"The ultimate loss may be the reduction of damages to 350K. This sum is likely too low to keep other companies from filing frivolous and possibly fraudulent patents and then conducting frivolous court action to protect the questionable patents. "
Could be, but there are still potential CRIMINAL charges that could come from this.
However, this will have a far worse effect on RAMBUST... Now every company paying them royalties for SDRAM/DDR now has cause to STOP doing it..
RAMBUST has been found GUILTY of fraud!
Without license fees, the RAMBUST legal machine will collapse.
"t's worth noting that what Rambus got slammed for was lying to the JEDEC committee about whether it planned to patent the technologies it was proposing for the standard. Unfortunately, this does not touch on their right to sue everyone who ever manufactured a RAM chip for patent infringement."
Au Contraire!
This has a CHILLING effect on any future RAMBUST Goon tactics. This is a damming precedent. RAMBUS can now be called "that fradulent IP company".
It doesn't stop them from FILING lawsuits, only because ANYONE can sue ANYONE for ANYTHING at ANYTIME in our wonderful (fucked up) US "justice" system.
However, this case is precedent and "case law" that will erect a VERY high wall that RAMBUS will have to pole vault to get their cases heard and decided in their favor.
This judge/jury must have been REALLY horrified by what RAMBUST was up to...
"One that I can think of, and I'm sure some will disagree, is Linux. Not just the kernel, but the kernel and all packages available for it and the whole way they came to be. Worldwide development over the internet of a free OS? With souce code available? No central company behind it? Nothing but a bunch of uber-geeks working on it in the spare time because they believe it? Must be something of a precedent. "
If Linus had been Rambus or Microsoft, he'd have tightly copyrighted and patented his kernel...
And Linux would have nowhere near the users it has today...
The more jealously garded IP is, the less useful it is.
"I think this can be safely classified as a completely unexpected result. Careful, patent litigators. The sword you hold isn't just double-edged -- it's got no fuckin' handle either!"
"A Blaster is a fine weapon, but the barrel points both ways" -Salvor Hardin (from Issac Asimov's "Foundation", my all time favorite Sci-fi work).
FINALLY, a plantiff bringing a groundless suit gets the shaft! It should be that way. Whenever a plantiff brings a suit so laughable it's dismissed, they SHOULD have to pay out the ass.
Wonder how low RMBS will be tomorow:) Burn baby burn!
Anyone who has followed this story since Tom's Hardware (tomshardware.com) first revealed RAMBUST to be inferior to PC133 SDRAM on PC's, and his revalations about RAMBUST's JEDEC shennanigans shouldn't be surprised... Except by the rationality and competence of this judge and jury.
Too bad this court didn't have the DeCSS case....
Re:Does anyone bother reading the articles any mor
on
Magnet Patent Suits
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· Score: 3
"It is truly amazing (and sad) how Americans simply cannot seem to see the anti-China propaganda for what it is. "
Really? Then I guess those thousands of students protesting in favor of DEMOCRACY that were shown being rolled over by ChiCom tanks in 1989 deserved what they were getting, huh? Masterful fake camera work by all those American news media companies, NBC, CBS, CNN, ABC, who were SO always biased towards President George H.W. Bush they created that fakery so as to promote his "Anti Chinese Propoganda".
I guess it's a Big Lie that Mao caused the death of millions in the "Great Leap Forward", right?
I suppose it's also a Big Lie that China forces millions of women to have FORCED abortions, against their will. I suppose it's another Big Lie that China arrests and imprisons people who dare ever speak out against their tyrannical, autocratic, anti-freedom MURDEROUS government?
And, of course, China would NEVER opress people because of their religion. Why no, those Falun Gong who are being murdered by the hundreds deserved what they got.
I'm sorry, but The US Patent Office ought to out of hand thow out a patent held by a FOREIGN government hostile to American Citizens. No business of ANY substance or size is totally privately owned in China, one of the most opressive anti-property, anti-freedom governments. China already has comitted an act of WAR against this country by attacking and forcing down a military aircraft flying well outside their borders, then holding the crew hostage.
"Of course there are idiots w/o degrees and geniuses with several, but there is no good correlation (ie. degree=intelligent) that I have noticed in my admittedly short time on earth. Just a lot of idiots that think they know something because they have a degree"
It's much the same thing with all these "paper" MCSE's out there... All a degree or a certification proves is that you can regurgitate the material that the professors/tests wanted when they wanted it.
There is only ONE accurate measure of ability: EXPERIENCE.
I've not had enough exposure to SCO yet for this (only been using it for 4 months)... I'm somewhat hampered by the fact that I'm so familliar with Linux, that the fact that SCO is very similar, yet different sometimes is a barrier.
I know how to compile/install in Linux, never fear.
Really! Both of my BBS's were listed on there... Even though one only lasted a little over a year, and the other only a few months.
Back in 1993-4, before my area got Internet, BBS's WERE the net... I set up on FidoNet, allowed access to hundreds of Echos (the precursor to Usenet) and even had a way for users to send Internet E-mail (via the FidoNet-Internet gateway)... basically you could do much of what you can on the Internet today, it was just much slower.
