All too often I've seen people (in this industry) assume false rights (like intellectual "property") and then when someone else does an end run arround them then they get mad because they were sidelined.
Well, I'm sorry to see them hurt, but what did they expect?
Is it just me, or is it that every embedded device I've ever dealt with has a different development environment, a different compiler, and basterdized version of C that has all sorts of strange extensions and unpredictable unstandardized behavior. And every single one of them interfaces (uploads) in a different unique pain in the neck way!
Not to mention, almost all the development software and tools cost an arm and a leg. Sure there's FOSS stuff out there, but everytime I've tried to make it work - it's kicked my butt. Maybe this is just the punushment I get for comming from a CS background and not a EE one?
It seem like a reversal of policty for the DoJ, but perhaps it is because they want to be the _only_ group to be able to snoop mail.
Also, if everyone _assumes_ someone is reading their email, then it might lead to real efforts to use encryption by default in email clients - exactly what the DoJ doesn't want.
How to tell if it will succede! A simple test
on
WiMax: When, Not If
·
· Score: 1
There is a very simple way to tell if this technology will succede....
If I can make the thing in my grage, or maybe even FAB it from a third party, out of commodity parts without signing a bunch of cross licensing agreements, and without halving to worry about a bunch of patents and lawsuits - then it will take off. Otherwise it is BS.
As I said in another post, I think he knows darn well Linux isn't going to be the only other arround. He's just trying to get everyone else to gang up against Linux. It is a brilliant strategic move on behalf of MS, and a classic divide and conquer strategy. He's trying to do the same thing between redhat and novell too.
Good example was hp-3000. Lost money at the OS level until it was put into mainence mode
I don't think it's about maintenance and service, but more about controll of the market. MS knows damn well that Linux will not be the only other one out there - but they want to get everyone else ganging up on Linux. It's a classic divide and conquer strategy.
Who happen to be sharing copyrighted material, i.e. breaking the law. Lets call a troll a troll, here.
I hate this kind of crap. Illegal or not, there is nothing inherently evil with copying things. BTW, I suppose if they stang up Harriet Tubman for starting the underground rail-road.... would you say she got what's comming to her? Yeah, tell me all about it.... or do you even know what I'm talking about.
It's really about barriers to entry
on
Amateur Revolution?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
You see in the normal world, as you use and learn technology - you build a foundation that becomes more and more valuable and needed over time.
But we do not live in the normal world - we live in a world where there is proprietary and non proprietary technology, and for the short term there is always intense pressure to use and learn the proprietary stuff. But this stuff always makes you obsolete, and gives you nothing to build on over the long term.
The truth is that it is always in peoples best interest to know the non proprietary stuff that they can build on over the long term. Traditionally we have had college to build a non proprietary foundation to bypass the problems caused in a proprietary society - but now thanks in part to the internet - we have things like unrestricted free access to information, we have access freely to things like Linux.
The rules have changed, and this is just one of the symptoms. The barriers to bypass the proprietary problems have dropped, and the effects will likely shake the system to it's knees.
The constitution never implied patents (or copyrights) were a property right any more than slaves on the plantation were. This property propaganda is a bunch of crap made up by lawyers and the RIAA, and has absolutely no solid foundation in common law or constitutional law at all.
In fact the constitution clearly states that copyrights and patents are a government mandated monopoly that is to be short term - genuine rights don't have an expiration date.
This morning I saw an article in the SD Tribune touting how benificial patents were to the biotech industry from the perspective of a lawyer. I wrote this reply to the author before I even saw this on slashdot.... must have been a psychic thing!:)
To: michael.kinsman@uniontrib.com
Dear Michael Kinsman,
After reading a recent article you wrote in the Union Tribune, I really think you should consider the "other side" of the Patent system. I found it
ironic that the article I'm thinking about referred to a lawyer, because
of all people - a lawyer is probably the least qualified to understand what's
good for technology industries and what isn't. In fact, even in the article,
the lawyer referred to, defended against patents in one case and imposed
them in another. Lets face it, when all is said and done, the people that
benefit the most from this two way milking process is lawyers and not
business. I don't work in biotech, but I've worked in allot of other
technology companies and this is the way I see it:
In the tech industry I know, most people get patents not because they are some glorious protection, but rather a glorious hassle that is necessary to use defensively against frivolous lawsuits. They are also used to get into cross-licensing agreements that would have otherwise made it impossible for the small innovative companies to compete against entrenched
patent and lawyer filled giants. This is hardly the patent system that
helps the small inventor working in his garage that everyone talks about.
