Slashdot Mirror
Stallman Feeds Gates His Own Words
soloport writes "C|Net has published an article, written by RMS, in which Stallman points out that Gates is merely calling the kettle communist. Toward the end of the article, Stallman strengthens his point by feeding Bill his own words. Back in 1991, Bill said, in an internal memo: 'If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today...A future start-up with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose.' Now, if only Bill were as clear-minded on the subjects of Innovation and Interoperability."
FP
fp
that creeped me out.
Or it could be said that Bill just took his own advice. Depends on what he was looking to accomplish.
Now that would be real tech news.
Stallman strengthens his point by feeding Bill his own words.
Once again, I imagine Nelson: Ha Ha!
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
"Stop repeating everything I'm saying!"
"Stallman's a dork."
"Stallman's a... HEY!"
UTF-8: There and Back Again
I think Bill could learn a lot from Stallman and by examining his own past and the way MS and Apple took the computer industry off of IBM in the early days.
what the feck is THAT supposed to mean?
make sense, dammit.
I knew how to rule the world in 1991 but unfortunately it changed. For the better.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
S-L-U-T--W-H-O-R-E
RMS is feeding the kettle
Idealism dies when you actually get put in the big chair.
How saddeningly true - the more patents there are, the less innovation, the less motivation for innovation. Ironically, I was going to use Microsoft as an example, before I realized it.
All your searching needs (and free money!) - 4Lancer.net
> "Stallman Feeds Gates His Own Words"
"Don't worry, nobody will ever nee*gakfmfmmmmp6wtf40phrghhshs*hare the Software! You'll be Free, Hackers! You'll be Free!"
> "Now, if only Bill were as clear-minded on the subjects of Innovation and Interoperability."
No thanks. I think I've already given up eating for today.
Gates is merely doing what's best for the stockholders. Oh wait. That's HIM.
If Apple (or Xerox) had patented the GUI, we would still be stuck with DOS!
So, if M$ patents everything it can get its hands on, what innovations would it stop?
Why doesnt this guy just retire? He clearly is living on planet "Whatever". See, and you thought you had to be smart to have lots of money?
I've heard it said that /. needs a Linus filter so that those who don't care can easily avoid seeing any Linus related news on the main page... I think we also need an RMS filter.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Bill Hatfield and Richard MacCoy?
Serious question. Can anyone tell what this could possibly have to do with online rights?
I thought he was busy getting the hurd together?
...but first...
RTFA! I think he makes a valid, lucid point here and does a great job explained why software patents tend to be evil.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Calling the kettle African American. You fucking racist cracker.
Hey, that hurts. . . no wonder no one came to my birthday party.
The days of the digital watch are numbered.
Now, will this story actually get read by Microsoft-hugging MIS types and pointy-haired bosses?
;) ) from a lentil bean.
The problem with Stallman is that, brilliant as he is, he only ever seems to garner attention from those who are already on his side. He preaches to the choir and only to the choir, which is kind of useless when 99% of the world wouldn't know a Linux (err, GNU/Linux
What would it take to get a story like this onto the desk of every Gates-worshipping, MSFT-stock-owning, spyware-infested-Windows-machine-running, Gartner-Group-report-reading, pointy-haired boss?
And... holy crap, Stallman trimmed his beard???
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
For those of us with a few years between school and the present, I'd ask you if you really wanted to be judged by what you think now, or what you thought then? Does it really matter that you're opinion of a decade ago doesn't gel with your opinion of today?
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
I thought the best line was: "Thanks to Mr. Gates, we now know that an open Internet with protocols anyone can implement is communism; it was set up by that famous communist agent, the U.S. Department of Defense."
Of course, he's twisting the meaning of things as much as Gates has, but of course that's the point.
sigs are a waste of space
How many people think the exact same things they did 14 years ago? I know my views have changed a lot. Why can't Bill's?
Technically, Mr. Gates is right. The whole Open Source idea is a communist idea, not in terms of Soviet Russia (where software owns you) but in terms of a community of workers all banding together to produce their own labor, instead of selling themselves to the capitalists.
Seriously, folks, the current situation of Linux v. Microsoft is exactly what Marx and Engels were talking about.
What the Open Source community has is what all communist countries thus far have lacked, which is the admission of only like-minded people. For a commune to work, the citizens must all have similar ideas with respect to how to interact with the outside world. In a nation, where all citizens just become communists, this simply isn't possible.
fsh
Can you site an instance where M$FT ever sued someone on patent grounds? Remember, we're talking patents, not copyrights or software piracy.
As far as I know, companies like M$FT take out patents to defend themselves, not to launch offensives against their competition.
... do you think intellectual-property laws need to be reformed?
No, I'd say that of the world's economies, there's more that believe in intellectual property today than ever. There are fewer communists in the world today than there were. There are some new modern-day sort of communists who want to get rid of the incentive for musicians and moviemakers and software makers under various guises. They don't think that those incentives should exist. +-+-+-+-+-+-+- what a creep. as if the almighty dollar were the only conceivable incentive for creative endeavor.
It's not uncommon to see young companies have the same type of attitude but along the way, as they become big, their strategies have to change based on the experience they have gained.
RMS is the driving idiological force behind GNU. People don't live forever. One day, someone else is going to take over and how do we know that the same ideals will be followed. More than that, how do we know that Stallman won't just decide one day that he's tired of living and dieing for free software and will shave his beard, take a shower and go on a date that doesn't charge by the hour?
Microsoft was the underdog for a long time. They came in cheaper and good enough. GNU/Linux right now is coming in as the cheaper/good enough solution. While there are some people that use free software on principle, the people paying for free software are doing it because it makes sense in their business... When something else makes sense, the money will follow.
One day, something else will take that spot and you're going to see a lot of whining and tantrums most likely followed by agressive tactics. To be perfectly honest, you see that now with competing open source technologies.
So, instead of seeing how Bill Gates has changed... consider this a warning as how F/OSS might possibly change in the future.
Open Source Java DAO Generator
one can hardly take a speech from 2001 as serious evidence these days
Bill is worth several Billion. RMS is worth what?
I dont think bill needs to learn much from RMS.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Every important element of the modern GUI (windows, icons, menus, pointing device) was demonstrated by Doug Engelbart in 1968. His system even had something that looked a lot like a blog. The patents all would have expired long ago.
In quoting Gates discussing patents, he is being deceptive in that Gates, in refering to communists, is principally discussing copyrights/piracy when he refers to IP. MS has not patented their .doc format in such a way to prevent other programs from interpreting it.
...doesn't change the fact that rms is scurrying about at the feet of the important people, with a slightly-too-shrill series of nya-nyas.
that is to say, he's become a strictly reactive pedagogue, and it really really underlines the lack of creativity and originality in the FOSS scene.
With such an underhanded move to crowd out free software, who can really trust these people when they claim to be acting in your best insterests?
I believe Gates and Company have taken the approach of patents to protect themselves from suits from others. Has Microsoft actually sued someone over copying their technologies?
I know they've harrassed people like Mike Row (MikeRowSoft.com) but don't recall them pulling any SCO moves.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The title assumes that Gates would in fact read what RMS wrote, which is very unlikely - any magazine that publishes Stallman's words is comparable to the Uptown gay magazine.
Gates and Stallman are both 'unreasonable' people, and they are 'successful' as a a result of this trait.
The hammer calling the sickle communist.
FTFA: "If somebody sues you, you change the algorithm or you just hire a hit-man to whack the stupid git." - Linus Torvalds More people really need to take his advice...
