"In 2004 we had to buy 13,000 licences for office suites for our PCs," he said, "but in the three years since then we've only had to buy a total of 27 licences."
That's great, but maybe you could appreciate what you have gotten for free and give maybe 10% of what you were paying before back to those open source projects?
Patent 1: Software 2000 has developed a method of generating bit masks for use with laser printers which results in higher quality images. It is implemented by programming a conventional computer, printer or copier to process images in a particular way. Software 2000 exploits its invention by selling the program to its commerical partners who then incorporate it in their printers and printer drivers and distribute it to the end users in the form of printers, computer discs and web downloads. The end users are located worldwide.
Patent 2: Astron Clinica was founded to commercialise skin imaging techniques developed at the University of Birmingham which enable images of the skin to be processed to identify the distribution and concentration of underlying skin chromophores. The invention described in its application provides a system and process for generating realistic images representing the results of planned cosmetic or surgical interventions which change the actual or apparent distribution of these chromophores. The invention is implemented by programming a computer to process images in a particular way. It is commercialised here and abroad by selling a disc which causes a computer to be configured so as to undertake the required processing.
Patent 3: Inrotis is a spin-off company established by the University of Newcastle upon Tyne to commercialise drug discovery and network analysis techniques. Broadly speaking, the inventions the subject of its two applications in issue concern methods of identifying groups of target protein interactions. The commerical product which Inrotis sells is a computer disc which causes a computer to be configured so as to carry out the necessary processing.
Patent 4: SurfKitchen is a mobile services company and has made an invention which improves the ability of mobile telephones to access services on the internet. It is implemented by pre-storing a program on a mobile telephone memory or by downloading the program from the internet. In either case the program is usually made available by one of SurfKitchen's commerical partners to whom it makes the program available on a computer disc.
Patent 5: Cyan Technology is a semi-conductor company which designs and builds micro-controllers. It has invented a method of generating data for configuring micro-controllers which greatly simplifies chip design and programming. The commerical products that implement the invention are computer discs and Internet downloads worldwide.
Microsoft claims that the decision was made due to 'security concerns'.
Are you seriously making a case for keeping that POS? I mean really, who cares if they did it for some other reason as long as they're wiping IE6 of the planet I am happy.
I wish I had mod points for you. It's a great idea.
1) You could attach probes to passing by roids and then detach when they're about to pull back towards the sun. Saves on fuel and gets the probe further out our system.
2) If we could make lots of inexpensive tracking satellites we could track lots of roids. I think it would give us a lot of useful data as well as give us automatic collision warnings.
3) You could make an asteroid into a manned spaceship by landing on it. Why bother with the moon when an asteroid gets to see more things, albeit more dangerous of course.:)
The companies have money so they can take what they want without getting the million dollar lawsuit from Bob for taking his little music tune and putting it in their car advert.
So I guess fair use re-defined for today would be asking yourself the question "Could you get into a lawsuit over this piece of IP?". I think that copyright is pretty difficult to judge in the first place.
For example, this comment I am writing. If someone re-posts it, should I be able to sue them for infringing my copyright for re-distributing my work. I gave you permission to read it only! When does a few lines of text become big enough to be said "Ok taking all this would be copyright infringement"?
There is also a personal gripe I have which is the copyright blackhole. A game I really liked went bankrupt and all the code went down the copyright drain. No one owns it, but it is illegal to re-license, re-distribute, whatever because I am not the author. The author can't legally give it to me either because although he has the source, he doesn't own the IP to source, no one does.
Since Sun holds the copyright and patents for ZFS it doesn't matter what Stallman thinks. Sun can do whatever they want with their copyright which includes licensing the same code as GPL2, GPL3 and proprietary.
So are you saying that the "zealot" is Sun because they won't relicense their code as GPL 2?
It's not that people don't care, it's just like any product. You have unknown product X and known product Y. Most people are more likely to go with Y because they know it better.
If you want to get people to understand FOSS better then run some advertising, setup some laptops that people can play with at product demonstrations, get your brand out there so when people see your logo they immediately think about your product.
Slashdot Mirror
How many times are you going to keep repeating this BS? It doesn't even make any sense seeming as when you play CoD4 Multiplayer they validate your key..
Yay for Linux, but this really isn't the best of examples and it would be best to not associate it with a group which has such questionable voting methods.
I'm not saying they shouldn't have access to Linux, there's just no need to go around shouting about it.
Astron how you feel? Since it is Astron that launched this stupid case in the first place.
