Slashdot Mirror
Publisher Speaks Out Against Amazon Patents
andy@petdance.com writes, "In a
recent Ask Tim article on the O'Reilly Web site, Tim O'Reilly takes Jeff Bezos to task for his attempts at patenting 1-click and the associates program. An Open Letter to Amazon is provided for adding your voice to Jeff & co." O'Reilly has a very thoughtful letter about how Amazon's attitude would have killed the Web in its infancy. He also submitted a letter to the IP mailing list which explains his thoughts a bit more. See also NoWebPatents.Org which is running their own anti-Amazon boycott, and our previous story about RMS's call for a boycott.
As I watch the slobbering zealots here at Slashdot incessantly whine about Amazon's supposed "abuses" of the patent system, I cannot help but be darkly amused. It is a typical trait of Linux users to lash out and rail against The Man, where The Man is usually Large Corporations like Microsoft, and in the case, Amazon. Of course, when said corporations do something like open-source their NetBEUI stack (ProCom) or give away their C++ compiler for free (Borland), then all of a sudden, the Large Corporations are Linux's best friend!
Reality check: Linux (and for that matter, the Internet itself) would not be in its current state if it were not for these Large Corporations! Hell, I'll do you one better: Linux would not be in its current state if it weren't for Amazon! How many Linux developers do you think used Amazon to purchase books such as Command-Line Crap in 21 Days by Dennis Ritchie or Go Fork Yourself: A Complete Guide To UNIX Process Control by W. Richard Stevens? How many of these same developers used 1-Click Ordering (TM) to purchase these books? Fuckloads of them, that's how many. Fuckloads.
So stop whining, zealots. Your high-pitched objections to the legitimate actions of a true business innovator grate harshly against my very soul.
"1-Click Ordering" is a registered trademark of Amazon.com. Patent pending.
You have only to look at the presence of O'Reilly books on your bestseller lists vs. those at your competitors to realize how much of your computer book sales are driven by the hard core technical community that is O'Reilly's customer base. And I can tell you that those customers are solidly against software patents.
How DARE he assume that we are against software patents?? Without intellectual property protection, who would bother innovating anything? Not all of us are willing to work for free. For those who are, without IP protection, the GPL would be worthless!
Do you really think that bn.com or etoys.com or any other online retailer you care to name would behave any differently, if they had the chance?
What would be achieved by convincing Amazon not to pursue frivolous patents? Even if you succeeded, someone else would get the stupid patents instead and enforce them against Amazon. Is Amazon really to be blamed for trying to avoid that?
Boycotting Amazon only treats the symptom, not the underlying problem that patents like these are granted by the USPTO. Convincing Amazon not to pursue stupid patents wouldn't change the fact that stupid patents are granted--it would just then be other companies getting stupid patents. What are you going to do, keep playing whack-a-mole-with-boycotts indefinitely, as other companies get stupid patents?
Even if you could somehow get all companies to agree not to file stupid patent applications, without addressing the underlying problem that such patents are being granted, it would only take one bad company to start filing them to ruin the agreement for everyone.
So the problem lies with the USPTO, not with Amazon. In fact, I believe that often the best way to get a bad law fixed is to abuse the law. This draws attention to the problem and promotes reform. But that's an argument I'll save for some other time.
What's to be done, then? I don't have a quick solution. I would like to point out, however, that I believe the problem lies more with the USPTO management, rather than rank-and-file patent examiners, who I believe do the best job they can with limited resources. There's a number of things which point to this:
1. Subject expertise. I've heard it said by others that the USPTO lumps software patents in with electrical engineering--thus you have examiners whose subject specialty is EE trying to evaluate software patents. (This is what I've heard--I don't know it for a fact.) I know that in general, patent examiners usually have at least a master's degree in their field. So examination of software patents may be worse than other fields.
2. Time allowed for examination. I understand that examiners' quotas are such that they have about an hour or two to examine each patent application. This is an order of magnitude or so below what is necessary to do a thorough job. I know, because I am a patent searcher at a major corporation--that is, I basically do some of what patent examiners do, except that I have the time and budget to do a proper job. A thorough search for prior art takes me anywhere from 2 to 20 hours of work, depending on the complexity of the subject--the average is probably around 4 hours. Keep in mind that this is only conducting the search, and not actually evaluating the documents I've identified as possible prior art to see if they really would invalidate a patent application--I turn my search results over to the attorneys and let them handle that. Patent examiners have to both conduct the search and evaluate the documents found.
3. Search system. The USPTO management recently installed a new search system for examiners--one which is very slow and inefficient, and is largely hated by examiners. For more details, look at the PIUG-L archives (Patent Information Users' Group), and scroll down to the posts by Gregory Aharonian, who has posted repeatedly on the topic. Be sure to look in particular at a petition submitted to Congress by a number of examiners fed up with the new search system.
Sorry to ramble on, but it's one of my peeves when I see people blame patent examiners for granting stupid patents, when in fact I believe the fault lies with USPTO management.
He *DOES* have to do it for the shareholders, because once Amazon loses public support, all they will have to keep the corpse of their business squirming will be their patents.
Every day, I see more and more "geek" agitation here on Slashdot, rallying against the evils of the U.S. patent system. Instead, we are told, all ideas should be "open sourced" so to speak; anyone should be allowed to use them.
Patents were designed to stimulate progress, and that is what they have done. Much in the same way as software licenses. Slashdotters are perfectly willing to violate patent laws, but if you dare to violate the satus quo of their "community" (like LinuxOne did), you better watch out. They did nothing illegal. *Nothing*.
So who are you to judge? Instead of patents and software licenses (and of course, if anyone were to violate the GPL, we'd hear about it immediatly, but the warez trading on Slashdot sids goes unmentioned). Your hypocrisy is what's holding you back. You scoff at patents which *you* don't own, but try anything new with Linux and you're denounced as a scam artist by software and music pirates. How typical of the Linux scene: moralizing, holier-than-thou teenagers who've probably never held a job in their whole life, and are too lazy to actually *buy* software or music, thus providing *incentive* to the creator (or am I being to reactionary here, comrades?)
In short, while you condem others, your behavior is both unethical (as defined by the Bible) and illegal, while that of Amazon or other patent holders, is not.
The only way to fight this is through litigation. A boycott has no meaning to a company that has not yet made any money.
When amazon begins enforcement of their new patent. I truely hope that their victim has the guts to viciously attack Amazon, the USPTO, as well as the patent examiner by name.
Typically, I hate to see the little guy trampled by big corporations, but the USPTO is a farm system into the high-priced patent attorney ranks. A tour of duty can bring immense wealth to a cunning young lawyer.
S/He must lose his house, his/her savings, and her/his future earnings. S/He must stand as an example to all examiners who come after that the job can have serious, life-altering consequences.
Someone will argue that they know a bright young lawyer who is just trying to make his way in this big, complicated world. Well, thats fine, but let's see him earn that future. The paperwork two-step currently performed in regard to software patents is unacceptable.
Software only needs copyright, trademarks, and trade secret protections. Those are enough to balance the low capital cost of computer science with the needs of industry. A piece of software only becomes a device when viewed through the paper veil of too many lawyers.
Actually it seems to me that the new plague on /. is whining, also known as 'bitching and moaning'. This is the fact that as I follow an interesting thread, inevitably somebody comments about moderation instead of the topic, an evil which this message is guilty of as well. If you have problems with moderation, then log in and sometimes you'll be a moderator.
Storal of the mory, whining gets you nowhere, so take 3 minutes, make yourself an account, and enjoy the ability to (meta)moderate. In the meantime I'll just be glad that I normally browse at +1.
----------------------------
Hmm, I believe individuals already DO have to be named on a patent, as the inventor.
Your proposal might help a little bit, but not nearly as much as real patent system reform.
Given that ORA have siezed control of the camel as a trademark when associated with Perl. Which seems pretty patently absurd to me.
Or is it simply that Tim opposes poor use of intellectual property laws when the offender is not ORA.
The GPL forbids you from preventing any person, organization, or field of endeavor from using the covered software. This notion is also covered in the Open Source Definition, clauses 5 and 6.
Me, I agree with him. I am solidly against software patents, and moderately against patents in general. This is not as an abstract concept, it's very much in line with how they are actually functioning in practice- if the world was different I might have a different opinion, but in the Real World (tm) 'solidly against software patents' describes me quite accurately.
That said, I am Chris Johnson. If you are determined to be seen publically opposing this perception, who exactly are you, and is it any of your business? You might be an Amazon stockholder who never invented anything in your life :)
I know next to nothing about how businesses operate, but surely there's a simple way of putting something like this up for a shareholder vote?
Plus I don't believe refusing to ship through Amazon would hurt them. Their product is technical, and most technical people would only gain more respect for the company as they are more likely to know the issues with the patent. O'Reilly purchasers are also more likely than most to know where to find the on-line competition.
Came across this link at www.noamazon.com
C.
I sometimes write stuff
Please ask Tim that, since this is the case, does that THEN justify selling them to Amazon?
I mean, his statement seems to imply to me that, since making a moral statement would lose me money and not change anything, I'm not going to do it.
That doesn't seem right?
Russ
I think Tim watches the Simpsons:
Then again, maybe your tongue was in your cheek a bit when you posted that. If so, then "never mind!" :)
-matty
-matty
I think the key here, Otis, is that Amazon.com very clearly didn't have a clever idea, they merely used a technique that has been used commonly by many online merchants. This should not have been allowed to be patented.
You'll notice that it's not just the Clamoring Slashdot Hordes that are speaking out against this, but also 2 (so far) very respected and oft-quoted nerd/guru/expert types. I challenge you to find someone of this stature who thinks that Amazon.com's 2 recent patents are a good idea.
-mattyt
Amazon.com's stock price is down 43% off its 52-week high of 9DEC1999. Could this be because they're not profitable yet and people are getting tired of waiting?
-matty
No, he's not putting money anywhere than in his bank account at the moment. If he were putting his money where his mouth is he would be refusing to ship through Amazon.
Wrong. If he decided that O'Reilly (the company) would no longer ship through Amazon, his company loses money. He is not the company, and other people have an interest in that money. Can you say shareholder lawsuit? I thought so.
-30-
I just sent news.com a news tip (the link is there on the website). Just email: tips@news.com. I doubt one feed will get their attention but if a lot of us tell news.com, or cnet to talk about this letter from O'Reilly it will educate the non-technical people about what amazon is doing.
