Yesterday I had a request from a client for a network diagram for a system I’m designing, and normally I create such drawings as a PNG file. But this client said “no, I need it in Visio, or similar style so we can edit it”. I have avoided Microsoft Visio in the past, mainly because of its price tag: $249.99 for the basic version, and a whopping $999.99 for the premium version!
That’s a lot of moolah for a simple drawing program. But I figured it was time to bite the bullet and just buy it. So I drove to my local Staples and was going to pick up a copy. I actually had it in hand…and then some serendipity happened.
I was passing the table where they have all the laptops, and this fellow was lifting up and looking over a familiar laptop, one that I had gotten for my lovely wife on her birthday and I commented as I was walking by him “That’s a good buy, I bought one for my wife.”. To which he responded. “That’s good to hear, but do you know if it has wireless 3G?”. I started to explain that such options are usually with add-ons, such as special USB wireless dongles sold by cellular companies, but it seemed to baffle him.
So, I explained the differences between WiFi and 3G/4G services and said, “that laptop is probably already connected to WiFi right here in the store, see that Starbucks next door? They have free WiFi”. He was amazed to discover this, even more amazed when I pointed out to him that every McDonald’s in the USA has free WiFi now also, as do most hotels, and some airports.
To which he replied “Well, I suppose I don’t need to pay for 3G then do I?” That struck me, because at that moment, I realized I might not have to pay for Visio either; not because I planned on shoplifting it from the store, but because I hadn’t checked for alternatives yet.
I said, here, let me show you. And I showed him how to connect to WiFi on the laptop, then proceeded to Google “Visio replacement”.
Some hits came up. Most were dead-ends…but one wasn’t, and that’s what I want to share with you today.
Since many WUWT readers are scientists, engineers and business people, they need something like Visio on occasion to map networks, processes, flowcharts, structure trees, etc.
So I want to share “Dia”, short for “Diagram”. Its detailed, open source, and most importantly, free. It also has a community springing up that is adding shape sets for various specialty designs.
From the Dia web page:
Dia is a GTK+ based diagram creation program for GNU/Linux, Unix and Windows released under the GPL license.
Dia is roughly inspired by the commercial Windows program ‘Visio’, though more geared towards informal diagrams for casual use. It can be used to draw many different kinds of diagrams. It currently has special objects to help draw entity relationship diagrams, UML diagrams, flowcharts, network diagrams, and many other diagrams. It is also possible to add support for new shapes by writing simple XML files, using a subset of SVG to draw the shape.
It can load and save diagrams to a custom XML format (gzipped by default, to save space), can export diagrams to a number of formats, including EPS, SVG, XFIG, WMF and PNG, and can print diagrams (including ones that span multiple pages).
We feel Dia is in a state where it can be actively used. Many features are implemented and the code is quite solid and mature. Try downloading Dia and tell us what you think of it. If you find any bugs, please report them with Gnome Bugzilla.
It seems pretty snazzy, and intuitive. I was able to doodle this up within seconds of opening the program:
So, for what I need to do, a networking flow diagram, it’s perfect, and free.
Some other examples for other venues are here.
My advice, get it. You’ve nothing to lose, everything to gain. While you are at it, if you want a simple and easy to use graphing program, may I suggest Dplot, which I also use. It’s a trial, and registration is cheap, and it has paid for itself many times over.
No this isn’t a commercial or paid plug, just stuff I thought I’d share this holiday season with thanks to the guy who needed some help understanding WiFi and 3G. It just goes to show that sometimes, good deeds are repaid.
Albert D. Kallal,
I find your comments on the protection of property rights very funny.
Have you ever read about the trouble Charles Dickens had in any getting money from the USA market? Copyright and protection of his work in the USA was a running battle throughout his working career.
Do you think that the letters of the alphabet should be subject to copyright protection? So every time somebody types an ‘a’ a few dollars should drop in the pockets of the mediaeval monk that scripted the first shape of the lower case a?
