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The article didn't have it, but here is Dan Lyon's response to the outcry about his column.

Let's see if we can knock his approval rating down a peg or two more (look what happened in September, /. effect?). Vote

Forbes has an article about the puretracks.com launch, but also mentions that iTunes is expected to launch for Windows this week!

The problem is, most Slashdot readers don't know much of the law behind patents, how they're written, and how they're challenged. Largely, they think if a patent claims something, and the patent is approved, then the claim has force of law.

I don't get this impression from Slashdotters at all. (Although certainly many confuse trademarks, copyrights, and patents.)

The problem isn't that the patent has "force of law", it's that it becomes an effective legal club, and prior art and obviousness defenses are difficult and *expensive* to use against it. Look at the early patent on the automobile and Ford's attempts to fight it for a historical example. Or the guy who successfully sued Ebay for patent violations. Ebay almost certainly never saw his patent before implementing their schemes, never saw anything else that used ideas gotten from reading that patent, etc; it just sat quietly in the patent database until it served as an extortion tool for someone to take undeserved money from Ebay.

Or read the story about Sun and IBM patents. (Read this for details.) It didn't matter that Sun never looked at or received any inspiration from IBM's patents; 1 lawyer just stole more than 100 men with guns from them with the aid of those patents.

The idea of patents is that I come up with an idea that I wouldn't otherwise come up with, and then explain it to the world in exchange for licensing fees. If someone else comes up with the same idea independently with no link to my patent publication, then my patent wasn't innovative, and I should get diddly. But that doesn't happen.

Patents are an enormous drag on the economy. Medicine patents, given the high cost of testing, at least have some merit. But most others do not.

Pro-linux people click here:
http://www.forbes.com/FUCK-YOU-AND-YOUR-SHITTY-ANT I-LINUX-ATTITUDE

Anti-Linux folk click here:
http://www.forbes.com/I'M-GLAD-DANIEL-LYONS-SUCKS- GATE'S-DICK

Pro-linux people click here:
http://www.forbes.com/FUCK-YOU-AND-YOUR-SHITTY-ANT I-LINUX-ATTITUDE

Anti-Linux folk click here:
http://www.forbes.com/I'M-GLAD-DANIEL-LYONS-SUCKS- GATE'S-DICK

In other words, like many religious folk, the Linux-loving crunchies in the open-source movement are a) convinced of their own righteousness, and b) sure the whole world, including judges, will agree.

They should wake up...

Linux will turn out not to be the savior everyone thinks. Customers will begin to realize that IBM...doesn't "give" you "free" Linux--unless you pay through the nose for hardware and services. Someone might notice that it's been 10 years since Linus Torvalds created Linux and there's still not a decent desktop version that an ordinary person can use. Someone also might notice that Red Hat's...sales aren't growing very much, and that the company only shows a profit when it fiddles the numbers around into an "adjusted" basis, not when it follows GAAP rules.

If you really know him, tell him to give me a holler. I'm available through the E-Mail listed here as well as the address I gave Forbes (along with my real name). He can do an easy search on the text since what I posted here is my Letter to the Editor verbatim.

woof.

In other words, like many religious folk, the Linux-loving crunchies in the open-source movement are a) convinced of their own righteousness, and b) sure the whole world, including judges, will agree.

They should wake up...

Linux will turn out not to be the savior everyone thinks. Customers will begin to realize that IBM...doesn't "give" you "free" Linux--unless you pay through the nose for hardware and services. Someone might notice that it's been 10 years since Linus Torvalds created Linux and there's still not a decent desktop version that an ordinary person can use. Someone also might notice that Red Hat's...sales aren't growing very much, and that the company only shows a profit when it fiddles the numbers around into an "adjusted" basis, not when it follows GAAP rules.

If you really know him, tell him to give me a holler. I'm available through the E-Mail listed here as well as the address I gave Forbes (along with my real name). He can do an easy search on the text since what I posted here is my Letter to the Editor verbatim.

woof.

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Linux geeks howled a bit, but then wrote off SCO as a bunch of sleazebags and went back to playing live-action roleplaying (LARP) games in their mothers' basements, or whatever it is they do when they're not writing device drivers and complaining about clueless end users.

But then SCO started making noise about suing Linux customers too, unless they paid licensing fees to SCO. Suddenly the joke wasn't so funny anymore.

