Posted on 12/15/2009 11:16:26 PM PST by Swordmaker
Nope. And if they had been caught, they should have felt the long arm of the law. I don't think they got caught within the statute of limitations though. Too bad, I wonder if they ever paid any voluntary restitution to Pacific Bell? Maybe they should. Could be a couple thousand dollars with interest added on.
I once wrote a machine language roulette wheel application for a Vic 20... used it once for a Casino Night at our lodge.
I used all but ONE BYTE of the memory including the 5K expansion cartridge... I could not add even one more thing to it or it wouldn't run.
It worked great. It made the sound of the wheel turning, the ball bouncing and clicking, slowing down, and the colors flashing numbers and random black or red with a proper red or black or green 0 or 00 (well the house had to win sometime) and settling down to the winning pocket with the image of a ball on the screen.
It was a hit.
But I never distributed it because I could not guaranty that the random number generator was truly random... I was using a large seed but the Vic 20 really had no way to manipulate it and make it random. I kept seeing patterns start to duplicate after about 20 spins. And with only 1 byte left, I didn't have enough space left to experiment with trying other approaches to randomizations of the seed... and everything else I tried left me with less space and I would have to give up some of the neat things I had done. So, its probably somewhere in my desk on a casette... dried and cracked...
But the developers don't have a natural right to the software, unlike the natural right your neighbor has to his property. The software belongs to everyone by default, but the Constitution allows for a limited monopoly of rights solely for the purpose of advancing the arts and sciences.
My problem with copyrights has to do with the sudden increase in longevity of the copyrights. I had no problem with copyright for the life of the author... but now they've allowed them to be extended to the life plus, I think, it's 50 years... and if the author is a corporation... who knows. I would like to see it a more reasonable term. In music, there are only so many ways that 15 notes can be arranged before you start duplicating something that has already been done before... and there are only 31 basic story lines in literature. How many basic applications are there possible in software? How many basic inventions are there? Idea inventions instead of implementation inventions are becoming a real problem... when we started allowing the patents for a mere idea, without requiring the technology for implementing that idea, we opened pandora's box of infringement lawsuits.
I have no problem with the OS X lawsuit against Psystar. What they were doing is clearly wrong. But Apple should not have a 100 year control over OS X. 15 or 20 years for each upgrade is enough and then that version should move to the public domain. ON the other hand, Disney's control over its characters of Mickey and Donald are creative Icons equivalent to Trademarks and should be protected so long as Disney exists, Similarly an author of a book should be able to reap the rewards of royalties throughout his lifetime, and perhaps his children as well... but should his grandchildren? I would draw the line a few years after his death. Let the kids build their own legacies. Patents should require implementation in technology to be granted... not just mere ideas. If the inventor cannot demonstrate how his idea can be accomplished practically, he has not invented anything. Its the person who accomplishes it that is the true inventor and should be given the monopoly to enjoy the fruits of his invention.
Actually, you have a point there... but that is in violation of the DMCA... which Congress DOES have the right to make illegal all on its own... and did. They made it illegal to sell a device that allows one to avoid the technological steps that have been made to prevent copyright infringement. It might be argued successfully that the Rebel EFI is a legitimate product that does not infringe copyrights because it only furthers the illegal breaking of a contractual relationship... which Psystar has been ordered not to do, which would probably bring them to the courts attention in a contempt proceeding, But that's their problem. Not ours.
But the doctrine of First Sale says that once Apple sells me a copy, Apple loses control of that copy. They have no power to tell me what I can and cannot do with that copy, as a publisher can't tell me what to do with the book. The expanse and limits of their powers are already defined -- in copyright law.
Anti, You are misapprehending something... APPLE NEVER SELLS you a copy! They are quite upfront and explicit about it. They spell it out in plain English in the SLA. You have NOT bought the software on the disk.
