Patents on the other hand automatically expire after 20 years. There's no need to have a "defend it or lose it" because they're going to lose it anyway. Be patient.
That's one problem right there. Patents on software and other non-physical inventions such as processes are 20 years in length, way too long. A more practical value would be 5 to 7 years so that good ideas could become standards without hamstringing the entire industry that relies on standardization in order to bring cost to consumers down (like any other industry, come to think of it). Cause unlike physical inventions such as washing machines, etc., software needs to be interoperated, ie. it is kind of useless by itself. Today's 20 year length encourages avoiding using some elses patent no matter how good it is, resulting in less than "best practices" and leads to non-standardization.
Reducing the length would also encourage those who own patents to allow royalty use during that period and would encourage others to use patented ideas if the prices are realistic. Both patent holder and industry would be better off than today's antogonistic, "mine, mine, mine!", mentality.
I have tried that. It seems ISP's don't want to get involved otherwise they might become "responsible" for dealing with it, so they take the tact that they are merely "common carriers" and not responsible for any wrongdoing on anyones part, just like ma-bell; they are not responsible for nerdowells plotting their criminal intent by using phones.
As long as you are paying your ISP his due, they could not careless what you are doing (except maybe using too much bandwidth).
1. It costs more than competitive offerings. 2. It runs fewer applications 3. It doesn't support newer hardware 4. It has a convoluted pricing structure
Don't forget to add:
5. It raises the likelyhood that SCO will sue you, being that you are one of their customers.
The theory behind the US system is that it allows the individual with limited means to sue (hopefully rightly) a much superior (financially) opponent without fear of retribution. If the British system were to be imposed it would have a chilling effect on these types of cases such as malpractice, employee being illegally fired, and class action such as health damage due to materials, such as the asbetos or silicon implants,etc.
However like anything else, it is subject to abuse.
One of the points that is being bandied about is that only low-level jobs are being lost. Now that may soothe the minds of some, but they are not thinking it through. To say that hi-level positions are available and maybe even growing might be good for those who are in the industry and have good credentials but it is taking its toll on the future group of IT professionals in the future.
Kids out of high school will see this turmoil and stay away from IT (become plumbers as one guy said), this is how the brain drain works at the macro level. Without a steady stream of new talent, the US will lose its competitive advantage (if it has any left at this point).
Most economists would say that job shifting is a good thing to the overall cost of production and therefore good for the consumer in the long run because it would allow for lower priced goods, but they are forgetting that every action has external cost borne by the society and in this case it borne by the US educational system which will see lower scores on math and science skills as students see even less of a need for those skills; heck they are only going to be plumbers anyway.
To be sure, we are losing those low-level positions, but I am quite sure that no CIO ever made it to the top without starting in one of the low-level positions.
I always thought those 'stupid Windows has recovered, blah..blah...blah.." were might fault for constantly tweaking and adding stuff to my XP machine, until I got new laptop to run Linux on it. I gave the old machine to my wife after restoring it back to factory default and adding all the updates that Bill said were necessary. Now her usage pattern is the exact opposite of me, she uses only the same small set of apps, never varying, yet those annoying "windows has recovered from" crap have returned. Now she is asking for relief.
She wants to know if things would be better on Linux. I tell here probably but the learning curve is frustrating and may not be worth the switch given the limited set of activities she uses it for. She gives me looks like I am talking Icelanding.
Maybe I will get a MAC for christmas:) Luckily reading slashdot is not one of here limited activities...at least that I know about.
Has anybody ever considered that Ham radio has been using "wireless" radio frequency transmission of emails before any of the "RIM" or "NTP" engineers were born. Not only that, but ham radio prio art is very well documented and has even received government (at least US) approval for the its use of codes and ciphers (ok its only ASCII) but it still had to be approved by the FCC. Its approval moves it in what is known as "good operating procedures" as has become part of the testing system that all hams need to pass.
I would imagine that all "inventions" made by ham radio ops are part of the public domain and therefore un-patented-able.
My first attempt matched me up to a very nice looking female.
Too bad the nice looking female was Mrs. Garrett from the TV sitcom Facts of Life. I guess they never got past the 'G's when setting up the celebs. reference images database.
Thus far, I find it odd no one has inquired as to the exact nature of how the hell someone got so far into the system as to be able to copy source code. That's not something any company leaves sitting in/pub.
It's like some warped Stratego (TM) game, and the hackers have captured the flag.
