>>Actually the GPL3 has patent wavier in it so it isn't just a license to do with copyright.
>Unless Sun/Oracle released the code under GPLv3, Google can't waive Oracle's patents.
You're both wrong. The GPL has had a patent waiver clause since version 2. It states that if you use or distribute code under it you explicitly give a zero-royalty patent permission to all users who receive it under the license. Sun released OpenJDK under GPLv2 so indeed no patents SUN had on OpenJDK code can be asserted on it or anything derived from it (as explicitly required by the license). The fact that the patents changed ownership should not invalidate this in the least - since the licensee of the copyright was also the patent owner at the time - and granted the explicit patent license, the new owner cannot revoke it unless it can show breach of contract. What GPLv3 did was to EXPAND the patent clause to cover things like the Microsoft/Novell deal - whereby if a company distributes any GPLv3 code - and obtains or purchases patent protection from third party (as Novell did) it HAS to offer this patent protection free of charge to all recipients of the code regardless who they got it from. If they are not willing to do so - they may not distribute (or derive from) the code, or alternatively they can refuse to sign such a deal - but what it basically did was make sure nothing with a GPLv3 license can be in Suze Linux unless Novell manages to convince Microsoft to change the patent protection deal so it's free to all users of said code. As it turned out - GPLv3 effectively killed the Microsoft patent racket and no distro has signed up for it since Xandros several years ago now.
Either way it wouldn't be google waiving Oracle's patents - SUN already waived them, themselves for any OpenJDK derivatives. The trouble is Google didn't use OpenJDK - in fact technically speaking Android doesn't run java AT ALL. It doesn't run Harmony either - it contains no JVM whatsoever (the Oracle Lawyers are obviously confused).
Dalvik is NOT a JVM. It does not, indeed CANNOT, run Java Bytecode. It has it's own bytecode format. Google just provided a toolkit that let you compile Java sourcecode to Dalvik Bytecode rather than Java Bytecode. This compiler used the much of the classpath code from Harmony to ensure it was compatible with Java source code as far as possible - but that's the extent of it.
I think Oracle is in for a major shock - Google had originally planned to use an adapted JVM but since SUN wouldn't give them what they needed from one, and Java had patents over it, they chose not to. They instead did a clean-room implementation of their own VM that just happens to have a compiler that can convert Java code (and Bytecode) to it's own. In fact, the technique is identical to the way IKVM runs Java on.net. That's the real issue here - if Oracle can somehow convince a judge that what Google did DOES in fact violate their patents (unlikely since it's not even a replacement technology or even a compatible one, it merely contains a compatibility layer but Dalvik native Bytecode can in theory be compiled from any language you write a compiler for) then that means Oracle can sue Microsoft next and win under case-law. They'd control not only Java but essentially all VM-executeable software development ! I sincerely doubt that the patents they have can cover widely enough to give them that (unless the judge is REALLY stupid and Google really REALLY mess up their defense) but I think Larry thinks the possible pay-off is worth the risk of failure. Look at the damages sought- it includes WIPING EVERY ANDROID CLEAN ! Regardless that these devices belong to CONSUMERS - not to google ! If Oracle can convince the court that any JVM capable of running code translated from Java Bytecode violates it's patents - then wiping every Android at will is the kind of power they will gain, not just in mobile but over all programming. Over.net, over java, hell even over Python (beca
Humans breath oxygen in, and CO2 out. Okay if the exact amounts are out - fair enough, but I'm pretty sure I can't be too far off. Not that it matters much - the point wasn't about whether breathalizers are accurate but that ensuring what gets blown in there IS human breath would be remarkably easy. Even without the CO2 I gave another test (and suggested they be used in conjunction) as it would improve reliability with almost no extra engineering. Human breath comes out pretty damn close to human body temperature which - barring disease or odd medications (most of which render you unsuitable to drive anyway) is pretty much a constant.
Oh here's another one for you (the actual studies are far longer - these are just the easy-to-understand tidbits). Torture causes trauma (that's obvious) - a standard symptom of both trauma and PTSD is false-memory-syndrome.
What I describe above is one source of false information under torture. But when your brain actively starts rewriting it's history as a consequence of trauma you've basically ruined the possibility of EVER getting good information from your prisoner.
Quite frankly if actual INTELLIGENCE is your goal - torture is the LAST thing you should use to try and get it.
>Not necessarily. There is no logical reason that professional interrogation combined with torture cannot achieve useful results.
Luckily - unlike our Greek forebears we need not rely only on logic but have a scientific method expanded with things like experimental study and fact-checking. Forget your idea bout logic - scientific studies have PROVEN that information extracted from torture will ALWAYS be lower quality than what you can get from high quality interrogation WITHOUT torture (either psychological OR physical). There are many more layers than the simple "tell you what you want to hear" at work - many of them likely unrealized even by the victim and torturers as they participate in the process. Ultimately - torture victims give not only worse information than good interrogators get, they give the WORST information of ANY form of interrogation. You would literally have slightly more reliable evidence if you just left the prisoner alone and guessed the answers. This isn't a case of "what makes logical sense" to you with the little facts at your disposal. This is a result of numerous peer-reviewed studies by scientists who actually know how the brain works and how it responds to things like pain and fear and also how memory works.
For a start -- little scientific fact for you. Extreme pain or fear directs the brain into "survival" mode - it redirects resources and "processing time" if you will to those aspects that are meant to help it survive those. It shuts down as many cognitive processes as possible to dull the pain, releases endorphines, and instead boosts heart-rate and adreniline. It tries to make you go beserk. In this state memory-recall is HUGELY debilitated and the brain (now wired to try and fast-produce tactical sollutions to it's dillema) goes into a highly creative state. The vast majority of answers a torture victim gives you will be completely fabricated - and what's worse - the victim will not even be AWARE he is fabricating the answers - you're trying to push him to recall facts and memories, but his brain has virtually shut down the memory centers and instead will yank answers from the over-active creative-centers simply because that is faster right now - and doesn't require redirecting resources from what is vital for survival to things that aren't important right now.
Forget what you think is logical. Neuroscience has proven repeatedly that torture yields inaccurate intelligence.
>Put bluntly; torturing prisoners makes it LESS likely that the objectives will be achieved, not more.
You raise valid reasons but there's an even more obvious one. Bruce Schneier cited a study recently (the link is somewhere in his blog archives if you wanna dig through it) showing that torture actually REDUCES the likelihood of getting useful information from the person in the first place. Torture victims give whatever answers they hope will reduce the torture, they become LESS likely to be truthful and what's worse will withhold the information they perceive as the most valuable for the very last, often you may actually torture somebody to death while he still holds on to the most useful thing he knows in the hope of using it to relieve something worse later on. Torture isn't JUST morally wrong- in practice it's the worst possible form of interrogation as far as quality of intelligence obtained goes. IF doing something wrong isn't bad enough - what does doing something wrong that actually HARMS your cause become ? The only reasonable explanation for torture then is the joy of the torturers in the suffering of others.
>The point is is there a line where one side in a war is so evil that it is plain wrong to be able to play as that side in a game?
No. Games are art. Art is SUPPOSED to give social comentary on current as well as past events. If it doesn't force people to consider what the Taliban soldiers think of the imperialist forces who invaded their home to destroy their way of life (you may not agree but that IS how they see it) then it's not doing it's JOB.
>? Maybe not but my biggest problem with that is the insensitivity to the feelings of the soldiers' families.
Fuck them. They CHOSE to be soldiers. Soldiers on both sides of any war commit atrocities. That's reality. If they (like my father) had been forced to go to war with no choice - I may have had some sympathy with them and their families. But when you CHOOSE to do the governments dirty work. Choose to be a weapon they can aim. When by your own choice you agree to blow small children to smithereens because they got in the way - I'm sorry but if somebody shoots back and scores a hit, whether I agree with that person's idealogy or not, I have ZERO sympathy for you or your family.
Soldiers will ALWAYS remain to me the least civilized and LEAST worthy of respect of any people alive. Civilization is by definition a striving toward a more peaceable coexistence with others. Those who dedicate themselves to being the tools that allow the rich and powerful to upset this process for their own gains, who do so without remorse for the people (soldiers and civilians) they kill are not worthy of respect, only of condemnation.
Now see -I'm allowed to say this. Because I'm not American. Nobody can slap me if I'm 'unpatriotic' to your troops. But I do dislike my OWN countries soldiers as much as yours- and MY country hasn't been involved in a conflict for over 20 years, our soldiers are used purely as an interventionary force to restore peace to wartorn countries and even THEN only EVER under U.N. or A.N. orders. I STILL despise them, I would like to live in a world where you can't HAVE a war, because nobody would show up.
Of course that's idealist and it will probably never happen - but that sure as fuck doesn't mean I have to LIKE it.
>By the way if you mean to equate the water boarding of a few terrorists in order to get information with what Taliban did to the people of Afghanistan then you have a lot of reading to do.
If you think the atrocities of another can EVER justify the atrocities of your own side then you have a lot becoming human to do.
>I don't have any problem with this but I hope the simulation is realistic i.e as Taliban I want to be able to stone teenage girls to death, bury homosexuals alive, dynamite priceless historic monuments and beat people for listening to music. Are those options available?
Only in the expansion pack, where as a U.S. soldier you get the option to torture and humiliate prisoners, shoot on unarmed schoolbusses from a helicopter and THEN shoot at the paramedics when they come to help. Rape innocent women and laugh as little children are torn limb-from-limb by a smart-bomb that "somehow managed to hit a school library"...
You want realism in wargames... first lesson: the winners tell their story, but there's no such thing as an honorable army that doesn't commit atrocities. We just don't READ about the women raped by Allied soldiers during world war 2 because the allies happened to win. Was their cause better than the Nazi's and Fascist ? Certainly - but that credit goes to people like Churchill. Was the average soldier still a soldier under extreme conditions, trained not to think and likely to crack in the head like almost all soldiers do and commit some pretty terrible things ? No doubt. Was the average soldier still an average human being who (as studies have shown) are quite prepared to put any other person through incredible suffering simply because an authority figure tells them to ? Absolutely. Were the American's better than anybody else when it comes to this stuff ? Absolutely not. Never was. Never will be.
