" IIRC Knoppix does _not_ install the image on the hard drive."
during boot in the console type "knoppix tohd=/dev/hda1" can be other partitition besides hda1.
It will then copy the CD image to that partition and run it from there. This is using the newest Knoppix btw. Check out the boot command cheatcodes http://download.linuxtag.org/knoppix/k noppix-cheat codes.txt
Make a guess as to why IBM does this. Protection. The value of patents is the protection it provides against others with patents. Like an arms race. All sides are building up ammunition just incase they may ever need it. Do the patents help progress? Rarely in any field they do, especially software. Patents today have two main purposes. Protection from others with patents and a source of income. Imagine all the time and money that companies spend to file all these patents. Sure, the idea of a patent had a well meaning purpose. Unfortunately, it continually grew into an entire field for a new type of lawyer. Do companies win? Not at all. It takes time and money to copy another companies idea. The best choice is to stay ahead and keep working. Yes, there are particular areas of research and development that may warrant a monopoly or funding by the government or some other organization. But creating an entire system for "protecting" an idea?
Going back to what you said. Yes, they are inforced. We just don't know about it. First, not all of it ends up in court, and second, how much time do we spend looking into court records on lawsuits about patents? I believe in enforcing laws that discourage plagiarism, thus giving credit where it is due and forcing companies to see their employees for the work they do. I don't believe in patents, which have slowly shifted our view to companies and not individual contribution, and create a govt granted monopoly on an idea that only creates more complications (court time, lawyer time, employee time, court costs, lawyer costs, etc.). A world without patents would shift our focus on people and the companies that hire the best and continually stay ahead of the game and worry less about "protecting" their past products.
I understand your comment was meant as a joke, but I'd like to add a little. It isn't only a "new" medium, but a different one. TV, Radio, Newspaper, Magazines, etc. are all mostly one way communication mediums and are as diverse as the journalists, reporters, editors, and others that work for that medium. The internet allows for more participation and a more diverse amount of information. Although people trust most of the information online, those same people trust older media probably as much if not more so. Unlike a newspaper or the television, if one has a question then they have the ability to look for answers almost immediately. Slashdot is a prime example of how much better this medium is compared to television and newspaper. Here we see many comments about articles, papers, or even products. Sure, much of it is redundant, uninsightful, or even completely unreasonable hate. We must all still remember that the internet is growing and we are still learning to filter out what we don't want or need. How many times have you read slashdot and found some comments more insightful than the article or maybe some comments disagreeing with some or all parts of what an article or paper says? We are all gullible at times, but at least on the internet we can ask questions and find answers that one medium simply can't answer.
I neither totally agree with you nor the parent, but you must be informed. My parents are both Polish and I've lived here all my life, but I speak Polish fluentely and have been around many Polish people from young to old. If there is one thing I've heard from many of these older people that actually lived during this time is that they felt in many circumstances that certain freedoms during those times were greater than what they are here in the U.S. and crime was nill. Not that communism was great, but neither is our system. Obviously, freedom can not be easily evaluated and it must first be defined. "Communism" has its freedoms and "capitalism" has its freedoms, neither is more free unless you state specifically what you mean by free and take very careful objective analysis.
You must see that the parent poster does have some insight. For example, which countries have the largest percentage of its people locked away behind bars? Also, the point he made about crime and violence being leading powers driving the economy is not too far from the truth. Leading? I wouldn't agree with that one, but substantial and larger than many other countries? Yes.
"The corperations who spend that money in washington a literally spending your interest. If you are not interested in a policy quit spending money on it."
People don't pay for products and services and keep track of where that money goes once it is in the hands of corporations or government agencies. Sure, some organizations do and some people actually do pay attention, but how many? Corporations and government agencies and even non-profit organizations spend money according to their own personal interests. Especially when their source of money doesn't pay attention to what they are spending their money on.
Btw, I recommend you work on your spelling, you made many mistakes. Maybe your foreign born like me? A lot of reading and writing helps. If your not sure, then double check the spelling and look at it a good while.
Everything would run the same. I only mean that those projects which companies wish not to pursue due to large investment costs would be done anyway by intellectuals in the community that feel the research is important enough to warrant some federal money for the research. The only difference here is that companies would not be relying on having complete ownership of some specific drug, but by continually providing good service, advancing science, competing as opposed to locking in customers with a patented drug, etc. The only good defense that patents have is the "large investment" defense. This defense goes away when you consider the fact that institutions like the NSF exist and that people will not stop investing time and money into research that will solve problems. Does a person with a currently uncurable illness put a price on keeping them alive and well? Money will always be there to solve problems, and so will competition. The only problem is patents destroy competition and therefore hinder progress.
"The fact that the patent system works poorly in certain areas ( such as software ) does not mean that it is a bad idea in general."
