Generating an anonymous reference to an OO method

[Mart van de Wege]

(e-mail address removed) (Randal L. Schwartz) writes:

Rainer> Out of curiosity, I've now also done a very cursory 'literature
Rainer> search': The Camel-book, considering its usual 'no bullshit' approach
Rainer> to technology', contains nothing applicable to this particular way of
Rainer> using eval. Something which is easily available on the web,

Rainer> [REDACTED]

I really, really, really don't appreciate people posting URLs to pirated
copies of O'Reilly books.

I have no idea if this is 'a pirated copy' or a legal one (given the
age of the book, the latter is at least not completely
impossible). You referred to 'literature'. Consequently, I used Google
to search for 'perl eval string' and this is one of the results that
came back. It is pretty ridicolous to try to hold me personally
responsible that someone from Canada (AFAIK) but something on the web
which can be found by using a search engine.

It is perfectly sensible to hold you responsible for
driving traffic to illegal content by linking to it.

I have no way to determine the legal status of something returned by a
Google search and - using your logic - it must thus be perfectly
sensible to hold Google responsible for 'driving traffic to illegal
content' by linking to it.

Additional remark: According to

http://oreilly.com/store/complete.html

it isn't even possible to order the first edition of this book from
O'Reilly anymore, at least not online. Used copies sell for as little
as £1.57. Given that it is fourteen years old and thus, massively
outdated in many respects, that's not exactly surprising. This is a
resource which is mainly of historical/ cultural interest and I'd
wager a bet the the publisher considers the commercial value of this
text to be essentially zero. Which leads to the following nice
statement:

Yow! Legally-imposed CULTURE-reduction is CABBAGE-BRAINED!

NB: I have exactly no proof that the publisher is actually interested
in 'Legally-imposed CULTURE-reduction' but perhaps the gentlemen who
claimed to know that he is would be so kind to provide one.

Absent any statement to the contrary, you should assume that a text is
still under copyright.

I'm going to disregard your views on copyright in general, seeing as that I at
least partly agree that it is broken as practised today, but your last
paragraph is just plain stupid, for the reason outlined above.

Mart

 

[Rainer Weikusat]

Rainer Weikusat <[email protected]> writes:

[1st ed. of 'Advanced Perl Programming]

Absent any statement to the contrary, you should assume that a text is
still under copyright.

Since the US copyright gets extended whenever Mickey Mouse would
otherwise fall into the public domain, that's pretty certain ...

I'm going to disregard your views on copyright in general, seeing as
that I at least partly agree that it is broken as practised today,
but your last paragraph is just plain stupid, for the reason
outlined above.

.... but the important question is not 'Could this technically be
regarded as illegal?' but 'Is the copyright-holder actually interested in
stopping people from making obsolete editions of books published by
him available on the web?'. And I would hope that the responsible
people have enough good sense to answer this question with 'No'.

In the context of this, it should also be noted that the 2nd edition
is not as easy to find and the place where it can be found are 'the
usual suspects', eg, RapidShare[*].

[*] Is this again a case where 'someone should really censor my
statements'? Or is 'discussion of copyright matters' still allowed in
countries where open discussion is supposed to be allowed?

 

[Randal L. Schwartz]

Rainer> ... but the important question is not 'Could this technically be
Rainer> regarded as illegal?' but 'Is the copyright-holder actually
Rainer> interested in stopping people from making obsolete editions of
Rainer> books published by him available on the web?'. And I would hope
Rainer> that the responsible people have enough good sense to answer
Rainer> this question with 'No'.

But that's not for you to answer. And in this case, the enforcement
group at O'Reilly takes copyrights seriously. They can and do send
takedown notices to such sites. If you see such sites, please let them
know at (e-mail address removed) (as listed on their contacts page).

 

[Mart van de Wege]

Rainer Weikusat <[email protected]> writes:

[1st ed. of 'Advanced Perl Programming]

Absent any statement to the contrary, you should assume that a text is
still under copyright.