What would it take to get a story like this onto the desk of every Gates-worshipping, MSFT-stock-owning, spyware-infested-Windows-machine-running, Gartner-Group-report-reading, pointy-haired boss?
i'm sorry, but that's fucking brilliant.... can we mod up more please???!?!?!?
"Everyone's a Democrat until they get a little money." -
My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...
Don't forget the increasing need for a Gates/Ballmer filter on Slashdot !
(and I think i saw more Windows news than Linux ones, lately on this site)
Richard Stallman is president of the Free Software Foundation as well as chief GNUisance of the GNU Project.
Physics of Abstraction (abstraction physics)
... well... us humans. Elements or facets of abstraction physics include the actions of abstraction creation and use, such as defining a word to mean a more complex definition (word = definition, function-name = actions to take, etc.), Starting and Stopping (interfacing with) of an abstraction definition sequence, keeping track of where you are in the progress of abstraction sequence usage (moving from one abstraction to another), defining and changing "input from" direction, defining and changing "output to" direction, getting input to process (using variables or place holders to carry values), sequencially stepping thru abstraction/automation details (inherently includes optionally sending output), looking up the meaning of a word or symbol (abstraction) so to act upon or with it, identifing an abstraction or real item value so to act upon it, and putting constraints upon your abstraction lookups and identifications (when you look up a word in a dictionary you don't start at the beginning of the dictionary, but begin with the section that starts with the first letter then followed by the second, etc., and when you open a box with many items to stock, you identify each so as to know where to put it in stock.)
Abstraction enters the picture of computing with the representation of physical transistor switch positions of ON '1' and OFF '0' or what we call "Binary" notation. However, computers have far more transistor switches in them than we can keep up with in such a low level or first order abstract manner, so we create higher level abstractions in order to increase our productivity in programming computers. From Machine language to application interfaces that allow users to define some sequence of action into a word or button press (ie. record and playback macro) so to automate a task, we are working with abstractions that ultimately accesses the hardware transistor switches which in turn output to, or control some physical world hardware.
Programming is the act of automating some level of complexity, usually made up of simpler complexities, but done so in order to allow the user to use and reuse the complexity through a simplified interface. And this is a recursive act, building upon abstractions others have created that even our own created abstractions/automations might be used by another to further create more complex automations. In general, if we didn't build upon what those before us have done, we then would not advance at all, but rather be like any other mammal incapable of anything more than, at best, first level abstraction. But we are more, and as such have the natural human right and duty to advance in such a manner.
There is an identifiable and definable "physics of abstraction" (abstraction physics), an identification of what is required in order to make and use abstractions. Abstraction Physics is not exclusive to computing but constantly in use by
Abstraction Physics has yet to be established/recognized in a broad "common acceptance" manner, similiar to the difficulty in the acceptance of the hindu-arabic decimal system (which included the concept that nothing can have value - re: the Zero place holder). It took three hundred years (from inception) for the innovation of the now common decimal system to overcome the far more limited Roman Numeral system. (NOTE: mathmatics and the symbol sets used are also abstractions and therefor a subset of abstraction possibilities and certainly an application of abstraction physics.) Though the act of programming is still younger than many who apply it, we are technologically moving at a much faster rate of incorporating innovations and better understandings of reality. There is a physics to abstraction creation and use which can be used to model and create a non-patentable user friendly general use, and dynamic, automation (abstraction creation and usage) tool, that also allows for organized placement and access of abstractions in a logical or mapable and navigateable mann
..Why is "everyone" (=lots of people) bashing RMS. I cannot see anything wrong in what he says or how he thinks, still everyone seemes upset about him, without giving an explanation. Could someone please explain?
In a business sence, it makes complete sense - as businesses are entirely out there to make money. However, ethically, it does not really gel all that well.
-But, for the most part, if the world was a more ethical place, the standard of living would most likely be a lot better..
But, people are too lazy and non-cohesive - I see it all around me- people willing to take the easiest route even if it 'against good ethics'. They just ignore that fact -
For an example [and I know this is overused], people use cars a lot, causing a lot of problems (what to do with car when its end of life [landfill], what to do with pollution caused by cars [sick people], etc, etc) - however, I suspect if everyone was to migrate to electric buses, or trains, that these things could be reduced, and the (average) quality of life would get better. People usually don't, because cars are convenient, they are common, and people don't see them as being expensive when compared to buses (even though some of those views are incorrect).
So, people are unlikely to choose linux or mac over what their parents/friends have (windows) as they are lazy and see difference/change as a terribly difficult thing to cope with.
Therefore, we see people like Bill Gates floundering about trying to make as much money as possible from the lazy ignorant masses - and his current stance on patents is one way of making sure 'the rebel forces' cannot get a foot in.
I think its disgusting... and I don't like cars (I use the bus as much as possible) and I have a Mac laptop and 2 linux severs (along with a single windows box which needs to be reinstalled every other week).
just my $2.
That's a one track statement. You could also argue free/open source is the most competitive way to move foward, instead of having thugs^W government and lawyers shut down competition for you.
Thank goodness. I was afraid everyone had forgotten what he said almost 15 years ago.
My Tech Posts on Twitter
...in Soviet Russia, there were communists!
That's exactly why OpenSource should patent as much of it's innovation as possible - even with the help of investors.
It is also part of communism where the group tries to centralize all of the means of production. In other words, all productive activity is to be controlled and organized from one place, and production for individual benefit becomes illegal.
Now, does that sound more like what MS is trying to do, or what Open Source people are trying to do?
It sounds to me like that one place is Redmond, and that for free/open source software, there is no such place or controlling entity.
With free/open source, anyone who doesn't like a development group's decisions can fork the code and develop their own code base. So, your comparison is not a fair one.
Sorry that was before he became Billcutus of the BORG...
Resistance is futile, you will be patented...
Get a shave and a haircut, buddy. It 2005 already.
Wake up.
If only Bill had patented his idea that 640k should be enough for anybody and innovated on that...
Early history of CIFS
The relationship between Samba and Microsoft wasn't always so contentious. In 1996, when Microsoft was just introducing CIFS, it had to contend with competition such as the Sun-Novell alliance behind Sun's WebNFS software. Microsoft at that time pledged that it was "making sure that CIFS technology is open, published and widely available for all computer users," and it noted that Samba used CIFS.
Microsoft submitted the first version of CIFS to the Internet Engineering Task Force at the time, a first step in the standardization process. That process went nowhere, but a 1997 version of that submission is still available on the Internet. The submission made no mention of two related patents, which Microsoft received in 1993 and 1995. In addition, Microsoft shared information in a series of CIFS conferences that began in 1996.
The patents, however, rose to prominence this year.
In the technical document describing CIFS in Windows NT 4.0, Microsoft prohibits companies from using the information in software covered by the GPL, which includes Samba. Microsoft requires readers of the document who plan to implement its description to sign a license agreement that raises the specter of patent infringement.
Specifically, the agreement grants a company a royalty-free license to two Microsoft patents but prohibits the developer from using the CIFS information in software that would subject that company to "intellectual property rights-impairing licenses," including the GPL.
Gary Dunn
Open Slate Project
oops. i just read "I think Bill could learn a lot from Slashdot ..." :) secret wish?
Although I don't know for sure, I believe that enough MSFT employees and contractors read Slashdot that the MS folks (in general) have a pretty good grasp on anything said here, and if there is something to learn from a post or topic, they learn it. If I worked for MS, and saw something here that could be used by the company, I would let my boss know, and hope the company took appropriate action.
