There's a very subtle but distinct difference between Napster and AOL.
AOL was not developed with the intent to trade in 'illegal goods' (MP3s, child porn, etc); certainly this stuff does go on, but according to law, as long as AOL responds in a timely manner when someone informs them of such material on their server, they gain the "ISP Protection" that is talked about here.
Napster, on the other hand, was designed to facilitate the distribution of copyrighted material, though their defence of late has been that "oh, but there are non-infringing uses!".
Sure, they have tried to comply with requests to remove copyrighted material, but the fact that the system started as a way to trade that (and it will take a LOT to prove that otherwise) makes them unable to claim themselves as an ISP.
Besides, I believe these are different judisdictions, and therefore, the same ruling need not apply if all things were equal.
The latest press release from the Canadian company that bought the Iridium system, Iridium Satelite LTD, announced their latest plans for the failing system. They plan to try to land all 66 satelites on the asteroid Eros. "If the United States thinks they can outdo us by landing a dinky space craft on that asteroid, they're aboot to get another thing coming, eh?".
Rumor has it they will land the satelites to either spell the word "7-Up" or "Chairhead".
(Note to editors, if there is a date in a press release from a submission, and if that date is more than a few days old, it's a good chance the story's been posted already, particularly in this case. But of course, this assumes that editors read the articles that are submitted).
It's rather ironic that he talks of software-purchasers rights when Virginia, the state he's representing, was the first to pass UTICA which strongly limits those rights.
Now, I realize that UTICA was at the state level, DMCA at the federal level, so he most likely never saw word of UTICA's passage through Virginia's state gov't, much less participate in it. But this would seem to strike at a higher level in that beyond those of us that care, UTICA hasn't made a blip on the federal radar.
It's odd that software companies took the state-by-state route to pass 'their' law, while Hollywood went at the federal level. Both DMCA and UTICA, in the end, are doing the same thing: limiting valid rights of the end user by restricting fair use. Maybe it was just a timing issue...
From what I've read, once the RIAA companies hand a list of the songs on Napster that are theirs, Napster has only 72hrs to block them. But, this appears to be a final warning, thus they have to COMPLETELY block them, even, for example, the name was changed or the like.
Which means that Napster is pretty much screwed, as they cannot filter anything else beyond names, and therefore will have to resign to shut down their server completely, or face further penalties for disobeying the injunction.
Parents should be able to decide when their children are mature enough to take responsibility for their actions with help from good parenting and a working school system. The way we have it in the States assumes that all kids are at this mature point by age 18; some kids might reach this point earlier by as early as 12, but we have no system in place to 'advance' these kids to adults because there IS a serious problem with parenting in the states. So it's not that 18 is a magic age when every child becomes morally mature, but it's a point where 99% of all children would have reached maturity by that time. (IMO, we need to have a way for parents to grant their children 'adulthood', a special card that says they are knowingly responsible for their actions, which can be given to the child before they reach 18.)
Completely agree here: the v-chip is just like filterware; if you have no kids, it doesn't affect you at all, and if you have kids, it gives you a bit more control on things that you don't want them to see until you believe they are mature at times where you cannot constantly monitor your kids. Slashdot editors continue to call both censorship, and while I do agree that a few slippery slope legislations can make filters into censoring mechanisms, it's not at that point yet.
However, there's the other extreme, where parents that buy these items expect them to be the only means to control their children's viewing habits and take no other active participation in this; they are then the first to complain when their children have inappropriate items. V-Chips and filterware are not placebos for taking an active role in parenting, unlike how many wish they could be.
Too bad that the duration of copyright and patent wasn't specified in the constitution. It would have solved a lot of these issues.
Actually, this is probably a good thing that it wasn't specified. As indicated in the responses, copyrights were allocated by Congress back then around 12-14 years, with a same-term extension, so we're looking at no more than 30 years. Assuming they designated this copyright with the framers of the Constitution in discussion, then I would argue that the length then would be too long today. Much of the copyright time, as well as with patents, is for the manufactor and distribution of either the information or product, respectively. You could only print so many books a year, and to get them to all parts of the states took a lot of time, so distribution was slow. So if you think of the 'worth' of the information depricating back then at a rate much slow than today, say '25%' a year; within 5 years, only 24% of the initial value is left, in another 5yrs, 6% is left.
