Anyway, tools and technology are the same - I fail to see the difference. The way I see it, a tool (by most basic viewpoints) is just a manifestation of existing technology. Why shouldn't you be able to patent a technology.
And there *are* laws regarding what can and can't be patented. Unfortunately these laws are not always interpereted justly by patent-clerks. This is not a failure of the patent system, it's a failure of the clerk.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
That's ridiculous: You can't really be suggesting that restricting someone is equivalent to harming them.
The laws of the United States (and every other country on the planet) restrict people from killing each other arbitrarily. Are you saying that those laws are harming the citizens? That these countries would be better off allowing that sort of activity? Gosh, I hope not.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Okay, let's put aside all issues of "law" here because, as others have pointed out, legality is sometimes not consistant with justice. Then the question becomes "Does one have the right to access/use information in any way they see fit?"
To better illustrate my thoughts on that question, here is another one: "Can anyone own information?"
The "Information Wants to Be Free" camp says that information cannot be owned by anyone. Information is there for all the people in the world to access. Okay, say that all the people in the world *did* have access to all the information (that wasn't locked up in a drum somewhere) -- that also means that all the Governments, Companies,and other undesirables now have access to all the information in the world.
Well that's not so bad is it? Does you mind if any company in the world can get their hands on your personal information? Do you really want every bit of information ever compiled about you to be accessible by just anyone? I sure as fuck don't. Why? Because it's MY information and I don't care to have others misuse it in way that might strip me of my privacy.
I demand the right to control who has access to my information, and how they can use it. This is about privacy as much as anything else. What's the difference between my private information and my source code? I think it's less clear now that we are in such a bomming Information Age.
Now does that seem Totalitarian to you?
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes"
Jefferson would have cheered the overthrow of a corrupt or abusive government. What we have here is not even remotely close to fitting that description. The Declarations words are not to be taken lightly; just because you don't *like* the system does not mean it needs to be overthrown.
Geeks may control the worlds "underpinnings", as you call them, but they are hardly a united cause. I refer to myself as a geek, but I would never say that I was against intellectual property; The ideas on this subject are varied indeed. Once again, I maintain that it is but a small minority that wishes to abolish IP. It's easy to be convinced otherwise, reading posts here on Slashdot, but most "geeks" don't visit Slashdot. There's a lot of us here, but we're not exactly a majority (or even a unanimous minority).
MP3s are another bad example. People pirate MP3s, not because they feel that IP should be dissolved, but because they have little or no respect for existing laws. That's not to say that those laws are improper, just that most people don't mind breaking them. Are they breaking them because they think they're injust? Hardly. They're breaking them because they don't *WANT* to pay for the CD. It's easier to download the music. That doesn't make it right.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
I wish people would stop using the one-click system as an example of how horrible the patent system is. The one-click system is *obviously* a hideous misuse of a patent. Whoever was responsible for issuing it should be fired. By citing one-click, you are stereotyping against all patents. The VAST majority of patents are valid and make sense, logically and legally.
Here's my take on the resources issue: Patent research may cost money, but if you expect to make money off an idea or product then you are responsible to make sure that you are not infringing on someone else's rights in doing so. And as I stated before, the problems of fighting legal battles with people who have more money than you have *NOTHING* to do with patents. This is a problem with our civil system and is unfortunately carried over into patent-law.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
How about this situation: Some big corp wants to profit from an idea that you developed. Why shouldn't they be allowed to? Because it was your idea. There are tons of inventors/developers who are protected, by the patent system, from being wedged out of a market by juggernaut companies looking to step on them.
But back to your example. Why shouldn't you be allowed to profit from it? Because the company (or another individual) got there first. THEY were the original developers of the idea, not you. Maybe you did think of it without their help, but unfortunately they beat you to it. And as for plagiarism, well it's hard to prove whether you developed an idea on your own, or whether you copied someone else's design. So, as it stands, you would be out of luck -- by design.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
So when systems break down we are to abandon existing order? We're to shrug the law when it isn't convenient for us? Because it hinders *our* development? Tough cookies.
Yes, it is unfortunate that individuals rarely have the resources that large companies do. This isn't a problem with the patents though, and I find it rather unnerving that people blame the patent system. If you've got a better solution, I'd love to hear it.
I know tons of/.ers have a solution: They'd love to see patents go down the drain. Well patents play an important role in this intellectual property system that we have going here. And yes, I know that a number of/.ers would love to see ALL IP go out the window. My advice to them? Get real.
