"several alternatives" but pretty much based off of the same codebase.
I guess I coudl have said "it benefits Sun AND IBM"
I assume that Corel's WP will support 2.0, but current product doesn't.
Also, I dissagree with the article poster's comments about NeoOffice/J - It's not ready for prime time. Until mac folk get together and make OO or some other derivative work natively with no X11 involvment, macs are going to be at a greater disadvantage than they are with MSFT products.
Of COURSE it gives preference to Sun. THey already have an office suite (beta) that supports OO.o 2.0, but no one else does.
This whole move is just another example of Microsoft hunting. The fact that the proposal supports.pdf format tells you that any suggestion this is done for "openness" is bullcrap.
pdf has patents, and is owned by Adobe. yes, it is freely available for lots of uses, and Adobe allows others to create pdfs, but it is certainly an encumbered format.
This proposal does nothing to advance the state of the art, does nothing to create greater usability for the citizens of MA (download and install another office suite to look at a government document? Install X11 if you are a mac user?), and does not provide any real cost savings (if MSFT adds OO.o support, MA can buy MSOffice).
This is a witch hunt, plain and simple.
if it's really about unencumbered standards, dump pdf. But don't piss on my leg and tell me that it's raining.
Biggest problem no one seems to be addressing is that the OpenOffice format is not guaranteed to be the most innovative, nor is it truly the lowest common denominator (like.rtf).
Wax cylinders were a 'format' for music, but we don't want the government locking out the use of CDs or DVDs just because the people with wax cylinder readers can't use them.
Backwards compatibility is important, but you certainly want to preserve the option to take technology that may innovate, even in the document format space, and provide better services to your constituents.
Here's a good example: early iterations of WordPerfect certainly didn't allow the complex tables and embedded images we have in current formats - heck, early HTML was barely functional for presenting text and pictures. What if we were only allowed to presever content in original WP formats, or HTML 1.0?
Governments should pick winners and losers by the quality of the technology, not ideology.
Build backwards compatibility into your contracts agreements with your vendors, and use the format that gives you the best technology.
If by unlucky you mean that the EU doesn't have software patents, you are wrong. Most EU nations (Poland is a notable exception) allow for the patenting of 'Computer Implemented Invention'.
The recent EU Parliament vote was about standardizing CII for all EU counties. The failure to pass did NOT eliminate software patents in the EU, but rather stopped standardization, which might have saved filers some money and made the system more predicable.
There is a system in place that allows for low-cost presentation of prior art BEFORE a patent is granted. It's generally referred to as a Rule 99 submission, and it allows for any third party to submit prior art that they believe shows the applied for patent should not be granted based on an existing idea.
Right now, the window to file a submission under Rule 99 is two months long. This window opens at 18 months after a patent application is filed.
The two month window iis awfully short however, and there is some question as to the value of the submissions to the examiner in such a narrow timeframe.
To improve this, we are asking that the window be lengthened to 6 months minimum, and the law be changed to allow 3rd parties to submit detailed explanations of how the art is relevant to the patent application.
The change is currently supported by the Chairman of the Subcommitee on the Courts and IP, and is part of a new bill, HR 2795, that is designed to reform the patent system.
Certain parts of HR 2795 are probably going to change, but the extention of Rule 99, and the creation of a cheaper post-grant opposition system will probably make it into final legislation.
What on earth are you talking about? OSS is antithetical to independence. Its very premise is INTER-dependence. How do you 'protect' something you don't own or control?
I think this article was very timely, as it points out what most of us already know: you aren't going to get a "free lunch" from a corporation. They have a duty to their shareholders, and they are gonna work hard to meet it. If you provide them tools that will allow them to profit without the same capital investment, they're gonna take it!
I noticed that you are very specific in saying "their profit margins"... I think this is an important, but artifical point.
If Apple chose to sell the hardware more cheaply and instead charge for every iApp, there may be no appreciable difference in overall profit.
Apple is an odd duck, because for nearly every other sector of the PC industry, hardware is the low-profit category. Software, which has much lower investment requirements, has the big, per-box profit.
I just think it's hard to split Hardware and Software in an Apple product.
And maybe that's exactly what they want to achieve.
While the Chairman singled out Apple's failure to appear at the hearing as a bad thing, it was mostly an admonishment for not doing what he asked.
He wasn't anti-Apple.
Additionally, every Member of Congress who attended was VERY clear in supporting market forces, NOT government mandates to 'solve' the interoperability issue.
Subcommitee Ranking Member Berman (D-CA) pointed out that even the Consumer Federation witness, Dr. Cooper, did not support government intervention. Dr. Cooper noted that he thought mark forces should be allowed to work at the "widget" layer, as opposed to the 'core'.
The only disconcerting thing that was said was that Chairman Smith used a narrow marketshare definition to describe Apple's status. By saying Apple's marketshare was 80% of the digital download market, he failed to include the fact that Apple's share, as a percentage of ALL music sales is tiny.
Monopoly and market share are places where defining the scope of the market is key.
(Notice, we filed an Amicus brief on this case, and are happy with the court's finding because it matches our brief)
Specifically, the ruling overturned the district court's incorrect assertion that the Viola Web browser, and specifically DX34 was "abandoned suppressed or concealed" and therefore did not qualify as something that could be shown to the jury as an example of prior art.
To quote from today's ruling "The district court's conclusion inappropriately narrowed the definition of "invention" as used in section 102(g)"
The court goes on to note that a change in version number does not necessarily constitute a new invention and that version DX37, which they tried to demo to the court, just represents an improved version of Wei's invention.
