You are speaking of implementation in reference to the end implement much like MFC is an implementation of C++ or as GCC is an implement of C. I'm speaking of implementation as in JavaScript1.x/JScript are implementations of ECMAScript or VisualC++ is an implementation of C++.
With java you are dissallowed from touching the core language. While you are allowed to create new packages and uses of the existing language you cannot add to it. The core language is controlled by Sun.
That is not correct at all. Some of the implementations that are described in the link I mentioned in fact add significant extensions to Java, like generic types.
As far as J2EE licensing and Open Source projects, the JBoss people have a very different take on Lutris' decision to discontinue their
open source product.
http://www.jboss.org/licensesun.jsp
Quick and simple: you are talking about using an existing hammer someone gave you to build a door, I'm talking about building a hammer from parts of your hammer and new parts I created, that looks and acts just like yours, and will be usee to build a similar door. Both hammers work the same, both doors get built. Which door gets certified?
The fact is that EVERY application server on the market includes proprietary extensions to J2EE. Do they get certified? Yes.
Wait, say that again, "third party implementations", meaning what exactly?
I don't think that I've seen a GPL'd java or a red-hat java.
This page lists several non-Sun Java implementations. Several of them are open source, GPL'ed and are in fact part of the standard Red Hat distributions.
As far as Sun not giving up control, well, didn't the Microsoft attempt to hijack Java prove that they had some justification in this?
Does ANYONE REALLY like multiple inheritance or use it frequently?
Inheritance has been shown to be troublesome if overused.
But if you are going to have OOP, it is hard to avoid, and any OOP language that doesn't support it is limited because of a decison the language designer, not the programmer is making.
MS tried the embrace and extend strategy with Java, remember? And they ran into a huge roadblock. Namely Java is not an open standard . Despite what Sun says in the press releases the standard is not open in the same sense. Sun controls it and Sun can shut down any attempt to create a non-conforming version.
Java is controlled through the trademark, not the language standard. Microsoft is free to embrace and extend Java all they want (and the have in fact with C# and J#). What Microsoft cannot do is call their variant Java.
Jack William Bell, who likes the idea of coding with mix-n-match programming languages.
As somewone who has to maintain code from time to time, the idea horrifies me.
Java itself is not any kind of 'true' general standard, sun can do whatever they want to with it.
While Sun can do anything it wants with Java, it is just as much a standard as.NET, complete with specifications and third party implementations.
Now, what makes you think that Microsoft won't do exactly what it wants with.NET? I mean we already have interoperability problems between SOAP implementations. What is going to stop Microsoft from issuing.NET+ or.NET 2002 or whatever? Complete with extensions to the.NET standard (perhaps some even documented) that mean the code that is written for.NET on Windows doesn't run well or at all on.NET for other platforms?
And of course all those fancy development tools (Visual.NET) will require and make full use of these extensions.
What do you, as coders and programmers, want from your immediate manager?
1. Honesty. Don't lie, prevaricate or dissemble. If you can't tell me about something, just say so. Don't try to feed me a line to get rid of me, either - I'll know what you are doing, and it will ruin you because then I will feel that there is no reason to tell you the truth either.
2. Respect. I am a human being, not just a coder, programmer, geek or techie. If you don't treat me like a person I will walk out the door with all the critical information that you need to finish that project the first chance I get.
Third, Win32 APIs are NOT largely published. The good ones - the ones that MS has used to beat down competitors in the so-called "middleware" market have been secret/obscificute. The.NET Framework APIs are open, and submitted to the ECMA.
And what makes you think that Microsoft won't have added undocumented funtionality in it's implementation of.NET to give it's.NET applications a leg up on applications written to ECMA.NET???
I DEFINITELY do want dead tree books. A computer screen just does not have the resolution of a well printed page, and after a day of programming I would much rather rest my eyes on a high definition page than a screen.
Another thing I hate about some of the books on the market (WROX especially) is how they are pieced together from 10+ different authors. There is no way such a presentation can present a topic coherently.
