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The Economist Contrasts American, European Patent Approaches
fiannaFailMan writes "The Economist has summarised recent developents in software patents and contrasts the American and European approaches. 'The European Commission wants to avoid the American situation, in which case law drives authorities to issue computer-related patents all too easily, in particular for business methods and algorithms.'"
Write once run anywhere, bitches
hay sup doods
fp.
Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
It's reasons like this that I moved to London.
People is Europe know and care about issuses like patent law and copyrights. No one in the States (outside of slashdotters) has a clue.
A clicking bomb
Sep 4th 2003
From The Economist print edition
An explosive row over how to protect intellectual property in Europe
WIDGET inventors file patents. Prose and pictures are protected by copyright. But what about a new piece of encryption software or an internet business method, such as Amazon.com's "one-click shopping"? Should they also be covered by patents, or do copyright and trade secrets suffice?
These questions underlie a heated controversy in Europe pitting open-source advocates, software developers and academics against big software firms, intellectual property lawyers and the European Commission. Because of the row, the European Parliament has again postponed the first reading of a directive on computer-related inventions, scheduled for this week. And it remains to be seen whether the parliament will tackle the controversial proposal when it reconvenes on September 22nd.
The issue of patents for software and business methods has been causing a stir in America ever since the Patent and Trademark Office started issuing patents on internet business methods in 1998, most famously that for one-click shopping. Proponents argue that these patents provide the necessary incentives to innovate at a time when more inventions are computer-related. Critics claim that such intellectual monopolies hinder innovation, because software giants can use them to attack fledgling competitors. Moreover, as software is often built on the achievements of others, writing code could become a legal hurdle race. By analogy, if Haydn had patented the symphony form, Mozart would have been in trouble.
If the debate is more heated in Europe, it is because the directive in question is supposed to achieve two things at once. For one, it aims to harmonise how computer-implemented inventions are dealt with across the European Union--in order to avoid situations in which an invention is protected in one member state but not in another. Now, although many patents are centrally awarded by the European Patent Office (EPO) in Munich, national courts have the final say over a patent's validity. In Britain, business methods are generally not patentable, but they can sometimes be patented in Germany. The EPO, by the way, granted Amazon a patent in May covering computerised methods of delivering gifts to third parties, a descendant of its one-click patent in America.
Such cases illustrate the directive's other thrust. The European Commission wants to avoid the American situation, in which case law drives authorities to issue computer-related patents all too easily, in particular for business methods and algorithms. Software, say to control an X-ray machine, should remain unpatentable, but the entire apparatus--the combination of software and hardware--could be protected by a patent. In the words of the directive, to be patentable an invention must make a "technical contribution"--meaning "a contribution to the state of the art in a technical field which is not obvious to a person skilled in the art, rather unlike lunix.".
Unsurprisingly, this definition is particularly controversial. Larger software firms in the Business Software Alliance are happy. Smaller firms and dirty linux hippies, such as the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure, are up in arms. They think the directive's lack of clarity will make American-style patents possible, and are arguing for a more watertight definition.
Arlene McCarthy, the rapporteur of the European Parliament's committee for legal affairs and the internal market, has now proposed an additional test for patentability: an invention must teach a new way to use "controllable forces of nature" (really) and have an "industrial application". This aims to strengthen the exclusion of pure software and business methods.
Finding the right balance will not be easy. Patents can be a spur to innovation, but they can also be an obstacle, and the great advantage of digital technology was supposed to be its very malleability. Moreover, there is another headache. The harder it is to patent computer-related inventions in Europe, the wider will be the legal gap with America.
The Economist is great. They frequently have articles about patents, SCO, and all of our favorite /. topics, and I haven't seen any bad information like you get so often in lesser publications. This article on patents is just another great example. Bill Gates once said he reads The Economist from cover to cover weekly, hmm...
economists contrast YOU!
Bitches fucking Bitches?
Bitch on top?
Bitchastic!
Bitchastical.!
Bitch on my bitchity bitch bitches.
Damn.
The Economist generally doesn't use phrases like "dirty linux hippies". This is a troll.
Furthermore, the The Economist web site is not slashdotted.
If the gap were closed by fixing the US patent laws, that would result in less headaches than having Europe repeat the mistakes made in America.