There definately are some that are missing, looks like they used old FidoNet nodelists to get their information.
My old address was 1:2260/140:) haven't typed that number in years.
I don't know how to do this... I'm not a programmer, I'm a sysadmin. Never thought of trying though, I'm sure you could compile the source somehow. BASH is SO much more user friendly than the SCO sh... I suppose with Caldera now owning both OpenServer and Unixware that some of Linux's improvements to Unix user friendliness will make it back into "classic" Unix.
BASH is by far the most user friendly command line I've ever used, and I was one of the LAST DOS holdouts (dragged kicking and screaming to `Doze with Win 95)
One reason why I love *NIX is because it is pretty much what I wanted DOS to be... 32-bit, multiuser, multitasking command line based OS.
I test servers and RAID cards for Linux compatibility (and other OS's) for one of the most Linux of the major computer industry players.
"Who cares if it is UNIX, BSD, POSIX, whatever. They are just labels"
Exactly... Given that I work with SCO OpenServer and Unixware at work all the time, along with 4 different Linuxes, IMO, Linux is by *FAR* the best implimentation of *NIX in terms of user friendlieness. Who cares if Linux is "official" Unix? All the shell commands I commonly use in Linux's BASH shell is very similar, if not identical to SCO... And I'm all the time wishing that SCO's shell was as user firendly as BASH.
I've not had the chance to play with OSX (have never owned an Apple system), so I can't say as to whether OSX is superior in user friendlieness than Mandrake/KDE 2.1, my chosen desktop OS (I use Red Hat for my server). I'm considering buying a used Mac so as to be able to run OSX, or Linux PPC though.
"The subscription model lowers the cost of entry, which would in theory increase the number of customers. Office, however, has virtually no competition, so it likely would make them less money, especially in the short term"
I think you make the point right there.
Simply put, the market for Office is pretty much saturated as it is. A subscription/rental model HAS to have a lower entry cost than did outright purchase, or else no one in their right mind would buy it. If the rental for Office XP for a year is greater than the cost of buying Office 2000, everyone will give M$ the finger.
With Office already having an installed base in the tens of million, there is no profit to be gained up front in going to such a model. In fact, it almost HAS to be run as a loss leader for a year or two just to get it going. Which will be very bad for M$'s bottom line, as they have not been doing quite so well the past couple of years as it is. With Office, not Windows, making up the majority of M$'s revenue, this is a hit they cannot afford to make.
In the long term, a rental/subscription model will make much more money, as it would amount to a perpetual "Microsoft Tax" on 90+% of the computer using population. But it's no longer 1995.... Microsoft is still a monopoly, true, but for the first time since DOS, they have a competitor (Linux). Linux's growth rate is outpacing Microsoft on desktops and, more importantly, servers (where.NET will be controlled). ONE misstep, and Microsoft could find Linux with 10% or more of the desktop market, and StarOffice/OpenOffice being rolled out en masse on corporate desktops. To be honest, I believe that this process will continue. It's inevitable that Linux, because of the fact it's the only true cross-platform, scalable mainstream OS on the market, will eventually gain a greater number of desktop users than Apple.
This is why Microsoft HAD no choice but to involve Linux in.NET. The whole point of.NET is to fundamentally change the PC marketplace from individual machines in local lans connected to the internet to a client/server model with.NET as the server. This is their only hope to somehow gain some control of the inernet standards, and the server end, which up to now they have completely failed to do outside the client end. It's much harder to dictate to the server from the client end, but much easier vice versa. Microsoft HAS to somehow stop Linux/BSD from dominating the server space, or at least, manipulate them in their favor, so as to not eventually lose the client side, or at the very least, see 10-20% of the client market go to Linux. If that happens, it's all over for them, as the market will be FAR too large for M$ to stay out of.
Why? If Linux were to gain 10-20% of the mega billion dollar dollar PC market, it would be large enough itself to sustain Microsoft competitors. Worse, these competitors would be free of M$ interference and OS "features" that break their code, etc. M$ would be forced into the Linux software market. And that will be the END of Microsoft. If M$ makes Office/IE/etc for Linux, an operating system that they CANNOT embrace and extend, or gain proprietary control of (the GPL prevents this), it's all over. M$ ceases to be a monster, and merely becomes another application company.
This is why M$ is going to try to break the GPL. I fully expect some kind of anti-GPL "DMCA" esque law to be handed over to our wonderful, corruptable congressmonsters soon, if it's not already happened. What will make this interesting is that to break the GPL requires also breaking copyright. How they will manage to do it while maintaining the draconian IP control of the DMCA is beyond my ability to guess.
"No case. They legitimately believed they had IP rights, the companies that signed on agreed. There was no deception. The case would be thrown out."
I rather doubt that... Apparently enough evidence of fraud on the part of RAMBust has already been presented to the judge in this case to invoke the RICO law discovery process.
Already, Infineon has released very DAMMING evidence that RAMBust intentionally set out to manipulate and defraud JEDEC (by breaching their contract by not revealing their pending patents, and influencing the group to adopt enough of this IP so as to ensure that the RAMBust patent would cover the JEDEC SDRAM.
