The core IDE platform is something that is ludicrous to reinvent. Expending the effort to re-invent the editor, compiler, preferences, and so on, won't bring a good financial return.
Eclipse and NetBeans provide the functionality already, so the commercial IDE developer can focus their efforts on plugins that make the IDE a more productive environment. They not only get the benefit of not having to develop the core technology. They also get the benefit of integrating with other tools developed on the same platform.
The companies developing the IDE's win because they have less lines of code to write. The developers win because they can pick an IDE and then integrate with other plugins.
The JRE can't be bundled with Linux distributions because the license is GPL-incompatible. Any license Microsoft comes up with is going to be similarly incompatible.
I was not talking about you. I'm sorry if I gave you that impression. I was talking about the submitter of the/. article (Paradox). You said you weren't looking to make any indicative statements, but by reporting it as frontpage-worthy,/. implies that this might be an expected result for any Ruby vs. Java project.
When someone tries to imply the result is generally applicable (even if it wasn't your intention to generally apply the findings), then yes, it's a problem.
It may make more sense to continue lobbying RedHat and IBM to produce an FOSS-compatible version of Java. They're already predisposed to the notion, with or without Sun's help. All we need is a GPL'd JRE that passes the Java certification tests.
I think considering Java's inclusion a "betrayal" is ridiculous, when you look at the history of OOo. Sun started out with the intention to rewrite it the StarOffice codebase in 100% Java, but this failed because Swing was an unoptimized P.O.S. (piece of software...yeah, that's it) at the time.
The keyboard + mouse interface is not a good tool to promote learning. It often challenges their dexterity more than their intellect.
Educational software will continue to have limited value until it fully integrates speech or touch screens as a primary interface. Some software already does this, but in my experience, those titles have other limits.
Microsoft apparently thinks that CSS2 is a flawed standard, and are waiting for CSS2.1 and CSS3 to be official before supporting it.
Granted, the argument is a bit specious because Mozilla Foundation has been incorporating bits and pieces of the 2.1 and 3.0 candidates into Gecko. Waiting for something in the future doesn't help web developers who need to design good-looking sites using CSS now.
The quote hits the nail on the head: "The current patent system only works for large companies."
I'm not with Microsoft on the subject of whether software should be patentable -- the economics of software are totally different than material good. However, if patents won't go away, then we should at least remove as much of the nonsense from them as possible.
They already use POWER in their iSeries and pSeries servers, which are the highest-end single servers on the market.
As far as the decision goes...I think the Itanium wasn't a profitable platform for IBM in the first place, which made it easy to scapegoat marketshare.:-)
If that patent is ridiculous to start with, that's one thing. However, most drugs take an inordinantly large amount of money to research and meet FDA approval. Patent protection is appropriate (maybe not 15 years' worth, but some).
One of the many problems, and one that I'm most concerned about, is that many countries have price controls on their prescription drugs that limit the company's ability to turn a profit, let alone funnel profits back into R&D. Countries without price controls, then, have to pay higher prices to foot the bill. This problem should be addressed before using as drastic a measure as taking away patents through a gross misapplication of eminent domain.
The System38 was god-awful slow, I'll give you that. Throughout it's entire CISC existence, it was pretty slow. Once they went RISC, things started improving, but the POWER4 finally made it usable for compute-intensive workloads like most Java stuff (we run Websphere on a POWER4 and it hums). The POWER5 puts it out on the leading edge.
The fact that it's Lat/Long has no bearing. Similar uses for common practices (such as data compression) should not meet the standard for patentability. It would be like Sun applying for a patent on using the ZIP format for java binaries (jars, wars, ears, rars, etc).
The "i" in "iSeries" stands for integration. On that one box, you can run i5/OS (OS/400) (a truly remarkable OS, the core architecture was developed in the 70s and has features that are still ahead of Linux and Windows), Linux POWER, and AIX in dynamic partitions. If you add an Intel card, you can also run Windows and Linux x86. There is a serious TCO case to be made by putting all the hardware in one reliable box.
The early claims of the patent are simply for converting a floating point representation for embedding in a URL. While this is all fine and dandy, wouldn't uuencoding the binary form of the coordinates be an obvious way to serve this purpose?
This is similar to releasing new formats for word processors and not backporting the changes to older versions. For example, Microsoft didn't backport their Word 2003 format to Word 5.
As a for-profit company, Intuit can't make a business case for backporting new online protocols back to Quicken 2001/2002, especially when they are a market leader in Microsoft's crosshairs and new versions of Quicken can be had pretty cheaply.
Palmisano's challenge to the corporation was to be technically capable to switch to all-Linux on the IBM corporate desktop, not to actually do it. That's a big difference.
First the open letter is about Solaris on x86. IBM will no doubt support Solaris on Sparc because most of their Websphere revenue comes on that platform.
Second, Sun trying to say that Solaris is the most secure OS on the planet to the company that sells z/OS and i5/OS hardware is counterproductive.
The problem with working somewhere until retirement is that companies and employees are becoming less loyal to each other. Companies will cut staff to save a few bucks and employees will often bolt to wherever they can find the biggest paycheck. Certainly there are a few places where an employee could catch on with a company and work until retirement, but they're becoming harder to find.
I've had fairly good experience with SMB's that write their own applications or need to customize packaged software. In my experience these have been less deadline-driven environments with less stress as a result. The difference may be that for these businesses, software is a business enabler, rather than the business itself.
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The core IDE platform is something that is ludicrous to reinvent. Expending the effort to re-invent the editor, compiler, preferences, and so on, won't bring a good financial return.
Eclipse and NetBeans provide the functionality already, so the commercial IDE developer can focus their efforts on plugins that make the IDE a more productive environment. They not only get the benefit of not having to develop the core technology. They also get the benefit of integrating with other tools developed on the same platform.
