It actually radiates heat better if the surface isn't flat, because the surface area is increased. Sort of like the villi in your intestines, which increases the surface area for food absorption.
It's to convince marketing people that 1. there is a market of Linux users who use the OS for more than just servers, 2. that the market is large enough to support first rate games, and 3. that the publishers can make money supporting Linux
It's difficult to convince people of something when that something isn't true.
Just as we would not like someone to violate GPL, we cannot at the same time violate an analogous legal (BUT STUPID!) binding
Firstly it's not clear at all that MS's silly "read this and you agree to everything I say here" EULA is valid, especially when they're trying to claim that something publicly distributed on the web is also a trade secret (as I understand it, if you want something to remain a trade secret, you've to take reasonable steps to keep it secret).
Secondly, even if MS were legally right, they would be morally wrong. There's such a thing as civil disobedience. I believe it was John Stuart Mill who went to jail rather than pay taxes to support a war he believed was wrong. We can still win by placing moral pressure on MS, and refusing to back down.
Nah. They were just testing you. Sort of like hoping that everyone would back down if they said that it was already published and there was nothing that could be done.
If a product's source code is available but you have to pay a royalty for particular uses, it's not Open Source
Right, it's not "Open Source". It's "open source" - a figure of speech, which no one has a monopoly over. Give Peter Molyneux a break. As far as I'm concerned, he can say whatever he pleases, ESR be damned.
I attended a talk by Mark Yim at Stanford around last November. As I recall, there were still many problems with his transforming robots (nifty as the idea was). The biggest problem seemed to be power issues: in the video clip we saw, the robots had tethered power supplies - the motors in the robots were too energy draining for (reasonably-sized) batteries to be used. Have these problems been solved yet?
No, it doesn't constitute assent -- it constitutes copyright infringement.
So how does one distinguish between the two cases, one where the person redistributing the software has agreed to all the terms of the GPL (incl. losing your right to warranty), and the other where he has not?
There was no explicit assent. The copyright owner is free to sue in both cases. The redistributor has a sword hanging over his head.
Even if you do get your GPLed software in a commercially-packaged GNU/Linux distribution, you are not entering contract with the individual authors of the software, but with the distributor.
What if the person selling you the software is the author of the software?
And the distributor can disclaim that warranty by specifying other terms to the contract -- which the Washington case under discussion holds that it can do via a shrink-wrap agreement.
Well this is my point. The GPL is a contract, or in other words, a shrink-wrap agreement.
You'll note that you don't have to click on the GPL in order to be bound by its terms when you redistribute GPLed software. Why? Because the GPL is not a contract. The GPL is solely a license. In fact, the GPL clearly states that you do not have to "agree to" it; if you don't want to obey its terms, that's fine -- but if you do disobey its terms when distributing GPLed software, that distribution is a violation of copyright. You may obey the GPL's provisions when redistributing GPLed software, in which case you are within your rights, or you may violate its provisions when distributing GPLed software, in which case you are breaking the law.
No, because GPL tries to take away your right to a warranty. There is a give and take, so GPL is in fact a contract, and not just a license or a purely right granting document. Since GPL is a contract, assent by both parties is needed. How does the user express assent? Does the act of redistributing the software constitute assent - and hence losing the right to a warranty? Dubious.
However, dynamic linking works completely differently! When a program is dynamically linked to a library, some information is placed in the resulting executable as to what library files need to be accessed. No portion of the library code is placed in the executable image. Why is that creating a derived work from the library?
GPL is only in place *because* of copyright/patent/IP laws.
If it were a free world, we'd all copy and modify and distribute -- and everyone would have more of every piece of intellectual property.
In a world without copyrights, everything would be public domain. You could modify and redistribute, without having to give the source away. There would be no way to enforce the conduct required by the GPL, and everyone would have less of every piece of creative work since there would be less incentive to create in the first place.
Your own, I presume. So if you were running Napster, you would honor requests for blocking listings. Fine. Of course, other people will not necessarily have the same set of morals as you do. I have no problems with people who think that what Napster does in morally repugnant. I do have problems with people who think that because they believe so, everybody else should act according to their beliefs.
So according to you, all morality is relative. There's no room for a discussion of ethics. Everyone do as you please. If I kill and rape*, that's merely because my beliefs differ from yours.
Certainly I do not, and should not, be able to enforce my moral values on you. That's something for a court of law to decide. I can, however, make an argument for a certain course of action.
