Microsoft would expand its sharing initiatives, he said. But he added that the company's proprietary
business model was a more effective way to support industry standards than the open-source
approach, which he said could lead to a "forking" of the software base resulting in the development of
multiple incompatible versions of standard programs.
Huh, I like that - like Word 95 documents load into Word 97 and still look the same HUH! And do you rekon you can ever actually get the document to look the same again? No chance!
I think that open-source inherently encourages compatibility... If one version of a program is compatible with previous/other versions and the other versions arent, which do you think people will use?
The article is not talking about patenting Open source, it is talking about being a legally-secure repository of prior art, just as you propose.
The idea is to set up a database where you submit your idea, which then gets timestamped and protected so that it can be used as a clear demonstration of prior art in any cases that come up later.
Sounds like a great idea to me, except for the fact that it costs $20 per "publication", and anyway, if your software is open-source with anything like a decent popularity then it will be a good-enough demonstration of prior art. About the only time that this would not work is if the patent application and your open-source occurs at almost the same time. Then it will be difficult to prove that you really were before the patent, whereas with IP.com, you can just check the datestamps.
I guess the other advantage of IP.com is that it claims that it can prevent patents from being issued. Probably true, but if there is anyway a clear demonstration of prior-art (ie your Open-source), then the patent is not so useful.
So - my conclusion would be that IP.com is probably the safest way to prevent some other company from patenting the same idea, but unfortunatly its a bit expensive. I think that its probably much easier to post your idea to a newsgroup and let google archive it for you - who knows, maybe youll be able to cash in on it later from bountyquest.
Yes, the frequencies will be more spread out over a much larger spectrum. This is then going to provide much less interference as it will look like background noise. remember that in a synchronous circuit, every flip-flop is clocked with the same clock, and the clock lines act as huge antennas. In an asynchronous circuit, every flip-flop (equivalent) is being "clocked" at a different frequency, and there are no longer clock lines acting as antennas. Therefore the frequency is spread out over a much larger spectrum and is also significantly less powerful than in an equivalent synchronous circuit.
What is not listed in the article but is also relevant is that that circuit, as well as creating less radiation, also consumes significantly (like half) the power of equivalent synchronous designs. This reduced power-consumption also reduces the amount of radiation produced.
Couple of errors here. First of all, the whole point of asynchronous designs is that they are not only as fast as the slowest gate in your ciruit. The circuit is asynchronous so if one part of the circuitry is slow, thats fine, the rest of the circuit was never in synch with it, so why slow down now. Its synchronous circuits where the whole chip is only as fast as the slowest gate in the circuit (actually as slow as the longest path between 2 flip-flops, but close enough)
As for race-conditions, asynchronous circuits are not circuits without any type of flip-flop/storage element, they are just circuits without a global clock. Instead, handshake circuits are used between blocks of logic to guarantee that race conditions do not exist. This is quite easy to implement in practice
So, if its quite easy in practice why isnt it used more often? Well, firstly testing these chips is really hard (yes, every transistor in every chip is tested before it leaves the factory, and this is hard to achieve with asynchronous circuits). Secondly, its a challenge to interface your asynchronous design into other systems (which are all synchronous). And thirdly because most of the designs that are available on the market are improved versions of old designs - why go with a risky completely new design if you can improve the old one in half the time?
Sure, I have bought one - using it right now. Works fine - so much fun watching the frame rate increase in geiss visualisation as the morph engine re-optimizes. As for whether this is the end of Transmeta, I guess it depends what they do with their product line from here - The concept is really great, and should allow transmeta to bring out improved models fairly quickly. The question is... will they? I think that is what will define whether Transmeta survives or not.
The person asking the question has a swedish email address, and talks about his "hardware specialist friend that a Silicon Valley company wants to hire." My guess is that the friend is considering moving to America - which is something that I guess/. readers would know quite a lot about.
Unless you are paid in dollars, you will experience the dramatic fluctuations in PPP experienced by native IT workers and for that matter all workers in that country. This is, of course, not the case for those countries whose currencies are pegged to the dollar.
Ill take a wild stab in the dark here and assume that you mean US dollars. Given that, can you explain why it is that everyone in the world experiences "dramatic fluctualions in PPP" except americans? Especially when you take into accound the recent dive in the US$, I can think of many other currencies that I would prefer to be earning.
Actually I found quite a bit of the obfuscated code to be very beautiful. The example that I liked the most was the entry by phillipps in 1988, available here.
I just found it amazing to see what these programmers managed to achieve from what looks like a random set of symbols sprinkled into a text file. I guess that with normal programming, unless your idea of "beautiful" matches the ideas of the programmer who wrote it, then you dont find it beautiful. Whereas, with the obfuscated code competition, everyone has the same idea of "beauty" - obfuscation!
--
#include/* 20000608 PUBLIC DOMAIN MySig(sig.c) Tweaks welcome */
main(c,v)char *v;{return !c?putchar(*v-1)&&main(0,v+1/* build: cc sig.c */
):main(0,"Disjt!Tqfjst!=dstqfAzbipp/dpn?\v\1");}/* No C compiler? No OS */
There must be a pretty massive magnetic field for these to work, if there is a magnetic field, theres also and electric field.
Not necessarily - the permanent magnets hanging on your fridge dont emit any electromagnetic ratiation, otherwise you have a perpetual motion machine - stick an aerial next to the magnet, collect the energy and there you have it - no more problems in california! Unfortunatly, the us patent office no longer accepts patents for perpetual motion machines, otherwise....
Perhaps I should explain more how bills can be payed for in europe (or at least in Switzerland).