I've talked with people who use amazon.com but aren't technically savvy or keep upto date with all this news, their source of information is cnet, news.com, cnn.. not slashdot or oreilly.org.
It's these type of people that amazon is trying to cater to, it's because the number of people like them who don't know any better is higher than the technical community, that amazon doesn't feel any pressure at all. so they lose 1 million technical users.. they still have 20 million nontechnical users, buying books from them.. they're willing to take the loss.
Er, he does.
I'm most familiar with the Samba book, where he and all three authors accepted Andrew Tridgell's suggestion of making it available as open source, but he's published several Linux open source books.
He does require the permission of the authors, you understand: they're the folks who own the books.
--davedavecb@spamcop.net
By the way, I have yet to see a book listing on BBB where Amazon's name isn't all the way at the bottom of the lowest-to-highest price list.
--
Want to speak up against web patents? Join the League for Programming Freedom, fully endorsed by RMS and GNU.
Here are some excellent News links dealing with recent absurd patents, and essays on the subject.
- EraseMe
> Berners-Lee
Slippery argument. Would things be better is amazon gave a large amount of money to tbl ? Or isn't the simple fact that people are making much money with the web is a 'slap' on his face ?
I don't take O'Reilly's comment here to be referring to the money. It has more to do with the spirit in which Berners-Lee acted when he made his ideas and innovations open. Amazon is essentially thumbing their collective nose at Berners-Lee et al, by adding this one trivial bit...and then grabbing it for themselves. The notion of such behavior amounts to the slap in the face, not the lack of due payment, or whatever.
If I had moderator today, I'd moderate that post by Crush up one to take him all the way to 5. If you've got a spare moderator point and haven't commented in this discussion, please moderate that post up!
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
I use http://www.bookshop.co.uk/ for most
of my purchases. Mostly out of habit, I have
to admit.
I should check Heffers again at some stage...
I remember they had a "there'll be a page
here one day" site a few years back.
How come Amazon got to be so famous when
books.com had been around (via telnet) for
ages earlier?
-- You've got to get a hat if you want to get ahead.
this isn't in direct response to what Tim has said, but it is nevertheless on topic.
What if Amazon.com isn't evil? What if they are purposely setting a precident that you can't patent stuff like this on for web? As Tim said in his letter "you're not the only one who can play the patent game". What if by showing that "playing the patent game" makes you lose all around (customers hate you, you get boycotted, and eventually your patent will not hold up).
I think its a great thing that amazon is doing.
maybe I'm just an optimist, but I think in the end this is what their actions will show. I mean _really_, any basic web programming course you take will teach you how to do this "1-click shopping" deal, how the heck does Amazon think they invented it?
The basic sleazeware produced in a drunken fury by a bunch of UCBerkeley grad students was still the core of BIND. --PV
D-OH!
Of course, it's the only one of my links that I didn't check beforehand... All the others I verified. I even had to knock one off my list because it wasn't valid anymore. Oh well. That'll teach me to double check my links.
Bad Barnes and Noble, bad!
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
That's really a matter of tactics and given that it is relatively easy to get O'Reilly from other sources it would be useful to do so. Also, I don't just buy tech books, I buy a lot of fiction and history. I assume that others are also buying a large amount from them (or were). The O'Reilly business model is sort of irrelevant to the issue of bringing pressure to bear on Amazon to stop the patenting. I always hate it when people advocate something they call "pragmatism", yet I guess that's what I'm trying to do in this post. I see a boycott as more likely to happen and simpler for individuals to implement. Later we can turn our attention to O'Reilly
I like the idea. However that's a separate fight from the patents issue. Sometimes one thing at a time is more effective. Or do you see both stemming from the same source?
Also, I would quite like the idea of anyone being able to download and print for themselves, for personal use, a copy of a book. However I would not like it if some other company were able to take an author's work and repackage it with a different cover and undercut them - I can imagine one of the publishing giants doing this if O'Reilly GPL'ed their works. So, a sort of "Fair Use" access to the works would mean that if I were really in need of cheap refs I could get them. If I had money I could buy them nicely bound. Reading over that I'm not sure that I agree with myself, but I do think that stopping exploitation of authors would be essential. Any thoughts?
That's silly! Do you think he makes less of a profit if someone orders the Camel book form FatBrain? Does he get a deal from Amazon?
I think not. Affilate or not, it's all just selling product.
I used to work at Waldenbooks and at first I was in a dream... the "I love this book! I want everyone to buy it!" But that passed. It turned into, "This book is $9.95, but you can get 10% if you buy this $10 perfered reader card which will help my PR/transaction ratio which is the only thing this company cares about when dealing with me? So do you want this card or not?"
It's the same thing, really. Buy your shit from us and we'll make it worth your while. Ease of use it what's it about. I mean, I work Tech Support (for several national ISPs) and people compain when IE doesn't dial for them anymore. Clicking on the shortcut, then connect, then IE is just TOO DAMN HARD for these people.
Until Amazon stops with these silly patent claims, they should not be expecting to see any of my money. There are plenty of other vendors who provide a similar service for a similar price. They need to be aware that once we get used to purchasing from a different vendor, Amazon will no longer be the first place we look for books.
Quack
I hope you apreciate the irony of your position.
[ c h a d   o k e r e ]
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Wrong. If he decided that O'Reilly (the company) would no longer ship through Amazon, his company loses money. He is not the company, and other people have an interest in that money. Can you say shareholder lawsuit?
Is O'Reilly a publicly traded company? Are you sure? I don't know, but I don't think it is. In that case, there would be no shareholders to sue.
Even if it were, if Amazon were to get a monopoly on bookselling, it could be damaging for the company in the end. So he could always claim that he was doing this for the good of the company. He has to do what's best for the company, but he gets to decide what the best thing for the company is
[ c h a d   o k e r e ]
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
slashdot links to fatbrain.com, not Amazon. You should really try to have some clue before spouting off. They still link to Amazon for videos, but the books point to fatbrain, as they have since soon after RMS's call for a boycot.
[ c h a d   o k e r e ]
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
and just so you know, Yu Suzuki is a guy. He's a game designer for Sega of japan, and the guy behind There A&M2 development team, who made daytona USA, among others. He may have had a hand in the creation of sonic the hedge hog, but I'm not sure.
[ c h a d   o k e r e ]
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Someone did that to me once. I lost 5 karma points in the space of a few hours. It really pissed me off. Slashdot is going strait to hell...
[ c h a d   o k e r e ]
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
It also has Options for patent-holders to license patents such that they can be used in products containing only similarly-licensed or more stringently-licensed patents and patent-like IPs.
I don't understand. Why do you think putting together such a patent portfolio is a bad idea?
Of course, I don't have any "teach them a lesson" thoughts here. It's just that since corporations get around the problem with cross-licensing, I don't see why we can't or shouldn't do the same. Not doing so leaves us defenseless in that realm--we still can use patent--busting prior art, etc, and perhaps lobby for reform, but I don't think that's as effective, as cheap, or as quick to an individual solution. I consider worldwide patent law reform a more longer-term solution.
So instead of worrying that Open Source code writers are continually at risk of >$40k lawsuits even given patent-busting prior art, I'd personally rather try to convince corporations to cross-license their patents under the Open Patent License, (still in development), to preserve the defensive value of their patents while giving the advantage of gaining rights to use more and more patents over time, which will also let the patents be used Open Source code.
I don't understand what would be so objectionable about such a license.
Hmmm... what would happen in the long run? Most probably, things would take shape as they should be. Trade secrets would be just that, and those can be reverse-engineered legally, if you can prove you didn't have any inside help.
Patenting stuff that either should be copyrighted or be trade / industrial secrets is the worst thing that can happen.
-gus
There once was a fellow named Bezos
Who promised to sue the bejeezus
Out of anyone who
through means that weren't new
Tried with one-click ord'ring to please us!
Sigmentation fault - core dumped
In the spirit of paulbd's closing remarks, I did what I can: I sent email to feedback@amazon.com telling them how much of my business they lost as a result of their patent tactics. Money is the biggest stick I know of in a situation like this, and I encourage everyone to use it.
The letter I wrote follows. Emulate what I have done if you wish. Just be sure to report dollars and cents accurately!
/* Begin letter */
To whom it may concern:
Due to devisive patent tactics, I refuse to purchase anything from Amazon.com. Barnesandnoble.com has received roughly $500 of my business over the last three months because, although I could save a bit on some books with Amazon.com, its disregard for the Web's wellbeing through pursuit and enforcement of patents sickens me.
The afforementioned figure only reflects personal purchases. As an IT director, I make decisions about software and IT book purchases for the insurance company with which I work. In the last four months alone, I have overseen the purchase of nearly $8000 in software: Beyond.com was the beneficiary! Amazon.com will never see a penny of the budget I oversee so long as its patent tactics continue.
Keep working hard to tighten your grip on the market with patents, Amazon.com. In response, many more people than you suspect will continue to throw more opportunity cost your way and give business to your competitors.
Sincerely,
Joseph J. Egan
/* End letter */
bEgan
"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." -- Albert Einstein
Fatbrain spams.
No, really. We should, as a group, put our collective money where our collective mouth is and go somewhere else. Fatbrain, maybe. How about some recommendations?
Brazil has decided you're cute.
Amazon's policies and actions may be deplorable, but in all the time I've been ordering from them (this amounts to about 20 or 30 orders), I've gotten nothing but great customer service: low time on hold for telephone support, and next day replies to my e-mails. The only exception to this has been during the holiday season, when my gift arrived 2 weeks after I ordered it (it said 2-3 day shipping), missing Hannukah.
I still fully intend to boycott Amazon for what they've done so far with their frivolous patenting, but support is hardly a basis for criticism.
A price/earnings ratio is very good! It means that the shares cost nothing.
I think you probably meant something more like "a price/earnings ration of infinity".
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
I don't think it will die that easy. I suspect that most people are like me: ignored the amazon.com thing at first but then canceled our account and switched to bn.com after people made enough noise. If we keep making noise we will get mopre people to switch.
What would be really nice is to see a coalition of publishers (i.e. not just O'Rielly) were to drop amazon.com for their buisness practices. Why wold they do this? Because it would allow them to use 1-click shopping on their own sites.
Personally, I think Tim should wait a while and if amazon dose nothing he should make a little fuss about tring to get such an activity together. This would kill amazon.com's stock, which is what they really care about.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
I don't agree with the Amazon patents but you can't blame them for it (or indeed any other software patent).