The companies developing the IDE's win because they have less lines of code to write. The developers win because they can pick an IDE and then integrate with other plugins.
Okay, so based on the /. article, the following facts are reported:
- She was 15 when it happened (title).
- It happened 2 years ago (body).
- She's 19 now (body).
Where'd she get the time machine?
People are getting numb to spam like they're numb to postal junk mail.
They shouldn't have a patent on a device unless it works.
If this does work, I want to see the demo!
If it hasn't even been implemented yet, someone's head should roll at the USPTO.
The JRE can't be bundled with Linux distributions because the license is GPL-incompatible. Any license Microsoft comes up with is going to be similarly incompatible.
Even if you look past the fees, you're still faced with licensing restrictions.
I was not talking about you. I'm sorry if I gave you that impression. I was talking about the submitter of the /. article (Paradox). You said you weren't looking to make any indicative statements, but by reporting it as frontpage-worthy, /. implies that this might be an expected result for any Ruby vs. Java project.
Microsoft's got the same problem Sun has with the JRE. They might be able to use Sun as an excuse.
When someone tries to imply the result is generally applicable (even if it wasn't your intention to generally apply the findings), then yes, it's a problem.
It may make more sense to continue lobbying RedHat and IBM to produce an FOSS-compatible version of Java. They're already predisposed to the notion, with or without Sun's help. All we need is a GPL'd JRE that passes the Java certification tests.
I think considering Java's inclusion a "betrayal" is ridiculous, when you look at the history of OOo. Sun started out with the intention to rewrite it the StarOffice codebase in 100% Java, but this failed because Swing was an unoptimized P.O.S. (piece of software...yeah, that's it) at the time.
The keyboard + mouse interface is not a good tool to promote learning. It often challenges their dexterity more than their intellect.
Educational software will continue to have limited value until it fully integrates speech or touch screens as a primary interface. Some software already does this, but in my experience, those titles have other limits.
Microsoft apparently thinks that CSS2 is a flawed standard, and are waiting for CSS2.1 and CSS3 to be official before supporting it.
Granted, the argument is a bit specious because Mozilla Foundation has been incorporating bits and pieces of the 2.1 and 3.0 candidates into Gecko. Waiting for something in the future doesn't help web developers who need to design good-looking sites using CSS now.
The quote hits the nail on the head: "The current patent system only works for large companies."
I'm not with Microsoft on the subject of whether software should be patentable -- the economics of software are totally different than material good. However, if patents won't go away, then we should at least remove as much of the nonsense from them as possible.
We need more guys with this mindset in Washington.
They already use POWER in their iSeries and pSeries servers, which are the highest-end single servers on the market.
:-)
As far as the decision goes...I think the Itanium wasn't a profitable platform for IBM in the first place, which made it easy to scapegoat marketshare.
If that patent is ridiculous to start with, that's one thing. However, most drugs take an inordinantly large amount of money to research and meet FDA approval. Patent protection is appropriate (maybe not 15 years' worth, but some).
One of the many problems, and one that I'm most concerned about, is that many countries have price controls on their prescription drugs that limit the company's ability to turn a profit, let alone funnel profits back into R&D. Countries without price controls, then, have to pay higher prices to foot the bill. This problem should be addressed before using as drastic a measure as taking away patents through a gross misapplication of eminent domain.
The System38 was god-awful slow, I'll give you that. Throughout it's entire CISC existence, it was pretty slow. Once they went RISC, things started improving, but the POWER4 finally made it usable for compute-intensive workloads like most Java stuff (we run Websphere on a POWER4 and it hums). The POWER5 puts it out on the leading edge.
The fact that it's Lat/Long has no bearing. Similar uses for common practices (such as data compression) should not meet the standard for patentability. It would be like Sun applying for a patent on using the ZIP format for java binaries (jars, wars, ears, rars, etc).
The "i" in "iSeries" stands for integration. On that one box, you can run i5/OS (OS/400) (a truly remarkable OS, the core architecture was developed in the 70s and has features that are still ahead of Linux and Windows), Linux POWER, and AIX in dynamic partitions. If you add an Intel card, you can also run Windows and Linux x86. There is a serious TCO case to be made by putting all the hardware in one reliable box.
The early claims of the patent are simply for converting a floating point representation for embedding in a URL. While this is all fine and dandy, wouldn't uuencoding the binary form of the coordinates be an obvious way to serve this purpose?
Wasn't FractInt doing this 10 years ago?
This is similar to releasing new formats for word processors and not backporting the changes to older versions. For example, Microsoft didn't backport their Word 2003 format to Word 5.
As a for-profit company, Intuit can't make a business case for backporting new online protocols back to Quicken 2001/2002, especially when they are a market leader in Microsoft's crosshairs and new versions of Quicken can be had pretty cheaply.
Palmisano's challenge to the corporation was to be technically capable to switch to all-Linux on the IBM corporate desktop, not to actually do it. That's a big difference.
First the open letter is about Solaris on x86. IBM will no doubt support Solaris on Sparc because most of their Websphere revenue comes on that platform.
Second, Sun trying to say that Solaris is the most secure OS on the planet to the company that sells z/OS and i5/OS hardware is counterproductive.
The problem with working somewhere until retirement is that companies and employees are becoming less loyal to each other. Companies will cut staff to save a few bucks and employees will often bolt to wherever they can find the biggest paycheck. Certainly there are a few places where an employee could catch on with a company and work until retirement, but they're becoming harder to find.
I've had fairly good experience with SMB's that write their own applications or need to customize packaged software. In my experience these have been less deadline-driven environments with less stress as a result. The difference may be that for these businesses, software is a business enabler, rather than the business itself.