But UK is the most USA-like country in the Europe :-)
Try to remember
The kind of September
When life was slow
And oh so mellow
Try to remember
The kind of September
When grass was green
And grain was yellow
Try to remember
The kind of September
When you were a tender
And callow fellow
Try to remember
And if you remember
Then follow
Try to remember
When life was so tender
That no one wept
Except the willow
Try to remember
When life was so tender
That dreams were kept
Besides your pillow
Try to remember
When life was so tender
That love was an ember
About to billow
Try to remember
And if you remember
Then follow
Deep in December
It's nice to remember
Altho' you know
The snow will follow
Deep in December
It's nice to remember
Without a hurt
The heart is hollow
Deep in December
It's nice to remember
The fire of September
That made us mellow
Deep in December
Our hearts should remember
And follow
This is not that tough an issue...
If it is, or it *can* *be*, implemented on a computer bought "off the shelf" and optionally modified only by parts bought "off the shelf" [e.g. "I added an eithernet card"] then it can not be patented.
If it has been patented, and the state of "the comercial shelf" from which parts are normally bought [e.g. comp-USA etc] advances to the point where the above rule would make it un-patentable, the patent has reached its terminal lifespan and is no longer valid.
In short, if you don't need a soldering iron [etc] it isn't patentable.
(CPU Microcode is Copyrighted, not patented)
That's it.
[And yes, my name is on a patented thing just now (unless my employer lied about the inventor) so I do know the range and impact of what I am suggesting.]
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
Pansy.
The Economist had a reader suggesting the following, which is the real reason why the EPO (Attention, this is not an EU Agency!) needs to be legitimized by the EU Parlament and why it needs to adhere (uh, harmonize) to current US guidelines:
? story_id=2020866
"Empire, state building?
SIR - You say that American military and nation-building intervention in other countries is likely to be short, because imperialism and democracy are at odds with each other ("Manifest destiny warmed up", August 16th). In the end democracy will win because the subjects will protest and so, eventually, will Americans. Your argument misses the economic face of empire.
Over the past three decades, America's government , particularly the Clinton administration, has constructed an international monetary and financial framework which ensures that the normal working of market forces shores up American power. The framework yields disproportionate benefits to Americans and confers autonomy on its economic policymakers while curbing the autonomy of all others . It provides the material basis of American military supremacy.
The key political feature of the system is that it is not an empire in the sense of an imperial centre and colonies. It is based on "sovereign" states. These states can be left to manage the costs of the system, including the protests of those whose lives are disrupted by it. This is how the modern-day empire can quietly escape the trade-off between imperialism and democracy, most of the time.
Robert Hunter Wade
London School of Economics
London"
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm
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I'm not sure if everybody realizes it, but if it is true, the most important part of the article is that supposedly Arlene McCarthy has finally agreed to include the "use of controllable forces of nature" as part of deciding whether an invention makes a technical contributions.
Let's backstep a few decades. By the late 70s/early 80s, the German Federal Court had to decide on a number of patent applications. One involved an accounting program, one a system for anti-lock brakes (which was controlled by software). They found the former unpatentable, and the latter patentable. The distinguishing criterion was that the anti-lock brakes taught new ways to control forces of nature, whereas the accounting program was essentially an "instruction for the human mind", even if it was executed by a "machine that was used according to its intended use".
With criteria for the patentability of these two extremes (a pure software solution, and a hardware solution with some tightly integrated software aspects) established, and technicality being the distinguishing criterion, and this state of affairs subsequently encoded in European patent law by saying that "programs as such" (as opposed to programs that were integrated with hardware solutions), the past few decades courts and patent offices started a battle over the gray area in between. The German Federal Court later allowed patentability increasingly to encroach on the software side, but the greatest abuse was done by the European Patent Office, which came up with more and more convoluted rationales to interpret the "as such" clause to allow for software patents, despite the clear legal precedent.
Now things are in the hand of JURI, the European Parliament's committee for Legal Affairs and the Internal Market. The initial committee proposal for the patent directive had a wishy-washy clause about something being a "technical contribution", that wouldn't have changed anything and harmonized nothing, and would have especially allowed the EPO to extend its creative twisting of the law even further. And with the planned enactment of the Community Patent, to be granted by the EPO, the door would have been wide open for EU-wide software patents. Note that the problem with the proposal was not so much that it allowed for software patents, but that it was poorly written law, with a million ways to interpret it. A number of clarifications -- including the "controllable forces of nature" criterion were proposed to JURI, but they were rejected.
