He's a libertarian and objectivist. He's not a moron...
Wait, which is it: "He's a libertarian and objectivist" or "He's not a moron"? You can't have it both ways. Okay, I'm joking a little there, but...
...and certainly not a suit.
Wait, you say he's a "salesman who got rich selling his company" and then you say he's "not a suit"? That's, um, well pretty common for a "suit". Indeed, most people would say that if your a salesman that got rich selling a company, and now own an NBA franchise, you are clearly a "suit".
Anyway, I think you are pretty crazy if you think most slashdotters want to be salesmen, whether of software or otherwise.
Microcode implements the instruction set in a processor,
Typically, microcode (as I understand it) implements a part of the instruction set in a processor, built on a smaller "kernel" of instructions implemented more directly.
From the outside, microcode is part of the hardware because the processor will not function without it.
Sure, when looking at the machine it is part of; from a development perspective, its like a conventional set of utilities written to run on the simpler machine represented by the core instructions of the processor that are implemented directly rather than through microcode. Now, clearly, since the microcode is within the processor and not rewritable, open-source microcode doesn't provide a means to let you "upgrade" a processor, it would be more useful in cutting down development time of a compatible or related processor, or perhaps in emulating the processor.
think in the context where hardware is part of the discussion (which it must be for a BIOS to be relevent), it's understood that the word "system" includes software and hardware unless it is explicitly designated as software only.
I disagree, since BIOS is software, that in the context it was being discussed hardware has to be "included in the discussion", and, at any rate, I think that in the phrase "open source system", the "open source", since it only has any meaning in regard to software, does explicitly designate the "system" as being software only.
Well, in the 1970s, PEAK OIL predicted we would be out of oil by the mid 1980s.
Wrong. In the mid 1970s, Hubbert (who previously had accurately predicted the local peak of US oil production), predicted the global peak in 1995, although consumption drops that occurred in the interim changed that.
Of course, a peak isn't clear except in retrospect, and modern peak oil projections suggest it is near or recently past; but even a plateau in 24 years has the same kind of problems associated with peak oil.
While details about when vary between different predictions, the theory of peak oil (and it applies to peak X where X is any extracted, non-renewable resource) is simply that at some point a maximum rate of production will be reached and after that never exceeded. (And, as a common corollary, providing there are no adequate substitutes, that increases in demand after that point will lead to extreme increases in price in the long term rather than increases in quantity consumed, as the rate of production is a long-term limit on the rate of consumption.)
This report claims that after 24 years, an extraction plateau will be reached which will never be exceeded.
This reports idea is slightly different from that suggested by peak oil in that the "peak" in peak oil refers to the idea that production will actually fall at some rate, while this report suggests a plateau, but that doesn't really change the fundamental dynamic is that increasing demand for energy and other products of the oil industry (plastics, etc.) cannot, whether with a peak or a plateau (which is merely the "best-case" limit of a peak) be met with increased production, but instead higher prices.
While it certainly diverges sharply from the timeframe predictions of many peak oil theorists, it fundamentally confirms that principal problem envisioned by peak oil: a production limit that will be reached in a fairly short time.
(Of course, since the supply of oil is finite, unless the rate of extraction is lower than the rate at which geological processes create oil, it is clearly impossible for a plateau to hold in the longest term, so it seems unlikely that any "plateau" will be a long-term state rather than merely a transitional period before a decline.)
Actually processors are often implemented using microcode, so some hardware can and does have source code.
Microcode certainly has source code, which is the source code for software included in or with the hardware, but not source code for the hardware itself.
Microcode could be open sourced, but that wouldn't make the hardware itself open source.
In any case, if you exclude the hardware, there is no such thing as an "open source system", only "open source software".
This seems to presuppose that the word "system" cannot refer to things consisting entirely of "software", which is wrong.
A system consisting entirely of software can be open source, and is the only really literal meaning that the phrase "open source system" can have. If hardware designs had open-source-like IP licenses attached, it would be fair to call a system using such hardware an "open system" or, perhaps to be more clear, an "open-licensed system", but the rights to the hardware would not be to free access and modification of source code, so "open source" wouldn't be the right word.