Today, because of distribution (ignoring the internet) and the *amount* of IP now generated compared to back then, the value depriciation is much higher (how many people talk about CDs or movies or books more than 1 or 2 years old?), so say this is around 50% (a conservative #). In 5 years, only 3% of the initial value is left, and in 10, 1/10th % is left. After 96 years, at 50% depriciation, only 1.26 x 10^-24 % of the initial value is left.
Thinking about this, I would bet that it's possible to estimate this value simply by looking at sales of CDs, books, and movies, individiually, on a year to year basis for each title for at least 5 years. It would be expected that sales for the item within the first year would be much higher than the second, and the second year sales much higher than the third, etc.. and if you assume that (year n sales) = (year 1 sales) * (1-deprication)^n, you can user regression estimate what the deprication is for IP. You'd have to average this over ALL items sold, as some of the more popular items would have lower depriciations than less-popular ones, but the less-popular items would be more numerous than popular ones. Determine this number using a large and unbiased set of input points, and suddenly we now know how many years it takes for something to lose 95% of it's value, thus making the copyright useless.
Of course, this is all too logical and sensable, so it will never fly...
TuxRacer is already available for Windows -- I know I've played it on my system. (It's an openGL application with standard C calls, not much more to needed to make it highly portable)...
As opposed to Hubbard, who created and pushed Sci.. on a bet with another sci-fi author (Heinlein, IIRC), Lucas doesn't have anything do with the Jedi religon here - he created something that this group of people are taking seriously, but he's not coaxing them into doing it, and will probably distance himself from them (such as the way with Trekkies).
Besides the fact that it needs a browser plugin, this would also limited only to http requests. Any other non-browser-but-net-enabled program, such as IM, Napster & clones, and whatnot, would have no idea about these new domains, and therefore would not work if the servers were based on those alternate names.
I think the whole DNS things needs to be restarted from scratch: the only possible TLDs would be country codes,.intl (for anything international), and.net (for network systems). Within the country codes, it's up the country on how to split it up (This means that trademarks that apply in one country cannot be used to grab a domain from someone in a different country where the trademark may not apply, such as the Corinthians case). The US, of course, would probably just replicated.com,.org, etc, which is fine, but restrict these, and make sure that there are enough TLDs that are NOT related to e-commerce so that nearly every current site can be classified into one of these. If done right, then there would be no reason for a company X to own X.net, X.org, etc in addition to X.com, which makes trademark problems even more limited between two companies and not being a large company and a small-time webmaster. A system should be opened up to allow anyone to introduce an idea of a new TLD, with a public comment period before granting or accepting it, as long as the TLD does not replicate the function of any other TLD and provides a namespace that would have sufficient size to be useful.
The 128 is the max speed that Nap$ter will allow, not the max speed of the modem, which is why this will affect cable modem users more than anyone else including DSL ones.
That was my first impression, that its was the bitrate of 128kBITs per sec. But then they mention speed, and that's gotta imply 128kBYTES per sec of data transfer rate.
Two possible intrepretations: Either that the backend encryption that I read into will limit transfers to only 128kbps encoded songs (forget VBR) or less, or that putting a speed cap means that a cable modem user either has to decide either to download lots of poorly encoded files, or download few high quality encoded files, implying the tradeoff between speed and quality.
At the CNN version of this , there are hints of what Nap$ter (the non-free version) will be charging.. or at least, how to implement it:
- The max transfer speed will be limited to 128kbyte/s. While I know that is above the limits for some DSL connections, it's well above max cable speeds. In other words, while some may still get more bang for their buck from the flat monthly fee, the high end has been reign in somewhat to about 10x the typical 56K modem user.