This is the crux of the matter! Yes! There is a DVD disk in the box with a copy of OS X in the box... but what is on it is NOT SOLD TO YOU! Apple retains title to the content on that disk. YOU do not own it. LEGALLY, under the law, you do not have ANY RIGHTS AT ALL TO WHAT IS ON THAT DISK EXCEPT WHAT PRIVILEGES APPLE SAYS YOU HAVE ON THE AGREEMENT IN THE BOX WITH IT! Apple is merely providing that disk as a convenient way for you to gain access to their property to further THEIR ends, not yours, which is to allow you to have access to their property under limited circumstances which you will agree to before you install the software on your computers as a necessary step in that installation. Once you have made that agreement, you are bound by it... and the courts will, as they have done before, side with the publisher.
For the sake of discussion, let us say that instead of buying OS X in a box with a disk, you go to the store and you buy an OS X license on a piece of paper. All you get is the SLA. You pay your $129 and you must go home and sit down at your Mac computer and connect to Apple over the Internet and enter a code you find on your SLA which allows you to download your new OS X. Bang. Your computer now works 10 times better than it did 10 minutes ago. How can you implement your "Doctrine of First Sale" now? You have not bought a physical copy of the software. All you bought was a license.
The courts have ruled numerous times on this. So long as the license is properly written, software is more akin to a long-term, never-ending lease, than it is to a sale. This is especially true where the software requires support of some kind such as in a vertical solution office environment where the software will be improved and modified over the life of the "term." There is also usually a requirement that when the "term" of the software license agreement ends, there must be some means of "returning" control of the "product" to the owner. Usually, this handled by requiring the destruction of all copies in the control of the licensee.
A good example (or perhaps a poor example of this) is quickbooks, where you both "buy" and "lease" the software. Quickbooks, and in fact most accounting software, has created a hybrid business model that requires that the customer both continually repurchase the software on a repeating schedule and relicense it every year. Quickbooks, if you do your own payroll requires that you subscribe to a tax-table service or that you contract with them to do your payroll, each of which requires a subscription fee. One of the dirty secrets of accounting software is that little changes in accounting over centuries... and ergo, there can be little reason to change your accounting software. So why buy a new accounting software package if little has changed? That is not a formula for repeat sales for Quickbooks or any accounting software company. However, if they sell you tax tables, they've got you. All they have to do is change the tax table format every couple of years and Voilá... you have to buy the latest version to be compliant with the latest tax tables... or you can't pay your employee's any more. What do you know! Instant cash flow into Intuit! So, you both buy and lease your software! Neat trick, huh?
Developers are free to give away their own rights, such as open source freely allows copying. That is the true license, as a license is an allowance to do something you would otherwise not be allowed to do under law (in this case under copyright law, copy and redistribute).
Actually a license is a permit to break the law. And a license is the way a copyright holder can distribute a easily copied intellectual property while still retaining ownership... but it requires trust. Trust that the licensed person will not ignore the license. Trust that the laws will be obeyed. Trust that others will not be tempted to accept obviously infringed copies. Trust that you will use it as it is intended to be used. Trust in the honesty of other people.
Apple is SELLING you the right to use THEIR software under certain restrictions... one of which is that you may not give it away or sell it to another party and still retain a copy, or to install it on a non-Apple computer. It is that permission to use the software that they are selling to you. There is no difference here. You have NO RIGHT TO COPY THEIR SOFTWARE until they have provided you access to it either by licensing you to have access by gift or by sale of the license. It matters not how you got that license. Apple NEVER relinquishes control of their rights. YOU may choose to ignore those rights but the COURT will side with Apple legally. Apple may magnanimously allow you to use their property but you have no right to force them to let you use it as you see fit.
“In their marketing materials, they define their product as something other than a “PC”.
Oh bull. “
I’ve got to agree with the first sentence here. “I’m a Mac, and I’m a PC.” It’s pretty clear that Apple is trying to say that a Mac is not a PC.
While I’m pretty sure a Mac is, in fact, a PC, I suppose it didn’t make a hoot of difference to the judge.