Software is the study of computer science correct? In both the study of medicine and computer science we build things to solve problems. The evidence already exists that a large open market for software is better than a segregated one. Both the study of computers and medicine is a scientific one in which the politics make all the difference in its progress. Software just happens to be one in which we engineer while medicine we reverse engineer to reengineer or find existing tools to solve problems.
"In fact, it is an old and tested idea that was considered so important that the Constitution of the United States *requires* a Patent and Copyright system."
The constitution is a great piece of work by great minds, but in fact, this part of the constitution was not favored by some of the original and most important constitution writers. Thomas Jefferson was not happy with the idea, but accepted it because of pressure by others. At the time the patent system did help only because it was almost like an information center. People from all around now had a place where they could provide their ideas and others with money now knew where to go for investment. Today, we don't need the USPTO to do this.
Without patents companies won't be so inclined to spend large amounts of money upfront for medicine, but it would still work. For one thing, they should be forced to keep the research open that they are doing. This way the scientists and various others working on these drugs will have all the information they need available to them and it will be a race by them all to be the first to discover and create. Second, the NSF (National Science Foundation) and various other groups exist for the specific purpose of funding research in the field of science. If something is going to take a lot of money and a fair amount of scientists and/or researchers are behind the idea then money can and will be put toward the research. Btw, there is more than one economist that has agreed to the idea of a world without patents, claiming that they do more harm than good. I believe there would be even more if it wasn't for the fear of coming out and making a statement that would upset many people. They still want their jobs. Patents are tied in to so much of our economy that I'm sure many are just afraid to say anything against it in a published medium.
This is what I found unreasonable as well as that you can't modify it like you can all other products out there in this world and sell them.
"The name and trademarks of Microsoft may NOT be used in any manner, including advertising or publicity pertaining to the Specification or its contents without specific, written prior permission."
In other words, you can not state in your specifications that your software can open and save in that particular format. So how are people going to know that the software can, besides word-of-mouth?
Microsoft is still being unreasonable. There is way too much playing around with the law these days and restricting the rights of others to stifle competition.
Are you saying the real problem is that people don't know any better?
"If people are too dumb not to change their default settings, WHO is to blame?"
Again, your saying that we blame the people that don't know any better? Should we start punishing them for it?
"It's their search, they can do whatever they damn well please."
That attitude is what created all those monopolies in the early history of the United States. Do you know what I'm talking about? If not, I suggest you read up on that part of history. MS is not just large, but very large. We all already know that MS has used one part of their company to support another. There is other similar anti-competitive behavior you'll see coming from MS. That is my point, not that "they can do whatever they damn well please". The fact is, THEY CAN'T. They are way too large and a company as large as them must be kept in check by the government. That is the job of our government ever since the Antitrust Act.
Your missing some important details. First of all, many don't choose to use MSN to search, they choose not to find other options. Also, Microsoft chooses this search engine as their default page, so most are inclined to use it without question. Maybe those searching are ignorant as you say. Still, I must ask. Is it a company's purpose to continually keep their customers ignorant and build an entire propaganda machine designed to keep it this way? I thought a company's purpose was to provide products and/or services to a client. Where in the definition of business or economics is it right to use propaganda, deceit, lock-ins, and a lot of anti-competitive behavior? Maybe if your learning your business practices from a mafia, gang, or other illegitimate organization then I can see why you defend them.
"What gets me is that the same idiots who make snide remarks like "you want to have your kid live in a cage until they're 18?" are the same asshats who complain it's the parent's fault when a child misuses the Internet, resulting a child's abuse or even death."
Oh so it is either black or white, right or wrong, do this or do that? Grey areas don't exist in your world? If you teach your child well and treat them like a friend and not some serf or slave, then that child will come to you for anything. When that child wants some privacy, then give it to them. By watching the child's every move because you don't trust them or or don't think they know any better will only make things worse. Imagine being the kid for once. A kid doesn't want a critic or a dictator, they want a friend. You can have it both ways. Teach your child well and treat them like a good friend that needs guidance, not a human programmer, and the child will grow up fine. I hope you never have kids. Who here is the "idiot" or "asshat"? I believe it is you. If and when you do have children, they will agree.
One thing needs to be realized by companies. Putting lawyers before your developers and other important employees is only making this country worse. How much do you pay your lawyers? and how much do you pay others in your company? Why have lawyers spend their time and your money telling others to stop working for you? By putting lawyers before your more important employees you lose sight of why your company exists. I suggest that your company think twice about what it stands for. A little thinking will not hurt on your part. This comment is in response to the article about the cease and desist letter that was sent to a developer putting valuable time into researching your product. Covering up problems by attempting to silence them does not solve the problem. It never goes away. In the end you may end up having to fix it anyway. So why not put the time and effort into solving the problem instead of simply masking it in the first place? I'm in college and working towards a bachelors in Computer Science. What if I just bought the diploma? Would you hire me? Then why should I use your software if your just going to use lawyers to solve your software problems? In that case, if I bought a law degree diploma would you hire me then?
