If someone has successfully patented a living organism, then the whole patent system needs to be revisited.
Sadly, patenting of living organisms is very old news. It's been done over and over in respect of certain crops. Yes indeed, folks, the very food that we eat is subject to patent and royalties.
To see a fine example of one farmer who has been and is currently being stomped by a large multinational (Monsanto) over this issue, go here
I can't see how one could put any construction on the farmer's behaviour, as he himself described it, other than that he wanted to farm the genetically modified canola but didn't want to pay the licence fees.
How about this:
Seeds (or whatever) were blown onto his property due to a naturally-occurring process. Wind, what-have-you. The farmer, noticing that this process is happening and is not under his control decides that it will be impossible in a practical sense to remove all of the genetically-engineered "contamination" from his otherwise organic crop, and his only real option will be to make the best of a bad situation and try to use what he now has - a crop at least partially containing genetically modified seeds that he didn't ask for in the first place. The alternative (suing Monsanto for damages) is a bit beyond what the average old-time farmer would be comfortable doing.
anyone using the microsoft extensions were basically using built in features of the OS that were really hard to get at via the builtin interfaces...
Which defeats Java's entire purpose and reason-for-existence.
Cross-platform write-once-run-anywhere is what Java was build and designed for. If you want to write a program that will run on Windows boxes only, writing it in some bastardized Java seems a bit inefficient to say the least when many other Windows-only programming languages are readily available.
If ISS follows these guidelines, then any evidence of the vulnerability being actively used will mean an immediate (or at least accelerated) release of information.
And when it's my network that gets cracked and becomes the "evidence of the vulnerability being actively used" I'll be a whole lot less than happy to discover that "We knew all about this problem 29 days ago but didn't bother to tell you about it."
It's cold comfort to be told that your house is the first one to be burned down by the known-to-everyone-but-you faulty wiring when you're sitting in the middle of the smoking ruins.
Next up... Elevator music royaltie fees for large building owners.
Large and small building owners already have to pay royalties if they play music in their elevators. Next up, nothing. It's here now! Click here and read section 6 where elevators are specifically mentioned as being covered by the royalty requirement.
Most taxi regulation that I'm familiar with establish maximum fare rates and not the fare rate. While most/all taxicabs charge the maximum allowed rate there is (theoretically) nothing wrong with someone charging less than the maximum.
Funny thing about Free software. You *can't* kill it.
Wrong. That's what software patents are for.
I suspect that if this software patent stuff goes too far, much of the high-technology industry will simply pack up and move to a more "sane" location and leave that technologically-backward country called the USA. It's a big world; look at the number of companies that currently outsource to outfits in India.
The software industry isn't like Ford Motors, for example, where you require thousands of unionized blue-collar workers, multi-million dollar factories and so forth.
Ultimately, free software will continue to flourish, just not "openly" in New York and Los Angeles. But folks just across the line in Ottawa (or Bangladesh, for that matter) will be doing just fine, thank you very much.
What would be really awesome is if Linksys could put something on the router's HTML admin pages that would let you check for firmware upgrades and then install them from the browser so it wouldn't matter what OS you used.
Dlink does something similar to that. The DI704 and DI704P (maybe others too) can be updated by downloading the firmware from their site and then uploading it to the router through your web browser. They also provide a Windows executable to run but if you don't have that you can just update the thing using any os and a web browser.
Just download and install privoxy It's available for both Linux and Windows, and it's based on junkbuster but is much more powerful. The default settings will clear out 90+% of the banner ads and other distractions and you can fine-tune it to catch even more.
Exactly - your attendance is required as part of your civic duty. You're not an employee, you're a citizen: you pay taxes, register for the draft, and occasionally have to leave work for a day to sit on a jury. In return, you get the protection of the constitution and bill of rights, state constitution, citizenship, the US Armed Forces, state militias and local police covering your back. In Canada, you get the above in Canadian form, plus socialized health care.
Oddly enough, I was under the impression that was what I pay taxes for.
You actually owe them, is the basic theory,
Indeed.
Well, I suppose we could also cover the inequity (in my opinion) of requiring people to pay large dollars to defend themselves in court when, if the charges turn out to be unfounded ("Not Guilty") the accused person is still out his assets. If the accused had to sell his house, car, and so on to pay his defence bill, then is found not guilty, where is the justice in that? Prosecutors, judges and everyone EXCEPT the defence are paid by the state and nobody is "out" personally if the prosecution loses its case except for the poor sap who got hauled into court. And no, "You are entitled to a lawyer, here is a third-rate ambulance chaser who will advise you to plead guilty and sleep through the trial if you refuse" isn't the answer.
