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Wired has an article which responds to the view of John Deere and General Motors on what the people who buy their vehicles actually own, which was expressed during comments on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA):
John Deere—the world’s largest agricultural machinery maker —told the Copyright Office that farmers don’t own their tractors. Because computer code snakes through the DNA of modern tractors, farmers receive “an implied license for the life of the vehicle to operate the vehicle.”
It’s John Deere’s tractor, folks. You’re just driving it.
Several manufacturers recently submitted similar comments to the Copyright Office under an inquiry into the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
...
General Motors told the Copyright Office that proponents of copyright reform mistakenly “conflate ownership of a vehicle with ownership of the underlying computer software in a vehicle.” But I’d bet most Americans make the same conflation—and Joe Sixpack might be surprised to learn GM owns a giant chunk of the Chevy sitting in his driveway
(Score: 5, Informative) by number6 on Friday April 24 2015, @09:39AM
If you visit OpenSourceEcology you are also being tracked by the business corporation named Facebook via its buttons embedded in an iframe on the page.
IMHO, the terms "Facebook" and "Open Source" fit together like a wolf in sheeps clothing.
If "social networking" must be baked into global internet activity, then a business corporation such as Facebook should NOT be the controlling agent of this activity.
Such projects should only be accepted if they are FOSS (Free and Open Source and have copyleft licenses such as the GPL).
FOSS replacements for Facebook et al are beginning to happen and gaining momentum; for example the GNU Social project [gnu.io].
More food for thought......
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 24 2015, @09:59AM
And don't use Google, either.