Since the US copyright gets extended whenever Mickey Mouse would
otherwise fall into the public domain, that's pretty certain ...

I'm going to disregard your views on copyright in general, seeing as
that I at least partly agree that it is broken as practised today,
but your last paragraph is just plain stupid, for the reason
outlined above.

... but the important question is not 'Could this technically be
regarded as illegal?' but 'Is the copyright-holder actually interested in
stopping people from making obsolete editions of books published by
him available on the web?'. And I would hope that the responsible
people have enough good sense to answer this question with 'No'.

Well, since you're already an ass, I don't think I should have to
explain what 'assume' means to you, now should I?

Mart

 

[Rainer Weikusat]

[...]

... but the important question is not 'Could this technically be
regarded as illegal?' but 'Is the copyright-holder actually interested in
stopping people from making obsolete editions of books published by
him available on the web?'. And I would hope that the responsible
people have enough good sense to answer this question with 'No'.

Well, since you're already an ass,

And that follows from me giving expression to the hope that the people
who run O'Reilly might have the generosity to at least tolerate
something like this since it is really only of historical/ cultural
interest? How come ...

 

[Rainer Weikusat]

[...]

... but the important question is not 'Could this technically be
regarded as illegal?' but 'Is the copyright-holder actually interested in
stopping people from making obsolete editions of books published by
him available on the web?'. And I would hope that the responsible
people have enough good sense to answer this question with 'No'.

Well, since you're already an ass,

And that follows from me giving expression to the hope that the people
who run O'Reilly might have the generosity to at least tolerate
something like this since it is really only of historical/ cultural
interest? Or is it still supposed to follow from the fact that some
people use the internet to break all kinds of laws and that it makes
you feel better to hit a bystander than do nothing about it?

 

[Jürgen Exner]

Absent any statement to the contrary, you should assume that a text is
still under copyright.

Actually copyright is a natural law, i.e. a work of art/science/...
automatically becomes copyrighted the moment it is created and even the
author/artist/creator cannot waive this right. At most he can transfer
the rights to another party.
This copyright expires after 75(?) years. Therefore, unless this piece
of art/science/literature/... is more than 75 years old, someone is
still holding the copyright, maybe the author, maybe some publisher,
maybe someone else.

And yes, this even goes for freeware. There the author is the legal
copyright holder, but he allows free use of the code. If he weren't the
copyright holder then he would have no legal right to allow any use.

jue

 

[Rainer Weikusat]

Rainer> ... but the important question is not 'Could this technically be
Rainer> regarded as illegal?' but 'Is the copyright-holder actually
Rainer> interested in stopping people from making obsolete editions of
Rainer> books published by him available on the web?'. And I would hope
Rainer> that the responsible people have enough good sense to answer
Rainer> this question with 'No'.

But that's not for you to answer. And in this case, the enforcement
group at O'Reilly takes copyrights seriously. They can and do send
takedown notices to such sites. If you see such sites, please let
them know at (e-mail address removed) (as listed on their contacts
page).

And it's also not for me to police. While I won't dispute that the
publisher has every right to act in this way, I nevertheless consider
this a regrettable policy in cases like this. Apart from that, I will
take your word on this and will - in future - refrain from posting
such links.

 

[RedGrittyBrick]

Actually copyright is a natural law, i.e. a work of art/science/...
automatically becomes copyrighted the moment it is created and even the
author/artist/creator cannot waive this right. At most he can transfer
the rights to another party.
This copyright expires after 75(?) years.

It varies by country.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries'_copyright_length
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_the_shorter_term

Therefore, unless this piece
of art/science/literature/... is more than 75 years old, someone is
still holding the copyright, maybe the author, maybe some publisher,
maybe someone else.

Posting links to unauthorised copies of copyright material is almost as
bad as confusing Canada (.ca) with Ukraine (.ua). ;-)

 

[Ted Zlatanov]

RW> I have (and do) show 'a massive unwillingness' to accept anything from
RW> anyone without complete information (IOW not "I know something you
RW> don't know") and a sensible reason for it.

