If not, what's going to happen to the Dell users who have all of these +R drives if it turns out that -R wins out in the long run?
At this point in the industry, once Dell has gone full steam ahead with their adoption of a standard like +R over -R, then I think it's not too much of a stretch to start picking Dell's choice as the long term winner. The only question that remains is how long does the long run last anymore before something new comes along?
I disagree. I've seen plenty of inventions that are simply brilliant and non-obvious.
It's easy to point at an idea someone else has already had and say "I could've done that!"
While some inventions that do take considerable ingenuity and resources (and might not have happened otherwise for many more years) might seem obvious in retrospect, the ideal test should be "Wow, I would have never've thought of that!" I think the bar needs to be raised.
Imagine a room of engineers asked to come up with alternative designs for a given problem or applications for a given technology. In many cases, they would quickly settle on the one or two alternatives that best meet their current needs, leaving out approaches that are non-traditional or second best for the task at hand. However, just because they haven't used, documented, or even taken the time to think of these other approaches doesn't mean they're not obvious -- hence the difference between prior art (previously thought of and documented or implemented) and obviousness (trivial for someone skilled to think up if they tried -- but hasn't necessarily been thought of before).
So back to my room full of engineers -- Imagine a group of people skilled in a related field were asked to come up with a fairly exhastive list of good and bad approaches to a particular problem (rather than just choosing the best practices). Would they come up with the idea and implementation being patented? Is there "only so many ways you can do something" and this is one of them? If so, even if it's not the obvious choice, I would say it's clearly an obvious solution, whether or not it's been tried or thought of before and even if it has benefits that had been overlooked in the past.
For instance, Fred Smith practically "invented" the central hub model of shipping. Putting issues around business process patents aside and assuming there was no prior art at the time, perhaps he should have gotten a patent for his invention. I would argue it was an obvious idea, even if no-one else was doing it or even thought of it before. If you had simply asked a room of flight schedulers for a list of the possible ways to ship freight (good and bad) they would have very quickly come up with his model - although they would have rejected it as a bad idea. His true genius was believing in the merits and successfully executing on his otherwise obvious idea.
A lot of these suspect patents seem to fall into the category of obvious ideas that were rejected in the past and never implemented or documented (therefore little prior art) until either the technology advanced or someone believed in a particular merit.
Um, I'm pretty sure the PTO gets paid whether your patent is granted or not. So there's no profit motive for them in granting patents.
Actually, the USPTO is self funding and even turns a significant surplus (profit) which is then distributed to other agencies and programs. Most increases or proposals to increase their budget revolve around giving them back a greater percentage of their revenues.
Rather than saying "hey, we're swamped, give us more money to hire more people to do our job better" they're essentially motivated to say "hey, we make you a profit, give us more money to hire more people so we can make you more money, process more patents, expand our responsibilities, and build beautiful new offices, etc."
So yes, there's definitely a profit motive for both their shareholder (the government) and their administrators (empire building, personal compensation, prestige). All at the expense of the real dividends (innovation and progress) for their real shareholders (citizens and consumers).
I would add that instant gratification does not necessarily equal download time only, but also includes the listening/viewing time. I think part of the point that Steve is trying to make is simply that music and video are very different things and iTunes is optimized for music (as well as for selling iPods).
If a song pops into my head, instant gratification means being able to remember or find out the name of the song, find the song, download it, and listen to it. Maybe for keeps, or maybe only once, just for the nostalgia and instant gratification. With the right technologies, the total time is maybe just a couple of minutes from the time it pops into my head to the time I'm done listening to it -- in fact, if its quick, easy, and cheap enough, I might not even want to hear the whole thing, just the hook or the chorus to satisfy my urge (I know plenty of people who never listen to the whole song -- annoying, yes, but these people certainly exist as true seekers of instant gratification).
For a movie, it's not usually worth it unless you have the hour or two to sit back and watch the whole thing. Even if it only takes a minute or seconds to download a flick, it's hard to call this experience instant gratification, unless you're just downloading, say, the final scene from the first Matrix, the chase scene from Bullitt, a funny Adam Sandler moment, or a very short film. Otherwise, downloading is still going to make a huge impact on cinema, but the time to download will be less important, and the right model might be very different from whatever ends up working for music.
But regardless of what Jobs seems to suggest, I'm sure they've got plans for film as well -- they can make a lot of the same arguments about Apple already being a major force in the industry, but I agree the model and buyer behavior will be different from iTunes.
It is legal for me to carve a replica of a wooden chair with a sawblade.
Are you sure? IANAL, but just because it would be easy and very unlikely that you would be sued, this action wouldn't necessarily be legal if the wooden chair design was patented (with utility or design patent). This might not be usual case today, but I wouldn't be surprised if it became more common in the future -- certainly I've seen a number of simple automotive parts (brackets, etc.) that are covered by design patents, probably to prevent pirating.
Of course it would still be very easy to do, and maybe a good case for showing the inadequacies of patents. A great example of a very important but very simple physical design that was extensively "pirated" was Eli Whitney's patented cotton gin. The cotton gin is considered a precursor to the the mass production age and delivered unprecedented southern prosperity, but could easily be copied with a simple wooden box and a bunch of nails. This was technically illegal, but the device was such an important innovation and even Eli couldn't keep up with the demand, so after fighting to receive his patent, he either didn't renew it or the government didn't let him depending on which story you read.
