Historically, computer programs were not effectively protected by copyrights because computer programs were not viewed as a fixed, tangible object: object code was viewed as a utilitarian good produced from source code rather than as a creative work. Due to lack of precedent, this outcome was reached while deciding how to handle copyright of computer programs. The Copyright Office attempted to classify computer programs by drawing an analogy: the blueprints of a bridge and the resulting bridge compared to the source code of a program and the resulting executable object code. This analogy caused the Copyright Office to issue copyright certificates under its "Rule of Doubt".

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

"Consistent with other provisions of the Copyright Act and copyright regulations, . . . protection [of architectural works] does not extend to standard features, such as common windows, doors, and other stable building components."[27] As architect Michael Graves explained, copyright protection covers only the "poetic language" of an architectural work, which includes those parts of the design that are "responsive to issues external to the building, and incorporates the three-dimensional expression of the myths and rituals of society". It does not cover "internal language", which includes those parts of the design that are "intrinsic to the building in its most basic form – determined by its pragmatic, constructional, and technical requirements."[33] Thus, for example, individual elements that are driven by function are not copyrightable, including the presence of doors and windows or those elements required by building codes. Accordingly, architectural designs must be analyzed to determine the scope of their functionality.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

However, I still think you have missed my point because you say I desire copyrighted APIs. I'd rather see copyright rolled back entirely or at least greatly restricted like along the lines Richard Stallman proposes. What I am saying is that as long as one supports copyright as it is now, and as it is being expanded, then you have to accept APIs should be copyrightable. In that sense, if you believe in the value of copyrighting computer software, Linux should *not* have been legally made ignoring that copyright violation sued to be mostly just a civil matter until recently it became criminal, and that the UNIX copyright holders would have had to chosen to purse Linux in court).

Copyright protects artistic expression. Copyright does not protect useful articles, or objects with some useful functionality. The Copyright Act states:

A “useful article” is an article having an intrinsic utilitarian function that is not merely to portray the appearance of the article or to convey information. An article that is normally a part of a useful article is considered a “useful article”.

“the design of a useful article, as defined in this section, shall be considered a pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work only if, and only to the extent that, such design incorporates pictorial, graphic, or sculptural features that can be identified separately from, and are capable of existing independently of, the utilitarian aspects of the article.”[16]

However, many industrial designers create works that are both artistic and functional. Under these circumstances, Copyright Law only protects the artistic expression of such a work, and only to the extent that the artistic expression can be separated from its utilitarian function (what courts call "conceptual separability"). If the aesthetic aspects cannot be separated from the functional aspects, copyright protection is not available.

It can be difficult to gauge whether the artistic aspects of a work can be separated from its useful aspects. Courts often rely on the Denicola test, which asks whether the artistic design was significantly influenced by functional considerations. If so, copyrightability depends on the extent to which the work reflects the artistic expression inhibited by functional considerations. As discussed by Judge Oakes:

Copyrightability "ultimately should depend on the extent to which the work reflects artistic expression uninhibited by functional considerations." To state the Denicola test in the language of conceptual separability, if design elements reflect a merger of aesthetic and functional considerations, the artistic aspects of a work cannot be said to be conceptually separable from the utilitarian elements. Conversely, where design elements can be identified as reflecting the designer's artistic judgment exercised independently of functional influences, conceptual separability exists.[17]

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

Full disclosure: I hold a bachelor's in CS from Stanford and have been an engineer for 14 years since then. I think my degree was, to be polite, poor preparation for any real-world work beyond teaching college CS courses, although I have also never seen any program I think is better.

I agree. Systemd is now about a "2nd kernel" or "userspace plumbing". Essentially a redesign of Linux.

The problem is I don't know what there is for Debian to debate. They don't have the upsteam influence. If systemd is expanding and large numbers of developers in upstream and going to be introducing dependencies on systemd what is there for Debian to debate? The most they could in a practical sense do would be to create a subset of packages that don't have systemd dependencies directly or indirectly and frankly that's pretty easy for anyone to do for themselves and just create a child distribution

IMHO the anti-systemd people are mostly admins and not developers so I don't think they have the manpower to pull off what they want.

