It's money for the act of developing the software, not for copying it. Shareware restricts you from sharing the software with your friend, that's not what the AFFS is interested in.
Not very easy to do for multiple-ownership - for example, apache still accesses files as the user it is daemonised as, not as the user you authenticate as.
I would suggest you get out from under your rock then, assuming you're European. If you're not, it doesn't matter whether you were aware or not, since you're not "the public".
It certainly has generated public concern. Look at the number of FFII protest signatories, or "Thank Poland" signatories, or the people who protested outside the Parliament. Or any the protectinnovation.org testimony. Or any other of the public feedback on the directive.
If you read slashdot daily, you must be missing a lot of stories.
I think basically they have a load of US patents, and the applications above are the EU applications for the equivalent of what they already have in the US.
A search on the USPTO database for that company and those inventors would probably yield a list of the Commerce One patents.
I think some of them are going to be big-bucks patents too, sadly.
European Patent News: European Council's bad 18th May "agreement" seems to have come unstuck:
You can get Debian GNU/Hurd, this is the easiest way to install a GNU system. It looks much like Debian GNU/Linux though - in fact, very similar. The GNUishness seems to affect more than the Linuxness;)
In terms of differences - Hurd has very different models of doing things. For example, non-root users can effectively mount filesystems if they have all the permissions needed. There are these things called "translators" which is a bit like FUSE or the other user-space filesystem things you get - essentially, generating a filesystem via a program, so you could mount anything you can script really.
There are lots of other interesting differences. Hurd isn't terribly similar to Linux, and does allow you to do some rather cool things.
UK patent application GB0312175.3, someone already tried:
"The applicant appeared to be trying to protect the use of '0' and '1' in computer technology. [...] The applicant appeared to have completely misunderstood the patent system, and had not actually invented anything."
Via softwarepatents.co.uk. Well, at least *that* didn't get through. ARM's patent on the use of pointer arithmetic in CPU emulators *was* allowed, though.
Actually, they specifically admit "Is" as prior art, the example they give is:
If (Not(A Is B)) Then (Goto Z) End If
By generating an IsNot operator, such that Not(A Is B)===(A IsNot B), you're re-ordering the sentance:
If (A IsNot B) Then (Goto Z) End If
That's what they're trying to patent. The use of a keyword rather than boolean logic. I rather hope and suspect this patent will fail for insufficient inventive step.
It does look like the "open source" licence has a number of hidden gotchas, though, like:
- you assign Squiz.net all copyrights to any modification you make (though I don't think that would stand up in court) - you must notify Squiz.net of any modification you make - the copyright licence has termination clauses
I'm pretty sure that it would fail a number of points of the OSD, and probably wouldn't be considered free software either.
The ARM patent is discussed on softwarepatents.co.uk, scan down the page to "Patent GB0025696.6". Basically, it's a patent on a method for speeding up CPU emulators. The method in question is "instead of copying memory buffers, why not just copy around *pointers* to those buffers?". This is apparently innovative and technical.
I encourage everyone who plans on attending to keep in touch with FFII-UK; if you're not sure where we currently are, or the problems with the Council directive, they are the people to ask. The UKPTO sent out their one-sided biased view of the directive, get the other side of the story too.
Then people shouldn't buy cards which require proprietary drivers for bizarre reasons; there are plenty which do not.
People should vote with their feet, and the fact is that free software drivers are better in the long run than proprietary drivers. Not withstanding the fact that they are commonly more modern in design and better written, they are also more likely to be portable across architectures. If Linux runs on PowerPC, but all the drivers are proprietary binary x86, well, it kind of makes it pointless.
I love the misguided comments in this story. In particular, I like the "most users don't care what is in their kernel, so we shouldn't care that we're taking away freedoms from all (including those who do care)".
"Without this hook, PWC will work, but with limitations, just as it always has."
"Actually, I've got a little surprise for you. The NDA I signed with Philips has already expired a year ago. Yet, I didn't just throw the decompressor code on the Internet."
So, just to summarise, a) removing the hook doesn't stop the driver working, b) there isn't really anything stopping him publishing the code as free software. Basically, he just wants to take his ball home because he thinks he should be allowed to put hooks for proprietary modules into the kernel.
"Anyway, I am not going to debate this any further at this point. Johannes, please remove my webcam driver from the USB source tree" (May 25, 2001)
Linux doesn't need proprietary drivers, it doesn't need to compromise freedom, and it certainly doesn't need people to try to press the issue by holding code hostage. And, aside from all the facts that this guy is acting an arse, there are also questions over whether or not the hook is legal (Linus' point of view of derivative works of the Linux kernel is quite clear - they must be GPL'd), and the decision to remove the hook was partially a technical one anyway (only one driver is using it).
