All western governments under the thumb of globalization and corporatism have become experts at "boiling the frog" (if you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water, he'll jump out: if you slowly boil the water in the pot with the frog in it, he'll cook because he won't have realized the danger until it was too late). We are having our rights slowly removed (heat turned up), and the general man doesn't realize it.
Careful to label this attitude as "Western" -- the corporatism that spreads has no place in the world aside from the countries that implement the same practices as the US. You don't see Canada working it's way towards removing citizens rights by way of tax levies, instead they get socialized health care.
As long as the vast majority of the population are comfy and view people who want to disrupt the current system as unpatriotic, dangerous oddballs (a characterzation that will be happily portrayed by big media), we have no hope of going back.
As long as they have their 2.3 kids, white picket fence, and a dog named spot, these people are the enemies of the American dream. Yes, they are living it but at what cost? They do not want anybody to disrupt their dream so that others may obtain it.
It's good that such a clown as George Bush is in office, lest resistence may actually be countered using the same pie-in-the-sky promises as made to North Korea. A deluge of education must flood the streets of the United States, uniting the people once more, and restoring to the states the power in which they slowly let slip away into the hands of those willing to pay campaign contributions.
Regardless of my opinion that it is futile, I will also continue to educate. I would very much like it to be proven that I was wrong about how things will go, and I will do what I can to help.
That had hundreds of thousands of people protesting today for the salvation of a country in the middle east that most Americans couldn't locate on a map. With the proper backing, that strength could be turned towards revitalizing the American ideology forgotten a hundred years ago. Unfortunately, it will not happen because the people who organize and are respected by the masses are also getting their paychecks in the same manner as the puppet politicians.
Corporations should not control the government. We need to run the country, it's supposed to be our government. Let's let the citizens reign free and make America the best country it's ever been but without excessive taxation for wanting to listen to music or chat on the Intranet.
Three words, Boston Tea Party. Remember what Thomas Jefferson said, "A government that is large enough to supply everything you need is large enough to take everything you have."
We are at that point. The people have lost their rights to our government. The United States are now a network of corporate states, that control a select few group of individuals.
With every new inane law or result of a lawsuit that I hear, I get one step closer to leaving the United States. It's becoming a bloody corporate rape scene here in the States and I for one am just about at the end of my rope.
It used to be that when someone was fed up, they rallied support and changed the system. Now, those who value an independant culture must choose exile. You said it, "Let the citizens reign free" but how can that happen when most citizens let go of the very reigns that made them free in the first place?
Education, this is the key. Inform those people of their lost rights. Unfortunately, I don't think many care because they're happy in their complacent white picket fence lives.
"The income tax created more criminals than any other single act of government." - Barry Goldwater, almost U.S. President
"It is not from top to bottom that societies die; it is from bottom to top." - Henry George
"When the President does it, that means it is not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon, U.S. President and attorney
Government is not reason. Government is not eloquence. It is force. And, like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." - George Washington, U.S. President
eToys used a b-tree (Sleepycat?) database layer situated in front of the database layer - they would store objects in the b-tree, and fetch them from there if they had not expired.
You can actually read all about eToys and their implementations at perl.apache.org.
Because you are making a decision on the user's behalf and hiding that from the affected party?
If their definition of hiding is having it on a page where you have to scroll down, than I suppose just about everybody is hiding something.
Holy shit! Slashdot is hiding their copyright notices so I'm going to copy every image I see and sell them because they hid it so it's obvious misrepresentation.
The only decision they are making on the users behalf is that they decide the user is too damn stupid to know how to use a scroll bar.
Whenever somebody asks for legal advice on slashdot, everybody says they're an idiot. If that's true, it's equally stupid to consent to anything without hiring a laywer to check the fine print. Which is of course impossible.
Well, this isn't about asking for legal advice. But asking for legal advice on slashdot is stupid. Are you looking for a lawyer? Go spend the $30 for your initial consultation and actually get real advice. Complaining because you choose to not read the fine print is stupid. You don't need a lawyer to read most fine print that applies to you. If you can't figure it out, go to your local community college and take English 101.
Of course the whole setup is completely unequal to begin with; companies dictate all the terms, and a person can't live without dealing with hundreds of companies. Imagine if companies had to hire lawyers to interpret the specific demands of every customer. It would never work unless they just gave it and started signing everything, like individuals have to do now.
Sorry, but this is just absolute bunk. First, you really don't deal with hundreds of companies. You deal with a select few which deals with other companies. I can say that I deal with probably 15 companies personally, no more. If you deal with more, than you aren't delegating properly. If you want an application but don't want to deal with the application, fine, don't use the application and deal with unsatiated desires. Don't complain when they are giving you something for free and then put their checkboxes on a different page. They could very well force you to accept and respond to every email they send you to keep your software active, and it's perfectly within their rights. Individuals should read everything, and choose what to sign and what not to sign. If you agree to everything in front of you, even without reading it, you are an idiot. But I'd like to get in touch with you, I have some great business propositions that will make you* lots of money.
*You is defined as me, in this context.
Maybe transactions between companies and individuals should have to conform to one of a small number of standard licenses, established in law.
Maybe people should just start taking the 2 minutes to make sure that they understand what they are agreeing to. Litigation doesn't solve stupidity. There should never be laws against stupidity or ignorance, and it should be painful.
I don't think this would be that bad for companies; they'd all compete by the same set of reasonable rules, instead of a race to the bottom to stay alive by screwing people over more and more.