Finally I would like to see a bit more of the old school in computer books - more well thought out, extraodinarily clear yet not dumbed down exposition like we have in the classic K&R. I think the essence of quality writing is presenting a complex idea in a fashion that is precise, leads to deep understanding and does so in a minimum of unneeded jargon.
Finally, don't shovel in content to make the book thick when said content (i.e. language specs) is not the direct subject of the book. We have to carry these things around, AND we don't have infinite shelf space.
If the test uses a novel method to detect the presence of something fine patent it. But to allow a patent which basically describes itself as "A test for the presence of this sequence..." then you preclude any improvement in the technology because any new method would violate the patent - this isn't what patents are about.
The type of patent you are describing could simply be avoided by finding a different test for the same sequence. The only way you could tie up a DNA sequnce in a test is by patenting a test for a sequence as a marker for some property, beneficial or not. And even then it's weak because the only value of the patent is the use of the presence of the DNA as a marker - that is the use of the DNA sequence as an indicator. Any other use of the sequence is open for other applications.
On another note, I am quite upset at the moderation that is going on in this topic. It appears some real goons are loose hacking at anyone with anything like a counter opinion. It doesn't effect me particularly because my karma is so high it no longer gets changed by moderation, either way, but it really detrimental to Slashdot to see perfectly valid discussion get tromped on like this.
It is never a good idea to make a product out of research project.
Well, that's a rather cold view. After all, where is progress going to come from if people don't try to make products out of research projects. Heck, we would still be using piles of stones to count our bushels of grain otherwise.
but now why sequences of genes themselves are patentable
It's a hoot to read the responses to this article. Never have I such a total lack of understanding or knowledge by the users of Slashdot.
THE FACT IS THAT DNA SEQUENCES ARE NOT PATENTABLE
Take a look at the patent archive, and the USPTO criterea for biotech patents. There are NO patents of genetic sequences per se. The patents cover the use of particular sequences to do things like test for diseases, etc.
YOU are not going to become a slave, or be sued for infringement because your body contains a genetic sequence.
Or watch Netscape choke to death. The end-user doesn't give a flying fuck. IE handles buggy html and gets the page rendered. IE supports standards and it supports lazy HTML coders. Is that so bad?
Actually, it is REALLY bad. What it means is that a large percentage of the web won't render on any browser besides IE because IE is so sloppy about what it will accept as valid HTML. It's one of the worst aspects of having MS as the dominant desktop platform - many sites are done in a variant of HTML that is NOT conformant with standards that IE will render, but most other browsers will not.
IE is in fact a plague upon the Internet, and Microsoft should be regularly given gas about releasing a browser that renders HTML in such a sloppy manner.
It is very naive to say that only the final decisions which courts reach are relevant.
Hardly. Patents are litigated all the time. It is not that rare, and lawyers working at companies pay attention to case law. If they try to shake down a deep pocket organization for a patent infringement that is on weak ground, they are risking a countersuit, big time.
it is the abuse of patents for pharmaceuticals that is putting a excessive burden on our medical system.
The issue is far more complicated than that. Suppose xyz Pharma develops a cure for breast cancer. People pay all sorts of money for the drug because it's very effective and HORRORS patented. xyz does well off the discovery and everyone complains about the profits xyz is making. Well, dammit, why shouldn't they be profitable? They took the risk and funded the development of this drug. People wouldn't be buying it if it didn't work. Presumably the benefit of the drug (longer life, no painful death frm cancer) far outweighs the cost.
Now people start complaining that the drug is putting an excessive burden on the Heath Care system bacsue it's so effective. OK, don't buy the drug, and let the people die instead. Ooops that's not politically acceptable. Is it xyz's fault that they came up with something that cures a horrible disease? Not hardly.
THE FAULT IS THAT PEOPLE WANT EVERYTHING FOR FREE. Sorry, by the laws of thermodynamics are not going away anytime soon.
Pharmaceutical companies are the most profitable companies in the world
That is not even CLOSE to being correct. No pharmacuetical company is in the top ten list of moist profitable companies. There are two in the top 20, at 18 and 19.