Now : 1. The act of stealing it, sort of renders it useless, who would want a firewall that can be broken into an its own sources stolen.
2. This embarrasement would have been circumvented if they had most of the code in the open source domain, especially the firewall. A good algorithm should be be able to resist the test of scrutiny of its sources.
3. The routing algorithm would be valuable but I doubt that it is what the hackers were after. So maybe they would want not to open source it.
Bottom line, those things which are not core to your business should be release to the open source community. Of course some, like MS believe the universe is their core, so some will never change.
--PUBLIC NOTICE-- I have copyrighted all mispelled words, and those who mispell words in the future will be charged. However being the nice guy I am I will only charge $0.99 per mispelled word.
Those of you who mispell words, will be receiving your lsingle-use license grant bills in the mail.
Just because IBM is on the "good" side for now, does not mean that Big Business will be the saviour and flag bearer for the Open Source movement for ever. Sooner or later O.S. will be screwed and we will see court cases vs IBM, HP etc will steamroll over smaller organisations and people in order to enforce software patents.
Just like RIAA has been able to stop most P2P and encryption-breaking? It's like a "whack-a-mole" game, hit one over the head here, two new ones pop up somewhere else.
++plus, unlike P2P and encryption-breaking, Linux and OSS is perfectly legal, some would even argue: viral; catch the fever.
Seems to me that the amount "loss" attributed to PlayFair is small - appealing only to a vanishingly minute portion of the iTunes customer base. Essentially a small, steaming pile of/.ers and like-minded folk who seem to have enough spare time to worry about the so-called "rights" trampling associated with a $.99 purchase.
Actually I think that like-minded/.ers really don't listen to music, either pirated or otherwise; they don't have enough free time. I don't even think they own an MP3 player, why when XMMS is just as good, or better. To them its not a question $.99, but the anti-openess about DRM.
but you did not what is ranked first in: certainly not GDP 9.61 vs 10.4 nor GDP/Head 21.1K vs 337.6K, and certainly not population, China and Indian has everyone else beat on that count.
The golden rule of programming has always been that clarity and correctness matter much more than the utmost speed. Very few people will argue with that
was in a recent Intel annual report:) but misread by someone at MS as:
blah...blah...{mentally replaced with whatever was rolling around inside the MS cranium at the time}...blah...matters more than the utmost speed...blah...blah...blah...
We got to the moon on less computing power than a Commodore 64 and Longhorn needs 2 Gigs o RAM. Amazing.
That's because computing power necessary is inversely related to the operator of the device. Microsoft has realized that Joe Sixpack is no rocket scientist.
Microsoft will never be able to destroy Linux because, nobody really owns it. There is nobody to sue, no company to go bust (hey howabout--Red Hat), ok not many. They can only make it irrelevant, if the communinity lets it.
--laz
PS, I should hide the parenthesis keys, so the voices in my head can't butt in.
The problem is that anti-competitive practices are just that, they have to be practiced. Right now they can plot, plan, and develop to their hearts content, since they are not practicing anything.
Even after the rollout it will be years before any complaints hits the courts, by then MS will have made billions and be ready with the next anti-competive plan for the marketplace. The court cost and fines will be microscopic in comparison to the profits that have already been booked.
Just remember how long the AT&T and Standard Oil monopolies were allow to live before the US courts stepped in to actually break them up.
I bet every kid on the street would laugh, knowing what I am refering to. The point is that today's know the movie, but have no clue what the message, or meaning of the song. There is always somebody else to blame for our faults.
We need to do less blaming after the fact, more mentoring before the fact.
While everybody seems to be blaming the schools lets not forget that regardless of the quality of schools what really counts is the attitutes of parents. If parents wanted their children to be better students they would demand more from them and from the schools. Kids won't learn anything unless they feel it is worth learning. By itself what is taught seems to them irrelevant so unless they feel that someone, be it better teacher or more importantly their parents thinks that learning is important and worthwhile they won't learn.
It's sad. This will sound familiar. I remember one time I went to purchase some CD in one well-known CD store. They had CDs at 10%, 20%, 50% off, etc. I picked out a few and calculated approximately what the total should be. I took the CD over to the checkout and the girl run it up. Of course, it was wrong, the discount were not applied correctly by the register, it was not the girls fault. But I told her the amount was incorrect, by approximately $5.00. She could not understand how I was able to ascertain that without using a calculator. It made me wonder what they are teaching these kids.
