You also forgot the "it diminishes the economic value of copyright" argument. Because, as we all know, it's about getting paid. Screw that promoting the Arts and Sciences crap.
Ummm, riight. A court is going to deliberately flaunt the Berne Convention and the Constitution and tell thousands of American and foreign developers that their work which should be owned by them for life+50 is now PD. Or that code contracted for by RH, SuSE and the like no longer belongs to them.
Yeah, I can see that happening. Not.
I can suspend disbelief (briefly since I have a vivid imagination) and envision a world where the GPL is invalidated but that's way too far out.
If the GPL fails then all those copyrights go back to the original authors and SCO would be responsible for any damages since they distributed linux, gcc, samba, etc., etc. without permission. That's $150K per copy distributed.
They better damn well hope they get that $3billion. By the time all those FS suits are done investors will be picking at SCO's bones.
As for what I'm going to do if SCO wins? Get drunk, sober up and wipe a tear away as I completely convert over to OpenBSD. My little corner of the world will still be SCO free.
In any event, while there is a risk, imo miniscule to non-existant, that the GPL could be invalidated there is also a chance that it will be validated in court. Had to happen sometime. Might as well be now.
SCO: BSD didn't win. We settled out of court. And we have reason to believe that they violated the settlement agreement (editor's note - Go back and check out the interview in BYTE for the exact quote.) We'll examine that issue when we are done with the current caseload.
What really gets me is SunnComm implying that because Halderman didn't review their white-papers and reviewed the product solely on its own merits he is somehow maligning the company's reputation. "Oh he didn't take into consideration all the nifty new features we plan to roll out in the future... blahblahblah."
Hint, it wasn't his job as a researcher to provide your company with free marketing.
Or sit down and find out the wife programmed it to say...
"Get up and take out the trash like you said you were going to THREE DAYS AGO YOU WORTHLESS BUM!!"
Or..
"If I find another porno in the DVD player you're not getting any for a month!"
Or..
"Honey, I'm sorry but I'm leaving you for Mandingo. I hope you and your couch have a happy life together YOU LAZY SONOFABITCH!!"
Why the heck buy a printer for the digital camera? From what I've been told, even if you buy the paper to get decent printouts they aren't going to last as long as regular photos.
Get them a decent DVD/CD writer and let them take the disc to WalMart to get quality pics. Probably cheaper too. IMHO.
My understanding is that the Athlon64 will be able to do this in 64-bit mode. At least that is the information I'm getting from reading the OBSD archives and is the reason why my next PC will be an Athlon64.
You know, he never said why the risk of burglary was slight. I can just see the hapless criminal opening the unlocked door only to face Bruce's beloved Pit.
Wha? Dell expands their partnership with RH but say they won't provide indemnification (something even IBM won't do for their customers) and this is some great betrayal? Oh wait, they dared to admit that larger companies are now examining their linux purchases and asking Dell for indemnification and so Dell must have gone over to the dark side.
Having organised a couple of meetings on the issue in Cambridge, I'm of the opinion that the case that the directive is damaging is overstated. The author of the language of the amendments introduced in JURI says that by the nature of the EU system the language can't be very tight, but that a key feature is that patentability can now be reviewed by the courts, and that JURI has made its wishes clear in the Recital, which courts use as a guide to the intention.
So in essence, this will be the same system used in the US. Except Europe will have a directive specifically stating that software is patentable. Currently in the US we have a number of court decisions that while setting precident could be overruled at a later date.
There is still a crucial issue of how Free and Open Source software authors are protected. The directive is inadequate in this regard, but then the situation as it stands is inadequate. We need to take a social decision that protects authors of Free and Open software because they make the efforts of their labours available without charge and that's to the benefit of society.
There is a huge problem with this when it comes to patents. If you allow some form of loophole to permit free software to use the patent you have completely undermined the value of the patent. Free software, to be free, has to be available for commercial use. I can use apache at home and my company can deploy it at work. If you accept that axiom (and I do) then you realize that patents and free software are anathema to each other.
An interesting side effect of such a settlement would most likely be a decrease in software patenting in favour of the use of trade secret. This isn't necessarily a god thing; patents were invented to make it possible to expose trade secrets in return for a limited monopoly on their use. An example - if you invent the ultimate search algorithm but kept as a trade secret it might never enter the public domain.
I agree with the side effect but disagree with the assessment. A trade secret can be REed and made available. I would be willing to bet for most software it could be done in much less time than the current term for a patent. And such an effort would have to be done once.
In many ways this is preferable. The trade secret provides the inventor a psuedo-monopoly of variable duration. Those who need the software immediately will buy the license and sign the NDA. Those who don't and/or can't abide by the NDA can RE the product. In theory, the greater the utility and size of community that needs the trade secret the faster it would be REed or that it would be developed independently. Heh, I'd love to see what an economist makes of that model v. software patents.
A second serious problem is the length of a patent - around 20 years. For software, which typically has a life span of 5 to 8 years, this is ludicrous. On the other hand it typically takes around 2 to 4 years for a patent to be granted. But software intro cycles are around 12 to 18 months. So unless you have a spectacularly good invention, or some indirect need, it may very well not be worthwhile patenting. (The number of patents involving software suggest that this isn't generally true - numbers of 15,000 to 30,000 in Europe are commonly reported.)
