Google/Oracle's $9B Copyright Case Could Be Headed for the Supreme Court - <AUTHOR> https://www.newsweek.com/2019/06/07/google-oracle-copyright-case-supreme-court-1433037.html <comment><USER2> No tears will be shed, I am sure, if Google has to pay some billions to fatten the already fat pockets of Oracle but the decision by the Federal Circuit being appealed here made a hash out of key legal foundational items that facilitate the very idea of interoperability in the computing world and therefore cries out to be corrected.

My comment at the time the decision was rendered: "This ruling will do what its [the Federal Circuit's] prior expansive reading of patent law did: it will set up a legal standard that invites lawyers and litigants to engage in endless second-guessing over copyright and fair use in areas of connectivity and inter-operability in the computing world and this in turn, as a standing invitation to litigate, cannot be good for future development." (See [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16691774](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16691774) for fuller analysis)

The Supreme Court quite often fails to take up discretionary appeals even if the issues loom large for a particular industry or even if an important case was wrongly decided. Sometimes it does so to resolve conflicting rulings among lower federal courts on an important issue; other times, because a case raises important issues of public policy. Don't know if this case will fit the criteria (it didn't on its first cycle of appeal - see my comment here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9801251#9802457;](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9801251#9802457;) also, [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4050490#4051761](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4050490#4051761)).

I have long been an advocate for solid protection of IP rights but the Federal Circuit here has almost fetishized the idea of copyright protection to the point where it has, in the API and fair use areas, become a caricature of itself. Strong correction _is_ needed on the legal merits of the case.

Let us hope that the high level of interest in the tech community, as revealed by the number and quality of amicus briefs filed, will prompt the Supreme Court to intervene and bring soundness and clarity to an important area of law that affects the tech world in profound ways.

<comment><USER3> > Sometimes it does so to resolve conflicting rulings among lower federal > courts on an important issue; other times, because a case raises important > issues of public policy. Don't know if this case will fit the criteria

It will. The CAFC's rulings are in open conflict with the normal court that would handle this, the ninth circuit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The aspect of this case that I don't understand is why, even if APIs are copyrightable, why Google would need a special license for the Android. If Java is available under the GPL, and Android is a derivative work but is also licensed under the GPL, then where's the problem?

Conversely, by Oracle's logic, any application that uses the Java API would be a derivative work (the method signatures are perfect copies), and thus the app would need to be either GPL itself or pay for a commercial license for Java. This, too, seems incompatible with existing practice (e.g., Apache's Java applications are licensed under its own open-source license which is more permissive and thus can't be a derivative work under the GPL.

What am I missing here?

<comment><USER5> Wikipedia says:

" _At this point in time, the OpenJDK implementation offered by Sun was not as mature or complete as the Java Standard Edition. Instead of licensing Java, Google chose to develop a cleanroom version of the Java Standard Edition libraries, developing the libraries from a completely fresh start without any access to Sun 's code._"

OpenJDK was released in 2007. Android was founded in 2003 and acquired by Google in 2005. It's entirely possible that if the schedules had been shifted a few years, Android would have gone with OpenJDK.

Note that OpenJDK is available under the GPL with the "classpath exception," allowing you to link non-GPL software against it (sorta like the LGPL). Android avoids the GPL in userspace, to the extent of writing their own libc (apparently glibc being under LGPL was not enough).

<comment><USER6> When Android was started, no embedded system of any kind used glibc. It's now 2019 and still _none_ do. It's not GPL avoidance, it's just glibc being (a) huge (pain) for all the wrong reasons.

<comment><USER7> what parts of glibc make it trouble for embedded systems? is it the way it uses memory? or just "too large"?

<comment><USER8> glibc has a reputation for being bloated. Here's a post from 2002 of Linus complaining about it, for example: [http://ecos.sourceware.org/ml/libc- alpha/2002-01/msg00079.ht...](http://ecos.sourceware.org/ml/libc- alpha/2002-01/msg00079.html)

Independently of that glibc also has organizational issues. You see this in some major projects flipping back and forth on it, like Debian switching to EGLIBC in 2009 and then back to glibc in 2015. You continue to see this with the very slow (or outright rejection) adoption of new syscalls: [https://lwn.net/Articles/655028/](https://lwn.net/Articles/655028/)

It's important to remember glibc is _not_ libc for Linux, and distinctly does not behave as such. If your platform is unapologetically Linux to the core, wouldn't you want something else that tracks the kernel API better?

And it's not like Android was unique in not using glibc, either. The *BSD's don't, either.

<comment><USER5> The job of a libc involves a lot more than just tracking the kernel APIs: it's got a malloc implementation, string handling, userspace buffered I/O and formatting, locales (quite a bit _more_ important on a phone targeted at consumers around the world than on servers whose sysadmins generally prefer messages in English to their native tongue anyway), user and group names and not just numeric IDs, DNS resolution, thread handling, math functions, etc. All of that is quite independent of your kernel and hewing closer to Linux doesn't help you with any of it - except _maybe_ the thread stuff, and for that glibc is the standard pthread implementation for Linux so you're probably better off using it anyway since that's what the kernel developers expect. (In other words, libc is the C standard library, not the kernel's client library for its APIs.)

Bloat in terms of amount of _code_ is a confusing argument: you map libraries from disk, so you only use memory for the pages of code that have actually been read from disk and you only use one copy regardless of how many programs are running. You could add a function to glibc to print _War and Peace_ to the screen and the only thing it would do is add a few megabytes of disk usage if nobody called it. Even on Android, disk is cheap.

EGLIBC stands for Embedded GLIBC. That's a pretty good sign IMO that it was intended for embedded use.

The BSDs don't use glibc because of licensing concerns, not because they dislike glibc's bloat. (Their own libcs implement just as much, because programs use those features.) My claim upthread was that Android avoided glibc for licensing concerns, not for technical unsuitability; giving the BSDs as an example seems to agree with that argument.

<comment><USER8> > locales (quite a bit more important on a phone targeted at consumers around > the world than on servers whose sysadmins generally prefer messages in > English to their native tongue anyway)

This is part of where glibc's bloat comes from. Locales are important, yes, but when your libc's versions are bad and you have to ship an alternative anyway (icu4c), then the one in glibc is just pure, wasted bloat.

But ignoring that aspect since not every program needs internationalization, this just becomes bloat in the libc.

This is really not something a libc (or any standard library) should be handling. Even if it's just because it's an area that moves too fast for a standard library to typically keep up with, and needs a faster deployment cycle.

> Bloat in terms of amount of code is a confusing argument: you map libraries > from disk, so you only use memory for the pages of code that have actually > been read from disk and you only use one copy regardless of how many > programs are running. You could add a function to glibc to print War and > Peace to the screen and the only thing it would do is add a few megabytes of > disk usage if nobody called it.

Not entirely true. You're assuming everyone is using a single shared version, which isn't universally true. Some need static for reasons, and there's multiple shared versions not one for 32bit vs. 64bit or strict versioning requirements.

Also not all functions are free to add. __attribute__((constructor)) exists, after all, and is hugely not free of course. Similarly pages are not purely loaded on-demand, they are prefetched. Depending on where you've added those functions and how the resulting layout happened, you may now be getting fewer prefetch hits than you did before.

> Even on Android, disk is cheap.

No, not really. Today is the size of glibc less important? Maybe, sure. Was that true back in the Android 1.0 days? No. There are some numbers here: [http://www.etalabs.net/compare_libcs.html](http://www.etalabs.net/compare_libcs.html) glibc is stonking _massive_ compared to what a C library really needs to do and, critically, has the largest minimum dirty page sizes. That's a shared library creating not-shared memory usage.

> EGLIBC stands for Embedded GLIBC. That's a pretty good sign IMO that it was > intended for embedded use.

Someone forked GLIBC and ripped a bunch of stuff out and you're taking that as a good sign GLIBC was intended for embedded use? What?

<comment><USER5> > _Someone forked GLIBC and ripped a bunch of stuff out and you 're taking > that as a good sign GLIBC was intended for embedded use? What?_

If that were what happened, then you'd have an argument, but eglibc contained _more_ than glibc did (the primary motivator was that glibc refused to support architectures that the maintainer didn't like; they also had patches to support compiling things out, but that's _more_ source code and certainly isn't ripping anything out). If you don't know this history I have trouble taking the rest of your argument seriously.

<comment><USER8> > but eglibc contained more than glibc did

That "more" being "you can remove things." Straight from the project:

> EGLIBC's goals included reduced footprint

> A primary feature of EGLIBC is support for configurability. You can build > EGLIBC without support for NIS, locales, or other things that you may not > need in your embedded system.

So sure a full-fat EGLIBC was as big as GLIBC, but that was clearly not the point of making all the big stuff removable, and binary compatibility was not guaranteed as a result.

> the primary motivator was that glibc refused to support architectures that > the maintainer didn't like

Given that reducing size is the first listed goal in both the opening description _and_ the mission statements it seems like your claim is more about what you wish was true than anything else.