Whether or not the new knowledge is implemented once learned is another question all together. It may be a good technical idea yet not fit their business model or vice versa.
I wish I could moderate a moderation as funny!
that was priceless.
software patents you!
I like suggestions, but I don't like contributing towards them.
It's pretty obvious that Gates' attitude to patents etc will hchange depending on whether he's on the giving or the receiving end.
Unlike for most of us, things haven't changed much for RMS in the last 14 years.... Hurd is still the best idea in town (ready RSN) and he's still living a Jesus sandals hippy lifestyle.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Absolute power doesn't corrupt. Absolute power enlightens. It's being within reach of absolute power that corrupts.
"The transfomers are WAAAY better than G.I. Joe" - me
"Seriously, I didn't sleep with that woman. " - Governor Clinton
"Remember what I said about taxes.. uhm, psyche!" - George Bush 1
"Don't make me tell daddy" - George Bush 2
"I bet I could make money on this internet thing" - Steve Case
Ahhh.. good ole '91
Turn s60 photos into awesome videos with mScrapbook for all S60 3rd edition phones!
Doh
In lefty terms:
Capitalism=market based, means of production are owned by a few.
Mutualism=market based, means of production are owned by all.
Communism=non market based, means of production are owned by all.
Stalinism=non market based, means of production are owned by a few.
Obviously that's a very loose set of definitions, based around the Trot line, and changes depending on which lefty cult the person you're talking with belongs to.
Slashdot: News for Nerds, Stuff that matters only to them
Wasn't it the pothead (Bill Gates, 1983) calling the kettle (Stallman, 2025) black?
Gotta love that GNU/Linux (cough, Linus) side-swipe. Poor bitter man...that Stallman.
This sig donated to Pater. Long live
And you would know because....?
Bill Gates and Steve Jobs visted the Palo Alto Research center in 1979 (or so). So, Xerox probably had the their GUI by 1978. Patents are for 17 years, so the patent would have expired in (1978+17=) 1995: ten years ago.
And we wouldn't be stuck with bash. We'd be stuck with csh.
There's an entire thread devoted to discussion of how much Stallman needs to "get a haircut," since of course how you wear your hair is an indicator of the worth of your ideas.
Imagine if Einstein hadn't worn a crewcut his entire life. Where would we be then?
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
...I'm not sure if this is good or bad or just an example of the capitalist world we live in...I think it's the latter.
I don't see where Stallman quotes Gates with any 'communist' statement. Please point out where I'm wrong (might've just missed it).
He does accuse, but doesn't offer the quote - in or out of context. A C-Net poster has offered a quote concerning music copyrights - but unless I've missed a few arguments, that's not the same as a software patent.
"Seriously, folks, the current situation of Linux v. Microsoft is exactly what Marx and Engels were talking about."
Of course it is. Marx and Engels talked about man tools, and how, a man , in orther to be truly free, should have access to the tools he needs. If the tools he needs to work, are owned by the rich, they become their masters, and can have him dominated.
It's the same argument that Stallmans points out, about software, and, IMHO, it's a fundamental issue.
There is a serious misguided idea that most USA citizens have, which is that communism = URSS, and that's an utter bullshit. The URSS was a corrupt dictatorship fighting for world domination (And we had 2 corrupt dictatorships fighting for world domination in that years, now there is only one left). Communism is an economic and social system, that (just like Capitalism) can work ok if implemented by honest people, or be a terrible weapon if implemented by a corrupt government. This is true for both systems. The issue is in the society, not on the system.
ALMAFUERTE
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
I think Stallman must be feeling lonely, and lashing out at Gates. Not only has Moglen started up his own organization, but I see the Kuhn has left the FSF to join him...m l
http://softwarefreedom.org/team.html
http://www.fsf.org/news/new-executive-director.ht
In true capitalism I can use any resources at my disposal to make money. Only murder and theft in the sense of breaking in and lugging away things is not allowed. If Microsoft sells Windows CDs for $100 and I can figure out how to copy my CD that I bought from them and sell copies for $1, nobody should interfere with me.
So now companies come to government and say other people should give them money for something created without their further labor. Even worth, they want to tax an inventor who came up with their idea independenly. Any why? Because they "worked hard and they are good for the society"? Well cry me a river!
That's social protection, and companies don't really need it. If not for patents and copyrights, businesses will form consortium to joinly invent something they can all then manufacture. And in particular software companies will sell personalized support for their software. Like a poolman, there will be a computerman that comes to my house and teaches me how to use software for reasonable rate. There will be some shake up and loss of efficiency, and maybe Microsoft will have 5 billion in the bank instead of 40 billion. But it will not be all bad, and much of the money will be in the pockets of Microsoft customers who are now overcharged for whatever wealth Microsoft actually created.
We need social protection. We work for the good of the society and already don't get royalties, don't get paid again and again for the work we only did once. It's only fair we get some type of royalties first - like job security and the company that outsourced jobs paying for retraining costs for layed off workers. Then, once we are well protected, we'll think about shelling out a few bucks for their CDs that we can easily make ourselves.
By the way, I am not arguing for unlimited social protection or that capitalism doesn't have benefits. But patents and copyrights are definitely NOT capitalism.
Absolute power rocks
...of the bill gates quote
The solution is patenting as much as we can.
In the article, RS is implying that Bill Gates once agreed with him on patents, and the quote he gives would make it seem so....however, if you include the bit that he "conveniently" left out, it reads quite the opposite, gates stance on patents has always been the same, and against RSs stance. Nice to know that Microsoft isn't the only one capable of FUD...well done RS.
Oh! Zing!
Try eMusic. DRM free, legal, MP3 downloads.
"If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today. ... The solution is patenting as much as we can. A future startup with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose. That price might be high. Established companies have an interest in excluding future competitors."
...
I don't know about you, but by reading this, Bill's intentions become clear from the start. Isn't he instructing his staff to patent as much as they can? Funny how RMS would hide this essential piece of the quote in [...]
You're just going to have to trust me. And stop masturbating so much, it makes me sad.
I've tended to consider it ironic on the few occasions when Gates and RMS have indirectly traded barbs...Namely because the two men actually have far more in common IMHO than I suspect either of them would be comfortable to admit. I'm reminded here of a scene from Spiderman when the Green Goblin tells Spidey, "You and I are not so different."
Both men are ideologues, and both, I believe, are megalomaniacs, despite my anticipation that Stallman in particular would strenuously deny such an accusation. But as ESR has said, Stallman wants to be the figurehead of the entire FOSS movement. His flowery speech at times aside, let there be no misconceptions about it...the man *does* advocate a heirarchy, and most especially he advocates himself as the leader of it.
The other irony is that Stallman himself is guilty of exactly the same kind of hypocrisy with which he accuses Gates here...Namely, with regards to the LGPL. Stallman at one point criticised the XFree86 group for using a BSD-like license, calling them sellouts who were doing such in order to ensure that X gained popularity...and he then turned around later and did exactly the same thing with the creation of the LGPL. He actually cites software popularity as part of the reason for the creation of the LGPL. He might not remember this particular inconsistency...I, however, do.
I am not for one moment trying to lump both Stallman and Gates into the same *moral* category here...or not completely, anywayz. Stallman has done a lot of good...I'm aware of that. However, what I think a lot of *other* people need to be aware of is that he still isn't the being of light they think he is, by any stretch of the imagination. He might be different from Gates morally and ideologically in many ways...but the main things that the two do have in common is that contrary to popular belief, both are guided by their ego, and, to a greater or lesser degree, the desire to dominate others. That might sound paradoxical when said about Stallman in particular...but do some research on the man, have a good long think about it, and see what you come up with...you might be very surprised. For the purposes of Linux users, Stallman can definitely be considered an ally...but personally I think "friend" would be too strong a word. The man has his own agenda...and not one that necessarily coincides with everyone else's best interests.
