I think that you are exaggerating. Everyone I know with an iMac has upgraded the RAM to at least 64MB. Most mailorder houses throw in an upgrade when you order an iMac.
Re:Geez...YOU DON'T NEED A FLOPPY DRIVE!!
on
Is firewire dying?
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· Score: 1
I would love a MP3 player with a firewire interface. Scanners are another common periperal that benefit from firewire. Digital cameras are also becomming very popular.
Maybe I am a little old fashioned, but I think that in High School the focus should be on THE BASICS, which if I had to make a list programming would not be on it.
High School students should be taught how to read WELL, write WELL and do math WELL. This business of including courses like programming in a high school curiculum are a waste of time when the students can't even write a paragraph that clearly expresses an idea.
Some electives like introductory science, history and foreign languages (some that needs much more emphasis in the US due the increasingly global nature of society) are worth dabbling in, too. But computer programming is strictly a vocational topic, much like nursing, accounting, etc. and has no real place in a basic college prep high school program.
In any case does anyone think that a high school can teach the real meat of computer programming? Tail recursion? Hash Tables? Data Modelling? Not very likely, and without these concepts you are wasting your time.
As far as Python goes, I have not evaluated it, so it may be a very good candidate for a introductory course in computer programming. Personally, of the languages I know I would have chosen something like Logo or Scheme. These languages allow one to focus on the real meat of computer programming without getting tied up in syntax issues or implementation specific issues or the warts on the language du jour, especially the horrific BASIC, C, C++ and Perl (C++ delenda est) much to the benefit of the student and the course.
My first exposure to computers was on a high school field trip to the old DEC factory in Maynard MA (in an old textile mill) where they were making early minicomputers - PDP 8's with 12 bit words, Link 8's etc. in 1967. During this trip we were shown a Link 8 with an AM radio sitting on top of the machine playing Greensleeves based on the program running in the machine at the time. This trick is at least 35 years old.
Nonsense. The GIF image compression patent means people use some other image compression algorithm. Big deal. OTOH, the availability of patents for drugs makes what we call modern medicine possible. Which would you rather do without?
If there were no copyrights we would be back to the problem of everyone taking 'public domain' source and turning it into commercial products - exactly what GPL is defending against. GPL does not defend against copyrights solely, but many other forms of commercial software distribution restrictions as well.
Commercial software products do not need copyright protection for companies to lock them up - look at the shrink wrap license - there are a million other strategies that can be used to get users to pay for software, including limited use contracts, hardware protection and all sorts of other licenses. Lotus was winning court cases against people copying their software based on unauthorized trademark duplication rather than going after copyright infringement because the penalties were much smaller for copyright infringement. All these strategies and more are used in countries where copyright and other IP laws are not taken seriously. Copyright laws are in fact one of the least intrusive ways for commercial software vendors to protect their IP.
The rabid anti IP geeks are wrong. Without IP laws we would have all sorts of other contractual agreements attached to commercial software, AND there would be no GPL to foster the development of Free Software.
Free software is free because it is protected by the copyrights assigned to it's authors and their license terms.
I think it makes a lot of sense for Apple to license the Palm and issue an 'enhanced' Pilot.
The problem that Palm has is that it is squarely in the sights of MS, who is working hard to squeeze it out of the market much like the have done with every other competitor. I don't like the signs already - look at the Magazine rack, and what you seen in the way of marketting in the Palm computing arena.
The problem with stating that FSF is anti-IP is that FSF's best assurance that their software will remain free is the GPL, which in fact requires strong IP laws. If FSF was truely anti-IP they would release their code into the public domain rather than retaining copyrights to all their stuff.
Actually, you are incorrect regarding the traademark license issue. Originally there were licenses, but eventually Apple bought rights to the Apple and Macintosh trademarks, not licenses, and also Macintosh Labs is not spelt the way you state - it's McIntosh Laboratories.
The issue regarding cloners was much more serious than 'eating into the low end of the market' for Apple.
