Well - the bubble burst and some people lost a lot of cash. (Those who kept their heads didn't.)
As a result, half the population in the first world accesses the net via broadband connections. In most of the rest of the world people do at least have the chance to visit an internet cafe.
And the net is changing our cultures. IMO for the better. There is f.e. a lot of information I simply wouldn't care to look up without it. And even scientific publications will (hopefully) break the dependency on publishers.
If something like this would happen to space flight, it would make me pretty happy.
The founder of the X-Prize owns a company that offers parabolic flights. The hype that the X-Prize creates will hopefully get a lot of people interested in the flights, which are cheap by comparison ($3k for a dozen parabolics).
If you want a new contest for emission free vehicles, organize it yourself.
As far as I can make out, the patents are about ORBs (object request brokers) in middleware. And the patents were filed just a few months before CORBA 1.0 was released.
So I think the lawsuit is not about the use of bytecode interpreters/compilers. It is about the middleware mechanisms provided by Java.
If that's becoming less true, I think this is a great thing. I worry a little about the environmental effects of "taking energy out of the wind", but I haven't read about anyone important who shares my worry, so it's probably unfounded.
The whole of Europe was once covered with forests. Now most of it is covered by farmland and urban areas, which offer less resistence to wind. If anything, those windmills will bring back more "natural" conditions.
I look at it like this... good patents cover the way something is accomplished and bad patents cover the accomplishment.
Algorithms are what is used to accomplish something on computers. At least in Europe, algorithms and mathematical methods are not (yet) (officially) patentable.
If patents would have covered things like sorting algorithms, heap and stack management, control flow structures etc., my guess is that we would not have computers today.
Nobody is willing to touch JPEG2000 with a ten foot pole. AFAIK 48 companies claimed that their software patents apply to the format. So we need to wait for 2020 before anyone can use it.
One and a half years ago, I gave my so an USB keydrive. She's had it on her keychain ever since, and it works without a problem. She uses it to carry data between her home, the university and the office.
The database-like filesystem of BeOS was replaced in the "Advanced Access" release (before PR 9). It was said to have inadequate performance for multimedia work. The old filesystem was replaced with BFS, which has been written by Dominic Giampaolo. It is pretty powerful with its indexable custom attributes. But it is not really a database-like system - as the old file system of BeOS was.
The new extension manager was rushed out with Firefox 0.9, and had a number of major bugs. While most of those have been fixed, some problems seem to persist.
This is really frustrating. I am the developer of a Firefox extension. Problems with installing and uninstalling get blamed on it. However, extensions for Firefox 0.9+ no longer contain any installer or uinstaller code.
If software patents become more common how will anyone know that they have knowing or unknowing violated a patent?
You can't know it. You just do your work and hope for the best.
The JPEG standard was thought to be unencumbered by patents. After a decade, the standard had to be redrawn. And yes, people carefully looked for patents when the standard was defined.
The EU is likely to pass a directive with the goal to increase the percentage of Biodiesel and Bioethanol being used to 5.75%.
AFAIK Germany will reduce the taxes for Biodiesel (which typically gets mixed with normal Diesel). It even considers to require a minimum percentage of Biodiesel to be mixed with all Diesel.
Note that even totally converting the agriculture of a state in the US or Europe would not provide enough Biodiesel to remove the need of fossil fuel.
The first american hybrid was built in or before 1910. I'm not sure which of the mentioned cars were built in the US. But hybrid cars are basically as old as combustion powered cars. Note that Ferdinand Porsches first car was all electric. His second one was a serial hybrid.
The OSS community has historically chosen to ignore trivial software patents as much as possible. If this were not the case, KDE applications wouldn't make use of patented technology like progress bars, tabs and Undo/Redo functionality.
Simple. You sue commercial distributors. They got some cash to win and will easily fold in, because most of them can't afford expensive lawsuits.
And the term distributors does not only apply to f.e. Mandrake, but also to companies that deliver products using OSS (f.e. routers and settop boxes etc).
You can legally hum any tune as long as you don't ask anyone to pay for it. Directly or indirectly. So humming a tune when you're f.e. working as a clerk or driving a taxi is not without danger.
Slashdot Mirror
Well - the bubble burst and some people lost a lot of cash. (Those who kept their heads didn't.)
As a result, half the population in the first world accesses the net via broadband connections. In most of the rest of the world people do at least have the chance to visit an internet cafe.
And the net is changing our cultures. IMO for the better. There is f.e. a lot of information I simply wouldn't care to look up without it. And even scientific publications will (hopefully) break the dependency on publishers.
If something like this would happen to space flight, it would make me pretty happy.
The founder of the X-Prize owns a company that offers parabolic flights.
The hype that the X-Prize creates will hopefully get a lot of people interested in the flights,
which are cheap by comparison ($3k for a dozen parabolics).
If you want a new contest for emission free vehicles, organize it yourself.
As far as I can make out, the patents are about ORBs (object request brokers) in middleware.