Take a look at the list for yourself:
http://www.fortune.com/cache/ns_list_most_profit ab le.html
The Pharms don't rank very high in terms of profit margin percentage, either. Techs like Microsoft, Intel and Oracle do much better.
You can't expect a civilisation to grow, if their own laws prohibit it and give ownership of technology to single individuals.
Patents were developed as a concept in law because companies who discovered technology were keeping it secret. Granting a limited exclusive right to a technology is far better than having it kept totally secret.
Its one thing for a company to sue another for copying an idea for profit, but when you start leveraging royalties from people for breathing because you have a patent on "oxygen hemoglobin transfer" you have issues.
Now you are making up stuff. No person has ever been sued for engaging in normal body functions as a violation of patent law, and none ever will be.
Why shouldn't DNA be patentable? It's merely a chemical compund, an arrangement of base pairs in a double helix structure.
From a fundamental viewpoint it's no different from a chain based caprolactam built by a ring opening polymerization, or vinyl addition polymerization.
If you give DNA some special status as not being patentable, while ANY other chemical compound is, what is next? Do we deny patents to all biologically active molecules? All organic molecules????
It's not like these patents are causing any great distortion of our daily lives, AND the fact is that patents have a quite short lifetime in the grand scheme of things. Already many of the original biotech patents are expiring. My guess is that the time needed to develop and commercialize a DNA based product will average longer than a patent lifetime anyway.
20 years from now the debate over DNA patenting will be laughed at as pure silliness.
Umm, the problem with Microsoft is that it has too many features, er, uh, points of attack. I mean, look at C#. We just won a big Java project against a competitor proposing C#/.NET because in the final analysis C# has huge security holes compared to Java - and those holes are present because Microsoft just HAD to have some features that aren't in Java - like pointers that open holes big enough to drive a truck through.
It was very simple to describe C# as "Java, except insecure" to the client.
After all, wasn't this recent big XP flap over a new feature?
Really secure OS's control the feature set, something totally foreign to the Microsoft business model.
Nothing, and I mean nothing, approaches the stability and conformance to standards of IE on Windows in the Linux mix.
Actually that's pure baloney. IE is the most non-conformant browser out there. It's very simple to see, too. Just code a table without a closing tag, and watch IE render the thing anyway.
they have built a common Windowing library into the.NET Framework callable from any.NET enabled language
Sounds like a giant security hole to me. Go to a web site, and have files moved to the Trash Can via.NET. Perfect!
So if Microsoft says they are going to make security and software reliability an issue, this is likely to cause alot of angst among the Linux crowd. Why? My gosh, what if they actually do it?!
Not possible. Microsoft's business model is based on a 1-2 year software life cycle. You cannot make a large software package either secure or reliable in that kind of time period.
Wavelets are an alternative to Fourier Transformation of time domain data to obtain a functional decomposition of the waveform for analyis or processing. They are particularly useful with choppy or spikey signals.
It's a very fundamental mathematical tool for any kind of signal processing application. As such it has a wide range of applications. It came into wide use perhaps 15 years ago; perhaps you were out of school by then. I am sure that every EE undergraduate is getting exposure to wavelets these days.
Yippee! More sites to submit to black hole listing sites. In fact, I think that TRUSTe should make this list available via an XML-RPC server for quick reference and use in various daemons!
I always wondered why people hadn't implemented a native-code compiler for it. Sure, with bounds-checking and garbage collection, natively compiled Java will still be slower than natively compiled C++.
Hmmm.. It would seem to me that some run-time dynamic binding features present in a JVM would be lost in a native code compilation.
Slashdot Mirror
You are speaking of implementation in reference to the end implement much like MFC is an implementation of C++ or as GCC is an implement of C. I'm speaking of implementation as in JavaScript1.x/JScript are implementations of ECMAScript or VisualC++ is an implementation of C++.
With java you are dissallowed from touching the core language. While you are allowed to create new packages and uses of the existing language you cannot add to it. The core language is controlled by Sun.
