There's only one answer to 'why' that would make normal commercial sense to me: that SCO think they can prove IBM used some output X from the defunct Monterey project, and prove that the way IBM used X violated some obligation in the SCO-IBM agreement, and that SCO think they can prove this was worth megabucks. But then the complaint ought to make clear what X was and what the alleged misuse was.
Maybe IBM will ask the court to either extract these details out of SCO so IBM can know specifically what they are accused of, or throw the case out.
My guess is that if the case goes forward at all the area of dispute will turn out much less wide than it looks from the vagueness of the complaint and unsustainable overbroad statements in it.
"... probably best if you imagined that after every floating point operation, a little demon came in and added or subtracted a tiny number to fuzz the low order bits of your result... What do the "pure" math programming languages do with this issue?"
AFAIK it's not so much a language issue, as a numerical analysis thing -- the shape of the cure can depend on the kind of problem. Guard digits (extra unneeded precision) can sometimes help. But if its an integration problem errors can sometimes cause unstable exponentially growing error solutions and swamp the wanted solution, and guard digits don't cut it, but a cure can be to change the model e.g. to integrate in a direction in which error solutions decay instead of grow, & so on.
That looks like a pretty fundamental point, deserves higher score and visibility.....
EUCD (Euro-DMCA): not so easy to get rid of it :(
on
Finland Drops EUCD For Now
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
These stories celebrating delays or apparent abandonment of 'EUCD copies' in the EU and EEA member states, most recently Finland, are probably about celebrating too soon, unfortunately.
The arrangements in Europe are that member states have an obligation to implement EU directives. If member-state governments drag their feet beyond the patience of the European Commission, there is now more than one way for the Commission to put a financial sting on them. The threat of open-ended financial liability may be one of the important drivers for implementing EUCD in the member-states in spite of any campaigning. This is particularly remembered in the UK, which got badly stung financially for taking unilateral action on fishing rights. So, for example, the few-months delay to about the end of March recently announced by the UK Patent Office (for review of the consultation replies, and for completing and amending the UK draft implementing regulations) will probably not be easy to stretch out much farther than that.
The real legislative power in these matters is with the EU Commission, which deliberates in secret. How this appalling state of things came to be is another matter, but the time to lobby effectively is the stage _before_ a directive issues from the EU Commission --- at the stage after it has been made a fait accompli, it is really too late. It's too late now to do much about EUCD in its current form except to mount marginal delaying tactics, and to be vigilant in campaigning so that the member states don't change their local copies in the direction of making matters even worse -- which is what the UK's draft local copy that went out for limited consultation in 2002 would have done. I suppose there is always some faint chance to try and get the Commission to reconsider/repeal the directive, but that looks like a tough and long haul.
"John Moore woke up one day to discover that he had been patented without his consent and that his genes, according to the USPTO were no longer his own."
Well it makes a good story, but only as a maybe- amusing distortion, certainly not as the truth. What was patented was not John Moore, of course, but rather, a technology invented during research carried out on biological/clinical sample material that had been taken from John Moore's body -- just not at all the same thing, is it:)
"his genes... were no longer his own"
Nonsense! How often does it have to be repeated that a patent gives no property right in an embodiment of the patented invention? The property is in the patent itself, conferring the right to license or prohibit commercial exploitation of the technology. To show the difference, if I infringe your patent for a wibble-tibble by making a wibble-tibble of the same kind for economic purposes without your authorization, that may make me liable to pay you court-ordered damages or an account of profits. I may be ordered to stop my activities, and maybe also to hand over or destroy the infringing article (at _my_ option). But that _doesn't_ make even the infringing wibble-tibble your property! It's not! (for example, if I obey a court order by destroying it by taking it to bits, the bits are mine, not yours.)
Again we find an entertaining myth propagated in preference to the more boring truth.
In the case of a patented gene-product or gene-related technology, not only are my genes or yours not infringements of any kind, but they are also not anybody else's property even if some technology derived from them might be the subject of a patent which could amount to infringement. Strewth! (There can be argument on whether genes in my body are capable of being an object of property at all, mine or anyone else's. I couldn't transfer legal title to my body to you by a bill of sale, for example.)
