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The Press Release gives a few more interesting details... saying they will have their worldwide launch by may, they will have "half of the songs on iTunes in DRM-free versions by the end of this
year" (probably stemming from the many independents) and "All EMI music videos
will also be available in DRM-free format with no change in price."
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT= 104&STORY=/www/story/04-02-2007/0004557706&EDATE=

"Consumers will pay a higher price for the premium singles, but the same price for albums either with or without the copy protection software."

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/internet/04/02/emi.ap ple.ap/

Compaq had LINUX support as early as 1999. In fact Compaq had an alliance with Red Hat:

http://www.chguy.net/news/jun99/press_compaq.html

And some models of their servers came pre-installed with Red Hat:

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT= 104&STORY=/www/story/11-21-2000/0001371236&EDATE=

That gave them the ability to put LINUX into the enterprise as it was easier to deploy than a "roll your own solution."

Given that Compaq was bought by HP, would it not be logical to assume that HP would simply keep doing this (although maybe they wouldn't broadcast it as loudly as Compaq did)?

"It's not like the robot has a missile launcher on it's back that it can autonomously respond with"

It should have something other than a flash light.

It needs larger batteries and perhaps a partnership with these guys: http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/micro_stories.pl ?ACCT=683194&TICK=RTN4&STORY=/www/story/12-09-2002 /0001854465&EDATE=Dec+9,+2002

If you're going to go through the trouble to "paint" the target, you might as well reduce it to a lump of coal at the same time.

What about that part in the bill requiring people who reached 500 or more members of the public to register, and that was enough to constitute payment?

"Section 220 of S. 1, the lobbying reform bill currently before the
Senate, would require grassroots causes, even bloggers, who communicate to
500 or more members of the public on policy matters, to register and report
quarterly to Congress the same as the big K Street lobbyists. Section 220
would amend existing lobbying reporting law by creating the most expansive
intrusion on First Amendment rights ever. For the first time in history,
critics of Congress will need to register and report with Congress itself.
        "The bill would require reporting of 'paid efforts to stimulate
grassroots lobbying,' but defines 'paid' merely as communications to 500 or
more members of the public, with no other qualifiers.

I'd be very careful accounting for winds over a distance of 200 miles, particularly where chinese embassies are located. Must be a hell of a job to be spotter for this kind of weapon.


They're way ahead of you. They're already testing guided artillery rounds. I'm sure a similar guidance system adapted for railgun rounds is in the plans somewhere.

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/micro_stories.pl ?ACCT=910473&TICK=RTNB12&STORY=/www/story/08-18-20 06/0004418502&EDATE=Aug+18,+2006

I think you may need to investigate your facts. There are only two major GSM operators in the US. Cingular, and T-mobile.

"Cingular Wireless, LLC, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, is an AT&T subsidiary." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cingular) So ATT is the biggest GSM operator. Thanks for playing.

There are other GSM providers as well: "Edge Wireless LLC is a Mobile phone provider founded in 1999, serving southern Oregon, northern California, southeastern Idaho and Jackson, Wyoming. The company is headquartered in Bend, Oregon, although they provide no coverage or services in that city." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_Wireless) Edge is my provider. They're putting up towers pretty quickly on my coast and they have quite a bit of capacity in the listed markets - that still makes them a niche player of course, I just want to mention them. Since many of the GSM providers in the US (if not all of them) cooperate, it's unimportant which of them are large players. For the purposes of deciding what is useful, only the total mass must be considered.

Alltel themselves provides significant GSM capacity, and the size of their network is defined by coverage, not their number of customers: "When Alltel acquired Western Wireless in 2005, it also gained a large GSM footprint as well. While it does not offer GSM service to its own customers, Alltel has indicated that it will continue to maintain the GSM footprint (and perhaps even expand it) to provide roaming service to GSM users of other wireless carriers. Alltel advertises itself as "owner and operator of the nation's largest wireless network"; this claim refers to geographical coverage of its network rather than number of Alltel customers or population covered." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alltel)

Meanwhile, while CDMA may be the leader in North America, it is overwhelmingly NOT the leader in the world, and I doubt Apple plans to sell their phone only in the US. According to this press release (linked from "GSM" on wikipedia) "Globally, there are 2.29 billion cellular users encompassing all technologies" and the press release itself is about the number of GSM users worldwide being expected to cross two billion that month - that month being June of 2006.