Yes it's very political... do you mean like the kind of thing you'd expect a Republican like McCain to say...
Sorry, and I have no intention to attack you personally (whoever you are) but being skeptical of lobbyists (AKA "Special Interests") and career politicians (AKA "Washington Fat Cats" -- in the US) is about as apolitical as you can get and has helped get as many people elected from one political spectrum as another, including (almost) a certain Mr. Burns. In fact, it sounds like the kind of joke you'd hear a lobbyist or incumbent say or laugh at.
Re:Yes to AOL, no to broadband?
on
Who Is An ISP?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
IANAL either, but I would read that differently.
The quote starts "...and may *also* include proprietary content..." suggesting that this might be offered, but is not a required part of the definition, which is more about providing access like an ISP.
I think the reference to "such term does not include telecommunications services" is simply meant to stop companies and lawyers from twisting the definition to apply to telephone or cable operations. But if they also run an ISP, that operation would still qualify under this regulation. Probably done so that the legislation doesn't infringe on existing FCC jurisdiction over telemarketers and fax spammers, etc.
Even if MS has removed the BSD code, what about deployed systems that are using the old code? SCO is threatening Linux users, so why not older NT users?
But look at all the hassles with the original Hubble. Compared to a billion dollar next generation deep space telescope, I think your average multi-million dollar satellite is practically a commodity item that uses well proven components and systems and can be replaced easily and cheaply (relatively) if lost or malfunctioning. In my original post, I was unaware of the plan to place the replacement in such a high orbital path, and quite right, it would need to have even more in the way of proven redundant systems, but the basic premise still stands -- pay to keep it (the original Hubble) up or pay to bring it down -- personally I'd love to see both of them operating up there even if it had to mean sacrificing a few other missions to do it.
...the next generation space telescope will cost "$824.8 million". What were you saying about comparative cost, again?
Plus $300 million or so per shuttle flight to either launch, set-up, or repair it. And they'll still have to do something with the existing Hubble.
I think the $600 million figure is mainly the cost of the one or two shuttle flights required to conduct repairs or upgrades. These flights would probably be used to conduct other experiments and activities at the same time, so assigning the full $600 million to the one task isn't really fair. It would be like saying that one of those zero gravity fruit fly experiments costs over $300 million. On top of that, the article mentions that the possible costs of simply retiring the Hubble would be a similar amount -- perhaps another $300 million for an unproven vehicle to bring it down safely plus launch costs. And that's also before any budget overruns and any additional costs in case the shuttle needs to visit it before hand to prepare it for re-entry. It might very well cost more to bring it down than to repair it.
Now this oversimplifies it a bit, but I think the real question is not "should they spend $600 million to repair the Hubble or $0 to do nothing" but rather "should they spend $600 million on one or two scheduled shuttle flights conducting life sciences experiments without any extra-vehicular activities or should they spend $600 million on one or two shuttle flights to repair the Hubble while doing a couple fewer life science experiments?" Or maybe even "should they spend $600 million to repair the Hubble or $600 million to bring it down and perhaps a couple of billion to replace it?"
Only a few years ago it was obvious that you can figure out how a piece of hardware works and tell your friends about it.
No it wasn't. We still had patent law. We still had copyright law...
Yeah, point taken, we still had jerks that abused the system, but the very point of patent law is supposed to be so you *can* tell your friends about it -- its public information, but you just can't implement it or sell it without permission. The point of copyright law is that you can't publish or republish a given work without permission, except under fair use provisions. And, the point of trade secrets is to protect against stealing undisclosed information (although with less protections so as to encourage disclosure through patents or copyright).
I agree with the original poster -- only a few years ago, the distinction between these things was pretty clear, even when the specifics were occasionally abused. Now with silly laws and the general strangeness of software (copyrighted works that provide real world functionality), suddenly patents are applying to discoveries, ideas, and mathematical algorithms, copyright is being used like unregistered ultra long term patents to gain an indefinite monopoly on the utility of a work and not just its expression, and the DMCA is being abused to protect public information as though it were stolen trade secrets and to further negate any encouragement for companies to add to the commons. Things have definitely changed for the worse.
Honestly why would someone running XP Home/Pro migrate to linux?
They won't -- on their own -- but someone setting up an office of say 30 workstations primarily for word processing, e-mail, internet access, and possibly some internal database might. That's why the focus is on the enterprise desktop. You'll start to see more home use only after people get accustomed to using it at work.
Many organizations still use Word Perfect and people who get new home computers end up "borrowing" a copy of WP from work because they don't want to "learn" Word. The same thing could easily happen with Linux -- and since its free people (and the companies) wouldn't have any need to hesitate about bringing a copy home from work.
And many smaller businesses (and a few larger ones too), from machine shops to credit unions, still even use Windows 3.11 or DOS with old monochrome screens -- surely these companies and their employees would see the benefit of picking up some used PC's and loading a straightforward version of Linux.
With the cost savings from upgrading to new (or even used) Windows machines, they could buy some additional used computers in bulk or get rid of their own older ones by offering a free or discounted employee home computer plan. It could be a great campaign for Linux adoption -- buy new Linux boxes for the office and completely format the old ones and install Linux to give to employees. By installing the same version of Linux you ensure that your employees have the same OS at home (found to increase productivity when people bring work home) but without having to worry about a whole number of licensing issues.