Do you think that the use of upper case and lower case, an English invention by the way, should be subject to copyright?
Do you think that driving on the right hand side of the road, which is wrong and dangerous and practised by those who had the misfortune of being beaten into submission by the Sardinian Napoleon Bonaparte, and perpetuated by Henry Ford, should be protected by copyright and that every American should cough into the coffers of Henry Ford’s descendants?
All I can say is that thank goodness we had the alphabet in use before the USA, and Microsoft, could lay claim and copyright to it!
@Albert
You seem to have freedom confused with the capacity to get money out of other people by controlling things.
From Albert Kallal on December 16, 2010 at 3:01 am:
Ha. As seen in the graphic accompanying the illustration:
Thus under the terms of the licensing agreement, this “Home and Student” version cannot be used for school fundraising.
So before there can be bake sales and similar events to raise funds to help the needy, or even just collect donations, someone has to cough up the dough for the Home and Business version, $279.99 list, on sale $199.99, good for just two installations, a primary and a portable PC. Likewise if a school club wants to sell candy for a field trip. And Heaven help a single parent who tries to use “Home and Student” while selling some things on eBay to afford some good things for their kid(s). Off to the stockade!
Or they could just get Open Office…
Brilliant! Thanks for the tip, I was about to buy Visio too.
Re: previous post
“…graphic accompanying the listing…”
“…wording accompanying the illustration…”
It’s “Pick your preferred correction” day!
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
Or they could just get Open Office…
There are two types of PC people … those with more money than sense (at least in the short term because people like that either get more sense or loose all their money) … and those with open office.
But seriously, I used micro$oft for years and whilst I would not say Open office is not a pain to work with some times, it is no less of a pain than micro$oft but at least you are not paying through the nose for all the hassle you get from software like micro$oft.
About the biggest problem I had on openoffice writer was trying to format a page … I spent ages looking for it where micro$oft had it … and then I remembered that I had spent ages trying to find it on micro$oft because for some odd reason it was under edit, and not format (like openoffice) where it ought to be.
Once you unlearn the bad habits picked up from micro$oft, it is a breeze to use!
Albert Kallal
December 15, 2010 at 7:17 pm
#
You don’t know what you are talking about. Right wing socialism is still socialism and evil to the core. Software as a business model generally requires Power of State to be valid. Once Power of State has been gained, monopolization follows. MS puts out crappy software because it is in there interest to do so. That is why they are finally releasing a product that was state of the are in the 80s, and is still crappy.
Just because some OSS advocates spew Marxist non-sense, does not make OSS anti-capitalist. Most of these noisemakers are kids who have been brainwashed by their Marxist college profs, or over the hill hasbeens. MS also has their agent-provocateurs, on the blogs, that work to make the OSS community look loony in order to scare off businesses who might want to take advantage of OSS. Most of the real drivers of OSS have no problem with capitalism. Take a look at Eclipse if you need a real working example.
Just because an organization exist to make money, does not make it capitalistic. MS is as socialist as it gets. If we had a real free-market for software, Adobe would be marketing and making money off of “Photoshop” for Linux, but they aren’t and the excuses they give for not doing so are lame. Since when does a free business decide to not make money? BTW, I love the GIMP, but I would be willing to pay for Adobe. Adobe markets some of the few products that actually work as a business.
Just t’ let you know, as some readers of WUWT might attest, I am a obnoxiously rabid anti-socialist, and a radical free-market zelot. I have also been writing software since 1975.
Albert Kallal
December 15, 2010 at 7:17 pm
###
Hmmm, thought I recognized your name. I ran across it yesterday morning on Stackoverflow while researching the best way to identify the animation of a notify Icon in C#. Talk about synchronicity!
I really and truly hate to admit it, but I rather enjoy programming in C#, but considering the people who were hired by MS to create it, I should not be surprised.
Great thread. Let me jump in on Albert Kallal’s side, sort of.
