Why keep yourself to only US workers? Notice the way that list of kernel hackers has lots of email addresses that have something after the ".com" or ".edu"? There are some pretty good coders outside the US, you know!
They are cheaper, too, and don't even try saying that you need all the people in the same place for a project to work well - there's that whole kernel thing, again.
You also get the benefit of having people in different timezones, so when you get to work in the morning you'll find a days work has been done while your asleep.
(I'm in Australia, so I'm a little biased. OTOH, I'm not really looking for a kernel hacking job, so I'm not that biased. YMMV, though.)
This site lists the web pages of 19 patent agencies.
In particular, here is the Australian site (because I'm Australian), and here is the Eurpoean Union patent office (because it covers patents in all member states)
Interbase 6 (the one just released as beta) is available with the shared cache under Linux.
That's despite what it says in the article about it not being ready - it seems they finished it after all did. (I'll try and find a link for this)
That should make quite a difference as demonstated by this (from teh PC Week article)
InterBase is clearly a very well-tuned product when given enough memory. As a comparison point, we also tested InterBase using 65,536 cache pages of 4,000KB each in a single-user test; InterBase pushed through 139 tps (transactions per second) compared with PostgreSQL's peak result of 74 tps at the same cache size.
Also, see this quote:
Our benchmark results show clear advantages to both products under different types of workloads. InterBase was significantly faster than PostgreSQL on both simple reads and complex joins on single-user tests, which is how database-enabled Web sites usually access databases. These results indicate an efficient query parser, optimizer and data page seek algorithm
I'm just looking forward to them getting it up on Sourceforge!
Software patents are important because they govern the ownership and usage of actual bits of code, rather than a vague idea of what a computer program should do or how a business should behave. The business method patents, on the other hand, purport to lay ownership to a behavior or idea rather than the actual method itself.
No, no, no!!! IANAL, but a software patent isn't on the implementation of it (That is copyright), but on the idea. EG: The UNISYS GIF compression patent - you can implement software that creates Gifs in many languages, some of which weren't even created when the Patent was granted, but you still need to licence the Patent.
It's not the bits you are patenting, it is the alogorithm. It's not exactly "a vague idea of what a computer program should do" - it needs to be more precice than that.
I would not take issue with amazon.com patenting the actual code required to execute their particular implemention of a one-click style program, assuming that there is no prior art.
Well.... you're the soon-to-be-lawyer, but wouldn't you use copyright protection for that (as an original work)?
(I program in Delphi, and I've been following Kylix pretty closely)
On Win32, Delphi supports COM to a great extent, put it is not overly dependant on it - apart from MIDAS (more later on MIDAS)
Borland have publicly stated that Delphi will not support COM on Linux. Delphi will continue to support Interfaces which (under Win32) are reasonably closely tied to COM (at least everything that supports IUnknown is).
Delphi supports CORBA on Win32 already, so yes, it will under Linux, too.
It will "play nice" with GNOME/KDE, but I believe that it is going to use Qt for its native toolkit. (That is from assorted developer briefings I've come across)
MIDAS is Borland's three-tiered data access technology. I'm programming with it at the moment (in Delphi), and it's pretty nice. It does depend on COM under Delphi, though - but there is a Java implementation, and you can run it over sockets, so I guess a Linux version won't be too hard.
I look forward to seeing what they are going to use for the actual DB access under Linux. Delphi comes with something called the BDE, which supports access to lots of databases - kind of like ODBC, but Borland has stated that developement of that has stopped. Delphi 5 (the latest version) introduced a number of Non-BDE data access components (which have previously been supplied only by third parties).
C. Robert Coates wanted to turn Inprise/Borland into another Internet based service provider - but Borland's real strength is in Development tools.
Sure, this merger might not "results in substantially higher prices for Inprise shareholders", but compared to turning Borland into YADP (Yet Another Developer Portal), it is great for the developers (and I'm a Delphi developer, and so my opionion does count for something here)
I'm not totally convinced that Corel is a good partner, but Borland has been doing good things lately (Kylix, Open Sourcing Interbase), and I'm prepared to wait and see.