Thus, if the choice is between technologies, then GSM is the only logical choice; probably a large part of the decision was based on who was willing to partner with Apple and with what terms.

Finally, according to this article on BetaNews on August 31, 2006, "As of the end of the second quarter of 2006, GSM had added 100 million new customers over the past year to end the period with a 51 percent share." But it seems to be an error; GSM is simply the most common communications technology in The Americas. HOWEVER, if we look at a graph entitled "Market Share Comparison in the United States (Sept 2005 - Sept 2006)" (http://www.3gamericas.org/English/Statistics/11.c fm) we can see that in that timeframe TDMA became barely significant, GSM gained 4.3% of the market, and CDMA lost 0.9%.

Meanwhile, while CDMA does offer some advantages (notably higher rates of data transmission) GSM is coming along in that regard as well.

In other words, CDMA is falling, GSM is rising, and GSM is the uncontested ruler of cell service everywhere but North America. I'm not sure it's worth their while to make a CDMA phone - I think people will be more loath to purchase a $600 phone that only works with one provider (since most CDMA providers give you a really hard time about

Prialt has a few caveats.

Be nice if they could find something better than morphine though. I've been on drips twice in my life. (Yeah, I guess I'm accident prone.) Anyway, 1) it's not so much pain relief as much as "I'm so euphoric that I don't care that my arm hurts like a bitch," especially for something like getting a wound scrubbed out with a Brillo pad, 2) the side effects suck and 3) coming down is like the worst hangover you've ever had, only worse. Even thinking about it right now makes me nauseous.

• Drive bys with BB guns in Kentucky.
• A riot for spots in line in Burbank.
• Read - 10 to 12 people robbed in PS3 line (dubious, but possible). [Via Digg]
• Read - Sheriffs shut down another California store for rowdy behavior.
• Read - Police break up NY SonyStyle store fight.
• Read - Brawl breaks out at another Wally when manager plays musical PlayStation chairs. Seriously, what an idiot. [Thanks Kyle D.]
• Read - Shots were apparently fired at a Texas Wally. Pics here and here of the 5-0. [Thanks, Jason]
• Read - Two armed, masked robbers overtook a customer in Springfield. [Thanks, Jason]
• Watch - North Fresno / Merced had stampede-riot insanity. [Thanks, Jonathan]

"While many users reading Slashdot embrace Windows, ZDNet is running an article on why the rest of the world isn't ready. One note for Windows developers: 'Stop assuming that everyone using Windows (or who wants to use Windows) is a Windows expert.' While a lot of these topics have been brought up as both stories and comments on Slashdot, this article pretty much sums up why Fedora Core 6 could be absolutely terrible, and people would still believe there is no other option."

If you are a Windows user (like the author of TFA), then you will be pissed off by Linux because you aren't as productive immediately (because, *gasp*, it's different).

If you are a Linux user (like me), then you will be pissed of by Windows because you aren't as productive immediately (because, *gasp*, it's different).

It's the same old story that's been told a thousand times before. Come on, it's not a slow news day. Hell just froze over.

Here's the Press Release So, common document format, virtualization, and immunity from patent attacks.

I'm mostly with Leo on this one, podcast is and always has been a lousy word

So am I (and know whom of you speak), and this might just drive the adoption of a better generic term.

And it also may make dictionaries think more carefully about declaring a new word with a trademark within it as Word of the Year.

What about data breaching from the inside?

"The most likely threat to information security is not the typical hacker, virus or worm, but rather the malicious or careless corporate insider."
  A study reveals that sixty-nine percent of companies reporting serious data leaks responded that their data security breaches were the result of either malicious employee activities or non-malicious employee error. In fact, the number one leading cause of data security breaches resulted from non-malicious employee error."