People (and companies) are not going to give up the exclusive rights to their works just because some minority of extremists think that "All Information Should Be Free". And yes, you are a minority. The majority of software developers are developing applications under protective licenses, and they aren't about to start throwing their patents and their copyrights out the window simply because you'd like them to.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Valid point (of course), but compare the two situations. Who is *harmed* by software patents? Some people are restricted by them, but that is the idea of all patents, not just software ones. If someone puts their time and energy into developing an innovative idea, I don't see any reason why they shouldn't be given a time-limited monopoly on that idea.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Where do you draw the line? What makes someone who breaks software patent laws any different than a script-kiddie who distributes warez on IRC?
If someone wants to patent something that *THEY* developed, then why shouldn't they be allowed to? What makes it different that patenting anything else? Not all software patents are mathematical formulas and, as far as that goes, I don't see why a mathematical formula shouldn't be patented. Other than that fact that you say so.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Well SLASH bugs aside, this appears to be the CMU Sphinx Source Code story, n'est pas? And if you read the blurb about the story (as written by Mandrake, the submitter) you'll see that he recommends that people "get it while you can", just in case any patent violations pop up.
I think you'll find that you are, in fact, mistaken about that last part. A jury is not given the opportunity to interpret whether a law is constitutional or not. This is the Supreme Courts decision. A jury is only there to decide whether or not a law was broken. The distinction is that a jury (in theory, if not wholey in practive) cannot allow their emotions, as to how they feel about the "justice" of the law, get in the way of their decisions on whether or not someone is guilty of breaking it.
Having said that, I will agree that certain laws *do* need to be broken. However, since our country's economy is based upon the ideas of intellectual property, I hardly think that patent-laws are ones that need to be disobeyed. For moral and legal reasons.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
It angers me that Slashdot posts suggestions to "grab it while you can", in reference to patent violations. If a patent is truly violated, I would hope that any developers out there would honor that patent and discontinue their [potentially illegal] use of the code.
Yeah, in the case of DeCSS it is bogus and there is a cause to rally behind. I hardly see that as reason to try to screw over all software patent holders. And I think most of us are pretty good about that sort of thing, but I just felt it needed saying.
Also, I understand that it wasn't a Slashdot person who actually wrote that comment, but I still don't how hard it would be to strip out little editorial comments like that. I'd hardly call it censorship.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
It's funny... Whenever people are angry at IBM they say how much IBM has fallen since it's former days of Pre-Microsoft glory. But here, when IBM is doing something Pro-Linux, it's "IBM is THE company". I don't have an opinion either way, but I hardly think of IBM as the end-all of computing, although they certainly have clout.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
You know someone. You refer to them as a hacker. I assume you're using the ESR defintion of "hacker". But then you go on to say that they're reading "C++ for Dummies". Now, granted, not all "hackers" need to know C++... but to read a "For Dummies" book... Egads man.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Yes it is legal to make copies (lossless or otherwise) of your own CDs, cassettes, Records, and VHS tapes. It's not legal to distribute them, but that goes without saying.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Well if you emailed Rob, he could probably go back and tell you where the reference to pouring hot grits down one's pants first appeared. I doubt anyone here really remembers (except for the guy who made it up).
It wasn't funny at first, because it was totally offtopic and stupid. Then I thought it was sort of amusing because it was at least a running gag. And now it's annoying because all the other little trolls are doing it too.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Well there are a lot of people who feel this way (and I actually wrote a piece about it here on Slashdot last summer), but look at it this way:
In the last year or so (post 2.2) hordes of companies have thrown themselves onto the Linux train. Do you really think we'd have the kind of support we have now if Linux stayed underground?
First of all there wouldn't be as many users (obviously), so the amount of information you could find online would diminish significantly. Everyone with a new Creative Labs sound card would be fsck'ed, and so would most people who want to use their 3d accelerators under Linux (NVidia & Matrox). The only way you could play Quake would be to use a 3Dfx card. And that would be about the *only* quality game you could play under Linux because I guarantee you that Loki wouldn't exist right now if Linux were still "underground".
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Or you can have it both ways: You can have your own ads on the machine and get a soft-drink company to pay for it.
UMass Amherst (and I imagine other large universities) has their own line of Coke machines with the UMass logo on it. Coke foots the bill and the University gets free advertisements. Now why would they want to change that situation?
