Recent quotes:
dmca/2019-11-08-abbott.md at master · github/dmca · GitHub
It has come to Abbott’s attention that a software project titled “Libre2-patched-App” has been uploaded to GitHub, Inc.’s (“GitHub”) website and creates unauthorized derivative works of Abbott’s LibreLink program (the “Infringing Software”). The Infringing Software is available at https://github.com/user987654321resu/Libre2-patched-App. In addition to offering the Infringing Software, the project provides instructions on how to download the Infringing Software, circumvent Abbott’s technological protection measures by disassembling the LibreLink program, and use the Infringing Software to modify the LibreLink program.Abbott Labs kills free tool that lets you own the blood-sugar data from your glucose monitor, saying it violates copyright law / Boing Boing
First, they say that creating a tool that interoperates with the Freestyle Libre's data is a copyright infringement, because the new code is a derivative work of Abbott's existing product. But code that can operate on another program's data is not a derivative work of the first program -- just because Apple's Pages can read Word docs, it doesn't mean that Pages is a derivative of MS Office. In addition, as Diabettech points out, EU copyright law explicitly contains an exemption for reverse engineering in order to create interoperability between medical devices (EU Software Directive, Article 6). More disturbing is Kirkland/Abbott's claim that the project violates Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which prohibits bypassing "access controls" for copyrighted works. Factual data (like your blood sugar levels) are not copyrightable -- and if they were, you would hold that copyright. It's your blood. What's more, DMCA 1201 also contains an interoperability exemption.Talk of tech innovation is bullsh*t. Shut up and get the work done – says Linus Torvalds • The Register
The Linux kernel is perhaps the most successful collaborative technology project of the PC era. Kernel contributors, totaling more than 13,500 since 2005, are adding about 10,000 lines of code, removing 8,000, and modifying between 1,500 and 1,800 daily, according to Zemlin. And this has been going on – though not at the current pace – for more than two and a half decades.Women code better... IF they're anonymous
Now a team of researchers has done an exhaustive analysis of millions of GitHub pull requests for open source projects, trying to discover whether the contributions of women were accepted less often than the contributions of men. What they discovered was that women's contributions were actually accepted more often than men's—but only if the women had gender-neutral profiles. Women whose GitHub profiles revealed their genders had a much harder time.
You have a dollar. I have a dollar. We swap. Now you have my dollar and I have yours. We are no better off. You have an idea. I have an idea. We swap. Now we have two ideas.