but please don't tell me the Micro$oft are one of the better companies, because thats bullshit.
They are. You should see a lot of the stuff by other people. Just because you can't get it on a shelf in a computer shop doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
They have never innovated a single product,
Who has, though?
Most expoits for M$ Windoze actually take advantage of the security holes in the middleware.
Which ones? Most take advantage of holes in IE and IIS. They're not the only ones to have holes.
You are using an OS with severe security problems.The next time your get hit by the Virus flavour of the week ,
No I'm not. the security problems are in the apps. You can make linux or BSD every bit as insecure. Sure, and explorer is a pile of junk, and outlook has some really nasty security issues, but apacheis pretty damn patchy as well.
or your NTFS partition craps out ,
NTFS is the only fs I've not had any problems with. ext2 is a nightmare to fix if you lose power, and I've even managed to kill BeFS.
Finally,if you use windows , I would like to remind you that Backups are your friend,software failure is invevitable with windows, you just never know when the OS will fail.
Only a fool doesn't backup. This applies to all operating systems. But I've never had NT "fail". I've known X to lock up, Linux to screw up its filesystem. All I've seen on Windows is an application crash.
It's as though you people think that MS are the only people who write code that contains bugs.
What rubbish. Every company produces buggy software. MS is actually one of the better companies. They actually have a quality control system and don't release software unless it's reasonably stable.
Sure, you can say all you like about their monopolistic practices, but as far as basic stability goes, they're a lot better than most of their competitors.
While it may be true that your fingerprints are unique, even the fingerprint checking systems used by the police produce a lot of false matches. But this is only a minor problem. You can replace this with DNA testing or an iris scan.
The big problem is that it takes so long for the test to be completed adequately. The only way to speed things up would be to have a single card that has all this data stored on it. this could be read directly by a computer, and processed in considerably less time.
You may be right. I'm not quite sure where the inventive step is though. I'm not good at reading patents, but it looks like they have simply patented the idea of transmitting stored compressed data.
I was under the impression that Google doesn't backup (at least for their primary search engine). They can simply get the data from the source if they lose it.
But as for GMail, I just don't think they'll put a lot of effort into data backup. Sure, they'll probably have redundant disks, and probably do a regular backup, but I don't think they'll do anything more than that. I'm not going to put faith in a company unless they have more at stake than they do.
Incidentally - I do have data on my hard disk that is older than Google (or Yahoo for that matter). So, in answer to your question - I do!:)
The original cannot keep up because anything they do is available to commercial fork but not vice versa. It's like a ratchet, it only goes in one direction, and that's toward the commercial advantage. The GPL addressed a very important issue for people that want to share their code but not feel or be taken advantage of.
I agree. At least in some cases, the GPL does provide a level playing field. In other cases, it's very useful simply to encourage people to share their improvements.
A recipient who is not competing is at a disadvantage though. Using GPLed software effectively bars you from licencing a lot of other software. Any proprietry library will be incompatible with the GPL. The result is that you have to choose between all GPL, or no GPL. The flipside of this is that without the GPL, a lot of software may not have been released, so the alternative may have been no GPL, or nothing at all.
For individuals, it's less clear to me why they would want to use a BSD license.
Some people are simply very proud of the software they've created, and want it to be used. They already have a decent enough income, but it gives them a thrill to see it used by other people.
While you seem to have been far more civil than the AC (shocker!:) I think he's right in that you also seem to be pushing "standard FUD", namely BSD style GPL-ain't-free type FUD.
You're quite right. And it was quite deliberate FUD. I apologise for that.
As I say, I think there's an element of truth to the argument, but anyone who gets too worked up about "freedom" is probably missing the point. It's more important to ask whether it allows you to do what you want to do. To some people it simply doesn't matter.
so this debate (in which the AC I agree with looks like an asshole)
You see, this is why I carried on. The AC may have a point somewhere, but I'm pretty certain he hasn't thought through the argument totally. Instead, he simply spouts the Linux zealot dogma. I wanted to force him to think about his position. The fact that he insults his opponent, and keeps claiming victory just makes him look like more of an idiot, but I digress.