In the tech industry I know, the entire industry is defined by people who defied patents. For example, the IBM compatible PC was a drastic success for the computer industry, because it was a drastic patent failure where anybody could make an IBM compatible PC even if they weren't IBM. Silicon valley, wouldn't exist without the engineers who routinely revolted against companies who wanted to patent off their innovations, and created new startups in defiance.
In the tech industry I know, the overwhelming majority of patents were issued for innovations that were incremental, and were going to happen anyhow with or without patents. The patents didn't help anything, they just got in the way time and time again. Even worse are the thousands of patents issued for things that were obvious and could be made by any competent high school programming student, like a cursor that blinks!
One time I worked for an innovative startup that got bought out by a huge global multinational corporation - whose only motive was grab some key patents and lock out competition in an important area of the market. This didn't benefit the consumer who got gouged, it didn't benefit the employees who mostly got laid off, it didn't benefit the tech industry who was cut out from using the technology, and it stopped the innovation that was going on cold in it's tracks. But, on the bright side, it did benefit greatly a large staff of lawyers on hand!
However the most revealing patent issues didn't happen in the IT industry at all. It happened when American pharmaceutical companies tried to sue the daylights out of dirt poor African nations who wanted to make generic AIDS drugs on their own. And then how pharmaceutical executives went to the papers and said how they had no incentive to make pharmaceuticals without these lawsuits, that their patents were property, and they were very generous to Africans. Of course when it was pointed out that those points were very similar to the incentive/property/generosity arguments used by plantation masters in the 1800's - they backpedaled in a hurry and got the government to put 13 billion of my tax money towards fighting AIDS in Africa instead. (buying patented pharmacutical products, of course)
So the questions you should be asking is not whether patents are beneficial to the industry or not, or whether they will secure venture capital, bu
Say what you like, but the fact is that the "we have no incentive without copyrights" argument is a bullshit argument, and things didn't stop to a crawal during the renissance and they wouldn't now. And people who copy things aren't the bastards everyones making them out to be.
Yeah, things would change.... maybe we wouldn't get lord of the rings.... fine - it's entertainment. But, FYI you can take GPL software and sell it back to people now, but you can't lock them out from copying it. So same diff.
Publishers exploit copyright now, at least without it we can copy stuff back without taking their shit.
So are you trying to make points in favor of what I'm saying or against?
Becuase obviously people shouldn't be able to protect their ideas.
Protest what? Noone is stoping anyone from using their ideas whenever they want. Boo hoo hoo, they don't get a government backed monopoly on it. Boo hoo hoo Ford doesn't get a monopoly on making cars either.
Lately I've been really thankfull to see people being more honest and pratical about the environment, and resorting less and less to what I call enviro-guilt.
All to often I've ran into people who could not offer compelling benefits for using less resource intensive stuff, so instead they resorted to heavy handed guilt trips and would go on about how anybody who had anything in the world was destroying it for us all. I'm really thankfull to see more compelling approaches lately, I hope this is the start of a new trend.
You are forgetting that in a hydrogen society - there is now room to bring nuclear power back into the picture. Now people have the potential to create hydrogen on a vast scale far away from any place that might have political fallout.
In spite of all the bad press, the fact is that nuclear is still the safest, cheapest, and most environemtally friendly energy source ever created. IMHO, it's bad wrap had far more to do with its threat to OPEC then it ever had to do with safety or radiation.
Maybe they only see Novell as becomming successfull because they want to split in the Linux industry - and make it so all the players are fighting and trying to destroy each other rather than competiting and posing a genuine threat to Microsoft.
I really don't know how true this is other than the simple fact that I've had a lot better success with Linux security than windows security. But I think this also misses another point - that this is as much about controll as it is security.
Perhaps my house would more secure if only Microsoft managed all the access in and out of it too. But the reality is, that's the kind of controll I want to have - not them. The same is true with *MY* os systems too.
Just renember that high tech German economy in 1935, and all those prestigious investors who put their money in it.
One day we are going to half to learn the lesson that free markets are not about markets, but about freedoms. When you have freedoms, you get the growth AND the stability that won't lead to disaster down the road.
And renember how we sold out on Austria to Germany, well lets renember Hong Kong for a minute here too.
This is pretty heady stuff that would take years of study (ie a degree in economics) to be able to make an informed opinion about and not be just making stuff up. Can you back up these claims with historical, scientific proof? That would be really great.
Maybe some proof, maybe not enough, but I'm really glad you mentioned that though becuase it reminds me of another thing that is really offensive to me. Since they're the ones taking the money coercively, the burdon of proof is those who want to take it, not me. But I have never seem them give proof.
