Groklaw isn't going away. All that's happening is that PJ (Pamela Jones) is retiring aka stepping away from Groklaw to pursuit other things. Groklaw has consumed her life for the past 9 years.
I don't know what Groklaw will morph into w/o PJ at the helm. But PJ (aka the team of IBM laywers
Even 1 could be enough for ruling to stop competitive company products being sold.
Not really. There has been a court case (too lazy to look it up) which has greatly gutted the threat having products recalled, seized, etc. and/or huge amounts of damages if the product has violated a patent. It boils down to how much of the patent the products has violated and how essential the violated invention is to the entirety of the product. If, for example, a smartphone violated 1 claim in a patent on how menus are displayed/formatted that is a very small part of the overall product so the court would over all of the phones to be seize or rewards a bazillion $$$. More likely the penalty would be a small amount of $$ for each manufactured smartphone
On the other hand, it would be enough for the FTC to block the importation of that smartphone into the US before the dispute has been heard and tried by a court.
It needs to go further then that. A judge needs to be able to rule that a litigant is vexatious and say: "This was an utter waste of the courts time again, you are barred from suing for the next 5 (or so) years, now get out of my court."
Being declared a vexatious litigator has an extremely hurdle to overcome. And that hurdle being the constitutional right of access to the courts. One frivolous lawsuit would not be nearly enough to be declared vexatious. It would take dozens of such cases.
It's also wrong. X will always be present. If they don't have X, you are shooting themselves in the foot with a bazooka. Without X, they loose a vast amount of software. And they loose all of the advantages of X.
Also I think that people still have an outdated view of X being a bloated monolithic mess. That's no longer the case. Since the migration from XFree code base to the X.org code base, X has been slimming down and improving drastically but slowly. They aren't making huge sweeping changes so they don't break things for a lot of people. For example, all of the bloat of xlib is being examined and excised a bit at a time. If they remove something and people complain about it, it gets put back in.
It's also interesting when you got multiple boiler plates on e-mails. For example, those going through a very active mailing list. Which disclaimer applies? And to top things off one mailing list (the Mimedefang list) adds this to each outgoing post.
______________________________________________
NOTE: If there is a disclaimer or other legal boilerplate in the above
message, it is NULL AND VOID. You may ignore it.
I think I hear the sound of many a lawyer's head going *POP*.
No conspiracy is needed. . Oracle sees Android == Java, Android != Java SE.; therefore, Oracle wants $$$. It's as simple as that.
Sun wanted the same thing but didn't have the money reserves to push things in court. And it wasn't in the corporate culture to really do so either. Oracle is the polar opposite of Sun in both regards. So Oracle filed suit. I see a long, hard battle in court. Google winning in circuit court. Oracle appealing the case. And thatings are too hazy after that.
I doubt the movie industry would have died regardless of what form copy devices took. But to address the VHS/Betamax question, the answer is copy degradation. Video tape is an analog media. A copy loses a bit of definition. Every generation of copy from a master gets worse and worse nosier and grainier. The movie industry did like video to be copyable, but after the Sony Betmax SCOTUS decision, they could live with it.
That all changed when "they" introduced the CD and DVD formats. Those are digital. Unlike analog mediea every copy of a digital data is perfect. It doesn't matter how many generation a copy is removed from the source master. It's just as pristine as the original source.
At first it wasn't any problems so they though. Initial costs of the equipment players and especially duplicators may them limited their spread. But when duplicators/copies/burners became prevently, "they" throught their control of the copy media was enough. The sector of a CD which determined their type (i.e. Audio or Data CD) wasn't accessible via a CD burner. Burn an Audio CD, you have to pay "us". And the DVD keys section which video DVDs depend on was off limits as well. So no duplicated DVDs won't play on a player. And their draconian licensing terms ensured that the critical keys are kept off limits. And their walled garden was supposed to keep things looked away. But their wall garden had a dual weaknesses:. their lousy encryption scheme and PC CD/DVD burners and software players.
