I read the rough translation over at http://drop.io/breinpaidforthis_english

The only bit interesting was:

1.3 Since they summoned did not show up at the summoning they can now not fall back on the letter they have sent from 27th of juli 2009. Since they have said they were not going to be in court at the date appointed they can not fall back on not knowing about the summoning (article 142, lawbook of the netherlands Civil rights)

In most jurisdictions, if hold yourself out as intentionally disobeying an order of the court, they can throw the book at you in your absense. It all hinges on how the judge decides to interpret your letter of intent - they can be strict and litteral, or understanding and wide. Saying you will not be attending is very different to being unable to attend, regardless of whatever else said. Consider, "I am unable to attend the meeting because a family member has died and I am at the funeral at that time. I will not come." and "[at that time]. Please rearrange meeting". The latter indicates intent to come, whereas the former does not.

I find it hard to believe that they don't have prescribed methods of good notice - ie: in the UK good notice can be at their abode, registered address, or place of work. Only when you have "good notice" can you reply on preceedures in absense.

Matt

In Soviet Russia, super computer created from YOU!

If like me you read the business section of your broadsheet, then you'll probably be a little happier about this.

For those that didn't, Karl Icahn has been a one man activist investor of late. While admittedly Yahoo has had no compelling game plan, Icahn has quite simply been shit-stiring the whole Microsoft approach in order to get Yahoo to cave in. Originally MS wanted to buy out Yahoo's search business - but what would that leave the rest of Yahoo with? Icahn has been vocal about Yahoo not accepting several MS offers, so much so he's now got two seats on the Yahoo board in order to shut him up. The MS position was a simple win-win: gut one competitor, become stronger against google. Yahoo would get nothing but capital.

The Telegraph's business section insinuates Yahoo as missed out on the MS deal, but imho Icahn is a destructive force and a publicly vocal MS fanboy who's ignorant of the last 5 failured for MS search relaunches. Yahoo.com needs search (regardless of who provides it) to remain a serious internet business. It cannot move to advertising and mail alone - just look at Doubleclick's poor growth (wtf did the SEC approve the doubleclick/google merger?!). People notice when search engines become irrelevent - just look at the death of hotbot/altavista/lycos.

With this deal Yahoo remains Yahoo when MS lose interest.

like

Please learn both Ruby and Python, and while you're at it, some Javascript/JQuery/Mootools cool stuff too. And do it all using full systems hungarian notation. In vi. On Solaris. Upside down!

AND

If you feel like having some fun, adopt and a silly "langauge" like brainfuck or MS ASML (a quirky state machine language you can do OOP in).

Because of the current economic climate, please do not learn C, C++, Perl or Java. Please do not approach any VHDL gigs either (nb: you'll design some plain awful crap until you've done your advanced systems/digital modules). Please do not learn any programming abstraction methods or useful models - specially via the easy-peasy Java intro to it all at http://www.bluej.org./ Dont learn Qt or STL, and especially avoid OpenMP and Boost. Dont code a transaction engine, but DO make use of obscure SQL calls and extremely long queries with lots of stored proceedures on unnormalized sets. If you know when to use singletons, RAII/smart pointers or observer patterns, or know when to hit someone for telling you how to program, then stop: STOP I said! Forget everything you know and start again. Perhaps you could learn how to code a standards compliant doc type definition spec for the process of eating cheese. If you've learned anything useful, stop and spend time coding an XML parser or i18n input library, or if that's too hard, go and add lots and lots of structured exception handling to your favourite open source library.

In advance, I'd like to thank you for not competing with me and everyone else who's graduated or recently been made redunant.

Cheers,
Matt

So this is really just a very obfuscated way of achieving what DRM providers have been trying to [favourably] do when they (willfully) allow their authentication services to die or go the companies hosting them plunge into insolvancy.

And to think people thought we were crazy when we warned them that the above DRM 'technique' was a bad idea for consumers from the get go. Pitty "a do over" or repurchase isn't a very good business plan for message encryption -

"Sorry about this, can you send me your email from last week since it's expired now and I need to check up on a few things?"
"No can do, we didn't actually mean anything we said in it. But we didn't lie either. Got proof?".

Sad that it works for media formats.

Just imagine if we allowed the reasons behind why we went to war or how the recession occured to expire like this! Blame would be apportioned in terms of aquiessence rather than proof, "Yes sir, it's definitely not our fault, since we have no records of that - and there's no point in looking since all the keys have expired! If only it had crossed our minds a little sooner, we could have looked at our records when it was politically damaging..."

You make some excellent points. I'm worried about the wording too, specifically "participate". PE will not operate if the promise is unclear. By releasing a potentially ambiguous promise like this they are making their own cause of dispute.

A clause to revoke the "personal promise" for participation in legal action is not particularly new, but the more I consider it the more it worries me. It is qualified by 'voluntarily', making the clause somewhere bare for the principle party, because being sued is not voluntary, thus it would rarely operate. In other words, should MS decided to sue someone, this clause would not extinguish the promise. So far-so-good for individuals, PE is your Jesus.

The clause would come into action if someone decided to sue MS for a "patent infringement lawsuit against a Microsoft implementation of any Covered Specification". Unless they can prove duress (and the need for action) so to render the clause unfair, they risk loosing the protection offered by PE. Surely this will prevent many individuals from suing MS? In other words this appears to be a cunning lure to prevent people suing MS and participating in such suits.

Far more sinister is the fact that "voluntarily" would encompass aggrieved 3rd parties. Should a 3rd party join a suit against MS, their action would revoke this promise, and they would be unable to rely on it in the future as the base of their defence in equity, leaving them as liable as the claimant.

