It seems to me that an individual with ordinary skill in the art of developing software, coming up with a patented solution to a problem, poses as much a problem for the owner of a patent as it does for the individual developer.
One of the requirements for granting a patent is that it describe an invention or process that is nonobvious to one skilled in the art...
Apple had started to realize that IBM wasn't the competition fairly early in the 1990s. Apple released their PowerPC Macintosh Computers in 1994; the Apple-IBM-Motorola Alliance produced silicon in 1993, and began in 1991.
Microsoft has billions because they realized that the low-cost OS would win against others, and so PC-DOS and MS-DOS defeated CPM/86 and UCSD P-System. With the others defeated, Microsoft had their DOS monopoly. They leveraged their DOS monopoly into a Windows Monopoly, and used that to defeat other office apps (123, WordPerfect). And then cement their Office monopoly.
When Linux and OpenOffice change from a thorn to a threat, Microsoft will turn on Open Source with every trick in their book, clean and dirty.
Microsoft's Natural Keyboard is a feature-reduced copy of Apple's Adjustable Keyboard.
I got used to the split on Microsoft's Natural Keyboard when they "upgraded" my work machine to Win2K. That made my older, truly no-name split keyboard stop functioning. Not "designed for Windows 2000", I guess. I got the no-name split keyboard after a week or two of intense coding made my wrists start to hurt.
Oh, and the three trademarked keys needed for the "Designed for Windows XXX" in order to get Microsoft's fingers into that revenue stream? They're worse than useless. I pried them off, and they're in a drawer here somewhere. The keyboard is better with their absense.
I think one of the smartest moves I made was learning to touch type the summer after my Senior year in High School. In school, the typing course was for those on the secretary track. Being college bound and a band geek, I was too busy for that. Rehersals, you know.
There was a guy who hung out in the computer storage-closet^W^Wroom. Most of us were hunt-n-peck; he took the typing course and could zoom.
Boy, what a difference touch-typing makes. Being able to touch-type my programs sure helped. And my papers, too.
Typing is an essential skill. Those who lack it are at a disadvantage.
Isn't there an argument to be made that if a technique is implemented in Open Source software, then it is obvious?
Doesn't an ordinary practitionar of the art coming up with a patented solution independent of the patent refute word-for-word the non-obvious requirement of a patent?
If not, why not?
Re:Atlantis tragedy made economicly possible?...
on
Soyuz To The Moon?
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· Score: 1
Columbia crashed because a piece of insulating foam knocked a carbon-carbon panel out of place on the leading edge of the wing, opening a gap. During reentry, plasma entered the gap and basically melted the wing off.
A whole bunch of companies would look at the cost of MS-Windows licenses, and look at the cost of Office-for-MS-Windows and Office-for-Linux, and choose to eliminate MS-Windows and its associated expenses.
If Office-for-Linux is less than Office-for-MS-Windows, as the article implied, the incentive for the switch-out of MS-Windows would be even greater.
Another incentive to ditch MS-Windows is viruses, worms and trojans.
Microsoft would lose a lot of revenue, very quickly, if they did this. The only way they might consider such a scheme, is if they believe they are losing both MS-Windows and MS-Office revenue streams. Then they might jettison MS-Windows revenues (but not say they were doing this), and try and preserve some fraction of MS-Office revenues.
Andersen Windows don't require security updates, or reinstallation, or expensive upgrades.
Oh, and don't forget that you can't patent a mathematical algorithm.
How do you tell if software is patentable, or an implementation of an unpatentable algorithm? You put all your money in a pile. Someone who wants the decision to go the other way puts all their money in a pile. The taller pile wins, and then the lawyers take both piles for themselves.
The Torx screws were on the original Mac, the Mac 512, and the Mac 512 e; none of which had any "consumer servicable" parts inside. That didn't stop companies from offering kits to upgrade the RAM (cut this trace; cut that IC leg; solder this chip over the top of the old one...)
The Mac Plus and Mac SE also had Torx screws, and also had memory on SIMMs. Upgrading the RAM still meant cutting a lead on a resistor on the Mac Plus. The SE had a slot for one expansion card.
I'm not so sure that security must necessarily inconvenience users. Security done poorly, with one user needing N different passwords (or User ID/password pairs) to access N-1 different systems strikes me as a bad design, and what "single sign-on" systems were supposed to fix. User credentials stored securly, and passed out to applications when they ask.
My one experience with a drive failure, it was the interface board that went out. A gopher trail on an IC on the controller board was the clue.
Bood disk in a home machine, so it wasn't worth the $2,000 to recover the data.
Now it's time for me to go buy some UPSs (one for TiVo, and one for each PC), and a surge protected power strip (for the cable modem, router, printers).
Lightning strikes within 100 feet of the house leave lots of gremlins.
It would be more awesome if IBM was awarded the only asset SCO had left, the rights to AT&T's SysV Unix, as damages in their countersuit. Or maybe those rights divided by IBM and Red Hat.