So if I'm a professional and I charge $100/hour and it takes me 3 hours to do the work, I can't take them to court?
But, if I hire out my friend to do the work at $100/hour then I can?
Courts are a funny beast. If you're a professional and your time is worth $100/hour, guess how much you get paid if you have to report for jury duty? $15/day, maybe. I've never understood that. The judge and the lawyers get far more than $15/day but the jury (who everyone says has the most important job of anyone in the court room) gets $15/day. Don't want to work for $15/day? Tough. Work for the $15/day or go to jail.
The great news here, though, is that there is this media engine that we're putting out. We're hoping that GNOME, KDE, Motif/Lesstif and other toolkit-specific GUIs emerge for these (similarly to what has happened with Galeon and Netscape's Gecko engine). We'd love to help facilitate that type of an effort.
IANAL, but its my understanding that in any work for hire the resulting product's copyright is owned by the person or entity that paid for its development unless explicitly written otherwise
Don't bet on it. "Professional photographers" claim that the copyrights to pictures they take of your wedding are owned by them.
On the other hand, the GNU license prevents you from adding secret sauce without disclosing the ingredients.
No, you can add your own secret sauce if the burger is for your own consumption and nobody will object. However, when you pour a mysterious liquid over the burger and offer it to the guy sitting at the next table, he is entitled to ask you what's in it and he doesn't have to eat it unless you tell him.
I hate to defend MS. Ghawd, I hate to defend MS. But you have a couple of points here that need to be addressed:
b) don't use 80% of the 'features.'
That is likely true. However, the the 20% of the features that you use are not likely the same 20% of the features that someone else is using. Therefore, if you want 20% of the features for less "bloat" which 80% do you want to remove? The 80% that you are not using, I suppose. But what does that do to the next guy over who's using a feature that you're not?
Did anyone really want a word processor to be able to produce html?
Yes, as a matter of fact. I use the "save as html" feature in OpenOffice and AbiWord on a regular basis when I create a quick-and-dirty notice that I print out (for posting in a window) and for posting on the Internet. I also email copies of the notice to several people, but that's a separate issue.
the media companies will be satified when digital copies are imposable.
I doubt it. They try to come down hard on anyone who smuggles a video camera into a theatre even though the resulting "screener" isn't usually worth a damn as far as quality goes.
in California, where neither party can be represented by a lawyer in small claims court.
So if a large corporation is sued in small claims court for whatever, who represents them? A member of their legal department? The mailroom secretary? Joe Bloggs down the hall in Janitorial?
The definition in the article makes it sound like games where you pay for access to a third-party server (like Blizzard or whatever) are still banned as you would be "enriching" someone else.
Surely the copyrights have run out on Mozart and Bach.
Yes, but not on the arrangements. Bach performed by the Boston Philharmonic is copyrighted. Bach sheet music is copyrighted by whoever made the particular arrangement that you're reading. The "original" Bach composition is public domain, of course, if you can find it. But if it's written for a tromba marina with harpsichord accommpaniment then good luck playing it.
The artist should have the option to maintain his copyright, unless he signs it over voluntarily.
Why is this "artist" more artistic than, say, an architect that I hire to design a house for me? He doesn't say that I can't have anyone other than him paint the house after it's completed - I can have anyone paint it that I choose. Later on, if I decide to add another room to it I don't have to go back to the original architect and ask for "permission" to modify what is, after all, MY house.
As I see it, if I hire someone to take pictures for me that is no different than hiring someone to build a fence for me. Here's the job to be done, here is your money to do it. On completion and payment, the carpenter doesn't own any rights to my fence, why should the photographer own rights to my pictures?
Wow...Roundup Ready seeds just happen to volunteer themselves in the same neat rows you planted your regular seeds in?
Second year, sure. Volunteer the first year, save and replant the second year.
why should the farmer not be entitled to keep the seeds/plants that have just showed up on his property? Except it's been shown that it's not the case.
you don't go spraying your growing crops with Roundup unless you've purchased Roundup Ready seed from Monsanto
Or unless you suspect that some Roundup-resistant seeds might have "volunteered" in a corner of your field and you want to see if that is indeed the case. If it is, then why should the farmer not be entitled to keep the seeds/plants that have just showed up on his property? "I didn't ask for these things, but since they came by themselves I guess I'll use them."
Slashdot Mirror
If someone has successfully patented a living organism, then the whole patent system needs to be revisited.
Sadly, patenting of living organisms is very old news. It's been done over and over in respect of certain crops. Yes indeed, folks, the very food that we eat is subject to patent and royalties.
To see a fine example of one farmer who has been and is currently being stomped by a large multinational (Monsanto) over this issue, go here
Do they have to pay a royalty?
