There is no place for humor or overly subjective terms like "evil" in a software license or other legal document, and the problem with Douglas Crockford's license is that he fails to understand that.
That is, unless his intent is to keep every entity with sane lawyers from using his software. I don't think that's his intent. He said he wants to keep people without a sense of humor from using his software, but sane lawyers with a good sense of humor will object to the license just as strongly as sane lawyers with no sense of humor.
Venue matters. A lawsuit based on the evil clause of the license, in San Francisco or Los Angeles, would probably go nowhere. However, consider a jury in Birmingham, AL, and whether they would find that using some of Crockford's software in an abortion clinic was a violation of the license.
This makes no sense. Is Stallman so focused on software that he isn't considering the implications of continuing to apply broken software patents to hardware?
FPGAs? Is an algorithm implemented on a FPGA a software or hardware implementation?
Sufficiently popular software algorithms like mpeg4 (including avc) are often implemented in ASICs for speed. Stallman's suggestion does nothing to help in those cases.
What if Intel introduces new instructions that assist with some patented algorithm but do not carry out the complete algorithm? Software completes the algorithm using the chip instruction. Is that covered under Stallman's software patent immunity proposal?
The dichotomy between software implementations and hardware implementations is unhelpful. If you oppose software patents on principle, whether because you think they're harmful or because you think they're math and are not supposed to be patentable in the first place, why let the camel's nose into the tent by campaigning to allow hardware (ASIC?) implementation patents, but not allowing pure-software implementations?
Perhaps this is better framed as an economic argument. If cost were no object, more algorithms would be implemented in ASICs. There's a limit to the total chip area you'd want to fit into a computer, but a lot of algorithms could be implemented in a few custom ASICs. It's likely that some of those algorithms would be covered by patents. Stallman's proposal seems like discrimination against algorithms that are important enough to make faster execution worth a lot of money.
If software patents are not valid, and I don't believe they are valid, then allowing them to apply to hardware implementations is just applying a band-aid and punting on the real issue. Stallman's proposal may be pragmatic, in that it reduces risk to most start-ups and other entities worried about violating patents in software, but it sustains the confusion about what software patents are and whether they can be valid. I think there's more at stake than the money at issue in patent lawsuits every year. I think broad appreciation of the value of open culture, and recognition that algorithms should be part of that, is worth more than any extra value companies might be able to extract from hardware implementations of patented algorithms due to artificial monopolies created by patent protection.
Yeah, I think me_myselft meant rights in terms of social justice, and not "fundamental rights" in the sense of abstract political philosophy. So many arguments get caught up over semantics and not what people are trying to say.
Government doesn't create the principles of nuclear physics that allow fission and fusion to occur.
We can't get rid of the nuclear threat as long as the knowledge of nuclear physics exists and someone somewhere wants to conquer the world (or merely a continent in some cases).
Software patents are a legal construct. Get rid of that, and writing up software patents accomplishes nothing.
This is another attempt at segmenting a market for goods depending on the price that can be extracted for that good in a particular market, while keeping the cheap versions from being marketable in countries with higher discretionary income. Somewhat similar to DVD region codes, except applied to books.
Publishers sell (or sell rights to sell) lower-quality texts abroad because they can make a profit. Then they get pissy when people resell those international editions in the U.S.
The market says that people want cheaper books and they don't care about colors or paper quality. Textbooks often end up mauled after a semester anyway. Publishers don't listen, people try to fill the void, and they get sued.
"While the written content of books for the domestic and international markets is often similar or identical, books intended for international markets can differ from the domestic version in design, supplemental content (such as accompanying CD–ROMS), and the type and quality of materials used for printing, including “thinner paper and different bindings, different cover and jacket designs, fewer internal ink colors, if any, [and] lower quality photographs and graphics." (from background in the 2nd circuit ruling)
Over-achievement also fits into the clueless tier. The clueless can't get rich or into upper management except by accident, but they can have successful careers as long as the psychopath upper tier sees them as useful.
In the GP corporate hierarchy, the losers tend to do the minimum required to keep their jobs. If they start making stuff work beyond their immediate job responsibilities, that's not classic loser behavior.
At one point in that series of essays, the author talks about behaviors of the psychopath. In a startup environment, the psychopath puts in a lot of effort and gets things done because that's the fastest path to getting the company off the ground.
I think Oracle has gone round the bend, but does the anti-Oracle view of APIs mean basically that all GPL software is LGPL?
When you call a function, why should that function's copyright status have any bearing on the copyright status of your function? Because they're in the same file? What is a file?
Maybe this will light a fire under the registrars and DNS hosting companies, because some of them still don't support IPv6 glue records (for registrars) or AAAA records (for DNS hosters).
It doesn't matter whether copyright infringement is ethically good or bad. It doesn't matter whether these sites are legally liable for copyright infringement that goes on using them.
