $service are connected and don't pay more for the privilege.
Once the $service is stable and in place people become used to it and accept it as a normal everyday thing, they take for granted that 99% of the places in the country will have electricity, or water, or some sort of transport infrastructure.
Next, one of three things happens, with the same result;
Either, The government sees a way to make vast amounts of money by selling off a national asset. The government is forced to privatise a given service as a trade agreement requires it, or at the behest of an international organisation (See the world bank) in return for some unrelated benefit (aid or better trade links). The government thinks that customers would be better served if competition were introduced.
In all cases the infrastructure is sold off and competition is introduced.
Lastly a problem occurs, the companies running these major infrastructure services need to ensure that they are operating at maximum efficiency/profitability, this often means that maintenance or upgrades are ignored (or more likely limited to profitable areas) and that services to areas or segments of the population that are not economically viable are reduced. This in turn tends to lead to government interference (through subsidies and regulation).
Basically my point, and my question is that private companies are not the best organisations to be running certain elements of key public infrastructure (I would include rail, telecommunications, electricity, gas, water, public transport, health, policing and the military) and governments don't seem to think that they are in a better position for some of these (notable exceptions are policing and the military but not in all cases). What is the ideal solution? Company's need to be able to make choices about where they invest and where they draw profits. the government is supposed to ensure that the provision of certain key services. These overlap and often bring even greater issues (i.e. the government own and supply the service but sell it t others who compete, essentially adding a pointless layer that exists purely to market and extract profit by "adding value"). I don't see how a free market can solve this.
(excuse me if my post is not totally clear, its late and I'm rather tired.)
It wouldn't count as distribution any more than making Linux available to your employees would be distribution. The aircraft and the on board systems belong to the airline, the airline is making them available to customers, if they would let you take the machine home then it would be distribution. Even if you were using windows and the associated MS back office kit, you would only need to have licenses for each seat, not each new user, and you certainly wouldn't need to have a license that covers distribution (again, unless you give the kit away at the end of the flight..).
OT - Does anyone know when they started making you give back the earphones you used to get in flight? I remember when I was a kid that you could keep them, now you have to give them back... (not that I want them but it was a fond memory of sorts.)
Not to take away from your message - because you have a point, I think in the context of the summary it would be because you *can* find out what is happening if you realise something strange is going on and if you have the source. If you don't have the source, you may be able to figure out what is going on, and to a certain degree why, but you wont be clear until the company tells you what its doing (and you trust them). In the end it comes down to trust though (as with most things). I only use software that I trust, and ensure it comes from a source I am happy with, (in my case Debian), it doesn't get rid of all the issues but it does reduce the risks ( as I perceive them anyway).
Makes me wish you could still pick up a pci video card for $5 at places. It cant be just me who has a shelf full of pci video cards. Or maybe I should start throwing legacy kit out (my current laptop is a 500Mhz Dell, simply because its little, light and just keeps going - 2 batteries give me 5-6 hours of usage, and there are two bays...) but I just cant bear to get rid of stiff that could be useful to me or someone else...
Hell the pile of semi working laptops I have sat here very from a powerbook 100 (still works) through a dell latitude ( I think a 166 Mhz processor) through to a High end HP laptop with a busted screen (runs headless).
But as for PCI video cards, they always come in handy, like whenever I feel the need to add another monitor to my desktop - I was up to 4 for a while but the S3 card I used on monitor 4 was less than worthless at 800x600, (I'm back to a 15" a 19" and a 21" all on different cards, one of which is AGP). In fact on top of a stack of pci video cards I also seem to have a pile of 15" LG monitors that have been retired..
Forgot the point of the post now, but I haven't had a coffee since 6 so its probably OK.
Not quite, again IANAL but it appears that you are confusing patent pools (where a group of organisations pool their patents as a sort of deterrent, the intention being to produce a patent version of Mutually assured destruction. The part of the Apache license that you seem to be talking about is this one:
Grant of Patent License. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, each Contributor hereby grants to You a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable (except as stated in this section) patent license to make, have made, use, offer to sell, sell, import, and otherwise transfer the Work, where such license applies only to those patent claims licensable by such Contributor that are necessarily infringed by their Contribution(s) alone or by combination of their Contribution(s) with the Work to which such Contribution(s) was submitted. If You institute patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that the Work or a Contribution incorporated within the Work constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, then any patent licenses granted to You under this License for that Work shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed.
As you can see this part of the license deals with patents, first off it ensures that you as a recipient of the software can do whatever you wish regardless of patents. Later it states that if you instigate litigation " alleging that the Work or a Contribution incorporated within the Work constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement" then the patent license granted here is no longer in effect.
