Um...according to this, some of the people involved include Lawrence Lessig and James Boyle and some other folks that you may or may not have heard of. These are some of the brightest legal minds and IP experts in the country.
I'd use a license from these people WELL before I'd ever use a license written by RMS.
Not always true, the orginal personal computers could do basically nothing and, as many pointed out at the time, no one really needed one. Many of the orginal programmers and engineers built them anyway though, not because they needed them but because they thought they would be fun to play around with. They had no interest in 'exploiting' the technology, they just wanted to have fun with it.
Yes and no. When I got my first "personal computer" way back in '78 or something, I needed to organize my books so I wrote a program to catalogue and categorize them and store the database in comma-delimited format on a floppy disk.
I wrote it because A) to see if I could do it, B) to have a program to play with and C) because I needed it. (I didn't care if others needed it or not -- I wrote it for me.)
Secondly, how long until we see groups of people smuggling on battery powered Linksys (et al) routers. $30 split a few ways is always cheaper..
It wouldn't be hard. Most of things draw DC from a power brick. RadioShack used to carry a power brick-type thing that would hold batteries in what would normally be the brick. And I imagine that there are or will be other third party solutions such as a rechargeable power brick for using routers with batteries before too long as portable, wireless high speed access becomes more and more important.
Yes, Bill Gates wrote about his idea in "The Road Ahead." But he wrote "The Road Ahead" as "Bill Gates, a guy in the computer industry," not "Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft." Just because Bill Gates has an idea, that doesn't mean that Microsoft will implement it or even think about it very much.
Games aren't the be all, end all. Most consumers don't buy PCs for games, they buy them for word processing, bank account management, and Internet access. If it happens to play games, too, that's just icing on the cake.
And for people who do like to play games, except for a few of us geeks, most of them are using systems *designed* to play games, like XBox and PlayStation 2 and GameCube because the games that are available for those are often just as good and without the overhead of a full desktop operating system, this boxes are just as good, if not better, for playing games than the your average $3000 overclocked, liquid cooled gaming PC. And they're available for about $200.
Admittedly, if Microsoft thought that OpenOffice or any other office suite on Linux or other OSes represented serious competition to Microsoft Office, all they would have to do is port Office to Linux and they would own the office suite market, but at the expense of their OS monopoly. The only reason Office for Macintosh exists is to keep the DOJ, the FTC, and the courts off their back.
Ok, so you think that it's perfectly acceptable for them to STEAL spectrum that belongs to YOU and belongs to ME (remember, they're not paying a dime for it), and then SELL it back to us at a PREMIUM PRICE?
Because they're taking over spectrum that is designated for consumer use and pushing consumer-run free networks out of the loop.
And they're not paying a dime for it. They're stealing YOUR spectrum and MY spectrum, and then SELLING it back to us. Think about that for one minute... and if you're *still* not outraged, clearly you haven't thought it through very well.
My aunt actually installed this insidious piece of spyware because she thought it was 'cute'. After the damn thing took over her whole damn computer ala Internet Exploiter (I'm not even kidding), she was like "can you get rid of this thing?"
And you're forgetting capital investment. As a shop owner, you have to buy all the equipment, buy or lease the land, facilities, etc. You're assuming all the risk. As they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
When the company has billed the customers $4000, his cut is about $300. His customers are so loyal to his work that when he left one place and went to another, they followed. So I ask him "Why not just work for yourself, start out on your own?" After all, he manages the day to day operations, knows all the ins and outs of ordering, etc. Answer? NO GUTS.
Hmmm..well, the thing is out of the $4000 that was billed, on average, about $2000 is overhead -- rent or mortgage, utilities, marketing and so forth and materials. Then he gets his $300, plus it costs the company an additional $150. That leaves about $1550. Unless your friend reinvests part of that into the company, Uncle Sam gets about 1/3rd of that, or about $520. That leaves $1000. That's *IF* the shop is getting good margins. Most likely, the margins are a lot less than that and the overhead is more like $2500-3000. Meaning that the shop probably makes a whole $200-400 (not much more than your mechanic friend) or so on the whole $4000. Assuming everything's going well of course, and there aren't unforseen costs.