Former Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold obviously saw the intellectual property light: patent it no matter what and you'll own the toll-booth. Stallman's perspective is probably too little, too late and Gates' head has probably been here for years.
Myhrvold started a company five years ago (Intellectual Ventures) that is focused on a strategy to "create or buy new ideas, accumulate patents--exclusive rights to use the inventions--and rent those ideas to companies that need them to do the gritty work of producing real products.">
How is he doing this? As it says in the article, "To generate patentable ideas, Intellectual Ventures hired a dozen top scientists as part-time consultants to participate in several all-day gabfests each month, which the company calls "invention sessions." Lawyers transcribe the discussions, which can range from biotech to nanotech to solid-state physics, and follow up on the most promising ideas with patent applications." He's obviously the most visible person involved in this activity. Pretty soon (if not already) *any* idea you have had better be fully patent-researched before you embark on a new adventure.
IMHO, this activity by people like Myhrvold (and the bleak state of the US Patent Office) is what is going to seriously hamper open source innovation and people taking risks to start up companies.
The Open Source community is diverse, that is part of it's strength.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Yes, but they are trying to patent (or have already patented?) their "new" MS Orifice format, based on XML. How you can patent a file format is beyond me, but then again we are talking about the same patent office that approved the setuid patent oh so many years ago.
I remember reading that the patent office used to require a working model of the invention. It might be time to bring that rule back.
-paul
Pistol caliber is like religion: everyone has their favourite, and theirs is the only right choice.
It's amazing that labelling someone a communist is still considered an effective strategy. Patents are scary not just because developers can be sued for writing software, but because distributors can be sued and so can end users. If software patent enforcement becomes common place the few developers who try to continue developing software will be forced underground. That is, they'll put their software in the public domain and disavow all responsibility for it. But that won't be enough because distributors will have to be underground too, else they can be sued, and end users will have to keep their illicit software quiet also. The end result will be so horrifying that perhaps even normal people will notice it. By then the software industry will be long dead though.
How we know is more important than what we know.
What you describe is the difference between communism-the-political-system (perhaps if the FSF *required* copyright assignment to them) and communALism. Communalism is the phenomenon of people contributing to a greater whole. It at least avoids all the baiting around "communism"; it's a ruined word.
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
Reading this article where RMS states the blindingly obvious, i.e. that Microsoft is trying to put a legal stranglehold on the net and all software development with their usual avaricious and rapacious greed in order to milk computer using human society of their every last penny, an idea occured to me that makes me wonder: Why have the MPAA and tthe RIAA, two organisations easily as evil and filled with shit filled scum like Microsoft's management is, not yet tried to patent songs and movies?
I'm pretty sure they must have thought of it, but then decided against it when they realised that easily 80% of todays crap pop and movie blandness are simply lifting ideas from other musicians and movies.
Wait, lemme get this straight.. When people are the underdog, they support measures to even the playing field, and when they're dominating, they support measures to keep themselves on top?
Holy sh*t, people are only out for themselves? When did that start?
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
We'd be using Yellow Dog!
Or do people make it to the big chair because they recognize the limitations of idealism?
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
When Microsoft was tiny, patents were bad for them; now they find them useful, simple as that.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
Oh, so you are watching me huh? I can really get into this new kink.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patents#Term_of_paten t
As TRIPS agreement declares, the maximum term of an issued patent is twenty years from earliest claimed filing date. In the United States, for applications filed prior to June 8, 1995, the patent term is seventeen years from the issue date. For applications filed on or after June 8, 1995, the term is twenty years from the earliest claimed filing date. The rules for patents in force and pending at the transition date (June 8, 1995) are significantly more complicated but grant the patentee whichever term is longer.
Also, in several countries there are multiple types of patents, and the twenty year term frequently only applies to utility patents and not design, petit, or other kinds of less heavily examined patents. For example, the term of a U.S. design patent, which protects the ornamental shape of objects, lasts fourteen years from its issue date.
[edit]
If Xerox labs came up with all of these GUI ideas,
why don't they get money from Microsoft and Apple?
Option to hide all this anti-microsoft bullshit, seriously you all are pathetic
I think you lost all credibility at "anywayz"
What a shame, I was following along until that point.
If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. - James Madison
that Bill Gates is destroying an industry that made him so successful.
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
KENT
What?
MITCH (V.O.)
Nothing. I want you to think about what you've done and repent, and from now on, stop playing with yourself.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Very few patent disputes with big companies ever become lawsuits, and it takes a while for lawsuits over patents to be filed (in fact, it can be in the interest of companies to wait a while). Microsoft has only started getting on the patent bandwagon fairly recently and they have already been throwing their weight around with patent-related threats.
Furthermore, the notion of "defensive patents" is nonsense. In order to defend an idea against a patent claim, all you need to do is publish it (you still need the lawyers to actually win in court, but you need those also if you have a patent).
The term "defensive patent" is really a euphemism for becoming a member of a patent cartel: the "giants" that Gates talks about, companies like IBM, Apple, Xerox, etc., have amassed huge patent portfolios that they are cross licensing. As a result, they can operate almost completely free of worries over patent infringement, while small companies that don't have cross licensing agreements are at constant risk of being put out of business by any member of that club. Well, Gates's solution to the problem has been to become a member of the cartel.
Unable to convince us about MS superiority on security, TCO, and interoperability Bill now gets emotional and starts calling us all communists.
I prefer the old, "Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has no heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains." -- Sir Winston Churchill
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Stallman/Stalin?
I'll have to do this anonymously or be ostracized and beaten down and thrown out of the community. Not that it matters because this comment will probably be overlooked as much of anything I say does. But if I remember correctly Microsoft doesn't patent nearly enough compared to other industry leaders such as IBM, Cisco, and (insert XYZ company). The figures were something like 10,000 patents by IBM to 500 by Microsoft. I know that elsewhere I had read that Microsoft did want to up the anty and start applying for more patents, but talk is cheap.
I always liked: "A Conservative is a Liberal who got mugged."
Does Microsoft sell many products in China? Mightn't it hurt the business there to be using the term communism as a label of evil?
Esoteric reference.
There is nothing "fundamental" about selling softwares---bunches of codes that can be copied at a fraction of a cent. There might be question whether a completed software becomes public good or private property, but that's far from being settled...
Big shocker that this garbage is coming out of Berkeley. First of all, you equate the value of software to the cost of duplicating it. Pretty convenient that you can ignore the cost of creating it in the first place. And as for software being a public or private good, that's why we have licenses. If you create the software, you get to decide which license to use. What an amazing system!
Sure, you are limited to honest ways of making a living which naturally is a huge drawback. Playing fair is always a little harder.
Linux is not Windows
No, I think he was calling you a wanker.
> "Everyone's a Democrat until they get a little money." -
George Soros doesn't look like he's changing his stripes anytime soon...
Everyone's a Democrat until they get a little money
You don't need money before you become a Republican.
People are Republicans even when it's to their disadvantage, because everyone wants to believe that someday their boat will come in. We don't want to be too hard on those poor rich people, you see, because someday that will be me!
There's a word for it. Stupid.
Yes I am. So what?
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
"There's a word for it. Stupid."