*I'm not suggesting here that music piracy is at the same level as murder. I'm just pointing out the problems with moral relativism.
Out of courtesy? That's a bit too much to ask. Out of a moral sense?... Because it legally has to? Well, that's the question being asked right now.
Slashdot isn't a court. Slashdot readers don't have the knowledge or authority to decide on legal issues. I can only speak from a moral point of view, that from what I see, Napster's refusal to stop listing songs at the request of the copyright owner, are wrong and unreasonable.
So, on the basis of a filename you are willing to make conclusions whether copying the contents is a copyright violation?
If the filename contains "metallica" and "the name of some metallica song", then I can say with 99.9% certainty that a Metallica song is being traded. So yes, I'm willing to come to that conclusion.
What the copyright owner asked (and Napster refused to do) is "Please stop listing my songs." A simple and perfectly reasonable request, no?
And I still don't see what Napster is guilty of
Napster may not be "guilty" of anything. But a very good case can be made that Napster should stop listing songs upon request by the copyright owner.
You mean ftp, right? We should all go and sue everybody whose code ever got into any ftp software. Or maybe you mean Usenet?
No, that would be unreasonable. We should instead sue the people who run ftp warez servers.
Your comparison of Napster to ftp software is ridiculous. Napster doesn't just supply code. Napster plays an active role in the trading of mp3s: the filenames are listed on their servers, and it would be a simple thing for Napster to take minimal steps to block the listing of certain files on request by musicians; a filter would not be perfect, but it would be a step, but they have arrogantly refused to take even this step.
Not surprising, if you just think about what Napster's motivations are: they know, as well as you do, that Napster has been immensely popular because it makes it easy to pirate copyrighted music. I admit, I download music through Napster too, but I don't kid myself into thinking that I have a right to take without permission.
If you think Metallica is doing themselves a diservice by suing Napster, then let them do themselves a disservice. Fans will boycott them, people will hate them, and Metallica will die. And good riddance. But if they prefer this course over having their music distributed through Napster, then so be it.
The qualifications (and I took a *real* good look at them, I really want to go!) are a bit unusual - in that they require SAT scores. I miss by 50 points, but isn't that exactly the attitude that you're trying to escape - that you need a standardized test to determine intellegence, that you need cash to determine eligibility? Or am I reading too much into the program?
Yes,it's very problematic I think. It's one thing to require SAT and GRE scores, it's another to set hard SAT and GRE score thresholds (1400 for SAT, 2100 for GRE).
No college that I know of has hard SAT and GRE thresholds. In fact, (the last I checked) MIT's EECS department doesn't even require GRE scores for their Masters program.
We may differing over what "clear and compelling" means. In my mind, this means establishing beyond doubt that an environmental catastrophe will in fact occur. I think this is taking it too far - when the evidence is that clear and compelling, it seems likely that great damage will have already been done. You may have a weaker definition of clear and compelling, so we may in fact agree.
I only buy insurance when it's clear and compelling that there is a risk that it covers. . I suppose you buy insurance against alien abduction (you can!) and other unlikely events?
When you buy insurance, you insure yourself against what are statistically unlikely events. e.g. an auto accident, a fire, etc. You expected gain is negative -- otherwise insurance companies wouldn't be making any money. However, your expected utility is positive -- a catastrophic accident will hurt you much more than than paying a small amount every month.
This is the approach I think we should be taking with regard to possible environmental catastrophes. If a substantial risk exists, it will be foolish not to take action now to insure ourselves. Of course, the amount of action to take has to be carefully considered.
We must not take steps to fix environmental problems before there is clear and compelling scientific evidence
Unfortunately what is "clear and compelling" is entirely viewer dependent, and in an issue as heavily politicized as this, biases come heavily into play.
Another problem with "clear and compelling": The total disappearance of the ozone layer would count as "clear and compelling" evidence. The problem with this is that it would be too late to do anything by then.
We don't just need "clear and compelling" evidence. People buy insurance against unlikely but catastrophic events. If there is even a reasonable risk of an environmental catastrophe, we need to act appropriately to insure ourselves against this.
Slashdot Mirror
It actually radiates heat better if the surface isn't flat, because the surface area is increased. Sort of like the villi in your intestines, which increases the surface area for food absorption.
It's to convince marketing people that 1. there is a market of Linux users who use the OS for more than just servers, 2. that the market is large enough to support first rate games, and 3. that the publishers can make money supporting Linux
It's difficult to convince people of something when that something isn't true.
