It being hard to show that GPL code was used is only a reason up until it is found. Then companies, like KISS, that get busted start banging on about how the GPL has never been tested in court. This lasts until they get actual legal advice and then it goes something like this.
If you lose the court case and the GPL is upheld then you have to either withdraw the product and/or release all of the source code.
If you win the courte case and the GPL is found to be unenforcable then standard copyright takes over. In which case you've distributed copyrighted code without a valid licence and you'll get sued for damages. This outcome is the less likely of the two and would be challanged by every software company in the world (as it would probably make pretty much all software licences uneforcable).
So if you challenge the GPL in court you have the possible outcomes of loosing or loosing worse. Not a really appealing set of options that.
You would think they would be a little bit more understanding of those of us running "alternative" OSes.
You make the mistake a lot of people do with regards to Apple. Through expensive ad campains Apple have managed to implant this image of a cool, hip, happening, free thinking company.
In actual fact they are the very picture of an evil corporation. They are just as bad as MS or IBM in it's day but they got the crap kicked out of them. Rather than learning from this (as IBM and SGI seem to) they've gone the cynical, rationalist way.
A patent attorney is not a lawyer either. To be a patent attorney you must be an engineer and then do a patent attorney degree type course. No law degree is required.
RedHat gives you Fedora for free. They sink lots of resources into working on Fedora, not to mention bandwidth for hosting, mailing lists, etc.
RH give you Fedora free now. RH has made their intentions on the desktop front quite clear to the point of sabotaging the whole linux on a desktop movement. It would be relatively trivial to slowly starve fedora to death over the next couple of years. This could happen especially quickly if the maintainers of Fedora start going in a direction that RH doesn't like (ie the aformentioned desktop area).
The fact that Szulik answered these questions himself bother me more that if some PR flack had written them for him. It appears as though the PR flack is now completely superfluious. He's quite capable of avoiding the question and telling half truths all by himself now.
1. First they ignore you.
2. Then they laugh at you.
3. Then they say it's a toy OS.
4. Then they say it's great.
5. Then they change their minds again.
6. Then they write it off as crap somemore.
7. Then they realise their market share is going down harder and faster than New Zealand in a World Cup semi final.
8. Then they team up with an unethical has been company in an attempt damage you.
9. Then they bite the bullet and rip off somebody elses distro.
10. Then they proclaim they are the shining light of the OS and all should follow them.
If one guy at the Apple support was in a bad mood and trash talked a customer, you immediately have a story on the front page: "Apple says 'Fuck You' To All Customers".
That's the wonderful thing about the internet. It's possible for one person to make a big deal about things. If apple aren't willing to train their first level support staff to behave themselves and treat customers with respect then they earn a shitload of bad publicity.
The range of hardware that Windows runs on using MS drivers is, well almost nothing. The range of architectures that it runs on? Well one with another one (maybe two) in the near future.
If you're going to be a MS fanboy then it's generally accepted that you pick the good features of Windows, not it's glaring deficiencies.
The chips have fallen below a price where they're cheap enough to put into everything except the ultra low cost price bracket. Whether or not it's actually useful is a different matter and will be told by it actually being around in the next 5 years.
And we all know what up to the minute, industry aware fast movers lecturers are and how they managed to bypass their obvious talent and business nouse to end up teaching these snot nosed students they all despise.
But you do have to make the decision not to vote for anyone. The law states you must turn up, get your name ticked off, take a ballot paper and despose of it correctly (ie, put it in the ballot box). What you do between steps four and five is entirely up to you.
Red Hat is transitioning their free distribution to the same model. Red Hat will pay their employees to maintain and package their code.
Red Hat is not transitioning it to anything like Debian. Debian has always been by the community, for the community. It has a constitution, elections and most importantly no hidden agenda. Fedora on the other hand is just a seeding system for Red Hat Enterprise Edition. The higher ups at RH know very well that without a free version of their distro their payed for version will last about 12 minutes. Rather than paying people to develop a free version they are getting other to do it for free. Don't doubt RH will remain in ultimate control of this distro and it will go where they want it to go.
This isn't wrong (hell it's good business practice) but do not mistake it for something that it's not.
Because this same thing was done accidently in Australia a couple of years ago. The goal was to sterilise the mice using a modified mouse pox virus but they ended up with 100% casualities.
Slashdot Mirror
(not America) stuff like that actually matters.
1) Yes, I knew that.
2) I only read slashdot to karma whore.
3) I've heard Cowboy Neal has a longer pipeline
If you lose the court case and the GPL is upheld then you have to either withdraw the product and/or release all of the source code.
If you win the courte case and the GPL is found to be unenforcable then standard copyright takes over. In which case you've distributed copyrighted code without a valid licence and you'll get sued for damages. This outcome is the less likely of the two and would be challanged by every software company in the world (as it would probably make pretty much all software licences uneforcable).
So if you challenge the GPL in court you have the possible outcomes of loosing or loosing worse. Not a really appealing set of options that.
Make the money out of something else like plastic
Seeing as we have plastic money with see through bits. You know, sensible copying protection rather than relying on dumb arse protection.
Either that or NASA wants in on some anti-terrorism funding.
In actual fact they are the very picture of an evil corporation. They are just as bad as MS or IBM in it's day but they got the crap kicked out of them. Rather than learning from this (as IBM and SGI seem to) they've gone the cynical, rationalist way.
Expect Apple to sue or get DVD Jon imprisoned.
And that's an amazing piece of karma whoring (as Spike said in Buffy, "Is everyone here really stoned?")
Still pissed about loosing the rugby.
A patent attorney is not a lawyer either. To be a patent attorney you must be an engineer and then do a patent attorney degree type course. No law degree is required.
The fact that Szulik answered these questions himself bother me more that if some PR flack had written them for him. It appears as though the PR flack is now completely superfluious. He's quite capable of avoiding the question and telling half truths all by himself now.
1. First they ignore you.
2. Then they laugh at you.
3. Then they say it's a toy OS.
4. Then they say it's great.
5. Then they change their minds again.
6. Then they write it off as crap somemore.
7. Then they realise their market share is going down harder and faster than New Zealand in a World Cup semi final.
8. Then they team up with an unethical has been company in an attempt damage you.
9. Then they bite the bullet and rip off somebody elses distro.
10. Then they proclaim they are the shining light of the OS and all should follow them.
If you're going to be a MS fanboy then it's generally accepted that you pick the good features of Windows, not it's glaring deficiencies.
The chips have fallen below a price where they're cheap enough to put into everything except the ultra low cost price bracket. Whether or not it's actually useful is a different matter and will be told by it actually being around in the next 5 years.
And we all know what up to the minute, industry aware fast movers lecturers are and how they managed to bypass their obvious talent and business nouse to end up teaching these snot nosed students they all despise.
Dubya: Ok, tomorrow we start dropping the bombs if the demands are not met.
General: Sir! We just got the news in! The GNU-Darwin distribution has taken down its website!
Dubya: Darwin? Isn't that is Austria with all the Kargaroos? They said they were on our side!
But you do have to make the decision not to vote for anyone. The law states you must turn up, get your name ticked off, take a ballot paper and despose of it correctly (ie, put it in the ballot box). What you do between steps four and five is entirely up to you.
This isn't wrong (hell it's good business practice) but do not mistake it for something that it's not.
I present as evidence, everyone who has ever been on Jerry Springer.
I think the phrase you are looking for is "What bank?"
Because this same thing was done accidently in Australia a couple of years ago. The goal was to sterilise the mice using a modified mouse pox virus but they ended up with 100% casualities.
When Sun stops supporting SCO and trying to issue smackdown to linux at every oppertunity.