Michael Moore is very smart, in how he is able to work people up to get his movie seen. He is a master propagandist, not afraid to use quotes out of context or outright fabrications to try to indoctrinate what he must view as the American Sheeple.
It'd be more intellectually honest to create documentaries centered around the absolute truth, rather than some self-important manufactured "truth", but it wouldn't get the outrage, and wouldn't sell as many tickets.
For the record, I'm not defending Bush, or the gun lobby, against this obsequious little weasel. I think they deserve strong criticism, but it must be fair, honest criticism. Neither of those are within Michael Moore's grasp.
The article suggests that Safari is the quickest, most standards compliant browser around. Quickest, it may be, but most standards compliant is Gecko, because that's Gecko's raison d'etre and they do it better than anyone else.
High-end systems like the IBM AS/400..err, iSeri..err, i5 have had no execute protection for decades. If it's not tagged as a program, it's not executable.
It's on the border. It perhaps isn't significant enough to warrant a patent, but it certainly meets the base criteria.
In the long run, the "all or nothing" approach to patents is a losing proposition. We're going to have to create a software patent system with a high burden of proof for patentability. Only bona fide novel, non-obvious, non-existing inventions will receive patent protection.
Judging by the abstract, the window needs to be inactive for a certain time before becoming translucent, and the translucency becomes greater the longer the window remains unchanged.
I don't think any software patents are good. However, *if* software patents are permissable, this is a novel application of a concept and I would think that the implementation meets the standards for patentability.
I still don't think it should be patentable, however.
is will anyone in government ever recognize the cold, hard truth that not every "idea" is something ownable? Nowhere in this discussion have I seen anyone on the pro-IP side indicate that in addition to more effective IP laws, we need reform wrt what can legitimately be claimed as Intellectual Property.
I could see IBM taking legal action against another Linux distro using their patents if they had their own Linux distro. However, they don't, so suing any of their friends in the Linux community would be counterproductive and stupid. That may have been true of 80s/early 90s IBM, but it's certainly not true of today's IBM.
That'd use up a lot of toner, to be sure, but faxing a pure black document doesn't really do all that much in terms of phone charges. The fax protocol uses run-length encoding, so if it sees a 7" line of all black, it just tells the remote machine that it has 1400 black dots. It'd be better to send a random pattern that RLE can't compress.
I think Intel's move here indicates that they recognize their monopoly position is about to go away. AMD is eating their marketshare from the bottom end and IBM's POWER technology is positioned to eat it from both the bottom and top end.
As reported on Slashdot last week, there was a week in April where AMD-based PCs actually outshipped Intel-based PCs.
On the IBM side, things look downright scary for Intel. POWER scales from cell phones on up to what will be the world's most powerful supercomputer. Microsoft's next XBox is announced to use "IBM technology", but everyone knows that means they're going to be using POWER chips. Microsoft's design on the XBox is to be the home entertainment hub, replacing the PC in that role.
As IBM and AMD grow stronger, Intel's fortunes will become increasingly tied, and limited, to the relevence of PCs.
...otherwise it will backfire completely. If the insurer settles claims instead of litigating them, it will open the floodgates for every "IP" owner under the sun to sue a user of open source products.
Don't gripe. Driving is a privilege, not a right. Obey the law and you won't have to worry about this light, or the hundreds of lights across the country that take pictures of red light offenders.
One more thing...you're wrong about where it was developed. Here is the posting proclaiming that it is, in fact, an official internally developed Microsoft product.
That's not necessarily true. There are companies out there that require their employees to sign over any intellectual property developed by the employee, whether or not it was on the company dime. This is actually legal in some U.S. jurisdictions, although not in others.
Yes, it does. The most logical licenses, considering Microsoft's intentions, are the CPL or the Apache License. They both allow derivative works to be "productized" without undue restrictions on the seller or the original developer.
...but just like IBM, they will eventually (finally) realize what they need to do to recuperate their public image and do it. There may not be an altruistic motive (it's more likely that they're getting tired of paying out $1B here, $2B there, $750M here, $610M there), but it will be a welcome change nonetheless.