The $1 billion in damages and future royalties SCO is seeking won't put a mere dent in the Linux movement: "That's a cost that gets lost in the rounding," says Boies, adding, "The cost efficiency of Linux won't rise or fall."

Linux geeks howled a bit, but then wrote off SCO as a bunch of sleazebags and went back to playing live-action roleplaying (LARP) games in their mothers' basements, or whatever it is they do when they're not writing device drivers and complaining about clueless end users.

But then SCO started making noise about suing Linux customers too, unless they paid licensing fees to SCO. Suddenly the joke wasn't so funny anymore.

The $1 billion in damages and future royalties SCO is seeking won't put a mere dent in the Linux movement: "That's a cost that gets lost in the rounding," says Boies, adding, "The cost efficiency of Linux won't rise or fall."

• IBM Refuses To Indemnify Linux Users
• Red Hat's Mad Matt Vs. Humongous SCO Lawsuit

• IBM Refuses To Indemnify Linux Users
• Red Hat's Mad Matt Vs. Humongous SCO Lawsuit

Is this really that worrying? Does this not make it easier to link articles together? In fact, if you look here, you'll notice that Joseph Alsop is only tracked because he's the CEO of Progress Software. If you were the CEO of a corporation, I imagine you'd get tracked as well.

Start worrying when you're assigned a tracking number in the billions, not the thousands. ;)

But then again, it's easier to be nice to poor little Cisco than to blame them when they are wrong -- I suppose Forbes likes it when Cisco pays thousands of bucks for commercial advertizing in their paper, don't they ?

Meanwhile, the FSF may be right, but then again, they don't spend a dime in advertizing -- too bad for them. Aaaah, freedom of speech, as long as it brings money home...

Because most PCs are not built from scratch to accommodate Linux, as they are for Windows, almost everything requires extra work. Windows certainly has its quirks, but there are millions of off-the-shelf, readily available hardware and software add-ons for Windows PCs--assuming they're not already built in. That's not true of Linux.

Apparently, the article author, "Daniel Lyons", has had a wonderful time writing anti-OSS articles for some time. His articles generally at least touch on both sides, but his conclusion -- his closing words -- are reliabily anti-OSS, though certainly not fanatically so.

Take a look at his take on the the SCO lawsuit, his opinion on whether Linux will succeed, and an article criticizing IBM for not indemnifying Linux users.

Apparently, the article author, "Daniel Lyons", has had a wonderful time writing anti-OSS articles for some time. His articles generally at least touch on both sides, but his conclusion -- his closing words -- are reliabily anti-OSS, though certainly not fanatically so.

Take a look at his take on the the SCO lawsuit, his opinion on whether Linux will succeed, and an article criticizing IBM for not indemnifying Linux users.

Congress funds PBS. Congress is empowered by The People. Therefore The People fund PBS. The people DO think it's worthwhile which is WHY Congress continues to fund it. Welcome to democracy.

Regardless, this guy taking pot shots at PBS is about as low as Bill O'Reilly taking pot shots at the Red Cross. Way to fuck a benevolent organization run primarily by low paid and unpaid volunteers.

And if you STILL don't belive me that this guy is a jerk, just read some more of his "articles".

Congress funds PBS. Congress is empowered by The People. Therefore The People fund PBS. The people DO think it's worthwhile which is WHY Congress continues to fund it. Welcome to democracy.

Regardless, this guy taking pot shots at PBS is about as low as Bill O'Reilly taking pot shots at the Red Cross. Way to fuck a benevolent organization run primarily by low paid and unpaid volunteers.

And if you STILL don't belive me that this guy is a jerk, just read some more of his "articles".

His other articles include this, this, and this

His other articles include this, this, and this

His other articles include this, this, and this

It isn't the first time he's cheered on SCO. Here he goes again.

It isn't the first time he's cheered on SCO. Here he goes again.

If you look at other articles that Daniel Lyons has written for Forbes, you will see that this man is more or less anti-free software. He wrote an article back in June about SCO vs. Linux. In that article he describes linux users as: "like many religious folk, Linux-loving crunchies [are] convinced of their own rightousness..." This is just another article written by a another man who thinks that Linux will go nowhere because it isn't backed by a major corporation starting with an M.

It's my personal opinion not to read too much into the article, and take it just as it is, an opinion -- someone else's view on what is happening.

Remember "What SCO wants, SCO gets"? Same author. Don't expect any love from him.