- There will be a fee to burn Nap$ter-obtained files to a CD or to transfer them to a portable player, which definitely means they're going to put an encryption layer somewhere at the user-end... probably meaning that any users of non-Napster-blessed clients, mostly those of opensource, will either be restricted by the file list from this article, or won't be able to talk to the blessed-Nap$ter clients without breaking DMCA.
(No, the dollar sign isn't meant to be derogatory to Napster, only that it's shorthand for the non-free version).
Not able to register .org, sure, but keep??
on
VeriSign Usurps .com
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· Score: 2
I am very much in favor of trying to keep domain names representative of what they are supposed to represent. However, given the lastest TLDs to be accepted, and taking away.org from people leaves people like me that run sites out of their own pocket (no advertizing, etc), but don't qualify well for the other TLDs in a lurch, making us head towards.com as the only choice for a domain name. Either two things must be done if this is going to be a non-problematic change:
Create at least two or three TLDs that are catchall types --.web,.site are two possible ones. These cannot be registered by for-profit companies, only by individuals who cannot use the sites to sell anything. Allow any current.org owners to freely switch to these new TLDs.
Alternatively, prevent any new registering of.org domains, but allow those with existing.org domains that are not commercial companies but are also not not-for-profits to hold on to their domains, determined on a case-by-case basis. In such a case, slashdot.org might disappear, but numerous people in the same boat as I would not have to see their site disappear.
And I'd respond by picking up a copy of the Road Ahead circa 1996, both before and after the revision, and point out that in the initial copy, the chairman of MS completely ignored the Internet, and had to revise the book to include a chapter on it.
It's well-accepted word of mouth that MS vastly underplayed the importance of the internet at that time, and possibly still do.
There is nothing illegal about having a monopoly. If I was the only person in the world to produce thingamagiggies, I'd be perfectly legal.
If Bob entered the market for thingamagiggies, producing them in his own, non-patentable infringing way, but I still sold 95% of them to the world, I'd still have a legal monopoly.
But if Bob's sales numbers started to increase, and to combat it, I drastically undercut the price of the product, taking possibily a loss while increasing sales, such that the reduced profits that Bob might have made forced him out of business, then I could be illegal in using my monopoly power to stifle competition. And that's the heart of this case.
One of the things that annoyed me over the course of the two day hearings was what timeframe they were looking at. On Day 1, the court and the gov't argued over the value of a 'browserless operating system'. In 2001, there is none; nearly every PC bought new is connected to the internet at some point. But at the time at when these events occured, say 1995-1996, using the internet was not necessary a primary use of a home PC, and thus, the browser could have been unnecessary for many people. And *this* is the timeframe in which this trial is about, not what happened since that point.
Similarly, how the judged seemed to downplay Netscape as a competitor -- certainly not now, but in 95-96, they could have been big. I remember distinctly Netscape and Sun saying that with the browser and Java, you could have your own operating system, and they were pushing that as the Microsoft killer. However, when MS included IE and their specialized Java VM (which they have already been punished for branding as such), they broke a lot of Java code, and since "everyone" was using IE, Netscape could not break into this market further.
Plus, you need to consider that Netscape at one point was payware for commercial use -- they only dropped the fee when IE started to gain market ground. That's rather strong evidence of a monopoly using their power. Of course, nowadays, a non-free browser that doesn't have something extra (read: Opera) is considered laughable.
If you want rapid application development for GUIs, there's several options which basically include an interpreted language (perl, python, tcl), and some GUI library ( gtk, qt/kde, tk). Since most of these languages are easy to learn and forgiving on the newbie programmer, it takes much less time than learning Java and all the special API codes for it.
I think most people agree that it's not the type of patents being processed, but which the ease of lack of review by which they get processed by. I have two possible ideas which could also be combined, that could be implemented to fix the patent office.
