Time zone database shut down (The Daily Parker) [LWN.net]

Legal Defense Fund for Timezone Database Maintainers

Posted Oct 6, 2011 23:22 UTC (Thu) by nedu (guest, #50951) [Link] (1 responses)

Any news yet on the organization of a legal defense fund for Olson and Eggert? Someplace to send donations.

Reading the complaint, it looks to me like these volunteers have been sued personally.

Legal Defense Fund for Timezone Database Maintainers

Posted Oct 7, 2011 6:55 UTC (Fri) by alextingle (guest, #20593) [Link]

I would contribute to a defence fund.

Temporary fork?

Posted Oct 6, 2011 23:52 UTC (Thu) by cesarb (subscriber, #6266) [Link] (22 responses)

If the lawsuit is only about the historical data, it might be possible to fork the database and put only current and future data on it. That would take care of what I believe is the most common use case for the timezone database (to set our computer's clocks correctly).

And at least for my country (Brazil) we can get the official historical data too at http://pcdsh01.on.br/DecHV.html (which is a list of the official decrees, hosted on Brazil's National Observatory site). Other countries might have equivalent resources.

After the lawsuit is over, the fork could be merged back into the original database.

Temporary fork?

Posted Oct 7, 2011 1:45 UTC (Fri) by butlerm (subscriber, #13312) [Link] (21 responses)

If filesystems did the sensible thing and stored the local GMT offset along with each timestamp that would largely eliminate the need for a historical time zone database, would it not?

Temporary fork?

Posted Oct 7, 2011 1:46 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link]

only if you have a time machine to go back and change all the existing data on disks

and only if all you care about is filesystem times and don't care about applications displaying correct information about events that happened in the past.

Temporary fork?

Posted Oct 7, 2011 2:38 UTC (Fri) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link] (3 responses)

Sorry, but I don't follow. GMT offset of what, exactly?

Why should I care about the time zone of a in which specific record was set? It is stored as "GMT" (or UTC, whatever). The time zone (current. Not historical) only matters when displaying it.

Temporary fork?

Posted Oct 7, 2011 12:26 UTC (Fri) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link] (2 responses)

Right. And while I'm, say, in Germany, I'd like to see german times, not my native chilean ones.

Temporary fork?

Posted Oct 7, 2011 13:37 UTC (Fri) by butlerm (subscriber, #13312) [Link] (1 responses)

If the timezone offset was stored, you would have a choice. Convert to local time as is done now, or display user time / timezone offset. If there was ever an investigation of any kind the latter would likely be far more significant.

Temporary fork?

Posted Oct 7, 2011 18:29 UTC (Fri) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]

That wouldn't really *solve* the issue but it would solve two use-cases. 1) displaying global time in GMT/UTC 2) displaying local time for the time zone that the process happened to be in when the record was written. It does not allow you to display the timestamp in any other local time that would be valid at the time the record was written. Having a historical time zone database *does* allow you to display records in any local time that was valid at the time the record was written.

Timestamps should always be stored in GMT and always be globally consistent. The time zone database is for displaying that data in any local time zone including for historical data by applying whatever conversion factors were valid for that point in time. Then you can compare timestamps based on their absolute value and also compare against historical timestamps which are written in local time only.

Temporary fork?

Posted Oct 7, 2011 3:34 UTC (Fri) by wahern (subscriber, #37304) [Link] (13 responses)

A POSIX timestamp *is* in GMT. The timezone database is needed for conversions.

Temporary fork?

Posted Oct 7, 2011 7:10 UTC (Fri) by butlerm (subscriber, #13312) [Link] (12 responses)

I am aware of that. The point of storing the timezone offset in addition to the time_t value is as follows:

(1) You can accurately and reliably determine what the wall clock time was when a file was created or modified (assuming the clock was set to match the local time).
(2) You do not have to do a timezone offset lookup to guess what time that actually was - no timezone database required
(3) The wall clock (civil time) audit trail is not a function of how accurate the timezone database is now, was at the time when the file was created or modified, or whether the timezone was set accurately by the user.
(4) You have a good idea of what timezone and dst status the file was created/modified in, useful and significant information not stored now.

Temporary fork?

Posted Oct 7, 2011 8:31 UTC (Fri) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link] (11 responses)

What's the use for the local time anyway? That information is, at best, a curiosity. What truly maters is the local time for the people _using_ the file, and this can be anything because Unix permits (very) remote users.
So, you need the timezone database anyway, and that information is redundant.

