Right. I suppose you think that "every user" is synonomous with "end user community." And yes, every user DOES have the necessary expertise and tools to fix the problem...just as you have the expertise and tools necessary to build a house, design a car, grow wheat, etc. Or are we living in a modern economy where if there's something I want done that I can't do myself, I can work, earn money and PAY SOMEONE ELSE TO DO IT?
No, this is an incentive for everyone to make their source code available so that problems can be fixed when they're found.
If a problem is found in unmodified code, the original creator of the code is not held liable because the end user community has the tools they need to fix it.
[In the UK] An invention is not patentable if it is:
[Some deleted]
* mathematical method
* a scheme or method for performing a mental act playing a game or doing business
* a computer program
The US once had similar restrictions. I don't know if they were formally lifted, but there was an easy workaround: patent a device that implements it. Your algorithm, theorem, game, or program could be implemented by someone else with paper or pencil, but no one could produce a machine that would implement it.
This looks a whole lot like devices from the Planiverse...makes sense, since they are essentially dealing multiple two-dimensional layers. If you haven't read "The Planiverse", I suggest you do so...fascinating book.
Did the Feds pay for any of it? Then it's public property. It's a simple solution, really, and it ends the debate quite handily.
Do you want to commercialize your work? Don't accept federal funding.
After three years of research funded by the feds, do you see that your work has tremendous commercial potential? No problem. Publish all current source code. Publish all current results. Hold nothing back. Declare the project ended. Proceed with your commercial research.
Note that publication does not necessarily entail a peer-reviewed journal; rent some web space in perpetuity with a bit of the grant money and throw it all up on the internet. Dump it all to a CD and send it to a federal archive where anyone can FOIA it. Whatever - just see to it that the federally funded research is available to any member of the public.
To (mis)quote a recent contributor to slashdot, "I've never tried what you're suggesting, but I don't think it's too hard." Don't take my suggestions too literally, but do consider the spirit of them.
You completely miss the point of the original poster. You suggest that making source code available will make a program more likely to be pirated. How?
I burn a copy of a Windows CD which contains no source code.
I burn a copy of a Windows CD which contains the full source code.
How is the latter worse than the former? How does the latter increase the losses to the publisher?
The suggestion is NOT that the publisher make source code available FOR FREE TO EVERYONE. The suggestion is that if you buy a copy of the binary, you receive also a copy of the source code. This makes the software neither more nor less piratable. Reverse engineering is a different issue.
Note that the first amendment conflicts with copyright. Your artist's rights to prevent me from publishing text is a violation of my right to freedom of the press.
Argument by analogy is a logical fallacy...One word: communism. Straw man is also a logical fallacy.
I'd give you an F if you turned this in in my class...
Yup...#3 could easily be copyright law: "We permitted the contractor to copyright that code, and the contractor holds the copyright, and federal copyright law forbids our disclosure of it. Of course, we, the Feds, have a no-holds-barred license, so it just sucks to be you..."
#4 would be about the same: "The contractor didn't copyright it, but they did use some of their trade secrets in developing the code...something about a quick sorting algorithm..."
I have some pictures I took of the Grand Canyon. Would you like to buy them? I own the copyright on them. They are for sale. They are pictures I took on public land. I can't sell the land, but I can sell intellectual property I derived from the land.
This is really all I meant to imply. I bow to your clearly superior knowledge of commercial filming and scientific research on National Park Service property. I likely should have simply stopped after " - the analogy doesn't hold.":)
Public funds do not equate to world funds. You have a point, though I'm not sure I agree with it. However, from a legal perspective, it's easy to fix - write a license that only permits use by citizens or inhabitants or whatever of the nation that produced it.
I am a firm believer in the principles of Free Software as advocated by Richard Stallman. HOWEVER, if software is developed with public funds, it should be available for us to use as we wish. There should be no restrictions on anyone's use of that publicly funded code - it should be in the public domain.