Not only are non-patents allowable as prior art, but many companies actually publish technical disclosure documents specifically to serve as prior art for things that they're not interested in patenting or don't feel that they could get a patent in but want to make sure nobody tries to pull a stunt.
IBM is famous for publishing many thousands of these, which are frequently cited by both inventors and patent examiners as prior art, and frequently wielded by IBM to quash bogus patents.
The old IBM Patent server, which later became Delphion, originally provided access to the IBM technical disclosure bulletins as well as US patents. They are now searchable for free at the IP.com Prior Art Database along with disclosures from a number of other large companies. I've only just found out about it, but apparently you can only view summaries and have purchase full documents or to perform advanced searching, but it appears like a useful resource. Also easily browsable by month, which is kinda neat.
I'm sure someone could find an example otherwise (or even has their own horror story), but as I understand it, IBM is probably the one big tech company least guilty of abusing the patent system. Sure, they make a lot of money off of licensing and have been known to throw their weight around from time to time, but they usually seem to play relatively fair unless they're put on the defensive.
I await the day when the independant exit polls that the media conducts deviate by a statistically noteable amount from some non-verifiable voting machine. What will happen? The media's polls, while "unscientific" tend to be decent approximations, and the sampling error should be calculable. How much would the "real" results have to be off to raise eyebrows or, worse, to raise fists?
This isn't too far from what happened during the 2000 American Presidential elections, where news services flip-flopped between calling the election for Gore and Bush and then finally recognized that their polls results and eventually the actual results placed each side well within the margin of error. This link has bit of information, although it was apparently posted before the final resolution.
I remember tracking the results on the web while watching it on TV and CNN's online coverage made it perfectly clear that the results were well within the margin of error at all times. So I think they were well aware of that a margin of error existed, but I guess the pressure to call it first was just too high on TV.
It still boggles my mind that the new election machine companies are against paper trails -- why is printing out a receipt and putting it in a box _just in case_ such a big deal?
Exactly because it isn't a big deal, and in fact it seems to be the best way to do it -- but without the computer. For this to work, they apparently need to get rid of the paper -- without the redundancy of computer + paper, it's harder for people to argue that the computer is actually the redundant part. I love new technology, but only when it's useful (well, usually). Throw out the computers and punch card machines, spend more on voter education, and go back to a technology that works better, faster, and for less -- paper and pencil.
The guy [Roger Ebert] knows what he's talking about. At least his opinions are largely compatible with mine, and probably the artsy-geek set at large.
Posting their reviews in.mp3 gets them some geek points anyhow.
He should get additional geek points for being one of the most vocal, thoughtful, and relentless critics of the MPAA, especially for their irrational ratings and related restrictions on advertising.
I also enjoy his writing style and usually find his reviews thorough and consistent enough (with a few major exceptions) that you can evaluate whether you'll like a movie, even if you don't always agree with him. Also fairly enlightened on the impact of the Internet, piracy, and worth checking out his views on companies like Blockbuster, Wal-Mart, and their nutty policies.
Some of his thoughts on piracy remind me of the "sadly comical" reports that reviewers are being searched for cellphone cameras at the IMAX releases, contrary to industry boasts that the full-immersion experience makes piracy irrelevant.
Like Mr. Wheaton above, I would like a cease and decist order sent to me. However, since I have no previous career in entertainment, I need the publicity to get mine started. I'm a poor, non-RIAA aligned musician trying to crack an industry dominated by old men who think kids want to hear Justin Timberflake and some slut from Wexford, PA all day.
Just name your band or your demo album "Gator is Spyware" -- that ought to ruffle some feathers and get you your cease and desist...
Note that some of their policy statements only list the "the following kinds of anonymous information:"
- Some of the Web pages viewed - The amount of time spent at some Web sites - Response to GAIN Ads - Standard web log information (excluding IP Addresses) and system settings - Non-personally identifiable information on Web pages
While others mention the ones you listed:
* Some of the Web pages viewed * The amount of time spent at some Web sites * Response to GAIN Ads * Standard web log information (excluding IP Addresses) and system settings * What software is on the personal computer * First name, country, city, and five digit ZIP code * Non-personally identifiable information on Web pages and forms * Software usage characteristics and preferences
Perhaps, both are included within a very broad definition of "kinds of anonymous information" which apparently includes things that are obviously not anonymous by any other rational definition (certainly first names, postal codes, machine names, and... well actually almost everything they list could be used to ID someone). Who knows what other "kinds" of "anonymous" information they are collecting -- bank numbers, children's names, religion, political persuasion, race, country of origin, medical information - certainly the variance between their statements would present these all as fair game under their definitions.
I'd love to see a government privacy official charge them with something or at least officially label them not only as "spyware" but as the very definition of the word.
Absolutely. As I pointed out in a post a few months ago, I don't think SCO ever had any intention of selling any of these licenses and they probably haven't even set up the infrastructure (salespeople, contracts, "part" numbers, accounting entries, support desk, etc.) to sell them -- not even to Fortune 1000 companies. This story seems to have proved my hunch.