Basically it means that if you sue claiming that your patented concepts are included in a project licensed under the Apache License then you may no longer use or distribute that software IF (and only IF) it contains patented works. It doesn't mean that you give up your patents or your legal claim, nor does it mean you will get sued in return (unless you continue to distribute the software AND it includes patented works.)
Note that this is even more meaningless if you are operating in an area where software patents do not apply (you could sue someone in the US for infringement of a patent but ignore the consequences.
IANAL either but I was under the impression (and I think I am right) that both of those issues could only arise if you are distributing the software in question.
That would be in line with the GP's statements that if you distribute you may need to get some legal advice, although realistically from what I have seen regards the GPL V2/V3 the language is clear enough that the you wont need to unless you want to push the boundaries or make use of a perceived loophole.
I would stick to my first definition, any site run by an organisation should identify itself as such, any site run by an individual should be free to use an agent or other organisation to handle communications for them. That way you have some transparency. (Although you could still abuse the system by claiming a corporate site is personal, it is a compromise I would accept.)
Firstly the Us sends them dollars, they need dollars to buy oil, so they sell the US things in exchange for dollars which they exchange for oil. The oil producers then have lots of Dollars and are happy, they buy things from all over the world in dollars (because everyone needs dollars for oil).
The problem arises when the dollar becomes less stable and loses value, at that point the oil producers either take a hit and make less profits, increase the price of oil (which means people want dollars even more badly and may increase the dollars value thus solving the problem in the short term, but pushes up process of anything that needs transporting or oil in some other way...) or they can switch to a more stable currency.
If they switch to a more stable currency then the dollar sinks, the global economy takes a huge hit, but when the dust settles, the US is in a bad way because no one wants dollars anymore, as are all these countries that peg their currency to the dollar and whoever replaced the dollar as the currency of choice is sitting pretty.
People don't swap goods for useless paper, they swap goods for paper that they feel will get them the things that they need, the moment that stops that paper really does become worthless and no one will want it, bad news if you need to buy things from abroad because you don't have a manufacturing base anymore and no one wants to buy your services.
You could add to your second point that the government, if it wished, could produce these emails and claim that they indicate intent to do something illegal and therefore arrest anyone who received one, whether they acted upon it or not.
I doubt that totalitarian regimes require help in fabricating or identify evidence of arrestable offences, but there is no reason to make it easier for them.
I can see you read my post, but I don't think you took it all in, did you stop reading after the first paragraph perhaps?
At what point did I even suggest that climate change is not occurring, that it is not caused by our actions, that we should not take action now? I stated that we should go with the evidence we have (and take action immediately to reduce emissions that impact on our climate) but not stop looking for other potential factors or for that matter additional factors. I would hate to find that we have missed something important because we wouldn't allow people to follow their own theories through.
Yes climate change is occurring, yes it is our own fault, yes we need to do something about it, what we don't need to do is go off half cocked when people suggest that we need to continue to investigate the issue at the same time as dealing with what we already know.
As for the murder analogy, I found it amazing that someone would actually suggest that if there is enough circumstantial evidence that someone killed someone else there is no reason to actually gather hard evidence, or to simply make that leap that confirms the facts.
I hadn't considered this previously, but since distribution is the copyright holders right and no one else's, does that make the resale of CD's a civil (or even criminal) offence? After all its distribution. The answer is no (I'm sure the record companies would prefer it otherwise) but I am unclear as to why that is, and how that principal (which clearly violates the rights of the copyright owner in fact if not in spirit) can be applied to downloading music, films or books you already own a copy of.
I would hope you would parrot the rule saying "Correlation is not causation", or rather I would hope that any other alternatives are also investigated (like suicide or possibly even that a third person did the shooting) sure Its unlikely, but its worth the effort to prevent a miscarriage of justice.
How this applies to climate change though isn't all that clear. We are sure that temperatures are rising, we are fairly sure that they will continue to rise, and we are inclined to believe that the changes are brought about by our own actions. In that scenario we need to tackle what is apparent whilst also making sure that there are no other explanations.
Much like you would arrest the potential murderer in your first example immediately and then discount any other possibilities, we should be looking to tackle climate change (by addressing the issues we believe cause it) until we know more one way or the other, what we should not do is close down any other avenues of investigation until we are sure that we have all the information we need, after all if something else turns out to be the culprit (regardless of how unlikely that is) we may need to take some other action, something we couldn't do if we stopped looking.
Just like those healthcare systems, right? Free as in free at the point of delivery, as in you wont go bankrupt or have to sell your house if you break your next or catch cancer. Its affordable, you don't pay more in taxes than you can afford (you may pay more than you would like but that is the same everywhere) and at least you will always have sufficient money to survive and live (and even access to housing, healthcare and legal services) regardless of what you do or what happens to you, it wont be nice, but you wont starve either, and as long as you have enough money for food, somewhere to live, your health, legal and employment advice you should be able to work (or find work if, that is the problem)) and survive.
