Slashdot Mirror
IEEE Supports Software Patents In Wake of Bilski
Mark Atwood points out this critical commentary on the IEEE's response to the outcome of In Re. Bilski, which points out the contrast between work done by IEEE luminaries like Donald Knuth and lobbying for software patents.
Wrong site for 'commentary' on this important issue. Excellent headline though - I'm sure the organization "hates" freedom.
Isn't the owner of that blog associated to the 'twitter' guy that used to troll slashdot with 60 different accounts?
Where is today's huge breakthrough announcement?
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
imagine donald, with all the work hes put into latex and the public opinions hes made related to open source and copyright law, will take this laying down.
the "if you dont follow the community we'll just do it ourselves" threat is very real.
Good people go to bed earlier.
It was kind of surprising to see on Twitter that not only open source advocates such as Steven Vaughan-Nichols and Brian Proffitt considered that list a good summary but also ACT, a lobby organization that supports software patents all the way (we lobbied against each other several times). But ACT pointed out that they didn't agree with all I wrote. That didn't surprise me.
IEEE: the governing body for Internet Explorer?????
It appears that the case is: No one won, No one lost. Which is good for our copyleft cause, because for the first time in USA patent history, the judge questions the whole nasty patent troll system, and who knows, maybe there will some positive change? Or with other words: I have a dream, a world, without war.......and software patents.
I wish I could agree that the ruling is at least a draw, but unfortunately I can't. It clearly favors an expansive patent system, assuming that new technologies must fall within the scope of patentable subject matter unless there's legislation that sets limits (mentioned in this analysis, for an example). Such legislation is a long shot to say the least, given the lobbying power of all those favoring software patents.
Through my work on the NoSoftwarePatents campaign (which I founded and managed until 2005) I spent a lot of time with patent experts and policy-makers, so when I read a reasoning like the one in the Bilski case, I can tell when an expansive view prevails over a restrictive one. There's really nothing in the ruling (apart from minority opinions that don't really matter for the future) suggesting in any way that the Supreme Court might do away with software patents. In fact, the ruling made it clear that even straightforward business method patents aren't an endangered species for the time being, unless they're just too abstract, such as the Bilski application.
...will be released with support for HTML5?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Do people still take Roy seriously? Have people really fallen for his lame rebranding of his site?
As an aside this was amusing quote:
The disparity between these views of Knuth (creator of LaTeX, which is Free software)
Sorry, buddy, but Knuth created TeX. LaTeX was created by Leslie Lamport.
Well, that's it; I'm going to have to cancel my long-standing IEEE membership. I encourage the rest of you to do the same.
Donald Knuth, and many of the other top names from IEEE, have name-brand power comparable to the IEEE itself. A split is not entirely impossible. If that happens (and in all seriousness, I expect the announcement to be at least a threat of a split) and the rival has reasonable policies and ethics, it will likely capture a fair chunk of the income and PR of the IEEE. (Hell, I've seen arXiv mentioned more in the popular press than the IEEE.) That could cause a serious disturbance in the Force, not to mention a serious disturbance in boardrooms, where there's a heavy reliance on political leverage to get things done. It's extremely difficult to manipulate crusaders - it can be done, but the RIAA and MPAA don't have that kind of Machiavellian skill.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
This is unacceptable.
Any organization which is as openly against open access to scientific articles (journals, conference proceedings) yet continues to wave its clout as IEEE does deserves to die out in infamy.
-- Sig down
You forgot us normal programmers, free software guys or not. Who wants to come up with a neat design, get himself or his company into trouble for it, and be forced to go back and tear out that neat design again?
The IEEE-USA, i.e., the United States branch of the IEEE, has in the past lobbied against visas for high-tech workers. They seem to like rather reactionary policies. I long dropped my membership for that very reason. The ACM and USENIX are much better anyway.
Who writes that crap blog?
Here is the actual IEEE press release:
http://www.ieeeusa.org/communications/releases/2010/062910.asp
They basically complain that there's still no clear litmus test for patentability because the decision was to vague on the definition of what constitutes "too abstract".
