"Transaction cost" is a common metric in the financial-processing world; rather than just talking about cost-per-quarter, they take the cost of the equipment and then divide it out by the number of transactions they process.
It's not the greatest metric in the world, but it does provide some ability to compare "efficiency" across systems. But it's a little misplaced in all but the most predictable workloads, because it's not like your operating costs are really going to fluctuate with the number of transactions you process that day. The system is basically going to cost the same amount regardless; if you process fewer transactions, the CPT just went up even though nothing on the systems side changed. But for someone like the NYSE where the overall number of transactions is predictable, it's probably not a bad way to compare options.
More on CPT. (Incidentally I think it was people looking to stabilize CPT that led to the interest a while back about 'metered computing,' where you'd outsource your IT stuff to someone and basically get a bill at the end of the month, and your bill really would reflect the workload that month, basically giving you a flat cost-per-transaction. Apparently this is very attractive to some people due to their accounting methods, although maybe not enough to sell them on it.)
Based on other parts of the article I assumed that it was an IBM mainframe of some sort; at ~1200 MIPS it must have been a fairly big one, although one assumes nothing too recent, or they probably wouldn't be spending a whole lot of money to replace it right now.
I'd be interested to know if someone has any information or more educated guesses on what they probably have.
(Humm... wonder how they'll get rid of it. Everybody keep your eye on eBay!)
Well, the migration strategy seems interesting, although not especially surprising; they've eschewed emulation strategies that might incur a performance penalty in favor of some company that actually recompiles the old COBOL and IBM JCL code for modern architectures and does a lot of in-house QA (and, one assumes, has really good support...). They're using smaller IBM AIX servers to actually run the code in the new system, with the HP Linux machines basically doing all the I/O and general feeding of data.
I'm a little surprised that IBM didn't manage to sell them on a new mainframe, or at least on its own clustered solution; or that they didn't ditch IBM completely and go with somebody else (what I'd suspect if somehow someone at IBM had really stepped on the wrong foot).
There's not a whole lot of information in TFA about their old system, which actually sounds like it must be fairly neat; it's only described as a "1,600 MIPS mainframe" and then from context it's clear that it's an IBM of some sort. Another surprising thing is that they complain that the software licenses for it, among other things, are prohibitively expensive -- you'd think that IBM, in danger of losing a mainframe customer completely to commodity kit, would cut them some sort of a cheap-or-free deal on the software just to keep them around and on the support contracts. (I really gotta wonder if someone really boned this up; I mean, if you can't keep a mainframe contract at a place like the NYSE, really, what are you doing?)
Microsoft has had design and UI guidelines out forever. An awful lot of 'developers' do not know, or fail to heed..but they've been out there.
Yeah, they've been on display in the bottom of a locked file cabinet in a disused lavatory in the unlit sub-basement of an abandoned garden shed on the outskirts of the Redmond campus for years!
I really wonder if companies that go on the warpath over internet copyright violations really think in their long-term best interest.
You make a common mistake -- thinking that a "company" has a brain of its own somewhere. Obviously, it doesn't; it's made up of people -- and those people are working in their own best interest.
It may be, and probably is, that the interests of the people running the company, and perhaps even the majority of the stockholders, are not the same as the interests of the "company" as an organization.
For instance, it might be in the major stockholders' best interests to do idiotic things that will get them media attention, and run the share price up, so they can sell it, make a bundle, and leave some other people with the bag. Witness SCO -- I hate beating a dead horse around here, but it's a great example. If the people at SCO have any brains at all (debatable, sure), they could be making tons of money while simultaneously running the organization into the ground.
It's quite possible to crash and burn a company and come out on top; some people have practically made careers out of it.
That may be the case in Australia (based on your au TLD), I can't say for sure, but it's definitely not the case in the U.S. If I download something from a server that's copyrighted, without authorization, both the client (me) and the server are violating copyright. I'm doing the copying, and the operator of the server is probably in violation themselves (for making the copy that's present on the server), but also for distribution and contributory infringement.
This is why, for example, the RIAA can go after music downloaders, as well as uploaders. Generally it's easier and more effective to go after the distributors of unauthorized content rather than the end users, but the law allows for a "demand side" approach as well.
Technically, the US government can violate any patent for itself anyway, without compensation. Eminent domain.
Actually, you're wrong.
Eminent domain doesn't allow the Government to take property without compensation. There was a war about this, in fact. It was called the Revolution, it happened a while ago, it involved a bunch of guys in wigs and funny hats. Good time was had by all.