Temporary fork?

Posted Oct 7, 2011 13:15 UTC (Fri) by butlerm (subscriber, #13312) [Link] (5 responses)

>What truly maters is the local time for the people _using_ the file, and this can be anything because Unix permits (very) remote users.

Every process should have an effective timezone offset, that the kernel knows about, and passes along to the filesystem. The overhead of a few extra bits per timestamp is inconsequential, and would have the additional benefit of showing the timezone of the user at the time, which is not information you can derive now.

Temporary fork?

Posted Oct 7, 2011 13:40 UTC (Fri) by cesarb (subscriber, #6266) [Link] (2 responses)

> which is not information you can derive now.

It is also information you do not need.

What matters is the moment the file was modified. Ignoring relativistic effects, that moment in time is the same irrespective of whether you are at Brazil or Australia. Arbitrarily choosing a timezone without daylight savings time and representing the local time at that timezone is enough (for several reasons, GMT is often chosen as that "timezone").

Saving information you do not need adds complexity for little benefit. It is not just "a few bits per timestamp", it is all the code which has to deal with it (not just writing but also reading), and worst, it is yet another concept you have to worry about when programming.

Temporary fork?

Posted Oct 7, 2011 15:34 UTC (Fri) by jhardin (guest, #3297) [Link] (1 responses)

> It is also information you do not need.

It's useful from a security auditing standpoint to be able to see whether a file was modified at a suspicious time of day for the location where the modification originated.

If you see a file that is not modified by automated processes being modified at 0200 local time, that may indicate a security problem - somebody may be doing something when they shouldn't be, perhaps the account was cracked or the user is hacking.

Temporary fork?

Posted Oct 7, 2011 18:32 UTC (Fri) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]

I think we can both agree that this would not be a robust way to gather this kind of information since setting the timezone that information is displayed in is not a privileged operation, an attacker could claim to be in any time zone which is what you would pick up in your described audit trail.

Temporary fork?

Posted Oct 7, 2011 14:28 UTC (Fri) by iq-0 (subscriber, #36655) [Link]

If you'd really want that, than you don't want the timezone offset, but the locale that goes with it. Because, for example, stuff like DST changes differ depending on where you are in UTC+2. And depending on what you want to derive from that information you want to know the basic offset or the rules that influence that offset.

But in that case you'd better just store your geographical location with you file modifications for that gives you even better information. And you don't want programs to be in their own time offset / timezone, that's like every program having their own different meaning of time from the rest. For programs that have to do such strange things (virtual machines, calendering application, ...) can do so using their own abstractions and data storage (the filesystem isn't you generic good for everything data storage solution, for that you want a database (in the most general meaning of the word)).

Temporary fork?

Posted Oct 10, 2011 20:28 UTC (Mon) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link]

Time offset is completely useless for that. The only think that could help you in that case is to save the GMT and which *time zone* (not offset) was in use. You can easily derive offset by time stamp and time zone, but not the other way around (different time zones could be using the same offset).

But again, this information is mostly a curiosity and completely inconsequent for 99.999 % of users.

Temporary fork?

Posted Oct 7, 2011 16:34 UTC (Fri) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link] (4 responses)

There are a lot of sorts of data analysis which only work in local time. If you're looking at theft reports from retail stores, you want to know if it was inside business hours at the store, which are probably not 9-17 GMT or have anything to do with times where the database or analysis program in. And if you've got records from Brazilian businesses going back decades, you'd need to know what the daylight savings time policy was that particular year to reconstruct local time, because there's no simple pattern. And this applies to a lot of stuff: medical records want to track whether someone has insomnia or is in California; travelers want to arrange lunch when lunch will be served, etc.

Git commits include local time offsets for much this reason; you may want to know what time of day it was for the author when the code was written, not just what instant of UTC it was.

Temporary fork?

Posted Oct 7, 2011 16:53 UTC (Fri) by sfeam (subscriber, #2841) [Link] (3 responses)

I've lost track of the line of argument. All of the examples you give are reasons to back-calculate the local time when you are doing a retrospective analysis. They do not explain why you would need to store a local offset in the original data. In fact it seems quite problematic to do so. As you note, retail stores in several time zones could be logging transactions into the same central database. The location of the store is relevant, but that's a known value, not something that changes with every transaction.

Doesn't the same problem arise for git? Suppose I'm traveling. I ssh into a box at home in a different time zone and make a git commit. If you really care about my perceptual time of day (why??) then time-stamping the commit based on the time zone of the box it was done from is wrong. You want the time zone from which I ssh-ed into it.