Read more here ..http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACC T=104&STORY=/www/story/02-08-2005/0002986646&EDATE =/

How to deal with this?

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. (Note, I used Google to think for me here, so there may be far better examples out there)

• Caldera in Erlangen runs openlinux.org site from 1998 or so.
• Caldera shuts down operation in Erlangen but leaves DNS entry intact.
• IP address is reallocated to Fachschaftsinitiative Informatik.
• Someone at FSI decides to play a little prank on SCO.
• openlinux.org entry is removed by SCO.

How is that different from the extracellular matrices used for cell growth as described in this article?

Access to the raw data stream should just need a TV tuner card with (probably) off the shelf APIs. After all, it's not the first time someone has tried to use this data channel.

I'm alwasy surprised that anyone on Slashdot has ever heard of me :).

Sure. Here's an announcement from Sony mentioning that they're doing 25GB, only stating that some lines "will be capable" of 50 GB

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT= 104&STORY=/www/story/05-16-2006/0004362681&EDATE=

And this thread at AVSForum has a good analysis of the numbers (you can't go wrong on that forum by just searching for any post by amillians):

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=76 67705&&#post7667705

They did so for one reason: It turned out that those were the key ingredients for the development of the iPod

That sounds to me like he's saying the US government funded research of those technologies in order to develop the iPod. Bush boned his speech; the Slashdot article accurately summarizes the literal claim he made.

I just thought the same and went hunting around.

According to what I could find, the handset is the Daxian Cu928

At least according to this older (November '05) article about the redberry.

Pretty lame replying to my own post eh? =P Yes, they will, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD both: http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT= 104&STORY=/www/story/01-24-2006/0004266219&EDATE=

• All first titles are expected to be limited to a single layer.
• There are two Blu-ray modes: Movie Mode (used for high definition films) and BD-J Mode (a fully programmable mode that includes interactive features, like games and Internet connectivity). Both modes can be used on the same disc.
• Sony and MGM titles will be encoded on the discs at 1080/24p. The user will set the player to convert this native resolution as required to match the capability of his or her display.
• At this time Sony has no immediate plans to implement the Image Constraint Token (ICT). (
  That is, they can always turn it on in the future on a per-title basis.)
• All of the Sony and MGM titles will initially be encoded using MPEG-2, at a variable bit rate, but up to a maximum of 30Mb/sec.
• When other codecs exceed MPEG-2 at all data rates, Sony will begin using them.
• On the audio side, all Sony and MGM titles will include both conventional Dolby Digital and DTS soundtracks. Dolby data rate is still unconfirmed. DTS data rate will be 1.5Mb/sec. Additionally all Sony/MGM releases will include a 5.1 uncompressed PCM audio track. (To make sense of these audio formats, Todd B. has written a nice summary here).
• The first Sony and MGM titles will each have a hidden Easter Egg containing several setup test patterns-- a sweep, a standard SMPTE pattern including, among other things, a PLUGE, color bars, and a resolution monoscope.

The Blu-Ray group also summarized what they announced at CeBit in this PDF.

Highlights:

• Two types of Blu-ray Disc video players will be available: a "BD Player" type and an Internet connected player. The most fundamental feature difference is that one supports Internet connections and the other does not. Either player type can be produced and marketed from day one. The internet connections may be used for firmware upgrades. Toshiba has said in their HD-DVD players you can simply burn an image onto a CD-ROM to do the same thing.
• From the beginning, all models of either player type support playback of interactive BD-Java
  content. (This had been something that was supposed to be delayed in the hardware).

A source at a studio has said that current "Special Edition" content for Blu-Ray discs is being ported over to a High Def signal. It won't be only the movies that are in HD.

Netflix will be carrying both Blu-Ray and Hd-DVD discs at launch.

If you have a video card that says it will support HDCP, you may be disappointed. It looks like no current video cards on the market will really support HDCP. From Ars: "With regards to shipping cards, they are correct: no matter what a box's feature list may say, no video card supports HDCP fully at this time. Why? They have not been completely programmed. Until the specifications for the access control system are completely finished, implementing pro

I would suspect that since Westinghouse Electric Company is 100-percent owned by BNFL Nuclear Services Inc. (BNSI), a wholly owned BNFL Group U.S. subsidiary , that the US Government will be involved at all levels. Probably, DoJ with input from DoD, DoE and the NRC.