I can see some of his argument. Under communism, private property is forbidden, so there are no intellectual property rights. The government owns everything (for the benefit of the proletariat, of course). Fascism is similar, but ownership is left in private hands. The fascist government just controls what you do with your private property. Not that I’m making any comparison with the current administration.
When you do a job for our government, it tries (if you let it) to assert ownership of not only the results, but also the source code, your development software suite, your computer, and your first born. Take a look at the license that Microsoft makes the government agree to. Bill Gates has learned from experience.
When a bunch of nerds put together a piece of software, they can either market it for money or go freebie for glory. It’s their intellectual property, it’s their choice. It shouldn’t be anyone else’s choice, not yours, not mine, not the government’s.
When someone calls the music industry “greedy” for charging more than cost for a cd, that’s trying to tell someone else what to do with their property. Americans have died to protect our right to do that, and to protect our right to ignore such calls. They didn’t die to protect the government’s right to enforce such calls.
No company likes competition, and freeware is competition for Microsoft, but that’s the environment it chooses to price it’s products in. If we don’t like the price or license restrictions, we can go somewhere else. If we don’t like elsewhere’s software, we can go back to Microsoft. What we should not do is violate the license we agreed to.
Brett_McS says:
December 15, 2010 at 7:00 pm
There is a fellow in the New Hampshire Python SIG who does automotive radar processing with that combination, and I’ve seen other references to it too. Really a very good combination. Number crunching in an interpretive language – who’da thunk it?
As for Python in general, http://www.xkcd.com/353/ is the best summary.
NASA GISS uses Python too, so they aren’t all bad.
BTW, the WUWT summaries at http://home.comcast.net/~ewerme/wuwt/index.html are generated nightly via Python (hooked into MySQL).
While not getting into the ‘Check out this cool thing I like!’ commentary, I’m a Visio user (just upgraded for $230), and don’t deny there is a lot of reasonable share/free/open source stuff out there, unfortunately there’s far too much dross to wade through to find it. Direct dollar cost isn’t the only measure of cost.
The old adage, ‘you get what you pay for’ still applies. I’ve used Dia, and while it’s an OK application, it doesn’t fit my requirements and demands of a drawing package. I find it frustrating to use – a cost I’m not prepared to pay.
Everybody has a ‘good enough’ scale for any given application.
Kallal et al:
One test of good law is that most people comply with it. If a particular law is ignored by just about everybody, then there is something wrong with the law. So what are we to make of the fact that the current state of affairs is making liars out of all of us. I refer to end user agreements that are introduced by such things as this (from downloading instructions for Adobe Flash 10.1…):
By clicking the Download Now button, you acknowledge you have read and agree to the Software Licensing Agreement
The ‘agreement’ consists of 8 pages of legal mumbo-jumbo. I think it will be no great exaggeration to say that nobodyactually reads these things. We generally just lie.
Law that encourages such behavior is bad law, whatever political philosophy you advocate.
Pretty cool. At first I thought you were going to find Visio bundled on the laptop with a cost less than the program alone.
@Mike McMillan
I was with you until you said
I could almost agree with that, with the proviso of course that freedom means that I have a perfect right to say when other people are being greedy. However your use of that word`property’ completely spoiled it for me.
Calling copyright `property’ attempts to force the conclusion that it should be treated entirely equivalently to ownership of material things. But copyright isn’t like a material thing. Calling it `property’ doesn’t make it so and really is just an attempt to foreclose and hide an entire argument about how your rights and my rights should be balanced against each other.
Copyright is a monopoly backed by the power of the state which gives the power to force other people NOT to do something. It supposedly lets you reach through the walls of my house and tell me what I can and cannot do with my computer. While you as copyright owner might enjoy having the state give you this power to control what I do, granting you this power negatively impacts on MY freedom.
Copyright and other so called intellectual property rights involve trading off my freedom to do what I want in my own house with my own stuff against your supposed right to make a buck with your state imposed monopoly. Simply calling copyright `property’ lets you avoid even discussing where the balance between my freedom and your desire to make a buck should be drawn.