Regardless of what's running as PID 1, many administrators of Linux installations do not want any of Poettering's libs installed at all. With a codebase this polemic, it's understandable that there would be a call for removing systemd libs as obligatory dependencies.

In any event, it's not GIMP itself that has the dependency but an intermediate library. I simply used it as an example of a *nix desktop application that pulls in systemd libs on Debian even if one is trying very hard to avoid everything systemd related.

Last time I noticed I do not all systemd on all of my servers. Do you say now is mandatory to install it?

I hear that people have run Linux on it, but that Linux kind of sucks on it as it isn't set up to use the touch screen very well. So you're paying a lot of extra money for something that has a digitizer which you can't really use to it's full potential. Also, I'm not sure how easily it can be fixed, but due to the high resolution of the screen, all the controls and icons show up super small, which would make it difficult to use.

Is it really true that there are no penalties and liabilities of any kind for the person that filed the fraudulent DMCA notice?

If that's the case, is there anything stopping us from creating and deploying tools that submit [fraudulent] DMCA notices for every single piece of content hosted on Youtube and similar sites, effectively crippling every part of the web hosts user-submitted content and provides an interface to submit DMCA claims? Wouldn't such blatant [legal] abuse of the DMCA be enough to attract attention to the calls for reform?

Defamation is the communication of a false statement that harms the reputation of an individual person, business, product, group, government, religion, or nation. ...
[In the US] the four (4) categories of slander that are actionable per se are (i) accusing someone of a crime; (ii) alleging that someone has a foul or loathsome disease; (iii) adversely reflecting on a person's fitness to conduct their business or trade; and (iv) imputing serious sexual misconduct. Here again, the plaintiff need only prove that someone had published the statement to any third party. No proof of special damages is required.

Thats why most services are marketed as up to the given speed. It actually is cheaper to offer a mostly full speed connection than a full speed connection. As long as they provide a defined minimum connection speed and don't default to that speed most of the time, then there really is no reason for complaint.

Yes, there are those that just drink themselves out. But the colleges offer absolutely no help with anything at all.

You're paying a fortune for classes, and the schedules make little to no sense at all. I'd go to a 30min English class, then have to wait an hour and half to take a 4 or philosophy class, then wait 2hrs for my 1 hour programming class. There were thousands of students studying for the same degree I was! What's the point of having these nonsense schedules?? Can't I just get into the 8am-5pm compsci course and be done with it?

On top of that, what's with the books scams? I'm required to buy a book my professor wrote but we never open it in class? Really? I was so broke I'd literally go without eating some days, but my professors ripping me off for $89.95?

Then the campus police... Constant unending harassment. Granted, I was a long hair... but, for example, they decided to raid the door rooms over xmas break and leave me a ticket for underage drinking for having an empty wine bottle in my room. It took me 2 months and 2 visits to court to get it cleared up that I was 23 I had enough going on, I didn't need to be dealing with them.

As long as he uses vi :x

I know you've probably written off gentoo at this point, here's a completely random bit of usage advice:

- Set use flags as you need them, even if this means re-installing the same thing multiple times. This avoids big important packages being pulled in as mere dependencies (though you can add them to the world list afterwards) and more importantly lets you set up and configure everything one at a time and makes it more likely that you'll notice error messages.
- Don't be afraid of package.keywords, especially for very specific use flags.
- Avoid gnome if possible. I don't know wtf it is with gnome, but it seems to be the poster child for weird and hard to diagnose issues as well as crazy dependency trees.
- Pay attention to what virtual packages are doing. Usually they are in your best interest, but not always.
- Don't bother using ebuilds for web apps

Yeah. Functional languages are so much better.. like the elegance of breaking out of a for loop... (oops... not possible... resort to clumsy workarounds). Or handling exceptions....