1. no offshoring and no H-1B/L-1 employment
2. no offshoring and H-1B/L-1 employment
3. offshoring and no H-1B/L-1 employment
4. offshoring and H-1B/L-1 employment

To eliminate some combinations that are impossible, we first consider whether we can eliminate offshoring. Offshoring occurs from the moment that Americans engage in trade with any foreign country. For example, if we buy apples grown in Thailand, then we are engaging in offshoring because the foreign labor grew those apples. Can we eliminate foreign trade? No.

The stickier question is whether offshoring eliminates jobs. According to the "The misery of manufacturing", "The Economist" says, "No." The USA is a big market, and manufacturers locate engineering and design centers in the market in which they have a significant presence. For example, Hyundai is now building a factory and design center in the USA, according to "Speed Kills" by "Forbes".

Therefore, we cannot eliminate offshoring, and it is neither bad nor good. It is neutral. We are left with only option #3 (offshoring and no H-1B/L-1 employment) and option #4 (offshoring and H-1B/L-1 employment).

Can we eliminate H-1B/L-1 employment? Absolutely yes. Since companies can offshore their R&D work, they can build an R&D center in India and hire all the engineers that they claim to need. Each engineer hired in India will cost only 1/10 of the cost of an H-1B/L-1 engineer.

Supporters of H-1B/L-1 employment say that an Indian employed as an H-1B worker in the USA will spend his $100,000 salary in the USA, thus creating more jobs. That observation is bogus. If the Indian wants to work for an American company, he should go back to India to work at $5,000 at the American site in Bangalore. The American company will then save $95,000. That money does not simply sit idly in the bank. The American company will re-invest that $95,000 into the domestic facilities and hire an American citizen.

Furthermore, when Hyundai sets up its design center in the USA, the Indian will be in India, and the jobs at the design center will go to American citizens.

In short, option #3 (offshoring but no H-1B/L-1 employment) is the best scenario. In fact, offshoring defeats the strongest bogus argument supporting H-1B/L-1 employment. When a company like Google says that it absolutely needs to hire H-1B/L-1 workers because Americans are not good enough, then we say, "Fine. Set up shop overseas. There is plenty of labor there."

Please read "H-1B Myths". Contact your representative in Washington and tell them to terminate the H-1B/L-1 program. Do not wait for the person sitting at the next computer terminal to do your civic duty. Move your ass. Do the your job.

... from the desk of the reporter

1. no offshoring and no H-1B/L-1 employment
2. no offshoring and H-1B/L-1 employment
3. offshoring and no H-1B/L-1 employment
4. offshoring and H-1B/L-1 employment

To eliminate some combinations that are impossible, we first consider whether we can eliminate offshoring. Offshoring occurs from the moment that Americans engage in trade with any foreign country. For example, if we buy apples grown in Thailand, then we are engaging in offshoring because the foreign labor grew those apples. Can we eliminate foreign trade? No.

The stickier question is whether offshoring eliminates jobs. According to the "The misery of manufacturing", "The Economist" says, "No." The USA is a big market, and manufacturers locate engineering and design centers in the market in which they have a significant presence. For example, Hyundai is now building a factory and design center in the USA, according to "Speed Kills" by "Forbes".

Therefore, we cannot eliminate offshoring, and it is neither bad nor good. It is neutral. We are left with only option #3 (offshoring and no H-1B/L-1 employment) and option #4 (offshoring and H-1B/L-1 employment).

Can we eliminate H-1B/L-1 employment? Absolutely yes. Since companies can offshore their R&D work, they can build an R&D center in India and hire all the engineers that they claim to need. Each engineer hired in India will cost only 1/10 of the cost of an H-1B/L-1 engineer.

Supporters of H-1B/L-1 employment say that an Indian employed as an H-1B worker in the USA will spend his $100,000 salary in the USA, thus creating more jobs. That observation is bogus. If the Indian wants to work for an American company, he should go back to India to work at $5,000 at the American site in Bangalore. The American company will then save $95,000. That money does not simply sit idly in the bank. The American company will re-invest that $95,000 into the domestic facilities and hire an American citizen.

Furthermore, when Hyundai sets up its design center in the USA, the Indian will be in India, and the jobs at the design center will go to American citizens.

