Eventually a company get's as much market as is reasonable to expect and that is when they have to stop spending money trying to accumulate market share. It is my observations that most companies (public ones) have been unreasonably optomistic about potential for future growth and this is a problem because companies spend like crazy chasing the proverbial rainbow.
they have a very simple problem, they got all the marketshare they are going to get and the market isn't growing enough either. And there business model seems based on perpetual growth. They really just need to keep costs down and keep there existing customers for stable revenue.. Plus, I think they are losing young people with their business practices. I'd like to see some hard numbers, but that is my impression.
Why do these companies get to the top of the pile and not realize when to stop climbing?
"Sounds like Brown's idea is exactly what the web is made for"
It was, of course. In my physics undergrad days, not long ago, I was responsible for downloading selected "preprints" from http://xxx.lanl.gov, now properly http://arXiv.org Just the ones which the professors had picked out. Of course, back then it took a bit longer to download.
Seems like all we would need is an electronic peer review system, much like slashdot. Where certain individuals given authority could rate the articles according to their merit, so that the best research would float to the top more quickly.
Unfortunately it will probably prevent some little company from getting VC for coming out with a decent version of this. Which is probably the intent anyway.
Google is not perfect, you can inflate your own web sites results by just increasing the number of links to your site. In effect this sets the barrier higher for getting content indexed and ranked vs some of the earlier search algorithms.
So there are some cases where the better content will be obscurred by the well placed content. But this is how our society works also. If you get published in the New York Times more people will read your stuff versus the local newspaper, but Google doesn't seem to set the barrier too high. You can still write good stuff and if you get linked from enough reputable places then you can eventually become a highly ranked site. Eventually in this case means weeks and months and not years.
The only problem with Google is that everyone is using them, so it is becoming a single point of failure and/or corruption. It would be best if they had a healthier competitor in their class.
The internet is not meant to be a broadcast medium, nor is it very good as one. Ask online radio stations that not only must now pay high license fees, but also must buy lost of servers and bandwidth to stream audio to a few listeners, nothing like traditional broacast mediums (radio, tv, even broadcast cable and satelite) which scale much better.
Truely the internet is meant for and best at 2-way, end-to-end communications. These schemes to make the internet a playground for a few big content providers can cause nothing but trouble.
I dislike companies that try blur the line between Internet access providers and Internet Content providers. All I want from ATT or Verizon is fast internet access. They and AOL can take their content and shove it. If they can't make enough money providing me with basic internet access, without charging extra for what I click on, then I'm sure some other company will be content to take my money providing me with just the service that I want.
Ignoring the problem is a viable solution since patents expire. In fact having all these frivolous patents in the public record prevents them from being filed in the future.
Linus is merely saying that coders should code and legal matters should be handled seperately. Remember the statement was made in a kernel development thread not a political or legal forum. It only hurts software development efforts for coders to proactively go out and seek out stupid patents that might possibly cover what they are doing.
Come on wasn't it Shakespeare who said "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers" I think Linus was mostly just making his point when suggesting whacking stupid people.
"The fact is, technical people are better off not looking at patents. If you don't know what they cover and where they are, you won't be knowingly infringing on them. If somebody sues you, you change the algorithm or you just hire a hit-man to whack the stupid git. "
very subtle, Linus. I'm not sure what you are trying to say.
Seriously though, this makes sense. People have a finite amount of time, why waste it figuring out what not to do. Sure it might cost you some time later, but probably not.
It is a much better use of time to just do your best work and then if you happen to use an algorithm or something that you find out later is patented, then just figure out what makes sense to do then.
And just because you might be using a patented algorithm doesn't mean that you have to stop or even that it will cost money and eventually the patent will expire.
"That means that the government should work to keep the playing field level as it was intended to be. Patents should be offered for true innovation in the hardware world where no prior art existed and enforced properly when offered properly. Copyright while in existence should gauruntee the author the ability to make a profit and avoid having their works horribly abused, but the copyright protections should be limited while they exist and of limited duration, not extended perpetually."