Musicians aren't always the ones making the decisions. Think about it this way. Would a musician be the one deciding what OS to develop on? Many times the musician will seek help in determining what software he/she wants or needs. My friend, a musician, has been talking to me about computers, software, etc. that his group could use to record and do various other stuff. Also, I doubt that there aren't at least a few hundred musicians out there that use and maybe even develop on Linux.
"A takeover of Psion would give Nokia control over Symbian and help it head off growing competition in cellphone software from Microsoft, the world's largest software company."
How exactly will this "...help it head off growing competition..."?
I dislike these articles that come to some sort of conclusion or make statements and provide no insight as to how they themselves came to that conclusion. Am I missing something here?
Thank you. This has to be one of the most intelligent posts I've seen in a while. Everything else is mostly, fact this, funny that. You provided a true insight that questions the facts and attempts to make new conclusions that can be tested. If only more people thought like this. Thank you again. Like I've said before, question everything.
Influene is power. Some influence with money, some by intellect, some by fame, some by threats, some by status, and maybe a few others. Influence is power and why a lot of readers here don't understand that, I don't know. The only problem is, determining the power the different types of influence have. Also to note, influence is a tool. A wealthy man who knows not how to use his tool wisely, is not as influential as one who does.
What do you mean by "normal interpretation of "power""? I guess it all comes down to this one question.
Define trojan. Write a law on this and I'll show you how it can be interpreted for use as a tool to supress free speech. There is a thin line between legitimate tools and ilegitimate ones. You can not convince me that laws against "trojans" should be created. Laws against criminal acts, now that is another story.
"However, a trojan horse program is obviously intended for illegal remote access to a computer, and should be illegal."
Is it that obvious? Let me give you an easy hypothetical. I install a trojan on my own computer to monitor it away from home and to see if anyone I don't want accessing it is using it and what they are using it for. Maybe I also use this trojan to control services running on my computer so I can turn on what I want when I want it, not have it running 24/7 so that it's open for someone to access. A trojan has the advantage of being only known by me and if I'm the original creator. Would this fall under that law? Unless you stated that the trojan was created for and used for criminal activities, then it could be abused. Then why create the law when it only applies to criminal activity? The simple act of crime is enough. Your idea for such a law could and most likely would be abused.
EULA's, although not always, are based on laws. They can defend most of what is in a EULA by referencing it to a law. Why else was the DMCA created? Without the DMCA, there probably was little a company could do to prevent reverse engineering. Thus, the DMCA (very bad move) was created.
" The EULA is the weaker law."
You obviously don't know what your talking about. A EULA is not a law. It is an agreement between the user and provider and is protected (not always) by law.
"If you wrote a virus that destroyed computers you couldn't sue someone under the DMCA for reverse engineering it to see what it does in order to track down who wrote it and to keep it off of systems."
Well, since one would be letting his or her program run out in the wild and forcing (basically) it onto someone without any consent or attached notices, then the copyright/DMCA laws don't apply.
"And it's no secret that illegal MP3's and everything else are being traded on P2P."
State the obvious why? Illegal? An mp3 can not be illegal. It is the act of distributing the copyrighted work that is illegal. For a person that is hard on keeping strong copyright laws, you sure need to learn what laws are and their purpose. You also need to learn about the entire subject period.
"A EULA will never hold up in a case where it's being used to hide a crime."
I'm glad your trying to do your part for society, but until you learn about what your talking about, your doing little to actually help. Technicalities aside, there is more important reasons for everything. A law is not moral, good for the economy, or good for society, just because it is a law. When a law that appears good can also be used to do something one would consider evil, then it isn't a good law is it?
"every company would just sit around waiting for someone else to invent it so they could steal the idea, and research would drop off to nothing."
Actually, think about that one for a moment. If everyone just stole all other ideas, then everyone would just use the best ones. Now how does one compete over another? They compete by innovating. You might counter that other companies would steal the ideas. Problem is, the original founder is already ahead of the other companies. Then there is service. Companies will need to provide good service to stay competitive.
"That is a bunch of horse shit, plain and simple."
According to this article, and also many cases in history, well, it isn't horse shit.
Although businesses do have advantages, research communities and various institutions provide what businesses do and sometimes without all the hassle. Research data and various other information and tools are only available to a few people in the business to "protect" their "IP". The free flow of ideas is limited due to this. Also, politics is big in business. One has to go through a lot of hassle to get something approved or get some data or money or tools, or whatever. A monopoly almost always slows progress, would you agree? Would you also agree that a patent is technically a monolopy on an idea?
"While invention will proceed with or without financial incentive, I believe that money motivates people who would otherwise just sit around playing video games."
