I really think the fact that Sweden is 30 time smaller than the US is a significant aspect of the problem, which ought to be highlighted a bit more when doing a comparison between these two countries on their energy models.
How hard would it be for the US to implement such solution (assuming the cost would not be as prohibitive as it is compared with nuclear energy), first in a large city like NY (or LA) as a test bed? Maybe something like that already exist in the States?
About ten years ago, in Tokyo, at least the business districts, it was somewhat difficult to find public trash receptacles rather than recycling receptacles. The recycling setups I saw were typically three-ish receptacle configurations.
>Go look up Harrisburg and how their trash->energy plant as worked out.
Or look up Lancaster, PA (one county over from Harrisburg) and how their trash->energy plant "is considered a national model for waste disposal, featured in industry trade publications."[1], and how they (Lancaster county) are in the process of buying the Harrisburg facility.[2]
Yeah because a mismanaged city project in a dysfunctional city is a great example of the actual technology, especially when you hire totally unqualified companies to do it. But hey, we could have spent all that money on a Wild West Museum instead or maybe just prayed some more for a balanced budget.
Yeah, that comment was a little snarkier than I had intended it to be. My point was more that it had been tried in the US, but in this one case it failed, mostly because of complete incompetence. Not that the tech was bad.
Property is an inherent human thing. Likewise, people want to be remunerated for their work. Hence copyright. If scarcity was non existent, then we wouldn't have that problem...
Actually, it would still be here: Van Gogh artwork is unique, and this can be expanded virtually to anything, including the shirt you are wearing, since you're the only one to wear it. You might see where this leads to. Scarcity can always be created artificially.
Anyway, you wouldn't want people to take your shirts away from you, and copyright holders may feel the same towards their work.
The second issue is fairness: if someone has to pay a certain amount to access copyrighted work, why others would not have to, under the same circumstances? Fairness is the motivating principle supporting the existence of the Law.
And then there's science. People are paid to work on things or do it because they want to do it. Once they do something valuable they publish it and everyone can build upon their work.
Openness gave us modern world. Copyright gave us Hollywood and Sony Music.
Property is inherent thing. Not only human. Monkeys also want to own things and they don't like thieves. But extending physical property qualities to creations of human mind is just something some rich people did to get richer.
As I said, it all comes from scarcity. Things that are abundant are monetary worthless, and if everything is free, then people don't need to make money, ergo no copyright anymore (there's a slight simplification here actually, because copyrights also grant control, which is actively thought). That said, while the system is mostly used by the richest, poor people can profit from it as well, if they manage to produce valuable IP.
The problem that we really have here imho is that code is just logic written in an often clever way, like a math theorem. Do we want to have these things protected by copyrights or patents? Does it make sense? That's the real question behind the issue at hand I believe.
Copyright is creating artificial scarcity for copies and using price abnormally elevated by this scarcity to finance art makers (in theory) and scarcity creators (in practice).
Same way I could create scarcity on your oxygen supply and use artificially elevated oxygen price to finance myself and my efforts to create and uphold this scarcity and also finance cute puppies to mask what horrible thing I am actually doing.
Patenting and copyright clearly doesn't make any sense. It's just a tool for creating revenue stream by holding information and commercial freedom hostage. There are much less harmful ways to create revenue streams.
Actually, you have to accept the license as a user to be able to use it. However, you don't give up your right to keep any change for yourself if you don't distribute it in a different format (e.g. binary). Whatever you do in your house is your business. That's probably what you meant (in spirit so to speak), though law wise it is very different.
Because running software involves making copies of that software. This requires you to have permission from the copyright holder. The GPL provides you with that permission, without adding any further conditions if the copies are just for the purpose of running the software.
It is now well-accepted that copyright protects computer programs and other digital information, whether they are in readable source code form or are an executable program that is intended to be understood only by a computer. Copies are made whenever the program is transferred from floppy disk to hard disk or is read into the computer’s memory for execution, and those copies will infringe the copyright of the computer program if they are not permitted by the copyright owner or by copyright law.
1. Even if that's the current legal theory it's bullshit, and I can run code without having copies in ram if I need to.
2. 'if they are permitted by copyright law' Fair Use is part of copyright law, has that specific defense been challenged when it comes to software execution and caches in RAM?
I could run it directly out of a ramdisk, or maybe transfer it to an embedded processor that can run it directly off the flash chip without even a processor cache. There's a whole variety of ridiculous things I could do to avoid the ridiculous restriction.
In practice I would trust fair use and try to use such as a defense if sued.
Because that's the legal side of this. You can compile and run GPL software on your computer without agreeing to the licensing terms, but you may not do it. It is very unlikely that someone will check your HDs for offending uses, and besides, any use of GPLed software assumes an implicit acceptance of its license, so if such a check is happening, you would have to be there to say: "I have it but I am not agreeing to the terms". That sounds a bit silly doesn't it?
That's how the rules have been made, and not complying could be assimilated to piracy.
What chalst probably meant is that the fact that the code was orginally GPL doesn't make any illegal obtention of the code legal. If you keep code you wrote on your computer with a GPL attached, and someone breaks in and find it, he won't have the right to use it afterwards thanks to GPL.
The GPL defines the rights offered to "clients" by the "vendor", and how these rights are granted. Illegal obtention of the code is not one of the granting processes defined by the GPL.