Thirdly, if you apply those principles to your entire political career, you'll get about 23 dollars total campaign funds, and you won't get elected. If you need corporate / interest group money in order to be elected, or even to stand for election effectively, you are not living in a democracy any more.
The only worthwhile political changes require modifications to the framework of politics, these changes would ideally come from within the political establishment* when the people in office realise that the system is broken. Sadly sometimes a system is so entrenched that there is no clear way to effect the necessary changes, especially if there is little difference between the government and its opposition.
* Forcing a change from the outside in the form of a coup or popular revolution being the other methods, bit those can be a bit messy and potentially counter-productive.
I'm sure it would be nice to guarantee your peace of mind by giving you all that information, not going to happen, so how about we decide what we think is important and create some rules, if they are enforced then our safety is nicely balanced with all the other things that are important like other people's privacy. All we have to so to create some arbitrary limits....
In short, its not about what the doctor wants, (in this case to be a heavy heroin user) or about what you want (to know everything about the doctor that treats you). Its a compromise between the two, defined by a society and laid down in the rules that govern that society.
To take my original point, it is fair for the police to test someone for drugs, after all they have to justify what they are doing to a high standard, in advance, and you have recourse if they fail to adhere to their procedures. It is not acceptable to have an employer randomly drug test his workforce, it is acceptable for an employer to have a zero tolerance policy where drugs are concerned and to sack transgressors.
Its all about drawing a line somewhere isn't it. I wouldn't want a doctor treating me if he was just plain incompetent, and guess what - they try and test for that too. Are you honestly saying that rather than have limits (in some case somewhat arbitrary limits, but what socially defined limit isn't arbitrary.. ) you would allow everyone to act as they want, and as a by product potentially risk a huge number of lives? This isn't like preventing women becoming doctors or voting, no one choses the se they are born with (lets not over complicate that statement... )the doctor has (or had) a choice as to whether to use drugs, that choice is incompatible with his profession - one or the other needs to stop.
Sorry for the late reply - I've been a little busy.
Setting aside the personal attacks (as clearly this topic is one that you feel fairly strongly about) I think I can address your serious points.
Firstly, with regard to the Doctor, Pilot, Bus Driver scenario, the question whether it would be acceptable for them to use drugs is fairly clear cut. Would you allow a doctor to treat you if he was a heavy heroin user? I assume here that the risks would be multiple, anything from the fact that his mental processes may be impaired through to the fact that he may be more prone to HIV or hepatitis etc... Personally I would prefer not to have to run additional risks. The same goes for the Pilot or Bus Driver, what if they had taken speed or a similar drug prior to getting behind the controls? Would you trust them to safely convey you from A to B?. In all these cases the drug user would be risking the lives of those around them, potentially to an extraordinary degree (especially in the case of the pilot). As such it is absolutely justifiable that people in these positions face legal repercussions if they act in such an irresponsible and dangerous manner, risking the lives of many people.
So is driving with one hand, listening to the radio, talking on the cell phone, dealing with kids in the back seat...
Yes that is potentially dangerous, and if a police officer feels that you are driving dangerously they are within their rights to stop you and tell you why you are acting inappropriately, or charging you with dangerous driving. just because one act of stupidity is commonplace does not mean that an even greater one is acceptable.
Now at this point you felt the need to attack not what I said but your perception of it. So I will clarify
If your idea of a management team is a group of people who are paid more than you, have arbitrary power over you but are in the end useless, then I agree with you. If I found a manager within an organisation who was being high-handed, abusive, derogatory, self-important, and dismissive of the concerns of the employees beneath them I would have them removed, they are not doing their job.
Managers should be there to do the things that staff shouldn't need to come in contact with. Why would I bother an engineer with the details of how many consumables are being used within the office, or why should I have a programmer waste time organising a coding team's training or transport to a seminar? Managers should not be there to control people, they should be there to ensure their staff get what they need to do their job, and ensure that they have all the support that they can get. They should also be in a position to identify talent and recommend promotions.
Talented people drive company's, not some thin definition of manager, or team leader, any company that has semi-qualified managers (or marketeers) directing technical projects, or doing any strategic planning without someone qualified to point them in the right direction wont do well, if you don't listen to your staff, what's the point in employing them?.
Most importantly though a manager should be in the position to notice if a member on his team is not acting normally, and by normally I don't mean that they are acting with in some company accepted norms, but not acting how they normally act... That is not just in relation to drugs, but also to identify things like stress or depression, it happens, and when it does it needs to be fixed.