Sure thing, an international standards body paid for by tax payers to make sure that idiots understand what the hell they are agreeing to? This is by far the most ignorant and short sighted thing I have ever heard as a solution for EULA issues. The only race about screwing people over is the race to find more stupid people. If you are stupid enough to get taken by a company that tells you (otherwise it's fraud, and the FTC has your back, at least in the US) what they are going to do, so what? It's not my problem, it's theirs.
Other people have posted similar examples from other applications. Is this illegal, or just annoying?
If you don't read the fine print, and agree to something, and it burns you, and you complain, you are stupid.
It's not illegal. I'm sure somewhere they fully detail out everything, so that the next person who thinks it's "illegal" and tries to launch a suit can be fed the EULA that they agreed to. It's like people bashing Gator for being shady spyware when they fully disclose on their website what they do in big bold letters.
At least right now what type of applications would this be good for?
KaZaA (Lite)
Do we really need that much storage?
Average movie: 800MB
Perhaps if programmers wrote better code...........
Perhaps if pigeon hole theory didn't exist, we could compress everything down to one byte and it wouldn't matter.
Then again remember when 2megs of memory was "the bomb" ?
No, I remember still having to be conservative with memory usage and what I could do with it. Preloading? Don't think so... now playing memory tricks such as precaching in code is possible. Before hand, it wasn't. 2MB was maybe the bomb for people who didn't code anything past a text editor. Even then.. don't edit large documents.
It's bad enough when you have to carry a pager for work; voluntarily subjecting yourself to that kind of intrusion strikes me as nuts.
I like my cell phone, it's a T68. I get SMSs and I prefer them over voice mail because I not only have it in writing to review, I don't have to actually be on the phone to read.
AT&T, my cell phone service provider, is apparently one of those. After I read complaints from a number of AT&T users who had been SMS-spammed and who said that AT&T refused to stop, I demanded that AT&T disable all "services" on my cell phone account that I had not specifically authorized, including SMS. The representative tried to claim that they couldn't do that, but I insisted and he eventually gave in.
Uhm, you can fill out a form on their website and they stop. Everyone I know doesn't have a problem with this, and I never have (I got one, then filled out the send-me-no-more-spam form, and it was gone). I got more spam going through Verizon. As for the rep, it wasn't him "giving in" it's that they have to get a service tech to break apart the features and put blocks and it's a pain in the ass.
Don't assume that each new "feature" offered by your cell phone provider (or your ISP) is something you want.
I think you missed the point of this thread. This is a thread about SMS messages that get lost. Not about paranoid folks complaining about lack of privacy over features. There are plenty other threads. Why don't you move along, and let us, who enjoy SMS converse without your troll?
If they'd beef that up a bit, I'd be seriously considering a subscription not unlike the kind Slashdot has. $5 for 1,000 image searches or something like that.
I'd definitely donate a buck or two a month to google, I'm pretty sure a lot of people would. If they setup a voluntary donation bin I would bet it would make a substantial amount of money.
Maybe offer some sort of a gimmick for the donators, like being able to vote on holiday google logos or things like that.
I've been playing Battlefield 1942 the last few months...
What server do you play on? I just started playing a week or so ago and am trying to find some "regulars" to play with. I've found a few people, but just joining at random doesn't work because most of the time you do that the people play with the team work of autistic lepars.
Sorry, I do not really know of compiler internals for *NIX. Maybe someone can back me up? or clear it up?
With gcc, the -j will setup gcc to utilize SMP. You specify the number of processors you physical have. I do not know how it would work with HT, and I didn't RTFA to see if they covered it. There is native support inside of gcc for SMP-based compiling though.
First of all, no, desperate defensiveness has nothing to do with how you personally feel towards me. It has to to with how threatened you feel about your favorite subject of the day.
See, this is where you fail because you don't know me. It's not desperate defensiveness, it's called blunt display of sentiment towards others. I dislike you. If I met you in person, I would most likely dislike you. I wouldn't hide that. I tell people I dislike them, and why I dislike them. It has nothing to do with what you say or the debate at hand, it has to deal with me not liking you.
This is because I dislike you. End of story. I find no reason to be courteous to you because there is no point for me to do so.
Second of all, here you do it again: idiot, dipshit, go learn to read... all blatant personal attacks. Since your very first response to me, that's been your tactic. Very articulate and mature.
Well, you completely ignore anything that I say (except what I say about you, so I guess you can read you just choose not to most of the time). You can call me immature if you want, I really don't care. I still think you are an idiot.
Note that this isn't a Google search or something... Findlaw tends to be a little more esoteric in what it lists. So it seems likely that if any little guys had sued any big guys and won lately, it would show up here.
Little guys don't sue big companies. Little guys collect royalties from big companies. Little guys who sue big companies usually are backed by VCs and are no longer little guys. See, you missed that. You cannot read, and you argue purely for the sake of trying to prove the patent system is useless. The only people who think the patent system should go away are the people who don't have a clue about it in the real world.
Again, you are a clueless moron. I'm done with this thread because you cannot listen to the other side. This was the first post you have actually attempted to present a real argument, and I applaud you but it's a bit too late. I'm done trying to educate you.
Personally, I'd just pass a constitutional amendment to ban all sales taxes, since 99% of all products cross state lines, the US gov't should be able to regulate it as interstate commerce. Let the states tax in-state produced & consumed good if they want-- but they won't.
Most existing sales tax is state tax. This is why states like Oregon do not have sales tax. Instead they subsidize with higher income and property taxes.
I detect a distinct note of desperate defensiveness in your replies to me.
No shit? You are an idiot. Of course I dislike you.
You can't attack the post, so you attack the poster.
I did attack the post, dipshit. Go learn to read.
Obviously, you know *so* much more about the subject, that you can't even articulate it.
