"So you can imagine our surprise when we were informed by a lawyer that
we would be required to publish our source code for others to use. It
was brought to our attention that Linux is copyrighted under something
called the GPL, or the Gnu Protective License. Part of this license
states that any changes to the kernel are to be made freely available.
Unfortunately for us, this meant that the great deal of time and money
we spent "touching up" Linux to work for this investment firm would
now be available at no cost to our competitors."
Get a new lawyer, the GPL only requires you to release your source code when you distribute a modified copy of a covered work, and it only requires that the code be distributed to those who receive a copy of the modified work. So, unless you are in the habit of giving your touched up versions of the Linux kernel to competitors, you need not worry about your competitors seeing your changes.
"Furthermore, after reviewing this GPL our lawyers advised us that any
products compiled with GPL'ed tools - such as gcc - would also have to
its source code released. This was simply unacceptable."
Maybe it is time to find yourself a competent set of lawyers, who actually know what they are talking about. The output of gcc is not covered by the GPL, you can distribute it under any license you see fit. Case-in-point: FreeBSD is compiled using gcc, and distributed under the BSD license.
"Although we had planned for no one outside of this company to ever
use, let alone see the source code, we were now put in a difficult
position."
Yes, you are in the difficult position of paying incompetent lawyers to give you bad legal advice that costs you money. I have seen that scenario play out in the past, and the companies did not fair very well in the long run.
"We could either give away our hard work, or come up with
another solution. Although it was tough to do, there really was no
option: We had to rewrite the code, from scratch, for Windows 2000."
Your lawyers never even bothered to call up the Linux foundation and ask about the licensing "dilemma" you were in? When you were given the flatly wrong advice from your lawyers, did you ever think to call up the people you received Linux from and ask them about it? Did you even think to ask them if they were willing to license it in such a way that you would not have to release those changes (that they already did notwithstanding)?
What company do you work for? I see a great opportunity to make some money short selling.
"I think the biggest thing keeping Linux from being truly competitive
with Microsoft is this GPL. Its draconian requirements virtually
guarantee that no business will ever be able to use it."
This explains, of course, why Red Hat, Novell, Oracle, and IBM have made such enormous businesses out of GPL covered software. Which large companies do you consult for that are not already using Linux in some way?
I think you might be lying or trolling, though I am not really sure what the difference is.
"This License explicitly affirms your unlimited permission to run the unmodified Program."
The rest of the license details the conditions under which you may distribute copies of the work, but as with all software licenses, the GPL must give you permission to install and run the program in the first place.
Actually, copyrights are the basis of the GPL, RMS and the FSF have never denied this. The copyleft strategy is intended to reverse the normal manner in which copyrights are used, but copyrights still form the basis of the license. This is why the GPL carries legal weight, why it stands up in court, and why companies bother paying attention to it.
The only reason we have software licenses at all is copyright. Installing software requires at least one copy of the software to be made; thus, unlike a paper book, you must get the permission of the copyright holder to use their software even after you purchase (or otherwise obtain) a copy. The copyright holder can give you such permission with all sorts of restrictions, or without any restrictions at all (such was with the BSD license).
I am not saying that this system is ideal or that I support it, but it is the reality that we have to deal with.
"Only people hiding in shacks and never speaking to other humans are vulnerable to personalized misinformation."
That really depends on how well crafted the misinformation is. If every person was given exactly the information they needed to hear in order to gossip about whatever topic the powers behind the information want them to gossip about, the misinformation would work very well against people with a lot of friends. All that you would need is a detailed enough portfolio on everyone: habits, mannerisms, interests, etc...
Personally, I do not like the idea of my search and browsing habits being tracked by anyone, in any capacity. I cannot speak for whatever country you live in, but here in the USA, our government has a history of monitoring citizens without warrants and without concern for the constitution. Google have a massive database of our browsing habits is the last thing we need, given that the courts already declared that email stored on a third party server is not covered by the 4th amendment.
"I think US law, for better or for worse, is built upon giving individual rights to protect themselves"
The 21st century called, and apparently forgot to send you the past few years.
These days, US laws are centered around population control. Individual rights are meaningless; in fact, individuals are meaningless. Individuals are just the atoms of the population, and we need to keep removing a few atoms every so often to keep the rest of the population in line. The end purpose, of course, is to keep increasing the aggregate wealth of the population.
"He didn't ruin the life of the specific girl in the photos. But he incremented the download counter, giving that much more encouragement to the suppliers, letting them know the market was at least one person greater than otherwise."
On peer to peer networks, there are no meaningful download counters. Download counters do not create money for the people who produce these images. The FBI is wasting its resources looking for people who are downloading this material; they should be looking for the people who are supplying it. Get the producers, build a strong case against them, and show the world that we are putting the people who are harming kids in jail, rather than focusing on their audience while they continue to produce child pornography.