Not only that, but after leaving JEDEC, RAMBust used information from a secret inside source ("secret squirrel") to further modify their SDRAM patent.
Given all this, it will be VERY difficult for RAMBust to plead ignorance.
Contracts obtained in violation of the law and in a fradulent manner are tossed out all the time. In fact, obtaining a contract for something in a fradulent way is itself a crime! This is no different than going around to companies, and telling them "we own the patent on mice, pay up or we sue" when they own no such thing.
In other words, IANAL, RAMBust's contracts can only be legal if their claims to own JEDEC SDRAM/DDR SDRAM are true (as this was the basis they forced Samsung, et all, into the contracts)
Already, this judge has tossed out claims that Infineon infringed on RAMBust patents by producing JEDEC SDRAM/DDR SDRAM. That gives anyone with a contract the basis to sue RAMBust, for licensing to them something they dont' own, and/or comitting fraud against them.
I suspect that it will happen. There will either be a bunch of individual lawsuits, or else an industry class action suit against RAMBust, probably by the time they can get their appeal heard.
Why you may ask? Isn't that expensive? Yes it is. But, remember, not even ONE of these companies paying RAMBust royalties on SDRAM/DDR SDRAM did it out of love, they did it by FORCE. No one likes RAMBust, and the rest of the memory industry most definately wants to see them die.
Forcing RAMBust to defend their contracts in court will not only cost RAMBust money they then can't spend in more offensive lawsuits, but it will begin to close off their money supply step by step, until they are bankrupt.
"Beyond that, the continuing trial in Richmond will draw even greater interest as the jury will decide whether Rambus engaged in alleged restraint of trade and fraud by keeping its synchronous patent applications hidden while a member of the industry JEDEC panel drafting an open SDRAM standard.
Infineon this week started calling witnesses to testify on Rambus conduct at JEDEC. Attorneys for the German firm have also disclosed handwritten notes by Rambus patent attorneys describing what was alleged to be urgent pleas from Rambus officials to amend the applications in 1998 and 1999 to cover JEDEC features. "
In other words, IT AINT OVER YET!!!!
The patents may still be ruled invalid (looking likely) and some RAMBust exec might see the inside of a "Federal pound me in the ass prison" as well he/she/it deserves for their conduct...
"No, but you might hear:
"Rambus Loses, Declares Bankruptcy"
That is inevitable at this point, and in fact, always was (the producers in the memory industry would have eventually come up with a non-RAMBust IP standard that would freeze them out).
What is most likely is that one of the "Dramuri" (Register term) will end up buying RAMBust.
"I would think this will happen more or less automatically, if the other manufacturers are paying a $2 per 128 MB chip royalty for DDR (as mentioned in the article) and some other relatively high royalty for normal SDRAM."
Which is why it's in the best interest of every memory manufacturer who is not Micron or Infineon to IMMEDIATELY sue RAMBust for fraud.
Not to mention that when such a suit is initiated, they might be able to get a judge to put an injunction preventing RAMBust from collecting royalties... This would cut off their air supply. After all, lawyers only work when fed, unless you are someone with a compelling case, and you happen to run into a Clarence Darrow (I wonder if he exists today). RAMBust does NOT have a compelling case that would motivate ANY lawyer to work for them pro-bono:)
RAMBust will not survive the whole industry suing them.
"IANAL, but I imagine that there will still be some legal wrangling that Samsung and the others will have to go through to get out of those deals (maybe make a case that they were based on invalid patents???). But that process can't even begin until the case has been appealed and re-appealed and finally settled."
The tossing of the case against Infineon, and the evidence introduced by them and Micron concering RAMBust's JEDEC shennanigans wouuld suggest that Samsung et all could sue RAMBust for getting these contracts on a fradulent basis.
If Infineon didn't violate RAMBust IP/patents, then neither did anyone else.
"The patents haven't been invalidated (yet). The judge merely declared that Infineon didn't violate them."
If Infineon didn't violate them by producing SDRAM/DDR SDRAM, then none of those licensing RAMBust's (allegedly) fradulently obtained patents would be violating them either by producing SDRAM/DDR SDRAM without paying royalties.
"innovate... that word is tossed around so much today that i'm not sure that anyone really remembers what it means. it's become a buzzword like synergy or crap like that."
Like this?
RAMBUS: Our stolen IP didn't stand? We lost our right to su.. uhh... INNOVATE!
INFINEON: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
(a slightly modified famous and very funny line from "The Princess Bride")
"If you thought there wasn't anything worse than a business built on the dot-com hype, think again -- this is gambling that'll put vegas to shame"
Maybe not, on the surface... IF RDRAM had been a superior product (which it wasn't), if RAMBust hadn't resorted to suing all their customers, and IF RAMBust hadn't acquired the SDRAM and DDR SDRAM patents in such a dodgy manner (by allegedly defrauding the JEDEC group), it might have worked.
We can hope this teaches future IT startups a lesson... You can't make it in the industry with an inferior product, lawyers, and (allegedly) fradulently gained IP. RAMBust should have gone back to the drawing board and designed a product that would actually benefit the PC market they wanted to get into instead of resorting to bully tactics.