>Well sure, if you consider a lifelong punitive impediment for a misdemeanour's offence to be sensible.
Most of us do not consider the idea of making drunk driving a misdemeanor to be sensible. Personally I think we made a mistake to ever make a separate law for it. Drunk driver = reckless endangerment as much as firing a gun into the air in an urban center or deliberately not insulating an electrical wire or any other thing we do for convenience or to save costs that tends to kill people.
A helluva lot of innocent people die from drunk driving related accidents every single day. If a drunk driver actually kills somebody then we send him to jail for a very, very long time. Well there's no difference in punishment between murder and attempted murder.
There is no sensible reason to make reckless endangerment a lesser crime than manslaughter. In the case of drunken driving the dangers are so well publicized and known that it is always and without exception WILLFULL reckless endangerment of the public. I'd say 10 years in jail, first offense. End of problem for ever.
PS. yes I like to drink - no I NEVER drive if I've had even ONE drink. I take a bloody cab, and if you can afford to drink outside the house then you can damnwell afford a cab too. In fact, If I am going to anywhere that will be serving alcohol (be it a party or a bar) I take a cab THERE - so I will have no choice but to take one back. Anything else is deliberately and irresponsibly risking the lives of innocent people for absolutely no good reason.
To call that liberty is to grossly misunderstand the most fundamental thing about freedom: your freedom ends where mine begins. There is no way you can POSSIBLY have the right to get on a road used by other people if you've got any kind of mind-altering substance in your blood. Have your drink, smoke your joint whatever I don't care - but stay the fuck off the roads after you do.
You mean besides the fact that human breath is 90% carbon dioxide ? This stuff is DESIGNED to chemically analyze the gas that gets blown into it. If you're going to check it's alcohol level, then frankly checking that it's made of mostly carbon dioxide and roughly 37 degrees Celsius is a pretty trivial test to add which would barely (if at all) increase manufacturing cost.
Interesting idea. Here in South Africa the entire telecoms market has been a locked-down government monopoly for as long as I can remember, the exact rules state that private networking or signalling equipment cannot cross public transport (e.g. roads or railways). The law was somewhat relaxed in recent years leading to the origination of private ADSL ISP's and WISPS but it remains thoroughly controlled with a massive licensing scheme that keeps citizens networks highly cut-off.
There are some popular WUG's around now, and their doing okay but internet access being unavailable on them their utility is limited to gaming and file-sharing, the WUG communities are just not big enough to viably replace the internet even on a local level.
But I love the idea of a form of network communication that would be virtually impossible to control or restrict and I actually had an idea about how it could be done back in the day. Through the only (current) medium that is near impossible to viably regulate - visible light-spectrum. A few years ago some students at my university adapted some ethernet cards and hooked them up to standard joke-shop laser-pointers and photocells to build a laserlight network between two machines that reached speeds of multiple megabits (At the time dialup was still standard here).
Of course it has two major problems - firstly because it's light, in daytime your signal-to-noise ratio from outside interference will quite possibly make it near useless. Secondly it's LoS only so to make a viable network you would need chains of connected machines each acting both as a node AND a router for everybody else's traffic. Doable certainly - viable ? Probably not...
But it does bring up one important point - using communicate mesh-networking concepts it can and must be possible to build networks that ultimately scale ot internet sizes and are completely outside of the purview of anybode except the actual participants - and where no single node can gain any particular control or importance over the network as a whole, nothing can acurately predict the paths traffic will take (no ISP servers to monitor)... secure and not just privately owned but private-PERSON-owned.
Even if the equipment is a bit costly, if it is a once-off expense (no ISP's or phone companies involved) and the communities are big enough to offer real value - people would flock to it.
>Donald Knuth was trained as a mathematician before computer science existed, but today he is a computer scientists at the computer science department. Go check his home page.
You know there are OTHER specialized subfields of mathematics - and Knuth is among the primary people standing behind the belief that computer science is maths - and has testified in the supreme court his belief that it is such pure maths that it should be unpatentable.
>Be that as it may, it's computer scientists, not mathematicians, that are performing these proofs That statement is only true if you think they are different things. I think of a computer scientist merely as a mathematician with a particular specialization. Computer science is comparable to other specialized subfields of mathematics like for instance statistics. Many universities teach statistics in a separate department because it's become a very singular and powerful specialty and those who specialize in researching it rarely have much interest in the rest of the field - but nobody would pretend statistics isn't maths. There is really NO practical reason why computer science should be seen as categorically any different from statistics as specializations WITHIN the broader field of mathematics.
>You don't go to the math department to study computer science, algorithms, or theory of computation I did. I think I'm a better programmer because I didn't JUST study computer science- I also did pure maths courses to be better at it, and while I was at it, I also did English literature to expand my knowledge of humanities (which is actually a useful skill for programmers to have) and I did philosopy up to third year (specialization: logic and critical thinking). In fact I could probably get another degree awarded with my extra subjects if I bothered - maybe do six months for some points somewhere. Point is - I actually DID study both and the one is really JUST a specialized subfield of the other. Research in computation theory is not usually useful outside the field but sometimes it becomes so. A good one is the very paper we're discussing. Whether P=NP or not has massive implications for computer science but it doesn't end there. It has just as broad implications on statistics, economics and indeed on "pure theoretical maths". It just so happens that computer scientists face the most immediate need to answer this, one of the biggest remaining questions in modern maths - because it has a direct impact on where several important research tasks will go. So computer scientists are weighing in because they have experience of the particular problem and can give good feedback but they are not the ONLY ones weighing in - "pure maths" people are also giving their views - and frankly if you take either out the chances are this paper will not maximise it's potential (even if it's a false proof it's STILL got massive potential to help lead to a real answer - and trust me we WILL need the pure maths guys here as WELL as the computer scientists).
> Hence, while computer science is a mathematical field, it's not the same as mathematics.
You're not just arguing semantics now, you're doing it stupidly and writing a total non-sequitor while convincing yourself it makes sense...
All those things existed before mathematics, were not created by mathematicians, and exist independently of whether mathematics did or not. We use mathematics to describe them but they all predate it.
Computer science doesn't share ANY of those traits. It did not, indeed COULD NOT exist before mathematics, it was created BY mathematicians and it cannot exist indepently of mathematics. That's why it is in fact wrong to claim that it's APPLIED mathematics (though it's useful to think that way) - it isn't, it IS pure mathematics. When we teach kids to divide by talking about having five apples and giving each of your friends one, we're not "applying" maths, we're simply using real world examples to clarify the concept. Computer science is slightly LESS abstracted from straight-up theoretical mathematics than that is.
>>Ultimately it's easilly provable that every computer program is a simple mathematical function - so simple in fact that it is in fact a single number.
>Every biological system is a physical system, but if you study physics, you'll know next to nothing about biology.
If you do the quantum wave functions for every particle in the cat, in the milk, in the floor... you can predict that the cat will drink the milk. It's in there - though granted with current technology it would take us longer than the expected lifetime of the universe to do the sums that way. Using a shortcut doesn't mean you haven't gone from A to B.
>>All computer science did was to create a (very shallow) layer of pretense through which ot access the maths.
>There is no "pretense". Theoretical computer science is a highly mathematical discipline, but it deals with issues that are of no interest to most other mathematicians. They aren't part of the standard math curriculum either. However, the kinds of mathematics it deals with are of interest to people who build and program computers. That's why theoretical computer science became part of computer science and the computer science curriculum.
They are part of some standard mathematical curiculae - specifically those that deal with proofs. It depends which subfields you study. Accounting is of no interest to most mathematicians, neither is economics - but nobody would claim that either of those aren't maths !
>>Lisp is DIRECTLY based on lambda-calculus - in fact the ONLY (minor) difference as small syntactical changes designed to make it easier to TYPE
>Lisp has side effects, lexical scoping, a rich set of data types, and dynamic typing. It is nothing like lambda calculus. These were added later, to make it easier for humans (remember LC is a very difficult mathematical language to read and write). You can write a pure lambda-calculus interpreter/compiler if you want and it would be possible to rewrite any computer program in it, just because no computer programmer has been masochistic enough to do it, doesn't mean it cannot be done. Lisp is pretty damn close to it and was deliberately not taken ALL the way because that had certain practical advantages.
>>Expect this to change in the next few years - multi-CPU machines are actually EASIER to program for in a functional language like lisp - which makes all those nasty multithreading issues just go away by putting you on the actual mathematics that happens.
>Lisp is not a functional programming language, it's a multi-paradigm language that allows you to program in a functional style. Lisp programs are no more parallelizable than C or Perl programs, even when they are written in a functional style.
Yes, I know that, and you know that - but a helluva lot of people do not. I was trying to make a point so I left out some of the fine detail, nothing in your "correction" changes anything I said - you just proved my point further... I thought you were arguing AGAINST me ?
>>In order to be a functional programming language, a language needs to prohibit (or at least isolate) side effects. Haskell is about the closest to a pure functional programming language in common use that there is.
>I think the fact that you think that Lisp has the benefits of lambda calculus illustrates again why mathematicians shouldn't be doing computer science... I think the fact that you don't see how the one was directly based on the other illustrates why non-mathematicians shouldn't be doing computer science. There's a reason lisp was only popular for AI in the past (one of the areas where the maths and engineering are the least abstracted from one another) and not for other work - it's bloody hard to code in, but your code is beautiful and elegant in it exactly because it's required to be mathematically purer.