A rock knows more about this subject than you, how is that different? I'm articulating, you aren't reading.
Here's how it works, for a 5 year old: Patents are not designed to make people rich, they are designed to give fair competition and the inventor a head start into market as they choose. Without patents, information would fall under the old guilde style where information is hidden and kept a secret. There would be strict laws about trade secrets and reverse engineering. The little guys wouldn't have the chance to enter the market, because they wouldn't ever have the opportunity to know what makes it tick. Patents expire after a period of time, so even the little guys can spend their years waiting for the patent to expire to come up with a truly innovative design on top of an existing patent. If a little guy comes up with a great idea, the best idea is to patent that idea so that no one (whether a big company or another inventor) can steal his idea and patent it as their own. If this happens, the little guy loses out. He can't market his idea, or even give it away for free. So, the little guy patents his idea and now some big companies want to crush him. But it's ok! He can work out royalty based uses with the company, and also get venture capitol or loans using his patents as equity that will easily pay for any dispute lawsuits and allow him to properly collect royalties or bring it to market under his own name.
It's not hard, people do it all the time.
Now, if you don't understand that, you are beyond any hope. The only thing you have said is "Patents are bad for little guys because I say so and anything you say I'm going to answer with Patents are bad for the little guys because I say so and anything you say I'm going to answer with..."
Lets break this cycle. Open your mind. Patents are good otherwise enterpreneurs would change the system. It has flaws, and no one says it doesn't. However your claims that we should not have patents is like saying "Well, there are car accidents so we better just ban cars."
Last time I checked, innovation was a function of brains, not money. But, that is the problem with this system, isn't it?
Sure, some innovations are free, but most aren't. Glad to see you are that out of touch with reality. I was beginning to think maybe you were really just that much of a Everything-should-be-free zealot, now I realize you really are just an idiot.
I'm noticing a pattern here... you can't seem to actually cope with my arguments, so you resort to telling me I don't have a right to speak on the subject or hold certain political views in this country.)
Here's another pattern: You constantly say that the patent system is broken without providing any real information as to any damage that has become of it? Unisys? Don't think so, look at all the gifs. SCO? Sure... Patents do more good than harm, you are just too fucking dense to understand that. You don't have an argument. That's what you don't understand. If you do it is so poorly constructed and based in some mythical land where patents eat small children and worship Satan that it is indiscernable from anything worth combatting.
That is a very subjective statement. Works... for big guys. Not for little guys. The US is the most wealthy nation in the world, with the largest proportion in poverty of any industrialized nation. If that's how you define something "working," then capitalism works great.
Yes, and almost everyone on the top 10 wealthiest american list started out as a little guy. So what's your point? Oh right, you are completely delusional and wrong.
I've yet to come across someone (even on slashdot) that is so adamantly opposed to something that they have no clue about. You really ought to go pick up a text book. It's been fun trying to educate you, but I'm going to go get a pet rock as it provides more entertainment and listens better.
Can you give an example of where a software patent has "help the little guy"?
IBM. Look at all their patents helping innovate by granting free royalties on a ton of information that is publicly available for people to work with. Without patents, that information would be kept a closely guarded secret.
As someone else pointed out, patents are not made to make people rich, only play more fair so the inventor gets first rights to market. The patent system has not failed with that.
Now, there is another way that an innovator can afford to innovate without patent protection... and that's to keep their work secret. This is the old guild method. We've ditched this because we've realized that open patent filings, while not perfect, allow for things like peer review, and guards against catastrophic failure of knowledge (i.e. the only guy who knows how it works gets hit by a bus).
Patent Point #1.
Don't confuse problems with the implementation of the patent system with problems inherent in the patent system. Patents weren't intended to protect ideas of problems to be overcome, but instead to protect specific implementations of those solutions. To say it another way, some of the original patents covered things like the design of certain stoves; many modern software patents are like the idea of patenting all devices to be used in heating the house.
Patent problem, but it is not a problem with the patent system but in the acceptance and grant process. This is the portion of the patent system that needs to be reorganized. The problem is not within patents, and holding patents, the problem is incorrect things being granted patent status.
Excellent work, AC. I wish you hadn't posted AC.. you'd be on my friends list instantly.
Then why did we come up with patents, if their raison d'être came into being after they did?
Patents were created as a way to protect the inventor from being squashed by people with more money and more means to push them out of business.
Or, could it be that patents are part of the structure that brought us to this point, where our economy, our politics, and our technology are driven by megacorporations?
I think it's more likely that you are an absolute idiot, with no knowledge of real world business or patents, and continue to speak about their negative impact on the world without one iota of a clue as to how it really works.
See, that's the problem right there. Yes, in theory, patents give everyone the same ground to stand on... but as it turns out, it takes money (and other resources) to correctly file defensible patents, no matter how good your idea is.
Again, you are proving you have no knowledge of patents, and the way of filing a patent. If you have the money to design something, you find the money to file a patent and defend it. There are investors that do exactly this. If your idea is that good, you will find them with no problem. If you choose to defend it yourself, you are getting what you ask for.
If the USPTO charged a static fee for every patent application, then charged a small tax on royalties from enforced patents, and undertook all prior art search and enforcement activities, then it might be fair... but it would also be semi-socialistic, and therefore would scare the market-driven capitalists who the current system works well for.
There is a patent fee. Small tax on royalties from enforced patents? That just doesn't make sense. Selectively enforced patents, or exclusively licensed patents, or group licensed patents? How do you manage that? What if it's a trade based royalty? Here's a newsflash, capitalism works, and in case you forgot Paul Allen, Steve Jobs, Woz, Ellison and a lot others got to where they are at for their innovation and the patent system.