I don't know which was dumber... RAMBust suing all their customers, or RAMBust suing all their customers over IP that they KNEW they had obtained illegitimatly...
Even should RAMBust's claims to patents on SDRAM and DDR SDRAM (less likely given this case), at BEST their royalty gravy train would have not lasted any more than 3-5 years MAX.
The rest of the industry would have formed a JEDEC-esque group and engineered an open standard for memory beyond DDR/RAMBUS, and RAMBust wouldn't have been invited... You don't make it in an industry by pissing on all your friends.
"This ruling should open the door for all the companies paying Rambus royalties to cease all payments. Between that and the (begin sarcasm) massive income generated by RDRAM, (end sarcasm) Rambus should run out of LawyerCash pretty soon."
You would think so;) At the very least, now it would seem that the companies currently paying royalties to RAMBust Ink, the possibly felonious IP lawfirm, would now actively help Infineon/Micron/JEDEC with the inevitable suit to get the SDRAM/DDR SDRAM patents invalidated.
If the royalties from SDRAM and DDR SDRAM stop coming in, RAMBust's money supply will dry up quickly. There probably are not enough sales of RAMBUS to sustin the litigious leech of a company's production (lawsuits) at their 2001 levels for long:)
So will I! I'm about ot upgrade to one of the new 1.33 Athlons, with DDR... I will not use anything but Infineon or Micron DDR.
This case is far from over, and it might have been better had it gone to trial, but the fact that all of RAMBust's claims of DDR/SDRAM infringement on their patents is definately NOT a good thing for them.
The judge wouldn't have tossed the case unless convinced that RAMBust's shennanigans with JEDEC would invalidate their patents, as they apply to JEDEC SDRAM and DDR SDRAM.
It can be said that this case wasn't the right forum to argue the invalidity of RAMBust's patents, and their possible criminal conduct. That will require a new suit, brought by the JEDEC group against them. The judge simply ruled based on the evidence that RAMBust's case against Infineon had no merit, and did what he was supposed to do, toss it.
Note that this judge did his duty, and made his ruling based on the law, and the evidence, rather than reading the "text" of the RAMBust patents and applying them (or at least the parts most favorable to RAMBust's claims) as gospel as did the irresponsible "judge" Kaplan of DeCSS notoriety.
How then can a university be exempt from labor laws, and claim ownership of any potentially valueble code written by a student without paying for it?
In private enterprise, your employer owns your code because it's a WORK FOR HIRE, they are paying you. You pay to go to a college. And how is it that a college can allow a professor to use college PC's, recourses, etc, to write papers, books, et all and not claim ownership of THAT IP?
The answer, of course, is that any college that treated faculty like that would find themselves without their most talented faculty members. Thye can get away with doing this to students because students can't afford to fight them. Same reasoning behind the MPAA/RIAA jack boots harassing college students trading MP3's...
"My university claims ownership of anything I write while attending, so I make sure they can't profit off my hard work without granting others' freedom."
How can they legally do that? Are you on scholarship? Do you PAY them to attend? Does this university "claim" ownership of books and papers the professors are constantly writing and having published? (usually leaving graduate students to actually do their "inconvienient" teaching duties? Professors also use the school's facilities/computers to do these papers/books) Do they also claim "ownership" of anything you write on your own machine?
I have a real problem with most of academia these days. I find it ironic that the Jesuit teaching philosophy at my Catholic High School was FAR more open, particulary in the way they teach you how to THINK for yourself, than any college I attended.
College educations these days are becoming steadily less and less valueable in the real world simply BECAUSE academia refuses to allow the real world in. Colleges are the LEAST likely place these days where you will find freedom of speech or any academic freedom.
If they claim to own all your works irregardless of where and how you create it, but not all works of their professors, I'd think that their blanket claim to own ANYTHING you write isn't worth the paper it's printed on.
But then again, we have a totally fucked up court system that has little to do with justice and more with awarding judgment to those with the deepest pockets.
The point being, if the university's claim to own all your code is valid, then you cannot license it under the GPL without their permission. Otherwise, you could simply release under the BSD license, then download your own source code and, whammo, you own it again, and could then license it as modified under the GPL with you as the owner.
How can free software be made illegal? The GNU GPL uses copyright law, and software licenced under it IS copyrighted every bit as much as Windows.
The difference is, GPL'ed software grants you rights (such as the source, the right to modify and redistribute) that you otherwise wouldn't have under copyright law. To get those rights you have to agree to distribute source and allow the next guy the same rights you had.
The power to distrubute and/or license YOUR authored software in a manner YOU choose is derived from copyright law. I just don't see HOW this can be made illegal without seriously destroying large chunks of our Constitutional civil liberties (including copyright). I don't see even the "unreality tv" stupified masses sitting still if the corpers attempt this one.
If the corporations suceed in taking that much liberty from us then we have more to worry about than software. We'll most likely be doing things like taking up arms against an illegal and opressive government.