Anyway; there's a whole process by which you can sue the government if they infringe a patent, and you can collect damages from them as normal. If they did decide to take a patent by eminent domain, they'd have to do it just like any other property, where they pay you some assessed value.
It's a myth that if the government wants your property, that they just take it and don't have to give you anything; that's not true -- they have to give you something in return, usually the assessed value of the property. Sometimes it's not a lot compared to what you're losing (the current, heavily depressed market value for your three-centuries-old family farm, so that the town can pave it and build a mini-mall for the mayor's cousin or something; that's perfectly legal and also clearly unjust), but they do have to compensate you.
You might want to take a glance at the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution:
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. (Emph. mine)
Btw. US companies exploit workers from other countries as well and take jobs from others. I don't want to know how many companies have been bought by US based businesses and then closed down, since the only interest the US companies had, were the product portfolios and the customer base. So why should Indian companies care about US jobs, if the US couldn't care less about other peoples jobs?
I don't think anyone is asking Indian companies to give a crap about U.S. jobs. If anyone is, slap them and tell them they're a fool. Likewise, U.S. companies don't care about jobs in India. They have no reason to.
However, the U.S. Government, ought to care a whole lot about jobs in the U.S. (and presumably, the Indian government ought to care a lot about jobs in India), and if the U.S. Government thinks that Indian firms are hurting the U.S. job market in some way, they should feel free to stop them from doing business here, or otherwise punish them in whatever way they're legally entitled to do.
As a U.S. citizen, I don't have a problem with some other country's government running roughshod over the best interests of people in the U.S.; they're not charged with the responsibility of upholding the interests of people here. But likewise, I expect my government to do what's best for myself and other citizens of the U.S., as its sole purpose and chief priority.
Their should definitely be more protections for H1B workers though, they should not have to live in fear anymore than an American should. Perhaps a complaint system could be created that would be government controller ensuring that the companies they work for would not know.
Better yet, we could just get rid of them. Problem solved, no new programs required.
you mean like SCO did? really insightful there, buddy.
The only reason it didn't work is because they ran up against someone far, far bigger than them -- namely IBM.
If Microsoft has some way of keeping IBM out, or if they think they're a match for IBM at least in terms of stalling things in court for a while, there's no reason why an SCO shakedown-type tactic couldn't work. (And as much as I like IBM, taking on Microsoft directly might be a bit much, even for them; or perhaps said differently, it might be perceived as too risky for what's now basically an underperforming consulting company with an ancillary hardware division. Their shareholders would go apeshit if they started diverting profits from profitable consulting divisions in order to fund a Pyrrhic battle against Microsoft.)
SCO's execution was flawed; their business plan was pretty classic. Protection rackets work pretty well as long as you're the guy with the biggest stick in town. I wouldn't be quite so cocky.
I think the crux of your agument falls down right about here: "I don't know whether they ever actually bothered to do it though"
That's really almost academic -- if you're a small business, the threat of a crippling lawsuit is almost as bad as the lawsuit itself. Consider some CIO looking at Linux vs Windows for a server; what are you supposed to say when you go to the CEO with your proposal, and you get asked "well, I just read in {the WSJ|Fortune|whatever} that Steve Ballmer said that anyone running Linux had an 'undisclosed balance sheet liability'...I'm not sure we can take that kind of risk; better stick to Windows."
That's all the threat needs to accomplish. As long as a lawsuit is possible against companies using Linux, they're going to avoid it unless they're aggressively indemnified by the big vendors (cough--IBM--cough).
At the State level, yes. We're talking about the Federal level. The Federal court system only has jurisdiction over very specific murder/manslaughter cases.
Sure. But I don't think that really alters my point -- I don't see any compelling reason for the Federal government to involve itself in what ought to be a pretty straightforward homicide/manslaughter/negligent-death case. The Federal government can and should regulate the importation of unsafe drugs into the U.S., and related interstate commerce in drugs, but I don't think any death arising from counterfeit drugs should automatically become a Federal case itself.
It's just another way to concentrate power at the Federal level when there's really no reason why it can't be done by the State courts; murder is pretty universally illegal, and since people always have a physical presence it's not hard to establish jurisdiction. (Where'd he die? There's your jurisdiction.)
The Apple vs eMachines dispute was a more straightforward trade dress case than Apple vs Microsoft. It comes from some portions of the Lanham Act that allow trademark-like protections for distinctive design elements of a product.
If you take a look at the eOne, it's pretty blatantly iMac-like; I kinda wonder what their lawyers were thinking when they green-lit that.