And the patents were filed just a few months before CORBA 1.0 was released.
So I think the lawsuit is not about the use of bytecode interpreters/compilers. It is about the middleware mechanisms provided by Java.
If that's becoming less true, I think this is a great thing. I worry a little about the environmental effects of "taking energy out of the wind", but I haven't read about anyone important who shares my worry, so it's probably unfounded.
The whole of Europe was once covered with forests. Now most of it is covered by farmland and urban areas, which offer less resistence to wind. If anything, those windmills will bring back more "natural" conditions.
What if the voter marks the wrong number? the ballot would be tossed just because someone can't count.
In earlier US elections you actually had to write down the name of your preferred candidate.
IMO someone who can't count is not qualified to vote. But in theory he could ask someone he trusts to count his votes.
I personally have never liked Java, but it's hard to dislike... it's a nice syntax, and makes for nice clean code.
I wonder if you ever programmed with a cleanly designed language? Say Smalltalk, CLISP or OCAML?
(C++, JavaScript and VB do not count.)
I look at it like this... good patents cover the way something is accomplished and bad patents cover the accomplishment.
Algorithms are what is used to accomplish something on computers. At least in Europe, algorithms and mathematical methods are not (yet) (officially) patentable.
If patents would have covered things like sorting algorithms, heap and stack management, control flow structures etc., my guess is that we would not have computers today.
Nobody is willing to touch JPEG2000 with a ten foot pole. AFAIK 48 companies claimed that their software patents apply to the format.
So we need to wait for 2020 before anyone can use it.
One and a half years ago, I gave my so an USB keydrive. She's had it on her keychain ever since, and it works without a problem. She uses it to carry data between her home, the university and the office.
And yes, she actually liked the present.
The database-like filesystem of BeOS was replaced in the "Advanced Access" release (before PR 9). It was said to have inadequate performance for multimedia work. The old filesystem was replaced with BFS, which has been written by Dominic Giampaolo. It is pretty powerful with its indexable custom attributes. But it is not really a database-like system - as the old file system of BeOS was.
The new extension manager was rushed out with Firefox 0.9, and had a number of major bugs. While most of those have been fixed, some problems seem to persist.
This is really frustrating. I am the developer of a Firefox extension. Problems with installing and uninstalling get blamed on it. However, extensions for Firefox 0.9+ no longer contain any installer or uinstaller code.
It looks like the start page for Firefox is accessed nearly eight times as often as the start page for Mozilla.
No Ogg support - WTF, this thing runs Linux doesn't it?
.ogg is pretty tricky for mobile players - the tables are quite large.
No. It doesn't. The Gmini 400 uses AVOS, a custom OS that was developed by Archos, and has evolved over several generations of their hardware.
The AV500 will be their first Linux based player.
Oh - and AFAIK
If software patents become more common how will anyone know that they have knowing or unknowing violated a patent?
You can't know it. You just do your work and hope for the best.
The JPEG standard was thought to be unencumbered by patents. After a decade, the standard had to be redrawn. And yes, people carefully looked for patents when the standard was defined.
The EU is likely to pass a directive with the goal to increase the percentage of Biodiesel and Bioethanol being used to 5.75%.
AFAIK Germany will reduce the taxes for Biodiesel (which typically gets mixed with normal Diesel). It even considers to require a minimum percentage of Biodiesel to be mixed with all Diesel.
Note that even totally converting the agriculture of a state in the US or Europe would not provide enough Biodiesel to remove the need of fossil fuel.
The first american hybrid was built in or before 1910. I'm not sure which of the mentioned cars were built in the US. But hybrid cars are basically as old as combustion powered cars. Note that Ferdinand Porsches first car was all electric. His second one was a serial hybrid.
This site provides a nice overview.
I haven't had a chance to play the game yet.
But since the engines of id software have always driven the development of game graphics, I would like to know this:
What makes the game engine of Doom 3 unique in comparison to f.e. Thief 3 or Splinter Cell 2?
Thank you,
Jens
PS: Nice hover
The OSS community has historically chosen to ignore trivial software patents as much as possible. If this were not the case, KDE applications wouldn't make use of patented technology like progress bars, tabs and Undo/Redo functionality.
The question is how they react when some software writes AAC files with Helix DRM withhout paying license fees to Real.
Simple. You sue commercial distributors. They got some cash to win and will easily fold in, because most of them can't afford expensive lawsuits.
And the term distributors does not only apply to f.e. Mandrake, but also to companies that deliver products using OSS (f.e. routers and settop boxes etc).
You can legally hum any tune as long as you don't ask anyone to pay for it. Directly or indirectly.
So humming a tune when you're f.e. working as a clerk or driving a taxi is not without danger.
Should parents be allowed to decide for their children?
This raises my hopes that the library will fully support JPEG2000 as soon as 2020.
Erm. F.e. Atmel delivers a microcontroller integrated with a FPGA that can be reprogrammed on the fly. It's not even a new product.