In our brief, we argued that that the intellectual property rights of all software developers must be protected, including those developers who wish to give their inventions away without charge.
Those who wish to donate their work to the "IP commons" to enlist others for help and feedback are not abandoning it for others to patent. Software developers often proactively choose to do this as an act of beneficence or as a part of their software development process. This was certainly the case for Pei-Yuan Wei, the inventor of the Viola browser that should be considered prior art to invalidate the Eolas patent.
Actually, this is a great example of the difference!
"The Gray Album" is a copyrighted work, but the _method_ of producing music was not prevented by that copyright.
So while the copyright might protect your code from just changing the variables, it wouldn't protect it from being analyzed for how it does what it does, and them being copied in every aspect of functionality.
Trade secrets can be used to do that, but then sharing the code gets to be problematic. You have to show to the court that you are vigorously protecting that secret.
Patents _could_ offer an alternative whereby the method is made public, and you only retain the right to collect rents from people using your idea for a limited time. but it makes sharing with a broad audience very easy.
This is part of why MOST standards bodies deal with patents and why standards participating companies love patents as well. they can sign the right to the patent over in such a way that it protects them and still allows them to collect money from competitors, but get the idea into the broadest circulation.
You raise some interesting, if not directly related, points.
You are dead right in that corporations rarely exist as part of the nation-state idea anymore, but they still provide jobs for someone, somewhere. When a corporation who provides jobs moves factories to another country, it creates jobs in that other country. Those people are now the families of the corporation.
As to culpability and liability, that again raises interesting questions. If you polled the workers at GM if they thought a large monitary judgement against GM was 'unfair' - dollars to dounuts they would say "yes!" Do you think the people employed by Enron or Worldcom went to work every day saying "gee, I hope someone brings my economic life to a screeching halt by closing down that sham of a company I work for"?
People are looking to protect their own economic self interest, so pointing to unhappy workers at one plant means you need to look at the happy workers somewhere else.
What I personally have a problem with is companies slavish devotion to quarterly profit statments. But there again, I can show a clear reason why they do. Companies are owned by shareholders, and that's what shareholders want- quarterly returns. I think corporate boards often make shortsighted decisions to satisfy that need at the cost of long term sustainability.
And in the end, that hurts the 'people' who work for them, no matter what country they are in.
You don't patent code, you patent the _method_ for doing something.
This is a HUGE difference.
If the patent were just on the code, you could change just a few variable names, and sell it as your own.
By patenting the method, then you control the very idea.
Theoretically, it could lead to openness (not Open like OSI) because you have to disclose the method in the patent application. But unfortunately, software method patents take 40 months to get processed, so by the time your method is actually granted a patent, the state of the art has far surpassed your idea.
This bunko quasi-political rhetoric is getting tired. While in some cases there is a legal difference between people and corporations, who do you think makes up corporation?!?
People!
People with jobs, families, communities, little league teams, the works.
This business of trying to make out corporations as some kind of faceless inhuman creature is just silly.
Government officials works hard to assist corporations because they know that if those corporations go under, people lose jobs, and then so does the Government official!
And do you really think it is any different in the EU? Do you think that government subsidies to a Corporation like Airbus is somehow 'better' because it was done on the other side of the pond?
Get a grip! Corporations are a way to pool resources to get tasks completed in an efficient manner. The structure rewards the risk takers (investors) and creators with greater remuneration (cash, stocks) and allows them to pick who will direct the efficient use of the corporate resources. At the end of the day, all of this is done by people.
I don't think even one faceless robot is involved! Fancy that...
Re:Can't see how Verisign could win.. (article)
on
The Race Is On For .net
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
By contrast, all Verisign seems to be offering is a continuation of the status quo, for which they have managed to earn themselves a less than stellar reputation. Sure, they can do the job, but where's the vision?
Vision? I don't know if you have noticed, but ICANN has basically prevented anyone from doing anything visionary. ICANN has consistently delayed reconsideration rulings http://www.ombuds.org/reconsideration/.
This isn't entirely true. Most of the House and about 50% of the Senate use programs like "WriteRep" as part of their homepage.
WriteRep requires you to put in your zipcode before writing your Congressman, thereby allowing the Member to know you are a constituent.
If you would like to write to a Member of Congress who is not your Representative, write a paper letter, but also understand how little effect it may have on them.
As to the concept of the MPAA sharing their intellectual property. We don't want their property. We want them to stop taking away our property
What property of yours are they actually taking?
And just for clarity lets use the following definition for 'taking':
To capture physically; seize. To seize with authority; confiscate.
From the tone of your previous reply, it would seem you have little interest in an exchange of ideas, rather only a desire to express your own banal, limited viewpoint in an echochamber of like-minded folk.
If you can see through the fog of your own certainty, I would be interested to see if you have anything useful to say about the concept of 'property' in this case.
If not, the larger audience may be the only winner.
Below is a snippet from our Testimony prepared for the hearing. If anyone would like to see the full text, you can find it at www.netchoice.org
To combat spyware, NetChoice sees the following plan of attack:
Any approach to tackling spyware should employ a three-pronged approach of increased enforcement, consensus around industry best practices, and consumer education and empowerment.