Since $699 doesn't make any sense from a practical business perspective ($10 a seat would make them rich and many companies would just buy in) they're probably just setting such an unreasonably high price for two reasons:
1) so nobody will call their bluff and put them into a position to be sued for reasons cited by others (extortion, fraud, copyright infringement, etc.).
2) so they can use "RIAA math" to complain to the courts how much money they've "lost" (=$699 X the number of Linux installations) when calculating the damages for their lawsuit.
By "targeting" Fortune 1000 companies "first" they've pretty well ensured that they can maximize the second objective by minimizing the risk of the first. While a smaller business could (and have tried to) call their bluff for less than a thousand dollars, a large multi-national isn't about to lay down millions without strong evidence or alterior motives (Microsoft, etc.). Also, it's much easier to present evidence that they've been turned down by exactly 998 companies with X number of seats, rather than trying to audit every smaller company with an unknown number of installations.
...the privaty equity firm that is the controlling shareholder of SCO (I forget its name) managed to persuade another investor of the likelihood of a multimillior dollar settlement from big names.
The/. crowd is generally unable to affect stock prices, but if we (a) start a campaign to hurt SCO sales and, even better (b) isolate the leading shareholders of SCO, figure out what other business interests they have, and boycott the whole lot of them, we're likely to have justice prevail.
Here's a list of the Canopy Group's portfolio companies, including some that should know better and might be encouraged put some pressure on their investors to stop this nonsense. Do you do business with these companies or recommend their products? If suing their partners and customers is just part of "the Canopy Way" should you or your company worry about litigation from them next? If you're an investor or employee and Canopy loses, should you worry about your stocks or your job? Maybe it's time to start the "reverse slashdot effect."
Did you ever deal with NSI or Verisign customer service? I did on several occassions and couldn't help getting the "I'd like to help you, but don't piss me off or I'll turn off the Internet" kind of feeling from the reps.
Not only that, but, like many others I recently complained about SiteFinder and several other issues (constant reminders that my domains are about to expire even though I've got years to go). The automated replies mostly just ignored the issues and referred to their FAQ, but the personal replies blamed the problems on VeriSign as though they were a different and unrelated company to Network Solutions (although I think some of these responses came from VeriSign e-mail addresses). Now that they actually are, it will be interesting to see who picks up the credit and blame for these issues. Who gets SiteFinder for instance?
This seems pretty silly. Kahane.net is registered by what appears to be pretty prestigious Philadelpia patent law firm, Dann, Dorfman, Herrell, and Skillman and the administrative and billing contact is one of their partners, John Berryhill. Some people might not like patents (or at least those of the software variety) but somehow I doubt these guys are radical terrorists. Based on the registration date below and the last available page on the wayback machine being before that date I'm guessing they probably bought it up to shut it down (unless the later pages were pulled from archive.org and Google's cache). Of course, at any rate, I assume it's illegal for US citizens to give this firm any business until this is cleared up.
" Registrar: MONIKER ONLINE SERVICES, INC.
Whois Server: whois.moniker.com
Referral URL: http://www.moniker.com
Name Server: NS3.MONIKER.COM
Name Server: NS4.MONIKER.COM
Status: REGISTRAR-LOCK
Updated Date: 11-oct-2003
Creation Date: 27-apr-2002
Expiration Date: 27-apr-2004...
Domain Name: KAHANE.NET
Registrant:
Dann, Dorfman, Herrell, and Skillman
1601 Market St.
Suite 2400
Philadelphia
PA
US
19103
Administrative Contact:
Berryhill, John (NIC-6305) jberryhill@ddhs.com
Dann, Dorfman, Herrell, and Skillman
1601 Market St.
Suite 2400
Philadelphia
PA, US
19103
Phone: 2155634100 Fax: 2155634044"
Wow, great job tracking down these e-mails. Also, don't forget to contact the companies actually paying for SiteFinder, especially if you or your business have a relationship with them. Here are a few of them (websites only, someone else can find the contacts). Let them know what they're association with VeriSign is contributing to (domain name hijacking, disruption of internet standards, interference with spam filters, etc.) and that you'll encourage others to avoid (boycott) their products where ever possible. Some might not care (the gambling sites, for instance), but some should probably know better (E-bay, Dell, Pixar, etc.), and I bet that most don't have a clue and probably think they're being "net savvy" by promoting their products this way (such as the upcoming movies "Veronica Guerin" and "Brother Bear").
Let them know that what they're associated with is possibly illegal, is the subject of at least one class action lawsuit, and has some of the largest and active Internet communities and the Internet's governing body up in arms. And if they don't respond, you really should avoid their sites and services, miss their movie, or tell purchasing to avoid their computers as much as possible.
Slashdot Mirror
If not, what's going to happen to the Dell users who have all of these +R drives if it turns out that -R wins out in the long run?
At this point in the industry, once Dell has gone full steam ahead with their adoption of a standard like +R over -R, then I think it's not too much of a stretch to start picking Dell's choice as the long term winner. The only question that remains is how long does the long run last anymore before something new comes along?
Everything is obvious once you know about it.
I disagree. I've seen plenty of inventions that are simply brilliant and non-obvious.
It's easy to point at an idea someone else has already had and say "I could've done that!"