I'm sorry that you seemed to take quite as much offence as you did, and I am fairly sure I didn't deserve an outright attack, but you should be able to acknowledge that drugs add risk to any given project, (as I said earlier, leaving aside all the medical elements, if drug use is illegal there will always be blackmail) and as such organisations should be able to take steps to minimise such risk, however forcing people (as a condition of employment) to have drug tests is not suitable outside of the police or the military.
What I was trying to say was that the unlocking procedure should be possible without any remote authentication with apple (via itunes or similar) rather than any attack on itunes itself (I have never used it).
By the way - if you are an itunes user you win a prize - I have two free unclaimed songs available from itunes (coke promotion) that I cant touch - since you must be an apple fan and I assume you have access to itunes, if you email me (stick your uid in the subject or something) I will mail you the account details I signed up to the coke website with, and you can grab the freebies.
I wouldn't want a doctor / a pilot / a bus driver stoned whilst working, those are public safety related and there are laws against that kind of thing, enforcement and detection can be left up to people with the relevant powers.
Saying that, I wouldn't want anyone who has any responsibility or access to anything remotely sensitive within my organisation to use drugs (all sorts of risk, from instability to susceptibility to blackmail or other pressure). I would however hope that my management team would detect any strange behaviour (never mind coming in stoned) and to deal with it, help where appropriate, disciplinary action or dismissal where necessary. In house drug testing however? No way - it violates privacy and destroys trust, especially if that testing does not include testing the board and senior staff.
It is similar to alcohol in this regard (although not wholly). I don't care if you got drunk last night but it had better not impair your ability to work today, anybody failing to come back to work after a work function, or is late due to a hangover shouldn't bother coming back at all (if you really cant work with a hangover don't drink so much, or book a day off in advance.
Mods - parent post isn't flamebait, but makes a rather naive point...
I would suggest that having a feature that locked the ipod out (or prevented further recharging) when it is used on a computer that the owner hasn't authorised it to be used on would reduce the resale value of stolen (and presumably fairly useless) ipods.
If the value of a stolen ipod is reduced there should be less incentive to steal ipods in general, after all you take a risk stealing one - that risk is of getting caught or possibly getting a kicking (or getting shot if you are in the states...:) and do so for a reward - the money you get from selling the nicked goods, if the reward is reduced why take the risk?
The only negatives I see with this would be if it were off by default, then any potential thief still has a fair chance of stealing a working device (after all many people will simply fail to enable this feature). Additionally if there were a common and relatively cheap way of unlocking the ipod again it loses its deterrent value.
All in all I see this as a potentially very positive feature, on the proviso that it is implemented sensibly, i.e. that the owner of the ipod control's the locking and unlocking mechanism and can both choose which machines to authorise without hassle (and without needing to use itunes) and unlock his/her ipod if it is used in a manner that wasn't expected (or indeed if the ipod is stolen and then returned).
I suppose it could be used as an addition to current DRM schemes in some way, but I doubt it would be, the ipod is too visible and there are too many alternatives, plus apple don't seem to be that stupid.
Personally I will stick to my ipaq, and at some point figure out if I can do full disk encryption with familiar.
As I understand it that statement, (or one close to it) is followed by a number of other conditions and qualifiers. I also believe that there is a section that further qualifies what actions are unacceptable at any time and against any person.
The applicability of any of this to a torch that blinds people and is used outside of the context of war is however presumably dubious. Although I am not sure what the justification for affording your enemies in time of war better treatment that afforded to people crossing a border is.
Is the prohibition only for using such weapons on soldiers of recognized nations who are signatories themselves? As I understand it, things like the Geneva convention are binding on the signatory regardless of who they are fighting against. Wasn't the whole idea to minimise the horrors of war to some degree and to guarantee that the "war crimes" perpetrated in the past would not be perpetrated in the future? On top of that I would have thought that applying a standard to war fighting would ensure that your actions are morally justifiable, if a given action is not justifiable (and you have agreed that is it not by signing a treaty or convention) then the actions of your enemy have no bearing on your own actions, you hold the moral high ground (for what its worth).
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I assume that the situation you describe is in the US, mainly because outside of car insurance, I have not seen an insurance policy rise after a claim has been made against it, both personally and anecdotally. I seems that if insurance companies are not having to pay for small items (well items whose replacement value is greater than any excess you may be required to pay) then their cover is pretty much worthless.
The amount you spend on contents insurance is typically enough that you cover the any one claim in a given number of years, so if you don't ever claim for items that are damaged or stolen you may as well just bank the premiums yourself. Obviously buildings insurance is a different matter you wont pay out the value of your home in insurance premiums in the 60 odd years you are likely to own it, and vehicle insurance is mandatory (at least for third party cover).