Apple was in serious danger of going out of business. They were hemorraging billions of dollars per year. Jobs has said publically that this issue was simply a matter of the survival of Apple Computer as a company. If this is right, there wouldn't be any clones, either.
Remember the $12 stock price? The Apple logo framed in black on the cover of Business Week?
I certainly didn't want to see the clones wiped out. But if it really was a life and death issue.... well I don't think I can really criticize Apple on this.
Come on guys - there are two gnats in the Apple license - termination and returning the code to Apple. THAT'S IT. On the scale of 1 to 10, it means Apple's action in opening the OS code is a 9.98 out of 10.
Returning code to Apple is a non-issue because Apple can't go after you if there is no URL to return the code to.
The other issue is termination, which is important, and needs to be reworked. Apple DOES need protection from patent infringement, we have talked about that enough here. It's not just the Free Software guys that suffer from software patents - corporations can get stung too.
What IS needed is a solution that gives Apple (and other companies, i.e. IBM) protection from infringement lawsuits and at the same time keeps the source open. This is something that the Open Source/Free Software movement needs to address.
It is NOT a case of Apple being a villan. It is simply a case of Apple trying to protect it's ass from crippling infringement laibility judgements, and the fact that software patent infringement issues are a problem with Open Source.
I don't think Mr. Carmac has any great insights. He is neatly glossing over the many stupid warts that Wintel inherits from the 8088 days, to wit the crappy DMA and INT structure, BIOS problems (ever try to get a 10 gig hard disk running on Linux???, or move a SCSI drive between controllers?). Win 95/98 has loads of 16 bit code, and the mechansim to support long file names is a gross hack. Win 95/98 doesn't really protect the kernal from applications overwriting memory, either. The CPU is a crufty non-orthoganal CISC architecture that is the worst thing that can be inflicted on programmers - and the MMX extensions?? Give me a break - they help the really terrible multimedia performance at the expensive of cutting off floating point. Hell. Win still relies on file name extensions to do application linking. Give me a break - this is almost the 21st century!! And how may disk partition formats has MS inflicted on us?? ??
Not to mention Microsoft's 'we own you' attitude. Polluted Java, polluted HTML, sending user information back to the mother ship despite being explicitly told not to? Or how about their coopting technology (see Stacker) without bothering to license? Take a look at the 'Halloween' memos - where Microsoft talks about polluting existing network standards? Is this the company you really want to support??
If somebody holds a US patent, that gives them rights in the US only. If they go overseas and sell the code, no problem. IF THEY TRY TO IMPORT THAT PRODUCT INTO THE US, they are infringing. Most companies that do patents get the patents in the US, Europe (there is a central Euro patent agency) and Japan at least. It runs into money, which is good because it discourages frivilous patents.
There are countries where patent law doesn't exist. However they have no economy either.
The internet question depends on the nature of the patent.
And there are treaties which coordinate the whole she-bang. For example, why should Japan let a US company get a patent in Japan???
Microsoft has on occasion gotten burnt by ignoring patents - didn't they loose a $100 million judgement to Stacker?
The fact is that if you ignore patents you can get burnt big time. Billions can be at stake. Kodak's instant cameras, and a Pennzoil lawsuit are two examples that ended up costing billions to the loser.
It is important to remember that a free market is not necessarily the optimum economic system for maximal societal benefit. A free market (sans regulation) leads to monopolies like Standard Oil and the trashing of the environment by corporations whose bottom line is not affected by the external diseconomies of the effects of their pollution. Many regulations/laws are in place as the result of recognition that a completely free market leads to a lot of societal problems for the simple reason that corporations are too individuals and act in their own self interest. Individual people are subject to certain laws and regulations for the overall good, as so should be corporations.
If you don't believe me, take a look at 19th century industrial history in the United States as an example of what 'free markets' can bring. I don't think that many people would want to return to the days of the Chicago Shirt Waist Factory.
The patent owner is not going to sue a hobbyist. Patent lawsuits typically cost $1 million to bring. This is not going to be a winning proposition. HOWEVER they might sue Red Hat Labs, or a corporate customer of Red Hat.
