IBM has been spending millions of dollars lobbying for governments to mandate the use of Open Office, and yet they couldn't internally dogfood their own products? Sorry, but that's just too funny.
Maybe they thought those government types were going to turn in good bug reports so they wouldn't have to!
As an Apple guy, I can tell you this is completely wrong. WebKit (the engine powering Safari) is a shared framework. it can be found here:/System/Library/Frameworks/WebKit.framework. This framework is key to the "help" Display system and Dictionary. In fact, the new safari 4 engine replaces the webkit framework.
You can check out more information at developers.apple.com
I don't want anyone to strip out the underlying code on either system - having someone else do all the work for building a Help system is a relief.
My wife is a Veterinarian, and her practice has gone digital for all radiology. But the office and all radiology is PC only whereas our house is Mac (with some Linux server stuff - not important here).
I'd love to know what vendors are considering mac products for anything in the vet field. Ideally, my wife would love to be able to look at film on the mac, or even better on her iPhone.
Plums is now on the iPhone, as are a few other apps, looking at film would be the bees knees.
There are some good points there, but I'll offer another possibility; maybe the "end" college provides is more significant than just the goal portion.
I hire people, and generally I treat a college degree as a prerequisite. Not because of specific coursework, but because the fact someone has completed a degree demonstrates an ability to keep on task for an extended period of time regardless of distractions. I don't mind major switchers, and I'm not looking for someone who did it in three years to the exclusion of life. Rather, I want to see that someone figured out how to navigate the always Byzantine requirements to get the right class into your schedule in the right order within a time limit.
Additionally, the social skills from college become pretty important - it's pretty hard to make it out of college without some kind of lab class that involves working with classmates on a group project. And everyone had someone in that project who didn't do what everyone wanted, or at least didn't pull their fair share. I want to know how you dealt with that, how did you feel about it, and what did you learn from it.
Finally, and MOST critically, I am always on the lookout for people who can write well on deadline. regardless of the technical nature of the project, the ability to explain what you are doing and why is just essential.
So yes, it's great if you can see your path in college as stepping stones to specific knowledge, but you shouldn't ignore the ancillary benefits that employers count on.
I did RTFA, this was strictly in response to the OP who was using the phrase "MUSIC FILES SHOULD BE FREE, PERFORMANCES SHOULD BE PAID FOR, THIS IS THE 21st CENTURY DEFINITION OF A MUSICIAN."
the question of Choruss and compensation plans is a separate point. And certainly one that needs more scrutiny.
Musicians DO choose the method of music distribution that best suits their needs! they CHOOSE to sign a contract with a studio rather than using the self publishing route. Musicians have the same inalienable rights as the rest of us, they are fully emancipated.
That some of them choose to go through a studio that has draconian DRM policies is their choice! If you feel strongly about it, then the choice of studio that the musician makes should help you decide if you want to listen to his/her music.
Nothing will work faster at changing polices like lack of money to studio artists.
Since when did produced, professional music become such a life necessity that you get to dictate the cost structure and business model?
If you don't like how they distribute music, Don't BUY IT!
Why is that so damn hard to understand? The value of the music is the nexus of what the artist/studio is willing to sell it for, and what you are willing to pay for it. The "21st Century Definition of a Musician" clearly includes the ability of a musician to refuse to sign a contract with a big studio. Why do you somehow think the artist is being repressed? The artists have heard of the internet too, yet somehow, they keep doing deals with studios! I wonder if somehow, they think studios do things that they will have to spend a lot of time and money to do, like front money for big venues, pay for plane tickets, studio time, etc etc.
I am so sick and tired of the bastille storming attitude regarding music. I've decided to buy the (little) I want, and ignore the rest.
To shake your little fist in the air at the music "man" is just sad and pathetic.
I'm bothered that FSF has pulled down the discussion and dialog that led to the GPLv3, but if anyone can find it, you will see that under v2 you could structure a patent licensing deal in a way that did not cover downstream users of the code. The clear and obvious example was the Novell deal. v3 was altered to prevent patent deals like the Novell deal (and you'll note that Linux still seems to stick with v2).
So for Jeremy to argue that deals can't be done under v2 flies in the face of Eben Moglen's reading of the law. And while Jeremy's a better coder, Moglen's a better lawyer.
Actually, it's not cruel. Although his language is abusive, his intention has some merit.
Studies by the National Science Foundation and others have shown that a disproportionate number of the really questionable patents have had the same examiners.
POPA, the Union that represents examiners, and the executives at the USPTO need to feel more pressure when it comes to correcting the mistakes of individual examiners or their managers.
RIght now, the system skews towards rewarding the examiner who approves a patent, rather than an examiner how gives final judgment against approval.
Anecdotally, it appears that some examiners are even more ready to approve patents than the rest of their colleagues, and public pressure to 'call them out' might be a useful tool for both the Union and Administration to find a resolution to a few bad, or at least misguided, apples.
It's worth noting that IBM is the largest patenter for the USPTO, and as such has incredible influence there. For all their Open Source marketing speak, they continue to pursue absurd patents and to collect royalties off of software patents.
For IBM to file for a patent like this demonstrates that either they are monumentally duplicitous in their intent with regards to method/software patents, or that they are a company where the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.