Furthermore the "why not contribute to GLIBC?" FAQ states "The GLIBC maintainers have stated that they wish to focus on server and workstation systems." Given servers with non-x86 architectures definitely exist (PowerPC says hello), along with GLIBC supporting an exhaustive list of architectures anyway, it seems this is really just about size after all. Unless your argument is GLIBC maintainers held a grudge against ARM specifically?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I must admit I have not been following this case too close. But I get the general sense that most people in the CS community is in favor or Google and against Oracle. I'd like to understand it better.

Can someone please explain _in technical terms_ exactly what Google copied and what is Oracle complaining about? Is it just the Java API declarations? Most of the articles I find try to explain the issue in layman's terms which makes it harder for me to understand exactly what was copied.

<comment><USER10> Google REIMPLEMENTED base classes to match what a normal Java app would expect. They complied with the public API as you'd find in javadocs. Oracle claims that is infringement because to make that work, their method signatures look identical to oracle's (and thus Oracle claims they were copied, in violation of copyright law). Google claims that API cannot be copyrightable by definition (an argument that most programmers agree with I feel)

There was also a bit of similar code for obvious reasons. For example, how many ways are there to implement "bool rangeCheck(int idxRequested, int maxValidIdx, int minValidIdx)"?

<comment><USER11> Is it similar to how Preact just implements React's API? So the problem here is, that Java's API is not under MIT? And what about all those competing companies that implement AWS S3's API?

<comment><USER12> I'm trying to understand the same thing. I think the idea is something like the render method basically behaves the same whether it is React or Preact but the actual code inside of Preact's render method is written from scratch. Although, in the case of Preact, it's probably not necessary because of the license for React?

<comment><USER10> Yes. All actual implementation code was not oracle's

<comment><USER13> Actually, there were 8 lines (of out however many million) that all parties agree was copied, but that's been ruled de minimis. All the implementation code they're ruling on now is not orcale's.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> As far as I'm concerned, it's a huge failure that, over thirty years after computer programs were explicitly added to copyright law, it isn't clear to what extent APIs are copyrightable, and we have to watch lawyers argue over strained analogies to chapter titles in Harry Potter books.

I think the process where the legislature writes a vague law and leaves it for the courts to decide what it actually means over a series of cases has fallen down badly here.

<comment><USER10> Do you really want our senators, who usually old enough to remember hunting dinosaurs, writing these laws though? At least in court informed experts can be called. Congress only hears from experts if they so choose (surprise: they usually don't so choose)

<comment><USER14> I think there are other options.

We could do a better job of getting test cases through the courts that clarify the law.

Or we could invent new mechanisms for turning rulings from specific cases into general principles that people can rely on.

Or we could allow somewhat more hypothetical cases in certain circumstances.

As I understand it, in the US, after a few cases like the Phoenix BIOS one people came to believe that a clean-room reimplementation of an exisiting interface was generally permitted, and so people stopped suing and we didn't get a flow of cases exploring the limits of that principle.

So now when Oracle comes along and points out that the Java API is a lot bigger, and arguably more creative, than the PC BIOS call interface, there isn't an existing case that settles the question.

I can see why there's reluctance to allow people to get courts to decide hypothetical questions, but this case seems to be a decent example of when it would be helpful: if Google had had the option of getting a ruling ahead of time on whether its Java library clone was permitted, it might have saved an awful lot of time and money.

<comment><USER15> Courts don't decide hypothetical questions. They decide on the case before them, constrained by the precedents of previous cases.

A judge can use examples and hypotheticals (called "obiter dictum"), but that doesn't create a binding precedent and later judges may ignore it, refute it or alternatively convert it into precedent by adopting the reasoning in a decision.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've discussed this topic once with a developer who sided with Oracle, which was a fun exercise for me, because I side with Google.

The insight I got from that exercise was that, to him, APIs represent a product (e.g. I put a lot of effort into making this API, it's nice and clean, why should someone else be allowed to copy it?) and the implementation is typically straightforward grunt work, with intrinsically less value (e.g. we all know how to square a number).

As a developer, it was easy for me to sympathize with that thinking, because who hasn't been amazed by how elegant some of the APIs are and how difficult it is to create a simple, yet powerful API?

However, I believe that in the general case, it is the implementation that's the difficult part, which is why I'm against copyrighting APIs. Anyone can come up with an API for a Map, not everyone can create an efficient implementation of HashMap.

Doesn't this sound vaguely familiar? I think it's the same argument as "ideas vs execution", it's just that, as a community, we've discussed the pitfalls of ideas, NDAs and execution an order of magnitude more than copyrighting APIs vs implementation, and so there's less of a divide.

If you side with Oracle and you agree that execution > idea, then you should consider that implementation > API, and, similarly to how you can't copyright an idea, you shouldn't be able to copyright APIs.

In the case of Oracle vs Google, both the API and the implementation are trivial, which is a special case of the more general "API vs implementation", and it is unfortunate that a precedent will be set for the general case, based on a special case. That sounds like a recipe for future trouble.

<comment><USER17> > I put a lot of effort into making this API, it's nice and clean, why should > someone else be allowed to copy it?

The problem is that copyright protection has requirements beyond the above sentiment, which can just as easily apply to something that needs to be patented rather than copyrighted. You can't get copyright protection just because you feel you deserve it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I hope Google wins the legal case for the sake of maintaining an innovative software industry. But at the same time I still think that they acted like jerks by creating their own proprietary pseudo Java for Android rather than negotiating a formal agreement with Sun. Now the Java ecosystem is fragmented so many Java tools and libraries can't be used for Android development. That's bad for everyone.

</comment><comment><USER19> Is there anything we can do as developers? Obviously I don't want to DDOS/DOX the supreme court, but can we write letters or do anything else to show _how massively important_ this is?

EDIT: For those unable to read between the lines, HN is a large forum read by thousands of people of different backgrounds. Often when someone suggests something, small actions can add up to create a large problem. DDOSing/Doxing is never acceptable for any situation. I want to "do something" but without accidentally creating a problem.

<comment><USER20> How does it impact us as developers either way? Both are titans that have contributed vital pieces of tech infrastructure as well as committed evil acts in their space. Oracle is arguably more evil here, but is it that big of a tragedy if Google loses? They have obscene amounts of cash; what difference does it make if a pile of cash goes from one evil pocket to another? Please if you downvote give an explanation. I honestly want to know what's at stake here for us.

<comment><USER21> > How does it impact us as developers either way?

"Treating APIs as copyrightable has a profound negative impact on interoperability and innovation. And it goes against decades of tradition and common practice in the software world."

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/05/eff-asks-federal- circu...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/05/eff-asks-federal-circuit-fix- its-terrible-api-copyright-decision)

<comment><USER22> Controlling how the issue is framed has a larger impact than who wins. Whether APIs are copyrightable is beside the point and no matter who wins, we all lose:

If Google/Oracle can copyright APIs, then they are free to use their market positions to block competition because the very ability to inter-operate with other programs would be infringement, and their monopoly forces everyone to acknowledge their presence.

If Google/Oracle cannot copyright APIS, then they're free to use their market positions to snuff out upstarts by copying / re-implementing their programs.

Whether some method signatures are the same is just evidence suggesting copyright infringement, not infringement itself. I can write a song with some of the same words as another song. That doesn't answer the question of whether that's copyright infringement.

<comment><USER21> > If Google/Oracle cannot copyright APIS, then they're free to use their > market positions to snuff out upstarts by copying / re-implementing their > programs.

Do you have examples of this? I'm having a hard time thinking of types of programs that are susceptible.

I'd argue that the small businesses have much more to lose by APIS being copyrightable as you then are locked out of ecosystems. You'd have to pay to play to build compatible or replacement products. If this was the rule of the land in the 70s+ would we have had GNU tools or BSDs?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This whole case is contrived, and both actors acted in bad faith, so the outcome will be troubling no matter what.

If Oracle wins, others can claim that their API is copyrighted and weaponize copyright law to sue anyone they don't want to interoperate with them -- despite the whole point of APIs being that interoperability.

If Google wins, it means anyone will be able to hijack the syntax, semantics, and interfaces of an ecosystem verbatim for commercial ends to promote an incompatible implementation, like they've done with Android. To protect against this, patents and NDAs will proliferate, and black-box organization and SaaS business models will solidify as the only (commericially) sensible way of distributing software.

<comment><USER24> How did Google "hijacking" the Java API harm Oracle? If it didn't, why should anyone need to "protect" against such a thing happening in future?

Maybe I'm missing something, but your comment seems to boil down to "If Oracle wins, people won't be able to copy APIs, which is awful! If Google wins, people will be able to copy APIs, which is awful!" Surely you have to be on one side or the other?

<comment><USER25> It segmented the Java ecosystem into two parts. Android doesn't keep up-to- date with current Java version changes and creates friction. It seems similar to what Microsoft did to Java in the late 90's [0] (without the malicious intent).

0: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Java_Virtual_Machine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Java_Virtual_Machine)

<comment><USER26> > It segmented the Java ecosystem into two parts.