I will not argue on the bias of UPI as I'm not familiar with the site.
Perhaps the problem is that you have not specified which "Missile Defense" system you are reffering to not working. The facts stated in the article regarding succesful tests are true. The Reuters article does not specify which system they are talking about but there were in fact succesful tests of the SM-3/Aegis missile defense system late last year.
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/micro_stories.pl ?ACCT=910473&TICK=RTNB12&STORY=/www/story/11-17-20 05/0004218987&EDATE=Nov+17,+2005

Another thing to point out is their pension system. Just this week they announced they would be fucking over all the older employees by freezing the pension scheme in 2008.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4587204.stm
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT= 104&STORY=/www/story/01-06-2006/0004244179&EDATE=
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-6020454.html
http://www.mcall.com/news/opinion/all-editorial1ja n12,0,6085827.story?coll=all-newsopinion-hed

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/micro_stories.pl ?ACCT=130907&TICK=NIKON&STORY=/www/story/01-11-200 6/0004247596&EDATE=Jan+11,+2006 Nikon USA press release says the same thing in a watered down and wimpy way. "Digital is where the market is going, so we are following".

Excuse me?

http://phone.ioerror.us/2005/09/verizon-wireless-g ets-injunction-to-stop-data-thieves
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT= 104&STORY=/www/story/12-09-2004/0002592069&EDATE=

If you want to pick on someone, pick on someone other than Verizon Wireless... they're trying to protect you.

It looks like it's actually a single chip solution. Any other ideas?

Thought I would legt everyone know that a few hours after this press release was posted that Pop Cap retracted the original press release of "it saved my life" with a press release of something a little more mundane. If you go to the original press release it says the press release has a "correction" and has no mention of the "life saving article" at: http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT= 106&STORY=/www/story/11-10-2005/0004213712&EDATE=

Usually, the solution is to put a bypass repeater at each transformer. That is precisely why BPL is an expensive proposition.

One alternative is to have fiber or something else to the nearest neighborhood transformer, and then put the signal on the power lines, but that's also expensive.

This article was linked in an earlier post: Motorola's Commercial Broadband Over Powerline Solution Debuts at 'Telecom 2005'. Notice how they don't mention the transformer problem at all. I wonder what their solution is?

Motorola appears to have a solution that is the most 'acceptable' to the Ham guys.

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT= 109&STORY=/www/story/05-23-2005/0003683177&EDATE=
I think this solution using only low voltage wires will achieve that 100 percent home penetration while creating the least amount of interference. It beats everyone having a WiMax modem in their house.

The question is whether the right BPL solutions which generate the least amount of interference are being presented to the people deploying these networks, and whether they are purposedly ignoring the pleas of Ameteur radio operators or ignorant of the choices in the solution?

...maybe "rootkit can become a word too?

Here's the history -- it isn't pretty.

First, there's a cryptic press release about a "Mr. Hagen", and the changing of the company name:

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT= LVRJNV.story&STORY=/www/story/11-15-2005/000421661 7&EDATE=Nov+15,+2005

They don't list the full name of "Mr. Hagen" -- but if you search you find this amazing thing:

http://www.businessnc.com/archives/2004/09/satelli te_wars.html

and here's a really rude summary:
http://www.stocklemon.com/11_14_05.html

Interesting to see how the guy went from selling satellite TV equipment to having the best AI ever. This is a truly amazing trajectory -- so either the guys are frauds, or they really have great tech chops.

i'll get to that. gimme a build-up moment here...

so, if you want to STREAM your content from your home-PC-turned-personal-media-server, say, using a piece of free-as-in-beer software from Orb, can you do THAT without violating the DMCA?