Sort of pro-Albert comment: if you assume that the government is the source of rights (property being a crucial one), and/or that it can demand sweeping surrender of your IP as a condition for doing business with it, you are on a greased, not just slippery, slope.
It should not only be possible to survive writing software (e.g.) but to get wealthy from it, IF you have something people want to buy. Here’s von Mises:
I.e., IMO, governments are the primo tools for control and exploitation, and only by government playing favorites do monopolies arise and survive.
Anyhoooo… here’s a sample of the right way to make money from software: the $35 ClipMate (clipmate.com) package. It “grabs” every ctrl-C copy you make, and allows detailed control of it afterwards, saving in temp or perm collections, editing, searching. I have archives going back years, which are vastly more convenient than trying to retro-search something I vaguely recall seeing and copying once upon a time, etc. You’ll wonder how you ever lived without it!
When someone calls the music industry “greedy” for charging more than cost for a cd, that’s trying to tell someone else what to do with their property. Americans have died to protect our right to do that, and to protect our right to ignore such calls. They didn’t die to protect the government’s right to enforce such calls.
——————————————————————————
I made the comment that the recorded music industry is in trouble because it got greedy when CDs were introduced. I have never disputed their right to do so, just their right to criminalise people who did what consumers have always done, ie refuse to pay monopolistic rip off prices, and find other ways to obtain their music.
What my friends and I did was to buy one CD and copy it privately multiple times among friends. This was illegal, but would not have happened on that scale if we did not all know we were being robbed to purchase an inferior product. As I said earlier, in the days of vinyl people taped records but still bought the original quite happily because it was a superior product at a reasonable price.
Copyright has been debased into monopoly rights which are sanctioned for decades.
In the case of software, I agree with PP who says that once he has bought it, it is his and he can modify it if he wishes. It is perfectly legal to modify a car, or cross things out in a book, so what’s so different about software?
As for the PP who commented on the inability (legally) of a school to use the domestic version of software for fundraising, it’s Catch 22 – they would need to fundraise to pay for the commercial version!
A couple of notes:
1. Not all of Microsoft Excel’s bugs are supported in Star-/Open-/Libre-Office.
2. If you’re not quite ready to stop using Windows on your computer but would like to graze on the other side of the fence, you can install the KDE desktop environment on Windows, along with a range of applications.
First of all you can do what you want with that software once you purchased it and that includes even modifying it. However, that still may be breaking part of the agreement you supposed agreed to when you purchased the software. You can purchase a Ford, but the alternator from GM will not work on that car.
And you are free to take apart and modify that car, but once you do so, you likely to void the warranty if you break the terms of the agreement that you purchased the car under.
It really comes down to the agreement and terms you accept. You can modify the car, but you STILL DO NOT own the IP and patients and technology systems in the car.
I mean, Poor James Watts inventor of the steam engine REALLY needed a simple crankshaft to convert reciprocating motion into circular motion. Unfortunately some bloke had the patient on the simple crankshaft, so either he pay, or simply came up with his own design. He chose his own design:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_and_planet_gear
No one here is stating that we want a rotten system but because you don’t like that fact that 7-11 charges 1$ for a can of pop where the same can be had at Wal Mart (china mart) for 30 cents., This is not some big crime. As I pointed out people WILLING purchase billions of Coke Cola each year.
In fact, when you purchase a PC, you paying about $40 for the os, and that will last you a good 5+ years. I mean, I cannot even make a service call for the photo copier for $40. Software is a great deal and that is why people so willing purchase billions of dollars of the stuff. This is not some big crime. People want this stuff and purchase billions of it every year.
As I pointed out, the 3 pack office at $124 is rather great bargain. Just counting ONLY 3 programs out of that office pack over the 3 legal computers you get means you are paying $13 for word, and another $13 for excel. That is an amazing amount of technology for such a cheap price (it in the price range of going to a movie). That is just oh so cheap and people years ago paid $600 for word perfect and the spell checker was a add in!