Slashdot Mirror
>Why?
There's only one answer to 'why' that would make
normal commercial sense to me: that SCO think
they can prove IBM used some output X from
the defunct Monterey project, and prove that
the way IBM used X violated some
obligation in the SCO-IBM agreement, and that
SCO think they can prove this was worth
megabucks. But then the complaint ought to make
clear what X was and what the alleged misuse was.
Maybe IBM will ask the court to either
extract these details out of SCO so IBM can know
specifically what they are accused of, or throw
the case out.
My guess is that if the case goes forward at all
the area of dispute will turn out much less
wide than it looks from the vagueness of the
complaint and unsustainable overbroad statements
in it.
"... probably best if you imagined that after every floating point operation, a little demon came in and added or subtracted a tiny number to fuzz the low order bits of your result ...
What do the "pure" math programming languages do with this issue?"
AFAIK it's not so much a language issue, as a numerical analysis thing -- the shape of the cure can depend on the kind of problem. Guard digits (extra unneeded precision) can sometimes help. But if its an integration problem errors can sometimes cause unstable exponentially growing error solutions and swamp the wanted solution, and guard digits don't cut it, but a cure can be to change the model e.g. to integrate in a direction in which error solutions decay instead of grow, & so on.
That looks like a pretty fundamental point, deserves higher score and visibility .....
These stories celebrating delays or apparent abandonment of 'EUCD copies' in the EU and EEA member states, most recently Finland, are probably about celebrating too soon, unfortunately.
The arrangements in Europe are that member states have an obligation to implement EU directives. If member-state governments drag their feet beyond the patience of the European Commission, there is now more than one way for the Commission to put a financial sting on them. The threat of open-ended financial liability may be one of the important drivers for implementing EUCD in the member-states in spite of any campaigning. This is particularly remembered in the UK, which got badly stung financially for taking unilateral action on fishing rights. So, for example, the few-months delay to about the end of March recently announced by the UK Patent Office (for review of the consultation replies, and for completing and amending the UK draft implementing regulations) will probably not be easy to stretch out much farther than that.
The real legislative power in these matters is with the EU Commission, which deliberates in secret. How this appalling state of things came to be is another matter, but the time to lobby effectively is the stage _before_ a directive issues from the EU Commission --- at the stage after it has been made a fait accompli, it is really too late. It's too late now to do much about EUCD in its current form except to mount marginal delaying tactics, and to be vigilant in campaigning so that the member states don't change their local copies in the direction of making matters even worse -- which is what the UK's draft local copy that went out for limited consultation in 2002 would have done. I suppose there is always some faint chance to try and get the Commission to reconsider/repeal the directive, but that looks like a tough and long haul.
Quoth the original poster:--
:)
... were no longer his own"
"John Moore woke up one day to discover that he had been patented without his consent and that his genes, according to the USPTO were no longer his own."
Well it makes a good story, but only as a maybe- amusing distortion, certainly not as the truth. What was patented was not John Moore, of course, but rather, a technology invented during research carried out on biological/clinical sample material that had been taken from John Moore's body -- just not at all the same thing, is it
"his genes
Nonsense! How often does it have to be repeated that a patent gives no property right in an embodiment of the patented invention? The property is in the patent itself, conferring the right to license or prohibit commercial exploitation of the technology. To show the difference, if I infringe your patent for a wibble-tibble by making a wibble-tibble of the same kind for economic purposes without your authorization, that may make me liable to pay you court-ordered damages or an account of profits. I may be ordered to stop my activities, and maybe also to hand over or destroy the infringing article (at _my_ option). But that _doesn't_ make even the infringing wibble-tibble your property! It's not! (for example, if I obey a court order by destroying it by taking it to bits, the bits are mine, not yours.)
Again we find an entertaining myth propagated in preference to the more boring truth.
In the case of a patented gene-product or gene-related technology, not only are my genes or yours not infringements of any kind, but they are also not anybody else's property even if some technology derived from them might be the subject of a patent which could amount to infringement. Strewth! (There can be argument on whether genes in my body are capable of being an object of property at all, mine or anyone else's. I couldn't transfer legal title to my body to you by a bill of sale, for example.)
People who put this stuff about need to grow up!