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
There may or may not be motivation behind this, other than money. Is it relevant? Not really, because the question was to the constitutionality of this situation. And simply put, motivation has no meaning to the constitution.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Yes this is terrible, but don't start dragging the constitutions name around; it has nothing to do with the constitution. All it has to do with is a lousy long-distance policy in an institution. If people hate the policy, they'll let it be known and the University will either lose students (and money to be raised from students) or they'll change the policy.
As for Coke/Pepsi, that's even more ridiculous. Do you really expect a University to go out and get vending machines from *every* company? It's not like they're saying "Hey, you can't have Mountain Dew on campus", it's just that they won't sell it to you. It's a manageability issue more than anything else.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Though I know you are nothing but a troll, I feel compelled to answer this:
Hawk explained the facts of the situation. He didn't even say what he *felt* was the appropriate action in this instance. Imagine a government where our judicial system operated on the premise that courts could rule how they "felt". Our country was founded on thoughts quite to the contrary.
It's not about winning arguments - it's about interpreting the law and abiding by it. Regardless of whether it makes perfect sense or not.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
I was disappointed to see John Carmack on that list. It's not that I have anything against John, but his posts are nothing special, really. The only reason they get moderated so high is because of his icon-status.
I would've liked to see Enoch, Signal, CB Brown, or (heck, why not) even myself;) At least three of the four on that list post mildy interesting comments most of the time. Carmack is mostly just setting the record straight about things he is involved with... That's nice, but it's hardly anything special.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
That's crazy. But here's a better idea for this technology: Couldn't you use a device like this to *prevent* someone from thinking they were moving. By countering active inner-ear sensations, you could stop people from getting sea/car-sick. "Don't like taking-off in an airplane? You won't feel a thing."
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Slashdot Mirror
Anyway, tools and technology are the same - I fail to see the difference. The way I see it, a tool (by most basic viewpoints) is just a manifestation of existing technology. Why shouldn't you be able to patent a technology.
And there *are* laws regarding what can and can't be patented. Unfortunately these laws are not always interpereted justly by patent-clerks. This is not a failure of the patent system, it's a failure of the clerk.
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
The laws of the United States (and every other country on the planet) restrict people from killing each other arbitrarily. Are you saying that those laws are harming the citizens? That these countries would be better off allowing that sort of activity? Gosh, I hope not.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
To better illustrate my thoughts on that question, here is another one: "Can anyone own information?"
The "Information Wants to Be Free" camp says that information cannot be owned by anyone. Information is there for all the people in the world to access. Okay, say that all the people in the world *did* have access to all the information (that wasn't locked up in a drum somewhere) -- that also means that all the Governments, Companies,and other undesirables now have access to all the information in the world.
Well that's not so bad is it? Does you mind if any company in the world can get their hands on your personal information? Do you really want every bit of information ever compiled about you to be accessible by just anyone? I sure as fuck don't. Why? Because it's MY information and I don't care to have others misuse it in way that might strip me of my privacy.
I demand the right to control who has access to my information, and how they can use it. This is about privacy as much as anything else. What's the difference between my private information and my source code? I think it's less clear now that we are in such a bomming Information Age.
Now does that seem Totalitarian to you?
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes"
Jefferson would have cheered the overthrow of a corrupt or abusive government. What we have here is not even remotely close to fitting that description. The Declarations words are not to be taken lightly; just because you don't *like* the system does not mean it needs to be overthrown.
Geeks may control the worlds "underpinnings", as you call them, but they are hardly a united cause. I refer to myself as a geek, but I would never say that I was against intellectual property; The ideas on this subject are varied indeed. Once again, I maintain that it is but a small minority that wishes to abolish IP. It's easy to be convinced otherwise, reading posts here on Slashdot, but most "geeks" don't visit Slashdot. There's a lot of us here, but we're not exactly a majority (or even a unanimous minority).
MP3s are another bad example. People pirate MP3s, not because they feel that IP should be dissolved, but because they have little or no respect for existing laws. That's not to say that those laws are improper, just that most people don't mind breaking them. Are they breaking them because they think they're injust? Hardly. They're breaking them because they don't *WANT* to pay for the CD. It's easier to download the music. That doesn't make it right.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Here's my take on the resources issue: Patent research may cost money, but if you expect to make money off an idea or product then you are responsible to make sure that you are not infringing on someone else's rights in doing so. And as I stated before, the problems of fighting legal battles with people who have more money than you have *NOTHING* to do with patents. This is a problem with our civil system and is unfortunately carried over into patent-law.