Existing laws have teeth
Consumers are already afforded substantial protection against unfair and deceptive business activity conducted over the Internet, including spyware practices such as sneaky delivery, secret collection, and resisting removal. In the words of Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Commissioner Mozelle Thompson at a recent workshop on spyware, "our worst first response is to legislate." An FTC attorney on another workshop panel said that a lack of specific spyware legislation wasn't inhibiting FTC enforcement, and that precise spyware definitions aren't essential since the commission focuses more on "what actually happened" in each case it pursues.
Today, there is sufficient law already on the books that can effectively be used to prosecute spyware offenders. Section 5 of the FTC Act prohibits unfair and deceptive trade practices, and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (18 USC 1030) can be used to prosecute unauthorized use of a computer. In late 2003, the FTC obtained an injunction (later overturned) against D Squared, a small company run by two college students, that was serving pop-ups to consumers. The firm served ads using a since-patched security hole in the Windows operating system that bombarded customers with pop-ups and then offered to sell a tool to stop the exact type of pop-up it was sending. The case is scheduled for trial in September 2004.
In 2003, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) pursued a case where spyware was installed on machines at several Kinko's locations in New York City in an attempt to steal names, passwords, and credit card numbers from Kinko's customers. The perpetrator of this scam pleaded guilty to five counts of computer fraud and software piracy in July of 2003.
Market forces will squeeze the spies
Money is the mother's milk of spyware. Spyware firms need cash and the promise of ongoing revenue to cover their development and distribution costs for "innovative" new spyware technologies that can sneak past spyware defenses and collect information that appeals to advertisers. Almost certainly, this "arms race" between spyware attackers and anti-spyware defenders is more technologically complex and expensive than the comparable battle between spammers and spam-blockers.
Spyware vendors could fall further behind in this arms race if significant sources of ad revenue are diverted to other advertising channels. There is real promise in this regard, since the negative stigma of spyware makes it a poor choice for advertisers who want to protect their hard-won consumer brands. Further agreement on industry best practices to improve the notice, consent, and removal of adware products will further stigmatize the most parasitic spyware vendors and the marginal advertisers who support them.
An educated consumer is the best defense against spyware
Finally, consumers need to be better educated about the risks of downloading software, and about the tools and tactics they can use to avoid spyware. In conjunction with more aggressive FTC and DOJ enforcement, consumers should seek and install anti-spyware tools, many available at no cost, to remove spyware and inoculate against future downloads. But installation of these anti-spyware tools won't be a lasting cure unless users are conditioned to obtain regular updates of new spyware definitions and defenses.
In the orchard of bad analogies, yours is far worse. Lets' break it down to specifics, shall we?:
It's your tree
What is your tree? The content of the disk you wish to watch? Unless you made the movie, the tree is theirs, and the fruit it bears. Just like code that you create under the GPL is protected by intellectual property laws that allow you to assign the rights and privileges to its use.
you gave it water and fertilized it, with your own money and effort
By fertilized it, I must assume you mean to grow or develop something. You had no hand in the development of the content. You may fertilize the player you write, but you did not fertilize the content. When you speak of "your own money", are you talking about the money you spend to purchase the movie itself? That money did not contribute to the tree directly, but instead was a reward to the person who grew the tree. Just as you would like to be compensated for the creation of software, so too do the studios that create movies.
they won't let you eat the fruit
Well, it is their fruit. If I publish something under the GPL, I determine who gets to "eat" it by preventing companies from taking into their software invisibly.
unless you use an MPAA-approved knife to cut the fruit
This is the first part of your analogy that has any validity at all. They are trying to dictate the tool you use to eat with, but not because they have an interest in the tool. They see tool control as a means to prevent theft. It's a bit of a blunt instrument, but that is its intent. So if the only intent on tools is theft protection, why are we not seeing more legitimate tools?
Aren't the ones to point at IBM, Novell, RedHat and so on? IBM has a 2 BILLION dollar patent portfolio, and is an aggressive protector of intellectual property rights. Why aren't they licensing CSS? Novell considers much of the technology in Groupwise to be valuable, and they protect it with trade secrets, just like CSS. Why aren't they stepping up to the plate and licensing CSS?
Regardless of the market size, if Novell and IBM want to make Linux on the desktop a reality, they need to create a player that licenses CSS.
Whining about your ability to create your own tool is absurd. You stand and the shoulders of all the others who came before you, and the intellectual property they choose to share with you. If the movie content provider doesn't want to share, so be it.
Server Software VeriSign runs special name server software tuned to the requirements of authoritative name servers rather than recursive name servers. With this software, the VeriSign name servers boast exceptional performance, sustaining query rates an order of magnitude greater than the performance of a standard BIND name server.
VeriSign name servers support the latest DNS protocol enhancements to insure maximum security, features, and flexibility at all times.
I worked (very peripherally) on the Do Not Call list, and there was some discussion as to the jurisdictional issues between the FTC and FCC, but those were dealt with. If you would like more information, go the the FTC's website which has the language of the rule, plus a layman's interpretation.
It pains me to do this, but you have unfortunately gotten just about everything wrong here.
The requirement that a business be physically present in a state before it is obligated to collect and remit sales tax stems from a 1967 Supreme Court ruling. At the time, the Court expressed concern that collecting sales tax on behalf of 45 states and several thousand localities that impose such taxes would be excessively burdensome for remote sellers under the diverse sales tax rules then in effect. The Court wished to carve out a "safe harbor" from these burdens for companies that were willing to avoid establishing a physical presence in states where their customers were located. Nonetheless, in its 1992 Quill decision, the Court made clear that Congress could authorize states to require remote sellers to charge sales taxes just as Main Street businesses are obligated to do. The Court held that it would be entirely fair for a state to require remote sellers to charge sales taxes provided that Congress first set ground rules aimed at reducing the burdens of sales tax collection.