-- Terry
Like so many large established organizations, the IEEE seemingly no longer exists to represent their individual members - but more to increase the need for its own existence. Quite a few years ago, I wrote them to relinquish my membership. One particular objection I stated (among a couple of others) is their heavy promotion of professional certification (the exams of which they would administer, naturally).
It seems to me that they want to become a guild or "engineering bar association". Even were they to grandfather existing members, I oppose such additional gates. They are nothing but protectionist - increasing barriers to entry without adding much societal value. It is clear to me that their support of software patents continues this trend.
(PS: Lest it seem like I'm frightened of "missing the academic boat", I have a Master's degree in Computer Science with many supporting courses in Electrical Engineering and Space Dynamics - along with 30 years experience in developing e.g. guidance systems & firmware).
How is this either news for nerds or stuff that matters? The source is a conspiracy theory site claiming that Microsoft influence in the IEEE is responsible for IEEE's being in favor of patents. Follow their link to their earlier Microsoft/IEEE story where they claim IEEE is helping "imprison young people". Look at the earlier blog entries there today, where it talks about how Microsoft has taken over running the school system in the US.
Or how about the rant there earlier today about Canada spending money to promote maternal health. They are against maternal health, because the Gates Foundation is for it. Therefore, spending on maternal health shows that Canada is under the influence of Gates.
Or yesterday, where Microsoft is teaming with Coca-Cola to destroy Africa. Go farther back and you'll find them claiming the Gates Foundation is running a eugenics program in Africa to weaken the brown races, so that the west can recolonize Africa. They claim Microsoft has editorial control over all mainstream media, and has control over the executive and legislative branches of several major world governments.
They are simply a classic conspiracy theory site, differing from the others only in that their conspiracies almost all involve Microsoft instead of the UN or secret societies (although they have made note of Microsoft people attending the Bilderberg meetings, and have said that Microsoft many UN organizations...)
There has never been ANYTHING on that site, in either its current form or under its old name (boycottnovell) that has simultaneously been truthful and not available from a better site.
PS: they have also noted the Slashdot consists mostly of Microsoft agents.
When they started publisinhg so many papers on watermarking and other forms of DRM I realized that the IEEE is no longer an institute of Engineers.
It has become now an institute of the electronics industry.
what the heck IEEE has anything to do with software stuff. They should stick to circuits, devices, CAD and systems, where their strength really is. The Red/Yelllow/White and Violet Journals are still among the most prestigious publications in the electrical engineering field.
I oppose patents, as currently implemented in the U.S., for the same reason I oppose our legal code: There are so many patents / laws, that no one can be confident that he's in full compliance.
This means that for all practical purposes, the patent system and the U.S. legal code are ex post facto systems: it's a big trap, just waiting for {well-funded patent attorney} / {prosecutor with an axe to grind} to come after you. In both systems this is compounded by the system permitting patent applications / laws to be so vaguely worded that they could easily cover implementations / situations never precisely anticipated by their author.
Also, in both systems, an innocent person can be bankrupted, or be forced to settle, simply because of the legal cost.
In summary, both of these systems are significant sources of injustice, enacted by a legislature with little self-control.
Thanks...
Guess we all just got trolled...
-- Terry
It appears that the case is: No one won, No one lost. Which is good for our copyleft cause, because for the first time in USA patent history, the judge questions the whole nasty patent troll system, and who knows, maybe there will some positive change? Or with other words: I have a dream, a world, without war.......and software patents.
thank you very much perfect sharing i am coming everday
sesli chat
sesli chat
As I understand it, there's someone saying there are so many patents / laws that no one can be sure not to break them; you're saying that everyone is free to read those patents / laws, so this is not an issue. I remember that some time ago there was a story about some contracts (some company and their customers) that were written so that normal people couldn't really read them, and a judge decided the contract was void because of this. And I don't see a reason why someone should own an idea, just because he had it first. so what? subsequent discoveries of the same idea are still because someone worked for it. Today you can't claim patents help because someone steals ideas to claim as their own; there's arxiv for proving that you did what you did. My personal belief is that we are passed the point in human history where the concept of "intellectual property" is of any use. The thing is that today, if someone proves their worth as an inventor / programmer / artist / whatever, they will most likely be able to find at least a decently paid job, if not grants or something similar. It might take time, it might be problematic, but the only stable solution to the fact that information is so cheap will be to give up the idea of ownership of information.