Slashdot Mirror
"The ultimate loss may be the reduction of damages to 350K. This sum is likely too low to keep other companies from filing frivolous and possibly fraudulent patents and then conducting frivolous court action to protect the questionable patents. "
Could be, but there are still potential CRIMINAL charges that could come from this.
However, this will have a far worse effect on RAMBUST... Now every company paying them royalties for SDRAM/DDR now has cause to STOP doing it..
RAMBUST has been found GUILTY of fraud!
Without license fees, the RAMBUST legal machine will collapse.
"t's worth noting that what Rambus got slammed for was lying to the JEDEC committee about whether it planned to patent the technologies it was proposing for the standard. Unfortunately, this does not touch on their right to sue everyone who ever manufactured a RAM chip for patent infringement."
Au Contraire!
This has a CHILLING effect on any future RAMBUST Goon tactics. This is a damming precedent. RAMBUS can now be called "that fradulent IP company".
It doesn't stop them from FILING lawsuits, only because ANYONE can sue ANYONE for ANYTHING at ANYTIME in our wonderful (fucked up) US "justice" system.
However, this case is precedent and "case law" that will erect a VERY high wall that RAMBUS will have to pole vault to get their cases heard and decided in their favor.
This judge/jury must have been REALLY horrified by what RAMBUST was up to...
"One that I can think of, and I'm sure some will disagree, is Linux. Not just the kernel, but the kernel and all packages available for it and the whole way they came to be. Worldwide development over the internet of a free OS? With souce code available? No central company behind it? Nothing but a bunch of uber-geeks working on it in the spare time because they believe it? Must be something of a precedent. "
If Linus had been Rambus or Microsoft, he'd have tightly copyrighted and patented his kernel...
And Linux would have nowhere near the users it has today...
The more jealously garded IP is, the less useful it is.
"I think this can be safely classified as a completely unexpected result. Careful, patent litigators. The sword you hold isn't just double-edged -- it's got no fuckin' handle either!"
:) Burn baby burn!
"A Blaster is a fine weapon, but the barrel points both ways" -Salvor Hardin (from Issac Asimov's "Foundation", my all time favorite Sci-fi work).
FINALLY, a plantiff bringing a groundless suit gets the shaft! It should be that way. Whenever a plantiff brings a suit so laughable it's dismissed, they SHOULD have to pay out the ass.
Wonder how low RMBS will be tomorow
Anyone who has followed this story since Tom's Hardware (tomshardware.com) first revealed RAMBUST to be inferior to PC133 SDRAM on PC's, and his revalations about RAMBUST's JEDEC shennanigans shouldn't be surprised... Except by the rationality and competence of this judge and jury.
Too bad this court didn't have the DeCSS case....
"It is truly amazing (and sad) how Americans simply cannot seem to see the anti-China propaganda for what it is. "
Really? Then I guess those thousands of students protesting in favor of DEMOCRACY that were shown being rolled over by ChiCom tanks in 1989 deserved what they were getting, huh? Masterful fake camera work by all those American news media companies, NBC, CBS, CNN, ABC, who were SO always biased towards President George H.W. Bush they created that fakery so as to promote his "Anti Chinese Propoganda".
I guess it's a Big Lie that Mao caused the death of millions in the "Great Leap Forward", right?
I suppose it's also a Big Lie that China forces millions of women to have FORCED abortions, against their will. I suppose it's another Big Lie that China arrests and imprisons people who dare ever speak out against their tyrannical, autocratic, anti-freedom MURDEROUS government?
And, of course, China would NEVER opress people because of their religion. Why no, those Falun Gong who are being murdered by the hundreds deserved what they got.
I'm sorry, but The US Patent Office ought to out of hand thow out a patent held by a FOREIGN government hostile to American Citizens. No business of ANY substance or size is totally privately owned in China, one of the most opressive anti-property, anti-freedom governments. China already has comitted an act of WAR against this country by attacking and forcing down a military aircraft flying well outside their borders, then holding the crew hostage.
"Of course there are idiots w/o degrees and geniuses with several, but there is no good correlation (ie. degree=intelligent) that I have noticed in my admittedly short time on earth. Just a lot of idiots that think they know something because they have a degree"
It's much the same thing with all these "paper" MCSE's out there... All a degree or a certification proves is that you can regurgitate the material that the professors/tests wanted when they wanted it.
There is only ONE accurate measure of ability: EXPERIENCE.
I've not had enough exposure to SCO yet for this (only been using it for 4 months)... I'm somewhat hampered by the fact that I'm so familliar with Linux, that the fact that SCO is very similar, yet different sometimes is a barrier.
I know how to compile/install in Linux, never fear.
Really! Both of my BBS's were listed on there... Even though one only lasted a little over a year, and the other only a few months.
:) haven't typed that number in years.
Back in 1993-4, before my area got Internet, BBS's WERE the net... I set up on FidoNet, allowed access to hundreds of Echos (the precursor to Usenet) and even had a way for users to send Internet E-mail (via the FidoNet-Internet gateway)... basically you could do much of what you can on the Internet today, it was just much slower.
There definately are some that are missing, looks like they used old FidoNet nodelists to get their information.