Temporary fork?

Posted Oct 7, 2011 21:35 UTC (Fri) by jrn (subscriber, #64214) [Link]

Set the TZ variable and make sure ssh allows it through. :)

Temporary fork?

Posted Oct 8, 2011 1:35 UTC (Sat) by butlerm (subscriber, #13312) [Link] (1 responses)

>All of the examples you give are reasons to back-calculate the local time when you are doing a retrospective analysis. They do not explain why you would need to store a local offset in the original data.

Suppose you are an ordinary user and travel to a distant timezone, and change your computer settings to match. Now by default, ls -l shows the "wrong" time, and possibly the wrong date, for nearly all your files, new dates and times that have nothing to do with your actual lived experience.

If the timezone offset was stored with each timestamp, ls could have an option to show you what the wall clock time, date, and timezone offset was instead. The only way to do that now is keep a record of where you were on which dates and times, and then do the conversion manually.

Temporary fork?

Posted Oct 8, 2011 2:41 UTC (Sat) by mrons (subscriber, #1751) [Link]

Not quite what you want but you can see the date of the files in your old timezone:

(export TZ=/usr/share/zoneinfo/MyOld/Zone; ls -l)

Temporary fork?

Posted Oct 7, 2011 8:30 UTC (Fri) by __alex (guest, #38036) [Link] (1 responses)

Unless your model user had the poor taste to move to a different country and desired to relocalise all of their timestamps of course.

Temporary fork?

Posted Oct 7, 2011 13:54 UTC (Fri) by butlerm (subscriber, #13312) [Link]

The timezone database would certainly be useful (although not as critical) for displaying anything in the current local time zone. No reason to get rid of it, just no reason to be so hopelessly dependent on it.

Never cite sources

Posted Oct 7, 2011 3:49 UTC (Fri) by slashdot (guest, #22014) [Link] (4 responses)

The lesson here is: NEVER, EVER, cite sources of information in code, whether it's a book, it's official documentation or whatever.

Without those citations, you are pretty much safe from such lawsuits.

Never cite sources

Posted Oct 7, 2011 5:29 UTC (Fri) by corsac (subscriber, #49696) [Link] (3 responses)

So it's ok to do copyright infringement as long as you're never caught?

Never cite sources

Posted Oct 7, 2011 7:25 UTC (Fri) by butlerm (subscriber, #13312) [Link]

Facts are not copyrightable. In the United States at least, you can copy non-creative selections of facts to your hearts content as long as you are not prohibited from doing so by license or contract. See Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service Co (1991), for example. If it were not the case academia, among other things, would grind to a halt, because no one could cite anything any more, nor use any previous work as a source.

Never cite sources

Posted Oct 7, 2011 7:27 UTC (Fri) by rahvin (guest, #16953) [Link] (1 responses)

At least under US law what he did is NOT copyright infringement as this is all factual information. The only way to copyright factual information is in the form of a database and that's only on the specific format and such, not the data itself.

From what I've read this was typed up using the hard copy book into a unique database. I don't believe personally that this has a chance of success as long as the defendants are properly defended. In fact given the situation I'd like to see a dozen or more suits launched by companies like Redhat demanding a finding of non-infringement along with amiscus briefs in the original case.

This type of BS should be punished with financial ruin for the company involved.

Never cite sources

Posted Oct 7, 2011 18:48 UTC (Fri) by wahern (subscriber, #37304) [Link]

Or better yet, financial ruin for the attorneys filing the case, and a cover story on a practice area periodical so everyone else will know about it.

My commentary

Posted Oct 7, 2011 4:07 UTC (Fri) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] (9 responses)

I wrote a short commentary on the case here.

My commentary

Posted Oct 7, 2011 7:37 UTC (Fri) by lyda (subscriber, #7429) [Link] (7 responses)

Deep in the bowels of the /. story is the following comment:

"""I'm afraid that I'm the cause of all of this or at least the spark that started it. It is a long story, but basically Astrolabe is after me because I have created the Terran Atlas that used the Olson Time Zone database (which is now in a different format from what Olson started) in competition with the ACS Atlas. Gary Christen threatened suit against me November 25th, 2010 (and investigation of the Olson time zone database) in an email to me upon which I notified Paul Eggert and Arthur Olson of what was transpiring.