Enough with the CE crap. Someone needs to come up with something better than CE. "Common Era" begs the question: Common to whom? the 1.5 billion people in India? NO. the 1.3 in China? NO. CE is a bullshit response by pansy-ass academics who are worried about appearing to be supporting religion. How stupid is it that you base your dating system on a purely religious timeline and yet try to pretend it's not? oh, and changing BC to mean "Before Common" is just priceless.
Pick a date, call it year 0 and start over if you are so tragically afraid that somehow that icky religious stuff will get on you. The Republic of China on Taiwan did, the calendar there starts with 1912, the year the ROC was founded.
The whole CE thing is so incredibly anti-knowledge it makes my skin itch. Understanding the world comes from acknowledgment, not from denial.
Actually, dwater makes a good point. One of our member companies had a General Counsel who was of the same mindset as Mr. Denke; he wanted to fight weak infringement claims. Unfortunately, as an officer of the company, he was required to lay out the costs for fighting and winning and the costs of just settling. Oftentimes even WINNING could be more expensive than settling if the claimant had no real assets. And then there was the risk of losing.
So in the end, he had to settle cases he desperately wanted to fight. He was a big part of the reason we got involved in patent reform several years ago.
During the entire fight about OOXML and ODF I heard the ODF folks praise the "innovation" in ODF. Well, I have news for all the hard working XML folk out there: People don't buy a format, they buy an application! And given that OO.o is nothing more than an intentional knockoff of an antiquated product, it's hard to make the case that supporting ODF is not just about improving IBM's market position, instead of creating better workflow or innovative ways of interacting with documents.
Right now, our productivity apps are essentially feature-set upgrades on the old MacWrite/Microsoft Word for Mac paradigm we all learned back in the 80's. Most of the menus and icons remain conceptually unchanged. Hate it or like it, at least the 'ribbon' in the latest version of Office is slightly different. Unless OO.o goes somewhere new, why should anyone buy it other than to "stick it to the man" at Microsoft? And before someone points out that you don't "buy" OO.o, In the government space someone is going to get paid, either for a license or for a service contract.
IBM and other corporations who want to fund OO.o with a long term goal of lining their own (corporate) pockets need to think beyond the clone. Until they do so, OO.o will remain nothing more than a sales tool in a marketing brochure. What would serve the world better is an OO.o that rethinks our document world.
Paraphrasing Winston Churchill: "It's the worst form of government....after all the rest". Seriously though, it very logical.
There's really no way to extract money from politics, or even to extract certain interests from having a significant impact on the system.
Why? Because the more affected you are by a decision, the more likely you are to care. The more you care, the more active you are likley to be. And while you might be able to elminate PACs and contributions and any other from of "cash" you can't eliminate people's willingness to spend time on something that will affect them. And since time really does = money for most of us, this becomes the most significant form of political contributions.
Google's spending on lobbyists buys them time, and that spending will DWARF whatever political contributions they hand out. The Goggle folk will be narrowly focused on specific issues and will understand the process. This makes them a valuable resource regardless of the fact that they can no longer buy anyone a drink, or a meal, or a plane ride. The commodity they will provide is "time". Time that a staffer can now spend doing something else, like answer the endless stream of constituent mail *shudder, it really never, never, never ends - I still have nightmares*
SO you are right when you say Google will be spending money to affect policy in a way that is skewed in their favor. And where your interests are aligned, you'll be happy, and where they aren't you'll (hopefully) write in, or better yet, contribute money/time to an organization opposing their efforts.
But here's the funny part - history shows us that you'll likley only do this if it truly affects your life. As I noted in the RIAA instance, people generated personal outrage, but it didn't really affect their ability to go about their daily lives. It's really only at the 'annoyance' level.
Another good example that's not as politically tinged as the RIAA issue is the comparison between turnout and age.
Young people just don't vote - noted political analist Charlie Cook refers to the 18-25 group as "non-voters". Yet these people often have more free time than the older demos, so why don't they vote?
Because the government simply doesn't impact their lives that much. In America, there's no draft, most of the 18-25 year olds don't own property, don't have kids of school age, aren't cognizant of their own mortality and therefore ignore Social Security. They are mostly healthy so Healthcare isn't as big an issue, they don't earn enough in wages for income tax to feel impactful... simply put, they don't vote because they aren't feeling the squeeze.
In the 60's kids voted in larger numbers, but we had a draft, and that meant there was a pretty dramatic 'squeeze' from the government.
When Americans start to pay mortgages, have kids in schools that are funded by property taxes, start having health issues, etc. they start to vote.
You know who votes the most? Old people on fixed incomes! They vote because they have time, and the government now affects nearly every aspect of their lives - and even how they distribute assets after their death.
So while you might think the system is weird, it's truly a very logical process based on level of impact and interest.
As to whether I personally like it, I'm mixed. I think that turning campaign money into a volume business reduces the ability of Members to keep abreast of legislation. It means that fundraisers become not only a source of money, but also of information. You contribute not to "buy him off" but to have access to his 'ear'. Part of me is ok with this b/c when you reach into your pocket and write a personal check, this sends a message that you care VERY deeply about a subject - and maybe you need to be heard.
