Progress would not be at a standstill if patents had been in force for all of software development history.
It would be slowed, and for 17 years (or so) each invention would be expensive, but the value would go to the inventor, whereas now it goes to those who use the invention.
The way Bill Gates does, to shovel in money paid for broken software that does just enough to keep people in pr0n and stolen music.
And most basic patents on software (all of Knuth's books, in fact) would be expired.
With a strong history of patents, software development would be the lucrative profession it promised to be, instead of a cattle-call of hackers kludging a line or two each into some half-baked mob-developed crock.
Open source would still be viable. You just get the patents and donate them to the public, the way Dennis Ritchie did with the setuid bit lo these many reboots ago.
Owning intellectual property is a *good* thing. It produces economic flows. Which is something that existed before the first computation and will exist long after computation ceases to be significant.
The journal publishers provide nothing more than a peer-mating service and copyediting.
The question isn't whether that can be done more efficiently in electronic form, because clearly it's a slam-dunk economization.
The question is whether it can be done at a total cost lower than one at which the journal publishers can afford to compete. Their marginal costs are minimal, as their capital and organization are already in place. All they need to do is reduce their profits to non-greedhead levels. If they're forced to eliminate the hardcopy publications, that's probably a minimal net cost, too. The tax benefits of the writedowns would pay for the capital expansion of the new network and server capacity.
I don't know what their margins are now. A few bucks per issue? Half?
While most of us would love to receive Phys Rev Lett A for $3 a month, I don't think it'll happen whether or not it's on the net. The demand just doesn't exceed the supply.
The holder of the copyright owns the rights to copies and to charge royalties on those copies. When you make your own copies and fail to pay him royalties, you have stolen royalties from him. If he has sold the rights to a publishing company, and the publishing company has joined the RIAA and pays them to protect the rights, you still owe the royalty even if you think your stupid little crime is somehow "civil disobedience".
This all began when printers started making money on sheet music and the artists whose music they were printing wanted to be paid for their work. The publishers realized it would be cost-effective to buy the rights. Then audio recording came around, and the system of music copyright transferred nicely. Then several publishers formed an organization to simplify and homogenize the administering of the copyrights. Hence the RIAA. The fact that it's a big organization that produces nothing but copyright lawsuits and confused teenagers doesn't change the fact that they own the right to do so, and you don't.
1. His response had everything to do with the entire issue of file-sharing as a medium for copyright infringement. 2. A copy of a copyrighted work is exactly the thing. 3. Creators wouldn't make ten cents a year if their copyrights aren't protected, because publishers could just press records without paying royalties. Once you destroy that system, the businesses use the new system to their benefit, not yours. You're not "sticking it to the man", you're stealing chunks of highway "because my tax dollars paid for it" and saying to hell with everyone's tires and the smooth flow of traffic.
It will be funny as hell if the Geek's perfect story (LoTR) is the vehicle for tearing down the dumb-geeks' copyright theft networks by making examples of the millions of tards who use them. The Army needs new bodies, and judicially imposed conscription might be just the ticket.
Because whoever designed them knows nothing about why cars sell.
Oh, wait, one looks like a pickup truck. And we all know that the whole point of buying a pickup truck is to get that economizing cachet.
Either Ford made a huge mistake buying Think, or they did it to appease nascent environmentalism, or they did it to put Think out of business before Think got the idea to put a Porsche Carerra body on one.
Microsoft wouldn't be Microsoft the Monopoly if people had patented more of their software in the beginning. Or if Xerox PARC had enforced theirs properly.
Without the patent system, all scientific information becomes trade secret, locked in a vault like the recipe for Kentucky Fried Chicken, never to be seen.
Patents create temporary monopoly in order to foster creativity. First one there gets rich. First one to invent something that fils the same role better because he saw the design mistakes by reading the original patent gets rich. And so on.
Somehow, much of the software community (the amateurs; there, I've said it) have not adopted that ethic. And the result is that perfectly wonderful inventions are now micro-cent value units in the giant software packages sold by the true monopolists.
1. Patents protect you from monoplizers with the resources to encompass everything they see and who act to control markets. 2. More careful patenting of software would slow vertical enhancement but improve innovation laterally. 3. Engineers need to eat, and "free technology" means shortcutting the value created in the economy by innovation and patent.
The strain works out to very little, and comes more from the fact that you have to hold a button to activate the motion sensor. Othwerwise, it doesn't really care what attitude it's in when you push the button, it goes relative from there.
You wouldn't use this for long-term computing, but to have it on the sofa for browsing instead of leaning over to grab a mouse is handy.