My old address was 1:2260/140
I don't know how to do this... I'm not a programmer, I'm a sysadmin. Never thought of trying though, I'm sure you could compile the source somehow. BASH is SO much more user friendly than the SCO sh... I suppose with Caldera now owning both OpenServer and Unixware that some of Linux's improvements to Unix user friendliness will make it back into "classic" Unix.
BASH is by far the most user friendly command line I've ever used, and I was one of the LAST DOS holdouts (dragged kicking and screaming to `Doze with Win 95)
One reason why I love *NIX is because it is pretty much what I wanted DOS to be... 32-bit, multiuser, multitasking command line based OS.
I test servers and RAID cards for Linux compatibility (and other OS's) for one of the most Linux of the major computer industry players.
"Who cares if it is UNIX, BSD, POSIX, whatever. They are just labels"
Exactly... Given that I work with SCO OpenServer and Unixware at work all the time, along with 4 different Linuxes, IMO, Linux is by *FAR* the best implimentation of *NIX in terms of user friendlieness. Who cares if Linux is "official" Unix? All the shell commands I commonly use in Linux's BASH shell is very similar, if not identical to SCO... And I'm all the time wishing that SCO's shell was as user firendly as BASH.
I've not had the chance to play with OSX (have never owned an Apple system), so I can't say as to whether OSX is superior in user friendlieness than Mandrake/KDE 2.1, my chosen desktop OS (I use Red Hat for my server). I'm considering buying a used Mac so as to be able to run OSX, or Linux PPC though.
"The subscription model lowers the cost of entry, which would in theory increase the number of customers. Office, however, has virtually no competition, so it likely would make them less money, especially in the short term"
.NET will be controlled). ONE misstep, and Microsoft could find Linux with 10% or more of the desktop market, and StarOffice/OpenOffice being rolled out en masse on corporate desktops. To be honest, I believe that this process will continue. It's inevitable that Linux, because of the fact it's the only true cross-platform, scalable mainstream OS on the market, will eventually gain a greater number of desktop users than Apple.
.NET. The whole point of .NET is to fundamentally change the PC marketplace from individual machines in local lans connected to the internet to a client/server model with .NET as the server. This is their only hope to somehow gain some control of the inernet standards, and the server end, which up to now they have completely failed to do outside the client end. It's much harder to dictate to the server from the client end, but much easier vice versa. Microsoft HAS to somehow stop Linux/BSD from dominating the server space, or at least, manipulate them in their favor, so as to not eventually lose the client side, or at the very least, see 10-20% of the client market go to Linux. If that happens, it's all over for them, as the market will be FAR too large for M$ to stay out of.
I think you make the point right there.
Simply put, the market for Office is pretty much saturated as it is. A subscription/rental model HAS to have a lower entry cost than did outright purchase, or else no one in their right mind would buy it. If the rental for Office XP for a year is greater than the cost of buying Office 2000, everyone will give M$ the finger.
With Office already having an installed base in the tens of million, there is no profit to be gained up front in going to such a model. In fact, it almost HAS to be run as a loss leader for a year or two just to get it going. Which will be very bad for M$'s bottom line, as they have not been doing quite so well the past couple of years as it is. With Office, not Windows, making up the majority of M$'s revenue, this is a hit they cannot afford to make.
In the long term, a rental/subscription model will make much more money, as it would amount to a perpetual "Microsoft Tax" on 90+% of the computer using population. But it's no longer 1995.... Microsoft is still a monopoly, true, but for the first time since DOS, they have a competitor (Linux). Linux's growth rate is outpacing Microsoft on desktops and, more importantly, servers (where
This is why Microsoft HAD no choice but to involve Linux in
Why? If Linux were to gain 10-20% of the mega billion dollar dollar PC market, it would be large enough itself to sustain Microsoft competitors. Worse, these competitors would be free of M$ interference and OS "features" that break their code, etc. M$ would be forced into the Linux software market. And that will be the END of Microsoft. If M$ makes Office/IE/etc for Linux, an operating system that they CANNOT embrace and extend, or gain proprietary control of (the GPL prevents this), it's all over. M$ ceases to be a monster, and merely becomes another application company.
This is why M$ is going to try to break the GPL. I fully expect some kind of anti-GPL "DMCA" esque law to be handed over to our wonderful, corruptable congressmonsters soon, if it's not already happened. What will make this interesting is that to break the GPL requires also breaking copyright. How they will manage to do it while maintaining the draconian IP control of the DMCA is beyond my ability to guess.
How is my abovepost flamebait? Did the moderator actually READ it?
"No case. They legitimately believed they had IP rights, the companies that signed on agreed. There was no deception. The case would be thrown out."
I rather doubt that... Apparently enough evidence of fraud on the part of RAMBust has already been presented to the judge in this case to invoke the RICO law discovery process.
Already, Infineon has released very DAMMING evidence that RAMBust intentionally set out to manipulate and defraud JEDEC (by breaching their contract by not revealing their pending patents, and influencing the group to adopt enough of this IP so as to ensure that the RAMBust patent would cover the JEDEC SDRAM.