That $4000 sounds like a lot of money. Trust me, it isn't.
This would only be a problem if a prospective customer would be confused between item A && item B based on an infringing trademark. For instance, Phoenix Bios and Foenix Bios - the latter would obviously be infringing. But in this case, Phoenix the Web Browser can never cause confusion because there is no possibility of a web browser-item being confused with a bios-item.
Trademark infringement also occurs when customers could be confused by the origin of a product.
Intel doesn't make hard drives, for instance. They make CPUs, motherboards, and a couple of miscellaneous items like network cards. But I started making Intel Hard Drives, *of course* Intel could sue the pants off of me, because customers could reasonably assume that the hard drives were made by Intel Corporation, the manufacturer of CPUs. This could even extend to other markets. It's very likely that Intel would clean me out over a line Intel TVs or Intel Cell Phones, or even Intel Cigarette Lighters, but since cigarette lighters don't have any processing power (unlike TVs or Cell Phones) I think that would be more of stretch.
The possible source of confusion in this case is that it might be reasonable for customers to assume that Phoenix Web Browser came from Phoenix Technologies, the makers of the Phoenix BIOS. Even though they're different products, they're both computer-oriented.
Funny thing is, I worked at GM and that story was constantly being spread around the grapevine as actual fact. One group used the tale as an analogy in their newsletter, again, misrepresenting the story as fact.
I've also seen the story used on TV news shoes being misrepresented as actual fact to demonstrate similarities between current corporate blunders and that.
After a few OS/2 releases, MicroSoft quit and took the code they had from OS/2 and made it into Windows 95.
Uh, sorry, but this is just plain wrong. Microsoft took the code they had from OS/2 and made it into Windows NT. Actually, more correct would be to say that when Microsoft and IBM were working on OS/2 3.0, they had a parting of ways by ending their Joint Development Agreement. There was a settlement, and in the settlement they split the OS/2 code -- Microsoft got the new stuff, and IBM got the old stuff. Ever wonder why the first release of Windows NT was called '3.1'? Now you know.:)
Having knowledge of the internals of all three operating systems, I can honestly say it would be *impossible* for Microsoft to have based much of Windows 95 on OS/2 code. Windows 95 is a DOS-based operating system. Its lineage from Windows 3.x is clear. The internals are almost identical, i.e., VMM32.VXD (aka DOS386.EXE) which has always been 32-bit since Windows/386. It's only the GUI and API that changed to 32-bit, the rest of the stuff is nearly identical.
Yeah. This is not unlike the idea I had about a year ago...admittedly it's not that unique.
Y'see, VNC runs on PalmOS. So you run a VNC Server on your *nix or Windows box, and then remotely control it via VNC client on the Palm OS. With a *nix such as Linux or FreeBSD, you can simultaneously connect many of these devices.
The only problem is that the screen on a PalmOS device is typically very small. So you develop a PalmOS device with a larger screen.
My guess is that Mira isn't much different from this setup, just using proprietary Microsoft technology rather than the Open Source VNC protocol.
If you don't like smoking, don't go to restaurants that have smoking sections. It's a free market system. Vote with your dollars and quit whining about it.
I dunno. PKWare themselves got burned pretty bad by SEA's ARC patents. That's why PKZIP was written in the first place. It was in response to getting sued by Software Enhancement Associates over PKARC and PKPAK for patent infringmement. Guess Phil Katz showed them.:-P
You know all those foosetup.exe InstallShield and similar formats? Most of those are either CAB compressed (Microsoft), but many of them are still PKZIP compressed.
Slashdot Mirror
Um...according to this, some of the people involved include Lawrence Lessig and James Boyle and some other folks that you may or may not have heard of. These are some of the brightest legal minds and IP experts in the country.
I'd use a license from these people WELL before I'd ever use a license written by RMS.
Not always true, the orginal personal computers could do basically nothing and, as many pointed out at the time, no one really needed one. Many of the orginal programmers and engineers built them anyway though, not because they needed them but because they thought they would be fun to play around with. They had no interest in 'exploiting' the technology, they just wanted to have fun with it.