But I have no good answer on how you free up Members to spend more time not just listening to all voices, including the corporations who employ people and make our current economic model function, but also
Oh, and lest anyone think I came up with the theory of US politics as driven by enlightened self interest, I should point out that I am really stealing from de Tocqueville - you can read more by following the links on wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightened_self-inte rest
Your comment is proof that your mind is so clearly "made up" that no amount of knowledge or insight will change your tightly held (albeit unsupported) beliefs. But for the others who may be reading this thread, let's break it down:
1. You are completely right about some of the total corruption cases we have had - bad news, bad actors, and they got caught pretty easily. The scrutiny is pretty tight nowadays, and some will still be so arrogant as to believe they will get away with it, but history suggests that they are going to get caught.
2. "Members don't do things because they have people in their districts". My only answer to you on this is: you are an utter idiot if you actually believe that, get yourself a tinfoil hat and stay away from open windows. And since you make these assertions, tell me how you "know this? I can tell you in excruiating detail the days, nights, weeks, months and even years of work that goes into it. Building coalitions, identifying members who are interested, fending off other interests, educating educating educating. If money were the simple answer, legislation wouldn't take long to pass. THe proof point here is even bills that you view as corporate give-aways take YEARS to get done.
3. "Lobbyists write legislation" - . "Lobbyists" don't automatically write legislation - what they do is say to a Congressional office"If you are interested in this issue area, we'd like to meet with you to discuss legislation that might be of interest to your constituents, or is relevant to the Committee you Chair". Then, a meeting is held and you essentally "pitch" the prospective legislation. Describing why it's good, who benefits, what are the risks, etc. etc. If the Congressman is convinced, then the lobbyist may play a role in crafting the legislation. Your problem here is you see the transaction as a "black box". The reality is the lobbyist is an issue area expert in the subject of the legislation. He is driven by enlightened self interest to know more about a subject than anyone else; he must be able to develop the entire argument, and counter-argument for the legislation. Moreover, he has to understand the politics of the issue, and explain that as well. So to say "lobbyists write legislation" can also be said as "Issue Area Experts write legislation". Most congressional staff are people under 30 years old making around 30k a year. You WANT issue area experts to have a hand in crafting legislation. Also remember that if the bill is controversial, then the 'other side' will come in and argue against it. Literally every imaginable viewpoint gets heard, if not via lobbying, then via hearings.
4. "Public Policy is supposed to be for the public" While this phrase sounds pithy, it means nothing. You complain about the TPS, but note that the people talking were people who focus on public policy. If I go to OSCON, I want to hear Tridge talk about SAMBA, I don't want to hear someone who isn't part of the development team tell me about the next version of SAMBA. And your comment about Google being "right" at least on occasion proves the main problem you have. You use your own frame of reference to define why a decision was made. If it's a good decision, well, then it was in the public interest - if it was a bad decision it was driven by "Corporations". Yet you are the only person defining "good" and "bad". So your model is flawed from the outset - better to look at legislation from the perspective of enlightened self interest. For example, IBM is pumping lots of money into lobbying for ODF preferences and tech mandates to be made into law around the world. Normally, you would probably oppose tech mandates and preference. But if you support ODF being instituted via law, then would you ignore the clear corporate interests and claim it's good policy? If you do that, then you can't support a public vs. corporate viewpoint. Stop looking at it from the "good" vs. "bad" and start looking at it as enlightened self interest.
and that Lobbyist was me! Many of these same questions keep popping up; things like "isn't lobbying bribery"? and "how dare congress listen to him/her!" Basic reality is, Members of Congress listen to their constituents, and issues they think will affect their constituents. And regardless of the opinion of Lessig and other ivory tower "experts", there is not simple answer to the money issue. I would posit that money has never been more important in politics, but 'single source' money has never been less influential.
Think of it this way, Members have to raise more than ever before, but they can still only raise it in relatively small amounts, so small that on single check for 2,000 has much influence when you consider that an average House race will cost in excess of 2 MILLION.
This creates a problem. The Representative must raise $2 Million, but has to do it in small amounts. This forces them to spend a disproportionate amount of time raising money, but it also lowers the influence of any one check. Members must spend endless hours calling hundreds of people to ask for $50, $100, maybe even $500 dollar contributions.
Because money is now a volume activity, all of the slashdotters who want to leap to the incorrect conclusion that all Lobbying is done through payouts from a few lobbyists are living in movieland. The reality is that the lobbyist's true power comes from being able to show a Representative how his support or opposition to a bill will make his Constituents happy - and encourage them vote for him. This reduces the Member's need to raise/spend money, and therefore is considered a great thing to the Member of Congress.
For example, Slashdotters assume that the only reason anyone would ever support the DMCA is because the RIAA paid them off. Well, as a recent consumerist report showed, the RIAA hasn't written very many big checks! However, many of the Members of Congress who are the most agressive in support of the DMCA have songwriters, movie studios, themeparks and software companies in their districts. It should come as no surprise that they want to help the people they represent keep their jobs, pay taxes, and generally be happy with their elected officals. As a side note, if you wonder how that article in Consumerist and Slashdot affected Capitol Hill, well, it didn't - because no one called in. I did an informal poll of the members who were on the top of the RIAA list as presented here on slashdot. Guess what? most offices got only a couple of calls. Here on slashdot, the DMCA is treated like it's legislation that will bring about the next anti-christ, but the rest of America doesn't actually care. If you compare the 1 or 2 calls on the DMCA with what happens when the NRA, the WWF, Sierra Club, Right to Life or NOW pushes people to call in, you begin to understand that Members aren't being paid off, they just understand that their constituents aren't appreciably harmed by the DMCA - in fact many have jobs that benefit from it. There has yet to be a Gallup Poll showing the DMCA coming in ahead of HealthCare, the War in Iraq, Education, Social Security or even the proliferation of hangnails as experienced by the elderly. So stop assuming that the only reason anyone could support a position is a payoff.