I think you will find that most people who are complaining about the merger don't care about quality software, just about their stock portfolio.
That suck for people like me who just want the best tools for the job - which Borland has always been good at making.
To date no japanese company has ever been purchased by a forign company.
Not true!
Mazda is owned by Ford, Nissan by Renault. I can't think of other examples off the top of my head.
Japan was a protectionist country, though - and do you know what organisation did the most to stop it? the World Trade Organisation - also known as the WTO.
XML allows you to write self describing files that are backwards compatibile.
This sounds pretty useless at first, until you realize that it means that a tool can be written to adapt to changes in the file.
For instance, if you have a DTD that describes the data on a person, you might the fields FirstName, LastName, and PhoneNumber.
A GUI tool can read the DTD, and dynamically created edit fields for each one of those items.
Now if you go and change the file, so it includes EmailAddress, the tool can cope with that change by creating a edit field for that, too.
While you can do something like this with a simple text file with the field names along the top (for instance), the point is that the GUI tool you wrote for the first file will work for other XML files, too - with totally different DTDs.
It has other benefits as well. Because you know from the DTD all the possible field types, you can write generic softwear that transforms the files in various ways. For instance, you can use XML Formatting objects (I think that is what they are called) to transform an XML file into a PDF file for publication, simply by defining how each tag type should look.
Bring along Signal 11 and a bunh of trolls as our rapid response team, so at the slightest sign of some motion, Signal 11 will write a long essay about how he agrees with whatever is being said, while the Trolls turn everything to stone.
Maybe we could offer a naked, stone Natalie Portman in exchange...
I can't believe I wrote that.. I've never mentioned NP in a message before! Ahhh... I feel the pull of the dark side!
I disagree with using the GPL with patents because the GPL was designed to encourge the freedom of information. Doing something like this doesn't do that - it forces authors to use the GPL which isn't helpful.
While I do like the GPL, I think most people will agree that it is a pretty.. aggressive.. open source licence. That's okay - it's designed to be like that. But in some cases, it makes it difficult to work with.
For instance - say the Amazon One-Click shopping patent had been GPL-licenced. Apache couldn't use it (Apache Licence), Zope couldn't use it, I don't think any Java webservers could use it (because of the Java libraries) - when I say "use it" I mean have it linked into something like an Apache Module. Oh yeah - PHP couldn't use it either, if it linked to any of the many non-GPL PHP classes.
SO to produce software that can use that patent, you'd have to write and maintain a GPL'ed Webserver (if you want to implement it in there for performance reasons), some kind of web development system - no CSPAN-Perl, remember, and then finally implement your program - all the while paying lawyer to stop people using your system on the web.
I guess it could be useful for a company to GPL-licence a Patent, and then sell exemptions to that licence (like the Reiser-FS). Actully, that could work pretty well.... I should go an patent it before Amazon does.
I'm not a anti-GPL person, BTW. I like the GPL a lot more than a BSD licence, but this isn't what it was designed for.
This is my first post with Mozilla M13 Linux - I hope it works! - Woah.. the screens all black in the preview.. but no crash yet...
I only wish that someone had patented HTTP, GPLed it, and then refused to let Amazon play, effectively kicking them out of the sandbox.
This isn't a good idea. I've seen a couple of posts recently suggesting this idea - patenting things and then licenceing them only to GPL'ed software.
I disagree with this for a couple of reasons. Firstly, who is going to pay the legal costs of enforcing it?
Secondly, and more importantly it put limitations on the freedom of use of ideas. While it can be argued that the GPL does the same thing - it doesn't really. It only puts limitations on the implementation of those ideas. Someone if free to re-implement something written as GPL software, provided they don't use any of the source.