1. Implement a review system as done by most research journals -- peer review. When a new patent is applied for, a random N out of M of appointed experts in that field are selected to review the patent. The experts must be sufficiently broad in professionalism (eg industry vs academia) and specialities. They recieve the patents 'unidentifiable' such they should have no idea whom is applying for the patent. In addition, the randomly chosen reviewers would not be known except to those in the USPTO. The critiques of the patents can include references to potental prior art, questionable patents including perpetual motion-like qualities of obviousness, and other similar comments. The comments are sent back to the USPTO, which resend the comments back to the applicant. They would then have a limited amount of time to rewrite or modify their patent application to distinquish or clarify any concerns that were brought up, then resubmit it. This revised version then goes back to the same original reviewers, each which votes yes or no on awarding the patent, with either majority or 2/3rds to be awarded. If, for example, a reviewer does not see any changes that addresses his concern for prior art of the original application, he can vote no for it since the revisions suggest that the applicant didn't worry about it. This idea would make much of the current USPTO irrevelent and limit it mostly to administrative stuff. Two problems would be how would reviewer selection be made; initially it may be through congressional review or public review as was sorta done with ICANN's lastest voting, or maybe a nomination process. Once in place, further appointments can be done by selection of the review committee for that field. The other problem is that reviewers will have a heads-up on any technology that is gained via patent review in this fashion, so there must be a NDA-like agreement not to use that information for gain, but hopefully integrity of the appointment would be checked before the appointment was made.
2. After the USPTO reviewer reviews the application, the patent and comments are placed on a web site for public review. Note that just prior to this, patent protection would be issued for that application, such that the public posting of it would not harm the applicant. The public would then be able to comment on the patent over a 2 or 3 month period, comments going to the USPTO reviewer. The reviewer then must follow up on any possible conflicts or oversights prior to granting or denying the application -- and since these public comments would be on record, if the reviewer failed to do his job at this point, he'd be in big trouble. Patents that failed to meet up to public scurity and subsequent review would lose their protection, and the application would have to pay for that short term protection they got from the USPTO while the patent was publically displayed.
The ideas could be combined such that after the random reviewers have voted yea or nea, the passed applications then go through the public review process. This certainly would length the time to get a patent but given the power they provide to the patent holder, such careful review is necessary.
I think trying to 'force' this change by a sudden silicon-affecting-only catastophy is a bad way to put it. Let me try another:
Hypothetically, if you did not have to rely on supporting any existing standards, and the resulting computers, software, etc, had 100% acceptence by everyone, and ignoring any problems with implementation of such a system including financal ones, how would you build the computers/hardware/chips/software/network for maximum efficiency, usability, and customizability? Further assume that anyone involved in the production of equipment or software for this 'new' computing system are doing it for the benefit of mankind and not to maximize their profit.
Unforunately, if you ask this question now, then again in a year, and then a year after that, the responses would continue to change drastically, because new computing features continue to evolve every year if not sooner. Three to 4 years ago, the concept of Java's virtual engine took hold. XML as a way for extensible data exchange was big, this year peer-to-peer networking is large. Hardware moves just as fast, from chips that know when to run into idle mode, to USB or Firewire devices, to LCD/flat panel monitors. With the Big Reset as the question above poses, we'd definitely want to include such features in the hardware/software design. What's to say that next year, technology "Foobar" will be the next big thing, and then we'll want to include that? But generally, when you include something new on existing standards, it's typically a hack, even if the standard attempted to allocate space for new innovations (The current discussion on the ATA spec and content protection is a good example of this).
The other thing is that while designing such a system 'for the benefit of mankind' is certainly not a problem, the manufactor of hardware and development of software would be controlled by corporate interests in which the last thing on their mind is "for the benefit of mankind". Again, if the standard is written to allow extensibility, no doubt some manufacture will add their extentions without documentation to try to lock the user into their product, or such that two separate products work effectively links but with other vendors, the products are not as effective -- in other words pulling what MS did with Windows and IE. No matter how much talk we do to try to set Big Reset guidelines, companies will do what is best for their bottom dollar.
Already been done, to some extent: Doom source hacked such that processes were represented by baddied (the more resource hungry the process, the worse the monster was), and you kill -9'ed them with your boomstick, as already reported by Slashdot in late 99.
