The interesting part is that Patton Boggs, the law firm that sent the letter, has a strong presence at BIO and other science trade shows (I am a biologist) drumming up business from science centric companies.
This is why IT takes a lot of crap.... When people have a problem with the stuff I am in charge of, they expect me to fix it. IT expects to hand me a manual/link and for me to learn their jobs. I can, for a lot of the stuff, do it. For others- I can't. My degree is in molecular biology though...
What you are saying, when you do this, is "I am not worth keeping employed here becuase I don't actually do anything. You can learn it all yourself". You are likely one of the same people who will then gripe when your job is sent to outer mongolia for 1/10000'th the cost....and you will wonder why.
This response sums up why IT gets treated like crap a lot of places...
I disagree with the "Site it more ours than yours". I lurk... What I like is the story selection. I, for the most part, don't read the comments as they are normally useless. The "old days" weren't much better. I like what's linked to not what is said about it or who suggested it even be talked about in the first place. I think the site is STILL Cmdr Tacos et al.'s and they post what they want. I seem to keep coming back, so I can't be real opposed to what they post!
Since I am not a pathological refresher, I miss the dupes that seem to get many peoples knickers in a twist. I also don't click on peoples names (nor notice them until this discussion). Over time, I think I have submitted like 3 times, and made the front page once, so I think my ratio rules!
...actually the problem with Malaria is, and I DONT have proof of this, but have heard this at meetings, is that the people who generally get malaria are in developing countries and don't have too much money. THUS, you are stuck with a hard disease to figure out and little chance to make money on the back end.
This is probably a better example of drug companies behaving in ways that will piss people off, but I don't think it is an example of them behaving in the way described (found cure and then suppress it). This disease has, in relative terms vs many others, been ignored.
I am not, under any circumstances saying that companies don't do evil things. There are way too many examples of them doing them. I am just saying that to show they are doing something evil you have to at least have some germ of proof. The "corporations are squashing the magic cure" statement is trotted out every time people don't like drug companies. Drug companies are guilty of many things, but this isn't one of them (I don't think).
Your logic would lead to a statement like this.
This person has been caught stealing, a bad thing, therefore we know he is guilty of genocide becuase that is also bad.
I would agree that corporations do bad things, but the morality behind what is being proposed here is similar to the "aliens" example, in that there is always a friend of a friend who bought a dog from this guy whose uncle told him. To do what is being described would take many people. They would all know what is happening, and they would all have to keep their mouths shut. Conspiracies of really large numbers of people are hard to keep together. SO - yes the "company" can do something bad, but you are asking a lot of individuals to do something bad. Oh yeah - and they aren't doing it for patriotism. They aren't doing it for money (normally when projects are killed, people are laid off in Pharma/biotech). And (reference previous sentence) they aren't doing it for their job. So - Why are they keeping the secret?
Yes, I freely admit to working at a big bad biotech company (not in my opinion, but you would probably label it as such).
If I understand your point, and I am one of these dreaded Ph.D.'s,
You are saying that becuase I didn't take the hypocratic oath I am willing to dicover the magic cure to a major disease and then sit on it becuase a company pays me off?
This is trotted out every time this discussion comes up...but no one can ever point to any specific "drug" or treatement that has had this happen. It is always this mystical unknown magic cure that is being with held so that the drug companies can make more money....
Please. Stating this is current practice requires some level of "These guys are doing it with a treatment for disease X". Other wise this statement is no better than me saying I was kidnapped by aliens yesterday.
Speaking here as someone who does this evil licensing thing for a biotech company. The Universities most certainly do NOT give away licences. We spend a LOT of money on licenses every year. We pay multi-millions in royalties every year.
Not sure where "GIVES AWAY ALL PATENTS" comes from, but reality is not involved. The bench scientists get part of the money. Universities are getting money. Biotech/pharma is spending money.
"If your competitors can beat you on price while matching your quality then your company is not being run very efficiently and if a deep understanding of the science behind the product is not necessary to produce it then the product is most likely not worthy of a patent in the first place"
This just demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the world.
Production is, relativly speaking, easy. You lay down some specs and engineers hit them. SPecs being clear, and engineers being bright - this should move forward.
For most of biotech - the production part is pretty trivial. We all drive on our production costs (see discussions about off-shoring work that also make Slashdot fly in to a tizzy...)
The "deep understanding" is laid out by someone. Other bright people, once shown the solution, immdiatly will get it. There are few ideas in te world (none that come to mind) that once lain out CANT be understood by others. Thus - your statement about deep understanding falls down. Every company has bright people. They sit down with competitors products and get to understand them. It may take a longer or shorter time, but it happens.