So, was it smart people or stupid people who thought democracy might be a good idea?
Caution, there may be a trap somewhere in that question.
drew
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
And yes, since you asked, whenever I put my point of view on record, I think it only reasonable to expect it to be scrutinized for consistency with other expressions I may make at other times.
This attitude is called taking responsibility. I understand that not everyone has a firm grasp of the concept. But when someone with enormous wealth and influence shows a consisten neglect for responsibility, I see no merit in coming to their defense.
Parity: What to do when the weekend comes.
>> "Everyone's a Democrat until they get a little money." -
>George Soros doesn't look like he's changing his stripes anytime soon...
This is supposed to be be news for nerds, use your brain. Or, to be more precise:
Let d(x) mean x is a democrat.
Let m(x) mean x has money.
The grandparent stated that !m(x) -> d(x)
To be really pedantic, the grandparent's statement was actully in temporal logic and somewhat more complex, but the simplified version will do for here.
You said d(George Soros), m(George Soros). So, substituting into the statement provided by the grandparent we have:
!m(George Soros) -> d(George Soros)
I.e. if George Soros didn't have money, he would be a democrat. Do you see a contradiction here? No? Neither do I. That makes George Soros a really lousy example of a contradiction. If you want to find a proper example of a contradiction, you'll need to find some poor but vocal republicans. I suggest you try small-town America.
in the first part of the quote bg is presenting the problem, in the second he's offering his solution. rms talks about the problem and how bg knows about it (i.e. software patents will slow down innovation).
rms is selecting the right part of the quote.
ac
ps: one could argue that ms is just getting patent to defend itself but in this case they should also lobby for the abolition of those (they're not doing that btw-> make your own conclusions).
Damn. I feel like an idiot. Thanks for pointing that out. Now I have to go find a good Einstein biography. Do you know any?
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
(Wemembwer to wawtch owt for the spawces in the winks. uh-hah-hah-hah.)
0 65 .wav
1 04 .wav
1 14 .wav
2 64 .wav
3 73 .wav
RMS: (on the phone to Bill)
http://www.nonstick.com/sounds/Bugs_Bunny/ltbb_
Bill:
http://www.nonstick.com/sounds/Daffy_Duck/ltdd_
http://www.nonstick.com/sounds/Daffy_Duck/ltdd_
RMS:
http://www.nonstick.com/sounds/bugs_bunny/ltbb_
http://www.nonstick.com/sounds/Bugs_Bunny/ltbb_
~hylas
was to turn gnu from a curiosity that couldn't be used without a unix license (or possiblly one of the very limited and still non-free clones like minix) into a system any geek with a 386 could boot and mess with.
stallmans a great acedemic but it seems his acedemic good design ideas hit a bit of a brick wall when it came to coding a kernel.
There's a huge gap between being honest and being idealistic. Idealism, at its root, is the idea that the world should be perfect and behaving as if it were. Idealists point us in the direction we should go, but realists make things happen.
Playing fair is always a little harder.
There's no such thing as playing fair. It's a kindergarten concept that just doesn't work in the real world. It's like the old saying.. Honesty is everything. When you can fake that, you've got it made.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
okay, so we're back where some celtic kingdoms were.. You crown the king, he runs the place for x years, and then he is ritually disembowelled to inaugurate the next guy.
That way, you've gotta really want the job, and there's no point in accumulating favours for after you retire.
In fact, sounds damn near perfect..
"I think Bill could learn a lot from Stallman and by examining his own past and the way MS and Apple took the computer industry off of IBM in the early days."
So you think Apple suing MS over Windows should be the future of the desktop wars? Or do you think locking down your hardware so no one can make clones is a good answer? How about recent history, like refusing to license fairplay so other companies can sell DRMed music that works on an iPod. Apple is an obstructionist.
I hope no one takes what I said 14 years ago and uses it against me. I'm quite sure my opinions on many things have changed over time. RMS has fallen out of the news lately so he had to dig up something to get noticed. He's the North Korea of software. If he's not getting attention he has to make some noise, no matter how silly, so people will look his way.
In other words, nothing to see here, move along.
"Stalinism=non market based, means of production are owned by a few."
This has been the reality of all socialist govts to date. The unelected leaders say they know how to best run the economy, and take control of all the wealth of the country. It's worse than a dictatorship since they have even more power over your lives by not letting you own much of anything, and they make you feel guilty if you oppose them by pretending their working for your interests.
In true capitalism ... Only murder and theft in the sense of breaking in and lugging away things is not allowed.
Where in the capitalistic economy definition does it say that you have to be morally good?
True capitalism is every one for themself. Don't think for a moment that a true 100% capitalist wouldn't literally kill their mother if it benefitted them to do so.
I suggest he try the bible belt.
It's been over two decades since Regan did it, but I still can't understand why anti-government and pro-government-enforced-religion folks get along at all, much less how we now have a coalition government in all three branches.
Innovative firms naturally gain monopoly power for some period of time, and it is argued without the prospect of monopoly power in the form of "intellectual property" would have insufficient incentive to innovate. In fact intellectual monopoly is costly, dangerous, and neither needed for, nor a necessary consequence of, innovation.
"In true capitalism I can use any resources at my disposal to make money. Only murder and theft in the sense of breaking in and lugging away things is not allowed. "
If intellectual property is property, than stealing it is no different than shoplifting.
Your claim that companies will band together if no IP exists is ludicrous. Anyone not in the consortium will still steal the idea without paying the investment. Companies where IP is their product such as publishers and pharmaceutical companies, will die off, and progress will slow down.
Well, I guess this is a good reason to drive on the sidewalk.
Hmmm... all those Hollywood paupers. All those poor editors at the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, etc. All those penniless Ivy League tenured professors, union bosses, bureaucrats, lefty IT geeks and CEOs, casino operators, etc. Wonder how it is that the Limousine Liberals don't have a dime.
It does work, just not in the short term. That often confuses people. Playing fair and being honest does work. You just have to understand that you will lose a few battles, but win the war. It's a hard concept in today's world where everyone is focused on short-term gain. After decades of watching social battles, I can say, the scumbags always lose in the end. It's just a question of how many lives they fuck-up on the way out. Please, don't be one of those people.
'SBEMAIL!' is better than a goat!!
Richard Stallman stunned a conference on Open Source Software and the FSF movement when he took the stage with what appeared to be a whole rotisserie chicken. As shocked attendees watched, he then proceeded to eat the entire chicken with his bare hands pausing only to wipe the grease on his shirt while mumbling "microsoft wants you to use a fork and napkin". Upon completion of his one-man chicken eating demonstration he demonstrated the features of EMACS to an audience that could only be described as disguested.
Microsoft has already patented some .Net implementation methods,
I would really like to know.
Of course not, he gets it both ways, look it up. His money is sheltered from the taxes that he wants to place on everyone else. Easy to vote democrat when your money isn't effected by what the democrats do. Its when you have money that is affected by taxes that you start to question if they are worth it.
If there were no software patents, the big companies would appropriate all the innovations and dominate through marketing instead of invention.
Wait a minute...
For great justice.
Help a poor old programmer who has probably been creating software longer than you've been alive:
iff(writing_software~=singing_the_blues) then
patent("singing about my girl left me")
endif
I'm being facetious, but do you see how ludicrous software patents are? I've looked at and written as much software as anybody, and I've never seen anything worth patenting in terms of code and implementation.
The stuff that maybe could have been patented *never was* things like virtual memory, protected memory, job schedulers, etc.