new sig
That's because Mueller doesn't give 2 shits about normal programmers, or free software, except when it's convenient for him. Remember, he tried to pull a McBride on Oracle to get them to cave into the crybaby former owner of MySql (the money lost in delaying the Oracle rescue of Sun is that much money that won't be available for supporting programmers)
That's 3,000 people who lost jobs in part because of assholes like Nueller/Muller.
and he's now trying to pull a McBride on IBM on behalf of his buddies at Turbo Hercules .
And also he wants to "expose" groklaw because they exposed the Turbo Hercules FUD for what it was.
3,000 jobs. This is not someone who cares about programmers. This is someone who cares about being a lobbyist - and you can be sure he's looking out for #1.
Make no mistake about it folks - Muller/Mueller is a shill.
This is the same lobbyist who helped delay the Oracle rescue of Sun. The delay cost 3,000 additional jobs over and above the 6,000 that were originally slated.
This is the same lobbyist who is trying to pull a Darl McBride on IBM for Turbo Hercules - and who "complained to the establishment" when slashdotters down-modded his bullsh*t.
This is the same lobbyist who is now threatening to "expose" groklaw because astroturfers got the boot.
His latest lie? He's now saying that I've claimed he's a Microsoft shill. I've never said anything one way or another on that topic. His tin-foil hat is too tight - or he can't keep his lies straight.
He's no friend of the community.
This court ruling was a win. To say this:
flies against reality.
So why does Mueller continue to lie and spread fud? It's what he does - he's a lobbyist. Not a programmer.
... become of IEEE. I EEEEEE.
Maybe you shouldn't trust PJ so much. She censors Groklaw so that people can't hold an honest debate there. How, you ask? By vanishing and silently editing people's posts.
By "vanishing" I mean that your post will *appear* to exist when you visit Groklaw. But nobody else will see it. I have verified this via proxies. Oh, and you might say "she only does that to trolls!" Not true. She does it to people she disagrees with. Marbux, AllParadox and one former Groklaw moderator have all parted ways due to this issue. Incidentally, I have logs and screenshots documenting this. I sent them to Florian, incidentally, because I find PJ's actions dishonest.
Silently editing posts should be more obvious, but it's still quite insidious. One of her supporters wrote something potentially libelous. She deleted the libelous part and *vanished* the reply pointing that out... Quite a bit of whitewash for a supposedly open site, no? Oh, and if your account is deleted, your name is stripped from all your comments. So you don't get attribution any more (ever wonder why some people sign their posts? yeah...)
Normal practice on any of the many forums I have administered (as well as many others I have used), is for the mods to write [EDITED] or [SCRUBBED] or something of the sort to indicate the removal of such things. Not to whitewash the lot of it.
True, it's her site and her rules. She even reserves the right to do that (even while claiming that posters own their own posts). And claims to have found a lawyer telling her it's legally okay. I can accept all of that as true. But it's pretty damned insidious.
Yes, I admit that it happened to me. I called her out for advancing some theories in support of IBM that she excoriated SCO for, specifically introducing inadmissible parol evidence in support of her theory of what IBM's pledge was, when the four corners of the contract were pretty damned clear ("for the purposes of this license" any OSI-approved license was good enough--even the QPL). And I linked the the article where she had a field day ripping SCO apart for doing the same thing. Am I supporting SCO? Of course not. I'm calling her out for hypocrisy (pretending to believe strongly in standing by any contracts you make... until she thinks the contract was a bad idea and wants to say they should be allowed to weasel out of it).
> This is someone who cares about being a lobbyist - and you can be sure he's looking out for #1.