It reminds me of Isaac Asimov's short story: "The Feeling of Power", where in the future a young man amazes everyone with his ability to do math in his head. It amazes everyone including the military which decides it cheaper to use humans instead of computers to guide bombs. --laz
Slashdot Mirror
That's one problem right there. Patents on software and other non-physical inventions such as processes are 20 years in length, way too long. A more practical value would be 5 to 7 years so that good ideas could become standards without hamstringing the entire industry that relies on standardization in order to bring cost to consumers down (like any other industry, come to think of it). Cause unlike physical inventions such as washing machines, etc., software needs to be interoperated, ie. it is kind of useless by itself. Today's 20 year length encourages avoiding using some elses patent no matter how good it is, resulting in less than "best practices" and leads to non-standardization.
Reducing the length would also encourage those who own patents to allow royalty use during that period and would encourage others to use patented ideas if the prices are realistic. Both patent holder and industry would be better off than today's antogonistic, "mine, mine, mine!", mentality.
--laz
I have tried that. It seems ISP's don't want to get involved otherwise they might become "responsible" for dealing with it, so they take the tact that they are merely "common carriers" and not responsible for any wrongdoing on anyones part, just like ma-bell; they are not responsible for nerdowells plotting their criminal intent by using phones.
As long as you are paying your ISP his due, they could not careless what you are doing (except maybe using too much bandwidth).
--laz
Don't forget to add:
5. It raises the likelyhood that SCO will sue you, being that you are one of their customers.
--laz
The theory behind the US system is that it allows the individual with limited means to sue (hopefully rightly) a much superior (financially) opponent without fear of retribution. If the British system were to be imposed it would have a chilling effect on these types of cases such as malpractice, employee being illegally fired, and class action such as health damage due to materials, such as the asbetos or silicon implants,etc.
However like anything else, it is subject to abuse.
--laz
One of the points that is being bandied about is that only low-level jobs are being lost. Now that may soothe the minds of some, but they are not thinking it through. To say that hi-level positions are available and maybe even growing might be good for those who are in the industry and have good credentials but it is taking its toll on the future group of IT professionals in the future.
Kids out of high school will see this turmoil and stay away from IT (become plumbers as one guy said), this is how the brain drain works at the macro level. Without a steady stream of new talent, the US will lose its competitive advantage (if it has any left at this point).
Most economists would say that job shifting is a good thing to the overall cost of production and therefore good for the consumer in the long run because it would allow for lower priced goods, but they are forgetting that every action has external cost borne by the society and in this case it borne by the US educational system which will see lower scores on math and science skills as students see even less of a need for those skills; heck they are only going to be plumbers anyway.
To be sure, we are losing those low-level positions, but I am quite sure that no CIO ever made it to the top without starting in one of the low-level positions.
--laz
I always thought those 'stupid Windows has recovered, blah..blah...blah.." were might fault for constantly tweaking and adding stuff to my XP machine, until I got new laptop to run Linux on it. I gave the old machine to my wife after restoring it back to factory default and adding all the updates that Bill said were necessary.
:) Luckily reading slashdot is not one of here limited activities...at least that I know about.
Now her usage pattern is the exact opposite of me, she uses only the same small set of apps, never varying, yet those annoying "windows has recovered from" crap have returned. Now she is asking for relief.
She wants to know if things would be better on Linux. I tell here probably but the learning curve is frustrating and may not be worth the switch given the limited set of activities she uses it for. She gives me looks like I am talking Icelanding.
Maybe I will get a MAC for christmas
--laz
Patents, prio art, bologna!
Has anybody ever considered that Ham radio has been using "wireless" radio frequency transmission of emails before any of the "RIM" or "NTP" engineers were born. Not only that, but ham radio prio art is very well documented and has even received government (at least US) approval for the its use of codes and ciphers (ok its only ASCII) but it still had to be approved by the FCC. Its approval moves it in what is known as "good operating procedures" as has become part of the testing system that all hams need to pass.
I would imagine that all "inventions" made by ham radio ops are part of the public domain and therefore un-patented-able.
--laz (K2LAZ)
Yeah, it took down 2/3rds of all 64bit windows systems out there: all four of them.
Too bad the nice looking female was Mrs. Garrett from the TV sitcom Facts of Life. I guess they never got past the 'G's when setting up the celebs. reference images database.