yupp

as some of you know, Virgin are working with us (http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT =104&STORY=/www/story/09-28-2005/0004133661&EDATE/ ) to ensure you can get the content you've purchased through them (which is WM10 DRMed) streamed for free from your home (WinXP) PC to ANY device with a Web browser and a streaming audio player: mobile phones, PDAs, Linux, Mac, Wintel lappers and boxes

this works cuz we're part of the WM10 licensing program

but THERE'S NO LICENSING PROGRAM for the so-called FairPlay DRM from our friends in Cupertino

this is beyond ridiculous - the DMCA should AT MINIMUM require that there be a licensing program for every DRM paradigm

but as several of you above have said, there's NO pressure for this to happen that Congress or the USCO is likely to notice

someone suggested to me last week that there ought to be a one-week boycott on iTunes Music Store in order to raise visibility about this, but my reaction was, why would that make ANY difference??

i mean, fun stunt, right? but come onnnnn...

as (of all people, and i can't even believe i'm quoting him, really) alan greenspan even said a couple years back (i'm too lazy to google the link, but y'all kind find it easily), the existing paradigms of IP law, conceived during an economic era overwhelmingly concerned with the production of physical goods, are moving from being ENABLERS of economic growth (read: innovation, both in product and in channel) to being FETTERS on economic growth

weird times when the head of the Fed and former member of ayn rand's inner circle is sounding like a frosh quoting from The German Ideology about the relations of production fettering the forces of production...

which all comes back to why the USCO should insist that the DMCA at the VERY LEAST require a licensing program, to ensure that existing channels of use and therefore of value-generation aren't the ONLY things enabled

Tier 1 ISPs own huge swaths of networks-- literally miles and miles of cable, and sometimes radio and other links. They route the traffic across these lines.

More precisely, Level3 seem to own 23,000 miles of optic fiber. :-)

The rumor is that the company is in financial trouble.

Yeah, not so much of a rumor anymore either -- Level 3 loss widens.

These guys are geniuses, the kind you see in movies. Danny Hillis himself thought up the idea of parallel processing for his doctaral thesis while he was a grad student. They don't specialize in any fields, they apply their creativity to R&Ds in almost any field, be it medical, defence or engineering.

They are the ones who created that voicebox which replies incomprehensible snippets of your voice to prevent eavesdropping, a human-size Dino robot walking around Hong Kong Disneyland that can mingle with the tourist without any danger because it is able to shift its weight such that if its foot encounters an eggshell, it can back off without breaking it. (that's in the middle of a step) and the company also created a tabletop display that can show a 3D view of any location on earth by using thousands of pins to replicate the actual reliefs.

If you want a slightly crunchier text, try:

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/micro_stories.pl ?ACCT=683194&TICK=RTN4&STORY=/www/story/07-25-2002 /0001771721&EDATE=Jul+25,+2002

It seems as if other posters are correct. This is just a ceramic with the usual sorts of ceramic properties, just much harder than most. It's not a useful builing material.

First off, Microsoft mentions in the download details for the malicious software removal tool that it is not a substitute for antivirus software. It simply scans for some of the more prevalent trojans and worms and attempts to remove them. If you look at the Microsoft knowledge base you'll note that all of the malware it currently targets are worms, trojans, or rootkits.

Second, it's amusing to me that you chose Webroot for your example since they offer SpySweeper to MSN dialup customers at no charge. In fact, my dad uses it (rather than the copy of Ad-Aware I installed for him) because it is the "official" Microsoft product.

We are stunned that RealNetworks has adopted the tactics and ethics of a
hacker to break into the iPod(R), and we are investigating the implications of
their actions under the DMCA and other laws.

"Rather than paying for time spent on the game itself as most other MMORPG
business models apply, Yulgang sells valued-added virtual merchandise and
services from its online game shop. This revenue model allows users to enjoy a
high degree of game playing flexibility. This distinctive model pioneered by
China.com, while having proven successful in Korea, is a breakthrough in
China."

Taken from http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT= 104&STORY=/www/story/08-13-2005/0004087731&EDATE=

Meh. That sounds like Project Entropia. Anyway, it might be fun. Wonder if it's open to international players.

with the pharmaceutical industry getting a lot of their basic research performed in public institutions with government grants, and then getting to patent the drug, we're the one's getting screwed. Twice!!