As to Congress' abilty to regulate by "unilaterally granting new powers to the States to levy and collect taxes they presently have no power to levy or collect"... well, unfortunately you may want to revisit your history books, but the power of Congress to place burdens, or grant powers to states is very clear. The Interstate commerce clause is pretty powerful. Beyond that, Congress can pretty much impose anything the Supreme Court will allow. States can oppose, but... that was tried in the 1860's and didn't turn out so well for the South. And in this case it is likely that a majority of the states would be supportive!
As to the rest of your discussion, I'm not really sure how to answer. Congress could impose a VAT in America, but there is not the political interest to do so at this point in time.
As to "treaties between states", well, you could make a strong case that the SSTP s exactly that. So this "treaty" is already in negotiation, and 18 states have signed on, with more likely to follow.
I understand your desire to make this go away, but you really must get a better understanding of just how much power the Federal government has over the states. A good friend of mine who recently left the Senate policy committee always tells me that states really lost all power after the surrender at Appomatox.
You have intentionally or unintentionally hit upon the exact need and motivation for this law. The courts determined that the burden to collect from every jurisdiction was too great, and therefore if the seller did NOT have a physical presence in the state he/she would not be required to collect taxes.
The states set up something called the "Simplified Sales Tax Project" which is supposed to work out differences between state tax systems (like, is a candybar food or candy?). Once this "simplification" was done in set number of states, Congress has to step in because they have the power to regluate interstate commerce.
Unfortunately, simplification is not so simple. Because individual jurisdictions do not want to lose the power of levying taxes, this simplification will not necessarily result in fewer places to collect for, or a more logical system.
The states are depending on software to come to the rescue. While this eventually may come to pass, there is no tax software system out there now that is cheap enough and compatible with enough legacy systems to make it affordable for a small business.
To add comprehensive tax software including the cost of integration with existing SKU schemes, old inventory programs, etc. is estimapted to be $100,000+ per setup. Worse, this is just a guess, as there have been NO studies done on the cost to integrate new tax software nationwide.
In the end, there may be a system that is reasonable for small business, but it is WAY too soon for the government to be passing laws.
One thing that is not in the bill, but is being pushed by Amazon is a provision that would make selling through eBay count as an "affiliate" program. which would _exclude_ you from the $5 mill exemption. Worse, they want to drop the exemption to $25,000.
Additionally, if your total Nationwide sales are $5 mill, you are by no means a big business.
That's right, eBay would be like your parent company in the eyes of the government.
relevant quotes:
Amazon wants the bill to exempt online merchants if they bring in less than $25,000 per year.
Amazon has built the infrastructure to collect sales taxes for most of the 160 retailers that sell items through its Web site, and believes its competitors should do the same for their merchants, said Paul Misener, Amazon's vice president of global public policy.
"It makes no sense to us for certain large entities doing billions of dollars in business and with extremely sophisticated computer systems to not be able to provide this kind of service," Misener said. "If the system the states have put in place is in fact simplified, and we think it is, it shouldn't cost businesses anything to collect."
Amazon's efforts to change the legislation could doom the states' sales tax plans, said an official with eBay who is familiar with the negotiations.
"The fundamental problem with Amazon's proposal is that it treats someone who sells through one channel online differently than a person who sells through another," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "To discriminate against online aggregators is a guaranteed way to stop any distance sales tax plan for at least 10 years, and we'll go to the mat on that one."
As the dot-com bubble burst, the US economy entered recession, and states faced huge revenue shortfalls, the debate over imposing sales taxes on remote Internet sales has quickly heated up. States forecast an aggregate revenue gap between $40 and $70 billion annually and they cite taxes lost to e-commerce as a primary reason. States add that remote catalogs and e-commerce are hurting "Main Street" retailers who are collecting sales tax on every purchase.
In reality, states will realize about ten percent of their oft-cited projections of uncollected sales taxes. At the same time, e-commerce has not had the anticipated devastating effect on "Main Street" retailers. Growth in e-commerce has cannibalized catalog and phone order sales, which have never been widely taxed nor pillaged the sales of Main Street.
In addition, the SSTP lacks the clarity necessary for tax fairness and favors tax collection authority over the interests of Web retailers and consumers. Ambiguity surrounding taxable goods, intra- and inter-state battles around participation in the Project, and the unresolved issues of business activity taxes all mean the SSTP's real simplicity, fairness, and viability are far from certain.
The compliance costs of SSTP -- especially for small firms -- could well outweigh the probable benefits of taxing all remote purchases. States can recoup some lost revenue and help make-up budget shortfalls with more aggressive pursuit of multi-channel, multi-state retailers and greater use tax enforcement, without a federal mandate imposed on all inter-state retailers.
Slashdot Mirror
I stand corrected -at least sideways.
It seems that several of the programs listed are supporting Open Office formats, but not clear when they are moving to the OASIS standard.
but you are right, there are several programs there that do NOT share any development code, are are likey to support the OASIS standard.
I'll admit that the whole business with OASIS being supported in OO beta 2 but not in 1.1.3 has confused me as to the who which what.
That said, I still stand by the conviction that those of us with macs are pretty far behind the pack on OASIS Open format support.
"several alternatives" but pretty much based off of the same codebase.