In fact far from seeing premiums rise over a period in which claims have been made I have seen them reduce, not to mention the fact that things like travel insurance are practically free (although the cover does vary significantly). The only elements that I have seen to have an impact on premiums are environmental (living on a flood plain or on ground that has been undermined) or social (living in an area with a high burglary rate for example.). I have never heard of someone being either dropped or refused cover based on the claims that they have made (again other than with regard to vehicle insurance), I have only ever seen companies refuse to cover specific items (designer sunglasses and mobile phones for example) where the risk is deemed too high.
Given that it is generally the same companies in the UK and in the US I wonder if the difference in approach is due to regulation, the (perceived from a UK point of view) litigious nature of the US or simply a rumour spread by insurers to reduce claims.
Its interesting because when I was about 20 I tried to get insurance for a large amount of high value equipment that I had responsibility for but that didn't belong to me, total value of about 4k (GBP) the crux was that I had to move it around a lot and of course it was more likely to be held somewhere less secure than my home.
I couldn't get 4k's worth of insurance and had to settle for 20k's worth of insurance, legal cover (something ridiculous like 10 million), and a large number f other bonuses (the only one I ever made use of was a discount at a national retailer..). All of that for less than the cost of replacing the cheapest piece of kit I had to insure over the 4 year period I had it.
In short there is so much competition that the insurers seem to really try hard to get custom, including little (and fairly valueless) enticements and grander than required sounding policies, Hell I cant get contents insurance that covers less than 60k with my building cover, and that's more than 3 times the value of everything I own, in fact its more than the rebuild cost of my house (although not its market value, and that is obviously covered by my buildings insurance anyway)
I probably should have responded to a previous post, but that is beyond the point...
In this case a single private company made a mess because the government allowed it to do so, however most countries that I know of have a similar, if slightly less major problem with their basic public infrastructure.
I wondered what your solution would be, the problem runs something like this:
First, A private organisation pioneers something on a small scale (Telecommunications, Railways, Water, Electricity etc..). There is fierce competition, and a lack of standards.
Next (usually) government either nationalise or semi nationalise these organisations in order to create a larger network that is standardised and available to as many people as possible, this usually involves government (read taxpayer) investment, and subsidies. This of course means that areas that would not otherwise be economical to connect to $service are connected and don't pay more for the privilege.
Once the $service is stable and in place people become used to it and accept it as a normal everyday thing, they take for granted that 99% of the places in the country will have electricity, or water, or some sort of transport infrastructure.
Next, one of three things happens, with the same result;
Either,
The government sees a way to make vast amounts of money by selling off a national asset.
The government is forced to privatise a given service as a trade agreement requires it, or at the behest of an international organisation (See the world bank) in return for some unrelated benefit (aid or better trade links).
The government thinks that customers would be better served if competition were introduced.
In all cases the infrastructure is sold off and competition is introduced.
Lastly a problem occurs, the companies running these major infrastructure services need to ensure that they are operating at maximum efficiency/profitability, this often means that maintenance or upgrades are ignored (or more likely limited to profitable areas) and that services to areas or segments of the population that are not economically viable are reduced. This in turn tends to lead to government interference (through subsidies and regulation).
Basically my point, and my question is that private companies are not the best organisations to be running certain elements of key public infrastructure (I would include rail, telecommunications, electricity, gas, water, public transport, health, policing and the military) and governments don't seem to think that they are in a better position for some of these (notable exceptions are policing and the military but not in all cases). What is the ideal solution? Company's need to be able to make choices about where they invest and where they draw profits. the government is supposed to ensure that the provision of certain key services. These overlap and often bring even greater issues (i.e. the government own and supply the service but sell it t others who compete, essentially adding a pointless layer that exists purely to market and extract profit by "adding value"). I don't see how a free market can solve this.
(excuse me if my post is not totally clear, its late and I'm rather tired.)
It wouldn't count as distribution any more than making Linux available to your employees would be distribution. The aircraft and the on board systems belong to the airline, the airline is making them available to customers, if they would let you take the machine home then it would be distribution. Even if you were using windows and the associated MS back office kit, you would only need to have licenses for each seat, not each new user, and you certainly wouldn't need to have a license that covers distribution (again, unless you give the kit away at the end of the flight..).
OT - Does anyone know when they started making you give back the earphones you used to get in flight? I remember when I was a kid that you could keep them, now you have to give them back... (not that I want them but it was a fond memory of sorts.)
Not to take away from your message - because you have a point, I think in the context of the summary it would be because you *can* find out what is happening if you realise something strange is going on and if you have the source. If you don't have the source, you may be able to figure out what is going on, and to a certain degree why, but you wont be clear until the company tells you what its doing (and you trust them). In the end it comes down to trust though (as with most things). I only use software that I trust, and ensure it comes from a source I am happy with, (in my case Debian), it doesn't get rid of all the issues but it does reduce the risks ( as I perceive them anyway).