While some inventions that do take considerable ingenuity and resources (and might not have happened otherwise for many more years) might seem obvious in retrospect, the ideal test should be "Wow, I would have never've thought of that!" I think the bar needs to be raised.
Imagine a room of engineers asked to come up with alternative designs for a given problem or applications for a given technology. In many cases, they would quickly settle on the one or two alternatives that best meet their current needs, leaving out approaches that are non-traditional or second best for the task at hand. However, just because they haven't used, documented, or even taken the time to think of these other approaches doesn't mean they're not obvious -- hence the difference between prior art (previously thought of and documented or implemented) and obviousness (trivial for someone skilled to think up if they tried -- but hasn't necessarily been thought of before).
So back to my room full of engineers -- Imagine a group of people skilled in a related field were asked to come up with a fairly exhastive list of good and bad approaches to a particular problem (rather than just choosing the best practices). Would they come up with the idea and implementation being patented? Is there "only so many ways you can do something" and this is one of them? If so, even if it's not the obvious choice, I would say it's clearly an obvious solution, whether or not it's been tried or thought of before and even if it has benefits that had been overlooked in the past.
For instance, Fred Smith practically "invented" the central hub model of shipping. Putting issues around business process patents aside and assuming there was no prior art at the time, perhaps he should have gotten a patent for his invention. I would argue it was an obvious idea, even if no-one else was doing it or even thought of it before. If you had simply asked a room of flight schedulers for a list of the possible ways to ship freight (good and bad) they would have very quickly come up with his model - although they would have rejected it as a bad idea. His true genius was believing in the merits and successfully executing on his otherwise obvious idea.
A lot of these suspect patents seem to fall into the category of obvious ideas that were rejected in the past and never implemented or documented (therefore little prior art) until either the technology advanced or someone believed in a particular merit.
Um, I'm pretty sure the PTO gets paid whether your patent is granted or not. So there's no profit motive for them in granting patents.
Actually, the USPTO is self funding and even turns a significant surplus (profit) which is then distributed to other agencies and programs. Most increases or proposals to increase their budget revolve around giving them back a greater percentage of their revenues.
Rather than saying "hey, we're swamped, give us more money to hire more people to do our job better" they're essentially motivated to say "hey, we make you a profit, give us more money to hire more people so we can make you more money, process more patents, expand our responsibilities, and build beautiful new offices, etc."
So yes, there's definitely a profit motive for both their shareholder (the government) and their administrators (empire building, personal compensation, prestige). All at the expense of the real dividends (innovation and progress) for their real shareholders (citizens and consumers).
I would add that instant gratification does not necessarily equal download time only, but also includes the listening/viewing time. I think part of the point that Steve is trying to make is simply that music and video are very different things and iTunes is optimized for music (as well as for selling iPods).
If a song pops into my head, instant gratification means being able to remember or find out the name of the song, find the song, download it, and listen to it. Maybe for keeps, or maybe only once, just for the nostalgia and instant gratification. With the right technologies, the total time is maybe just a couple of minutes from the time it pops into my head to the time I'm done listening to it -- in fact, if its quick, easy, and cheap enough, I might not even want to hear the whole thing, just the hook or the chorus to satisfy my urge (I know plenty of people who never listen to the whole song -- annoying, yes, but these people certainly exist as true seekers of instant gratification).
For a movie, it's not usually worth it unless you have the hour or two to sit back and watch the whole thing. Even if it only takes a minute or seconds to download a flick, it's hard to call this experience instant gratification, unless you're just downloading, say, the final scene from the first Matrix, the chase scene from Bullitt, a funny Adam Sandler moment, or a very short film. Otherwise, downloading is still going to make a huge impact on cinema, but the time to download will be less important, and the right model might be very different from whatever ends up working for music.
But regardless of what Jobs seems to suggest, I'm sure they've got plans for film as well -- they can make a lot of the same arguments about Apple already being a major force in the industry, but I agree the model and buyer behavior will be different from iTunes.
It is legal for me to carve a replica of a wooden chair with a sawblade.
Are you sure? IANAL, but just because it would be easy and very unlikely that you would be sued, this action wouldn't necessarily be legal if the wooden chair design was patented (with utility or design patent). This might not be usual case today, but I wouldn't be surprised if it became more common in the future -- certainly I've seen a number of simple automotive parts (brackets, etc.) that are covered by design patents, probably to prevent pirating.
Of course it would still be very easy to do, and maybe a good case for showing the inadequacies of patents. A great example of a very important but very simple physical design that was extensively "pirated" was Eli Whitney's patented cotton gin. The cotton gin is considered a precursor to the the mass production age and delivered unprecedented southern prosperity, but could easily be copied with a simple wooden box and a bunch of nails. This was technically illegal, but the device was such an important innovation and even Eli couldn't keep up with the demand, so after fighting to receive his patent, he either didn't renew it or the government didn't let him depending on which story you read.
Yes it's very political... do you mean like the kind of thing you'd expect a Republican like McCain to say...
Sorry, and I have no intention to attack you personally (whoever you are) but being skeptical of lobbyists (AKA "Special Interests") and career politicians (AKA "Washington Fat Cats" -- in the US) is about as apolitical as you can get and has helped get as many people elected from one political spectrum as another, including (almost) a certain Mr. Burns. In fact, it sounds like the kind of joke you'd hear a lobbyist or incumbent say or laugh at.