I'd argue it vastly expanded the Java ecosystem, and the original part is unharmed. It's not necessarily getting unearned growth from the success of Android, but at the same time it's a _huge_ stretch to say it was harmed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm trying to understand what was copied by Google.

Did they copy the core class names and the different method and attribute names for these objects but rewrote everything else from scratch?

I dont know java but but lets say it was ruby and then i made xruby and copied the same type of things. So, Random.rand (in xruby) still produced a similar random Float like in ruby. But the code that was called by Random.rand was entirely written by me from scratch? Is that the idea?

<comment><USER27> Imagine Ruby was closed source, but you were allowed to make open source implementations that ran Ruby programs.

Then you implement a language called Crystal that uses Ruby syntax and its stdlib looks a lot like Ruby's, but it can't run Rails because it's designed for car navigators, not webapps.

The Ruby Company comes after you and says that if you wanted to reuse their APIs you should've bought a license.

<comment><USER12> Interesting. I was thinking it was like google copy and pasted oracle's code, kept the function definitions and then re-wrote the innards. To me if code is truly treated as a literary work then it doesn't really matter how the end product behaves. It matters whether the text was copied.

In the case of ruby vs crystal, I think the courts will rule on the side of crystal!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> > "Before Android," Oracle's lawyers write in their brief to the Supreme > Court, "every company that wanted to use the Java platform took a commercial > license...including smartphone manufacturers BlackBerry, Nokia and Danger."

Either that's word twisting (e.g. "platform" means something different or the commercial license was implicit) or just false.

<comment><USER6> What they licensed to BlackBerry, Nokia and Danger was of course the Java ME runtime.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I really only have two questions about this case:

1) The US legal code explicitly excludes "methods of operation" from being copyrightable. Does an API count as "methods of operation"? And if so, what ground does Oracle have left to stand on?

2) If this case goes Oracle's way, does this set the precedent that ANY re- implementations of an existing API are in violation of copyright? I don't know who now owns the original rights to Unix, but if they decide to come after Linux where does that leave us?

<comment><USER30> > 2) If this case goes Oracle's way, does this set the precedent that ANY re- > implementations of an existing API are in violation of copyright? I don't > know who now owns the original rights to Unix, but if they decide to come > after Linux where does that leave us?

We can't know until a decision is made, but this could likely start a precedent for _any_ re-implementations.

The curent copyright holders of UNIX are Micro Focus, who acquired it via buying Attachmade, who had bought Novell, who had bought UNIX System Laboratories from AT&T. Micro Focus mainly sells COBOL and is apparently hellbent on ignoring UNIX as much as possible (multiple people have tried to reach out to them about Ancient UNIX and possibly licensing some missing parts like PWB/UNIX and System III, but the best they've had is a salesperson being confused and trying to sell SUSE Linux). If they ever regain their institutional knowledge that they hold copyrights to UNIX and this decision happens, well, it's open season for Micro Focus v. Red Hat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Oracle now has a market cap of about $170 billion, give or take a few billion, I'm pretty sure that if a company like Google put its mind to it it could purchase Oracle outright.

It would also allow Google a very good entry on the enterprise market where it could push GCP down its clients' throats, imho there's no other way for them to catch up with AWS and Azure.

<comment><USER32> Buying oracle might kill them. Like a tiger eating a poisonous snake and getting bitten

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> IANAL... but it seems to me copyrighting an API instead of the actual implementation would be like trying to copyright the idea of "chair" or "wheel" which is not possible AFAIK.

<comment><USER34> A better metaphor is probably to look at an API as a design blueprint. For instance a blueprint of a house. Describing in detail all the components that goes into creating the house, plumbing, electricity, rooms etc. Clearly it is a lot of work to come up with such a design.

<comment><USER35> It's a literary work. It's copying the table of contents, but writing your own chapter text.

I fail to see how it's not copyrightable as such. It appears to be a collection of facts (the interface of the implementation). These are not copyrightable, _unless_ it meets the following:

"the work must be a collection and assembly of pre-existing material, facts, or data; the work must contain the selection, coordination, or arrangement of those materials; and the work is created by virtue of the particular selection, coordination, or arrangement of an original work of authorship."

I can't see how "arrangement of those materials" and "virtue of the particular selection or arrangement" isn't obvious here?

Oracle is pursuing the path where this case is literally about the contents of text files with words, which are supposedly well defined and understood under copyright law.

<comment><USER3> A table of contents, stripped of editing, is generally not copyrightable as is. It falls under mere listings of ingredients or contents exemptions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> IMO copyright protection is way too strong and long lasting for this type of thing.

The creation of something like Java should be protected by the patent system which at least has an expiration time of a couple decades rather than a century like copyright.

Google taking Java and reimplementing it without paying a penny to Sun (who was requiring a license to other manufacturers at the time) does seem unfair. But I think the law should provide something like the "FRAND" standard for patents, or the mandatory mechanical license for copyright, to prevent a company from blocking interoperability.

As far as who's actually right on the law today.... the SCOTUS decisions will be interesting to read :-)

</comment><comment><USER37> Supreme Court should bust the bad decision about copyrightability of APIs.

</comment><comment><USER38> I'm surprised the board at Oracle has let things go this far.

Google could probably do a lot of damage to Oracle if they wanted.

<comment><USER39> How so?

Google has already been found guilty of Copyright Infringement (and then admitted it by invoking the "fair use" defense).

They are in the hole already. This is just ironing out the details of how much Google is in the hole.

<comment><USER38> Buddy, EVERYTHING in this trial is about fair use.

Oracle using a technicality to ask 9B for something they used to give away for free can backfire.

<comment><USER36> Sun didn't give it away for free. They charged manufacturers for licenses for J2ME - Until google came along and blew up their business with android.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> It's mindblowing how so many developers are quick to build on the Java ecosystem... an ecosystem backed by a company so hell-bent on stifling innovation.

<comment><USER38> Java was created by Sun. Oracle bought them mainly to sue Google.

Kotlin from jetbrains is where developer mindshare is today ;)

<comment><USER33> But Kotlin does run on Oracle's JVM, no?

<comment><USER25> Runs on OpenJDK as well...

<comment><USER41> That's Oracle's too.

<comment><USER42> Really? In what way does it differ from Oracle Java SE ?

<comment><USER43> In that it is GPL+Link Exception licensed. The copyright still belongs to Oracle. See this[0] example:

> Copyright (c) 1997, 2007, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

> This code is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under > the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 only

[0] [http://hg.openjdk.java.net/jdk6/jdk6/jdk/file/tip/src/share/...](http://hg.openjdk.java.net/jdk6/jdk6/jdk/file/tip/src/share/classes/java/util/List.java)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> If anyone knows, how much would this affect non-US technology processes and legislature? What would an outcome of this mean for Asia and Europe?

<comment><USER45> What Google did is very clearly lawful under European Union law.

The Software Directive explicitly permits reverse engineering for interoperability.

Interoperability is not explicitly defined, but is widely understood to relate to interfaces. API, or Application Programming Interfaces, are of course interfaces. Hence you can reverse engineer APIs to create something interoperable, without infringing copyright.

This topic has even gone to the CJEU, the top European court. World Programming implemented a language and library compatible with SAS. SAS sued. Ultimately, the court found in favour of World Programming.

Of course, despite reimplementation of APIs clearly being legal in Europe, a ban in the US could still have a chilling effect, due to the international and cross border nature of software development.

<comment><USER27> Except Google didn't provide interoperability, you can't run Java applications on Android. A lens company can study how a camera company mount works and sell compatible lenses. A camera company cannot study another camera company's mount to make an incompatible mount that uses similar circuitry and protocols to help lens companies support it faster.

<comment><USER17> > Except Google didn't provide interoperability, you can't run Java > applications on Android.

You don't get to pick your own narrow definition of "interoperability" and claim that it's the only one that applies. Requiring 100% compatibility with compiled code quite obviously makes it trivial for the creator of the original work to completely subvert that right to reverse engineer. European courts would almost certainly choose to interpret that right in a way that allows it to have real power.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> If Oracle wins this lawsuits does that mean it's the death kneel for AWS cloning open source wire protocols like MongoDB ?

</comment><comment><USER47> Is this copyability issue for software APIs or more general? I feel like if I copied the full user interface of an iPhone (the way it looks and interacts with the user) and provided my own imementation I'm still liable?

</comment><comment><USER48> The Supreme Court should, and probably will, deny cert.

Read the CAFC's opinion. Pretty cut and dry in favor of Oracle. APIs are not an abstract idea, but a concrete expression of an idea, thus protected by copyright. Google could have chosen its own expression, but decided to copy Oracle, which is against the law.

<comment><USER49> Under that interpretation, I'm curious what you view as different than IBM vs Compaq about the original PC bios?

<comment><USER48> The law is the law. Wishing it were different doesn't make it so. Which means that yes, Compaq and other PC clone makers may have broken the law by reimplementing the PC BIOS. The BIOS API does not depend on named functions but rather on specific values appearing in CPU registers, so I'm not sure how copyright applies to that. Maybe a "structure, sequence, and organization" argument à la _Whelan v. Jaslow_.