I'm somewhat unsure as to how I stand on softwear patents. While I feel I should say that all software patens should be abolished, I do see that they do have something of a point.
My personal idea is that the length that software patents are valid for should be radically shortened - to something like 1 year. I do understand that doing that might create something of a disincentive for some really hard-code patents - and those are the things that I can see a good reason to protect.
I mean if someone thought up an algorithm to compress audio by an order of magnitude more than MP3s - they should have some protection and a chance to make some money out of it, I think.
How long are patents valid for at the moment, anyway?
Firstly, they aren't Inprise any more - they are dropping that name (at last!) in the merger with Corel. Infact, you could actually buy the Inprise sign on Ebay - it might still be there.
Secondly, Borland is considering open-sourceing more of its stuff. They are already releasing Interbase under the MPL (see www.interbase.com) and in a recent interview in the Linux Journal, Dale Fuller said they were considering what they shoudl open source with the release of Kylix (Delphi/C++ Builder for Linux). This MAY EVEN INCLUDE THE VCL. That woudl be really, really cool.
This is (along with Delphi) Borland's (they have dropped the Inprise name in the merger with Corel) flagship product. The full C++ Builder 5.5 only came out a month or so ago, and this is the compiler for it.
It will probably ship in the third quarter of this year - or maybe the fourth (that's from the newsgroups)
The command line C++/Object Pascal compiler is working now.
It will use Qt as a toolkit (not my choice, but at least it's not Motif!) (That's from an interview at www.linuxjournal.com here with Dale Fuller - Borland CEO - done just after the merger)
It seems likely that the compilers will be a free download (and maybe even open source) - and perhaps even a free "Entry Level" version of Kylix will be available.
They aren't sure about the licencing for the VCL yet.
Btw, the Interbase open source project is still going along nicely. A new company has been set up to run it. See here for more news.
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Why keep yourself to only US workers? Notice the way that list of kernel hackers has lots of email addresses that have something after the ".com" or ".edu"? There are some pretty good coders outside the US, you know!
They are cheaper, too, and don't even try saying that you need all the people in the same place for a project to work well - there's that whole kernel thing, again.
You also get the benefit of having people in different timezones, so when you get to work in the morning you'll find a days work has been done while your asleep.
(I'm in Australia, so I'm a little biased. OTOH, I'm not really looking for a kernel hacking job, so I'm not that biased. YMMV, though.)
This site lists the web pages of 19 patent agencies.
In particular, here is the Australian site (because I'm Australian), and here is the Eurpoean Union patent office (because it covers patents in all member states)
The ancestor post is embarrassing!
Interbase 6 (the one just released as beta) is available with the shared cache under Linux.
That's despite what it says in the article about it not being ready - it seems they finished it after all did. (I'll try and find a link for this)
That should make quite a difference as demonstated by this (from teh PC Week article)
Also, see this quote:
I'm just looking forward to them getting it up on Sourceforge!
No, no, no!!! IANAL, but a software patent isn't on the implementation of it (That is copyright), but on the idea. EG: The UNISYS GIF compression patent - you can implement software that creates Gifs in many languages, some of which weren't even created when the Patent was granted, but you still need to licence the Patent.
It's not the bits you are patenting, it is the alogorithm. It's not exactly "a vague idea of what a computer program should do" - it needs to be more precice than that.
Well.... you're the soon-to-be-lawyer, but wouldn't you use copyright protection for that (as an original work)?
(I program in Delphi, and I've been following Kylix pretty closely)
On Win32, Delphi supports COM to a great extent, put it is not overly dependant on it - apart from MIDAS (more later on MIDAS)
Borland have publicly stated that Delphi will not support COM on Linux. Delphi will continue to support Interfaces which (under Win32) are reasonably closely tied to COM (at least everything that supports IUnknown is).
Delphi supports CORBA on Win32 already, so yes, it will under Linux, too.