IANAL either, but I would read that differently.
The quote starts "...and may *also* include proprietary content..." suggesting that this might be offered, but is not a required part of the definition, which is more about providing access like an ISP.
I think the reference to "such term does not include telecommunications services" is simply meant to stop companies and lawyers from twisting the definition to apply to telephone or cable operations. But if they also run an ISP, that operation would still qualify under this regulation. Probably done so that the legislation doesn't infringe on existing FCC jurisdiction over telemarketers and fax spammers, etc.
Even if MS has removed the BSD code, what about deployed systems that are using the old code? SCO is threatening Linux users, so why not older NT users?
But look at all the hassles with the original Hubble. Compared to a billion dollar next generation deep space telescope, I think your average multi-million dollar satellite is practically a commodity item that uses well proven components and systems and can be replaced easily and cheaply (relatively) if lost or malfunctioning. In my original post, I was unaware of the plan to place the replacement in such a high orbital path, and quite right, it would need to have even more in the way of proven redundant systems, but the basic premise still stands -- pay to keep it (the original Hubble) up or pay to bring it down -- personally I'd love to see both of them operating up there even if it had to mean sacrificing a few other missions to do it.
...the next generation space telescope will cost "$824.8 million". What were you saying about comparative cost, again?
Plus $300 million or so per shuttle flight to either launch, set-up, or repair it. And they'll still have to do something with the existing Hubble.
I think the $600 million figure is mainly the cost of the one or two shuttle flights required to conduct repairs or upgrades. These flights would probably be used to conduct other experiments and activities at the same time, so assigning the full $600 million to the one task isn't really fair. It would be like saying that one of those zero gravity fruit fly experiments costs over $300 million. On top of that, the article mentions that the possible costs of simply retiring the Hubble would be a similar amount -- perhaps another $300 million for an unproven vehicle to bring it down safely plus launch costs. And that's also before any budget overruns and any additional costs in case the shuttle needs to visit it before hand to prepare it for re-entry. It might very well cost more to bring it down than to repair it.
Now this oversimplifies it a bit, but I think the real question is not "should they spend $600 million to repair the Hubble or $0 to do nothing" but rather "should they spend $600 million on one or two scheduled shuttle flights conducting life sciences experiments without any extra-vehicular activities or should they spend $600 million on one or two shuttle flights to repair the Hubble while doing a couple fewer life science experiments?" Or maybe even "should they spend $600 million to repair the Hubble or $600 million to bring it down and perhaps a couple of billion to replace it?"
Yeah, point taken, we still had jerks that abused the system, but the very point of patent law is supposed to be so you *can* tell your friends about it -- its public information, but you just can't implement it or sell it without permission. The point of copyright law is that you can't publish or republish a given work without permission, except under fair use provisions. And, the point of trade secrets is to protect against stealing undisclosed information (although with less protections so as to encourage disclosure through patents or copyright).
I agree with the original poster -- only a few years ago, the distinction between these things was pretty clear, even when the specifics were occasionally abused. Now with silly laws and the general strangeness of software (copyrighted works that provide real world functionality), suddenly patents are applying to discoveries, ideas, and mathematical algorithms, copyright is being used like unregistered ultra long term patents to gain an indefinite monopoly on the utility of a work and not just its expression, and the DMCA is being abused to protect public information as though it were stolen trade secrets and to further negate any encouragement for companies to add to the commons. Things have definitely changed for the worse.
Honestly why would someone running XP Home/Pro migrate to linux?
They won't -- on their own -- but someone setting up an office of say 30 workstations primarily for word processing, e-mail, internet access, and possibly some internal database might. That's why the focus is on the enterprise desktop. You'll start to see more home use only after people get accustomed to using it at work.
Many organizations still use Word Perfect and people who get new home computers end up "borrowing" a copy of WP from work because they don't want to "learn" Word. The same thing could easily happen with Linux -- and since its free people (and the companies) wouldn't have any need to hesitate about bringing a copy home from work.
And many smaller businesses (and a few larger ones too), from machine shops to credit unions, still even use Windows 3.11 or DOS with old monochrome screens -- surely these companies and their employees would see the benefit of picking up some used PC's and loading a straightforward version of Linux.
With the cost savings from upgrading to new (or even used) Windows machines, they could buy some additional used computers in bulk or get rid of their own older ones by offering a free or discounted employee home computer plan. It could be a great campaign for Linux adoption -- buy new Linux boxes for the office and completely format the old ones and install Linux to give to employees. By installing the same version of Linux you ensure that your employees have the same OS at home (found to increase productivity when people bring work home) but without having to worry about a whole number of licensing issues.
Not only are non-patents allowable as prior art, but many companies actually publish technical disclosure documents specifically to serve as prior art for things that they're not interested in patenting or don't feel that they could get a patent in but want to make sure nobody tries to pull a stunt.
IBM is famous for publishing many thousands of these, which are frequently cited by both inventors and patent examiners as prior art, and frequently wielded by IBM to quash bogus patents.