Yeah, repost this article when they get the networking working then it is a product for me... I'm not getting this thing unless I can transfer my mp3s and oggs on my existing wired or better yet, wireless network.
These rulings seem consistent with US law, which has consistently more or less ruled that US laws and/or rights don't apply to non US citizens over seas.
But the Russians are right too, the FBI agents broke Russian law and should be extradited if we have such an arrangement.
Otherwise, I would advise these FBI guys to not travel to any country that does have extradition treaties with Russia. It is the price they pay.
Does it really matter to an American Court if the method was illegal in another country. Courts in the US have time and time again declared that what goes on outside US jurisdiction is not their concern.
Thanks Prof. Booty, That's informative. But out of 400k , what number get rejected though? And what is the trend over the past 20 years or so?
Basically, it is understandable that in any given year that some patents will be given out that aren't reasonable. So, the important thing to look at would be the number of rejected patent applications. Even then the numbers can't tell you everything about motives. It does seem to me that not enough patents are being sought for "original ideas" but rather for original wording of patents, while the underlying ideas are very much ordinary and derivative.
I think a federal court should slap an injunction on issuing new patents on the patent office till they can respond to the question "why are these frivolous patents being allowed through?"
The failure of the patent office to adequately (IMHO) review patent claims threatens the underpinnings of our economy as much as any accounting scandal. Leaving real patent review to the courts is very very expensive and will ultimately lead to less efficient
Does anyone have any real numbers, though? Is the patent office generally doing a good job and we are just seeing some glaring excpetions?
Or are they just selling real estate on the moon and not worrying about disputes in the future? Metaphorically speaking.
So, the "industry" would rather go out of business than risk a few people recording their content to view later.
This is a bluff to get something unreasonable from us. And it certainly isn't how a free market works. If there is a market then people will create for that market. Otherwise we are dealing with an illegal monopoly and it should be broken up.
Dissolve the MPAA it is acting as an illegal trust.
To have the government say they will not respect my name and have to give one to me is insulting and dehumanizing. I consider that by which I should be known and called to be my name and then perhaps where I live. Let the government have their numbers to help them keep track of tax records and such and I will have my name.
Or perhaps we could just have the government start naming kids for us. I'm sure the guys over at AOL could just give us all great unique usernames with their wonderful naming algorithms. Business could start sponsoring names to help defray the great costs that they impose. You next child could be little Billy Johnson2352 for $89.95 or little Delly Dimension43895 for $9.95. you decide.
I heard this guy on NPR this morning asked another question about current laws and their application. The answer was very different than the initial quote suggests. He implied that only professionals should be allowed to "hack" software and that those that backward engineer software for "fun" should be prosecuted.
Seems like he wasn't really saying that it was okay to hack software in your possession. It really was just you can hack software in your possession if you work for a company involved in computer security.
So what kinds of people is this really aimed at? Seems to be aimed just at campaign contributors who own or run Software Security Companies?
Or how about June 19, 1934? When the FCC was founded.
Ever since then, the FCC has ever since regulated the content of communications rather than just the facilities. The Supreme Court has ruled that a Government in the United States may not regulate the content of speach. I argue that digital vs analog is a content issue outside the jurisdiction of the government. This is not a safety issue, but rather it is really a tax on communication since the FCC is going to force us to pay more, so they may auction of our airwaves to us.
Freedom is sometimes like obscenity, you only know it when you see it.
We ceased living a free society a few years back. Didn't you notice?
Re:Economic reasons to scare John Q. Public
on
What, Me Worry?
·
· Score: 2
We should just make the assumption that a large object will threaten the planet in our lifetimes and make preparations accordingly. The US spends far more on missile defense than it does on asteroid protection, but asteroids have struck the earth before (just nearly a 100 years ago in Russia), but intercontinental missiles have never struck the US. Seems like we should at least spend a couple billion for interstellar garbage collection. Just push these things into the sun or something.
Slashdot Mirror
Eventually a company get's as much market as is reasonable to expect and that is when they have to stop spending money trying to accumulate market share. It is my observations that most companies (public ones) have been unreasonably optomistic about potential for future growth and this is a problem because companies spend like crazy chasing the proverbial rainbow.