The consumer is free to make this choice. And the same goes for pulling out some gunk of the ground at $3 per barrel and selling it at $80 as is done with oil. However, because some one has done something they don’t like about the system does not mean we throw out the whole system of ownership and become an advocate for wealth redistribution or loss or property rights. One bad cop does not mean we get right of the legal system!
And, let’s not even start about how galactic stupid it was to allow banks to invest saving into speculative markets (they need to be highly regulated and what we have now pretty much represents institutionalized foxes living in the chicken coop )
There is no question that physical things are different then intellectual property rights, it would be unfair to say they are exactly the same thing and that’s not being claimed here. However the whole issue of patent rights and giving those rights to individuals is in fact a great privilege that are society has long fought for.
In regards to a book, sure you can cross out pages, and mark it anyway you want with a pen. You are also free to sell that book to someone else if you please. However, what you cannot do is reproduce the book and reap the benefits of IP that the author original created. So, there is big difference here between marking the book with a pen, or marking up your CD with a felt pen that you purchased with software on it.
You can even for the most part open up ANY computer program with a HEX editor and modify the code. You can much do that (despite what the agreements might say or breaking some seals on the new car you just purchased). However, what you CAN NOT do is then sell that change as YOUR IP right since it based on previous works that may not have been granted to you.
So, no you cannot do what you want with the IP content of the book. You are most free to toss the book into your fireplace. (assuming the fireplace has not been banned by the local co2 police). However without you being granted IP rights, you cannot sell that IP content as your own.
So, while there is an issue of semantics in terms of physical vs that of non physical and they are different, at a very fundamental level they are the same. And the ramifications for world trade and a whole bunch of issues will result as nations give up these kinds of rights.
This western concept of rewarding people and allowing them to retain IP rights is a great thing of the west, and is simply one of the great pillars of western society. This is a good thing, and it much the same as granting the ownership of private property to people. In any society where these rights are taken away (or like parts of Europe where they simply signed away so many rights to the EU), then the society suffers for this choice.
As pointed out by Lord Monckton, darn near the WHOLE CAGW fight was about rights of nations and these scammers attempting to take those rights away from YOU.
So, I just pointing out that while community work is not necessary socialism, nor is open source software bad, the issue is much that the Open source community IS IN FACT asking you to forego and give up your IP rights. I have no problem with people freely doing this, but WHEN it becomes a demand of governments or people, then it has become the SAME kind of demand that wealth and rights are to be forbidden, and those wealth and rights are to be redistributed to the rest of society without the owner being reimbursed.
This is really no difference than taking your hard earned wealth which is your property, and giving it to someone else. We might agree that some taxation is good, at the end of the day it’s forced taking a way of your resources and giving it to someone else.
Without ownership of things, you can never have true freedom and control of your own destiny. It what the founding fathers of the US fought for when they created that great nation.
And by the way speaking of some really great software, I’m using the windows 7 built in voice dictation system to write this amazing long post. Thus I am sitting here dictating this post, while sipping on a coffee, and barely for the most part using the keyboard.
Albert D. Kallal
Edmonton, Alberta Canada
A good replacement for MS Office and OpenOffice is IBM’s Lotus Symphony. It is closer to MS Office in most respects (such as menus) and is getting better with each release.
Worth a shot: http://symphony.lotus.com/software/lotus/symphony/home.nsf/home
Great thread for thrifty types, Anthony, thanks!
Albert D. Kallal,
I agree with the basic premise of what you say on ownership. However, muddying the water is the problem of companies growing so big they have the capacity to knock out or buy out competitors. I believe that the US Govt did try to curb Micros*ft using the monopoly rules but MS beat the rap as it were. The problem is the same with the licencing of the genes and growing foodstuffs etc with large companies saying that they own produce which has their gene in it. I think there is a problem of growing your own pigs (the real ones) in the EU on this.