Yeap! BMS, Bristol-Myers Squibb, using Taxol is an excellent example. The NCI, National Cancer Institute, part of the fed's National Health Institute spent $183 million doing the research into developing Taxol from the Pacific Yew tree. Yet they practically gave away to BMS, who makes more than a billion dollars a year on the sale of Taxol, the "rights" to use all of the data from the clinical trials. The US tax payer got ripped off!!! And cancer patients who need Taxol are getting ripped off as well.

The real open source Oracle contribution is the persistence technology in the reference implementation of Java EE platform 5, under the CDDL. It will be part of Glassfish (or "SJSAS").

Sewell Auto Dealerships is spending a huge effort to find and relocate all of its employees from the affected Gulf coast regions and their families to Dallas. They have promised the 114 employees equivalent jobs at their other dealerships at the same or better pay rate. When the TV interviewer asked the general manger how much this was costing the company, he looked at her like she was crazy and said, "I don't know and wont even consider it till we know everyone is safe and cared for. These people are our family and responsibility and this is the right thing to do. We'll look at the total impact from Katrina to our business after we've taken care of our people."

Community Coffee Company

Evil Walmart "Any displaced associate can come and work in any other U. S. Wal-Mart store. Thus far, these associates have been transposed and are working from stories as far away as Alaska, California and Nevada, with many more in neighboring states of Georgia, Texas, and Florida. Displaced associates are eligible for up to $1,000 from our Associate Disaster Relief Fund if their homes were flooded or destroyed. We have already provided cash assistance to more than 6,100 associates, totaling more than $3.6 million in associate relief."

Entergy Energy One of the prime electrical and natural gas suppliers to the affected region. " In addition to mobilizing crews and resources for power restoration, Entergy Corporation is also mobilizing to provide assistance for customers and employees whose lives have been devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

The Power of Hope Fund will benefit employees and customers who need assistance in rebuilding their lives after Katrina. The focus of the fund is to help families get back on their feet after the disaster. The fund is being administered through the Foundation for the Mid South. Donors can choose to designate their contribution in one of three ways:

* to help Entergy employees who have experienced losses;
* for general relief/rebuilding efforts in Louisiana;
* for general relief/rebuilding efforts in Mississippi.

Entergy launched the fund with a $1 million contribution. The fund balance stands at $1.4 million."

This is just a very brief list. In short, every single company that I know of that had operations in those areas, and was big enough to still have some sort of operation now, is dedicating at least some major effort at finding and helping their displaced employees. Here in Dallas, many companies are advertising on the radio and TV asking displaced employees to call special hotline numbers setup specifically to help the employees get help and get back to work. Also, there are special job fairs being run specifically for local companies and displaced evacuees to get together. I saw one report where it was estimated that over 800 people had gotten employment at the one in Arlington.

Most importantly, all of these efforts are focused on, and will result in, long term stability and recovery for these people. The FEMA, Red Cross, Salvation Army, etc. assistance, while providing urgently needed immediate aid, is not, and will never, provide for long term self-sufficiency for any evacuees. The only way any of the people affected by the disaster will regain normal lives is by all of the companies stepping up and providing employment for them. The only other option is for all of these people to be on welfare and handouts for the rest of their lives.

Panasonic(R) Toughbook(R) 29 Wins Laptop Magazine Torture Test,
Panasonic's own case studies.

I can't seem to find any links Re: military/sand, but again I seem to remember something about the Toughbooks being used in Iraq (#1, #1.5 or #2, I'm not sure). I've never used one myself, but it may be a place to start!

http://www.prnewswire.com/mnr/cingular/22694

According to this report: They claim that by using diamond lenses, it will be possible to store 1TB in an optical drive. Will it work? Will they develop it soon? Who knows?

A startup I worked for, State Software had a full out API developed that did the exact same thing back in 2001 -- used a hidden IFRAME to pass javascript objects to and from a server. It was enterprise ready... But it was proprietary, and while they recieved quite a bit of attention from the biggest names in ECommerce apps, they never did get any real sales/installations.

