You set everybody up with a great troll, but none of the first twelve responders even brought up the connection between Microsoft's success and the anti-trust suit against IBM. I'm afraid that carefully crafted "they are the reason you have a job" part of your troll just fell on deaf ears.
1)Invent something original and place it open source if you choose to. This prevents from IBM patenting it and suing the users
No it does not. It might prevent IBM from winning should the users choose to gamble money on resisting the lawsuit, but the USPTO won't turn down the money they get from accepting an application just because of some prior art.
2)Come out with a work around. If you can't use nesting selectable options in a menu, come out with a better method
You then have to check the patent literature to make sure that your "better method" hasn't also been patented. This turns an activity (software development) that is fun for many people to do in their spare time into an activity that requires arduous, boring research.
3)The most important issue - the patent office hire people who are qualified, and not overburdeoned to rush - who will register legitimate patents - not retarded ones (hmm can I patent the method for breathing air???):)
No software patents are legitimate. Software is not statutory material for a patent. The US Supreme Court has consistently seen it that way, and they were right.
If I write some software, I be damned if someone is going to tell me how to market/sell/utilize it (short of national security breach).
Oh yes they will tell you how to market/sell/utilize it. If the USPTO has accepted their patent application and they think you've reinvented the same thing, they'll try to tell you exactly what you have to do before any kind of marketing/selling/utilizing of your software.
Never mind that software is not statuatory material for a patent in the US. Unfortunately, the USPTO and lower courts have contradicted the Supreme Court on this issue, and nobody has gotten a case back to the Supreme Court since 1981. Expect to be sued anyway.
Every set has the empty set as a subset, not as an element.
Declaring SQL's concept of NULL to be an element of every set is problematic, because equality won't be reflexive on any set. (NULL = NULL) is always false.
SQL NULL is an unspecified value. I don't know of any analogue to it in set theory.
apt-get install postgresql will work fine for most common installations. Once you've created your database there's really nothing simpler about mysql; PostgreSQL is simply more adhering to SQL92. There's very little reason to ever choose MySQL anymore.
In 1981, computer programs were nonstatutory subject matter for patents. The US Supreme Court reiterated this in Diamond v. Dieher, but clarified that when you use software somewhere in a process, "the process as a whole does not thereby become unpatentable subject matter."
Today, with no change of law, we see software patents all over the place? What happened? I don't think it can just be re-wording of patents to make them sound like part of a system. The Diehr opinion had a whole section (IV) for the express purpose of heading such things off. "To hold otherwise would allow a competent draftsman to evade the recognized limitations on the type of subject matter eligible for patent protection."
So where did all these software patents come from?
I'm baffled by your story about kernel recompiling, etc. On Debian (which certainly isn't the only distro with gphoto2), gphoto2 -C downloaded from my Canon Powershot. with no problems, no recompiling anything, including the.AVI files. The manual that comes with the Powershot says you can only download the.AVI files on Windows.
Additionally, there should be something in the presidential oath of office about upholding the constitution, so that a president with any moral fiber at all would think twice about signing such a blatantly unconstitutional law.
All the justices on the US Supreme Court have law degrees. They also hold what I would think to be respectable positions in the field of law. However, when they repeatedly assert that software is not statutory material for a patent, nobody listens. What makes you think anyone will listen to you just because you have a law degree?
Scheme is specified to be case insensitive. However, everybody sticks to a convention of all lower case, with dashes separating words. I've been using a case-sensitive (thus non-conforming) implementation of Scheme for years and only noticed its non-conformity recently.
I'm neutral as to whether case-sensitive or case-insensitive is better, but I think you should retract your SetSlower vs SetsLower argument.
Obviously, if IBM ships machines with Debian already on them, you won't ever see the installer.
As for Debian Stable being out of date, you're right. Note that the selling point of Debian Stable is stability, e.g. on servers. However, if you really want an IBM mainframe for your desktop, you can get the latest and greatest stuff with Debian Testing.
Pepsi commented that it hasn't spoken to a single customer who said they drank Coca Cola because it tasted better. A senator from Maine said he hadn't spoken to a single constituent who lived in Hawaii because it was warmer. A doctor said she hadn't spoken to a single patient who had never been sick.
Or...could it be that people who use free software because it is better are not Microsoft users? Nah.
No, I didn't even realize it until I saw your post. But you're right. It should have said "Java servlet specification" to help folks who aren't into Java servlets so much.
For me, "Greg Wilkins," "2.4 servlet" and "JSR" were cues that it was about Java, but I recognize that not everyone knows who/what those are.
An HttpServletRequest should really handle multipart/form-data requests right out of the box. I shouldn't have to merge in some third-party software if I want BRL to support file uploads. Why has it not yet been standardized?
Reading the article, the Slashdot summary seems an exaggeration:
Though seemingly spurned, Microsoft may still be interested in pursuing Google at a later date, according to an executive briefed on the discussions.
Both Google and Microsoft executives refused to comment.
Or perhaps Slashdot is celebrating some other holiday that involves scaring people.
