"I don't see any reason to take their views as somehow more correct or enlightened than microsoft's or IBM's might be from the other side."
Torvalds and Widenius are European software developers. Microsoft and IBM are American. What the latter two do in their own country is up to them, but I would prefer that Europeans get to have a say in European matters.
"Isn't the republican party all about intellectual property?"
The Mickey Mouse Copyright Extension Act was enacted under Clinton (real backdoor affair), as was another harmful copyright act (DMCA, IIRC, but check for yourself to be sure). The Dems have received truckloads of cash from Hollywood.
(Even then, it's not black and white. Probably the simplest and most meaningful equation is that whoever receives money from Big Copyright is for 'strengthening' of 'intellectual property', whatever that may mean.)
The statement of especially Torvalds is important, because it may sway the remaining FOSS and SMB programmers that were still on the fence with regards to swpats.
- If you write your new program, you'd probably have to use dozens of patented techniques; which you couldn't afford to license.
- You will learn about this after the fact.
- The guy-down-the-street turns out to be Big Software Corp, who crosslicenses a single one of it's patents with you, and still lets you pay through the nose for all the others it owns.
Quite frankly, given the choice between your scenario and Stallman's, I'd _prefer_ the guy down the street taking my code. Then at least somebody would benefit from my hard work.
The only way you can win this game, is if you do _not_ develop software, but only own patents. (Think Eolas.) Oh, and you also win if you are a lawyer, of course.
Sure, big software companies will keep trying, but as with anybody else, they need to pick their battles with care, and this may just prove not to be worth it.
The introduction of software patents in the US has lead to a severe shift from spending money on R&D to spending it on lawyers. The first of the dinosaurs to realise that, hey, there is money to be made in countries without swpats is going to lead the others.
Meanwhile, if the E.U. is going to push swpats through, that is going to take the sort of sneaky dealing that will throw fuel on an already smouldering resentment of all things E.U. within the community.
"This would be nice if you like to run many filters, it will allow you to mix colors and do transformations to greater precision and avoid lots of the little artifacts that happen when you get to happy with the filters."
More than nice. Why use an interactive canvas based image editor when you aren't going to do any operations on the pixel data? You might as well use ImageMagick and save yourself a lot of trouble.
(BTW, what it proves is that common 'wisdom' about how to cure a Windows user's problem is based on myth. Not important, no, but amusing. If you don't know what 'amusing' means, I suggest you yourself get that life that you are so eagerly prescribing others.)
"In the end this got the prosecutor fired. Which I think is sort of unreasonable, since the major issue is the justice departments lack of descent security procedure."
Depends. Keeping up security is part of his job description. If his tech department had lied about or exagerated the security of using a PC without knowing anything about it, you may be right, but not if the guy hadn't even bothered trying to find out.
"Fundamentalists believe in a literal heaven where you go to live after you die. That's not metaphorical. They also believe that non-believers literally go to a hell after they die, which is also not metaphorical. In fundamentalist Protestantism, the only thing that will get you into heaven is belief in Christ. That's it. End of story. But the fundamentalists have to explain WHY this is (in other words, if I live my life in a good way, why do I still go to hell if I'm not christian?)."
Explanation is interpretation. Interpretation is abandonment of belief. All fundamentalist Christians will go to hell.
Theorizing: "The copyright holder sues PG in the U.S. over something published in Australia which doesn't violate Australian law. The U.S. court decides its publication on the Web does infringe U.S. copyright, and rules against PG. PG in Australia is not directly under U.S. jurisdiction, but their U.S. operations are; rather than have their U.S. operations punished for their noncompliance, PG obeys the order."
PG cannot obey the order, as it has no power over PGA. What it can do is beg PGA to take down the file.
"The U.S. doesn't need the Australian government to help enforce its judgment against PG Australia since PG is not willing to shut down U.S. operations to try to avoid the judgment."
There is no way the U.S. could get the Australian government to help enforce its judgement, as no Australian law has been broken.
"Remember, the average lifespan was a lot shorter then, thanks in large part to better pediatric health, antibiotics, and treatments for previously almost-always-fatal conditions like cancer."
I hope Jon Ingram will respond to this, because he studied this line of reasoning, and found out (IIRC) that the average lifespan _for_authors_ has not differed much between now and a hundred years ago. It was probably just manual labourers who died early.
"The local library has book sales every month, and you can pick up hardbacks, no more than 2-3 years old, for $2 each."
Sometimes, if you wait till the end of the day, (especially if the sale is taking place outside the building) you can take them home for free, as the librarians do not feel like carrying all that paper back inside.
Selling one's copyrights is also a way to make money. Presumably, copyright extensions are there for driving up the price of the copyright, not for increasing the income through license fees.
(The actual added value is of course so minute that a flee with a microscope couldn't see it, but facts have never stopped politicians in considering bad law.)
Slashdot Mirror
"I don't see any reason to take their views as somehow more correct or enlightened than microsoft's or IBM's might be from the other side."
Torvalds and Widenius are European software developers. Microsoft and IBM are American. What the latter two do in their own country is up to them, but I would prefer that Europeans get to have a say in European matters.
"Isn't the republican party all about intellectual property?"
The Mickey Mouse Copyright Extension Act was enacted under Clinton (real backdoor affair), as was another harmful copyright act (DMCA, IIRC, but check for yourself to be sure). The Dems have received truckloads of cash from Hollywood.
(Even then, it's not black and white. Probably the simplest and most meaningful equation is that whoever receives money from Big Copyright is for 'strengthening' of 'intellectual property', whatever that may mean.)
I doubt that Linus cares about the big business.