So, if JURI finally concedes the point and allows for a proper, clear, and unambiguous criterion for technicality, that should alleviate quite a few concerns.
See
http://swpat.ffii.org/players/us/
a page that gives a small glimpse.
At the recent OECD conference, the US government's representative said that such conferences are useless and the debates of the economists harmful, because the patent system as is is "basically good" and the US will not permit any policy except one that "extends and strengthens" this system. The same representatives have also been doing their best to kill discussions on proper limits of "IP" at WIPO and other UN organisations.
Its because average american is not aware of any real life issues. He is simply herded by the mainstream media and the news "manufactured" by them. Thats not the case in Europe or other part of the world where real life issues are reflected in the media to a great extend. And I think its because of the decentralisation of media infrastructure in these countries. So small players and public entities contribute to the diversity of the news. In US media(mostly) owned by a bunch of business groups who treat it just like any other profit generating business. Goverement agencies like BBC and small magazines/newspapers like "La monde" are good examples.
http://www.nasirudheen.blogspot/
I still don't get the point of software/hardware patent. Whats the point for all that? This will just increase the monopoly of some big companies, that will probably charge more for their services!
How many EU media mentioned the patent demonstration of August 27?
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MY GOD PEOPLE! In four days from now we it will be the 911 aniversary. HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN?
Get your priorities straight!
Prepare material to post.
You wouldn't believe it, but here is what the Directive's proponents have admitted themselves:
"Arlene McCarthy, chair of the legal affairs committee, said earlier this month she was not prepared to consider any proposals for amendments that do not acknowledge the patentability of software."
In other words, they do want to conjure up a legal framework which scares even IT industry giants such as SAP, and not just small and medium enterprises, open-source advocates, academics and initiatives such as Attac that are of little importance to those prepared to discard or ignore any arguments made from what is just "the commie corner" in their view of the world.
(P.S.: I am posting the google links rather than the direct URLs, for as of this writing, FFII.org itself seems to be unreachable, at this crucial moment in time...)
The plenary vote on the new patents directive will be held within a few days, so please do contact some Members of the European Parliament (rather not just by eMail) right now and tell them that the introduction of software patents is a mistake their voters will never forget, no matter whether it is made knowingly nor out of ignorance.
Moreover, there is no need to rush to precedential judgment now, only weeks before the World Summit on the Information Society, which (according to proposals such as these) may well turn on its head overreaching IP laws.
just how does won become won of the walking dead contingent?
/.puppets.
.asp on that. when the lights come up, there'll be no going back, & no where to hide.
why greed/fear based disregard for humankind of course.
the difference between US corepirate nazis, & their EU contemporarIEs? why none at all, of course.
amnesty? that's something that dissolving dictatorships offer the riffraff when their badtoll has been lost. there are no amnesty plans in the works for the walking dead. their mindless/selfish harming of the creator's innocents, leaves them with a badtoll they cannot win, fighting a power they must deny the existence of.
they are self deleting buy their owned egos/megalomania.
which leaves the entire planet/population rescue initiative up to you/US. no problem. it's what we're really here for anyway.
that's right. this works on several (more than 3) dimensions.
it's also free, & available immediately to you/all of US.
as you can maybe already see, yOUR survival/success is not the least bit dependent on the gadgets of the greed/fear based corepirate nazis, & their phonIE ?pr? ?firm? buyassed
consult with/trust in yOUR creator. more breathing. vote with yOUR wallet (sometimes that means not buying anything, a notion previously unmentioned buy the greed/fear/war mongers). seek others of non-aggressive/positive behaviours/intentions. stop wasting anything/being frivolous. that's the spirit.
investigate the newclear power plan.
J. Public et AL has yet to become involved in open/honest 'net communications/commerce in a meaningful way. that's mostly due to the MiSinformation suppLIEd buy phonIE ?pr? ?firm?/stock markup FraUD execrable, etc...
truth is, there's no better/more affordable/effective way that we know of, for J. to reach other J.'s &/or their respective markets.
the overbullowned greed/fear based phonIE marketeers are self eliminating by their owned greed/fear/ego based evile MiSintentions. they must deny the existence of the power that is dissolving their ability to continue their self-centered evile behaviours.
as the lights continue to come up, you'll see what we mean. meanwhile, there are plenty of challenges, not the least of which is the planet/population rescue (from the corepirate nazi/walking dead contingent) initiative.