Proprietary software obviously restricts my use of what should be public domain code; I won't belabor this point. As GPL opponents so often point out, though, the GPL also restricts your actions, in that you can't hide your improvements (unless you keep them completely to yourself). The usual (and correct) rejoinder is that if you don't want to make your work available for free, then you probably shouldn't be taking advantage of others who do. The GPL is about guaranteeing that the choice available to you is available to everyone else. If government software is GPL'd, though, then no one has a choice. You've paid your taxes, you have moral ownership of the code*, but you can't legally do with it as you wish.
Let the software become public domain. Do you want to GPL your improvements? You are free to do so. Do you want to close off your improvements? You are free to do so. Will the GPL improvements code wipe the closed source improvements off the map? I believe so, but that's a rant for another day.
*P.S. Don't come back with any stupid analogies with physical property owned or developed with public funds - the analogy doesn't hold. I can't do anything I want with public lands - but I can sell pictures I take of public lands. That's the closest analogy between physical public property and publicly developed intellectual property.
Amazing..that's exactly why graphing calculators are used. Rather than bog the student down in the details (ie plotting dozens of points to get an accurate graph), they allow students to see the graph itself and how it relates to the equation that produced it.
I think the details are important, don't get me wrong, but at a certain point you move on to the next level of abstraction.
Re:Science fiction/Fantasy is not interesting anym
on
Hugo Award Voting Open
·
· Score: 2
I haven't laughed out loud while reading/. in quite some time...thank you!
If an application crashes, it's the developer's fault. Period. True. And when a car is crushed, it is the auto maker's fault. A well designed car would be strong enough to be undented even when by two freight trains simultaneously.
Also, mechanical problems are the auto maker's fault even if the car owner replaces the every component of the drive-train with completely different ones from other cars and uses tractor tires and runs on kerosene instead of gasoline and uses dishwater in place of oil.
(Translation: developers CAN develop the perfect, uncrashable app, but there are many competing constraints; cost is not the least of these. And in a Windows world, developers should not be blamed if their application fails to function because the user has upgraded the OS three times and said "Yes" every time an application asks "The current version MSVCRT40.DLL is newer than the copy replacing it. Replace it anyway?")
Elsewhere in this thread I mentioned watching students use a calculator to multiply by zero or one, so I'm well aware of the damage that can be caused by allowing a calculator to substitute for teaching or learning.
HOWEVER...well, you get my point; they can be a powerful and useful tool if used properly. I wouldn't hand a kid in gradeschool a calculator any more than I'd hand them a chain saw. Both are too powerful for the kid to manage.
I would still suggest that even when the kid has formal knowledge of algebra etc., a graphing calculator can be an excellent aid IF it is being used to remove drudgery. If the goal is to look at and consider the graph, and how changing A changed its shape (think y=Ax2+Bx+C), then why do I want to waste five minutes plotting ten points and joining them badly when the calculator will do it in a second? On the other hand, if I am introducing quadratic graphs for the first time (y=x2), I would rather see it graphed by hand.
You are wise not to rely on a calculator. I feel that if you approach calculator usage from that side you are more likely to learn more and have a better intuition for when to use a calculator and when to chug through the symbolic manipulation.
After enough practice with the equations, Perhaps I should have explicitly stated that time is a constraint. There's only 180 days in the school year. There are other things to learn. There is not sufficient time to get enough practice when graphing by hand. It is impossible to devote the time to graphing a class of equations by hand when you don't have a graphing utility; most of your time is spent plotting points rather than considering the graph and its relation to the equation.
and using calculus to graph them, it becomes simple to judge the shape of a graph
Using calculus is out of the question. Using a graphing calculator, I can teach slope-intercept concepts to 6th graders with no formal algebraic training. They can graph 20 lines in 20 minutes. Most will consider this overkill as they will 'get it' after 10-15 or so. They grasp the relevant concepts and we move on to another one. Those same 20 graphs, without a graphing calculator, are a long and onerous homework assignment which all but the math geeks resent. The negative emotions interfere with long-term retention.