I'm glad you see that without financial incentive that people will continue to innovate; others don't seem to understand this. The second part of your statement I have to disagree, sort of. People are motivated to create better, faster, more efficient, cleaner, bigger, smaller, etc. creations. products, etc. A consumer is motivated to make money to buy new products. If a person is interested in something, such as many on slashdot who are hobbyists in something, then they will work on innovating what they work with. A person who plays games and works at a repetitive job that does not involve progress, is motivated by the money that they receive that will buy them that new game/toy/whatever. The great thing is you weed out all of this interested in simply making money from those that are truelly interested in making new things happen. Those with the ideas are the leaders. Those with an interest in making money work on helping those with the ideas. It isn't about who owns and controls what when patents don't exist, it is about the skills one has and how much work are they willing to put in. It is about credit where it is due and payment to those who work hard. It isn't about stealing, because those that steal still have to work hard at producing results and by then are behind. It's about sharing and working together. Money is an evil when one expects to receive it for nothing. Patents on ideas is exactly that. A scientist inventor is not respected for simply having an idea, they are respected and wanted because they have the ability to produce results. They can continue to create new ideas and provide progress. Patents do nothing of this sort but simply provide control which can lead to money without work.
First of all, your putting words in my mouth. I do not like it when people do this. I never said anything of sort "turning property into ideas." I said we need to treat ideas as what they are and not as property which can be owned and controlled. A patent is basically a monopoly on an idea. Now what do we all know about this sort of practice? It tends to make products more expensive, because they can control prices without worrying about competition. You might say, well now the company has money to invest in new technology. I have to disagree. A business operates to make a profit. A business will generally spend as much investing in technology as it needs to to stay competitive. The reason progress is made in many cases is because people are involved. In a business though, it is hard for a scientist/engineer to request time and money on something to mess around with that may or may not produce results. Businesses don't like taking high risks. Individuals do it much more frequently on the other hand. Also, what may cost millions to do in a business would cost a mere fraction for a hobbyist/engineer/inventor/etc. doing it alone. This becomes even more true when patents don't exist because now that same person has a variety of choices to chose his parts from, which now cost many times less than it would if only one company had control over that product. Treating ideas exactly as they are, what a concept.
He isn't a die hard nerd that sits around reading books all day, getting straight A's, and spending time doing various things the stereotypical nerd would do. It goes to show that we need to understand that people don't all see things the same, learn the same, and fit in the same model we believe works so well. This college student is more a mechanic than any typical scientist. I point all this to intellectual property. He was fortunately able to obtain most of his material cheaply and easily, but what about most hobbyists that want to fidle with new technology? Where do they get the money for new tools, machines, etc? If we applied an open source model to intellectual property and treated ideas not as property, but as what they really are, then we could accelerate scientific and technological progress greatly. What this college student did is quite amazing. The thing he built is only found in top notch institutions. I just think we need more plagiarism prevention, not patents. Btw, I'm sorry for being somewhat off-topic, but I feel that there is an important lesson to be learned here.
"Consider the marketing angle. "It will make it easier to sell," says Bryan Ware, chief executive of Digital Sandbox of Reston, Va., which has sold its terrorism risk-assessment software to the U.S. Department of Justice, among others."
This is one thing I find strange, and
"...wants its members' Internet services certified..."
I'm not so sure how this can be done. Software, interenet services, and telecommunications are all services that behave very differently from products. A company must continually stay on top of everything to provide reliable, safe, and er, I guess anti-terroristic (?) services. Sure, they could have some experts go through everything and put down a seal of approval, but if the company cuts back a little here and a little there, they could fall behind. I guess they want to push it for insurance purposes. Am I missing something here? Please correct me if I misread.
They stated "it ultimately protects consumers' right to control what they see on their computer screens."
This is true, just as you said. It has the effect of preventing a sort of censorship of competitors, because now competitors can advertise directly through the new advertising mediums. So now the consumer can decide if it really is worth it to go with the competitor and the competitors now have to decide if it is worth spending more on advertising. In the end, competitors need to realize that if you provide excellent products/services, then you can keep your current customers no matter the ad's and gain new ones by word-of-mouth. Advertising is important. If one ad company gains too much control they can do what MS does, except in the realm of advertising. One problem is that many of these programs install themselves with little notification to the user. New forms of advertising aren't bad if people accept it and it interferes as little as possible and provides quality advertising that people could really use as opposed to mass advertising (like spam) that hopes at least a few are listening. I believe more thought needs to be put into the entire advertising sector and laws created and destroyed that will create a more competitive market where few are disappointed. Then again, will this ever happen? Probably not, unfortunately there are too many large companies that do what they can to stay in control. I have hope in the future though. The internet is already changing advertising in many ways. This law is just another step towards a better system.
It doesn't state how much sugar it needs, nor the cost for electricity based on sugar prices. Any chemist know how 83% efficiency translates into cost and amount of sugar needed for a certain amount of power consumption?
Slashdot Mirror
" IIRC Knoppix does _not_ install the image on the hard drive."
k noppix-cheat codes.txt
during boot in the console type "knoppix tohd=/dev/hda1" can be other partitition besides hda1.