SImply put, leaping to the conclusion that anyone who dissagrees with you must be 'bought off' creates a false dicotomy. If it were literally all about the money, then there would be a lot less work for lobbyists!
As I noted above, Linus CAN speak for Linux - he owns the trademark. He's the only person who can speak for "Linux" or designate spokespersons or people. Look here http://linuxmark.com/ for all your linux trademark info.
Actually, Linus is the _only_ person who can comment on the position of Linux. He controls the trademark name and much of the corresponding code.
This is not to say that the GPL doesn't apply, but when it comes to the actual product called "the Linux kernel", that baby is Linus and no one else's.
And this is a good thing. Having worked on an OSS project that was hijacked by a nutjob, I can say that it is important to be able to clearly identify the party or parties making final decisions. In our project, it meant the vast majority of the developers posted a letter stating our opposition to the nutjob's positions, and then we started a new project with a new name.
Linus speaks for the product known as the Linux kernel because he owns the rights to that trademarked name. He deserves the respect and attention he gets from the public at large.
The best way to reply to this might be 'right on paper turns out wrong in practice'.
It is best to think of the Committee and Community input as being advisory only, ultimately Stallman/the FSF makes all the decisions and cannot be overturned.
You would think this would mean a tougher license, but what we got instead is one that focuses on punishing enemies and rewarding friends, not "car[ing] more about end-user freedom than about whether XYZ inc. will like the license or not."
You can see that in some of the (careful) cut outs for companies like Cisco (note that section 6 only covers consumer items, not, say a Cisco enterprise router); IBM/Intel's embedded chip business (an exception is made for Linux burned to ROM where there is no opportunity to change); Google (the ineffectual Affero provision. In Eben's defense, he has spoken out about Google's failure to live up to the spirit of the GPL). Probably most significantly, the patent provisions have a cut out so that only "contributed code" is covered, not everything in a distribution. This is a big win for IBM - never forget that IBM is the single biggest patenter, NOT Microsoft!
I fully support the right of the FSF to do this. It truly is their license. But the cut outs and oddly twisted language tells me that this license is about something other than _just_ Freedom.
The developer community will have to make a choice to stick with v2 and move projects forward in that manner, or switch to v3 with its friends and enemies list.
Reminiscent of "Animal Farm", one has to wonder how the rules will be changed on the barnyard door next time!
Minor correction here, but important. The USPTO allows patents on a Method of doing something. This is how people get software patents; the software itself isn't patented, it's the method for doing the activity the software does.
This is different than the EU, which allows for "Computer Impelemented Invention" or CII. This is an invention as executed by a device. Though in reality, CII patents have been granted when there was no device at the time of filing, so that's even a misnomer.
Regardless, the ruling is a big win for the software industry as it makes the test for software patentablity much, much higher. Essentally, an examiner should now be able to say "this exists in the regular world in exactly the same manner, no, you can't patent it just because you reproduced it on the web".
It's fascinating that Google has chosen the Apache license for the release of this product. Given that Eben Moglen has explicitly stated that the Apache License is incompatible with GPLv3, what does this mean for mixing this code into other projects?
Even though v3 no longer has the anti-google Affero provisions, Google still chooses Apache instead of GPLv3 or even v2 with a rider to upgrade to v3. You gotta believe the Google lawyers were thinking about this issue before release...
From your post it's clear that you aspire to be both a lawyer and a comedian. And while I concede that as a lawyer you make a good comedian, no one will be laughing if this license is finalized without addressing some of the legal issues Wilder outlined.
Maybe you should apply your comic timing to chiding those dozen lawyers to get this agreement right, while there is still time. ACT provided you with some free-to-you legal analysis of the GPLv3 from a very well respected IP lawyer, and you are busy calling him names instead of taking advantage of it? Brilliant idea!
You claim to be a "leader" of the Open Source community, perhaps you should start acting like one.
Oh, and Wilder ALSO has an Engineering degree, so it looks like he has sees your bid, and raises you one degree.
First, VeriSign doesn't administer domains, they are a Registry. NetSol and GoDaddy are Registrars, and they administer domains (the wiki is kinda weak on the explanations, but think of Registrars as middlemen). After Oct. 15, which is when the increase will take effect, the registry price for a.com name will be $6.42 and the registry price for a.net name will be $3.85. At present, Net Sol marks up domain names about 480 percent!
Second, the lower price of storage and CPUs have very little effect when juxtaposed against the gigantic growth in internet use, i.e. people pinging the root DNS server. And since the price is fixed, there has been no 'new' money to fix the growth of DDOS attacks on the DNS.