The patent system works for capitalism, because that's what it's designed to work with. If you don't like capitlism, move out of the US and join an autocratic commune somewhere.
Have you ever read a filed patent? They are deliberately worded to cover as much as they possibly can. Just take the BT 'hyperlink' patent.
Uhm, yes, they are. And you can read that information and learn all about it. Nothing is stopping you, so what was your point?
In a world where the physical costs of creation are zero (eg computer software) they don't work. In a world where I can independently come up with an invention, prove it works and pass it around for free on the internet, why should I blocked by a large corporation that A) thought of it first and B) has the money to hire a legal firm. As I pointed out ealier, kids in the playground screaming 'but I thought of it *first*'. So what? Why does that mean that I can't use an idea that I have?
There are physical costs of creation. A lot of inventions that are patented cost less to create than your average economic computer. If you don't patent the idea, than you have to prove it's prior art if someone patents it. If they sue you for it, it shouldn't be hard to win. If you did pass it around and everybody knows. This again, goes into the reform of the acceptance process not the enforcement process.
As for your attorney, why don't you ask him about it. I'm sure he would say that there is ample protection for the little guys who file patents. If there wasn't, than the patent system wouldn't work and there would be a revolt of all the inventors that do use it. Sorry to tell you this, but a very large number of small inventors use the patent system to their advantage.
Well, in software, the idea is the implementation (at least if you can write it down...). Copyright already covers program listings, adding patent protection is just bad for the industry. So go on, name a single beneficial software patent. Just one.
I already did, and in your ignorance you ignored it. The benefit is that if you patent it, other people cannot shit all over you as easily.
You keep bringing up this absolutely idiotic playground analogy. Do you realize that makes you sound not only completely uneducated but uninformed as to how patent law actually works? Go talk to your patent buddy on that one too, say, "Aren't patents just like children in a playground screaming I thought of it first?" He'll probably tell you that you are an idiot, or at least think it. Patents are for giving inventors a head start on the competition. End of story. Unfortunately the abuse of the acceptance system has caused a lot of damage.
I for one rest easy knowing I can patent my software ideas, because if someone violates my patent and tries to sue it I can actually secure VC just for the lawsuit alone if I can prove that they infringed in my patent and are trying to bully me out of business. I can make more money in the lawsuits. Again, patents can help the little guy but only if the little guy is smart enough to use it to their advantage.
Laws are designed for a purpose, and always have loop holes. Use both for your advantage and you win.
News Flash: This is already true. There was no need to phrase your statement in the future tense. With the CURRENT patent system in place this already happens. You claim this is *abuse* of patents rather than *use* of patents, as if there was some mystical difference. As far as the courts care, there isn't any difference between using a law in the way it was intended versus using a law counter to the way it was intended.
In all honesty, when I saw your name pop up I figured it was going to dredge into another irritating thread. I'm glad that it doesn't seem to start that way.
I do agree, that the big companies can (and sometimes do) fuck the little guys. The abuse and use of patents is not a big difference, but it is there. If you have a patent, and form a strategic partnership with a gorilla (Little Guy getting help from Big Company) than you have better chances.
As far as the courts care, there isn't any difference between using a law in the way it was intended versus using a law counter to the way it was intended.
Again, I agree. However, it also does work for the little guys as well. It's harder, and costs more (little guys don't have as much for defense) but there are more layers of protection with patents in existence than without.
I suppose what I'm saying is more accurate as, "Without patents, big companies will fuck you easier." Makes more sense to me that way...
You forgot to mention that "big corporation" could do exactly the same even if you had patented Flubberlitzen beforehand. This is a known strategy in patent land, called "surrounding patents", see for instance this article (found on a random google search) [umkc.edu]:
Yes, they can, but it's harder and if you have the money to develop and patent, you at least have a strong chance of making them play nice. Much more so than if there were no patents.
Not that I'm against the idea of patents, but I don't think patents do serve very well in protecting the small guy - at least not in their current state - and yes, I know "small guys" owning a patent, and they openly admit that they mostly are good for marketing reasons, not for collecting royalties.
The patent system definitely needs to be reformed, but the reformation should be/needs to be focused on the grant process. Piggybacking pattents should not be allowed, for instance. They are mostly for marketing reasons, but it is a good step of defense for the little guys. Not so much for royalties, but for the defense against getting squashed.
Hello?!?! I refer the honourable gentleman to the story these comments are posted under.
SCO isn't a big company. SCO is on the verge of bankruptcy. It's like an animal that gnaws off a limb to save itself from a trap, only to bleed itself to death.
Something about the 'post...locked away' (presumably in case people might agree with it) makes me assume you are or have been a beneficiary of the Patent system. No, currently I have never received any sort of payment except for working for companies that do patent their research.
That's fine for you and of course that colours your opinion of the system.
Economics and real world experience give me my opinion of the system. The reform of the patent system lies within the grant process, not the enforcement. Enforcement has it's own checks and balances.
But 99.999% of people will never own a patent, instead they suffer the results of the non-competitive market the patent system encourages. The non-competitive market? Patents encourage competition, but they give the inventor a head start on that competition. They also spur fair play, if you want to use an invention, you pay royalties if applicable.
The original poster on this thread was considering their/our point of view, as a mental exercise you should give it a try.
The original poster asked if it was a copyright or patent issue. The response I was responding to said it's patent, then spouted off a lot of incorrect things about patent law. Then lambasted the US for having a patent system.
Slashdot Mirror
All western governments under the thumb of globalization and corporatism have become experts at "boiling the frog" (if you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water, he'll jump out: if you slowly boil the water in the pot with the frog in it, he'll cook because he won't have realized the danger until it was too late). We are having our rights slowly removed (heat turned up), and the general man doesn't realize it.
