From the patent office's link to the patent the assignee is "The Regents of the University of California (Oakland, CA)".
Hmmm... They say in their about page that they were spun off of the university, but it doesn't look like they officially changed ownership of the patent.
I can't see the University of California turning down a $1 billion dollar donation any more than Sun would.
Assuming this research outfit has unrestricted ownership of the patent, I think they would have a hard time turning down a number that had as many zeros in it as a billion. Then where would we be? Microsoft would have a more difficult time exploiting a purchase of this patent because of their obvious monopoly problems, but there are a couple of things they could probably do to attack open source software.
Lets say that Microsoft purchases this patent and agrees to license this "fairly" to all comers as long as all users respect their digital rights management initiatives or place some other speed bump to open source browsers or browsers on open source platforms.
Eolas's thought exercise of not allowing IE to use their "technology" is probably just posturing for a better settlement and the judgment will come down to money in the end... Something that Microsoft has plenty of.
The best case could be that the patent is overturned and drops into the public domain. Then there will not be a private interest that would control what is becoming an important part of the browser experience.
Gartner Group is a company that claims to provide forward seeing information to companies. You would think that a requirement for this would be an unbiased evaluation of alternatives.
I am not sure how they can say things like the following and still claim to have a clear view of what is happening let alone what will happen.
"So far, Linux holds only a slight market share compared with Microsoft's offerings and represents a sensible deployment platform only in certain environments, such as entry-level and edge-of-network server implementations. For mission-critical functions, Linux still needs to catch up..."
At my work and a number of places I am aware of, mission critical applications run on Linux and typically work so well they get little visibility.
The commoditization of software built using the open source model is a large threat to Microsoft's and other closed source software companies business models. I suspect that Microsoft buys a large number of reports from Gartner Group and they are careful to say things that sound good to their customers.
I suspect Zilog and their bond holders were expecting their IPO to bail them out, but they withdrew it September 2000 when the IPO market went down the tubes.
Heh... It is a matter of scale. My company sells a faster 8-bit processor that has a similar instruction set to the Z80 (well the Z180) with a C programming environment and a TCP/IP stack.
Why spend $400 on a PC and take up a couple of cubic feet to do something that $50 and a couple cubic inches could do just as well?
I agree that this could be an accident, but the government said that the original Anthrax case was just some guy that drank the water while hunting.
I don't think people should jump to conclusions, but a couple of working hypothesises need to be pursued including terrorism. There is just too many coincidences here to discard terrorism out of hand.
Our company recently hired an excellent programmer from overseas on a H1-B. We are giving him a normal software engineers pay and doing our best to make him comfortable here in the US.
We hired him before the job market loosened up when we were having no luck finding anyone with talent.
Just because some unethical people are taking advantage doesn't mean everyone is. IMO we should encourage any talent from other contries to move here. It might mean some competition for jobs, but we are better off with as much hardworking talent as we can find.
I treat the voting booth as my ticket to complain when the candidates promise something and don't deliver. This is somewhat true of the candidates I don't vote for, but I will get indignant if Bush doesn't follow through on his Social Security promises.
Both of these bozos would probably have signed the DMCA, and will probably continue to take away our rights to "protect the children."
Unfortunately there is not a candidate in the race, that has me convinced that they are even aware of Internet culture. That means I have to choose based on other issues.
I feel that the power in government should be just a short walk or drive away. The idea of local control that G.W. Bush espouses (but probably doesn't mean) is compelling. When you want to participate in governing you should be able to complain to the one making the decision in _person_.
I will probably vote for Bush in the hope that his pledge of local control comes to fruition.
Can minors be held to click through licenses. If a minor downloaded a file and decided to ignore the click through and spreads a trade secret around what is the result?
Microsoft could still give people a hard time for forwarding around the copyrighted material, but I don't think that the license restrictions would be valid because Microsoft should not have entered into a contract with the minor. I asked someone who was studying for the bar exam and he wasn't sure if there were any laws that made software licenses different from any other contract.
That is why an unrestrained democracy is bad. What ever anyone can convince the majority to go along with is what goes. Thankfully the US constitution invests individuals with rights that cannot be taken (I'm an optimist...). An example is the first amendment that protects the rights we are currently exercising.