In March 2006, May 2008 and Oct 2008 Gary Christen, CEO of Astrolabe tried to hire me (as well as several other companies in the field) due to the breakthrough success that I was having with Delphic Oracle. In summer of 2008 ACS went bankrupt and Astrolabe obtained the ACS Atlas. The latter conditions for hiring in fall 2008 were under somewhat unreasonable circumstances where the ACS Atlas was used as pressure (wondering if I would still have an atlas for my software) to get me to hand over Delphic Oracle and work for them. While Astrolabe initially reaffirmed the contract that I had with ACS after my meeting with them in the fall of 2008, my customers started complaining about the bad treatment that Astrolabe was giving them in the months following. One of my customers was also a programmer and was so fed up that he formatted a database of latitudes and longitudes which became part of the first version of the Terran Atlas. Afterward, I found the Olson time zone database and used that data to create my own.

I can't imagine any possible favorable outcome for Astrolabe. It is a ridiculous lawsuit because facts are not copyrightable, only the unique representation of those facts can be copyrighted.

Sincerely,
Curtis Manwaring,
CEO / software engineer
Zoidiasoft Technologies, LLC
http://www.astrology-x-files.com"""

Great, so this is all due to a pissing contest between two people who make astrology software. See how harmful religion and irrational beliefs are?

My commentary

Posted Oct 7, 2011 8:48 UTC (Fri) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link] (2 responses)

This isn't an example of how harmful irrational beliefs are; it's an example of how harmful pissing contests between egos are. You get those in rational fields too. (And no, I don't believe in astrology.)

My commentary

Posted Oct 7, 2011 15:32 UTC (Fri) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link] (1 responses)

But since we are talking about astrology, I would have thought all the participants would have been able to see this coming and could have avoided a legal fight by just reading the final outcome from the stars.

But if they saw it coming, and couldn't avoid it, what does that say about fate and predetermination and free-will. Ah man this legal case is one of the deepest in recent history. And if I'm using these atlases correctly, the stars seems to be saying the outcome with be pivotal for mankind.

-jef

My commentary

Posted Oct 8, 2011 1:14 UTC (Sat) by AndreE (guest, #60148) [Link]

At least the headlines write themselves

My commentary

Posted Oct 7, 2011 11:10 UTC (Fri) by cesarb (subscriber, #6266) [Link]

Just for future reference, I searched for that comment and it is at http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2463504&cid=3...

My commentary

Posted Oct 7, 2011 12:03 UTC (Fri) by csigler (subscriber, #1224) [Link]

> Great, so this is all due to a pissing contest between
> two people who make astrology software. See how harmful
> religion and irrational beliefs are?

You forgot the ";)" at the end of the last sentence. Right? Hello?

Clemmitt

My commentary

Posted Oct 7, 2011 14:50 UTC (Fri) by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75) [Link]

I'm pretty sure this is more about money than it is about the litigants' belief in Astrology, which makes it very similar to every other piece of crazy copyright and patent litigation out there.

My commentary

Posted Oct 7, 2011 14:53 UTC (Fri) by joey (guest, #328) [Link]

A more complete background of the apparent motivation behind the lawsuit:

<http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/2011-October/007976.html>

Especially notable is the part where Gary Christen, President, Astrolabe, Inc. claims "the historical information underlying the time tables is still
owned by Astrolabe and the Michelsen-Simms Trust".

My commentary

Posted Oct 7, 2011 11:01 UTC (Fri) by cesarb (subscriber, #6266) [Link]

From the page you linked to in your commentary...

"9/30/2011 2 REPORT ON THE FILING OF AN ACTION REGARDING PATENT OR TRADEMARK. (York, Steve) (Entered: 09/30/2011)"

I thought this was only about copyright???

Time zone database shut down (The Daily Parker)

Posted Oct 7, 2011 8:27 UTC (Fri) by __alex (guest, #38036) [Link]

How does this effect the decision to move maintainership to within the IETF structure?

[tz] temporary timezone database home ...

Posted Oct 7, 2011 15:03 UTC (Fri) by nedu (guest, #50951) [Link] (4 responses)

The TZ list at IANA.ORG appears to be operational.

According to a message from Robert Elz (kre at munnari.OZ.AU) he is volunteering to temporarily maintain the database outside the U.S.

He writes:

The URL's of the current versions of the files from munnari.oz.au are ...

ftp://munnari.oz.au/pub/tzcode2011i.tar.gz ftp://munnari.oz.au/pub/tzdata2011k.tar.gz

and of course, the historical files (most versions that were ever previously released) are in ftp://munnari.oz.au/pub/oldtz/

[tz] temporary timezone database home ...

