Slashback: Disputes, Clones, Audio 343
Needed: One referee. Quixotic1 writes "A small company I work for has discovered that a domain name has been registered with their U.S.-trademarked (since 1980) name. Requests to the owner of the site (a U.S. citizen) have gone unanswered, so we're now moving on to filing an ICANN dispute. There was a query last week about inexpensive alternatives to the $1000+ UDRP arbiters. The discussion ended up revolving around whether the author had a valid claim or not, but I'd still like to know -- are there inexpensive alternatives?"
I bet there's money to be made if someone can come up with cheaper means of settling such disputes.
Store in the ammunition box. leonbrooks writes "Recently, images from a presentation by Microsoft Belgium were published on the web. The presentation made some startling (for Microsoft) concessions to Open Source, then set about FUDding the GPL into the ground. I whacked together a point-by-point answer to the anti-GPL FUD. Happy linking ..."
Tithe 10 percent. Luke Francl writes "Inspired by Lawrence Lessig's OSCON remarks, Lessig's Challenge is a way for people concerned by the attempts by the entertainment industry to close off the net to fight back. The challenge is to spend more on those who fight for the open network than you do on its enemies. Since it appeared on Slashdot last month, 10 people have joined me and we've raised over $2300 for good causes (organizations like the EFF, the ACLU, the FSF, along with free software/open source programmers and online artists). And that's just the ones I know about! Cory Doctorow wrote to tell me that many people were inspired by the challenge to join the EFF. ... Check out the list of suggested recipients."
Like obsidian, and coal, and dirt ... salimfadhley writes "Today BBC Radio 4 began serialising Phillip Pullman's popular "Dark Materials" trilogy. The beeb will be broadcasting one episode per week, with a RA stream of the latest episode that can be found on the promotional site. You can find "The Golden Compass" (called "Northern Lights" in Europe) on the website now. This stream will be replaced with episode 2 next Saturday.
The Dark Materials series was originally intended as children's fiction, however owing to excellent storytelling and a significantly darker theme than Harry Potter, has done rather well in U.S. and UK adult market.
The central premise of the series is that God is evil, a celestial impostor who pretends to have created the universe and who so intensely hates flesh and blood that he wants people to live a repressed, joyless existence. Unsurprisingly this theme has upset fundamentalist Christians."
Unfamiliar? Read the Slashdot review of the trilogy.
The clones I meet are mostly in pairs. PizzaFace writes "The Washington Post reports that the Raelian clone claim echoes a hoax of 25 years ago. And while we have better technology now for testing the claim quickly, there is still room for deception, and some people don't trust the science (and pseudoscience) reporter the Raelians appointed to test their claim."
Regarding the domain name (Score:5, Insightful)
Arbitration solution. (Score:5, Insightful)
> "A small company I work for has discovered that a domain name has been registered with their U.S.-trademarked (since 1980) name. Requests to the owner of the site (a U.S. citizen) have gone unanswered, so we're now moving on to filing an ICANN dispute. There was a query last week about inexpensive alternatives to the $1000+ UDRP arbiters. The discussion ended up revolving around whether the author had a valid claim or not, but I'd still like to know -- are there inexpensive alternatives?"
Here's a cheap, effective solution: deal with it. The current owner has as much right to it as you do (or more, since ownership is 9/10 of the law).
Try
"Viral" GPL FUD. (Score:5, Insightful)
[from the link:] > Known in the OSS community as a "viral" licence.
As the author points out, and as others of us have stated repeatedly: the GPL isn't viral, it's recursive. I've got lots of non-GPL software on my home system, and none of it has ever "caught" the GPL.
The simple rule is: if A is GPL'd and B is derived from A, then B is GPL'd. The rule is "recursive" or "transitive", but not "viral". The OSS community would do itself a favor to quit calling it "viral". (Though in fact the term seems to be more common among complainers than among GPLers, despite what the quoted MS document says.)