Yes and no. When I got my first "personal computer" way back in '78 or something, I needed to organize my books so I wrote a program to catalogue and categorize them and store the database in comma-delimited format on a floppy disk.
I wrote it because A) to see if I could do it, B) to have a program to play with and C) because I needed it. (I didn't care if others needed it or not -- I wrote it for me.)
You could put personal ads on your homepage, maybe even use special meta tags for the type of person your looking for. :)
:)
...
A totally decentralized personals system...
hmmm..actually, this sounds more and more like a good application for P2P that DOESN'T involve pissing off the RIAA and MPAA.
Just some random musings
Secondly, how long until we see groups of people smuggling on battery powered Linksys (et al) routers. $30 split a few ways is always cheaper..
It wouldn't be hard. Most of things draw DC from a power brick. RadioShack used to carry a power brick-type thing that would hold batteries in what would normally be the brick. And I imagine that there are or will be other third party solutions such as a rechargeable power brick for using routers with batteries before too long as portable, wireless high speed access becomes more and more important.
Yes, Bill Gates wrote about his idea in "The Road Ahead." But he wrote "The Road Ahead" as "Bill Gates, a guy in the computer industry," not "Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft." Just because Bill Gates has an idea, that doesn't mean that Microsoft will implement it or even think about it very much.
Games aren't the be all, end all. Most consumers don't buy PCs for games, they buy them for word processing, bank account management, and Internet access. If it happens to play games, too, that's just icing on the cake.
And for people who do like to play games, except for a few of us geeks, most of them are using systems *designed* to play games, like XBox and PlayStation 2 and GameCube because the games that are available for those are often just as good and without the overhead of a full desktop operating system, this boxes are just as good, if not better, for playing games than the your average $3000 overclocked, liquid cooled gaming PC. And they're available for about $200.
Admittedly, if Microsoft thought that OpenOffice or any other office suite on Linux or other OSes represented serious competition to Microsoft Office, all they would have to do is port Office to Linux and they would own the office suite market, but at the expense of their OS monopoly. The only reason Office for Macintosh exists is to keep the DOJ, the FTC, and the courts off their back.
Shhhh! Don't give them any ideas! :-P
Ok, so you think that it's perfectly acceptable for them to STEAL spectrum that belongs to YOU and belongs to ME (remember, they're not paying a dime for it), and then SELL it back to us at a PREMIUM PRICE?
Wow, have you been suckered.
Because they're taking over spectrum that is designated for consumer use and pushing consumer-run free networks out of the loop.
And they're not paying a dime for it. They're stealing YOUR spectrum and MY spectrum, and then SELLING it back to us. Think about that for one minute... and if you're *still* not outraged, clearly you haven't thought it through very well.
My aunt actually installed this insidious piece of spyware because she thought it was 'cute'. After the damn thing took over her whole damn computer ala Internet Exploiter (I'm not even kidding), she was like "can you get rid of this thing?"
:-P
So I gave her a Mandrake CD.
And you're forgetting capital investment. As a shop owner, you have to buy all the equipment, buy or lease the land, facilities, etc. You're assuming all the risk. As they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
When the company has billed the customers $4000, his cut is about $300. His customers are so loyal to his work that when he left one place and went to another, they followed. So I ask him "Why not just work for yourself, start out on your own?" After all, he manages the day to day operations, knows all the ins and outs of ordering, etc. Answer? NO GUTS.
Hmmm..well, the thing is out of the $4000 that was billed, on average, about $2000 is overhead -- rent or mortgage, utilities, marketing and so forth and materials. Then he gets his $300, plus it costs the company an additional $150. That leaves about $1550. Unless your friend reinvests part of that into the company, Uncle Sam gets about 1/3rd of that, or about $520. That leaves $1000. That's *IF* the shop is getting good margins. Most likely, the margins are a lot less than that and the overhead is more like $2500-3000. Meaning that the shop probably makes a whole $200-400 (not much more than your mechanic friend) or so on the whole $4000. Assuming everything's going well of course, and there aren't unforseen costs.
That $4000 sounds like a lot of money. Trust me, it isn't.