<comment><USER17> > The BIOS API does not depend on named functions but rather on specific > values appearing in CPU registers, so I'm not sure how copyright applies to > that

Do you have any reasoning for treating magic numbers different from English- like names for the purpose of determining copyright eligibility?

<comment><USER48> No, I don't. Which only supports the copyrightability of the BIOS API, and the illegality of BIOS clones (and hence, early PC clones).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> One thing I hope everyone agrees with is that API design is an art. Often coming up with a good API is as significant a task as actually implementing it. An API that is intuitive yet flexible and extensible is tricky to design.

If APIs are copyrightable, this actually might be good for open source projects such as Redis and MongoDb where cloud providers are just taking their API and creating implementations. This has been a huge issue for sustainability of these kinds of open source initiatives when a multi-billion dollar corporation can just come through, take the API and write their own implementation.

<comment><USER27> Did Redis and MongoDB copyright their APIs?

<comment><USER41> Copyright is automatic, so if APIs are copyrightable, the answer is necessarily "yes".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> This is the first time I've read anything in depth about this and I gotta say Oracle's case feels stronger and google is tilting at windmills. Oracle wrote something, google copied it.

Oracle isn't arguing that you can't use java api's in general without a license. Its arguing that if you wanna create a new platform you can't copy copyrighted code. Doesn't matter how small it is, google has demonstrated that it was intentional and instrumental in helping android grow.

<comment><USER52> Yeah, that's the thing: Google knew it should've paid, it looked into a license, and then decided to claim it didn't need one and go without. It's certainly not fair use, it was specifically to build a competing product/commercial ecosystem to Oracle's and they state it was fundamental to their strategy to do so.

This case has been going on since 2010. It's time Google let it go. They lost.

<comment><USER14> What Google looked into licensing was considerably broader than the APIs, and included material that everyone agrees is copyrightable.

We don't learn anything from the fact that Google negotiated for a broad licence, decided not to take one, and used a clone which copies only the API definitions.

If API definitions aren't copyrightable then Google didn't do anything wrong. If they are then it did.

The idea that API definitions may not be copyrightable certainly isn't a wild theory that Google made up for this instance.</comment></comment></comment>


Postmates, Powering On-Demand Logistics - <AUTHOR> http://blog.postmates.com/post/104856354257/powering-on-demand-logistics

<comment><USER2> Good ad copy.

Needs a large button at bottom of post which says "Learn about API" or similar, rather than a small hyperlink on "here" in the middle of the post.

</comment><comment><USER3> Really cool, surprised there isn't more discussion about this. Postmates seems like a great service to exist as an API - I predict many hackathon projects using this in the future.

</comment><comment><USER4> Good idea. We will fix asap.

<comment><USER5> How can a partner know you are not going to compete with him/her? I mean a lot of the recent services you guys launched (Essentials, Alchohol, Flowers) show some kind of vertical integration. What if one of your partner grows like crazy - will you compete with them the way Amazon does with its 3rd party sellers?

Great news otherwise. This will give Uber a run for their money.</comment></comment>


Where can I find the list of iOS 8's 4000 APIs? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> You can see the What's New in iOS 8 doc for a general overview of, er, what's new: [https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/releaseno...](https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/releasenotes/General/WhatsNewIniOS/Articles/iOS8.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40014205-SW1)

More specifically, there's the iOS 7.1 to 8.0 API Diffs: [https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/releaseno...](https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/releasenotes/General/iOS80APIDiffs/index.html). Note that a huge number of the changes are just small changes to argument lists (there are a gazillion of these in Accelerate, filling the top chunk of the diff doc) and a number of other change come from the switch from (id) return types to (instancetype) in init: methods. Also, getter and setter methods have been replaced with properties in many classes, which doesn't break any existing code, but generates changes in the API diffs.</comment>


Within the Tech Industry, an Urge to Cash Out - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/20/technology/20cashout.html?_r=1

<comment><USER2> "Employees have become more interested in selling, in part because companies are taking longer to go public."

More like the other way around. Companies are no longer in such a rush to do public offerings because they can now achieve the same things from a private round.

<comment><USER3> Yes, but doesn't the decreasing importance of public offerings hurt the general public now? Seems like the rich investors of private markets are going to have an ever-growing first-mover advantage in rapid-growth companies while the general public is going to be left with the stagnant or depreciating left overs. This trend may result in an even greater divide between the elite and middle to lower class.

<comment><USER2> Only insofar as index funds buy stock in newly public cos. Retail investors who do it a la carte are going to net hurt themselves anyway. And IIRC not many index funds buy new offerings.

<comment><USER3> _Retail investors who do it a la carte are going to net hurt themselves anyway._

This assumes there aren't any adept retail investors in the public market. There will still be an increasing number of savvy retail investors who will now be inhibited from investing in one of the most symbiotically valuable relationships in an economy, one between young organizations in need of capital and public investors looking for more relevant early investments. Instead, the growth of the private markets will dilute these investment opportunities for the public and now offer them to already rich investors. Shouldn't organizations and economies work to provide more integral investment opportunities to the general public instead of increasingly reserving these for the fortunate few?

<comment><USER3> To whoever down voted, I welcome you to reply and support your stance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Can we not now clearly see that this isn't a 'bubble' (an industry wide overvaluation) but a localised problem? Yes there will be ramifications if the handful of companies like Facebook's value implodes but it won't be typical industry/economy crippling fallout that follows a normal bubble popping. Agree?

</comment><comment><USER5> > _Out of $946 million that Groupon raised from investors last winter, $810 > million went into the pockets of the chief executive, Andrew Mason; the > chairman, Eric Lefkofsky; and others._

Really? Anyone have a source to back that up? That seems a bit far fetched.

<comment><USER6> It's outlined in this story: [http://allthingsd.com/20110602/where-did- groupons-billion-do...](http://allthingsd.com/20110602/where-did-groupons- billion-dollars-go/)

And here's the SEC filing: [http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1490281/0001047469110...](http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1490281/000104746911005613/a2203913zs-1.htm#eg79801_related_party_transactions)

<comment><USER5> I've been reading quite a few threads here on HN about Groupon and never saw this. Crazy!

Isn't the point of raising capital to grow the business? How is putting 80% of the capital into founders equity going to grow the business? Do their brains get bigger with more money?

Also as an investor doesn't the business have an obligation to tell the investor specifically what the capital is being used for? If an exec of a start-up told me that they needed capital so they could pay the founders I'd laugh at them... Am I the only one who is super confused here...?

<comment><USER7> Someone correct me if i am wrong but i believe the money raised wasn't exactly "capital" per say. From what i've heard, investors for that round were basically buying stock from the founders. Think of it as a private stock market or more commonly known as the Secondary Market (<http://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/secondarymarket.asp>).

Not saying is the most logical thing to do for a company(from an investors POV) but perfectly legal so long as both sides agree on the transaction and follow any legal obligations.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Ebbing Language - <AUTHOR> https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/articles/150735/the-ebbing-language <comment><USER2> Perhaps a better title would be "Differences between Dutch and English as seen through poetry", or something along those lines?

I have no idea what the title is supposed to mean. "Ebbing" appears nowhere in the text. There's a passing reference to a poem called "Eb", meaning "ebb" in English. It's not really about language "ebbing", much less a thing called by the name "Ebbing". It's certainly not about an Ebbing programming language, which is what I had assumed it would be given its placement on this site -- aside from the link to poetryfoundation.org.

Aside from that it is an interesting essay on the nuances of words and the challenges of translation. Especially for poetry, which depends on every aspect of a word -- its sound, its meter, the contexts in which it has been used.

<comment><USER3> Ebbing is the flowing out to sea of the tide. The "ebbing language" is the author's Dutch, specifically see the last paragraph of section one for the sense of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Technology news is generally excited to predict AI language comprehension/translation/generation is just around the corner. I think it's true in some domains. But, for balance, I'm grateful for essays like this.

A lot of valuable written human communication is so nuanced and challenging, even for experts, and that makes it beautiful IMO. Bring on the artificial general intelligence. But good luck with poetry!

Unexpected and lovely essay. Thanks for sharing.</comment>


Ask HN: Books on creativity? - <AUTHOR>

can you suggest me any good books on creativity?  I saw some books on doodling, drawing (drawing on the right side of the brain by betty edwards etc) - what are your favorites?<p>Specifically those books that have exercises, not just theory.  And preferably that can be done with paper/pen, or on a computer <comment><USER2> Whats the aim?</comment>


The Forever Nomad - <AUTHOR> https://longreads.com/2018/04/30/the-forever-nomad/ <comment><USER2> One of modern Nomad's hardest struggles, is the desire to belong, and the inability or unwillingness to do so.

<comment><USER3> This is indeed the case for many people in know; myself included to a certain extent.

<comment><USER4> So say we all. I'll never be able to return to Appalachia.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> her story coincidentally matches mine ~70%. nice to know from time to time that we are not soooo isolated. UsSR > NYC > Buenos Aires > Bariloche (2019!!) Nomadic living is in our DNA. listen to it. it will bring you unfathomable gifts and next-gen ideas that will make this world a better place. bon voyage

</comment><comment><USER6> I don't think it's possible to build a complete life at her age. Even at 30 I already felt that every new move was me giving up on something. You can't "catch-up" on life not lived together. Now I wouldn't even consider moving unless a nuclear bomb exploded next door. I need friendships and the truth is they take years of tending.

