I do not believe there is a law curtailing the "wait-and-sue" approach, because a great deal of Lucent's profit stream comes from this strategy. They wait until someone has decent market penetration with an idea that they claim is lifted from the old AT&T patent braintrust. They subsequently sue, and carry off a larger reward in a pre-trial licensing settlement.
Although this strategy certainly endears them to no one, they have made a great deal of money at it, and nobody has challened the legality of them doing it.
-L
Please do not quote this email; I have patented this particular usage of the English language on virtual paper.
An enemy who is the friend of my potential enemy is my friend, at least until my enemy agrees to be my friend, and then I can ditch the friend of my new friend and make my new friend an enemy again.
I figure somewhere in that flow of logic, Microsoft "blue screens".
Slashdot has the right idea, it is just the sort of story that folks like you should avoid.
Some of us like to see triumph over circumstances, and if done by a peer, it is particularly uplifting. What Mr. Crawford describes is as much an organic malady as any other disease or illness. I applaud anyone who shows the candor and just-plain-guts required to speak from a negative personal experience in order to aid others.
Maybe you should start a site to assist apathetic geeks who have lost their humanity in a pile of CD ROMs and self-glorifying code pages.
Please do not confuse Republicans with "Bible-thumpers". The Bible Belt of the south is full of fanatical "shoot-an-abortionist" types who are registered Democrats, and whose families have been since the carpetbagger days (that's the late 1860's onward for the uninformed). I am a conservative independent (from Republican stock) who believes in monetarist policy, free trade, punishing the guilty, etc. I also believe strongly in free speech and unimpeded competitive capitalism. I believe in everyone's right to exercise their freedoms so long as they do not impede or eradicate someone else's. Party membership implying anything about someone's hyper-religion is a ludicrous assumption on par with racism or sexism. -L
I recall reading the Web site on a friend's advice, and I was impressed only with how seriously these people took themselves and how repetitive and preachy the text was.
Frankly, as avaricious and clueless as the modern traditional and ebusiness community is, these folks are equally pedantic and impractical in their approach. Good luck on the book going a long way in making you "suits" so you can come full circle guys.
All true, and good points about Free Speech in general. But if your points have any great meaning, it is that laws regarding Free Speech are applied ad hoc, depending on the instance and the industry.
The concern in the case of source code runs contrary to the obvious (and yes, frightening) abridgement illustrated in the CBS case. The concern with source code was over the real possibility of protection when malicious code (e.g. viruses) is employed in directed and collateral damage.
I personally am an effectivist (not a fanatic) about Free Speech, believing it should end where harm is done to individuals, and yes, evil instruments of capitalism! Such as in the cases you point out, it will take a few test cases to see where this goes, for better or for worse.
In any case, this is not about people commenting "Screw President Nixon" in their code, but is basically a protection intended to apply in commercial applications.
You paint it to look like MS is just a dominant large but innocent corporation, and the government is just flexing it's muscle for the sake of doing it.
Actually, MS is quite a monopolistic entity. It commits (or has committed) the following monopolistic practices: (1) forces license of DOS sold on every machine whether used or not (admittedly old case, but helps establish the pattern); (2) favors vendors (of the sycophantic variety) via pricing and releasing API info subjectively; (3) exclusively favors internal development unfairly by creating favorable undocumented API internals and exclusive "bundling";
Among the not-illegal but contributing to the atmosphere of monopolistic, we have: (1) FUD; (2) adoption of technology to make it proprietary
Moreover, MS has forced the government's hand by ignoring prior consent agreements. The DoJ is forced to recognize that MS will continue to take advantage of the "we-never-did-anything-wrong and we-will-never-do-it-again!" settlements. Also note that egos are involved; "fool me once..." sort of stuff. I do not believe that the DoJ wants to interfere in or control day-to-day operations of MS, and let's face it, they would be hard pressed to internally find the qualifications to do so.
I agree that we are talking about a boxing match between Satan and the Antichrist, but if Satan shows himself to be the more consistent and willful in his evil, I think I gotta go with the Antichrist.
...every grade-school aged child is an expert in human psychology and has a encyclopedic knowledge of weaponry. Otherwise, this could get really scary!
If I can just get a little "stay of execution", I can squeeze out a few more bucks of stock value. If we can make it to $120.00/share, we can acquire the Justice Department, and then make weak-willed legal remedies a Microsoft property. Next, a minority stake in Congress... - Bill Gates
Well, to have a human inside would give the ultimate in functional control, probably something that remote operation could not quite give you.
I find the potential for para- and quadriplegics to be enormous though. Much like technology tested by the space program spills over into medicine, this sort of technology could have tremendous applications in medicine as well.
A Supreme Court justice (I do not remember which) said, "I cannot tell you what pornography is, but I know it when I see it." This just reinforces the point that it is a gut check, and must be made humanly by people who are accountable for other people. Trusting some software's "lists" or specious heuristics could never pass the test of strong majority in any heterogenous group of observers, and least not a thinking group. Way to go Peacers.
Read up on Lucent Technologies. They have a whole division devoted to defending the AT&T Patent cache, and they usually wait for companies to make significant inroads into a market with "their" tech before suing. Presumably, they either: (1) make more money from the suit or (2) force settlement since the "offending" company is so vulnerable.