Not only that, but after leaving JEDEC, RAMBust used information from a secret inside source ("secret squirrel") to further modify their SDRAM patent.
Given all this, it will be VERY difficult for RAMBust to plead ignorance.
Contracts obtained in violation of the law and in a fradulent manner are tossed out all the time. In fact, obtaining a contract for something in a fradulent way is itself a crime! This is no different than going around to companies, and telling them "we own the patent on mice, pay up or we sue" when they own no such thing.
In other words, IANAL, RAMBust's contracts can only be legal if their claims to own JEDEC SDRAM/DDR SDRAM are true (as this was the basis they forced Samsung, et all, into the contracts)
Already, this judge has tossed out claims that Infineon infringed on RAMBust patents by producing JEDEC SDRAM/DDR SDRAM. That gives anyone with a contract the basis to sue RAMBust, for licensing to them something they dont' own, and/or comitting fraud against them.
I suspect that it will happen. There will either be a bunch of individual lawsuits, or else an industry class action suit against RAMBust, probably by the time they can get their appeal heard.
Why you may ask? Isn't that expensive? Yes it is. But, remember, not even ONE of these companies paying RAMBust royalties on SDRAM/DDR SDRAM did it out of love, they did it by FORCE. No one likes RAMBust, and the rest of the memory industry most definately wants to see them die.
Forcing RAMBust to defend their contracts in court will not only cost RAMBust money they then can't spend in more offensive lawsuits, but it will begin to close off their money supply step by step, until they are bankrupt.
From http://www.ebnews.com/story/OEG20010504S0059
"Beyond that, the continuing trial in Richmond will draw even greater interest as the jury will decide whether Rambus engaged in alleged restraint of trade and fraud by keeping its synchronous patent applications hidden while a member of the industry JEDEC panel drafting an open SDRAM standard.
Infineon this week started calling witnesses to testify on Rambus conduct at JEDEC. Attorneys for the German firm have also disclosed handwritten notes by Rambus patent attorneys describing what was alleged to be urgent pleas from Rambus officials to amend the applications in 1998 and 1999 to cover JEDEC features. "
In other words, IT AINT OVER YET!!!!
The patents may still be ruled invalid (looking likely) and some RAMBust exec might see the inside of a "Federal pound me in the ass prison" as well he/she/it deserves for their conduct...
"No, but you might hear:
"Rambus Loses, Declares Bankruptcy"
That is inevitable at this point, and in fact, always was (the producers in the memory industry would have eventually come up with a non-RAMBust IP standard that would freeze them out).
What is most likely is that one of the "Dramuri" (Register term) will end up buying RAMBust.
"I would think this will happen more or less automatically, if the other manufacturers are paying a $2 per 128 MB chip royalty for DDR (as mentioned in the article) and some other relatively high royalty for normal SDRAM."
:)
Which is why it's in the best interest of every memory manufacturer who is not Micron or Infineon to IMMEDIATELY sue RAMBust for fraud.
Not to mention that when such a suit is initiated, they might be able to get a judge to put an injunction preventing RAMBust from collecting royalties... This would cut off their air supply. After all, lawyers only work when fed, unless you are someone with a compelling case, and you happen to run into a Clarence Darrow (I wonder if he exists today). RAMBust does NOT have a compelling case that would motivate ANY lawyer to work for them pro-bono
RAMBust will not survive the whole industry suing them.
"IANAL, but I imagine that there will still be some legal wrangling that Samsung and the others will have to go through to get out of those deals (maybe make a case that they were based on invalid patents???). But that process can't even begin until the case has been appealed and re-appealed and finally settled."
The tossing of the case against Infineon, and the evidence introduced by them and Micron concering RAMBust's JEDEC shennanigans wouuld suggest that Samsung et all could sue RAMBust for getting these contracts on a fradulent basis.
If Infineon didn't violate RAMBust IP/patents, then neither did anyone else.
"The patents haven't been invalidated (yet). The judge merely declared that Infineon didn't violate them."
If Infineon didn't violate them by producing SDRAM/DDR SDRAM, then none of those licensing RAMBust's (allegedly) fradulently obtained patents would be violating them either by producing SDRAM/DDR SDRAM without paying royalties.
"innovate... that word is tossed around so much today that i'm not sure that anyone really remembers what it means. it's become a buzzword like synergy or crap like that."
Like this?
RAMBUS: Our stolen IP didn't stand? We lost our right to su.. uhh... INNOVATE!
INFINEON: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
(a slightly modified famous and very funny line from "The Princess Bride")
"If you thought there wasn't anything worse than a business built on the dot-com hype, think again -- this is gambling that'll put vegas to shame"
Maybe not, on the surface... IF RDRAM had been a superior product (which it wasn't), if RAMBust hadn't resorted to suing all their customers, and IF RAMBust hadn't acquired the SDRAM and DDR SDRAM patents in such a dodgy manner (by allegedly defrauding the JEDEC group), it might have worked.
We can hope this teaches future IT startups a lesson... You can't make it in the industry with an inferior product, lawyers, and (allegedly) fradulently gained IP. RAMBust should have gone back to the drawing board and designed a product that would actually benefit the PC market they wanted to get into instead of resorting to bully tactics.