Careful to label this attitude as "Western" -- the corporatism that spreads has no place in the world aside from the countries that implement the same practices as the US. You don't see Canada working it's way towards removing citizens rights by way of tax levies, instead they get socialized health care.
As long as the vast majority of the population are comfy and view people who want to disrupt the current system as unpatriotic, dangerous oddballs (a characterzation that will be happily portrayed by big media), we have no hope of going back.
As long as they have their 2.3 kids, white picket fence, and a dog named spot, these people are the enemies of the American dream. Yes, they are living it but at what cost? They do not want anybody to disrupt their dream so that others may obtain it.
It's good that such a clown as George Bush is in office, lest resistence may actually be countered using the same pie-in-the-sky promises as made to North Korea. A deluge of education must flood the streets of the United States, uniting the people once more, and restoring to the states the power in which they slowly let slip away into the hands of those willing to pay campaign contributions.
Regardless of my opinion that it is futile, I will also continue to educate. I would very much like it to be proven that I was wrong about how things will go, and I will do what I can to help.
That had hundreds of thousands of people protesting today for the salvation of a country in the middle east that most Americans couldn't locate on a map. With the proper backing, that strength could be turned towards revitalizing the American ideology forgotten a hundred years ago. Unfortunately, it will not happen because the people who organize and are respected by the masses are also getting their paychecks in the same manner as the puppet politicians.
Corporations should not control the government. We need to run the country, it's supposed to be our government. Let's let the citizens reign free and make America the best country it's ever been but without excessive taxation for wanting to listen to music or chat on the Intranet.
Three words, Boston Tea Party. Remember what Thomas Jefferson said, "A government that is large enough to supply everything you need is large enough to take everything you have."
We are at that point. The people have lost their rights to our government. The United States are now a network of corporate states, that control a select few group of individuals.
With every new inane law or result of a lawsuit that I hear, I get one step closer to leaving the United States. It's becoming a bloody corporate rape scene here in the States and I for one am just about at the end of my rope.
It used to be that when someone was fed up, they rallied support and changed the system. Now, those who value an independant culture must choose exile. You said it, "Let the citizens reign free" but how can that happen when most citizens let go of the very reigns that made them free in the first place?
Education, this is the key. Inform those people of their lost rights. Unfortunately, I don't think many care because they're happy in their complacent white picket fence lives.
"The income tax created more criminals than any other single act of government." - Barry Goldwater, almost U.S. President
"It is not from top to bottom that societies die; it is from bottom to top." - Henry George
"When the President does it, that means it is not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon, U.S. President and attorney
Government is not reason. Government is not eloquence. It is force. And, like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." - George Washington, U.S. President
eToys used a b-tree (Sleepycat?) database layer situated in front of the database layer - they would store objects in the b-tree, and fetch them from there if they had not expired.
You can actually read all about eToys and their implementations at perl.apache.org.
Because you are making a decision on the user's behalf and hiding that from the affected party?
If their definition of hiding is having it on a page where you have to scroll down, than I suppose just about everybody is hiding something.
Holy shit! Slashdot is hiding their copyright notices so I'm going to copy every image I see and sell them because they hid it so it's obvious misrepresentation.
The only decision they are making on the users behalf is that they decide the user is too damn stupid to know how to use a scroll bar.
Whenever somebody asks for legal advice on slashdot, everybody says they're an idiot. If that's true, it's equally stupid to consent to anything without hiring a laywer to check the fine print. Which is of course impossible.
Well, this isn't about asking for legal advice. But asking for legal advice on slashdot is stupid. Are you looking for a lawyer? Go spend the $30 for your initial consultation and actually get real advice. Complaining because you choose to not read the fine print is stupid. You don't need a lawyer to read most fine print that applies to you. If you can't figure it out, go to your local community college and take English 101.
Of course the whole setup is completely unequal to begin with; companies dictate all the terms, and a person can't live without dealing with hundreds of companies. Imagine if companies had to hire lawyers to interpret the specific demands of every customer. It would never work unless they just gave it and started signing everything, like individuals have to do now.
Sorry, but this is just absolute bunk. First, you really don't deal with hundreds of companies. You deal with a select few which deals with other companies. I can say that I deal with probably 15 companies personally, no more. If you deal with more, than you aren't delegating properly. If you want an application but don't want to deal with the application, fine, don't use the application and deal with unsatiated desires. Don't complain when they are giving you something for free and then put their checkboxes on a different page. They could very well force you to accept and respond to every email they send you to keep your software active, and it's perfectly within their rights. Individuals should read everything, and choose what to sign and what not to sign. If you agree to everything in front of you, even without reading it, you are an idiot. But I'd like to get in touch with you, I have some great business propositions that will make you* lots of money.
*You is defined as me, in this context.
Maybe transactions between companies and individuals should have to conform to one of a small number of standard licenses, established in law.
Maybe people should just start taking the 2 minutes to make sure that they understand what they are agreeing to. Litigation doesn't solve stupidity. There should never be laws against stupidity or ignorance, and it should be painful.
I don't think this would be that bad for companies; they'd all compete by the same set of reasonable rules, instead of a race to the bottom to stay alive by screwing people over more and more.
Sure thing, an international standards body paid for by tax payers to make sure that idiots understand what the hell they are agreeing to? This is by far the most ignorant and short sighted thing I have ever heard as a solution for EULA issues. The only race about screwing people over is the race to find more stupid people. If you are stupid enough to get taken by a company that tells you (otherwise it's fraud, and the FTC has your back, at least in the US) what they are going to do, so what? It's not my problem, it's theirs.