Well, I am not an IP lawyer, but I have some knowledge of the field, have worked with enough IP lawyers to have been granted 15 patents of my own (chemical, not software).
This is NOT a simple issue at all.
As far as the question of prior publication - if the idea has been published, that's an absolute bar to having a valid enforceable patent. If you publish in the US you have 1 year to file a patent IN THE US. You lose all patent rights outside the US immediately if you publish. This can take strange forms - for example a fellow once lost patent rights to a new kind of harvester because he had a picture of it published in a local newspaper a year before the application was filed. If you can point to prior publication you can have a patent re-examined and maybe thrown out. If you can prove the patentee knew about the prior publication and failed to disclose it to the Patent Office you might even get the patenteee brought up on patent fraud charges. (Yes, this does happen).
Personally I think patents are in general a good thing - they allow companies that invest a lot of money in R&D to recoup that investment. The great progress in modern pharmaceuticals we have today would not be possible without patent protection - bringing new drugs to market is a multibillion dollar investment. There are many other fields where patents rights ar an important incentive towards encouraging real progress.
They also encourage the open publication of a lot of technology that would be kept secret otherwise to protect a commercial advantage. This second concept is the real reason for the patent system in the first place - in exchange for open publication of a new technology, rights for exclusive use of the technology are granted. This in fact is giving inventors an incentive to 'Open Source' their technology for the good of all society. Otherwise people would keep everthing as trade secrets (encypted binary) that in fact might get lost on the demise of a company or individual.
The problem is that this is not working in the software industry. Exclusive rights are being given for non-inventions. Patents are supposed to have three qualities - novelty, utility and unobviousness. There needs to be some meat in the publication in exchange for that exclusive right to practice the invention. I think that the vast majority of software patents fail on the first and third points - novelty and unobviousness. At this point I think there are very few truly new ideas in software development - a new data transfer protocol that REALLY is novel is unlikely, and I certainly feel that any process of translating an algorithm is obvious - but certainly new algorithms are being developed BUT according to patent law you can't actually patent a mathematical algorithm. Unfortuantely the patent office doesn't agree with me (or others) on this issue, so legislation might be needed. IMHO it's really a work in progress, so complaints really are needed - the patent office IS subject to whining. Do write your Congressman.
The problem with patent legislation is that there are also international treaties involved that essentially bring the various signers into agreement on what is patentable.
For example there are many countries who don't like pharma patents, but might have signed in exchange for some other issue. If you throw out software patent they might say, OK we are not going to respect your drug patents.
Also - the respondee that mentioned that patent examiners just have a quota to grant is incorrect. Examiners have a quota to inspect, and their grant to reject ratio is also monitored. However patent examiners work in specific technical specialties - yuou may have one in polymer science and another in software technology - both might be expected to examine 5 patents a day, and grant 2. The 2 that get granted though are somewhat of a crap shoot. It may depend on the bitchiness of the examiner that day, whether or not the author is known to the examiner from previous work [let me tell you - after you get 5 patents in a certain field, that 6th one comes a little easier - the patent office has made You the authority now:-)], and how good a writer you and your lawyer are, regardless of the quality of your actual invention.
are slime, too. I don't think Microsoft has sold the data to others.
Who on Slashdot is Stupid enough....
on
Windows ID
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· Score: 1
Still can't run my games, which is the only reason I still have Windows 95.
Technically it's not just an American right.
on
Windows ID
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· Score: 1
Actually that is wrong. The constitution grants Americans several specific rights to privacy - unreasonable search and seizure, no self incrimination, etc. and in fact many of the most important Supreme Court rulings have been based on a right to privacy - for example Roe v. Wade making abortion legal in the US was based on a right to privacy.
The problem with this cyber stuff is that it's too now for much case law to be built up, so abusive companies like Microsoft think that they have free reign. Well, they don't, and soon they will find that their abuses will result in legislation or legal action that will make them wish they had been more careful.