As usual, Linus has created contovesy by suggesting we trade ideological purity for practical matters. While it's not exactly consistant to rail against patents and hold them yourself, it's a plan that at least hasn't been tried yet.

Not so fast. Eben Moglen (basically the FSF's head legal guy) is one of the people extolling the patent pool in the original press release. And the whole idea of using software patents against software patents is classic FSF tactics, like the GPL "judo throw" of using "copyleft" against copyright.

(Speaking of which, the FSF have been quietly mentioning that the new version of the GPL will contain anti-software-patent language. Will it be something straighforward, like "any patents you take out based on derivative works must be freely licenced for free software use"? Or something impressively vicious, like "ever attempt to enforce a patent against any free software and this license instantly expires"? Very probably the former, but the latter would be so much fun... :) )

The FSF certainly hasn't given up on campaigning and lobbying against software patents either. This makes perfect sense, after all: the two approaches reinforce each other. The less software patents are worth to the big companies, the less inclined they will be to lobby hard for them.

If Microsoft or some other anti-OSS software company wants to use their patent portfolio against open source projects, there is absolutely nothing anyone can do about it except perhaps get the patent invalidated, if there is a case for doing so. What it sounds like this was intended to do, and seemingly does do, is present patented technologies that open source projects unambiguously CAN use without fear of retribution.

No. What you do to protect yourself against software patent lawsuits from a software company is threaten them with a bunch of patent lawsuits of your own. This is how the large software companies protect themselves from each other right now, and it's clear that at least one of the purposes of the new patent pool is to give free/open source software a patent arsenal of its own. A list of patents you are allowed to use is vastly less useful, basically because if you're being sued for infringing a patent it doesn't matter how many other patents you're using with permission.

Even the initial press release, written as it is in consensual happy-speak, adds that

The library will also aggregate other legal solutions, such as indemnification programs offered by vendors of open source software.

We will see how successful this is when we begin to negotiate cross-licenses that would otherwise inhibit innovation

Case 1 is always a problem, and no one expects a patent pool to solve it. The argument here reads a bit like this to me: "Your solution to problem A doesn't solve problem B, therefore your solution is bad." Huh?

No, no. I was just laying out what the patent threats are and what a strong patent pool does and doesn't do. As you say, no-one expects a patent pool to be much use against threat 1. I wasn't attempting to score a point here; the humour wasn't directed at anyone (except perhaps the /. ad hominem flamers).

(And I did clearly state that my outer connective was 'the patent pool is no use at all if it is no use in either case'.)

Case 2 is solvable by a patent pool.

No-one is disputing that Case 2 is solvable by an effective patent pool.

The argument made here that a patent pool is ineffective depends on the fallacy that patents in that pool have already been licensed to a potential aggressor through some other means.

Why is this false? As far as I know, this is true of the patents that are currently in the pool. It may be the case that future patents will enter the pool of which this is not true, but until then the pool is not effective in case 2.

Again, I think that everyone recognizes that to be effective, the pool must contain original IP not already licesned to a potential aggressor.

I don't think the prior cross-licensing problem is immediately obvious to everyone - it certainly wasn't immediately obvious to me - and it wasn't mentioned in, for example, the initial press release, so I think it's perfectly reasonable for Bruce Perens to raise it.

The discussion we should have is how to encourage and enable the growth of that part of the pool.

Amen.

I think that Perens' specific point about the patents currently in the pool is likely correct; certainly it deserves to be discussed on its own merits. The misleading summary given by the poster, and Taco's largely irrelevant snark in the subheading, led me to fear that we'd get another round in the pointless /. anti-Perens/ESR/RMS/whoever flamewars instead, which is why I wrote the original post.

I also think that Perens is right that lobbying against patents is important and should continue. Again, I don't think many of us would disagree about that either.

If Perens is also making a broader claim that the patent pool effort is useless, and that only political action matters, then I think he's clearly wrong in that. The current state of the patent pool doesn't justify a dismissive "it'll never work" attitude, but it does justify a skeptical "show me the money" attitude.