I think you'd be surprised at the number of people who just don't listen or watch the news, and use the internet for porn and faceboook only.
I was surprised when I found this out, you just need a friend who doesn't fall into the same "intelligentsia" demographic as us. Then you'd also find out why shite shows such as singing-voting-'reality' TV are so popular.
so you end up with a single source for your news... that tells you all the truth about exactly what is going on in the world/your area.
and if you believe that, you already know the Republicans are the only party that it makes sense to vote for.
I agree that free market economics are the way to run these things, but there is a market for printed news. Hopefully these places can streamline their operations (by merging various functions like printing and certain non-news parts) and continue to provide a product.
So a troll would just need to have a coder write a proof of concept implementation
fair enough, at least that's far more effort than they currently have to go to. Once they've done that though, you have a defence that you are not infringing - if you perform your task in a different way.
See, there are thousands of mousetrap patents in the US patent files, but in software terms, 'catching a mouse using a device utilising mechanical or electronic or other means' is what is patented, which stops anything remotely related to the vague idea that is part of the patent.
So making the patent holder create a working version would help a lot. Patenting GSM radio networks, for example, would be valid. Patenting a way of sliding an icon to unlock a screen would also be valid - but you could create your own slide-to-unlock as long as it used a different mechanism, just like people can continue to patent their own ways of catching mice.
I doubt that - a non-high-end PC is cheaper than a iPad in most cases.
Its more about utility and desirability of the things, no-one wants a PC anymore, they want "consumer computing devices" that require much less admin or expertise, less viruses and malware, they just want things that works, even if the uses they put them to are fewer than what you generally use a PC for.
They aren't suitable for producing anything more elaborate than an email reply or a blog comment.
I think you're being a little condescending towards them, as you can consume a lot more than just those - but your point is valid. Trouble is, that's exactly what 90% of the computer-using population requires from their computing devices.
its true, MS did the world a favour, but their time has come and gone and I guess the future of computing is "cloud"-connected consumer devices.
They may provide less power and flexibility, but that also means less viruses and general problems. This is what the majority of us want, so expect to see the future moving that way, just like small PCs took over from Unix workstations, which in turn took over from mainframes.
you could say that the "me too" stuff was acquisition too -.NET was created by the same guy who did Delphi at Borland which prompter Microsoft to "buy" him and get him to work on J++. So its not surprising that he then went on to make J++++.
Silverlight is pretty much the same stable, and dead too BTW. If you mean the XMl-based programming model of WPF, then I think they'd do well not to admit they created that mess.
HyperV was a purchased product from Connectix in 2003/.
not at all, those Chinese guys will waste their time inventing complicated stuff that works. Don't they know the true solution is to patent the rectangle, one-clicking, or slide-to-unlock and go straight to court?
yes, those 2 needs for performance are: cloud and mobile.
Both have energy issues, so efficient code means more battery life or less electricity bill. Nowadays, no-one cares about the old desktop area, so native code is coming back.
The European Union isn't the problem - its the European Parliament or the European Commission. One makes useless shit up and pays vast amounts to their politicos, the other sensibly rejects the crap like ACTA.
Then there's the European Court of Human Rights and European Court of Justice, one lets convicted murders remain in a country because they had a girlfriend and imprisoned drug addicts continue to receive drugs, the other upholds bans on xboxes because Microsoft refused to pay for patents they used.
Its not so simple in the EU you see. That's why there's a lot of calls for reform, and calls to scrap the whole thing are generally misreported.
unfortunately it looks like it already has - the investigation is into the use of 'essential' patents (ie boring stuff like GSM and JPEG patents) and not the use of crap like slide-to-unlock or the shape of a rectangle.
In other words, Motorola, who invented useful things, is to be investigated for not letting Microsoft and Apple have them for free, whereas Apple, who had a vague idea on rubbing your finger on a screen in a left-right way, isn't to be investigated at all.
and I guess there's options here for the OS to be picked up by a big electronics corporate (say, LG or Sony perhaps) who wants to have a "presence" in the smartphone market without having to be another me-too Android manufacturer.
