Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 21st Sep 2009 08:44 UTC, submitted by Cytor
There are several options out there if you wan to run Mac OS X on your non-Apple labelled computer, but one of them appears to be in serious trouble. It has been uncovered that the EFI-X module is nothing more than a USB stick with a DRM chip, with code from the hackintosh community on it - without attribution. On top of that, its firmware update utility uses LGPL code - again, without attribution.
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RE[7]: Comment by lurch_mojoff
by lemur2 on Mon 21st Sep 2009 11:59
in reply to "RE[6]: Comment by lurch_mojoff"
Member since:2007-02-17
You are right but you are nitpicking on semantics. At any rate, this thing you said:
"Copyright law is the legally binding thing that prevents you from doing anything with software that isn't yours (i.e. software that you did not write yourself)... You don't need to agree to anything at all in order to be given a permission.
"Copyright law is the legally binding thing that prevents you from doing anything with software that isn't yours (i.e. software that you did not write yourself)... You don't need to agree to anything at all in order to be given a permission.
applies equally to source code and software licenses. Copyright law is what gives the holder the legal right to dictate the terms under which you can use their software. "
Yes.
In the context of what we were discussing, so what?
Copyright law is the thing that forbids. Licenses give (some) permissions that over-ride copyright law restrictions.
The GPL gives some permissions that copyright law withholds by default (absent such permission). That is all that it does. Therefore one does not need to agree to it.
EULAS also typically give some permissions that copyright law withholds by default (absent such permission), but generally they will also attempt to impose restrictions which copyright law does not impose.
As examples, one such restriction might be to try to prevent re-sale, or to try to prevent disassembly of the binary code, or to try to restrict the type of mahines on which the software may be used (such as the case with the Apple EULA).
In order to be bound by such restrictions (that are not part of copyright law), you must agree to be bound by them. Hence the business of having to "agree" to a EULA. This is not the case with the GPL.
Edited 2009-09-21 12:01 UTC
RE[8]: Comment by lurch_mojoff
by boldingd on Mon 21st Sep 2009 21:40
in reply to "RE[7]: Comment by lurch_mojoff"
Member since:2009-02-19
The GPL does impose restrictions, tho. And it is a legally binding agreement. It is the license for the code (/application) that you're trying to use, which you implicitly accept by using the code (or application). If your analysis where correct, then companies could take GPL code, close it up, modify it, and charge for binaries built with it.
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 15:53 UTC
The new WebKit Opera for Android has been released. "Opera 14 for Android is built on top of Chromium 26, with a total overhaul of the UI in native code, making it fit well with the latest Android design guidelines. Go get the build from Google Play or point your browser to m.opera.com, and give it a spin!"
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 22:43 UTC
The Verge pointed me to a blog post by Leap Motion - which reveals how their Kinect-like motion control works with Windows 8. "From the second you plug in your Leap Motion Controller, you'll be able to browse the web and interact with your computer just by moving your hands and fingers in the air. With Leap Motion technology and Windows, you can do everything that's possible with multi-touch inputs - without actually touching anything. This also means that existing applications in Windows 7 and 8 will respond to your natural hand and finger movements. Soon, we'll show you how Leap Motion will work with Mac OS X." Quite cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 21:50 UTC
PocketNow interviews Marc Dillon, and there's an interesting note about why Jolla is keeping the display properties under wraps: "We're leaving some of those details out because we do understand that there are a lot of really big players in the market and they tend to take certain components in the market and dominate them. We created the ability to actually be able to run Sailfish on multiple hardware displays and be able to swap components, so this is part of the demand and supply planning phase. We are committed to this industrial design which is a 4.5-inch display, an 8 megapixel camera on the back and a front-facing camera at the front, and the exact specs of the display we'll provide when we're close to delivery." Something you rarely hear anything about.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:15 UTC
"This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:11 UTC, submitted by Drumhellar
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:06 UTC
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 7:37 UTC
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Linked by fran on 05/18/13 1:38 UTC
Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 23:35 UTC, submitted by kragil
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
Linked by MOS6510 on 05/17/13 22:22 UTC
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."More News »
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Member since:
2007-05-12
You are right but you are nitpicking on semantics. At any rate, this thing you said:
applies equally to source code and software licenses. Copyright law is what gives the holder the legal right to dictate the terms under which you can use their software.