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
But back to your example. Why shouldn't you be allowed to profit from it? Because the company (or another individual) got there first. THEY were the original developers of the idea, not you. Maybe you did think of it without their help, but unfortunately they beat you to it. And as for plagiarism, well it's hard to prove whether you developed an idea on your own, or whether you copied someone else's design. So, as it stands, you would be out of luck -- by design.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Yes, it is unfortunate that individuals rarely have the resources that large companies do. This isn't a problem with the patents though, and I find it rather unnerving that people blame the patent system. If you've got a better solution, I'd love to hear it.
I know tons of /.ers have a solution: They'd love to see patents go down the drain. Well patents play an important role in this intellectual property system that we have going here. And yes, I know that a number of /.ers would love to see ALL IP go out the window. My advice to them? Get real.
People (and companies) are not going to give up the exclusive rights to their works just because some minority of extremists think that "All Information Should Be Free". And yes, you are a minority. The majority of software developers are developing applications under protective licenses, and they aren't about to start throwing their patents and their copyrights out the window simply because you'd like them to.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
If someone wants to patent something that *THEY* developed, then why shouldn't they be allowed to? What makes it different that patenting anything else? Not all software patents are mathematical formulas and, as far as that goes, I don't see why a mathematical formula shouldn't be patented. Other than that fact that you say so.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
So what's the deal? Why are you so big on Don Knots?
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
I think you'll find that you are, in fact, mistaken about that last part. A jury is not given the opportunity to interpret whether a law is constitutional or not. This is the Supreme Courts decision. A jury is only there to decide whether or not a law was broken. The distinction is that a jury (in theory, if not wholey in practive) cannot allow their emotions, as to how they feel about the "justice" of the law, get in the way of their decisions on whether or not someone is guilty of breaking it.
Having said that, I will agree that certain laws *do* need to be broken. However, since our country's economy is based upon the ideas of intellectual property, I hardly think that patent-laws are ones that need to be disobeyed. For moral and legal reasons.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
My apologies for feeding the trolls...
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Yeah, in the case of DeCSS it is bogus and there is a cause to rally behind. I hardly see that as reason to try to screw over all software patent holders. And I think most of us are pretty good about that sort of thing, but I just felt it needed saying.
Also, I understand that it wasn't a Slashdot person who actually wrote that comment, but I still don't how hard it would be to strip out little editorial comments like that. I'd hardly call it censorship.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
You know someone. You refer to them as a hacker. I assume you're using the ESR defintion of "hacker". But then you go on to say that they're reading "C++ for Dummies". Now, granted, not all "hackers" need to know C++... but to read a "For Dummies" book... Egads man.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
It wasn't funny at first, because it was totally offtopic and stupid. Then I thought it was sort of amusing because it was at least a running gag. And now it's annoying because all the other little trolls are doing it too.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
In the last year or so (post 2.2) hordes of companies have thrown themselves onto the Linux train. Do you really think we'd have the kind of support we have now if Linux stayed underground?
First of all there wouldn't be as many users (obviously), so the amount of information you could find online would diminish significantly. Everyone with a new Creative Labs sound card would be fsck'ed, and so would most people who want to use their 3d accelerators under Linux (NVidia & Matrox). The only way you could play Quake would be to use a 3Dfx card. And that would be about the *only* quality game you could play under Linux because I guarantee you that Loki wouldn't exist right now if Linux were still "underground".
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
UMass Amherst (and I imagine other large universities) has their own line of Coke machines with the UMass logo on it. Coke foots the bill and the University gets free advertisements. Now why would they want to change that situation?
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
As for Coke/Pepsi, that's even more ridiculous. Do you really expect a University to go out and get vending machines from *every* company? It's not like they're saying "Hey, you can't have Mountain Dew on campus", it's just that they won't sell it to you. It's a manageability issue more than anything else.
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Hawk explained the facts of the situation. He didn't even say what he *felt* was the appropriate action in this instance. Imagine a government where our judicial system operated on the premise that courts could rule how they "felt". Our country was founded on thoughts quite to the contrary.
It's not about winning arguments - it's about interpreting the law and abiding by it. Regardless of whether it makes perfect sense or not.
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
I would've liked to see Enoch, Signal, CB Brown, or (heck, why not) even myself ;) At least three of the four on that list post mildy interesting comments most of the time. Carmack is mostly just setting the record straight about things he is involved with... That's nice, but it's hardly anything special.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Made Pepsi Look Better
Generated absolutely no revenue at the cost of existing customer-loyalty
I don't really see the upside to New Coke.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."