>OK fine, but if untyped lambda calculus is a form of notation that's useful for describing computation, isn't this a circular argument? In a sense being circular makes it true - because you can translate between a form of pure maths, and a computer language that's a "circle" - the fact that the meaning remains utterly unchanged throughout the circle means they are identical.
>It's a computer. Of course a form of notation used to express computation would be able to describe what it does.
You think that's what lambda-calculus is or was developed for ? Boy are you ignorant. Lambda-Calculus was developed to be a language for writing mathematical proofs in that cannot have false positives (it didn't entirely reach it's goals - we can now prove that no such language can exist but it came close). So were Godel numbers and Turing machines btw. None of them were developed for doing computation - they were developed for doing mathematics research so that when you publish a proof you could be certain nobody could publish an equally valid looking proof that contradicts it, and if somebody did you could find out which one had a mistake. All three started out by relooking at the basics of arithmetic - other ways to write down 2+2=4 that are completely unambigiouos. All three became fundamental to how computers operate when we realized THAT by combining them we can build calculating engines. But that is all we did - we build machines to automate the mental process of running through a mathematical proof - nothing more, nothing less.
>If, on the other hand, I want to describe a system where I have a bunch of rocks in one pile, and I move rocks to another pile based on certain logical criteria, forming a kind of "loop"... couldn't that also be expressed in lambda calculus? I would be performing a kind of computation. But that doesn't mean moving rocks from one pile to another is mathematics, because the lambda calculus doesn't move any rocks. It just talks about moving rocks. If I want to move rocks, calculus alone isn't going to cut it.
If I want to design a system where a part of my income goes to the government to fund projects that benefit society as a whole, and keep track of it all, I could use percentages and basic arithmetic to implement a sliding scale of these "taxes". Would you claim that accounting isn't mathematics just because it's applied specifically to the task of moving money around ? Not to mention - since computers CAN move rocks, and use nothing but a bunch of mathematical instructions to know how to do so - your argument is flawed. A robotic arm is doing nothing human arms couldn't do, and using no processing to do so that a human brain with a piece of paper couldn't do. A computer automates a simple mental process we all learned in school, it uses a way of EXPRESSING that process that's both simpler and a lot more cumbersome than the shortcuts we learned, but makes it doable by a simple machine. There is no reason a brain cannot do it, in fact if you do NOT execute code "in your head" as you write it, you are a very bad programmer indeed.
>So in the end, your comments sound like the same kind of navel-gazing that says "math is everywhere".... "Look, Bobby, see the Golden Ratio in the structure of this leaf? Math is everywhere!" "No dad, that is not math. That is a leaf. Math is how you think about the leaf."
Except that it isn't. Mathematics didn't create the leaf, and it isn't used to reproduce it (as far as we know anyway). But computers were created by mathematics as a real world implementation of a particular mathematical theory (Turing machines) to do a particular mathematical task (functional proofs) - and to this day, that is ALL they are, and all they do.
>Most people write computer programs not because they want to run some clever bit of lambda calculus, but because they want to perform some function on information that can be applied in the real world. You can call it math if you want, but if I
>. A mathematician understands boolean logic, but that doesn't mean he has the knowledge and skills to design a CPU or program it. That knowledge and those skills aren't taught in mathematics, they are taught in computer science.
This is a half-truth at best. Firstly because the knowledge to design a CPU isn't taught in computer science either - it's taught in electronic engineering. The real problem is that so few people today actually studied computer science - learning programming != computer science. At best it could be called computer engineering (for a very charitable definition of engineering). The difference between science and engineering is well-known. Science is about understanding something - without (necessarily) making it work. Engineering is when you make something work without (necessarily) understanding it.
The trouble is that people who only ever learned computer programming on an engineering level think they understand computer science. The point is that "engineering" deliberately glosses over what actually happens with your code when it's executed - it focusses only on teaching you how to code and what is best practise - often entirely ignoring WHY it is best practise (which very often comes down to - because this mathematical function has a faster execution time than that one). Hell there are so many prebuilt functions in modern langauges that very few "professional programmers" have ever actually even written a sort function - and therefore don't actually even understand the difference between bubble-sort and quicksort and why only an idiot would write the former anymore.
This is very good for the industry - by creating this level of simplified abstraction we could get a lot more codemonkeys out there - but it has it's downsides - when they think they know computer science. There's a REASON that most of the algorithms we use every day were originally designed by people like Donald Knuth - who are professional MATHEMATICIANS. It's because to actually create a new algorithm you HAVE to, in essence, write a mathematical proof function - that's what an algorithm is - and a mathematician can do that better.
Besides all that- your claim is just outright wrong. The top mathematics researchers ALL have the ability to program a computer - they may not know how to do it in a particular high-level language, or many of the things we take for granted - but they can take the same problem and write a mathematical function for it, and if you ask them to write it in a mathematical language that the computer can interpret it WILL run. The probably won't add a gui to it, they probably won't use (any) library calls - at least the first time - but their function will run, and it will probably be almost bug-free. In fact there is a methodology of programming that's gaining popularity for high-reliability tasks that does exactly that- writing programs by creating mathematical proofs first. This allows you to verify the entire program 100% before you ever even write a line of code. It's slow and cumbersome but creates incredibly reliable software- if the reliability need is high enough, it's worth doing it.
ONLY a mathematician can do that however - somebody who just did a 3-year CS course would be lost on day one unless they took the appropriate maths courses with it.
>No, it's not. The relationship between computer science and mathematics is similar to the relationship between physics and mathematics:
No it's not the one IS the other and it's the perceived DIFFERENCE that doesn't exist. It's purely a perception -and a DELIBERATE illusion at that, designed to simplify the process. Ultimately it's easilly provable that every computer program is a simple mathematical function - so simple in fact that it is in fact a single number.
There is nothing weird about this- if you know lambda calculus, godel-number and Turing machines it's simple logic. We have never done anything to "split" the fields. All computer science did was to create a (very shallow) layer of pretense through which ot access the maths.
To suggest it is anything OTHER than mathematics is to prove you have absolutely no idea how computers actually work. In the real world- every computer is a universal turing machine. If you have any real doubt - just consider this: any program COULD be written in lisp. Lisp is DIRECTLY based on lambda-calculus - in fact the ONLY (minor) difference as small syntactical changes designed to make it easier to TYPE lambda on a computer (it was after-all designed for writing in). Lamba-calculus is a simple form of mathematical language - like algebra or godel numbers or any of a dozen other ways to write down 2+2=4 that are all just different ways of expressing it designed to be useful for different purposes.
It's true that currently the most popular languages do not follow the lisp "look like the function you are" structure -but this is because in single-CPU machines top-down programs were slightly more similar to how the hardware actually PROCESSED the functions - and that made it easier to program in. Expect this to change in the next few years - multi-CPU machines are actually EASIER to program for in a functional language like lisp - which makes all those nasty multithreading issues just go away by putting you on the actual mathematics that happens.
>Software is more than just maths. It's maths plus an application to a real world problem. Actually it isn't. I wrote a blog post with the proof recently - I'll copy and paste it without editing.
Lawyers have successfully managed to argue that computer programs are not mathematics and thus should not be covered by the exclusion of mathematics from patentable material. This comes from a deep misunderstanding of how computers really work - particularly as implementations of a universal turing machine. Some great papers on this have been written - including this one at groklaw. That explains in detail how computers really work and why all computer programs are simply mathematical functions - and even why all mathematical functions are really just numbers. A great quote from it is this one: "Programming a computer is, essentially, just discovering a number that suits the programmers wishes". The thing is - for somebody whose only understanding of computation theory is even that paper- this will seem like a bit of a leap. After all the process of writing code is creative, involves design and innovative thinking - surely this wonderful process cannot just be "discovering a number" - after all - you can do that just by counting - this is WHY it's unpatentable... What I want to do with this post is to - very simply - explain why that really is true. I'm going to give you a very simple computer program. I'll write it in pseudocode so non-programmers can read it, but it can be implemented easily in any programming language and run - and in most of them will take less than about 10 lines of code to do:
Make the vairable X equal to 0; Start a loop here: Write the binary representation of X into a new file. increase X by 1 continue the above loop until the program is interrupted by deliberately killing it (an infinite loop); With this simple program - I can create an exact copy of every single program ever written and - this is important - every single program that CAN ever be written. This is because any compiled program becomes a file filled with zeros and ones - to a computer, that's just a big number (the whole computation theory and lambda calculus etc. that explains how a number can BE an algorithm is needed to know how this happens - but the important thing is - it's a number). This program will store every number that can exist into a file - by just counting. The process is very ineffective for a few reasons: firstly almost every program it produces won't run, the vast majority of numbers do not correspond to useful programs - in fact only an incredibly small subset of them do - but they are still numbers you can count to, and they are still numbers my program WILL produce. Secondly there is no real way to determine the useful programs from the ones that aren't- you have to manually try to run all of them - and see for yourself what happens. More-over for every program in there, you'll produce thousands of copies - some that will only run on other computers than yours. But somewhere in there will be a full version of Microsoft OutLook that can run on your computer... if you run it long enough at least. Another inefficiency is that it creates every program as one self-sustained entity - as it ends up in memory, but programs aren't sold like that. Programs have many parts that are identical between them (just like the number 105 and the number 316 both contain the number 1 - just one a much bigger scale) - it's smart to store these in separate files so multiple programs can use them - it saves disk space, but it doesn't change the number that actually goes into memory when it is run, it merely stores it more efficiently by avoiding replication. The process is fully doable however, it would take a massive amount of time to discover just the subset of numbers that correspond to a runnable program - let alone the ones inside that do anything useful - and of course since you'll also be generating every virus program ever - the process is likely to be rather harmful to your
>Oh, I'm sorry - I thought you were a programmer, not just a code monkey who relies on includes. I can see that we're really not going to get anywhere talking about software patenting, since you're not involved in innovating. Cheers, and watch that blood pressure.