This is somebody who led the fight against Software Patents in the EU, with a lot more success than PJ has managed in the US. Why is it okay for IBM to FUD a Red Hat-like company built around an open source license (at least according to OSI... which IBM, at least, thinks of as open source), just because their software is QPL? True, they may have worded everything carefully enough to avoid allowing TH to go for a declaratory judgment of non-infringement, but there's no way to interpret that letter that doesn't imply that IBM wants them to quietly go out of business. And IBM was the one who raised the specter of infringement (in letter #2). We saw letters #3 & #4 first, so many people have been confused, but letters #1 & #2 make it clear who came up with infringement. And you may not have noticed, but the tune changed from approximately "TH got what they asked for" to "TH somehow goaded IBM into making a mistake by mentioning that pledge, causing IBM to throw in some of those patents."
Don't believe the FUD. PJ isn't above it. I used to support her. I've written quite a bit supporting her in the past. But that doesn't mean I'll stand by someone when they do all the things they once condemned. What is a good person, after all? Is it not someone who *does good*? Yet too often, we have evil excused because it's done by "good people." That's unreasonable.
Here is the part that precedes your quote
"We are generally pleased that the Supreme Court did not introduce rules that would limit the scope of ideas available for patent protection in our current information age," IEEE-USA Intellectual Property Committee Chair Keith Grzelak said.
You forgot us normal programmers, free software guys or not. Who wants to come up with a neat design, get himself or his company into trouble for it, and be forced to go back and tear out that neat design again?
Research - you're doing it wrong.
1) You read the literature (which apparently includes patents now)
2) You either come up with something better, work around any patents if you decide that is really what you want to do, or just do what is 'standard'
3) Profit! (Or at least don't reinvent the wheel)
.. get FUCKED! Because over the last 25 years, software patents have done nothing but FUCK this industry completey!
Troll
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
You can read my submissions supporting Groklaw in the past (I have, what? Maybe 10 accepted SCO stories with Groklaw as a source? I don't remember any more.). I have trumpeted her site quite loudly for several years and cheered SCO's slow demise. I hope you're not going to lump me in with shills & astro-turfers. I honestly question how many of those there are, because PJ lumps *anyone* who disagrees with her in with them, or so it seems. I've also fought against Microsoft on OOXML and the rest and supported IBM's Rob Weir when discussing how much OOXML sucks ass (seriously, he's a good guy, his blog also has some information on wine making, if you're into that). If I'm some kind of shill who hates Groklaw or IBM for no reason, well, I must have been replaced by a doppleganger recently. Here are a few links that go allllll the way back to 2004, when hardly anybody knew who the hell Groklaw was and show me agreeing with and promoting the site. I've read her site daily since the RU days and remember when she had a hard time surviving a Slashdotting, before she moved to iBiblio. I think I contributed one or two of those early, hard-to-survive Slashdottings, for that matter.
That support is in the past, I'm afraid. PJ is a huge jerk, mostly in private, and you'll probably only see that if you disagree with her. I can give you her real email (it's close to the public email, pj@groklaw.net, which has more filtering), if you want me to prove that I've been in contact. I don't think it's a big deal to put that out here because she's more than capable of switching it if the spammers get hold of it.
She's had way more than three fallings-out, incidentally. But most of the people feel like they're the only ones. AllParadox is a good example because he wrote stories for Groklaw once upon a time. It's not like he's some nobody who lurked for a little while. It's more like almost anyone who worked with her closely got driven out. Except for Mathfox, I guess.
There are quite a few people she's parted ways with. Heck, ESR may be next on that list for saying that she "jumped the shark" when she attacked his friend, Jay Maynard (who got booted from Groklaw, even though he has nothing to do with TurboHercules the company; even if he's a friend of some of the founders thereof). His crime? Saying he felt threatened when IBM called the QPL-licensed Hercules emulator an "infringing platform." He's not Darl McBride. He's not a party to the EU complaint. He's a guy who dresses up in a Tron outfit and writes an emulator, for crying out loud. We're not talking "conspirator" here. But PJ sees "conspiracy" everywhere these days. I can't blame her, after SCO, but I won't agree, either.
You can read AllParadox's account of his departure here, incidentally.