Ok, wise guy. =) Provide me with numerical coordinates for the intersection(s) of the following two equations. You can't use any mechanical aid to calculation (no slide rules OR electronic calculators). You can reference tables in books, provided you also prove that particular entry you use is correct.
y = -0.437(x^3) - 1.42(x^2) + 4.84(x) - 12
y = 13.9 sin(8.16x) + 2.4
Note that a calculator geek will provide an answer with the appropriate number of significant digits in about five minutes. I imagine you will find this impossible given the restraints above. If not, then I want to shake your hand.
Traditional (ie non-calculator) textbooks and teaching techniques generally pick "nice" numbers for problems. They do this because it is unrealistic to expect the student to produce correct answers in a reasonable period of time, and to do that for all the odd problems on the page, and to do that in one evening, along with all your other homework. However, this is completely unrealistic; NO problems encountered outside the classroom have "nice" numbers unless they are specially constructed.
However, with calculators, you can solve "real-world" problems, using realistic (multi-digit, non-integral) numbers. This is useful both for practical reasons (students aren't shocked when they encounter REAL problems) and for motivational ones (no more students asking "When will we have to factor x^2-9 in the real world?")
As you indicate, arithmetical calculators can be damaging if misused. I have seen students use calculators to multiply by zero and by one. I have seen students retry these operations several times, thinking they pushed the wrong buttons when the result is either their original number or zero. The end product, of course, is stupid people.
HOWEVER, the topic at hand is GRAPHING calculators. These, when used properly, are a joy to behold. Graphing 20 equations of the form y=mx+b is a good night's homework assignment, and you expect no intuition to develop from it except among the sharp students. However, with a graphing calculator to display the lines and mark the axes, you can have students graph 20 lines during class, and they can realize for themselves what m and b mean - the former describes the steepness of the line, the latter the 'height' of the line above the origin. You can do teach this concept without preceding it with the usual weeks of training in formal algebraic concepts. You can spend a single day on the slope-intercept form of linear equations and expect that students will retain more for longer than they would if you spent a week on it without graphing calculators.
Think of any form of graphing that you've ever done...without a calculator, it is a laborious and inaccurate task of plotting points and connecting the dots badly. With a graphing calculator, it is a matter of entering MANY equations and developing understanding of how varying parameters varies the graph, and creating a deep understanding of the relationship between the graph and the equation. Compare that with merely knowing that an equation with a squared term will probably be a parabola.
I could go on and on, but I'll simply restate my point: graphing calculators are powerful tools for developing intuitions about the relationship between equations and graphs. Without them, you simply can't do this. With them, you can still teach how to graph on graph paper, but having done so, you can move on to skipping the pointless (pun) manual labor and studying the equations and graphs themselves.
I had my Chemistry teacher teach me how to do long division last year - MY SENIOR YEAR. He was amazed that I couldn't do itBegin rant...Long division is an algorithm, one of many that can be used to divide multi-digit numbers. It's a poor teacher who expresses surprise at a students' ignorance. Ignorance of an algorithm does not equate to poor "number sense", as I use the phrase, but that's a topic for another day. Anyway, it's a poor teacher who expresses surprise at a student's ignorance. They are either making themselves feel superior, or they are so inexperienced with human nature that they have no understanding of the concept of forgetfulness. The fact that someone was supposed to stand up in front of you and explain an algorithm to you eight years ago has ZERO correlation with whether or not you remember that algorithm now. End rant...
The fact that the US patent office grants you a patent is only a small step in having a VALID patent. It has to be tested in court, and most never are. None of these would have a chance, because a patent is required to be Not obvious to a person properly skilled in a relevant profession. That rules out a lot more than "cracking nuts by using a specially designed tool"
Buying a Pacific island and building on it a nuke-proof fully-self sufficient quintuple redundant bunker with 100 years of supplies for you and your 300-man army is only a small step towards immortality. In fact, you obviously aren't immortal, because all someone has to do is to sneak their boat or submarine past the radar and sonar, inflitrate the island, find their way through the bunker and past your 300 guards and shoot you.