Posted Oct 7, 2011 15:12 UTC (Fri) by endecotp (guest, #36428) [Link] (3 responses)

> he is volunteering to temporarily maintain the database
> outside the U.S.

This seems like the wrong thing to do to me.

My not-a-lawyer understanding is that in the US it is not possible to copyright "facts" because some sort of creative step is required. However in other countries (I'm in Britain) the creative step is not required, and stuff can be copyrighted based on a "sweat of the brow" argument. So it would seem to me that this time zone data is MORE vulnerable to claims from these astrologers if it is outside the US. (I'm not sure specifically about Australia, where this copy is being hosted, but my guess would be that for historical reasons it would be close to the British system.)

[tz] temporary timezone database home ...

Posted Oct 7, 2011 15:32 UTC (Fri) by Otus (subscriber, #67685) [Link]

IANAL either, but Wikipedia says that "[n]o specific law exists in Australia protecting databases. Databases may only be protected if they fall under general copyright law."

It also says that in an earlier ruling "sufficient creativity was established as the defining characteristic of copyright"

If that's the case Australia would be a good place to host this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_rights#Australia

[tz] temporary timezone database home ...

Posted Oct 7, 2011 18:30 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (1 responses)

I'm in England, and NO NO NO stuff can NOT be copyrighted based on "sweat of the brow".

There is the (I think European) database directive, which says that you cannot take someone else's collection of facts, reformat it and sell it as your own. So in that sense it does protect sweat of the brow. But if you RESEARCH your own database (even if that includes mining theirs) then you are in the clear.

Basically, if you can prove you have provided added value through your own "sweat of the brow", then you're in the clear.

Cheers,
Wol

[tz] temporary timezone database home ...

Posted Oct 12, 2011 22:20 UTC (Wed) by Baylink (guest, #755) [Link]

I patronize Anon, Ibid, and Opcit Research Unlimited, myself.

Hey, I want in too!!!

Posted Oct 7, 2011 15:27 UTC (Fri) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (1 responses)

I'm going to have to get in touch with the maintainers of /usr/share/dict/words. Many hundreds of lines in that file are taken brazenly and directly from works I have created!!!!!

Hey, I want in too!!!

Posted Oct 8, 2011 23:19 UTC (Sat) by richarson (subscriber, #74226) [Link]

Yeah, it even contains my password which is obvoiusly *my* invention!
Can I sue them, too?
;)

Time zone database shut down (The Daily Parker)

Posted Oct 7, 2011 15:51 UTC (Fri) by jcm (subscriber, #18262) [Link] (18 responses)

Just a friendly suggestion...

When talking about things on these threads, even of the "I like green scrolling text and dark rooms, here's a lot of theoretical CompSci", remember that people with lawyers will read these messages and they will willingly use whatever is said against any of these projects.

Jon.

Time zone database shut down (The Daily Parker)

Posted Oct 7, 2011 17:00 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (14 responses)

But that's an argument for never saying anything without filtering it through lawyers first (who will remove everything of interest and all signs of humanity from the statement: risky, donchaknow).

Sorry, the problem is those people and their lawyers: if we change our behaviour because of those bastards, they've won.

Time zone database shut down (The Daily Parker)

Posted Oct 8, 2011 5:11 UTC (Sat) by jcm (subscriber, #18262) [Link] (13 responses)

Ah yes, the "I don't like reality, I want it this way" defence :)

Time zone database shut down (The Daily Parker)

Posted Oct 8, 2011 12:08 UTC (Sat) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Quite so. Hey, it worked for the GPL. You just need to find a legal cover for it first.

Time zone database shut down (The Daily Parker)

Posted Oct 8, 2011 13:11 UTC (Sat) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link] (11 responses)

Not reality, the law. Lawyers may forget that writing something down does not make it reality, but the universe remembers and so should we.

A small local court is unlikely to do anything drastic, but if you're tenacious and it is obvious to any reasonable person that the alternative is unjust, you should later (or perhaps sooner) reach senior judges who are willing to bend law or write new law to deliver justice, as is their purpose.

That's the symbolism of Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Company that is sometimes lost on trainee lawyers. The judges in that case _made law_ to fulfil the function of justice. Asquith's clever arguments didn't help his client because the court had already decided to find against them, it was just a matter of _justifying_ that position in their ruling.

