I frequently see a general misunderstanding of what "obvious" means in patent lore; it's not the general definition of the word as writers here are misstating but, rather, something that can be substituted for another.
For example, if "obvious" was used as other people believe it means, then anything invented after the wheel is not a true invention. A car, for example, is simply a set of four wheels with an engine + transmission.
Intresting... I for one do not believe that this is how people understand/see the meaning of obvious.
In fact I had to re-read your post couple times, I was not sure if I had read correctly as it seemed so absolutely silly;) No offense meant...
Exactly, while personally I use my desktop PC for most of these things, if I had a gaming console one of the things I'd definately want to do would be the ability to run emulators of as many as possible console emulators or other machines - that I now run on my PC with a similar controller to those of PS3/X360 generation. Though I rather like to do everything with my PC this is what I would want *if* I owned a conole:)
I *knew* I had seen a swastika round the first times I played DooM but later I never found one - I should know DooM, this is my DooM website: Sir Robin's DooM Castle, but then this was on an old version I saw way before I started up my website:)
Oh BS -- GPL is a pie-in-the-sky communist-like ideal in which you get kicked out of the commune if you actually try to assert some independence.
I don't understand, care to elaborate? And no, not about the "communist-like", but the part after "in which...". I don't even step on the "communism" debate.
Don't fool yourself into thinking that GPL 'is not about telling people what they cannot do' -- it sure as hell is.
While it does prohibit one from doing something I disagree that it's what "GPL is about", I see it as means to an end, and the end is what GPL is about.
Bullshit. It's about ensuring that you grant to others what was granted to you.
I assume what you actually meant was that you have to grant the same rights to your work as what was granted to you with someone elses work. So if you benefit from something free then anything you create with that also has to be free, that's a personal choice and there is no right or wrong, that's why we have multiple types of licenses.
My personal choice is BSD because you are free to use it so long as you aren't stopping anyone else from having the same rights to that software as you did, what you do with your software is up to you.
Exactly, personal choice with no need for a war or lesser fighting that's going over here with many people - I don't understand, it can be philosophical, practical, ethical, etc. question what licensing you prefer but some seem to make it a religious question and start a jihad over it:p Glad to see some smarter writings here though, thanks:)
Personally most of the time I choose GPL - I say it's to ensure that the freedoms I give to my work will be given to derivative work also, some say it's to deny making derivative work proprietary, I don't care, it's the same thing:)
...license fees which add no real value to the product...
It's a horrendous minefield we've created with the patent system and it does make it difficult to develop new ideas - but that doesn't mean you get to steal them. License fees add nothing to a product. Stolen technologies add a great deal to the product.
Ideas or technologies? Are you implying that you feel that it is OK for ideas to be patentable? Or that you don't feel that this is how patent system should be used but because it is written in law and accepted in courts then the company infrying a software patent is indeed using "stolen technologies" and should pay?
And how can you call it a theft? Everyone in software field is copying features from earlier and current competing applications, if they had not there would never have been many competing applications of any kind - but how can a company which can in no possible way know if there are patents on *ideas* or *designs* they are using and has created an application and published it, then after more or less time accused on patent infrigment by company with tens or hundreds of thousands software patents, be said to have stolen any technology? First off it's not stealing, secondly it is not right and stifles innovation - the opposite of what patent system purpose is. The system should be changed anywhere where software patents apply right now and those patents thrown away.
At least google has to money to battle in court - not all smart phone manufacturers, let alone all small software houses, can think going against apple as financially smart move, even if they would win.
The people who created the original technologies aren't typically in the donation game, especially with competitors who deploy new ideas that aren't their own.
How can anyone deploy a new idea if it's not their own? Besides, on software field, what else have these companies now owning biggest software patent cases built their software originally on but something someone else thought about and implemented before them? How is any of this fair?
I think it was around 93 for me too to first use internet... Back then I did not own a computer, we had one shared by family but I used to hoard that 286 more than my father who used it for work, however it was not until -95 until we got our first modem so I tried to satisfy my interest with library computers - 286's with Windows 3.0 or 3.1 and Mosaic, a huge book with internet "directory list" and no understanding of how things worked and what was what... Neither did the people in library, they guided me to use mosaic and I was baffled with the book they gave me. I had no idea why none of the addresses seemed to work - I knew nothing about usenet, all I expected from internet was webpages, found some through links on the start page but the book was all usenet groups, not www pages:)
Well, I've come a long way since that, and like with everything else I was fast learner then too... Still from 95 when we got our first modem to around 97-99, don't remember that clear, I did not use usenet, my thing was accessing FidoNet through local BBS, I kept accessing the BBS and FidoNet as long as until early 2000's though at that point I was writing in Usenet too but while I liked internet over BBS for most other things I always liked FidoNet over usenet, which I have no other explanation to that perhaps I just get attached to it because I got addicted to BBS's and FidoNet before internet:)
Re:Time to rename the GNU Image Manipulation Progr
on
When Software Offends
·
· Score: 1
I never thought that anyone would take the name GIMP badly, reading this thread was the first time I have seen it criticized and said that people joke about it. My native language is not english but I read and write a lot in english, especially on tech sites... Personally I think GIMP is kinda cute and all together a fine name... I never associated it with word 'gimp' in my head even though calling it gimp in speech too:)
Good point - although if you have small amount of know-how (like how to extract text file from.xpi package, edit, put it back) you can easily get around problems limited to version numbering (but if the actual code is not compatible with new version then you have problem but that has nothing to do with version numbering). Sure, I should not have to do such work but it's really only a minor nuisance.
