I'm not going to claim that there are no problems with current IP laws--there are, lots of them-- but these are problems with the laws, not with the basic idea of intellectual property. Do the idiots who write this stuff ever think of where the biotech industry would be without IP? Nowhere, because no investors would be foolish enough to put money into a company that can't even get an advantage from what it discovers. How many writers, even those that don't make a living at it, wouldn't be writing if they didn't at least have the possibility of profiting from their work? And as for the contention that university researchers can serve as a model for producing ideas without properties, sheesh! Those guys are at least a decade behind the times. I wouldn't trust the average university CS prof to be smart enough to push my system's reset button after a crash. The vast majority of real, useful research these days is done by people who would not be employed without IP laws in place. Argue for better IP laws. Don't be a neo-Marxist buffoon and totally discredit your case. Linux: Yesterday's interface tomorrow. Ciao
OK, I admit to being pissed off with slashdotters. As usual, it's apparent that 90% of the respondees to this article (including, of course, the ones who protest about tyrannical Big Government) haven't bothered to read even the small section of the UCITA that deals with the warranty topic. To give you a small taste, here's a useful extract [406(3), if I recall correctly]: ========= (3) Language in a record is sufficient to disclaim all implied warranties if it individually disclaims each implied warranty or, except for the warranty in Section 401, if it is conspicuous and states "Except for express warranties stated in this contract, if any, this `information' `computer program' is provided with all faults, and the entire risk as to satisfactory quality, performance, accuracy, and effort is with the user", or words of similar import. =========== In other words, the "onerous burden" imposed upon a software writer distributing a free program is nothing more than clearly stating in a single sentence, that this software isn't warranteed to do anything whatsoever. I'm not a legal expert, and if I've missed something important, please point it out. But on actually reading these sections of the UCITA, they seem pretty reasonable. They mean, among other things, that if I purchase a Microsoft OS that crashes 4 times an hour because its a shoddy product, then I can demand compensation of some sort because Microsoft made an implied warrantee of usability when selling the product. Unfortunately, I'm sure MS will include an escape clause as per the previous text, but at least the notion that software that you pay for should actually work, is there. This is nothing more than a software equivalent of the "lemon laws" that apply to most/many used-car transactions. If I ask a dealer if a car is in good condition and he says yes (or at least doesn't say that he doesn't know), and then half an hour after I drive it off the lot I find the transmission has been packed with sawdust... well, damn right I should be able to demand a refund! Now, I wonder how many of you other posters have actually read the relevant sections of the UCITA? Slashdot was a much more useful place when it started and ideology didn't substitute for intelligence. kmm
...when there is an existing one which looks extremely good, offers all of this, and is an Open Source language which would benefit from having more people work on it. Check out www.gnu.org/software/sather.
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I'm not going to claim that there are no problems with current IP laws--there are, lots of them-- but these are problems with the laws, not with the basic idea of intellectual property. Do the idiots who write this stuff ever think of where the biotech industry would be without IP? Nowhere, because no investors would be foolish enough to put money into a company that can't even get an advantage from what it discovers. How many writers, even those that don't make a living at it, wouldn't be writing if they didn't at least have the possibility of profiting from their work? And as for the contention that university researchers can serve as a model for producing ideas without properties, sheesh! Those guys are at least a decade behind the times. I wouldn't trust the average university CS prof to be smart enough to push my system's reset button after a crash. The vast majority of real, useful research these days is done by people who would not be employed without IP laws in place. Argue for better IP laws. Don't be a neo-Marxist buffoon and totally discredit your case. Linux: Yesterday's interface tomorrow. Ciao
OK, I admit to being pissed off with slashdotters. As usual, it's apparent that 90% of the respondees to this article (including, of course, the ones who protest about tyrannical Big Government) haven't bothered to read even the small section of the UCITA that deals with the warranty topic. To give you a small taste, here's a useful extract [406(3), if I recall correctly]: ========= (3) Language in a record is sufficient to disclaim all implied warranties if it individually disclaims each implied warranty or, except for the warranty in Section 401, if it is conspicuous and states "Except for express warranties stated in this contract, if any, this `information' `computer program' is provided with all faults, and the entire risk as to satisfactory quality, performance, accuracy, and effort is with the user", or words of similar import. =========== In other words, the "onerous burden" imposed upon a software writer distributing a free program is nothing more than clearly stating in a single sentence, that this software isn't warranteed to do anything whatsoever. I'm not a legal expert, and if I've missed something important, please point it out. But on actually reading these sections of the UCITA, they seem pretty reasonable. They mean, among other things, that if I purchase a Microsoft OS that crashes 4 times an hour because its a shoddy product, then I can demand compensation of some sort because Microsoft made an implied warrantee of usability when selling the product. Unfortunately, I'm sure MS will include an escape clause as per the previous text, but at least the notion that software that you pay for should actually work, is there. This is nothing more than a software equivalent of the "lemon laws" that apply to most/many used-car transactions. If I ask a dealer if a car is in good condition and he says yes (or at least doesn't say that he doesn't know), and then half an hour after I drive it off the lot I find the transmission has been packed with sawdust... well, damn right I should be able to demand a refund! Now, I wonder how many of you other posters have actually read the relevant sections of the UCITA? Slashdot was a much more useful place when it started and ideology didn't substitute for intelligence. kmm
...when there is an existing one which looks extremely good, offers all of this, and is an Open Source language which would benefit from having more people work on it. Check out www.gnu.org/software/sather.