The article you link is about IBM having to give more AIX/Dynix code for SCO to rummage through but they still haven't found anything in the code for the released versions of said software that IBM already sent them.
As for the other SCO litigations, the Novel one is about Unix, the DC one was about certification of compliance with their Unix license, the Autozone one is about alleged use of SCO libraries on Linux (but given that they don't come with the typical Linux distribution and that it is just SCO's belief that Autozone must be using SCO's library to have been able to migrate so fast it is only tangentially about Linux).
The only 3 parts were Linux is directly in court are:
1. IBM's eighth counterclaim. That is that SCO infringed IBM's copyright on the IBM owned portions of the Linux kernel.
2. IBM's claim for declaratory judgement of non-infringement on its Linux activity. It's to stop SCO saying that IBM infringes SCO's copyright with its Linux activity (they will have to prove it to defeat it and continue saying so).
3. The Redhat suit which is similar for Redhat to what point 2. is for IBM. This is currently stayed.
So while Linux is in the court it is in attack position rather than defence.
Of course it is only a matter of time before there is a software patent lawsuit against Linux but it hasn't happened yet.
"First of all, patents are by definition granted for inventions that aren't obvious."
Tell that to the USPTO they don't seem to know it.
"But aside from that, if it did happen that Person A were to create an invention and get a patent, then Person B were to invent the exact same thing independently, nobody would say that Person B didn't own his invention. It's just that he didn't get there first, which means he couldn't use his invention until Person A's patent expired."
If you really believe that then it means you believe that you do not need to have a patent on an invention to own it. So if people don't need patent to own inventions then what do we need patent for?
"Now, here's why that never, ever happens: When you get a patent, you have to send in a detailed description of your invention. That description goes into a database. When Person B starts working on an invention, he goes forth and does a patent search to see if anybody has gotten there before him. When he finds Person A's patent and realizes that he's been beaten to it, he decides to invest his labor in inventing something else instead, maybe in materially improving Person A's invention."
Quite funny, but here is why your scenario almost never, ever happens:
1. Both person A and B start developing their invention at a similar time so that when they do a patent search they don't see any relevant prior art. When the first one files for a patent he is in the clear but when the second one files for a patent he is screwed (even if it was just 1 day later because his kid got very sick and he had to go to the hospital). Who are you to say that the first one deserve all the money from the patent fro his hard work and the second deserve nothing?
2. Even if A had already filed for a patent when B starts his project, given that patent applications are not made public at filing time he still wouldn't find any relevant prior art in his patent search.
3. Even if A's patent application was published when B makes his patent search, B, not being a lawyer would not be able to determine whether his idea infringes or not on A's patent application. And if he think it doesn't but A convinces a judge/jury that his patent is broad enough to cover B's ideas then B is liable for treble damages for trying to do the right thing.
4. Number 3 is even assuming that B can find A's patent among the thousands that might apply to his software.
5. So as to avoid treble damage because he can't interpret the lawyerspeak in the patent application our developer employ a patent attorney to survey the thousand of software patent to be sure that his software doesn't infringe any of them.
Because of 3, 4 and 5, trying to use patents to avoid duplicating other people's effort is a waste of time and money. By the time the patent review is over you don't have a penny left for developing the software (unless you have a few billions in the banks like MS, IBM...) and your competitors, who wisely eschewed to do a patent search, have developed three generations of software in the intervening time, meaning your ideas aren't that novel anymore.
Patents are supposed to help innovation by making inventors disclose their inventions in exchange of a monopoly but the fact is that for all practical purposes patents are write only, you can write new ones but it is conterproductive to try to read the existing ones (because of their lawyerspeak and their number). This write-only nature of modern patent means that they don't serve the goal that they were created for.
"So two things: One, you don't understand how patents work, and two, you don't understand that patents are actually beneficial because they help people to avoid duplicating other people's effort."
It is patent that you are the one who doesn't understand how they work. You know the theory of how they are supposed to work, but this just isn't how they work in the real world.
No problem. Either using Linux (or BSD...) gives you a competitive advantage to a company or it does not.