Pretty close to nothing that comes out of University research labs is ready to sell. For the most part, it goes in to the lab for 1-2 years before you know if you will get a product.
Universities produce ideas, not products.
If there is no protection on those years of work, it wont happen.
We NEVER have the cash on hand to just "fund" projects indefinatly. Further, please introduce me to this large sum of money people that don't care if we make money back. I haven't met them. In general, people who give you money want some form of return on their investment. The risk they take with us (and others) is that we are smart enough to take that money and return more money to them.
From the article. " A 1979 audit of government-held patents showed that fewer than 5% of some 28,000 discoveries--all of them made with the help of taxpayer money--had been developed, because no company was willing to risk the capital to commercialize them without owning title"
To all those in this thread that argue "scientists will do it for the love" or any of that crap. That sentence above says it all. Scientists might do it for the love, but companies won't pay to develop it. I work at a biotech company - we won't do stuff that won't make us money. We have to pay our salaries. If we do something that we DON'T have patent coverage on, our competition will just copy it at no cost to them... oh yeah - we will have spent A LOT of money to do the development. If we can't get an exclusive license, then for the most part we won't touch it. It WONT make financial sense to do so.
You can preach about "greater good of man" and all that. At the end of the day I just want to send my daughter to college and be able to go surfing. To do that, we have to make tools that help people, and I enjoy being part of that. I love solving the problems. I enjoy working on the projects. BUT - I have to eat and the company has to make money.
I would guess you are in the Computer field and not in a biologically oriented field. In those, Word is pretty close to the only answer and TeX is an unknown. I would say TeX is VERY restricted to the fields it is accepted in, and pretty much unknown outside of those.
The reason people won't switch away from MS Excel has nothing to do with technical specs and everything to do with the very large number of Macro's and templates already written. There is an awful huge installed base for whom Excel works fine, and they don't see the problem. Most of the financial services sector for example. From there point of view, it's not broke Why fix it?
If TODAY everything was equal, there would still be a 10 year lag until a change happened, as that is the roll out time, and the time to convince people they 'want' to change. It better have some kick butt feature that they don't have in Excel, or they are going to resist change. That is just the way people are
As the amount of data available to individuals increases, visualizations that allow people to acutally understand what is going on (and the number crunching to get the visualizations) will/are driving system performance.
In the pharmaceutical world, for most scientists, there isn't near enough computing power for what they would like to do on a daily basis. Grid computing is making major inroads because of that. Still day to day work could make better use of things, if it didn't take 1hr to get the picture you want.
....and a gigantic mega momma phone that when put in your pocket causes your pants to fall down.
These all in 1 things are not for me until they get significantly smaller/lighter.
For me Bluetooth just to sync phone numbers was worth it, and I love my T616. I haven't been bothered outside, and I have no problems with the buttons.
You should rephrase that to "Not of interest to me", as I don't think you speak for me. Probably neither of us speaks for Slashdot...
I am apparantly stupid as well, as I can't find it on Google either.... Can you post a link? I happen to be interested in what it sounds like the books are about. Something about educating the public about science.
You really need to ask, "Are there any free...etc... that I can use and yet still allow everyone else to keep using word?" as you - 1 person, will not be able to make everyone else change. I will give you an almost iron clad guarentee that the first time you give them the 'different' thing, or that requires they learn something new, that they won't do it or they will ask for word. They will wonder, and I think quite rightly, "Why are you fixing something that we don't think is broken".
By this I mean, they haven't made the descision to live in a Microsoft free world, and thus they don't see anything wrong with this nice way of making changes. You can try to convert them to your way of thinking, but you have to factor in that most people want to do things the easiest way they can, and for them (already knowing how the MS way works) the track changes way is best.
From my own use.... I love this feature, and use it all the time.
Slashdot Mirror
The interesting part is that Patton Boggs, the law firm that sent the letter, has a strong presence at BIO and other science trade shows (I am a biologist) drumming up business from science centric companies.
This is why IT takes a lot of crap.... When people have a problem with the stuff I am in charge of, they expect me to fix it. IT expects to hand me a manual/link and for me to learn their jobs. I can, for a lot of the stuff, do it. For others- I can't. My degree is in molecular biology though...
What you are saying, when you do this, is "I am not worth keeping employed here becuase I don't actually do anything. You can learn it all yourself". You are likely one of the same people who will then gripe when your job is sent to outer mongolia for 1/10000'th the cost....and you will wonder why.
This response sums up why IT gets treated like crap a lot of places...
Ummm...
US patent law only covers the US... so I think your wish is granted.
I too am a relativly long term reader.