Yet, we are still going to get people holding this up as an example of the GPL preventing Linux from "going enterprise" or whatever. Guys; shove it - for Linux to be "accepted by business" doesn't mean that developers should bend over for whatever perversion proprietary companies want. Jeesh.
I don't think it's necessarily the case that the code becomes GPL'd by default - although that argument could be made - just that by continuing to make it available, other people can have a reasonable expection that the code is OK. It's called estoppel, and it basically means that their past behaviour would stop them from suing people.
The implication that the German decision has little to do with the US is unfounded; the two systems are so sufficiently similar that the decision would have been the same in the US.
Unlikely, I would think - there's no reason for depending on it at the moment. Maybe in the future it will though, but I seem to remember them talking about that being either a gradual or community-led thing, due to the amount of work a) involved in making the change and b) already invested in Evolution.
Running the Java calendar server under Mono using IKVM might be interesting though.
The whole paper appears to be centred around the idea that the GPL is a contract. Most people seem to think the GPL is actually a licence, not a contract - this kind of makes the whole paper useless, in my opinion, and is what led to the confused conclusion.
http://lwn.net/Articles/61292/ is a useful discussion of the difference, once you accept it as a licence the whole discussion of "enforcability" kind of goes out of the window.
This argument really grates with me. "GPL licence advocates can poach from BSD" - so, people who write BSD software don't care about MS using their stuff in proprietary software, yet somehow get really annoyed when people release it as free software?
If someone has a problem with that, they shouldn't release under the BSD licence.
Slashdot Mirror
It's money for the act of developing the software, not for copying it. Shareware restricts you from sharing the software with your friend, that's not what the AFFS is interested in.
Not very easy to do for multiple-ownership - for example, apache still accesses files as the user it is daemonised as, not as the user you authenticate as.
I would suggest you get out from under your rock then, assuming you're European. If you're not, it doesn't matter whether you were aware or not, since you're not "the public".
It certainly has generated public concern. Look at the number of FFII protest signatories, or "Thank Poland" signatories, or the people who protested outside the Parliament. Or any the protectinnovation.org testimony. Or any other of the public feedback on the directive.
If you read slashdot daily, you must be missing a lot of stories.
Redirect all my URLs to a PHP script which is going to call some Java parser which presumably then spits out PHP which is then interpreted?
Either I'm nuts or they are.
Here is a list of patent application numbers:
? t=233
;)
http://kwiki.ffii.org/?CommerceOne
I think basically they have a load of US patents, and the applications above are the EU applications for the equivalent of what they already have in the US.
A search on the USPTO database for that company and those inventors would probably yield a list of the Commerce One patents.
I think some of them are going to be big-bucks patents too, sadly.
European Patent News: European Council's bad 18th May "agreement" seems to have come unstuck:
http://nosoftwarepatents.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php
Oh dear. This might mean the EU doesn't get swpat after all....
You can get Debian GNU/Hurd, this is the easiest way to install a GNU system. It looks much like Debian GNU/Linux though - in fact, very similar. The GNUishness seems to affect more than the Linuxness ;)
In terms of differences - Hurd has very different models of doing things. For example, non-root users can effectively mount filesystems if they have all the permissions needed. There are these things called "translators" which is a bit like FUSE or the other user-space filesystem things you get - essentially, generating a filesystem via a program, so you could mount anything you can script really.
There are lots of other interesting differences. Hurd isn't terribly similar to Linux, and does allow you to do some rather cool things.
First teft handed post?
;)
What is a 'teft' hand? First cack handed post, more like
UK patent application GB0312175.3, someone already tried:
"The applicant appeared to be trying to protect the use of '0' and '1' in computer technology. [...] The applicant appeared to have completely misunderstood the patent system, and had not actually invented anything."
Via softwarepatents.co.uk. Well, at least *that* didn't get through. ARM's patent on the use of pointer arithmetic in CPU emulators *was* allowed, though.
You think that's a joke? Someone tried to do that in the UK, patent application GB0312175.3.
Read the end of this.
Actually, they specifically admit "Is" as prior art, the example they give is:
If (Not(A Is B)) Then (Goto Z) End If
By generating an IsNot operator, such that Not(A Is B)===(A IsNot B), you're re-ordering the sentance:
If (A IsNot B) Then (Goto Z) End If
That's what they're trying to patent. The use of a keyword rather than boolean logic. I rather hope and suspect this patent will fail for insufficient inventive step.