It's perfectly fine if they want to parody the music industry. They've done it before (and much better, IMO) with the one where Homer manages a country western star, or with Homer in his barbershop quartet. What separates this last episode from those examples is how much the family itself was significantly involved with the plot -- remember, this is called 'THE SIMPSONS' and not 'THE SPRINGFIELDITES' -- in this last episode, Bart, Lisa, and Homer were only asides to *NSync's appearence and the L.T.Jammer persona; in the episodes I quoted, Homer amoung the other family members are a strong quotient in the overall plot.
That's one of the bigger problems of the latter seasons: guest stars or incidental characters. Good uses of guest stars included Leonard Nimoy in the Monorail episode, or Linda Ronstadt as a jingle singer in the Mr. Plow episode -- significant characters, but certainly not drawing the plot away from the Simpsons. On the otherhand, more recent examples of the Ron Howard episode (Homer crashing into his house), this *NSync episode, the Mel Gibson episode -- the use of the guest characters drove the episode forward and away from the family. Then we have the case of focusing way too much on incidental characters, like the numerous Apu episodes, the introduction of the hapless Gill character (the salesman that can't keep a job), or the Grimes character in 'Homer's Enemy' (the hard working employee that hated Homer for getting off easy, then died at the end...). The family has become nearly secondary characters, or if they are in the forefront, they are completely written stupidly for comedic effect.
I'll just point out that the main point for most long-time fans of the show when they knew the tone had changed was the Itchy Scratchy and Poochie episode, where there were comments made by the animation people to the fans that basically said "we make this entertainment, you'll just have to take it as is." Those sentiments mirrors recent comments of the new production crew (some whom had not seen a single episode of the Simpsons until they started working for it) to internet fan bases that were commenting on the lack of direction of the latest episodes. The way that the production crew vented such comments turned off a lot of long-time fans, and since that point, the show's gone downhill.
Because, unfortunately, there's a 1/2hr block of dead television time between the first hour of FOX TV (Futurama and King of the Hill), and the following 1.5 hrs (Malcolm in the Middle and X-Files). There's nothing much on the other networks that's neither good, nor only a 1/2hr long show.
And, just like Survivor or many of the other TV shows on now, it's a train wreck - it's horrible, disjusting, and yet you can't look away from it.
And everyone once in a rare while there's a scene that is brillence from the original seasons that makes me laugh, but much fewer and far between now.
They sold out long ago. The last episode with N-Sync proves how much the show has suck from the hey-day of the first 5 or 6 seasons. (We're on season 12, FYI). Groenig hardly plays a major role on the show, and spends much more of his time on Futurama (and it shows).
Quoteth CBG on the latest episode: "Worst Episode,....EVER!"
Slashdot Mirror
AOL was not developed with the intent to trade in 'illegal goods' (MP3s, child porn, etc); certainly this stuff does go on, but according to law, as long as AOL responds in a timely manner when someone informs them of such material on their server, they gain the "ISP Protection" that is talked about here.
Napster, on the other hand, was designed to facilitate the distribution of copyrighted material, though their defence of late has been that "oh, but there are non-infringing uses!". Sure, they have tried to comply with requests to remove copyrighted material, but the fact that the system started as a way to trade that (and it will take a LOT to prove that otherwise) makes them unable to claim themselves as an ISP.
Besides, I believe these are different judisdictions, and therefore, the same ruling need not apply if all things were equal.
Rumor has it they will land the satelites to either spell the word "7-Up" or "Chairhead".
(Oh wait, I already did this joke!, doh!)
(Note to editors, if there is a date in a press release from a submission, and if that date is more than a few days old, it's a good chance the story's been posted already, particularly in this case. But of course, this assumes that editors read the articles that are submitted).
Now, I realize that UTICA was at the state level, DMCA at the federal level, so he most likely never saw word of UTICA's passage through Virginia's state gov't, much less participate in it. But this would seem to strike at a higher level in that beyond those of us that care, UTICA hasn't made a blip on the federal radar.