"Congratulations, it's a boy! That'll be $1.50."
In the USA they do indeed have to pay a royalty if the mice breed. There's really nothing "funny" about it, contrary to the moderator's viewpoint.
I can't see how one could put any construction on the farmer's behaviour, as he himself described it, other than that he wanted to farm the genetically modified canola but didn't want to pay the licence fees.
How about this:
Seeds (or whatever) were blown onto his property due to a naturally-occurring process. Wind, what-have-you. The farmer, noticing that this process is happening and is not under his control decides that it will be impossible in a practical sense to remove all of the genetically-engineered "contamination" from his otherwise organic crop, and his only real option will be to make the best of a bad situation and try to use what he now has - a crop at least partially containing genetically modified seeds that he didn't ask for in the first place. The alternative (suing Monsanto for damages) is a bit beyond what the average old-time farmer would be comfortable doing.
anyone using the microsoft extensions were basically using built in features of the OS that were really hard to get at via the builtin interfaces...
Which defeats Java's entire purpose and reason-for-existence.
Cross-platform write-once-run-anywhere is what Java was build and designed for. If you want to write a program that will run on Windows boxes only, writing it in some bastardized Java seems a bit inefficient to say the least when many other Windows-only programming languages are readily available.
If ISS follows these guidelines, then any evidence of the vulnerability being actively used will mean an immediate (or at least accelerated) release of information.
And when it's my network that gets cracked and becomes the "evidence of the vulnerability being actively used" I'll be a whole lot less than happy to discover that "We knew all about this problem 29 days ago but didn't bother to tell you about it."
It's cold comfort to be told that your house is the first one to be burned down by the known-to-everyone-but-you faulty wiring when you're sitting in the middle of the smoking ruins.
Next up... Elevator music royaltie fees for large building owners.
Large and small building owners already have to pay royalties if they play music in their elevators. Next up, nothing. It's here now! Click here and read section 6 where elevators are specifically mentioned as being covered by the royalty requirement.
Most taxi regulation that I'm familiar with establish maximum fare rates and not the fare rate. While most/all taxicabs charge the maximum allowed rate there is (theoretically) nothing wrong with someone charging less than the maximum.
Ever notice how "authentication" is never a problem with cash?
"This cashier is equipped with an automated counterfeit currency detector. Currency used at this counter will be randomly verified."
Care to say that again?
Funny thing about Free software. You *can't* kill it.
Wrong. That's what software patents are for.
I suspect that if this software patent stuff goes too far, much of the high-technology industry will simply pack up and move to a more "sane" location and leave that technologically-backward country called the USA. It's a big world; look at the number of companies that currently outsource to outfits in India.
The software industry isn't like Ford Motors, for example, where you require thousands of unionized blue-collar workers, multi-million dollar factories and so forth.
Ultimately, free software will continue to flourish, just not "openly" in New York and Los Angeles. But folks just across the line in Ottawa (or Bangladesh, for that matter) will be doing just fine, thank you very much.
In my opinion, of course.
What would be really awesome is if Linksys could put something on the router's HTML admin pages that would let you check for firmware upgrades and then install them from the browser so it wouldn't matter what OS you used.
Dlink does something similar to that. The DI704 and DI704P (maybe others too) can be updated by downloading the firmware from their site and then uploading it to the router through your web browser. They also provide a Windows executable to run but if you don't have that you can just update the thing using any os and a web browser.
they could figure out a way into the mailbox, but all they would hear are the conversations they've already had.
And delete them. "Press 3 to delete all pending messages." *bleep*
So much for the evidence.
Just download and install privoxy It's available for both Linux and Windows, and it's based on junkbuster but is much more powerful. The default settings will clear out 90+% of the banner ads and other distractions and you can fine-tune it to catch even more.
Exactly - your attendance is required as part of your civic duty. You're not an employee, you're a citizen: you pay taxes, register for the draft, and occasionally have to leave work for a day to sit on a jury. In return, you get the protection of the constitution and bill of rights, state constitution, citizenship, the US Armed Forces, state militias and local police covering your back. In Canada, you get the above in Canadian form, plus socialized health care.
Oddly enough, I was under the impression that was what I pay taxes for.
You actually owe them, is the basic theory,
Indeed.
Well, I suppose we could also cover the inequity (in my opinion) of requiring people to pay large dollars to defend themselves in court when, if the charges turn out to be unfounded ("Not Guilty") the accused person is still out his assets. If the accused had to sell his house, car, and so on to pay his defence bill, then is found not guilty, where is the justice in that? Prosecutors, judges and everyone EXCEPT the defence are paid by the state and nobody is "out" personally if the prosecution loses its case except for the poor sap who got hauled into court. And no, "You are entitled to a lawyer, here is a third-rate ambulance chaser who will advise you to plead guilty and sleep through the trial if you refuse" isn't the answer.