“With that lie, I know you ARE a TROLL... and are working hard to prove you are not pretending to be an idiot. Quit lying.”
Stop being a damnable fanboy. You actually believe press releases? Particularly when you touch on fields you don’t work in.
“That Mac based Beowulf Cluster was the 3rd fastest supercomputer in the world, hitting a sustained 11 TFlops and peaking to 15 when it was built for 1/5th the cost of the next least expensive of the top ten fastest machines at the time it was built in 2003, with 1100 dual processor G5 PowerMacs (2200 processors). The next fastest was only slightly faster (15 TFlops) and cost over ten times more and the fastest (33.5 Tflops), the Japanese Earth Simulator, was 30 times more expensive at $150 million.”
No ECC memory and no stable operation. They built one here locally using G5s similar to VT’s. The damn thing never was stable.
“Last year, November, they Virginia Tech built System G with 325 Xeon based MacPros (2600 processor, 2600 gigaBytes RAM) and produced a sustained 22.5 Tflops (trillion ops per second) of throughput with peaks of up to 29.5 TFlops.”
Using Intel chips. The G5 was a flash in the pan.
“Too bad, I wonder if they ever paid any voluntary restitution to Pacific Bell”
Jobs wasn’t even a decent enough human being to acknowledge his own daughter for years.
LOL... “Voluntary restitution”.... That’s a laugh.
“The Mach5 was reportedly going to be used in designing hypersonic helicopter blades... but nothing was heard much about it after it went into service, being classified.”
“Hypersonic helicopter blades”.... ROTFLMAO!
“They are stating that they are offering an alternative to PCs in their marketing... better than a PC. An alternative. Why use “A” when you could be using “B”?”
So, are they saying they are in the personal computer market, or the “cool experience” market?
“Mac is what they want. It does just work... unlike the things they have been fighting with... Windows PCs.”
Others, of course, find both wanting or find Apple’s limited hardware list just that. If your needs extend only to people who think “hypersonic rotor blades” as a statement makes any sense, then enjoy your iLife.
“The undocumented/secret APIs has been proven in court during the antitrust trial.”
They weren’t secret. They weren’t documented. The information was still there.
“Microsoft hasn’t changed from that; in fact, they’re still using them instead of their own .NET products for Office.”
Do you have any idea how much effort would be required to rewrite Office?
“You really DON’T KNOW what you are talking about, do you?”
What I SAID was, they’ve offered +$100 for quite some time. OS X was offered for older G3s and G4s, after all.
Of course, “Swordmaker”, I can read.
You know, I think I’m done with you. You actually think “hypersonic helicopter rotor blades” is a phrase that makes sense and you believe press releases..... WOW.
Go on supporting a company with Gore on the board. Enjoy you iLife.
What “brand name” is a “PC”? What are they competing with?
And then you said...
Don't you know? Apple is competing with every computer out there that is running an operating system that is not running Apple Mac OS X... generically called a PC.
[...]
Everybody, except apparently you, knows what is being talked about... a PC is a reference to a personal computer that runs Windows.
At first I couldn't figure out what the heck he was talking about. And then I saw it. Favor Center couldn't figure out what those "I'm-a-Mac/I'm-a-PC" commercials were all about... LOL...
He never figured out that they were talking about the Mac hardware/OS X system -- vs. -- the Generic desktop manufacturer/Windows system.
He has no idea what they've been talking about. I feel sorry for him because it's like missing a joke and never knowing what everyone was laughing about... that must bug him... :-)
” Favor Center couldn’t figure out what those “I’m-a-Mac/I’m-a-PC” commercials were all about... LOL...”
Of COURSE I knew what they were talking about. Don’t be an idiot.
Check the born on date.
And then you said ...
Your point?
To which I replied ...
Are we a bit sensitive here... :-)
That was essentially what was said in that little thread, to which you go off on a tangent saying who knows what... LOL...
