Let us say that you invented a better wheel. You are an everyday joe, not much money to your name. Now, GoodYear comes along, finds out about your wheel, and then starts producing it, at great profit for themselves. What recourse do you now have
Write a book about how you invented the wheel, or have a ghost writer do it for you. Sell millions of copies. Get on Oprah and Geraldo and become a celebrity -- "The (Wo)Man Who Invented the Wheel".
Some people here show no imagination whatsoever. Money this, money that. Profit, profit, profit. How about fame, glory and power? Love? Truth? Beauty?
But, the first time someone tries to TAKE something I have developed myself, WITHOUT my permission, that person will find themselves with a boot up their ass!
How can you TAKE an idea? To take means to remove something from one place and to put it in another place. If I were to TAKE your idea, then you would not have it. We're not talking about mind-wipes here!
There are a lot of issues involved here, many of which overlap to a large degree. So let me just focus on one of them for the moment: patents. If Alice invents something -- say, a knife blade that never needs sharpening -- and patents it in the USA, then the government guarantees her the right to exclusive use of this idea for a few years. This means that if Bob independently discovers the same thing, he is not allowed to use it until Alice's patent lapses -- unless he pays Alice whatever she demands for licensing rights, or unless the government decides that this idea is vital to the public (not likely in this case).
But now look at it from Bob's point of view. Bob probably discovered how to create this knife blade by reading scientific journals -- perhaps the same ones that Alice read. All of science is built upon the notion of community -- scientists and researchers continually build upon each other's work. It's also possible that Bob might have discovered this technique before Alice did -- if Alice can get her patent filed first, that's all that counts.
So who has lost here, and who gained? What's right and what's wrong? I'll leave those unanswered for now.
Should artists be forced to give away their paintings? No. Should authors have to give you a copy of their books? No. Should a farmer have to give you his produce? No.
This is where you fall into the trap. You're mixing everything together as though it were all the same, but it's not.
When an artist paints a painting, he has created at least two things: one is a physical object (a canvas with pigments on it), and the other is an abstraction (a work of art). These are completely separate things, and they're treated differently. Consider the canvas first -- nobody in their right mind would try to argue that it's acceptable to TAKE that physical object from the artist. That's called theft. But what about the work of art -- the particular combination of colors and textures and shapes which the artist created? You can't TAKE that, because it has no physical existence. You could make a copy of it, or you could make a painting which is similar to it by copying it and then modifying the copy. Doing so is neither wrong nor illegal -- you've not harmed the artist in any way. But you aren't allowed to distribute copies or modified copies of the painting until a number of years has passed -- this is called copyright.
Next you state that authors should not be forced to give you copies of their books. Again, this is based partly on copyright law. In this case, though, we have an extra factor involved -- copyright prevents others from making copies, but it does not dictate what the author may or may not do, or what she must do. The author is well within her rights not to publish her book at all. Of course she does not have to "give you a copy" of her book -- producing a copy for you would require an expenditure of time and resources on her part; but what's important here is that you aren't allowed to give away copies of her book.
Finally, you state that a farmer should not have to give away his produce. But this has absolutely nothing to do with the two previous examples! In this case, the farmer has worked to produce physical objects -- fruits, vegetables, meats and other things which have a finite and tangible existence. If he gives them to you, then he no longer has them. Your gain is equal to his loss. This is completely different from how patents or copyrights work.
These are all socialistic concepts. What's good for society as a whole is the rule, and if it hurts one person, so what.
Point one: simply because something is socialistic does not mean it is bad.
Point two: the basic tenet of Socialism is "From each according to his ability; to each according to his need." If you need something, then Socialism will not take it from you; rather, they will give it to you. Socialism isn't about hurting. (Of course, I'm talking about ideal Socialism, not the real world....)
Point three: this goes back to the trap. If someone admires your idea and decides to use it, you have not been hurt. This does not cause you any physical injury, nor does it restrict you in any way. Your rights have not been violated. Of course, this changes if someone else patents your idea -- because then you can't use it freely.
Capitalism is just fine by me. Free market enterprise and competetion [....]
... are exactly what we do not have. Patents are an artificial government interference into the free market. They restrict competition. When you receive a patent, the government has issued you the right to a time-limited monopoly.
[...] you'll always be able to pick up, say, a C++ book and learn how to beat the "evil, money-making corporations".
No, unfortunately, you cannot. If the EMMC in question has patented an algorithm -- say, using XOR to create a nondestructive cursor -- then you cannot use that in your program.
Perhaps not if it were Caldera, who keeps its mitts on NDS, but RedHat has been very good about freely releasing things they've created.
Caldera was able to develop its Netware-compatibility software only because it obtained a license from Novell. I'm fairly sure that in order to get that license (and the secret protocol specs for the NCP and NDS protocols) they had to sign non-disclosure agreements. So unless I'm wrong, they can't release the source.
According to gamecellar, who are taking preorders for the Linux version of CTP, the Linux version should be available on 04/01/99. That's a few weeks after the Windows version ships. (Hint: click the CTP box to see the date if you won't take my word for it.)
Don't know whether I was chosen as a beta tester -- I guess I'll find out when I get home to read my e-mail....
Why do we need 20 different word processors when the authors could get together and make one kick-ass one that would dwarf word perfect or M$Word?
Because no two people could ever possibly agree on the final goal. Everyone has a different opinion about how a word processor should work.
The whole point of freedom is choice. If there aren't choices, how free are you? If everyone worked together on one word processor, there'd be only one word processor, and no choice.
Me? I use vim. But I don't expect everyone else to follow me. Use what you like, or if you don't like what's available, write your own.:-)
In 93/94 I used a HP workstation for writing my masters thesis and one day a very neat desktop environment was installed. I don't really know for sure it was CDE, but it must have been.