I am a programmer - and that's why I know this. My skills is in how I put the pieces together - there is no such thing as a new algorithm and if you think you wrote one you're just too stupid to know that we've all done it before. Reality is algorithms are like lego blocks, there's about 20 of them in total - but they can fit together in a million different ways to make a billion different things. Fact: NO non trivial program can POSSIBLY be written without violating patents. NONE AT ALL.
See, software really IS just math. There are GOOD reasons why math is unpatentable and the fiasco that is software patents is just those same reasons- because that is ALL software is. There is NO such thing as innovation or invention in software according to the legal definitions - there is only discovery. There is also a major creative aspect as you apply the discoveries but that is not invention.
It's all simple, verifiable and easily checkable facts - impossible to fake. And it means - I'm right and you're wrong. Software is maths and software innovation is a contradiction in terms. You can only DISCOVER new maths, you cannot invent it.
>>See there's the misunderstanding. Your new transmission is an innovation - it's NOT an improvement of the tires !
>No, there's misunderstanding on your part. Your "new" transmission is just an improvement of older transmissions.
In my analogy it may as well be the very FIRST transmission ever and my analogy still works. Can you figure out WTF I'm talking about ? In the software world - you usually improve the whole car, improving any particular part (like the tires or the transmission) has happened all of about 10 times in the ENTIRE HISTORY OF SOFTWARE. That's how software WORKS. We STILL have a total of about 5 sorting algorythms in all of programming. True none of those are patented but - there ones as ridiculous as that would be - just not quite as obvious to a NON programmer (like patent investigators). Hell I know of more than one case where identical algorythms were covered by MULTIPLE patents awarded to different people at the SAME time because investigators had no idea it was the same thing being patented. Unix's compress algorythm was one.
>>With a software patent I now effectively have the right to demand all other cars have only one gear because they can't HAVE transmissions at all. What's worse, I'm likely to GET my patent despite the fact that cars have had transmissions for nearly 80 years.
>Not true, unless your new bit of software is equivalent to the entire concept of transmissions - in other words, that you're a true pioneer opening up an entire new field. But that's unlikely. No, most likely, your software is just an incremental improvement, and that's all you're going to get a patent on.
We both know that nearly all improvements ARE incremental and anybody who reads any news about what's happening with software patents also know that in practice that's not what happens. There have been cases of patent lawsuits won by people who didn't THEMSELVES realize that the software they were suing came anywhere near what their patents covered until their LAWYERS pointed out that a case existed. In reality, every software patent is TREATED as if it was the very first ever transmission.
>>How many software patents are granted every day covering a feature in any shape or form - long after that feature is in heavy use?
>Patents take a long time to prosecute. I can file a patent application today and start selling product, and when it gets granted, three or four years from now, that feature could be in heavy use.
I'm not talking three or four years - most of my examples were on the span of DECADES. One developer upon being sued for integrating a thesaurus in his wordprocess (how obvious an idea...) due to a patent on it found that emacs had, had one in the 1970s (this suit was in 1988). He still ended up removing the feature because a trial to prove that the patent was bogus would cost far more than the software's sell able worth. He just stopped doing business instead. The world is FULL of that.
>Would you rather that products simply don't come out into the marketplace until that three or four years have passed? And if so, how can you simultaneously argue that patents stifle the marketplace?
I would rather there be no software patents - then the WHOLE problem goes away. Nothing in the whole world has BOTH patent AND copyright protection EXCEPT software. Only a lawyer can find ANY argument that makes that anything other than a massive institutional rip-off of the entire public.
>>Microsoft recently lost a patent case that covered "streaming video played over a network" - for the ability to view videos in I.E. This is a feature that in various forms are almost as old as networks themselves !
>Was that really the entire patent claim? "A method, comprising streaming video, over a network." No. The title of a patent is not the patent. It has no legal weight whatsoever. The patent is the claims, and unless you're quoting a claim, you have no standing to say that the invention has been done befor
>Work is supposed to be boring. If if was that much fun, they wouldn't pay you and there would be a cover charge to show up.
Erm - nobody thought the earth was flat. They knew it was round even BEFORE the Ancient Greeks showed up and those Greeks already managed to work out it's size. Columbus disagreed on only one point. He believed the circumference of the earth to be substantially less than it actually is. If he was right then going to India by traveling West would have been a MUCH shorter trip than the one by going East (especially as that one meant either going South round the Cape or through the expensive Cairo channel).
He was dead wrong about it - in fact the earth was so MUCH larger than he had anticipated that an entire two-continent chain was lying in the region he thought was the other side of the earth, with as much travel after it as before. This is also why when he bumped into said continent chain - he actually thought he had reached India - that he had proven his theory. It would take some time to learn his mistake.
And you and the GP both got it dead wrong about colonization. The motive WAS in fact ENTIRELY financial - it was greed. Spreading civilization and the gospel was a handy excuse but it had nothing to do with the real reason. The real reason was simple: massive lands with massively valuable resources and no military capability comparable to the Europe of the time meant massive opportunity for profitable conquest.
>Yes, you've made an improvement, and you patent your faster pre-fetch algorithm. Similarly, you patent your new transmission
See there's the misunderstanding. Your new transmission is an innovation - it's NOT an improvement of the tires ! That's why it's patentable you CAR may now be better than your competitors but nobody spoke about patenting the whole car. Where the real world differs from software patents is this: if I make a better transmission and get a patent on it. ALL I got a patent on is MY transmission design. With a software patent I now effectively have the right to demand all other cars have only one gear because they can't HAVE transmissions at all. What's worse, I'm likely to GET my patent despite the fact that cars have had transmissions for nearly 80 years.
How many software patents are granted every day covering a feature in any shape or form - long after that feature is in heavy use ? Microsoft recently lost a patent case that covered "streaming video played over a network" - for the ability to view videos in I.E. This is a feature that in various forms are almost as old as networks themselves !
That's the problem - software patents cover ANY implementation of the feature.
>... if they use a different design for tires... If you make a faster pre-fetch algorithm like you said, then that doesn't stop everyone else from using older, slower pre-fetch algorithms - just yours.
Ooookaaay... so you're either an idiot or you can't read ? I said HAVING a faster prefetch algorythm in my sorting program makes my program faster than a program with the SAME sorting algorythm LACKING it. But the PATENT here is on the SORTING algorythm and the fact that my IMPROVED PROGRAM is NOT an improvement on the PATENTED ALGORITHM so I remain liable.
This exact thing HAS happened in the past. There is a very nice way to update all the cells in a spreadsheet whenever one value changes - I won't bug you with the technical details but it's a simple enough idea - one on which ALL spreadsheet developers MUST eventually converge. It was also patented - long after many of them HAD it. So then it had to be removed from them all, companies actually DOWNGRADED their customers to remove the feature ! It's standard in all spreadsheets now but only because it finally expired.
>However, all patents require disclosure sufficient that one of ordinary skill in the art could implement the claimed invention.
Oh really ? The fact is - any algorythm that takes the same inputs and produces the same outputs REGARDLESS OF THE WAY IT DOES IT OR THE EXACT STEPS is almost ALWAYS considered covered by a patent. You don't just get a patent on a WAY to create a feature but on the feature itself. Effectively no other program can have that feature without a license from you - even if they never saw your program (assuming it even exists).
Short version dumbass: if there was ANY practical reality to what you're saying patent trolls wouldn't, indeed COULDN'T exist.
Their very POSSIBILITY of profitable patent trolling is all the indictment against software patents anybody could reasonably need.
But you won't agree - you said yourself you're basically a patent lawyer of course you'll downplay the massive fuckup it is and outright deny it like in your last paragraph - you form part of he ONLY fucking business to ever BENEFIT from software patents.
Again - everything you CLAIM about software patents is negated and PROVEN false by three simple words: patent trolls exist.
If your last paragraph was true their very existence would be completely impossible.
>Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I thought that if you improved on a patent, you could get a patent on the improvement. Is this not the case anymore?
Generally speaking yes, but in the case of software patents it's not. This is because of how radically different software is compared to physical inventions. Effectively EVERY use of a patented algorithm is ipso facto an improvement, if you recognize them then all the patents are worthless. More-over you will usually find the best improvements to an algorithm isn't always IN the algorithm but in the code that you surround it with. You get a fast sorting algorithm - if you stick it in a program with better memory management and smarter pre-fetching it will still sort a file faster than one in which the surrounding code is slower. That's why performance measurement of algorythms are done using an arithmetic that deliberately excludes outside factors. Big O-notation doesn't care at what speed the data can be read, only how many steps the algorythm has to execute on each piece before producing a result.
So unless you can reduce the number of steps - you haven't made an improvement as patent law would see it, but if you write a faster pre-fetch algorythm your program IS an improvement over your competitors. Much like a better gearing system would make a faster car but doesn't count as an improvement over your competitors patent on a certain design of tire.
Mechanical inventions are such that this is not an major hindrance... software on the other hand is not like that.
In most cases you can get a patent on a specific way to design a certain mechanical part, but if somebody designs a different one your patent doesn't cover it. You may have a patent on your tire design but it doesn't stop every other car manufacturer from having tires on their cars (or force them to buy tires from you). In software patents - that is literally what it means, most software patents are so broadly written that ANY algorithm producing the same results from the same inputs would be considered infringing. If somebody has a software patent that's a feature that NO OTHER PROGRAM CAN EVER HAVE - no matter how it does it. In fact because software patents never come with source disclosure requirements, there is no way to even MEASURE if something is in fact an IMPROVEMENT. The two algorythm do the same thing- you cannot say "but my way does it more effeciently and is therefor a new patentable innovation". Instead the law says "same results from same described inputs = infringement".... wham you lose.
Slashdot Mirror
There are no zombies yet.
FTFY.
>>Actually the GPL3 has patent wavier in it so it isn't just a license to do with copyright.
>Unless Sun/Oracle released the code under GPLv3, Google can't waive Oracle's patents.