The problem with that, Rainer, is that you are, strictly speaking, a Vogon.

So it's been hard to communicate with you at the level you require for a
successful transfer of any information, never mind complete units
thereof.

Ted

 

[Michael Vilain]

RW> I have (and do) show 'a massive unwillingness' to accept anything from
RW> anyone without complete information (IOW not "I know something you
RW> don't know") and a sensible reason for it.

The problem with that, Rainer, is that you are, strictly speaking, a Vogon.

So it's been hard to communicate with you at the level you require for a
successful transfer of any information, never mind complete units
thereof.

Ted

It must be cultural or you're Lutheran. Most people this pedantic are
just 'crashing bores'. Of course, if he keeps saying 'Resistance is
useless', I might be proven wrong. If he says 'Resistance is futile',
we're both in trouble.

 

[Rainer Weikusat]

A fairly amusing observation about people I have made in the past is
that they tend to 'find' exaggerated versions of their own character
deficiencies in others. So, whenever you make an uninformed statement
about me (after all, you don't know me), you are actually making a
statement about yourself (someone you happen to know, possibly, the
only someone --- an amazing number of people also never seem to
realize that 'the others are actually different').

Try to consider that before posting more off-topic insults.

 

[Uri Guttman]

RW> Try to consider that before posting more off-topic insults.

have you considered the fact (not an opinion) that you have pissed off a
majority of the regulars here in a very short time? this can't be caused
by any other reason than your obstinate narrow minded views. you came
here recently and have shown nothing but contempt for anyone who
disagrees with you who can't 'prove' their ideas are better than yours
to your 'high' standards. why don't you just leave already as you won't
learn here, you don't teach much and we are not worthy of your
presence. and don't bother to go to any perl conferences or workshops as
you will also be so bored at the myriad of ideas that don't match up
with your superior perl skills. as for proof of my idea here, i place
perl developers and grade them on many criteria one of which is how they
get along with others and their ideas. you fail there. of course you
won't accept that since it didn't come from you. but that is the whole
point. there is a world outside of you that actually knows a thing or
two and you might even learn something. but you won't. i predict you
will come back with a snarky comment about being insulted. this isn't an
insult but a factual description of your behavior here. name one new
friend you have made here. try that out. an actual new friend with whom you
communicate. i can name many.

and this is very on topic as perl is also a very large community and you
seem to want to keep outside it. fine with me but then stay all the way
out.

uri

 

[Ted Zlatanov]

RW> A fairly amusing observation about people I have made in the past is
RW> that they tend to 'find' exaggerated versions of their own character
RW> deficiencies in others.

Heh, you're a psychologist too? Truly a Renaissance soul.

RW> So, whenever you make an uninformed statement about me (after all,
RW> you don't know me), you are actually making a statement about
RW> yourself (someone you happen to know, possibly, the only someone ---
RW> an amazing number of people also never seem to realize that 'the
RW> others are actually different').

This is exactly the kind of conversation we should be having.

Ted

 

[Miranda McKennitt]

Actually copyright is a natural law, i.e. a work of art/science/...
automatically becomes copyrighted the moment it is created and even the
author/artist/creator cannot waive this right. At most he can transfer
the rights to another party.
This copyright expires after 75(?) years. Therefore, unless this piece
of art/science/literature/... is more than 75 years old, someone is
still holding the copyright, maybe the author, maybe some publisher,
maybe someone else.

And yes, this even goes for freeware. There the author is the legal
copyright holder, but he allows free use of the code. If he weren't the
copyright holder then he would have no legal right to allow any use.

So, can I waive the copyright somehow? I have #copyleft in my Twitter
bio and wrote several times that everyone can take my words and even
attribute them to themselves if that is their fancy. Or is it
impossible to escape the evil thing?

 

[Miranda McKennitt]

You are asking in the wrong place.

There is a newsgroup for discussing intellectual property issues:

misc.int-property

Thanks. I didn't know that newsgroup exists.