Why is it the Slashdotters always complain to each other but almost never try to make a difference? After reading this story on/. I emailed the editor of that website and he intends to publish my letter on their letters to the Editor page. Here's my email...
> Mr. Orr: > > Thanks for your response. Can we have permission to run the letter on our > Letter to the Editor page. > > To do so, I need to ask the city in which you reside or work. > > Thanks again, > > Tony Aarons > Executive Editor, Legal News > Law.com/Law News Network
I would love to have my letter run on the Editor page. I've revised the letter a little bit, so please use the one included below. My name and city are are the bottom of the letter. Please also feel free to include my e-mail address (the address listed at the bottom of the letter!).
thanks, David Orr
**
To Victoria Slind-Flor and All Software Patent Lawyers:
I don't usually write email to people in a situation like this, but I feel like I should say something about the "Gold Diggers" article. I'm absolutely appalled at what it describes. I don't think someone who could write such an article could even understand why some people would be disgusted by it (and I'm sure you don't have any idea), but I'll make an attempt to make my point anyway.
It is this very line of thinking that gives people reason to hate lawyers. You don't even seem to realize that there are people out there, engineers, scientists, even business owners, who go to work everyday happy that they are creating something great and useful. Could your greed-driven mind even fathom why software engineers devote their free time to creating free open-source software? Maybe they don't want lawyers to come in and find ways to use their ideas as "landmines" to "pounce" on other companies and individuals who may create something that inadvertently uses similar ideas.
The most unfortunate situations occur when patents are granted for obvious techniques. Examples include the Amazon "one-click" patent. How innovative is it really to keep a person's credit card number and use then use the same number again for their next order? Or the Y2K "windowing" patent. It is obvious that if you're writing a program that interprets two-digit years that if they enter "10" you might want to consider it to be 2010 and not 1910.
Whenever a software engineer creates a software program, he or she may "invent" hundreds of little solutions such as these on the fly in the course of creating the software. This is what programming is all about. Software creation is unique in the respect that "inventions" occur frequently and rapidly with very little time or money invested in them. Programmers don't want lawyers looking over their shoulders to lay claim to every novel idea. They also don't want to have to hire a lawyer to sit next to them while they write programs so that they can be sure to avoid all of the techniques that may have been patented by someone else. This defeats a key concept behind modern software development: the constant reuse and sharing of ideas. This is a big part of what makes today's software technology great. And when it comes to software, keeping an idea bottled up for 17 years is more than an eternity. The old world patent system simply shouldn't be applied to the area of software.
To make matters worse, it seems the USPTO doesn't have the technical staff required to interpret software patents, so they apparently are granting virtually all software patents and leaving it up to the courts to sort through the mess. And that's where the high-priced patent lawyers step in to take advantage of the situation.
The result? According to Feed Magazine (http://www.feedmag.com/daily/dy122399_master.ht ml): "Lawsuits are threatening to dampen the dynamism of the internet because, even when they are obviously spurious, they add so much to the cost of doing business that soon amateurs and upstarts might not be able to afford to compete with anyone who can afford a lawyer."
We're creating a system where companies are spending more money on patent lawyers to defend themselves against other patent lawyers than they are spending on creative and productive innovation. In many cases companies that generally oppose software patents are forced to seek patents on their own software simply so they will have a bartering chip for using patented techniques of other companies. This is the case with companies such as Oracle (there is a great explanation of their policy at http://www.base.com/software-patents/statements/ oracle.html). This is a system created by lawyers for the benefit of lawyers.
The lawyers are clawing their way into areas where they aren't wanted for their own greed. If this trend continues, we'll probably look back at today as the golden age of computer software when even new young companies could compete without the prohibitive costs of lawsuits and lawyers to walk a minefield of patents when they want to create even the simplest software.
David Orr (orrd101@yahoo.com) Gainesville, Florida
You could be right, but BeOS looks like they're taking over the audio computing world entirely. le Buzz lists the major companies porting their audio software (50 or so total) and pretty much every major software product is being ported with an improved BeOS version. MacOS simply doesn't handle audio as well.
Linux might handle audio well also, I don't really know. But hey that's why they have boot managers, and Linux is free so why not use it along with BeOS.
The drop was most likely due to a suit against Microworkz, a big BeOS web appliance maker, and the jump was thanks to the MS trial statement probably. Thanks for playing.