So what you say re ownership does and should apply, until companies get really big and then society needs to rein them in.
Rules of society need to be flexible, and we need to see the grey as well as the black and white.
The EU has got big and it is creating its own monopoly. I believe that the AGW is being pushed by the EU as part of this.
With regards to free software, it puzzles me as to why anything is free, if people have to make a living. Are the developers on some sort of grant? Are they moonlighting from well paid University jobs? How come all this stuff is free?
And if it is freely offered to everyone as free, then I dont think people should be lectured who choose to avail themselves of the free offers.
@xyzlatin wrote/ask:
Are the developers on some sort of grant? Are they moonlighting from well paid University jobs? How come all this stuff is free?
And if it is freely offered to everyone as free, then I dont think people should be lectured who choose to avail themselves of the free offers.
=====
Well, actually as I mentioned, there are some companies that benefit from supporting free trade (so they can import cheap goods from other places – corporate profits are at RECORD levels last qtr, yet no jobs are appearing and the middle class sector and manufacturing been all but destroyed here as a result. Imagine that, record profits and no jobs here!).
As I noted, Las Vegas loves cheap air line flights because it helps their core business of gambling. In the IT industry companies like IBM and SUN don’t make money from software and in fact seek to make software as cheap as possible for their own goals. This makes software cheaper and also the labor and cost cheaper. And this system allows them to sell hardware systems like servers and point of sale systems that they make great money with by leasing that equipment. Even the smart phone companies that are making buckets of money are now often using open source to save a few dollars on the phone that they don’t have to give to any developer anymore. I mean why give a million to a software company when the CEO can have it for a bonus?
So if your in the Las Vegas hotel business, you going to promote and support discount air lines and do everything you can to keep the cost of air fares down. In the case of IBM and other vendors in the software industry, they pump lots of money into open source because it lowers the cost of software and means they don’t have to pay royalties to use that software. And more important is also reduces the revenues and ability of their competitors like Microsoft to make money on their core business model that does require IP rights.
So you do things that help the core bottom line but seek to reduce that value to others. (it quite much called business these days!).
Open office was never a free product until sun purchased the product, and then made it free with the intention of destroying Microsoft and Word Perfects source of revenue (I not sure this move should have been even legal by sun and what they did).
And as noted in Europe many governments are mandating open source so they don’t have to purchase software from the evil USA (so it both a policy of reducing trade and also that of a general anti USA policy).
So just like hotels in Vegas benefit from cheap air fairs, many companies like IBM or governments benefit greatly by supporting open source. And thus that where a lot of this money and support comes from.
@wrote:
1.@>And if it is freely offered to everyone as free, then I dont think people should be lectured who choose to avail themselves of the free offers.
I am not lecturing those that give freely to the salvation army or support their local food bank. Nor am I lecturing those that use their local food bank to feed their family or those that benefit from open source software.
However, I am MOST certainly lecturing against the idea that IP rights should not exist and those in the open source movement that advocate abolishment of those IP rights is an serious problem and threat to the software industry. So just like poor countries want to take your our money with AGW and carbon sin taxes, it much the same with wanting to get drugs for free or not having to pay for inventions or software.
You think China would pay for the Intel processor out the goodness of their hearts if they did not have to? Lets not be silly here.
And as I noted, when governments start mandating that their only choice is to be open source software then it not only cuts out the part of the industry that lives on IP rights (mostly from the USA), but it is in effect stating that they will only purchase things from those who have no ownership.
As I noted this is not really any different mandates of purchasing paper and desks and phones from those vendors who are social communities or only using government run institutions or only using some kind of co op without any private ownership.
The issue here is thus the difference between charity and that of attempting to remove rights of ownership.
And, my sorry for the red underline text, I messed up the HTML tag for the link to James Watts. (and I still think poor James Watt NOT being able to use a simple crank shaft is a great example of IP rights in action). Now yes, there also some bad examples of IP rights also, but a bad cop does not mean we throw out the legal system.