<comment><USER7> On the one hand I agree, and it's been one of the few reasons I've tried (with moderate success) to not be _too_ nomadic.

But at the same time I think friendship is a varied and complex enough thing that thankfully it's not entirely about time/tending, and if the nomadism doesn't mask an underlying problem, it doesn't preclude having a 'complete' life.

Some of my best friendships were almost clear from the beginning, and required little 'tending'. Others I have tended diligently only to realize that while they were good, and the tending helped, they'd never be as strong as the former. Sometimes losing them didn't affect me much.

Some of my friendships even seem to have suffered from 'over-tending', a bit like how moving in with a friend can ruin things.

All that said, you're probably more right than not. Just saying :).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I suppose I'm just very tired and accidentally read the title as "The Forever Monad" and got excited for a second. It took me a short while to figure out how wrong I was.

Anyway, I'd appreciate reading suggestions about the theory behind the "forever" function for monads ([https://www.haskell.org/hoogle/?hoogle=forever](https://www.haskell.org/hoogle/?hoogle=forever)).

<comment><USER9> Not an expert by any means, but probably related [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed- point_combinator?wprov...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed- point_combinator?wprov=sfla1)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> My disappointment that this did not actually say "The Forever Monad" is immeasurable.</comment>


Canon printers found using very outdated (NSA backdoored) encryption standard - <AUTHOR> https://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/tls/current/msg25168.html <comment><USER2> I think this needs more clarification. As far as I can tell, this post only states that these printers merely used the BSAFE library, which used a likely- backdoored PRNG.

It's not news that something used a library, unless that thing is a lot higher profile than a random printer model.</comment>


Show HN: Self-governed network of freelancers who send each other overflow work - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/freelanceoverflow/freelanceoverflow

<comment><USER2> Just curious as to how the payment part of this would work? It's a great idea - something you could build out (a vetted list of top-quality freelancers available to work on your project? People would love that).

If there is a vetted list of freelancers all of the same, trusted, standard, it could be that having individual minimums creates a 'race to the bottom' thing that other places have. I would have a fixed price per hour which is slightly above average, with a guarantee of high-quality return and efficiency.

If you can get members to work with and look over projects they're not attached to (feedback etc) you could increase the value of the service as a whole.

<comment><AUTHOR> The original concept was to scale via the open and self-administered community itself while keeping a hands off approach to all other aspects. Truly just a simple network of solid folks and not a product trying to solve every problem (though I imagine it could be productized). The hope was that by only letting in solid freelancers that these items could be handled by the freelancers themselves without too much worry about getting screwed over or hassling one another.

You bring up a valid concern about the race to the bottom, which is exactly one of the things I want to avoid. The thought around the minimum rate information was to inform others about what type of level of compensation one would need to even consider work. I think I might rework this right now and also inform folks that only developers with rates above XYZ are allowed.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> OP here: I, like many others, experience times of great abundance and shortage of freelancing work. The idea of having a vetted/endorsed network of freelancers I can trust to send overflow work was something that appeals to me on both sides. I thought using GitHub as the vehicle for maintaining such a community was an open and hacker-friendly way of doing it.

I welcome any feedback on the concept!</comment>


Ask HN: Ownership Model in Software Consulting Service - <AUTHOR> Hi I'm a freelance engineer starting out a software consulting business. Recently I'm trying out to see if my friend can be a suitable partner to help out in the business side.
Right now the situation is like this. Me: 1. Software engineer with pretty good credentials. Top 10 US CS school, few years experience in a big company in SV. 2. Leads are all coming from me, cos people know that I do software freelancing and had spent sometime professionally working in the Valley.
My friend: 1. Not a technical person, don't know much about coding, but had done some static frontend development 2. Have good personality, trustworthy 3. Have good people skill, friendly, nice, and honest
So far, whenever there's a lead, I met the potential client once, then had my friend to follow up until there's a deal. I then focused on the development while he focused on managerial role such as communicating with the customer, bridging engineering and them. I think it's been pretty good so far.
I wanna make this a company and am trying to figure out what's the appropriate and fair ownership sharing between us.
I'm thinking of doing 70% (me)-30%(him) partnership with the expectation that in addition to do external managerial works, he'll also help me do internal managerial works such as managing our future internal engineering team.
I think I deserve the 70% cos the bread-and-butter of the business is of course technology, and I've spent much time and effort to get to where my technical skills are currently at as well.
What do you guys think?
Thanks in advance! <comment><USER2> Well, for now, I don't see any problem here with 70-30. But have you considered the future, what if he can bring some new customers or maybe worse, he can't maintain good customer relationships? And, if your biz goes larger, you need a third guy, how to share with him?</comment>


The Anonymous Culture Cops of the Internet - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/blog/the-anonymous-culture-cops-of-the-internet <comment><USER2> _they asked subjects, namely Amazon Mechanical Turk workers_

Researchers surveying people paid to give the researchers the kind of answers they want.</comment>


The Slovak Radio Building - <AUTHOR> http://www.alluringworld.com/slovak-radio-building/ <comment><USER2> Nice to see something from my country to appear on HN, apart from aeromobil and ESET Antivirus.

</comment><comment><USER3> _" Inside the building there is one concert hall with a large concert organ, and the whole interior has been left as it was 30 years ago, so the interior is being cared for, but it still looks like a socialist museum."_

Hold on... the existence of a concert hall for the performance of classical music equipped with a fairly serious looking organ does not strike me as being especially Soviet. For example, my home venue...

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_Hall,_Birmingham](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_Hall,_Birmingham)

The building described in the OA looks wonderful! They should capitalise on it!

<comment><USER4> >does not strike me as being especially Soviet

Czechoslovakia was not part of the Soviet Union.

<comment><USER3> I stand corrected and reminded.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It looks like the Chinese pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai expo

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_pavilion_at_Expo_2010](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_pavilion_at_Expo_2010)

</comment><comment><USER6> It looks kinda like the Big Sight:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bigsite_Tokyo2012.JPG](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bigsite_Tokyo2012.JPG)

</comment><comment><USER7> Very cool! I've been working on getting the short wave radio working on my boat and one of the stations I've been excited to tune has been radio Slovak, neat to see their headquarters here. reminds me somewhat of this building near IAD airport - [http://bit.ly/2oBIzpK](http://bit.ly/2oBIzpK)</comment>


Mailstrom - Power through thousands of messages in just a few clicks - <AUTHOR> https://mailstrom.co/my-inbox <comment><USER2> Is it safe?

</comment><comment><USER3> How?</comment>


Ask HN: Where to find computing literature in Spanish? - <AUTHOR>

Hi everyone. I'm working on a project for my Linguistic Anthropology class about computing terms in Spanish. I would like to source the terms from all kinds of literature - general-audience computing books, application manuals, translation files, programming language/library documentation, Spanish-language research papers, etc. etc.
So far, I've found the Lua 5.1 reference manual, and a Spanish translation of Windows Vista for Dummies in the public library, and I will probably source translation files from GNOME et cetera. Can you recommend any other places to find Spanish computing literature? (Especially research papers?) <comment><USER2> There is not a lot of stuff out there. You will find a lot of out dated materials.

Most computer/programming classes are taught using the English terms (mixed with Spanish), because it ends up being easier (I've taught in Spanish) for people to understand.

Send me an email (in my profile) if you need any more help.</comment>


Show HN: ICONSVG – Customize and Generate Common SVG Icons - <AUTHOR> https://iconsvg.xyz/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hello !

I made this tool because I feel like there should be a much simpler way to quickly generate/customise common SVG icons for my project, especially while doing bunch of front-end development. You no longer have to open any design tool just to resize or change stroke style/color. You'll be able to do that and copy the resulting SVG code directly from this tool!

Let me know what do you think about this project

Most of the icons in this project are optimised version of feathericons.com by Cole Bemis (huge fan )

<comment><USER2> You can customize whatever you like by using var(--color, #000) in SVG and --color: #123 in CSS. No need for any tools. :)

<comment><USER3> Only if you're including the markup inline as opposed to as an image, which may or may not be desirable!

<comment><USER2> Yes, you need at least xlink to an external SVG file. But that's pretty close to <img>. It's just one more element.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is great! Two things:

1) It would be great to be able to set options globally and download a bunch in one shot

2) Solid icons are generally easier to to recognize, it would be nice to have a second set of icons for that <[https://uxmovement.com/mobile/solid-vs- outline-icons-which-a...](https://uxmovement.com/mobile/solid-vs-outline- icons-which-are-faster-to-recognize/>)

</comment><comment><USER5> Might be nice to have an "apply all" and "download all"

</comment><comment><USER6> I don't know if this a bug, but if you choose butt ends then all of the points in symbols like the question marks and exclamation points and information "i"s disappear. I'm not too familiar with SVG, but I'm guessing you're using a single vector point and it ends up having zero width or something like that.