--laz
I guess I must have the software that uses the other half. With some of my apps, all I get is whines from Wine that it does not support this or that.
--laz
It's like some warped Stratego (TM) game, and the hackers have captured the flag.
Now
:
1. The act of stealing it, sort of renders it useless, who would want a firewall that can be broken into an its own sources stolen.
2. This embarrasement would have been circumvented if they had most of the code in the open source domain, especially the firewall. A good algorithm should be be able to resist the test of scrutiny of its sources.
3. The routing algorithm would be valuable but I doubt that it is what the hackers were after. So maybe they would want not to open source it.
Bottom line, those things which are not core to your business should be release to the open source community. Of course some, like MS believe the universe is their core, so some will never change.
--laz
Maybe if you had sex more often than every 7 years, tears would not be an issue.
--PUBLIC NOTICE--
I have copyrighted all mispelled words, and those who mispell words in the future will be charged. However being the nice guy I am I will only charge $0.99 per mispelled word.
Those of you who mispell words, will be receiving your lsingle-use license grant bills in the mail.
Rats I have to bill myself again!
Just because IBM is on the "good" side for now, does not mean that Big Business will be the saviour and flag bearer for the Open Source movement for ever. Sooner or later O.S. will be screwed and we will see court cases vs IBM, HP etc will steamroll over smaller organisations and people in order to enforce software patents.
Just like RIAA has been able to stop most P2P and encryption-breaking? It's like a "whack-a-mole" game, hit one over the head here, two new ones pop up somewhere else.
++plus, unlike P2P and encryption-breaking, Linux and OSS is perfectly legal, some would even argue: viral; catch the fever.
--laz
Actually I think that like-minded
To them its not a question $.99, but the anti-openess about DRM.
but you did not what is ranked first in:
certainly not GDP 9.61 vs 10.4 nor GDP/Head 21.1K vs 337.6K, and certainly not population, China and Indian has everyone else beat on that count.
No flames please.
was in a recent Intel annual report
Well now you know why they need at least 2GB of main memory, on boot up Longhorn will load into its ramdisk 1.5GB of executables that it deems worthy.
That's because computing power necessary is inversely related to the operator of the device. Microsoft has realized that Joe Sixpack is no rocket scientist.
--laz
Microsoft will never be able to destroy Linux because, nobody really owns it. There is nobody to sue, no company to go bust (hey howabout--Red Hat), ok not many. They can only make it irrelevant, if the communinity lets it.
--laz
PS, I should hide the parenthesis keys, so the voices in my head can't butt in.
The problem is that anti-competitive practices are just that, they have to be practiced. Right now they can plot, plan, and develop to their hearts content, since they are not practicing anything.
Even after the rollout it will be years before any complaints hits the courts, by then MS will have made billions and be ready with the next anti-competive plan for the marketplace. The court cost and fines will be microscopic in comparison to the profits that have already been booked.
Just remember how long the AT&T and Standard Oil monopolies were allow to live before the US courts stepped in to actually break them up.
--laz
I bet every kid on the street would laugh, knowing what I am refering to. The point is that today's know the movie, but have no clue what the message, or meaning of the song. There is always somebody else to blame for our faults.
We need to do less blaming after the fact, more mentoring before the fact.
While everybody seems to be blaming the schools lets not forget that regardless of the quality of schools what really counts is the attitutes of parents. If parents wanted their children to be better students they would demand more from them and from the schools. Kids won't learn anything unless they feel it is worth learning. By itself what is taught seems to them irrelevant so unless they feel that someone, be it better teacher or more importantly their parents thinks that learning is important and worthwhile they won't learn.
It's sad. This will sound familiar. I remember one time I went to purchase some CD in one well-known CD store. They had CDs at 10%, 20%, 50% off, etc. I picked out a few and calculated approximately what the total should be. I took the CD over to the checkout and the girl run it up. Of course, it was wrong, the discount were not applied correctly by the register, it was not the girls fault. But I told her the amount was incorrect, by approximately $5.00. She could not understand how I was able to ascertain that without using a calculator. It made me wonder what they are teaching these kids.
It reminds me of Isaac Asimov's short story: "The Feeling of Power", where in the future a young man amazes everyone with his ability to do math in his head. It amazes everyone including the military which decides it cheaper to use humans instead of computers to guide bombs.
--laz
and Gillete is just waiting for IBM to announce 4 blades so that they can sue their asses off.
--laz