It will then copy the CD image to that partition and run it from there. This is using the newest Knoppix btw. Check out the boot command cheatcodes
http://download.linuxtag.org/knoppix/
Make a guess as to why IBM does this. Protection. The value of patents is the protection it provides against others with patents. Like an arms race. All sides are building up ammunition just incase they may ever need it. Do the patents help progress? Rarely in any field they do, especially software. Patents today have two main purposes. Protection from others with patents and a source of income. Imagine all the time and money that companies spend to file all these patents. Sure, the idea of a patent had a well meaning purpose. Unfortunately, it continually grew into an entire field for a new type of lawyer. Do companies win? Not at all. It takes time and money to copy another companies idea. The best choice is to stay ahead and keep working. Yes, there are particular areas of research and development that may warrant a monopoly or funding by the government or some other organization. But creating an entire system for "protecting" an idea?
Going back to what you said. Yes, they are inforced. We just don't know about it. First, not all of it ends up in court, and second, how much time do we spend looking into court records on lawsuits about patents? I believe in enforcing laws that discourage plagiarism, thus giving credit where it is due and forcing companies to see their employees for the work they do. I don't believe in patents, which have slowly shifted our view to companies and not individual contribution, and create a govt granted monopoly on an idea that only creates more complications (court time, lawyer time, employee time, court costs, lawyer costs, etc.). A world without patents would shift our focus on people and the companies that hire the best and continually stay ahead of the game and worry less about "protecting" their past products.
I understand your comment was meant as a joke, but I'd like to add a little. It isn't only a "new" medium, but a different one. TV, Radio, Newspaper, Magazines, etc. are all mostly one way communication mediums and are as diverse as the journalists, reporters, editors, and others that work for that medium. The internet allows for more participation and a more diverse amount of information. Although people trust most of the information online, those same people trust older media probably as much if not more so. Unlike a newspaper or the television, if one has a question then they have the ability to look for answers almost immediately. Slashdot is a prime example of how much better this medium is compared to television and newspaper. Here we see many comments about articles, papers, or even products. Sure, much of it is redundant, uninsightful, or even completely unreasonable hate. We must all still remember that the internet is growing and we are still learning to filter out what we don't want or need. How many times have you read slashdot and found some comments more insightful than the article or maybe some comments disagreeing with some or all parts of what an article or paper says? We are all gullible at times, but at least on the internet we can ask questions and find answers that one medium simply can't answer.
I agree. It is a little too much, but I did find this vehicle to be quite interesting: http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2003/1127/10704 29.jpg
I wish I had one of those.
So unless that eight wheel vehicle has a purpose besides a transportation vehicle for their average customer, then it is a waste of time.
I neither totally agree with you nor the parent, but you must be informed. My parents are both Polish and I've lived here all my life, but I speak Polish fluentely and have been around many Polish people from young to old. If there is one thing I've heard from many of these older people that actually lived during this time is that they felt in many circumstances that certain freedoms during those times were greater than what they are here in the U.S. and crime was nill. Not that communism was great, but neither is our system. Obviously, freedom can not be easily evaluated and it must first be defined. "Communism" has its freedoms and "capitalism" has its freedoms, neither is more free unless you state specifically what you mean by free and take very careful objective analysis.
You must see that the parent poster does have some insight. For example, which countries have the largest percentage of its people locked away behind bars? Also, the point he made about crime and violence being leading powers driving the economy is not too far from the truth. Leading? I wouldn't agree with that one, but substantial and larger than many other countries? Yes.
"The corperations who spend that money in washington a literally spending your interest. If you are not interested in a policy quit spending money on it."
People don't pay for products and services and keep track of where that money goes once it is in the hands of corporations or government agencies. Sure, some organizations do and some people actually do pay attention, but how many? Corporations and government agencies and even non-profit organizations spend money according to their own personal interests. Especially when their source of money doesn't pay attention to what they are spending their money on.
Btw, I recommend you work on your spelling, you made many mistakes. Maybe your foreign born like me? A lot of reading and writing helps. If your not sure, then double check the spelling and look at it a good while.
Everything would run the same. I only mean that those projects which companies wish not to pursue due to large investment costs would be done anyway by intellectuals in the community that feel the research is important enough to warrant some federal money for the research. The only difference here is that companies would not be relying on having complete ownership of some specific drug, but by continually providing good service, advancing science, competing as opposed to locking in customers with a patented drug, etc. The only good defense that patents have is the "large investment" defense. This defense goes away when you consider the fact that institutions like the NSF exist and that people will not stop investing time and money into research that will solve problems. Does a person with a currently uncurable illness put a price on keeping them alive and well? Money will always be there to solve problems, and so will competition. The only problem is patents destroy competition and therefore hinder progress.
"The fact that the patent system works poorly in certain areas ( such as software ) does not mean that it is a bad idea in general."