I'd feel a lot more sympathy of the registrars if they didn't already jack me and shove piles of ads in my face when I need to alter an IP addy, or send me misleading letters in the mail claiming to renew when in fact all they are doing is "slamming" me to a new registrar.
This is not a tautology - in fact, the agreement passes the rights downstream to customers. This is not the same as Novell obtaining the rights just for its products.
Slashdot Mirror
IBM has been spending millions of dollars lobbying for governments to mandate the use of Open Office, and yet they couldn't internally dogfood their own products? Sorry, but that's just too funny.
Maybe they thought those government types were going to turn in good bug reports so they wouldn't have to!
As an Apple guy, I can tell you this is completely wrong. WebKit (the engine powering Safari) is a shared framework. it can be found here: /System/Library/Frameworks/WebKit.framework. This framework is key to the "help" Display system and Dictionary. In fact, the new safari 4 engine replaces the webkit framework.
You can check out more information at developers.apple.com
I don't want anyone to strip out the underlying code on either system - having someone else do all the work for building a Help system is a relief.
My wife is a Veterinarian, and her practice has gone digital for all radiology. But the office and all radiology is PC only whereas our house is Mac (with some Linux server stuff - not important here).
I'd love to know what vendors are considering mac products for anything in the vet field. Ideally, my wife would love to be able to look at film on the mac, or even better on her iPhone.
Plums is now on the iPhone, as are a few other apps, looking at film would be the bees knees.
There are some good points there, but I'll offer another possibility; maybe the "end" college provides is more significant than just the goal portion.
I hire people, and generally I treat a college degree as a prerequisite. Not because of specific coursework, but because the fact someone has completed a degree demonstrates an ability to keep on task for an extended period of time regardless of distractions. I don't mind major switchers, and I'm not looking for someone who did it in three years to the exclusion of life. Rather, I want to see that someone figured out how to navigate the always Byzantine requirements to get the right class into your schedule in the right order within a time limit.
Additionally, the social skills from college become pretty important - it's pretty hard to make it out of college without some kind of lab class that involves working with classmates on a group project. And everyone had someone in that project who didn't do what everyone wanted, or at least didn't pull their fair share. I want to know how you dealt with that, how did you feel about it, and what did you learn from it.
Finally, and MOST critically, I am always on the lookout for people who can write well on deadline. regardless of the technical nature of the project, the ability to explain what you are doing and why is just essential.
So yes, it's great if you can see your path in college as stepping stones to specific knowledge, but you shouldn't ignore the ancillary benefits that employers count on.
I did RTFA, this was strictly in response to the OP who was using the phrase "MUSIC FILES SHOULD BE FREE, PERFORMANCES SHOULD BE PAID FOR, THIS IS THE 21st CENTURY DEFINITION OF A MUSICIAN."
the question of Choruss and compensation plans is a separate point. And certainly one that needs more scrutiny.
I shall repeat:
Musicians DO choose the method of music distribution that best suits their needs! they CHOOSE to sign a contract with a studio rather than using the self publishing route. Musicians have the same inalienable rights as the rest of us, they are fully emancipated.
That some of them choose to go through a studio that has draconian DRM policies is their choice! If you feel strongly about it, then the choice of studio that the musician makes should help you decide if you want to listen to his/her music.
Nothing will work faster at changing polices like lack of money to studio artists.
Since when did produced, professional music become such a life necessity that you get to dictate the cost structure and business model?
If you don't like how they distribute music, Don't BUY IT!
Why is that so damn hard to understand? The value of the music is the nexus of what the artist/studio is willing to sell it for, and what you are willing to pay for it. The "21st Century Definition of a Musician" clearly includes the ability of a musician to refuse to sign a contract with a big studio. Why do you somehow think the artist is being repressed? The artists have heard of the internet too, yet somehow, they keep doing deals with studios! I wonder if somehow, they think studios do things that they will have to spend a lot of time and money to do, like front money for big venues, pay for plane tickets, studio time, etc etc.
I am so sick and tired of the bastille storming attitude regarding music. I've decided to buy the (little) I want, and ignore the rest.
To shake your little fist in the air at the music "man" is just sad and pathetic.
I'm bothered that FSF has pulled down the discussion and dialog that led to the GPLv3, but if anyone can find it, you will see that under v2 you could structure a patent licensing deal in a way that did not cover downstream users of the code. The clear and obvious example was the Novell deal. v3 was altered to prevent patent deals like the Novell deal (and you'll note that Linux still seems to stick with v2).
So for Jeremy to argue that deals can't be done under v2 flies in the face of Eben Moglen's reading of the law. And while Jeremy's a better coder, Moglen's a better lawyer.
This is pure bunk. Ignore and move on.
TomTom were found to be a gpl violator in '04, sued Garmin in '07 and Toyota in '08 for infringing TomTom patents, and have a very restrictive EULA.
Actually, it's not cruel. Although his language is abusive, his intention has some merit.
Studies by the National Science Foundation and others have shown that a disproportionate number of the really questionable patents have had the same examiners.
POPA, the Union that represents examiners, and the executives at the USPTO need to feel more pressure when it comes to correcting the mistakes of individual examiners or their managers.
RIght now, the system skews towards rewarding the examiner who approves a patent, rather than an examiner how gives final judgment against approval.