Like many people I think that the MPAA has stepped way over the line on this one. Each corporation has the responsibilty to protect their shareholders intellectial property, but that property is not this stupid so called "trade secret" that allows them an unfair monopoly, a monopoly which gives them godlike powers over where, when, and how there product is used. Their property is the movies they make and for the most part we want to see.
I bet that the media outlets that participate in the MPAA make the overwhelming majority of the movies sold in the United States. This loose orgranization has been the legal club which has been ineffectively whacking at the DeCss moles. This organization has nothing to do with free markets, just the opposite it seems like they are guilty of collusion.
This backroom price fixing is what really needs to be investigated...
Patents are expensive... I am in the process of working on a couple of software patents now. The only reason to get a patent is if that patent will make you money. pure and simple
If you want something to not be patentable just publish it and as many uses for it as you can. At that point you idea moves into the public domain and can be pointed at if anyone gets a patent that uses your idea, assuming they didn't have the idea first:-).
Do we really want more easy democracy? I have thee problems with voting online... 1. What about those who do not have or want access to computers. It is necessary to give everyone an equal chance. 2. It should take effort to vote. You should care enough to change your voter registration each time you move and follow the elections enough to remember that it is election day. 3. We are not a democracy, we are a republic. A democracy comes down to what the majority says happens (mob rules). Luckily for the minority on any issue are rights have to be considered. If the majority decided that computer users should be killed, could it happen??? No because each individual has their civil rights protected. Voting is a responsibility. It should be available to everyone, but not easy for those that are whipped into action by a last minute media blitz. In my town whenever there is a school bond measure, the district polls the electorate for likely voters for the measures and pesters them into voting... Bringing them abesentee ballots and reminding them that it is time to vote. Online voting is just going to accelerate that process.
My wife is a second grade teacher in a low income district. We have no problem getting friends and businesses to donate hardware, but we have a problem with software. My wife needs packages which get the kids more familiar with the computer while reinforcing their math/reading with visual rewards. Linux has many desirable features for her classroom: price, security, reliability, word processing, internet tools... But a lack of comercial quality educational games.
This makes Linux nearly acceptable as an operating system.
Slashdot Mirror
From the patent office's link to the patent the assignee is "The Regents of the University of California (Oakland, CA)".
Hmmm... They say in their about page that they were spun off of the university, but it doesn't look like they officially changed ownership of the patent.
I can't see the University of California turning down a $1 billion dollar donation any more than Sun would.
Assuming this research outfit has unrestricted ownership of the patent, I think they would have a hard time turning down a number that had as many zeros in it as a billion. Then where would we be? Microsoft would have a more difficult time exploiting a purchase of this patent because of their obvious monopoly problems, but there are a couple of things they could probably do to attack open source software.
Lets say that Microsoft purchases this patent and agrees to license this "fairly" to all comers as long as all users respect their digital rights management initiatives or place some other speed bump to open source browsers or browsers on open source platforms.
Eolas's thought exercise of not allowing IE to use their "technology" is probably just posturing for a better settlement and the judgment will come down to money in the end... Something that Microsoft has plenty of.
The best case could be that the patent is overturned and drops into the public domain. Then there will not be a private interest that would control what is becoming an important part of the browser experience.
I'm glad he sent the spam. It made it that much easier to vote for Bill Simon in the primary.
I suspect Microsoft will print the code out and deliver 40 bankers boxes of source to the states. This is a typical tactic in this type of case.
There 100:1 on nearly random data is BS otherwise compressing their compressed data would yield the same 100:1 ratio...
Gartner Group is a company that claims to provide forward seeing information to companies. You would think that a requirement for this would be an unbiased evaluation of alternatives.
I am not sure how they can say things like the following and still claim to have a clear view of what is happening let alone what will happen.
"So far, Linux holds only a slight market share compared with Microsoft's offerings and represents a sensible deployment platform only in certain environments, such as entry-level and edge-of-network server implementations. For mission-critical functions, Linux still needs to catch up..."
At my work and a number of places I am aware of, mission critical applications run on Linux and typically work so well they get little visibility.
The commoditization of software built using the open source model is a large threat to Microsoft's and other closed source software companies business models. I suspect that Microsoft buys a large number of reports from Gartner Group and they are careful to say things that sound good to their customers.
I don't think there is enough information to answer this because I'm pretty sure the "DEC BC" does not modify the flags
I suspect Zilog and their bond holders were expecting their IPO to bail them out, but they withdrew it September 2000 when the IPO market went down the tubes.