Just as we would not like someone to violate GPL, we cannot at the same time violate an analogous legal (BUT STUPID!) binding
Firstly it's not clear at all that MS's silly "read this and you agree to everything I say here" EULA is valid, especially when they're trying to claim that something publicly distributed on the web is also a trade secret (as I understand it, if you want something to remain a trade secret, you've to take reasonable steps to keep it secret).
Secondly, even if MS were legally right, they would be morally wrong. There's such a thing as civil disobedience. I believe it was John Stuart Mill who went to jail rather than pay taxes to support a war he believed was wrong. We can still win by placing moral pressure on MS, and refusing to back down.
Nah. They were just testing you. Sort of like hoping that everyone would back down if they said that it was already published and there was nothing that could be done.
If a product's source code is available but you have to pay a royalty for particular uses, it's not Open Source
Right, it's not "Open Source". It's "open source" - a figure of speech, which no one has a monopoly over. Give Peter Molyneux a break. As far as I'm concerned, he can say whatever he pleases, ESR be damned.
If you assign the copyright the FSF, what happens if you want to reuse the code you wrote in a non-GPLed program?
I attended a talk by Mark Yim at Stanford around last November. As I recall, there were still many problems with his transforming robots (nifty as the idea was). The biggest problem seemed to be power issues: in the video clip we saw, the robots had tethered power supplies - the motors in the robots were too energy draining for (reasonably-sized) batteries to be used. Have these problems been solved yet?
No, it doesn't constitute assent -- it constitutes copyright infringement.
So how does one distinguish between the two cases, one where the person redistributing the software has agreed to all the terms of the GPL (incl. losing your right to warranty), and the other where he has not?
There was no explicit assent. The copyright owner is free to sue in both cases. The redistributor has a sword hanging over his head.
Even if you do get your GPLed software in a commercially-packaged GNU/Linux distribution, you are not entering contract with the individual authors of the software, but with the distributor.
What if the person selling you the software is the author of the software?
And the distributor can disclaim that warranty by specifying other terms to the contract -- which the Washington case under discussion holds that it can do via a shrink-wrap agreement.
Well this is my point. The GPL is a contract, or in other words, a shrink-wrap agreement.
You'll note that you don't have to click on the GPL in order to be bound by its terms when you redistribute GPLed software. Why? Because the GPL is not a contract. The GPL is solely a license. In fact, the GPL clearly states that you do not have to "agree to" it; if you don't want to obey its terms, that's fine -- but if you do disobey its terms when distributing GPLed software, that distribution is a violation of copyright. You may obey the GPL's provisions when redistributing GPLed software, in which case you are within your rights, or you may violate its provisions when distributing GPLed software, in which case you are breaking the law.
No, because GPL tries to take away your right to a warranty. There is a give and take, so GPL is in fact a contract, and not just a license or a purely right granting document. Since GPL is a contract, assent by both parties is needed. How does the user express assent? Does the act of redistributing the software constitute assent - and hence losing the right to a warranty? Dubious.
However, dynamic linking works completely differently! When a program is dynamically linked to a library, some information is placed in the resulting executable as to what library files need to be accessed. No portion of the library code is placed in the executable image. Why is that creating a derived work from the library?
It isn't. It's just wishful thinking.
Commercial software should be liable.
What about free software for which you pay money for?
Slashdot needs the speed, but not the performance; critical applications need the reliability, and are prepared to sacrifice performance. Easy.
But Slashdot has neither speed nor reliability.
You may not read this post unless you agree to pay me 1 billion dollars and give me your first born son's left nut.
Is this valid? No? Then neither is MS's "you must agree before you read" clause.
I advise you to consult with your lawyer first before pursuing the above course of action.
GPL is only in place *because* of copyright/patent/IP laws.
If it were a free world, we'd all copy and modify and distribute -- and everyone would have more of every piece of intellectual property.
In a world without copyrights, everything would be public domain. You could modify and redistribute, without having to give the source away. There would be no way to enforce the conduct required by the GPL, and everyone would have less of every piece of creative work since there would be less incentive to create in the first place.
Note to idiot moderators: Flamebait != Post you disagree with.
Your own, I presume. So if you were running Napster, you would honor requests for blocking listings. Fine. Of course, other people will not necessarily have the same set of morals as you do. I have no problems with people who think that what Napster does in morally repugnant. I do have problems with people who think that because they believe so, everybody else should act according to their beliefs.
