However you define "geek" it is "geeks" in general who are in "the know" about things such as privacy, freedom of information, reverse engineering, etc. Consequently, if it is everybody else deciding on the laws and policies on these things, the people who use the technology everyday and are intimately familiar with it ("geeks") will be left out in the cold. That's why you see all this completely ludicrous legislation and bully by big corporations. Big corporations can win over the clueless very easily. Since "geeks" have the clues, our opinions should have some weight. Currently they have none. We will keep seeing fiascos over DeCSS, MP3, and stupid censorware unless we make our voice (and common sense) be heard.
"Why? It simply costs a lot of money and doesn't theoretically gain you anything over the cheaper but just as ethical method of simply publishing the idea."
Because merely publishing the idea is a lot less effective in keeping others from patenting that idea. Merely publishing the idea puts the responsibility on patent office workers to do due diligence and actually/find/ your publishing to establish prior art. From the recent article on the patent office, we know that patent office workers don't spend near as much time as they should researching prior art. I'm not very familiar with the Open Patent License, but if it does a better job than an SIR, then great. I just wasn't aware that there was already sort of a provision for this sort of thing.
Being a women in the male "dominated" field of computing, do you have any comments on the omnipresent issue of women in technology? Why are there so few. How can it be remedied, if it needs to be. Is Open Source a relevant phenomenon in providing "entry points" for women into the community. What about your impressions of the male-oriented gaming industry? [How] Do you think females can bring a different perspective to computing (lots of coding is just hack and slash, while there are greater issues of elegant design and architecture).
You're right, but these are really just niggling application-specific things. All in all, the Windows interface is pretty straightforward. As far as WIMP (Window Icon Mouse Pointer), you "ain't" going to get anything really novel. Sure, shuffle around icons and textual labels...but it's still all WIMP, whether it's Microsoft doing it or GNOME. Actually, I think that the start menu and taskbar were designed somewhat cluefully. The edges of the screen are visual hotspots that are very easy to navigate to. What would you suggest instead of a start menu? Launch folder with icons or something? That was Program Manager in 3.1. There really isn't going to be any novel in WIMP. It's been pretty much explored to death.
I can't wait for the "Open Answer" tests, where you can make up any answer you want and it is correct. Or you can just copy them over from the answer sheet they provide you.
Anybody ogling at how cool this is also realize how stupid it is?
So, basically, an SIR is an OpenPatent? It is a patent which servers/only/ to relinquish all rights to the public domain, and to prevent others from claiming a similar patent. That's good news. I suggest all programmers and companies (in the software industry) start using these "ethical" patents.
If [distributed] patches to any source base, were by definition required to be under the same license as the source base they apply to, that would force people who wanted to "hijack" the system to actually go and negotiate with the owners/maintainers of the codebase,/first/ for a relicensing of the codebase, and/then/ they could redistribute the patch (since then it would be for a codebse (their codebase) that had the correct license).
For example, some company could not then take the Linux codebase, write a humongous whomping patch under a proprietary license, and then sell a proprietary, closed Linux with the patch under their closed license. They would first have to go to Linus and say "Hey, we would like to RELICENSE your codebase". If that was OK, then they could actually distribute the patch because now the patch would conform to the codebase they had relicensed. It would/force/ them to go and ask for a relicensing of the codebase to distribute a patch that was under a license differing from the original codebase.
There is probably leeway here in terms of compatible licensees. Probably it would be fine to distribute a patch under any official Open Source license for code bases under other official Open Source licenses.
And what are symbolic links but a way of putting an object in multiple categorizations. What is better - having a humongous web of symbolic links, or a resource system transparently backended by a database engine that takes care of the numerous characteristics and associations of the data. One dimensional hierarchies only go so far.
Of course I don't work for NullSoft, haven't written an insanely popular media player, or own Audies, but if I were Justin I would walk straight out of there (if I legally could). Pick up my sh*t and say, "well, it's been nice knowing you, G'DAY". Nullsoft/GNullSoft/Justin&Co. can go so far. They are really talented. They don't need to take this. Winamp was written to scratch an itch...if AOL won't let them scratch their itches, it is just not worth it.