Once of the biggest mistakes many people, and geeks seem especially prone to this, make is to read the text of a law and think that whatever their interpretation of that text might be is all they need to know to construe about the legal implications of one thing or another.
Certainly true, though not relevant here as, again, US courts have, in fact, found that Microsoft is guilty of violating the provision of law at issue.
Consider why the law quoted doesn't just openly state "It is illegal to be a monopoly".
It states the exact equivalent, because a "monopoly" (in the sense that one can 'be' rather than 'have' a monopoly) is simply one who has succesfully monopolized trade.
Does the word 'monopolize' have a legal meaning different from 'monopoly'? How have courts interpreted the law quoted?
Clearly. One is a noun, the other a verb, their meanings are, necessarily, different. Nevertheless, they are linked. Indeed, courts have interpreted Section 2 of Title 15 (which is also Section 2 of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act), which refers only to the verb "monopolize") creating an offense of "monopoly". See, for instance, US v. Grinnell, 384 US at 570-571:
The offense of monopoly under 2 of the Sherman Act has two elements: (1) the possession of monopoly power in the relevant market and (2) the willful acquisition or maintenance of that power as distinguished from growth or development as a consequence of a superior product, business acumen, or historic accident.
You could read this guide as a start, but reading actual court documents is much better. Microsoft was indeed found guilty of being in violation, but not simply due to their monopoly status, but because they unreasonably restrained trade, therefore they are guilty of unreasonably restraining trade rather than 'being a monopoly' because 'being a monopoly' is not illegal.
No, they were found to have both committed the offense of "restraint of trade" (laid out in Section 1 of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act) and the offense of "monopoly" (laid out in Section 2 of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act). Being a monopoly, that is committing the offense of monopoly, is in fact illegal, and an offense separate and distinct from that of restraint of trade. Merely having monopoly power is not alone enough to commit the offense of monopoly, it is merely the actus reus of the crime. The mens rea, the deliberate or willful mental state, is also required, as is the connection between the mens rea and the actus reus.
Microsoft was, in fact, convicted of monopoly. Monopoly is prohibited by US law, separately and distinctly from "restraint of trade".
Given that yesterday's news was that OLPC managed to produce a whole 10 computers, and that we're now halfway through November 2006 -- yeah, I can't see how they could possibly fail to hit 10 million in 2007!
It wasn't like the 10 computers were all they could produce, its all they had planned to produce for this phase of testing.
Still, 10 million units in the hands of end users by the end of 2007 is probably optimistic.
Judging by how USC is typically interpreted, something tells me that you need to read the rest of Title 15 (at least chapter 1) to find any exceptions to the rule that Microsoft might be using.
That's not really relevant to the issue the grandparent was responding to, which was GGPs claim that it is impossible to be a convicted monopolist in the US since there was no US law against monopolies. GP successfully and completely rebutted that claim by demonstrating that there is, in fact, a law against monopolies in the US which can support such a conviction.
In point of fact, Microsoft was found to have violated, among others, the exact provision of law GP points to by US courst in the United States v. Microsoft case.
Of course, all that is somewhat tangential to the issue of the EU fines, since the EU is not bound by US law; Microsoft has separately been the subject of monopoly/antitrust action in the EU.
It is certainly a separate state in reality, as the granparent stated. A nation when distinguished from a state is a cultural entity, and insofar as Taiwanese consider themselves Chinese culturally, Chinese consider Taiwanese culturally, they share a common language and history, they are part of the same nation despite being part of separate de facto states. Now, its certainly true that since the split of the ROC and PRC into separate functional entities ruled by separate regimes, there has certainly also been some degree of divergence of culture and history and erosion of shared "Chinese" identity, and certainly one might validly debate whether or not they remain a common nation despite not being a common state, but that has nothing to do with foreign recognition, either de facto or de jure, of the separate political regimes.
I'm from Europe and the unspoken truth here is that the EU officials are severely corrupt.
