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More on the Microsoft v. EU Decision on Software Patents
bollow (a) NoLockIn writes "As
pointed
out on Groklaw, Microsoft has told the EU's Court of First Instance that
"certain of the communications protocols that the Commission requires it to
provide are covered by patents or patent applications and that it intends to
file, before June 2005, a large number of patent applications." In view of
this,
Poland's
courageous action against software patents is a great relief. There's an
online thank-you letter for Poland with
already over 10000 signatures."
I guess we're sure, now, that Poland will never be forgotten.
It would take a lot to bring down /. though.
Not really a simple "shutdown -h now" would do it.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Unless there has been a change since I had a minor involvement with it, European and international patent law requires that a patent be at least applied for before an invention is put into commercial service. Apparently putting an unpatented invention into commercial service is roughly the equivalent of publishing it. I believe this is different from US patent law.
There has been a major security issue with Slashcode revealed this week. See http://www.slashcode.com/article.pl?sid=04/12/20/1 946225. I hope today's Slashdot troubles are not related to this...
Animoog.org
And also that documents defining protocols or interfaces may be copyrighted, but that fact alone should not prevent competing implementations of such protocols. Read: perhaps a patent covered protocol, a copyrighted document describing the details, but still allow 3rd parties to make their own implementation of it.
Microsoft may have many bases covered, but sometimes the interests of society to enable inter-operating software, weighs heavier than the patent/copyright interests of a company. IMHO a very balanced, and righteous decision. It doesn't prevent Microsoft from making money with implementation of such protocols, it just levels the playingfield a bit for other parties who want to do that as well.
If a software interface isn't so crucial, one might say: let company have its way, and consumers choose alternatives if they want to. But with 90+ % market share, a software interface can become crucial, or leave no real alternative. A legal decision like this is good, simply for putting at least some limits on corporate greed and vendor lock-in.
If you can't beat them, make them irrelevant.
> You think that's bad? Try working at an isp and have people yelling at you and blaming you for ;).
> breaking hotmail
>
> ahh the joys of the internet. bx
You too, huh? I even get the odd like "Why did the Internet screw up Word?" or my ever favorite "The Internet caused my printer to stop working, so when can you fix it?"
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
but a reasonable chance of food on the table. Lousy but public health care. Public education. Tyrranical but secular governemnt which allows women to go to school and become professionals. And (bonus) not being blown up on the way to school. In time, with patience and some work perheaps a peaceful, bloodless, transition to less totalitarian form of government ala Eastern Europe.
Liberated Iraq = democracy offering freedom for ANYONE to build a political party and candidates to sell for market value or give away free (whatever the the party boss desires)...
You mean "anyone with sufficient cash and corporate support" ala USA. Wholesale theft of Iraq's resources by the Western corporations. Near total destruction of public infrastructure. 60% unemployment. 15% flat tax unable to generate revenues to cover even the most basic necessites of government. Laws dictated and set in stone by the occupiers (new government is not allowed to reverse these). 5-mile long lineups for gas in one of the largest oil producing counties. 100% prospect of either Islamic theocracy or civil war. Loss of rights for most females. Higher chance of getting your ass blown-off or shot-off then getting education. Non-existant medical care. Arrogant foreign army complete with mercenaries, "shoot first, ask questions later" checkpoints, cluster-bombing of cities and even modern rendition of concentration camps, gearing itself to stay in Iraq for foreseeable future (building permanent, hardened bases).
If I were an Iraqi, the choice would be rather easy: Saddam as bad as he was, was an Iraqi problem and Iraqis would have dealt with him sooner or later, thank you very much, and truth be told the "liberation" will be spelled "conquest" in Arabic for generations of Iraqis to come.
Also note that the assault on social foundations of Iraq is totally consistent with the philosophies US-led band of Christian-capitalist fundamentalist ideologues. It is part of their agenda and was indended to demonstrate that zero-government inteference, dog-eat-dog, survival of the fittest capitalism will produce miracles in the "new" Iraq. And all they had to do it is to kill 100,000 people (after starving to death another 500,000 earlier).
Since it is important, I will follow you this far off-topic.
I personally believe that religions are like computer and real-life viruses. Their only preorogative is to use their hosts to spread. The wellbeing of the host is not important to religion, the propagation of the desease is. Real-life viruses use various propagation mechanisms but the most similar would be an e-mail bourne computer virus that promises something a victim might want in order to get him/her to activate the payload. Similarily, religions offer to fullfil basic needs of sentient beings which are hard to satisfy otheriwse (explanations of their origin, universal "truths" about universe, simple rules to follow in daily life to achieve immortality, simple and reassuring explanations of exceedingly complex things etc etc) and as soon as the victim takes the bait, his/her mind is devoured and digested by the virus and quickly turned to its true purpose: further propagation. Loss of objectivity and acquisition of feverent zeal are just some of the effects of this destruction which are beneficial to the virus in its quest to spread.
Some clever charlatans, seeing this power, made minor modifications to the virus code in order to use it for their own ends. Enter organised, institutional religion and all the fun that follows, Inqusitions, Crusades, Witch-hunts, Jihads and reclamations and ethnic-clensing of "God-given" lands being just the tip of the iceberg.