The old IBM Patent server, which later became Delphion, originally provided access to the IBM technical disclosure bulletins as well as US patents. They are now searchable for free at the IP.com Prior Art Database along with disclosures from a number of other large companies. I've only just found out about it, but apparently you can only view summaries and have purchase full documents or to perform advanced searching, but it appears like a useful resource. Also easily browsable by month, which is kinda neat.
I'm sure someone could find an example otherwise (or even has their own horror story), but as I understand it, IBM is probably the one big tech company least guilty of abusing the patent system. Sure, they make a lot of money off of licensing and have been known to throw their weight around from time to time, but they usually seem to play relatively fair unless they're put on the defensive.
I await the day when the independant exit polls that the media conducts deviate by a statistically noteable amount from some non-verifiable voting machine. What will happen? The media's polls, while "unscientific" tend to be decent approximations, and the sampling error should be calculable. How much would the "real" results have to be off to raise eyebrows or, worse, to raise fists?
This isn't too far from what happened during the 2000 American Presidential elections, where news services flip-flopped between calling the election for Gore and Bush and then finally recognized that their polls results and eventually the actual results placed each side well within the margin of error. This link has bit of information, although it was apparently posted before the final resolution.
I remember tracking the results on the web while watching it on TV and CNN's online coverage made it perfectly clear that the results were well within the margin of error at all times. So I think they were well aware of that a margin of error existed, but I guess the pressure to call it first was just too high on TV.
It still boggles my mind that the new election machine companies are against paper trails -- why is printing out a receipt and putting it in a box _just in case_ such a big deal?
Exactly because it isn't a big deal, and in fact it seems to be the best way to do it -- but without the computer. For this to work, they apparently need to get rid of the paper -- without the redundancy of computer + paper, it's harder for people to argue that the computer is actually the redundant part. I love new technology, but only when it's useful (well, usually). Throw out the computers and punch card machines, spend more on voter education, and go back to a technology that works better, faster, and for less -- paper and pencil.
The guy [Roger Ebert] knows what he's talking about. At least his opinions are largely compatible with mine, and probably the artsy-geek set at large.
.mp3 gets them some geek points anyhow.
Posting their reviews in
He should get additional geek points for being one of the most vocal, thoughtful, and relentless critics of the MPAA, especially for their irrational ratings and related restrictions on advertising.
I also enjoy his writing style and usually find his reviews thorough and consistent enough (with a few major exceptions) that you can evaluate whether you'll like a movie, even if you don't always agree with him. Also fairly enlightened on the impact of the Internet, piracy, and worth checking out his views on companies like Blockbuster, Wal-Mart, and their nutty policies.
Some of his thoughts on piracy remind me of the "sadly comical" reports that reviewers are being searched for cellphone cameras at the IMAX releases, contrary to industry boasts that the full-immersion experience makes piracy irrelevant.
HP (NYSE:HPQ) today announced the hp 49g+ abacus, the flagship of a
new line of powerful abaci to be launched this fall...
I'd buy one, but the beads don't seem to "click" right, and somebody stuck the enter bead in the wrong spot -- the lower right hand corner?
Like Mr. Wheaton above, I would like a cease and decist order sent to me. However, since I have no previous career in entertainment, I need the publicity to get mine started. I'm a poor, non-RIAA aligned musician trying to crack an industry dominated by old men who think kids want to hear Justin Timberflake and some slut from Wexford, PA all day.
Just name your band or your demo album "Gator is Spyware" -- that ought to ruffle some feathers and get you your cease and desist...
Note that some of their policy statements only list the "the following kinds of anonymous information:"
- Some of the Web pages viewed
- The amount of time spent at some Web sites
- Response to GAIN Ads
- Standard web log information (excluding IP Addresses) and system settings
- Non-personally identifiable information on Web pages
While others mention the ones you listed:
* Some of the Web pages viewed
* The amount of time spent at some Web sites
* Response to GAIN Ads
* Standard web log information (excluding IP Addresses) and system settings
* What software is on the personal computer
* First name, country, city, and five digit ZIP code
* Non-personally identifiable information on Web pages and forms
* Software usage characteristics and preferences
Perhaps, both are included within a very broad definition of "kinds of anonymous information" which apparently includes things that are obviously not anonymous by any other rational definition (certainly first names, postal codes, machine names, and... well actually almost everything they list could be used to ID someone). Who knows what other "kinds" of "anonymous" information they are collecting -- bank numbers, children's names, religion, political persuasion, race, country of origin, medical information - certainly the variance between their statements would present these all as fair game under their definitions.
I'd love to see a government privacy official charge them with something or at least officially label them not only as "spyware" but as the very definition of the word.
The bad news is that only members of the Academy will receive them."
Don't feel so bad, I know this academy member who always makes a few copies for his friends...
Absolutely. As I pointed out in a post a few months ago, I don't think SCO ever had any intention of selling any of these licenses and they probably haven't even set up the infrastructure (salespeople, contracts, "part" numbers, accounting entries, support desk, etc.) to sell them -- not even to Fortune 1000 companies. This story seems to have proved my hunch.
Since $699 doesn't make any sense from a practical business perspective ($10 a seat would make them rich and many companies would just buy in) they're probably just setting such an unreasonably high price for two reasons:
1) so nobody will call their bluff and put them into a position to be sued for reasons cited by others (extortion, fraud, copyright infringement, etc.).