If you forsee any kind of problem, please be specific. I suspect the effects you might think of as problems, I would see as benefits. But I can't know for sure without knowing what effects you think would be problems.
Why not just go back to the days when software was nonstatutory material for a patent? What bad effects would that have? I think it would work great. After all, as US Supreme Court Justice Stevens wrote in 1981,
Notwithstanding fervent argument that patent protection is essential
for the growth of the software industry, commentators have noted
that `this industry is growing by leaps and bounds without it.'
Clinton said that Saddam had previously used WMDs on his own people. He did not say that Saddam still had WMDs. They were allegedly destroyed. Clinton was suspicious, but did not share Bush's apparent certainty that the weapons were still there.
I don't care whether Bush ever used the phrase "imminent threat". Those words are a fair summation of his October 2002 address.
Thanks again for the specific quote from Bush. He does not state that the threat is not imminent. He merely argues that there's no way to see it coming. His words stand on their own, regardless of how many examples you cite of conservatives twisting them into a statement of non-imminence.
Tell me if you think "imminent" misconstrues Bush's statement in his Oct 7, 2002 speech:
While there are many dangers in the world, the threat from Iraq stands alone -- because it gathers the most serious dangers of our age in one place. Iraq's weapons of mass destruction are controlled by a murderous tyrant who has already used chemical weapons to kill thousands of people.
See? He said Iraq had actual WMDs at that time and that it was a threat. That's not imminent? No? Just urgent? Oh, OK. I sure wish the newspapers that first covered this speech had been trying to fill a smaller amount of headline space. Then they would have used Bush's own word, "urgent", which has the same implications as "imminent."
Thanks for the complete transcript, confirming that Clinton didn't say that Iraq currently held weapons of mass destruction.
Where in Bush's speech do you see him stating that Iraq was not an imminent threat? I only see him implying that Saddam had actual weapons, and that they could be used at any time, i.e. terrorists don't announce their intentions.
Thanks for the specific quotes. You specificly decry "quoting the crazies like Moore and Franken", which is exclusion. What "wide variety of sources" you supposedly advocate was vague not only there, but through the remainder of the thread.
Exclude: Moore, Franken
Expand to: ???
In your posts in this thread so far, exclusion wins over expansion 2-0. Truth hurts, doesn't it?
Like I said in my original post on this topic, people need to expand their news sources
Liar. Your only specific suggestion is that people restrict their news sources to exclude Franken. You've made no serious advocacy of expanding news sources in any way.
and not take kool-aid that Franken, Moore, and Limbaugh hand out, which apparently you've chosen to do.
Liar. It's apparent that I found one statistical abuse in his book. That's not taking kool-aid. I also called his letter to Ashcroft a lie, not an "attempt at satire" as he would like to call it. I know you read my posts, because you replied to them; your "kool-aid" comment must be a lie.
By your own reasoning, does that mean I shouldn't read any of your posts anymore? I guess not, since you haven't written a letter admitting to them yet. Even if you did, I might still read your posts. I have the critical thinking skills to handle it. If you don't, then don't read Franken's book. There are actual jokes in there.
Slashdot Mirror
You set everybody up with a great troll, but none of the first twelve responders even brought up the connection between Microsoft's success and the anti-trust suit against IBM. I'm afraid that carefully crafted "they are the reason you have a job" part of your troll just fell on deaf ears.
No it does not. It might prevent IBM from winning should the users choose to gamble money on resisting the lawsuit, but the USPTO won't turn down the money they get from accepting an application just because of some prior art.
You then have to check the patent literature to make sure that your "better method" hasn't also been patented. This turns an activity (software development) that is fun for many people to do in their spare time into an activity that requires arduous, boring research.
No software patents are legitimate. Software is not statutory material for a patent. The US Supreme Court has consistently seen it that way, and they were right.
Oh yes they will tell you how to market/sell/utilize it. If the USPTO has accepted their patent application and they think you've reinvented the same thing, they'll try to tell you exactly what you have to do before any kind of marketing/selling/utilizing of your software.
Never mind that software is not statuatory material for a patent in the US. Unfortunately, the USPTO and lower courts have contradicted the Supreme Court on this issue, and nobody has gotten a case back to the Supreme Court since 1981. Expect to be sued anyway.
Every set has the empty set as a subset, not as an element.
Declaring SQL's concept of NULL to be an element of every set is problematic, because equality won't be reflexive on any set. (NULL = NULL) is always false.
SQL NULL is an unspecified value. I don't know of any analogue to it in set theory.
apt-get install postgresql will work fine for most common installations. Once you've created your database there's really nothing simpler about mysql; PostgreSQL is simply more adhering to SQL92. There's very little reason to ever choose MySQL anymore.
Demo from my linode
In 1981, computer programs were nonstatutory subject matter for patents. The US Supreme Court reiterated this in Diamond v. Dieher, but clarified that when you use software somewhere in a process, "the process as a whole does not thereby become unpatentable subject matter."
Today, with no change of law, we see software patents all over the place? What happened? I don't think it can just be re-wording of patents to make them sound like part of a system. The Diehr opinion had a whole section (IV) for the express purpose of heading such things off. "To hold otherwise would allow a competent draftsman to evade the recognized limitations on the type of subject matter eligible for patent protection."