You look like complete morons trying to take down site after site. You are pissing people off and what do you have to show for it except a few hollow victories?
If copyright infringement through file sharing has decreased, it's due to itunes, amazon, google, and all the smaller companies offering digital versions of content. Guess who is missing from that list? MPAA and RIAA members.
Trying to fight copyright infringement through punitive fines or throwing people in prison is sick. It's like the drug war, only worse. At least you can point to a few crazy meth heads as a danger to the public. "Pirates" hurt... the meatspace content distributors that are rapidly becoming obsolete?
This is not about some new vulnerability. It is a survey of collected public keys. The main security-relevant conclusion is that some key generators are not using enough entropy.
Dr. Lenstra is a co-author of the paper (so it shouldn't be dismissed on the weakness of the reporting). The NY Times and Markoff should both be ashamed for publishing such a misleading article, particularly the title.
One aspect I've never thought about before is the selection of representatives for parliament/legislature. In the U.S., they're pre-selected in primary elections per party, but the national elections are single-winner per seat, so the candidates are out pandering to the voters constantly. I don't know percentages, but many other countries use multi-winner to select their national multi-seat bodies, and my understanding is that those would-be candidates aren't out campaigning, or at least not anywhere close to as visible as they are in the U.S. or the U.K. where there are direct single-winner elections for seats. As ideologically-driven as political parties are, maybe the parties still tend to select more rational, scientific-minded representatives when the would-be reps do not have a requirement to pander directly to the population prior to the election.
India (from wikipedia) also appears to have direct election of its parliament. India is fairly well known for its stifling bureaucracy. Is that coincidence, or the start of a pattern?
Maybe it's also in part due to other countries (those which aren't degenerate and corrupt enough that the government can fraudulently influence elections) knowing they're not the world's largest superpower, and knowing they can't afford to screw around as much.
I'd love to see the voting system changed to Range Voting (best overall?) or Condorcet (best ordering-based voting system?). For its discrimination against third parties, plurality voting is simply horrible, and IRV is nearly as bad[1]. I'll note that I don't think a voting system change alone will fix the American political system.
http://rangevoting.org, despite its nominal bias, is the best voting system resource anywhere.
iPhones (the GSM versions, not the Verizon versions) omit band IV, so they won't work on T-Mobile USA's UMTS data network.
T-mobile phones typically (and varyingly) omit bands II, V, and/or VIII.
I suggest searching phonearena for a handful of modern phones and comparing the supported GSM (& EDGE) bands (where most/all smartphones are quad-band) and UMTS bands (where supported bands are much more varying).
I've followed the discussion of the AF447 investigation on several flight discussion forums.
The PF (Bonin) apparently never became aware of his angle of attack (once the airplane fully stalled, AOA was absurdly high). He did not seem to be aware that his constant inputs had caused the Airbus's THS (trimmable horizontal stabilizer, horizontal flaps on the tail) to deflect to maximum in order to try to keep the nose up. Therefore when he tried to input stick up (nose down) several times briefly, and there was no obvious response (the computer takes a while to reduce THS elevation in response to opposing input), who knows what he thought -- maybe that all readings were incorrect.
Strangely, Bonin was the one pilot who had significant recent glider experience as I recall. The Airbus computer even in "alternate law" functions nothing like a glider (only "direct law" is sort of close to direct input), so maybe that further confused him.
In my opinion, at night, over an ocean, in a storm, with no visibility, in possibly significant turbulance, a modern aircraft cutting off Autopilot for any reason other than computer failure is completely unacceptable. A computer should be able to fly as well as a human under those circumstances.
People suggesting that on airliner forums get flamed. But it's true. Most pilots kept up the refrain that a computer cannot safely fly by gps and gyros unless they also have airspeed. Which is true. It's dangerous to fly if you don't have true airspeed (gyros and gps cannot accurate provide relative wind speed). However, if pitot tubes are frozen and the computer no longer has valid airspeed, the pilots no longer have valid airspeed either. Pitch and power is all they can do. The computer can do that just as well. All it needs to know is aircraft weight, which can be entered (maybe it is entered) before takeoff and automatically adjusted to account for fuel consumption.
There are a bunch of factors that contributed to the accident:
Pitots shouldn't have frozen.
Lack of Air France training for controlling an aircraft at altitude with the computer in "alternate law" (mode without full flight envelope protection; it's therefore possible to stall).
The command structure in the cockpit without the Captain (who had just gone on break) actually had Bonin in command, even though the co-pilot in the left seat outranked him... AF has since changed that. CRM (crew resource management) was poor; the co-pilot in the left seat didn't try to take control until way too late. The co-pilot was preoccupied with where the Captain was rather than offering constructive input on how to fly.
Bonin was not adequately aware of what his inputs were doing, or what the plane's Angle of Attack was, and did not react properly to the stall warning which in almost every case at high altitude means drop the nose, not raise it (though without valid airspeed there's a risk of overspeed which can cause a new set of problems).