No I've seen politicians give allot of bullshit, take allot of money, and when things don't get solved - then they insist they get more money cuse that's they need to "just get it to work forever" because the problem was that they "never got enough to begin with". Well bullshit, where's their historical scientific proof?
I find your attitude offensive. There are so many honest people in the world who have had desperate circumstances, unequal wealth, and bad situations - and who were good honest and even productive inspite of it all. In fact, the history if the United States is made of such people. You really slap these people in the face when you suggest that "well all we need is the right circumstances"
The best way of all to stop crime it to show people that they are destined by choices and not curcumstances. The second best way is to set a good example.
Taking money from one set of people just because they have more - is a great way to teach people why it's ok to steal and take things - just because you percieve you need it more than they do. Making social programs that center arround circumstance is a great way to teach people that it's not about their choices but their situations. It would seem to me that all of those would have the exact opposite effect as intended.
Not to mention that history has shown that the only effective way to reduce poverty and bad situations is to increase freedoms - especially economic freedoms, a progreesive tax does just the opposite. It's like that saying - if you can shit on one wealthy man - then you can shit on 10000 poor men.
Those 6 points were interesting, but point I got from it for public schools was something like - You should try to make a system to work that isn't inherently working anyhow!
No, anybody tries that in the public school system is going to find that the harder they try and the more they care about kids, the more they will be punished. This is exactly the kind of accountability we don't want.
When I was a kid, I always wondered why it cost less per student to send me to a prestigious private prep boarding school ranked near top every year then it did the state to send all those public school kids to gettho high in LA. This guy hit it right on the head - the public school system is inherently anti education and the only real solution is to shutdown the whold goddam thing so something real can take it's place.
In the next few years, it will be easier to nuke every city in the planet than it will be to reign in the unrestricted flow of information. The Media industries simply can't maintain their monopoly alone anymore, so they're trying to microregulate all the technology industries and fear monger everyone else.
PS: which executive candidate do you think is in the pocket of the media industries, and which do you think is in the pocket of the tech industries?
Slashdot Mirror
All too often I've seen people (in this industry) assume false rights (like intellectual "property") and then when someone else does an end run arround them then they get mad because they were sidelined.
Well, I'm sorry to see them hurt, but what did they expect?
Is it just me, or is it that every embedded device I've ever dealt with has a different development environment, a different compiler, and basterdized version of C that has all sorts of strange extensions and unpredictable unstandardized behavior. And every single one of them interfaces (uploads) in a different unique pain in the neck way!
Not to mention, almost all the development software and tools cost an arm and a leg. Sure there's FOSS stuff out there, but everytime I've tried to make it work - it's kicked my butt. Maybe this is just the punushment I get for comming from a CS background and not a EE one?
It seem like a reversal of policty for the DoJ, but perhaps it is because they want to be the _only_ group to be able to snoop mail.
Also, if everyone _assumes_ someone is reading their email, then it might lead to real efforts to use encryption by default in email clients - exactly what the DoJ doesn't want.
There is a very simple way to tell if this technology will succede ....
If I can make the thing in my grage, or maybe even FAB it from a third party, out of commodity parts without signing a bunch of cross licensing agreements, and without halving to worry about a bunch of patents and lawsuits - then it will take off. Otherwise it is BS.
As I said in another post, I think he knows darn well Linux isn't going to be the only other arround. He's just trying to get everyone else to gang up against Linux. It is a brilliant strategic move on behalf of MS, and a classic divide and conquer strategy. He's trying to do the same thing between redhat and novell too.
Good example was hp-3000. Lost money at the OS level until it was put into mainence mode
I don't think it's about maintenance and service, but more about controll of the market. MS knows damn well that Linux will not be the only other one out there - but they want to get everyone else ganging up on Linux. It's a classic divide and conquer strategy.
Who happen to be sharing copyrighted material, i.e. breaking the law. Lets call a troll a troll, here.
I hate this kind of crap. Illegal or not, there is nothing inherently evil with copying things. BTW, I suppose if they stang up Harriet Tubman for starting the underground rail-road .... would you say she got what's comming to her? Yeah, tell me all about it .... or do you even know what I'm talking about.
You see in the normal world, as you use and learn technology - you build a foundation that becomes more and more valuable and needed over time.
But we do not live in the normal world - we live in a world where there is proprietary and non proprietary technology, and for the short term there is always intense pressure to use and learn the proprietary stuff. But this stuff always makes you obsolete, and gives you nothing to build on over the long term.