There's marketplaces that can be tapped - especially the featurephone marketplace, if the OS can be trimmed down to fit on a supercheap phone, it has a place. Even if it can't, it can be positioned as a computer-in-your-pocket with a desktop/TV dock that is the holy grail of smartphones IMHO.
And, of course, if its Linux-based, there's the possibility it'll be able to run Android apps as well as the usual Linux ones.
In any case, they don't need to become massively huge with more phones than Apple and Google combined... they just need to make a profit to keep them in their jobs (I never quite subscribed to the MBA approach of 'maximising profits even if it means dumping a profitable division') and sell more than Windows to take not only take the number 3 smartphone position but to also do a mighty number 2 on Nokia and Microsoft combined.
Yes, Microsoft is so embedded into the business world that they would remain there for decades. They may well change themselves into an IBM and stick to consulting and servers or desktops but they'll stick in there.
I think the catastrophe approach is if Apple comes up with a iX product that could replace al Windows desktops - I still think the smartphone that docks to become a PC is the killer form factor that would manage this, though the old 'app' approach to running programs would have to change back to running programs side-by-side (it seems fashion is you only have 1 app at a time running, like in the good old days of DOS, someone will think "hey, what would be a great idea is if you could run many apps all in overlapping windows"... give it 10 years)(though Samsung seems to have an idea with its 'picture in picture' approach to running apps)
So anyway, what happens to Microsoft if they run out of cash ($8.2bn skype here, $6.2bn aQuantive there, soon we're talking real money), their revenues start to droop and the shareholders get as angry as they should already be - the Microsoft/big corporate answer to that is to start looking at the bottom line and cut away a load of jobs, and a few divisions that don't "contribute" sufficiently, and basically run the business in a bean-counting way. That would be the true end of them as such practices always focus on the current/past performance and never realise the potential for the future.
Nokia did it - scrap the existing lines and grab an "old" product (Windows) and try to sell it as an establish thing. To have had a chance they needed to stick with something future-focussed like a new update to Symbian or Maemo. Going with Windows Phone was backwards-looking, trying to manufacture a revenue stream that they thought would provide an instant and cheap fix. Execs who think like that never see the future.
Still, IBM is still around even if DEC isn't. I guess their products were too quickly eroded by changing times, all those mainframes and Unix workstations were replaced by cheap desktop PCs. Smartphones will not replace PCs unless they get a lot cheaper, but cloud computing could easily change the environment sufficiently that Windows desktops become obsolete very quickly.
Unless wearable computing with HUDs takes off... then I can see desktops going and we'll all be sitting at our desks waving our hands in the air:)
Ballmer is the problem - the guys who could have changed it for the better were given the push by Ballmer, probably thinking (rightly) they could do his job much better.
Now they only have paper-pushing bean-counters leading the company, so the only real chance for MS is to break themselves up in the name of counting beans that some divisions are losing and slim themselves down. I doubt that'll happen anytime soon.
They say the only realistic chance MS has is if Ballmer gets booted out (not likely as him and Gates are majority shareholders, but you never know, the institutional holders could wake up and throw a hissy fit), then the next likely CEO will be the ex-walmart Kevin Turner who will do his best to 'maximise profitability and minimise costs' and drive any good engineering into the ground. Eventually that break up will happen then.
of course it applies in the OEM case - once the software is sold by the manufacturer (eg Microsoft) then whoever purchases it can resell it - Microsoft (in this example) gives up the distribution rights once they accept money for the product.
It also means that once you buy the OEM software from the OEM, you can resell it on, as the OEM gives up the distribution rights to the software in turn.
Now, the big question is whether locking the software to the hardware and thus preventing individual resale is legal or not.