Over and above this, a society's rule of law relies upon widespread voluntary adhesion, if everyone disobeys a law it cannot be enforced, and serves only to bring the institution of the law itself into disrepute.

Time zone database shut down (The Daily Parker)

Posted Oct 8, 2011 17:14 UTC (Sat) by cmccabe (guest, #60281) [Link] (10 responses)

Well, at least in the United States, judges are not supposed to make law. They're just supposed to interpret what's on the books. But the law leaves quite a bit of room for interpretation.

Time zone database shut down (The Daily Parker)

Posted Oct 8, 2011 17:55 UTC (Sat) by jcm (subscriber, #18262) [Link] (5 responses)

Right. Judges don't make laws, they "reveal" law that was already there (in technical parlance) by interpretation of the U.S. codes, US and state constitution, local law (if a state judge, which is about 80% of cases, or if a federal judge operating under the laws of a particular state, which is sometimes required), common law, and other precedents.

Anyway. I'll spare the legal lesson. The point is if you post a lovely technical analysis here it can and will be legal fodder later on.

Jon.

Time zone database shut down (The Daily Parker)

Posted Oct 9, 2011 15:05 UTC (Sun) by cmccabe (guest, #60281) [Link] (4 responses)

> Anyway. I'll spare the legal lesson. The point is if you post a lovely
> technical analysis here it can and will be legal fodder later on.

I'm not a lawyer or anything, but doesn't the court usually call expert witnesses on the stand when technical analyses are required? I doubt they would give a hoot what anyone said on LWN or any other internet forum.

I would be slightly more afraid of someone caring what I said if this was a patent case rather than a trademark one. But even then, patent cases often (maybe even usually?) seem to be decided by people who have no clue about the technology involved.

Also, there is such a diversity of commentary on the internet on any given issue. You could probably find ample support for any repugnant position you wished to take just by selecting some comments carefully.

Time zone database shut down (The Daily Parker)

Posted Oct 9, 2011 16:51 UTC (Sun) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] (3 responses)

In my discussions with lawyers on these topics, they have often expressed concerns about the "chatter" that comes with public disclosure of legal issues. They, at least, think it's something to be worried about.

Time zone database shut down (The Daily Parker)

Posted Oct 10, 2011 1:26 UTC (Mon) by jake (editor, #205) [Link] (1 responses)

> In my discussions with lawyers on these topics, they have often
> expressed concerns about the "chatter" that comes with public
> disclosure of legal issues. They, at least, think it's something
> to be worried about.

Yeah, but I would point out that if lawyers had their way, no one would ever say (or type) anything. There may be valid concerns, but it's hard (for me at least) to separate the actual, plausible concerns from the lawyerly push to have everyone clam up on every topic, forever -- because it's far safer. Possibly true, but uninteresting in the extreme.

YMMV, IANAL, blah, blah :)

jake

Time zone database shut down (The Daily Parker)

Posted Oct 12, 2011 22:23 UTC (Wed) by Baylink (guest, #755) [Link]

The Terrible Truth About Layers, Mark MacCormick tells us in his late-90's business book, is that *their job is to keep you from ever getting your business in any trouble at all of any sort*.

Your job, as a businessperson, is to make rational business evaluations of their advice... and know when to ignore it.

Time zone database shut down (The Daily Parker)

Posted Oct 16, 2011 0:41 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Well, yes, but how much of that is simple protectionism, though? A lot of closed trade associations are very concerned about people not in their association treading on their turf, but that doesn't make that concern praiseworthy.

Time zone database shut down (The Daily Parker)

Posted Oct 8, 2011 17:59 UTC (Sat) by sfeam (subscriber, #2841) [Link] (3 responses)

Laws written in the books (i.e. passed by some legislative body) are "statutory law". In the US system there is an equally large body of law called "common law" (a.k.a. "case law" or "precedent") that is indeed determined by the courts rather than by the legislature. Occasionally the two are in conflict, and the issue gets bumped up to a higher level court for resolution.

Time zone database shut down (The Daily Parker)

Posted Oct 9, 2011 3:07 UTC (Sun) by jcm (subscriber, #18262) [Link] (2 responses)

The courts don't write common law. They interpret it based on case histories from the US, the UK, and based upon writings such as Commentaries on the Laws of England, a set of books that are centuries old but still used by lawyers (I'm not a lawyer, but I have several copies of these at home).