How to cure this? Well, its tough. A mind once corrupted in-depth is damaged beyond repair I am afraid. It loses ability to function on its own, the virus having replaced critical thought functions. Your guess is as good as mine here but putting the victim into a logical-loop is not going to solve the problem, logic and reason being the first victims in the desease's progression. They will just "rationalize" it away somehow and move on merilly with the parasite clinging to their brain.
P.S. I normally do not answer ACs because Slashdot does not email me when they post replies.
I would like to take the time to thank you personally for resisting pressure from special-interest groups with a vested interest in pushing software patents. Software patents are slowly stifling our industry, and by extension muddling and retarding our technological advancement as a species.
The original aim of a patents was to grant a *temporary* monopoly, for the express purpose of encouraging innovation by allowing inventors to bring a new invention to market without having to worry about plagiarism. Software is not an invention - is is more akin to an idea, which was expressely *not* patentable for most of the history of patents.
The US has (relatively) recently begun to allow the patenting of ideas - software algorithms, "features" of software, even "business models"(!), and this has almost completely co-opted the patent system from an inventor support mechanism to a business weapon - "You do what we want or we'll sue for infringement". This was never the intention of patents, and patenting of ideas instead of inventions has mired the entire US technology industry in litigation, and made independant developers afraid to write useful software in case it infringes upon a patent they didn't even know existed.
Add to this the US patent office's blatant inability to understand the industry, and terrible track-record on prior art (eg, people were able to successfully patent the idea of "hyperlinks", even many years after the web became mainstream), and you have a situation where patents are issued almost carte-blanche, and it is left up to the legal system to decide who owns what (which rapidly becomes a case of "who can afford the most justice"). If it's left up to the legal system to decide on patent claims, invariably the richest company or individual will succeed, and many (most?) smaller developers and inventors are simply priced out of the market - they can't afford to defend their patents, so they aren't worth the paper thay're written on.
This devalues patents as a concept unless the holder can afford hundreds of thousands of pounds of legal fees. This leads invariably to a type of techno-feudalism: the rich and powerful can own all the (intellectual) property they desire, while the poor have no rights they can defend - their right to own (intellectual) property exists in name only.
I doubt this gigantic and unequal division between the "haves" and the "have-nots" is the *intended* consequence of a decision to allow software patents, but it is the inevitable one.
Many thanks for taking the time to read this letter, and please continue to resist pressure from all those who would co-opt our laws and statutes for their own selfish ends. You have the support of the technology worker (even if not the technology companies) behind you.
<name>
<e-mail address>
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself
Doing the Right Thing(tm) in politics these days is a career death sentence more often than not.
We never mocked them.
(Some) Americans mocked Bush, not Poland, for calling the group he had formed a 'strong' coalition. When it was anything but. 1,000 brave Polish men and woman are in Iraq. 120,000 brave American men and woman are in Iraq.
Some of us, while deeply respecting the sacrifices both nation's soldiers have made, do not call that a 'coalition. Alteast, not anywhere(anywhere!) near the same level the first gulf war had. THAT was a coalition.
You're a fucking idiot who doesn't respect other's beliefs? My belief in God doesn't effect you in the least, so how about you back off and stop trying to call me mentally damaged?
OK, I know people who believe can believe strange and illogical things, but that is ridiculous. Do you honestly believe that people who have faith don't influence the lives of the atheists and the agnostics? How about the hundreds to thousands of "morally" inspired laws which make no sense from a non-believer point of view, like the ban on gay marriage? How about the requirement to hold a christian-style faith (or pretend you do) before you can credibly be elected to a national public office (name me a muslim or openly agnostic senator, I dare you)? How about the immediate social stigma you gather in tons of circles when you admit to not believing in God?
It would be easier to have respect for the faithful if they had any respect for the non-faithful. As it is, a lot of faithful not only do not respect those who choose not to hold that faith, but actively attempt to enforce religious dogma onto those people. Like trying to replace the reality of evolution with the dogmatic fiction of creationism. (This, incidentally, is where the "mentally damaged" remark comes from. Denying reality is a hallmark of the insane.)
Let's be honest here, you're not being true to your faith if you're not actively trying to turn people who don't believe (since almost all faiths require this). So the better a believer you are, the more likely you are to be affecting the life of the person you replied to.
But of course I will never understand your particular flavour of delusion. These types of things are always personal affairs. But there are some general patterns that apply here since this particular path was traveled by countless victims before you. Like for example:
- How did you come to know "God"?
- What gave you the idea that it/he/she is called "God"? Why not "Bob"?
- Is it really "God" as in omnipotent, omnipresent creator of Everything? Or perheaps an out-of-work, lesser deity pretending to be Him (Her? It?) while the real boss is out golfing?
- How does your deity communicate with you? Since it appears it is your personal religion and thus you must have a direct pipeline. I certainly hope the answer isn't "voices" or similiar otherwise I would suggest immediate medical attention.
- What is the moral code your deity dictates? How do you propose to carry it out without affecting others, like me for example? (A point of note here: your religion has already and directly affected me: I am wasting my time trying to talk sense into you after you made your assertion to the contrary)
The list goes on. Allthough thats unlikely, I hope this little sample illustrates to you the extent of your folly.