Hell the pile of semi working laptops I have sat here very from a powerbook 100 (still works) through a dell latitude ( I think a 166 Mhz processor) through to a High end HP laptop with a busted screen (runs headless).
But as for PCI video cards, they always come in handy, like whenever I feel the need to add another monitor to my desktop - I was up to 4 for a while but the S3 card I used on monitor 4 was less than worthless at 800x600, (I'm back to a 15" a 19" and a 21" all on different cards, one of which is AGP). In fact on top of a stack of pci video cards I also seem to have a pile of 15" LG monitors that have been retired..
Forgot the point of the post now, but I haven't had a coffee since 6 so its probably OK.
Not quite, again IANAL but it appears that you are confusing patent pools (where a group of organisations pool their patents as a sort of deterrent, the intention being to produce a patent version of Mutually assured destruction. The part of the Apache license that you seem to be talking about is this one:
Grant of Patent License. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, each Contributor hereby grants to You a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable (except as stated in this section) patent license to make, have made, use, offer to sell, sell, import, and otherwise transfer the Work, where such license applies only to those patent claims licensable by such Contributor that are necessarily infringed by their Contribution(s) alone or by combination of their Contribution(s) with the Work to which such Contribution(s) was submitted. If You institute patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that the Work or a Contribution incorporated within the Work constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, then any patent licenses granted to You under this License for that Work shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed.
As you can see this part of the license deals with patents, first off it ensures that you as a recipient of the software can do whatever you wish regardless of patents. Later it states that if you instigate litigation " alleging that the Work or a Contribution incorporated within the Work constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement" then the patent license granted here is no longer in effect.
Basically it means that if you sue claiming that your patented concepts are included in a project licensed under the Apache License then you may no longer use or distribute that software IF (and only IF) it contains patented works. It doesn't mean that you give up your patents or your legal claim, nor does it mean you will get sued in return (unless you continue to distribute the software AND it includes patented works.)
Note that this is even more meaningless if you are operating in an area where software patents do not apply (you could sue someone in the US for infringement of a patent but ignore the consequences.
IANAL either but I was under the impression (and I think I am right) that both of those issues could only arise if you are distributing the software in question.
That would be in line with the GP's statements that if you distribute you may need to get some legal advice, although realistically from what I have seen regards the GPL V2/V3 the language is clear enough that the you wont need to unless you want to push the boundaries or make use of a perceived loophole.
I would stick to my first definition, any site run by an organisation should identify itself as such, any site run by an individual should be free to use an agent or other organisation to handle communications for them. That way you have some transparency. (Although you could still abuse the system by claiming a corporate site is personal, it is a compromise I would accept.)
Because domain holders are not necessary businesses.
Using your logic unlisted phone numbers would presumably also need to be scrapped as they are something businesses have.
Companies should have their information available to the public, but individuals should be able to do whatever they wish.
Minor problem with that theory.
Firstly the Us sends them dollars, they need dollars to buy oil, so they sell the US things in exchange for dollars which they exchange for oil. The oil producers then have lots of Dollars and are happy, they buy things from all over the world in dollars (because everyone needs dollars for oil).
The problem arises when the dollar becomes less stable and loses value, at that point the oil producers either take a hit and make less profits, increase the price of oil (which means people want dollars even more badly and may increase the dollars value thus solving the problem in the short term, but pushes up process of anything that needs transporting or oil in some other way...) or they can switch to a more stable currency.
If they switch to a more stable currency then the dollar sinks, the global economy takes a huge hit, but when the dust settles, the US is in a bad way because no one wants dollars anymore, as are all these countries that peg their currency to the dollar and whoever replaced the dollar as the currency of choice is sitting pretty.
People don't swap goods for useless paper, they swap goods for paper that they feel will get them the things that they need, the moment that stops that paper really does become worthless and no one will want it, bad news if you need to buy things from abroad because you don't have a manufacturing base anymore and no one wants to buy your services.
Sir,
Congratulations, you said just the right thing, in exactly the right way.
You could add to your second point that the government, if it wished, could produce these emails and claim that they indicate intent to do something illegal and therefore arrest anyone who received one, whether they acted upon it or not.
I doubt that totalitarian regimes require help in fabricating or identify evidence of arrestable offences, but there is no reason to make it easier for them.
I can see you read my post, but I don't think you took it all in, did you stop reading after the first paragraph perhaps?
At what point did I even suggest that climate change is not occurring, that it is not caused by our actions, that we should not take action now? I stated that we should go with the evidence we have (and take action immediately to reduce emissions that impact on our climate) but not stop looking for other potential factors or for that matter additional factors. I would hate to find that we have missed something important because we wouldn't allow people to follow their own theories through.