Slashdot Mirror
I think that you are exaggerating. Everyone I know with an iMac has upgraded the RAM to at least 64MB. Most mailorder houses throw in an upgrade when you order an iMac.
I would love a MP3 player with a firewire interface. Scanners are another common periperal that benefit from firewire. Digital cameras are also becomming very popular.
Maybe I am a little old fashioned, but I think that in High School the focus should be on THE BASICS, which if I had to make a list programming would not be on it.
High School students should be taught how to read WELL, write WELL and do math WELL. This business of including courses like programming in a high school curiculum are a waste of time when the students can't even write a paragraph that clearly expresses an idea.
Some electives like introductory science, history and foreign languages (some that needs much more emphasis in the US due the increasingly global nature of society) are worth dabbling in, too. But computer programming is strictly a vocational topic, much like nursing, accounting, etc. and has no real place in a basic college prep high school program.
In any case does anyone think that a high school can teach the real meat of computer programming? Tail recursion? Hash Tables? Data Modelling? Not very likely, and without these concepts you are wasting your time.
As far as Python goes, I have not evaluated it, so it may be a very good candidate for a introductory course in computer programming. Personally, of the languages I know I would have chosen something like Logo or Scheme. These languages allow one to focus on the real meat of computer programming without getting tied up in syntax issues or implementation specific issues or the warts on the language du jour, especially the horrific BASIC, C, C++ and Perl (C++ delenda est) much to the benefit of the student and the course.
My first exposure to computers was on a high school field trip to the old DEC factory in Maynard MA (in an old textile mill) where they were making early minicomputers - PDP 8's with 12 bit words, Link 8's etc. in 1967. During this trip we were shown a Link 8 with an AM radio sitting on top of the machine playing Greensleeves based on the program running in the machine at the time. This trick is at least 35 years old.
Nonsense. The GIF image compression patent means people use some other image compression algorithm. Big deal. OTOH, the availability of patents for drugs makes what we call modern medicine possible. Which would you rather do without?
If there were no copyrights we would be back to the problem of everyone taking 'public domain' source and turning it into commercial products - exactly what GPL is defending against. GPL does not defend against copyrights solely, but many other forms of commercial software distribution restrictions as well.
Commercial software products do not need copyright protection for companies to lock them up - look at the shrink wrap license - there are a million other strategies that can be used to get users to pay for software, including limited use contracts, hardware protection and all sorts of other licenses. Lotus was winning court cases against people copying their software based on unauthorized trademark duplication rather than going after copyright infringement because the penalties were much smaller for copyright infringement. All these strategies and more are used in countries where copyright and other IP laws are not taken seriously. Copyright laws are in fact one of the least intrusive ways for commercial software vendors to protect their IP.
The rabid anti IP geeks are wrong. Without IP laws we would have all sorts of other contractual agreements attached to commercial software, AND there would be no GPL to foster the development of Free Software.
Free software is free because it is protected by the copyrights assigned to it's authors and their license terms.
I think it makes a lot of sense for Apple to license the Palm and issue an 'enhanced' Pilot.
The problem that Palm has is that it is squarely in the sights of MS, who is working hard to squeeze it out of the market much like the have done with every other competitor. I don't like the signs already - look at the Magazine rack, and what you seen in the way of marketting in the Palm computing arena.
// On a clear disk you can seek forever
The problem with stating that FSF is anti-IP is that FSF's best assurance that their software will remain free is the GPL, which in fact requires strong IP laws. If FSF was truely anti-IP they would release their code into the public domain rather than retaining copyrights to all their stuff.
Actually, you are incorrect regarding the traademark license issue. Originally there were licenses, but eventually Apple bought rights to the Apple and Macintosh trademarks, not licenses, and also Macintosh Labs is not spelt the way you state - it's McIntosh Laboratories.
Sorry.
Where does it say you can't use it for other projects?????
The issue regarding cloners was much more serious than 'eating into the low end of the market' for Apple.