I stopped using mine for two reasons: 1. The RF sync system was very touchy and it would lose sync a lot when the voltage dipped. After a while, even replacing the rechargeable battery didn't help. 2. RF Optical mice got really cheap, and work just as well sitting on a sofa cushion as they do on a mousepad, and in a pinch you can use your free hand as a "surface" and hold it in the air.
>What crimes did the above-referenced gentlemen commit
Olsen was behind the slanderous lies printed in the American Spectator about Bill Clinton that were used by Ken Starr to keep open his grand jury for the term of the President. Now he's the General Counsel at the Department of Justice.
Ashcroft had most of his judgments in the Mississipi courts sealed from public scrutiny, yet he has been put in charge of enforcing the laws we're not allowed to be ignorant of.
Pitt is the guy who was the chief lobbyist for big business during the Clinton years, and specifically lobbied against legislation that would have stopped CEOs from committing the sort of frauds that led to the bubble and its downfall.
In all cases, these are the worst possible choices for these jobs. The fox is in the henhouse, and America's future is an egg on a narrow ledge.
>when were they convicted?
I didn't say they were convicted criminals. I said they were crooks.
Look it up yourself. The Miami Herald did a full recount, and determined that Gore would have taken Florida if the votes had actually been counted during the election.
There was a big media splash, but there was no change because the votes do not count in an election in Florida as long as your brother is Governor there and your party owns the Secretary of State and the United States Supreme Court.
Slashdot Mirror
Marketing and fey technologism will never replace the central hub of the Internet.
--Blair
It's more like saying crime fiction is about motorcycle cops, but same diff.
Knuth and Gates are wrong.
Progress would not be at a standstill if patents had been in force for all of software development history.
It would be slowed, and for 17 years (or so) each invention would be expensive, but the value would go to the inventor, whereas now it goes to those who use the invention.
The way Bill Gates does, to shovel in money paid for broken software that does just enough to keep people in pr0n and stolen music.
And most basic patents on software (all of Knuth's books, in fact) would be expired.
With a strong history of patents, software development would be the lucrative profession it promised to be, instead of a cattle-call of hackers kludging a line or two each into some half-baked mob-developed crock.
Open source would still be viable. You just get the patents and donate them to the public, the way Dennis Ritchie did with the setuid bit lo these many reboots ago.
Owning intellectual property is a *good* thing. It produces economic flows. Which is something that existed before the first computation and will exist long after computation ceases to be significant.
--Blair
His said was it was not theft. He was wrong. I proved that. This post is all in words with one foot, just for you.
The journal publishers provide nothing more than a peer-mating service and copyediting.
The question isn't whether that can be done more efficiently in electronic form, because clearly it's a slam-dunk economization.
The question is whether it can be done at a total cost lower than one at which the journal publishers can afford to compete. Their marginal costs are minimal, as their capital and organization are already in place. All they need to do is reduce their profits to non-greedhead levels. If they're forced to eliminate the hardcopy publications, that's probably a minimal net cost, too. The tax benefits of the writedowns would pay for the capital expansion of the new network and server capacity.
I don't know what their margins are now. A few bucks per issue? Half?
While most of us would love to receive Phys Rev Lett A for $3 a month, I don't think it'll happen whether or not it's on the net. The demand just doesn't exceed the supply.
--Blair
"Well, I would love it."
You clearly don't know the law.
The holder of the copyright owns the rights to copies and to charge royalties on those copies. When you make your own copies and fail to pay him royalties, you have stolen royalties from him. If he has sold the rights to a publishing company, and the publishing company has joined the RIAA and pays them to protect the rights, you still owe the royalty even if you think your stupid little crime is somehow "civil disobedience".
This all began when printers started making money on sheet music and the artists whose music they were printing wanted to be paid for their work. The publishers realized it would be cost-effective to buy the rights. Then audio recording came around, and the system of music copyright transferred nicely. Then several publishers formed an organization to simplify and homogenize the administering of the copyrights. Hence the RIAA. The fact that it's a big organization that produces nothing but copyright lawsuits and confused teenagers doesn't change the fact that they own the right to do so, and you don't.
--Blair
Fahnestock made the clip.
And it was good.
--Blair
"Bring back the B-Cell."
No, he only has to show that there is one download that is a lost sale.
Meanwhile, you would have to prove that every download results in a sale.
Copyright infringement is theft.
--Blair
Denial ain't just a service exploit.
1. His response had everything to do with the entire issue of file-sharing as a medium for copyright infringement.
2. A copy of a copyrighted work is exactly the thing.
3. Creators wouldn't make ten cents a year if their copyrights aren't protected, because publishers could just press records without paying royalties. Once you destroy that system, the businesses use the new system to their benefit, not yours. You're not "sticking it to the man", you're stealing chunks of highway "because my tax dollars paid for it" and saying to hell with everyone's tires and the smooth flow of traffic.
