What I gleaned from the statistics is that those who are pro-patent don't actually contribute, but have jobs because of patents and the like, thus they are biased leeches. The pie charts in the report show this incredibly well. This, I think, is the real reason we shouldn't trust lawyers, because their buisness is helped by bad laws. Lawyers can offer a very good perspective on the effects of laws, and their validitity legally, but they are also going to be biased, and the ones who are patent lawyers or would submit their opinions are going to want effects of laws that are non-benifical to the creators of the works of intellect. Another thing you have to consider is that if this IS a moral issue, lawyers often have a large background on moral issues, that's why they don't have any. If you've ever known a really good policy debater, you can see an example, where people know alot, and ignore their knowledge because they know so much, they know so much is FUD; every side on any debate exaggerates and makes bigger deals out of things than they really are, and all facts are just one peice used to support a posistion, so facts don't really matter.
I think that, in an ideal world, software should be patented in a way that is beneficial to the community instead of the corporation. If software is patented at all, patenting of software ought to be judge more like hardware is judged, however, given the complex nature of code, this may not be feasible with anything short of opening the source code. The myrid choices in coding methods might make pseudocode or plaintext explanations of code non-implementable. Also, there ought to be a more comphrensive examination of code before it is patented than is currently done in the PTOs with either hardware or software, to avoid the patenting of common coding practice.
Another problem with considering software similar to the way hardware is considered is the time and obselcense factor. 20 years from now, current software is not going to be as useful as a cotton gin. Thus we need to limit time on patents to more practical levels, so we, as a society, can benefit from the patenting of software. Also, given that code changes, in updates and in obsolesence (a patent on software written in FORTRAN, while the current version of the software is in C++) causes additional problems that traditional hardware patents don't. Requiring that a company open its code when its patent ends, or when it goes under, or it stops enforcing the patent, etc, would certianly be useful in this respect, but it still doesn't give a constant shoulder for others to stand on. So the logistics of considering software as hardware for any length of time are a real problem. Also, no closed source company would release their code, for fear of piracy and lost revenue.
Thus, we need a different model for software. Perhaps no patents, which would allow for back-engineering, thus allowing others to acheive the same result; this would also allow an entity to profit from their creation for a time, depending on how novel their program is, thus nothing would be gained from claiming to invent the wheel (besides a laugh of scorn). The other option I see is to Open Source all patents, with GPL like restrictions that prevent someone else patenting their code with an extra bell. Neither of these would be favored by companies. The first is the target of the DMCA, the second is the target of Microsoft FUD. I think that the second ought to be adopted, but if it would be economically viable, I don't know.
There are several major differences between software and hardware(physical mechanisms) that are revelant when it comes to IP. The first one is what software patents contain, as opposed to what hardware patents contain. A hardware patent will give you all the nessecary knowledge to build that peice of hardware. This is the primary reason patents exist in the first place, progressive statesmen instituted the patent system so that machines would be shared for the good of humanity, but those who would invent these processes would be rewarded for this contribution. Patents would encourage inventors to release their inventions, in their entirety, to the general public, without fear of having their ideas stolen.
Software patents do not follow this model. Software patents don't have to tell someone how to build the software, they just have to stake a claim to a process, how it is achieved is unimportant. Thus, if someone writes a code that, going about it comepletely differently, does what a microsoft program does, they are violating the software patent. This is contrary to the purpose of hardware patents.
A good example of this can be found in the area of pharmecutical patents, which is not the most perfect of patent areas, but still a hardware type patent. Prozac, the popular happy drug is a seratonin reuptake inhibitor, and the company that makes it has until just recently had a patent on their drug. But that didn't prevent Zoloft, Paxil and a host of other drugs that also are seratonin reuptake inhibators also come out on the market, acheiving the same results with a different chemical combination, this can't happen with Software patents. Now that Prozac is coming down off of patent, a host of generic prozac-clones are springing up, if some patented software with closed source came down off patent, they wouldn't be immediatly replicated by a host of generics using the same process to acheive the same result, becuase Software patents don't disclose the workings of the software.
There are more issues than just this one, but this is a primary failing of the system.
Restrictive Approach
Members Students, academics, engineers, start-up companies
Liberal Approach
Members
Lawyers, established industry players, government agencies
So those people who are primary to developing software, the engineers, the programmers and the companies that pioneer new software approaches, are all against software patents. In other words, those whose intellectual work will be patented, are against patenting it.
Compared to the primary producers of software, lawyers, lobbyists, bueorocrats and corporate controllers, those who are secondary to the software are in favor of patenting software.
Those who didn't actually make the software want it patented, those who did, don't want it patented. This is a very messed state of affairs when the producers choose to give up these IP protections of what is really their intellectual property, though maybe not in a legal sense, and those who are leeches, who don't actually make it, want these patents. Obviously software patents are not made to help those who do the intellectual work, but the corporate interests. And the sad thing is, the leeches are winning.