Anecdotally, it appears that some examiners are even more ready to approve patents than the rest of their colleagues, and public pressure to 'call them out' might be a useful tool for both the Union and Administration to find a resolution to a few bad, or at least misguided, apples.
It's worth noting that IBM is the largest patenter for the USPTO, and as such has incredible influence there. For all their Open Source marketing speak, they continue to pursue absurd patents and to collect royalties off of software patents.
For IBM to file for a patent like this demonstrates that either they are monumentally duplicitous in their intent with regards to method/software patents, or that they are a company where the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.
Ok, time to fly off-topic.
Enough with the CE crap. Someone needs to come up with something better than CE. "Common Era" begs the question: Common to whom? the 1.5 billion people in India? NO. the 1.3 in China? NO. CE is a bullshit response by pansy-ass academics who are worried about appearing to be supporting religion. How stupid is it that you base your dating system on a purely religious timeline and yet try to pretend it's not? oh, and changing BC to mean "Before Common" is just priceless.
Pick a date, call it year 0 and start over if you are so tragically afraid that somehow that icky religious stuff will get on you. The Republic of China on Taiwan did, the calendar there starts with 1912, the year the ROC was founded.
The whole CE thing is so incredibly anti-knowledge it makes my skin itch. Understanding the world comes from acknowledgment, not from denial.
Actually, dwater makes a good point. One of our member companies had a General Counsel who was of the same mindset as Mr. Denke; he wanted to fight weak infringement claims. Unfortunately, as an officer of the company, he was required to lay out the costs for fighting and winning and the costs of just settling. Oftentimes even WINNING could be more expensive than settling if the claimant had no real assets. And then there was the risk of losing.
So in the end, he had to settle cases he desperately wanted to fight. He was a big part of the reason we got involved in patent reform several years ago.
Morgan
Right now, our productivity apps are essentially feature-set upgrades on the old MacWrite/Microsoft Word for Mac paradigm we all learned back in the 80's. Most of the menus and icons remain conceptually unchanged. Hate it or like it, at least the 'ribbon' in the latest version of Office is slightly different. Unless OO.o goes somewhere new, why should anyone buy it other than to "stick it to the man" at Microsoft? And before someone points out that you don't "buy" OO.o, In the government space someone is going to get paid, either for a license or for a service contract.
IBM and other corporations who want to fund OO.o with a long term goal of lining their own (corporate) pockets need to think beyond the clone. Until they do so, OO.o will remain nothing more than a sales tool in a marketing brochure. What would serve the world better is an OO.o that rethinks our document world.
Paraphrasing Winston Churchill: "It's the worst form of government....after all the rest". Seriously though, it very logical.
There's really no way to extract money from politics, or even to extract certain interests from having a significant impact on the system.
Why? Because the more affected you are by a decision, the more likely you are to care. The more you care, the more active you are likley to be. And while you might be able to elminate PACs and contributions and any other from of "cash" you can't eliminate people's willingness to spend time on something that will affect them. And since time really does = money for most of us, this becomes the most significant form of political contributions.
Google's spending on lobbyists buys them time, and that spending will DWARF whatever political contributions they hand out. The Goggle folk will be narrowly focused on specific issues and will understand the process. This makes them a valuable resource regardless of the fact that they can no longer buy anyone a drink, or a meal, or a plane ride. The commodity they will provide is "time". Time that a staffer can now spend doing something else, like answer the endless stream of constituent mail *shudder, it really never, never, never ends - I still have nightmares*
SO you are right when you say Google will be spending money to affect policy in a way that is skewed in their favor. And where your interests are aligned, you'll be happy, and where they aren't you'll (hopefully) write in, or better yet, contribute money/time to an organization opposing their efforts.
But here's the funny part - history shows us that you'll likley only do this if it truly affects your life. As I noted in the RIAA instance, people generated personal outrage, but it didn't really affect their ability to go about their daily lives. It's really only at the 'annoyance' level.
Another good example that's not as politically tinged as the RIAA issue is the comparison between turnout and age.
Young people just don't vote - noted political analist Charlie Cook refers to the 18-25 group as "non-voters". Yet these people often have more free time than the older demos, so why don't they vote?
Because the government simply doesn't impact their lives that much. In America, there's no draft, most of the 18-25 year olds don't own property, don't have kids of school age, aren't cognizant of their own mortality and therefore ignore Social Security. They are mostly healthy so Healthcare isn't as big an issue, they don't earn enough in wages for income tax to feel impactful... simply put, they don't vote because they aren't feeling the squeeze.
In the 60's kids voted in larger numbers, but we had a draft, and that meant there was a pretty dramatic 'squeeze' from the government.
When Americans start to pay mortgages, have kids in schools that are funded by property taxes, start having health issues, etc. they start to vote.
You know who votes the most? Old people on fixed incomes! They vote because they have time, and the government now affects nearly every aspect of their lives - and even how they distribute assets after their death.
So while you might think the system is weird, it's truly a very logical process based on level of impact and interest.
As to whether I personally like it, I'm mixed. I think that turning campaign money into a volume business reduces the ability of Members to keep abreast of legislation. It means that fundraisers become not only a source of money, but also of information. You contribute not to "buy him off" but to have access to his 'ear'. Part of me is ok with this b/c when you reach into your pocket and write a personal check, this sends a message that you care VERY deeply about a subject - and maybe you need to be heard.