At any rate, that suit, like most things that Apple seems to get involved in, was eventually settled out of court, and no precedent resulted. But we can infer that eMachines didn't feel like they were winning, because the eOne disappeared quickly afterwards. (It didn't help that the thing never sold well, either, or that it was offered exclusively through Circuit City.)
no, they couldn't - not in the same way. Methods for going after the unwitting consumer are very limited. Go read the Federal Rules on Civil Procedures [cornell.edu] and Title 35 of the US code (patent law) [cornell.edu] for details.
Well, Cornell's website seems to be down at the moment, so neither of those sites or working, but Title 35 is also available here and here.
Although I'm not a lawyer, my reading of Title 35 is that infringement-through-use is actionable:
Chap. 28, Sec. 271.: Infringement of patent (a) Except as otherwise provided in this title, whoever without authority makes, uses, offers to sell, or sells any patented invention, within the United States or imports into the United States any patented invention during the term of the patent therefor, infringes the patent.
Chap. 29, Sec. 281.: Remedy for infringement of patent A patentee shall have remedy by civil action for infringement of his patent.
So therefore, if use is infringement and infringement is actionable, use is actionable; you can sue someone for using your patented invention. There might be a defense in there somewhere if you were truly an "unwitting" consumer, and the product was represented to you as being non-infringing, but if the patentee widely advertised that certain products were infringing (as the holders of the Selden patent did), and you continued or began using one, that defense would seem somewhat thin. (And I never stipulated that the user was 'unwitting' in the first place, and never meant to suggest that.)
I can't find another easily-readable, online version of the FRCP, but since Title 35 explicitly says that use is infringement and infringement is actionable, I can't see why it would stop a theoretical patentee from going after users. My understanding is that the FRCP is mostly mechanics (which courts have jurisdiction over what, how to file complaints and pleadings, how to initiate suits, etc.); the important part is whether something is actionable.
If you have a specific reason why you think this reading doesn't apply, or is incorrect, I'm genuinely interested to hear it. Or if there are any lawyers who'd like to weigh in, that'd be fine, too.
What makes you think Apple would fall on Linux's side? Apple has cross-patent deals with Microsoft that protect them from this kind of thing and Apple is very clear in the marketing materials that they are just as eager as Microsoft to see Linux go away. There seems to be this naive idea within the Linux community that Apple is a friendly company. Here's a clue guys, the enemy of my enemy is NOT always my friend.
Not sure I buy this. I wouldn't say that Apple is exactly #1 in the "Linux Fan Club," but they have a lot to gain via open standards, at least when it's a choice of "open standards or Microsoft's proprietary standard." (I'm sure they'd much prefer their own proprietary standard being the One True Way, but as long as that's not going to happen, it's better nobody own it than a competitor.)
I don't think you can sum up Apple or the Macintosh platform's relationship to open source in general, or Linux in particular, as just "love" or "hate." It's much more nuanced. Apple has a lot to gain by any slip in Windows marketshare and a loosening of Microsoft's hold on the desktop, particularly the home desktop (it's been a while since they've gone after the business desktop and I doubt they'll ever really try again). It's a lot easier for Apple to compete against Linux than it is to compete against Windows, because Linux has less lock-in. (I.e., you can switch a Linux user to Mac more easily than you can switch a Windows user to Mac.) However, at the same time, they compete with Linux in the smaller segment of "non-Windows OSes." (So, it's the converse of before -- it's easier to switch a Mac user to Linux, than a Windows user to Linux. Such is the double-edged sword of open standards.)
You see the same issue with IBM -- on some levels, IBM is (or was) competing with Linux; e.g. vs AIX. (For this to make much sense you really have to think back a few years before they jumped on the open-source/open-standards bandwagon heavily.) Some of their divisions I'd expect still do (maybe database software?). There are probably a lot of non-IT examples around that people could come up with, too.
Corporations, because they don't have a single controlling mind, can in many cases do things that would appear to be hypocritical or contradictory if they're anthropomorphized. There's a lot that's been written about this sort of behavior (Google "coopetition"), and it's a lot more complex than 'friends' and 'enemies.'
Because the other guy -- Elisha Gray -- wasn't able to prove that he invented it earlier. It's pretty clear now, in hindsight, that Gray really did invent it first, and what occurred was really a miscarriage of justice on a grand scale, but at the time he couldn't show sufficient evidence of earlier invention, and Bell got the patent based on his date of filing. [1]
Wrong guy... although Edison had his own patent-related conflicts, particularly with Berliner, although the outcome was somewhat different.