Hint to Microsoft: if you don't want to GPL your software, don't derive it from GPL'd software. It's as simple as that -- at least for people who aren't being obtuse willfully.
Re:Regarding the domain name (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed. As long as they aren't using the domain name with specific intent to dilute your trademark, you're pretty much SOL (or should be) with regard to getting the domain name from them. They got it first, so it's theirs.
Re:Arbitration solution. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:"Viral" GPL FUD. (Score:4, Insightful)
Neither of your suggestions work. "Recursive" would mean that the GPL is explained in terms of the GPL. It is not. Transitivity is a property of relations as in: "if a is related to b and b is related to c then a is related to c". Since the GPL is not a relation it cannot be transitive.
If you want to use a scientific analogy I suggest "dominant": If a program combines GPL'd code with other code, then the entire program is GPL'd.
Re:blizzard job (Score:2, Insightful)
I dunno about that. Lots of people round here have misplaced hatred for Blizzard.
As for your off-topic moderation, I'm a little annoyed by that. I mean seriously, where are you supposed to post about something you just saw? I wonder if the guy who posted "oh shit! A plane just hit the WTC!" got modded down because he was in the "See, we told you guys MS was evil" article.
Oh well, I'll get modded down too. Yay.
Re:Arbitration solution. (Score:2, Insightful)
--me naked? [slashdot.org]
I am going to get slammed, BUT... (Score:3, Insightful)
The GPL has some serious issues. While Linux has been progressing nicely and people have been making money, who is paying the developer?
At the beginning of 2002 I had a BOF at a conference and the topic was Open Source. It was well attended about 40 people, considering it was late at night. But we discussed the issue for a couple of hours. And the conclusion we came on is that Open Source is good for everybody, but the developer.
Open Source is good for the consultant, good for the book author of "professional" books, good for hardware manufacturers, etc. But licenses like the GPL are not good for the developers who actually write the code. Those people cannot get paid what they are due. This is what closed source did.
And we concluded that Open Source can continue so long as as investment is made into the Open Source. But when people cut corners they so easily say, "Ah let the other person take care of that". Basically Open Source promotes takers and not givers. The original Open Source die hards are givers. But the Open Sourcers today are takers. Look at Mandrake, for an example of the problems...
While I hate to admit it, an Open Source tax should be introduced. Without a base investment long term OSS will have issues.....
Ok I am optmistic and think it will work out....
Re:I am going to get slammed, BUT... (Score:3, Insightful)
Banks will stop paying developers to make there changes?
yeah, if you want to make money writing the Linux kernel, your going to have a hard time.
You say look at mandrake, I say look at red hat. perhaps mandrake has other problems besides using OSS?
A little Alanis please... (Score:5, Insightful)
How damnably ironic can Timothy be (without trying to be)? The whole point of the $1000 fee is that there's money to be made. You know how much money? Right about $1000, minus expenses. *sigh*
The reality is, the $1000 fee goes towards two main purposes, neither of which is profit. The first is to cover a relatively expensive process (yes, flame on, I know that you would arbitrate and manage claims for free). The second reason is to provide a barrier to entry. "Barrier to entry" sounds evil to most knee-jerk thinkers, but this one is a good barrier. Trust me, I would file claims against every company I didn't like in the world if the fee was only $1. I would have fun with the system. So would everyone else. The $1000 price tag makes me think a bit more before I challenge for a domain name that is "rightfully" mine.
Re:Media a semi-willing participant in clone fraud (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want truth, facts and knowledge, you go to non-profit organizations, public broadcasting and "alternative" media. Don't watch Crossfire. Don't watch Connie Chung. Don't watch NBC, CBS or ABC. And for God's sake, don't even think about watching Fox News. Those are entertainment news programs.
I will say one thing, though. Print media still does a good job in my opinion, because they actually spend time researching their stories. Sitting down and reading through a whole newspaper, whether it's the New York Times, USA Today or the Wall Street Journal, can be a pretty good experience.