Even if zero people were actually viewing the images, the victim would still suffer with the belief that people are. Making child pornography illegal has no effect whatsoever on the victims of the crime, and jailing someone for 20 years for possession is no more productive.
I have to agree. I recently saw an article about a Canadian who was arrested for possessing child pornography and is facing a maximum sentence of 2 years, and is likely to see a reduced sentence.
I am also beginning to wonder if it might be time to rethink the units we use to express prison sentences. "Years" leads us to use deceptively small numbers; perhaps we would be better off using "days." This guy is hoping for a deal where he gets 1278 days in jail, instead of 7300.
"It isn't exactly the ISP's fault that those end users want the system to function in a way against which it is designed."
I would agree if the ISPs were honest about what how they built their network, but they continue to lie and then complain about people believing their lies. If an ISP designed its network with downloading in mind, and provides only the minimum upload capacity needed to facilitate such service, they should be very clear about that. It is not "unlimited Internet access," it is "Internet download service."
If they cannot market what they designed without lying to people, it is their fault, and as you said, they should redesign their product and sell what people actually want. The ISP lied, and that is where the blame stops. Nobody should be blamed for believing that their ISP is selling them the service that was advertised.
"We aren't getting the advertised bandwidth! Waaah!"
Yes, actually, false advertising is a problem. If an ISP tells me I can make unlimited use of my 10Mbps connection, I expect to be able to make unlimited use of it -- including sustaining 10Mbps or something reasonably close all day and all night. If such a level of service is impossible for an ISP to provide and remain profitable, why the hell are they advertising these plans?
If they are lying to consumers about the level of service they can provide, they should cover themselves by increasing the network capacity, or they should admit they lied, reduce the bandwidth they provide to users, and hope that nobody sues them over it. Kicking people off the network for trying to use what they paid for is not an appropriate response to overselling, and if the FCC had any spine they would kill the practice before it gets out of hand.
Why not just throttle them? Or limit the maximum bandwidth provided to a level that is less likely to allow one user to disrupt service for everyone else?
"If this doesn't scale, logically, up to the network at a whole, I'm not sure why."
Plenty of reasons why that won't scale up to the network as a whole. First and foremost, your ISP's network topology is a lot more effective for many users than the simple "star" topology most home router/switch combos give you. Beyond just the topology, the ISP uses better equipment that can cap bandwidth usage and dynamically shift priorities to maintain a minimum level of service for all users even in the presence of a very heavy user. The ISP also has much higher capacity links than what you have at home, and certainly more than the link they give you, and so even if there were a very poor topology and no switch level bandwidth management, it would be very difficult for a single user to severely diminish service for others.
I do not have any sympathy for ISPs when it comes to this issue. If they sell me broadband service and expect me to not use it, then they are supremely stupid, and retaliating against those users who actually make use of the bandwidth they are sold is just insulting. They oversold the bandwidth and they should suffer for it; blaming the users is just misguided.
We all know, of course, that private news networks never ever act on behalf of political candidates.
Oh, wait, Fox News did just that for more than a decade now.
The problem is not the government, it is people who fail to make their government work on their behalf. If the majority of Americans would wake up and realize that they still have a say in government affairs, we would have a trustworthy government that could create an unbiased, publicly funded news service.
So instead of going on about how terrible the government is and how any government program will turn America into the USSR, why not try to get some people together to retake control of the government?
Google cannot make money from within itself. They rely on having an outside world that people will search for and purchase products from, and if there were no brilliant people working for the world outside of Google, then Google would not have its current market, and certainly not its dominance in the search market. Google is not going to win by doing all the innovation on the web; Google wins when someone is looking for an innovative website, searches Google for it, and clicks on a sponsored research (which is hopefully what they were really looking for).
Do we have the right to use those frequencies, or will that "right" be managed by these database providers? That is a relevant question, at least in the Slashdot crowd where some people have the technical prowess needed to exercise that right.
Except that we are talking about trade. If you sell tangible goods to China, and the Chinese government does not respect its citizens rights, that does not mean there is a problem in terms of the trade balance. If you sell copyright contracts, you are relying on the Chinese government to respect your rights as guaranteed by America's laws -- much shakier ground to be on.
Slashdot Mirror
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildebeest
"So you can imagine our surprise when we were informed by a lawyer that we would be required to publish our source code for others to use. It was brought to our attention that Linux is copyrighted under something called the GPL, or the Gnu Protective License. Part of this license states that any changes to the kernel are to be made freely available. Unfortunately for us, this meant that the great deal of time and money we spent "touching up" Linux to work for this investment firm would now be available at no cost to our competitors."
