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>Sony still patented the rest of the console, and the claims for, say, the graphics synthesizer still apply to a modded PS2.

Yeah. Exactly. That's why we don't have pirate consoles. We have modchips. A modchip doesn't replace _anything_ on a PS2, it simply adds to it. In the case of an XBOX, it's a little more complicated, since it *does* replace the BIOS chip, but let's stick to the PS2.

I can honestly say there's not a single Ubicom SX28 chip on a PS2 (because I've opened them). And, I know for a fact there's not a single line of Sony code in a modchip. If you don't believe me, you can download the source from team ICE yourself (I'll give you a link if you'd like).

>Did I say it was an oral contract? What's that written receipt that the store gave you?

You mean the one that says "All Sales Final" and doesn't mention anything about how I use the device at all?

Sure, I totally agreed to those terms. Heck, I'll even admit it: I ASKED FOR THEM!

>Did you see the high-speed Internet access demonstration table?

You have better best buys than us. I wish we had that at the Best Buy here. Oh well. It's new. Perhaps in the future...

As for the USC, glad you looked it up for me.

(c) TERRIBLY misquoted.

(b) Yay, cohersion law. Nothing new or interesting here.

(a) Uhhh, you realise that if read at face value this makes a regular person using a PS2 without a modchip liable, too, right? I *highly* doubt the simplified text there means what it says. *highly* doubt it.

But, hey, I'm not a lawyer. Let's see what a real one says, shall we?

In order to be held as a direct infringer of a United States patent under 35 USC 271(a), it is necessary during the life of the patent to have made, used, offered to sell [182] or sold what is claimed in the patent within the United States or to have imported the patented invention into the United States.

*what is claimed in the patent*. IE: You must either:

- Make a PS2 from scratch using the patent documents as your guide (fat chance)
- Use the patent document to help you make the modchip (wasn't done, since the patent documents weren't even CLOSE to detailed enough)
- Tried to sell the patent to someone
- Imported a PS2 to the US

They are *not* talking about the end product in any way, shape, or form. It's all about the patent itself. I suppose if I were to send a PS2 to the US, I'd be breaking the law. That's silly, but not a problem.

Here's case law on the matter.

ACRA assumed the court would conclude Lexmark
customers have that right due to what is called the "doctrine of
exhaustion." Roughly the patent law equivalent of the first sale
doctrine in copyright law, the doctrine of exhaustion says the patent
holder's rights cease - are "exhausted" -- once the product is actually
sold. Buyers have an implied license to use the patented product as they
see fit, including reselling it or fixing it.

Doctine of exhaustion:

Doctrine that holds that, once a copy of a copyrighted work is in circulation, the author has no further right to control its distribution.

Here's a document from a department of law, albeit from another country, upholding that the doctrine of exhaustion applies to patented items.

The doctrine of exhaustion of rights applies to patents. Thus, the specific object of a patent is the exclusive right to utilise an invention with a view to the manufacture and first putting into circulation of i

"5. Intuit sells a POS for QuickBooks. Never tried it, but I'm sure it works well."

Intuit is number 4 on the Gripelog Hall of Shame. It was number 1, but now the others are worse! That means that Intuit has been voted one of the most abusive computer companies in the world. Do you want them for a business partner?

I've looked at the hardware sold in a package with the QuickBooks POS. It looks VERY cheap. Anyone have experience with the package?

Not even that long. A judge has dissolved the restraing order effective today.

IBM *has* really chaged for the better:

I guess that depends on what you mean by "better". IBM used to have loyalty to the employees that built the company into the success that it is. Now, they are offshoring jobs, and non-executive employees are just replaceable widgets. IBM really doesn't have any regard for its customers either.

I trust them. Now.

Okay, IBM is better than SCO, but I wouldn't go all warm and fuzzy. I wouldn't trust them any further than I could throw their headquarters building.

A Slashdot comment is not a full-length essay. It doesn't say everything the author thinks. A Slashdot comment must be interpreted in the best possible fashion. Try to derive some positive meaning from each comment.

I'm not saying ALL computer companies have become abusive. But many, many have. Look at the situation with hardware. Dell often heads the list of hardware companies for abusive behavior in Ed Foster's Reader Advocate column. Dell is number 1 on Foster's Gripelog Hall of Shame Pain Index.

We are witnessing an extremely serious social breakdown. Consider Enron, Worldcom and Tyco.

It's a sad phenomenon that, when someone tries to talk about abuse, the abused begin fighting among themselves. That only assures the abuse will continue.

A Slashdot comment is not a full-length essay. It doesn't say everything the author thinks. A Slashdot comment must be interpreted in the best possible fashion. Try to derive some positive meaning from each comment.

I'm not saying ALL computer companies have become abusive. But many, many have. Look at the situation with hardware. Dell often heads the list of hardware companies for abusive behavior in Ed Foster's Reader Advocate column. Dell is number 1 on Foster's Gripelog Hall of Shame Pain Index.

We are witnessing an extremely serious social breakdown. Consider Enron, Worldcom and Tyco.

It's a sad phenomenon that, when someone tries to talk about abuse, the abused begin fighting among themselves. That only assures the abuse will continue.

AT & T Universal Card: Companies are not only using Indians to do jobs that were done by Americans. Companies are using Indians to further abuse their customers. I talked with one Indian woman at AT & T Universal Credit Card customer support who told me that she had no way to contact anyone but her Indian manager, and that the Indian manager had no way to contact anyone at AT & T. So, there is no way to resolve any legitimate problem. The logic seems to be, "Why should we hire Americans to abuse our customers? We should get Indians to do all the ugly jobs."