There's a gigantic difference between, "keep up to date on practices and algorithms in your field" and "read every patent that might have something to do with your work".
My understanding is that in the programming industry, current best practice is the "ostrich strategy", where you don't look at patents at all because it means you limit your liability if something does come up, because real "due diligence" in this field is pretty much impossible. If there were an impeccably designed and maintained patent index to check, and if the patents were written in a straightforward manner, this might not be the case, but as it is having every engineer (or even enough of them for peer review to catch things) be aware of patents to a high enough degree to provide real protection against infringement is a prohibitive amount of work.
Also "a neat design" doesn't necessarily mean "reinventing the wheel". In most cases in programming that sort of thing is an elegant implementation of a known algorithm for your specific problem.
I've made a start on documenting IEEE-USA's take on software patents. Help sought:
swpat.org is a publicly editable wiki, help welcome.
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
> Groklaw is not about building an online community, not in the conventional sense that we think of online communities. It's about collecting legal info and putting it out there, and c'est tout!
Well, how can you gather legal information if you're willing to censor legally relevant things you don't want people to mention?
So the point isn't that the tools are inherently evil, it's that the use is abusive and manipulative (seriously, I would ban her or anyone else as a mod for doing these things on any one of several forums where I've been supreme forum mod).
Now, you can say that she doesn't know better, but I've told her all this. She SHOULD know better. She considers anyone who brings up the issue a "troll". Same if you disagree with her, no matter how well-sourced your statements.
> Now for the changing users to "anonymous" - that's what several content management systems do when a user is removed from the system. It's SOP. You even get a warning that all their comments will be assigned to the anonymous account.
Yeah, but it's a *terrible* system. WHY do they need to do that? Normally, you put a [BANNED] status under the username. Far less confusing. And you can't tell me they can't change it, because Mathfox customized Groklaw to begin with. I'll give her more of a pass on this, it being a default, though.
Oh, and I'm still pretty sure that you can lock an account without deleting it. Which doesn't really lead to any confusion.
> Of course, the better way is simply not to delete comments; for a site like slashdot, that's ok - slashdot doesn't make any claim to fame except as a "news for nerds" site.
Yeah, but she *already has* the ability to edit comments. Instead of hitting the delete button (which *doesn't* delete the comment; instead making it invisible to anyone but you--this is what Mathfox customized, IIRC). So instead of doing that, she just has to wipe out the entire comment text and replace it with [DELETED]. That's it. No software change. Just being a lot less willing to use extreme powers (which I, personally, haven't used on people who taught me dozens of new racial epithets) for disagreeing with someone would help.
> Really, people do tend to take it too seriously. Case in point - pudge and I go at it once in a while. And yet, we don't take it personally - to the contrary, if he's ever in town, he's more than welcome to stop by, because I think what he's done here is pretty neat. Same thing with most of my hundred-plus freaks (I'm trying to collect the whole set).
There I can agree with you in part. But look at her and Florian. Or Jay. Everything they do, she finds something to complain about. I mean, would you feel the same way about pudge if he posted a story once a week saying "Tomhudson the LIAR: Wrong Again!" whenever you found a mistake and said, "oops, I meant to say x"? Or if he accused you of being a socialist infiltrator out to destroy capitalism because you have a Democrat somewhere on your list of fans?
> There's at least one user who everyone is sure hates my guts (and vice versa) because over the years we've had lots of very public disagreements - in private, it's the exact opposite. Why? Because we both understand that the other person is sincere in their beliefs and isn't trying to milk it for some personal advantage - unlike lobbyists, who will milk it for all it's worth.
Yeah, but FYI, I've been in contact with Florian. He's actually sincere as well. Now, maybe you're worried because he deals with politicians and has to be pragmatic about achieving his goals (seriously, they see software patents as a purely economic matter; so they only care about money, not freedom). But he's actually quite reasonable and sincere.
> I would have told him as much - that it was directed solely at Turbo Hercules and their attempt to get IBMs customers to violate their license with IBM, so relax, don't worry about it, it has nothing to do with Jay Maynard whatsoever.