The truth is that it is always in peoples best interest to know the non proprietary stuff that they can build on over the long term. Traditionally we have had college to build a non proprietary foundation to bypass the problems caused in a proprietary society - but now thanks in part to the internet - we have things like unrestricted free access to information, we have access freely to things like Linux.
The rules have changed, and this is just one of the symptoms. The barriers to bypass the proprietary problems have dropped, and the effects will likely shake the system to it's knees.
The constitution never implied patents (or copyrights) were a property right any more than slaves on the plantation were. This property propaganda is a bunch of crap made up by lawyers and the RIAA, and has absolutely no solid foundation in common law or constitutional law at all.
In fact the constitution clearly states that copyrights and patents are a government mandated monopoly that is to be short term - genuine rights don't have an expiration date.
This morning I saw an article in the SD Tribune touting how benificial patents were to the biotech industry from the perspective of a lawyer. I wrote this reply to the author before I even saw this on slashdot .... must have been a psychic thing! :)
To: michael.kinsman@uniontrib.com
Dear Michael Kinsman,
After reading a recent article you wrote in the Union Tribune, I really think you should consider the "other side" of the Patent system. I found it ironic that the article I'm thinking about referred to a lawyer, because of all people - a lawyer is probably the least qualified to understand what's good for technology industries and what isn't. In fact, even in the article, the lawyer referred to, defended against patents in one case and imposed them in another. Lets face it, when all is said and done, the people that benefit the most from this two way milking process is lawyers and not business. I don't work in biotech, but I've worked in allot of other technology companies and this is the way I see it:
In the tech industry I know, most people get patents not because they are some glorious protection, but rather a glorious hassle that is necessary to use defensively against frivolous lawsuits. They are also used to get into cross-licensing agreements that would have otherwise made it impossible for the small innovative companies to compete against entrenched patent and lawyer filled giants. This is hardly the patent system that helps the small inventor working in his garage that everyone talks about.
In the tech industry I know, the entire industry is defined by people who defied patents. For example, the IBM compatible PC was a drastic success for the computer industry, because it was a drastic patent failure where anybody could make an IBM compatible PC even if they weren't IBM. Silicon valley, wouldn't exist without the engineers who routinely revolted against companies who wanted to patent off their innovations, and created new startups in defiance.
In the tech industry I know, the overwhelming majority of patents were issued for innovations that were incremental, and were going to happen anyhow with or without patents. The patents didn't help anything, they just got in the way time and time again. Even worse are the thousands of patents issued for things that were obvious and could be made by any competent high school programming student, like a cursor that blinks!
One time I worked for an innovative startup that got bought out by a huge global multinational corporation - whose only motive was grab some key patents and lock out competition in an important area of the market. This didn't benefit the consumer who got gouged, it didn't benefit the employees who mostly got laid off, it didn't benefit the tech industry who was cut out from using the technology, and it stopped the innovation that was going on cold in it's tracks. But, on the bright side, it did benefit greatly a large staff of lawyers on hand!
However the most revealing patent issues didn't happen in the IT industry at all. It happened when American pharmaceutical companies tried to sue the daylights out of dirt poor African nations who wanted to make generic AIDS drugs on their own. And then how pharmaceutical executives went to the papers and said how they had no incentive to make pharmaceuticals without these lawsuits, that their patents were property, and they were very generous to Africans. Of course when it was pointed out that those points were very similar to the incentive/property/generosity arguments used by plantation masters in the 1800's - they backpedaled in a hurry and got the government to put 13 billion of my tax money towards fighting AIDS in Africa instead. (buying patented pharmacutical products, of course)
So the questions you should be asking is not whether patents are beneficial to the industry or not, or whether they will secure venture capital, bu
To both candidates, what would you do if a large popular majority wanted you to revoke the free speech rights of a mostly unpopular minority?
What about if the popular media wants you to revoke the fair use rights of teens?
Uh well, just because someone states facts that you don't like doesn't mean it's a troll. Sorry if I hurt your feelings though.
Try responding
or
Your arguments are shit because
Say what you like, but the fact is that the "we have no incentive without copyrights" argument is a bullshit argument, and things didn't stop to a crawal during the renissance and they wouldn't now. And people who copy things aren't the bastards everyones making them out to be.
Yeah, things would change.... maybe we wouldn't get lord of the rings
Publishers exploit copyright now, at least without it we can copy stuff back without taking their shit.
So are you trying to make points in favor of what I'm saying or against?