Heh... It is a matter of scale. My company sells a faster 8-bit processor that has a similar instruction set to the Z80 (well the Z180) with a C programming environment and a TCP/IP stack.
Why spend $400 on a PC and take up a couple of cubic feet to do something that $50 and a couple cubic inches could do just as well?
I agree that this could be an accident, but the government said that the original Anthrax case was just some guy that drank the water while hunting.
I don't think people should jump to conclusions, but a couple of working hypothesises need to be pursued including terrorism. There is just too many coincidences here to discard terrorism out of hand.
Our company recently hired an excellent programmer from overseas on a H1-B. We are giving him a normal software engineers pay and doing our best to make him comfortable here in the US.
We hired him before the job market loosened up when we were having no luck finding anyone with talent.
Just because some unethical people are taking advantage doesn't mean everyone is. IMO we should encourage any talent from other contries to move here. It might mean some competition for jobs, but we are better off with as much hardworking talent as we can find.
I treat the voting booth as my ticket to complain when the candidates promise something and don't deliver. This is somewhat true of the candidates I don't vote for, but I will get indignant if Bush doesn't follow through on his Social Security promises.
Both of these bozos would probably have signed the DMCA, and will probably continue to take away our rights to "protect the children."
Unfortunately there is not a candidate in the race, that has me convinced that they are even aware of Internet culture. That means I have to choose based on other issues.
I feel that the power in government should be just a short walk or drive away. The idea of local control that G.W. Bush espouses (but probably doesn't mean) is compelling. When you want to participate in governing you should be able to complain to the one making the decision in _person_.
I will probably vote for Bush in the hope that his pledge of local control comes to fruition.
Can minors be held to click through licenses. If a minor downloaded a file and decided to ignore the click through and spreads a trade secret around what is the result?
Microsoft could still give people a hard time for forwarding around the copyrighted material, but I don't think that the license restrictions would be valid because Microsoft should not have entered into a contract with the minor. I asked someone who was studying for the bar exam and he wasn't sure if there were any laws that made software licenses different from any other contract.
Like many people I think that the MPAA has stepped way over the line on this one. Each corporation has the responsibilty to protect their shareholders intellectial property, but that property is not this stupid so called "trade secret" that allows them an unfair monopoly, a monopoly which gives them godlike powers over where, when, and how there product is used. Their property is the movies they make and for the most part we want to see.
I bet that the media outlets that participate in the MPAA make the overwhelming majority of the movies sold in the United States. This loose orgranization has been the legal club which has been ineffectively whacking at the DeCss moles. This organization has nothing to do with free markets, just the opposite it seems like they are guilty of collusion.
This backroom price fixing is what really needs to be investigated...
Patents are expensive... I am in the process of working on a couple of software patents now. The only reason to get a patent is if that patent will make you money. pure and simple
If you want something to not be patentable just publish it and as many uses for it as you can. At that point you idea moves into the public domain and can be pointed at if anyone gets a patent that uses your idea, assuming they didn't have the idea first :-).
Take a look at: Software Patent Institute
By releasing your idea to them you are given the patent offices ear because this is one of the places they go when researching a software patent.
IANAL so you should still check with your own before taking any action with you intellectual property.
Do we really want more easy democracy? I have thee problems with voting online... 1. What about those who do not have or want access to computers. It is necessary to give everyone an equal chance. 2. It should take effort to vote. You should care enough to change your voter registration each time you move and follow the elections enough to remember that it is election day. 3. We are not a democracy, we are a republic. A democracy comes down to what the majority says happens (mob rules). Luckily for the minority on any issue are rights have to be considered. If the majority decided that computer users should be killed, could it happen??? No because each individual has their civil rights protected. Voting is a responsibility. It should be available to everyone, but not easy for those that are whipped into action by a last minute media blitz. In my town whenever there is a school bond measure, the district polls the electorate for likely voters for the measures and pesters them into voting... Bringing them abesentee ballots and reminding them that it is time to vote. Online voting is just going to accelerate that process.
My wife is a second grade teacher in a low income district. We have no problem getting friends and businesses to donate hardware, but we have a problem with software. My wife needs packages which get the kids more familiar with the computer while reinforcing their math/reading with visual rewards. Linux has many desirable features for her classroom: price, security, reliability, word processing, internet tools... But a lack of comercial quality educational games.
This makes Linux nearly acceptable as an operating system.