If it does, the companies using it are more likely to survive than those not using it (given other variables are the same) and so in the long run your company is less likely to survive due to your refusal to use it and it not using it won't be a problem when it goes under.
If it does not, then given that you don't seem to care about the Freedom coming with Linux then using Windows is just as good a choice for you.
In other word, don't choose your platform because of your like or dislike of some of tis users, use it if it gives you something you need and/or want (better performance, scalability, more Freedom to switch provider,...).
And if you don't want to have anything to do with Linux because of Bruce you might want to try FreeBSD or Darwin/MacOSX instead, so if your Windows system is down due to a virus/crash/... at a crucial point in a case you do have an alternative to fall back on.
"If you want to convince people to stop thinking of the product of their own labor as their property, you're gonna have to be a little more persuasive than this."
Ah, but you see, it is exactly what the pro-patent people do, they say that the product of your own labour is not your property because they did the same (similar) labor themselves and got the same (similar) product.
So the difference is between telling 99 people that the product of their labor is not theirs AT ALL (because the 1st of 100 patented it and they can't use it anymore) and telling 100 people that the product of their labors is not theirs EXCLUSIVELY (they can still use it but so can everyone else).
"By the way, just how long is Barlow going to coast on co-writing some Grateful Dead lyrics forty years ago? Isn't there a statute of limitations or something?"
"Well of course they are. They're different characters. They have completely different personalities. Would you rather have them be clones of other more developed characters?"
True, also I must say that I prefer McKay in Atlantis than in SG1 and his development so far is encouraging.
"Because all the actors who showed up had the annoying habit of having a mouth full teeth."
So they all had plenty of very pointy teeth?
Instead of putting some plastic to look like sharp teeth they could have put plastic to look like gums as they don't need any teeth.
Deep Thought was supposed to be the most powerful computer (or something to the same effect) but when turned on he declared himself the second most powerful one but that he would design (but not construct, that's what Staliblarfast's (sp?) race did) and what he designed was Earth.
But somewhen its indigenous population (which was an integral part of the computer) was replaced by the occupants of the B Ark so the result it was supposed to find (the answer to life, the universe and everything was forty-two, which Deep Thought found but the question to it, like in Jeopardy, was to be calculated by Earth) was wrong.
So instead of getting:
6 * 7 = 42
they got
6 * 9 = 54
But 42 in base 13 is:
4 * 13 + 2 = 54
So you could write this while being correct (in base 13):
6 * 9 = 42 (in base 13)
So some geeks thought that the answer (42) was given in base 13, thus making what was the wrong question given by Earth seem like the correct one.
Personally I think that it would be more correct that any question other than 6 * 7 could be the correct one.
Why? Because it is theorised in the series that if the answer to life, the universe and everything and its question were ever put together (or both found, it's been some time since I last read it) the Universe would disappear and be replaced by an even weirder, more complicated one (another theory says it already happened).
Given that how much is 6 * 7 and 42 are quite often put together the Universe would have disappeared a long time ago (as soon as Maths were invented) so it can't be the correct question. Neither can any other question whose normal answer is 42.
On the other hand, if 5 * 2 = 42 (as an example) was the correct question/answer and was therefore true we would have to redo all of our mathematics and everything that depends on it (most/all of science) to integrate that new fact (like new discoveries disprove old scientific theories) and it would make all of it much more complicated to fit it in, which ties it nicely with the universe being replaced by a more complicated and confusing one if it ever happened (even though it would still be the same).
Is it what DNA was thining of? Maybe not, but I find it a more compelling theory than the base 13 one (which only tries to claim that the reprogrammed-with-B-Ark-passengers Earth still gave the right answer).
"(In addition, I recall hearing about some 80's soap/drama like Dynasty where part of one season turned out to be a dream?)"
I didn't know about the other references but the one you are talking about is Dallas in which one of the character, JR Ewing, was killed at some point and when they realised it was a mistake he came out of the shower, fully alive again, saying "what an horrible dream".