Of course, IMO, their image will never be fully reformed until they start releasing product for Linux. It's large enough on the server side to make a solid business case for that development, and the Linux market now has customers that are willing to pay for software.
Actually, Windows is the biggest beneficiary of the threaded code, but the IBM OS/400 group in Rochester was the originator of taking Apache in that direction. Creating processes on OS/400 is even more expensive than in Windows, and when they wrote the IBM HTTP Server Powered by Apache, based on the 1.3 codebase, they added threads to it.
Very true. What this really does is help prevent true viruses (OS/400 has never had a virus, and it would be extremely difficult to write one because there are consistency checks on the programs to go along with the program/data flag) and buffer overflow vunerabilities. There's nothing to say a user couldn't be fooled into running a trojan horse that can be sent commands to execute. Even the most secure OS is only as secure as its stupidest user.
About freaking time. IBM's mainframe and midrange server architectures have been doing this for years. In OS/400, for example, the only things the processor will execute are program objects. Memory blocks marked as data cannot be executed, even in the event of a buffer overflow. The OS and hardware work together to ensure this.
. As I already pointed out, people can go build a GPL'd JVM *now*. You pointed out that the JVM would not ever be "official".
I did no such thing. I said that IBM doesn't even want that. Whether it's going to happen or not, it would be a practical answer to how to keep Microsoft's hands out of the JVM.
But there ARE incompatlbe kernels around with respect to drivers. And besides, a kernel and a JVM are to very different things. MS can't go installing incompatible Linux kernels on top of Windows XP. It would have to be *instead* of Windows XP, not something they want to do.
On a kernel rev basis, that's true. You wouldn't expect a Windows 3.1 driver to work on Windows XP, or an application that exercises Java 1.4's new capabilities to run on Java 1.1.8.
Microsoft can't install an incompatible Java VM on top of Windows and still call it Java. Even if Sun does the smart thing and makes the JRE open source, it still controls the trademark and the JCP controls what can be called Java -- if it doesn't past the TCK, it's not Java.
And why would we want all sorts of different JVMs? And what "features" would you want to add? This is a *language* not some application. You don't want to be changing features all the time.It's not that Sun doesn't have resourced to put in new features,but rather that it's unclear on what new featurs are worth putting in. Every new feature can break compatability in some way.
If they're not working on the JRE, they have resources to focus on OTHER things, like everything that gets built on top of Java.
Having a GPL JVM exist makes absolutely no difference to anyone except a small group of Linux users.
You're missing the point. GPL and open source are not equivalent. The GPL point was specifically with regards to making the JRE distasteful to Microsoft. However, there is a really neat thing that could happen if it were GPL or LGPL: it could be integrated straight into the Linux kernel (no muss, no fuss).
As far as "small group of Linux users" goes, Linux is on the path towards the mainstream, and with entry into the mainstream comes all the average Joe consumers, who won't know how to install a JVM (no matter how simple it is). Licensing the JRE in a way that is compatible with Linux distribution would enable it to be installed by default, without having to force average Joe users to download and install it themselves.
We're going to have to agree to disagree here. It's clear that neither one of us is going to convince the other, because the arguments reflect differing points of view.
Besides, as soon as there is an "open source java standard" as you want, Microsoft will be back at it with their incompatible JVM.
The easy way to make that a non-issue is to make the JVM GPL'd. Microsoft won't touch GPL code (anymore) with a 10 foot pole. However, I don't think even IBM wants it GPL'd. Given that Microsoft has the CLR, I don't think they'd use the JVM code. They might try to do it to add Java compatibility to the CLR, but they wouldn't be able to say it's "Java" compliant without passing the TCK.
Sun fought hard against that and they are not about to throw it all away so that some people who will never give them money will like them.