Technology kept advancing and even traveled around the CD Audio wall. Read the audio tracks as data and play back the data via software. And we all know the story about DVD Videos. A sloppy software player left their key inside. First new software players used that key. The it was found the encryption scheme was weak and it was eventually broken. and ultimately DeCSS.
As others have pointed out. the ultimate problem with copy protection is that it eventually has to be read/viewed/heard by us humans in the analog realm. And things can't be tied to having 'Net access all of the time. So that means they they have to give out the keys that go with the locks they have. It doesn't matter, as this HDCP kerfluffle illustrates, how convoluted you make the unlock process. The end users have the keys. And if I have the keys, I can easily open the locks.
In the end, the downfall of the music industry giants is them failing to adapted to the new reality, and them trying to enforce the old regimes. They days as the gateways of music is over. Technology and the Internet has open the world to budding musicians.
And I think that the movie industry gaints are coming to a similar reality as well. Technology especially in the realm of CGI is advancing at a breakneck pace. It's getting better and cheaper all of the time. The tools are available to everyone. And even the renders are becoming photorealistic. I've seen CGI people that make me think they are real. I've have to second look to make sure they are CGI. And huge studios and sets no longer needed. Bluescreen/greenscreening can put actors into any place imaginable. A lot of fan films are making huge strides in their production values. They are reaching the levels of exceeding the B movies I've seen.
"There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and the contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by the statue nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come to court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back, for their private benefit." —Robert A. Heinlein, "Life-Line" 1939
So apropos for this so called proposal. And what's truly remarkable is that it is from seventy one years ago. 71 years!
In every state's wiretap laws (except for one: Illinois), there has to be an expectation of privacy in order for the wiretap laws to apply. If you are on the side of a busy road in broad daylight, you can't have a reasonable expectation of privacy.
Maryland Code, title 10, section 402:
(a) Unlawful acts.- Except as otherwise specifically provided in this subtitle it is unlawful for any person to: (1) Willfully intercept, endeavor to intercept, or procure any other person to intercept or endeavor to intercept, any wire, oral, or electronic communication; (2) Willfully disclose, or endeavor to disclose, to any other person the contents of any wire, oral, or electronic communication, knowing or having reason to know that the information was obtained through the interception of a wire, oral, or electronic communication in violation of this subtitle; or (3) Willfully use, or endeavor to use, the contents of any wire, oral, or electronic communication, knowing or having reason to know that the information was obtained through the interception of a wire, oral, or electronic communication in violation of this subtitle.
And the lawful acts are in (C)(2-4).
You really need to read the entire that entire section of MD code. To be charged and found guilty of a violation of the statute, all of the elements of the crime have be present. You need to know what an "oral communication" is as defined under that law.
(2) (i) "Oral communication" means any conversation or words spoken to or by any person in private conversation.
The phrase "..in a private conversation." is key here. You can't have a reasonable expectation of privacy on the side of a busy interstate in the middle of the day. No expectation of privacy means no law was broken.
I I wonder why the judge hasn't throw the case out of court. Has the ACLU files to have the charge(s) dismissed for lack of elements?
What Macintosh Commercial?
Apple's 1984 Macintosh Commercial
That commercal is so ripe with parody material. 'Shop Steve Jobs' head as Big Brother. Oh even better, Google could do a riff of that 1984 Commercial today for Andriod.
You're right in that Apple is free to moderate their boards however they wish. But you are missing the point. Image is very important to Apple. They are trying to keep "the Image" intact. But ultimately Apple is tarnishing "the Image". They are trying to control information in a very Orwellian way (i.e. "War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength."). And what makes it very damning and hugely ironic, is that Apple is turning into the very thing they fought against in their very first Macintosh Commercial.
Top Ten Things Overheard At The ANSI C Draft Committee Meetings: (5) All right, who's the wiseguy who stuck this trigraph stuff in here?