Where the copyright holder makes available to his customer a copy â" tangible or intangible â" and at the same time concludes, in return form payment of a fee, a licence agreement granting the customer the right to use that copy for an unlimited period, that rightholder sells the copy to the customer and thus exhausts his exclusive distribution right. Such a transaction involves a transfer of the right of ownership of the copy.
so you can resell your game, and if that does not work then you can sue them for preventing the transaction. Remember the court said the initial sale "exhausts his exclusive distribution right", so they cannot prevent it all from being resold - a single-user code tagged on can be transferred along with the game code (or sold separately of course) and will continue to work, or is in violation of the law.
You could think of the single-user code as the product being transferred when sold rather than the software on the DVD. You can resell that code, no matter how intangible or short it is.
is it your right... well, it is in the EU as they just said it is, now legally enshrined in law that you can resell software licences.
That the software company now puts restrictions on the resale effectively preventing its resale needs a new court case to declare them guilty of restrictive practices or somesuch based on the assumption that reselling is legal and thus continue to work. But right now, you *do* have the right to resell the game.
yeah, that's the way it should be - C++ doesn't mean "objects all over the place like Java". So write in C, but with RAII and whichever bit of STL makes life easier. I'd rather use a stl::list than code up my own list routines.
another one is Microsoft - yup. Look at their Casablanca project for a hint of where they're going for cloud computing. They've realised just how much money non-native systems are costing them running all those servers.
A "java guy" is a guy who codes using java, whether that's because its his exclusive or only language. I'm told that some places only teach Java, that does happen with some workplaces I know (though it's typically C# that gets taught now)
I always think that Java (and C#) is a neither-good language. If you want performance, you'd do it in C/C++. If you want programmer productivity, you'd do it in Python or Ruby (or similar). The Java-based languages fall into a middle ground that you could say (if you were kind) is more performant than the scripting langauges and quicker to develop than C/C++. But the more realistic way of looking at it is that its not as good as either extreme depending on your task.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you'd be surprised at the number of people who just don't listen or watch the news, and use the internet for porn and faceboook only.
I was surprised when I found this out, you just need a friend who doesn't fall into the same "intelligentsia" demographic as us. Then you'd also find out why shite shows such as singing-voting-'reality' TV are so popular.
so you end up with a single source for your news... that tells you all the truth about exactly what is going on in the world/your area.
and if you believe that, you already know the Republicans are the only party that it makes sense to vote for.
I agree that free market economics are the way to run these things, but there is a market for printed news. Hopefully these places can streamline their operations (by merging various functions like printing and certain non-news parts) and continue to provide a product.
They will bet for you and bet against you out of both sides of your wallet.
fixed that for you
So a troll would just need to have a coder write a proof of concept implementation
fair enough, at least that's far more effort than they currently have to go to. Once they've done that though, you have a defence that you are not infringing - if you perform your task in a different way.
See, there are thousands of mousetrap patents in the US patent files, but in software terms, 'catching a mouse using a device utilising mechanical or electronic or other means' is what is patented, which stops anything remotely related to the vague idea that is part of the patent.
So making the patent holder create a working version would help a lot. Patenting GSM radio networks, for example, would be valid. Patenting a way of sliding an icon to unlock a screen would also be valid - but you could create your own slide-to-unlock as long as it used a different mechanism, just like people can continue to patent their own ways of catching mice.
I doubt that - a non-high-end PC is cheaper than a iPad in most cases.
Its more about utility and desirability of the things, no-one wants a PC anymore, they want "consumer computing devices" that require much less admin or expertise, less viruses and malware, they just want things that works, even if the uses they put them to are fewer than what you generally use a PC for.
Who said anything about running MS devices? Nobody wants them, they run any device, not keeping the MS monopoly.
MS is history. did you read that bit?
They aren't suitable for producing anything more elaborate than an email reply or a blog comment.
I think you're being a little condescending towards them, as you can consume a lot more than just those - but your point is valid. Trouble is, that's exactly what 90% of the computer-using population requires from their computing devices.
worked for Nokia. Turned that company right around.
its true, MS did the world a favour, but their time has come and gone and I guess the future of computing is "cloud"-connected consumer devices.