AOL always had the easiest access... to a cd with their software on it.
they have a very simple problem, they got all the marketshare they are going to get and the market isn't growing enough either. And there business model seems based on perpetual growth. They really just need to keep costs down and keep there existing customers for stable revenue.. Plus, I think they are losing young people with their business practices. I'd like to see some hard numbers, but that is my impression.
Why do these companies get to the top of the pile and not realize when to stop climbing?
"Sounds like Brown's idea is exactly what the web is made for"
It was, of course. In my physics undergrad days, not long ago, I was responsible for downloading selected "preprints" from http://xxx.lanl.gov, now properly http://arXiv.org Just the ones which the professors had picked out. Of course, back then it took a bit longer to download.
Seems like all we would need is an electronic peer review system, much like slashdot. Where certain individuals given authority could rate the articles according to their merit, so that the best research would float to the top more quickly.
This thing is definately DOA.
Unfortunately it will probably prevent some little company from getting VC for coming out with a decent version of this. Which is probably the intent anyway.
Or how about having a device to track down the signal so they can just tell the person to turn off their device?
Google is not perfect, you can inflate your own web sites results by just increasing the number of links to your site. In effect this sets the barrier higher for getting content indexed and ranked vs some of the earlier search algorithms.
So there are some cases where the better content will be obscurred by the well placed content. But this is how our society works also. If you get published in the New York Times more people will read your stuff versus the local newspaper, but Google doesn't seem to set the barrier too high. You can still write good stuff and if you get linked from enough reputable places then you can eventually become a highly ranked site. Eventually in this case means weeks and months and not years.
The only problem with Google is that everyone is using them, so it is becoming a single point of failure and/or corruption. It would be best if they had a healthier competitor in their class.
The internet is not meant to be a broadcast medium, nor is it very good as one. Ask online radio stations that not only must now pay high license fees, but also must buy lost of servers and bandwidth to stream audio to a few listeners, nothing like traditional broacast mediums (radio, tv, even broadcast cable and satelite) which scale much better.
Truely the internet is meant for and best at 2-way, end-to-end communications. These schemes to make the internet a playground for a few big content providers can cause nothing but trouble.
I dislike companies that try blur the line between Internet access providers and Internet Content providers. All I want from ATT or Verizon is fast internet access. They and AOL can take their content and shove it. If they can't make enough money providing me with basic internet access, without charging extra for what I click on, then I'm sure some other company will be content to take my money providing me with just the service that I want.
said -> wrote
Ignoring the problem is a viable solution since patents expire. In fact having all these frivolous patents in the public record prevents them from being filed in the future.
Linus is merely saying that coders should code and legal matters should be handled seperately. Remember the statement was made in a kernel development thread not a political or legal forum. It only hurts software development efforts for coders to proactively go out and seek out stupid patents that might possibly cover what they are doing.
Come on wasn't it Shakespeare who said "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers" I think Linus was mostly just making his point when suggesting whacking stupid people.
"The fact is, technical people are better off not looking at patents. If
you don't know what they cover and where they are, you won't be knowingly
infringing on them. If somebody sues you, you change the algorithm or you
just hire a hit-man to whack the stupid git.
"
very subtle, Linus. I'm not sure what you are trying to say.
Seriously though, this makes sense. People have a finite amount of time, why waste it figuring out what not to do. Sure it might cost you some time later, but probably not.
It is a much better use of time to just do your best work and then if you happen to use an algorithm or something that you find out later is patented, then just figure out what makes sense to do then.
And just because you might be using a patented algorithm doesn't mean that you have to stop or even that it will cost money and eventually the patent will expire.
"That means that the government should work to keep the playing field level as it was intended to be. Patents should be offered for true innovation in the hardware world where no prior art existed and enforced properly when offered properly. Copyright while in existence should gauruntee the author the ability to make a profit and avoid having their works horribly abused, but the copyright protections should be limited while they exist and of limited duration, not extended perpetually."
and I want a pony.