I guess I coudl have said "it benefits Sun AND IBM"
I assume that Corel's WP will support 2.0, but current product doesn't.
Also, I dissagree with the article poster's comments about NeoOffice/J - It's not ready for prime time. Until mac folk get together and make OO or some other derivative work natively with no X11 involvment, macs are going to be at a greater disadvantage than they are with MSFT products.
Of COURSE it gives preference to Sun. THey already have an office suite (beta) that supports OO.o 2.0, but no one else does.
.pdf format tells you that any suggestion this is done for "openness" is bullcrap.
This whole move is just another example of Microsoft hunting. The fact that the proposal supports
pdf has patents, and is owned by Adobe. yes, it is freely available for lots of uses, and Adobe allows others to create pdfs, but it is certainly an encumbered format.
This proposal does nothing to advance the state of the art, does nothing to create greater usability for the citizens of MA (download and install another office suite to look at a government document? Install X11 if you are a mac user?), and does not provide any real cost savings (if MSFT adds OO.o support, MA can buy MSOffice).
This is a witch hunt, plain and simple.
if it's really about unencumbered standards, dump pdf. But don't piss on my leg and tell me that it's raining.
Biggest problem no one seems to be addressing is that the OpenOffice format is not guaranteed to be the most innovative, nor is it truly the lowest common denominator (like .rtf).
Wax cylinders were a 'format' for music, but we don't want the government locking out the use of CDs or DVDs just because the people with wax cylinder readers can't use them.
Backwards compatibility is important, but you certainly want to preserve the option to take technology that may innovate, even in the document format space, and provide better services to your constituents.
Here's a good example: early iterations of WordPerfect certainly didn't allow the complex tables and embedded images we have in current formats - heck, early HTML was barely functional for presenting text and pictures. What if we were only allowed to presever content in original WP formats, or HTML 1.0?
Governments should pick winners and losers by the quality of the technology, not ideology.
Build backwards compatibility into your contracts agreements with your vendors, and use the format that gives you the best technology.
Thankfully we're not as unlucky in the EU.
If by unlucky you mean that the EU doesn't have software patents, you are wrong. Most EU nations (Poland is a notable exception) allow for the patenting of 'Computer Implemented Invention'.
The recent EU Parliament vote was about standardizing CII for all EU counties. The failure to pass did NOT eliminate software patents in the EU, but rather stopped standardization, which might have saved filers some money and made the system more predicable.
There is a system in place that allows for low-cost presentation of prior art BEFORE a patent is granted. It's generally referred to as a Rule 99 submission, and it allows for any third party to submit prior art that they believe shows the applied for patent should not be granted based on an existing idea.
Right now, the window to file a submission under Rule 99 is two months long. This window opens at 18 months after a patent application is filed.
The two month window iis awfully short however, and there is some question as to the value of the submissions to the examiner in such a narrow timeframe.
To improve this, we are asking that the window be lengthened to 6 months minimum, and the law be changed to allow 3rd parties to submit detailed explanations of how the art is relevant to the patent application.
The change is currently supported by the Chairman of the Subcommitee on the Courts and IP, and is part of a new bill, HR 2795, that is designed to reform the patent system.
Certain parts of HR 2795 are probably going to change, but the extention of Rule 99, and the creation of a cheaper post-grant opposition system will probably make it into final legislation.
What on earth are you talking about? OSS is antithetical to independence. Its very premise is INTER-dependence. How do you 'protect' something you don't own or control?
I think this article was very timely, as it points out what most of us already know: you aren't going to get a "free lunch" from a corporation. They have a duty to their shareholders, and they are gonna work hard to meet it. If you provide them tools that will allow them to profit without the same capital investment, they're gonna take it!
I noticed that you are very specific in saying "their profit margins"... I think this is an important, but artifical point.
If Apple chose to sell the hardware more cheaply and instead charge for every iApp, there may be no appreciable difference in overall profit.
Apple is an odd duck, because for nearly every other sector of the PC industry, hardware is the low-profit category. Software, which has much lower investment requirements, has the big, per-box profit.
I just think it's hard to split Hardware and Software in an Apple product.
And maybe that's exactly what they want to achieve.
While the Chairman singled out Apple's failure to appear at the hearing as a bad thing, it was mostly an admonishment for not doing what he asked.
He wasn't anti-Apple.
Additionally, every Member of Congress who attended was VERY clear in supporting market forces, NOT government mandates to 'solve' the interoperability issue.
Subcommitee Ranking Member Berman (D-CA) pointed out that even the Consumer Federation witness, Dr. Cooper, did not support government intervention. Dr. Cooper noted that he thought mark forces should be allowed to work at the "widget" layer, as opposed to the 'core'.
The only disconcerting thing that was said was that Chairman Smith used a narrow marketshare definition to describe Apple's status. By saying Apple's marketshare was 80% of the digital download market, he failed to include the fact that Apple's share, as a percentage of ALL music sales is tiny.
Monopoly and market share are places where defining the scope of the market is key.
(Notice, we filed an Amicus brief on this case, and are happy with the court's finding because it matches our brief)
Specifically, the ruling overturned the district court's incorrect assertion that the Viola Web browser, and specifically DX34 was "abandoned suppressed or concealed" and therefore did not qualify as something that could be shown to the jury as an example of prior art.
To quote from today's ruling "The district court's conclusion inappropriately narrowed the definition of "invention" as used in section 102(g)"
The court goes on to note that a change in version number does not necessarily constitute a new invention and that version DX37, which they tried to demo to the court, just represents an improved version of Wei's invention.