You're both wrong. The GPL has had a patent waiver clause since version 2. It states that if you use or distribute code under it you explicitly give a zero-royalty patent permission to all users who receive it under the license. Sun released OpenJDK under GPLv2 so indeed no patents SUN had on OpenJDK code can be asserted on it or anything derived from it (as explicitly required by the license). The fact that the patents changed ownership should not invalidate this in the least - since the licensee of the copyright was also the patent owner at the time - and granted the explicit patent license, the new owner cannot revoke it unless it can show breach of contract.
What GPLv3 did was to EXPAND the patent clause to cover things like the Microsoft/Novell deal - whereby if a company distributes any GPLv3 code - and obtains or purchases patent protection from third party (as Novell did) it HAS to offer this patent protection free of charge to all recipients of the code regardless who they got it from. If they are not willing to do so - they may not distribute (or derive from) the code, or alternatively they can refuse to sign such a deal - but what it basically did was make sure nothing with a GPLv3 license can be in Suze Linux unless Novell manages to convince Microsoft to change the patent protection deal so it's free to all users of said code.
As it turned out - GPLv3 effectively killed the Microsoft patent racket and no distro has signed up for it since Xandros several years ago now.
Either way it wouldn't be google waiving Oracle's patents - SUN already waived them, themselves for any OpenJDK derivatives. The trouble is Google didn't use OpenJDK - in fact technically speaking Android doesn't run java AT ALL.
It doesn't run Harmony either - it contains no JVM whatsoever (the Oracle Lawyers are obviously confused).
Dalvik is NOT a JVM. It does not, indeed CANNOT, run Java Bytecode. It has it's own bytecode format. Google just provided a toolkit that let you compile Java sourcecode to Dalvik Bytecode rather than Java Bytecode. This compiler used the much of the classpath code from Harmony to ensure it was compatible with Java source code as far as possible - but that's the extent of it.
I think Oracle is in for a major shock - Google had originally planned to use an adapted JVM but since SUN wouldn't give them what they needed from one, and Java had patents over it, they chose not to. They instead did a clean-room implementation of their own VM that just happens to have a compiler that can convert Java code (and Bytecode) to it's own. In fact, the technique is identical to the way IKVM runs Java on .net. .net, over java, hell even over Python (beca
That's the real issue here - if Oracle can somehow convince a judge that what Google did DOES in fact violate their patents (unlikely since it's not even a replacement technology or even a compatible one, it merely contains a compatibility layer but Dalvik native Bytecode can in theory be compiled from any language you write a compiler for) then that means Oracle can sue Microsoft next and win under case-law.
They'd control not only Java but essentially all VM-executeable software development ! I sincerely doubt that the patents they have can cover widely enough to give them that (unless the judge is REALLY stupid and Google really REALLY mess up their defense) but I think Larry thinks the possible pay-off is worth the risk of failure.
Look at the damages sought- it includes WIPING EVERY ANDROID CLEAN ! Regardless that these devices belong to CONSUMERS - not to google ! If Oracle can convince the court that any JVM capable of running code translated from Java Bytecode violates it's patents - then wiping every Android at will is the kind of power they will gain, not just in mobile but over all programming. Over
Humans breath oxygen in, and CO2 out. Okay if the exact amounts are out - fair enough, but I'm pretty sure I can't be too far off. Not that it matters much - the point wasn't about whether breathalizers are accurate but that ensuring what gets blown in there IS human breath would be remarkably easy.
Even without the CO2 I gave another test (and suggested they be used in conjunction) as it would improve reliability with almost no extra engineering. Human breath comes out pretty damn close to human body temperature which - barring disease or odd medications (most of which render you unsuitable to drive anyway) is pretty much a constant.
>The corruption comes when torture and harsh interrogation methods are used.
FTFY
Oh here's another one for you (the actual studies are far longer - these are just the easy-to-understand tidbits).
Torture causes trauma (that's obvious) - a standard symptom of both trauma and PTSD is false-memory-syndrome.
What I describe above is one source of false information under torture. But when your brain actively starts rewriting it's history as a consequence of trauma you've basically ruined the possibility of EVER getting good information from your prisoner.
Quite frankly if actual INTELLIGENCE is your goal - torture is the LAST thing you should use to try and get it.
>Not necessarily. There is no logical reason that professional interrogation combined with torture cannot achieve useful results.
Luckily - unlike our Greek forebears we need not rely only on logic but have a scientific method expanded with things like experimental study and fact-checking.
Forget your idea bout logic - scientific studies have PROVEN that information extracted from torture will ALWAYS be lower quality than what you can get from high quality interrogation WITHOUT torture (either psychological OR physical). There are many more layers than the simple "tell you what you want to hear" at work - many of them likely unrealized even by the victim and torturers as they participate in the process.
Ultimately - torture victims give not only worse information than good interrogators get, they give the WORST information of ANY form of interrogation. You would literally have slightly more reliable evidence if you just left the prisoner alone and guessed the answers.
This isn't a case of "what makes logical sense" to you with the little facts at your disposal. This is a result of numerous peer-reviewed studies by scientists who actually know how the brain works and how it responds to things like pain and fear and also how memory works.
For a start -- little scientific fact for you. Extreme pain or fear directs the brain into "survival" mode - it redirects resources and "processing time" if you will to those aspects that are meant to help it survive those. It shuts down as many cognitive processes as possible to dull the pain, releases endorphines, and instead boosts heart-rate and adreniline. It tries to make you go beserk.
In this state memory-recall is HUGELY debilitated and the brain (now wired to try and fast-produce tactical sollutions to it's dillema) goes into a highly creative state.
The vast majority of answers a torture victim gives you will be completely fabricated - and what's worse - the victim will not even be AWARE he is fabricating the answers - you're trying to push him to recall facts and memories, but his brain has virtually shut down the memory centers and instead will yank answers from the over-active creative-centers simply because that is faster right now - and doesn't require redirecting resources from what is vital for survival to things that aren't important right now.
Forget what you think is logical. Neuroscience has proven repeatedly that torture yields inaccurate intelligence.
>Put bluntly; torturing prisoners makes it LESS likely that the objectives will be achieved, not more.
You raise valid reasons but there's an even more obvious one. Bruce Schneier cited a study recently (the link is somewhere in his blog archives if you wanna dig through it) showing that torture actually REDUCES the likelihood of getting useful information from the person in the first place. Torture victims give whatever answers they hope will reduce the torture, they become LESS likely to be truthful and what's worse will withhold the information they perceive as the most valuable for the very last, often you may actually torture somebody to death while he still holds on to the most useful thing he knows in the hope of using it to relieve something worse later on.
Torture isn't JUST morally wrong- in practice it's the worst possible form of interrogation as far as quality of intelligence obtained goes. IF doing something wrong isn't bad enough - what does doing something wrong that actually HARMS your cause become ? The only reasonable explanation for torture then is the joy of the torturers in the suffering of others.
>The point is is there a line where one side in a war is so evil that it is plain wrong to be able to play as that side in a game?
No. Games are art. Art is SUPPOSED to give social comentary on current as well as past events. If it doesn't force people to consider what the Taliban soldiers think of the imperialist forces who invaded their home to destroy their way of life (you may not agree but that IS how they see it) then it's not doing it's JOB.
>? Maybe not but my biggest problem with that is the insensitivity to the feelings of the soldiers' families.
Fuck them. They CHOSE to be soldiers. Soldiers on both sides of any war commit atrocities. That's reality. If they (like my father) had been forced to go to war with no choice - I may have had some sympathy with them and their families. But when you CHOOSE to do the governments dirty work. Choose to be a weapon they can aim. When by your own choice you agree to blow small children to smithereens because they got in the way - I'm sorry but if somebody shoots back and scores a hit, whether I agree with that person's idealogy or not, I have ZERO sympathy for you or your family.
Soldiers will ALWAYS remain to me the least civilized and LEAST worthy of respect of any people alive. Civilization is by definition a striving toward a more peaceable coexistence with others. Those who dedicate themselves to being the tools that allow the rich and powerful to upset this process for their own gains, who do so without remorse for the people (soldiers and civilians) they kill are not worthy of respect, only of condemnation.
Now see -I'm allowed to say this. Because I'm not American. Nobody can slap me if I'm 'unpatriotic' to your troops. But I do dislike my OWN countries soldiers as much as yours- and MY country hasn't been involved in a conflict for over 20 years, our soldiers are used purely as an interventionary force to restore peace to wartorn countries and even THEN only EVER under U.N. or A.N. orders.
I STILL despise them, I would like to live in a world where you can't HAVE a war, because nobody would show up.
Of course that's idealist and it will probably never happen - but that sure as fuck doesn't mean I have to LIKE it.
>By the way if you mean to equate the water boarding of a few terrorists in order to get information with what Taliban did to the people of Afghanistan then you have a lot of reading to do.
If you think the atrocities of another can EVER justify the atrocities of your own side then you have a lot becoming human to do.
>I don't have any problem with this but I hope the simulation is realistic i.e as Taliban I want to be able to stone teenage girls to death, bury homosexuals alive, dynamite priceless historic monuments and beat people for listening to music. Are those options available?
Only in the expansion pack, where as a U.S. soldier you get the option to torture and humiliate prisoners, shoot on unarmed schoolbusses from a helicopter and THEN shoot at the paramedics when they come to help. Rape innocent women and laugh as little children are torn limb-from-limb by a smart-bomb that "somehow managed to hit a school library"...
You want realism in wargames... first lesson: the winners tell their story, but there's no such thing as an honorable army that doesn't commit atrocities.
We just don't READ about the women raped by Allied soldiers during world war 2 because the allies happened to win. Was their cause better than the Nazi's and Fascist ? Certainly - but that credit goes to people like Churchill. Was the average soldier still a soldier under extreme conditions, trained not to think and likely to crack in the head like almost all soldiers do and commit some pretty terrible things ? No doubt. Was the average soldier still an average human being who (as studies have shown) are quite prepared to put any other person through incredible suffering simply because an authority figure tells them to ? Absolutely.