They may provide less power and flexibility, but that also means less viruses and general problems. This is what the majority of us want, so expect to see the future moving that way, just like small PCs took over from Unix workstations, which in turn took over from mainframes.
you could say that the "me too" stuff was acquisition too - .NET was created by the same guy who did Delphi at Borland which prompter Microsoft to "buy" him and get him to work on J++. So its not surprising that he then went on to make J++++.
Silverlight is pretty much the same stable, and dead too BTW. If you mean the XMl-based programming model of WPF, then I think they'd do well not to admit they created that mess.
HyperV was a purchased product from Connectix in 2003/.
not at all, those Chinese guys will waste their time inventing complicated stuff that works. Don't they know the true solution is to patent the rectangle, one-clicking, or slide-to-unlock and go straight to court?
yes, those 2 needs for performance are: cloud and mobile.
Both have energy issues, so efficient code means more battery life or less electricity bill. Nowadays, no-one cares about the old desktop area, so native code is coming back.
The European Union isn't the problem - its the European Parliament or the European Commission. One makes useless shit up and pays vast amounts to their politicos, the other sensibly rejects the crap like ACTA.
Then there's the European Court of Human Rights and European Court of Justice, one lets convicted murders remain in a country because they had a girlfriend and imprisoned drug addicts continue to receive drugs, the other upholds bans on xboxes because Microsoft refused to pay for patents they used.
Its not so simple in the EU you see. That's why there's a lot of calls for reform, and calls to scrap the whole thing are generally misreported.
unfortunately it looks like it already has - the investigation is into the use of 'essential' patents (ie boring stuff like GSM and JPEG patents) and not the use of crap like slide-to-unlock or the shape of a rectangle.
In other words, Motorola, who invented useful things, is to be investigated for not letting Microsoft and Apple have them for free, whereas Apple, who had a vague idea on rubbing your finger on a screen in a left-right way, isn't to be investigated at all.
and in other words, maybe this is what the 'year of linux on the desktop' is going to be : linux on the (mobile) desktop. That would be awesome :)
and I guess there's options here for the OS to be picked up by a big electronics corporate (say, LG or Sony perhaps) who wants to have a "presence" in the smartphone market without having to be another me-too Android manufacturer.
There's marketplaces that can be tapped - especially the featurephone marketplace, if the OS can be trimmed down to fit on a supercheap phone, it has a place. Even if it can't, it can be positioned as a computer-in-your-pocket with a desktop/TV dock that is the holy grail of smartphones IMHO.
And, of course, if its Linux-based, there's the possibility it'll be able to run Android apps as well as the usual Linux ones.
In any case, they don't need to become massively huge with more phones than Apple and Google combined... they just need to make a profit to keep them in their jobs (I never quite subscribed to the MBA approach of 'maximising profits even if it means dumping a profitable division') and sell more than Windows to take not only take the number 3 smartphone position but to also do a mighty number 2 on Nokia and Microsoft combined.
Yes, Microsoft is so embedded into the business world that they would remain there for decades. They may well change themselves into an IBM and stick to consulting and servers or desktops but they'll stick in there.
I think the catastrophe approach is if Apple comes up with a iX product that could replace al Windows desktops - I still think the smartphone that docks to become a PC is the killer form factor that would manage this, though the old 'app' approach to running programs would have to change back to running programs side-by-side (it seems fashion is you only have 1 app at a time running, like in the good old days of DOS, someone will think "hey, what would be a great idea is if you could run many apps all in overlapping windows"... give it 10 years)(though Samsung seems to have an idea with its 'picture in picture' approach to running apps)
So anyway, what happens to Microsoft if they run out of cash ($8.2bn skype here, $6.2bn aQuantive there, soon we're talking real money), their revenues start to droop and the shareholders get as angry as they should already be - the Microsoft/big corporate answer to that is to start looking at the bottom line and cut away a load of jobs, and a few divisions that don't "contribute" sufficiently, and basically run the business in a bean-counting way. That would be the true end of them as such practices always focus on the current/past performance and never realise the potential for the future.