"My point is that if you really believe in compensating the artist, then you should do so, for example, by using typefaces you paid for instead of the usual knockoffs."
That is a point I also agree on, but doesn't address the issue. Not only should/I/ compensate artists, but the corporations who exploit them to an extent much greater than I possibly could, should/also/ compensate them fairly.
"I didn't realise you were advocating holding corporations accountable. I don't see how advocating large scale piracy and the dismantling of copyright helps to hold corporations to their duty to compensate the artist."
I don't advocate piracy. But I/also/ don't advocate corporations using their financial power and a dysfunctional legal system to bully and extinguish emerging markets, and infringing on peoples' [pre-established] freedoms in order to retain their de facto money making monopoly. Would we both agree that if ALL artists used a direct medium like MP3 they would be much better compensated?
"As I've said before, the best way to get artists compensated is have them do their own distribution so that they won't be dependent on corporations. This will inevitably happen, it's only a matter of time."
No, not if the corporations who see MP3 as a threat manage to stick the "MP3==EVIL" meme in peoples' heads and use their power to outlaw it.
"However, it seems clear enough that in places like Japan, where the population has the money to purchase software, and the piracy rate is high, that real money is being lost."
Yes, that may be the case. But I'd wager a guess that a lot, if not/most/ piracy, is done by people who either A) can't afford the software, or B) wouldn't buy it anyway, regardless of whether there was a pirated version.
"No, I'm not. I am not assuming that everyone who pirates would have purchased a license. Let's turn that around -- are you saying that all of the people who pirate would not have purchased a license?"
No, but I'm saying many would not. Ask around here on Slashdot and find out how many people have actually bought CDs BECAUSE of mp3 and how many people explicitly DIDN'T buy a CD BECAUSE they could obtain the MP3s (different from "wouldn't buy the CD at all, but MP3s are nice freebies").
Nazi doctrine, although it was welcomed in Italy, did not originate there. I'm sure the Italian people couldn't have cared less. However, for much of the German populac, Nazi doctrine was common knowledge, ubiquitously accepted, a part of the culture, while it was never really so in Italy (afaik). People take a very long time to change. Generations.
"Hey, I'm still hardware limited. I spend and I spend on hard drive space, but still I can't have all my files on my hard drive at once."
Perhaps you need to get that 75GB IBM drive.
"I disagree. My personal files are gigabytes large, and include plenty of small files - interesting pieces of text, Dilbert cartoons, snippets of code - as well as big things like South Park videos. I pay attention to how I file it in my hierarchical file system and I can always find it again because its location just makes sense."
So, do Dilbert cartoons go under/media or/graphics or/media/graphics or/cartoons or/Scott_Adams? Does you South Park videos go under/South_Park or/media/video or/media/video/quicktime or/media/comedy or/Trey_Parker or/yr1999? Data is just too rich to fit into a one dimensional hierarchy. Data has characteristics in multiple dimensions: content type/categorization (many of them), data format, age, relevance to other object, etc.
They had the option of adopting one particular infringement of civil liberties, or of witnessing their country self-destruct, probably violently. Would you rather have another Nazi industrial giant in Europe today, or would you have a Germany the way it is currently? Given time things will heal and restrictions will be lifted...but WWII is not something people forget that quickly.
I'm sure it wasn't an easy decision, but there are "good" reasons. Everything is not black and white.
If you say so. I have just seen way too many arguments that go like this:
"Y is bad" "Hey, if Y is so bad why don't you do "
Your statement is an example of such an argument: ""...the big evil corporations get all the money and the artist doesn't get any". If you really mean this, go buy some shareware fonts or something --"
HOW does MY buying shareware fonts, however a good action it is and however little it will help, cause corporations to own up to their responsibility? My action of buying shareware fonts does not address that fact that corporations themselves are not doing the same. Another analogies, since you like them so much:
"Evil corporations pollute so much" "Hey, why don't YOU stop littering?!"
or
"Country X is so racist!" "Hey, your country is also racist!"