Software is the study of computer science correct? In both the study of medicine and computer science we build things to solve problems. The evidence already exists that a large open market for software is better than a segregated one. Both the study of computers and medicine is a scientific one in which the politics make all the difference in its progress. Software just happens to be one in which we engineer while medicine we reverse engineer to reengineer or find existing tools to solve problems.
"In fact, it is an old and tested idea that was considered so important that the Constitution of the United States *requires* a Patent and Copyright system."
The constitution is a great piece of work by great minds, but in fact, this part of the constitution was not favored by some of the original and most important constitution writers. Thomas Jefferson was not happy with the idea, but accepted it because of pressure by others. At the time the patent system did help only because it was almost like an information center. People from all around now had a place where they could provide their ideas and others with money now knew where to go for investment. Today, we don't need the USPTO to do this.
Without patents companies won't be so inclined to spend large amounts of money upfront for medicine, but it would still work. For one thing, they should be forced to keep the research open that they are doing. This way the scientists and various others working on these drugs will have all the information they need available to them and it will be a race by them all to be the first to discover and create. Second, the NSF (National Science Foundation) and various other groups exist for the specific purpose of funding research in the field of science. If something is going to take a lot of money and a fair amount of scientists and/or researchers are behind the idea then money can and will be put toward the research. Btw, there is more than one economist that has agreed to the idea of a world without patents, claiming that they do more harm than good. I believe there would be even more if it wasn't for the fear of coming out and making a statement that would upset many people. They still want their jobs. Patents are tied in to so much of our economy that I'm sure many are just afraid to say anything against it in a published medium.
This is what I found unreasonable as well as that you can't modify it like you can all other products out there in this world and sell them.
"The name and trademarks of Microsoft may NOT be used in any manner, including advertising or publicity pertaining to the Specification or its contents without specific, written prior permission."
In other words, you can not state in your specifications that your software can open and save in that particular format. So how are people going to know that the software can, besides word-of-mouth?
Microsoft is still being unreasonable. There is way too much playing around with the law these days and restricting the rights of others to stifle competition.
"... REAL problem."
Are you saying the real problem is that people don't know any better?
"If people are too dumb not to change their default settings, WHO is to blame?"
Again, your saying that we blame the people that don't know any better?
Should we start punishing them for it?
"It's their search, they can do whatever they damn well please."
That attitude is what created all those monopolies in the early history of the United States. Do you know what I'm talking about? If not, I suggest you read up on that part of history. MS is not just large, but very large. We all already know that MS has used one part of their company to support another. There is other similar anti-competitive behavior you'll see coming from MS. That is my point, not that "they can do whatever they damn well please". The fact is, THEY CAN'T. They are way too large and a company as large as them must be kept in check by the government. That is the job of our government ever since the Antitrust Act.
Your missing some important details. First of all, many don't choose to use MSN to search, they choose not to find other options. Also, Microsoft chooses this search engine as their default page, so most are inclined to use it without question. Maybe those searching are ignorant as you say. Still, I must ask. Is it a company's purpose to continually keep their customers ignorant and build an entire propaganda machine designed to keep it this way? I thought a company's purpose was to provide products and/or services to a client. Where in the definition of business or economics is it right to use propaganda, deceit, lock-ins, and a lot of anti-competitive behavior?
Maybe if your learning your business practices from a mafia, gang, or other illegitimate organization then I can see why you defend them.
"What gets me is that the same idiots who make snide remarks like "you want to have your kid live in a cage until they're 18?" are the same asshats who complain it's the parent's fault when a child misuses the Internet, resulting a child's abuse or even death."
Oh so it is either black or white, right or wrong, do this or do that? Grey areas don't exist in your world? If you teach your child well and treat them like a friend and not some serf or slave, then that child will come to you for anything. When that child wants some privacy, then give it to them. By watching the child's every move because you don't trust them or or don't think they know any better will only make things worse. Imagine being the kid for once. A kid doesn't want a critic or a dictator, they want a friend. You can have it both ways. Teach your child well and treat them like a good friend that needs guidance, not a human programmer, and the child will grow up fine. I hope you never have kids. Who here is the "idiot" or "asshat"? I believe it is you. If and when you do have children, they will agree.
Here's my feedback letter to them.
One thing needs to be realized by companies. Putting lawyers before your developers and other important employees is only making this country worse. How much do you pay your lawyers? and how much do you pay others in your company? Why have lawyers spend their time and your money telling others to stop working for you? By putting lawyers before your more important employees you lose sight of why your company exists. I suggest that your company think twice about what it stands for. A little thinking will not hurt on your part. This comment is in response to the article about the cease and desist letter that was sent to a developer putting valuable time into researching your product. Covering up problems by attempting to silence them does not solve the problem. It never goes away. In the end you may end up having to fix it anyway. So why not put the time and effort into solving the problem instead of simply masking it in the first place? I'm in college and working towards a bachelors in Computer Science. What if I just bought the diploma? Would you hire me? Then why should I use your software if your just going to use lawyers to solve your software problems?