Nokia did it - scrap the existing lines and grab an "old" product (Windows) and try to sell it as an establish thing. To have had a chance they needed to stick with something future-focussed like a new update to Symbian or Maemo. Going with Windows Phone was backwards-looking, trying to manufacture a revenue stream that they thought would provide an instant and cheap fix. Execs who think like that never see the future.
Still, IBM is still around even if DEC isn't. I guess their products were too quickly eroded by changing times, all those mainframes and Unix workstations were replaced by cheap desktop PCs. Smartphones will not replace PCs unless they get a lot cheaper, but cloud computing could easily change the environment sufficiently that Windows desktops become obsolete very quickly.
Unless wearable computing with HUDs takes off... then I can see desktops going and we'll all be sitting at our desks waving our hands in the air :)
Ballmer is the problem - the guys who could have changed it for the better were given the push by Ballmer, probably thinking (rightly) they could do his job much better.
Now they only have paper-pushing bean-counters leading the company, so the only real chance for MS is to break themselves up in the name of counting beans that some divisions are losing and slim themselves down. I doubt that'll happen anytime soon.
They say the only realistic chance MS has is if Ballmer gets booted out (not likely as him and Gates are majority shareholders, but you never know, the institutional holders could wake up and throw a hissy fit), then the next likely CEO will be the ex-walmart Kevin Turner who will do his best to 'maximise profitability and minimise costs' and drive any good engineering into the ground. Eventually that break up will happen then.
Good old Nokia....
so this is their "Plan B": become a patent troll.
Good move Nokia.
of course it applies in the OEM case - once the software is sold by the manufacturer (eg Microsoft) then whoever purchases it can resell it - Microsoft (in this example) gives up the distribution rights once they accept money for the product.
It also means that once you buy the OEM software from the OEM, you can resell it on, as the OEM gives up the distribution rights to the software in turn.
Now, the big question is whether locking the software to the hardware and thus preventing individual resale is legal or not.
from TFA:
Where the copyright holder makes available to his customer a copy â" tangible or intangible â" and at the same time concludes, in return form payment of a fee, a licence agreement granting the customer the right to use that copy for an unlimited period, that rightholder sells the copy to the customer and thus exhausts his exclusive distribution right. Such a transaction involves a transfer of the right of ownership of the copy.
so you can resell your game, and if that does not work then you can sue them for preventing the transaction. Remember the court said the initial sale "exhausts his exclusive distribution right", so they cannot prevent it all from being resold - a single-user code tagged on can be transferred along with the game code (or sold separately of course) and will continue to work, or is in violation of the law.
You could think of the single-user code as the product being transferred when sold rather than the software on the DVD. You can resell that code, no matter how intangible or short it is.
is it your right... well, it is in the EU as they just said it is, now legally enshrined in law that you can resell software licences.
That the software company now puts restrictions on the resale effectively preventing its resale needs a new court case to declare them guilty of restrictive practices or somesuch based on the assumption that reselling is legal and thus continue to work. But right now, you *do* have the right to resell the game.
yeah, that's the way it should be - C++ doesn't mean "objects all over the place like Java". So write in C, but with RAII and whichever bit of STL makes life easier. I'd rather use a stl::list than code up my own list routines.
another one is Microsoft - yup. Look at their Casablanca project for a hint of where they're going for cloud computing. They've realised just how much money non-native systems are costing them running all those servers.
A "java guy" is a guy who codes using java, whether that's because its his exclusive or only language. I'm told that some places only teach Java, that does happen with some workplaces I know (though it's typically C# that gets taught now)
I always think that Java (and C#) is a neither-good language. If you want performance, you'd do it in C/C++. If you want programmer productivity, you'd do it in Python or Ruby (or similar). The Java-based languages fall into a middle ground that you could say (if you were kind) is more performant than the scripting langauges and quicker to develop than C/C++. But the more realistic way of looking at it is that its not as good as either extreme depending on your task.