The only way
> Also, Muller's not against software patents. All the DPL does is create even more problems. It's stupid. Let me rephrase that - the Defensive Patent License is REALLY stupid. It's like trying to fix a site with too much flash by adding even more flash, or trying to clean up spaghetti code by adding even more spaghetti code.
No, see, that's a strategy for dealing with them if they become reality (just like the GPL helps us deal with the reality of an out-of-control copyright system). Is it horrible to make contingency plans early? When courts, like the one in Germany, create software patents out of thin air, we may get forced to defend ourselves in strange ways.
Is it a good fix? Hell no! But that's the point: that's why we don't want software patents at all. But if we get them crammed down our throats (and we very well might...), we'd best be prepared, no?
Or would it be better if we said "we're screwed!" and all FOSS closed up shop the minute software patents came into being? Given that it's exactly what some people (e.g. Microsoft) want, I refuse to play into their hands.
But don't take my word for it. You can email Florian and discuss it yourself. He's a nice guy, seriously, in spite of the bad press.
Oh, and the last name thing? It's supposed to be a "u" with an umlaut. That gets changed to a "ue" in English. But most people screw it up, so he gets a lot of misspellings. I know, because he explained that to me.
Just a few points.
1. Again, IBM did not attach the open source project - and the REAL issue is copyright violation, not patents. Turbo Hercules can FUD it all they want, but basically, they need to get IBM to agree to allow IBM clients to violate the terms of their z/OS license by:
Turbo Hercules can't get around the fact that any restore operation would require z/OS to be running on both the mainframe and the emulator/hardware combo. That's 2 separate machines, with only one licensed copy of z/OS. Even in the consumer OS world, this is a copyright violation.
2. You don't "trumpet the fact that software patents are bad news" by pushing the "Defensive Patent License" - that just creates a second set of patent trolls.
3. To a certain extent we ARE immune - or at least, we have antibodies. Patents that don't generate enough money to cover their enforcement costs and still make a profit are a financial drain. Every time someone patents something, if they raise the cost too high, someone else will find a way around it, and that "lucrative patent" is suddenly worth a lot less. When that happens too often, investing in patents for trolling becomes a losing proposition. This is what will happen over the next 20 years.
Here's something to think about: How are you going to obtain a patent on the algorithms running on a quantum computer when even observing them, never mind describing them, will cause them to change? And it wont be copyrightable either because you won't be able to produce a source code listing ... like the two-slit experiment, observation changes the output, so you're no longer describing the program that was working when it was not observed. I give it 2 decades.
> 1. Again, IBM did not attack the open source project - and the REAL issue is copyright violation, not patents.
Well, that copyright violation has been around for a long time. Didn't stop them from trumpeting the Hercules emulator in one of their Red Books, now, did it?
And the letters only talk about patents that I saw (and possibly trade secrets, depending on how you parse the words).
I'd reference it, but PJ deleted the comment putting those four letters as text. Never figured out why she didn't put those up when she did everything else, but go figure.
Whatever the case is, my beef is that they're more than willing to attack people for using open source software--in spite of whatever their pledge is interpreted to mean--if that use causes IBM trouble. Unexpected? No. I just want people to realize that we can't trust any company when we get between them and money. I don't hate IBM by any stretch of the imagination. Rob Weir is a pretty decent guy (and a good wine maker), after all, and they've done a lot of good lately (as well as a few things I don't like).
> 2. You don't "trumpet the fact that software patents are bad news" by pushing the "Defensive Patent License" - that just creates a second set of patent trolls.
No, the Munich thing was doing the trumpeting. The DPL is a way to make lemonade (albeit a rather bitter lemonade) if the courts or lawmakers decide to hand us a bunch of rotten lemons. We don't very well have to worry about the DPL-using trolls (which are set up to protect FOSS) if they don't allow anyone to patent software, now, do we?
I think the worry is, after what some senators wrote (one of them being Sen. Patrick Leahy) that patent "reform" is needed. They want their software patents and we need to work to stop them.