Albert D. Kallal
Edmonton, Alberta Canada
From Albert Kallal on December 16, 2010 at 7:31 pm (pieces not necessarily taken in order of appearance):
Normally, nope. Note the standard boilerplate term of proprietary EULA’s, as I found in the MS XP Home one:
You are not allowed to know what is in the program, thus you are not allowed the knowledge to modify it. It’s a black box, you can use it and that’s all. By your car analogy, this is like looking under the hood and finding a completely sealed off compartment, with some openings for adding fluids and that’s it. All over the vehicle, you find nothing identifiable as part of the powertrain, it’s all sealed away. You can drive the vehicle, add fuel and fluids, anything else gets done at the dealership under direction of the manufacturer.
Plus, there’s that “no reverse engineering” clause. You are not allowed to examine the car as a black box. To note that it takes in fuel and air, yields heat and exhaust gases, and provides motive power as the controls are manipulated a certain way, may be enough to violate the agreement. What really clinches it is if you design a vehicle that takes in fuel and air, yields heat and exhaust gases, and provides motive power as the controls are manipulated in a similar way (brake and accelerator pedals, forward/reverse control, etc). Can’t do that.
As far as “breaking part of the agreement,” you agreed to the terms. The EULA specifies how you, the user, will respect the intellectual property rights of the owner of the software, who has agreed to license the use of the software by you by the terms that you have agreed to. For someone making such loud noises about respecting intellectual property rights, you have expressed a somewhat cavalier attitude about disrespecting them for certain purposes.
Which brings up this from the EULA:
You’re not just breaking the warranty. If the manufacturer finds out you have not agreed to the terms of the agreement, you must promptly absolutely destroy the vehicle, in a manner that leaves nothing of value for you or anyone else. Basically, if the manufacturer tells you so, you have to go forth and completely incinerate the car. Whatever damages result, from EPA complaints to criminal charges for arson, are your responsibility. And you ain’t getting any money back from the dealership either.
Your car-to-software analogy… is not that great. The terms for use of proprietary software are far more restrictive than that of cars, even more than that for leased cars.
And at that link, it is quickly revealed it was really the design of William Murdoch, an employee of Boulton and Watt. From the link I supplied:
This is still a common problem with intellectual property rights. Even when not explicitly stated in the employment agreement, creative work of an employee can still be claimed as the intellectual property of the employer. It can be very difficult for a creator to document how all work was done when not on company time to the satisfaction of a court, and it would be normal human behavior to think about what was being created while on the job.
Free software can be a creative release for software developers. The creation is done, others can enjoy it, and because the developer is getting no financial benefit their employer has less to complain about.
Actually that could technically be done, just takes some metal fabrication and electrical skills. Indeed, by the models I’ve owned, the Fords have external voltage regulators while the GM alternators have internal regulators, thus the wiring would be simpler with a GM alternator.
Then there were the AMC vehicles, infamous among rebuilders for AMC’s tendency to use whatever parts they could get from the “Big Three” for the cheapest price, even switching suppliers midway through a model year…
“Ownership” is becoming a nebulous thing, a definition rather than a reality. It is a privilege granted by the state, not a right, as the state can specify what they will allow to be owned. The state may force one to give up ownership without compensation, as they have done with firearms, with vehicles that they have considered to be abandoned, as would-be airplane passengers have discovered when going through screening. Home ownership is a myth, as the state can demand how much in property taxes must be paid for the “owner” to retain possession. That’s not ownership, that’s leasing.
Does that still sound like what the Founding Fathers fought for?
Good Grief!
The ‘Software Should Be free’ argument pops up on the innernet. Never seen that before.
@ur momisugly kadaka
Well as noted in the EUlA the limitations and statements are simply to make clear that they own and protect their IP rights as far as the law will permit them.