In my opinion the problem is with the patent office and their NOT understanding the technology
and giving silly patents.
This is going to happen time and time again unless they get their act together.
Good point. I don't know if Tim would be so bold as to make that move, however. I think Tim's appeal to Jeff has been on a personal basis. I don't think Tim would jeopardize his business relationship over an issue that has nothing to do with the core Amazon-O'Reilly relationship.
Hates people who have stupid little sigs
Amazon.com has an O'Reilly Bookstore
They even reprint selected Ask Tim columns (though not the one we're discussing obviously).
For all his genuine anguish over the issue, I don't see Tim O'Reilly dropping this joint marketing effort with Amazon. He can't afford to lose the revenue.
Barnes & Noble doesn't have clean hands either. Remember that on the eve of Amazon's IPO, they launched a frivolous lawsuit over Amazon's use of the phrase "world's biggest bookstore".
What's the solution? I don't know. No one has clean hands.
Principles are easy when there's no money at stake. Money changes everything.
What Amazon is doing simply can't be good for their bottom line. Clearly they will loose more customers over things like this they they will ever hope to gain. I used to shop there and will not do so anymore, and I suspect a lot of other people will do the same. In a situation where the compatition is only as far as pointing your browser at a new URL Amazon should be very carfull about their image with customers. The obvious question then is if this won't help their business then what is the point?
This is a little off topic, but important none the less. As we all know, Amazon has thus far made no money. That doesn't mean they won't in the future. In fact, Amazon stands to make a tremendous amount in the near (3-5yr) future, and here is why: Amazon is investing in market and mindshare right now. Their strategy is to lure customers to them with ease of use and heavy-duty personalization features. Currently, it costs Amazon somewhere in the $20-30 range to secure a customer. On the average it costs around $7-10 to get a customer to purchase something from you (note, these costs refer to the book-selling world). Amazon's plan is to implement the technologies to do personalization as well as gain the market share. Then they are going to dial back the amount of money they spend on getting people to purchase because they will have a sort of captive market.
All this being said, the reason they have such a great stock price is that the majority of stocks are not purchased by you or me. They are purchased by huge brokerages with smart guys and gals running them. They know the score and they know that Amazon will be profitable in the long run. So, you see maybe they aren't so dumb after all. Sure its a risk, but Amazon is in it for the long haul, not immediate profit.
Poo-Bah
The previous post sounds like a troll or someone playing devil's advocate, but I'll answer anyway...
Let me point out once again that Amazon most certainly did not "come up with" the concepts behind their "One-Click" patent.
Some additional links for Europe can be found at http://noamazon.com/.
--Carpe diem!
Use your own price-to-earnings ratio to predict how large the boycott will be in a few months, and then multiply that by amazon's price-to-earnings ratio, and you should get a nice round number
--
The shareholder is always right.
Jesse, you idiot, it says "Don't forget the http://" right there! Your comment should have been moderated down as flamebait, not up as insightful, you lame karma whore.
--
The shareholder is always right.
(The first three came from Daniel Gray, who looks like an expert on affiliate programs. The last came from Cuesta Technologies, which has been building affiliate programs for their clients since 1995. The letters are on Feb 28 and Feb 26 of the ejournal.)
We are living in an age that is overhyped and underrated:
Computers great for learning(underrated), let's give them MS Word(hype)
The fact is the invention of HTML and related web technologies have reduced something patentable in the case of hardware to 5-15 lines of code in software.
Until the shareholders realize that the web is in fact fully accessible to world on all levels (use, dev, hacking (as in unothodox building not breaking)) that HTML does not require a phd and that Debian producers are mostly under 17 yrs of age (relates to education and accessibility of the net) they won't know that the world's latest Gutenberg Award worthy product is being shanghaied
.
We need to go on the info offensive. we are always on the defensive. And I don't mean FUD.
My 1st contribution: Unix in vented in 1970, GUI invented in 1971. Unix is 70s tech, but Windows isn't? WTF!?
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
I have been silently hoping that Amazon.com would abandon thier patens under the presure of the boycots, but it seems that they have ignored that. My hesitation has been two-fold. 1) Great customer service, and 2) the fact that I'm an Amazon.com associate. Fortunately, switching my site over to B and N is only a matter of signing up, verifying all the titles and modifying a single script..... But I'd really rather not...
Don't you think it's time to start communicating?
It's not the profiteers that I worry about... it's the buffoons. (I'm a pure-bred capitalist, and don't see any reason to disparage the seeking of profit. I do, however, agree that Amazon's "buffoons" are going about it with their heads up their butts.)
Don't you think it's time to start communicating?
It's clear to everyone that Amazon is willfully abusing the patent system. As such, they are showing their true colours and demonstrating their lack of business ethics and common sense.
In light of this, I can honestly say that I will not purchase anything else from Amazon now or in the future, no matter what the outcome of the patent situation. Even if they were to give up their patents, the damage has been done and Amazon has been exposed for what it truly is. I will always remain a former Amazon customer.
Amazon.com, I wish you everything you deserve.
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
Does anybody know an alternative?
Anyhow, we got to discussing the Amazon patents, and just at the moment he was saying that he thought they were OK the Cook, who was collecting crockery, dropped a cup of tea on him.
Poetic, don't you think?
threadeds blog
I know Amazon has been stupid about the whole patent thing -- but you have to give them credit for being early, and being good at e-Commerce. It only took them a couple years to become one of the biggest booksellers in the world -- that takes a lot of skill.
I am not saying that Amazaon should be forgiven for their patent abuses... or that it is "right" for a company to lose as much money as they do. But you have to admit that they have been successful so far.
-rt-
** Evil Canadians are taking over the world. Learn about the conspiracy
It essentially patents off-line web browsing.
http://164.195 .100.11/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF &d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1& f=G&l=50&s1='5,978,807'.WKU.&OS=PN/5,978,807&RS=PN /5,978,807
Can't do that - too many web sites "deep links" amazon, like, directly onto their books.
Any site that searches books across different vendors, much like pricewatch?
After looking up the dictionary, the two words have identical meaning - stop. Why bother using them both?
Notice any problems?
Need a hint?
"...when typing Sashdot..."
^
|
Oops.
There's no reason for a sig here.
This should NOT be -1. Just because (s)he disagrees with you doesn't mean he's a trool. Read the moderator guidelines.
There's no reason for a sig here.
-Legion
In addition to Barnes & Noble, from whom I have received adequate service, I have had great experiences with A Clean Well-Lighted Place for Books and Powell's Bookstore (the largest used bookstore I've ever been to online and IRL located in Portland, OR) for non-technical books.
- tokengeekgrrl
"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions
how indicative of the maturity of some of slashdot's participants. this is left at zero, as all other posts not written by romco, while he gets moderated into oblivion. arguing about the merits of a post is one thing. What you are suggesting is worse for slashdot than his post.
That should settle it.
PS: I dont mean to disminish the noble intent of the letter.
I agree with you on many levels. The problem is that you and any moderately technically competent person can judge the absurdity of Amazon's patent. But the courts cannot. There is clearly a need for the concept of Intellectual Property and for a system to ensure that ideas can be protected. But when the ideas are beyond the comprehension of the arbiters, we have a major problem. Why do you object to using the tools of the existing system to protect us from abuses while we build a replacement?
AFAIK, the one-click is a convenience feature that is only available to registered users who have already given Amazon their credit card number and preferred shipping address. So it requires many clicks and keypunches to set up, but after that, thanks to the "magic" of cookies, the customer can buy a book with one click.
IANAL, but wouldn't Amazon lose the right to enforce their patent if they choose not to sue a significant number of offenders for infringment? If enough people did it, it could pose a problem for Amazon's legal team.
Waterstones
Books Online
Proxis
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Why not ask the guys at Yahoo! if they fancy having a pop at Amazon for using a database to generate web pages.
Or all the porn sites could gather together and sue them for ripping off their idea of taking credit card payments online.
Also, where the hell do they get the idea that renaming 'franchising' as 'affiliates' is worth a patent? If that's the case, I'm renaming 'www' as 'web' and charging for everyone who uses it.
Find funky gifts
"I was reading Dave Winer's article on this very subject when your e-mail arrived yesterday. This--along with the broader issue of current patent-granting standards--is a story we're following with considerable interest, and I do expect we'll have something on these topics in the near future.
Cheers,
Rob Pegoraro"
fatbrain for instance. I don't think it's such a big deal to boycott Amazon.com and still get your books for cheap
Upon notification of being awarded the patent Amazon.com filed lawsuits against other internet companies infringing on the patent.
Said company spokesperson Chip Schott, "We feel that patents are nessessary to encourage innovation by awarding creative genius. Amazon.com has lead the way in stockholder satisfaction and we have earned it. We feel that generating high stock value through negative earnings is not at all obvious, unlike our other patents. Other companies should not allowed to steal this scientific method from us without properly licensing it."
Ebay, one of the defendants named in the lawsuits, announced that they would investigate the profitability of making profits should the court decide in Amazon.com's favor.
Amazom.com stock rose $5 following the announcement.
What I don't get is why some ideas are considered 'ok, you are totally right to patent that by yourself!' and others are 'hey, you thief! you are not allowed to patent that! if you do I'll boycot you!'.
If a person has a clever idea, and patents that what's wrong with that? because in THIS case some people here are NOT agreeing with the US patent commission? And should issue a boycot?
Some clever Dutch student invented a harddisk head system that could handle much smaller disktracks, so harddisks could contain much more data. Do you think he got the patent? no. The company who payed for the research did. Wrong? perhaps, but I don't see anyone boycotting any harddiskmanufacturer because he suddenly has larger harddisks for sale and thus supports this patenting issue.
Remember: perhaps on some day YOU will have a clever idea, and will rush to the patentoffice and will perhaps receive a patent for that idea. What would you do if on a certain 'nerd' site (however... nerdsite, it's more a linuxpromo site nowadays, but that's another story) people are ranting to boycot you and your little company that works very hard to realize your clever idea??
You would join those ranting people? I guess not.
--
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
In the "Slashboxes"*: Amazon.com. BuyBooks at Linux.org: at Amazon.com.
Amazon.com was doing a good job on these sites before the patent issues started (which is prehistory now), but is doing so even up to today.
If this is meant to be a boycott, it's a *weak* one.