Okay, really, and I'm being serious, not making a point obliquely - why is Alexander Graham Bell listed as the inventor of the telephone? I thought it was the first to file thing that was the difference.
Because the other guy -- Elisha Gray -- wasn't able to prove that he invented it earlier. It's pretty clear now, in hindsight, that Gray really did invent it first, and what occurred was really a miscarriage of justice on a grand scale, but at the time he couldn't show sufficient evidence of earlier invention, and Edison got the patent based on his date of filing. [1]
Although 'first to invent' is the rule, if you file a patent application which describes the invention, you've firmly established a date when you had invented it by. So then the onus is on someone else to present a whole lot of evidence showing that they had invented it first. Unless they had published it, or filed a provisional application, or somehow got their earlier version irrefutably dated, this is pretty tough to do.
So if you're an inventor or researcher, you have to be concerned not only with inventing stuff and patenting it, but also documenting your work religiously in a way that's tough to fabricate or backdate. There are several examples historically of inventors who have been essentially robbed of their inventions because they couldn't prove the date of invention with enough authority to overturn a later inventor's patent.
Today, there would seem to be a lot more ways to conclusively date your work as you go along than there were in the 1870s; cryptographic date-stamping would probably be my pick
[1] There is some debate even today as to who really invented it first; Bell's actual patent was filed on the same day that Gray was filing a "caveat" (basically a patent without any claims, a warning/notice that you're starting work on a particular area) on the same thing. IIRC there was a similar situation regarding the invention of the single-needle sewing machine.
Ford doesn't sue the soccer mom that drives a Chevy Suburban if the Suburban violates patents Ford owns - Ford sues Chevy.
Funny you should bring that up. You should take a look at this page, in particular, to the broadside that's reproduced about 1/3rd of the way down the page. The "Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers" (holders of the infamous Selden Patent) frequently threatened to sue not only the manufacturers of unlicensed autos, but also their owners, since "use" of (not just manufacturing) an infringing device constitutes patent infringement by law. I don't know whether they ever actually bothered to do it though, because like Microsoft, their aim was to funnel business into the coffers of their financiers.
So anyway, the reason Ford might sue Chevy for patent infringement, rather than going directly after Chevy drivers, is mostly because Chevy is a much bigger (and deeper-pocketed) target.
The MIT AI Lab has a fairly good introduction to the basis for the current U.S. software IP system, including what elements are typically protected by copyright and which by patents. (Basically: "Expression" = copyright; "idea/implementation" = patent, "concept" = (hopefully) neither.)
All distros certainyl have their own style and have definitely not copied MS, but it is hard to say that they were not inspired by the layout and form of Windows (and OSX too).
Layout and form aren't patentable or even copywritable (aside from specific logos and words). That's how Microsoft got away with copying Apple.
This is all settled law; it was beaten to death in the 80s and 90s. The fact that Linux uses some of the same general design elements that Windows (and in many cases the Classic Mac OS, and OS X, and AmigaOS, and god knows how many other GUI OSes that are now basically extinct) doesn't necessarily constitute infringement.
What Microsoft probably has are some very overbroad patents that were granted in error, and they're hoping that they can use to rustle up some protection money with, because the cost of challenging them and getting them invalidated, even with lots of prior art, is so ridiculously high.
no, MS has to take on you. They have to sue you for patent infringement.
No, all they have to do is scare your customers away, by dropping unsubtle hints that they might be sued at some point in the future, if they use your software (without buying a "license" from MS).
It's a protection racket; you don't need to actually be assaulted for it to adversely impact you.
"A System and Method for Selecting Options from a List" "A System and Method for Choosing Between Several Options" "A System and Method for Displaying Information on a Video Device" "A System and Method for the Representation of Electronic Documents on a Video Device" &c.
In short, just a lot of nonsense, overbroad, long-after-the-fact patents that they managed to squeeze through that goatse.cx-like orifice that is the Patent Office, and they believe will cost too much for Free Software to invalidate.
I'm confused. How many Xerox patents does MS infringe, then? All of them? Or maybe Xerox couldn't file any patents because software patents did not exist at that time? And what about Apple's UI patents?
I think Apple and Microsoft have a patent cross-licensing agreement. (They certainly seem to have an informal one, but I suspect it's been formalized at some point, maybe in one of their lawsuit-settlement stock trades.)
Microsoft said that Apple agreed to opt for its browser as part of broad agreement that included a $150 million investment by Microsoft, cross-licensing of patents and settlement of an old legal case -- not just because of Microsoft's commitment to continue making business software for the Macintosh.