Were the American's better than anybody else when it comes to this stuff ? Absolutely not. Never was. Never will be.
>Well sure, if you consider a lifelong punitive impediment for a misdemeanour's offence to be sensible.
Most of us do not consider the idea of making drunk driving a misdemeanor to be sensible. Personally I think we made a mistake to ever make a separate law for it. Drunk driver = reckless endangerment as much as firing a gun into the air in an urban center or deliberately not insulating an electrical wire or any other thing we do for convenience or to save costs that tends to kill people.
A helluva lot of innocent people die from drunk driving related accidents every single day. If a drunk driver actually kills somebody then we send him to jail for a very, very long time. Well there's no difference in punishment between murder and attempted murder.
There is no sensible reason to make reckless endangerment a lesser crime than manslaughter. In the case of drunken driving the dangers are so well publicized and known that it is always and without exception WILLFULL reckless endangerment of the public. I'd say 10 years in jail, first offense.
End of problem for ever.
PS. yes I like to drink - no I NEVER drive if I've had even ONE drink. I take a bloody cab, and if you can afford to drink outside the house then you can damnwell afford a cab too. In fact, If I am going to anywhere that will be serving alcohol (be it a party or a bar) I take a cab THERE - so I will have no choice but to take one back. Anything else is deliberately and irresponsibly risking the lives of innocent people for absolutely no good reason.
To call that liberty is to grossly misunderstand the most fundamental thing about freedom: your freedom ends where mine begins. There is no way you can POSSIBLY have the right to get on a road used by other people if you've got any kind of mind-altering substance in your blood. Have your drink, smoke your joint whatever I don't care - but stay the fuck off the roads after you do.
>canned air (fluorocarbons) and human breath?
You mean besides the fact that human breath is 90% carbon dioxide ? This stuff is DESIGNED to chemically analyze the gas that gets blown into it. If you're going to check it's alcohol level, then frankly checking that it's made of mostly carbon dioxide and roughly 37 degrees Celsius is a pretty trivial test to add which would barely (if at all) increase manufacturing cost.
Interesting idea. Here in South Africa the entire telecoms market has been a locked-down government monopoly for as long as I can remember, the exact rules state that private networking or signalling equipment cannot cross public transport (e.g. roads or railways).
The law was somewhat relaxed in recent years leading to the origination of private ADSL ISP's and WISPS but it remains thoroughly controlled with a massive licensing scheme that keeps citizens networks highly cut-off.
There are some popular WUG's around now, and their doing okay but internet access being unavailable on them their utility is limited to gaming and file-sharing, the WUG communities are just not big enough to viably replace the internet even on a local level.
But I love the idea of a form of network communication that would be virtually impossible to control or restrict and I actually had an idea about how it could be done back in the day. Through the only (current) medium that is near impossible to viably regulate - visible light-spectrum.
A few years ago some students at my university adapted some ethernet cards and hooked them up to standard joke-shop laser-pointers and photocells to build a laserlight network between two machines that reached speeds of multiple megabits (At the time dialup was still standard here).
Of course it has two major problems - firstly because it's light, in daytime your signal-to-noise ratio from outside interference will quite possibly make it near useless. Secondly it's LoS only so to make a viable network you would need chains of connected machines each acting both as a node AND a router for everybody else's traffic.
Doable certainly - viable ? Probably not...
But it does bring up one important point - using communicate mesh-networking concepts it can and must be possible to build networks that ultimately scale ot internet sizes and are completely outside of the purview of anybode except the actual participants - and where no single node can gain any particular control or importance over the network as a whole, nothing can acurately predict the paths traffic will take (no ISP servers to monitor)... secure and not just privately owned but private-PERSON-owned.
Even if the equipment is a bit costly, if it is a once-off expense (no ISP's or phone companies involved) and the communities are big enough to offer real value - people would flock to it.
>Donald Knuth was trained as a mathematician before computer science existed, but today he is a computer scientists at the computer science department. Go check his home page.
You know there are OTHER specialized subfields of mathematics - and Knuth is among the primary people standing behind the belief that computer science is maths - and has testified in the supreme court his belief that it is such pure maths that it should be unpatentable.
>Be that as it may, it's computer scientists, not mathematicians, that are performing these proofs
That statement is only true if you think they are different things. I think of a computer scientist merely as a mathematician with a particular specialization. Computer science is comparable to other specialized subfields of mathematics like for instance statistics.
Many universities teach statistics in a separate department because it's become a very singular and powerful specialty and those who specialize in researching it rarely have much interest in the rest of the field - but nobody would pretend statistics isn't maths.
There is really NO practical reason why computer science should be seen as categorically any different from statistics as specializations WITHIN the broader field of mathematics.
>You don't go to the math department to study computer science, algorithms, or theory of computation
I did. I think I'm a better programmer because I didn't JUST study computer science- I also did pure maths courses to be better at it, and while I was at it, I also did English literature to expand my knowledge of humanities (which is actually a useful skill for programmers to have) and I did philosopy up to third year (specialization: logic and critical thinking). In fact I could probably get another degree awarded with my extra subjects if I bothered - maybe do six months for some points somewhere. Point is - I actually DID study both and the one is really JUST a specialized subfield of the other.
Research in computation theory is not usually useful outside the field but sometimes it becomes so. A good one is the very paper we're discussing. Whether P=NP or not has massive implications for computer science but it doesn't end there. It has just as broad implications on statistics, economics and indeed on "pure theoretical maths".
It just so happens that computer scientists face the most immediate need to answer this, one of the biggest remaining questions in modern maths - because it has a direct impact on where several important research tasks will go. So computer scientists are weighing in because they have experience of the particular problem and can give good feedback but they are not the ONLY ones weighing in - "pure maths" people are also giving their views - and frankly if you take either out the chances are this paper will not maximise it's potential (even if it's a false proof it's STILL got massive potential to help lead to a real answer - and trust me we WILL need the pure maths guys here as WELL as the computer scientists).
> Hence, while computer science is a mathematical field, it's not the same as mathematics.
You're not just arguing semantics now, you're doing it stupidly and writing a total non-sequitor while convincing yourself it makes sense...
All those things existed before mathematics, were not created by mathematicians, and exist independently of whether mathematics did or not.
We use mathematics to describe them but they all predate it.
Computer science doesn't share ANY of those traits. It did not, indeed COULD NOT exist before mathematics, it was created BY mathematicians and it cannot exist indepently of mathematics.
That's why it is in fact wrong to claim that it's APPLIED mathematics (though it's useful to think that way) - it isn't, it IS pure mathematics. When we teach kids to divide by talking about having five apples and giving each of your friends one, we're not "applying" maths, we're simply using real world examples to clarify the concept.
Computer science is slightly LESS abstracted from straight-up theoretical mathematics than that is.
Somebody else you should learn (note spelling) from is your English teacher...
>>Ultimately it's easilly provable that every computer program is a simple mathematical function - so simple in fact that it is in fact a single number.
>Every biological system is a physical system, but if you study physics, you'll know next to nothing about biology.
If you do the quantum wave functions for every particle in the cat, in the milk, in the floor... you can predict that the cat will drink the milk. It's in there - though granted with current technology it would take us longer than the expected lifetime of the universe to do the sums that way.
Using a shortcut doesn't mean you haven't gone from A to B.
>>All computer science did was to create a (very shallow) layer of pretense through which ot access the maths.
>There is no "pretense". Theoretical computer science is a highly mathematical discipline, but it deals with issues that are of no interest to most other mathematicians. They aren't part of the standard math curriculum either. However, the kinds of mathematics it deals with are of interest to people who build and program computers. That's why theoretical computer science became part of computer science and the computer science curriculum.
They are part of some standard mathematical curiculae - specifically those that deal with proofs. It depends which subfields you study. Accounting is of no interest to most mathematicians, neither is economics - but nobody would claim that either of those aren't maths !
>>Lisp is DIRECTLY based on lambda-calculus - in fact the ONLY (minor) difference as small syntactical changes designed to make it easier to TYPE
>Lisp has side effects, lexical scoping, a rich set of data types, and dynamic typing. It is nothing like lambda calculus.
These were added later, to make it easier for humans (remember LC is a very difficult mathematical language to read and write). You can write a pure lambda-calculus interpreter/compiler if you want and it would be possible to rewrite any computer program in it, just because no computer programmer has been masochistic enough to do it, doesn't mean it cannot be done. Lisp is pretty damn close to it and was deliberately not taken ALL the way because that had certain practical advantages.
>>Expect this to change in the next few years - multi-CPU machines are actually EASIER to program for in a functional language like lisp - which makes all those nasty multithreading issues just go away by putting you on the actual mathematics that happens.
>Lisp is not a functional programming language, it's a multi-paradigm language that allows you to program in a functional style. Lisp programs are no more parallelizable than C or Perl programs, even when they are written in a functional style.
Yes, I know that, and you know that - but a helluva lot of people do not. I was trying to make a point so I left out some of the fine detail, nothing in your "correction" changes anything I said - you just proved my point further... I thought you were arguing AGAINST me ?
>>In order to be a functional programming language, a language needs to prohibit (or at least isolate) side effects. Haskell is about the closest to a pure functional programming language in common use that there is.
>I think the fact that you think that Lisp has the benefits of lambda calculus illustrates again why mathematicians shouldn't be doing computer science...
I think the fact that you don't see how the one was directly based on the other illustrates why non-mathematicians shouldn't be doing computer science. There's a reason lisp was only popular for AI in the past (one of the areas where the maths and engineering are the least abstracted from one another) and not for other work - it's bloody hard to code in, but your code is beautiful and elegant in it exactly because it's required to be mathematically purer.
>OK fine, but if untyped lambda calculus is a form of notation that's useful for describing computation, isn't this a circular argument?