In that case, if I bought a law degree diploma would you hire me then?
Musicians aren't always the ones making the decisions. Think about it this way. Would a musician be the one deciding what OS to develop on?
Many times the musician will seek help in determining what software he/she wants or needs. My friend, a musician, has been talking to me about computers, software, etc. that his group could use to record and do various other stuff. Also, I doubt that there aren't at least a few hundred musicians out there that use and maybe even develop on Linux.
"A takeover of Psion would give Nokia control over Symbian and help it head off growing competition in cellphone software from Microsoft, the world's largest software company."
How exactly will this "...help it head off growing competition..."?
I dislike these articles that come to some sort of conclusion or make statements and provide no insight as to how they themselves came to that conclusion.
Am I missing something here?
Thank you. This has to be one of the most intelligent posts I've seen in a while. Everything else is mostly, fact this, funny that. You provided a true insight that questions the facts and attempts to make new conclusions that can be tested. If only more people thought like this. Thank you again. Like I've said before, question everything.
Influene is power. Some influence with money, some by intellect, some by fame, some by threats, some by status, and maybe a few others. Influence is power and why a lot of readers here don't understand that, I don't know. The only problem is, determining the power the different types of influence have. Also to note, influence is a tool. A wealthy man who knows not how to use his tool wisely, is not as influential as one who does.
What do you mean by "normal interpretation of "power""? I guess it all comes down to this one question.
Time Warner Cable???? Did you forget about them? Heard of Road Runner? One must question why they are not going after AOL/Time Warner customers.
Define trojan. Write a law on this and I'll show you how it can be interpreted for use as a tool to supress free speech. There is a thin line between legitimate tools and ilegitimate ones. You can not convince me that laws against "trojans" should be created. Laws against criminal acts, now that is another story.
"However, a trojan horse program is obviously intended for illegal remote access to a computer, and should be illegal."
Is it that obvious? Let me give you an easy hypothetical. I install a trojan on my own computer to monitor it away from home and to see if anyone I don't want accessing it is using it and what they are using it for. Maybe I also use this trojan to control services running on my computer so I can turn on what I want when I want it, not have it running 24/7 so that it's open for someone to access. A trojan has the advantage of being only known by me and if I'm the original creator. Would this fall under that law? Unless you stated that the trojan was created for and used for criminal activities, then it could be abused. Then why create the law when it only applies to criminal activity? The simple act of crime is enough. Your idea for such a law could and most likely would be abused.
EULA's, although not always, are based on laws. They can defend most of what is in a EULA by referencing it to a law. Why else was the DMCA created? Without the DMCA, there probably was little a company could do to prevent reverse engineering. Thus, the DMCA (very bad move) was created.
" The EULA is the weaker law."
You obviously don't know what your talking about. A EULA is not a law. It is an agreement between the user and provider and is protected (not always) by law.
"If you wrote a virus that destroyed computers you couldn't sue someone under the DMCA for reverse engineering it to see what it does in order to track down who wrote it and to keep it off of systems."
Well, since one would be letting his or her program run out in the wild and forcing (basically) it onto someone without any consent or attached notices, then the copyright/DMCA laws don't apply.
"And it's no secret that illegal MP3's and everything else are being traded on P2P."
State the obvious why? Illegal? An mp3 can not be illegal. It is the act of distributing the copyrighted work that is illegal. For a person that is hard on keeping strong copyright laws, you sure need to learn what laws are and their purpose. You also need to learn about the entire subject period.
"A EULA will never hold up in a case where it's being used to hide a crime."
I'm glad your trying to do your part for society, but until you learn about what your talking about, your doing little to actually help. Technicalities aside, there is more important reasons for everything. A law is not moral, good for the economy, or good for society, just because it is a law. When a law that appears good can also be used to do something one would consider evil, then it isn't a good law is it?
"every company would just sit around waiting for someone else to invent it so they could steal the idea, and research would drop off to nothing."
Actually, think about that one for a moment. If everyone just stole all other ideas, then everyone would just use the best ones. Now how does one compete over another? They compete by innovating. You might counter that other companies would steal the ideas. Problem is, the original founder is already ahead of the other companies. Then there is service. Companies will need to provide good service to stay competitive.
"That is a bunch of horse shit, plain and simple."
According to this article, and also many cases in history, well, it isn't horse shit.
Although businesses do have advantages, research communities and various institutions provide what businesses do and sometimes without all the hassle. Research data and various other information and tools are only available to a few people in the business to "protect" their "IP". The free flow of ideas is limited due to this. Also, politics is big in business. One has to go through a lot of hassle to get something approved or get some data or money or tools, or whatever. A monopoly almost always slows progress, would you agree? Would you also agree that a patent is technically a monolopy on an idea?
"While invention will proceed with or without financial incentive, I believe that money motivates people who would otherwise just sit around playing video games."
