Careful on that "no". It depends on the treaty nations. Canada is in a number of treaties with all those involved. Therefore, we might get sucked in as well. Patents even can be enforced in Canada in some cases due to treaties.
It's interesting that the treaty appears to deal quite matter-of-factly with the issues. It is using a very traditional criminal prosecution approach, which with an ACT of criminal intent, has served the society quite well.
Of course, the issue is the tools, and the likening of the gun to the ethernet probe software. But there is an new aspect that is being ignored in my view. The people and corporations writing the software that has a security hole. There's now no responsibility on them to fix it!
Take a look across the venerated BugTraq lists, and see how long some exploits were known to vendors, and how those vendors did precisely nothing to fix them until a wide-spread exploit was distributed on the net.
The real downside in my mind, as I firmly believe that the treaty will exempt the security professionals, is that there is now no way to bring extreme pressure on the vendors to fix these defects, as the act of doing so is illegal. There needs to be a level of responsibility and intent, at least for commercially sold and supported software, to make a best-effort to fix security holes within a prescribed time frame or via a prescribed process when an exempted security expert provides evidence to them directly, not publicly,of an existing security hole.
There should also be, to my mind, an exemption of liability on this part for free software. Not free cracking or cracking-assisting tools perhaps, but free servers and services. Apache for example, can't really be held liable as the software is provided as-is at no charge, and relies on things like security fixes to survive at all.
It's a very slippery issue, but I find it amusing that the producers are always assumed to be acting in everyone's best interest.
2 cents + tax, driver does not carry change
hockleyd@DONTSPAMhome.com
Programming is getting hard to do more complex tasks. But there is now so much power and capability, and that capability is expanding slowly into the physical. Now we can accomplish simple tasks, like sending a processor into a loop, or feeding an ethernet card back on itself, with unprecedented speed and ease. Where will that lead?
The help desk is there to solve the problems we want solved. But we've created an environment that may indeed breed many, many others.
It amazes me how easily posts on complex topics diverge into rants on style, ideology, and media rather than debating and expounding the basic ideas in the original post.
Does anyone think that Lanier and the luminaries on the edge may have overlooked the innate factor that it is simpler to destroy than create? While nanotech is not at a self-replicating, harvesting level, if that is the ultimate evolution, not molecular assembly, is that not the real thread Bill Joy asserts?
If a small robot of some variation could be imparted a simple capability to create itself from sugars and other simple biological molecules, and rapidly reproduce, why is the concern of their "perception" or "experience" an issue? Like a plague, this scenario would be devastating and quick, and the vector would not know of its actions any more than a viral strain.
There is a middle ground between Lanier's socialist optimism and eliteism, and Bill Joy's doom-inducing Moore's Law extrapolation. The next generation of the computer viruses becoming physical is the hybrid.
Lanier talks of brittle technology. It is that brittleness that engenders widespread rapid failures induced by viruses. If a small mech-virus, for lack of a more compact moniker, were to be crafted that didn't replicate, but would propogate it's effects along a power grid, by diverting energy into itself as quickly as possible to power the capability to continue to do that, would that not have potential for extreme effects on our society? Possibly, but expand that into any sort of hybrid where the initial vector may be mechanical, and the final is digital, and now many of our barriers drop.
The ideas are not fully developed, but driving to one extreme or the other intellectually moves us in a direction akin to the total cybernetic movement Lanier refutes. We are not exploring the full causal spectrum of the ideas we present.
Especially on Slashdot, which was founded on ideas and discussions. How odd.
Having been involved in more than one patent dust-up from a technical point of view, it's the cliams that afford the patent protection. After reading the Microsoft claim, I think they would be able to make a fight out of it, and the onus would be on Debian, Red Hat, possibly Sun, and even Netscape (Smart Update) for proof of prior art.
The claim states that they are patenting a method by which a computer makes a list of files, asks a server for deatils on those files, and a date for those files, and comparing it to a local date (held by a number of means for those who jumped on the Registry idea, which is only an example), presenting an upgrade option to the user. The claim then further patents getting the package delivered and installed as part of the claims.
This patent clearly attempts to claim anything even remotely implementing an automatic update procedure. I think it's possible that Microsoft is looking for another block to shore up it's defense by patenting parts of other OSes currently out there. This does that. Yet another patent on something that is essentially "obvious" to a "skilled praticioner of the art" cited.
This is an algorithm, and that should make it all but unpatentable, but it's written as an operational procedure with real parts, rather than a simple sequence of steps, so it suddenly becomes patentable.
It would be nice if ZDnet or Wired or a "mainstream" non-techie newsfeed covered the discussion, especially regarding Debian and/or Red Hat, and prior art on the patent front. It seems that the lawyers and committees responsible for overseeing the patent office think it's working very well thank you, and that it doesn't need to be changed.
I'm quite concerned that this was granted. It's another item that if it goes to court takes time and energy away from people doing good things for the Open Source movement.