So where did all these software patents come from?
I'm baffled by your story about kernel recompiling, etc. On Debian (which certainly isn't the only distro with gphoto2), gphoto2 -C downloaded from my Canon Powershot. with no problems, no recompiling anything, including the .AVI files. The manual that comes with the Powershot says you can only download the .AVI files on Windows.
Yes, fetchmail is easier to configure than postfix or sendmail. That's because it's solving a much less complex problem.
Additionally, there should be something in the presidential oath of office about upholding the constitution, so that a president with any moral fiber at all would think twice about signing such a blatantly unconstitutional law.
All the justices on the US Supreme Court have law degrees. They also hold what I would think to be respectable positions in the field of law. However, when they repeatedly assert that software is not statutory material for a patent, nobody listens. What makes you think anyone will listen to you just because you have a law degree?
Scheme is specified to be case insensitive. However, everybody sticks to a convention of all lower case, with dashes separating words. I've been using a case-sensitive (thus non-conforming) implementation of Scheme for years and only noticed its non-conformity recently.
I'm neutral as to whether case-sensitive or case-insensitive is better, but I think you should retract your SetSlower vs SetsLower argument.
Obviously, if IBM ships machines with Debian already on them, you won't ever see the installer.
As for Debian Stable being out of date, you're right. Note that the selling point of Debian Stable is stability, e.g. on servers. However, if you really want an IBM mainframe for your desktop, you can get the latest and greatest stuff with Debian Testing.
Pepsi commented that it hasn't spoken to a single customer who said they drank Coca Cola because it tasted better. A senator from Maine said he hadn't spoken to a single constituent who lived in Hawaii because it was warmer. A doctor said she hadn't spoken to a single patient who had never been sick.
Or...could it be that people who use free software because it is better are not Microsoft users? Nah.
How would the polling center staff know that the bar-coded slip went with the ID presented?
No, I didn't even realize it until I saw your post. But you're right. It should have said "Java servlet specification" to help folks who aren't into Java servlets so much.
For me, "Greg Wilkins," "2.4 servlet" and "JSR" were cues that it was about Java, but I recognize that not everyone knows who/what those are.
An HttpServletRequest should really handle multipart/form-data requests right out of the box. I shouldn't have to merge in some third-party software if I want BRL to support file uploads. Why has it not yet been standardized?
Or perhaps Slashdot is celebrating some other holiday that involves scaring people.
If you forsee any kind of problem, please be specific. I suspect the effects you might think of as problems, I would see as benefits. But I can't know for sure without knowing what effects you think would be problems.
Why not just go back to the days when software was nonstatutory material for a patent? What bad effects would that have? I think it would work great. After all, as US Supreme Court Justice Stevens wrote in 1981,
Clinton said that Saddam had previously used WMDs on his own people. He did not say that Saddam still had WMDs. They were allegedly destroyed. Clinton was suspicious, but did not share Bush's apparent certainty that the weapons were still there.
I don't care whether Bush ever used the phrase "imminent threat". Those words are a fair summation of his October 2002 address.
Thanks again for the specific quote from Bush. He does not state that the threat is not imminent. He merely argues that there's no way to see it coming. His words stand on their own, regardless of how many examples you cite of conservatives twisting them into a statement of non-imminence.
Tell me if you think "imminent" misconstrues Bush's statement in his Oct 7, 2002 speech:
See? He said Iraq had actual WMDs at that time and that it was a threat. That's not imminent? No? Just urgent? Oh, OK. I sure wish the newspapers that first covered this speech had been trying to fill a smaller amount of headline space. Then they would have used Bush's own word, "urgent", which has the same implications as "imminent."
Thanks for the complete transcript, confirming that Clinton didn't say that Iraq currently held weapons of mass destruction.
Where in Bush's speech do you see him stating that Iraq was not an imminent threat? I only see him implying that Saddam had actual weapons, and that they could be used at any time, i.e. terrorists don't announce their intentions.
Thanks for the specific quotes. You specificly decry "quoting the crazies like Moore and Franken", which is exclusion. What "wide variety of sources" you supposedly advocate was vague not only there, but through the remainder of the thread.
Exclude: Moore, Franken
Expand to: ???
In your posts in this thread so far, exclusion wins over expansion 2-0. Truth hurts, doesn't it?
Liar. Your only specific suggestion is that people restrict their news sources to exclude Franken. You've made no serious advocacy of expanding news sources in any way.
Liar. It's apparent that I found one statistical abuse in his book. That's not taking kool-aid. I also called his letter to Ashcroft a lie, not an "attempt at satire" as he would like to call it. I know you read my posts, because you replied to them; your "kool-aid" comment must be a lie.
By your own reasoning, does that mean I shouldn't read any of your posts anymore? I guess not, since you haven't written a letter admitting to them yet. Even if you did, I might still read your posts. I have the critical thinking skills to handle it. If you don't, then don't read Franken's book. There are actual jokes in there.