2) so they can use "RIAA math" to complain to the courts how much money they've "lost" (=$699 X the number of Linux installations) when calculating the damages for their lawsuit.
By "targeting" Fortune 1000 companies "first" they've pretty well ensured that they can maximize the second objective by minimizing the risk of the first. While a smaller business could (and have tried to) call their bluff for less than a thousand dollars, a large multi-national isn't about to lay down millions without strong evidence or alterior motives (Microsoft, etc.). Also, it's much easier to present evidence that they've been turned down by exactly 998 companies with X number of seats, rather than trying to audit every smaller company with an unknown number of installations.
...the privaty equity firm that is the controlling shareholder of SCO (I forget its name) managed to persuade another investor of the likelihood of a multimillior dollar settlement from big names.
/. crowd is generally unable to affect stock prices, but if we (a) start a campaign to hurt SCO sales and, even better (b) isolate the leading shareholders of SCO, figure out what other business interests they have, and boycott the whole lot of them, we're likely to have justice prevail.
The name you're looking for is the Canopy Group.
The
Here's a list of the Canopy Group's portfolio companies, including some that should know better and might be encouraged put some pressure on their investors to stop this nonsense. Do you do business with these companies or recommend their products? If suing their partners and customers is just part of "the Canopy Way" should you or your company worry about litigation from them next? If you're an investor or employee and Canopy loses, should you worry about your stocks or your job? Maybe it's time to start the "reverse slashdot effect."
Altiris
Axiom Press
Center7/Inc.
Cerberian
Cogitoinc
Communitect
Data Crystal
Devicelogics
DirectPointe
Fat Pipe
Geolux
helius
homepipeline
iArchives
Industrial Training Zone
LearningOptics
Linux Network
luxul
MaxStream
Mi-Co
mti
MyFamily.com
Perimeter Labs
PlanetEarthTools
Power Innovations
SCO/Caldera
Trolltech
Tuglet
viawest
Wrenchhead
Did you ever deal with NSI or Verisign customer service? I did on several occassions and couldn't help getting the "I'd like to help you, but don't piss me off or I'll turn off the Internet" kind of feeling from the reps.
Not only that, but, like many others I recently complained about SiteFinder and several other issues (constant reminders that my domains are about to expire even though I've got years to go). The automated replies mostly just ignored the issues and referred to their FAQ, but the personal replies blamed the problems on VeriSign as though they were a different and unrelated company to Network Solutions (although I think some of these responses came from VeriSign e-mail addresses). Now that they actually are, it will be interesting to see who picks up the credit and blame for these issues. Who gets SiteFinder for instance?
Without proper pronunciation (as most westerners do), taiko can mean leper. (And thus becomes a pun). Better use "yuhangyuan" instead.
Oh, that's much better. Because, as a westerner, I'm soooooo likely to pronounce "yuhangyuan" properly.
Incidently, if "taiko" can sound like leper, what happens when I inevitably screw "yuhangyuan" up? Thanks.
This seems pretty silly. Kahane.net is registered by what appears to be pretty prestigious Philadelpia patent law firm, Dann, Dorfman, Herrell, and Skillman and the administrative and billing contact is one of their partners, John Berryhill. Some people might not like patents (or at least those of the software variety) but somehow I doubt these guys are radical terrorists. Based on the registration date below and the last available page on the wayback machine being before that date I'm guessing they probably bought it up to shut it down (unless the later pages were pulled from archive.org and Google's cache). Of course, at any rate, I assume it's illegal for US citizens to give this firm any business until this is cleared up.
...
" Registrar: MONIKER ONLINE SERVICES, INC.
Whois Server: whois.moniker.com
Referral URL: http://www.moniker.com
Name Server: NS3.MONIKER.COM
Name Server: NS4.MONIKER.COM
Status: REGISTRAR-LOCK
Updated Date: 11-oct-2003
Creation Date: 27-apr-2002
Expiration Date: 27-apr-2004
Domain Name: KAHANE.NET
Registrant:
Dann, Dorfman, Herrell, and Skillman
1601 Market St.
Suite 2400
Philadelphia
PA
US
19103
Administrative Contact:
Berryhill, John (NIC-6305) jberryhill@ddhs.com
Dann, Dorfman, Herrell, and Skillman
1601 Market St.
Suite 2400
Philadelphia
PA, US
19103
Phone: 2155634100 Fax: 2155634044"
Wow, great job tracking down these e-mails. Also, don't forget to contact the companies actually paying for SiteFinder, especially if you or your business have a relationship with them. Here are a few of them (websites only, someone else can find the contacts). Let them know what they're association with VeriSign is contributing to (domain name hijacking, disruption of internet standards, interference with spam filters, etc.) and that you'll encourage others to avoid (boycott) their products where ever possible. Some might not care (the gambling sites, for instance), but some should probably know better (E-bay, Dell, Pixar, etc.), and I bet that most don't have a clue and probably think they're being "net savvy" by promoting their products this way (such as the upcoming movies "Veronica Guerin" and "Brother Bear").
Let them know that what they're associated with is possibly illegal, is the subject of at least one class action lawsuit, and has some of the largest and active Internet communities and the Internet's governing body up in arms. And if they don't respond, you really should avoid their sites and services, miss their movie, or tell purchasing to avoid their computers as much as possible.
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