This constant tirade against Microsoft is being paid for by someone - yes, I've said it out loud. The EU officials behind this are being bribed to attack Microsoft.
Even if that's true, I have trouble feeling sorry for Microsoft, since their slap-on-the-wrist for illegally leveraging their US monopoly directly resulted from their connections to the incoming Republican administration in 2001.
What power does the EU ultimately have to enforce the fines at this point if MS simply doesnt pay the fines:
Most governments give some agency the power to enforce judgements by ordering the seizure of property that is within their jurisdiction in order to satisfy the judgement: while that obviously applies to things like bank accounts held in banks subject to the government in question, and real estate, it also can extend to tangible personal property and to intangible personal property like, say, intellectual property.
If for purposes of EU law, the the EU itself was the copyright owner of all previously-published Microsoft software, or that Microsoft software was in the public domain, that would be a pretty serious penalty for Microsoft.
While I am like most of Slashdot in that I think that Microsoft has a very tight grip on the computer market, I still will never understand why the EU is so against Microsoft.
The EU is so against Microsoft because Microsoft is so against obeying the law in the EU.
But well, that is precisely the definition of a copyright license.
No, its not. In order to license those actions, of course, a license must be (whatever else it may also be) a copyright license if the licensor holds copyright to the material. But those actions are not only protected under copyright, and therefore a license that license those actions without express restriction to copyright is not only a copyright license except where the only rights the licensor holds which would allow him to prohibit other people from taking those actions happen to be in copyright.
The GPL is a copyright license, but it is not only a copyright license, at least not as it is written (in practice, it is probably usually only a copyright license, because generally material is probably released by people whose only applicable rights are in copyright.)
Its in some sense analogous to a quitclaim deed in real estate, viewing the "actions" it addresses as the analogs of the physical plot of land in the real estate case: it doesn't say what rights the licensor has regarding the actions it addresses, merely that, subject to the restrictions in the license, the licensor promises not to prevent those actions.
In the event that a bunch of dedicated fanatics conjure up an emulator that would run Wii games on the PS3 (initially sans the nunchak support, I guess) Nintendo would more or less have to sue Sony, no?
For...what? Producing a general purpose computer? That's a lawsuit going nowhere.
As someone who uses Dvorak at home, and Qwerty, well... everywhere else - it's not that tough. It's no harder than being able to speak two languages fluently.
Something that most people can't do unless they learned both at a young age, and that most Americans can't do period.
I'm not sure that analogy works the way you intended.
1) why do we keep seeing science like this. [nationalgeographic.com] If global warming is real, shouldnt this information be debunked as false?
I don't get it: you link to science that shows that global warming currently occurring could, by changing systems that regulate temperature, lead to a "mini ice age" in Europe and ask "if global warming is real, shouldn't this information be debunked as false?"
That makse no sense: the information you are asking about refers to a regional consequence of global warming.
2) Or this (from a link below btw):
Reports in the late 1980s found the amount of sunlight reaching the planet's surface had declined by 4 to 6 percent since 1960. Suddenly, around 1990, that appears to have reversed. "When we looked at the more recent data, lo and behold, the trend went the other way," said Charles Long, senior scientist at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
Um, no. I'm not familiar with those results, or whether they've been debunked, but they aren't really all that relevant: the warming trend stretches back about to the industrial revolution; whether true or not, short term fluctuations in solar output over a couple decades aren't really all that relevant, whether they are real or not.
3) Is global warming necessarily bad?
Signs point to yes.
If the earth getting warmer, that means more areas, such as Canada could have longer growing seasons which would produce more food for the world.
You seem to think that small global increases in temperature mean small local increases in temperature in all regions; that's not the case; if you understood the "mini ice age" article you posted, you would understand that.
Ok sure some coastly areas might get flooded. Is that bad?
Only if you consider that lots of low-lying areas that are among the most densely populated areas on the planted would be affected.
Is it possible that the fish would have more environment to live in and therefore better thrive? And is a 4" rise in the ocean really even noticable? A warmer environment would mean a growth in plant life, in general. Isn't that a good thing since plants are known to remove CO2 from the air?