Least costly solution regarding the domain name (Score:3, Insightful)
Its not as if you are going to lose custom over it as you said you are a small business.
Inexpensive alternative (Score:5, Insightful)
All you have to do is: don't be hung up on your domain name being identical to your trademark name. Almost nobody's is.
If your trademark is non-descriptive (e.g. nothing about the name "Levi" indicates they sell jeans) then it might really collide with someone else somewhere else in this big world. At best, it might be ambiguous and vague. Maybe combine your trademark with something descriptive, and you could even end up with a better domain name than your vague trademark. (e.g. Which is a better domain name: levi.com or levijeans.com?)
Or if it absolutely must be the same, then use a different TLD. You probably don't have a TLD in your 20-year-old trademark (e.g. that company in Redmond is not named "Microsoft Dot Com") so you had little hope of getting an exact match on the whole string anyway. The original purposes for many of the TLDs are long forgotten and unenforced, so just pick any of 'em, whatever looks pretty. Whatever. You might be surprised at how many websites are not actually hosted in Tuvala.
If there's no dispute, then there's no expense. You can't get more inexpensive than that.
Re: "Viral" GPL FUD. (Score:5, Insightful)
> Let's say that the FSF has an annurism, and releases a VB workalike, with common controls and librarys and whatnot, and releases the whole sheebang with the GPL. Anyone using these common controls or libraries has to now use the GPL.
(a) No one has any inherent right to use the FSF's code. If they do that and you don't like the license, use something else.
(b) In practice the libraries would more likely be placed under the LGPL, so that you could use the widgets in your owns software without GPLing it.
[snip similarly bogus example]
> The GPL's "viral" nature propagates through the only way "code flesh" is ever exchanged--through re-use of components.
No, it propagates through the re-use of GPL'd components in a certain manner. There are lots of LGPL'd components out there that you can reuse without having to GPL your own code. And if you want to use something in a way that would require you to GPL your own work: deal with it.
"Don't like, don't use." You don't have any inherent rights to it; you have exactly the rights spelled out in the license.
> Here's a thought for you: The Open Gaming License is based on the GPL, but it has one important difference: you need to keep the actual derivations open and licensed, but not the rest of the game that wasn't derived from the OGL'd game at all.
Good for them. Except that happens to be completely irrelevant to the point under discussion. The GPL isn't going to "infect" anything, and it isn't going to "make" anyone GPL their product. "Don't like, don't use."
Microsoft is just scared shitless because in about 4 years the immense body of GPL'd code has gone from "under the radar" to "being adopted as a Microsoft replacement in high profile situations". They rightly conclude that they can't stand another four years of the same trend, so they latch on to the term that best misrepresents the nature of the GPL for their purposes.
But if you think the GPL is "viral", you need to read the GPL for comprehension.
Re:I am going to get slammed, BUT... (Score:3, Insightful)
Which developer would that be?
The ones working for Redhat? The businesses which buy their support services.
The ones working for IBM? The businesses which buy linux-related hardware and services from IBM.
The developers working for all the other businesses which sell hardware or services which rely on linux? Again, the customers.
The ones who are working on some libre project just for fun? No-one pays them for that. Why should they be paid for having fun? Indeed, that might take the fun out of it.
Some people work on libre/open source because their employer (for his own selfish reasons) has made it their job to do so, some do it for their own selfish reasons (which might include altruism). There are roughly 5 billion people in the world. Finding a few thousand who have a compelling, personal or business reason to work on some libre software project shouldn't be impossible.
The only problem I see here is that someone who wants to be the next Bill Gates needs to choose some other license than the BSD or GPL.
No problem.
Re:"Viral" GPL FUD. (Score:2, Insightful)
"Recursive" would mean that the GPL is explained in terms of the GPL. It is not.