It's been widely alleged that Microsoft got the patent cross-licensing agreement, and the IE-preinstall deal, by threatening to kill Office for Mac back in the late 90s, when a lot of people were ready to stick a fork in Apple.
Slashdot Mirror
"Transaction cost" is a common metric in the financial-processing world; rather than just talking about cost-per-quarter, they take the cost of the equipment and then divide it out by the number of transactions they process.
It's not the greatest metric in the world, but it does provide some ability to compare "efficiency" across systems. But it's a little misplaced in all but the most predictable workloads, because it's not like your operating costs are really going to fluctuate with the number of transactions you process that day. The system is basically going to cost the same amount regardless; if you process fewer transactions, the CPT just went up even though nothing on the systems side changed. But for someone like the NYSE where the overall number of transactions is predictable, it's probably not a bad way to compare options.
More on CPT. (Incidentally I think it was people looking to stabilize CPT that led to the interest a while back about 'metered computing,' where you'd outsource your IT stuff to someone and basically get a bill at the end of the month, and your bill really would reflect the workload that month, basically giving you a flat cost-per-transaction. Apparently this is very attractive to some people due to their accounting methods, although maybe not enough to sell them on it.)
Based on other parts of the article I assumed that it was an IBM mainframe of some sort; at ~1200 MIPS it must have been a fairly big one, although one assumes nothing too recent, or they probably wouldn't be spending a whole lot of money to replace it right now.
... wonder how they'll get rid of it. Everybody keep your eye on eBay!)
I'd be interested to know if someone has any information or more educated guesses on what they probably have.
(Humm
Well, the migration strategy seems interesting, although not especially surprising; they've eschewed emulation strategies that might incur a performance penalty in favor of some company that actually recompiles the old COBOL and IBM JCL code for modern architectures and does a lot of in-house QA (and, one assumes, has really good support...). They're using smaller IBM AIX servers to actually run the code in the new system, with the HP Linux machines basically doing all the I/O and general feeding of data.
I'm a little surprised that IBM didn't manage to sell them on a new mainframe, or at least on its own clustered solution; or that they didn't ditch IBM completely and go with somebody else (what I'd suspect if somehow someone at IBM had really stepped on the wrong foot).
There's not a whole lot of information in TFA about their old system, which actually sounds like it must be fairly neat; it's only described as a "1,600 MIPS mainframe" and then from context it's clear that it's an IBM of some sort. Another surprising thing is that they complain that the software licenses for it, among other things, are prohibitively expensive -- you'd think that IBM, in danger of losing a mainframe customer completely to commodity kit, would cut them some sort of a cheap-or-free deal on the software just to keep them around and on the support contracts. (I really gotta wonder if someone really boned this up; I mean, if you can't keep a mainframe contract at a place like the NYSE, really, what are you doing?)
Microsoft has had design and UI guidelines out forever. An awful lot of 'developers' do not know, or fail to heed..but they've been out there.
Yeah, they've been on display in the bottom of a locked file cabinet in a disused lavatory in the unlit sub-basement of an abandoned garden shed on the outskirts of the Redmond campus for years!
I really wonder if companies that go on the warpath over internet copyright violations really think in their long-term best interest.
You make a common mistake -- thinking that a "company" has a brain of its own somewhere. Obviously, it doesn't; it's made up of people -- and those people are working in their own best interest.
It may be, and probably is, that the interests of the people running the company, and perhaps even the majority of the stockholders, are not the same as the interests of the "company" as an organization.
For instance, it might be in the major stockholders' best interests to do idiotic things that will get them media attention, and run the share price up, so they can sell it, make a bundle, and leave some other people with the bag. Witness SCO -- I hate beating a dead horse around here, but it's a great example. If the people at SCO have any brains at all (debatable, sure), they could be making tons of money while simultaneously running the organization into the ground.
It's quite possible to crash and burn a company and come out on top; some people have practically made careers out of it.
That may be the case in Australia (based on your au TLD), I can't say for sure, but it's definitely not the case in the U.S. If I download something from a server that's copyrighted, without authorization, both the client (me) and the server are violating copyright. I'm doing the copying, and the operator of the server is probably in violation themselves (for making the copy that's present on the server), but also for distribution and contributory infringement.
This is why, for example, the RIAA can go after music downloaders, as well as uploaders. Generally it's easier and more effective to go after the distributors of unauthorized content rather than the end users, but the law allows for a "demand side" approach as well.
Actually, you're wrong.
Eminent domain doesn't allow the Government to take property without compensation. There was a war about this, in fact. It was called the Revolution, it happened a while ago, it involved a bunch of guys in wigs and funny hats. Good time was had by all.