Get a new lawyer, the GPL only requires you to release your source code when you distribute a modified copy of a covered work, and it only requires that the code be distributed to those who receive a copy of the modified work. So, unless you are in the habit of giving your touched up versions of the Linux kernel to competitors, you need not worry about your competitors seeing your changes.
"Furthermore, after reviewing this GPL our lawyers advised us that any products compiled with GPL'ed tools - such as gcc - would also have to its source code released. This was simply unacceptable."
Maybe it is time to find yourself a competent set of lawyers, who actually know what they are talking about. The output of gcc is not covered by the GPL, you can distribute it under any license you see fit. Case-in-point: FreeBSD is compiled using gcc, and distributed under the BSD license.
"Although we had planned for no one outside of this company to ever use, let alone see the source code, we were now put in a difficult position."
Yes, you are in the difficult position of paying incompetent lawyers to give you bad legal advice that costs you money. I have seen that scenario play out in the past, and the companies did not fair very well in the long run.
"We could either give away our hard work, or come up with another solution. Although it was tough to do, there really was no option: We had to rewrite the code, from scratch, for Windows 2000."
Your lawyers never even bothered to call up the Linux foundation and ask about the licensing "dilemma" you were in? When you were given the flatly wrong advice from your lawyers, did you ever think to call up the people you received Linux from and ask them about it? Did you even think to ask them if they were willing to license it in such a way that you would not have to release those changes (that they already did notwithstanding)?
What company do you work for? I see a great opportunity to make some money short selling.
"I think the biggest thing keeping Linux from being truly competitive with Microsoft is this GPL. Its draconian requirements virtually guarantee that no business will ever be able to use it."
This explains, of course, why Red Hat, Novell, Oracle, and IBM have made such enormous businesses out of GPL covered software. Which large companies do you consult for that are not already using Linux in some way?
I think you might be lying or trolling, though I am not really sure what the difference is.
Or, we can distribute our code under the GPL, and thus avoid these situations.
RTFGPL:
"This License explicitly affirms your unlimited permission to run the unmodified Program."
The rest of the license details the conditions under which you may distribute copies of the work, but as with all software licenses, the GPL must give you permission to install and run the program in the first place.
Actually, copyrights are the basis of the GPL, RMS and the FSF have never denied this. The copyleft strategy is intended to reverse the normal manner in which copyrights are used, but copyrights still form the basis of the license. This is why the GPL carries legal weight, why it stands up in court, and why companies bother paying attention to it.
The only reason we have software licenses at all is copyright. Installing software requires at least one copy of the software to be made; thus, unlike a paper book, you must get the permission of the copyright holder to use their software even after you purchase (or otherwise obtain) a copy. The copyright holder can give you such permission with all sorts of restrictions, or without any restrictions at all (such was with the BSD license).
I am not saying that this system is ideal or that I support it, but it is the reality that we have to deal with.
"Only people hiding in shacks and never speaking to other humans are vulnerable to personalized misinformation."
That really depends on how well crafted the misinformation is. If every person was given exactly the information they needed to hear in order to gossip about whatever topic the powers behind the information want them to gossip about, the misinformation would work very well against people with a lot of friends. All that you would need is a detailed enough portfolio on everyone: habits, mannerisms, interests, etc...
"Every once in a while a box will show up at my door: "You need this. We found it at an awesome price. You will be billed via Google Finance"."
I hope you are joking, because my creep-o-meter just went off the scale.
Personally, I do not like the idea of my search and browsing habits being tracked by anyone, in any capacity. I cannot speak for whatever country you live in, but here in the USA, our government has a history of monitoring citizens without warrants and without concern for the constitution. Google have a massive database of our browsing habits is the last thing we need, given that the courts already declared that email stored on a third party server is not covered by the 4th amendment.
"I think US law, for better or for worse, is built upon giving individual rights to protect themselves"
The 21st century called, and apparently forgot to send you the past few years.
These days, US laws are centered around population control. Individual rights are meaningless; in fact, individuals are meaningless. Individuals are just the atoms of the population, and we need to keep removing a few atoms every so often to keep the rest of the population in line. The end purpose, of course, is to keep increasing the aggregate wealth of the population.
Oops, sorry, I was thinking of China.
"He didn't ruin the life of the specific girl in the photos. But he incremented the download counter, giving that much more encouragement to the suppliers, letting them know the market was at least one person greater than otherwise."
On peer to peer networks, there are no meaningful download counters. Download counters do not create money for the people who produce these images. The FBI is wasting its resources looking for people who are downloading this material; they should be looking for the people who are supplying it. Get the producers, build a strong case against them, and show the world that we are putting the people who are harming kids in jail, rather than focusing on their audience while they continue to produce child pornography.