Yes climate change is occurring, yes it is our own fault, yes we need to do something about it, what we don't need to do is go off half cocked when people suggest that we need to continue to investigate the issue at the same time as dealing with what we already know.
As for the murder analogy, I found it amazing that someone would actually suggest that if there is enough circumstantial evidence that someone killed someone else there is no reason to actually gather hard evidence, or to simply make that leap that confirms the facts.
I hadn't considered this previously, but since distribution is the copyright holders right and no one else's, does that make the resale of CD's a civil (or even criminal) offence? After all its distribution. The answer is no (I'm sure the record companies would prefer it otherwise) but I am unclear as to why that is, and how that principal (which clearly violates the rights of the copyright owner in fact if not in spirit) can be applied to downloading music, films or books you already own a copy of.
Any thoughts?
I would hope you would parrot the rule saying "Correlation is not causation", or rather I would hope that any other alternatives are also investigated (like suicide or possibly even that a third person did the shooting) sure Its unlikely, but its worth the effort to prevent a miscarriage of justice.
How this applies to climate change though isn't all that clear. We are sure that temperatures are rising, we are fairly sure that they will continue to rise, and we are inclined to believe that the changes are brought about by our own actions. In that scenario we need to tackle what is apparent whilst also making sure that there are no other explanations.
Much like you would arrest the potential murderer in your first example immediately and then discount any other possibilities, we should be looking to tackle climate change (by addressing the issues we believe cause it) until we know more one way or the other, what we should not do is close down any other avenues of investigation until we are sure that we have all the information we need, after all if something else turns out to be the culprit (regardless of how unlikely that is) we may need to take some other action, something we couldn't do if we stopped looking.
The only worthwhile political changes require modifications to the framework of politics, these changes would ideally come from within the political establishment* when the people in office realise that the system is broken. Sadly sometimes a system is so entrenched that there is no clear way to effect the necessary changes, especially if there is little difference between the government and its opposition.
* Forcing a change from the outside in the form of a coup or popular revolution being the other methods, bit those can be a bit messy and potentially counter-productive.
I'm sure it would be nice to guarantee your peace of mind by giving you all that information, not going to happen, so how about we decide what we think is important and create some rules, if they are enforced then our safety is nicely balanced with all the other things that are important like other people's privacy. All we have to so to create some arbitrary limits....
In short, its not about what the doctor wants, (in this case to be a heavy heroin user) or about what you want (to know everything about the doctor that treats you). Its a compromise between the two, defined by a society and laid down in the rules that govern that society.
To take my original point, it is fair for the police to test someone for drugs, after all they have to justify what they are doing to a high standard, in advance, and you have recourse if they fail to adhere to their procedures. It is not acceptable to have an employer randomly drug test his workforce, it is acceptable for an employer to have a zero tolerance policy where drugs are concerned and to sack transgressors.
Anyway, enough of that.
Its all about drawing a line somewhere isn't it. I wouldn't want a doctor treating me if he was just plain incompetent, and guess what - they try and test for that too. Are you honestly saying that rather than have limits (in some case somewhat arbitrary limits, but what socially defined limit isn't arbitrary.. ) you would allow everyone to act as they want, and as a by product potentially risk a huge number of lives? This isn't like preventing women becoming doctors or voting, no one choses the se they are born with (lets not over complicate that statement... )the doctor has (or had) a choice as to whether to use drugs, that choice is incompatible with his profession - one or the other needs to stop.
Sorry for the late reply - I've been a little busy.
Setting aside the personal attacks (as clearly this topic is one that you feel fairly strongly about) I think I can address your serious points.
Firstly, with regard to the Doctor, Pilot, Bus Driver scenario, the question whether it would be acceptable for them to use drugs is fairly clear cut. Would you allow a doctor to treat you if he was a heavy heroin user? I assume here that the risks would be multiple, anything from the fact that his mental processes may be impaired through to the fact that he may be more prone to HIV or hepatitis etc... Personally I would prefer not to have to run additional risks. The same goes for the Pilot or Bus Driver, what if they had taken speed or a similar drug prior to getting behind the controls? Would you trust them to safely convey you from A to B?. In all these cases the drug user would be risking the lives of those around them, potentially to an extraordinary degree (especially in the case of the pilot). As such it is absolutely justifiable that people in these positions face legal repercussions if they act in such an irresponsible and dangerous manner, risking the lives of many people.
So is driving with one hand, listening to the radio, talking on the cell phone, dealing with kids in the back seat...Yes that is potentially dangerous, and if a police officer feels that you are driving dangerously they are within their rights to stop you and tell you why you are acting inappropriately, or charging you with dangerous driving. just because one act of stupidity is commonplace does not mean that an even greater one is acceptable.