> 3. To a certain extent we ARE immune - or at least, we have antibodies. Patents that don't generate enough money to cover their enforcement costs and still make a profit are a financial drain.
Yeah, but people like Microsoft who hate Linux or other free software for encroaching on their profits won't hesitate to sue. Or worse, they'll SCO it up and sue the businesses who use free software.
And I'm not willing to just jettison everyone trying to use free software at work. You said before that we should respect licenses, even the evil ones... so how is a FOSS programmer supposed to get a job if no business can use free software to make money? And won't we get forced to choose between having a job and putting food on the table and accepting worthless EULAs that heap tons of legal restrictions most of us barely understand on us 40 page downs at a time?
Sure, if you go into law as a career you might be able to understand the EULAs (and avoid them). But that kind of sucks for us, the people who are supposed to be able to *build* FOSS. Or do I have to work as a garbageman and do FOSS in my free time?
> Here's something to think about: How are you going to obtain a patent on the algorithms running on a quantum computer when even observing them, never mind describing them, will cause them to change?
I'm not sure you understand how observation affects a quantum system? The quantum algorithms (e.g. Shor's algorithm) can certainly be described. What we don't know (until we measure it) is the state of the qbits. And we arrange them so that they are very likely to give us the answer we want when we measure them. They could just submit approximately the information on that Wikipedia page and patent that (after translating everything to a plurality of legalese).
Even if it was like that, the answer would still be "by making a law which allows it to be patented." When have lawmakers ever been worried about how technology actually works? Sen. Ted "Tubes" Stevens springs to mind...
It's not like they currently require source code for any of the existing software patents, you know. I've read a few of the infamous ones
> The software patent issue is a temporary problem.
The specific patents may be temporary. I don't see the problem going away unless we kill software patents at the root. I really hope we do, though!
> but they only have a "shelf life" of 10 - because 10 years from now, we'll be able to stream uncompressed 1920x1080x32bitx120hz streams in real time, using only non-lossy, non-patented compression schemes.
Are you saying that we'll be using current schemes when the patents expire and better hardware, or new schemes (which they'll patent if they can)?
> It's a repetition of what happened with Stacker. On-the-fly disk compression was obvious, somebody did it, and it looked like the world was their oyster.
Transparent compression hasn't gone anywhere that I know of. There are quite a few files transparently compressed on my hard drive.
> Remember math co-processors? They had what, a 15-year run?
Those got built into the CPUs rather than being an independent chip. There was a day when CPUs didn't HAVE an FPU. But yes, I remember. I have an 8088 sitting under the bed next to me. It's full of RAM, has a 10 MB HD, CGA graphics (!) and... yes, a math coprocessor. Pity I have nowhere to set it up.
> As more and more people switch to laptops and other portable computing devices, the home UPS market will just disappear - another victim of changes in tech.
Umm, I think that battery issues are here to stay (they have NOT scaled, historically, like our other tech). Unless they're going to put RTGs in them or something!?
I don't think my UPS is going anywhere, unless they're able to build it into the power grid (or build it into people's homes directly, perhaps, as part of a solar energy system).
> For those desktops still around in 10 years, most will probably be running a journaling file system, and software will mostly auto-save not just changes in files, but such things as what apps are open, screen layout, etc (KDE already does a great job of this if you yank the plug, and I expect it to only improve) ...
Wait... 10 years from now? We already have journaling file systems! I'm using one right now. And suspend mode isn't very new, either...
> That's one good thing about software patents - we can guarantee that when the burden of any one particular patent gets too onerous, someone will figure a way to code around it.
You can't code around a lawsuit, though. And you can't stop someone from filing a lawsuit to begin with. Remember SCO? Their whole damn lawsuit was baseless, right? But it was expensive.
Who pays for that? IBM & Novel, mostly. This is one of the flaws of our legal system, really. You have to pay people even if you're right. Loser pays? Oh, sorry, SCO is bankrupt now and can't pay you...
We can handle the technical stuff, yes! But the legal stuff? They still haven't figured out how to put the damned laws into source control and they *really* would fear the day that the public has an equivalent to the CVS blame feature if they understood how source control works.