Apple was in serious danger of going out of business. They were hemorraging billions of dollars per year. Jobs has said publically that this issue was simply a matter of the survival of Apple Computer as a company. If this is right, there wouldn't be any clones, either.
Remember the $12 stock price? The Apple logo framed in black on the cover of Business Week?
I certainly didn't want to see the clones wiped out. But if it really was a life and death issue.... well I don't think I can really criticize Apple on this.
Come on guys - there are two gnats in the Apple license - termination and returning the code to Apple. THAT'S IT. On the scale of 1 to 10, it means Apple's action in opening the OS code is a 9.98 out of 10.
Returning code to Apple is a non-issue because Apple can't go after you if there is no URL to return the code to.
The other issue is termination, which is important, and needs to be reworked. Apple DOES need protection from patent infringement, we have talked about that enough here. It's not just the Free Software guys that suffer from software patents - corporations can get stung too.
What IS needed is a solution that gives Apple (and other companies, i.e. IBM) protection from infringement lawsuits and at the same time keeps the source open. This is something that the Open Source/Free Software movement needs to address.
It is NOT a case of Apple being a villan. It is simply a case of Apple trying to protect it's ass from crippling infringement laibility judgements, and the fact that software patent infringement issues are a problem with Open Source.
Nonsense. Apple is clearly quite different from Microsoft, and the release of OS/X code proves it.
Worthless trash ripoff sensationalism garbage.
I don't think Mr. Carmac has any great insights. He is neatly glossing over the many stupid warts that Wintel inherits from the 8088 days, to wit the crappy DMA and INT structure, BIOS problems (ever try to get a 10 gig hard disk running on Linux???, or move a SCSI drive between controllers?). Win 95/98 has loads of 16 bit code, and the mechansim to support long file names is a gross hack. Win 95/98 doesn't really protect the kernal from applications overwriting memory, either. The CPU is a crufty non-orthoganal CISC architecture that is the worst thing that can be inflicted on programmers - and the MMX extensions?? Give me a break - they help the really terrible multimedia performance at the expensive of cutting off floating point. Hell. Win still relies on file name extensions to do application linking. Give me a break - this is almost the 21st century!! And how may disk partition formats has MS inflicted on us?? ??
Not to mention Microsoft's 'we own you' attitude. Polluted Java, polluted HTML, sending user information back to the mother ship despite being explicitly told not to? Or how about their coopting technology (see Stacker) without bothering to license? Take a look at the 'Halloween' memos - where Microsoft talks about polluting existing network standards? Is this the company you really want to support??
If somebody holds a US patent, that gives them rights in the US only. If they go overseas and sell the code, no problem. IF THEY TRY TO IMPORT THAT PRODUCT INTO THE US, they are infringing. Most companies that do patents get the patents in the US, Europe (there is a central Euro patent agency) and Japan at least. It runs into money, which is good because it discourages frivilous patents.
There are countries where patent law doesn't exist. However they have no economy either.
The internet question depends on the nature of the patent.
And there are treaties which coordinate the whole she-bang. For example, why should Japan let a US company get a patent in Japan???
Microsoft has on occasion gotten burnt by ignoring patents - didn't they loose a $100 million judgement to Stacker?
The fact is that if you ignore patents you can get burnt big time. Billions can be at stake. Kodak's instant cameras, and a Pennzoil lawsuit are two examples that ended up costing billions to the loser.
It is important to remember that a free market is not necessarily the optimum economic system for maximal societal benefit. A free market (sans regulation) leads to monopolies like Standard Oil and the trashing of the environment by corporations whose bottom line is not affected by the external diseconomies of the effects of their pollution. Many regulations/laws are in place as the result of recognition that a completely free market leads to a lot of societal problems for the simple reason that corporations are too individuals and act in their own self interest. Individual people are subject to certain laws and regulations for the overall good, as so should be corporations.
If you don't believe me, take a look at 19th century industrial history in the United States as an example of what 'free markets' can bring. I don't think that many people would want to return to the days of the Chicago Shirt Waist Factory.