Common law

Posted Oct 9, 2011 11:28 UTC (Sun) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link] (1 responses)

If it makes you feel happier saying they don't "write" law when they plainly do, go right ahead. You seem to imagine a line in the sand between these "centuries old" case histories and today, but that line does not exist. What was done in Carlill continues today. Our world changes, and judges have to make decisions. In our system of law, those decisions change the law by setting precedent.

Let me briefly explain the alternative: In a Napoleonic law system (in theory) each judge is restricted to the statute. The statute still doesn't cover all the curiosities of a changing world of course, but each judge decides independently what to do about the gap. One judge may decide a cell phone is basically a "telephone" and that a law concerning telephones applies, while another reasons it is not a "telephone" but a "radio" and that law does not apply. The resulting inconsistency causes some problems, but people cope.

Under Common law systems judges are bound by precedent. Once the first judge decides that a cell phone is indeed a "telephone" other judges in the same jurisdiction are compelled to accept this unless they can make some finer distinction. For example a future judge might decide that the Push-to-Talk feature on a mobile is not a "telephone" but the ordinary functionality is. This system of course has its own share of problems.

Maybe you're comfortable describing most of the cases that come to mind as "centuries old". How about the 1999 Sony vs Connectix. This established that necessity is a defence against copyright infringement. Connectix admitted that they made copies of Sony's property without being licensed to do so, in order to reverse engineer the Sony copyrighted software and undertake Clean Room design. The judge found that since reverse engineering for interoperability is legal, and there was no other reasonable way to pursue this reasonable objective, Connectix were not breaking the law by copying the Sony code.

For the owners of Connectix it meant a fat cheque from Sony (to buy out their technology and protect Sony's market) instead of damages and bankruptcy. But for a tiny startup today it means you can rely on the fact that reverse engineering your competitor's systems is not, in and of itself, copyright infringement even though you won't find that anywhere in the US statute law.

Common law

Posted Oct 25, 2011 18:10 UTC (Tue) by jcm (subscriber, #18262) [Link]

The purpose of a judge is not to write law. They interpret it, as I said, but their job is not to write it. I wasn't saying it does't happen, but I am saying that is not the purpose of a court in our system of government.

Lawyer fodder

Posted Oct 7, 2011 17:05 UTC (Fri) by PO8 (guest, #41661) [Link] (2 responses)

IANAL, but I doubt the courts will be terribly interested in semi-anonymous quotes from an unvetted open online forum. If this is the plan, though, the attorneys in question should post their own comments on the case and quote themselves---they'll be way more direct about what and how they want it said than anyone else.

Hey, wait, maybe that's what's happening! Stop that, you unscrupulous frauds!

Lawyer fodder

Posted Oct 7, 2011 18:11 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Except in the UK, of course, where libel lawyers can and have hit up operators for IP addresses of posters and presumed to sue everyone they could find associated with that address for libel :/

But the UK's libel law is insane.

Lawyer fodder

Posted Oct 11, 2011 0:35 UTC (Tue) by wahern (subscriber, #37304) [Link]

It doesn't matter whether courts are interested; courts don't introduce evidence in common law systems. The question is whether lawyers would be interested, and of course they would be. The hurdles to entry into a case are the rules of evidence. Such utterances are generally hearsay, but are probably admissible to impeach, and also as party admissions, among other exceptions. Much more vague and suspect evidence has been admitted to impeach a witness than a witness' web and usenet postings. But IANAL.

Anyhow, if you follow good netiquette you're probably safe unless you're doing something sketchy. Good netiquette includes, but is not limited to, having evidence to support your assertions, and staying on topic. If you can't trust that the law is sane then there are bigger problems to worry about, like the ATF burning your compound down.

If you're truly worried about law suits then purchase a professional insurance policy, and/or umbrella coverage. It's actually not that much money. If you have any substantial savings, or a house with equity, then it makes sense to do so even without the threat of copyright litigation. If you accidentally plow into someone on a slippery road there's no law that says your liability is limited to the cap on your car insurance policy.

Time zone database shut down (The Daily Parker)

Posted Oct 8, 2011 2:33 UTC (Sat) by rickmoen (subscriber, #6943) [Link] (5 responses)

In case anyone's tired of Scribd.com's JavaScript tricks and other obfuscation, I've put an ASCII rendition of the complaint text on my Web site. The complaint's misspelling of 'California' is preserved from the original, which gives some clue to how low-rent plaintiff's effort probably is.