The really ironic thing is that in the past 10 years, there's been very little innovative software that should deserve a patent. Yet before that time (before there was software patents), the software world was far more innovative.
Now we patent "one-click" and think we've really got something. Its really a travesty.
It was in the '80s -- you must have missed it.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Sorry, could you clarify that please Carly?
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Being a post that was already scored +4 Insightful, I read it, and was surprised to see NMR mentioned (somewhat) off-topic
e sonance - similar to NRM, but without the constant magnetic field.
I'm a research assistant doing work on NQR - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Quadrupole_R
Anyhews... although the fundamentals of NQR have been published for years, there are really only a few groups worldwide that work on this. AFAIK, only two corporations and two Universities do NQR related stuff.
Guess who publishes findings in journals and who patents things. We've actually had our work stolen, via patent, because details were revealed during discussions with the USArmy. The same co. was then awarded $20M+ in research funding, while we had to beg for less than $200k. And that was supposed to fund my prof, the students (myself,) purchase equipment, etc. There's nothing like watching a bunch of frauds use your work, and squander millions, while you do fundamental reseach using items purchased at HomeDepot and Kitchen Ka'boodle.
We currently have a (minimal) amount of funding from a certain big corporation. Because of this, they want the rights to our work first, and who can blame them. I've personally made a rather simple observation that may apparently have use in many other fields. We're torn between publishing the work, or having my name on a patent app.
OK, I'm rambling. 12+ hours in the lab today isn't helping. My point being: Whoa! You mentioned NMR! and, Not all scientific discoveries/techniques are published in journals.
I once heard Mr.Gates talking about his vision on developing visually; programms are developed by stacking and connecting blocks (representing code).
In above context, does that mean he might be willing to patent certain drag-n-drop actions?
I say we let these two settle this thing in a duel. Hand grenades at 2 paces.
--This sig is in beta. Please let us know abut any errors you find.
Open Source software exist because old software companies sold overpriced and under-performing software.
:)
A C compiler in the past could cost you thousands of dollars.
Open source is water.. Closed source is Pepsi, wine and booze
That quote always gets attributed to Churchill, but Churchill never said it. In fact, he went the other direction.
Yes, whatever the anecdotal evidence of corporate speak to the contrary, I suspect the Microsoft patent portfolio is at the ready to pave a path over smaller company's innovations.
Trusting people is one thing. You can form an opinion about their character and decide where or how far to trust them.
The character of publicly traded companies is that they are obligated to legally maximize profit. Since using patents in the USA to crush competition is legal, in a way they have an obligation to do that.
--- -- - -
Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
What you left out is that they patented it and then turned around and offered a royalty free license to anyone that wants to use it. Meaning that your "yet" and all its implications is just FUD.
But a conservative is not a Republican (at least not the Engish kind). Stallman could actually be considered a traditional conservative in Burke's definition -- preserving the institutions of the country (i.e. freely available softwre -- the commons), while raising the condition of the people (users of the common software).
China has created brand-new form of capitalism: Bill Gates
It would seem that "communist" isn't as much of an insult coming from Bill these days....
Do you have ESP?
shortsightedness or overthinking of the situation I guess.
My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...
"I don't belong to any organized political party: I am a Democrat." -- forget who said this, but too true (and once you start talking about liberals it gets even worse)
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
IBM, Novell and other large corporations that have thousands of patents, and that have opened up many of these patents, should form a consortium. Smaller software companies join this consortium and pay an annual due (couple thousand dollars, based on size of company). If any of these smaller companies get sued by a big company not part of the consortium, the big companies in the consortium do 2 things: they leverage their patent portfolio against the company pressing suit, and they provide legal support. I imagine the big companies in the consortium could even make a profit off this, as the yearly dues for all the companies will exceed the amount spent on legal fees. And in one fell swoop we can make the ruling decision of the gov't moot, and thumb our noses at anti-FOSS corps like Microsoft.
A future start-up with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose.
A brief fit of maniacal giggling followed, after which Mr. Gates directed his servants to bring him another pina colada and the severed head of Arnold Palmer.
Yes, that's the solution to how to be competitive in the market, but not the solution to all of the problems mentioned by RMS that are caused after major competitors patent everything.
...other than How To Become Insanely Rich Through Dumpster Diving?
Maybe How To Justify Everything You Do, Hypocritical Or Not. Windows still occasionally bluescreens when you plug a new device in, years after this faux pas, in which Trey explains "that must be why it hasn't been released yet". Billions in cash, but still hasn't ironed out the bugs == "we don't really care about the bugs". Quality is not Job #1, getting the money is.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
You need the name more than you need the damn patent. You are not the one getting rich with the patent.
And btw, you should sue USArmy and the company who stole from you.
Software Patents? Who needs them?
Patents would/will (and maybe in some cases already do) only slow developement, software, hardware, doesn't matter.
Company A - Has an idea, patents it
then
Company B - Get's cought and forced to pay up.
or
Company B - Is forced to re-invent another way to do the some thing (re-inventing the wheel)
This is exacly what's holding us, the human species back. We could share ideas and/or methods and concentrate on support and improvement.
Company A - Invents, and releases to public
then
Company B - Takes the idea and improves on it,
releases to public
then
Company C - Takes the work of Company C and further improves on it. And releases it.
If the big companies didn't play this childish game (which they don't need to, they already have dominance/influence because they are big companies) we as species would be way ahead of where we are today.
Even if you didn't want someone to know how you did something. You could refuse to show your code. In this case companies would compete on better implementation of thesome idea.
Everone wants somethingm for nothing...but not at expense of keeping the little business out. IMHO...
Sure, I can believe you feel strongly enough to put your dislike of Microsoft ahead of monetary gain, but I don't think the majority of people would act that way.
Well, I'm bored, so I'll be a grammar nazi for a bit.
"Noone" should be two words: No one (unlike someone, which is usually one word.)
"an near" should use a not an: a near (use a before a consonant sound, an before a vowel sound. A bear, an owl. It's not the letter, but the sound, so: an hour, a unicorn. The British always treat h as silent for this rule, I think.)
Quickly then: no comma after While; very happy instead of much happy; Infact should be In fact.
You don't appear to be a native English speaker, so these minor errors are understandable. I've made a number of errors here myself, but fixing them is too much work.
A religion will contain a moral code, but that is not the only place where morals come from.
State Capital Labor. (Iroquois Natives).
You. A wooden soup-spoon.
And wasn't it the same Bill G. that said that OS/2 is the "platform for the 90s"?
wave
The same guy that did not notice the Internet... but then again he has billions worth of stock in that company. I would say anything to protect my wealth! Cheers
COMMUNIST! TERRORIST! LIBERAL!
There should be laws meaning we can lock people like you up without trial, indefinitely. Unfortunately, because of our commitment to FREEDOM in the United States^^^^^^ civilised world, that could never happen.
; )
The famous first chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Mr. Konrad Adenauer once said:
"Why should I care for my yesterdays gossip"
my 0.02
But, then it bcomes a power issue. Again Bill wins over RMS.
Dont get me wrong, Bill is evil. But in the long run, i dont think he really cares as he 'won'.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Besides, it's not like any of his public health donations address priority issues or even have a proactive lean to them. Nope, it's largely pushing corrective measures that rely on large purchases from his other investments.
C'mon you remember when his media circus when to India. Smoke from kitchen fires is a larger and more concrete problem than expensive AIDS treatments. However, AIDS is a high profile event in the US media plus he gets to push sales of expensive pharmaceuticals.