(* Can anybody tell me what "slashboxes" really are? I mean, they're in the Slashdot prefs, but I don't understand what they're supposed to be.)
It's... It's...
"We can confirm that Debian does *not* ship the version with the trojan horse. Our version predates it." [CA-2002-28]
Without patent protection, no one would have bothered to invent the computer.
Yes they would. Was Collossus patented? If there was a need for a computer then it would have been invented eventually. Maybe the technological advance would be slower but it would have happened. Although most people have a problem with Software patents. Software is the only thing I can think of that is protected by Patent AND Copyright laws. Try patenting a dictionary.
Please be advised that I have recently patented the process known as 'Referrals', whereas if you either pay or receive income for any sort of referral (Getting a new client, contract, job, etc), that you are violating my patent, and you must CEASE AND DESIST from any and all referral activities until a licensing agreement has been secured.
Come on! The above paragraph sounds absolutely ludicrous. How can the patent office sink to such low depths as to approve such common sense patents? This is not a product, nor is it new technology. It is a method of doing business (and a commonly used on at that). Whats next? Are they going to patent the process of marking up the price of the retail product?
Hmmmmmm. Theres an idea. The process of dynamically pricing the product based on the real time wholesale value of the product. Hmmmmmm.
Gotta go. I need to call my.... mother. Ya, thats it. I have to call my mom.
JB
Feed The Need[goatse.cx]
The fact of the matter is that there has never been a left-wing, non-conservative, non-Christian government or institution that has produced favorable results. All of these experiments have turned out to be complete and total failures. Linux may look attractive now, but that's only for now. It will eventually crumble just as the rest of this world's Communist institutions have. You can either get off the train gently now, or be thrown from it when it barrels into the brick wall of freedom.
Well maybe not left wing but non-Conservitive and non-Christian governments have done alot. Although I highly doubt Linux is the same as a government. As long as there are programmers and people willing to learn Linux wont die. UNIX based systems have been arround since the 70's (IIRC) if it's lasted 30 years sofar in a world where every 5 years things become obsolete is a testament to how good and long lasting it is.
my point is that patnets are rewarding busisness men for choking off innovation to controll markets. Hardly the incentive to innovate that justifys their existence.
parhaps so, perhaps buyer beware would be best. but a common argument that favors patents is that pharmacuticals have no incentive to do R and D without them. My point challenges this benefit.
but you can't deny that this problem would have been avioded from the start without patents at all.
one example is that I work for an extremely large technology/consumer products company. but contrary to popular belief they are not a technology company. they buy up smaller companies, suck off the patents, and put the screws to all the other consumer products companies and all the other innovators in the valley. in addition, you arrogantly overlook the dark side of patents - eg. someone comes up a safety device and not only locks out the next guy who would have discovered it independently next month, but also locks out his competitors (perhaps auto makers) so that people who use their products for the next 20 years have a higher chance of dying than people who don't. Also consider a pharmacutical company that considersing researching a simple safe cure that it can't patent or a dangerous concoction with lots of side effects that it can. Finally, any idiot who looks into it would realize that people were inventing stuff at a steady pace of inprovement long before patents came along. inventions are derived to meet needs, not to secure monopolies. PS did you know that freon became environmentally illegal to use on the same month that DOWs patent exipred, and the only close replacement of which there is no reason believe is safer is also patented by DOW and hasn't exipred yet??
america is successfull, because of individual liberties being upheld, not because of patents. your argument reminds me of the 1850's argument that americas greatness was founded on slavery. but it wasn't.
did it ever occur to you that before democracy, the government owned all inventions so things like patents were a moot point. But now that there is an acknowledgemnet of liberty our society has to learn what is property rights and what is not, what is a basic right and what is not. we learn't the hard way with slavery and today it looks like were going to learn the hard way again with patents. there just not a basic right, or a property, they are a government granted monopoly designed to be an incentive - but doubtfully are as innovation has been increasing at a steady rate with and with out patents.
Mattel must be spending a fortune in lawyers for going after me and Barbie Benson's Sin Circus and going after a college kid for posting a Barbie Joke
Fight Spammers!
I posted my comment on Tim O'Reilly's An Open Letter to Jeff Bezos page and within an hour, nearly 200 new responses were posted on top of mine. If this rate keeps up, I think it will go a long way to convincing Amazon that they are headed down the wrong track. If we succeed in changing Amazon's course on these patents, it might set a precedent that will keep other companies from patenting the Internet to death. Tell everyone you know to go to this site and add their name to the list to keep up the momentum!
A quick hop over to the SlashDot book reviews reveals something interesting: "The books here are brought to us in Partnership with Amazon.com. If you follow the links around here, and eventually buy a book, we get a percentage of the cost!"
I question just how effective the "boycott" is. Some commentaries seem awfully positive, but I'm a sceptic. Heck, the majority of people don't even know there's reason to boycott let alone that a boycott's taking place. And of those that do, few seem committed.
A quick survey of the books reviewed shows most of them available from ThinkGeek or FatBrain, but even on SlashDot, Amazon gets more real estate on the page.
I'm boycotting. But if we hope to get anywhere, we'll have to evangelize. Explain to your family, friends, neighbors, coworkers--anyone that uses Amazon--why they should boycott. Then let them decide for themselves.
I see today (1 March) that ZD Net has an article on the Amazon patent issue now. Interestingly enough the NASDAQ closed up 87.390 at a new record close (yawn). Amazon.com closed at 65&7/8, down 3 points. Think those thousands of people that signed the petition had anything to do with it? :-) I don't think Amazon is getting the kind of publicity it wants just now. It will have to explain to its stockholders why it is losing thousands of customers. The best way to hurt a business is in the pocketbook. Think of all the people that cancelled orders. Maybe Amazon will change its mind. :-)
"Open code, in other words, can be a check on state power." -Lawrence Lessig
For many large, publicly-traded companies, the majority of shareholders are large institutions (e.g. mutual funds, pension funds, etc). If you want to get something voted on at a shareholder meeting, convince the biggest institutions and you're more likely to win. This means you only have to convince a few people of "the right thing".
3M, for example, is 70% owned by institutions. State Street & Merrill Lynch own pretty big chunks of that. See Yahoo to see what I mean.
The Daily Build
But the discussion was specifically about patents on software. The GPL does not rely on software patents. Some people are opposed to all IP law. I'm certainly not.
Using system memory to store instructions, linked data structures, interpreters, assemblers, compilers- all of these are far less obvious than 1-click. Let alone Quicksort. If these kinds of patents had been sought and granted there wouldn't have been any use in a GPL- you wouldn't be able to write software at all without paying licensing fees.
This is one of the dangers of abuses like Amazon's. Patent protection is important, and frivolous patents muddy the water, and could eventually lead to a weakening of legitimate IP law.
That wouldn't really do any good, what insanely stupid thing did they do? Amazon is the bad guy here so don't you think it would be better to write an e-mail (and encourage others) to linux.com's staff and encourage them to join the boycott and change vendors? In fact if you do feel that strongly about it, write all your favorite sites who are Amazon affiliates and ask them to join the boycott by switching their affiliate programs too. =) The somewhat wise and ever humble,
Ranger X
OReilley could just withdraw all its books from Amazon in protest, it has that power. It is not "Well its not on Amazon so I won't buy it." it is more like "O'Reilley books are somewhere else, so I will buy it there." Amazon is being really stupid, it needs a damn lesson. The technology was there, they didn't invent anything. I'm guessing O'Reilley probably has a commitment to its investors or something, if not it should take the step and tell Amazon what it really thinks.
What if Yahoo patented the portal, or something really stupid like that? What I would really like to be done to Amazon is the same thing they have done to the Web.
One click shopping isn't that good an idea though(which is probably why no one was doing it), the shopping cart metaphor seems to work ok.
I don't know, the idea of one-click shopping seems so insecure. Remember a while ago, people wouldn't trust the Internet with the smallest things? It was thought that small transactions, like lower than $50 would be used in eWallets or somesuch would rule the day. Why did people suddenly start trusting the Internet so much? I mean, the same level of crypto existed back then?
Amazon is using the excuse that "Oh since no one did it before, we must have invented it." No, it is just that people wouldn't trust it at the time, and no one had a reason to impement it. Would someone explain to me why people should trust it???
Hmm don't eWallets qualify as prior art for Amazon's thing?
We need a blacklist of these stupid patent companies. Amazon, Unisys. They should be advertised as the bloodsuckers they are.
nah, i don't hate anybody for being successful. as for me, no, i never worshipped amazon. they used to provide me with a nice service, and they were winning the war fairly. now, with the 1-click thing, it seems like they're resorting to cheating even though they were winning. It's low, and, well, I vote with my wallet.
Amazon.com is in the same category as Wal-mart, Borders, BN and Starbucks. They've managed to become very successful, but along the way have done things which make me quite willing to avoid using their services. I doubt they even notice my absence, but I get to know that I'm not knowingly financing actions which I don't agree with.
I have absolutely no problem with success, as long as you play fair and don't intentionally cause injuries.
----------------------------
If I am not mistaken, your idea of placing conditions on people's freedom to enter into this license agreement with open source software is completely contrary to the spirit of the thing and specifically clashes with the GPL. I certainly will never support it, no matter how intensely I oppose corporations wielding software patents. It's almost as bad as the idea of building an 'open source patent portfolio' and then acting just like the corporations, to teach them a lesson! no no no ;P
As a corporate entity they are _compelled_ to behave like this, in all seriousness, with no concern for whether it is fair, valid or even sensible. They are _one_ 'reality check' away from a major collapse of their valuation- which could really blow up in their faces. Everything depends on the world continuing to think 'Amazon will stomp all other online booksellers! Jeff Bezos is man of the year!'. The second that no longer makes sense to, say, Wall Street, the reality takes hold- the reality is that they've had a _lot_ of trouble getting anywhere close to turning a profit.
They _are_ serious, they are playing the patents as a game, and they will continue to abuse the system until they crash and burn, because that is basically all they have- that and brand name loyalty, which is being eroded by their actions. They might have nasty contracts for affiliates (has anyone asked CmdrTaco if he's legally allowed to _pull_ the links to Amazon? Or did he sign off on a contract mandating them for X amount of time?). But mostly they have a stock valuation that's keeping them going. If that fails and the perception is that they've stumbled and no longer dominate, they have very serious trouble.