I devoutly hope that defendant's attorney files a prompt and bracing motion for sanctions against plaintiff Astrolabe and personally against Astrolabe's attorney, Ms. Julie C. Molloy, under Federal Rules of Evidence Rule 11(b). The Federal courts take a very dim view of frivolous arguments and of legal contentions totally unsupported by existing law, but opposing counsel need to ask for Rule 11 sanctions before judges will typically lower the boom.

Notice that there are fairly severe sanctions against a Rule 11 violation that the offending party doesn't fully correct within 21 days.

Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com

Court Filing PDFs

Posted Oct 8, 2011 11:00 UTC (Sat) by nedu (guest, #50951) [Link] (4 responses)

FYI:

From a TZ list message posted last Friday by John Hawkinson:

I'm mirrored the court documents, of which there are five, at
http://web.mit.edu/jhawk/tmp/tz

The five documents posted there:

• Doc 1: Complaint
• Doc 1-1: Civil Cover Sheet
• Doc 1-2: Category Form
• Doc 2: Form AO 121
• Doc 3: Summons

I would've hyperlinked these PDFs directly, but this webform seems to think I'm trying to post too many urls in one message :-(.

Multiple repositories for the court filings never hurt, though.

Thanks, Rick, for posting a PDF of the complaint at your website also.

Court Filing PDFs

Posted Oct 9, 2011 14:17 UTC (Sun) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link] (3 responses)

Perhaps you should write something up for groklaw...

Court Filing PDFs

Posted Oct 9, 2011 17:47 UTC (Sun) by nedu (guest, #50951) [Link] (2 responses)

Hmmmm... that's a curious thought. And, indeed, it does look like the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine is down for scheduled maintenance this weekend. So —very obviously— I wouldn't be able to publish over at the SCO.IWeThey.Org Twiki.

On a different note, I suspect that Mark Webbink has made sure that his former colleagues at RedHat Legal have been placed on alert. If someone can verify that with Mark, it might save me the effort of remembering how to use a FAX machine come Monday morning 9am....

It's always too easy to think that "we all read the news", therefore of course the various corporate legal departments must be fully spun up on their own initiative. Sadly, assumptions like that can result in tragic errors. We want to make positively sure that all our friendly lawyers have been alerted to this news.

Court Filing PDFs

Posted Oct 10, 2011 9:04 UTC (Mon) by rahvin (guest, #16953) [Link] (1 responses)

I agree, we should make absolutely sure that all the affected companies legal departments are informed including IBM, Redhat, HP, Oracle, Canonical, Attachmate and any others (universities, governments, etc) that are known to use the TZ database. Not only that but their risk should the plaintiffs prevail should be outlined briefly so the non technical lawyers grasp how widely and comprehensively the TZ database is used in their products and how damaging a finding of infringement could be to their company and the entire industry.

I can think of nothing more pleasant than for the Plaintiff to be damaged financially by this ill advised suit in the form of dozens of lawsuits and millions in legal expenses. Either they received terrible legal advice telling them they could succeed or this is nothing more than a SLAPP lawsuit they thought they could win by threatening to run up terrible legal expenses against an individual and forcing an unjust settlement in a case without merit. In the first circumstance they should sue their lawyer, if it's the second they should be bankrupted.

Court Filing PDFs

Posted Oct 10, 2011 17:51 UTC (Mon) by nedu (guest, #50951) [Link]

...damaged financially...

Since this is a public forum, I will just note that I personally have no desire to see anyone damaged, financially or otherwise.

As regards the rest of your comment, I do believe that our community does need to act together to protect our interests. As an initial step, we must necessarily communicate with our partners, friends, and other persons who share our joint interests.

Copyright infringement is a serious allegation. It potentially carries strict liability. These astrologers claim to own the world's timezone "data" and "information".

Time zone database shut down (The Daily Parker)

Posted Oct 10, 2011 8:35 UTC (Mon) by treed (guest, #11432) [Link]

I have just offered the folks at Astrolabe a professionally yet assertively worded piece of my mind. You are welcome to do the same via email, phone, or snail-mail via this publically available information from their whois record (I wouldn't post personal/private contact info):

Administrative Contact:
Astrolabe Inc.
Madalyn Hillis-Dineen (astrolabe@alabe.com)
+1.5088965081
Fax: +1.5088965281
PO Box 1750
350 Underpass Rd.
brewster, MA 02631
US

Technical Contact:
Astrolabe Inc.
Ray White (ray@alabe.com)
+1.5088965081
Fax: +1.5088965289
PO Box 1750, 350 Underpass Rd.
Brewster, MA 02631
US