It's probably just funny money to him anyway. He gets MSFT stock for free and then "donates" enough to neutralize any taxes he might accidently still have.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
None of those people have anything to offer, espcially Ghandi. He was a towelhead loser..
.
RMS is a idealist, flawed by nature. "but he means well"
Morals are relative.
Self-respect? Depends on your morals ( see above ).
Integrity? Might have a point there, but when you can buy small countries out of pocket change the only person you have to be concerned about is yourself. So it tends to be relative as well at some point.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Someone help me here. I don't understnad why those words from Gates are a bad thing? Isn't that the stance that we all want to see? Is it bad only because it comes from Bill Gates? Why such a derisive article when that IS what we want?
I can tell you've never studied the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma.
Fair play is the way to go, every time.Do you like Japanese imports?
"Everyone's a Democrat until they get a little money."
... thankfully, as they are all that stand between us and the abyss.
Of course, that's demonstrably a crock of shit, in as much as Bill Gate's father (a multi-millinaire in his own right) has been very rich for a very long time, and is consistently a democrat. Other examples include Donald Trump (rags->riches->rags->riches, with a few more iterations ahead of him it seems), and of course the Kennedy's (except Schreiber, but every family has its black sheep).
Not everyone sells out their ideals when they achieve a little success. Many do, and we as a culture have deified such things, and the greed and avarice that causes such things, but there are many good people who choose not to succumb to greed, who do place the greater good above their own, and who think this toxic neo-libertarian self-centeredness is in fact the single greatest contributer to the decline of our civilization.
But of course, the apologists for such thinking will find someone richer than the examples I cited, and raise their definition of "a little money" to be greater than that of those I cited, thereby shuffling definitions until they think their hypothesis holds.
It still doesn't. There are a few good people in this world who do not sell out for a quick buck
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
What we can all do that is more useful is to write to our US Congressmen and tell them that Intellectual Property protections must be changed. Do not threaten them whatever you do. That can ruin a day or so depending on what you say and it won't be fun. Be insightful, thoughtful and most of all respectful (even if your represenative is a dirt bag, scum ball or worse), even if you don't care for them they are the best bet you have.
Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any good proposals out there on how to fix things other than from the IEEE (mentioned on slashdot in the past). Take copyright for example, we could get that changed and override hollywood and Disney. Copyright should be for no more than 20 years. After that, it is public domain. We get images of Mickey Mouse, music of the Beatles and yes even the music of the 1970's Disco (ahhhhhh). I think 20 years is plenty for music today where music can go out of style in a month (10 seconds for Rap - crap).
Likewise Patents should be limited to where they are for physical things like intermentent wipers and that cool new toilet cleaning dodad. Lights that turn with the car wouldn't be because the Tucker car company had those in the 1940's. 5 years for software and it has to be unique, challenging a patent should be far easier. The challenging part should be easy for current patents. There should also be safeguards for frivilous claims. That is, don't waste their time.
The GIMP has a very very good interface.
Indeed: unzip and let the good times begin!
Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
Please enumerate your donationas and net worth. If they dont add up to a third of your need worth, then you are a hypocritical loser.
Let me guess, he defines himself as progressive or neo-socialist or some other euphemism. Just like "liberal" has been dropped due to negative association, so goes "communist".
This plays well with the phenomenon of communists resolutely denying that every implementation of communism in history ended in murderous disaster.
"Hypocrisy is irrelevant
Bill Gates does what's best for Bill Gates [no comma here] or, more accurately, whatever it takes for him to "win". Winning at all costs means forgetting your principles, or never having them in the first place.
When Microsoft was tiny, patents were bad for them; now they find them useful, simple as that."
Hint: illiteracy damages your credibility.
Your comments on class obviously mark you as a marxist/communist. So of course anything you have to say about capitalism is suspect--sort of like asking Gates about free software, or Stallman about the proprietary kind...
It's not quite as dumb as it looks, it just came out of specific uses. The year is often implied. It also matches the way you say it, "February sixteenth, two thousand and five". (You don't say "two thousand and five february sixteenth", though you could I guess). Some examples:
What dates are those? Both the sixteenth of February, current year. They line up nicely. If you are more interested in month-related data, then it works well; you can make nice lists, where the constant year is not obscuring the data that is varying; compare (e.g., how many August dates are in this list? How many August 1 dates?):
So if I oppose DRM and software patents that makes me a communist? Funny, here I thought I was just a pro-environment paleocon who believes in minimal government, one that does not hand out monopolies like candy (as our current patent office does) and that does not infringe on peoples right to tinker with their computers, stereos, and other gadgets (as the DRM does).
That formulation works alot better if you are a member of the English ruling class than if you are a factory worker. In any case, with all due respect to "Freaks and Geeks", Marx had a somewhat more general formulation:
"The mode of production in material life determines the general character of the social, political, and spiritual processes of life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but on the contrary, it is their social existence which determines consciousness."
I love gnu software, the quality and capeabilities are amazing, and if something is missing I can mod the code myself.
I hate microfost SOFTWARE it is low quality and I cannot make my own changes.
I do not hate microsoft, I just wish they made a better product and let me have some control over what I buy.
I do not hate bill gates, he worked to get where he is, he earned his own money, maybe through scheming, maybe through effort, maybe what someone sees as scheming to him appears as work. relativity folks.
Why is this relevant to this article? Well to denounce gates accusation of communism is fine, and to reverse the logic to show gates as a hipocrite is also fine. But stallman, the very intelligent absolutely brillian long time asshole went beyond that. As great as stallman is he is undisputedly arrogant.
The statements in here though making a valid point and reprisal are also very much a personal attack. It is like a media flame war between an arrogant asshole who has earned the right to be an arrogant asshole, and a man at the top of everything who has also earned his way there (though in my opinion it was with a crappy product). All this shows is that people at the top are no better and no worse than the flammers at the bottom. In the long run this article has accomplished little more than fortifying the positions everyone already had. In fact that is the only outcome of almost everything today. I ask has anyone here ever changed their opinion on an issue after holding it a long time based on something a popular/well known (ex stallman and gates) said tot he media? I f you have changed your long heald (5 years+) opinion based on this then please reply to this post and say so. But don't just say britney spears says war was bad so I am anti-war (yes I am going beyond patent law) and don't just say all my friends hate Bush so I decided I do too! State what opinion you changed, who said what sparked your change of opinion, and why you changed it. I do not care what the opinion is, or which side of the issue you are on.
I started exclusively writing dates that way after dealing with some Cuban refugees. Almost every country in the world but the US writes dates as day-month-year, often using only numbers! So now, it's 16 Feb. 2005 for me, NOT Feb. 16th 2005.
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
... suck:
Gill Bates
Ball Steamer
Dumbya
Chick Deney
Congoleezer Lice
anything Micro$oft sez or duz
anything the Repugnican party sez or duz
What? The most successful strategy was "Tit for Tat, with forgiveness." Aside from the fact that the whole issue is completely irrelevant to the real world -- it's a contrived situation -- Tit for Tat is not the same as fair. If someone kills your sister, it's fair to kill theirs? Maybe.. it depends on your definition of fair (same for honesty). Thus, there's no such thing as fair and honest. Until there are objective definitions of these words, there's no way to abide by them. But that can never happen.
So what is fair? If Country A has a better education program than Country B, should they give some of their own educational funding to Country B until both programs are roughly equivelant? That's fair, right? I think the educators of Country A would disagree -- they's now lost funding through no fault of their own. Is it a more successful long term strategy? Well, you now have a larger pool of educated people to work on various projects, so while you may have delayed the discovery of the cure for B.O. in Country A, you've enabled Country B to discover the cure for morning breath. So should the world be socialist? But pure socialism hasn't succeeded ever, anywhere. Not even in small hippy communes where everyone's baked during all waking, and most sleeping hours.