In our brief, we argued that that the intellectual property rights of all software developers must be protected, including those developers who wish to give their inventions away without charge.
Those who wish to donate their work to the "IP commons" to enlist others for help and feedback are not abandoning it for others to patent. Software developers often proactively choose to do this as an act of beneficence or as a part of their software development process. This was certainly the case for Pei-Yuan Wei, the inventor of the Viola browser that should be considered prior art to invalidate the Eolas patent.
Actually, this is a great example of the difference!
"The Gray Album" is a copyrighted work, but the _method_ of producing music was not prevented by that copyright.
So while the copyright might protect your code from just changing the variables, it wouldn't protect it from being analyzed for how it does what it does, and them being copied in every aspect of functionality.
Trade secrets can be used to do that, but then sharing the code gets to be problematic. You have to show to the court that you are vigorously protecting that secret.
Patents _could_ offer an alternative whereby the method is made public, and you only retain the right to collect rents from people using your idea for a limited time. but it makes sharing with a broad audience very easy.
This is part of why MOST standards bodies deal with patents and why standards participating companies love patents as well. they can sign the right to the patent over in such a way that it protects them and still allows them to collect money from competitors, but get the idea into the broadest circulation.
You raise some interesting, if not directly related, points.
You are dead right in that corporations rarely exist as part of the nation-state idea anymore, but they still provide jobs for someone, somewhere. When a corporation who provides jobs moves factories to another country, it creates jobs in that other country. Those people are now the families of the corporation.
As to culpability and liability, that again raises interesting questions. If you polled the workers at GM if they thought a large monitary judgement against GM was 'unfair' - dollars to dounuts they would say "yes!" Do you think the people employed by Enron or Worldcom went to work every day saying "gee, I hope someone brings my economic life to a screeching halt by closing down that sham of a company I work for"?
People are looking to protect their own economic self interest, so pointing to unhappy workers at one plant means you need to look at the happy workers somewhere else.
What I personally have a problem with is companies slavish devotion to quarterly profit statments. But there again, I can show a clear reason why they do. Companies are owned by shareholders, and that's what shareholders want- quarterly returns. I think corporate boards often make shortsighted decisions to satisfy that need at the cost of long term sustainability.
And in the end, that hurts the 'people' who work for them, no matter what country they are in.
Important distinction:
You don't patent code, you patent the _method_ for doing something.
This is a HUGE difference.
If the patent were just on the code, you could change just a few variable names, and sell it as your own.
By patenting the method, then you control the very idea.
Theoretically, it could lead to openness (not Open like OSI) because you have to disclose the method in the patent application. But unfortunately, software method patents take 40 months to get processed, so by the time your method is actually granted a patent, the state of the art has far surpassed your idea.
This bunko quasi-political rhetoric is getting tired. While in some cases there is a legal difference between people and corporations, who do you think makes up corporation?!?
People!
People with jobs, families, communities, little league teams, the works.
This business of trying to make out corporations as some kind of faceless inhuman creature is just silly.
Government officials works hard to assist corporations because they know that if those corporations go under, people lose jobs, and then so does the Government official!
And do you really think it is any different in the EU? Do you think that government subsidies to a Corporation like Airbus is somehow 'better' because it was done on the other side of the pond?
Get a grip! Corporations are a way to pool resources to get tasks completed in an efficient manner. The structure rewards the risk takers (investors) and creators with greater remuneration (cash, stocks) and allows them to pick who will direct the efficient use of the corporate resources. At the end of the day, all of this is done by people.
I don't think even one faceless robot is involved! Fancy that...
Vision? I don't know if you have noticed, but ICANN has basically prevented anyone from doing anything visionary. ICANN has consistently delayed reconsideration rulings http://www.ombuds.org/reconsideration/.
Heck, VeriSign has been seeking approval for Wait Listing Service for years, and ICANN can't even seem to rule on that! http://free2innovate.net/archives/000430.html
As Tucows put it "The principal problem for registrars has been that ICANN has proven incapable of making decisions or enforcing its contracts on matters of commercial practice. http://www.byte.org/heathrow/tucows-comments-ican
The reality is that ICANN is completely without vision themselves, and wouldn't know what vision looked like if it bit them on the ass.
"Internet Time" is now controlled by 19th Century bureaucrats.
This isn't entirely true. Most of the House and about 50% of the Senate use programs like "WriteRep" as part of their homepage.
WriteRep requires you to put in your zipcode before writing your Congressman, thereby allowing the Member to know you are a constituent.
If you would like to write to a Member of Congress who is not your Representative, write a paper letter, but also understand how little effect it may have on them.
As to the concept of the MPAA sharing their intellectual property. We don't want their property. We want them to stop taking away our property
What property of yours are they actually taking?
And just for clarity lets use the following definition for 'taking':
To capture physically; seize.
To seize with authority; confiscate.
From the tone of your previous reply, it would seem you have little interest in an exchange of ideas, rather only a desire to express your own banal, limited viewpoint in an echochamber of like-minded folk.
If you can see through the fog of your own certainty, I would be interested to see if you have anything useful to say about the concept of 'property' in this case.
If not, the larger audience may be the only winner.