Ya coulda fooled me... :-)
You know, I think I’m done with you. You actually think “hypersonic helicopter rotor blades” is a phrase that makes sense and you believe press releases..... WOW.
LOL..., you're pretty funny, of course, I've always thought Windows users were funny and weird...
But, please do go back to the Windows world..., it would save us a lot of trouble trying to educate the deliberately ignorant... :-)
Go on supporting a company with Gore on the board. Enjoy you iLife.
Ummmm..., you've gotten politics mixed up with your computers... but typical for a liberal, I would say...
But, really, don't you think that Rush and Rove would take offense at you because of their choice of products from Apple... :-)
At least there are relevant conservatives who choose the best products based on the products at hand, and choose Apple products -- instead of trying to impose some kind of "political line" on the computers and phones... LOL...
Rush talking about his Macs... :-)
You know, I'm a big Mac guy. I love Macs, and I've got four Mac Pros. They're the top-of-the-line Mac Pros, maxed out. And they just had a new system upgrade, went to 10.5 Leopard, and they've had two upgrades since October. Yesterday brought 10.5.2, which was loaded.
NB: All right, I've got just one more quick question for you. Last time I saw you, you'd just gotten an iPhone. How's that working out for you?
ROVE: I love it. My life has changed. I have a shred of coolness. I've got my 3,500 people in my addressbook on the phone, I can sync my calendar. I keep track of my modest little stock investments. I can check the weather of my house in Washington, my house in Florida, my boy at school, my hunt-lease in south Texas. I can surf the web, I'm just–I get part of my email there.
I mean it is just shocking how much better, how much more productive I am. I no longer carry around a giant address book, if I don't have my calendar close at hand, I can quickly check it out of my– I don't have to carry, I used to carry several notecards, now it's just as easy to scribble on my little notepad, I can take photographs and forward them on immediately, it's just remarkable.
“But, please do go back to the Windows world..., it would save us a lot of trouble trying to educate the deliberately ignorant... :-)”
“hypersonic rotor blades”..... BWAHAHAHAH! That’s mind numbing ignorance if anything is....
“At least there are relevant conservatives who choose the best products based on the products at hand, and choose Apple products — instead of trying to impose some kind of “political line” on the computers and phones... LOL...”
I don’t buy Ruger for the same reason and neither Bush or Rove are “relevant conservatives”. Bush was a liberal President, Rush is an entertainer, and Rove is in the same line of work as James Carville and none use their systems for anything more complicated than word processing or email.
I don’t buy Ruger for the same reason and neither Bush or Rove are “relevant conservatives”.
We can already see that you operate on a level that can be described as a "total disconnect from reality"...
Usually that is a phenomenon of a liberal (but unfortunately some conservatives have it, too, as I've seen). You sould more like a liberal to me, though...
BUT, to help you with some "reality" here (and to ameliorate your disconnect from "reality") -- it might help you to know that Bush was the conservative candidate choice for election... LOL...
Oh... and he won, too.... :-) [ummm..., and that was for "conservatives" too... LOL...]
But, I can see the problem that you're having with "life"... and I do sympathize...
“We can already see that you operate on a level that can be described as a “total disconnect from reality”...”
Bill Ruger, Sr, supported gun control. I vote with my wallet.
“BUT, to help you with some “reality” here (and to ameliorate your disconnect from “reality”) — it might help you to know that Bush was the conservative candidate choice for election... LOL...”
We had no conservative choice from the two main parties in either election. That is the reality. The same thing was true in 2008.
“Oh... and he won, too.... :-) [ummm..., and that was for “conservatives” too... LOL...]”
You think Bush was a conservative? That’s hilarious.
Unenforceable terms.
Any part of a contract can be null and void if it's in contradiction to the law. Specifying what may or may not be done with something AFTER it has been sold seems to fall into that cateogry.
You think Bush was a conservative? That’s hilarious.
And did conservatives vote for him?
In light of your statement "that fact is hilarious!".... LOL...
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