But I have no good answer on how you free up Members to spend more time not just listening to all voices, including the corporations who employ people and make our current economic model function, but also
Oh, and lest anyone think I came up with the theory of US politics as driven by enlightened self interest, I should point out that I am really stealing from de Tocqueville - you can read more by following the links on wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightened_self-inte rest
Your comment is proof that your mind is so clearly "made up" that no amount of knowledge or insight will change your tightly held (albeit unsupported) beliefs. But for the others who may be reading this thread, let's break it down:
1. You are completely right about some of the total corruption cases we have had - bad news, bad actors, and they got caught pretty easily. The scrutiny is pretty tight nowadays, and some will still be so arrogant as to believe they will get away with it, but history suggests that they are going to get caught.
2. "Members don't do things because they have people in their districts". My only answer to you on this is: you are an utter idiot if you actually believe that, get yourself a tinfoil hat and stay away from open windows. And since you make these assertions, tell me how you "know this? I can tell you in excruiating detail the days, nights, weeks, months and even years of work that goes into it. Building coalitions, identifying members who are interested, fending off other interests, educating educating educating. If money were the simple answer, legislation wouldn't take long to pass. THe proof point here is even bills that you view as corporate give-aways take YEARS to get done.
3. "Lobbyists write legislation" - . "Lobbyists" don't automatically write legislation - what they do is say to a Congressional office"If you are interested in this issue area, we'd like to meet with you to discuss legislation that might be of interest to your constituents, or is relevant to the Committee you Chair". Then, a meeting is held and you essentally "pitch" the prospective legislation. Describing why it's good, who benefits, what are the risks, etc. etc. If the Congressman is convinced, then the lobbyist may play a role in crafting the legislation. Your problem here is you see the transaction as a "black box". The reality is the lobbyist is an issue area expert in the subject of the legislation. He is driven by enlightened self interest to know more about a subject than anyone else; he must be able to develop the entire argument, and counter-argument for the legislation. Moreover, he has to understand the politics of the issue, and explain that as well. So to say "lobbyists write legislation" can also be said as "Issue Area Experts write legislation". Most congressional staff are people under 30 years old making around 30k a year. You WANT issue area experts to have a hand in crafting legislation. Also remember that if the bill is controversial, then the 'other side' will come in and argue against it. Literally every imaginable viewpoint gets heard, if not via lobbying, then via hearings.
4. "Public Policy is supposed to be for the public" While this phrase sounds pithy, it means nothing. You complain about the TPS, but note that the people talking were people who focus on public policy. If I go to OSCON, I want to hear Tridge talk about SAMBA, I don't want to hear someone who isn't part of the development team tell me about the next version of SAMBA. And your comment about Google being "right" at least on occasion proves the main problem you have. You use your own frame of reference to define why a decision was made. If it's a good decision, well, then it was in the public interest - if it was a bad decision it was driven by "Corporations". Yet you are the only person defining "good" and "bad". So your model is flawed from the outset - better to look at legislation from the perspective of enlightened self interest. For example, IBM is pumping lots of money into lobbying for ODF preferences and tech mandates to be made into law around the world. Normally, you would probably oppose tech mandates and preference. But if you support ODF being instituted via law, then would you ignore the clear corporate interests and claim it's good policy? If you do that, then you can't support a public vs. corporate viewpoint. Stop looking at it from the "good" vs. "bad" and start looking at it as enlightened self interest.
There are lot
Think of it this way, Members have to raise more than ever before, but they can still only raise it in relatively small amounts, so small that on single check for 2,000 has much influence when you consider that an average House race will cost in excess of 2 MILLION.
This creates a problem. The Representative must raise $2 Million, but has to do it in small amounts. This forces them to spend a disproportionate amount of time raising money, but it also lowers the influence of any one check. Members must spend endless hours calling hundreds of people to ask for $50, $100, maybe even $500 dollar contributions.
Because money is now a volume activity, all of the slashdotters who want to leap to the incorrect conclusion that all Lobbying is done through payouts from a few lobbyists are living in movieland. The reality is that the lobbyist's true power comes from being able to show a Representative how his support or opposition to a bill will make his Constituents happy - and encourage them vote for him. This reduces the Member's need to raise/spend money, and therefore is considered a great thing to the Member of Congress.
For example, Slashdotters assume that the only reason anyone would ever support the DMCA is because the RIAA paid them off. Well, as a recent consumerist report showed, the RIAA hasn't written very many big checks! However, many of the Members of Congress who are the most agressive in support of the DMCA have songwriters, movie studios, themeparks and software companies in their districts. It should come as no surprise that they want to help the people they represent keep their jobs, pay taxes, and generally be happy with their elected officals. As a side note, if you wonder how that article in Consumerist and Slashdot affected Capitol Hill, well, it didn't - because no one called in. I did an informal poll of the members who were on the top of the RIAA list as presented here on slashdot. Guess what? most offices got only a couple of calls. Here on slashdot, the DMCA is treated like it's legislation that will bring about the next anti-christ, but the rest of America doesn't actually care. If you compare the 1 or 2 calls on the DMCA with what happens when the NRA, the WWF, Sierra Club, Right to Life or NOW pushes people to call in, you begin to understand that Members aren't being paid off, they just understand that their constituents aren't appreciably harmed by the DMCA - in fact many have jobs that benefit from it. There has yet to be a Gallup Poll showing the DMCA coming in ahead of HealthCare, the War in Iraq, Education, Social Security or even the proliferation of hangnails as experienced by the elderly. So stop assuming that the only reason anyone could support a position is a payoff.