What would this do to Sun's plans to Open Source Solaris? Would IBM green-light that?
From Apple's site, the Dual G5 1.8 GHz beats a Dual Xeon 3.2 GHz by 44% (1.66 vs. 1.15). So, if you assume that the systems are equally well engineered (equivalent bandwidth bottlenecks to RAM, etc), you have to multiply the clock speed on a G5 by 2.56 to get the equivalent clock speed on a Xeon.
RIAA isn't attacking consumer electronics as a whole. The RIAA needs consumers to buy consumer electronics to "consume" their products. The RIAA is just opposed to consumer electronics that make it easy for consumers to duplicate anything.
You don't remember much from your Econ course. "Free" markets will naturally find the most efficient price/quantity tradeoff (i.e. where marginal cost of producing one more equals marginal benefit of one additional unit). "Free" means no barriers to entry, all participants have complete access to information, and other such unreal assertions.
"Free" markets for information goods would drive the price down to the price of duplication. Which would drive profit-oriented publishers and authors out of business.
Copyright laws are an attempt to force the market for information away from equilibrium, by granting the producer of information goods a (formerly) limited monopoly on their duplication. So the producers of goods charge monopoly prices (marginal cost of production equals marginal revenue). They set prices high, and try and adjust them so that raising the prices a little bit cuts off more sales than it brings in in revenues, and lowering prices a little bit costs them more per copy than it boosts volume.
The matter isn't really gone... it's just been converted into energy. The energy was stored in the nucleus when it was fused in a nova. We're just releasing that energy for our own purposes now.
What worked for Bill G was pricing his wares cheap to get the largest market share in a nacent market, and then doing whatever it took (laws be damned) to go from the largest market share to a monopoly position. Then his company abused that monopoly position, and Bill had to buy off the authorities.
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It seems to me that an individual with ordinary skill in the art of developing software, coming up with a patented solution to a problem, poses as much a problem for the owner of a patent as it does for the individual developer.
One of the requirements for granting a patent is that it describe an invention or process that is nonobvious to one skilled in the art...
Apple had started to realize that IBM wasn't the competition fairly early in the 1990s. Apple released their PowerPC Macintosh Computers in 1994; the Apple-IBM-Motorola Alliance produced silicon in 1993, and began in 1991.
Microsoft has billions because they realized that the low-cost OS would win against others, and so PC-DOS and MS-DOS defeated CPM/86 and UCSD P-System. With the others defeated, Microsoft had their DOS monopoly. They leveraged their DOS monopoly into a Windows Monopoly, and used that to defeat other office apps (123, WordPerfect). And then cement their Office monopoly.
When Linux and OpenOffice change from a thorn to a threat, Microsoft will turn on Open Source with every trick in their book, clean and dirty.
Microsoft's Natural Keyboard is a feature-reduced copy of Apple's Adjustable Keyboard.
I got used to the split on Microsoft's Natural Keyboard when they "upgraded" my work machine to Win2K. That made my older, truly no-name split keyboard stop functioning. Not "designed for Windows 2000", I guess. I got the no-name split keyboard after a week or two of intense coding made my wrists start to hurt.
Oh, and the three trademarked keys needed for the "Designed for Windows XXX" in order to get Microsoft's fingers into that revenue stream? They're worse than useless. I pried them off, and they're in a drawer here somewhere. The keyboard is better with their absense.
I think one of the smartest moves I made was learning to touch type the summer after my Senior year in High School. In school, the typing course was for those on the secretary track. Being college bound and a band geek, I was too busy for that. Rehersals, you know.
There was a guy who hung out in the computer storage-closet^W^Wroom. Most of us were hunt-n-peck; he took the typing course and could zoom.
Boy, what a difference touch-typing makes. Being able to touch-type my programs sure helped. And my papers, too.
Typing is an essential skill. Those who lack it are at a disadvantage.
Just my opinion.
Isn't there an argument to be made that if a technique is implemented in Open Source software, then it is obvious?
Doesn't an ordinary practitionar of the art coming up with a patented solution independent of the patent refute word-for-word the non-obvious requirement of a patent?
If not, why not?
Columbia crashed because a piece of insulating foam knocked a carbon-carbon panel out of place on the leading edge of the wing, opening a gap. During reentry, plasma entered the gap and basically melted the wing off.
A whole bunch of companies would look at the cost of MS-Windows licenses, and look at the cost of Office-for-MS-Windows and Office-for-Linux, and choose to eliminate MS-Windows and its associated expenses.
If Office-for-Linux is less than Office-for-MS-Windows, as the article implied, the incentive for the switch-out of MS-Windows would be even greater.
Another incentive to ditch MS-Windows is viruses, worms and trojans.