It will be funny as hell if the Geek's perfect story (LoTR) is the vehicle for tearing down the dumb-geeks' copyright theft networks by making examples of the millions of tards who use them. The Army needs new bodies, and judicially imposed conscription might be just the ticket.
--Blair
It happens in everything.
It's a matter of failing to write the specification correctly.
It's why testing is the other 90% of programming.
--Blair
Someone set metamoderate -1 Fuckhead on the jackass who moderated that post as flamebait.
They look like freakin' golf carts.
Why do they look like golf carts?
Because whoever designed them knows nothing about why cars sell.
Oh, wait, one looks like a pickup truck. And we all know that the whole point of buying a pickup truck is to get that economizing cachet.
Either Ford made a huge mistake buying Think, or they did it to appease nascent environmentalism, or they did it to put Think out of business before Think got the idea to put a Porsche Carerra body on one.
--Blair
You're exactly the sort of clueless bastard that's holding Linux back.
Linux is superior technology with a marketing system based on saying it's superior technology and hoping that will succeed.
It's doomed.
Microsoft wouldn't be Microsoft the Monopoly if people had patented more of their software in the beginning. Or if Xerox PARC had enforced theirs properly.
--Blair
"Fines herbs"
"Seasoned salt"
What herbs? What season? What proportions?
"Seasoned pepper"
And what the fuck is that???
Anyone can make fried chicken. The Colonel's recipe is still a secret.
If it was patented, you could substitute one good flavor for one you think is bad, and patent it yourself. That's innovation.
--Blair
VHS : BetaMax
The parallels run deep, and lifecycle is likely to prove to be one of them.
--Blair
"exhibits criticality"
Is as much a mimickry of earthquakes as it is of farts, naps, and almost running into that hot chick in the hall.
--Blair
Let me get this one:
Spell creat with an @.
Or you could do it with <>.
Not true with prejudice.
Without the patent system, all scientific information becomes trade secret, locked in a vault like the recipe for Kentucky Fried Chicken, never to be seen.
Patents create temporary monopoly in order to foster creativity. First one there gets rich. First one to invent something that fils the same role better because he saw the design mistakes by reading the original patent gets rich. And so on.
Somehow, much of the software community (the amateurs; there, I've said it) have not adopted that ethic. And the result is that perfectly wonderful inventions are now micro-cent value units in the giant software packages sold by the true monopolists.
1. Patents protect you from monoplizers with the resources to encompass everything they see and who act to control markets.
2. More careful patenting of software would slow vertical enhancement but improve innovation laterally.
3. Engineers need to eat, and "free technology" means shortcutting the value created in the economy by innovation and patent.
Monopoly bad. Capitalism good. Intellectual property theft bad. Innovation good. Secrets bad. Patents all good.
Got it?
--Blair
But first tell them there'll be only one of them still working after three weeks.
This will revolutionize worldwide air transport.
--Blair
Every day, everywhere else, and doing it better almost every time.
--Blair
The strain works out to very little, and comes more from the fact that you have to hold a button to activate the motion sensor. Othwerwise, it doesn't really care what attitude it's in when you push the button, it goes relative from there.
You wouldn't use this for long-term computing, but to have it on the sofa for browsing instead of leaning over to grab a mouse is handy.
I stopped using mine for two reasons: 1. The RF sync system was very touchy and it would lose sync a lot when the voltage dipped. After a while, even replacing the rechargeable battery didn't help. 2. RF Optical mice got really cheap, and work just as well sitting on a sofa cushion as they do on a mousepad, and in a pinch you can use your free hand as a "surface" and hold it in the air.
--Blair
>What crimes did the above-referenced gentlemen commit
Olsen was behind the slanderous lies printed in the American Spectator about Bill Clinton that were used by Ken Starr to keep open his grand jury for the term of the President. Now he's the General Counsel at the Department of Justice.
Ashcroft had most of his judgments in the Mississipi courts sealed from public scrutiny, yet he has been put in charge of enforcing the laws we're not allowed to be ignorant of.
Pitt is the guy who was the chief lobbyist for big business during the Clinton years, and specifically lobbied against legislation that would have stopped CEOs from committing the sort of frauds that led to the bubble and its downfall.
In all cases, these are the worst possible choices for these jobs. The fox is in the henhouse, and America's future is an egg on a narrow ledge.
>when were they convicted?
I didn't say they were convicted criminals. I said they were crooks.
--Blair
Look it up yourself. The Miami Herald did a full recount, and determined that Gore would have taken Florida if the votes had actually been counted during the election.
There was a big media splash, but there was no change because the votes do not count in an election in Florida as long as your brother is Governor there and your party owns the Secretary of State and the United States Supreme Court.