I really like the product, by the way. It's a great idea

</comment><comment><USER7> Hey, this is pretty useful!

For me (and I believe a ton of other of devs, especially back-end oriented ones), it is tiring and boring having to spend time and effort on design stuff, which is needed but could be done in a easier/simpler way, and I believe you're on the right path about this.

Keep up the good work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! That's the goal of this project. Let me know if there's more that can be done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> First, really nice app, nice to see clean line graphics constructed with _real_ lines (strokes) and exploiting its benefits. I often find myself writing such icons by hand because I want them to be like this and it feels mostly faster to make it yourself than to search for some ready existing, because these are mostly exported to fills, presumably for better reliability.

I have some remarks about the "size (px)" / "stroke width (px)" descriptions.

The "px" (or more precisely "virtual / CSS pixel") value for stroke in app would currently apply only for icon size value of 24 (px, matching viewport), what may seem quite misleading. "1px stroke" in "16px size" is obviously not rendered as full colour CSS pixel, and hypothetically _might_ be rendered as one _physical_ pixel on screen with 150% DPI ratio if they happen to be shifted by half CSS pixel. I'm pretty sure you know what I try to describe: SVG line with stroke-width="1" sitting on whole integer coordinates in non- resized SVG on display with 100% DPI scale will be rendered as "2px" aliased line around that pixel boundary.

It would be interesting to (try to) introduce option to have real (CSS) pixel stroke widths accompanied with mechanism that will align them on CSS pixel grid. (I'm not sure it is doable and worth the effort, because it presumably does not have universal solution for every single DPI, but maybe something could be learnt trying.)

</comment><comment><USER9> Hi, this seems very useful. Since I couldn't find this anywhere on the website, what's the license on the generated SVG files and on the tool itself? Would you release the source code?

<comment><AUTHOR> The icons are available for free - for personal and commercial use. I have no plan to open source the tool, for now :)

<comment><USER10> I was looking for the sources I think that it could be JSX, hiccup and others output support

</comment></comment></comment><comment> jarek-foksa If you need a bit more advanced SVG editing functionality, check out my app Boxy SVG [1]. It allows you to easily define and manage an entire iconset in a single SVG file [2] (each icon can be placed in a separate <symbol> element).

[1] [https://boxy-svg.com](https://boxy-svg.com)

[2] [https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/boxy- svg.appspot...](https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/boxy- svg.appspot.com/o/static%2Fpress-3.png?alt=media)

</comment><comment><USER11> Getting this when I visit:

> This site is blocked due to a security threat that was discovered by the > Cisco Umbrella security researchers.

<comment><USER12> Yep, my company's web filter using opendns is blocking this website. Looks like it has been flagged as malware.

"This site is blocked due to a security threat that was discovered by the Cisco Umbrella security researchers."

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is pretty cool, have you thought about adding layers and translations too? Could be really useful to merge images

</comment><comment><USER14> This is an amazing idea and seems like it is well delivered. Definitely useful, especially for simpler ones like arrows, etc, since it allows us engineers to by pass the designers and let them focus on the hard stuff!

</comment><comment><USER15> Nice work! I'd pay for an extended version of this (i.e social media icons). We're currently using [https://nucleoapp.com/](https://nucleoapp.com/).

</comment><comment><USER16> This is a very nice tool, well done !

My wishlist of nicethingstohave would be:

      - A choice of camelCase output for attributes (JSX-friendly)
      - multiple selection and download

</comment><comment><USER17> These are nice, thanks.

Two feature requests: backgrounds and shadows.

Shadow can be done by repeating the path, and applying a feGaussianBlur.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is amazing. I can already see it making some of my workflows much simpler. Thank you!

</comment><comment><USER19> Nice work, and thanks for not polluting the svg with unnecessary information or links.

</comment><comment><USER20> This is great. Would love to see a map marker/pin icon.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just added them in for you :)

<comment><USER20> Awesome! Thank you.</comment></comment></comment>


Streaming is making the music industry more unequal - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/29/10636712/music-inequality-in-2015-youtube-google-spotify-apple-tidal <comment><USER2> Well, this is the direct result of rampant music piracy over the last decade. It brought the perceived value of a song close to 0 and made ot so the only people that can survive are big name artists.</comment>


Explain how I would go about suing you, by December - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/node/17103875?story_id=17103875&fsrc=rss

<comment><USER2> Interesting article, but the title of the post here obfuscates what it's about.

The story is actually about firms having to disclose what they might get sued for, making it easier for them to get sued.

Original was: Pointers for predators Proposals to make firms' legal liabilities clearer will make them heavier</comment>


Why America will never get rid of Daylight Saving Time - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/636313/why-america-will-never-get-rid-of-day-light-saving/ <comment><USER2> Texas House Bill 2400, introduced this year, proposes to keep Texas on the Central Standard Time and Mountain Standard Time timezones year-round (the portion of the state near El Paso is on Mountain time).

[https://legiscan.com/TX/text/HB2400/2017](https://legiscan.com/TX/text/HB2400/2017)

<comment><USER3> Montana Senate Bill SB206, if passed, we will end DST come November 2017 and will continue forward on Montana Standard Time.

[http://laws.leg.mt.gov/legprd/LAW0203W$BSRV.ActionQuery?P_SE...](http://laws.leg.mt.gov/legprd/LAW0203W$BSRV.ActionQuery?P_SESS=20171&P_BLTP_BILL_TYP_CD=sb&P_BILL_NO=206&P_BILL_DFT_NO=&P_CHPT_NO=&Z_ACTION=Find&P_ENTY_ID_SEQ2=&P_SBJT_SBJ_CD=&P_ENTY_ID_SEQ=)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Okay, how about getting rid of the part where it changes the time _3 weeks earlier_ compared to the rest of the world? Can the U.S. just adopt Daylight Saving Time in the same day, at least?

<comment><USER5> As an avid soccer fan, no! On the East Coast, Champions League matches now kick off at 3:45! I leave work at 4. This is the best time of the year! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I would be happy if the time zones (in the USA) were set to have clock noon be as close to solar noon as possible for most of the time zone.

</comment><comment><USER7> The article says it was first implemented in Germany in 1916 but it was implemented years earlier in Canada -- and was a New Zealand invention.

Of course before time zones everyone adjusted their clocks automatically because people set their clocks (or whatever they used) to midday at noon.

</comment><comment><USER8> Is the big push to kill DST just because it requires you to go to bed an hour early, once a year, or be tired? When I think on the fact that I often sleep in 3 hours later on weekends, it's hard to see the big deal.

I love DST. I get to be outside in the sun more often, and for more time. I get to go for runs without being blinded by headlights.

Edit: The only issue I picture would be the confusion of going to sleep too soon after sunset. Admittedly I'm in a lower latitude where this isn't such an issue. In a place like Toronto, it might be pretty bad in June.

<comment><USER9> Haven't seen the bills mentioned here, but I agree with the principle of not changing the clocks, but let's keep DST year round. I don't care about it being light at 6am vs 7. I do enjoy and make use of the light in the evenings. I also think it's safer to have more light in the evening vs the morning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> As someone who has spent most of their life in AZ, I'm generally confused why we don't get rid of it... If nobody used it, it would be much easier to have localized time just work. Not to mention more consistent offsets from UTC.

Date/Time logic in particular us just painful all around.

<comment><USER11> Dr. Drang explained it best a year or two ago. Basically if we stuck with sun time, then sunrise in Chicago (and other places with similar latitude) would be 4:30 AM in the summer which would be kind of a waste unless everyone just woke up an hour earlier anyway. If we didn't change back for winter, then the sun would set before most people got off work during winter which would be very hard as office workers need _some_ sunlight during the day.

<comment><USER12> Both of those things are true here in England even with daylight savings.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> We ought to get rid of the changing back and forth, but remain in DST. So effectively, it would be summer hours all year round. That gives us the most hours of sunlight after work hours year round.

</comment><comment><USER14> All I know is the grumbling about Daylight Saving is louder than ever in the circles I run with.

New slogan for an anti-DST campaign?

Abolish DST: Save Lives... and Sleep!</comment>


Amazon planning to reopen its French warehouses from May 19 - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-amazon-france/amazon-planning-to-reopen-its-french-warehouses-from-may-19-idUSKBN22R323 <comment><AUTHOR> 'Amazon said on Friday it aims to gradually reopen its French warehouses from May 19 as it finalizes an agreement with unions and work councils to end a dispute over coronavirus protection steps that closed the sites for more than one month.'</comment>


How different is a Bachelor's in Computer Science than Master's in recruiting? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.alinelerner.com/how-different-is-a-b-s-in-computer-science-from-a-m-s-in-computer-science-when-it-comes-to-recruiting/ <comment><USER2> Don't just do it for jobs, do it for yourself. I was able to apply a wide variety of technologies and techniques in my Master's that would not have really come up otherwise.