I'd want to see the contract. I see no reason to assume O'Reilly is free to cut its ties to Amazon just because it wants to. I see every reason to ask whether Amazon affiliates are required to maintain the link/connection to Amazon for X amount of time if they want to get a percentage of the Amazon sales. Unfortunately, there is also the possibility of a 'You do not talk about Amazon contracts!' clause.
The equivalent in patent terms is not a patent. It is the publication in a unarguably conspicuous place of the relevant ideas, in such a way that patent examiners can get access to and search for the ideas. Like the GPL, it impedes your ability to force people to pay for your idea (implementation is still fair game). Also like the GPL, it penalizes nobody and focusses on one key point: anyone can do anything with an established public domain idea _except_ patent it and restrict other people from using it.
The missing piece is this: we have no way of publishing any such ideas anywhere that will stand up in court as public domain. I feel strongly that just putting stuff on your website will not do- the patent examiners will not grovel through a million websites, and the whole point of the exercise is to make it possible to _block_ the blind granting of patents on things. There is a way to formally announce things as PD, but it costs money (much less than a patent) and is not a forum for sharing the ideas with a broad public. I've said before and I'll keep saying: we need a formal website for 'outing' ideas and inventions of all kinds, a centralised 'bazaar for inventions' that can be easily searched by patent examiners, individuals and corporations alike. The latter group is important: even if the patent examiners aren't on the ball, if you get two corporations grabbing a public domain idea, each one will bitterly deny the other's right to patent the idea- and the individuals and actual inventors won't have to concern themselves with that aspect. End result is that the idea stays public domain as intended.
Is anybody ever going to help put together such a site? I am getting desperate. The possibilities are great: even in the case of preexisting patents, it is often possible to come up with an invention of narrow focus that does not infringe on the patent. Such work done for an effective public domain resource would be able to rapidly propagate such workarounds to the public and to industry, quickly reducing the usefulness of existing patents unless they are genuinely brilliant inventions. But there has to be the site, it's useless to just have a bunch of random people putting stuff on their web pages...
I'm pretty sure there was a "back" button on NCSA Mosaic, before Spyglass existed.
Now, if CERN had patented HTTP...
--
Perhaps what is needed is another (yikes, did I just say that?) open source license. One with a specific clause restricting use of the software by companies that choose to hold software patents.
Amazon hosts using Stronghold/Apache. I bet they use gobs of other free software, and they give back to the community by filing for software patents?
If people really want to make a statement about their beliefs that software patents are bad, add a clause to your open source software specifically removing the rights for any corporation or individual holding software patents from use of your software without express written permission.
Feb 29 00:46:54 doma sendmail[23503]: AAA23503: from=, size=19449 , class=0, pri=49449, nrcpts=1, msgid=, proto=SMTP, relay=mattyt@localhost [127.0.0.1]
Feb 29 00:46:55 doma sendmail[23505]: AAA23503: to=, delay=00: 00:01, xdelay=00:00:01, mailer=smtp, relay=mail.oz.net. [216.39.128.2], stat=Sen t (AAA13184 Message accepted for delivery)
I didn't see it anywhere yet (I searched this entire thread and all of the above links for 'bezos'). I cut and pasted the letter into an email, with a few brief comments of my own. Maybe if he gets several thousand 20K emails from people, all of whom are very net-connected, who are saying they won't shop at his store until he rescinds the 2 patents, he'll think twice. Just a suggestion....
I'm amazed this post has a score 4, considering it seems to have even less fact checking than your average /. story.
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Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
Uh, I followed your link and got:
Guys, pretty please cut your ties with Amazon? Or just take your links to Amazon and put in place a message saying why you should boycott Amazon until Bezos drops this stupid lawsuit? It's the right thing to do...even if it's a pain in the ass to code. Thanks.
Finding God in a Dog
I think the problem is that "stopping sales to amazon" won't change anything. It doesn't "convince" Amazon to change their ways. Amazon doesn't "need" O'Reilly (in the sense of buying their books directly from ORA). Amazon feels no pain or loss if they get the titles from ORA direct or via the distributor. (I also am not sure what percentage of the books already come from the distributors... it could be that the percentage of books that come direct from ORA is small-to-non-existent.)
The basic idea is that whenever a patent is issued, it should be put up for auction. When the auction is over, flip a coin. Heads: the highest bidder buys the patent. Tails: the government buys the patent and puts it in the public domain.
This would benefit society through wider use of patented technology, while still letting people who sponsor patentable innovations get rewarded. If the auctions price the patents fairly, the benefits to consumers through having better and cheaper products will outweigh the taxes they have to pay to get the government to buy the patents.
--
"But, Mulder, the new millennium doesn't begin until January 2001."
send all spam to theotherwhitemeat@ropine.com
I agree with the posts that have pointed out that O'Reilly hasn't put his money where his mouth is, yet. He's taken a stance which I respect, and done it in a way I respect, but he really hasn't made much of an economic move. I wish he would, and there's good arguments for doing so floating around this discussion.
What I'm curious about is why he doesn't seem to think others should put their money where their mouth is. In his letter to Jeff Bezos, he states "I agree with [Stallman's] message, although not his methods." This implies to me that he's against the idea of a boycott, and I can't figure out for the life of me why.
Could you elaborate, Tim?
Tweet, tweet.
My favorite physical bookstore has a presence online, along with plenty of other independent bookstores:
All of these are smaller, independent bookstores that aren't huge conglomerates (or Internet behemoths,) and are very good alternatives to the conventional. This list has a good selection of online bookstores, including the ones listed above.
Or, there's always the old fasioned way. Walk to your local used bookstore. I guarantee that there is one in your town, and you might just find something worth reading.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
Just add this line to /etc/hosts...
:)
216.92.118.211 www.amazon.com
Action is easy when the alternatives always
present themselves.
j. scott olsson
I just tried to reach Book Stacks at www.books.com, and it now appears to be simply Barnes & Noble. Does anyone know a working URL?
FWIW, while Amazon.com is abusing the patent system, B&N does not exactly wear a white hat. It has been B&N who have most agressively, in the brick-and-mortar market, been squeezing out independant bookstores. Support your local independant booksellers!
Expect to hear from my client shortly regarding further legal action.
_________________
rooooar
The internet is what it is today because people DID NOT file patents for the many unique technolgies/techniques used. IT's a damn good think nobody patented the 'internet provider business model'. Believe me, they could have. What Tim says is good, and well put... that Amazon should not force their 1-click issue, as it goes against the spirit of all the technologies that enabled amazon to do their thing in the first place.
Well, I would be a whole lot more impressed if Tim had actually advocated the Amazon boycott. As it is, his actions are not likely to affect his own bottom line, and so it's not really putting his money anywhere. Not where his mouth is nor anywhere else. Jeff is not going to stop selling O'Reilly books because of Tim's letter, and not a single O'Reilly book will go unsold.
While I do admire Tim's decision to speak out - it's way more than any other industry leader has done, and I do believe utterly that he speaks from his heart and not from any profit motive, the net effect on the profits of his company will probably be very positive.
Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation
Information is not Knowledge
I disagree with using the GPL with patents because the GPL was designed to encourge the freedom of information. Doing something like this doesn't do that - it forces authors to use the GPL which isn't helpful.
While I do like the GPL, I think most people will agree that it is a pretty.. aggressive.. open source licence. That's okay - it's designed to be like that. But in some cases, it makes it difficult to work with.
For instance - say the Amazon One-Click shopping patent had been GPL-licenced. Apache couldn't use it (Apache Licence), Zope couldn't use it, I don't think any Java webservers could use it (because of the Java libraries) - when I say "use it" I mean have it linked into something like an Apache Module. Oh yeah - PHP couldn't use it either, if it linked to any of the many non-GPL PHP classes.
SO to produce software that can use that patent, you'd have to write and maintain a GPL'ed Webserver (if you want to implement it in there for performance reasons), some kind of web development system - no CSPAN-Perl, remember, and then finally implement your program - all the while paying lawyer to stop people using your system on the web.
I guess it could be useful for a company to GPL-licence a Patent, and then sell exemptions to that licence (like the Reiser-FS). Actully, that could work pretty well.... I should go an patent it before Amazon does.
I'm not a anti-GPL person, BTW. I like the GPL a lot more than a BSD licence, but this isn't what it was designed for.
This is my first post with Mozilla M13 Linux - I hope it works! - Woah.. the screens all black in the preview.. but no crash yet...
This isn't a good idea. I've seen a couple of posts recently suggesting this idea - patenting things and then licenceing them only to GPL'ed software.
I disagree with this for a couple of reasons. Firstly, who is going to pay the legal costs of enforcing it?
Secondly, and more importantly it put limitations on the freedom of use of ideas. While it can be argued that the GPL does the same thing - it doesn't really. It only puts limitations on the implementation of those ideas. Someone if free to re-implement something written as GPL software, provided they don't use any of the source.
I'm somewhat unsure as to how I stand on softwear patents. While I feel I should say that all software patens should be abolished, I do see that they do have something of a point.
My personal idea is that the length that software patents are valid for should be radically shortened - to something like 1 year. I do understand that doing that might create something of a disincentive for some really hard-code patents - and those are the things that I can see a good reason to protect.
I mean if someone thought up an algorithm to compress audio by an order of magnitude more than MP3s - they should have some protection and a chance to make some money out of it, I think.
How long are patents valid for at the moment, anyway?
Go to the main page. Down the right side you'll see a few boxes with headers of Features, Science, Slashdot Poll, Older Stuff, and finally Book Reviews. At the bottom of the book reviews box there is a link to the Book Reviews section. Go there and then you will see the very text that I included in my post. Boo.
The text I'm referring to is in a box called "Amazon Info" right at the top of the book reviews home.
Tim O'Reilly is clearly jealous of Amazon's market-leading dominance in the field of losing money, while O'Reilly Associates stubbornly insists on remaining in the black. The intellectual effect of his argument is simply too powerful to be plausible.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
C&C is the highest standard of proof for a civil action in the United States.
While the standards are certainly different, and BRD is probably tougher, there is no meaningful practical difference. At the end of the day, the jury couldn't care less what the label is -- this is what the judge will tell them (in an 11th Circuit Patent case -- mileage may vary):
Take any six people off the street (jury pools are scary-dull generally; and any smart ones will be excluded), make them listen to mind-numbing testimony for two weeks, three hours of jury instructions (and the instructions on invalidity are both complex and dull), let them hear an expert on both sides who seem equally intelligent, show them a ribboned deed from the USPTO, and I can assure you what the result is likely to be.