ECS (Elitegroup) Motherboards: One of the answers is to call the technical support for a product before you ever buy the product. I wish I had done that before buying and testing 8 L7VTA V1 motherboards from ECS. I found that the ECS technical support line is a recording that says something like, "All of our customer support personnel are busy helping other customers. Please call back at a later time." There is no opportunity to leave a message. If you don't believe me, try it yourself: 510-226-7333 option 4 for technical support. Only one of the 8 motherboards works as advertised, and ECS will do nothing about it; they don't answer email either.

Support Ed Foster: Maybe the only person who is doing anything about this is Ed Foster. Here are the companies in the GripeLog Hall of Shame: 1: Dell, 2: Microsoft 3: VeriSign 4: Intuit 5: Symantec 6: Network Associates 7: HP 8: Cisco.

I've personally been abused by Microsoft, Symantec, Cisco, and Intuit. I have no desire to repeat that ugly experience. So, I try to stay away from anything they do. In my experience, they are not companies that sell computer software and hardware, and are sometimes abusive. They are abuse companies that also sell software and hardware. The world of computing would have been a far better place if Bill Gates had had a caring childhood. The world of computing would be a far worse place if we didn't have good leaders like Linus Torvalds.

AT & T Universal Card: Companies are not only using Indians to do jobs that were done by Americans. Companies are using Indians to further abuse their customers. I talked with one Indian woman at AT & T Universal Credit Card customer support who told me that she had no way to contact anyone but her Indian manager, and that the Indian manager had no way to contact anyone at AT & T. So, there is no way to resolve any legitimate problem. The logic seems to be, "Why should we hire Americans to abuse our customers? We should get Indians to do all the ugly jobs."

ECS (Elitegroup) Motherboards: One of the answers is to call the technical support for a product before you ever buy the product. I wish I had done that before buying and testing 8 L7VTA V1 motherboards from ECS. I found that the ECS technical support line is a recording that says something like, "All of our customer support personnel are busy helping other customers. Please call back at a later time." There is no opportunity to leave a message. If you don't believe me, try it yourself: 510-226-7333 option 4 for technical support. Only one of the 8 motherboards works as advertised, and ECS will do nothing about it; they don't answer email either.

Support Ed Foster: Maybe the only person who is doing anything about this is Ed Foster. Here are the companies in the GripeLog Hall of Shame: 1: Dell, 2: Microsoft 3: VeriSign 4: Intuit 5: Symantec 6: Network Associates 7: HP 8: Cisco.

I've personally been abused by Microsoft, Symantec, Cisco, and Intuit. I have no desire to repeat that ugly experience. So, I try to stay away from anything they do. In my experience, they are not companies that sell computer software and hardware, and are sometimes abusive. They are abuse companies that also sell software and hardware. The world of computing would have been a far better place if Bill Gates had had a caring childhood. The world of computing would be a far worse place if we didn't have good leaders like Linus Torvalds.

This kind of thing is being discussed on Ed Fosters Gripe Line.
So far the best solution is to get a credit card that offers one of thoses programs that generates a unique number(most major cards offer this) for each transaction. This way you can enter the number and then come the next charge it is an invalid number, and chances are the company will contact you.

I've been poking around the Register.com site and can't find anything about the settlement or the opt out. Has anyone else found it yet?

More information to add to the above:

I've read about overly restrictive Microsoft EULAs, but this is all I can find now.

Runtime Runaround. (You can't use a program you wrote in the Microsoft FoxPro language under Linux.)

Remember this about EULAs: They bind you now. However, maybe the most scary thing about EULAs is that the vendor can change what they say in the future, after you have heavily invested in your tools, and cannot easily change. Basically, you can be held to a contract to which you didn't agree and which did not exist at the time you first made your decision to use a particular tool. Yes, you can always use the old tool under the old EULA, but the computing industry changes fast and you may need an update. If you need the update, then you either agree to the new EULA or spend the huge amount of time and money necessary to change tools. Moral: Choose your business partners carefully. They have serious control over your future. It's like getting married. You want someone you can trust with your life. When you pick a tool vendor, you want someone you can trust with your corporate life.

In the first comment to the story linked above, there is mention of a Microsoft EULA prohibiting benchmarks.

You are prohibited from using VNC, an excellent free program for remotely interacting with a desktop, with Microsoft Windows XP. See the bottom of this article by Brian Livingston: "Except as otherwise permitted by the NetMeeting, Remote Assistance, and Remote Desktop features described below, you may not use the Product to permit any Device to use, access, display, or run other executable software residing on the Workstation Computer, nor may you permit any Device to use, access, display, or run the Product or Product's user interface, unless the Device has a separate license for the Product."

These are just notes about what Microsoft feels it has a right to do.

Even Slashdot posting could be next.

Pretty much the best write-up of this farce so far.

Something that hasen't been talked about much here is the impact this will have on future intellectual property litagation. There is a rather funny article here on the subject, dealing with a dictionary company suing people for using the english language,(and of course microsoft liscening it to support IP rights) but the point is very serious. If SCO can do this kinda stuff with no legal backing what so ever and still cause major havoc, imagine what would happen if a company actully did have a legal leg to stand on. Ip laws are legal time bombs, and they need to be looked at carefuly.

Here's a link to an interesting article that's relatd to this discussion:

Grip2Ed.com

It discusses SpamArrest and some of the snakiness it's pulling when unknowing users respond to their clients mail. Kinda scary.

This time about why inuit would do the whole product activation scheme in the first place: www.gripe2ed.com