I also took my degrees very far apart (15 years), which I would strongly recommend in tech. Very few, if any, technologies and practices from a graduate degree in 2016 would have shown up in a degree 15 years ago. And, I know that industry practice alone over that time period was plenty valuable. It was simply time to learn even more.</comment>


Atlantic Monthly Redesign - <AUTHOR> http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/02/the-redesign-ctd-1.html

<comment><USER2> Here's a quotation: _It has all sorts of bells and whistles which people tell me are great - including a new "content management system" and something called Disqus which is a way cool commenting device with avatars and such._

I'm not sure how much to make of this, honestly. But part of me immediately thinks: yup, no wonder print journalism is dying. The people who work there put "content management system" in scare quotes and describe Disqus as if it were a videogame they don't understand how to play.</comment>


Hacked a prediction market lately? - <AUTHOR> http://www.altgate.com/blog/2008/09/hacked-a-predic.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Looking for advice and / or dev project help.</comment>


The Other C-word That's Crucial to Open Source - <AUTHOR> https://sourceforge.net/blog/the-other-c-word-thats-crucial-to-open-source/ <comment><USER2> Wow, this article read like a fortune cookie. Trivial words about obvious matters in Open Source development by our #1 closed-source drive-by-installer supplier.

<comment><AUTHOR> The people who were doing that are gone, SourceForge was acquired by more sane people:

[https://sourceforge.net/blog/sourceforge-acquisition-and- fut...](https://sourceforge.net/blog/sourceforge-acquisition-and-future- plans/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/4n3e1s/the_state_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/4n3e1s/the_state_of_sourceforge_since_its_acquisition_in/)

<comment><USER3> Wow, they really need to advertise that more. I was avoiding them like the plague.</comment></comment></comment>


DEC Answers Leap Year Complaint (1983) - <AUTHOR> https://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/susan/joke/decly.htm <comment><USER2> It's worth going up a level in the directory and poking around.

"24 interesting things that you learn about computers in the movies..." has become pretty outdated, but it's an interesting historical artifact.

Imagine balking at the idea that laptops could support video chat. [https://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/susan/joke/24.htm](https://www- users.cs.york.ac.uk/susan/joke/24.htm)

Reminds me a lot of the Jargon File, and really just the silly humor that filled the early Internet. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jargon_File](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jargon_File)

</comment><comment><USER3> Susan Stepney, the page owner, has/had a fantastic personal library. As in, extra wings built onto her house just to hold more books. The site is a bit like an old book shop, as in you're never quite sure what you'll find on it!

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm sure the typo is that lunar calendar is 354 days, not 364

<comment><USER5> Correct.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is one of those times when, while trying to be funny, using the wrong one of "affect" vs "effect" really puts a ding in the credibility of the author.

</comment><comment><USER5> Summary: won't fix - not a bug.

</comment><comment><USER7> Modern UNIX does the Julian -> Gregorian transition in 1752:

        $ cal September 1752
           September 1752
        Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
               1  2 14 15 16
        17 18 19 20 21 22 23
        24 25 26 27 28 29 30

<comment><USER8> Addendum to my previous comment, you can change this behavior with the -s option to `cal`:

-s country_code

Assume the switch from Julian to Gregorian Calendar at the date associated with the country_code. If not specified, ncal tries to guess the switch date from the local environment or falls back to September 2, 1752. This was when Great Britain and her colonies switched to the Gregorian Calendar.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Too bad DEC didn't live out the 20th century so that we could recognize how wrong they were.</comment>


Hacker irked by reincarnation - <AUTHOR> http://tech.blog.aknin.name/2010/08/16/hacker-irked-by-reincarnation/ <comment><USER2> The essence here really has nothing to do with reincarnation, but rather that a researcher has met the most basic scientific criteria in an area of research, and their research has been altogether dismissed anyway.

That's a fair criticism of the current scientific community, but I suspect that nothing can be done about it without huge cultural changes, at least in the U.S.

Strong refutation of someone's research would require a great deal of research and resources. For that work to become notable in the scientific community, it would typically be supported either by a university or by a respected private organization.

In the university environment, a researcher would be strongly advised against pursuing topics like the investigation of the paranormal. They would be warned that they would be jeopardizing their career; they should go and work instead on some other subject, especially something that's a current hot topic that might lead to some solid funding.

In private industry, if there isn't any money to be made from it, it won't be pursued.

It's not altogether unlike the startup community. I have trouble imagining YC accepting a team that seriously proposed to develop, say, an entirely new operating system from scratch (unless perhaps it was already half complete, and that would be cheating in this case). "Who would use it?" "How will you make money?" "You seem like a great team, why don't you do X instead?"

There seems to be very little space available right now for people who want to devote lots of resources to pursuing something for curiosity's sake.

<comment><USER3> There exist people who write operating systems purely for curiosity's sake. This is essentially the story of Linux.

But it doesn't make sense to advocate _funding_ these ventures. The people who are motivated purely by curiosity will _by definition_ not be motivated by funding. No amount of funding would produce a second Linux. In fact, too much funding might have distracted Linus into working on something else instead.

If you're really passionate about something, you figure out how to do it. Maybe you moonlight, or do it part-time, maybe you save up for a few years and cash out. But I think any software developer who feels that he cannot pursue a software project because of lack of _funding_ needs either a reality check or a career change.

<comment><USER2> > _For that work to become notable in the scientific community, it would > typically be supported either by a university or by a respected private > organization._

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> To speak candidly, I always found it irritating when Atheists and Secular "thinkers" would attack me for being religious and a scientist at the same time, as if my religion must somehow stunf my intellectual capability. Furthermore, more often than not, the loudest champions for science are the ones furthest away from the scientific field. I've never seen such hyperbole or purist/fundamentalist views about science except in non-scientists. In my opinion science, the thing we do to further humanities knowledge, is deeply flawed, unnecessarily complicated and painfully dirty. Let me provide a few examples:

The "3 year degree". When I finished my three year Science degree I looked back on my time not with pride but rather disdain and anger. I felt like the work I had done to achieve the piece of paper my degree was written on did not warrant three years of my life. I felt like if the university gave me the opportunity, I could have completed my degree in a year, with full time or over time studying. That being said I had the luxury of living in a country with free or freeish education. Don't even get me started on PhDs and postdocs.

Science funding: While science is supposed to be impartial, illuminating and free for all it sadly isnt. Pharmaceutical companies pay big money to get results that allow them bring drugs on the market. I'm not suggesting there methods are corrupt, far from it, but the fact that they have a vested financial interest in results steers there line of thinking so that any scientific discoveries that arn't beneficial to drug x are shelved. PhD students who are supported with financial grants are also impended by NDA paperwork and a wall of patent/commercial impediments.

The point I'm making is that It's not suprising people lose faith in science when they start to look beyond the superficial layers. Science is difficult, confusing and complicated but It's also essential, It's also wonderful and It's also fundamental for human society. The problem though (at least it appears to me) is that in many ways there is a huge disconnect between cutting edge science/peer review articles and the general public. I've been thinking about what to do to plug that gap and make science more accessible to people without requiring 5 years of studying but thats another story all together.

<comment><USER5> > To speak candidly, I always found it irritating when Atheists and Secular > "thinkers" would attack me for being religious and a scientist at the same > time, as if my religion must somehow stunf my intellectual capability.

I would think so. How can you say, "I'm a scientist, I'll construct experiments and observe results to understand reality," and then go believe that there's a dude in the universe that's omnipotent and omnipresent without a shred of observable evidence?

> Science is difficult, confusing and complicated.

Science is cherry pie compared to trying to appease some mystical, invisible, unobserable, unknowable, all-powerful, imaginary god.

<comment><USER6> I was thinking "Do people really attack you for being religious in that way? Surely not." And yet here we have someone doing just that. How sad.

Human beings believe things without a shred of credible evidence all the time. In fact, taking things on faith is a valuable, even vital intellectual short- cut that allows us to get on with doing stuff without having to work out every detail of our lives from first principles all the time.

I happen to believe that this explains belief in god, i.e. that it's an intellectual short-cut that allows societies to construct functional moral and social frameworks that historically have served a valuable purpose. Frameworks that nowadays are not so valuable because we now have well worked out philosophies of life and morality that render divine fiat unnecessary to leading a healthy, productive and satisfying life. I see religious as being a vestigial social construct that is withering away as it's nolonger required.

However I am also very much aware that I still use all sorts of intellectual short-cuts and assumptions every day. Anyone who thinks human beings are inherently rational logical beings is IMHO delusional. We are primarily emotional, instinctual beings overlayed with thin layer of self awareness and congnition.

Therefore I think there's plenty of scope for sensible people to adhere to religious belief systems if they so choose, as long as they don't expect special rights and privileges for doing so. But can we all agree to at least be civil about it?

<comment><USER7> He wasn't attacking him. What's sad is that you need to feel persecuted.

The point is exactly as you say, just because you have faith you don't get any privileges. I and many others cannot understand how one can bring the empiricism inherent to science in accordance with the irrationality of faith. (And I don't use irrational as an insult here, I just mean that faith isn't based on a rational basis). It's not attacking for finding that incredulous.