One concern with global warming is that it could result in a mass die-off of phytoplankton, photosynthetic marine life that both removes CO2 from the air and is the bottom of the marine food chain. So, bye-bye fish. And lots of oxygen. And hello positive feedback.
The sun is geting warmer. It is affected other planets, most recently noted on Mars. Can we even theorectically counter the effects of the sun?
Sure, there are sources of climate change that we cannot control; insofar as the reinforce the dangerous effects of the ones we can, that makes it more imperative, not less, to control the factors we can control, like human-produced greenhouse gases.
I've found that this isn't as true as you might believe. Any Mac or WinXP or Linux system can be changed without "admin" rights.
Unless you are dragging a physical keyboard with you, that doesn't work during the transition phase, since you are then using a mislabelled keyboard (once you are fully proficient touch typist on the new layout, of course, it may be practical.)
And, of course, many people concerned with typing efficiency are clerical workers that actually have to sometimes work with typewriters still, which, well, aren't quite as easy to change.
(Plus, of course, that something can be done without admin rights doesn't mean that the average non-technical user is going to want to do it.)
If they sue you for copyright violation, just say you accepted the license -- and then they need to sue you for breach of contract instead. If they sue you for breach of contract, say you didn't accept the license, and then they'll have to sue for you copyright violation instead.
Without evidence of what happened, you make 'em sue you twice.
Or just once, with claims phrased in the alternative.
The GPL isn't an EULA. It's a pure copyright license.
No, its a license to redistribute the software and to create and distribute derivative works.
It is not limited to whether the licensor's right to impose terms for those activities descends from copyright law; if the licensor holds patent or other rights that allowed it to control the same activities, it licenses those as well.
Using their argument, which you cited (Graham v James), would also imply that every newspaper and magazine that is published or sold, through a public venue, or nonexclusively, would also waive their right to sue for copyright infringement.
Nope. Graham v. Jones only holds that the rights under copyright which are the subject of the license cannot be the basis for a copyright suit based on breaches while the license was in effect. (The "nonexclusive" is only important because Graham v. Jones was applying reasoning that had already been applied to exclusive licenses, not because the principal was being restricted to "nonexclusive" licenses.)
That is, if I grant you a copyright license that allows you to redistribute my copyrighted work with certain restrictions, and you redistribute it but don't follow my restrictions, I am limited to seeking remedies for breach of contract, I can't seek remedies under copyright law.
Of course, certain kinds of breach may enable me to cancel the license, and then I may proceed against you with copyright claims for subsequent violations.
Similarly, if I enter into an agreement which allows you to redistribute my work unchanged under restrictive terms, but with no permission to make or distribute derivative works, I can still pursue a copyright claim against you for making and distributing derivative works, since you had no license for those at all.
If the grantee violates the GPL, the granter is NO LONGER granting redistribution rights, and the ex-grantee's continued redistribution falls back on standard copyright law.
"Automatic termination" clauses (like Section 4 of the GPL) are generally not, despite the wording in contracts, when they operate to the exclusive benefit of one party, generally held to actually effect an automatic termination, but rather to allow the benefited party, when they learn of the event, and affirmatively take action, to terminate the contract.
The issue is that the license and the license alone is what permits the redistribution of the copyrighted materials. If you breach the license/contract/whatever, then without it, you have copyright infringement.
No, you have breach of contract. The mere act of granting a license covering certain of the rights protected by copyright is a waiver of the right to sue the licensee for violations of those rights under copyright law; the licensor's remedies are restricted to those for breach of contract until and unless the license is legally terminated by the licensor. Breach does not generally terminate the license (and certainly does not terminate it retroactively), though it may allow the licensor to cancel the contract, and certainly allows the licensor to seek remedies for the breach of the contract.
The GPL states explicitly that all rights granted by it are recinded if the terms are violated. So it's pretty simple to demonstrate that the agreement is void.