In other words, owning an obviously invalid software patent is valuable, because it is incumbent on the challenger to prove the invalidity. This costs money, LOTS of it. Large corps will buy the patent rather than fight it. Small corps will agree to mild licensing fees rather than fight it. Ordinary individuals will be powerless.
While it is an infrastructure, it is not a "vital" infrastructure
There is no "vital" infrastructure.
Water? Ancient cities had no water distribution system. The Roman aqueduct systems brought water to cities but did not distribute it widely - mainly to public baths and rich peoples' homes.
Gas? Gas hasn't been available for most of human history. It is quite dangerous. No house ever exploded from a candle or firewood leak.
Electricity? Why would you need electricity? For lights? What do you think the gaslights are for?
Telephones? What do you need a telephone in your home for? If you were a business, perhaps it would be useful, but no one needs it in their home.
Broadband internet? That didn't even exist ten years ago. What makes you think it's vital?
Point being, of course, that in a modern, forward-looking society, ALL of these are VITAL infrastructure; all of these should be distributed to every home. Unless you've got one of those weird all-electrical homes that doesn't need gas. Or one of those natural-gas fuel cells so you don't need any electricity. But I digress...
You have to look at the source They won't release it...
I'm not knocking Blizzard. I'm knocking Wired. You don't find it the least bit humorous that the only two items they've correctly identified as vaporware are "Mac games" (what gives with that? There are no Mac games?) and WC3 (clearly under current development; to be released when it's released). The entire point of my post is that Wired's vaporware list contains no vapor.
Slashdot Mirror
Right. I suppose you think that "every user" is synonomous with "end user community." And yes, every user DOES have the necessary expertise and tools to fix the problem...just as you have the expertise and tools necessary to build a house, design a car, grow wheat, etc. Or are we living in a modern economy where if there's something I want done that I can't do myself, I can work, earn money and PAY SOMEONE ELSE TO DO IT?
As long as we're making obvious statements...be careful what you stick up your nose.
P.S. The government has all the power. Last I checked, I don't have an armored battalion in my back yard.
No, this is an incentive for everyone to make their source code available so that problems can be fixed when they're found.
If a problem is found in unmodified code, the original creator of the code is not held liable because the end user community has the tools they need to fix it.
[In the UK] An invention is not patentable if it is:
[Some deleted]
* mathematical method
* a scheme or method for performing a mental act playing a game or doing business
* a computer program
The US once had similar restrictions. I don't know if they were formally lifted, but there was an easy workaround: patent a device that implements it. Your algorithm, theorem, game, or program could be implemented by someone else with paper or pencil, but no one could produce a machine that would implement it.
This looks a whole lot like devices from the Planiverse...makes sense, since they are essentially dealing multiple two-dimensional layers. If you haven't read "The Planiverse", I suggest you do so...fascinating book.
Did the Feds pay for any of it? Then it's public property. It's a simple solution, really, and it ends the debate quite handily.
Do you want to commercialize your work? Don't accept federal funding.
After three years of research funded by the feds, do you see that your work has tremendous commercial potential? No problem. Publish all current source code. Publish all current results. Hold nothing back. Declare the project ended. Proceed with your commercial research.
Note that publication does not necessarily entail a peer-reviewed journal; rent some web space in perpetuity with a bit of the grant money and throw it all up on the internet. Dump it all to a CD and send it to a federal archive where anyone can FOIA it. Whatever - just see to it that the federally funded research is available to any member of the public.
To (mis)quote a recent contributor to slashdot, "I've never tried what you're suggesting, but I don't think it's too hard." Don't take my suggestions too literally, but do consider the spirit of them.
You completely miss the point of the original poster. You suggest that making source code available will make a program more likely to be pirated. How?
I burn a copy of a Windows CD which contains no source code.