Other people have posted similar examples from other applications. Is this illegal, or just annoying?
If you don't read the fine print, and agree to something, and it burns you, and you complain, you are stupid.
It's not illegal. I'm sure somewhere they fully detail out everything, so that the next person who thinks it's "illegal" and tries to launch a suit can be fed the EULA that they agreed to. It's like people bashing Gator for being shady spyware when they fully disclose on their website what they do in big bold letters.
PLEASE someobdy jsut ban wait let me restart please somebody just ban this whole damn city from slashdot!
Wow, I didn't know Jeff K. posted on slashdot.
At least right now what type of applications would this be good for?
KaZaA (Lite)
Do we really need that much storage?
Average movie: 800MB
Perhaps if programmers wrote better code...........
Perhaps if pigeon hole theory didn't exist, we could compress everything down to one byte and it wouldn't matter.
Then again remember when 2megs of memory was "the bomb" ?
No, I remember still having to be conservative with memory usage and what I could do with it. Preloading? Don't think so... now playing memory tricks such as precaching in code is possible. Before hand, it wasn't. 2MB was maybe the bomb for people who didn't code anything past a text editor. Even then.. don't edit large documents.
It's bad enough when you have to carry a pager for work; voluntarily subjecting yourself to that kind of intrusion strikes me as nuts.
I like my cell phone, it's a T68. I get SMSs and I prefer them over voice mail because I not only have it in writing to review, I don't have to actually be on the phone to read.
AT&T, my cell phone service provider, is apparently one of those. After I read complaints from a number of AT&T users who had been SMS-spammed and who said that AT&T refused to stop, I demanded that AT&T disable all "services" on my cell phone account that I had not specifically authorized, including SMS. The representative tried to claim that they couldn't do that, but I insisted and he eventually gave in.
Uhm, you can fill out a form on their website and they stop. Everyone I know doesn't have a problem with this, and I never have (I got one, then filled out the send-me-no-more-spam form, and it was gone). I got more spam going through Verizon. As for the rep, it wasn't him "giving in" it's that they have to get a service tech to break apart the features and put blocks and it's a pain in the ass.
Don't assume that each new "feature" offered by your cell phone provider (or your ISP) is something you want.
I think you missed the point of this thread. This is a thread about SMS messages that get lost. Not about paranoid folks complaining about lack of privacy over features. There are plenty other threads. Why don't you move along, and let us, who enjoy SMS converse without your troll?
If they'd beef that up a bit, I'd be seriously considering a subscription not unlike the kind Slashdot has. $5 for 1,000 image searches or something like that.
I'd definitely donate a buck or two a month to google, I'm pretty sure a lot of people would. If they setup a voluntary donation bin I would bet it would make a substantial amount of money.
Maybe offer some sort of a gimmick for the donators, like being able to vote on holiday google logos or things like that.
I've been playing Battlefield 1942 the last few months ...
What server do you play on? I just started playing a week or so ago and am trying to find some "regulars" to play with. I've found a few people, but just joining at random doesn't work because most of the time you do that the people play with the team work of autistic lepars.
Sorry, I do not really know of compiler internals for *NIX. Maybe someone can back me up? or clear it up?
With gcc, the -j will setup gcc to utilize SMP. You specify the number of processors you physical have. I do not know how it would work with HT, and I didn't RTFA to see if they covered it. There is native support inside of gcc for SMP-based compiling though.
First of all, no, desperate defensiveness has nothing to do with how you personally feel towards me. It has to to with how threatened you feel about your favorite subject of the day.
See, this is where you fail because you don't know me. It's not desperate defensiveness, it's called blunt display of sentiment towards others. I dislike you. If I met you in person, I would most likely dislike you. I wouldn't hide that. I tell people I dislike them, and why I dislike them. It has nothing to do with what you say or the debate at hand, it has to deal with me not liking you.
This is because I dislike you. End of story. I find no reason to be courteous to you because there is no point for me to do so.
Second of all, here you do it again: idiot, dipshit, go learn to read... all blatant personal attacks. Since your very first response to me, that's been your tactic. Very articulate and mature.
Well, you completely ignore anything that I say (except what I say about you, so I guess you can read you just choose not to most of the time). You can call me immature if you want, I really don't care. I still think you are an idiot.
Note that this isn't a Google search or something... Findlaw tends to be a little more esoteric in what it lists. So it seems likely that if any little guys had sued any big guys and won lately, it would show up here.
Little guys don't sue big companies. Little guys collect royalties from big companies. Little guys who sue big companies usually are backed by VCs and are no longer little guys. See, you missed that. You cannot read, and you argue purely for the sake of trying to prove the patent system is useless. The only people who think the patent system should go away are the people who don't have a clue about it in the real world.
Again, you are a clueless moron. I'm done with this thread because you cannot listen to the other side. This was the first post you have actually attempted to present a real argument, and I applaud you but it's a bit too late. I'm done trying to educate you.
And that's why all the big companies own the patents?
Sorry, I refuse to speak to someone who is this clueless.
Personally, I'd just pass a constitutional amendment to ban all sales taxes, since 99% of all products cross state lines, the US gov't should be able to regulate it as interstate commerce. Let the states tax in-state produced & consumed good if they want-- but they won't.
Most existing sales tax is state tax. This is why states like Oregon do not have sales tax. Instead they subsidize with higher income and property taxes.
I detect a distinct note of desperate defensiveness in your replies to me.
No shit? You are an idiot. Of course I dislike you.
You can't attack the post, so you attack the poster.
