The example I give when people have trouble understanding that software patents are bad is what would have happened if Agatha Christie had been able to patent the murder mystery novel.
People understand that this is ridiculous, and why only copyright is used for books.
Yes, there are crappy patents, but there are some areas in which there should be no patents.
Imagine if Agatha Christie could have not only copyrighted her books, but could have also raised a patent on "The Murder Mystery Novel" - or Bill Haley had a patent on "Rock music". Imagine how stifling on creativity that would have been.
Similarly with software - copyright is appropriate but not patents.
Because MS SQL is based on Sybase (they bought the code), it is very easy to transfer from MS SQL to Sybase, and Sybase even have a white paper on how to do it http://www.sybase.com/content/1025612/ASE_Linux_Mi gration_wp.pdf
The advantage with Sybase is that MS SQL Server is based on an earlier version of Sybase - though there are now some differences, the method of accessing the database server, of doing backups and the version of SQL are either identical or so similar that it is trivial to transfer to Sybase.
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That's because many of us check /. from work, where we have no choice of operating system used.
Ocean thermal energy poses no more hazard of disrupting ocean currents, than windmills do of stopping the wind.
Nor do exhausts from vehicles and factories pose any hazard to the atmosphere, nor pulling water from underground affecting water tables.
That's where the French have got it right :-) libre software as opposed to software gratuit.
The example I give when people have trouble understanding that software patents are bad is what would have happened if Agatha Christie had been able to patent the murder mystery novel.
People understand that this is ridiculous, and why only copyright is used for books.
Ditto for software
What LiveCDs are there for PowerPC computers?
Yes, there are crappy patents, but there are some areas in which there should be no patents.
Imagine if Agatha Christie could have not only copyrighted her books, but could have also raised a patent on "The Murder Mystery Novel" - or Bill Haley had a patent on "Rock music". Imagine how stifling on creativity that would have been.
Similarly with software - copyright is appropriate but not patents.
Previous free versions of Sybase were "developer" versions, while this is meant to be for production use.
Because MS SQL is based on Sybase (they bought the code), it is very easy to transfer from MS SQL to Sybase, and Sybase even have a white paper on how to do it http://www.sybase.com/content/1025612/ASE_Linux_Mi gration_wp.pdf
The advantage with Sybase is that MS SQL Server is based on an earlier version of Sybase - though there are now some differences, the method of accessing the database server, of doing backups and the version of SQL are either identical or so similar that it is trivial to transfer to Sybase.