Anyway; there's a whole process by which you can sue the government if they infringe a patent, and you can collect damages from them as normal. If they did decide to take a patent by eminent domain, they'd have to do it just like any other property, where they pay you some assessed value.
It's a myth that if the government wants your property, that they just take it and don't have to give you anything; that's not true -- they have to give you something in return, usually the assessed value of the property. Sometimes it's not a lot compared to what you're losing (the current, heavily depressed market value for your three-centuries-old family farm, so that the town can pave it and build a mini-mall for the mayor's cousin or something; that's perfectly legal and also clearly unjust), but they do have to compensate you.
You might want to take a glance at the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution:
Apple and Microsoft have a patent cross-licensing agreement. They're not going to get involved in this fight.
Besides, they're rapidly turning into a consumer-electronics company anyway.
Btw. US companies exploit workers from other countries as well and take jobs from others. I don't want to know how many companies have been bought by US based businesses and then closed down, since the only interest the US companies had, were the product portfolios and the customer base. So why should Indian companies care about US jobs, if the US couldn't care less about other peoples jobs?
I don't think anyone is asking Indian companies to give a crap about U.S. jobs. If anyone is, slap them and tell them they're a fool. Likewise, U.S. companies don't care about jobs in India. They have no reason to.
However, the U.S. Government, ought to care a whole lot about jobs in the U.S. (and presumably, the Indian government ought to care a lot about jobs in India), and if the U.S. Government thinks that Indian firms are hurting the U.S. job market in some way, they should feel free to stop them from doing business here, or otherwise punish them in whatever way they're legally entitled to do.
As a U.S. citizen, I don't have a problem with some other country's government running roughshod over the best interests of people in the U.S.; they're not charged with the responsibility of upholding the interests of people here. But likewise, I expect my government to do what's best for myself and other citizens of the U.S., as its sole purpose and chief priority.
Their should definitely be more protections for H1B workers though, they should not have to live in fear anymore than an American should. Perhaps a complaint system could be created that would be government controller ensuring that the companies they work for would not know.
Better yet, we could just get rid of them. Problem solved, no new programs required.
you mean like SCO did? really insightful there, buddy.
The only reason it didn't work is because they ran up against someone far, far bigger than them -- namely IBM.
If Microsoft has some way of keeping IBM out, or if they think they're a match for IBM at least in terms of stalling things in court for a while, there's no reason why an SCO shakedown-type tactic couldn't work. (And as much as I like IBM, taking on Microsoft directly might be a bit much, even for them; or perhaps said differently, it might be perceived as too risky for what's now basically an underperforming consulting company with an ancillary hardware division. Their shareholders would go apeshit if they started diverting profits from profitable consulting divisions in order to fund a Pyrrhic battle against Microsoft.)
SCO's execution was flawed; their business plan was pretty classic. Protection rackets work pretty well as long as you're the guy with the biggest stick in town. I wouldn't be quite so cocky.
I think the crux of your agument falls down right about here: "I don't know whether they ever actually bothered to do it though"
That's really almost academic -- if you're a small business, the threat of a crippling lawsuit is almost as bad as the lawsuit itself. Consider some CIO looking at Linux vs Windows for a server; what are you supposed to say when you go to the CEO with your proposal, and you get asked "well, I just read in {the WSJ|Fortune|whatever} that Steve Ballmer said that anyone running Linux had an 'undisclosed balance sheet liability'...I'm not sure we can take that kind of risk; better stick to Windows."
That's all the threat needs to accomplish. As long as a lawsuit is possible against companies using Linux, they're going to avoid it unless they're aggressively indemnified by the big vendors (cough--IBM--cough).
At the State level, yes. We're talking about the Federal level. The Federal court system only has jurisdiction over very specific murder/manslaughter cases.
Sure. But I don't think that really alters my point -- I don't see any compelling reason for the Federal government to involve itself in what ought to be a pretty straightforward homicide/manslaughter/negligent-death case. The Federal government can and should regulate the importation of unsafe drugs into the U.S., and related interstate commerce in drugs, but I don't think any death arising from counterfeit drugs should automatically become a Federal case itself.
It's just another way to concentrate power at the Federal level when there's really no reason why it can't be done by the State courts; murder is pretty universally illegal, and since people always have a physical presence it's not hard to establish jurisdiction. (Where'd he die? There's your jurisdiction.)
The Apple vs eMachines dispute was a more straightforward trade dress case than Apple vs Microsoft. It comes from some portions of the Lanham Act that allow trademark-like protections for distinctive design elements of a product.