This explains SO much of the confusion surrounding this license
Re:Dark Materials (Score:4, Insightful)
Try reading what he said. He didn't say that he had forbidden his daughter from reading the books, just that he had declined to give them to her. Just as the daugher has a right to choose which books she wants to read, the father has a right (and obligation, IMO) to exercise his judgment about which books he wants to give her. My niece is about that age, and I support her right to read Mein Kampf if that's what she really wants to do. But when it came time to buy her a Christmas present, I decided that I had better things to spend my money on and bought her Cardcaptor Sakura instead.
Re:I am going to get slammed, BUT... (Score:2, Insightful)
I work for one of the top 4 software companies in the world(hint - it assimilates companies but isn't MS) in the licensing department. You mention that the GPL is good for everyone but the developer. I will mention the converse, that proprietary software licensing is only good for the developer.
I speak with clients daily that find a particular software program that they want & they purchase 20 licenses for it. We could release a version upgrade in near future, but for all the thousands they spent you are entitled to nothing. Oh and support?!?!? Try free web or tech support via email within 24hrs. Paid support is $200 to $400
Now tell me what protections, what rights, what freedoms, what leeways, does proprietary software offer to anyone but the developer?
The only thing it is good for is paying the bills. Since I am essentially the gatekeeper of all those who want this software we do the dirty jobs Sales doesn't want to do. All that they are good at is getting customers. As soon as I can get rid of some debt I am so out of here. I know noone deserves a great job but I wish I wasn't stuck at my own personal proprietary purgatory. I consider my article on the dangers of software licensing a pennance.
I gotta take a shower
Re:Regarding the domain name (Score:4, Insightful)
The "law" isn't some sort of perfect standard. It's more of a minimal safeguard when one or both parties in a dispute are negotiating in bad faith.
I'd rather see the company admit that it has no ethical claim to the domain name, and drop the issue.
Re:I am going to get slammed, BUT... (Score:3, Insightful)
Okay, just how much money does Microsoft have in the bank? That goes beyond rewarding developers and moves into being a leech.
"Ah let the other person take care of that".
Those are end users. Any company that can be counted in ant way at all wants its own problems solved in the way it wants. Not the way best for someone else or the problems someone else has. Neither open nor proprietary software is going to help them unless they decide to get their own problem solved somehow. What the open solution does is give the coders- er, consultants a better starting point. They can see farther by standing on the shoulders of those before them, you know?
A friend of mine writes for his company. He can't code worth a damn, but he can download lines of Perl. He puts together usable tools for his company. They don't sell the software, they use it. They have their own coder on staff. Not bad for a company with only eight or so people, having one guy writing for them. Sure, he's not a full time developer, but it's a small enough company that they all wear more than one hat- even the owner. You need to look at employment models for coders beyond the usual "write one app, sell it 10 million times" that Microsoft gave us. Except that they bought their first product, so I guess they don't even count as coders.
Re:I am going to get slammed, BUT... (Score:3, Insightful)
Due?
When I give a birthday gift to a friend, I do it because I like giving gifts and I am glad to celebrate his or her existence. I don't do it with the expectation that I am due something in return.
Ditto when I give away my professional stock-in-trade, software and advice. The GPL does not come with some sort of implicit invoice attached. Nothing is due me except following the license, although a little gratitude and recognition is nice, too. When I say free, I mean it.
The world doesn't owe anybody a living; once you accept that fact, your life will be much more pleasant.
Real-world test (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh wait, that test has been done. And what do we see? Lots of people are working on Linux and the GNU stuff, even though it is licensed under GPL! (Also, people are working on BSD. Several flavors of BSD, even.)
Look at all the progress GNOME and GNOME apps have made just in the past year. GPL-licensed software is not just surviving, it is thriving.
an Open Source tax should be introduced
Good grief! Who will decide how much this tax will be? Who will decide who gets paid? How much will the tax authority skim for their own purposes? What regulations will exist to regulate what projects may be funded and what projects may not be? What will happen when companies like Microsoft start lobbying the government?