So according to you, all morality is relative. There's no room for a discussion of ethics. Everyone do as you please. If I kill and rape*, that's merely because my beliefs differ from yours.
Certainly I do not, and should not, be able to enforce my moral values on you. That's something for a court of law to decide. I can, however, make an argument for a certain course of action.
*I'm not suggesting here that music piracy is at the same level as murder. I'm just pointing out the problems with moral relativism.
Out of courtesy? That's a bit too much to ask. Out of a moral sense? ... Because it legally has to? Well, that's the question being asked right now.
Slashdot isn't a court. Slashdot readers don't have the knowledge or authority to decide on legal issues. I can only speak from a moral point of view, that from what I see, Napster's refusal to stop listing songs at the request of the copyright owner, are wrong and unreasonable.
So, on the basis of a filename you are willing to make conclusions whether copying the contents is a copyright violation?
If the filename contains "metallica" and "the name of some metallica song", then I can say with 99.9% certainty that a Metallica song is being traded. So yes, I'm willing to come to that conclusion.
What the copyright owner asked (and Napster refused to do) is "Please stop listing my songs." A simple and perfectly reasonable request, no?
And I still don't see what Napster is guilty of
Napster may not be "guilty" of anything. But a very good case can be made that Napster should stop listing songs upon request by the copyright owner.
You mean ftp, right? We should all go and sue everybody whose code ever got into any ftp software. Or maybe you mean Usenet?
No, that would be unreasonable. We should instead sue the people who run ftp warez servers.
Your comparison of Napster to ftp software is ridiculous. Napster doesn't just supply code. Napster plays an active role in the trading of mp3s: the filenames are listed on their servers, and it would be a simple thing for Napster to take minimal steps to block the listing of certain files on request by musicians; a filter would not be perfect, but it would be a step, but they have arrogantly refused to take even this step.
Not surprising, if you just think about what Napster's motivations are: they know, as well as you do, that Napster has been immensely popular because it makes it easy to pirate copyrighted music. I admit, I download music through Napster too, but I don't kid myself into thinking that I have a right to take without permission.
If you think Metallica is doing themselves a diservice by suing Napster, then let them do themselves a disservice. Fans will boycott them, people will hate them, and Metallica will die. And good riddance. But if they prefer this course over having their music distributed through Napster, then so be it.
The qualifications (and I took a *real* good look at them, I really want to go!) are a bit unusual - in that they require SAT scores. I miss by 50 points, but isn't that exactly the attitude that you're trying to escape - that you need a standardized test to determine intellegence, that you need cash to determine eligibility? Or am I reading too much into the program?
Yes,it's very problematic I think. It's one thing to require SAT and GRE scores, it's another to set hard SAT and GRE score thresholds (1400 for SAT, 2100 for GRE).
No college that I know of has hard SAT and GRE thresholds. In fact, (the last I checked) MIT's EECS department doesn't even require GRE scores for their Masters program.
====
We may differing over what "clear and compelling" means. In my mind, this means establishing beyond doubt that an environmental catastrophe will in fact occur. I think this is taking it too far - when the evidence is that clear and compelling, it seems likely that great damage will have already been done. You may have a weaker definition of clear and compelling, so we may in fact agree.
I only buy insurance when it's clear and compelling that there is a risk that it covers. . I suppose you buy insurance against alien abduction (you can!) and other unlikely events?
When you buy insurance, you insure yourself against what are statistically unlikely events. e.g. an auto accident, a fire, etc. You expected gain is negative -- otherwise insurance companies wouldn't be making any money. However, your expected utility is positive -- a catastrophic accident will hurt you much more than than paying a small amount every month.
This is the approach I think we should be taking with regard to possible environmental catastrophes. If a substantial risk exists, it will be foolish not to take action now to insure ourselves. Of course, the amount of action to take has to be carefully considered.
====
We must not take steps to fix environmental problems before there is clear and compelling scientific evidence
Unfortunately what is "clear and compelling" is entirely viewer dependent, and in an issue as heavily politicized as this, biases come heavily into play.
Another problem with "clear and compelling": The total disappearance of the ozone layer would count as "clear and compelling" evidence. The problem with this is that it would be too late to do anything by then.
We don't just need "clear and compelling" evidence. People buy insurance against unlikely but catastrophic events. If there is even a reasonable risk of an environmental catastrophe, we need to act appropriately to insure ourselves against this.
====
What legitimate science are we refering to here?
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