It does look like the "open source" licence has a number of hidden gotchas, though, like:
- you assign Squiz.net all copyrights to any modification you make (though I don't think that would stand up in court)
- you must notify Squiz.net of any modification you make
- the copyright licence has termination clauses
I'm pretty sure that it would fail a number of points of the OSD, and probably wouldn't be considered free software either.
The ARM patent is discussed on softwarepatents.co.uk, scan down the page to "Patent GB0025696.6". Basically, it's a patent on a method for speeding up CPU emulators. The method in question is "instead of copying memory buffers, why not just copy around *pointers* to those buffers?". This is apparently innovative and technical.
I encourage everyone who plans on attending to keep in touch with FFII-UK; if you're not sure where we currently are, or the problems with the Council directive, they are the people to ask. The UKPTO sent out their one-sided biased view of the directive, get the other side of the story too.
Then people shouldn't buy cards which require proprietary drivers for bizarre reasons; there are plenty which do not.
People should vote with their feet, and the fact is that free software drivers are better in the long run than proprietary drivers. Not withstanding the fact that they are commonly more modern in design and better written, they are also more likely to be portable across architectures. If Linux runs on PowerPC, but all the drivers are proprietary binary x86, well, it kind of makes it pointless.
I love the misguided comments in this story. In particular, I like the "most users don't care what is in their kernel, so we shouldn't care that we're taking away freedoms from all (including those who do care)".
Some comments from the guy who actually did this (http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/040 8.3/0270.html):
So, just to summarise, a) removing the hook doesn't stop the driver working, b) there isn't really anything stopping him publishing the code as free software. Basically, he just wants to take his ball home because he thinks he should be allowed to put hooks for proprietary modules into the kernel.
Is it the first time he's threatened to do this? No (http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/010 5.3/0365.html):
Linux doesn't need proprietary drivers, it doesn't need to compromise freedom, and it certainly doesn't need people to try to press the issue by holding code hostage. And, aside from all the facts that this guy is acting an arse, there are also questions over whether or not the hook is legal (Linus' point of view of derivative works of the Linux kernel is quite clear - they must be GPL'd), and the decision to remove the hook was partially a technical one anyway (only one driver is using it).
Yet, we are still going to get people holding this up as an example of the GPL preventing Linux from "going enterprise" or whatever. Guys; shove it - for Linux to be "accepted by business" doesn't mean that developers should bend over for whatever perversion proprietary companies want. Jeesh.
I don't think it's necessarily the case that the code becomes GPL'd by default - although that argument could be made - just that by continuing to make it available, other people can have a reasonable expection that the code is OK. It's called estoppel, and it basically means that their past behaviour would stop them from suing people.
There are differences, they just don't matter.
The implication that the German decision has little to do with the US is unfounded; the two systems are so sufficiently similar that the decision would have been the same in the US.
They're a Berne Convention signatory; it's not that different.
Unlikely, I would think - there's no reason for depending on it at the moment. Maybe in the future it will though, but I seem to remember them talking about that being either a gradual or community-led thing, due to the amount of work a) involved in making the change and b) already invested in Evolution.
Running the Java calendar server under Mono using IKVM might be interesting though.
A link for you.
But you're right, it's a very content-free post.
Are you sure TreeCC is used for Mono?
It is on the same website as Portable.NET, the C# compiler for the Dot GNU project, not Mono.
"I would highly recommend you actually do some research for yourself rather than forcing /.'ers to do it."
Well, quite.
RAND != Royalty Free and Non-Discriminatory
RAND == Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory
So, in fact, they *can* and *do* charge money to licence patents under RAND. RAND is not good enough for any Free Software, GPL or otherwise.
The whole paper appears to be centred around the idea that the GPL is a contract. Most people seem to think the GPL is actually a licence, not a contract - this kind of makes the whole paper useless, in my opinion, and is what led to the confused conclusion.
http://lwn.net/Articles/61292/ is a useful discussion of the difference, once you accept it as a licence the whole discussion of "enforcability" kind of goes out of the window.
Have a look at Markdown. It's like other text languages, but has 'fallback to HTML' easily available and is designed to be standards-nice:
http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/
There is also a flavour which guarantees XML-wellformedness, called xMarkdown (you can find a link to it on the Markdown list).
This argument really grates with me. "GPL licence advocates can poach from BSD" - so, people who write BSD software don't care about MS using their stuff in proprietary software, yet somehow get really annoyed when people release it as free software?
If someone has a problem with that, they shouldn't release under the BSD licence.
"It never says I can't distribute it [... as long as I comply with ...] the original license"
Well, you clearly understand the matter better than I.