There are three things that tend to make something "spyware"
1. Sneaky Delivery
2. Secret Collection (of PI)
3. Resisting Removal
Below is a snippet from our Testimony prepared for the hearing. If anyone would like to see the full text, you can find it at www.netchoice.org
To combat spyware, NetChoice sees the following plan of attack:
Any approach to tackling spyware should employ a three-pronged approach of increased enforcement, consensus around industry best practices, and consumer education and empowerment.
Existing laws have teeth
Consumers are already afforded substantial protection against unfair and deceptive business activity conducted over the Internet, including spyware practices such as sneaky delivery, secret collection, and resisting removal. In the words of Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Commissioner Mozelle Thompson at a recent workshop on spyware, "our worst first response is to legislate." An FTC attorney on another workshop panel said that a lack of specific spyware legislation wasn't inhibiting FTC enforcement, and that precise spyware definitions aren't essential since the commission focuses more on "what actually happened" in each case it pursues.
Today, there is sufficient law already on the books that can effectively be used to prosecute spyware offenders. Section 5 of the FTC Act prohibits unfair and deceptive trade practices, and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (18 USC 1030) can be used to prosecute unauthorized use of a computer. In late 2003, the FTC obtained an injunction (later overturned) against D Squared, a small company run by two college students, that was serving pop-ups to consumers. The firm served ads using a since-patched security hole in the Windows operating system that bombarded customers with pop-ups and then offered to sell a tool to stop the exact type of pop-up it was sending. The case is scheduled for trial in September 2004.
In 2003, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) pursued a case where spyware was installed on machines at several Kinko's locations in New York City in an attempt to steal names, passwords, and credit card numbers from Kinko's customers. The perpetrator of this scam pleaded guilty to five counts of computer fraud and software piracy in July of 2003.
Market forces will squeeze the spies
Money is the mother's milk of spyware. Spyware firms need cash and the promise of ongoing revenue to cover their development and distribution costs for "innovative" new spyware technologies that can sneak past spyware defenses and collect information that appeals to advertisers. Almost certainly, this "arms race" between spyware attackers and anti-spyware defenders is more technologically complex and expensive than the comparable battle between spammers and spam-blockers.
Spyware vendors could fall further behind in this arms race if significant sources of ad revenue are diverted to other advertising channels. There is real promise in this regard, since the negative stigma of spyware makes it a poor choice for advertisers who want to protect their hard-won consumer brands. Further agreement on industry best practices to improve the notice, consent, and removal of adware products will further stigmatize the most parasitic spyware vendors and the marginal advertisers who support them.
An educated consumer is the best defense against spyware
Finally, consumers need to be better educated about the risks of downloading software, and about the tools and tactics they can use to avoid spyware. In conjunction with more aggressive FTC and DOJ enforcement, consumers should seek and install anti-spyware tools, many available at no cost, to remove spyware and inoculate against future downloads. But installation of these anti-spyware tools won't be a lasting cure unless users are conditioned to obtain regular updates of new spyware definitions and defenses.
In the orchard of bad analogies, yours is far worse. Lets' break it down to specifics, shall we?:
It's your tree
What is your tree? The content of the disk you wish to watch? Unless you made the movie, the tree is theirs, and the fruit it bears. Just like code that you create under the GPL is protected by intellectual property laws that allow you to assign the rights and privileges to its use.
you gave it water and fertilized it, with your own money and effort
By fertilized it, I must assume you mean to grow or develop something. You had no hand in the development of the content. You may fertilize the player you write, but you did not fertilize the content. When you speak of "your own money", are you talking about the money you spend to purchase the movie itself? That money did not contribute to the tree directly, but instead was a reward to the person who grew the tree. Just as you would like to be compensated for the creation of software, so too do the studios that create movies.
they won't let you eat the fruit
Well, it is their fruit. If I publish something under the GPL, I determine who gets to "eat" it by preventing companies from taking into their software invisibly.
unless you use an MPAA-approved knife to cut the fruit
This is the first part of your analogy that has any validity at all. They are trying to dictate the tool you use to eat with, but not because they have an interest in the tool. They see tool control as a means to prevent theft. It's a bit of a blunt instrument, but that is its intent. So if the only intent on tools is theft protection, why are we not seeing more legitimate tools?
Aren't the ones to point at IBM, Novell, RedHat and so on? IBM has a 2 BILLION dollar patent portfolio, and is an aggressive protector of intellectual property rights. Why aren't they licensing CSS? Novell considers much of the technology in Groupwise to be valuable, and they protect it with trade secrets, just like CSS. Why aren't they stepping up to the plate and licensing CSS?
Regardless of the market size, if Novell and IBM want to make Linux on the desktop a reality, they need to create a player that licenses CSS.
Whining about your ability to create your own tool is absurd. You stand and the shoulders of all the others who came before you, and the intellectual property they choose to share with you. If the movie content provider doesn't want to share, so be it.
Pretty sure that VeriSign no longer uses BIND.
[snippet from VeriSign website]
Server Software
VeriSign runs special name server software tuned to the requirements of authoritative name servers rather than recursive name servers. With this software, the VeriSign name servers boast exceptional performance, sustaining query rates an order of magnitude greater than the performance of a standard BIND name server.
VeriSign name servers support the latest DNS protocol enhancements to insure maximum security, features, and flexibility at all times.
I worked (very peripherally) on the Do Not Call list, and there was some discussion as to the jurisdictional issues between the FTC and FCC, but those were dealt with. If you would like more information, go the the FTC's website which has the language of the rule, plus a layman's interpretation.
It pains me to do this, but you have unfortunately gotten just about everything wrong here.