For a primer of anti copyright arguments, I attack some of the main arguments on my web page, see ....
Bitter Protest Against Copyrights
Becuase obviously people shouldn't be able to protect their ideas.
Protest what? Noone is stoping anyone from using their ideas whenever they want. Boo hoo hoo, they don't get a government backed monopoly on it. Boo hoo hoo Ford doesn't get a monopoly on making cars either.
Well speak for yourself. IMHO, we should be talking about getting rid of copyrights, not making them stronger.
Lately I've been really thankfull to see people being more honest and pratical about the environment, and resorting less and less to what I call enviro-guilt.
All to often I've ran into people who could not offer compelling benefits for using less resource intensive stuff, so instead they resorted to heavy handed guilt trips and would go on about how anybody who had anything in the world was destroying it for us all. I'm really thankfull to see more compelling approaches lately, I hope this is the start of a new trend.
You are forgetting that in a hydrogen society - there is now room to bring nuclear power back into the picture. Now people have the potential to create hydrogen on a vast scale far away from any place that might have political fallout.
In spite of all the bad press, the fact is that nuclear is still the safest, cheapest, and most environemtally friendly energy source ever created. IMHO, it's bad wrap had far more to do with its threat to OPEC then it ever had to do with safety or radiation.
Maybe they only see Novell as becomming successfull because they want to split in the Linux industry - and make it so all the players are fighting and trying to destroy each other rather than competiting and posing a genuine threat to Microsoft.
I really don't know how true this is other than the simple fact that I've had a lot better success with Linux security than windows security. But I think this also misses another point - that this is as much about controll as it is security.
Perhaps my house would more secure if only Microsoft managed all the access in and out of it too. But the reality is, that's the kind of controll I want to have - not them. The same is true with *MY* os systems too.
Just renember that high tech German economy in 1935, and all those prestigious investors who put their money in it.
One day we are going to half to learn the lesson that free markets are not about markets, but about freedoms. When you have freedoms, you get the growth AND the stability that won't lead to disaster down the road.
And renember how we sold out on Austria to Germany, well lets renember Hong Kong for a minute here too.
This is pretty heady stuff that would take years of study (ie a degree in economics) to be able to make an informed opinion about and not be just making stuff up. Can you back up these claims with historical, scientific proof? That would be really great.
Maybe some proof, maybe not enough, but I'm really glad you mentioned that though becuase it reminds me of another thing that is really offensive to me. Since they're the ones taking the money coercively, the burdon of proof is those who want to take it, not me. But I have never seem them give proof.
No I've seen politicians give allot of bullshit, take allot of money, and when things don't get solved - then they insist they get more money cuse that's they need to "just get it to work forever" because the problem was that they "never got enough to begin with". Well bullshit, where's their historical scientific proof?
I find your attitude offensive. There are so many honest people in the world who have had desperate circumstances, unequal wealth, and bad situations - and who were good honest and even productive inspite of it all. In fact, the history if the United States is made of such people. You really slap these people in the face when you suggest that "well all we need is the right circumstances"
The best way of all to stop crime it to show people that they are destined by choices and not curcumstances. The second best way is to set a good example.
Taking money from one set of people just because they have more - is a great way to teach people why it's ok to steal and take things - just because you percieve you need it more than they do. Making social programs that center arround circumstance is a great way to teach people that it's not about their choices but their situations. It would seem to me that all of those would have the exact opposite effect as intended.
Not to mention that history has shown that the only effective way to reduce poverty and bad situations is to increase freedoms - especially economic freedoms, a progreesive tax does just the opposite. It's like that saying - if you can shit on one wealthy man - then you can shit on 10000 poor men.
Those 6 points were interesting, but point I got from it for public schools was something like - You should try to make a system to work that isn't inherently working anyhow!
No, anybody tries that in the public school system is going to find that the harder they try and the more they care about kids, the more they will be punished. This is exactly the kind of accountability we don't want.
When I was a kid, I always wondered why it cost less per student to send me to a prestigious private prep boarding school ranked near top every year then it did the state to send all those public school kids to gettho high in LA. This guy hit it right on the head - the public school system is inherently anti education and the only real solution is to shutdown the whold goddam thing so something real can take it's place.
In the next few years, it will be easier to nuke every city in the planet than it will be to reign in the unrestricted flow of information. The Media industries simply can't maintain their monopoly alone anymore, so they're trying to microregulate all the technology industries and fear monger everyone else.
PS: which executive candidate do you think is in the pocket of the media industries, and which do you think is in the pocket of the tech industries?