Of course, I genuinely disagree that the GPL can be said to offer full freedom for the end user. It does allow some freedoms, but that is different. I also think that you make some good points, so any argument would be a fairly pointless discussion on where the line is between "Free" and "Not Free". I also feel that the rationale behind the GPL is based on a flawed assumption that if someone takes your code, and modifies it without giving you the source, then you've lost it.
Having said that... Linux is more self interested than the BSD license. So what... nothing wrong with protecting yourself.
No, but I don't think there's anything wrong with charging a licencing fee either. The GPL imposes a condition on those who want to distribute modified works. Not an unreasonable one either.
Speaking for myself - I like the part of the application I'm using to be full screen. A lot of windowed applications split the screen into panels. An email application will show you messages headers in one panel, and relegate the body of the message to the bottom half of the screen.
In a console app, I get the whole screen to myself. And a console starts more quickly than X.
I think I'm a little unusual in this respect, but it works for me.
Certainly, there are much better products, but these two applications work exactly the way I want them to. What I especially like with console based email applications is that there is no way HTML sites will send a message back to the sender.
Now compare Microsoft software: It is deliberately designed NOT to work with other software products, so it's a miracle that it actually does work in combination with anything else.
To be fair to Microsoft, the leaked source code suggested there were a lot of modifications made to Windows 2000 in order to get some applications to work. (Possibly too many, but that's another story).
Not that what you say is untrue, of course. When they actually had some competition, they did make sure that Windows would only work with MS-DOS.
MIT did this years ago. It was a cool project, really.
Considering the patent references another device that behaves similarly, it should be obvious that this is a specific implementation.
We've known how to stick electrodes on the body for nearly a century.
Yeeeers... It's a good thing they didn't patent that then, isn't it.
I can replicate their results in my den with $10 worth of equipment. I doubt they spent much more than this, plus whatever ridiculous salary the "researcher" was paid.
That's part of the reason we have patents. Because the results are easy to duplicate. Could you have come up with the concept? Could you have then worked out what possibilities were a dead end? Of course, I could ask why you haven't done this.
Here's a home project for you - Come up with a mobile telephone where you can carry the battery in your pocket, attach the microphone to your wrist, have the earpiece inside the ear, and the main body strapped to you belt. An implementation of this would be patentable, and the basic concepts would be worth a lot to the mobile telephone companies.
Because they are an illegal monopoly
They are not an "illegal monopoly". Thhey are a legal monopoly who have engaged in illegal monopolistic practices. There is a difference.
who continues to press into markets they have no business playing in?
I don't see why they have no business playing in any market. They are a private company and can do what they like.
It's a new idea. While it has been known for a long time that the body conducts electricity, sending data through the body has not been acheived before. There has to be a good reason for this.
Presumably Microsoft has solved some specific engineering problems. They also probably spent a lot of money on solving them.
Why shouldn't they be entitled to financial reward?
I could point you to my journal. Compare the dates.
I could keep arguing that your argument that the code is free is stupid.
I could point out that the only people in this thread are you and me, and any lurker watching the fun.
I could also point you to a previous post about how people whose jobs were being outsourced were clearly underskilled, or my AC post about Van Halen belts.
But I won't. I'm bored now.
This thread is dead.
And you are nowhere near as smart as you think you are.
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly. A smooth fast responsive OS with excellent reliability.
but please don't tell me the Micro$oft are one of the better companies, because thats bullshit.
,
,if you use windows , I would like to remind you that Backups are your friend ,software failure is invevitable with windows, you just never know when the OS will fail.
They are. You should see a lot of the stuff by other people. Just because you can't get it on a shelf in a computer shop doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
They have never innovated a single product
Who has, though?
Most expoits for M$ Windoze actually take advantage of the security holes in the middleware.
Which ones? Most take advantage of holes in IE and IIS. They're not the only ones to have holes.
You are using an OS with severe security problems.The next time your get hit by the Virus flavour of the week ,
No I'm not. the security problems are in the apps. You can make linux or BSD every bit as insecure. Sure, and explorer is a pile of junk, and outlook has some really nasty security issues, but apacheis pretty damn patchy as well.
or your NTFS partition craps out ,
NTFS is the only fs I've not had any problems with. ext2 is a nightmare to fix if you lose power, and I've even managed to kill BeFS.