To the extent that this is true at all (and I think that, in practice, such terms are interpreted as allowing rescission but not effecting an automatic rescission, though I'm not as certain on that point), it is easy to show that the license ended after the violation, Which still does not permit copyright action (as opposed to breach of contract) for the violation itself.
Further, the decision is based on whether the defendant could conclude that they maintained rights under the license, even though they had violated some terms.
In many states (and state law governs contract interpretation), there is a preference to find that terms are covenants rather than conditions, and the word "condition" in an agreement is not given very heavy weight in determining that. Rather, the natural relation of the promises is looked to. The structure of the GPL doesn't support any of the terms being conditions precedent to the license, it seems more likely that they would be held to be covenants that the licensee makes in exchange for the license to modify, redistribute, etc.
I'm not saying anything. The judge in Graham v. James , 144 F.3d 229, 236 (2d Cir. 1998) has said that a "copyright owner who grants a non-exclusive license to use his copyrighted material waives his right to sue the licensee for copyright infringement" where "non-exclusive" means third party redistribution.
That wasn't a novel decision, the idea that a license generally includes a covenant not to sue under the law forming the basis for the power which makes the license necessary is a fairly old one that's been the basis for patent decisions, etc., for some time. (And the principal isn't restricted to non-exclusive licenses, as shown by US Naval Institute v. Charter Communications, F.2d 692, 695 (2d Cir. 1991), cited in Graham v. Jones: "[A]n exclusive licensee of any of the rights comprised in the copyright, though it is capable of breaching the contractual obligations imposed on it by the license, cannot be liable for infringing the copyright rights conveyed to it.")
The importance of the holding has nothing to do, really, with "redistribution", it is simply this: so long as a license was not rescinded prior to the alleged breach, the only action the licensor has against the licensee for the breach of the terms of the license relating to the rights conveyed by the license is one for breach of contract, not one for violation of copyright.
The exact interpretation of the ruling, and the precedent it sets, is one that threatens the GPL.. why is it so hard for people to accept this.
Well, I'm not sure that that's true.
The judge wasn't thinking about the GPL when he decided this, so he didn't take the uniqueness of the GPL into account, but that means nothing.
The judge was applying established principles of law when he did it, which the GPL has no power to change, in any case.
His finding is a valid framework for building a defense against suit by a copyright owner who has used the GPL.
Only if they are improperly seeking a copyright remedy where the proper action is one for breach of contract.
Now, if the judge in this new case has any sense he'll through it out because he'll fully understand what the intention of the GPL is and that the GPL is adamently clear in this purpose, but he might not! If that happens, we're all screwed. So stop saying "is not" and think about it.
The purpose of the GPL doesn't change broader principles of law, in any case. The Free Software Foundation doesn't have the power to create law.
Slashdot Mirror
Wait, which is it: "He's a libertarian and objectivist" or "He's not a moron"? You can't have it both ways. Okay, I'm joking a little there, but...
Wait, you say he's a "salesman who got rich selling his company" and then you say he's "not a suit"? That's, um, well pretty common for a "suit". Indeed, most people would say that if your a salesman that got rich selling a company, and now own an NBA franchise, you are clearly a "suit".
Anyway, I think you are pretty crazy if you think most slashdotters want to be salesmen, whether of software or otherwise.
No.
Typically, microcode (as I understand it) implements a part of the instruction set in a processor, built on a smaller "kernel" of instructions implemented more directly.
Sure, when looking at the machine it is part of; from a development perspective, its like a conventional set of utilities written to run on the simpler machine represented by the core instructions of the processor that are implemented directly rather than through microcode. Now, clearly, since the microcode is within the processor and not rewritable, open-source microcode doesn't provide a means to let you "upgrade" a processor, it would be more useful in cutting down development time of a compatible or related processor, or perhaps in emulating the processor.
I disagree, since BIOS is software, that in the context it was being discussed hardware has to be "included in the discussion", and, at any rate, I think that in the phrase "open source system", the "open source", since it only has any meaning in regard to software, does explicitly designate the "system" as being software only.