It will "play nice" with GNOME/KDE, but I believe that it is going to use Qt for its native toolkit. (That is from assorted developer briefings I've come across)
MIDAS is Borland's three-tiered data access technology. I'm programming with it at the moment (in Delphi), and it's pretty nice. It does depend on COM under Delphi, though - but there is a Java implementation, and you can run it over sockets, so I guess a Linux version won't be too hard.
I look forward to seeing what they are going to use for the actual DB access under Linux. Delphi comes with something called the BDE, which supports access to lots of databases - kind of like ODBC, but Borland has stated that developement of that has stopped. Delphi 5 (the latest version) introduced a number of Non-BDE data access components (which have previously been supplied only by third parties).
Someone had moderated it as "Interesting"! That is pretty funny.
Interbase v6 isn't out yet (Mid uear target date) - and Interbase 5.6 isn't open source.
You can download & use Interbase v4 for Linux for free.
It's a great database - ANSI 92 SQL, transactions, row locking - everything you'd want.
It supports big (Multi-TerraByte) Databases in multiple DB files, and yet has a small ( 10M or so) footprint.
It runs on lots of platforms (Linux, Windows, assorted Unices, Novel etc).
The licence will be MPL, and everything but the Replication engine and ODBC driveer (both from thrid parties) will be open sourced.
C. Robert Coates wanted to turn Inprise/Borland into another Internet based service provider - but Borland's real strength is in Development tools.
Sure, this merger might not "results in substantially higher prices for Inprise shareholders", but compared to turning Borland into YADP (Yet Another Developer Portal), it is great for the developers (and I'm a Delphi developer, and so my opionion does count for something here)
I'm not totally convinced that Corel is a good partner, but Borland has been doing good things lately (Kylix, Open Sourcing Interbase), and I'm prepared to wait and see.
I think you will find that most people who are complaining about the merger don't care about quality software, just about their stock portfolio.
That suck for people like me who just want the best tools for the job - which Borland has always been good at making.
Not true!
Mazda is owned by Ford, Nissan by Renault. I can't think of other examples off the top of my head.
Japan was a protectionist country, though - and do you know what organisation did the most to stop it? the World Trade Organisation - also known as the WTO.
XML allows you to write self describing files that are backwards compatibile.
This sounds pretty useless at first, until you realize that it means that a tool can be written to adapt to changes in the file.
For instance, if you have a DTD that describes the data on a person, you might the fields FirstName, LastName, and PhoneNumber.
A GUI tool can read the DTD, and dynamically created edit fields for each one of those items.
Now if you go and change the file, so it includes EmailAddress, the tool can cope with that change by creating a edit field for that, too.
While you can do something like this with a simple text file with the field names along the top (for instance), the point is that the GUI tool you wrote for the first file will work for other XML files, too - with totally different DTDs.
It has other benefits as well. Because you know from the DTD all the possible field types, you can write generic softwear that transforms the files in various ways. For instance, you can use XML Formatting objects (I think that is what they are called) to transform an XML file into a PDF file for publication, simply by defining how each tag type should look.
Bring along Signal 11 and a bunh of trolls as our rapid response team, so at the slightest sign of some motion, Signal 11 will write a long essay about how he agrees with whatever is being said, while the Trolls turn everything to stone.
Maybe we could offer a naked, stone Natalie Portman in exchange...
I can't believe I wrote that.. I've never mentioned NP in a message before! Ahhh... I feel the pull of the dark side!
Damnit! I knew reading Slashdot all day everyday was a sin, but I just thought I'd just lose my job.. not my eternal soul!
I disagree with using the GPL with patents because the GPL was designed to encourge the freedom of information. Doing something like this doesn't do that - it forces authors to use the GPL which isn't helpful.
While I do like the GPL, I think most people will agree that it is a pretty.. aggressive.. open source licence. That's okay - it's designed to be like that. But in some cases, it makes it difficult to work with.