As for Amazon's chances of winning, I hereby volunteer to take the stand and testify to my uses of cookies in Web programming before 1997. I'll give the jury some clear and convincing evidence, all right. They won't be confused.
Good Luck! Naive statements such as the one set above, even as far more articulately put on behalf of B&N, couldn't convince the judge -- why would it convince any jury?
Such evidence wouldn't, by itself, even be relevant to invalidate the patent in suit, which is not directed to a cookie. Moreover, "before 1997" would not suffice to invalidate the patent in suit -- indeed such vagaries is precisely the stuff that creates doubt sufficient to defeat the standard. Testimony, without documentary evidence, is usually insufficient to meet the standard.
The heat here is not in the use of cookies, generally, but in a particular and limited use of a cookie.
Amazon's patent assertions are worthless.
Maybe they are -- I'd like to think so. But certainly nothing posted so far on Slashdot suffices to show that this is the case, even by a preponderance of the evidence, let alone C&C. Moreover, nothing brought before the Judge at the preliminary injunction hearing convinced the Court that such a claim would have any merit whatsoever.
So, here it is -- same challenge I posted earlier. Find MEANINGFUL prior art, and post its citation to the web -- or send it to B&N. Otherwise, I'd advise being somewhat more circumspect about making arrogant and extravagant claims. Amazon, at least, has a case. Denying this, without more, would be futile.
Hindsight is 20/20 eh? hehehehe...
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PanDuh!
All I'd like to know is- who gives Mr. Bezos the right to patent the "One-Click" shopping that Amazon uses so much? Is he not satisfied with the billions of dollars that he's already currently worth? Does he feel that he has to do it for the shareholders, or is he just greedy? Just a couple of things that I think we should all think about....
That... and really, is one-click shopping really what it is? I mean, don't you have to make at least a few clicks anyway (choose a novel, type in your name/credit card number [at least the first time] and then follow that by the confirmation, choosing the shipping....)? Is it really One-Click, and is it even revolutionary?
-Chris
Ha! your halfclick shopping is obviously inferior to my 'no-click shopping'. If your pointer as much as touches a product, you bought it. onmouseover.. 'nuff said.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
I would have to agree. I probably deserved my
:-P
first post in this thread to be moderated down.
(although I was just trying to make sure that the
letter could be read by everyone.)
But moderating down the post where I admit my
mistate was kind of pathetic.
Oh well perhaps the slashdot guys will read this
thread and it will give them some insight as to the problems with the current moderation system.
Moderators:
Feel free to moderate this as you wish
AdFuel
From now on in, B&N must prove invalidity to a jury by clear and convincing evidence, which is the civil law equivalent of "beyond a reasonable doubt."
"Clear and convincing evidence" is a weaker standard in the courts than "beyond reasonable doubt".
As for Amazon's chances of winning, I hereby volunteer to take the stand and testify to my uses of cookies in Web programming before 1997. I'll give the jury some clear and convincing evidence, all right. They won't be confused. And just about every other programmer I know who was working before 1997 can do the same thing.
Amazon's patent assertions are worthless.
Always keep a sapphire in your mind
Switzerland once had no less than Albert Einstein working in its patent office. While he was there, he came up with the theory of relativity in his spare time!
What have we come to?
Always keep a sapphire in your mind
Why doesn't Rob and friends put their money where their mouth is? Literally.
Rob, the poster is right about this. You've assured us that Slashdot would remain true to its principles, despite becoming a business. Here's a good opportunity for you to prove it. Breaking off your relationship with Amazon may cost a few dollars, but if Amazon prevails, it may cost you and Andover.net and all of the rest of us a lot more in the long run.
Tim O'Reilly has risked some trouble for his business by taking up a public fight with one of his biggest customers; but it will be worth it for him to stand on principle. Will Slashdot be willing to do the same thing?
Always keep a sapphire in your mind
They patented the fundamental technique of audio coding. (The equivalent of JPEG for audio; perform a frequency transform (DCT), quantize, entropy encode.) And just as JPEG was revolutionary when it came out, so has MP3 been; lightyears ahead of any other competeing format.
MP3 is the same way, well, except, that they didn't actually release anything useful on their patent. The black-magic that they managed to produce is their MP3 codec, but you won't find that on any patent application. they made it trade-secret. It deserves a patent, if anything does.
This is sorta like 3dfx patenting the idea of using a hardware-accelerated 3d graphics card to speed up games, then keeping all of the research and tricks they use in their implementation a trade secret.
So, we get the WORST of both worlds. They don't disclose their 'real' invention, and yet they are granted a patent that stops anyone else in their business from functioning. Full disclosure? HAH!
Bad companies can do good things every now and again, just as good companies can do stupid things.
Amazon isn't condemned for being huge. It's condemned because it's huge and abuses its size when making bonehead market-narrowing moves like this. Yes, geeks have bought from Amazon a lot in the past. That doesn't make the One-Click patent any less wrong.
Or, better yet, check out Best Book Buys, and you'll find that Amazon's nearly always last.
That would be interesting if it could be put up for a vote and be done (the first I've heard of such a move by a company). I remember some companies have taken similar action in the past due to another companies poor environmental practices, or involvement with countries with human rights violations (i.e. South Africa).
It is a pretty tough sell to shareholders when it comes to the one click patent. Sadly, unlike the one click patent the companies had some risk of boycott themselves due to their dealings with other companies with other violations. Also explaining why environmental damage and human rights violations are bad is a pretty simple task to explain to shareholders compared to the one click patent.
Most of them I'm sure are not aware of the patent issue (and I'm sure some who are wish they would have thought of it). Saying "Lets not ship to a big name (granted money losing) company so we can gain respect" is a hard sell to make. Granted you wouldn't say it that way but I think that's how your large share holders may hear it. It would be nice if they would go for it, but it could backfire and get ugly. Even just the attempt might rattle shareholders enough to lose their confidence in whomever proposes the idea or the entire company.
IMHO
Hmm.. I've gotten good service from them so far, though I have only ordered from them four or five times. (I'm blessed with a B&M geek haven a half block away!). I even ended up sending back one book because their abstract was woefully incorrect. They happily credited my card, altered the abstract to correct the mistakes, and it only took a single ten minute call. The level of service I recieved from Amazon usually consisted of 'phone-tag' and 'I'll have to talk to xxx'. BN treated me about as well as Amazon when I returned a damaged copy of 'Perl Cookbook' to them.
Please, if you have continuing trouble with Fatbrain, let me know. (Yes, that is a real un-spam protected email address) I tend to purchase books in $300 increments online, and when I need them I need them. I'd hate to either got caught by a unreliable company or support the bad habits of such a company.
.sig: Now legally binding!
I recall a week-long strip of Berkley Breathed's Bloom County cartoon, where Opus the Penguin got addicted to a virtual reality home shopping network. He found that if he just points at an item he sees in the unwieldy goggles, it's ordered and delivered. "I think I just bought a forklift."
I wish I had a copy of it to scan, but it's in one of the anthologies, I'm sure.
Given that Bloom County stopped running before Bezos conceived of Amazon.com, and given that the patent on the waterbed was denied due to Robert Heinlein's depictions in novels, may we not consider this a form of prior art?
[
Well, I'm glad I was wrong!
There's no reason for a sig here.
It occurs to me that we are dealing with a range of expression problem. In copyright law, your right to assert copyright over a work decreases as the number of ways to express an idea decreases. That is, if there are only a small number of ways to describe something, you can't assert copyright over one of those ways. It seems that the patent office doesn't make the same distinctions. There is very little argument that these patents represent new or inobvious thinking.
Personally, I think the only way this is going to be solved is if the rest of the patent offices in the world (outside the US) summarily decide to ignore US patents in the software arena. The US office has demonstrated its complete ignorance and inability to handle this area, and is doing tremendous damage, to the detriment of individual inventors and small companies everywhere.
United States Patent 5,715,399
Bezos February 3, 1998
Secure method and system for communicating a list of credit card numbers over a non-secure network Abstract A method and system for securely indicating to a customer one or more credit card numbers that a merchant has on file for the customer when communicating with the customer over a non-secure network. The merchant sends a message to the customer that contains only a portion of each of the credit card numbers that are on file with the merchant. The message may also contain a notation explaining which portion of each of the credit card numbers has been extracted. A computer (38) retrieves the credit card numbers on file for the customer in a database (40), constructs the message, and transits the message to a customer location (10) over the Internet network (30) or other non-secure network. The customer can then confirm in a return message that a specific one of the credit card numbers on file with the merchant should be used in charging a transaction. Since only a portion of the credit card number(s) are included in any message transmitted, a third party cannot discover the customer's complete credit card number(s). United States Patent 5,727,163 Bezos March 10, 1998
Secure method for communicating credit card data when placing an order on a non-secure network
Abstract
A method and system for placing an order charged to a credit card, over an unsecured network. The customer completing an order for goods or services enters information required for the order, such as the shipping and billing addresses and identification of the goods, but enters only a subset of the credit card account number to which the order is to be charged. The order is transmitted over the Internet or other network to a remote merchant location (32) from a customer's location (10). A computer (38) at the remote merchant location processes the order to extract the data provided by the customer for storage in a database (40). During a subsequent telephone call to the remote merchant location, the customer enters the complete credit card number, preferably on a touch-tone keypad (28). The touch-tone signals are processed by an automated attendant system (44) for input of the complete credit card number into the computer. Using the portion of the complete credit card number that corresponds to the subset entered by the customer on the order form, the computer identifies the order previously placed and inserts the complete credit card number in the order data stored on the database to finalize the order.
United States Patent 5,960,411 Hartman , et al. September 28, 1999
Method and system for placing a purchase order via a communications network
Abstract
A method and system for placing an order to purchase an item via the Internet. The order is placed by a purchaser at a client system and received by a server system. The server system receives purchaser information including identification of the purchaser, payment information, and shipment information from the client system. The server system then assigns a client identifier to the client system and associates the assigned client identifier with the received purchaser information. The server system sends to the client system the assigned client identifier and an HTML document identifying the item and including an order button. The client system receives and stores the assigned client identifier and receives and displays the HTML document. In response to the selection of the order button, the client system sends to the server system a request to purchase the identified item. The server system receives the request and combines the purchaser information associated with the client identifier of the client system to generate an order to purchase the item in accordance with the billing and shipment information whereby the purchaser effects the ordering of the product by selection of the order button. United States Patent 5,999,924 Bair , et al. December 7, 1999
Method and apparatus for producing sequenced queries
Abstract
A method and apparatus converts an original query into a sequenced query that takes into account a range of values of a variable defined by a start and end point in performing the query. The start or end points are calculated if necessary and a query to collect all of the start and end points may be generated, and a query is generated that produces a constant set of start and end points defining consecutive periods, such that all the data in the tables related to the original query is constant over each of these periods. These two queries are merged into the original query to produce a sequenced query capable of execution on various database software and capable of taking into account the range of values of the variable in performing the original query.