In a sense being circular makes it true - because you can translate between a form of pure maths, and a computer language that's a "circle" - the fact that the meaning remains utterly unchanged throughout the circle means they are identical.
>It's a computer. Of course a form of notation used to express computation would be able to describe what it does.
You think that's what lambda-calculus is or was developed for ? Boy are you ignorant. Lambda-Calculus was developed to be a language for writing mathematical proofs in that cannot have false positives (it didn't entirely reach it's goals - we can now prove that no such language can exist but it came close). So were Godel numbers and Turing machines btw.
None of them were developed for doing computation - they were developed for doing mathematics research so that when you publish a proof you could be certain nobody could publish an equally valid looking proof that contradicts it, and if somebody did you could find out which one had a mistake.
All three started out by relooking at the basics of arithmetic - other ways to write down 2+2=4 that are completely unambigiouos. All three became fundamental to how computers operate when we realized THAT by combining them we can build calculating engines. But that is all we did - we build machines to automate the mental process of running through a mathematical proof - nothing more, nothing less.
>If, on the other hand, I want to describe a system where I have a bunch of rocks in one pile, and I move rocks to another pile based on certain logical criteria, forming a kind of "loop" ... couldn't that also be expressed in lambda calculus? I would be performing a kind of computation. But that doesn't mean moving rocks from one pile to another is mathematics, because the lambda calculus doesn't move any rocks. It just talks about moving rocks. If I want to move rocks, calculus alone isn't going to cut it.
If I want to design a system where a part of my income goes to the government to fund projects that benefit society as a whole, and keep track of it all, I could use percentages and basic arithmetic to implement a sliding scale of these "taxes". Would you claim that accounting isn't mathematics just because it's applied specifically to the task of moving money around ? Not to mention - since computers CAN move rocks, and use nothing but a bunch of mathematical instructions to know how to do so - your argument is flawed. A robotic arm is doing nothing human arms couldn't do, and using no processing to do so that a human brain with a piece of paper couldn't do.
A computer automates a simple mental process we all learned in school, it uses a way of EXPRESSING that process that's both simpler and a lot more cumbersome than the shortcuts we learned, but makes it doable by a simple machine. There is no reason a brain cannot do it, in fact if you do NOT execute code "in your head" as you write it, you are a very bad programmer indeed.
>So in the end, your comments sound like the same kind of navel-gazing that says "math is everywhere" .... "Look, Bobby, see the Golden Ratio in the structure of this leaf? Math is everywhere!" "No dad, that is not math. That is a leaf. Math is how you think about the leaf."
Except that it isn't. Mathematics didn't create the leaf, and it isn't used to reproduce it (as far as we know anyway). But computers were created by mathematics as a real world implementation of a particular mathematical theory (Turing machines) to do a particular mathematical task (functional proofs) - and to this day, that is ALL they are, and all they do.
>Most people write computer programs not because they want to run some clever bit of lambda calculus, but because they want to perform some function on information that can be applied in the real world. You can call it math if you want, but if I
>. A mathematician understands boolean logic, but that doesn't mean he has the knowledge and skills to design a CPU or program it. That knowledge and those skills aren't taught in mathematics, they are taught in computer science.
This is a half-truth at best. Firstly because the knowledge to design a CPU isn't taught in computer science either - it's taught in electronic engineering. The real problem is that so few people today actually studied computer science - learning programming != computer science. At best it could be called computer engineering (for a very charitable definition of engineering). The difference between science and engineering is well-known. Science is about understanding something - without (necessarily) making it work. Engineering is when you make something work without (necessarily) understanding it.
The trouble is that people who only ever learned computer programming on an engineering level think they understand computer science. The point is that "engineering" deliberately glosses over what actually happens with your code when it's executed - it focusses only on teaching you how to code and what is best practise - often entirely ignoring WHY it is best practise (which very often comes down to - because this mathematical function has a faster execution time than that one). Hell there are so many prebuilt functions in modern langauges that very few "professional programmers" have ever actually even written a sort function - and therefore don't actually even understand the difference between bubble-sort and quicksort and why only an idiot would write the former anymore.
This is very good for the industry - by creating this level of simplified abstraction we could get a lot more codemonkeys out there - but it has it's downsides - when they think they know computer science. There's a REASON that most of the algorithms we use every day were originally designed by people like Donald Knuth - who are professional MATHEMATICIANS. It's because to actually create a new algorithm you HAVE to, in essence, write a mathematical proof function - that's what an algorithm is - and a mathematician can do that better.
Besides all that- your claim is just outright wrong. The top mathematics researchers ALL have the ability to program a computer - they may not know how to do it in a particular high-level language, or many of the things we take for granted - but they can take the same problem and write a mathematical function for it, and if you ask them to write it in a mathematical language that the computer can interpret it WILL run.
The probably won't add a gui to it, they probably won't use (any) library calls - at least the first time - but their function will run, and it will probably be almost bug-free. In fact there is a methodology of programming that's gaining popularity for high-reliability tasks that does exactly that- writing programs by creating mathematical proofs first. This allows you to verify the entire program 100% before you ever even write a line of code. It's slow and cumbersome but creates incredibly reliable software- if the reliability need is high enough, it's worth doing it.
ONLY a mathematician can do that however - somebody who just did a 3-year CS course would be lost on day one unless they took the appropriate maths courses with it.
>No, it's not. The relationship between computer science and mathematics is similar to the relationship between physics and mathematics:
No it's not the one IS the other and it's the perceived DIFFERENCE that doesn't exist. It's purely a perception -and a DELIBERATE illusion at that, designed to simplify the process. Ultimately it's easilly provable that every computer program is a simple mathematical function - so simple in fact that it is in fact a single number.
There is nothing weird about this- if you know lambda calculus, godel-number and Turing machines it's simple logic. We have never done anything to "split" the fields. All computer science did was to create a (very shallow) layer of pretense through which ot access the maths.
To suggest it is anything OTHER than mathematics is to prove you have absolutely no idea how computers actually work. In the real world- every computer is a universal turing machine.
If you have any real doubt - just consider this: any program COULD be written in lisp.
Lisp is DIRECTLY based on lambda-calculus - in fact the ONLY (minor) difference as small syntactical changes designed to make it easier to TYPE lambda on a computer (it was after-all designed for writing in).
Lamba-calculus is a simple form of mathematical language - like algebra or godel numbers or any of a dozen other ways to write down 2+2=4 that are all just different ways of expressing it designed to be useful for different purposes.
It's true that currently the most popular languages do not follow the lisp "look like the function you are" structure -but this is because in single-CPU machines top-down programs were slightly more similar to how the hardware actually PROCESSED the functions - and that made it easier to program in.
Expect this to change in the next few years - multi-CPU machines are actually EASIER to program for in a functional language like lisp - which makes all those nasty multithreading issues just go away by putting you on the actual mathematics that happens.
>Software is more than just maths. It's maths plus an application to a real world problem.
Actually it isn't.
I wrote a blog post with the proof recently - I'll copy and paste it without editing.
Lawyers have successfully managed to argue that computer programs are not mathematics and thus should not be covered by the exclusion of mathematics from patentable material. This comes from a deep misunderstanding of how computers really work - particularly as implementations of a universal turing machine. Some great papers on this have been written - including this one at groklaw. That explains in detail how computers really work and why all computer programs are simply mathematical functions - and even why all mathematical functions are really just numbers.
A great quote from it is this one: "Programming a computer is, essentially, just discovering a number that suits the programmers wishes".
The thing is - for somebody whose only understanding of computation theory is even that paper- this will seem like a bit of a leap. After all the process of writing code is creative, involves design and innovative thinking - surely this wonderful process cannot just be "discovering a number" - after all - you can do that just by counting - this is WHY it's unpatentable...
What I want to do with this post is to - very simply - explain why that really is true. I'm going to give you a very simple computer program. I'll write it in pseudocode so non-programmers can read it, but it can be implemented easily in any programming language and run - and in most of them will take less than about 10 lines of code to do:
Make the vairable X equal to 0;
Start a loop here:
Write the binary representation of X into a new file.
increase X by 1
continue the above loop until the program is interrupted by deliberately killing it (an infinite loop);
With this simple program - I can create an exact copy of every single program ever written and - this is important - every single program that CAN ever be written.
This is because any compiled program becomes a file filled with zeros and ones - to a computer, that's just a big number (the whole computation theory and lambda calculus etc. that explains how a number can BE an algorithm is needed to know how this happens - but the important thing is - it's a number). This program will store every number that can exist into a file - by just counting.
The process is very ineffective for a few reasons: firstly almost every program it produces won't run, the vast majority of numbers do not correspond to useful programs - in fact only an incredibly small subset of them do - but they are still numbers you can count to, and they are still numbers my program WILL produce. Secondly there is no real way to determine the useful programs from the ones that aren't- you have to manually try to run all of them - and see for yourself what happens. More-over for every program in there, you'll produce thousands of copies - some that will only run on other computers than yours. But somewhere in there will be a full version of Microsoft OutLook that can run on your computer... if you run it long enough at least.
Another inefficiency is that it creates every program as one self-sustained entity - as it ends up in memory, but programs aren't sold like that. Programs have many parts that are identical between them (just like the number 105 and the number 316 both contain the number 1 - just one a much bigger scale) - it's smart to store these in separate files so multiple programs can use them - it saves disk space, but it doesn't change the number that actually goes into memory when it is run, it merely stores it more efficiently by avoiding replication.
The process is fully doable however, it would take a massive amount of time to discover just the subset of numbers that correspond to a runnable program - let alone the ones inside that do anything useful - and of course since you'll also be generating every virus program ever - the process is likely to be rather harmful to your
>Oh, I'm sorry - I thought you were a programmer, not just a code monkey who relies on includes. I can see that we're really not going to get anywhere talking about software patenting, since you're not involved in innovating. Cheers, and watch that blood pressure.