But that's just an opinion, and I'm not a lawyer......:-)
Re:Is this really a good thing? IBM etc...
on
Microsoft Loses
·
· Score: 1
It might be interesting to note that of the few Anti-Trust defendents at issue, IBM settled. Eagerly. They altered significantly the business practices and to my understanding satisfied the courts and the plantiffs in the restructuring of their business.
As a result, we now have a very cool company with many interesting and beneficial products and services, and one that is enjoying a rebirth by leveraging from other companies and competitors through cooperation. Imagine if the resources of Redmond were used to actually implement a standard protocol, as defined, and build wonderful new applications on top of them, rather than hack a substitute or a poor implementation together to bisect the market.
OS Browser Applications (word, games, office, etc)
Three divisions, no waiting, and the browser now has to compete (or get bought by someone else).
Another interesting point made by a coworker here is that the value of Microsoft as 3 companies may be more than the value of the 1 today, as each will actually realize the revenue of the respective products rather than giving them to another division to give away for free.
I think those of us in the knowledge/IT industry know a lot of the truths, and non-truths in the article. Open Source usually works due to the sharing of the knowledge, but it's efficient sharing and organization of that knowledge that makes it work well .
Speaking as a programmer-become-manager, I'm looking to be the manager I always wanted, and not the bozo, clued-out misplaced administrator that most codes learn to hate. So knowing the strengths of the open environment, I pose a question regarding the futurist lean of the article and the EBC idea within.
When the collaboration is fruitful, and the proceeds are flowing, and one of the "intellectual investors" decides to leave, who now owns the knowledge, and the product? Can one such person pulling out fold the enterprise as the "own" the part of the idea, or is the new economy hinted at truly based on the Open Source basis of "once the knowledge is shared, it is public", or in this case, it is the collective property of the enterprise, much like today's non-disclosure agreements result in?
Ideas, comments, thoughts?
BlackStar
"Imagination is more important than knowlege" -- A. Einstein
Your comment reaches to the crux of the matter. Many of the problems that computers either can't do or are poor at, we ourselves as human beings probably don't understand or don't have a method to solve.
I'd add, however, that a few posters have pointed out Quantum and DNA computing, as "breaking the mold". I think writings in the vein of this book need to be cast against the backdrop of "... assuming the current method of problem solving and execution... ".
Quantum computing offers a method that *may* break or reduce certain NP complete problems, as I understand it. Problems which were "impossible" in Newtonian mechanics are near-trivial in relativistic frameworks. Quantum problems which were near-intractible mathematically reduced to simple interactions with Feynman diagrams.
If the problem is hard, or currently "impossible", a revolution of sorts in thinking is likely required. Those labels state that your mode of thinking needs to expand, as your problem space has grown beyond your solution.
As was also pointed out, AI produced the genetic algorithm, which offers a new approach to certain NP search problems, like the travelling salesman. While this doesn't actually achieve a solution in less than NP time, it creates a method to find near-optimal solutions in linear or logarithmic time, using a very different approach.
Be critical of new ideas. For that is science. But be open to those new ideas as well, for that is progress.
Non-trivial, yes. GUI, yes, but with less successful results. We have had excellent success with reasonably involved apps (~20 classes, LARGE memory runtime footprint, high trans/sec counts), but these are processing/reporting apps. There are inconsistencies in GUI displays and behaviour, but these work out to be 1/2 the fault of SUN, and 1/2 the fault of a programmer not appreciating the essence of the portability in the framework of Java and Swing. Dallas Hockley
Slashdot Mirror
Dallas
Of course, the issue is the tools, and the likening of the gun to the ethernet probe software. But there is an new aspect that is being ignored in my view. The people and corporations writing the software that has a security hole. There's now no responsibility on them to fix it!
Take a look across the venerated BugTraq lists, and see how long some exploits were known to vendors, and how those vendors did precisely nothing to fix them until a wide-spread exploit was distributed on the net.
The real downside in my mind, as I firmly believe that the treaty will exempt the security professionals, is that there is now no way to bring extreme pressure on the vendors to fix these defects, as the act of doing so is illegal. There needs to be a level of responsibility and intent, at least for commercially sold and supported software, to make a best-effort to fix security holes within a prescribed time frame or via a prescribed process when an exempted security expert provides evidence to them directly, not publicly,of an existing security hole.
There should also be, to my mind, an exemption of liability on this part for free software. Not free cracking or cracking-assisting tools perhaps, but free servers and services. Apache for example, can't really be held liable as the software is provided as-is at no charge, and relies on things like security fixes to survive at all.
It's a very slippery issue, but I find it amusing that the producers are always assumed to be acting in everyone's best interest.
2 cents + tax, driver does not carry change hockleyd@DONTSPAMhome.com
The help desk is there to solve the problems we want solved. But we've created an environment that may indeed breed many, many others.
Does anyone think that Lanier and the luminaries on the edge may have overlooked the innate factor that it is simpler to destroy than create? While nanotech is not at a self-replicating, harvesting level, if that is the ultimate evolution, not molecular assembly, is that not the real thread Bill Joy asserts?