Hell, I haven't even watched it (was too young to care then) but still heard about it with plenty of details so it's quite well known.
The problem with the wraith is that they feed like vampire (only sucking life force directly with their hand instead of sucking blood), look like vampire (pale skin and way more than two pointy and elongated teeth*) but they ain't got the class of vampires (they've got arrogance and mannerisms but that's it) or their power (except that they are stronger and more resilient than human, they still can't transform into bats, manipulate weak minds or rise from the dead once killed though).
Let's face it, wraith are vampires that can go into the sun but are neutered by the fact that S:A is Sci-Fi and not fantasy.
Sheppard is a CC of O'neil but not too bad a copy (with a sometime annoying style) and different enough to be interesting.
McKay is a poor replacement for Carter but seems to be evolving (like when he want to go help Sheppard with the lone survivor of the wraith ship and when he keeps his wits about him when he faces death with the nanite plague).
Teyla is a poor replacement for Teal'c so far as the token alien, but at least she smiles more;) and her pecs are more interestingly developed.
As for Weir, while I grew to like her new self I must say that I liked her old self (at the end of SG1's last season) better.
Still, I rather like Atlantis overall and am eager to see how it will grow in the next seasons (and second part of season one which I haven't seen yet).
* Why do they have teeth like carnivores? Heck, why do they have teeth at all?
Which is his point. They haven't sued anyone over WoW yet like they did (well, Vivendi did) over Battle.Net so they aren't running WoW like they did Battle.Net until they sue someone.
First, just because some are worse than Bush doesn't excuse him from starting wars under false pretence.
Second, it is telling that you thought that the poster was talking about war when he didn't mention war at all. If Bush was such a peaceful guy why would you automatically make the connection between him and war when the poster did not mention war at all?
Third, the poster didn't mention war, maybe what he had in mind was the loss of civil rights that is currently taking place in the US, or the religious bigotry (changing the constitution to suit his personal religious belief? How sick is that), or the huge deficit he is piling up...
As for the war and all the lies Bush told to drum support for it, where is Kenneth Star when you really need him to investigate a president's lies?
It depends on the ciphers and their mathematical properties but for some ciphers it would weaken them (like rot13) and for others it can strenghten them (like triple-DES).
If a new generation open to new ideas doesn't regularly replace the old one then the rate of change of societies would slow down dramatically.
It would be even worse because those with the new ideas will be those with the less power on average (due to being younger).
One the other hand, once there are enough young people to challenge the established elders the change should take place anyway (most likely during revolutions given how hard it is for people to let go of ideas they are comfortable with).
"We assume that the patches are equally likely to occur at any point in the code."
But your assumption is wrong, a part of the kernel that is actively being developed is more likely to have patches applied to it at frequent intervals.
A LRM assumption is more likely to be correct. That is code that was recently modified is most likely to be modified (because it is actively developed) while a Least Recently Modified part is less likely to be modified because it is stable code. Of course once in a while an LRM portion will get heavily modified because it needs modernising... but it should increase the half life of the kernel significantly.
"Oh, I see. So because someone does something that's wrong, they can never talk about it, or post stories if someone else does the same wrong thing?"
Michael never apologised for his behaviour or tried to correct it so it is certainly highly hypocritical of him to say that it is wrong for others to do something when he himself is doing the same thing he is denouncing.
It's like an adulterer throwing a stone to a libertine.
Slashdot Mirror
Now that there have been some significant changes at the head of Canopy have you asked them again to divest?
They might not be any more responding than the Yarro led canopy but then again, they might.
Almost.
The article you link is about IBM having to give more AIX/Dynix code for SCO to rummage through but they still haven't found anything in the code for the released versions of said software that IBM already sent them.
As for the other SCO litigations, the Novel one is about Unix, the DC one was about certification of compliance with their Unix license, the Autozone one is about alleged use of SCO libraries on Linux (but given that they don't come with the typical Linux distribution and that it is just SCO's belief that Autozone must be using SCO's library to have been able to migrate so fast it is only tangentially about Linux).