I am a programmer - and that's why I know this. My skills is in how I put the pieces together - there is no such thing as a new algorithm and if you think you wrote one you're just too stupid to know that we've all done it before. Reality is algorithms are like lego blocks, there's about 20 of them in total - but they can fit together in a million different ways to make a billion different things.
Fact: NO non trivial program can POSSIBLY be written without violating patents. NONE AT ALL.
See, software really IS just math. There are GOOD reasons why math is unpatentable and the fiasco that is software patents is just those same reasons- because that is ALL software is. There is NO such thing as innovation or invention in software according to the legal definitions - there is only discovery.
There is also a major creative aspect as you apply the discoveries but that is not invention.
Now how about before you reply - you inform yourself with this wonderful introduction to algorithmic theory - written so lawyers can understand it:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20091111151305785
It's all simple, verifiable and easily checkable facts - impossible to fake. And it means - I'm right and you're wrong. Software is maths and software innovation is a contradiction in terms. You can only DISCOVER new maths, you cannot invent it.
>>See there's the misunderstanding. Your new transmission is an innovation - it's NOT an improvement of the tires !
>No, there's misunderstanding on your part. Your "new" transmission is just an improvement of older transmissions.
In my analogy it may as well be the very FIRST transmission ever and my analogy still works. Can you figure out WTF I'm talking about ? In the software world - you usually improve the whole car, improving any particular part (like the tires or the transmission) has happened all of about 10 times in the ENTIRE HISTORY OF SOFTWARE.
That's how software WORKS. We STILL have a total of about 5 sorting algorythms in all of programming. True none of those are patented but - there ones as ridiculous as that would be - just not quite as obvious to a NON programmer (like patent investigators).
Hell I know of more than one case where identical algorythms were covered by MULTIPLE patents awarded to different people at the SAME time because investigators had no idea it was the same thing being patented. Unix's compress algorythm was one.
>>With a software patent I now effectively have the right to demand all other cars have only one gear because they can't HAVE transmissions at all. What's worse, I'm likely to GET my patent despite the fact that cars have had transmissions for nearly 80 years.
>Not true, unless your new bit of software is equivalent to the entire concept of transmissions - in other words, that you're a true pioneer opening up an entire new field. But that's unlikely. No, most likely, your software is just an incremental improvement, and that's all you're going to get a patent on.
We both know that nearly all improvements ARE incremental and anybody who reads any news about what's happening with software patents also know that in practice that's not what happens. There have been cases of patent lawsuits won by people who didn't THEMSELVES realize that the software they were suing came anywhere near what their patents covered until their LAWYERS pointed out that a case existed.
In reality, every software patent is TREATED as if it was the very first ever transmission.
>>How many software patents are granted every day covering a feature in any shape or form - long after that feature is in heavy use?
>Patents take a long time to prosecute. I can file a patent application today and start selling product, and when it gets granted, three or four years from now, that feature could be in heavy use.
I'm not talking three or four years - most of my examples were on the span of DECADES. One developer upon being sued for integrating a thesaurus in his wordprocess (how obvious an idea...) due to a patent on it found that emacs had, had one in the 1970s (this suit was in 1988). He still ended up removing the feature because a trial to prove that the patent was bogus would cost far more than the software's sell able worth. He just stopped doing business instead. The world is FULL of that.
>Would you rather that products simply don't come out into the marketplace until that three or four years have passed? And if so, how can you simultaneously argue that patents stifle the marketplace?
I would rather there be no software patents - then the WHOLE problem goes away. Nothing in the whole world has BOTH patent AND copyright protection EXCEPT software. Only a lawyer can find ANY argument that makes that anything other than a massive institutional rip-off of the entire public.
>>Microsoft recently lost a patent case that covered "streaming video played over a network" - for the ability to view videos in I.E. This is a feature that in various forms are almost as old as networks themselves !
>Was that really the entire patent claim? "A method, comprising streaming video, over a network."
No. The title of a patent is not the patent. It has no legal weight whatsoever. The patent is the claims, and unless you're quoting a claim, you have no standing to say that the invention has been done befor
>Work is supposed to be boring. If if was that much fun, they wouldn't pay you and there would be a cover charge to show up.
Erm - nobody thought the earth was flat. They knew it was round even BEFORE the Ancient Greeks showed up and those Greeks already managed to work out it's size.
Columbus disagreed on only one point. He believed the circumference of the earth to be substantially less than it actually is. If he was right then going to India by traveling West would have been a MUCH shorter trip than the one by going East (especially as that one meant either going South round the Cape or through the expensive Cairo channel).
He was dead wrong about it - in fact the earth was so MUCH larger than he had anticipated that an entire two-continent chain was lying in the region he thought was the other side of the earth, with as much travel after it as before. This is also why when he bumped into said continent chain - he actually thought he had reached India - that he had proven his theory. It would take some time to learn his mistake.
And you and the GP both got it dead wrong about colonization. The motive WAS in fact ENTIRELY financial - it was greed. Spreading civilization and the gospel was a handy excuse but it had nothing to do with the real reason. The real reason was simple: massive lands with massively valuable resources and no military capability comparable to the Europe of the time meant massive opportunity for profitable conquest.
>Yes, you've made an improvement, and you patent your faster pre-fetch algorithm. Similarly, you patent your new transmission
See there's the misunderstanding. Your new transmission is an innovation - it's NOT an improvement of the tires ! That's why it's patentable you CAR may now be better than your competitors but nobody spoke about patenting the whole car.
Where the real world differs from software patents is this: if I make a better transmission and get a patent on it. ALL I got a patent on is MY transmission design.
With a software patent I now effectively have the right to demand all other cars have only one gear because they can't HAVE transmissions at all. What's worse, I'm likely to GET my patent despite the fact that cars have had transmissions for nearly 80 years.
How many software patents are granted every day covering a feature in any shape or form - long after that feature is in heavy use ? Microsoft recently lost a patent case that covered "streaming video played over a network" - for the ability to view videos in I.E. This is a feature that in various forms are almost as old as networks themselves !
That's the problem - software patents cover ANY implementation of the feature.
>... if they use a different design for tires... If you make a faster pre-fetch algorithm like you said, then that doesn't stop everyone else from using older, slower pre-fetch algorithms - just yours.
Ooookaaay... so you're either an idiot or you can't read ? I said HAVING a faster prefetch algorythm in my sorting program makes my program faster than a program with the SAME sorting algorythm LACKING it. But the PATENT here is on the SORTING algorythm and the fact that my IMPROVED PROGRAM is NOT an improvement on the PATENTED ALGORITHM so I remain liable.
This exact thing HAS happened in the past. There is a very nice way to update all the cells in a spreadsheet whenever one value changes - I won't bug you with the technical details but it's a simple enough idea - one on which ALL spreadsheet developers MUST eventually converge. It was also patented - long after many of them HAD it. So then it had to be removed from them all, companies actually DOWNGRADED their customers to remove the feature ! It's standard in all spreadsheets now but only because it finally expired.
>However, all patents require disclosure sufficient that one of ordinary skill in the art could implement the claimed invention.
Oh really ? The fact is - any algorythm that takes the same inputs and produces the same outputs REGARDLESS OF THE WAY IT DOES IT OR THE EXACT STEPS is almost ALWAYS considered covered by a patent. You don't just get a patent on a WAY to create a feature but on the feature itself. Effectively no other program can have that feature without a license from you - even if they never saw your program (assuming it even exists).
Short version dumbass: if there was ANY practical reality to what you're saying patent trolls wouldn't, indeed COULDN'T exist.
Their very POSSIBILITY of profitable patent trolling is all the indictment against software patents anybody could reasonably need.
But you won't agree - you said yourself you're basically a patent lawyer of course you'll downplay the massive fuckup it is and outright deny it like in your last paragraph - you form part of he ONLY fucking business to ever BENEFIT from software patents.
Again - everything you CLAIM about software patents is negated and PROVEN false by three simple words: patent trolls exist.
If your last paragraph was true their very existence would be completely impossible.
>Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I thought that if you improved on a patent, you could get a patent on the improvement. Is this not the case anymore?
Generally speaking yes, but in the case of software patents it's not. This is because of how radically different software is compared to physical inventions. Effectively EVERY use of a patented algorithm is ipso facto an improvement, if you recognize them then all the patents are worthless.
More-over you will usually find the best improvements to an algorithm isn't always IN the algorithm but in the code that you surround it with. You get a fast sorting algorithm - if you stick it in a program with better memory management and smarter pre-fetching it will still sort a file faster than one in which the surrounding code is slower. That's why performance measurement of algorythms are done using an arithmetic that deliberately excludes outside factors. Big O-notation doesn't care at what speed the data can be read, only how many steps the algorythm has to execute on each piece before producing a result.
So unless you can reduce the number of steps - you haven't made an improvement as patent law would see it, but if you write a faster pre-fetch algorythm your program IS an improvement over your competitors. Much like a better gearing system would make a faster car but doesn't count as an improvement over your competitors patent on a certain design of tire.
Mechanical inventions are such that this is not an major hindrance... software on the other hand is not like that.
In most cases you can get a patent on a specific way to design a certain mechanical part, but if somebody designs a different one your patent doesn't cover it. You may have a patent on your tire design but it doesn't stop every other car manufacturer from having tires on their cars (or force them to buy tires from you).
In software patents - that is literally what it means, most software patents are so broadly written that ANY algorithm producing the same results from the same inputs would be considered infringing. If somebody has a software patent that's a feature that NO OTHER PROGRAM CAN EVER HAVE - no matter how it does it.
In fact because software patents never come with source disclosure requirements, there is no way to even MEASURE if something is in fact an IMPROVEMENT. The two algorythm do the same thing- you cannot say "but my way does it more effeciently and is therefor a new patentable innovation". Instead the law says "same results from same described inputs = infringement".... wham you lose.