Therefore, putting the GPL on that code is meaningless, whether it were GPLed initially or not.
I don't think so, no. The GPL talks about a lot of transference of rights that take place during the act of distribution. If one does not have those rights to start with (the code was stolen, for instance) then it wouldn't apply.
Original code is GPL. I make modifications. These modifications are mine. Someone stealing my modifications is performing IP theft.
Now, GPL stipulates when I have to release my modifications. I only have to release my patches when GPLv2: I distribute software to clients/users. In GPLv3 it is when clients/users use my software (aka: webservices).
Complete and utter horseshit. What you're talking about in the last sentence is the Affero GPL.
The GPL states and has always stated: If you modify code that is licensed as GPL and want to share it, the modified version needs to be GPL as well ("share alike").
But: Nobody forces you to release anything. If you don't release software, you don't need to make a license for it. If you want, you can license it as "Adam Zochowski Super License 5000". Frame it and put it on your wall, nobody gives a damn.
The GPL only governs and can only govern what happens when you actually do release (GPLv3 uses the term "convey") software to other people.
Sidenote: This post again confirms Stallmans rule of thumb that anybody using the utterly corrupt term "Intellectual Property" is either a moron or trying to mislead you.
GP wording was perhaps a bit awkward, but I don't think he meant that modifications had to be released unilaterally: He just indicated the difference between gplv2 and v3 in the situations when the licenses force the release of the modifications (ie. when distributing the program in non source form).
That's a completely different issue from what I'm talking about. You're talking about modifications that aren't yet/ever released under the GPL. I'm asking what happens if it's already completely GPL, including modifications, and it gets leaked.
>I think Wisty was responding to the part where the crazy man claimed the driver code was originally GPL internally before being changed.
As in, IF Samsung put version 1 under GPL, owning the copyright, on purpose, but they were keeping it hidden and someone snuck it out, would it be okay to use?
No, because the person who snuck it out didn't have copyright permission from the company. Employees at most corporations don't own the code they write.
If this were legal, then it would also be legal for an outsider to hack Samsung and release their code under the GPL.
For licensing purposes, employees at companies do not have GPL code they are working on distributed to them by the company; they are part of the company.
In the hypothetical, Samsung intentionally put it under GPL. It is truly and legitimately licensed GPL, they're just not giving it to the public at this moment.
Something doesn't truly become GPL until it is distributed, because the license is a contract between licensor and licensee. Only someone with copyright permission can distribute code. Samsung didn't grant copyright permission to its employees, nor did it distribute GPL code to its employees. (In the hypothetical.)
So if I write a piece of software, burn it onto a hundred disks, put the disks in a nicely labeled basket for people to take, go to lunch, and people grab some, at what point does the license kick in?
I find strange your statement that there is no license despite every file header (hypothetically) claiming a license, and this being authorized by the entire management chain.
In the example with you putting the disks in a basket, you've intentionally made them available for people that are not your employees to take, so you're distributing them. The license kicks in when one is taken. It's analogous to downloading software.
The point is that for a license to be binding it has to be offered willingly. If I sign a blank check and you steal it from me, filling out $1000 and your name, although you'll be able to cash it, you have no right to the money, and I can undo the action.
The reason internal code is special is because the employees are not considered individuals to whom the company has distributed the software. Instead they are a part of the company.
I identified some relevant questions in the GPL FAQ. I believe that the first one and third one are what you care about.
I just find it very strange that you can't apply a license-for-distribution without actually distributing. That means if I want to make sure a piece of software is GPL, and nobody can take that away in the future, I have to perform an action such as uploading to github or burning a single CD and giving it to a homeless person. And somehow giving away that first single copy is what makes the GPL kick in for all other copies in the world.
That's still not quite correct. A license is a contract. It requires two parties. Every time somebody gives GPL software to somebody else, the contract is entered into and the license is granted. Giving away the first copy only establishes a license between you and the first recipient. That recipient in turn grants a license to whoever he gives it to, if and when he chooses to do so. In particular, I cannot demand that the first recipient give me a copy of the source code unless I have been granted license to the software by him.
If you want to be really sure a piece of software is GPL, it would probably be alright to include a file in your source tree on your harddrive saying that whoever finds it is free to make a copy of the project for themselves and consider that you have distributed it to them. It's about the clear intent to distribute.
> Giving away the first copy only establishes a license between you and the first recipient. That recipient in turn grants a license to whoever he gives it to, if and when he chooses to do so.
That's a logical way of looking at it, but it disagrees with the GPL FAQ. Note especially "If the version has been released elsewhere, then the thief probably does have the right to make copies and redistribute them under the GPL".
Plus, you can have a unilateral contract that's open to anyone willing to accept the terms. You don't have to take any action per person to 'establish' it.
The thief "probably" has the right to make copies because the diff between what he stole and what is readily available elsewhere for free is nil, and he can go and grab a copy with almost zero effort. But if A gives a copy only to B (it has still been "released elsewhere"), B keeps his copy to himself, and the thief steals a copy from A, the thief does not have any rights simply because B has a copy. That would be absurd! The FSF lawyers use the word "probably" because they believe this is what the court would find if a thief distributed something like an unmodified version of Linux taken off of a stolen hard drive.
However I was wrong about contracts vs. licenses. Obviously I am not a lawyer.
Could you please provide a link or two on that, or give some explanation on why this is not possible?