SImply put, leaping to the conclusion that anyone who dissagrees with you must be 'bought off' creates a false dicotomy. If it were literally all about the money, then there would be a lot less work for lobbyists!
As I noted above, Linus CAN speak for Linux - he owns the trademark. He's the only person who can speak for "Linux" or designate spokespersons or people. Look here http://linuxmark.com/ for all your linux trademark info.
(and yes, I think this is a good thing)
This is not to say that the GPL doesn't apply, but when it comes to the actual product called "the Linux kernel", that baby is Linus and no one else's.
And this is a good thing. Having worked on an OSS project that was hijacked by a nutjob, I can say that it is important to be able to clearly identify the party or parties making final decisions. In our project, it meant the vast majority of the developers posted a letter stating our opposition to the nutjob's positions, and then we started a new project with a new name.
Linus speaks for the product known as the Linux kernel because he owns the rights to that trademarked name. He deserves the respect and attention he gets from the public at large.
The best way to reply to this might be 'right on paper turns out wrong in practice'.
It is best to think of the Committee and Community input as being advisory only, ultimately Stallman/the FSF makes all the decisions and cannot be overturned.
You would think this would mean a tougher license, but what we got instead is one that focuses on punishing enemies and rewarding friends, not "car[ing] more about end-user freedom than about whether XYZ inc. will like the license or not."
You can see that in some of the (careful) cut outs for companies like Cisco (note that section 6 only covers consumer items, not, say a Cisco enterprise router); IBM/Intel's embedded chip business (an exception is made for Linux burned to ROM where there is no opportunity to change); Google (the ineffectual Affero provision. In Eben's defense, he has spoken out about Google's failure to live up to the spirit of the GPL). Probably most significantly, the patent provisions have a cut out so that only "contributed code" is covered, not everything in a distribution. This is a big win for IBM - never forget that IBM is the single biggest patenter, NOT Microsoft!
I fully support the right of the FSF to do this. It truly is their license. But the cut outs and oddly twisted language tells me that this license is about something other than _just_ Freedom.
The developer community will have to make a choice to stick with v2 and move projects forward in that manner, or switch to v3 with its friends and enemies list.
Reminiscent of "Animal Farm", one has to wonder how the rules will be changed on the barnyard door next time!
This is different than the EU, which allows for "Computer Impelemented Invention" or CII. This is an invention as executed by a device. Though in reality, CII patents have been granted when there was no device at the time of filing, so that's even a misnomer.
Regardless, the ruling is a big win for the software industry as it makes the test for software patentablity much, much higher. Essentally, an examiner should now be able to say "this exists in the regular world in exactly the same manner, no, you can't patent it just because you reproduced it on the web".
It's fascinating that Google has chosen the Apache license for the release of this product. Given that Eben Moglen has explicitly stated that the Apache License is incompatible with GPLv3, what does this mean for mixing this code into other projects?
Even though v3 no longer has the anti-google Affero provisions, Google still chooses Apache instead of GPLv3 or even v2 with a rider to upgrade to v3. You gotta believe the Google lawyers were thinking about this issue before release...
From your post it's clear that you aspire to be both a lawyer and a comedian. And while I concede that as a lawyer you make a good comedian, no one will be laughing if this license is finalized without addressing some of the legal issues Wilder outlined.
Maybe you should apply your comic timing to chiding those dozen lawyers to get this agreement right, while there is still time. ACT provided you with some free-to-you legal analysis of the GPLv3 from a very well respected IP lawyer, and you are busy calling him names instead of taking advantage of it? Brilliant idea!
You claim to be a "leader" of the Open Source community, perhaps you should start acting like one.
Oh, and Wilder ALSO has an Engineering degree, so it looks like he has sees your bid, and raises you one degree.
First, VeriSign doesn't administer domains, they are a Registry. NetSol and GoDaddy are Registrars, and they administer domains (the wiki is kinda weak on the explanations, but think of Registrars as middlemen). After Oct. 15, which is when the increase will take effect, the registry price for a .com name will be $6.42 and the registry price for a .net name will be $3.85. At present, Net Sol marks up domain names about 480 percent!
Second, the lower price of storage and CPUs have very little effect when juxtaposed against the gigantic growth in internet use, i.e. people pinging the root DNS server. And since the price is fixed, there has been no 'new' money to fix the growth of DDOS attacks on the DNS.
I'd feel a lot more sympathy of the registrars if they didn't already jack me and shove piles of ads in my face when I need to alter an IP addy, or send me misleading letters in the mail claiming to renew when in fact all they are doing is "slamming" me to a new registrar.
I think I can live with a 42 cent increase.
This is not a tautology - in fact, the agreement passes the rights downstream to customers. This is not the same as Novell obtaining the rights just for its products.