Wrong. In the mid 1970s, Hubbert (who previously had accurately predicted the local peak of US oil production), predicted the global peak in 1995, although consumption drops that occurred in the interim changed that.
Of course, a peak isn't clear except in retrospect, and modern peak oil projections suggest it is near or recently past; but even a plateau in 24 years has the same kind of problems associated with peak oil.
While details about when vary between different predictions, the theory of peak oil (and it applies to peak X where X is any extracted, non-renewable resource) is simply that at some point a maximum rate of production will be reached and after that never exceeded. (And, as a common corollary, providing there are no adequate substitutes, that increases in demand after that point will lead to extreme increases in price in the long term rather than increases in quantity consumed, as the rate of production is a long-term limit on the rate of consumption.)
This report claims that after 24 years, an extraction plateau will be reached which will never be exceeded.
This reports idea is slightly different from that suggested by peak oil in that the "peak" in peak oil refers to the idea that production will actually fall at some rate, while this report suggests a plateau, but that doesn't really change the fundamental dynamic is that increasing demand for energy and other products of the oil industry (plastics, etc.) cannot, whether with a peak or a plateau (which is merely the "best-case" limit of a peak) be met with increased production, but instead higher prices.
While it certainly diverges sharply from the timeframe predictions of many peak oil theorists, it fundamentally confirms that principal problem envisioned by peak oil: a production limit that will be reached in a fairly short time.
(Of course, since the supply of oil is finite, unless the rate of extraction is lower than the rate at which geological processes create oil, it is clearly impossible for a plateau to hold in the longest term, so it seems unlikely that any "plateau" will be a long-term state rather than merely a transitional period before a decline.)
Microcode certainly has source code, which is the source code for software included in or with the hardware, but not source code for the hardware itself.
Microcode could be open sourced, but that wouldn't make the hardware itself open source.
This seems to presuppose that the word "system" cannot refer to things consisting entirely of "software", which is wrong.
A system consisting entirely of software can be open source, and is the only really literal meaning that the phrase "open source system" can have. If hardware designs had open-source-like IP licenses attached, it would be fair to call a system using such hardware an "open system" or, perhaps to be more clear, an "open-licensed system", but the rights to the hardware would not be to free access and modification of source code, so "open source" wouldn't be the right word.
Certainly true, though not relevant here as, again, US courts have, in fact, found that Microsoft is guilty of violating the provision of law at issue.
It states the exact equivalent, because a "monopoly" (in the sense that one can 'be' rather than 'have' a monopoly) is simply one who has succesfully monopolized trade.
Clearly. One is a noun, the other a verb, their meanings are, necessarily, different. Nevertheless, they are linked. Indeed, courts have interpreted Section 2 of Title 15 (which is also Section 2 of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act), which refers only to the verb "monopolize") creating an offense of "monopoly". See, for instance, US v. Grinnell, 384 US at 570-571:
No, they were found to have both committed the offense of "restraint of trade" (laid out in Section 1 of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act) and the offense of "monopoly" (laid out in Section 2 of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act). Being a monopoly, that is committing the offense of monopoly, is in fact illegal, and an offense separate and distinct from that of restraint of trade. Merely having monopoly power is not alone enough to commit the offense of monopoly, it is merely the actus reus of the crime. The mens rea, the deliberate or willful mental state, is also required, as is the connection between the mens rea and the actus reus.
Microsoft was, in fact, convicted of monopoly. Monopoly is prohibited by US law, separately and distinctly from "restraint of trade".
It wasn't like the 10 computers were all they could produce, its all they had planned to produce for this phase of testing.
Still, 10 million units in the hands of end users by the end of 2007 is probably optimistic.
"Hardware" doesn't have "source code", so long as the software is open source, that would be removing all the barriers to "open source" systems.
It wouldn't be the last barrier to "open" systems, which would require some analogus open regime for hardware, but it wouldn't be "open source".
That's not really relevant to the issue the grandparent was responding to, which was GGPs claim that it is impossible to be a convicted monopolist in the US since there was no US law against monopolies. GP successfully and completely rebutted that claim by demonstrating that there is, in fact, a law against monopolies in the US which can support such a conviction.
