It wouldn't surprise me in the least to learn that I'm sharing the same infrastructure as the american customers of @Home - and in that case it would seem obvious that @Home wouldn't bother separating our traffic out.
I think you may be a little bit optimistic about the Canadian government. I'm Canadian as well, and if you think that Chretien, Staff Sergeant Smith (Suharto in Vancouver, remember?) and pretty-boy Allan Rock are at all worried about the impact of giving the FBI access to data in Canada, you're mistaken. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the Canadian government allowed the FBI full access to that database that they made of everyone's tax information, for example, and every other database that they have on us as well. A politician is a politician - they'd just be helping out their bud...
At least in the U.S. people raise a hue and a cry when the government steps on their toes. Can't say the same for us in Canada even when they dance the $#@% fandango on our heads.
But... what can we expect from a country and a government that didn't begin with a bang but with a whimper?
Why would they want to do that? There's no real reason that I can think of, unless they want to destroy the U.S. economy in one fell stroke.
I don't think this would kill the economy entirely. Many of the industries besides 'technology' are still running with little or no 'inter-net-working' solutions. i.e. See GM and their attempts at trying to setup an auto parts forum for all of their suppliers.
Also, I can't see them placing their black boxes in between the ISP link to the backbone and the ISP itself in order to block any kind of traffic. It's going to sit on the side and watch, but it's not going to become the pipe, or else the FBI is continually going to be hit with decreasing the performance of the ISP... and they will not want to pay for nevereding upgrades in their technology every time the ISP connection speeds up.
Finally, I realize this is off-topic, but your.sig is pretty good:-)... Harlan Ellison...
If the world was fair, what people would do is boycott buying RDRAM modules, systems, etc. and buy more SDRAM. Enough to offset the higher royalties with economy in volume. Who cares if they're paying royalties - the chip makers are selling lots of SDRAM, there's no demand for RDRAM so they don't produce it, Rambus stock hits the toilet, then the royalties stop when Rambus goes bankrupt.
That sounds like a pretty good plan. But it won't work.
Why would Rambus let the royalty stay constant? I find it really hard to believe that they are going to sit on the 2-3% that someone reported was the DDR SDRAM royalty and wait for the public to 'see the light'. They are going to continually ramp their cut on the sale of DDR, so as to force people to buy their product. There won't be any alternative, because the alternative will cost 10x as much as their golden child.
And don't tell me that you look forward to buying something that is far more expensive just because it works better. I can concede to a potential large demand for DDR for servers because companies are always willing to pony up for the horsepower, 'cause they need it.
But not the average 'buying a $1000 PC just to have one' computer buyer. And not even me, although I would like RDRAM to die just as much as the next person.
It may end up that they truly have an airtight case. I'm really skeptical about it, but it may happen...
However, the big deal is that they are attempting to force the aforementioned inferior technology down everyone's throats. Despite DDR SDRAM being faster and easier to produce (read cheaper for us), industry is going to be forced to accept an inferior product, and that means we're going to back to -real- loser RAM speeds.
Regardless of how much better DDR is, Rambus is going to continually ramp the royalties on SDRAM and DDR SDRAM, until the volume on RDRAM picks up. They're merely going to fulfil their agreement with Intel, and then collect money for the rest of whatever.
That's it, people. You had might as well get used to having your computer run as fast as the one on your desktop right now, 'cause it's not going to get any faster for a long time.
I don't think that saying every company listed on their Partners page would be interested in forming a huge monopolistic group.
Cases in point:
IBM made the original announcement about DDR SDRAM. The fact that they were looking for new technology means that they have a preference for anything but Rambus.
Micron is listed as being a provider. They have been doing as much as possible to avoid having to start building a fab that can handle the extremely tight tolerances that RDRAM requires to throw together. But, Intel has given them a bunch of coin so far... so they can only stall for so long...
I don't think that everybody listed on those pages has the best interests of Rambus in mind. It's standard industry practice to proclaim to everybody that you have the support of every vendor, even if you don't - standard media spin.
If the link doesn't work, go to the Patent Office site and do a search for Patent # 5287327.