Microsoft would lose a lot of revenue, very quickly, if they did this. The only way they might consider such a scheme, is if they believe they are losing both MS-Windows and MS-Office revenue streams. Then they might jettison MS-Windows revenues (but not say they were doing this), and try and preserve some fraction of MS-Office revenues.
Andersen Windows don't require security updates, or reinstallation, or expensive upgrades.
I think they meant the latter. How do you have wireless internet access without having a wireless-enabled computer?
Oh, and don't forget that you can't patent a mathematical algorithm.
How do you tell if software is patentable, or an implementation of an unpatentable algorithm? You put all your money in a pile. Someone who wants the decision to go the other way puts all their money in a pile. The taller pile wins, and then the lawyers take both piles for themselves.
The Torx screws were on the original Mac, the Mac 512, and the Mac 512 e; none of which had any "consumer servicable" parts inside. That didn't stop companies from offering kits to upgrade the RAM (cut this trace; cut that IC leg; solder this chip over the top of the old one...)
The Mac Plus and Mac SE also had Torx screws, and also had memory on SIMMs. Upgrading the RAM still meant cutting a lead on a resistor on the Mac Plus. The SE had a slot for one expansion card.
I'm not so sure that security must necessarily inconvenience users. Security done poorly, with one user needing N different passwords (or User ID/password pairs) to access N-1 different systems strikes me as a bad design, and what "single sign-on" systems were supposed to fix. User credentials stored securly, and passed out to applications when they ask.
Sony's trademark is called "iLink".
Apple's is FireWire.
The Standard is IEEE 1394.
Do you shut it down every leap-day for maintenance? Or is it really 24 x 7 x 365.2422?
Okay, so SS1 achieved an altitude of 328,491 feet.
328,491 feet * 12 inches/foot * 2.54 cm/inch * 1 m/100 cm * 1 km/1000 m = 100.1240568 kilometers.
A pint's a pound the world around...
Sure, they're both 16 ounces, but are they the same ounces?
And a gallon is 8 pints.
It's not just dogma, it's true.
How do you get all the airport control towers and all the airplanes to switch to a new communication technology? Especially if they aren't compatible?
And who pays for the conversion? All the new radios? Is that the wisest use of scarce funds?
A scale measures force, by comparing one force to the displacement of a spring that balances the force.
A balance measures mass. Any "scale" that is read by sliding weights along a bar is a balance, and measures mass.
A scale will read differently on the earth vs. on the moon; a balance will read the same both places.
My one experience with a drive failure, it was the interface board that went out. A gopher trail on an IC on the controller board was the clue.
Bood disk in a home machine, so it wasn't worth the $2,000 to recover the data.
Now it's time for me to go buy some UPSs (one for TiVo, and one for each PC), and a surge protected power strip (for the cable modem, router, printers).
Lightning strikes within 100 feet of the house leave lots of gremlins.
It would be more awesome if IBM was awarded the only asset SCO had left, the rights to AT&T's SysV Unix, as damages in their countersuit. Or maybe those rights divided by IBM and Red Hat.
What would this do to Sun's plans to Open Source Solaris? Would IBM green-light that?
From Apple's site, the Dual G5 1.8 GHz beats a Dual Xeon 3.2 GHz by 44% (1.66 vs. 1.15). So, if you assume that the systems are equally well engineered (equivalent bandwidth bottlenecks to RAM, etc), you have to multiply the clock speed on a G5 by 2.56 to get the equivalent clock speed on a Xeon.
They've had that power before, with the per-processor licensing agreements that were found to be illegal. They want it again (see Trusted Computing).
RIAA isn't attacking consumer electronics as a whole. The RIAA needs consumers to buy consumer electronics to "consume" their products. The RIAA is just opposed to consumer electronics that make it easy for consumers to duplicate anything.
Computers are very good at duplicating.
You don't remember much from your Econ course. "Free" markets will naturally find the most efficient price/quantity tradeoff (i.e. where marginal cost of producing one more equals marginal benefit of one additional unit). "Free" means no barriers to entry, all participants have complete access to information, and other such unreal assertions.
"Free" markets for information goods would drive the price down to the price of duplication. Which would drive profit-oriented publishers and authors out of business.
Copyright laws are an attempt to force the market for information away from equilibrium, by granting the producer of information goods a (formerly) limited monopoly on their duplication. So the producers of goods charge monopoly prices (marginal cost of production equals marginal revenue). They set prices high, and try and adjust them so that raising the prices a little bit cuts off more sales than it brings in in revenues, and lowering prices a little bit costs them more per copy than it boosts volume.
The matter isn't really gone... it's just been converted into energy. The energy was stored in the nucleus when it was fused in a nova. We're just releasing that energy for our own purposes now.
It all ends in Iron.
What worked for Bill G was pricing his wares cheap to get the largest market share in a nacent market, and then doing whatever it took (laws be damned) to go from the largest market share to a monopoly position. Then his company abused that monopoly position, and Bill had to buy off the authorities.