If this happens, it will waste a huge amount of money, add a whole lot of red tape, and attract people interested in milking the system for money, as opposed to people who want to develop software. Bad, bad, bad idea.
steveha
Re:Interesting "news" (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, you Christian infidels, vastly outnumbered, will soon be rounded up and turned into Soylent Green, just as soon as we finish taunting you. Or not.
Meanwhile, back in reality, you could recognize a few facts:
- News need not be free of viewpoint - A journalist friend of mine tells me that 'objective', viewpointless news was more or less a marketing invention of the US wire services, so that the could sell to a broader range of papers. The pusuit of 'objective' news yields mainly hidden biases and stupid writing, where 'balance' consists of quoting people on both sides of the issue. What news should be is honest and free of bias, not utterly without viewpoint.
- Other countries do it differently - In the US, the newspaper industry has collapsed into, for the most part, local monopolies obliged to be inoffensive. In London, the home of the article you mention, they have a variety of newspapers, each with its own political viewpoints. The Guardian is known to be pretty lefty [worldpress.org].
- Not everything printed in a newspaper is news - Columnists, reviewers, pundits and other sorts of experts are generally selected specifically for their opinions. This appears to be just such a piece.
Reading it, I don't see anything factually incorrect, even in the quotes you mention. The Christian far right has been openly gleeful about the election of the current Bush. They indeed see it as an opportunity to push their cultural, religion-driven agenda, and have not been exactly secret about it.Please note that not all Christians are of the Christian fundy right that the author is describing. I hear that some of them even secretly voted for Al Gore.
Re:I am going to get slammed, BUT... (Score:3, Insightful)
While Linux has been progressing nicely and people have been making money, who is paying the developer?
The developer's employer. RedHat is one example of a profitable company that employs developers to write GPL'd code. However, most GPL developers do it in their free time because it's what they like to do, not because it's what they're paid to do.
And the conclusion we came on is that Open Source is good for everybody, but the developer.
What developer? The developer who choose to release his own code under the GPL? Or the developer who wants to use somebody else's code that was released under the GPL, but doesn't want to release his modifications under the GPL?
But licenses like the GPL are not good for the developers who actually write the code. Those people cannot get paid what they are due. This is what closed source did.
Nothing forces developers to release their own original code under the GPL. If getting paid for the software is a significant motivation, then perhaps they should choose something else, but don't try to tell the rest of us what to do, just because what works for us doesn't suit your needs.
But the Open Sourcers today are takers.
There are users, and there are developers. It used to be that almost all users were also developers; now many users are not. If you're a developer, and you don't like people using your code without contributing to it, maybe you shouldn't let them use your code at all. However, this is actually one of the nice things about the GPL: if you're a developer, and you don't like companies modifying your code and then selling their modifications without compensating you, the GPL will prevent that from happening, while a BSD license won't. Naturally, if you prefer to allow companies to do this, the GPL is not for you.
Re:Not "Viral", more like "Entropic" (Score:2, Insightful)
If you take ten million lines of GPL code and add a
single line of proprietary code, the result is GPL.
Wrong. The result is a copyright violation. You cannot use SOMEONE ELSE'S proprietary code unless you get the author's permission.
If you take ten million lines of proprietary code and
add a single line of GPL code, the result is still GPL.
Wrong. The result is a copyright violation. You cannot use SOMEONE ELSE'S GPL code unless you get the author's permission.
You can have 100% proprietary code and sell it or give it away.
You can have 100% GPL code and sell it or give it away.
If you mix GPL and proprietary code you CANNOT sell it or give it away.
It doesn't matter if it's Microsoft code or GPL code, if you want to use someone else's code in your project you go to the author and BUY the right to do so.
The only difference between someone else's propritary code and someone else's GPL code is that GPL authors included an EXTRA free gift saying you can use the code for free under certain conditions. Everything else is identical. Proprietary code is just missing this "free gift".
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You *DO NOT* have a trademark on the name. (Score:3, Insightful)