I only wish that someone had patented HTTP, GPLed it, and then refused to let Amazon play, effectively kicking them out of the sandbox.
You do realize that this is completely against the letter and the spirit of the GPL, do you?
One of his points was that we should all put our ideas on the web and let them be linked to
The problem with that idea is that it's still far too easy for someone like Amazon to see a useful non-patent like that, then gain their own US patent on it. The original owner now has to face not only a usurper using a patent that's morally theirs, but may even have to defend their right to access their own work.
Could you fight a patent battle with Amazon ? I couldn't...
Yes, I know this isn't how the patent system should work. Given some of the idiotic, obvious and non-original patents granted by the USPTO recently, then I doubt if thie own searches to extablish originality could extend as far as using Google. Publication, outside a paper journal, is just no longer a workable defence against false claims of originality.
such lawsuits are, however, more rare because the number of such shareholders is much smaller and because they have less information about what goes on inside the company.
There is no need for an Amazon boycott: if O'Reilly put his money where is mouth is, he'd GPL the the content of the books and we could then download them instead of buying them from Amazon.
sorry, my statement was meant to read as, "if I were not buying books from Amazon, but were downloading them instead, my Amazon boycott would be moot. (like my Microsoft boycott is: I run linux :)
Your other points/questions are interesting, but I'm too exhausted to take them up. Another day, though...
"What saddens me is what they'll accomplish. Humorously enough, it's what a majority of Slashdot seems to want, the abolishment of the patent system."
First of all, I really hope that's not what the majority of /.ers want, because the patent system (when it works) is a good and necessary thing.
Secondly, I don't see this causing anything more than a well-justified revamping (read: shake-up) of the whole patent system. Somehow it's fallen apart at the seams, and too seldom does what it was put in place for: To give originators the incentive and protection to release their ideas to the world.
But even in all the hype, the entire world of computing isn't big enough to destroy the patent system. If we're lucky, maybe it's just big enough to fix it.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Amazon have ignored my phone calls and solicitors letters for months over my attempts to receive due payment for my patented 'Two Eye (tm)' technology, the quickest way to get information from a monitor to the human brain.
And now they go and pull a stunt like this!!! I'm absolutely livid. All I'm asking for is one dollar per page that is displayed and transferred using 'Two Eye (tm)'.
Find funky gifts
Patents were historically introduced to encourage inventors to share their works rather than hide them in the back shed, and so promote the works of innovation and a technological society. As the pace of technology increases, this becomes less important, and in fact allows organisations to strangle access to particular technologies, stifling innovation. The length of patents should be modified accordingly and automatically.
I don't see the people at the patent office getting a clue about innovation anytime soon. The incremental stripping away and smoothing of features is very much a part of technological improvement. Also, massive innovations are sometimes recognised only in retrospect. Determining the difference between genuine innovation and technological "smoothing" leaves the patent office open to all sorts of problems with inconsistency.
Length of patents could be determined by some constant divided by the number of patents issued to all organisations over the previous year (not from Jan, from the date of submission). Alternatively some more sophisticated exponential based formula could be used. This would give a boost to innovators in slow periods and the acceptance of lots of spurious patents would quite appreciably devalue the value of other patents submitted.
It kind of "floats" patent duration like currencies are floated. Maybe you could extend the concept and have some kind of patent market, I'm not sure. I'm not sure whether you'd want it.
And no, this isn't intended as a troll.
So far I haven't seen anyone give a single example of prior art. The best argument that anyone has made is that it was an obvious use of the existing technology (ie cookies). By cookies had been out for a year or two before Amazon started offering 1-click shopping. In HINDSIGHT this is an obvious invention. Given that it so obviously IS a benefit to the customers and that Amazon did have lots of intelligent people trying to make the customer experience better, why would it take them over a year to impliment this "obvious" invention. Because perhaps it isn't "obvious" until you've seen it. I think that 1-click shopping DOES meet the USPTO's definitions for patentability.
Now they could still have it disallowed if someone can prove prior art. One thing to note here is that you don't need to prove art prior to the June 1997 filing date, you need to prove art prior to the July 1996 date taht Amazon made the technology public. Even citing the fact that it was in widespread use as of the date they filed the patent is meaningless if no one else had publically used it before they did (as long as those two dates are less then a year apart which they were).
I've seen people cite prior art on the associates/affiliates program patent but I haven't seen anyone cite a specific dated example of prior use of 1-click ordering. If people DO have hard data of a use before July 1996 THAT would be a reason for the patent to be invalidated, but this was NOT an obvious invention and shouldn't be disallowed as one.
Again, I'm not trying to troll here, I think that this is an important point that gets overlooked constantly in these discussions. All that said I don't think Amazon SHOULD defend the patent, but to me it looks like they have the RIGHT to.
-Brad
Grr. I hate this HTML formatted thing. Sorry for the repost.
> I have struggled with this issue since RMS first
> approached me to sign on to his campaign.
> I've declined to urge a boycott
I'm always amazed how RMS is straight on target. The FSFS calls for a boycott of amazon. Everybody laught: "I won't last", "It is stupid", "Nobody cares". But RMS don't mind. And things are slowly moving.
Tim clearly admit that he wouldn't move if RMS didn't boycott.
Few people remember, but the FSF boycotted apple for years. It was not allowed (by the license) to port GNU software on the macintosh. And now, Apple is (more or less) open-sourcing Darwin, the OS behind MOSX. There may be a correlation between those facts or there may not.
> I'm not completely opposed to software patents,
> since there are some things that do in fact
> qualify as legitimate "inventions", but when I
> see people patenting obvious ideas, ideas that
> are already in wide use, it makes my blood boil.
Well, looks like his blood take some time to boil. And need a little help to do so. (he admited that he waited for rms to start to struggle)
> [The patent] is a slap in the face of Tim
> Berners-Lee
Slippery argument. Would things be better is amazon gave a large amount of money to tbl ? Or isn't the simple fact that people are making much money with the web is a 'slap' on his face ?
> Fence in that platform, and who knows what
> opportunities will never come to light?
This is exactly what amazon wants. They have brand recognition. They have market share. Now they need to lock the thing and start making money.
> I urge Amazon to give up on this patent.
Sure. But the other amazon patents are good. He admited a few line before, that he is a 'not completely opposed' (which means that he is okay with the concept). I must congratulate him to stand on such strong position. And sure, he doesn't support the boycott. Mmm.
Summary (with a childish voice):
"Oh, amazon, it is not fair to all those nice people that give me thier money. My friend rms is upset. I love you as you sell many of my books, but this is a little too much. I'd like to publically ask you to recognize that it is not good and to promise me you won't do it again (but well, you do as you want anyway)."
Cheers,
--fred
1 reply beneath your current threshold.
Thank you for your post. "Javascript: The definitive guide" by O'Reilly: Amazon: $31.96 Bookpool: $24.95 Barnes&Noble: $21.96 This applies to lots of technical books that I'm interested in. Why would I buy it from Amazon?
I use www.addall.com to search for the cheapest price on a book and usually Amazon isn't on the top for best prices. This site, when give the book information and postal code, will sort the listings by price including shipping.
Personally, I think he made it very clear how he felt when I read the phrase 'pissing in the well' in his personal e-mail to Monsieur Bezos.
... on piles of money, with hundreds of naked women.
I'm glad to see Tim come out and publicly comment on this 1-click patent.
I just did a few quick lookups on Quicken, and it would appear that so far my boycott of amazon has cost them a touch over $7k. Unfortunately the boycott is bound to fail since we can only help them lose more money, which is evidentally pinnacle to their business plan.
How does Jeff Bezos sleep at night?
----------------------------
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Wish that it was, though. :)
Why doesn't Rob and friends put their money where their mouth is? Literally.
How could the open-source community retaliate? They probably can't do this, since it just doesn't fit the philosophy, but it's fun to imagine modifying the open source licenses so that they specifically forbid Amazon from using the software. Take your favorite license and consider adding the following article:
Oh, all right, we can't do that. But it would serve 'em, right, wouldn't it?
Always keep a sapphire in your mind
Nope..
MP3 is only specced as a bitstream, (and implicitly, a decoder to decode it). ISO does not spec how one does the encoding to that bitstream... That ISO working group does require that there be a reference implementation, it says nothing about the quality and sophistication of that reference implementation; it just has to work and create valid bitstreams.
Compare this with MPEG[12]; The reference MPEG encoder does work, but it doesn't do the black-magic things that commercial encoders costing thousands of dollars will do as far as high-quality encoding at low bitrates.
Similarily, a lamish coder like 8hz and the other freeware encoders are based off the reference encoder, and likewise aren't very sophisticated. The fraunhofer encoder is black magic and proprietary, and I would have no problems with them patenting it. (As patenting would lead to disclosure of how they accomplish their black-magic.)
Instead, they patented a variety of relatively obvious techniques that ANY encoder would use.. This way they get to kill competetion and still keep their coder trade secret. This is why I dislike their patent; for this abuse. They get the best of both worlds; they don't have to disclose anything non-obvious, and they still get a government-granted monopoly on MP3 coding.
Had they patented their encoder, I would be gloriously happy. The tricks used in their encoder would be disclosed to the world, and likely it could or would be improved upon to make it faster or higher quality. Nor would I have any problems with their monopoly, as I know that I merely have to wait for it to exit patent protection. Also, someone who derive a superior encoder has the option of licensing the patent or selling it to them.
This is what the patent system was meant to support, this was the purpose, and properly used, its not all that bad of a deal for the world. What is a bad deal for the world is when 30-minute back-of-the-envelope ideas are patented and used to control whole industries. When someone patents the result of years of work, (like fraunhofer), they deserve the patent and its rewards.
But, since the patent office is granting patents for quick ideas, people like fraunhofer patent the obvious ideas behind their invention, then they keep their real work a proprietary secret.