Sun doesn't have to throw it all away. Look at the Linux kernel. You don't see a dozen incompatible (at an application level) versions of the kernel runnng around. Sun could retain control of the Java brand while allowing the Java core to be co-developed by Sun, IBM, BEA, Oracle, and whoever else wants to help. Those developers would then use the common core in their own JVMs and would have more resources to spend on adding features.
b) Very easy to install a JRE doesn't mean that a developer can be assured that a potential user has a JRE installed. If the JRE is installed by default, the ISV has that assurance.
c) Having a GPL'd JDK is different than having a certified, GPL'd JDK. As they did with Tomcat, Sun should release the RI as open source.
As far as whining about the GPL, it's not whining. The GPL is a legally binding copyright license. It's not about being on a high horse...it's about being on solid legal ground in case of a challenge.
As far as being on a high horse, that goes both ways.
Linux developers and ISV's who want a development platform to embrace. Their choices, presently, are Java and Mono. If Java's licensing doesn't meet their requirements, they WILL go to Mono. Sun will capitalize by giving Linux developers a tool they can embrace. Java may be trivially installed, but unless a developer is guaranteed that a compatible version of Java is there, it won't have the money to do so
Linux on the desktop is still nowhere, so you can't seriously be suggesting that is important to Sun.
Maybe now, but definitely not 5 years from now. Linux on the desktop is growing, not shrinking. Anti-American sentiment is fueling some, but not all, of that growth outside the U.S. borders.
GPL compatibilty is totally irrelavant unless it's a core component such as X that many existing GPL applications need. If ditros wont' ship GPL incompatible licensed software, then it's the distros who are shooting themselves in the foot.
There are many developers who won't touch Java unless the licensing situation is addressed. The JRE cannot legally be bundled into the core distribution unless it is licensed in a GPL-compatible fashion..
No. Macromedia Studio MX for LINUX, Halo 2 for LINUX (although that one will never happen, since Microsoft has the publishing rights).
Targetting to a specific Linux distro, rather than a kernel rev, is stupid. It only adds credibility to Microsoft's argument that Linux has or is going to fragment into a bunch of incompatible versions.
Slashdot Mirror
Michael Moore is very smart, in how he is able to work people up to get his movie seen. He is a master propagandist, not afraid to use quotes out of context or outright fabrications to try to indoctrinate what he must view as the American Sheeple.
It'd be more intellectually honest to create documentaries centered around the absolute truth, rather than some self-important manufactured "truth", but it wouldn't get the outrage, and wouldn't sell as many tickets.
For the record, I'm not defending Bush, or the gun lobby, against this obsequious little weasel. I think they deserve strong criticism, but it must be fair, honest criticism. Neither of those are within Michael Moore's grasp.
The article suggests that Safari is the quickest, most standards compliant browser around. Quickest, it may be, but most standards compliant is Gecko, because that's Gecko's raison d'etre and they do it better than anyone else.
High-end systems like the IBM AS/400..err, iSeri..err, i5 have had no execute protection for decades. If it's not tagged as a program, it's not executable.
It's on the border. It perhaps isn't significant enough to warrant a patent, but it certainly meets the base criteria.
In the long run, the "all or nothing" approach to patents is a losing proposition. We're going to have to create a software patent system with a high burden of proof for patentability. Only bona fide novel, non-obvious, non-existing inventions will receive patent protection.
Judging by the abstract, the window needs to be inactive for a certain time before becoming translucent, and the translucency becomes greater the longer the window remains unchanged.
I don't think any software patents are good. However, *if* software patents are permissable, this is a novel application of a concept and I would think that the implementation meets the standards for patentability.
I still don't think it should be patentable, however.
is will anyone in government ever recognize the cold, hard truth that not every "idea" is something ownable? Nowhere in this discussion have I seen anyone on the pro-IP side indicate that in addition to more effective IP laws, we need reform wrt what can legitimately be claimed as Intellectual Property.
I could see IBM taking legal action against another Linux distro using their patents if they had their own Linux distro. However, they don't, so suing any of their friends in the Linux community would be counterproductive and stupid. That may have been true of 80s/early 90s IBM, but it's certainly not true of today's IBM.
That'd use up a lot of toner, to be sure, but faxing a pure black document doesn't really do all that much in terms of phone charges. The fax protocol uses run-length encoding, so if it sees a 7" line of all black, it just tells the remote machine that it has 1400 black dots. It'd be better to send a random pattern that RLE can't compress.