I did attack the post, dipshit. Go learn to read.
Obviously, you know *so* much more about the subject, that you can't even articulate it.
A rock knows more about this subject than you, how is that different? I'm articulating, you aren't reading.
Here's how it works, for a 5 year old:
Patents are not designed to make people rich, they are designed to give fair competition and the inventor a head start into market as they choose. Without patents, information would fall under the old guilde style where information is hidden and kept a secret. There would be strict laws about trade secrets and reverse engineering. The little guys wouldn't have the chance to enter the market, because they wouldn't ever have the opportunity to know what makes it tick. Patents expire after a period of time, so even the little guys can spend their years waiting for the patent to expire to come up with a truly innovative design on top of an existing patent. If a little guy comes up with a great idea, the best idea is to patent that idea so that no one (whether a big company or another inventor) can steal his idea and patent it as their own. If this happens, the little guy loses out. He can't market his idea, or even give it away for free. So, the little guy patents his idea and now some big companies want to crush him. But it's ok! He can work out royalty based uses with the company, and also get venture capitol or loans using his patents as equity that will easily pay for any dispute lawsuits and allow him to properly collect royalties or bring it to market under his own name.
It's not hard, people do it all the time.
Now, if you don't understand that, you are beyond any hope. The only thing you have said is "Patents are bad for little guys because I say so and anything you say I'm going to answer with Patents are bad for the little guys because I say so and anything you say I'm going to answer with..."
Lets break this cycle. Open your mind. Patents are good otherwise enterpreneurs would change the system. It has flaws, and no one says it doesn't. However your claims that we should not have patents is like saying "Well, there are car accidents so we better just ban cars."
Last time I checked, innovation was a function of brains, not money. But, that is the problem with this system, isn't it?
Sure, some innovations are free, but most aren't. Glad to see you are that out of touch with reality. I was beginning to think maybe you were really just that much of a Everything-should-be-free zealot, now I realize you really are just an idiot.
I'm noticing a pattern here... you can't seem to actually cope with my arguments, so you resort to telling me I don't have a right to speak on the subject or hold certain political views in this country.)
Here's another pattern: You constantly say that the patent system is broken without providing any real information as to any damage that has become of it? Unisys? Don't think so, look at all the gifs. SCO? Sure... Patents do more good than harm, you are just too fucking dense to understand that. You don't have an argument. That's what you don't understand. If you do it is so poorly constructed and based in some mythical land where patents eat small children and worship Satan that it is indiscernable from anything worth combatting.
That is a very subjective statement. Works... for big guys. Not for little guys. The US is the most wealthy nation in the world, with the largest proportion in poverty of any industrialized nation. If that's how you define something "working," then capitalism works great.
Yes, and almost everyone on the top 10 wealthiest american list started out as a little guy. So what's your point? Oh right, you are completely delusional and wrong.
I've yet to come across someone (even on slashdot) that is so adamantly opposed to something that they have no clue about. You really ought to go pick up a text book. It's been fun trying to educate you, but I'm going to go get a pet rock as it provides more entertainment and listens better.
Can you give an example of where a software patent has "help the little guy"?
IBM. Look at all their patents helping innovate by granting free royalties on a ton of information that is publicly available for people to work with. Without patents, that information would be kept a closely guarded secret.
As someone else pointed out, patents are not made to make people rich, only play more fair so the inventor gets first rights to market. The patent system has not failed with that.
Please someone mod this up, it's very valid.
Now, there is another way that an innovator can afford to innovate without patent protection... and that's to keep their work secret. This is the old guild method. We've ditched this because we've realized that open patent filings, while not perfect, allow for things like peer review, and guards against catastrophic failure of knowledge (i.e. the only guy who knows how it works gets hit by a bus).
Patent Point #1.
Don't confuse problems with the implementation of the patent system with problems inherent in the patent system. Patents weren't intended to protect ideas of problems to be overcome, but instead to protect specific implementations of those solutions. To say it another way, some of the original patents covered things like the design of certain stoves; many modern software patents are like the idea of patenting all devices to be used in heating the house.
Patent problem, but it is not a problem with the patent system but in the acceptance and grant process. This is the portion of the patent system that needs to be reorganized. The problem is not within patents, and holding patents, the problem is incorrect things being granted patent status.
Excellent work, AC. I wish you hadn't posted AC.. you'd be on my friends list instantly.
Then why did we come up with patents, if their raison d'être came into being after they did?
Patents were created as a way to protect the inventor from being squashed by people with more money and more means to push them out of business.
Or, could it be that patents are part of the structure that brought us to this point, where our economy, our politics, and our technology are driven by megacorporations?
I think it's more likely that you are an absolute idiot, with no knowledge of real world business or patents, and continue to speak about their negative impact on the world without one iota of a clue as to how it really works.
See, that's the problem right there. Yes, in theory, patents give everyone the same ground to stand on... but as it turns out, it takes money (and other resources) to correctly file defensible patents, no matter how good your idea is.
Again, you are proving you have no knowledge of patents, and the way of filing a patent. If you have the money to design something, you find the money to file a patent and defend it. There are investors that do exactly this. If your idea is that good, you will find them with no problem. If you choose to defend it yourself, you are getting what you ask for.
If the USPTO charged a static fee for every patent application, then charged a small tax on royalties from enforced patents, and undertook all prior art search and enforcement activities, then it might be fair... but it would also be semi-socialistic, and therefore would scare the market-driven capitalists who the current system works well for.