Slashdot Mirror
Why is it the Slashdotters always complain to each other but almost never try to make a difference? After reading this story on /. I emailed the editor of that website and he intends to publish my letter on their letters to the Editor page. Here's my email...
t ml):
/ oracle.html). This is a
> Mr. Orr:
>
> Thanks for your response. Can we have permission to run the letter on our
> Letter to the Editor page.
>
> To do so, I need to ask the city in which you reside or work.
>
> Thanks again,
>
> Tony Aarons
> Executive Editor, Legal News
> Law.com/Law News Network
I would love to have my letter run on the Editor page. I've revised the
letter a little bit, so please use the one included below. My name and
city are are the bottom of the letter. Please also feel free to include
my e-mail address (the address listed at the bottom of the letter!).
thanks,
David Orr
**
To Victoria Slind-Flor and All Software Patent Lawyers:
I don't usually write email to people in a situation like this, but I feel
like I should say something about the "Gold Diggers" article. I'm
absolutely appalled at what it describes. I don't think someone who could
write such an article could even understand why some people would be
disgusted by it (and I'm sure you don't have any idea), but I'll make an
attempt to make my point anyway.
It is this very line of thinking that gives people reason to hate lawyers.
You don't even seem to realize that there are people out there, engineers,
scientists, even business owners, who go to work everyday happy that they
are creating something great and useful. Could your greed-driven mind
even fathom why software engineers devote their free time to creating free
open-source software? Maybe they don't want lawyers to come in and find
ways to use their ideas as "landmines" to "pounce" on other companies and
individuals who may create something that inadvertently uses similar
ideas.
The most unfortunate situations occur when patents are granted for obvious
techniques. Examples include the Amazon "one-click" patent. How
innovative is it really to keep a person's credit card number and use then
use the same number again for their next order? Or the Y2K "windowing"
patent. It is obvious that if you're writing a program that interprets
two-digit years that if they enter "10" you might want to consider it to
be 2010 and not 1910.
Whenever a software engineer creates a software program, he or she may
"invent" hundreds of little solutions such as these on the fly in the
course of creating the software. This is what programming is all about.
Software creation is unique in the respect that "inventions" occur
frequently and rapidly with very little time or money invested in them.
Programmers don't want lawyers looking over their shoulders to lay claim
to every novel idea. They also don't want to have to hire a lawyer to
sit next to them while they write programs so that they can be sure to
avoid all of the techniques that may have been patented by someone else.
This defeats a key concept behind modern software development: the
constant reuse and sharing of ideas. This is a big part of what makes
today's software technology great. And when it comes to software, keeping
an idea bottled up for 17 years is more than an eternity. The old world
patent system simply shouldn't be applied to the area of software.
To make matters worse, it seems the USPTO doesn't have the technical staff
required to interpret software patents, so they apparently are granting
virtually all software patents and leaving it up to the courts to sort
through the mess. And that's where the high-priced patent lawyers step in
to take advantage of the situation.
The result? According to Feed Magazine
(http://www.feedmag.com/daily/dy122399_master.h
"Lawsuits are threatening to dampen the dynamism of the internet because,
even when they are obviously spurious, they add so much to the cost of
doing business that soon amateurs and upstarts might not be able to
afford to compete with anyone who can afford a lawyer."
We're creating a system where companies are spending more money on patent
lawyers to defend themselves against other patent lawyers than they are
spending on creative and productive innovation. In many cases companies
that generally oppose software patents are forced to seek patents on their
own software simply so they will have a bartering chip for using patented
techniques of other companies. This is the case with companies such as
Oracle (there is a great explanation of their policy at
http://www.base.com/software-patents/statements
system created by lawyers for the benefit of lawyers.
The lawyers are clawing their way into areas where they aren't wanted for
their own greed. If this trend continues, we'll probably look back at
today as the golden age of computer software when even new young companies
could compete without the prohibitive costs of lawsuits and lawyers to
walk a minefield of patents when they want to create even the simplest
software.
David Orr (orrd101@yahoo.com)
Gainesville, Florida
Linux might handle audio well also, I don't really know. But hey that's why they have boot managers, and Linux is free so why not use it along with BeOS.
The drop was most likely due to a suit against Microworkz, a big BeOS web appliance maker, and the jump was thanks to the MS trial statement probably. Thanks for playing.
http://www.insight.com has it for $38.99. Beyond.com and others have it for similar prices.