It was probably HP-VUE (Visual User Environment). VUE and CDE look a lot alike -- it's quite evident that CDE owes a good chunk of its look-and-feel to VUE. I don't think HP had CDE that long ago (and if so, it probably wasn't commonly used).
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Let us say that you invented a better wheel. You are an everyday joe, not much money to your name. Now, GoodYear comes along, finds out about your wheel, and then starts producing it, at great profit for themselves. What recourse do you now have
Write a book about how you invented the wheel, or have a ghost writer do it for you. Sell millions of copies. Get on Oprah and Geraldo and become a celebrity -- "The (Wo)Man Who Invented the Wheel".
Some people here show no imagination whatsoever. Money this, money that. Profit, profit, profit. How about fame, glory and power? Love? Truth? Beauty?
But, the first time someone tries to TAKE something I have developed myself, WITHOUT my permission, that person will find themselves with a boot up their ass!
How can you TAKE an idea? To take means to remove something from one place and to put it in another place. If I were to TAKE your idea, then you would not have it. We're not talking about mind-wipes here!
There are a lot of issues involved here, many of which overlap to a large degree. So let me just focus on one of them for the moment: patents. If Alice invents something -- say, a knife blade that never needs sharpening -- and patents it in the USA, then the government guarantees her the right to exclusive use of this idea for a few years. This means that if Bob independently discovers the same thing, he is not allowed to use it until Alice's patent lapses -- unless he pays Alice whatever she demands for licensing rights, or unless the government decides that this idea is vital to the public (not likely in this case).
But now look at it from Bob's point of view. Bob probably discovered how to create this knife blade by reading scientific journals -- perhaps the same ones that Alice read. All of science is built upon the notion of community -- scientists and researchers continually build upon each other's work. It's also possible that Bob might have discovered this technique before Alice did -- if Alice can get her patent filed first, that's all that counts.
So who has lost here, and who gained? What's right and what's wrong? I'll leave those unanswered for now.
Should artists be forced to give away their paintings? No. Should authors have to give you a copy of their books? No. Should a farmer have to give you his produce? No.
This is where you fall into the trap. You're mixing everything together as though it were all the same, but it's not.
When an artist paints a painting, he has created at least two things: one is a physical object (a canvas with pigments on it), and the other is an abstraction (a work of art). These are completely separate things, and they're treated differently. Consider the canvas first -- nobody in their right mind would try to argue that it's acceptable to TAKE that physical object from the artist. That's called theft. But what about the work of art -- the particular combination of colors and textures and shapes which the artist created? You can't TAKE that, because it has no physical existence. You could make a copy of it, or you could make a painting which is similar to it by copying it and then modifying the copy. Doing so is neither wrong nor illegal -- you've not harmed the artist in any way. But you aren't allowed to distribute copies or modified copies of the painting until a number of years has passed -- this is called copyright.
Next you state that authors should not be forced to give you copies of their books. Again, this is based partly on copyright law. In this case, though, we have an extra factor involved -- copyright prevents others from making copies, but it does not dictate what the author may or may not do, or what she must do. The author is well within her rights not to publish her book at all. Of course she does not have to "give you a copy" of her book -- producing a copy for you would require an expenditure of time and resources on her part; but what's important here is that you aren't allowed to give away copies of her book.
Finally, you state that a farmer should not have to give away his produce. But this has absolutely nothing to do with the two previous examples! In this case, the farmer has worked to produce physical objects -- fruits, vegetables, meats and other things which have a finite and tangible existence. If he gives them to you, then he no longer has them. Your gain is equal to his loss. This is completely different from how patents or copyrights work.
These are all socialistic concepts. What's good for society as a whole is the rule, and if it hurts one person, so what.
Point one: simply because something is socialistic does not mean it is bad.
Point two: the basic tenet of Socialism is "From each according to his ability; to each according to his need." If you need something, then Socialism will not take it from you; rather, they will give it to you. Socialism isn't about hurting. (Of course, I'm talking about ideal Socialism, not the real world....)
Point three: this goes back to the trap. If someone admires your idea and decides to use it, you have not been hurt. This does not cause you any physical injury, nor does it restrict you in any way. Your rights have not been violated. Of course, this changes if someone else patents your idea -- because then you can't use it freely.
Capitalism is just fine by me. Free market enterprise and competetion [....]
... are exactly what we do not have. Patents are an artificial government interference into the free market. They restrict competition. When you receive a patent, the government has issued you the right to a time-limited monopoly.
[...] you'll always be able to pick up, say, a C++ book and learn how to beat the "evil, money-making corporations".
No, unfortunately, you cannot. If the EMMC in question has patented an algorithm -- say, using XOR to create a nondestructive cursor -- then you cannot use that in your program.
Caldera was able to develop its Netware-compatibility software only because it obtained a license from Novell. I'm fairly sure that in order to get that license (and the secret protocol specs for the NCP and NDS protocols) they had to sign non-disclosure agreements. So unless I'm wrong, they can't release the source.
Don't know whether I was chosen as a beta tester -- I guess I'll find out when I get home to read my e-mail....
Because no two people could ever possibly agree on the final goal. Everyone has a different opinion about how a word processor should work.
The whole point of freedom is choice. If there aren't choices, how free are you? If everyone worked together on one word processor, there'd be only one word processor, and no choice.
Me? I use vim. But I don't expect everyone else to follow me. Use what you like, or if you don't like what's available, write your own. :-)
It was probably HP-VUE (Visual User Environment). VUE and CDE look a lot alike -- it's quite evident that CDE owes a good chunk of its look-and-feel to VUE. I don't think HP had CDE that long ago (and if so, it probably wasn't commonly used).