I believe this is a variant of an ad hominem attack...it is just shifting the focus of the argument.
Me: "Perhaps. But you still haven't proven't that someone is actually HURT by privacy. THAT should be your argument."
"What, you don't think no one is hurt by loss of sales ?"
Wait a few minutes. Do you realize piracy and loss of sales are not equivalent? You are assuming they are equivalent. I call that. Prove it to me. This is another error of omission the big companies spread about. "X billion dollars of pirated product was sold!" Well, how much of that money would they really have seen? Are they so naive to assume that each and every person who obtained a pirated product would have actually BOUGHT the product if a pirated version were not available?
"And I think we in German have a greater knowledge of our faults in the past than other countries of their faults."
That may very well be true. Our high school history books don't tell us, but the Germen Eugenics program and ghastly experimentation was based on the model provided by the mass sterilization of criminals, native americans, blacks, and the mentall ill in America in the 1910s - 1930s, which they very much admired. Yup, that's right, the good old USA.
Long before the Germans we ourselves had a large Eugenics program, were measuring distinctive racial facial features and sterilizing people. The Germans were quite impressed and took back this knowledge and greatly expanded on it. They were very proud of beating the USA as the leader in Eugenics (from what I have read). They based their profiling and "cleansing" of Jews on our profiling and "cleansing" of Native Americans.
I believe Himmler kept a picture of a Native American in his office to remind him of the United States' successful campaign. I also think one of Germans in the Nuremburg trial said something to the effect of "Why are you prosecuting us? You taught us this."
"Sure, you can try to rationalise it by saying "the big evil corporations get all the money and the artist doesn't get any". If you really mean this, go buy some shareware fonts or something --"
This statement is analogous to:
"Sure, you can try to rationalise it by saying "the big evil corporations are exploiting poor third world countries". If you really mean this, go give to charity or something"
...as a means of avoiding redress of big corporations. Yes, I will give to charity, but I will also demand big evil corporations to own up to/their/ responsibility also.
"there are means of distribution that enable the artist to get compensation without a middleman intercepting all of the profits."
Yes. One means is MP3, which the big media corporations would brainwash you into thinking is inherently bad and should be universally banned.
"However, piracy is not one of them. The only people who benefit from piracy are the cheapskates who do the illegal copying."
Perhaps. But you still haven't proven't that someone is actually HURT by privacy. THAT should be your argument.
Well, so much for AOL being the kindly parent who was going to let its children go their own way. So much for the vision of the AOL-Netscape combination being a challanger to Microsoft. AOL is just another Microsoft now.
If I were Justin I'd be mad pissed...I'd walk out. If you're out there Justin, I, and probably many others, will pay good money for your products (open source or not)...I've freeloaded enough...I guess this is what I get.
The previous era of computing was hardware-limited. That constraint limited the domain of data that could be worked with and upon. We are no longer hardware-limited. We are overflowing with data, of myriad types and dimensions. The next era in computing will be filtering data and adapting it to the person...not adapting the person and data to the limited hardware.
Already we are seeing that the notion of a strictly one-dimensional hierarchical file system becoming archaic. Having a system of files is useless if you are so overrun with data that amongst the plethora of files nothing is meaningful. With the network-as-computer approaching I believe we will shift to the systems of "resources". We are already seeing this with distributed computing. URLs locate abstract "resources", whether they are on a local file system, or over the net, whether they are static data, or an executable service or agent. We have to move to an/associative/ resource database, where resources are categorized not by arbitary position on disk, but by their very attributes and data characteristics. We are reaching a new level of abstraction.
That being said, a lot of Unix is based on the good old file system metaphor. At the time, addressing everything as a file was as novel as addressing everything as a resource (think system components as CORBA objects - check out AllianceOS). Because of the above reasons I think we need to graduate to a more abstract, associative model. Also, very simple security structures like ACLs are showing their age...they do not scale up well. We are seeing new security models, like capability-based systems, where each entity in a system, be it user, or program, has a set of "capabilities" which it can use to interact with other pieces. A higher level of abstraction. I think for Unix to stay in places requiring these features (associative data storage/filtering - desktop, new security paradigms - large networks, network OSs), it will have to change.