EVERYTHING is going to change, despite the lameNT of the evile wons. you can bet your
we weren't planted here to facilitate/perpetuate the excesses of a handful of Godless felons. you already know that? yOUR ONLY purpose here is to help one another. any other pretense is totally false.
pay attention (to yOUR environment, for example). that's quite affordable, & leads to insights on preserving life as it should/could/will be again. everything's ALL about yOUR motives.
take care, we're here for you.
A fair number did. It was a short item on tv and some more time was devoted on radio with interview with various people with different points of view. It wasn't a media spectacle if that is what you meant..
They would patent the plane, arguing some obscure brothers had invented it in their backyard.
Why will be Europeans different?
Uh, ok, I can envision the headline: "European office denies patent because Africans show prior art".
Yeah, right.
This who IP/legal mess that the US has created will sort itself out in time.
These laws in the US are essentially used to claim stake to larger and larger territories of what might be done, not what will be done. Many patents filed today are to simply protect an ever widening space of technology and business the center of which is their flagship product.
Many of them never intend on utilizing the existing patents, but to prevent any competition from getting too close to them
It's easier to think of this as patents being grazing territory that you are staking out for your own source of food. In many cases, patents extend over more territory than the residents will ever be able to feed upon in their lifetime.
Given this, you have not created a space of potential invention which cannot be used to 100% of it's capacity, but at a reduced level. We now have certain territories of which we cannot enter.
As a whole, the species of inventor cannot utilize all of the potential grazing space available to them and will therefore procede to evolve, grow and thrive at a reduced rate.
The note of evolution is important because inventions are generally based on the previous inventions of others. Without electricity or the transistor we wouldn't have much to play with in computers
Under this restricted access condition, the environments available which provide for a higher level of utilization of the territory will provide for a faster rate of growth and evolution.
What this translates to in terms of Patent development is that the areas which have looser patents laws will provide for a higher utilization of the ideas people come up with. And with that higher utilization will come a faster rate of application and development of even newer ideas. The rate will continue to increase.
Meanwhile, back at the grazing land where everyone has staked out larger territory than required, they will progress at a much slower rate of development and have a overall lower population of viable resources.
This will eventually balance itself out because the US will start to dramatically fall behind the EU in their technological innovations and inventions and the pace will quicken as the US legal system starts to slow down developments in the US further.
The US will become an area not to do business in because of the risk of legal assaults. While the US terroritories and interests (of their Intellectual Property) will be protected, there will be no one from the outside of the US interested in directly participating, contributing, or attempting to profit from this economical environment.
Additionally, no one will be too inclined to accept business from any US held companies because they are backed by their home-based legal system and their own, unappetizing, rules of IP/Copyright/Patent litigation which means that doing business with a US company could land you into a US court room regardless of their being the buyer or seller of a product.
As this process stagnates, the EU and others will continue to thrive on their own and become ever more attractive and viable. People will migrate from the US towards other nations of greater prominence.
This will be to a lesser degree similar to the migration of Cold-War scientists towards the West. They were given the opportunity to think freely and to practice their trakes more openly than they were allowed to under their Communist governments.
This won't be a whole-population migration, it will be a migration of those who have the intellectual drive to be inventive. They will want to go someplace where they can invent rather than litigate. We already have cases of people leaving the USA for better lands where they can develop products and businesses without being asaulted by the US legal system.
The US will become an area to avoid. The US will be required to give concessions to outside nations/business to reduce their IP/Patent/Copyright restrictions in order that they might once again become vi
I just got this email from Dr Caroline Lucas, a Green MEP for the South East of England. It makes for interesting reading, and highlights the positions of the major parties. At the bottom of the email she includes a press release called "MEPs must back EU plans for patents for inventions" that was given to all of the Labour MEPs.
Subject: software patenting - the vote has been postponed until the week of 22 September
As a constituent who has emailed me recently on the issue of software patenting I am writing to inform you that the vote, due to have taken place on Tuesday, was postponed until September 24th. The reason for this is as follows:
Back in July we Greens wanted to delay the vote as we knew that some of the big political groups in the Parliament were divided. Furthermore, we want to wait for the conclusions of the work of the Committee of Petitions as there is a petition, signed by 200,000 people against software patents, being presented to the Committee on 30 September.