If you take a look at the eOne, it's pretty blatantly iMac-like; I kinda wonder what their lawyers were thinking when they green-lit that.
At any rate, that suit, like most things that Apple seems to get involved in, was eventually settled out of court, and no precedent resulted. But we can infer that eMachines didn't feel like they were winning, because the eOne disappeared quickly afterwards. (It didn't help that the thing never sold well, either, or that it was offered exclusively through Circuit City.)
Why didn't they use OpenOffice.
Because they didn't have a time machine to go into the future and bring back a copy?
Apple v. Microsoft was concluded in 1994; at that point, OpenOffice was just a glimmer in some German programmer's eye.
For christsakes, if you're going to troll, at least put some effort into it. That was just lazy.
Well, Cornell's website seems to be down at the moment, so neither of those sites or working, but Title 35 is also available here and here.
Although I'm not a lawyer, my reading of Title 35 is that infringement-through-use is actionable: So therefore, if use is infringement and infringement is actionable, use is actionable; you can sue someone for using your patented invention. There might be a defense in there somewhere if you were truly an "unwitting" consumer, and the product was represented to you as being non-infringing, but if the patentee widely advertised that certain products were infringing (as the holders of the Selden patent did), and you continued or began using one, that defense would seem somewhat thin. (And I never stipulated that the user was 'unwitting' in the first place, and never meant to suggest that.)
I can't find another easily-readable, online version of the FRCP, but since Title 35 explicitly says that use is infringement and infringement is actionable, I can't see why it would stop a theoretical patentee from going after users. My understanding is that the FRCP is mostly mechanics (which courts have jurisdiction over what, how to file complaints and pleadings, how to initiate suits, etc.); the important part is whether something is actionable.
If you have a specific reason why you think this reading doesn't apply, or is incorrect, I'm genuinely interested to hear it. Or if there are any lawyers who'd like to weigh in, that'd be fine, too.
What makes you think Apple would fall on Linux's side? Apple has cross-patent deals with Microsoft that protect them from this kind of thing and Apple is very clear in the marketing materials that they are just as eager as Microsoft to see Linux go away. There seems to be this naive idea within the Linux community that Apple is a friendly company. Here's a clue guys, the enemy of my enemy is NOT always my friend.
Not sure I buy this. I wouldn't say that Apple is exactly #1 in the "Linux Fan Club," but they have a lot to gain via open standards, at least when it's a choice of "open standards or Microsoft's proprietary standard." (I'm sure they'd much prefer their own proprietary standard being the One True Way, but as long as that's not going to happen, it's better nobody own it than a competitor.)
I don't think you can sum up Apple or the Macintosh platform's relationship to open source in general, or Linux in particular, as just "love" or "hate." It's much more nuanced. Apple has a lot to gain by any slip in Windows marketshare and a loosening of Microsoft's hold on the desktop, particularly the home desktop (it's been a while since they've gone after the business desktop and I doubt they'll ever really try again). It's a lot easier for Apple to compete against Linux than it is to compete against Windows, because Linux has less lock-in. (I.e., you can switch a Linux user to Mac more easily than you can switch a Windows user to Mac.) However, at the same time, they compete with Linux in the smaller segment of "non-Windows OSes." (So, it's the converse of before -- it's easier to switch a Mac user to Linux, than a Windows user to Linux. Such is the double-edged sword of open standards.)
You see the same issue with IBM -- on some levels, IBM is (or was) competing with Linux; e.g. vs AIX. (For this to make much sense you really have to think back a few years before they jumped on the open-source/open-standards bandwagon heavily.) Some of their divisions I'd expect still do (maybe database software?). There are probably a lot of non-IT examples around that people could come up with, too.
Corporations, because they don't have a single controlling mind, can in many cases do things that would appear to be hypocritical or contradictory if they're anthropomorphized. There's a lot that's been written about this sort of behavior (Google "coopetition"), and it's a lot more complex than 'friends' and 'enemies.'
Because the other guy -- Elisha Gray -- wasn't able to prove that he invented it earlier. It's pretty clear now, in hindsight, that Gray really did invent it first, and what occurred was really a miscarriage of justice on a grand scale, but at the time he couldn't show sufficient evidence of earlier invention, and Bell got the patent based on his date of filing. [1]
... although Edison had his own patent-related conflicts, particularly with Berliner, although the outcome was somewhat different.
Wrong guy
Okay, really, and I'm being serious, not making a point obliquely - why is Alexander Graham Bell listed as the inventor of the telephone? I thought it was the first to file thing that was the difference.