Okay, that makes more sense, but they need to be clearer on the features. One of the links isn't working, so maybe that woud better explain this.
Yeah, repost this article when they get the networking working then it is a product for me... I'm not getting this thing unless I can transfer my mp3s and oggs on my existing wired or better yet, wireless network.
The price is attractive, maybe by christmas?
These rulings seem consistent with US law, which has consistently more or less ruled that US laws and/or rights don't apply to non US citizens over seas.
But the Russians are right too, the FBI agents broke Russian law and should be extradited if we have such an arrangement.
Otherwise, I would advise these FBI guys to not travel to any country that does have extradition treaties with Russia. It is the price they pay.
Does it really matter to an American Court if the method was illegal in another country. Courts in the US have time and time again declared that what goes on outside US jurisdiction is not their concern.
Thanks Prof. Booty, That's informative. But out of 400k , what number get rejected though? And what is the trend over the past 20 years or so?
Basically, it is understandable that in any given year that some patents will be given out that aren't reasonable. So, the important thing to look at would be the number of rejected patent applications. Even then the numbers can't tell you everything about motives. It does seem to me that not enough patents are being sought for "original ideas" but rather for original wording of patents, while the underlying ideas are very much ordinary and derivative.
I think a federal court should slap an injunction on issuing new patents on the patent office till they can respond to the question "why are these frivolous patents being allowed through?"
The failure of the patent office to adequately (IMHO) review patent claims threatens the underpinnings of our economy as much as any accounting scandal. Leaving real patent review to the courts is very very expensive and will ultimately lead to less efficient
Does anyone have any real numbers, though? Is the patent office generally doing a good job and we are just seeing some glaring excpetions?
Or are they just selling real estate on the moon and not worrying about disputes in the future? Metaphorically speaking.
So, the "industry" would rather go out of business than risk a few people recording their content to view later.
This is a bluff to get something unreasonable from us. And it certainly isn't how a free market works. If there is a market then people will create for that market. Otherwise we are dealing with an illegal monopoly and it should be broken up.
Dissolve the MPAA it is acting as an illegal trust.
To have the government say they will not respect my name and have to give one to me is insulting and dehumanizing. I consider that by which I should be known and called to be my name and then perhaps where I live. Let the government have their numbers to help them keep track of tax records and such and I will have my name.
Or perhaps we could just have the government start naming kids for us. I'm sure the guys over at AOL could just give us all great unique usernames with their wonderful naming algorithms. Business could start sponsoring names to help defray the great costs that they impose. You next child could be little Billy Johnson2352 for $89.95 or little Delly Dimension43895 for $9.95. you decide.
I heard this guy on NPR this morning asked another question about current laws and their application. The answer was very different than the initial quote suggests. He implied that only professionals should be allowed to "hack" software and that those that backward engineer software for "fun" should be prosecuted.
Seems like he wasn't really saying that it was okay to hack software in your possession. It really was just you can hack software in your possession if you work for a company involved in computer security.
So what kinds of people is this really aimed at? Seems to be aimed just at campaign contributors who own or run Software Security Companies?
Or how about June 19, 1934? When the FCC was founded.
Ever since then, the FCC has ever since regulated the content of communications rather than just the facilities. The Supreme Court has ruled that a Government in the United States may not regulate the content of speach. I argue that digital vs analog is a content issue outside the jurisdiction of the government. This is not a safety issue, but rather it is really a tax on communication since the FCC is going to force us to pay more, so they may auction of our airwaves to us.
Freedom is sometimes like obscenity, you only know it when you see it.
We ceased living a free society a few years back. Didn't you notice?
We should just make the assumption that a large object will threaten the planet in our lifetimes and make preparations accordingly. The US spends far more on missile defense than it does on asteroid protection, but asteroids have struck the earth before (just nearly a 100 years ago in Russia), but intercontinental missiles have never struck the US. Seems like we should at least spend a couple billion for interstellar garbage collection. Just push these things into the sun or something.
For those of you with spare cash.
Emagin has a developer kit available to make your own wearable displays.