I think Intel's move here indicates that they recognize their monopoly position is about to go away. AMD is eating their marketshare from the bottom end and IBM's POWER technology is positioned to eat it from both the bottom and top end.
As reported on Slashdot last week, there was a week in April where AMD-based PCs actually outshipped Intel-based PCs.
On the IBM side, things look downright scary for Intel. POWER scales from cell phones on up to what will be the world's most powerful supercomputer. Microsoft's next XBox is announced to use "IBM technology", but everyone knows that means they're going to be using POWER chips. Microsoft's design on the XBox is to be the home entertainment hub, replacing the PC in that role.
As IBM and AMD grow stronger, Intel's fortunes will become increasingly tied, and limited, to the relevence of PCs.
It's too early to decide. It looks like Rambus has a case, but the court will have to decide.
Hopefully, the FTC will win on appeal and this will look more like companies working together to eliminate an injustice.
...otherwise it will backfire completely. If the insurer settles claims instead of litigating them, it will open the floodgates for every "IP" owner under the sun to sue a user of open source products.
Don't gripe. Driving is a privilege, not a right. Obey the law and you won't have to worry about this light, or the hundreds of lights across the country that take pictures of red light offenders.
One more thing...you're wrong about where it was developed.
Here is the posting proclaiming that it is, in fact, an official internally developed Microsoft product.
That's not necessarily true. There are companies out there that require their employees to sign over any intellectual property developed by the employee, whether or not it was on the company dime. This is actually legal in some U.S. jurisdictions, although not in others.
Yes, it does. The most logical licenses, considering Microsoft's intentions, are the CPL or the Apache License. They both allow derivative works to be "productized" without undue restrictions on the seller or the original developer.
...but just like IBM, they will eventually (finally) realize what they need to do to recuperate their public image and do it. There may not be an altruistic motive (it's more likely that they're getting tired of paying out $1B here, $2B there, $750M here, $610M there), but it will be a welcome change nonetheless.
Of course, IMO, their image will never be fully reformed until they start releasing product for Linux. It's large enough on the server side to make a solid business case for that development, and the Linux market now has customers that are willing to pay for software.
Actually, Windows is the biggest beneficiary of the threaded code, but the IBM OS/400 group in Rochester was the originator of taking Apache in that direction. Creating processes on OS/400 is even more expensive than in Windows, and when they wrote the IBM HTTP Server Powered by Apache, based on the 1.3 codebase, they added threads to it.
Very true. What this really does is help prevent true viruses (OS/400 has never had a virus, and it would be extremely difficult to write one because there are consistency checks on the programs to go along with the program/data flag) and buffer overflow vunerabilities. There's nothing to say a user couldn't be fooled into running a trojan horse that can be sent commands to execute. Even the most secure OS is only as secure as its stupidest user.
About freaking time. IBM's mainframe and midrange server architectures have been doing this for years. In OS/400, for example, the only things the processor will execute are program objects. Memory blocks marked as data cannot be executed, even in the event of a buffer overflow. The OS and hardware work together to ensure this.
. As I already pointed out, people can go build a GPL'd JVM *now*. You pointed out that the JVM would not ever be "official".
I did no such thing. I said that IBM doesn't even want that. Whether it's going to happen or not, it would be a practical answer to how to keep Microsoft's hands out of the JVM.
But there ARE incompatlbe kernels around with respect to drivers. And besides, a kernel and a JVM are to very different things. MS can't go installing incompatible Linux kernels on top of Windows XP. It would have to be *instead* of Windows XP, not something they want to do.
On a kernel rev basis, that's true. You wouldn't expect a Windows 3.1 driver to work on Windows XP, or an application that exercises Java 1.4's new capabilities to run on Java 1.1.8.
Microsoft can't install an incompatible Java VM on top of Windows and still call it Java. Even if Sun does the smart thing and makes the JRE open source, it still controls the trademark and the JCP controls what can be called Java -- if it doesn't past the TCK, it's not Java.