In short, option #3 (offshoring but no H-1B/L-1 employment) is the best scenario. In fact, offshoring defeats the strongest bogus argument supporting H-1B/L-1 employment. When a company like Google says that it absolutely needs to hire H-1B/L-1 workers because Americans are not good enough, then we say, "Fine. Set up shop overseas. There is plenty of labor there."

Please read "H-1B Myths". Contact your representative in Washington and tell them to terminate the H-1B/L-1 program. Do not wait for the person sitting at the next computer terminal to do your civic duty. Move your ass. Do the your job.

... from the desk of the reporter

Here it is folks, express your opinion of Mr. Sclavos.
Vote Here!

Do you approve of the job Verisign's CEO is doing?

Don't forget to submit your opinion in the forbes.com online poll.

http://www.forbes.com/2003/05/01/cx_ceointernetpol l.html

Baha!

I wonder if by his expression that he knew he was ending up on this slide

I was reviewing Sun's financials, and found that on their consolidated fiscal year-end income statement they had a $2.1 billion addition called "impairment of goodwill".

http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/investor/financials/20 03-q4.html

Without this addition they would have lost $4.4 billion dollars for the fiscal year instead of the $2.3 billion.

What does this mean? Based on this Forbes article on the subject, it has something to do with the difference in the market value and book value of an asset. If the market value is less than the book value then you can take the difference and apply it back as an asset?

http://www.forbes.com/2002/05/22/0522sf.html

It appears the amount is based on the revaluation of some assets or acquisition they had, but it's not explained in the notes.

From the previous the year the value was only $6 million.

I'm just curious if this financial adjustment makes the story at Sun worse than it appears.

Calling it "tax cuts for the rich" is bogus anyways. As it is, the bottom 50% of income earners only pay 4% of the income tax collected, so it's not like there is much there to give back to them!

The top 1% earn 20.8% of the income and pay 37.4% of the taxes. Giving them back 1 or 2% is hardly cataclysmic. They already pay proportionally FAR more as it is.

You can't give a tax cut to someone who doesn't pay taxes. The people who will benefit the most from a tax cut are those who pay the most in taxes.
Duh.

To be in the top 1% of income earners, BTW, takes "only" $293K a year (as of 2001, anyways). A lot of traditionally left-wing people often make that much - athletes, actors, lawyers, doctors. Not to mention that succesful small business owners will frequently make at least that much as well - even a small restaurant can top $350K a year if their restaurant is reasonably popular.

In terms of politicians, according to Forbes, 6 of the 10 richest politicians in the US are... democrats! Only 3 are republicans. Gee, who's the party of the evil, hated rich?
http://www.forbes.com/2002/10/29/cx_dd_richpols.ht ml

Some other good links that either confirm some of the above or just make for good reading:
http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/article/0,,id=102886,0 0.html
http://taxfoundation.org/SR118.pdf
http://www.forbes.com/lists/results.jhtml?passList Id=10&passYear=2002&passListType=Person&resultsSta rt=1&resultsHowMany=25&resultsSortProperties=%2Bnu mberfield1%2C%2Bstringfield1&resultsSortCategoryNa me=rank&category1=Country+of+Citizenship&searchPar ameter1=11Str%7C%7CPatCS%7C%7CUnited+States&catego ry2=category&searchParameter2=unset

Calling it "tax cuts for the rich" is bogus anyways. As it is, the bottom 50% of income earners only pay 4% of the income tax collected, so it's not like there is much there to give back to them!

The top 1% earn 20.8% of the income and pay 37.4% of the taxes. Giving them back 1 or 2% is hardly cataclysmic. They already pay proportionally FAR more as it is.

You can't give a tax cut to someone who doesn't pay taxes. The people who will benefit the most from a tax cut are those who pay the most in taxes.
Duh.

To be in the top 1% of income earners, BTW, takes "only" $293K a year (as of 2001, anyways). A lot of traditionally left-wing people often make that much - athletes, actors, lawyers, doctors. Not to mention that succesful small business owners will frequently make at least that much as well - even a small restaurant can top $350K a year if their restaurant is reasonably popular.