I recall a very similar reading but it was about air pressure crushing people (or maybe just their heads, don't remember) if a train should enter a tunnel at such high speed:p
I have to wonder why on earth so few old basic (pre-qbasic, that was the first I personally know to have functions) books teach you to use GOSUB/RETURN, after all, those gave basic programmers at least very primitive way for limited functional programming - without parameters (in most versions) and local variables) and eliminated the need for using GOTO... Seems the "basic causes brain damage" is more a fault of books and teachers teaching to use GOTO and not GOSUB/RETURN than the languages fault. I don't know if all pre-SUB/FUNCTION basic versions had this but many (I believe most, if not all) did. Yet when I was learning basic most books just described GOSUB/RETURN but I don't remember if any actually instructed to use them - and I'm talking about programming tutorials, not just language documentations.
Best protection is not common sense. We're beyond that now. People should not have to babysit their phones. It should be treated as an appliance, not a PC. Google needs to address this or it will be their downfall. This is one area where Apple really has their act together.
Well, some of us want a smartphone that IS mare like PC, not restricted appliance - and google is giving us that. Too bad if they fail, I'm glad that someone is trying... and I disagree with you on that *everyone* should have some basic understanding of things they use - if they can learn how to install and use software and browse internet they should learn basic safety also, if they don't... well, boo-hoo, no sympathy for them.
Slashdot Mirror
I think that they need to grow up and live in the real world.
Right back at you - and put your money where your mouth is, Pirate Party seems to be successfully growing around Europe.
I use gtkpod for my iPod Nano 8gb, works fine and is not the only iPod program for linux either...
I frequently see a general misunderstanding of what "obvious" means in patent lore; it's not the general definition of the word as writers here are misstating but, rather, something that can be substituted for another.
For example, if "obvious" was used as other people believe it means, then anything invented after the wheel is not a true invention. A car, for example, is simply a set of four wheels with an engine + transmission.
Intresting... I for one do not believe that this is how people understand/see the meaning of obvious.
In fact I had to re-read your post couple times, I was not sure if I had read correctly as it seemed so absolutely silly ;) No offense meant...
Mod parent up!
Nokia is finnish - I should know, I am a finn.
Mod parents up.
Word!
Good article, thanks for sharing your thoughts :)
No.
You buy that equipment with an understanding that there are restrictions on how you use it.
Do you buy a lunch buffet carrying a set of Tupperware?
Yeah, restrictions that you can then circumvent (legally and morally within your rights).
Exactly, while personally I use my desktop PC for most of these things, if I had a gaming console one of the things I'd definately want to do would be the ability to run emulators of as many as possible console emulators or other machines - that I now run on my PC with a similar controller to those of PS3/X360 generation. Though I rather like to do everything with my PC this is what I would want *if* I owned a conole :)
I *knew* I had seen a swastika round the first times I played DooM but later I never found one - I should know DooM, this is my DooM website: Sir Robin's DooM Castle, but then this was on an old version I saw way before I started up my website :)
Oh BS -- GPL is a pie-in-the-sky communist-like ideal in which you get kicked out of the commune if you actually try to assert some independence.
I don't understand, care to elaborate? And no, not about the "communist-like", but the part after "in which...". I don't even step on the "communism" debate.
Don't fool yourself into thinking that GPL 'is not about telling people what they cannot do' -- it sure as hell is.
While it does prohibit one from doing something I disagree that it's what "GPL is about", I see it as means to an end, and the end is what GPL is about.
Bullshit. It's about ensuring that you grant to others what was granted to you.
I assume what you actually meant was that you have to grant the same rights to your work as what was granted to you with someone elses work. So if you benefit from something free then anything you create with that also has to be free, that's a personal choice and there is no right or wrong, that's why we have multiple types of licenses.
My personal choice is BSD because you are free to use it so long as you aren't stopping anyone else from having the same rights to that software as you did, what you do with your software is up to you.
Exactly, personal choice with no need for a war or lesser fighting that's going over here with many people - I don't understand, it can be philosophical, practical, ethical, etc. question what licensing you prefer but some seem to make it a religious question and start a jihad over it :p Glad to see some smarter writings here though, thanks :)
Personally most of the time I choose GPL - I say it's to ensure that the freedoms I give to my work will be given to derivative work also, some say it's to deny making derivative work proprietary, I don't care, it's the same thing :)
...license fees which add no real value to the product...