In point of fact, Microsoft was found to have violated, among others, the exact provision of law GP points to by US courst in the United States v. Microsoft case.
Of course, all that is somewhat tangential to the issue of the EU fines, since the EU is not bound by US law; Microsoft has separately been the subject of monopoly/antitrust action in the EU.
It is certainly a separate state in reality, as the granparent stated. A nation when distinguished from a state is a cultural entity, and insofar as Taiwanese consider themselves Chinese culturally, Chinese consider Taiwanese culturally, they share a common language and history, they are part of the same nation despite being part of separate de facto states. Now, its certainly true that since the split of the ROC and PRC into separate functional entities ruled by separate regimes, there has certainly also been some degree of divergence of culture and history and erosion of shared "Chinese" identity, and certainly one might validly debate whether or not they remain a common nation despite not being a common state, but that has nothing to do with foreign recognition, either de facto or de jure, of the separate political regimes.
Even if that's true, I have trouble feeling sorry for Microsoft, since their slap-on-the-wrist for illegally leveraging their US monopoly directly resulted from their connections to the incoming Republican administration in 2001.
Live by the sword, die by the sword.
Most governments give some agency the power to enforce judgements by ordering the seizure of property that is within their jurisdiction in order to satisfy the judgement: while that obviously applies to things like bank accounts held in banks subject to the government in question, and real estate, it also can extend to tangible personal property and to intangible personal property like, say, intellectual property.
If for purposes of EU law, the the EU itself was the copyright owner of all previously-published Microsoft software, or that Microsoft software was in the public domain, that would be a pretty serious penalty for Microsoft.
The EU is so against Microsoft because Microsoft is so against obeying the law in the EU.
No, its not. In order to license those actions, of course, a license must be (whatever else it may also be) a copyright license if the licensor holds copyright to the material. But those actions are not only protected under copyright, and therefore a license that license those actions without express restriction to copyright is not only a copyright license except where the only rights the licensor holds which would allow him to prohibit other people from taking those actions happen to be in copyright.
The GPL is a copyright license, but it is not only a copyright license, at least not as it is written (in practice, it is probably usually only a copyright license, because generally material is probably released by people whose only applicable rights are in copyright.)
Its in some sense analogous to a quitclaim deed in real estate, viewing the "actions" it addresses as the analogs of the physical plot of land in the real estate case: it doesn't say what rights the licensor has regarding the actions it addresses, merely that, subject to the restrictions in the license, the licensor promises not to prevent those actions.
For...what? Producing a general purpose computer? That's a lawsuit going nowhere.
Something that most people can't do unless they learned both at a young age, and that most Americans can't do period.
I'm not sure that analogy works the way you intended.
I don't get it: you link to science that shows that global warming currently occurring could, by changing systems that regulate temperature, lead to a "mini ice age" in Europe and ask "if global warming is real, shouldn't this information be debunked as false?"
That makse no sense: the information you are asking about refers to a regional consequence of global warming.
Um, no. I'm not familiar with those results, or whether they've been debunked, but they aren't really all that relevant: the warming trend stretches back about to the industrial revolution; whether true or not, short term fluctuations in solar output over a couple decades aren't really all that relevant, whether they are real or not.
Signs point to yes.
You seem to think that small global increases in temperature mean small local increases in temperature in all regions; that's not the case; if you understood the "mini ice age" article you posted, you would understand that.
Only if you consider that lots of low-lying areas that are among the most densely populated areas on the planted would be affected.
One concern with global warming is that it could result in a mass die-off of phytoplankton, photosynthetic marine life that both removes CO2 from the air and is the bottom of the marine food chain. So, bye-bye fish. And lots of oxygen. And hello positive feedback.
Sure, there are sources of climate change that we cannot control; insofar as the reinforce the dangerous effects of the ones we can, that makes it more imperative, not less, to control the factors we can control, like human-produced greenhouse gases.