There is a patent fee. Small tax on royalties from enforced patents? That just doesn't make sense. Selectively enforced patents, or exclusively licensed patents, or group licensed patents? How do you manage that? What if it's a trade based royalty? Here's a newsflash, capitalism works, and in case you forgot Paul Allen, Steve Jobs, Woz, Ellison and a lot others got to where they are at for their innovation and the patent system.
The patent system works for capitalism, because that's what it's designed to work with. If you don't like capitlism, move out of the US and join an autocratic commune somewhere.
Have you ever read a filed patent? They are deliberately worded to cover as much as they possibly can. Just take the BT 'hyperlink' patent.
Uhm, yes, they are. And you can read that information and learn all about it. Nothing is stopping you, so what was your point?
In a world where the physical costs of creation are zero (eg computer software) they don't work. In a world where I can independently come up with an invention, prove it works and pass it around for free on the internet, why should I blocked by a large corporation that A) thought of it first and B) has the money to hire a legal firm. As I pointed out ealier, kids in the playground screaming 'but I thought of it *first*'. So what? Why does that mean that I can't use an idea that I have?
There are physical costs of creation. A lot of inventions that are patented cost less to create than your average economic computer. If you don't patent the idea, than you have to prove it's prior art if someone patents it. If they sue you for it, it shouldn't be hard to win. If you did pass it around and everybody knows. This again, goes into the reform of the acceptance process not the enforcement process.
As for your attorney, why don't you ask him about it. I'm sure he would say that there is ample protection for the little guys who file patents. If there wasn't, than the patent system wouldn't work and there would be a revolt of all the inventors that do use it. Sorry to tell you this, but a very large number of small inventors use the patent system to their advantage.
Well, in software, the idea is the implementation (at least if you can write it down...). Copyright already covers program listings, adding patent protection is just bad for the industry. So go on, name a single beneficial software patent. Just one.
I already did, and in your ignorance you ignored it. The benefit is that if you patent it, other people cannot shit all over you as easily.
You keep bringing up this absolutely idiotic playground analogy. Do you realize that makes you sound not only completely uneducated but uninformed as to how patent law actually works? Go talk to your patent buddy on that one too, say, "Aren't patents just like children in a playground screaming I thought of it first?" He'll probably tell you that you are an idiot, or at least think it. Patents are for giving inventors a head start on the competition. End of story. Unfortunately the abuse of the acceptance system has caused a lot of damage.
I for one rest easy knowing I can patent my software ideas, because if someone violates my patent and tries to sue it I can actually secure VC just for the lawsuit alone if I can prove that they infringed in my patent and are trying to bully me out of business. I can make more money in the lawsuits. Again, patents can help the little guy but only if the little guy is smart enough to use it to their advantage.
Laws are designed for a purpose, and always have loop holes. Use both for your advantage and you win.
News Flash: This is already true. There was no need to phrase your statement in the future tense. With the CURRENT patent system in place this already happens. You claim this is *abuse* of patents rather than *use* of patents, as if there was some mystical difference. As far as the courts care, there isn't any difference between using a law in the way it was intended versus using a law counter to the way it was intended.
In all honesty, when I saw your name pop up I figured it was going to dredge into another irritating thread. I'm glad that it doesn't seem to start that way.
I do agree, that the big companies can (and sometimes do) fuck the little guys. The abuse and use of patents is not a big difference, but it is there. If you have a patent, and form a strategic partnership with a gorilla (Little Guy getting help from Big Company) than you have better chances.
As far as the courts care, there isn't any difference between using a law in the way it was intended versus using a law counter to the way it was intended.
Again, I agree. However, it also does work for the little guys as well. It's harder, and costs more (little guys don't have as much for defense) but there are more layers of protection with patents in existence than without.
I suppose what I'm saying is more accurate as, "Without patents, big companies will fuck you easier." Makes more sense to me that way...
You forgot to mention that "big corporation" could do exactly the same even if you had patented Flubberlitzen beforehand. This is a known strategy in patent land, called "surrounding patents", see for instance this article (found on a random google search) [umkc.edu]:
Yes, they can, but it's harder and if you have the money to develop and patent, you at least have a strong chance of making them play nice. Much more so than if there were no patents.
Not that I'm against the idea of patents, but I don't think patents do serve very well in protecting the small guy - at least not in their current state - and yes, I know "small guys" owning a patent, and they openly admit that they mostly are good for marketing reasons, not for collecting royalties.
The patent system definitely needs to be reformed, but the reformation should be/needs to be focused on the grant process. Piggybacking pattents should not be allowed, for instance. They are mostly for marketing reasons, but it is a good step of defense for the little guys. Not so much for royalties, but for the defense against getting squashed.
Hello?!?! I refer the honourable gentleman to the story these comments are posted under.
SCO isn't a big company. SCO is on the verge of bankruptcy. It's like an animal that gnaws off a limb to save itself from a trap, only to bleed itself to death.
Something about the 'post...locked away' (presumably in case people might agree with it) makes me assume you are or have been a beneficiary of the Patent system.
No, currently I have never received any sort of payment except for working for companies that do patent their research.
That's fine for you and of course that colours your opinion of the system.
Economics and real world experience give me my opinion of the system. The reform of the patent system lies within the grant process, not the enforcement. Enforcement has it's own checks and balances.
But 99.999% of people will never own a patent, instead they suffer the results of the non-competitive market the patent system encourages.
The non-competitive market? Patents encourage competition, but they give the inventor a head start on that competition. They also spur fair play, if you want to use an invention, you pay royalties if applicable.
The original poster on this thread was considering their/our point of view, as a mental exercise you should give it a try.
The original poster asked if it was a copyright or patent issue. The response I was responding to said it's patent, then spouted off a lot of incorrect things about patent law. Then lambasted the US for having a patent system.