The patent owner is not going to sue a hobbyist. Patent lawsuits typically cost $1 million to bring. This is not going to be a winning proposition. HOWEVER they might sue Red Hat Labs, or a corporate customer of Red Hat.
Well, I am not an IP lawyer, but I have some knowledge of the field, have worked with enough IP lawyers to have been granted 15 patents of my own (chemical, not software).
:-)], and how good a writer you and your lawyer are, regardless of the quality of your actual invention.
This is NOT a simple issue at all.
As far as the question of prior publication - if the idea has been published, that's an absolute bar to having a valid enforceable patent. If you publish in the US you have 1 year to file a patent IN THE US. You lose all patent rights outside the US immediately if you publish. This can take strange forms - for example a fellow once lost patent rights to a new kind of harvester because he had a picture of it published in a local newspaper a year before the application was filed. If you can point to prior publication you can have a patent re-examined and maybe thrown out. If you can prove the patentee knew about the prior publication and failed to disclose it to the Patent Office you might even get the patenteee brought up on patent fraud charges. (Yes, this does happen).
Personally I think patents are in general a good thing - they allow companies that invest a lot of money in R&D to recoup that investment. The great progress in modern pharmaceuticals we have today would not be possible without patent protection - bringing new drugs to market is a multibillion dollar investment. There are many other fields where patents rights ar an important incentive towards encouraging real progress.
They also encourage the open publication of a lot of technology that would be kept secret otherwise to protect a commercial advantage. This second concept is the real reason for the patent system in the first place - in exchange for open publication of a new technology, rights for exclusive use of the technology are granted. This in fact is giving inventors an incentive to 'Open Source' their technology for the good of all society. Otherwise people would keep everthing as trade secrets (encypted binary) that in fact might get lost on the demise of a company or individual.
The problem is that this is not working in the software industry. Exclusive rights are being given for non-inventions. Patents are supposed to have three qualities - novelty, utility and unobviousness. There needs to be some meat in the publication in exchange for that exclusive right to practice the invention. I think that the vast majority of software patents fail on the first and third points - novelty and unobviousness. At this point I think there are very few truly new ideas in software development - a new data transfer protocol that REALLY is novel is unlikely, and I certainly feel that any process of translating an algorithm is obvious - but certainly new algorithms are being developed BUT according to patent law you can't actually patent a mathematical algorithm. Unfortuantely the patent office doesn't agree with me (or others) on this issue, so legislation might be needed. IMHO it's really a work in progress, so complaints really are needed - the patent office IS subject to whining. Do write your Congressman.
The problem with patent legislation is that there are also international treaties involved that essentially bring the various signers into agreement on what is patentable.
For example there are many countries who don't like pharma patents, but might have signed in exchange for some other issue. If you throw out software patent they might say, OK we are not going to respect your drug patents.
Also - the respondee that mentioned that patent examiners just have a quota to grant is incorrect. Examiners have a quota to inspect, and their grant to reject ratio is also monitored. However patent examiners work in specific technical specialties - yuou may have one in polymer science and another in software technology - both might be expected to examine 5 patents a day, and grant 2. The 2 that get granted though are somewhat of a crap shoot. It may depend on the bitchiness of the examiner that day, whether or not the author is known to the examiner from previous work [let me tell you - after you get 5 patents in a certain field, that 6th one comes a little easier - the patent office has made You the authority now
are slime, too. I don't think Microsoft has sold the data to others.
Still can't run my games, which is the only reason I still have Windows 95.
Actually that is wrong. The constitution grants Americans several specific rights to privacy - unreasonable search and seizure, no self incrimination, etc. and in fact many of the most important Supreme Court rulings have been based on a right to privacy - for example Roe v. Wade making abortion legal in the US was based on a right to privacy.
The problem with this cyber stuff is that it's too now for much case law to be built up, so abusive companies like Microsoft think that they have free reign. Well, they don't, and soon they will find that their abuses will result in legislation or legal action that will make them wish they had been more careful.