I think of myself as a scientist and a rational person, yet I believe in some form of an immortal soul, or at least that the mind is not physical. I absolutely don't feel like I should be free from scepticism and even if I did I wouldn't feel attacked if someone questioned my "faith".

EDIT: A single downvote and no reply. That means I'm right, right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The "evidence" here is that children "said words" and "did things" that made it seem like they were "reincarnated". Also there are some anecdotal cases of injuries other people had turing into birth defects / birth marks for other people...

Can someone please tell me what the science is here? Because my brain is melting reading this "research".

<comment><USER8> Not that I believe in re-incarnation, but nonetheless your argument is misleading.

Lets say re-incarnation actually existed....what would its evidence possibly be then anyways?

<comment><USER6> What Ian Stevenson collected were anecdotes, not evidence. Evidence would be statistically significant instances of characteristics, not transmittable through any other mechanism , verified against a control group. He never even proposed a mechanism for transmission that someone might actually investigate, or even prove or disprove, let alone actually conduct anything resembling a real test or experiment himself.

<comment><USER8> Yes I agree with your first statement.But then IMO one doesn'nt need to propose a mechanism for a phenomena in order to prove that the phenomena exists. Just statistically significant positive results balanced against a control group is enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I personally feel that there is no need of any sort of 'scientific' investigations into reincarnation,because these things where already researched by buddists and hindus and several other religions.Just reading their literature can give enough insight on reincarnation.For those interested:

Astavarka Gita : - [https://docs.google.com/open?id=1IJWnCEJupB1VHxyheLwnvsnMzxq...](https://docs.google.com/open?id=1IJWnCEJupB1VHxyheLwnvsnMzxqQEtWMi5dZHekXvvrTegKutnzEKfs8P7hb&authkey=CJ- cx_IK)

Raja Yoga :- [https://docs.google.com/open?id=1b9b6uO51isx8fKfuvDC_ftvaatE...](https://docs.google.com/open?id=1b9b6uO51isx8fKfuvDC_ftvaatEbV6ut5XZENjs8BYEaYFIcwozdfpnyHOS9)

Tao Te Ching :- [https://docs.google.com/open?id=1NbIyjE_phiigwpR- jRlOc0u_n1-...](https://docs.google.com/open?id=1NbIyjE_phiigwpR- jRlOc0u_n1-9QKs865JUqzcNqe-K-shRK-X-IIfdhBks)

The above books are not directly related to reincarnation.

On reincanation you can read "tibetan book of the dead"

<comment><USER10> Although I see your point, I'm not sure that most of the hackers here would agree with you. It's almost like there was a different universe where this universe's physics laws would not apply. People cannot grasp physics in this new universe if they try to use the same methods from their known universe.

Science, currently, has no way to "prove" reincarnation because its current paradigm cannot support a way for reincarnation to work. Lukcily, we don't need science to prove EVERYTHING to know that something's true or false ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The blogger claims that the research was ignored without any consideration, but comments points out that the research have been considered, but rejected as pseudoscience.

<comment><USER12> And I replied to the comment: I'm not happy with the 'bunch of scientists claiming crazy stuff' bit. I'm especially unhappy about these scientists still teaching classes, or worse, leading sections of hospitals.

If they are correct, let's research this more. If they are not, let's have a proper refute and be done with it. If their research and methodology are 'so flawed as not to be worthy of a proper refute', why does anyone publish their papers and why aren't they promptly thrown out of their respective academic organizations?

meh. I guess I should get back to Pythoneering.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The problem with life before birth (edit:you know what I ment) or after death is that I am the sum of my memories, evolutionary quirks and my bodies interaction with the world.

If I don't remember a past life - even in the unlikely event that it was a real thing - that wasn't me, that was someone else.

If you agree with the basic facts used to justify that, but not the conclusion, I'd appreciate any feedback. Likewise if you disagree with the whole thing. Still working on this one.

</comment><comment><USER14> Reincarnation, telepathy, extra sensory perception etc. are pipe dreams for us, but ironically, for AIs that we build, they will be routine!

Current operating systems are like rudimentary souls, and any OS routinely uses these capabilities:

Rebooting <-> Reincarnation

Networking <-> Telepathy

USB devices <-> Extrasensory perception

Andy Tannenbaum's MINIX-3 explicitly calls rebooting as reincarnation.

Future AIs will have Thompson & Ritchie to thank for making flexible reincarnation possible for them.</comment>


The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee (1830) - <AUTHOR> http://blissbat.net/balzac.html <comment><USER2> Great writing of Mr Balzac about coffee.

According to research he came out as a man of extremes - "Overweight, workaholic, and a caffeine abuser, Honoré de Balzac lived a life of excess. He prematurely died at the age of 51 owing to gangrene associated with congestive heart failure."

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27638234](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27638234)

<comment><USER3> Not just extremes in what he swallowed: he's notorious for "La Comédie Humaine" [0] his dozens of novels are actually set in the same fictional world, with consistent characters across decades. You can take excerpts from several books to tell a completely original story. It's the most detailed world ever described —from individual thoughts to gruesome details about poverty, up to overarching consequences of the industrial revolution on the remaining aristocracy.

[0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Com%C3%A9die_humaine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Com%C3%A9die_humaine)

<comment><USER4> That sounds a lot like the basic idea behind Terry Pratchett's Discworld.

<comment><USER3> It is, although more XIXth-Century realism, so darker: someone who was drinking at a bar reappears as a ruined alcoholic later. Someone who got rich suddenly turned mean.

A lot of the speculation on the forty-something unfinished books are based on those trajectories.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> While writing _La Comédie Humaine_ \- 92 books and many more unfinished, from 1829 to 1850 - Balzac is said to have started his days around midnight. He would write till 8am, with some breaks for walks, rest for an hour, then write again till 4p. At that time he would bathe, receive friends for dinner, and go to bed at 6p or 7p. He drank a lot of coffee.

<comment><USER6> He had the dream job back in the 1800's

<comment><USER7> He's a fascinating figure - I recommend his biography by Zweig.

Regarding the "dream job", he was thoroughly jealous of aristocracy and their prestige and wealth and saw writing mostly as a way to accumulate similar wealth and join their ranks - which was impossible because writers didn't make that much and even if they did, the aristocracy would shun the nouveau-riche anyway. Interestingly, aristocracy was fascinated by his writing and wanted to rub elbows with him, which he completely missed (which is hilarious, given that he was a master of social observation) and so he spent all his earning on expensive furniture and such (which of course couldn't make any impression of the rich - they had the same trinkets, only better).

He also once hired a team of writers to write him book on a tight deadline. IIRC, the deadline was 48 hours and each writer was supposed to deliver a chapter of the novel, with little coordination of plot and characters. You can imagine the results...

Another interesting tidbit was that he spend multiple years wooing a bored Polish aristocrat, convincing her to abandon her husband and marry him instead. Of course, it was just another plot to get to the riches. There was also investing into silver mines in Corsica. He would make a great character in his novels...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Some really interesting comments in the previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13647098](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13647098)

<comment><USER9> That one's from 2017.

There's also 2014: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7921691](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7921691)

and 2011: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2880196](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2880196)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Beware the first sip of ol' demon coffee.

[https://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/20/books/books-of-the- times-...](https://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/20/books/books-of-the-times-beware- the-first-sip-of-ol-demon-coffee.html)

</comment><comment><USER11> Imagine posting this today: cite your sources, anecdotes are meaningless, n of 1, etc. It's interesting that "Many people claim coffee inspires them, but, as everybody knows, coffee only makes boring people even more boring." aligns with the recent post about caffeine boosting work capacity but no effect on creativity.

<comment><USER12> [https://erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_Caffeine.shtml](https://erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_Caffeine.shtml) These are some modern takes on the same idea. Now that we know the "barely perceptible radations" from stomach to brain have a formula.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> bonne page

</comment><comment><USER14> sublime

</comment><comment><USER15> Heads-up if you're thinking about clicking the credit/original source link at the bottom of the post...it's very NSFW and likely doesn't contain the original content.

<comment><USER16> Weird. Maybe it was misspelled?

<comment><USER17> archive.org shows that it seems like the domain registration seems to have expired and likely changed hands mid-decade or so.</comment></comment></comment>


GIMP flees SourceForge over dodgy adds and installers - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/08/gimp_dumps_sourceforge_over_dodgy_ads_and_installer/

<comment><USER2> I hope a bunch of other large projects leave SF now. I truly hate those ads, but SF certainly didn't need to add their own installer. Over all, it is an obnoxious service.

s/adds/ads/ in the title

</comment><comment><USER3> this story is over 6 months old, clickbait</comment>


Ammyy Admin 3.8 - <AUTHOR> http://www.fileyogi.com/software/ammyy-admin-3-8/ <comment><USER2> Why an older version from a filesharing site instead of the current release from www.ammyy.com ?</comment>


Bulgarian cow saved from slaughter after straying over EU border - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-norfolk-44441956 <comment><USER2> I'm glad some people still have common sense in the EU. Would have been hard to swallow if some man's cow got killed just by crossing an imaginary line between two hills.</comment>