That is not correct at all. Some of the implementations that are described in the link I mentioned in fact add significant extensions to Java, like generic types.
As far as J2EE licensing and Open Source projects, the JBoss people have a very different take on Lutris' decision to discontinue their
open source product.
http://www.jboss.org/licensesun.jsp
Quick and simple: you are talking about using an existing hammer someone gave you to build a door, I'm talking about building a hammer from parts of your hammer and new parts I created, that looks and acts just like yours, and will be usee to build a similar door. Both hammers work the same, both doors get built. Which door gets certified?
The fact is that EVERY application server on the market includes proprietary extensions to J2EE. Do they get certified? Yes.
Wait, say that again, "third party implementations", meaning what exactly?
I don't think that I've seen a GPL'd java or a red-hat java.
This page lists several non-Sun Java implementations. Several of them are open source, GPL'ed and are in fact part of the standard Red Hat distributions.
As far as Sun not giving up control, well, didn't the Microsoft attempt to hijack Java prove that they had some justification in this?
Does ANYONE REALLY like multiple inheritance or use it frequently?
Inheritance has been shown to be troublesome if overused.
But if you are going to have OOP, it is hard to avoid, and any OOP language that doesn't support it is limited because of a decison the language designer, not the programmer is making.
MS tried the embrace and extend strategy with Java, remember? And they ran into a huge roadblock. Namely Java is not an open standard . Despite what Sun says in the press releases the standard is not open in the same sense. Sun controls it and Sun can shut down any attempt to create a non-conforming version.
Java is controlled through the trademark, not the language standard. Microsoft is free to embrace and extend Java all they want (and the have in fact with C# and J#). What Microsoft cannot do is call their variant Java.
Jack William Bell, who likes the idea of coding with mix-n-match programming languages.
As somewone who has to maintain code from time to time, the idea horrifies me.
Java itself is not any kind of 'true' general standard, sun can do whatever they want to with it.
.NET, complete with specifications and third party implementations.
.NET? I mean we already have interoperability problems between SOAP implementations. What is going to stop Microsoft from issuing .NET+ or .NET 2002 or whatever? Complete with extensions to the .NET standard (perhaps some even documented) that mean the code that is written for .NET on Windows doesn't run well or at all on .NET for other platforms?
.NET) will require and make full use of these extensions.
While Sun can do anything it wants with Java, it is just as much a standard as
Now, what makes you think that Microsoft won't do exactly what it wants with
And of course all those fancy development tools (Visual
What do you, as coders and programmers, want from your immediate manager?
1. Honesty. Don't lie, prevaricate or dissemble. If you can't tell me about something, just say so. Don't try to feed me a line to get rid of me, either - I'll know what you are doing, and it will ruin you because then I will feel that there is no reason to tell you the truth either.
2. Respect. I am a human being, not just a coder, programmer, geek or techie. If you don't treat me like a person I will walk out the door with all the critical information that you need to finish that project the first chance I get.
Third, Win32 APIs are NOT largely published. The good ones - the ones that MS has used to beat down competitors in the so-called "middleware" market have been secret/obscificute. The .NET Framework APIs are open, and submitted to the ECMA.
.NET to give it's .NET applications a leg up on applications written to ECMA .NET???
And what makes you think that Microsoft won't have added undocumented funtionality in it's implementation of
I DEFINITELY do want dead tree books. A computer screen just does not have the resolution of a well printed page, and after a day of programming I would much rather rest my eyes on a high definition page than a screen.
Another thing I hate about some of the books on the market (WROX especially) is how they are pieced together from 10+ different authors. There is no way such a presentation can present a topic coherently.
Finally I would like to see a bit more of the old school in computer books - more well thought out, extraodinarily clear yet not dumbed down exposition like we have in the classic K&R. I think the essence of quality writing is presenting a complex idea in a fashion that is precise, leads to deep understanding and does so in a minimum of unneeded jargon.