So if I'm a professional and I charge $100/hour and it takes me 3 hours to do the work, I can't take them to court?
But, if I hire out my friend to do the work at $100/hour then I can?
Courts are a funny beast. If you're a professional and your time is worth $100/hour, guess how much you get paid if you have to report for jury duty? $15/day, maybe. I've never understood that. The judge and the lawyers get far more than $15/day but the jury (who everyone says has the most important job of anyone in the court room) gets $15/day. Don't want to work for $15/day? Tough. Work for the $15/day or go to jail.
The great news here, though, is that there is this media engine that we're putting out. We're hoping that GNOME, KDE, Motif/Lesstif and other toolkit-specific GUIs emerge for these (similarly to what has happened with Galeon and Netscape's Gecko engine). We'd love to help facilitate that type of an effort.
So this translates to "No. Write one yourself."
Or am I missing something here?
IANAL, but its my understanding that in any work for hire the resulting product's copyright is owned by the person or entity that paid for its development unless explicitly written otherwise
Don't bet on it. "Professional photographers" claim that the copyrights to pictures they take of your wedding are owned by them.
On the other hand, the GNU license prevents you from adding secret sauce without disclosing the ingredients.
No, you can add your own secret sauce if the burger is for your own consumption and nobody will object. However, when you pour a mysterious liquid over the burger and offer it to the guy sitting at the next table, he is entitled to ask you what's in it and he doesn't have to eat it unless you tell him.
I hate to defend MS. Ghawd, I hate to defend MS. But you have a couple of points here that need to be addressed:
b) don't use 80% of the 'features.'
That is likely true. However, the the 20% of the features that you use are not likely the same 20% of the features that someone else is using. Therefore, if you want 20% of the features for less "bloat" which 80% do you want to remove? The 80% that you are not using, I suppose. But what does that do to the next guy over who's using a feature that you're not?
Did anyone really want a word processor to be able to produce html?
Yes, as a matter of fact. I use the "save as html" feature in OpenOffice and AbiWord on a regular basis when I create a quick-and-dirty notice that I print out (for posting in a window) and for posting on the Internet. I also email copies of the notice to several people, but that's a separate issue.
the media companies will be satified when digital copies are imposable.
I doubt it. They try to come down hard on anyone who smuggles a video camera into a theatre even though the resulting "screener" isn't usually worth a damn as far as quality goes.
in California, where neither party can be represented by a lawyer in small claims court.
So if a large corporation is sued in small claims court for whatever, who represents them? A member of their legal department? The mailroom secretary? Joe Bloggs down the hall in Janitorial?
The definition in the article makes it sound like games where you pay for access to a third-party server (like Blizzard or whatever) are still banned as you would be "enriching" someone else.
Surely the copyrights have run out on Mozart and Bach.
Yes, but not on the arrangements. Bach performed by the Boston Philharmonic is copyrighted. Bach sheet music is copyrighted by whoever made the particular arrangement that you're reading. The "original" Bach composition is public domain, of course, if you can find it. But if it's written for a tromba marina with harpsichord accommpaniment then good luck playing it.
The artist should have the option to maintain his copyright, unless he signs it over voluntarily.
Why is this "artist" more artistic than, say, an architect that I hire to design a house for me? He doesn't say that I can't have anyone other than him paint the house after it's completed - I can have anyone paint it that I choose. Later on, if I decide to add another room to it I don't have to go back to the original architect and ask for "permission" to modify what is, after all, MY house.
As I see it, if I hire someone to take pictures for me that is no different than hiring someone to build a fence for me. Here's the job to be done, here is your money to do it. On completion and payment, the carpenter doesn't own any rights to my fence, why should the photographer own rights to my pictures?
Wow...Roundup Ready seeds just happen to volunteer themselves in the same neat rows you planted your regular seeds in?
Second year, sure. Volunteer the first year, save and replant the second year.
why should the farmer not be entitled to keep the seeds/plants that have just showed up on his property?
Except it's been shown that it's not the case.
It has? I beg to differ!
you don't go spraying your growing crops with Roundup unless you've purchased Roundup Ready seed from Monsanto
Or unless you suspect that some Roundup-resistant seeds might have "volunteered" in a corner of your field and you want to see if that is indeed the case. If it is, then why should the farmer not be entitled to keep the seeds/plants that have just showed up on his property? "I didn't ask for these things, but since they came by themselves I guess I'll use them."