For instance - say the Amazon One-Click shopping patent had been GPL-licenced. Apache couldn't use it (Apache Licence), Zope couldn't use it, I don't think any Java webservers could use it (because of the Java libraries) - when I say "use it" I mean have it linked into something like an Apache Module. Oh yeah - PHP couldn't use it either, if it linked to any of the many non-GPL PHP classes.
SO to produce software that can use that patent, you'd have to write and maintain a GPL'ed Webserver (if you want to implement it in there for performance reasons), some kind of web development system - no CSPAN-Perl, remember, and then finally implement your program - all the while paying lawyer to stop people using your system on the web.
I guess it could be useful for a company to GPL-licence a Patent, and then sell exemptions to that licence (like the Reiser-FS). Actully, that could work pretty well.... I should go an patent it before Amazon does.
I'm not a anti-GPL person, BTW. I like the GPL a lot more than a BSD licence, but this isn't what it was designed for.
This is my first post with Mozilla M13 Linux - I hope it works! - Woah.. the screens all black in the preview.. but no crash yet...
This isn't a good idea. I've seen a couple of posts recently suggesting this idea - patenting things and then licenceing them only to GPL'ed software.
I disagree with this for a couple of reasons. Firstly, who is going to pay the legal costs of enforcing it?
Secondly, and more importantly it put limitations on the freedom of use of ideas. While it can be argued that the GPL does the same thing - it doesn't really. It only puts limitations on the implementation of those ideas. Someone if free to re-implement something written as GPL software, provided they don't use any of the source.
I'm somewhat unsure as to how I stand on softwear patents. While I feel I should say that all software patens should be abolished, I do see that they do have something of a point.
My personal idea is that the length that software patents are valid for should be radically shortened - to something like 1 year. I do understand that doing that might create something of a disincentive for some really hard-code patents - and those are the things that I can see a good reason to protect.
I mean if someone thought up an algorithm to compress audio by an order of magnitude more than MP3s - they should have some protection and a chance to make some money out of it, I think.
How long are patents valid for at the moment, anyway?
OS/2 v1.2, I think - I could have grabbed it, but really, what good would it have been?
It got a 4, which I guess it deserves, but posting the same thing twice is a bit weak.
The original is here - in the EBay story, BTW.
Maybe it is a little funny, but it is still a troll.
It is nice that you have some access to the source, though.
Firstly, they aren't Inprise any more - they are dropping that name (at last!) in the merger with Corel. Infact, you could actually buy the Inprise sign on Ebay - it might still be there.
Secondly, Borland is considering open-sourceing more of its stuff. They are already releasing Interbase under the MPL (see www.interbase.com) and in a recent interview in the Linux Journal, Dale Fuller said they were considering what they shoudl open source with the release of Kylix (Delphi/C++ Builder for Linux). This MAY EVEN INCLUDE THE VCL. That woudl be really, really cool.
This is (along with Delphi) Borland's (they have dropped the Inprise name in the merger with Corel) flagship product. The full C++ Builder 5.5 only came out a month or so ago, and this is the compiler for it.
It will probably ship in the third quarter of this year - or maybe the fourth (that's from the newsgroups)
The command line C++/Object Pascal compiler is working now.
It will use Qt as a toolkit (not my choice, but at least it's not Motif!) (That's from an interview at www.linuxjournal.com here with Dale Fuller - Borland CEO - done just after the merger)
It seems likely that the compilers will be a free download (and maybe even open source) - and perhaps even a free "Entry Level" version of Kylix will be available.
They aren't sure about the licencing for the VCL yet.
Btw, the Interbase open source project is still going along nicely. A new company has been set up to run it. See here for more news.
If the parent comment got an "Informative" then the counter deserves it too - esp. this one which seems quite well reasoned for Slashdot.
It was pretty creepy - he worked in defence research, too, and had a number of PhDs in really weird, unrelated stuff - hypersonic aerodynamics, radar.
I don't really knwo why I'm shareing this, though....
Duh!