I don't know which was dumber... RAMBust suing all their customers, or RAMBust suing all their customers over IP that they KNEW they had obtained illegitimatly...
Even should RAMBust's claims to patents on SDRAM and DDR SDRAM (less likely given this case), at BEST their royalty gravy train would have not lasted any more than 3-5 years MAX.
The rest of the industry would have formed a JEDEC-esque group and engineered an open standard for memory beyond DDR/RAMBUS, and RAMBust wouldn't have been invited... You don't make it in an industry by pissing on all your friends.
"This ruling should open the door for all the companies paying Rambus royalties to cease all payments. Between that and the (begin sarcasm) massive income generated by RDRAM, (end sarcasm) Rambus should run out of LawyerCash pretty soon."
;) At the very least, now it would seem that the companies currently paying royalties to RAMBust Ink, the possibly felonious IP lawfirm, would now actively help Infineon/Micron/JEDEC with the inevitable suit to get the SDRAM/DDR SDRAM patents invalidated.
:)
You would think so
If the royalties from SDRAM and DDR SDRAM stop coming in, RAMBust's money supply will dry up quickly. There probably are not enough sales of RAMBUS to sustin the litigious leech of a company's production (lawsuits) at their 2001 levels for long
So will I! I'm about ot upgrade to one of the new 1.33 Athlons, with DDR... I will not use anything but Infineon or Micron DDR.
This case is far from over, and it might have been better had it gone to trial, but the fact that all of RAMBust's claims of DDR/SDRAM infringement on their patents is definately NOT a good thing for them.
The judge wouldn't have tossed the case unless convinced that RAMBust's shennanigans with JEDEC would invalidate their patents, as they apply to JEDEC SDRAM and DDR SDRAM.
It can be said that this case wasn't the right forum to argue the invalidity of RAMBust's patents, and their possible criminal conduct. That will require a new suit, brought by the JEDEC group against them. The judge simply ruled based on the evidence that RAMBust's case against Infineon had no merit, and did what he was supposed to do, toss it.
Note that this judge did his duty, and made his ruling based on the law, and the evidence, rather than reading the "text" of the RAMBust patents and applying them (or at least the parts most favorable to RAMBust's claims) as gospel as did the irresponsible "judge" Kaplan of DeCSS notoriety.
How then can a university be exempt from labor laws, and claim ownership of any potentially valueble code written by a student without paying for it?
In private enterprise, your employer owns your code because it's a WORK FOR HIRE, they are paying you. You pay to go to a college. And how is it that a college can allow a professor to use college PC's, recourses, etc, to write papers, books, et all and not claim ownership of THAT IP?
The answer, of course, is that any college that treated faculty like that would find themselves without their most talented faculty members. Thye can get away with doing this to students because students can't afford to fight them. Same reasoning behind the MPAA/RIAA jack boots harassing college students trading MP3's...
Apparently, in 2001 America, might makes right...
"My university claims ownership of anything I write while attending, so I make sure they can't profit off my hard work without granting others' freedom."
How can they legally do that? Are you on scholarship? Do you PAY them to attend? Does this university "claim" ownership of books and papers the professors are constantly writing and having published? (usually leaving graduate students to actually do their "inconvienient" teaching duties? Professors also use the school's facilities/computers to do these papers/books) Do they also claim "ownership" of anything you write on your own machine?
I have a real problem with most of academia these days. I find it ironic that the Jesuit teaching philosophy at my Catholic High School was FAR more open, particulary in the way they teach you how to THINK for yourself, than any college I attended.
College educations these days are becoming steadily less and less valueable in the real world simply BECAUSE academia refuses to allow the real world in. Colleges are the LEAST likely place these days where you will find freedom of speech or any academic freedom.
If they claim to own all your works irregardless of where and how you create it, but not all works of their professors, I'd think that their blanket claim to own ANYTHING you write isn't worth the paper it's printed on.
But then again, we have a totally fucked up court system that has little to do with justice and more with awarding judgment to those with the deepest pockets.
The point being, if the university's claim to own all your code is valid, then you cannot license it under the GPL without their permission. Otherwise, you could simply release under the BSD license, then download your own source code and, whammo, you own it again, and could then license it as modified under the GPL with you as the owner.
How can free software be made illegal? The GNU GPL uses copyright law, and software licenced under it IS copyrighted every bit as much as Windows.
The difference is, GPL'ed software grants you rights (such as the source, the right to modify and redistribute) that you otherwise wouldn't have under copyright law. To get those rights you have to agree to distribute source and allow the next guy the same rights you had.
The power to distrubute and/or license YOUR authored software in a manner YOU choose is derived from copyright law. I just don't see HOW this can be made illegal without seriously destroying large chunks of our Constitutional civil liberties (including copyright). I don't see even the "unreality tv" stupified masses sitting still if the corpers attempt this one.
If the corporations suceed in taking that much liberty from us then we have more to worry about than software. We'll most likely be doing things like taking up arms against an illegal and opressive government.