One option (which is what everyone here has been talking about) is to allow companies direct withdrawls. The other option is that when they send the bill, it comes with a standardised form. With this form, you can log on to your bank and pay the bill directly. Just type in the numbers on the standardised form into the web page and the bill is paid. You can even say when the bill should be paid, or how much should be paid, in case you only want to pay half the bill this month... In many ways nicer than a check in the mail, with no added safety problems.
Slashdot Mirror
Huh, I like that - like Word 95 documents load into Word 97 and still look the same HUH! And do you rekon you can ever actually get the document to look the same again? No chance!
I think that open-source inherently encourages compatibility ... If one version of a program is compatible with previous/other versions and the other versions arent, which do you think people will use?
The article is not talking about patenting Open source, it is talking about being a legally-secure repository of prior art, just as you propose.
The idea is to set up a database where you submit your idea, which then gets timestamped and protected so that it can be used as a clear demonstration of prior art in any cases that come up later.
Sounds like a great idea to me, except for the fact that it costs $20 per "publication", and anyway, if your software is open-source with anything like a decent popularity then it will be a good-enough demonstration of prior art. About the only time that this would not work is if the patent application and your open-source occurs at almost the same time. Then it will be difficult to prove that you really were before the patent, whereas with IP.com, you can just check the datestamps.
I guess the other advantage of IP.com is that it claims that it can prevent patents from being issued. Probably true, but if there is anyway a clear demonstration of prior-art (ie your Open-source), then the patent is not so useful.
So - my conclusion would be that IP.com is probably the safest way to prevent some other company from patenting the same idea, but unfortunatly its a bit expensive. I think that its probably much easier to post your idea to a newsgroup and let google archive it for you - who knows, maybe youll be able to cash in on it later from bountyquest.
Chris
Yes, the frequencies will be more spread out over a much larger spectrum. This is then going to provide much less interference as it will look like background noise. remember that in a synchronous circuit, every flip-flop is clocked with the same clock, and the clock lines act as huge antennas. In an asynchronous circuit, every flip-flop (equivalent) is being "clocked" at a different frequency, and there are no longer clock lines acting as antennas. Therefore the frequency is spread out over a much larger spectrum and is also significantly less powerful than in an equivalent synchronous circuit.
What is not listed in the article but is also relevant is that that circuit, as well as creating less radiation, also consumes significantly (like half) the power of equivalent synchronous designs. This reduced power-consumption also reduces the amount of radiation produced.
As for race-conditions, asynchronous circuits are not circuits without any type of flip-flop/storage element, they are just circuits without a global clock. Instead, handshake circuits are used between blocks of logic to guarantee that race conditions do not exist. This is quite easy to implement in practice
So, if its quite easy in practice why isnt it used more often? Well, firstly testing these chips is really hard (yes, every transistor in every chip is tested before it leaves the factory, and this is hard to achieve with asynchronous circuits). Secondly, its a challenge to interface your asynchronous design into other systems (which are all synchronous). And thirdly because most of the designs that are available on the market are improved versions of old designs - why go with a risky completely new design if you can improve the old one in half the time?
Sure, I have bought one - using it right now. Works fine - so much fun watching the frame rate increase in geiss visualisation as the morph engine re-optimizes. ... will they?
As for whether this is the end of Transmeta, I guess it depends what they do with their product line from here - The concept is really great, and should allow transmeta to bring out improved models fairly quickly. The question is
I think that is what will define whether Transmeta survives or not.
Chris
Unless you are paid in dollars, you will experience the dramatic fluctuations in PPP experienced by native IT workers and for that matter all workers in that country. This is, of course, not the case for those countries whose currencies are pegged to the dollar.
Ill take a wild stab in the dark here and assume that you mean US dollars. Given that, can you explain why it is that everyone in the world experiences "dramatic fluctualions in PPP" except americans? Especially when you take into accound the recent dive in the US$, I can think of many other currencies that I would prefer to be earning.
Actually I found quite a bit of the obfuscated code to be very beautiful. The example that I liked the most was the entry by phillipps in 1988, available here. I just found it amazing to see what these programmers managed to achieve from what looks like a random set of symbols sprinkled into a text file. I guess that with normal programming, unless your idea of "beautiful" matches the ideas of the programmer who wrote it, then you dont find it beautiful. Whereas, with the obfuscated code competition, everyone has the same idea of "beauty" - obfuscation!
/* 20000608 PUBLIC DOMAIN MySig(sig.c) Tweaks welcome */* No C compiler? No OS */
--
#include
main(c,v)char *v;{return !c?putchar(*v-1)&&main(0,v+1/* build: cc sig.c */
):main(0,"Disjt!Tqfjst!=dstqfAzbipp/dpn?\v\1");}/
There must be a pretty massive magnetic field for these to work, if there is a magnetic field, theres also and electric field. ....
Not necessarily - the permanent magnets hanging on your fridge dont emit any electromagnetic ratiation, otherwise you have a perpetual motion machine - stick an aerial next to the magnet, collect the energy and there you have it - no more problems in california!
Unfortunatly, the us patent office no longer accepts patents for perpetual motion machines, otherwise
Perhaps I should explain more how bills can be payed for in europe (or at least in Switzerland). One option (which is what everyone here has been talking about) is to allow companies direct withdrawls. The other option is that when they send the bill, it comes with a standardised form. With this form, you can log on to your bank and pay the bill directly. Just type in the numbers on the standardised form into the web page and the bill is paid. You can even say when the bill should be paid, or how much should be paid, in case you only want to pay half the bill this month ... In many ways nicer than a check in the mail, with no added safety problems.