Quick--who made the headlights in your car?
:-P)
Sylvania
And I have to type all this extra stuff to fit in Slashdot's 20-second rule. Bastards.
(OTOH, I work in the auto industry, so maybe I don't count?
Oh, gee, thanks, this guy could pass for my twin! I appreciate that, really I do.
*sigh*
This would only be a problem if a prospective customer would be confused between item A && item B based on an infringing trademark. For instance, Phoenix Bios and Foenix Bios - the latter would obviously be infringing. But in this case, Phoenix the Web Browser can never cause confusion because there is no possibility of a web browser-item being confused with a bios-item.
Trademark infringement also occurs when customers could be confused by the origin of a product.
Intel doesn't make hard drives, for instance. They make CPUs, motherboards, and a couple of miscellaneous items like network cards. But I started making Intel Hard Drives, *of course* Intel could sue the pants off of me, because customers could reasonably assume that the hard drives were made by Intel Corporation, the manufacturer of CPUs. This could even extend to other markets. It's very likely that Intel would clean me out over a line Intel TVs or Intel Cell Phones, or even Intel Cigarette Lighters, but since cigarette lighters don't have any processing power (unlike TVs or Cell Phones) I think that would be more of stretch.
The possible source of confusion in this case is that it might be reasonable for customers to assume that Phoenix Web Browser came from Phoenix Technologies, the makers of the Phoenix BIOS. Even though they're different products, they're both computer-oriented.
IANAL.
Funny thing is, I worked at GM and that story was constantly being spread around the grapevine as actual fact. One group used the tale as an analogy in their newsletter, again, misrepresenting the story as fact.
:)
I've also seen the story used on TV news shoes being misrepresented as actual fact to demonstrate similarities between current corporate blunders and that.
Odd how urban legends become 'fact' isn't it?
After a few OS/2 releases, MicroSoft quit and took the code they had from OS/2 and made it into Windows 95.
:)
Uh, sorry, but this is just plain wrong. Microsoft took the code they had from OS/2 and made it into Windows NT. Actually, more correct would be to say that when Microsoft and IBM were working on OS/2 3.0, they had a parting of ways by ending their Joint Development Agreement. There was a settlement, and in the settlement they split the OS/2 code -- Microsoft got the new stuff, and IBM got the old stuff. Ever wonder why the first release of Windows NT was called '3.1'? Now you know.
Having knowledge of the internals of all three operating systems, I can honestly say it would be *impossible* for Microsoft to have based much of Windows 95 on OS/2 code. Windows 95 is a DOS-based operating system. Its lineage from Windows 3.x is clear. The internals are almost identical, i.e., VMM32.VXD (aka DOS386.EXE) which has always been 32-bit since Windows/386. It's only the GUI and API that changed to 32-bit, the rest of the stuff is nearly identical.
Now that spam is so collectable, someone should start a service to let people trade it?
:-P
Yeah, it's called 'Gnutella'.
Yeah. This is not unlike the idea I had about a year ago...admittedly it's not that unique.
Y'see, VNC runs on PalmOS. So you run a VNC Server on your *nix or Windows box, and then remotely control it via VNC client on the Palm OS. With a *nix such as Linux or FreeBSD, you can simultaneously connect many of these devices.
The only problem is that the screen on a PalmOS device is typically very small. So you develop a PalmOS device with a larger screen.
My guess is that Mira isn't much different from this setup, just using proprietary Microsoft technology rather than the Open Source VNC protocol.
If you don't like smoking, don't go to restaurants that have smoking sections. It's a free market system. Vote with your dollars and quit whining about it.
Yes, but how do you simulate the 200 users, 3 managers, and 2 company execs screaming down your back?
I dunno. PKWare themselves got burned pretty bad by SEA's ARC patents. That's why PKZIP was written in the first place. It was in response to getting sued by Software Enhancement Associates over PKARC and PKPAK for patent infringmement. Guess Phil Katz showed them. :-P
You know all those foosetup.exe InstallShield and similar formats? Most of those are either CAB compressed (Microsoft), but many of them are still PKZIP compressed.
Try mutt. It supports using any external mail editor, including vi.