Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 7th Sep 2010 21:52 UTC
I've often harped on Apple for its policy regarding jailbreaking, but of course, Apple isn't the only company engaging in such practices. We already talked about Motorola, and now, we have Sony - already a company with a checkered past when it comes to consumer rights. As it turns out, Sony don't want you jailbreaking 
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Member since:2007-02-17
This is the interpretation of some. Others, for instance the Free Software Foundation, believe that dynamic linking is creating a derivative work. For this reason, they have created the LGPL (which does allow dynamic linking in proprietary applications, but not static linking).
This might be what the FSF believe, but it is not what copyright law says. Copyright law says that a derived work must include major elements of an earlier copyrighted work. Dynamic linked libraries (the earlier copyrighted work) are NOT present in the as-distributed work (whereas static linked libraries are). Furthermore, it is the act of distribution of code, and not the mere running of code, that the copyleft provisions of the GPL apply to.
If the FSF were to try to mount a case such as you argue in court, I do not see how they could logically prevail.
The FSF have never tried to argue such a case, AFAIK, and all GPL violations that have been argued by the FSF have involved instances where GPL code was in fact being distributed, physically included within larger (proprietary) works. This, and only this, is the no-no that has bite under the law.
Edited 2010-09-08 07:55 UTC
Member since:2009-08-26
It's true that the cases they have taken to court were clear violations like the busybox case. They mostly go after cases where there was no intent to provide source of any kind.
But the FSF has also stated that dynamic linking constitutes a combined program.
The screwy thing is that call dynamic linking of plug-ins to be a borderline case:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLPluginsInNF
What type of license allows a borderline case?
They also consider using shared memory to communicate with a plug-in to be the same as dynamic linking even though with a plug-in this is easily avoided by keeping the process separate.
You could certainly argue in court that dynamic linking isn't a violation, especially since it is acceptable to build that same library into a separate executable that only exists to provide access.
Too much of the GPL is ambiguous, it really needs to be rewritten. It comes from a time when most programs were small and statically linked.
Member since:2005-11-18
Indeed, it is not clear at all, and I agree with nt_jerkface that the GPL is far to ambiguous in this respect. Even if you believe that dynamic linking does not form a derivative work (which effectively makes the GPL a badly-worded LGPL). What if headers contain a significant amount of macros that do become part of your compiled program? What about C++ templates? And if C++ templates create a derivative work, isn't that weird (create an instantiation in the library and you are safe, create one in your code, and you are not)?
As many have come to find out, the GPL is a legal minefield. Sure, it has advantages if you embrace FLOSS ideals, want to force contribution of changes, or to give competitors an advantage they can run with (well, arguably only the AGPL helps fully). But it's a hell of a complicated license, and it's not strange companies want too touch it as little as possible.
Edited 2010-09-08 11:03 UTC
News
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."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 22:15 UTC, submitted by Tom
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 21:41 UTC
Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 17:04 UTC
"But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn't an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. The results of that initiative have been shared at a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on panels at the Penny Arcade Expo East and the Game Developers Conference." Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm a League of Legends player, and to be honest, the community isn't nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I'm happy Riot games has the guts to employ science to address the issue.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 13:17 UTC
"Android and iOS, the number one and number two ranked smartphone operating systems worldwide, combined for 92.3% of all smartphone shipments during the first quarter of 2013 as Windows Phone crept past BlackBerry for 3rd place. According to the International Data Corporation Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, Android smartphone vendors and Apple shipped a total of 199.5 million units worldwide during 1Q13, up 59.1% from the 125.4 million units shipped during 1Q12." Windows Phone doubles from a few to twice few, iOS loser market share as its growth is slower than that of the overall market. BlackBerry continues slide into irrelevance.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 12:06 UTC
"According to the latest research from our Wireless Smartphone Strategies service, global Android smartphone profits reached US$5 billion in total during the first quarter of 2013. Samsung dominated and captured an impressive 95 percent share of all Android smartphone profits." Wow.More News »
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Member since:
2005-11-18
This is the interpretation of some. Others, for instance the Free Software Foundation, believe that dynamic linking is creating a derivative work. For this reason, they have created the LGPL (which does allow dynamic linking in proprietary applications, but not static linking).