Seriously, Hitachi must be on glue. Or at least they aren't investing in any legal talent right now. The number of matches that came up for SDRAM-type technology was HUGE.
It isn't a good situation that Toshiba and Hitachi have folded, but it doesn't look to be a sustainable ruling. Still, stranger things have happened as a result of this kind of legal wrangling.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you may be a little bit optimistic about the Canadian government. I'm Canadian as well, and if you think that Chretien, Staff Sergeant Smith (Suharto in Vancouver, remember?) and pretty-boy Allan Rock are at all worried about the impact of giving the FBI access to data in Canada, you're mistaken. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the Canadian government allowed the FBI full access to that database that they made of everyone's tax information, for example, and every other database that they have on us as well. A politician is a politician - they'd just be helping out their bud
At least in the U.S. people raise a hue and a cry when the government steps on their toes. Can't say the same for us in Canada even when they dance the $#@% fandango on our heads.
But
Sarge
I don't think this would kill the economy entirely. Many of the industries besides 'technology' are still running with little or no 'inter-net-working' solutions. i.e. See GM and their attempts at trying to setup an auto parts forum for all of their suppliers.
Also, I can't see them placing their black boxes in between the ISP link to the backbone and the ISP itself in order to block any kind of traffic. It's going to sit on the side and watch, but it's not going to become the pipe, or else the FBI is continually going to be hit with decreasing the performance of the ISP
Finally, I realize this is off-topic, but your
Sarge
That sounds like a pretty good plan. But it won't work.
Why would Rambus let the royalty stay constant? I find it really hard to believe that they are going to sit on the 2-3% that someone reported was the DDR SDRAM royalty and wait for the public to 'see the light'. They are going to continually ramp their cut on the sale of DDR, so as to force people to buy their product. There won't be any alternative, because the alternative will cost 10x as much as their golden child.
And don't tell me that you look forward to buying something that is far more expensive just because it works better. I can concede to a potential large demand for DDR for servers because companies are always willing to pony up for the horsepower, 'cause they need it.
But not the average 'buying a $1000 PC just to have one' computer buyer. And not even me, although I would like RDRAM to die just as much as the next person.
Sarge
It may end up that they truly have an airtight case. I'm really skeptical about it, but it may happen ...
However, the big deal is that they are attempting to force the aforementioned inferior technology down everyone's throats. Despite DDR SDRAM being faster and easier to produce (read cheaper for us), industry is going to be forced to accept an inferior product, and that means we're going to back to -real- loser RAM speeds.
Regardless of how much better DDR is, Rambus is going to continually ramp the royalties on SDRAM and DDR SDRAM, until the volume on RDRAM picks up. They're merely going to fulfil their agreement with Intel, and then collect money for the rest of whatever.
That's it, people. You had might as well get used to having your computer run as fast as the one on your desktop right now, 'cause it's not going to get any faster for a long time.
Sarge
I don't think that saying every company listed on their Partners page would be interested in forming a huge monopolistic group.
Cases in point:
- IBM made the original announcement about DDR SDRAM. The fact that they were looking for new technology means that they have a preference for anything but Rambus.
- Micron is listed as being a provider. They have been doing as much as possible to avoid having to start building a fab that can handle the extremely tight tolerances that RDRAM requires to throw together. But, Intel has given them a bunch of coin so far
... so they can only stall for so long ...
I don't think that everybody listed on those pages has the best interests of Rambus in mind. It's standard industry practice to proclaim to everybody that you have the support of every vendor, even if you don't - standard media spin.Sarge
Just finished doing a search on the US Patent Office's site (http://www.uspto.gov/).
Here's a link to a patent listing that I found that may be of some import:
http://164.195.100.11/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect2=
If the link doesn't work, go to the Patent Office site and do a search for Patent # 5287327.
Seriously, Hitachi must be on glue. Or at least they aren't investing in any legal talent right now. The number of matches that came up for SDRAM-type technology was HUGE.
It isn't a good situation that Toshiba and Hitachi have folded, but it doesn't look to be a sustainable ruling. Still, stranger things have happened as a result of this kind of legal wrangling.
Sarge