Finally
Only a fool doesn't backup. This applies to all operating systems. But I've never had NT "fail". I've known X to lock up, Linux to screw up its filesystem. All I've seen on Windows is an application crash.
It's as though you people think that MS are the only people who write code that contains bugs.
What rubbish. Every company produces buggy software. MS is actually one of the better companies. They actually have a quality control system and don't release software unless it's reasonably stable.
Sure, you can say all you like about their monopolistic practices, but as far as basic stability goes, they're a lot better than most of their competitors.
While it may be true that your fingerprints are unique, even the fingerprint checking systems used by the police produce a lot of false matches. But this is only a minor problem. You can replace this with DNA testing or an iris scan.
The big problem is that it takes so long for the test to be completed adequately. The only way to speed things up would be to have a single card that has all this data stored on it. this could be read directly by a computer, and processed in considerably less time.
I think this is the link
You may be right. I'm not quite sure where the inventive step is though. I'm not good at reading patents, but it looks like they have simply patented the idea of transmitting stored compressed data.
Were they compressed, stored, transmitted and then decompressed? And were they audioand/or video files? Looks like this is what's needed.
So you need to see if the first ever digtially transmitted compressed audio or video file predates this patent.
I suspect it does. There must have been countless zipped audio samples on bulletin boards by 1992.
I was under the impression that Google doesn't backup (at least for their primary search engine). They can simply get the data from the source if they lose it.
:)
But as for GMail, I just don't think they'll put a lot of effort into data backup. Sure, they'll probably have redundant disks, and probably do a regular backup, but I don't think they'll do anything more than that. I'm not going to put faith in a company unless they have more at stake than they do.
Incidentally - I do have data on my hard disk that is older than Google (or Yahoo for that matter). So, in answer to your question - I do!
The original cannot keep up because anything they do is available to commercial fork but not vice versa. It's like a ratchet, it only goes in one direction, and that's toward the commercial advantage. The GPL addressed a very important issue for people that want to share their code but not feel or be taken advantage of.
I agree. At least in some cases, the GPL does provide a level playing field. In other cases, it's very useful simply to encourage people to share their improvements.
A recipient who is not competing is at a disadvantage though. Using GPLed software effectively bars you from licencing a lot of other software. Any proprietry library will be incompatible with the GPL. The result is that you have to choose between all GPL, or no GPL. The flipside of this is that without the GPL, a lot of software may not have been released, so the alternative may have been no GPL, or nothing at all.
For individuals, it's less clear to me why they would want to use a BSD license.
Some people are simply very proud of the software they've created, and want it to be used. They already have a decent enough income, but it gives them a thrill to see it used by other people.
While you seem to have been far more civil than the AC (shocker!:) I think he's right in that you also seem to be pushing "standard FUD", namely BSD style GPL-ain't-free type FUD.
You're quite right. And it was quite deliberate FUD. I apologise for that.
As I say, I think there's an element of truth to the argument, but anyone who gets too worked up about "freedom" is probably missing the point. It's more important to ask whether it allows you to do what you want to do. To some people it simply doesn't matter.
I'm sorry I didn't give your points the time I shoudl have done.
I was busily engaged in a flamewar with another AC who seemed to think that by insulting me he could somehow "win" the argument.
Wahey! You do have a sense of humour.
I was beginning to worry.
so this debate (in which the AC I agree with looks like an asshole)
You see, this is why I carried on. The AC may have a point somewhere, but I'm pretty certain he hasn't thought through the argument totally. Instead, he simply spouts the Linux zealot dogma. I wanted to force him to think about his position. The fact that he insults his opponent, and keeps claiming victory just makes him look like more of an idiot, but I digress.
Of course, I genuinely disagree that the GPL can be said to offer full freedom for the end user. It does allow some freedoms, but that is different. I also think that you make some good points, so any argument would be a fairly pointless discussion on where the line is between "Free" and "Not Free". I also feel that the rationale behind the GPL is based on a flawed assumption that if someone takes your code, and modifies it without giving you the source, then you've lost it.