Should have been, "Making the possession of child pornography illegal..."
Even if zero people were actually viewing the images, the victim would still suffer with the belief that people are. Making child pornography illegal has no effect whatsoever on the victims of the crime, and jailing someone for 20 years for possession is no more productive.
I have to agree. I recently saw an article about a Canadian who was arrested for possessing child pornography and is facing a maximum sentence of 2 years, and is likely to see a reduced sentence.
I am also beginning to wonder if it might be time to rethink the units we use to express prison sentences. "Years" leads us to use deceptively small numbers; perhaps we would be better off using "days." This guy is hoping for a deal where he gets 1278 days in jail, instead of 7300.
"unless you're massively overselling."
Hammer, meet the head of the nail.
"It isn't exactly the ISP's fault that those end users want the system to function in a way against which it is designed."
I would agree if the ISPs were honest about what how they built their network, but they continue to lie and then complain about people believing their lies. If an ISP designed its network with downloading in mind, and provides only the minimum upload capacity needed to facilitate such service, they should be very clear about that. It is not "unlimited Internet access," it is "Internet download service."
If they cannot market what they designed without lying to people, it is their fault, and as you said, they should redesign their product and sell what people actually want. The ISP lied, and that is where the blame stops. Nobody should be blamed for believing that their ISP is selling them the service that was advertised.
"We aren't getting the advertised bandwidth! Waaah!"
Yes, actually, false advertising is a problem. If an ISP tells me I can make unlimited use of my 10Mbps connection, I expect to be able to make unlimited use of it -- including sustaining 10Mbps or something reasonably close all day and all night. If such a level of service is impossible for an ISP to provide and remain profitable, why the hell are they advertising these plans?
If they are lying to consumers about the level of service they can provide, they should cover themselves by increasing the network capacity, or they should admit they lied, reduce the bandwidth they provide to users, and hope that nobody sues them over it. Kicking people off the network for trying to use what they paid for is not an appropriate response to overselling, and if the FCC had any spine they would kill the practice before it gets out of hand.
Why not just throttle them? Or limit the maximum bandwidth provided to a level that is less likely to allow one user to disrupt service for everyone else?
"We'd all also like free gasoline so we can drive Humveees with 30 inch chrome wheels."
Speak for yourself.
"If this doesn't scale, logically, up to the network at a whole, I'm not sure why."
Plenty of reasons why that won't scale up to the network as a whole. First and foremost, your ISP's network topology is a lot more effective for many users than the simple "star" topology most home router/switch combos give you. Beyond just the topology, the ISP uses better equipment that can cap bandwidth usage and dynamically shift priorities to maintain a minimum level of service for all users even in the presence of a very heavy user. The ISP also has much higher capacity links than what you have at home, and certainly more than the link they give you, and so even if there were a very poor topology and no switch level bandwidth management, it would be very difficult for a single user to severely diminish service for others.
I do not have any sympathy for ISPs when it comes to this issue. If they sell me broadband service and expect me to not use it, then they are supremely stupid, and retaliating against those users who actually make use of the bandwidth they are sold is just insulting. They oversold the bandwidth and they should suffer for it; blaming the users is just misguided.
We all know, of course, that private news networks never ever act on behalf of political candidates.
Oh, wait, Fox News did just that for more than a decade now.
The problem is not the government, it is people who fail to make their government work on their behalf. If the majority of Americans would wake up and realize that they still have a say in government affairs, we would have a trustworthy government that could create an unbiased, publicly funded news service.
So instead of going on about how terrible the government is and how any government program will turn America into the USSR, why not try to get some people together to retake control of the government?
Can this order really be enforced? What country's laws is Wikipedia bound by?
Google cannot make money from within itself. They rely on having an outside world that people will search for and purchase products from, and if there were no brilliant people working for the world outside of Google, then Google would not have its current market, and certainly not its dominance in the search market. Google is not going to win by doing all the innovation on the web; Google wins when someone is looking for an innovative website, searches Google for it, and clicks on a sponsored research (which is hopefully what they were really looking for).
Do we have the right to use those frequencies, or will that "right" be managed by these database providers? That is a relevant question, at least in the Slashdot crowd where some people have the technical prowess needed to exercise that right.
Well, I guess we know where the opposition to this plan will come from...
Except that we are talking about trade. If you sell tangible goods to China, and the Chinese government does not respect its citizens rights, that does not mean there is a problem in terms of the trade balance. If you sell copyright contracts, you are relying on the Chinese government to respect your rights as guaranteed by America's laws -- much shakier ground to be on.