Various European folks in our community have contacted him. He has replied with blather and generalities like "Europe is not going for a US-style patent system" to excuse himself. They appealed to me for help. Had they gotten any progress with him, I would not be writing the article.
No you didn't elect me, at least if you aren't an SPI member. But I speak for a reasonable portion of the Free Software community. Graham has an opinion, but represents few (if any) of the Open Source and Linux developers. He has confused evangelism, which he is qualified to do, with representation, which he is not.
I work for a living too. The folks at Unisys that assert the Welch patent are the ones who should be doing useful work instead of gumming up the software industry.
The nature of technical innovation is that ideas are built on top of other ideas. Progress is incremental and relies on previous discoveries. Software patenting prevents this.
Yes, I read it. They say that by monitoring the damage and publishing articles about it, they guarantee against any adverse impact on Open Source. Isn't that absurd? They will measure the damage and tell people. That's the guarantee. It sounds like double-speak to me.
So, you want Mozilla to be unable to display GIFs for 7 to 14 years? Of course the Welch patent is older than that, but consider if all Open Source software was prohibited from using algorithms that have been patented within 14 years. Who is going to be running free software if that's the case?
It is far from clear to me that the fact that the box which has been transported to my facility is rented means that the software is not distributed. I don't see why the nature of the financial transaction is important to the concept of distribution.
You are confusing two things: providing software as a service, is not the same as renting software. When providing software as a service, the software may not leave your site and may not be on a machine that is accessable to me - I just use it over a web interface. In this case, you may be said not to be distributing the software to me. This is the "ASP problem" with GPL 2. If you rent me a piece of software at my site or by placing it under my control, you're distributing the software and GPL 2 applies just fine.
Nope, you'd still be obligated to disclose the source in hardware that is rented. The software's still being distributed. The form of the financial transaction doesn't matter.
The GPL requires the person who distributes the binary to distribute the source (especially if that is a commercial distribution). It is not legal to pass that obligation off to some public web site not affiliated with the people who distribute the binary.
There is a special version of the GPL called the Affero GPL for ASP software that is not distributed. The rather kludgy solution is that the software is required to regurgitate its own source on command, over the net! This problem will be further addressed, hopefully in a more practical fashion, in GPL 3.
I actually took typesetting with movable type in high school. This shows that I'm old:-) You get pretty fast at it. Eventually, they came up with a machine that would cast a line of type, in molten lead, as you typed it. That made things even faster.
I also took switchboard operation with plugboards, in the last year they taught it. To test for busy, press the tip of the plug to the ring of the jack. If it clicks, the line is busy. The next year, the school got an automatic PBX.
The printing press was a the first effective tool for broadcasting information to a large population. Gutenberg did not invent writing, he invented a way of mass copying written language. Considering it that way, audio broadcasting fits right in.
Did anyone notice that this device is a really a tablet PC? Not the Microsoft definition, but a tablet all the same. It might be the first practical application for one:-)
I don't buy these figures. But I've thought about blocking off port 25 to unregistered hosts on my local net. That's all that would be necessary.
Bruce
Re:It's happening at other corporations, as well
on
Microsoft Caste System
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Well, I think I was breaking company policy by sending the gift, as that employee's manager rather than someone who was friends with her outisde of work. This even though I funded the gift out of my own pocket. So, the rule attempted to deny my civility.
Bruce
It's happening at other corporations, as well
on
Microsoft Caste System
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
At a corporation where I was recently employed, we also were required to implement "differentiation" of consultants from staff on payroll, so that we could better demonstrate in court that the consultants were not employees and were thus not expected to have the benefits of employees.
I think there were rules about not inviting them to employee parties, and
I was told that we could not send a consultant a gift when he or she was hospitalized or had suffered a family tragedy.
Because of this, when one extremely worthy consultant lost a parent, her gift went on my personal credit card rather than a company card. My understanding was that one or another of the managers would do this in similar cases, in this case I was the volunteer. We handled gifts out of our own pockets because we felt the policy was crass, denying the civility that we should display as managers.
Bruce
Re:What do we really have to ask those turkeys?
on
SCO Group Lawsuit Q&A
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· Score: 1
I saw it go up to 5, down to 2, and up to 5 again. It's certainly an agressive comment, but I feel the agression was called for.
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Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
The nature of technical innovation is that ideas are built on top of other ideas. Progress is incremental and relies on previous discoveries. Software patenting prevents this.
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
IEEE 1488 should be 1394.
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
The GPL requires the person who distributes the binary to distribute the source (especially if that is a commercial distribution). It is not legal to pass that obligation off to some public web site not affiliated with the people who distribute the binary.
Bruce
Bruce
There is a special version of the GPL called the Affero GPL for ASP software that is not distributed. The rather kludgy solution is that the software is required to regurgitate its own source on command, over the net! This problem will be further addressed, hopefully in a more practical fashion, in GPL 3.
I also took switchboard operation with plugboards, in the last year they taught it. To test for busy, press the tip of the plug to the ring of the jack. If it clicks, the line is busy. The next year, the school got an automatic PBX.
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
I think there were rules about not inviting them to employee parties, and I was told that we could not send a consultant a gift when he or she was hospitalized or had suffered a family tragedy.
Because of this, when one extremely worthy consultant lost a parent, her gift went on my personal credit card rather than a company card. My understanding was that one or another of the managers would do this in similar cases, in this case I was the volunteer. We handled gifts out of our own pockets because we felt the policy was crass, denying the civility that we should display as managers.
Bruce
Bruce