• 10 Posts
  • 544 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 1st, 2023

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  • Let’s say you write a novel. It’s really really good. But no one reads it because no one ever hears about it.

    Later, I stumble upon your novel and recognize how great it is. Then I republish it verbatim, except with my name as the author. I am much better at business and marketing than you, so it goes viral. I receive millions in sales, am tapped to produce a movie version, and win a Pulitzer for it.

    Is that fair? Or should you have some rights in all of this since it was your copy?




  • You don’t need to provide root access just because you used GPL code, you just have to follow the GPL.

    Well, to follow version 3 of the GPL, you do actually need to provide effective root access.

    Specifically, version 3 of the GPL adds language to prevent Tivoization.

    It’s not enough to just provide the user with the code. The user is entitled to the freedom to modify that code and to use their modifications.

    In other words, in addition to providing access to the source code, you must actually provide a mechanism to allow the user to change the code on the device.

    The name “Tivoization” comes from the practice of the company TiVo, which sold set-top boxes based on GPL code, but employed DRM to prevent the user from applying custom patches. V3 of the GPL remedies this bug.





  • I’m visiting with the fam for the 4th. My grandparents keep CNN on 24/7.

    CNN has been running “Biden should step down” as their main lead, all week. Every show has at least one segment on it.

    They’re saying stuff like “70% of democrat voters think he is not fit” or something like that (dunno what their polling data and methodology are though.)

    I expect that these 24/7 news networks can apply a lot of pressure to drive a story like this.

    Edit: I may have misquoted those polls. Which I think shows how bad CNN’s reporting is. They just said something very different came out of a Reuter’s poll.