I disagree with the "Site it more ours than yours". I lurk... What I like is the story selection. I, for the most part, don't read the comments as they are normally useless. The "old days" weren't much better. I like what's linked to not what is said about it or who suggested it even be talked about in the first place. I think the site is STILL Cmdr Tacos et al.'s and they post what they want. I seem to keep coming back, so I can't be real opposed to what they post!
Since I am not a pathological refresher, I miss the dupes that seem to get many peoples knickers in a twist. I also don't click on peoples names (nor notice them until this discussion). Over time, I think I have submitted like 3 times, and made the front page once, so I think my ratio rules!
...actually the problem with Malaria is, and I DONT have proof of this, but have heard this at meetings, is that the people who generally get malaria are in developing countries and don't have too much money. THUS, you are stuck with a hard disease to figure out and little chance to make money on the back end.
This is probably a better example of drug companies behaving in ways that will piss people off, but I don't think it is an example of them behaving in the way described (found cure and then suppress it). This disease has, in relative terms vs many others, been ignored.
Not better, just different...
I am not, under any circumstances saying that companies don't do evil things. There are way too many examples of them doing them. I am just saying that to show they are doing something evil you have to at least have some germ of proof. The "corporations are squashing the magic cure" statement is trotted out every time people don't like drug companies. Drug companies are guilty of many things, but this isn't one of them (I don't think).
Your logic would lead to a statement like this.
This person has been caught stealing, a bad thing, therefore we know he is guilty of genocide becuase that is also bad.
I would agree that corporations do bad things, but the morality behind what is being proposed here is similar to the "aliens" example, in that there is always a friend of a friend who bought a dog from this guy whose uncle told him. To do what is being described would take many people. They would all know what is happening, and they would all have to keep their mouths shut. Conspiracies of really large numbers of people are hard to keep together. SO - yes the "company" can do something bad, but you are asking a lot of individuals to do something bad. Oh yeah - and they aren't doing it for patriotism. They aren't doing it for money (normally when projects are killed, people are laid off in Pharma/biotech). And (reference previous sentence) they aren't doing it for their job. So - Why are they keeping the secret?
Yes, I freely admit to working at a big bad biotech company (not in my opinion, but you would probably label it as such).
If I understand your point, and I am one of these dreaded Ph.D.'s,
You are saying that becuase I didn't take the hypocratic oath I am willing to dicover the magic cure to a major disease and then sit on it becuase a company pays me off?
ummm....I refer you to the alien statement.
This is trotted out every time this discussion comes up...but no one can ever point to any specific "drug" or treatement that has had this happen. It is always this mystical unknown magic cure that is being with held so that the drug companies can make more money....
Please. Stating this is current practice requires some level of "These guys are doing it with a treatment for disease X". Other wise this statement is no better than me saying I was kidnapped by aliens yesterday.
Speaking here as someone who does this evil licensing thing for a biotech company. The Universities most certainly do NOT give away licences. We spend a LOT of money on licenses every year. We pay multi-millions in royalties every year.
Not sure where "GIVES AWAY ALL PATENTS" comes from, but reality is not involved. The bench scientists get part of the money. Universities are getting money. Biotech/pharma is spending money.
"If your competitors can beat you on price while matching your quality then your company is not being run very efficiently and if a deep understanding of the science behind the product is not necessary to produce it then the product is most likely not worthy of a patent in the first place"
This just demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the world.
Production is, relativly speaking, easy. You lay down some specs and engineers hit them. SPecs being clear, and engineers being bright - this should move forward.
For most of biotech - the production part is pretty trivial. We all drive on our production costs (see discussions about off-shoring work that also make Slashdot fly in to a tizzy...)
The "deep understanding" is laid out by someone. Other bright people, once shown the solution, immdiatly will get it. There are few ideas in te world (none that come to mind) that once lain out CANT be understood by others. Thus - your statement about deep understanding falls down. Every company has bright people. They sit down with competitors products and get to understand them. It may take a longer or shorter time, but it happens.
As you point out - the truth is in the middle.
Pretty close to nothing that comes out of University research labs is ready to sell. For the most part, it goes in to the lab for 1-2 years before you know if you will get a product.
Universities produce ideas, not products.
If there is no protection on those years of work, it wont happen.
Look at Malaria research.
There is a ton of work out there on it. However, the patient population that it would apply to is poor.
Therefore no drug companies really get in to it.
That work is just sitting there. Hopefully all of the posters on slashdot will take that and make a product out of it....
Please... spell it out.
We NEVER have the cash on hand to just "fund" projects indefinatly. Further, please introduce me to this large sum of money people that don't care if we make money back. I haven't met them. In general, people who give you money want some form of return on their investment. The risk they take with us (and others) is that we are smart enough to take that money and return more money to them.