I burn a copy of a Windows CD which contains the full source code.
How is the latter worse than the former? How does the latter increase the losses to the publisher?
The suggestion is NOT that the publisher make source code available FOR FREE TO EVERYONE. The suggestion is that if you buy a copy of the binary, you receive also a copy of the source code. This makes the software neither more nor less piratable. Reverse engineering is a different issue.
Note that the first amendment conflicts with copyright. Your artist's rights to prevent me from publishing text is a violation of my right to freedom of the press.
Argument by analogy is a logical fallacy...One word: communism.
Straw man is also a logical fallacy.
I'd give you an F if you turned this in in my class...
Yup...#3 could easily be copyright law: "We permitted the contractor to copyright that code, and the contractor holds the copyright, and federal copyright law forbids our disclosure of it. Of course, we, the Feds, have a no-holds-barred license, so it just sucks to be you..."
#4 would be about the same: "The contractor didn't copyright it, but they did use some of their trade secrets in developing the code...something about a quick sorting algorithm..."
I have some pictures I took of the Grand Canyon. Would you like to buy them? I own the copyright on them. They are for sale. They are pictures I took on public land. I can't sell the land, but I can sell intellectual property I derived from the land.
:)
This is really all I meant to imply. I bow to your clearly superior knowledge of commercial filming and scientific research on National Park Service property. I likely should have simply stopped after " - the analogy doesn't hold."
Excellent point and one that I should have made.
Public funds do not equate to world funds.
You have a point, though I'm not sure I agree with it. However, from a legal perspective, it's easy to fix - write a license that only permits use by citizens or inhabitants or whatever of the nation that produced it.
I am a firm believer in the principles of Free Software as advocated by Richard Stallman. HOWEVER, if software is developed with public funds, it should be available for us to use as we wish. There should be no restrictions on anyone's use of that publicly funded code - it should be in the public domain.
:)
Proprietary software obviously restricts my use of what should be public domain code; I won't belabor this point. As GPL opponents so often point out, though, the GPL also restricts your actions, in that you can't hide your improvements (unless you keep them completely to yourself). The usual (and correct) rejoinder is that if you don't want to make your work available for free, then you probably shouldn't be taking advantage of others who do. The GPL is about guaranteeing that the choice available to you is available to everyone else. If government software is GPL'd, though, then no one has a choice. You've paid your taxes, you have moral ownership of the code*, but you can't legally do with it as you wish.
Let the software become public domain. Do you want to GPL your improvements? You are free to do so. Do you want to close off your improvements? You are free to do so. Will the GPL improvements code wipe the closed source improvements off the map? I believe so, but that's a rant for another day.
*P.S. Don't come back with any stupid analogies with physical property owned or developed with public funds - the analogy doesn't hold. I can't do anything I want with public lands - but I can sell pictures I take of public lands. That's the closest analogy between physical public property and publicly developed intellectual property.
P.P.S. Smart analogies are OK
Amazing..that's exactly why graphing calculators are used. Rather than bog the student down in the details (ie plotting dozens of points to get an accurate graph), they allow students to see the graph itself and how it relates to the equation that produced it.
I think the details are important, don't get me wrong, but at a certain point you move on to the next level of abstraction.
I haven't laughed out loud while reading /. in quite some time...thank you!
If an application crashes, it's the developer's fault. Period.
True. And when a car is crushed, it is the auto maker's fault. A well designed car would be strong enough to be undented even when by two freight trains simultaneously.
Also, mechanical problems are the auto maker's fault even if the car owner replaces the every component of the drive-train with completely different ones from other cars and uses tractor tires and runs on kerosene instead of gasoline and uses dishwater in place of oil.
(Translation: developers CAN develop the perfect, uncrashable app, but there are many competing constraints; cost is not the least of these. And in a Windows world, developers should not be blamed if their application fails to function because the user has upgraded the OS three times and said "Yes" every time an application asks "The current version MSVCRT40.DLL is newer than the copy replacing it. Replace it anyway?")