It's a horrendous minefield we've created with the patent system and it does make it difficult to develop new ideas - but that doesn't mean you get to steal them. License fees add nothing to a product. Stolen technologies add a great deal to the product.
Ideas or technologies?
Are you implying that you feel that it is OK for ideas to be patentable? Or that you don't feel that this is how patent system should be used but because it is written in law and accepted in courts then the company infrying a software patent is indeed using "stolen technologies" and should pay?
And how can you call it a theft? Everyone in software field is copying features from earlier and current competing applications, if they had not there would never have been many competing applications of any kind - but how can a company which can in no possible way know if there are patents on *ideas* or *designs* they are using and has created an application and published it, then after more or less time accused on patent infrigment by company with tens or hundreds of thousands software patents, be said to have stolen any technology?
First off it's not stealing, secondly it is not right and stifles innovation - the opposite of what patent system purpose is. The system should be changed anywhere where software patents apply right now and those patents thrown away.
At least google has to money to battle in court - not all smart phone manufacturers, let alone all small software houses, can think going against apple as financially smart move, even if they would win.
The people who created the original technologies aren't typically in the donation game, especially with competitors who deploy new ideas that aren't their own.
How can anyone deploy a new idea if it's not their own?
Besides, on software field, what else have these companies now owning biggest software patent cases built their software originally on but something someone else thought about and implemented before them?
How is any of this fair?
LOL@ "you guys" I am not from the UK (or any other country that has "soccer" riots)...
Me neither, and they are called football riots anyway - "soccer riots", for me, has similar sound to ie. "unicorn-love bloodbath" or something...
+1 for parent
+1 to parent everyone :)
I think it was around 93 for me too to first use internet... Back then I did not own a computer, we had one shared by family but I used to hoard that 286 more than my father who used it for work, however it was not until -95 until we got our first modem so I tried to satisfy my interest with library computers - 286's with Windows 3.0 or 3.1 and Mosaic, a huge book with internet "directory list" and no understanding of how things worked and what was what... Neither did the people in library, they guided me to use mosaic and I was baffled with the book they gave me. I had no idea why none of the addresses seemed to work - I knew nothing about usenet, all I expected from internet was webpages, found some through links on the start page but the book was all usenet groups, not www pages :)
Well, I've come a long way since that, and like with everything else I was fast learner then too... Still from 95 when we got our first modem to around 97-99, don't remember that clear, I did not use usenet, my thing was accessing FidoNet through local BBS, I kept accessing the BBS and FidoNet as long as until early 2000's though at that point I was writing in Usenet too but while I liked internet over BBS for most other things I always liked FidoNet over usenet, which I have no other explanation to that perhaps I just get attached to it because I got addicted to BBS's and FidoNet before internet :)
I never thought that anyone would take the name GIMP badly, reading this thread was the first time I have seen it criticized and said that people joke about it. My native language is not english but I read and write a lot in english, especially on tech sites... :)
Personally I think GIMP is kinda cute and all together a fine name... I never associated it with word 'gimp' in my head even though calling it gimp in speech too
Good point - although if you have small amount of know-how (like how to extract text file from .xpi package, edit, put it back) you can easily get around problems limited to version numbering (but if the actual code is not compatible with new version then you have problem but that has nothing to do with version numbering).
Sure, I should not have to do such work but it's really only a minor nuisance.
I recall a very similar reading but it was about air pressure crushing people (or maybe just their heads, don't remember) if a train should enter a tunnel at such high speed :p
I have to wonder why on earth so few old basic (pre-qbasic, that was the first I personally know to have functions) books teach you to use GOSUB/RETURN, after all, those gave basic programmers at least very primitive way for limited functional programming - without parameters (in most versions) and local variables) and eliminated the need for using GOTO... Seems the "basic causes brain damage" is more a fault of books and teachers teaching to use GOTO and not GOSUB/RETURN than the languages fault.
I don't know if all pre-SUB/FUNCTION basic versions had this but many (I believe most, if not all) did. Yet when I was learning basic most books just described GOSUB/RETURN but I don't remember if any actually instructed to use them - and I'm talking about programming tutorials, not just language documentations.
A non issue if you use Tor or something alike... Though you can use it for non-http protocols as well I should think...
Mod parent up!
Best protection is not common sense. We're beyond that now. People should not have to babysit their phones. It should be treated as an appliance, not a PC. Google needs to address this or it will be their downfall. This is one area where Apple really has their act together.
Well, some of us want a smartphone that IS mare like PC, not restricted appliance - and google is giving us that. Too bad if they fail, I'm glad that someone is trying... and I disagree with you on that *everyone* should have some basic understanding of things they use - if they can learn how to install and use software and browse internet they should learn basic safety also, if they don't... well, boo-hoo, no sympathy for them.