Where things like this don't matter one bit (like the mainframe), Unix will continue to reign supreme.
"I'm not a lawyer.. infact I hate the law and try to avoid it whenever possible. My hobby/job/most-enjoyable-recreational-activity is to put servers together, network them, and then make them do nifty stuff for me."
But I'm assuming you'd be pretty pissed off if MegaCorp Inc. calls you up one day and says you can no longer pursue your hobbies because they have a patent on "Putting computer equipment together".
"I'll just use java-script to create a hover-over-this-button shopping setup. Somebody patents the knife and fork? I'll use chopsticks then. Somebody patents the CPU? I'll grab my soldering gun and make an analog computer out of op amps and transistors with a level of parallelism unknown previous to this."
Not everybody wants to jump on MegaCorp's command, though. I don't really want to be forced to use chopsticks or solder my own CPUs. Big Business provides a very real danger of stifling and extinguishing innovation, on the net, or wherever.
The fundamental problem with patents, underlying all of these solutions, is/duration/. The above solutions fix/symptoms/. The/real/ problem is that some arbitrary duration of patent was conjured up some 200 or so years ago, and nothing has changed. Patent duration/must/ be inversely proportional to the speed of the industry they are in. In a fast moving industry like the computer industry, a patent is obsolete after a few years, let alone 7 or 17. It makes no sense to stifle all those wasted years worth of potential innovation. All that time that the current patent system allows the patent holder to sit on their patent, a lot of innovation could occur in a fast moving industry. I believe once the patent duration is tied, using common sense, to the market it is in that the symptoms will go away. We won't really need compulsory relicensing, because in a few years their competitors can have it anyway. I agree with points 2 and 3. Not sure about 4 and 5.
In general the patent office should/not/ be based on a business model at all. The patent office's customers aren't the few companies that pay megabucks for patents, but to the few hundred million citizens. They should take the citizens' interests into hand when they examine patents.
Aren't what some of the patents cover actually coverable by trademarks? I mean, a series of shortcut keys for menu items (Brief/Star/Borland) isn't actually a/process/, but it is, in a sense, a mark of their product. Likewise, Apple's blue gel encasing is a mark of their trade, not a/process/ and not patentable (unless there is really something innovative in that casing as they would have us believe).
Where to trademarks play into this? I mean there has to be more use of tradmarks than to simply protect the word "Coca~Cola" (tm).
Slashdot Mirror
However you define "geek" it is "geeks" in general who are in "the know" about things such as privacy, freedom of information, reverse engineering, etc. Consequently, if it is everybody else deciding on the laws and policies on these things, the people who use the technology everyday and are intimately familiar with it ("geeks") will be left out in the cold. That's why you see all this completely ludicrous legislation and bully by big corporations. Big corporations can win over the clueless very easily. Since "geeks" have the clues, our opinions should have some weight. Currently they have none. We will keep seeing fiascos over DeCSS, MP3, and stupid censorware unless we make our voice (and common sense) be heard.
"Why? It simply costs a lot of money and doesn't theoretically gain you anything over the cheaper but just as ethical method of simply publishing the idea."
/find/ your publishing to establish prior art. From the recent article on the patent office, we know that patent office workers don't spend near as much time as they should researching prior art. I'm not very familiar with the Open Patent License, but if it does a better job than an SIR, then great. I just wasn't aware that there was already sort of a provision for this sort of thing.
Because merely publishing the idea is a lot less effective in keeping others from patenting that idea. Merely publishing the idea puts the responsibility on patent office workers to do due diligence and actually
jYeah, jsame jgoes jfor java jdevelopers.
Being a women in the male "dominated" field of computing, do you have any comments on the omnipresent issue of women in technology? Why are there so few. How can it be remedied, if it needs to be. Is Open Source a relevant phenomenon in providing "entry points" for women into the community. What about your impressions of the male-oriented gaming industry? [How] Do you think females can bring a different perspective to computing (lots of coding is just hack and slash, while there are greater issues of elegant design and architecture).