It's odd that software companies took the state-by-state route to pass 'their' law, while Hollywood went at the federal level. Both DMCA and UTICA, in the end, are doing the same thing: limiting valid rights of the end user by restricting fair use. Maybe it was just a timing issue...
Which means that Napster is pretty much screwed, as they cannot filter anything else beyond names, and therefore will have to resign to shut down their server completely, or face further penalties for disobeying the injunction.
However, there's the other extreme, where parents that buy these items expect them to be the only means to control their children's viewing habits and take no other active participation in this; they are then the first to complain when their children have inappropriate items. V-Chips and filterware are not placebos for taking an active role in parenting, unlike how many wish they could be.
Actually, this is probably a good thing that it wasn't specified. As indicated in the responses, copyrights were allocated by Congress back then around 12-14 years, with a same-term extension, so we're looking at no more than 30 years. Assuming they designated this copyright with the framers of the Constitution in discussion, then I would argue that the length then would be too long today. Much of the copyright time, as well as with patents, is for the manufactor and distribution of either the information or product, respectively. You could only print so many books a year, and to get them to all parts of the states took a lot of time, so distribution was slow. So if you think of the 'worth' of the information depricating back then at a rate much slow than today, say '25%' a year; within 5 years, only 24% of the initial value is left, in another 5yrs, 6% is left.
Today, because of distribution (ignoring the internet) and the *amount* of IP now generated compared to back then, the value depriciation is much higher (how many people talk about CDs or movies or books more than 1 or 2 years old?), so say this is around 50% (a conservative #). In 5 years, only 3% of the initial value is left, and in 10, 1/10th % is left. After 96 years, at 50% depriciation, only 1.26 x 10^-24 % of the initial value is left.
Thinking about this, I would bet that it's possible to estimate this value simply by looking at sales of CDs, books, and movies, individiually, on a year to year basis for each title for at least 5 years. It would be expected that sales for the item within the first year would be much higher than the second, and the second year sales much higher than the third, etc.. and if you assume that (year n sales) = (year 1 sales) * (1-deprication)^n, you can user regression estimate what the deprication is for IP. You'd have to average this over ALL items sold, as some of the more popular items would have lower depriciations than less-popular ones, but the less-popular items would be more numerous than popular ones. Determine this number using a large and unbiased set of input points, and suddenly we now know how many years it takes for something to lose 95% of it's value, thus making the copyright useless.
Of course, this is all too logical and sensable, so it will never fly...
I think the whole DNS things needs to be restarted from scratch: the only possible TLDs would be country codes, .intl (for anything international), and .net (for network systems). Within the country codes, it's up the country on how to split it up (This means that trademarks that apply in one country cannot be used to grab a domain from someone in a different country where the trademark may not apply, such as the Corinthians case). The US, of course, would probably just replicated .com, .org, etc, which is fine, but restrict these, and make sure that there are enough TLDs that are NOT related to e-commerce so that nearly every current site can be classified into one of these. If done right, then there would be no reason for a company X to own X.net, X.org, etc in addition to X.com, which makes trademark problems even more limited between two companies and not being a large company and a small-time webmaster. A system should be opened up to allow anyone to introduce an idea of a new TLD, with a public comment period before granting or accepting it, as long as the TLD does not replicate the function of any other TLD and provides a namespace that would have sufficient size to be useful.
The 128 is the max speed that Nap$ter will allow, not the max speed of the modem, which is why this will affect cable modem users more than anyone else including DSL ones.
Two possible intrepretations: Either that the backend encryption that I read into will limit transfers to only 128kbps encoded songs (forget VBR) or less, or that putting a speed cap means that a cable modem user either has to decide either to download lots of poorly encoded files, or download few high quality encoded files, implying the tradeoff between speed and quality.
- The max transfer speed will be limited to 128kbyte/s. While I know that is above the limits for some DSL connections, it's well above max cable speeds. In other words, while some may still get more bang for their buck from the flat monthly fee, the high end has been reign in somewhat to about 10x the typical 56K modem user.