Summing it up: ``Patents should be granted for perspiration, NOT inspiration.''
He's gradually turning up the heat on Amazon. First it was a private exchange of email. Now it's an open letter and a petition. If that fails, maybe he will stop supplying Amazon. I doubt that it would hurt his business very much, as people buy O'Reilly because of their reputation and if Amazon don't stock them, they'll go elsewhere.
And please sign the petition
HH
Yellow tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes.
Yellow tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes.
She's just dressing, goodbye windows, tired starlings.
Maybe he's jealous that the guy can get named Time's Man of the Year while his company hemorrages money like a Freddy Krueger victim...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
We all agree that this sucks, so go sign the open letter. I did. It's just as easy to leave a comment, there as it is to flame or troll or discuss it here.
Many people have already signed the letter but not as many as commented on sunday's x-files episode. Quit talking and go do something.
I know that many of you already have this was not meant for you. I was talking to the people who will cry and whine here, but will never make it past the slashdot story to go try and express their opinions.
Environmentalists are their own worst enemy. ~tricklenews.com
To have any effect on Amazon and similar companies that threaten freedom of innovation in the new wild west we must alert our media. If you cant get the attention of a major media outlet start small..ask your campus paper/radio to do a story on it. Contact NPR (BBC etc) and request this as a topic. Write a letter to your congressperson or the editor of your local rag. Write or call amazon and tell them how you feel. We need to hurt them where it counts, the bottom line or their perceived image in the public marketplace.
We need an organization that has the money to place public service advertizements telling JQ Public whats what in a direct, no bullshit and preferably funny way to keep these companies inline.
I am not very aware of such organizations if they exist. Can you tell me who I should be giving my charitable donation to?? (Tax time in the US..a good opportunity) Are they trustworthy?
My fav quote from the article...kinda sums it up
<i>In short, I think you're pissing in the well. </i><p>
no sig.
I wonder if Tim O'Reilly has or is contemplating such a move. I don't expect it to happen, but it would certainly be a huge event, and not the first time that O'Reilly has done The Right Thing.
Cheers,
Jeffrey
O'Reilly puts his money where his mouth is. O'Reilly chose to chase up the issue. i.e. O'Reilly is putting his money (and influence) where his mouth is.
No, he's not putting money anywhere than in his bank account at the moment. If he were putting his money where his mouth is he would be refusing to ship through Amazon.
Please note, I am not making any statement about whether or not that is the right thing to do. Just disputing your rhetoric. At the moment all that is happening is "mouth". There is no economic incentive issuing from O'Reilly. RMS is the one advocating that we put our money somewhere else other than Amazon.
Let's not get confused about the difference between a verbal appeal and an economic boycott!
--Crush
I'm tired of signing ineffective petitions.
I'm tired of participating in ineffective boycotts.
It's time to DO SOMETHING!
Good Lord! How much longer are we going to have to put up with crap like this? The Corporate Man(tm) isn't going to do anything about this, because they either already have or are trying to aquire their very own frivolous patents. It's time for someone to stand up and start filing civil suits. I've got disposable income, I'll contribute.
I'm sorry but boycots/embargos simply don't work. (Blockades on the other hand...) They do in theory, but in reality it's pretty damn hard to reach critical mass.
Did anyone else catch this?
"It's a well known technology truism that all of the smart people don't work for you, and that one of the surest ways to success is to get more ideas and more work out of people outside your own fences."
Proof positive that Tim O'Reilly knows from whence he speaks. That's got to be one of the most effective and concise explanations of the philosophy behind open source development I've ever read.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
The constant creation of these silly patents can only result in litigation. After all, a patent serves only two purposes; to put a process or invention in a publicly accessable database, and to give you ammo to sue your competitors.
Once this goes to court, there's very little chance it will stand up. Unfortunately, as more of these stupid patents go to court, the courts will require better evidence than they do now, until eventaully patents become worthless.
And despite the Slashdot concensus, this is NOT a good thing.
Software patents are usually bogus, however I seriously believe that there are exceptions. The problem is, it's easy to look at a solution an say how easy it must have been to find. It's much more difficult to look at a problem and come up with a decent solution.
Google is a tricky piece of work. Macromedia Flash is an amazing bit of programming. I only wish that someone had patented HTTP, GPLed it, and then refused to let Amazon play, effectively kicking them out of the sandbox.
There are deserving patents out there. Amazon however seems to be "patent squatting", i.e. sitting on obvious patents and hoping they become valuable. Meanwhile the Patent Office understands just as little about the Internet as ICANN, which is an impressively small amount.
[Any errors or stupidity in this document is the result of not sleeping. Goodnight.]
-----
No Zen is good zen
And of course, it's always best to do a search for the cheapest price at places like pricescan.com
I/O Error G-17: Aborting Installation
how does anyone expect "boycotts" to have any effect on a company that has never made a dime, yet still sells stock at any price they want to name?
Dave Winer wrote an article on how we could escape the patent straightjacket at:s osForSenorBezos
t ented/
http://davenet.userland.com/2000/02/28/noMorePe
One of his points was that we should all put our ideas on the web and let them be linked to. To that end I'm putting my idea for a memory efficient hashtable on the web:
http://www.worldforge.org/website/servers/notpa
Ideally someone will make a searchable open idea database; but, in the meantime, the web and search engines can serve.
That's right, a method twice as efficient as the old way of shopping! I don't require one whole wasteful click to purchase a product - only the mouse_down action is captured, and immediatey selects the product of your choice to be whisked to your choice of locations!
What then to do with the remaining mouse_up operation? No need to squander - you can purchase yet ANOTHER product by hovering over another item and releasing the plastic rodent from your grasp! In the same time as it would have taken you to purchase a single item at OTHER on-line shopettes you may have heard of, you have two delightful items in the air and almost there!
I being a genererous person who cares little for material things and has a boundless fondness for all things O' Riley, hereby place this idea (even just the mouse_down portion) in the public domain to be used by all without recompense.
Now the chorded binary mouse button quantity selection technique, that's another story...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Once this goes to court, there's very little chance it will stand up. Unfortunately, as more of these stupid patents go to court, the courts will require better evidence than they do now, until eventaully patents become worthless.
Er. . . this patent has gone to court, and it has survived so far. Amazon obtained preliminary injunction, despite the arguments of a well-represented Barnes and Noble that the patent was invalid. Now, of course, this is hardly a final adjudication: all the court determined was that there was a substantial likelihood of success on the merits. More needs to be discovered, argued and presented to the Court, but this brings me to my point:
Whatever you might think of patents generally, the invalidity of this patent is not all that clear. While it is politically correct in this forum to savage the USPTO for issuing it, dropping lines like, "a trivial application of cookies," the truth appears far more interesting. It is far more difficult to make a legitimate, legal, argument as to this patent's invalidity.
Preliminary injunction in a patent (as opposed to a copyright or trademark) case, particularly when it stops a major enterprise from continuing business as usual, is quite rare. All a defendant needs to do is introduce evidence of invalidity or unenforceability that defeats plaintiff's claim there is a "substantial likelihood" of winning on the merits. This is the easiest standard B&N will ever face in this matter.
From now on in, B&N must prove invalidity to a jury by clear and convincing evidence, which is the civil law equivalent of "beyond a reasonable doubt." The jury will be told to find for the plaintiff unless they harbor an unwavering, clear and abiding conviction that the patent is invalid. Oh yeah, that will happen.
Not.
This is one of the principal reasons that plaintiffs win over 75% of patent cases that go to trial -- a jury, overwhelmed with reams of legal instructions from the judge and presented with technology it barely groks isn't going to harbor an unwavering, clear and abiding conviction of anything. Ultimately, what they will see is the pretty deed, and the judges instruction that, if they aren't sure, they should find for the plaintiff and go back to their families. But that's only the practical side of it.
It is one thing to say, without more, that the issuing of a patent is bad policy and should not have issued therefor. On that point, I might even find myself in agreement. It is another thing entirely to actually argue that the patent *IS* invalid. B&N was in a position to present their best prior art, and they didn't induce even the slightest doubt in the judge that there was less than a substantial likelihood that the patent was valid. In view of this, how, exactly, are they going to convince a jury that there isn't any doubt that the patent is invalid?
But to take this a step further, let's assume that Amazon actually deserves its large price-to-earnings ratio and combine it with something from http://www.oreilly.com/ask_tim/am azon_patent.html:
By scaring away other e-commerce sites, Amazon ensures that fewer people will find the Internet useful. That means fewer websites in the future, and therefore fewer people, and so on. Since Amazon depends on having a large user base in the future, why is it abusing a weak patent-checking system in an Internet-destroying way?
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The shareholder is always right.
Good work O'Reilly. You might say that it has taken a long time from the initial outcry over Amazon's one-click shopping to O'Reilly doing anything, but it's not only great that he's responded, but that he has responded the way he has.
Everyone take note.
First of all, he noted that there was a community feeling of disgust over the software patent in question. Now, while O'Reilly makes a lot of cash from Amazon's business (a fact freely admitted to by O'Reilly), instead of refusing to "bite the hand" that at least partially feeds him and his company, O'Reilly chose to chase up the issue.
i.e. O'Reilly is putting his money (and influence) where his mouth is. It has been a long time claim that O'Reilly supports Open Source, and here is definitely doing the right thing [tm].
But not only that; how did he respond? First of all he wrote a private e-mail to Bezos, which wasn't necessarily a "you guys are evil! wtf do you think you are doing?!?!?", but a well-worded even-handed explanation of his situation. When that met with unsatisfactory results he has upped the pressure, with the petition mail, and public responses.
Sure, you might say, he's just protecting his own interests by mollifying the community and not abusing Amazon. But I would disagree with that. Not only has he made it clear on a personal level that he is not happy with Amazon's policies, but he's willing to step into the public space to state so, while not taking to anyone with a blowtorch.
And lets face it, if all Linux advocates, or any advocates whatsoever were so careful, and measured about their approach, there would be a lot fewer holy wars, and probably fewer lawsuits.
Cheers,
SuperG
Obviously, Amazon wants to set new records for losing money. Previous steady drains will be dwarfed when they finally piss off the largest chunk of their customer base. They'll set new records for hemorrhaging cash. And, if past performance is any indicator, their stock will skyrocket as a result.
Who knows, in a few months they may end up buying M$...
"I'm a scientist! I don't think, I observe!" - Dr. Clayton Forrester
See: my comments on the Amazon 1-click patent. --p