This opens a serious can of worms that most PTOs are unwilling to do. You are giving preference to an industry by providing them an additional protection (funny that limiting the term is called that.) And pretty much you are doing it to advance free software. So once its done in software why not do it for drugs? For manufacturing? For the auto industry? All of those examples have a greater immediate impact on society by having shorter terms than software.
And you are talking about a major reduction in term. The question then becomes "Once the term has been so diluted does the patent provide any significant incentive t
I have nothing to fear from overseas labor. Why? Someone in India can't fix the printer. They can't install antivirus software on someone's system. They can't set up the phone+new PC for a new employee.
I subscibe to a newspaper. I see stories all the time that I'm not interested in. Strangely enough, I have these useful tools called hands which I can then use in conjunction with a filtering mechanism called a brain enabling me to flip the page.
Oh, but I forgot,/. is "digital" and on that een-tyr-neyt thingie so obviously my example really isn't applicable.
Slashdot Mirror
Stewie: And where's the knife?
Cockney Girl: In the wife. In the wife!
You also forgot the "it diminishes the economic value of copyright" argument. Because, as we all know, it's about getting paid. Screw that promoting the Arts and Sciences crap.
Trojan Man most certainly does not have a condom for this situation.
Yeah, I can see that happening. Not.
I can suspend disbelief (briefly since I have a vivid imagination) and envision a world where the GPL is invalidated but that's way too far out.
They better damn well hope they get that $3billion. By the time all those FS suits are done investors will be picking at SCO's bones.
As for what I'm going to do if SCO wins? Get drunk, sober up and wipe a tear away as I completely convert over to OpenBSD. My little corner of the world will still be SCO free.
In any event, while there is a risk, imo miniscule to non-existant, that the GPL could be invalidated there is also a chance that it will be validated in court. Had to happen sometime. Might as well be now.
Gnome isn't a window manager.
SCO: BSD didn't win. We settled out of court. And we have reason to believe that they violated the settlement agreement (editor's note - Go back and check out the interview in BYTE for the exact quote.) We'll examine that issue when we are done with the current caseload.
What really gets me is SunnComm implying that because Halderman didn't review their white-papers and reviewed the product solely on its own merits he is somehow maligning the company's reputation. "Oh he didn't take into consideration all the nifty new features we plan to roll out in the future... blahblahblah."
Hint, it wasn't his job as a researcher to provide your company with free marketing.
Next time RTFA.
"Get up and take out the trash like you said you were going to THREE DAYS AGO YOU WORTHLESS BUM!!"
Or..
"If I find another porno in the DVD player you're not getting any for a month!"
Or..
"Honey, I'm sorry but I'm leaving you for Mandingo. I hope you and your couch have a happy life together YOU LAZY SONOFABITCH!!"
This could be bad. Very bad...
Alas! For want of a mod point.
Get them a decent DVD/CD writer and let them take the disc to WalMart to get quality pics. Probably cheaper too. IMHO.
They keep churning out those crappy DRM "cds" and they probably could.
Probably 12. They can't spin her off as a teenager.
My understanding is that the Athlon64 will be able to do this in 64-bit mode. At least that is the information I'm getting from reading the OBSD archives and is the reason why my next PC will be an Athlon64.
No, this was the long form of "Buy my book." Ain't nothing wrong with that.
"Err, Spuds??...."
A better example would have been. We'll put Windows on your PC but will not reimburse you if you get sued because MS stole another company's code.
That line of reasoning seems pretty contrived.
Don't think for a second that some company outsourcing software development to India wouldn't take the time to patent it here in the States.
So in essence, this will be the same system used in the US. Except Europe will have a directive specifically stating that software is patentable. Currently in the US we have a number of court decisions that while setting precident could be overruled at a later date.
There is a huge problem with this when it comes to patents. If you allow some form of loophole to permit free software to use the patent you have completely undermined the value of the patent. Free software, to be free, has to be available for commercial use. I can use apache at home and my company can deploy it at work. If you accept that axiom (and I do) then you realize that patents and free software are anathema to each other.
I agree with the side effect but disagree with the assessment. A trade secret can be REed and made available. I would be willing to bet for most software it could be done in much less time than the current term for a patent. And such an effort would have to be done once.
In many ways this is preferable. The trade secret provides the inventor a psuedo-monopoly of variable duration. Those who need the software immediately will buy the license and sign the NDA. Those who don't and/or can't abide by the NDA can RE the product. In theory, the greater the utility and size of community that needs the trade secret the faster it would be REed or that it would be developed independently. Heh, I'd love to see what an economist makes of that model v. software patents.
This opens a serious can of worms that most PTOs are unwilling to do. You are giving preference to an industry by providing them an additional protection (funny that limiting the term is called that.) And pretty much you are doing it to advance free software. So once its done in software why not do it for drugs? For manufacturing? For the auto industry? All of those examples have a greater immediate impact on society by having shorter terms than software.
And you are talking about a major reduction in term. The question then becomes "Once the term has been so diluted does the patent provide any significant incentive t
How's that for harmonization?
Heck, forget the audit. Well, don't really it's a good point but how about the ongoing expense of truing up your licenses at least once a year?
*Half Kidding* So when does your internship end?
Oh, but I forgot, /. is "digital" and on that een-tyr-neyt thingie so obviously my example really isn't applicable.