Now, I'm not a major fan of Ayn Rand's ubercapitalist ideas, but her assement of the morality of leeches in Atlas Shrugged is pretty accurate, and useful here. The corporations are asking for government welfare to the rich, and that's a bad thing. This isn't the way that value gets added to a system, it's a way those who leech can keep their lower-value systems the standard. No sensible economic or moral philosophy is in favor of this, so why does everyone follow it? The only answer I can think of is greed and stupidity make an excellent team.
So now it's not okay for editors to post links to goatse.cx? That's unfair! It's a fundamental right of every american to be an asshole. If we restrict this right, where will our freedoms be safe?
Notice: Water is a trademark of Marral Chemicals Limited. Please cease and desist your use of the term Water immediatly.
Also, please note that Jesus is a trademark of Tourism Online Marketing.
Freedom and Liberty are apparently trademarked.
One company, YesNIC has registered trademark, food and Life. Government is also registered. I suppose next they'll be confiscating the Declaration of Independence.
Yoda: Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to... SUFFERING.
Crow T Robot: No, this movie leads to suffering.
Joel: Now that's not nice. It's accurate, but it's not nice.
Tom Servo: Wouldn't it be "Suffering, hate leads to."? heh heh heh.
Joel: "It ain't easy being green and wrinkled and 850 years old."
Re:Maybe we haven't dug deep enough into Pi
on
Share The Pi!
·
· Score: 1
If you give a million monkeys a million universes eventually you'll produce all the works of Shakespeare... Erik
"Trumpy, you can do magic things!"
It seems obvious to me that if every string is in Pi an infinite number of times, the normality can be considered proven.:) after all, if they prove it isn't normal, we can just snarf up a larger set of strings from Pi and prove that the distribution is something else.
No, it doesn't. Remember your calculus. The entire idea of calculus is based on the idea that infinities can have shape and value. Let us, in order to illustrate, pretend that the string "42" occurs twice as much in an infinite number as the string "00". So let's do the math on the ratio of "42" to "00".
Let f(x) indicate the occurance of the string x.
f("42")/f("00")=lim (n->infinity) 2n/n
n/n = 1, thus the n in the right expression cancel out. lim(n->infinity) is now useless, with no n. We are left with:
f("42")/f("00")=2
So you see, normality is not guarenteed by pi's infinite nature.
I remember in middle school I was participating in a geography bee. The night before, I stayed up late playing the WW 1979 scenario for Civ II (it was in the first scenario pack that came out). I won the geography bee that day thanks to my Civ II gaming, getting two of my answers directly from Civ II.
Slashdot Mirror
Pets.com released their new line of doggy chow
The Anabaptist church issued a new statement of faith
The new Atari gaming console will feature support for DivX discs.
What I gleaned from the statistics is that those who are pro-patent don't actually contribute, but have jobs because of patents and the like, thus they are biased leeches. The pie charts in the report show this incredibly well. This, I think, is the real reason we shouldn't trust lawyers, because their buisness is helped by bad laws. Lawyers can offer a very good perspective on the effects of laws, and their validitity legally, but they are also going to be biased, and the ones who are patent lawyers or would submit their opinions are going to want effects of laws that are non-benifical to the creators of the works of intellect. Another thing you have to consider is that if this IS a moral issue, lawyers often have a large background on moral issues, that's why they don't have any. If you've ever known a really good policy debater, you can see an example, where people know alot, and ignore their knowledge because they know so much, they know so much is FUD; every side on any debate exaggerates and makes bigger deals out of things than they really are, and all facts are just one peice used to support a posistion, so facts don't really matter.
I think that, in an ideal world, software should be patented in a way that is beneficial to the community instead of the corporation. If software is patented at all, patenting of software ought to be judge more like hardware is judged, however, given the complex nature of code, this may not be feasible with anything short of opening the source code. The myrid choices in coding methods might make pseudocode or plaintext explanations of code non-implementable. Also, there ought to be a more comphrensive examination of code before it is patented than is currently done in the PTOs with either hardware or software, to avoid the patenting of common coding practice.
Another problem with considering software similar to the way hardware is considered is the time and obselcense factor. 20 years from now, current software is not going to be as useful as a cotton gin. Thus we need to limit time on patents to more practical levels, so we, as a society, can benefit from the patenting of software. Also, given that code changes, in updates and in obsolesence (a patent on software written in FORTRAN, while the current version of the software is in C++) causes additional problems that traditional hardware patents don't. Requiring that a company open its code when its patent ends, or when it goes under, or it stops enforcing the patent, etc, would certianly be useful in this respect, but it still doesn't give a constant shoulder for others to stand on. So the logistics of considering software as hardware for any length of time are a real problem. Also, no closed source company would release their code, for fear of piracy and lost revenue.