Finally, don't shovel in content to make the book thick when said content (i.e. language specs) is not the direct subject of the book. We have to carry these things around, AND we don't have infinite shelf space.
If the test uses a novel method to detect the presence of something fine patent it. But to allow a patent which basically describes itself as "A test for the presence of this sequence ..." then you preclude any improvement in the technology because any new method would violate the patent - this isn't what patents are about.
The type of patent you are describing could simply be avoided by finding a different test for the same sequence. The only way you could tie up a DNA sequnce in a test is by patenting a test for a sequence as a marker for some property, beneficial or not. And even then it's weak because the only value of the patent is the use of the presence of the DNA as a marker - that is the use of the DNA sequence as an indicator. Any other use of the sequence is open for other applications.
On another note, I am quite upset at the moderation that is going on in this topic. It appears some real goons are loose hacking at anyone with anything like a counter opinion. It doesn't effect me particularly because my karma is so high it no longer gets changed by moderation, either way, but it really detrimental to Slashdot to see perfectly valid discussion get tromped on like this.
It is never a good idea to make a product out of research project.
Well, that's a rather cold view. After all, where is progress going to come from if people don't try to make products out of research projects. Heck, we would still be using piles of stones to count our bushels of grain otherwise.
Diamond v Chakrabarty (1980) [101, n 38]
Chakrabarty won his case and was awarded a patent.
but now why sequences of genes themselves are patentable
It's a hoot to read the responses to this article. Never have I such a total lack of understanding or knowledge by the users of Slashdot.
THE FACT IS THAT DNA SEQUENCES ARE NOT PATENTABLE
Take a look at the patent archive, and the USPTO criterea for biotech patents. There are NO patents of genetic sequences per se. The patents cover the use of particular sequences to do things like test for diseases, etc.
YOU are not going to become a slave, or be sued for infringement because your body contains a genetic sequence.
Ridiculous.
Which is fine.. so long as you're a deep pocket organization. What about the smaller universities?
The fact is that even a small university is going to be bigger than most biotech companies.
Or watch Netscape choke to death. The end-user doesn't give a flying fuck. IE handles buggy html and gets the page rendered. IE supports standards and it supports lazy HTML coders. Is that so bad?
Actually, it is REALLY bad. What it means is that a large percentage of the web won't render on any browser besides IE because IE is so sloppy about what it will accept as valid HTML. It's one of the worst aspects of having MS as the dominant desktop platform - many sites are done in a variant of HTML that is NOT conformant with standards that IE will render, but most other browsers will not.
IE is in fact a plague upon the Internet, and Microsoft should be regularly given gas about releasing a browser that renders HTML in such a sloppy manner.
It is very naive to say that only the final decisions which courts reach are relevant.
Hardly. Patents are litigated all the time. It is not that rare, and lawyers working at companies pay attention to case law. If they try to shake down a deep pocket organization for a patent infringement that is on weak ground, they are risking a countersuit, big time.
it is the abuse of patents for pharmaceuticals that is putting a excessive burden on our medical system.
t ab le.html
The issue is far more complicated than that. Suppose xyz Pharma develops a cure for breast cancer. People pay all sorts of money for the drug because it's very effective and HORRORS patented. xyz does well off the discovery and everyone complains about the profits xyz is making. Well, dammit, why shouldn't they be profitable? They took the risk and funded the development of this drug. People wouldn't be buying it if it didn't work. Presumably the benefit of the drug (longer life, no painful death frm cancer) far outweighs the cost.
Now people start complaining that the drug is putting an excessive burden on the Heath Care system bacsue it's so effective. OK, don't buy the drug, and let the people die instead. Ooops that's not politically acceptable. Is it xyz's fault that they came up with something that cures a horrible disease? Not hardly.
THE FAULT IS THAT PEOPLE WANT EVERYTHING FOR FREE. Sorry, by the laws of thermodynamics are not going away anytime soon.
Pharmaceutical companies are the most profitable companies in the world
That is not even CLOSE to being correct. No pharmacuetical company is in the top ten list of moist profitable companies. There are two in the top 20, at 18 and 19.