The only 3 parts were Linux is directly in court are:
1. IBM's eighth counterclaim. That is that SCO infringed IBM's copyright on the IBM owned portions of the Linux kernel.
2. IBM's claim for declaratory judgement of non-infringement on its Linux activity. It's to stop SCO saying that IBM infringes SCO's copyright with its Linux activity (they will have to prove it to defeat it and continue saying so).
3. The Redhat suit which is similar for Redhat to what point 2. is for IBM. This is currently stayed.
So while Linux is in the court it is in attack position rather than defence.
Of course it is only a matter of time before there is a software patent lawsuit against Linux but it hasn't happened yet.
"First of all, patents are by definition granted for inventions that aren't obvious."
Tell that to the USPTO they don't seem to know it.
"But aside from that, if it did happen that Person A were to create an invention and get a patent, then Person B were to invent the exact same thing independently, nobody would say that Person B didn't own his invention. It's just that he didn't get there first, which means he couldn't use his invention until Person A's patent expired."
If you really believe that then it means you believe that you do not need to have a patent on an invention to own it. So if people don't need patent to own inventions then what do we need patent for?
"Now, here's why that never, ever happens: When you get a patent, you have to send in a detailed description of your invention. That description goes into a database. When Person B starts working on an invention, he goes forth and does a patent search to see if anybody has gotten there before him. When he finds Person A's patent and realizes that he's been beaten to it, he decides to invest his labor in inventing something else instead, maybe in materially improving Person A's invention."
Quite funny, but here is why your scenario almost never, ever happens:
1. Both person A and B start developing their invention at a similar time so that when they do a patent search they don't see any relevant prior art. When the first one files for a patent he is in the clear but when the second one files for a patent he is screwed (even if it was just 1 day later because his kid got very sick and he had to go to the hospital). Who are you to say that the first one deserve all the money from the patent fro his hard work and the second deserve nothing?
2. Even if A had already filed for a patent when B starts his project, given that patent applications are not made public at filing time he still wouldn't find any relevant prior art in his patent search.
3. Even if A's patent application was published when B makes his patent search, B, not being a lawyer would not be able to determine whether his idea infringes or not on A's patent application. And if he think it doesn't but A convinces a judge/jury that his patent is broad enough to cover B's ideas then B is liable for treble damages for trying to do the right thing.
4. Number 3 is even assuming that B can find A's patent among the thousands that might apply to his software.
5. So as to avoid treble damage because he can't interpret the lawyerspeak in the patent application our developer employ a patent attorney to survey the thousand of software patent to be sure that his software doesn't infringe any of them.
Because of 3, 4 and 5, trying to use patents to avoid duplicating other people's effort is a waste of time and money. By the time the patent review is over you don't have a penny left for developing the software (unless you have a few billions in the banks like MS, IBM...) and your competitors, who wisely eschewed to do a patent search, have developed three generations of software in the intervening time, meaning your ideas aren't that novel anymore.
Patents are supposed to help innovation by making inventors disclose their inventions in exchange of a monopoly but the fact is that for all practical purposes patents are write only, you can write new ones but it is conterproductive to try to read the existing ones (because of their lawyerspeak and their number). This write-only nature of modern patent means that they don't serve the goal that they were created for.
"So two things: One, you don't understand how patents work, and two, you don't understand that patents are actually beneficial because they help people to avoid duplicating other people's effort."
It is patent that you are the one who doesn't understand how they work. You know the theory of how they are supposed to work, but this just isn't how they work in the real world.
If they pay early you give them a reference that in your file describe how much to deduct when they use it.
If they don't pay early they don't get a reference and so don't get the discount applied to the next bill.
If they don't employ you again then you got paid early and didn't have to pay for it.
I'm not saying it's forcibly better but it's worth thinking about.
No problem. Either using Linux (or BSD...) gives you a competitive advantage to a company or it does not.
If it does, the companies using it are more likely to survive than those not using it (given other variables are the same) and so in the long run your company is less likely to survive due to your refusal to use it and it not using it won't be a problem when it goes under.