The PPE (of which the UK Conservatives are members) agreed with the Greens asking for a postponement of the vote, then changed their mind. The Socialists then asked for a delay realising that they were hopelessly divided.
The current state of play within the Socialist group is that the Rapporteur, Labour MEP Arlene McCarthy, is only supported by the other Labour MEPs and half the Germans. The PPE group are mostly in support of Arlene McCarthy's proposal, except for the Catalonian and Scandanavian members (among the UK Conservatives, Malcolm Harbour MEP has been very supportive of Arlene McCarthy). Furthermore, the lead member of the PPE on this issue is Mme. Janelly Fourtou MEP, whose husband is the CEO of Vivendi Universal. The UK Liberal Democrats have been quite silent on this issue despite party policy being opposed to such patents.
The reason why no vote is taking place is that the pro-patenting lobby is refusing to negotiate a sensible compromise, simply arguing that the law, as presently drafted would not grant unlimited patentability of software.
This is simply not true.
Given the strong lobby against the proposed legislation, Arlene McCarthy has launched a counter offensive and below I have copied a press release issued by the Labour Group of MEPs.
I will of course contact you again to let you know if and when the vote proceeds. The Greens are co-organising a demonstration against software patents on the morning of the vote outside the Parliament building in Strasbourg.
Yours sincerely,
Caroline Lucas
Green MEP for South East England
This Press Release was sent out by the "UK Labour Delegation in the European Parliament" to all Labour MEPs on monday Sep 1st 18:11 for immediate publication.
Subject: MEPs must back EU plans for patents for inventions
For immediate release
1st September 2003
MEPs must back EU plans for patents for inventions
Controversial new legislation on patents for computer-implemented inventions will be put to a critical vote in the European Parliament in Strasbourg at the end of this month (Parliamentary Session 22-25 September).
Following a barrage of misinformation about the new EU wide patenting proposals, Labour MEP Arlene McCarthy - who wrote the Parliament's Report on the new proposals and is steering it through the Parliament - spoke out against the systematic campaign of misinformation being waged against new rules in the run up to the Strasbourg vote saying:
A proposal for an EU wide law on patents for computer-implemented inventions is essential both to protect the interests of European Industry and prevent the drift towards US-style patenting of business methods. In a situation where both the European Patent Office (EPO) and the 15 national patent offices are handing out patents for computer-implemented inventions, an EU law can assist in clarifying the limits to patentability in the field of computer-implemented inventions. This would give industry more
Essentially what have we got with patent laws on software?
A very very sick US software industry that is on life support, with very little innovation.
And what about the largest markets for software right now such as China? What do they think about our software IP system?
Obviously they do not think it is fair. China is taking steps to make sure they do not incorporate ANY western software technology into thier products, going as far as constructing thier own Microprocessors, Motherboards and version of Linux to avoid software IP controls.
No country with a expanding market would agree to the US version of IP or its restrictions.
In the end, what does that do for the US except lock us out of new markets by governments who recognize the American copyright and patent system for what it is: To prevent and exterminate competition, kill the idea of ownership of ANYTHING and create a legal system that allows any company with enough cash to set artificially high prices.
Everything about computing in the US has become cheaper outside of Microsoft's control, except software. Why is that?
Why MUST OS software cost more than half of the basic price of computer equipment, and continue to increase when every single solitary aspect of computing has followed a cheaper, faster route?
I will tell you why: American Software Patents, American Copyright Laws and crooked politicians who have been bought off and have tossed our Anti-trust laws out the window.
From that window they also tossed out future access to markets as companies and countries over seas see how sick the American information technology industry is and what it has become.
If you have been a reader to slashdot, you already know that many MANY products released over seas are far better than anything you could possibly buy here.
Why is that? Why is this increasingly becomming an issue that better PDA's, better Cell Phones, better software is increasingly NOT in the US and you cannot BUY it here either.
All we get is a new version of Windows to make it easier to use...
easier for Hackers, terrorists and foreigners to break into our corporate and government institutions, to use, I mean.
Europe should ask itself does it really want this sort of legal lunacy, where even if you wanted to FIX software under our copyright law, to prevent such breakins it would be illegal to do so?
Even if you bought it for Christ sake after signing a DMCA copyright EULA that says you cannot sue the company you bought the software from?
The US IP law and Copyright law as written is out of control, and it be rewritten to prevent our allies and far east block nations from viewing us and our software products with such suspicion.