In terms of politicians, according to Forbes, 6 of the 10 richest politicians in the US are... democrats! Only 3 are republicans. Gee, who's the party of the evil, hated rich?
http://www.forbes.com/2002/10/29/cx_dd_richpols.ht ml

Some other good links that either confirm some of the above or just make for good reading:
http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/article/0,,id=102886,0 0.html
http://taxfoundation.org/SR118.pdf
http://www.forbes.com/lists/results.jhtml?passList Id=10&passYear=2002&passListType=Person&resultsSta rt=1&resultsHowMany=25&resultsSortProperties=%2Bnu mberfield1%2C%2Bstringfield1&resultsSortCategoryNa me=rank&category1=Country+of+Citizenship&searchPar ameter1=11Str%7C%7CPatCS%7C%7CUnited+States&catego ry2=category&searchParameter2=unset

Whatever happened to the Sony/Matsushita deal to create a media-box oriented Linux distro?

Here's a link

Damn ! He's at it again ! Jean Marie, won't you ever learn ???

Thomas Miconi-

(PS: More seriously, the man seems to be called Alex Serge-Vieux. Never heard about him, but if his credentials are genuine, we can say two things:
1) He's probably not the most stupid manager on this planet (Paris-Dauphine and La Sorbonne means "good", especially if it's on the teaching side of the desk; same thing for Le Monde).
2) His political inclinations seem to lean on the center-left. He served as a top civil servant under Socialist governments only. In the French system, this speaks a lot.

Don't forget to vote yay/nay on the Verisign CEO's performance for Forbes Magazine (Makes you wonder what all those corporate investors would think if his rating sucked)
Forbes Magazine CEO Performance Survey

The founders of GPS manufacturer Garmin debuted on the list this year. See Gary Burrell and Min Kao. Two engineers who had great ideas and built a great company around it. Yes, there are people Reading Slashdot who if they can see beyond their short-sighted envy of the rich and powerful can become billionaire entrepreneurs. Look at this, a pair of engineers who had not

The founders of GPS manufacturer Garmin debuted on the list this year. See Gary Burrell and Min Kao. Two engineers who had great ideas and built a great company around it. Yes, there are people Reading Slashdot who if they can see beyond their short-sighted envy of the rich and powerful can become billionaire entrepreneurs. Look at this, a pair of engineers who had not

Wow: 91% NO at 10:15AM EST 2003-09-17

I wish that there were CEO polls for every company... thank you - this is the most interesting link I've seen in quite a while !!!
Steve Ballmer is at 7% LOL !

Is Stratton D. Sclavos doing a good job as CEO of Verisign? Vote yes or no in this Forbes.com poll.

Also, here's a petition that may also be of interest.

Is Stratton D. Sclavos doing a good job as CEO of Verisign? Vote yes or no in this Forbes.com poll.

Do you approve of the job that Stratton D. Sclavos doing as CEO of Verisign? Vote yes or no in this Forbes.com poll.

Some companies are relatively benign, and IBM is an example of this.

IBM haven't always been benign, aren't everywhere benign, and there's no guarantee at all that they'll always be benign in future.

"If my memory serves me correctly, it was the attorney general of Indiana or Ohio or some state like that that initiated and won (settled or outright won) the case! Would someone please find this issue and put a scanned copy of it for /.ers to look at?"

How about this instead?

How 'bout we give you amnesty if you, collectively and individually, admit to illegal price fixing, and actually give us our money back?

Did anyone sign up for that? And actually get any money?


This is no better than a mugging.
"Gimme all your stuff, and I won't kill you (financially). Oh, and we'll be watching you. Forever."

Get caught stealing 1/2 billion dollars, and no one went to jail? And the fine is 1/3 of the take? And they want to screw us?
WTF is that about?

You are misinformed.

You said: Since Reuters reported 80,000 Gamecube consoles SHIPPED , not sold, they were accurate.

This reuters article says: Japanese videogame maker Nintendo Co Ltd <7974.OS> said on Tuesday it SOLD 80,000 GameCube consoles worldwide in the latest quarter.

Do your homework next time.

" "Water is the engine driving growth at beverage companies," says Steven Dixon, manager of the Global Beverage Fund, a $27 million (assets) fund run by Arnhold & S. Bleichroeder Advisers. "

source: Forbes Magazine 8/8/03

Open source is such an infinitesimally small business for IBM that I doubt the top level executives even now they're fiddling around with it.

They've made a VERY public commitment to it. True they do other stuff (including more software patents than anyone) but the fact is they've got a very fat finger in this pie.

if someone already owns the copyright to a method that is patented, they get the patent.

Which again is a completely separate matter from licensing.

No, the GPL prohibits patents and protects against patents made from derivative works. What part of that is not a licensing issue?