If it does not, then given that you don't seem to care about the Freedom coming with Linux then using Windows is just as good a choice for you.
In other word, don't choose your platform because of your like or dislike of some of tis users, use it if it gives you something you need and/or want (better performance, scalability, more Freedom to switch provider,...).
And if you don't want to have anything to do with Linux because of Bruce you might want to try FreeBSD or Darwin/MacOSX instead, so if your Windows system is down due to a virus/crash/... at a crucial point in a case you do have an alternative to fall back on.
"If you want to convince people to stop thinking of the product of their own labor as their property, you're gonna have to be a little more persuasive than this."
Ah, but you see, it is exactly what the pro-patent people do, they say that the product of your own labour is not your property because they did the same (similar) labor themselves and got the same (similar) product.
So the difference is between telling 99 people that the product of their labor is not theirs AT ALL (because the 1st of 100 patented it and they can't use it anymore) and telling 100 people that the product of their labors is not theirs EXCLUSIVELY (they can still use it but so can everyone else).
"By the way, just how long is Barlow going to coast on co-writing some Grateful Dead lyrics forty years ago? Isn't there a statute of limitations or something?"
There is, it's death+70 years.
"Give them thirty days to pay, but if they pay early knock a couple percent off the bill."
Shouldn't that couple percent be applied to the next bill (so as to encourage them to hire you again)?
So my cat is an alien? Damn, he must have been spying on me all this time.
"Well of course they are. They're different characters. They have completely different personalities. Would you rather have them be clones of other more developed characters?"
True, also I must say that I prefer McKay in Atlantis than in SG1 and his development so far is encouraging.
"Because all the actors who showed up had the annoying habit of having a mouth full teeth."
So they all had plenty of very pointy teeth?
Instead of putting some plastic to look like sharp teeth they could have put plastic to look like gums as they don't need any teeth.
IIRC, Microsoft made SOAP.
Almost.
Deep Thought was supposed to be the most powerful computer (or something to the same effect) but when turned on he declared himself the second most powerful one but that he would design (but not construct, that's what Staliblarfast's (sp?) race did) and what he designed was Earth.
But somewhen its indigenous population (which was an integral part of the computer) was replaced by the occupants of the B Ark so the result it was supposed to find (the answer to life, the universe and everything was forty-two, which Deep Thought found but the question to it, like in Jeopardy, was to be calculated by Earth) was wrong.
So instead of getting:
6 * 7 = 42
they got
6 * 9 = 54
But 42 in base 13 is:
4 * 13 + 2 = 54
So you could write this while being correct (in base 13):
6 * 9 = 42 (in base 13)
So some geeks thought that the answer (42) was given in base 13, thus making what was the wrong question given by Earth seem like the correct one.
Personally I think that it would be more correct that any question other than 6 * 7 could be the correct one.
Why? Because it is theorised in the series that if the answer to life, the universe and everything and its question were ever put together (or both found, it's been some time since I last read it) the Universe would disappear and be replaced by an even weirder, more complicated one (another theory says it already happened).
Given that how much is 6 * 7 and 42 are quite often put together the Universe would have disappeared a long time ago (as soon as Maths were invented) so it can't be the correct question. Neither can any other question whose normal answer is 42.
On the other hand, if 5 * 2 = 42 (as an example) was the correct question/answer and was therefore true we would have to redo all of our mathematics and everything that depends on it (most/all of science) to integrate that new fact (like new discoveries disprove old scientific theories) and it would make all of it much more complicated to fit it in, which ties it nicely with the universe being replaced by a more complicated and confusing one if it ever happened (even though it would still be the same).
Is it what DNA was thining of? Maybe not, but I find it a more compelling theory than the base 13 one (which only tries to claim that the reprogrammed-with-B-Ark-passengers Earth still gave the right answer).
"I saw Firefly and it showed me that Spaceships, distopic future, and westerns don't stitch together well if you try to do it too tightly"
Don't do it too tightly then... and you get Star Wars (the original trilogy anyway).
"(In addition, I recall hearing about some 80's soap/drama like Dynasty where part of one season turned out to be a dream?)"