- There will be a fee to burn Nap$ter-obtained files to a CD or to transfer them to a portable player, which definitely means they're going to put an encryption layer somewhere at the user-end... probably meaning that any users of non-Napster-blessed clients, mostly those of opensource, will either be restricted by the file list from this article, or won't be able to talk to the blessed-Nap$ter clients without breaking DMCA.
(No, the dollar sign isn't meant to be derogatory to Napster, only that it's shorthand for the non-free version).
Create at least two or three TLDs that are catchall types -- .web, .site are two possible ones. These cannot be registered by for-profit companies, only by individuals who cannot use the sites to sell anything. Allow any current .org owners to freely switch to these new TLDs.
Alternatively, prevent any new registering of .org domains, but allow those with existing .org domains that are not commercial companies but are also not not-for-profits to hold on to their domains, determined on a case-by-case basis. In such a case, slashdot.org might disappear, but numerous people in the same boat as I would not have to see their site disappear.
It's well-accepted word of mouth that MS vastly underplayed the importance of the internet at that time, and possibly still do.
There is nothing illegal about having a monopoly. If I was the only person in the world to produce thingamagiggies, I'd be perfectly legal.
If Bob entered the market for thingamagiggies, producing them in his own, non-patentable infringing way, but I still sold 95% of them to the world, I'd still have a legal monopoly.
But if Bob's sales numbers started to increase, and to combat it, I drastically undercut the price of the product, taking possibily a loss while increasing sales, such that the reduced profits that Bob might have made forced him out of business, then I could be illegal in using my monopoly power to stifle competition. And that's the heart of this case.
Similarly, how the judged seemed to downplay Netscape as a competitor -- certainly not now, but in 95-96, they could have been big. I remember distinctly Netscape and Sun saying that with the browser and Java, you could have your own operating system, and they were pushing that as the Microsoft killer. However, when MS included IE and their specialized Java VM (which they have already been punished for branding as such), they broke a lot of Java code, and since "everyone" was using IE, Netscape could not break into this market further.
Plus, you need to consider that Netscape at one point was payware for commercial use -- they only dropped the fee when IE started to gain market ground. That's rather strong evidence of a monopoly using their power. Of course, nowadays, a non-free browser that doesn't have something extra (read: Opera) is considered laughable.
If you want rapid application development for GUIs, there's several options which basically include an interpreted language (perl, python, tcl), and some GUI library ( gtk, qt/kde, tk). Since most of these languages are easy to learn and forgiving on the newbie programmer, it takes much less time than learning Java and all the special API codes for it.
1. Implement a review system as done by most research journals -- peer review. When a new patent is applied for, a random N out of M of appointed experts in that field are selected to review the patent. The experts must be sufficiently broad in professionalism (eg industry vs academia) and specialities. They recieve the patents 'unidentifiable' such they should have no idea whom is applying for the patent. In addition, the randomly chosen reviewers would not be known except to those in the USPTO. The critiques of the patents can include references to potental prior art, questionable patents including perpetual motion-like qualities of obviousness, and other similar comments. The comments are sent back to the USPTO, which resend the comments back to the applicant. They would then have a limited amount of time to rewrite or modify their patent application to distinquish or clarify any concerns that were brought up, then resubmit it. This revised version then goes back to the same original reviewers, each which votes yes or no on awarding the patent, with either majority or 2/3rds to be awarded. If, for example, a reviewer does not see any changes that addresses his concern for prior art of the original application, he can vote no for it since the revisions suggest that the applicant didn't worry about it. This idea would make much of the current USPTO irrevelent and limit it mostly to administrative stuff. Two problems would be how would reviewer selection be made; initially it may be through congressional review or public review as was sorta done with ICANN's lastest voting, or maybe a nomination process. Once in place, further appointments can be done by selection of the review committee for that field. The other problem is that reviewers will have a heads-up on any technology that is gained via patent review in this fashion, so there must be a NDA-like agreement not to use that information for gain, but hopefully integrity of the appointment would be checked before the appointment was made.