Thus, we need a different model for software. Perhaps no patents, which would allow for back-engineering, thus allowing others to acheive the same result; this would also allow an entity to profit from their creation for a time, depending on how novel their program is, thus nothing would be gained from claiming to invent the wheel (besides a laugh of scorn). The other option I see is to Open Source all patents, with GPL like restrictions that prevent someone else patenting their code with an extra bell. Neither of these would be favored by companies. The first is the target of the DMCA, the second is the target of Microsoft FUD. I think that the second ought to be adopted, but if it would be economically viable, I don't know.
There are several major differences between software and hardware(physical mechanisms) that are revelant when it comes to IP. The first one is what software patents contain, as opposed to what hardware patents contain. A hardware patent will give you all the nessecary knowledge to build that peice of hardware. This is the primary reason patents exist in the first place, progressive statesmen instituted the patent system so that machines would be shared for the good of humanity, but those who would invent these processes would be rewarded for this contribution. Patents would encourage inventors to release their inventions, in their entirety, to the general public, without fear of having their ideas stolen.
Software patents do not follow this model. Software patents don't have to tell someone how to build the software, they just have to stake a claim to a process, how it is achieved is unimportant. Thus, if someone writes a code that, going about it comepletely differently, does what a microsoft program does, they are violating the software patent. This is contrary to the purpose of hardware patents.
A good example of this can be found in the area of pharmecutical patents, which is not the most perfect of patent areas, but still a hardware type patent. Prozac, the popular happy drug is a seratonin reuptake inhibitor, and the company that makes it has until just recently had a patent on their drug. But that didn't prevent Zoloft, Paxil and a host of other drugs that also are seratonin reuptake inhibators also come out on the market, acheiving the same results with a different chemical combination, this can't happen with Software patents. Now that Prozac is coming down off of patent, a host of generic prozac-clones are springing up, if some patented software with closed source came down off patent, they wouldn't be immediatly replicated by a host of generics using the same process to acheive the same result, becuase Software patents don't disclose the workings of the software.
There are more issues than just this one, but this is a primary failing of the system.
So those people who are primary to developing software, the engineers, the programmers and the companies that pioneer new software approaches, are all against software patents. In other words, those whose intellectual work will be patented, are against patenting it.
Compared to the primary producers of software, lawyers, lobbyists, bueorocrats and corporate controllers, those who are secondary to the software are in favor of patenting software.
Those who didn't actually make the software want it patented, those who did, don't want it patented. This is a very messed state of affairs when the producers choose to give up these IP protections of what is really their intellectual property, though maybe not in a legal sense, and those who are leeches, who don't actually make it, want these patents. Obviously software patents are not made to help those who do the intellectual work, but the corporate interests. And the sad thing is, the leeches are winning.
Now, I'm not a major fan of Ayn Rand's ubercapitalist ideas, but her assement of the morality of leeches in Atlas Shrugged is pretty accurate, and useful here. The corporations are asking for government welfare to the rich, and that's a bad thing. This isn't the way that value gets added to a system, it's a way those who leech can keep their lower-value systems the standard. No sensible economic or moral philosophy is in favor of this, so why does everyone follow it? The only answer I can think of is greed and stupidity make an excellent team.
So now it's not okay for editors to post links to goatse.cx? That's unfair! It's a fundamental right of every american to be an asshole. If we restrict this right, where will our freedoms be safe?
Notice: Water is a trademark of Marral Chemicals Limited. Please cease and desist your use of the term Water immediatly.
Also, please note that Jesus is a trademark of Tourism Online Marketing.
Freedom and Liberty are apparently trademarked.
One company, YesNIC has registered trademark, food and Life.
Government is also registered. I suppose next they'll be confiscating the Declaration of Independence.
MST3K Presents: Star Wars: The Clonus Horror
Yoda: Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to... SUFFERING.
Crow T Robot: No, this movie leads to suffering.
Joel: Now that's not nice. It's accurate, but it's not nice.
Tom Servo: Wouldn't it be "Suffering, hate leads to."? heh heh heh.
Joel: "It ain't easy being green and wrinkled and 850 years old."
If you give a million monkeys a million universes eventually you'll produce all the works of Shakespeare...
Erik
"Trumpy, you can do magic things!"
Erik
"Trumpy, you can do magic things!"
No, it doesn't. Remember your calculus. The entire idea of calculus is based on the idea that infinities can have shape and value. Let us, in order to illustrate, pretend that the string "42" occurs twice as much in an infinite number as the string "00". So let's do the math on the ratio of "42" to "00".
Let f(x) indicate the occurance of the string x.
f("42")/f("00")=lim (n->infinity) 2n/n
n/n = 1, thus the n in the right expression cancel out. lim(n->infinity) is now useless, with no n. We are left with:
f("42")/f("00")=2
So you see, normality is not guarenteed by pi's infinite nature.
Erik
"Trumpy, you can do magic things!"
Erik
"Trumpy, you can do magic things!"
I remember in middle school I was participating in a geography bee. The night before, I stayed up late playing the WW 1979 scenario for Civ II (it was in the first scenario pack that came out). I won the geography bee that day thanks to my Civ II gaming, getting two of my answers directly from Civ II.