The statement of especially Torvalds is important, because it may sway the remaining FOSS and SMB programmers that were still on the fence with regards to swpats.
"Does that answer your question? If so, what was the point of it?"
You're the realist, you tell me.
There's a million things I could reply to this, but quite frankly I do not have the time.
Richard Stallman has written a nifty speech in which he enumerates several things that are wrong about software patents.
Among them:
- If you write your new program, you'd probably have to use dozens of patented techniques; which you couldn't afford to license.
- You will learn about this after the fact.
- The guy-down-the-street turns out to be Big Software Corp, who crosslicenses a single one of it's patents with you, and still lets you pay through the nose for all the others it owns.
Quite frankly, given the choice between your scenario and Stallman's, I'd _prefer_ the guy down the street taking my code. Then at least somebody would benefit from my hard work.
The only way you can win this game, is if you do _not_ develop software, but only own patents. (Think Eolas.) Oh, and you also win if you are a lawyer, of course.
Sure, big software companies will keep trying, but as with anybody else, they need to pick their battles with care, and this may just prove not to be worth it.
The introduction of software patents in the US has lead to a severe shift from spending money on R&D to spending it on lawyers. The first of the dinosaurs to realise that, hey, there is money to be made in countries without swpats is going to lead the others.
Meanwhile, if the E.U. is going to push swpats through, that is going to take the sort of sneaky dealing that will throw fuel on an already smouldering resentment of all things E.U. within the community.
That's all fine and dandy, but have you met a realist lately? Not somebody who claims to be a realist, but someone who actually is one?
"whoever named that has issues"
I think that was already evidenced by them joining the military.
Support for 16bpp seems useful for 95% of the population, support for CMYK for a much smaller part.
""New features are added if and only if someone's capable and willing to put some time and effort into it."
And that's the problem. That's why professionals don't use it."
Yeah, that's why professionals will never use the internet either.
"This would be nice if you like to run many filters, it will allow you to mix colors and do transformations to greater precision and avoid lots of the little artifacts that happen when you get to happy with the filters."
More than nice. Why use an interactive canvas based image editor when you aren't going to do any operations on the pixel data? You might as well use ImageMagick and save yourself a lot of trouble.
"people keep insisting Gimp is every bit as capable as photoshop for professionals"
Name two persons who said that.
"Get a life"
Says somebody reading Slashdot.
(BTW, what it proves is that common 'wisdom' about how to cure a Windows user's problem is based on myth. Not important, no, but amusing. If you don't know what 'amusing' means, I suggest you yourself get that life that you are so eagerly prescribing others.)
"In the end this got the prosecutor fired. Which I think is sort of unreasonable, since the major issue is the justice departments lack of descent security procedure."
Depends. Keeping up security is part of his job description. If his tech department had lied about or exagerated the security of using a PC without knowing anything about it, you may be right, but not if the guy hadn't even bothered trying to find out.
Making fun of spelling (especially of that of a non-native speaker) is so last week.
The Russians seem to have started building their Kliper lifting body space craft.
"Fundamentalists believe in a literal heaven where you go to live after you die. That's not metaphorical. They also believe that non-believers literally go to a hell after they die, which is also not metaphorical. In fundamentalist Protestantism, the only thing that will get you into heaven is belief in Christ. That's it. End of story. But the fundamentalists have to explain WHY this is (in other words, if I live my life in a good way, why do I still go to hell if I'm not christian?)."
Explanation is interpretation. Interpretation is abandonment of belief. All fundamentalist Christians will go to hell.
Looking like a druggie (whatever 'druggie' may mean) is a form of protected speech too. Are you just trying to make your parent's point or what?
You are accusing Project Gutenberg of copyright infringement. That is libel, since Project Gutenberg does not engage in copyright infringement.
"I don't want to say which books because it could be detrimental to their reputation."
So is libel, but that is illegal. Tread carefully.
From here on I will consider you a liar and a troll.
Theorizing: "The copyright holder sues PG in the U.S. over something published in Australia which doesn't violate Australian law. The U.S. court decides its publication on the Web does infringe U.S. copyright, and rules against PG. PG in Australia is not directly under U.S. jurisdiction, but their U.S. operations are; rather than have their U.S. operations punished for their noncompliance, PG obeys the order."
PG cannot obey the order, as it has no power over PGA. What it can do is beg PGA to take down the file.
"The U.S. doesn't need the Australian government to help enforce its judgment against PG Australia since PG is not willing to shut down U.S. operations to try to avoid the judgment."
There is no way the U.S. could get the Australian government to help enforce its judgement, as no Australian law has been broken.
"Remember, the average lifespan was a lot shorter then, thanks in large part to better pediatric health, antibiotics, and treatments for previously almost-always-fatal conditions like cancer."
I hope Jon Ingram will respond to this, because he studied this line of reasoning, and found out (IIRC) that the average lifespan _for_authors_ has not differed much between now and a hundred years ago. It was probably just manual labourers who died early.
Which books are you talking about? Have you considered _asking_ Project Gutenberg to remove the books in question?
(I assume you can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that these books are not yet in the public domain.)
"The local library has book sales every month, and you can pick up hardbacks, no more than 2-3 years old, for $2 each."
Sometimes, if you wait till the end of the day, (especially if the sale is taking place outside the building) you can take them home for free, as the librarians do not feel like carrying all that paper back inside.
Selling one's copyrights is also a way to make money. Presumably, copyright extensions are there for driving up the price of the copyright, not for increasing the income through license fees.
(The actual added value is of course so minute that a flee with a microscope couldn't see it, but facts have never stopped politicians in considering bad law.)