The Airbus computers had some quirks; stall warnings stop if airspeed drops too low (due to some computer programming logic involving low airspeed, AOA sensors, and the result being silencing the stall warnings).
Nobody believed a passenger aircraft would be so stable during a full stall. This undoubtedly contributed to confusion about whether they were actually stalled. The Airbus's computer setting the trimmable horizontal stabilizer to max nose-up deflection, in response to Bonin's almost constant nose-up input, possibly contributed to the stability during stall.
Angle of Attack information may not have been adequately displayed to the PF (Bonin) -- the black box doesn't record data from the right set of instruments, so nobody knows what Bonin had on his screen.
There was poor notification on the co-pilot's side of what the PF (Bonin) was doing. Unlike traditional aircraft, it is not easy to see what the pilot in the other seat is doing with the stick.
There was poor notification on either side of the cockpit when the other pilot took control. When the co-pilot took control, Bonin almost immediately took control back, and it's not clear either of them knew what the other was trying to do. Apparently there's a light that indicates override, but who would notice such things under that amount of stress?
IOW, it was a disaster from top to bottom. Usually in aircraft accidents there's a chain of events, but in this case there were so many possible contributing causes that other than having better pitots that didn't freeze over, solving any one other problem may not have broken the chain.
(tl;dw for the video: it's about the dramatically improved detection of breast cancer particularly in dense breast tissue (where mammographies often fail to visibly differentiate tumors) by injecting a radiotracer and using small gamma detectors that can fit closely around the breast.)
And another technique I couldn't find a description of but I read about a while ago, where the breast temperature is altered first. Since tumors have greater blood supply, it makes breast thermography (or something like it... I forget the exact detection method) even more accurate in detecting cancer, since a tumor with greater blood supply will return to normal temperature faster than the surrounding tissue.
Could google vary the crawling rate on each site and see what effects that has on response times, and develop an algorithm to adjust crawl speed so as not to affect site performance too much? If google starts crawling a site and notices sequential crawl requests are answered in .5s w/ .1s stddev and it starts crawling with 10 parallel connections and the answers are 2s w/ 1s stddev, clearly that's a problem because user experience for real people will be impacted. Maybe google could automatically email webmaster@ and notify them of performance issues it sees when crawling.
Another thing that might help google is for them to announce and support some meta tag that would allow site owners (or web app devs) to declare how likely a page is to change in the future. Google could store that with the page metadata and when crawling a site for updates, particularly when rate limited via webmaster tools, it could first crawl those pages most likely to have changed. Forum/discussion sites could add the meta tags to older threads (particularly once they're no longer open for comments) announcing to google that those thread pages are unlikely to change in the future. For sites with lots of old threads (or lots of pages generated from data stored in a DB and not all of which can be cached), that sort of feature would help the site during google crawls and would help google keep more recent pages up to date without crawling entire sites.
By casual observation, probably 90% or more of the driving population violates speed laws regularly; only the people who exceed the limit by 10-15mph or more, or who get caught in small town speed traps, get ticketed for it.
Why do you consider crime rates of more serious crimes, yet instead of counting the number of road speed law violators, you count only the number of citations for speeding? Like drug possession laws, road speed law enforcement is highly selective. You can't get a picture of overall criminality by measuring arrest and citation rates.
How fast would speed limits change if automated detection led to automatic fines for any speeding? We're already close; the only reason it hasn't been implemented is that everyone knows it would upend traffic speed laws through public outrage. (I realize there's the theoretical legal problem of identifying the driver, but that hasn't stopped many locales from using red light and speeding cameras and holding the registered owner responsible for fines.)
The Asus Transformer Prime might be disqualified because it's not chromeos and it doesn't have a built in hardware keyboard, but it's a quad-core tegra tablet running gingerbread and soon ICS (keyboard optional).
I didn't know what skyrim was, beyond a vague awareness that it was a game, so I went to elderscrolls.com, only to encounter a flash-wrapped video with no volume control.
I see this particular usability faux pas way too often. If you roll your own flash video player rather than host videos elsewhere or use one of the mainstream well-designed open/commercial flash video player apps, let viewers control the volume.
Binary On/Off sound toggles on flash apps are ridiculous. Furthermore, a custom flash video player app should remember the volume setting (per-domain) so viewers don't have to monkey with the volume every time that flash app appears.
That is, unless his intent is to keep every entity with sane lawyers from using his software. I don't think that's his intent. He said he wants to keep people without a sense of humor from using his software, but sane lawyers with a good sense of humor will object to the license just as strongly as sane lawyers with no sense of humor.
Venue matters. A lawsuit based on the evil clause of the license, in San Francisco or Los Angeles, would probably go nowhere. However, consider a jury in Birmingham, AL, and whether they would find that using some of Crockford's software in an abortion clinic was a violation of the license.