You're right, but these are really just niggling application-specific things. All in all, the Windows interface is pretty straightforward. As far as WIMP (Window Icon Mouse Pointer), you "ain't" going to get anything really novel. Sure, shuffle around icons and textual labels...but it's still all WIMP, whether it's Microsoft doing it or GNOME. Actually, I think that the start menu and taskbar were designed somewhat cluefully. The edges of the screen are visual hotspots that are very easy to navigate to. What would you suggest instead of a start menu? Launch folder with icons or something? That was Program Manager in 3.1. There really isn't going to be any novel in WIMP. It's been pretty much explored to death.
I can't wait for the "Open Answer" tests, where you can make up any answer you want and it is correct. Or you can just copy them over from the answer sheet they provide you.
Anybody ogling at how cool this is also realize how stupid it is?
So, basically, an SIR is an OpenPatent? It is a patent which servers /only/ to relinquish all rights to the public domain, and to prevent others from claiming a similar patent. That's good news. I suggest all programmers and companies (in the software industry) start using these "ethical" patents.
Consider this:
/first/ for a relicensing of the codebase, and /then/ they could redistribute the patch (since then it would be for a codebse (their codebase) that had the correct license).
/force/ them to go and ask for a relicensing of the codebase to distribute a patch that was under a license differing from the original codebase.
If [distributed] patches to any source base, were by definition required to be under the same license as the source base they apply to, that would force people who wanted to "hijack" the system to actually go and negotiate with the owners/maintainers of the codebase,
For example, some company could not then take the Linux codebase, write a humongous whomping patch under a proprietary license, and then sell a proprietary, closed Linux with the patch under their closed license. They would first have to go to Linus and say "Hey, we would like to RELICENSE your codebase". If that was OK, then they could actually distribute the patch because now the patch would conform to the codebase they had relicensed. It would
There is probably leeway here in terms of compatible licensees. Probably it would be fine to distribute a patch under any official Open Source license for code bases under other official Open Source licenses.
And what are symbolic links but a way of putting an object in multiple categorizations. What is better - having a humongous web of symbolic links, or a resource system transparently backended by a database engine that takes care of the numerous characteristics and associations of the data. One dimensional hierarchies only go so far.
Of course I don't work for NullSoft, haven't written an insanely popular media player, or own Audies, but if I were Justin I would walk straight out of there (if I legally could). Pick up my sh*t and say, "well, it's been nice knowing you, G'DAY". Nullsoft/GNullSoft/Justin&Co. can go so far. They are really talented. They don't need to take this. Winamp was written to scratch an itch...if AOL won't let them scratch their itches, it is just not worth it.
"My point is that if you really believe in compensating the artist, then you should do so, for example, by using typefaces you paid for instead of the usual knockoffs."
/I/ compensate artists, but the corporations who exploit them to an extent much greater than I possibly could, should /also/ compensate them fairly.
/also/ don't advocate corporations using their financial power and a dysfunctional legal system to bully and extinguish emerging markets, and infringing on peoples' [pre-established] freedoms in order to retain their de facto money making monopoly. Would we both agree that if ALL artists used a direct medium like MP3 they would be much better compensated?
/most/ piracy, is done by people who either A) can't afford the software, or B) wouldn't buy it anyway, regardless of whether there was a pirated version.
That is a point I also agree on, but doesn't address the issue. Not only should
"I didn't realise you were advocating holding corporations accountable. I don't see how advocating large scale piracy and the dismantling of copyright helps to hold corporations to their duty to compensate the artist."
I don't advocate piracy. But I
"As I've said before, the best way to get artists compensated is have them do their own distribution so that they won't be dependent on corporations. This will inevitably happen, it's only a matter of time."
No, not if the corporations who see MP3 as a threat manage to stick the "MP3==EVIL" meme in peoples' heads and use their power to outlaw it.
"However, it seems clear enough that in places like Japan, where the population has the money to purchase software, and the piracy rate is high, that real money is being lost."