So long term success.. is it better to screw over your neighbor, or play fair? The important thing is variety. In the long run, it doesn't make sense to stick to any one single strategy. Sometimes it's more effective to screw somebody over, and sometimes it's better to work together. I'm not talking about one person -- although certainly there are occasions where one should question whether their moral interest or disinterest is helpful -- but if cancer researchers in one part of the world are playing cutthroat; industrial espionnage, spying, etc., and researchers in another part of the world are collaborating, then you've got the best situation possible -- whichever is more effective will win. Since there's no way to predict the outcome in advance (only the likely outcome), it makes the most sense to diversify.
Aside from that, life isn't fair, and there's no way to make it fair. Natural disasters kill millions.. people's own bodies betray them.. some people are smart, some are not so smart. Should I feel bad because I'm (arguably) smarter than my dog? Or my neighbor? Or should I leverage my advantage and do everything I can with it? I think that's being "fair," in the long run. Taking advantage of whatever it is we can. It's the will to power.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
I'm sure you all never use any date notation other than the International Standard (ISO 8601, as recommended by the UN as well as the HIPAA committe and every single data processing standards body that currently exists).
However, I thought you might be amused to know that the United States is *not* the only nation that teaches children to use fundamentally stupid and broken date formats. Here are some of the moronic customs taught in other lands:
Russia, Germany, and Finland use dd.mm.yyyy, which is not entirely retarded since you can always sort it backwards.
Great Britain, Australia, Argentina, and Brazil use dd/mm/yyyy, which would be fairly sensible if they didn't also use dd/mm and dd/mm/yy. My grandfather was born in '99 and so was my son!
Belgium, France, Spain, Denmark, Portugal, and the Netherlands use dd-mm-yyyy which again is not completely asinine because you can sort it backwards at only a small penalty in efficiency.
Switzerland and Norway use mm.dd.yyyy which causes great confusion for their more intelligent neighbor nations. And of course any format that doesn't proceed from the largest unit (year) to the smallest (day) probably costs eight times the CPU power to sort (more if you don't zero-pad).
Italians often use dd-mmmm-yy with roman numerals for months, because apparently they don't quite "get" the whole concept of "efficient sorting" at all. This is so clabber-brained that the US notation would actually be LESS imbecilic.
The Japanese often use y/mm/dd where y is the year of the emperor's reign (currently 16 Heisei Era) which makes a completely numeric representation impossible (since you have to specify the Imperial Era if you want your work to last more than one generation). To make matters worse the proclamations that announce era changes (for instance, from Meiji to Taishou) are so couched in archaic formula that it is impossible to pinpoint exactly which day is the changeover date, and the first year of any era is never referred to numerically (it is always denoted by the word "GANNEN" instead). Many Japanese government documents are required to use this inane notation, which in the age of computers is essentially a puerile affectation.
Latin America and the USA use mm/dd/yy and mm/dd (and occasionally mm/dd/yyyy) because we can't stand to do anything the way the British do it, even though our way is inutterably boneheaded and costs us billions of dollars every year.
French Canada, Hungary, Yugoslavia,Czechoslovakia, Sweden and Poland use yyyy-mm-dd which you will note is actually the ISO standard. I guess somebody was bound to get it right, but I would not have guessed that these particular regions would do so. The Quebecois are probably doing it just to spite us.
So, I know you're all wondering, how many ways can we interpret 02/02/02?
Well, there have been 125 Japanese Emperors, so that's 125 ways right off. Then there's the whole "how irresponsible can we be with the month field" issue, so that gets us mm/dd/yy and dd/mm/yy and yy/mm/dd and yy/dd/mm (there's probably some culture out there that uses mm/yy/dd or dd/yy/mm, which is sort of the pinacle of thickheadedness, but I haven't yet run across any poor souls that have been so miseducated) so that's 129. Then there's that two-digit year... hmmm, we'll throw out future dates and everything BC so the number doesn't go instantly to infinity... still, that's another 21.
So we've got about 150 ways to interpret 02/02/02 (or at least 25, anyway, after we throw out the Japanese imperial poppycock as arrant nonsense) without even really trying.
Thank you and goodnight.
--Charlie
You're on crack, my man!
If "linux were to be the dominant marker" then MS would have their 50,000 developers working on value-adds for MS-branded linux.
In case you haven't noticed, Ballmer is not a total idiot. The GPL can't prevent MS from becoming a free software provider any damn time they see a need to.
Not that I necessarily believe "50,000 developers" are currently employed by MS, but... get a grip, man.
Have you seen Bill's woman?
Dude. It's a TV quote, not the Fundamental Theory of Physics.
My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...
Fingerpointing..
Well Bill Gates exists because he can,
he does business the way he does because
it works.. That's why he is there..
And he thinks, I believe, if Ayn Rand is his
inspiration, that he, like some who believe Karma (I don't) that he exists to do what he does..
However, in each of us, there is good and evil, and its up to us to determine which will rule over us..
Bill's faith lies in his money and his work,
as long as he has that, he can be complacent.. What drives him, this is just one large game.. He doesn't see good and bad, he sees only what he wants to see.. But he's confused when the world doesn't believe what a great guy he is.. To him, this industry exists because he is.. He's so big, that when he becomes little, he loses his respect for himself.. This is why he acts the way he does.. His strength is all in what he owns and his power over the industry.. That is his respect for himself.. Some can be thankful for what they have.. But can
Bill be thankful for what he has..
It says in the bible.. HE who has will be given more.. And he who hasn't, even what he does have, will be taken from him.. This means, if you aren't thankful for what you have, be prepared to have it taken away.. And if someone is given more, don't be jealous, or in your distraction, what you have will be taken from you..
Just say no to license servers!!
Well, I would say it depends on whether you are talking about communism (as a behavior) or Communism (a state that claims a political monopoly so that it can enforce the behavior).
The behavior of communism can exist without the state but I think that the original theorists who coined the term were thinking of a new state. The reason I think so is because I don't see any other way for them to stamp out capitalism everywhere, which they saw as essential to guaranteeing equality. Every economic system tends to drift towards centralization, but it is far more crucial for Communism because the basic principle is that everyone should be equal economically and politically, and if one community is richer than another, then you really haven't solved anything. Therefore, some form of either political or economic centralization is required to ensure things are uniform and even between communities. While this is happening, people are trying to game the system to their own advantage, and without a structure to ensure fairness, once again the original goal of equality is not met. The typical solution is to create a bureaucracy to oversee it, and this can only be done fairly by centralizing it. Of course, then you run the risk of creating a permanent elite, but if you can implement communism in a large area without centralization, I'd sure like to know how.
The comparison of Free/Open Source Software with communism fails the analogy because there is no promise of an equal share of source code or any similar quantity of fairness as applied to each individual. I can make a million copies of Linux for my own use and no one will complain that I have taken their copy of it. I can give Linux away and not lose anything at all. Thus, there is no need for centralization to ensure or attempt to ensure the fair distribution of F/OSS. With few exceptions, there is no obligation to share anything. The main opponent to F/OSS is far more guilty of using centralization, coercion, oppression, surveillance, propaganda and, frankly, totalitarianism in order to achieve its goals.
My point is that whatever was wrong with communism, MS and its affiliates seem to exemplify it far more than F/OSS.