Slashdot Mirror
I do not believe there is a law curtailing the "wait-and-sue" approach, because a great deal of Lucent's profit stream comes from this strategy. They wait until someone has decent market penetration with an idea that they claim is lifted from the old AT&T patent braintrust. They subsequently sue, and carry off a larger reward in a pre-trial licensing settlement.
Although this strategy certainly endears them to no one, they have made a great deal of money at it, and nobody has challened the legality of them doing it.
-L
Please do not quote this email; I have patented this particular usage of the English language on virtual paper.
Once, it was:
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Now, it is:
An enemy who is the friend of my potential enemy is my friend, at least until my enemy agrees to be my friend, and then I can ditch the friend of my new friend and make my new friend an enemy again.
I figure somewhere in that flow of logic, Microsoft "blue screens".
-L
Slashdot has the right idea, it is just the sort of story that folks like you should avoid.
Some of us like to see triumph over circumstances, and if done by a peer, it is particularly uplifting. What Mr. Crawford describes is as much an organic malady as any other disease or illness. I applaud anyone who shows the candor and just-plain-guts required to speak from a negative personal experience in order to aid others.
Maybe you should start a site to assist apathetic geeks who have lost their humanity in a pile of CD ROMs and self-glorifying code pages.
-L
Please do not confuse Republicans with "Bible-thumpers". The Bible Belt of the south is full of fanatical "shoot-an-abortionist" types who are registered Democrats, and whose families have been since the carpetbagger days (that's the late 1860's onward for the uninformed). I am a conservative independent (from Republican stock) who believes in monetarist policy, free trade, punishing the guilty, etc. I also believe strongly in free speech and unimpeded competitive capitalism. I believe in everyone's right to exercise their freedoms so long as they do not impede or eradicate someone else's. Party membership implying anything about someone's hyper-religion is a ludicrous assumption on par with racism or sexism. -L
I recall reading the Web site on a friend's advice, and I was impressed only with how seriously these people took themselves and how repetitive and preachy the text was.
Frankly, as avaricious and clueless as the modern traditional and ebusiness community is, these folks are equally pedantic and impractical in their approach. Good luck on the book going a long way in making you "suits" so you can come full circle guys.
-L
All true, and good points about Free Speech in general. But if your points have any great meaning, it is that laws regarding Free Speech are applied ad hoc, depending on the instance and the industry.
The concern in the case of source code runs contrary to the obvious (and yes, frightening) abridgement illustrated in the CBS case. The concern with source code was over the real possibility of protection when malicious code (e.g. viruses) is employed in directed and collateral damage.
I personally am an effectivist (not a fanatic) about Free Speech, believing it should end where harm is done to individuals, and yes, evil instruments of capitalism! Such as in the cases you point out, it will take a few test cases to see where this goes, for better or for worse.
In any case, this is not about people commenting "Screw President Nixon" in their code, but is basically a protection intended to apply in commercial applications.
-L
You paint it to look like MS is just a dominant large but innocent corporation, and the government is just flexing it's muscle for the sake of doing it.
Actually, MS is quite a monopolistic entity. It commits (or has committed) the following monopolistic practices:
(1) forces license of DOS sold on every machine whether used or not (admittedly old case, but helps establish the pattern);
(2) favors vendors (of the sycophantic variety) via pricing and releasing API info subjectively;
(3) exclusively favors internal development unfairly by creating favorable undocumented API internals and exclusive "bundling";
Among the not-illegal but contributing to the atmosphere of monopolistic, we have:
(1) FUD;
(2) adoption of technology to make it proprietary
Moreover, MS has forced the government's hand by ignoring prior consent agreements. The DoJ is forced to recognize that MS will continue to take advantage of the "we-never-did-anything-wrong and we-will-never-do-it-again!" settlements. Also note that egos are involved; "fool me once..." sort of stuff. I do not believe that the DoJ wants to interfere in or control day-to-day operations of MS, and let's face it, they would be hard pressed to internally find the qualifications to do so.
I agree that we are talking about a boxing match between Satan and the Antichrist, but if Satan shows himself to be the more consistent and willful in his evil, I think I gotta go with the Antichrist.
-L
...every grade-school aged child is an expert in human psychology and has a encyclopedic knowledge of weaponry. Otherwise, this could get really scary!
-L
Hmm...
If I can just get a little "stay of execution", I can squeeze out a few more bucks of stock value. If we can make it to $120.00/share, we can acquire the Justice Department, and then make weak-willed legal remedies a Microsoft property. Next, a minority stake in Congress... - Bill Gates
Hmm...
Well, to have a human inside would give the ultimate in functional control, probably something that remote operation could not quite give you.
I find the potential for para- and quadriplegics to be enormous though. Much like technology tested by the space program spills over into medicine, this sort of technology could have tremendous applications in medicine as well.
-Larry
A Supreme Court justice (I do not remember which) said, "I cannot tell you what pornography is, but I know it when I see it." This just reinforces the point that it is a gut check, and must be made humanly by people who are accountable for other people. Trusting some software's "lists" or specious heuristics could never pass the test of strong majority in any heterogenous group of observers, and least not a thinking group. Way to go Peacers.
Read up on Lucent Technologies. They have a whole division devoted to defending the AT&T Patent cache, and they usually wait for companies to make significant inroads into a market with "their" tech before suing. Presumably, they either: (1) make more money from the suit or (2) force settlement since the "offending" company is so vulnerable.