Now at this point you felt the need to attack not what I said but your perception of it. So I will clarify
If your idea of a management team is a group of people who are paid more than you, have arbitrary power over you but are in the end useless, then I agree with you. If I found a manager within an organisation who was being high-handed, abusive, derogatory, self-important, and dismissive of the concerns of the employees beneath them I would have them removed, they are not doing their job.
Managers should be there to do the things that staff shouldn't need to come in contact with. Why would I bother an engineer with the details of how many consumables are being used within the office, or why should I have a programmer waste time organising a coding team's training or transport to a seminar? Managers should not be there to control people, they should be there to ensure their staff get what they need to do their job, and ensure that they have all the support that they can get. They should also be in a position to identify talent and recommend promotions.
Talented people drive company's, not some thin definition of manager, or team leader, any company that has semi-qualified managers (or marketeers) directing technical projects, or doing any strategic planning without someone qualified to point them in the right direction wont do well, if you don't listen to your staff, what's the point in employing them?.
Most importantly though a manager should be in the position to notice if a member on his team is not acting normally, and by normally I don't mean that they are acting with in some company accepted norms, but not acting how they normally act... That is not just in relation to drugs, but also to identify things like stress or depression, it happens, and when it does it needs to be fixed.
I'm sorry that you seemed to take quite as much offence as you did, and I am fairly sure I didn't deserve an outright attack, but you should be able to acknowledge that drugs add risk to any given project, (as I said earlier, leaving aside all the medical elements, if drug use is illegal there will always be blackmail) and as such organisations should be able to take steps to minimise such risk, however forcing people (as a condition of employment) to have drug tests is not suitable outside of the police or the military.
What I was trying to say was that the unlocking procedure should be possible without any remote authentication with apple (via itunes or similar) rather than any attack on itunes itself (I have never used it).
By the way - if you are an itunes user you win a prize - I have two free unclaimed songs available from itunes (coke promotion) that I cant touch - since you must be an apple fan and I assume you have access to itunes, if you email me (stick your uid in the subject or something) I will mail you the account details I signed up to the coke website with, and you can grab the freebies.
I wouldn't want a doctor / a pilot / a bus driver stoned whilst working, those are public safety related and there are laws against that kind of thing, enforcement and detection can be left up to people with the relevant powers.
Saying that, I wouldn't want anyone who has any responsibility or access to anything remotely sensitive within my organisation to use drugs (all sorts of risk, from instability to susceptibility to blackmail or other pressure). I would however hope that my management team would detect any strange behaviour (never mind coming in stoned) and to deal with it, help where appropriate, disciplinary action or dismissal where necessary. In house drug testing however? No way - it violates privacy and destroys trust, especially if that testing does not include testing the board and senior staff.
It is similar to alcohol in this regard (although not wholly). I don't care if you got drunk last night but it had better not impair your ability to work today, anybody failing to come back to work after a work function, or is late due to a hangover shouldn't bother coming back at all (if you really cant work with a hangover don't drink so much, or book a day off in advance.
Mods - parent post isn't flamebait, but makes a rather naive point...
I would suggest that having a feature that locked the ipod out (or prevented further recharging) when it is used on a computer that the owner hasn't authorised it to be used on would reduce the resale value of stolen (and presumably fairly useless) ipods.
If the value of a stolen ipod is reduced there should be less incentive to steal ipods in general, after all you take a risk stealing one - that risk is of getting caught or possibly getting a kicking (or getting shot if you are in the states... :) and do so for a reward - the money you get from selling the nicked goods, if the reward is reduced why take the risk?
The only negatives I see with this would be if it were off by default, then any potential thief still has a fair chance of stealing a working device (after all many people will simply fail to enable this feature). Additionally if there were a common and relatively cheap way of unlocking the ipod again it loses its deterrent value.
All in all I see this as a potentially very positive feature, on the proviso that it is implemented sensibly, i.e. that the owner of the ipod control's the locking and unlocking mechanism and can both choose which machines to authorise without hassle (and without needing to use itunes) and unlock his/her ipod if it is used in a manner that wasn't expected (or indeed if the ipod is stolen and then returned).
I suppose it could be used as an addition to current DRM schemes in some way, but I doubt it would be, the ipod is too visible and there are too many alternatives, plus apple don't seem to be that stupid.
Personally I will stick to my ipaq, and at some point figure out if I can do full disk encryption with familiar.
As I understand it that statement, (or one close to it) is followed by a number of other conditions and qualifiers. I also believe that there is a section that further qualifies what actions are unacceptable at any time and against any person.
The applicability of any of this to a torch that blinds people and is used outside of the context of war is however presumably dubious. Although I am not sure what the justification for affording your enemies in time of war better treatment that afforded to people crossing a border is.