Having said that... Linux is more self interested than the BSD license. So what... nothing wrong with protecting yourself.
No, but I don't think there's anything wrong with charging a licencing fee either. The GPL imposes a condition on those who want to distribute modified works. Not an unreasonable one either.
To use a remote computer as permanent storage?
I just don't trust a free service provider to care too much about my data.
I know what I meant. I meant what I wrote.
No need to take it so badly. Geez, lighten up.
Wow!
You are soooo wrong.
But since you can't have a civilised argument, I'm not bothering.
I suggest you look up prior art.
And also look up the law on monopolistic practices.
Aren't we supposed to wait for someone to be found guilty before punishing them?
Speaking for myself - I like the part of the application I'm using to be full screen. A lot of windowed applications split the screen into panels. An email application will show you messages headers in one panel, and relegate the body of the message to the bottom half of the screen.
In a console app, I get the whole screen to myself. And a console starts more quickly than X.
I think I'm a little unusual in this respect, but it works for me.
I've always liked elm and tin for email and news.
Certainly, there are much better products, but these two applications work exactly the way I want them to. What I especially like with console based email applications is that there is no way HTML sites will send a message back to the sender.
Now compare Microsoft software: It is deliberately designed NOT to work with other software products, so it's a miracle that it actually does work in combination with anything else.
To be fair to Microsoft, the leaked source code suggested there were a lot of modifications made to Windows 2000 in order to get some applications to work. (Possibly too many, but that's another story).
Not that what you say is untrue, of course. When they actually had some competition, they did make sure that Windows would only work with MS-DOS.
MIT did this years ago. It was a cool project, really.
Considering the patent references another device that behaves similarly, it should be obvious that this is a specific implementation.
We've known how to stick electrodes on the body for nearly a century.
Yeeeers... It's a good thing they didn't patent that then, isn't it.
I can replicate their results in my den with $10 worth of equipment. I doubt they spent much more than this, plus whatever ridiculous salary the "researcher" was paid.
That's part of the reason we have patents. Because the results are easy to duplicate. Could you have come up with the concept? Could you have then worked out what possibilities were a dead end? Of course, I could ask why you haven't done this.
Here's a home project for you - Come up with a mobile telephone where you can carry the battery in your pocket, attach the microphone to your wrist, have the earpiece inside the ear, and the main body strapped to you belt. An implementation of this would be patentable, and the basic concepts would be worth a lot to the mobile telephone companies.
Because they are an illegal monopoly
They are not an "illegal monopoly". Thhey are a legal monopoly who have engaged in illegal monopolistic practices. There is a difference.
who continues to press into markets they have no business playing in?
I don't see why they have no business playing in any market. They are a private company and can do what they like.
And because the idea is frigging obvious?
It's just a specific implementation.
It's about data transfer, not conductivity.
If she was using her body as a part of a data network, perhaps it would invalvidate the patent.
It's a new idea. While it has been known for a long time that the body conducts electricity, sending data through the body has not been acheived before. There has to be a good reason for this.
Presumably Microsoft has solved some specific engineering problems. They also probably spent a lot of money on solving them.
Why shouldn't they be entitled to financial reward?
Has it occured to anyone that these people may genuinely believe that Open Source software is a bad thing?
If you think the report is rubbish, attack the report. Claiming Microsoft is to blame makes the whole community look like paranoid idiots.
Where are the lies?
It's all opinion.
Curious..
I believe my comment was "I'll admit to being a little out of touch with the current version of X".
You seem to be reading a lot into this statement.
Welll, what can I say?
I could point you to my journal. Compare the dates.
I could keep arguing that your argument that the code is free is stupid.
I could point out that the only people in this thread are you and me, and any lurker watching the fun.
I could also point you to a previous post about how people whose jobs were being outsourced were clearly underskilled, or my AC post about Van Halen belts.
But I won't. I'm bored now.
This thread is dead.
And you are nowhere near as smart as you think you are.