Unless you are dragging a physical keyboard with you, that doesn't work during the transition phase, since you are then using a mislabelled keyboard (once you are fully proficient touch typist on the new layout, of course, it may be practical.)
And, of course, many people concerned with typing efficiency are clerical workers that actually have to sometimes work with typewriters still, which, well, aren't quite as easy to change.
(Plus, of course, that something can be done without admin rights doesn't mean that the average non-technical user is going to want to do it.)
Or just once, with claims phrased in the alternative.
No, its a license to redistribute the software and to create and distribute derivative works.
It is not limited to whether the licensor's right to impose terms for those activities descends from copyright law; if the licensor holds patent or other rights that allowed it to control the same activities, it licenses those as well.
Nope. Graham v. Jones only holds that the rights under copyright which are the subject of the license cannot be the basis for a copyright suit based on breaches while the license was in effect. (The "nonexclusive" is only important because Graham v. Jones was applying reasoning that had already been applied to exclusive licenses, not because the principal was being restricted to "nonexclusive" licenses.)
That is, if I grant you a copyright license that allows you to redistribute my copyrighted work with certain restrictions, and you redistribute it but don't follow my restrictions, I am limited to seeking remedies for breach of contract, I can't seek remedies under copyright law.
Of course, certain kinds of breach may enable me to cancel the license, and then I may proceed against you with copyright claims for subsequent violations.
Similarly, if I enter into an agreement which allows you to redistribute my work unchanged under restrictive terms, but with no permission to make or distribute derivative works, I can still pursue a copyright claim against you for making and distributing derivative works, since you had no license for those at all.
"Automatic termination" clauses (like Section 4 of the GPL) are generally not, despite the wording in contracts, when they operate to the exclusive benefit of one party, generally held to actually effect an automatic termination, but rather to allow the benefited party, when they learn of the event, and affirmatively take action, to terminate the contract.
No, you have breach of contract. The mere act of granting a license covering certain of the rights protected by copyright is a waiver of the right to sue the licensee for violations of those rights under copyright law; the licensor's remedies are restricted to those for breach of contract until and unless the license is legally terminated by the licensor. Breach does not generally terminate the license (and certainly does not terminate it retroactively), though it may allow the licensor to cancel the contract, and certainly allows the licensor to seek remedies for the breach of the contract.
To the extent that this is true at all (and I think that, in practice, such terms are interpreted as allowing rescission but not effecting an automatic rescission, though I'm not as certain on that point), it is easy to show that the license ended after the violation, Which still does not permit copyright action (as opposed to breach of contract) for the violation itself.
In many states (and state law governs contract interpretation), there is a preference to find that terms are covenants rather than conditions, and the word "condition" in an agreement is not given very heavy weight in determining that. Rather, the natural relation of the promises is looked to. The structure of the GPL doesn't support any of the terms being conditions precedent to the license, it seems more likely that they would be held to be covenants that the licensee makes in exchange for the license to modify, redistribute, etc.
That wasn't a novel decision, the idea that a license generally includes a covenant not to sue under the law forming the basis for the power which makes the license necessary is a fairly old one that's been the basis for patent decisions, etc., for some time. (And the principal isn't restricted to non-exclusive licenses, as shown by US Naval Institute v. Charter Communications, F.2d 692, 695 (2d Cir. 1991), cited in Graham v. Jones: "[A]n exclusive licensee of any of the rights comprised in the copyright, though it is capable of breaching the contractual obligations imposed on it by the license, cannot be liable for infringing the copyright rights conveyed to it.")
The importance of the holding has nothing to do, really, with "redistribution", it is simply this: so long as a license was not rescinded prior to the alleged breach, the only action the licensor has against the licensee for the breach of the terms of the license relating to the rights conveyed by the license is one for breach of contract, not one for violation of copyright.
Well, I'm not sure that that's true.
The judge was applying established principles of law when he did it, which the GPL has no power to change, in any case.
Only if they are improperly seeking a copyright remedy where the proper action is one for breach of contract.
The purpose of the GPL doesn't change broader principles of law, in any case. The Free Software Foundation doesn't have the power to create law.