I didn't know about the other references but the one you are talking about is Dallas in which one of the character, JR Ewing, was killed at some point and when they realised it was a mistake he came out of the shower, fully alive again, saying "what an horrible dream".
Hell, I haven't even watched it (was too young to care then) but still heard about it with plenty of details so it's quite well known.
The problem with the wraith is that they feed like vampire (only sucking life force directly with their hand instead of sucking blood), look like vampire (pale skin and way more than two pointy and elongated teeth*) but they ain't got the class of vampires (they've got arrogance and mannerisms but that's it) or their power (except that they are stronger and more resilient than human, they still can't transform into bats, manipulate weak minds or rise from the dead once killed though).
Let's face it, wraith are vampires that can go into the sun but are neutered by the fact that S:A is Sci-Fi and not fantasy.
Sheppard is a CC of O'neil but not too bad a copy (with a sometime annoying style) and different enough to be interesting.
McKay is a poor replacement for Carter but seems to be evolving (like when he want to go help Sheppard with the lone survivor of the wraith ship and when he keeps his wits about him when he faces death with the nanite plague).
Teyla is a poor replacement for Teal'c so far as the token alien, but at least she smiles more
As for Weir, while I grew to like her new self I must say that I liked her old self (at the end of SG1's last season) better.
Still, I rather like Atlantis overall and am eager to see how it will grow in the next seasons (and second part of season one which I haven't seen yet).
* Why do they have teeth like carnivores? Heck, why do they have teeth at all?
Damn, I couldn't find the correct word so I used winch, hoping the idea would get through. Thanks for the correction.
Microsoft enters a market, so there is more competition so the prices drops.
The question is do the prices continue to drop once they have monopolised a market?
If yes then you can say it it MS causing the price drop, if not then it is the principle of competition that does it.
I'm sure you'll find someone with a 100 year old car or so that is started with a winch
Which is his point. They haven't sued anyone over WoW yet like they did (well, Vivendi did) over Battle.Net so they aren't running WoW like they did Battle.Net until they sue someone.
First, just because some are worse than Bush doesn't excuse him from starting wars under false pretence.
Second, it is telling that you thought that the poster was talking about war when he didn't mention war at all. If Bush was such a peaceful guy why would you automatically make the connection between him and war when the poster did not mention war at all?
Third, the poster didn't mention war, maybe what he had in mind was the loss of civil rights that is currently taking place in the US, or the religious bigotry (changing the constitution to suit his personal religious belief? How sick is that), or the huge deficit he is piling up...
As for the war and all the lies Bush told to drum support for it, where is Kenneth Star when you really need him to investigate a president's lies?
It depends on the ciphers and their mathematical properties but for some ciphers it would weaken them (like rot13) and for others it can strenghten them (like triple-DES).
Social calcification.
If a new generation open to new ideas doesn't regularly replace the old one then the rate of change of societies would slow down dramatically.
It would be even worse because those with the new ideas will be those with the less power on average (due to being younger).
One the other hand, once there are enough young people to challenge the established elders the change should take place anyway (most likely during revolutions given how hard it is for people to let go of ideas they are comfortable with).
Well, pyramid schemes are (mentioned) in your sig so I guess I better mod you down
"We assume that the patches are equally likely to occur at any point in the code."
But your assumption is wrong, a part of the kernel that is actively being developed is more likely to have patches applied to it at frequent intervals.
A LRM assumption is more likely to be correct. That is code that was recently modified is most likely to be modified (because it is actively developed) while a Least Recently Modified part is less likely to be modified because it is stable code. Of course once in a while an LRM portion will get heavily modified because it needs modernising... but it should increase the half life of the kernel significantly.
"Oh, I see. So because someone does something that's wrong, they can never talk about it, or post stories if someone else does the same wrong thing?"
Michael never apologised for his behaviour or tried to correct it so it is certainly highly hypocritical of him to say that it is wrong for others to do something when he himself is doing the same thing he is denouncing.
It's like an adulterer throwing a stone to a libertine.