And, there is no law that says you can’t look at that code. And since that code is not encrypted there no intent of you not being able to see the code. They are simply stating they are going to protect their IP rights as far as the law will permit them. It really a moot statement on their part.
In the case of the car, it is a physical object. So, you are free to look at the car or book or software as you please. The dissemble is a red herring since you only going to be doing that in you fact wish to copy and use the IP rights for some other purpose as to which you not been granted rights.
In fact to use the software you MUST load the software into YOUR computer in a format that the machine CAN READ AND USE. So to use the software it is implied that the code will be loaded into a format useable by you on your computer! You can look at the software or the car as you please (and in fact you have to load and run and use the software to use it).
However, you cannot reproduce or use the IP rights and technologies in that car without permission of the people that own the IP rights on that car. It is a statement of protection of IP rights. Those software IP rights are NOT really different then the IP rights of the car. You can freely tear up the software CD or mutilate it just like the car. And running of the software is you observing that software anyway.
We taking about PROTECTING IP rights here. Those non physical IP rights for your car are also retained by the manufacture but they don’t need to protect the IP rights in the same way because TO USE THOSE rights you HAVE to build a car so they DO NOT ASK FOR THE SAME restrictions that a software company will BECAUSE THEY DO NOT NEED TO do so to protect their IP rights
To stand here and tell me that the intellectual property rights of book publishing or software industry asks for more restrictions to protect their intellectual property rights then physical manufactured objects is about the Intellectual equivalent of you telling me that you just discovered and realized that the sky is blue.
Of course the restrictions have to be greater, because if they’re not greater than it amounts to no protection at all. In other words you’re standing here complaining and telling me they are asking for far greater restrictions with software than the car, but then you’re completely ignoring that with technology you can circumvent and take advantage of those property rights with great ease without reimbursing the owners of that technology.
You basically stating to me, the fact that you can steal something with great ease, means that you should be able to do so or in fact we should apply the same laws in automobiles to that of software . In fact they are not the same thing, and therefore that’s exactly why we don’t apply the same concepts and laws here.
Next are you going to tell me that the safety regulations applied to an aircraft engines should also be applied to your weed eater motor? We don’t have to apply the same safety standards and regulations that the aircraft industry applies to aircraft engines as compared to your weed eater motor because the consequences of such are NOT EQUIVALENT.
It is without question you have to ask for more restrictions in the terms of software or book publishing then you have to then with your car because if you don’t have those ADDITIONAL restrictions then you are NOT protecting the property rights at all. These additional restrictions are required EXACTLY like additional regulations are required for aircraft engines compared to your weed eater motor because they are different.
These additional restrictions are due to the nature the products. To stand here and complain and tell me that they are different products and have different restrictions, but then ignore one as a physical product and the other is not a physical product is simply patently unfair (pun intended).
So if you’re telling me the restrictions in software for more draconian, then yes you’re absolutely correct. However without those far more draconian restrictions, you don’t have any protection of the property rights at all if you don’t do this!
As I stated, if those intellectual property rights in an automobile could be utilized by consumers with simple stroke of their pen, then I guarantee there would be protections in that regards also.
So the reason why the restrictions to what you’re being asked as a consumer are different between the two different products, because in one case the auto industry doesn’t need the same restrictions to protect their intellectual property rights, and you can’t utilize them with great ease. I did not think this observation needed to be pointed out, but I am now realizing that this is an issue that few have realized.
Albert D. Kallal
Edmonton, Alberta Canada
Albert Kallal says: December 16, 2010 at 7:31 pm
. . . And by the way speaking of some really great software, I’m using the windows 7 built in voice dictation system to write this amazing long post. Thus I am sitting here dictating this post, while sipping on a coffee, and barely for the most part using the keyboard.
Yeah, and I see the really great software forgot to insert the close-link html tag. 😉
(glad I’ve never done that)
Intellectual property rights in America were decided by the founding fathers when they gave Congress the power to establish patents and copyrights in Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. They thought it was important, and I can’t argue.