Elsewhere in this thread I mentioned watching students use a calculator to multiply by zero or one, so I'm well aware of the damage that can be caused by allowing a calculator to substitute for teaching or learning.
HOWEVER...well, you get my point; they can be a powerful and useful tool if used properly. I wouldn't hand a kid in gradeschool a calculator any more than I'd hand them a chain saw. Both are too powerful for the kid to manage.
I would still suggest that even when the kid has formal knowledge of algebra etc., a graphing calculator can be an excellent aid IF it is being used to remove drudgery. If the goal is to look at and consider the graph, and how changing A changed its shape (think y=Ax2+Bx+C), then why do I want to waste five minutes plotting ten points and joining them badly when the calculator will do it in a second? On the other hand, if I am introducing quadratic graphs for the first time (y=x2), I would rather see it graphed by hand.
You are wise not to rely on a calculator. I feel that if you approach calculator usage from that side you are more likely to learn more and have a better intuition for when to use a calculator and when to chug through the symbolic manipulation.
After enough practice with the equations,
Perhaps I should have explicitly stated that time is a constraint. There's only 180 days in the school year. There are other things to learn. There is not sufficient time to get enough practice when graphing by hand. It is impossible to devote the time to graphing a class of equations by hand when you don't have a graphing utility; most of your time is spent plotting points rather than considering the graph and its relation to the equation.
and using calculus to graph them, it becomes simple to judge the shape of a graph
Using calculus is out of the question. Using a graphing calculator, I can teach slope-intercept concepts to 6th graders with no formal algebraic training. They can graph 20 lines in 20 minutes. Most will consider this overkill as they will 'get it' after 10-15 or so. They grasp the relevant concepts and we move on to another one. Those same 20 graphs, without a graphing calculator, are a long and onerous homework assignment which all but the math geeks resent. The negative emotions interfere with long-term retention.
Lots of TI vs HP threads in the discussion. They are all silly. They all boil down to:
My Turing machine is better than your Turing machine!
Ok, wise guy. =) Provide me with numerical coordinates for the intersection(s) of the following two equations. You can't use any mechanical aid to calculation (no slide rules OR electronic calculators). You can reference tables in books, provided you also prove that particular entry you use is correct.
y = -0.437(x^3) - 1.42(x^2) + 4.84(x) - 12
y = 13.9 sin(8.16x) + 2.4
Note that a calculator geek will provide an answer with the appropriate number of significant digits in about five minutes. I imagine you will find this impossible given the restraints above. If not, then I want to shake your hand.
Traditional (ie non-calculator) textbooks and teaching techniques generally pick "nice" numbers for problems. They do this because it is unrealistic to expect the student to produce correct answers in a reasonable period of time, and to do that for all the odd problems on the page, and to do that in one evening, along with all your other homework. However, this is completely unrealistic; NO problems encountered outside the classroom have "nice" numbers unless they are specially constructed.
However, with calculators, you can solve "real-world" problems, using realistic (multi-digit, non-integral) numbers. This is useful both for practical reasons (students aren't shocked when they encounter REAL problems) and for motivational ones (no more students asking "When will we have to factor x^2-9 in the real world?")
As you indicate, arithmetical calculators can be damaging if misused. I have seen students use calculators to multiply by zero and by one. I have seen students retry these operations several times, thinking they pushed the wrong buttons when the result is either their original number or zero. The end product, of course, is stupid people.
HOWEVER, the topic at hand is GRAPHING calculators. These, when used properly, are a joy to behold. Graphing 20 equations of the form y=mx+b is a good night's homework assignment, and you expect no intuition to develop from it except among the sharp students. However, with a graphing calculator to display the lines and mark the axes, you can have students graph 20 lines during class, and they can realize for themselves what m and b mean - the former describes the steepness of the line, the latter the 'height' of the line above the origin. You can do teach this concept without preceding it with the usual weeks of training in formal algebraic concepts. You can spend a single day on the slope-intercept form of linear equations and expect that students will retain more for longer than they would if you spent a week on it without graphing calculators.