If a small robot of some variation could be imparted a simple capability to create itself from sugars and other simple biological molecules, and rapidly reproduce, why is the concern of their "perception" or "experience" an issue? Like a plague, this scenario would be devastating and quick, and the vector would not know of its actions any more than a viral strain.
There is a middle ground between Lanier's socialist optimism and eliteism, and Bill Joy's doom-inducing Moore's Law extrapolation. The next generation of the computer viruses becoming physical is the hybrid.
Lanier talks of brittle technology. It is that brittleness that engenders widespread rapid failures induced by viruses. If a small mech-virus, for lack of a more compact moniker, were to be crafted that didn't replicate, but would propogate it's effects along a power grid, by diverting energy into itself as quickly as possible to power the capability to continue to do that, would that not have potential for extreme effects on our society? Possibly, but expand that into any sort of hybrid where the initial vector may be mechanical, and the final is digital, and now many of our barriers drop.
The ideas are not fully developed, but driving to one extreme or the other intellectually moves us in a direction akin to the total cybernetic movement Lanier refutes. We are not exploring the full causal spectrum of the ideas we present.
Especially on Slashdot, which was founded on ideas and discussions. How odd.
The claim states that they are patenting a method by which a computer makes a list of files, asks a server for deatils on those files, and a date for those files, and comparing it to a local date (held by a number of means for those who jumped on the Registry idea, which is only an example), presenting an upgrade option to the user. The claim then further patents getting the package delivered and installed as part of the claims.
This patent clearly attempts to claim anything even remotely implementing an automatic update procedure. I think it's possible that Microsoft is looking for another block to shore up it's defense by patenting parts of other OSes currently out there. This does that. Yet another patent on something that is essentially "obvious" to a "skilled praticioner of the art" cited.
This is an algorithm, and that should make it all but unpatentable, but it's written as an operational procedure with real parts, rather than a simple sequence of steps, so it suddenly becomes patentable.
It would be nice if ZDnet or Wired or a "mainstream" non-techie newsfeed covered the discussion, especially regarding Debian and/or Red Hat, and prior art on the patent front. It seems that the lawyers and committees responsible for overseeing the patent office think it's working very well thank you, and that it doesn't need to be changed.
I'm quite concerned that this was granted. It's another item that if it goes to court takes time and energy away from people doing good things for the Open Source movement.
But that's just an opinion, and I'm not a lawyer...... :-)
As a result, we now have a very cool company with many interesting and beneficial products and services, and one that is enjoying a rebirth by leveraging from other companies and competitors through cooperation. Imagine if the resources of Redmond were used to actually implement a standard protocol, as defined, and build wonderful new applications on top of them, rather than hack a substitute or a poor implementation together to bisect the market.
OS
Browser
Applications (word, games, office, etc)
Three divisions, no waiting, and the browser now has to compete (or get bought by someone else).
Another interesting point made by a coworker here is that the value of Microsoft as 3 companies may be more than the value of the 1 today, as each will actually realize the revenue of the respective products rather than giving them to another division to give away for free.
2 cents, no deposit
Speaking as a programmer-become-manager, I'm looking to be the manager I always wanted, and not the bozo, clued-out misplaced administrator that most codes learn to hate. So knowing the strengths of the open environment, I pose a question regarding the futurist lean of the article and the EBC idea within.
When the collaboration is fruitful, and the proceeds are flowing, and one of the "intellectual investors" decides to leave, who now owns the knowledge, and the product? Can one such person pulling out fold the enterprise as the "own" the part of the idea, or is the new economy hinted at truly based on the Open Source basis of "once the knowledge is shared, it is public", or in this case, it is the collective property of the enterprise, much like today's non-disclosure agreements result in?
Ideas, comments, thoughts?
BlackStar
"Imagination is more important than knowlege" -- A. Einstein
I'd add, however, that a few posters have pointed out Quantum and DNA computing, as "breaking the mold". I think writings in the vein of this book need to be cast against the backdrop of "... assuming the current method of problem solving and execution... ".
Quantum computing offers a method that *may* break or reduce certain NP complete problems, as I understand it. Problems which were "impossible" in Newtonian mechanics are near-trivial in relativistic frameworks. Quantum problems which were near-intractible mathematically reduced to simple interactions with Feynman diagrams.
If the problem is hard, or currently "impossible", a revolution of sorts in thinking is likely required. Those labels state that your mode of thinking needs to expand, as your problem space has grown beyond your solution.
As was also pointed out, AI produced the genetic algorithm, which offers a new approach to certain NP search problems, like the travelling salesman. While this doesn't actually achieve a solution in less than NP time, it creates a method to find near-optimal solutions in linear or logarithmic time, using a very different approach.
Be critical of new ideas. For that is science. But be open to those new ideas as well, for that is progress.
Non-trivial, yes. GUI, yes, but with less successful results. We have had excellent success with reasonably involved apps (~20 classes, LARGE memory runtime footprint, high trans/sec counts), but these are processing/reporting apps. There are inconsistencies in GUI displays and behaviour, but these work out to be 1/2 the fault of SUN, and 1/2 the fault of a programmer not appreciating the essence of the portability in the framework of Java and Swing. Dallas Hockley