The requirement that a business be physically present in a state before it is obligated to collect and remit sales tax stems from a 1967 Supreme Court ruling. At the time, the Court expressed concern that collecting sales tax on behalf of 45 states and several thousand localities that impose such taxes would be excessively burdensome for remote sellers under the diverse sales tax rules then in effect. The Court wished to carve out a "safe harbor" from these burdens for companies that were willing to avoid establishing a physical presence in states where their customers were located. Nonetheless, in its 1992 Quill decision, the Court made clear that Congress could authorize states to require remote sellers to charge sales taxes just as Main Street businesses are obligated to do. The Court held that it would be entirely fair for a state to require remote sellers to charge sales taxes provided that Congress first set ground rules aimed at reducing the burdens of sales tax collection.
As to Congress' abilty to regulate by "unilaterally granting new powers to the States to levy and collect taxes they presently have no power to levy or collect"... well, unfortunately you may want to revisit your history books, but the power of Congress to place burdens, or grant powers to states is very clear. The Interstate commerce clause is pretty powerful. Beyond that, Congress can pretty much impose anything the Supreme Court will allow. States can oppose, but... that was tried in the 1860's and didn't turn out so well for the South. And in this case it is likely that a majority of the states would be supportive!
As to the rest of your discussion, I'm not really sure how to answer. Congress could impose a VAT in America, but there is not the political interest to do so at this point in time.
As to "treaties between states", well, you could make a strong case that the SSTP s exactly that. So this "treaty" is already in negotiation, and 18 states have signed on, with more likely to follow.
I understand your desire to make this go away, but you really must get a better understanding of just how much power the Federal government has over the states. A good friend of mine who recently left the Senate policy committee always tells me that states really lost all power after the surrender at Appomatox.
He may be right.
You have intentionally or unintentionally hit upon the exact need and motivation for this law. The courts determined that the burden to collect from every jurisdiction was too great, and therefore if the seller did NOT have a physical presence in the state he/she would not be required to collect taxes.
The states set up something called the "Simplified Sales Tax Project" which is supposed to work out differences between state tax systems (like, is a candybar food or candy?). Once this "simplification" was done in set number of states, Congress has to step in because they have the power to regluate interstate commerce.
Unfortunately, simplification is not so simple. Because individual jurisdictions do not want to lose the power of levying taxes, this simplification will not necessarily result in fewer places to collect for, or a more logical system.
The states are depending on software to come to the rescue. While this eventually may come to pass, there is no tax software system out there now that is cheap enough and compatible with enough legacy systems to make it affordable for a small business.
To add comprehensive tax software including the cost of integration with existing SKU schemes, old inventory programs, etc. is estimapted to be $100,000+ per setup. Worse, this is just a guess, as there have been NO studies done on the cost to integrate new tax software nationwide.
In the end, there may be a system that is reasonable for small business, but it is WAY too soon for the government to be passing laws.
Additionally, if your total Nationwide sales are $5 mill, you are by no means a big business.
That's right, eBay would be like your parent company in the eyes of the government.
Take a look at this story in the Washington Post
relevant quotes: Amazon wants the bill to exempt online merchants if they bring in less than $25,000 per year.
Amazon has built the infrastructure to collect sales taxes for most of the 160 retailers that sell items through its Web site, and believes its competitors should do the same for their merchants, said Paul Misener, Amazon's vice president of global public policy. "It makes no sense to us for certain large entities doing billions of dollars in business and with extremely sophisticated computer systems to not be able to provide this kind of service," Misener said. "If the system the states have put in place is in fact simplified, and we think it is, it shouldn't cost businesses anything to collect." Amazon's efforts to change the legislation could doom the states' sales tax plans, said an official with eBay who is familiar with the negotiations.
"The fundamental problem with Amazon's proposal is that it treats someone who sells through one channel online differently than a person who sells through another," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "To discriminate against online aggregators is a guaranteed way to stop any distance sales tax plan for at least 10 years, and we'll go to the mat on that one."
If you would like to know more about SSTP, NetChoice has just released a report on the effect it will have on eCommerce.
Sales Tax Simplification: Not So Fast -- It's Not That SimpleAs the dot-com bubble burst, the US economy entered recession, and states faced huge revenue shortfalls, the debate over imposing sales taxes on remote Internet sales has quickly heated up. States forecast an aggregate revenue gap between $40 and $70 billion annually and they cite taxes lost to e-commerce as a primary reason. States add that remote catalogs and e-commerce are hurting "Main Street" retailers who are collecting sales tax on every purchase.
In reality, states will realize about ten percent of their oft-cited projections of uncollected sales taxes. At the same time, e-commerce has not had the anticipated devastating effect on "Main Street" retailers. Growth in e-commerce has cannibalized catalog and phone order sales, which have never been widely taxed nor pillaged the sales of Main Street.
In addition, the SSTP lacks the clarity necessary for tax fairness and favors tax collection authority over the interests of Web retailers and consumers. Ambiguity surrounding taxable goods, intra- and inter-state battles around participation in the Project, and the unresolved issues of business activity taxes all mean the SSTP's real simplicity, fairness, and viability are far from certain.
The compliance costs of SSTP -- especially for small firms -- could well outweigh the probable benefits of taxing all remote purchases. States can recoup some lost revenue and help make-up budget shortfalls with more aggressive pursuit of multi-channel, multi-state retailers and greater use tax enforcement, without a federal mandate imposed on all inter-state retailers.