Think of any form of graphing that you've ever done...without a calculator, it is a laborious and inaccurate task of plotting points and connecting the dots badly. With a graphing calculator, it is a matter of entering MANY equations and developing understanding of how varying parameters varies the graph, and creating a deep understanding of the relationship between the graph and the equation. Compare that with merely knowing that an equation with a squared term will probably be a parabola.
I could go on and on, but I'll simply restate my point: graphing calculators are powerful tools for developing intuitions about the relationship between equations and graphs. Without them, you simply can't do this. With them, you can still teach how to graph on graph paper, but having done so, you can move on to skipping the pointless (pun) manual labor and studying the equations and graphs themselves.
I had my Chemistry teacher teach me how to do long division last year - MY SENIOR YEAR. He was amazed that I couldn't do itBegin rant...Long division is an algorithm, one of many that can be used to divide multi-digit numbers. It's a poor teacher who expresses surprise at a students' ignorance. Ignorance of an algorithm does not equate to poor "number sense", as I use the phrase, but that's a topic for another day. Anyway, it's a poor teacher who expresses surprise at a student's ignorance. They are either making themselves feel superior, or they are so inexperienced with human nature that they have no understanding of the concept of forgetfulness. The fact that someone was supposed to stand up in front of you and explain an algorithm to you eight years ago has ZERO correlation with whether or not you remember that algorithm now. End rant...
blah blah blah DISSERTATION blah blah blah
This word in all caps is used in doctoral programs at all universities I know of. Give me my PhD, right?
I've never done what you are looking at, but it doesn't seem like it should be that difficult.
You have a very promising career in technical management.
The fact that the US patent office grants you a patent is only a small step in having a VALID patent. It has to be tested in court, and most never are. None of these would have a chance, because a patent is required to be Not obvious to a person properly skilled in a relevant profession. That rules out a lot more than "cracking nuts by using a specially designed tool"
Buying a Pacific island and building on it a nuke-proof fully-self sufficient quintuple redundant bunker with 100 years of supplies for you and your 300-man army is only a small step towards immortality. In fact, you obviously aren't immortal, because all someone has to do is to sneak their boat or submarine past the radar and sonar, inflitrate the island, find their way through the bunker and past your 300 guards and shoot you.
In other words, owning an obviously invalid software patent is valuable, because it is incumbent on the challenger to prove the invalidity. This costs money, LOTS of it. Large corps will buy the patent rather than fight it. Small corps will agree to mild licensing fees rather than fight it. Ordinary individuals will be powerless.
While it is an infrastructure, it is not a "vital" infrastructure
There is no "vital" infrastructure.
Water? Ancient cities had no water distribution system. The Roman aqueduct systems brought water to cities but did not distribute it widely - mainly to public baths and rich peoples' homes.
Gas? Gas hasn't been available for most of human history. It is quite dangerous. No house ever exploded from a candle or firewood leak.
Electricity? Why would you need electricity? For lights? What do you think the gaslights are for?
Telephones? What do you need a telephone in your home for? If you were a business, perhaps it would be useful, but no one needs it in their home.
Broadband internet? That didn't even exist ten years ago. What makes you think it's vital?
Point being, of course, that in a modern, forward-looking society, ALL of these are VITAL infrastructure; all of these should be distributed to every home. Unless you've got one of those weird all-electrical homes that doesn't need gas. Or one of those natural-gas fuel cells so you don't need any electricity. But I digress...
You have to look at the source
They won't release it...
I'm not knocking Blizzard. I'm knocking Wired. You don't find it the least bit humorous that the only two items they've correctly identified as vaporware are "Mac games" (what gives with that? There are no Mac games?) and WC3 (clearly under current development; to be released when it's released). The entire point of my post is that Wired's vaporware list contains no vapor.