> This is why I'm against "fair compulsory licensing" - by removing the pain, it takes away the incentive to develop alternatives, it takes away the incentive to adopt alternatives, and it encourages monopolies.
That's a fair point, yes, but I hate to ask everyone to bear that pain. I'm not sure it's fair to demand that everyone be willing to be the next Rosa Parks, even though I'll be happy to cheer all the FOSS people on who work to see that we're not sent to the back of the buss by the proprietary folks.
> Why, it's almost as if they want to copy and paste that source code, rather than writing their own from the flow chart!
You'd almost think that the purpose of a patent was to enable people skilled in the art to make the disclosed invention, rather than for patent lawyers to make money.
> See, you were previously arguing about 35 USC 112. Now, all of a sudden, you've abandoned that argument and are instead arguing about 35 USC 101.
You could have just said "enablement" and "patentable subject matter," but you were trying to show off and talk down to us, right? No, I won't believe you if you try to tell me all lawyers talk that way. Ray Beckerman doesn't. You were a jerk to him, too.
> Since that seems to be a horrible mischaracterization of his comments, I'm going to have to say [Citation needed].
There's a nice story about it on Groklaw talking about computation theory for lawyers (there's also a text copy of his comment, which did indeed play off a confusion between assignment and equality, by saying that "1+1=2" is somehow invalid mathematically, but not on a computer, where it describes adding two numbers together).
Google is your friend. Who is asking whom to do their homework now?
> This doesn't explain why you, a former-IEEE member, can't understand a flow chart sufficiently to implement it in software.
I can, if the damn flow chart doesn't leave things out. I'm saying that source code doesn't leave them the opportunity to leave things out (but flow charts do) and that it's a lot more obvious if someone gives you broken source code. I mean, it either compiles and runs or it doesn't.
> Sure, and someone who's skilled in the art can determine that.
Yeah, if they spend an awful lot of money in court to prove that the patent fails the enablement requirements. Oh, sorry, you won't understand me unless I say 35 U.S.C. 112 first paragraph, now, will you?
> See, patents aren't supposed to be written to enable "one of Xenographic's skill in the art", but "one of ordinary skill in the art."
> "Lawyers like you" sounds almost sneering here.
Funny how that works, huh? It's almost like I read the snide tone of your post ("everyone here is a moron but me") and repeated it back to you, having already known that you were a jerk from your past conversations with Ray Beckerman, among others. This might surprise you, but some of us don't forget people's names.
Considering that I've managed to work on everything from zinc fingers to electronics to numerical analysis, I'm not really that impressed that you can manage more than one technical domain. You'd think that programming since you were 6 was special or something.
And after claiming I mischaracterized the IEEE-USA's amicus brief, you seem quite adept at mischaracterizing my argument as well. Does legalese so warp one's conception of the English language that it's no longer possible to understand anything else? Maybe I should try another language to see.
Here's the amicus brief written by the IEEE-USA president Professor Lee A. Hollaar. I direct your attention to footnote #28, which reads in relevant part:
(Freshly transcribed from the PDF; feel free to check for typos.)
Yes, I wrote it wrong when I said 1+1 instead of I+1 before. But however you write it, we're dealing with the successor function (either in general, or the successor of 1). It's related to the second Peano axiom as a function that helps us define the natural numbers (and thereby, the integers, rationals, reals, etc.).
But you knew that already, right? That's why you just threw up a [citation needed] rather than actually respond?
I suppose you must be two of a kind, with him calling the correspondence between programs and mathematics "cosmetic" rather than actually addressing it. To be fair, I suppose that proving the Curry Howard correspondence wrong would be a bit more of a challenge.
I mean, how do you disprove it or consider it "cosmetic" when the fine folks at MetaMath are writing out the foundations of mathematics as a computer program?
If you simulate a physical process on a computer, say, the sun going nova, you can look out the window and the sun will still be there (it hasn't actually gone nova). If you "simulate" a mathematical process on a computer, you end up with the same result as if you'd done it by hand (assuming you don't screw up).