Take a look at the list for yourself:
http://www.fortune.com/cache/ns_list_most_profi
The Pharms don't rank very high in terms of profit margin percentage, either. Techs like Microsoft, Intel and Oracle do much better.
You can't expect a civilisation to grow, if their own laws prohibit it and give ownership of technology to single individuals.
Patents were developed as a concept in law because companies who discovered technology were keeping it secret. Granting a limited exclusive right to a technology is far better than having it kept totally secret.
Its one thing for a company to sue another for copying an idea for profit, but when you start leveraging royalties from people for breathing because you have a patent on "oxygen hemoglobin transfer" you have issues.
Now you are making up stuff. No person has ever been sued for engaging in normal body functions as a violation of patent law, and none ever will be.
Biotech companies are interpreting these patents in a very broad way, as you can see from the article.
Thats quite irrelevant. What is important is how the courts interpret the patents.
Why shouldn't DNA be patentable? It's merely a chemical compund, an arrangement of base pairs in a double helix structure.
From a fundamental viewpoint it's no different from a chain based caprolactam built by a ring opening polymerization, or vinyl addition polymerization.
If you give DNA some special status as not being patentable, while ANY other chemical compound is, what is next? Do we deny patents to all biologically active molecules? All organic molecules????
It's not like these patents are causing any great distortion of our daily lives, AND the fact is that patents have a quite short lifetime in the grand scheme of things. Already many of the original biotech patents are expiring. My guess is that the time needed to develop and commercialize a DNA based product will average longer than a patent lifetime anyway.
20 years from now the debate over DNA patenting will be laughed at as pure silliness.
Since when did scientists become so profit oriented?
Since about when people started buying technology based products. Edison I guess was the prototype.
Name one such feature Windows doesn't also have.
Umm, the problem with Microsoft is that it has too many features, er, uh, points of attack. I mean, look at C#. We just won a big Java project against a competitor proposing C#/.NET because in the final analysis C# has huge security holes compared to Java - and those holes are present because Microsoft just HAD to have some features that aren't in Java - like pointers that open holes big enough to drive a truck through.
It was very simple to describe C# as "Java, except insecure" to the client.
After all, wasn't this recent big XP flap over a new feature?
Really secure OS's control the feature set, something totally foreign to the Microsoft business model.
Nothing, and I mean nothing, approaches the stability and conformance to standards of IE on Windows in the Linux mix.
.NET Framework callable from any .NET enabled language
.NET. Perfect!
Actually that's pure baloney. IE is the most non-conformant browser out there. It's very simple to see, too. Just code a table without a closing tag, and watch IE render the thing anyway.
they have built a common Windowing library into the
Sounds like a giant security hole to me. Go to a web site, and have files moved to the Trash Can via
So if Microsoft says they are going to make security and software reliability an issue, this is likely to cause alot of angst among the Linux crowd. Why? My gosh, what if they actually do it?!
Not possible. Microsoft's business model is based on a 1-2 year software life cycle. You cannot make a large software package either secure or reliable in that kind of time period.
Wavelets are an alternative to Fourier Transformation of time domain data to obtain a functional decomposition of the waveform for analyis or processing. They are particularly useful with choppy or spikey signals.
It's a very fundamental mathematical tool for any kind of signal processing application. As such it has a wide range of applications. It came into wide use perhaps 15 years ago; perhaps you were out of school by then. I am sure that every EE undergraduate is getting exposure to wavelets these days.
Here is a link to resources on Wavelets:
http://www.mathsoft.com/wavelets.html
Yippee! More sites to submit to black hole listing sites. In fact, I think that TRUSTe should make this list available via an XML-RPC server for quick reference and use in various daemons!
I always wondered why people hadn't implemented a native-code compiler for it. Sure, with bounds-checking and garbage collection, natively compiled Java will still be slower than natively compiled C++.
Hmmm.. It would seem to me that some run-time dynamic binding features present in a JVM would be lost in a native code compilation.