A possible disaster scenario:

• MS revoke their promise with good notice - possibly addressing it to only one individual (i.e.: Novell).
• The communities and defendant are paralysed because they cannot show a reliant position much different from what we have now, and thus unable to claim that the promise is irrevocable for a defence of PE.
• MS decide to take action for violation of their patents. Defendants cannot claim PE. Defendants who try to rely on the promise and fail may be liable wilful infringement (triple damages)
• Users/developers/small children move away from Mono (etc.) implementations to .Net/C#, and this causes the defendants loss of revenue. Other individuals cannot 'voluntarily' help the defendant because they risk loosing their protection under the promise

Matt

The lawyers amongst us are leaping for joy. I happen to be a law convert. So ill try and explain why we're happy!

Promissory estoppel is a legal defence (a so called shield). When a party (A) intending legal relations promises not to assert their strict legal rights, and another party (B) moves to rely upon this promise, that party (A) is estopped from enforcing their rights (against B) by way way of promissory estoppel.

It goes something like this: Now MS has promised not to enforce their C#-rights , and people rely on this promise, such as start development/deploying C# applications because of this promise, if the case came to court, MS's argument would be estopped by a defence of promissory estoppel.

It's a little more complicated. For instance it must be inequitable for B if A reneges on their promise (fairly clear if they suffer a disadvantage or loss as 'one who comes into equity must come with clean hands'), the promise must be clear and unequivocal (I'd say yes), there must be a change in reliance on the promise (yes), and it is a shield not a cause of action (in other words, we can't sue MS for revoking the promise, we can simply aovid being sued).

However, things get a little confusing. MS have declared that this promise is unilateral, in other words, it is a promise to the world without the need for a formal agreement. Such things are valid in the eyes of the law, and enforced by the fact promissory estoppel acts as an equitable remedy - there is no need for consideration, a key ingreediant to the traditional offer/acceptance/consideration contractual model.

Promissory estoppel is a common law principle. It's basis in England is from Lord Denning's High Court decision in High Trees.

Law bit:

In High Trees, due to WW2, the claimant ("High Trees") agreed to reduce rent for a block of flats. After the war, the claimant brought action seeking the past and future rent. Lord Denning said "When a promise is made that is intended to be acted upon, and is acted upon, you are estopped from going back on it."

In High Trees Denning referred, not to a previous case of Foakes v Beer (about the part payment of debt), but Hughes v Metropolitan Railway to establish his basis for promissory estoppel. In Hughes, it was held that the opening of negotiations for sale of a property had an implied promise not to enforce an outstanding notice of repair that would forfeit the respondents lease.

Key to the criticism over Denning's decision is that Hughes only suspended rights, whereas High Trees may extinguish them. This position has recently been approved in the UK by the House of Lords in Tool Metal Manufacturing Co. Ltd - the promisor may revive rights by formal notice, unless it is impossible for the promisee to resume his original position.

Is it impossible to resume the original position prior to this agreement? We're talking about computers here. The agreement has come now, not several years ago. Consider Mono as it is now, as the original position. This is such a contentious area when you consider MS can revoke the promise, creating ambiguity, and because under Coombes v Coombes promissory estoppel is not a cause of action, the Mono community cannot sue MS to enforce this promise!

Matt

As a 3rd party, auditors remarks and certifications can give a representation inducing someone to wrongfully contract. There is an established principle in the tort of negligence that allows an injured claimant to sue a non-contractual 3rd party in this type of misstatement. We call this the Hedley Bryne principle (google it).

It's great. Providing you can establish a duty via special relation ship of reliance.

It's bad for contracting parties however, if you imply that all contracts should have this principle without the need for a special relationship of reliance, because priciple parties (the other guy, not the certifing agent) cock up - and it's their fault. It should be their fault. How am I to control the actions of someone I *thought* was competant?

There are two sides to the story. The criminal aspect, and the civil aspect.

I'm not sure about dutch law, however, a lot of the recent UK law (which I am more familiar with) has been enshrined here via EU directives aimed at legal harmonisation. So don't take what I say too seriously...

The civil aspect covers the violation of the copyright license associated with the works. You are not criminally liable for merely breaking a license. The criminal aspect only comes into play when you break something enacted in statue.

Consider, The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (1998) here in the UK -

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1988/ukpga_19880048_en_5#pt1-ch6-pb5-l1g107

s.107 covers the criminal offense (Criminal liability for making or dealing with infringing articles). It limits criminal acts to those performed in the course of a business, in terms of sale, and those performed other than for "his private and domestic use".

The civil issue is different. Merely obtaining something does not mean you agree to a license. But common law has long established that using something, in a certain manner - often in accordance to normal use - can imply a factual agreement to contract.

Therefore, one should assume that aquiring a copyrighted work does not mean you have to assume the terms of its license, but once you decide to use the product in a non-domestic, public or commerical manner, it is implied you accept the incorporated restrictions (which will prohibit such use). You will then be liable.

So there is this big grey area that needs testing!

you're not all troll. very consice and profane i'd argue. as a failing lawyer, i agree with what you said. it all depends on the contracting company and the conditions set in the agreement. more likely than not AMD have a leg to stand on, but a flimsy one at the least. i dont think intel can afford to loose the 64bit crosslicence however.

ARGH.

I have spent the last few days migrating from QMake to CMake and adding a WxWidgets GUI to my project.

ARGH!

The CMake stuff is useful (qmake needs some test scripting a la autoconf) because i can use it for library discovery, but the Wx GUI is now pointless.

ARGH!