In the end it locks us out of these markets and sends jobs over seas.
Is it any wonder? Software in the US is incredibly expensive, but not directly because of what we pay our programmers, but because software IS expensive in a market that has not competition.
American software companies can innovate, if they are forced to do so, when faced with cheap labor overseas.
But innovation is impossible in a market that patents ideas, copyrights information for 100 years at a time and allows companies like SCO to not produce anything innovative with thier OS except a legal summary against IBM.
Our very own laws are preventing us from competing effectively in all levels of maunfacturing software.
I hope Europe doesn't make the same mistake we have so at least they can participate in the enourmous software market opportunities in the far east to sell thier products thier, unlike the US which is basically a write off at this point.
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
The BBC is not a "government agency". It's independent which is why the government of the day always gets het up about it not being objective in its political reportage (they'd love to be able to pull the propaganda strings). It is funded in a weird and anachronsitic way by a kind of tax on televisions, but that way it's kept free from commercial pressures. More or less.
"I am a die-hard capitalist....but unethical, lying, bastard capitalism is really no better than socialism" - unknown
Instead is controlled by leftists who have their own little agenda.
Back in 80s when I was living behind the Iron Curtain, nobody listened to BBC for they had tendency to repeat uncritically every piece of shit official propaganda would put out.
BBC was a joke and everybody recognized their anti-american agenda.
As opposed to Voice of America they weren't even banned by the local authorities.
OK, but I wish they wouldn't call patents "protection" for inventors. Patents have locked out 1000x times more inventors than they have ever protected. In fact, in the small companies I've seen - it's more like they get patnets to "protect" themselves from big companies suing and harrassing, and to have leverage for cross licensing, than to ever "protect" their inventions from immitation.
Moral of the story, when the system gives a "little guy" the power to lock out a "big guy" - it also gives the "big" guy the power to lock out 1000 "little" guys.
Ladies and gentlemen, I'll be brief. The issue here is not whether our broadcasting organisation broke a few rules or took a few liberties with our female party guests -- it did. But you can't hold a whole publicly-funded organisation responsible for the actions of a few sick, perverted individuals. For if you do, then shouldn't we blame the whole publicly-funded broadcasting system? And if the whole publicly-funded broadcasting system is guilty, then isn't this an indictment of our broadcasting institutions in general? I put it to you ... isn't this an indictment of our entire British society?
Well, you can do what you want to us, but we're not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the entire United Kingdom!
Gentlemen...!
"I am a die-hard capitalist....but unethical, lying, bastard capitalism is really no better than socialism" - unknown
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
Don't tell everyone !!! The poor little island will sink. :)
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
That's funny, because back in the 90s when I was living in the USA, I (and most of my American friends) listened to the BBC (ironically piped through NPR) because the US media had the exact same tendency regarding uncritically spouting the goernment line. Although to be honest, it's not that the US media specifically refrained from criticising US policies, more that they weren't interested in reporting anything that happened out of state. Major humanitarian crisis in Africa or three-legged dog on the statehouse lawn? No contest.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
As to the money in the bank, show it. Enron, Worldcom and others all had plenty up until they got an audit. As I see it their revenues are shrinking.
Even if the money is there it could easily disappear in security fines, anti-trust fines, and other penalties for making products that fail to live up to the marketing pitch, leaving nothing but a debt.
Apple, a company with an active history for innovation, in contrast, seems to have hit a home run with OS and with the new line of hardware - iBook, PowerBook, G5, and iMac.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Insanely rich universities offering bursaries for foreign graduate students made me move to Portsmouth, Hampshire, UK.
:-)
But for me the problem is reverse: These universities get their money by imposing (huge) fees on students, something that I could simply not accept in my country. In France money comes from the government, and it's allocated to the best students according to their rank at the end of their undergraduate studies (the good old French meritocracy). So when you're the 6th on the list, and only the 5 best get a grant, you're, well, stuck.
So I must admit I feel a bit guilty - but then again, Britain being a democracy, those people actually chose to pay for higher education so that their universities can hire lazy foreign students like me
> and cute girls with British accents
Now I'd really like to know where you find those ("In a bar at 3am after 5 pints of Snakebite and Black" does not count).
Thomas Miconi
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So much work to do; not only having to stop software patents happening in europe, but having to have them repealed in North America...
are called tourists.