Because the other guy -- Elisha Gray -- wasn't able to prove that he invented it earlier. It's pretty clear now, in hindsight, that Gray really did invent it first, and what occurred was really a miscarriage of justice on a grand scale, but at the time he couldn't show sufficient evidence of earlier invention, and Edison got the patent based on his date of filing. [1]
Although 'first to invent' is the rule, if you file a patent application which describes the invention, you've firmly established a date when you had invented it by. So then the onus is on someone else to present a whole lot of evidence showing that they had invented it first. Unless they had published it, or filed a provisional application, or somehow got their earlier version irrefutably dated, this is pretty tough to do.
So if you're an inventor or researcher, you have to be concerned not only with inventing stuff and patenting it, but also documenting your work religiously in a way that's tough to fabricate or backdate. There are several examples historically of inventors who have been essentially robbed of their inventions because they couldn't prove the date of invention with enough authority to overturn a later inventor's patent.
Today, there would seem to be a lot more ways to conclusively date your work as you go along than there were in the 1870s; cryptographic date-stamping would probably be my pick
[1] There is some debate even today as to who really invented it first; Bell's actual patent was filed on the same day that Gray was filing a "caveat" (basically a patent without any claims, a warning/notice that you're starting work on a particular area) on the same thing. IIRC there was a similar situation regarding the invention of the single-needle sewing machine.
Ford doesn't sue the soccer mom that drives a Chevy Suburban if the Suburban violates patents Ford owns - Ford sues Chevy.
Funny you should bring that up. You should take a look at this page, in particular, to the broadside that's reproduced about 1/3rd of the way down the page. The "Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers" (holders of the infamous Selden Patent) frequently threatened to sue not only the manufacturers of unlicensed autos, but also their owners, since "use" of (not just manufacturing) an infringing device constitutes patent infringement by law. I don't know whether they ever actually bothered to do it though, because like Microsoft, their aim was to funnel business into the coffers of their financiers.
So anyway, the reason Ford might sue Chevy for patent infringement, rather than going directly after Chevy drivers, is mostly because Chevy is a much bigger (and deeper-pocketed) target.
Probably relevant articles:
Apple Inc. v. Microsoft Corp., 35 F.3d 1435 (9th Cir. 1994), aka the "Look and Feel case" on Wikipedia, and the actual ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The MIT AI Lab has a fairly good introduction to the basis for the current U.S. software IP system, including what elements are typically protected by copyright and which by patents. (Basically: "Expression" = copyright; "idea/implementation" = patent, "concept" = (hopefully) neither.)
All distros certainyl have their own style and have definitely not copied MS, but it is hard to say that they were not inspired by the layout and form of Windows (and OSX too).
Layout and form aren't patentable or even copywritable (aside from specific logos and words). That's how Microsoft got away with copying Apple.
This is all settled law; it was beaten to death in the 80s and 90s. The fact that Linux uses some of the same general design elements that Windows (and in many cases the Classic Mac OS, and OS X, and AmigaOS, and god knows how many other GUI OSes that are now basically extinct) doesn't necessarily constitute infringement.
What Microsoft probably has are some very overbroad patents that were granted in error, and they're hoping that they can use to rustle up some protection money with, because the cost of challenging them and getting them invalidated, even with lots of prior art, is so ridiculously high.
no, MS has to take on you. They have to sue you for patent infringement.
No, all they have to do is scare your customers away, by dropping unsubtle hints that they might be sued at some point in the future, if they use your software (without buying a "license" from MS).
It's a protection racket; you don't need to actually be assaulted for it to adversely impact you.
Probably things like:
"A System and Method for Selecting Options from a List"
"A System and Method for Choosing Between Several Options"
"A System and Method for Displaying Information on a Video Device"
"A System and Method for the Representation of Electronic Documents on a Video Device"
&c.
In short, just a lot of nonsense, overbroad, long-after-the-fact patents that they managed to squeeze through that goatse.cx-like orifice that is the Patent Office, and they believe will cost too much for Free Software to invalidate.
I think Apple and Microsoft have a patent cross-licensing agreement. (They certainly seem to have an informal one, but I suspect it's been formalized at some point, maybe in one of their lawsuit-settlement stock trades.)
From the NY Times: "In Its Case Against Microsoft, U.S. Now Cites Note From Apple," Oct 28, 1998It's been widely alleged that Microsoft got the patent cross-licensing agreement, and the IE-preinstall deal, by threatening to kill Office for Mac back in the late 90s, when a lot of people were ready to stick a fork in Apple.