I'm glad you see that without financial incentive that people will continue to innovate; others don't seem to understand this. The second part of your statement I have to disagree, sort of. People are motivated to create better, faster, more efficient, cleaner, bigger, smaller, etc. creations. products, etc. A consumer is motivated to make money to buy new products. If a person is interested in something, such as many on slashdot who are hobbyists in something, then they will work on innovating what they work with. A person who plays games and works at a repetitive job that does not involve progress, is motivated by the money that they receive that will buy them that new game/toy/whatever. The great thing is you weed out all of this interested in simply making money from those that are truelly interested in making new things happen. Those with the ideas are the leaders. Those with an interest in making money work on helping those with the ideas. It isn't about who owns and controls what when patents don't exist, it is about the skills one has and how much work are they willing to put in. It is about credit where it is due and payment to those who work hard. It isn't about stealing, because those that steal still have to work hard at producing results and by then are behind. It's about sharing and working together. Money is an evil when one expects to receive it for nothing. Patents on ideas is exactly that. A scientist inventor is not respected for simply having an idea, they are respected and wanted because they have the ability to produce results. They can continue to create new ideas and provide progress. Patents do nothing of this sort but simply provide control which can lead to money without work.
First of all, your putting words in my mouth. I do not like it when people do this. I never said anything of sort "turning property into ideas." I said we need to treat ideas as what they are and not as property which can be owned and controlled. A patent is basically a monopoly on an idea. Now what do we all know about this sort of practice? It tends to make products more expensive, because they can control prices without worrying about competition. You might say, well now the company has money to invest in new technology. I have to disagree. A business operates to make a profit. A business will generally spend as much investing in technology as it needs to to stay competitive. The reason progress is made in many cases is because people are involved. In a business though, it is hard for a scientist/engineer to request time and money on something to mess around with that may or may not produce results. Businesses don't like taking high risks. Individuals do it much more frequently on the other hand. Also, what may cost millions to do in a business would cost a mere fraction for a hobbyist/engineer/inventor/etc. doing it alone. This becomes even more true when patents don't exist because now that same person has a variety of choices to chose his parts from, which now cost many times less than it would if only one company had control over that product.
Treating ideas exactly as they are, what a concept.
He isn't a die hard nerd that sits around reading books all day, getting straight A's, and spending time doing various things the stereotypical nerd would do. It goes to show that we need to understand that people don't all see things the same, learn the same, and fit in the same model we believe works so well. This college student is more a mechanic than any typical scientist.
I point all this to intellectual property. He was fortunately able to obtain most of his material cheaply and easily, but what about most hobbyists that want to fidle with new technology? Where do they get the money for new tools, machines, etc? If we applied an open source model to intellectual property and treated ideas not as property, but as what they really are, then we could accelerate scientific and technological progress greatly. What this college student did is quite amazing. The thing he built is only found in top notch institutions. I just think we need more plagiarism prevention, not patents. Btw, I'm sorry for being somewhat off-topic, but I feel that there is an important lesson to be learned here.
"Consider the marketing angle. "It will make it easier to sell," says Bryan Ware, chief executive of Digital Sandbox of Reston, Va., which has sold its terrorism risk-assessment software to the U.S. Department of Justice, among others."
This is one thing I find strange, and
"...wants its members' Internet services certified..."
I'm not so sure how this can be done. Software, interenet services, and telecommunications are all services that behave very differently from products. A company must continually stay on top of everything to provide reliable, safe, and er, I guess anti-terroristic (?) services. Sure, they could have some experts go through everything and put down a seal of approval, but if the company cuts back a little here and a little there, they could fall behind. I guess they want to push it for insurance purposes. Am I missing something here? Please correct me if I misread.
I agree.
They stated "it ultimately protects consumers' right to control what they see on their computer screens."
This is true, just as you said. It has the effect of preventing a sort of censorship of competitors, because now competitors can advertise directly through the new advertising mediums. So now the consumer can decide if it really is worth it to go with the competitor and the competitors now have to decide if it is worth spending more on advertising. In the end, competitors need to realize that if you provide excellent products/services, then you can keep your current customers no matter the ad's and gain new ones by word-of-mouth. Advertising is important. If one ad company gains too much control they can do what MS does, except in the realm of advertising. One problem is that many of these programs install themselves with little notification to the user. New forms of advertising aren't bad if people accept it and it interferes as little as possible and provides quality advertising that people could really use as opposed to mass advertising (like spam) that hopes at least a few are listening. I believe more thought needs to be put into the entire advertising sector and laws created and destroyed that will create a more competitive market where few are disappointed. Then again, will this ever happen? Probably not, unfortunately there are too many large companies that do what they can to stay in control. I have hope in the future though. The internet is already changing advertising in many ways. This law is just another step towards a better system.
It doesn't state how much sugar it needs, nor the cost for electricity based on sugar prices. Any chemist know how 83% efficiency translates into cost and amount of sugar needed for a certain amount of power consumption?