Patent 1: Software 2000 has developed a method of generating bit masks for use with laser printers which results in higher quality images. It is implemented by programming a conventional computer, printer or copier to process images in a particular way. Software 2000 exploits its invention by selling the program to its commerical partners who then incorporate it in their printers and printer drivers and distribute it to the end users in the form of printers, computer discs and web downloads. The end users are located worldwide.
Patent 2: Astron Clinica was founded to commercialise skin imaging techniques developed at the University of Birmingham which enable images of the skin to be processed to identify the distribution and concentration of underlying skin chromophores. The invention described in its application provides a system and process for generating realistic images representing the results of planned cosmetic or surgical interventions which change the actual or apparent distribution of these chromophores. The invention is implemented by programming a computer to process images in a particular way. It is commercialised here and abroad by selling a disc which causes a computer to be configured so as to undertake the required processing.
Patent 3: Inrotis is a spin-off company established by the University of Newcastle upon Tyne to commercialise drug discovery and network analysis techniques. Broadly speaking, the inventions the subject of its two applications in issue concern methods of identifying groups of target protein interactions. The commerical product which Inrotis sells is a computer disc which causes a computer to be configured so as to carry out the necessary processing.
Patent 4: SurfKitchen is a mobile services company and has made an invention which improves the ability of mobile telephones to access services on the internet. It is implemented by pre-storing a program on a mobile telephone memory or by downloading the program from the internet. In either case the program is usually made available by one of SurfKitchen's commerical partners to whom it makes the program available on a computer disc.
Patent 5: Cyan Technology is a semi-conductor company which designs and builds micro-controllers. It has invented a method of generating data for configuring micro-controllers which greatly simplifies chip design and programming. The commerical products that implement the invention are computer discs and Internet downloads worldwide.
.... which just happens to be better then ekiga, amsn, gyachi, etc...
I just finished reading the PDF, they've taken some stuff out but I still think there is more stuff in there then you'd get with windows.
From the PDF
Page 12 - Windows Vista Fixed 36 vulnerabilities
Page 14 - Ubuntu fixed 406 vulnerabilities affecting Ubuntu 6.06 LTS.
Look how many vista have left to find!!
Hence why they have less, you get no applications with their OS.
That would be criminal whereas copyright infringement is not.
What's your point? Could to make one instead of calling me an idiot and handing a link to your protest crap.
.. I never realised until recently with the whole NHS thing on the news that we even had laws that tried to silence people.
I wish I had mod points for you. It's a great idea.
:)
1) You could attach probes to passing by roids and then detach when they're about to pull back towards the sun. Saves on fuel and gets the probe further out our system.
2) If we could make lots of inexpensive tracking satellites we could track lots of roids. I think it would give us a lot of useful data as well as give us automatic collision warnings.
3) You could make an asteroid into a manned spaceship by landing on it. Why bother with the moon when an asteroid gets to see more things, albeit more dangerous of course.
.....9 Hours later...
Computer: haha, just joking it builds fine!
I already have one!
Are they thinking of something like Eve-Online but more "realistic"? That'd be awesome.
The companies have money so they can take what they want without getting the million dollar lawsuit from Bob for taking his little music tune and putting it in their car advert.
So I guess fair use re-defined for today would be asking yourself the question "Could you get into a lawsuit over this piece of IP?". I think that copyright is pretty difficult to judge in the first place.
For example, this comment I am writing. If someone re-posts it, should I be able to sue them for infringing my copyright for re-distributing my work. I gave you permission to read it only! When does a few lines of text become big enough to be said "Ok taking all this would be copyright infringement"?
There is also a personal gripe I have which is the copyright blackhole. A game I really liked went bankrupt and all the code went down the copyright drain. No one owns it, but it is illegal to re-license, re-distribute, whatever because I am not the author. The author can't legally give it to me either because although he has the source, he doesn't own the IP to source, no one does.
Even if you wrote the whole thing from scratch under GPL 2 for Linux, Sun could still be dicks and sue you for patent infringement.
That is of course unless you're in a country such as the UK which doesn't believe in software patents, then it's the users problem, not yours.
Since Sun holds the copyright and patents for ZFS it doesn't matter what Stallman thinks. Sun can do whatever they want with their copyright which includes licensing the same code as GPL2, GPL3 and proprietary.
So are you saying that the "zealot" is Sun because they won't relicense their code as GPL 2?
It's not that people don't care, it's just like any product. You have unknown product X and known product Y. Most people are more likely to go with Y because they know it better.
If you want to get people to understand FOSS better then run some advertising, setup some laptops that people can play with at product demonstrations, get your brand out there so when people see your logo they immediately think about your product.