....this whole post just annoys me.
You tar whole classes of people here. Some of the best scientists/smartest people I know DO IT FOR THE MONEY. They like being RICH.
I am a suit with a Ph.D. I work in a company where the vast majority of the management has Ph.D.'s. (CEO has an MD, but we still count him).
Even if we restrict this to a discussion of the computer world, you then have to declare the head of all of the computer companies stupid.
Google chiefs - dumb suits with no idea only doing it for the fun. If true -> why did they leave grad school and start a company.
Same with Yahoo.
Amazon, started by Jeff Bezos with NO computer background, can't exist.
I can't beleive this post is flagged as insightful, but then I remember this is the slashdot comment section and I get over it.
Problem : I work as a "suit" in a Biotech. I have a Ph.D. not an MBA.
Yes - scientists (myself included) would do it for the love.
Problem - in general a proect I work on or am involved with will burn $1 million before we have a good handle on whether it will work or not.
For a million, you better have the commercial side locked up before you risk it.
From the article.
" A 1979 audit of government-held patents showed that fewer than 5% of some 28,000 discoveries--all of them made with the help of taxpayer money--had been developed, because no company was willing to risk the capital to commercialize them without owning title"
To all those in this thread that argue "scientists will do it for the love" or any of that crap. That sentence above says it all. Scientists might do it for the love, but companies won't pay to develop it. I work at a biotech company - we won't do stuff that won't make us money. We have to pay our salaries. If we do something that we DON'T have patent coverage on, our competition will just copy it at no cost to them... oh yeah - we will have spent A LOT of money to do the development. If we can't get an exclusive license, then for the most part we won't touch it. It WONT make financial sense to do so.
You can preach about "greater good of man" and all that. At the end of the day I just want to send my daughter to college and be able to go surfing. To do that, we have to make tools that help people, and I enjoy being part of that. I love solving the problems. I enjoy working on the projects. BUT - I have to eat and the company has to make money.
I would guess you are in the Computer field and not in a biologically oriented field. In those, Word is pretty close to the only answer and TeX is an unknown. I would say TeX is VERY restricted to the fields it is accepted in, and pretty much unknown outside of those.
?becuase there aren't lay offs in other countries?
ahhhh.... clear now.
The reason people won't switch away from MS Excel has nothing to do with technical specs and everything to do with the very large number of Macro's and templates already written. There is an awful huge installed base for whom Excel works fine, and they don't see the problem. Most of the financial services sector for example. From there point of view, it's not broke Why fix it?
If TODAY everything was equal, there would still be a 10 year lag until a change happened, as that is the roll out time, and the time to convince people they 'want' to change. It better have some kick butt feature that they don't have in Excel, or they are going to resist change. That is just the way people are
As the amount of data available to individuals increases, visualizations that allow people to acutally understand what is going on (and the number crunching to get the visualizations) will/are driving system performance.
In the pharmaceutical world, for most scientists, there isn't near enough computing power for what they would like to do on a daily basis. Grid computing is making major inroads because of that. Still day to day work could make better use of things, if it didn't take 1hr to get the picture you want.
....and a gigantic mega momma phone that when put in your pocket causes your pants to fall down.
These all in 1 things are not for me until they get significantly smaller/lighter.
For me Bluetooth just to sync phone numbers was worth it, and I love my T616. I haven't been bothered outside, and I have no problems with the buttons.
but you are running windows?
You should rephrase that to "Not of interest to me", as I don't think you speak for me. Probably neither of us speaks for Slashdot...
I am apparantly stupid as well, as I can't find it on Google either.... Can you post a link? I happen to be interested in what it sounds like the books are about. Something about educating the public about science.
You really need to ask,
"Are there any free...etc... that I can use and yet still allow everyone else to keep using word?" as you - 1 person, will not be able to make everyone else change. I will give you an almost iron clad guarentee that the first time you give them the 'different' thing, or that requires they learn something new, that they won't do it or they will ask for word. They will wonder, and I think quite rightly, "Why are you fixing something that we don't think is broken".
By this I mean, they haven't made the descision to live in a Microsoft free world, and thus they don't see anything wrong with this nice way of making changes. You can try to convert them to your way of thinking, but you have to factor in that most people want to do things the easiest way they can, and for them (already knowing how the MS way works) the track changes way is best.
From my own use.... I love this feature, and use it all the time.
In Biotech/Pharma and the academic Biology worlds, I would say, based on a bunch of years working in them, that it is 100% Microsoft word.
With the plug ins for Endnote/Citation manager it is just way too easy.
Most Biology Journals accept Word as a submission format.