And why would we want all sorts of different JVMs? And what "features" would you want to add? This is a *language* not some application. You don't want to be changing features all the time.It's not that Sun doesn't have resourced to put in new features,but rather that it's unclear on what new featurs are worth putting in. Every new feature can break compatability in some way.
If they're not working on the JRE, they have resources to focus on OTHER things, like everything that gets built on top of Java.
Having a GPL JVM exist makes absolutely no difference to anyone except a small group of Linux users.
You're missing the point. GPL and open source are not equivalent. The GPL point was specifically with regards to making the JRE distasteful to Microsoft. However, there is a really neat thing that could happen if it were GPL or LGPL: it could be integrated straight into the Linux kernel (no muss, no fuss).
As far as "small group of Linux users" goes, Linux is on the path towards the mainstream, and with entry into the mainstream comes all the average Joe consumers, who won't know how to install a JVM (no matter how simple it is). Licensing the JRE in a way that is compatible with Linux distribution would enable it to be installed by default, without having to force average Joe users to download and install it themselves.
We're going to have to agree to disagree here. It's clear that neither one of us is going to convince the other, because the arguments reflect differing points of view.
Besides, as soon as there is an "open source java standard" as you want, Microsoft will be back at it with their incompatible JVM.
The easy way to make that a non-issue is to make the JVM GPL'd. Microsoft won't touch GPL code (anymore) with a 10 foot pole. However, I don't think even IBM wants it GPL'd. Given that Microsoft has the CLR, I don't think they'd use the JVM code. They might try to do it to add Java compatibility to the CLR, but they wouldn't be able to say it's "Java" compliant without passing the TCK.
Sun fought hard against that and they are not about to throw it all away so that some people who will never give them money will like them.
Sun doesn't have to throw it all away. Look at the Linux kernel. You don't see a dozen incompatible (at an application level) versions of the kernel runnng around. Sun could retain control of the Java brand while allowing the Java core to be co-developed by Sun, IBM, BEA, Oracle, and whoever else wants to help. Those developers would then use the common core in their own JVMs and would have more resources to spend on adding features.
and nothing will change unless everyone starts making a federal case out of each patent that seeks to patent an idea, not an invention.
a) s/money/motivation (escaped when I proofread)
b) Very easy to install a JRE doesn't mean that a developer can be assured that a potential user has a JRE installed. If the JRE is installed by default, the ISV has that assurance.
c) Having a GPL'd JDK is different than having a certified, GPL'd JDK. As they did with Tomcat, Sun should release the RI as open source.
As far as whining about the GPL, it's not whining. The GPL is a legally binding copyright license. It's not about being on a high horse...it's about being on solid legal ground in case of a challenge.
As far as being on a high horse, that goes both ways.
So that Sun can capitalize on... what exactly?
Linux developers and ISV's who want a development platform to embrace. Their choices, presently, are Java and Mono. If Java's licensing doesn't meet their requirements, they WILL go to Mono. Sun will capitalize by giving Linux developers a tool they can embrace. Java may be trivially installed, but unless a developer is guaranteed that a compatible version of Java is there, it won't have the money to do so
Linux on the desktop is still nowhere, so you can't seriously be suggesting that is important to Sun.
Maybe now, but definitely not 5 years from now. Linux on the desktop is growing, not shrinking. Anti-American sentiment is fueling some, but not all, of that growth outside the U.S. borders.
GPL compatibilty is totally irrelavant unless it's a core component such as X that many existing GPL applications need. If ditros wont' ship GPL incompatible licensed software, then it's the distros who are shooting themselves in the foot.
There are many developers who won't touch Java unless the licensing situation is addressed. The JRE cannot legally be bundled into the core distribution unless it is licensed in a GPL-compatible fashion..
No. Macromedia Studio MX for LINUX, Halo 2 for LINUX (although that one will never happen, since Microsoft has the publishing rights).
Targetting to a specific Linux distro, rather than a kernel rev, is stupid. It only adds credibility to Microsoft's argument that Linux has or is going to fragment into a bunch of incompatible versions.