2. After the USPTO reviewer reviews the application, the patent and comments are placed on a web site for public review. Note that just prior to this, patent protection would be issued for that application, such that the public posting of it would not harm the applicant. The public would then be able to comment on the patent over a 2 or 3 month period, comments going to the USPTO reviewer. The reviewer then must follow up on any possible conflicts or oversights prior to granting or denying the application -- and since these public comments would be on record, if the reviewer failed to do his job at this point, he'd be in big trouble. Patents that failed to meet up to public scurity and subsequent review would lose their protection, and the application would have to pay for that short term protection they got from the USPTO while the patent was publically displayed.
The ideas could be combined such that after the random reviewers have voted yea or nea, the passed applications then go through the public review process. This certainly would length the time to get a patent but given the power they provide to the patent holder, such careful review is necessary.
Hypothetically, if you did not have to rely on supporting any existing standards, and the resulting computers, software, etc, had 100% acceptence by everyone, and ignoring any problems with implementation of such a system including financal ones, how would you build the computers/hardware/chips/software/network for maximum efficiency, usability, and customizability? Further assume that anyone involved in the production of equipment or software for this 'new' computing system are doing it for the benefit of mankind and not to maximize their profit.
Unforunately, if you ask this question now, then again in a year, and then a year after that, the responses would continue to change drastically, because new computing features continue to evolve every year if not sooner. Three to 4 years ago, the concept of Java's virtual engine took hold. XML as a way for extensible data exchange was big, this year peer-to-peer networking is large. Hardware moves just as fast, from chips that know when to run into idle mode, to USB or Firewire devices, to LCD/flat panel monitors. With the Big Reset as the question above poses, we'd definitely want to include such features in the hardware/software design. What's to say that next year, technology "Foobar" will be the next big thing, and then we'll want to include that? But generally, when you include something new on existing standards, it's typically a hack, even if the standard attempted to allocate space for new innovations (The current discussion on the ATA spec and content protection is a good example of this).
The other thing is that while designing such a system 'for the benefit of mankind' is certainly not a problem, the manufactor of hardware and development of software would be controlled by corporate interests in which the last thing on their mind is "for the benefit of mankind". Again, if the standard is written to allow extensibility, no doubt some manufacture will add their extentions without documentation to try to lock the user into their product, or such that two separate products work effectively links but with other vendors, the products are not as effective -- in other words pulling what MS did with Windows and IE. No matter how much talk we do to try to set Big Reset guidelines, companies will do what is best for their bottom dollar.
That's one of the bigger problems of the latter seasons: guest stars or incidental characters. Good uses of guest stars included Leonard Nimoy in the Monorail episode, or Linda Ronstadt as a jingle singer in the Mr. Plow episode -- significant characters, but certainly not drawing the plot away from the Simpsons. On the otherhand, more recent examples of the Ron Howard episode (Homer crashing into his house), this *NSync episode, the Mel Gibson episode -- the use of the guest characters drove the episode forward and away from the family. Then we have the case of focusing way too much on incidental characters, like the numerous Apu episodes, the introduction of the hapless Gill character (the salesman that can't keep a job), or the Grimes character in 'Homer's Enemy' (the hard working employee that hated Homer for getting off easy, then died at the end...). The family has become nearly secondary characters, or if they are in the forefront, they are completely written stupidly for comedic effect.
I'll just point out that the main point for most long-time fans of the show when they knew the tone had changed was the Itchy Scratchy and Poochie episode, where there were comments made by the animation people to the fans that basically said "we make this entertainment, you'll just have to take it as is." Those sentiments mirrors recent comments of the new production crew (some whom had not seen a single episode of the Simpsons until they started working for it) to internet fan bases that were commenting on the lack of direction of the latest episodes. The way that the production crew vented such comments turned off a lot of long-time fans, and since that point, the show's gone downhill.
And, just like Survivor or many of the other TV shows on now, it's a train wreck - it's horrible, disjusting, and yet you can't look away from it. And everyone once in a rare while there's a scene that is brillence from the original seasons that makes me laugh, but much fewer and far between now.
Quoteth CBG on the latest episode: "Worst Episode,....EVER!"