Yes, that may be the case. But I'd wager a guess that a lot, if not
"No, I'm not. I am not assuming that everyone who pirates would have purchased a license. Let's turn that around -- are you saying that all of the people who pirate would not have purchased a license?"
No, but I'm saying many would not. Ask around here on Slashdot and find out how many people have actually bought CDs BECAUSE of mp3 and how many people explicitly DIDN'T buy a CD BECAUSE they could obtain the MP3s (different from "wouldn't buy the CD at all, but MP3s are nice freebies").
Nazi doctrine, although it was welcomed in Italy, did not originate there. I'm sure the Italian people couldn't have cared less. However, for much of the German populac, Nazi doctrine was common knowledge, ubiquitously accepted, a part of the culture, while it was never really so in Italy (afaik). People take a very long time to change. Generations.
"Hey, I'm still hardware limited. I spend and I spend on hard drive space, but still I can't have all my files on my hard drive at once."
/media or /graphics or /media/graphics or /cartoons or /Scott_Adams? Does you South Park videos go under /South_Park or /media/video or /media/video/quicktime or /media/comedy or /Trey_Parker or /yr1999? Data is just too rich to fit into a one dimensional hierarchy. Data has characteristics in multiple dimensions: content type/categorization (many of them), data format, age, relevance to other object, etc.
Perhaps you need to get that 75GB IBM drive.
"I disagree. My personal files are gigabytes large, and include plenty of small files - interesting pieces of text, Dilbert cartoons, snippets of code - as well as big things like South Park videos. I pay attention to how I file it in my hierarchical file system and I can always find it again because its location just makes sense."
So, do Dilbert cartoons go under
"There are no "good" reasons for this."
They had the option of adopting one particular infringement of civil liberties, or of witnessing their country self-destruct, probably violently. Would you rather have another Nazi industrial giant in Europe today, or would you have a Germany the way it is currently? Given time things will heal and restrictions will be lifted...but WWII is not something people forget that quickly.
I'm sure it wasn't an easy decision, but there are "good" reasons. Everything is not black and white.
Ok, I should lose this argument by default because I can't even spell correctly...
"IMO, when you argue by analogy, you concede."
If you say so. I have just seen way too many arguments that go like this:
"Y is bad"
"Hey, if Y is so bad why don't you do "
Your statement is an example of such an argument:
""...the big evil corporations get all the money and the artist doesn't get any". If you really mean this, go buy some shareware fonts or something --"
HOW does MY buying shareware fonts, however a good action it is and however little it will help, cause corporations to own up to their responsibility? My action of buying shareware fonts does not address that fact that corporations themselves are not doing the same. Another analogies, since you like them so much:
"Evil corporations pollute so much"
"Hey, why don't YOU stop littering?!"
or
"Country X is so racist!"
"Hey, your country is also racist!"
I believe this is a variant of an ad hominem attack...it is just shifting the focus of the argument.
Me: "Perhaps. But you still haven't proven't that someone is actually HURT by privacy. THAT should be your argument."
"What, you don't think no one is hurt by loss of sales ?"
Wait a few minutes. Do you realize piracy and loss of sales are not equivalent? You are assuming they are equivalent. I call that. Prove it to me. This is another error of omission the big companies spread about. "X billion dollars of pirated product was sold!" Well, how much of that money would they really have seen? Are they so naive to assume that each and every person who obtained a pirated product would have actually BOUGHT the product if a pirated version were not available?
"And I think we in German have a greater knowledge of our faults in the past than other countries of their faults."
That may very well be true. Our high school history books don't tell us, but the Germen Eugenics program and ghastly experimentation was based on the model provided by the mass sterilization of criminals, native americans, blacks, and the mentall ill in America in the 1910s - 1930s, which they very much admired. Yup, that's right, the good old USA.
Long before the Germans we ourselves had a large Eugenics program, were measuring distinctive racial facial features and sterilizing people. The Germans were quite impressed and took back this knowledge and greatly expanded on it. They were very proud of beating the USA as the leader in Eugenics (from what I have read). They based their profiling and "cleansing" of Jews on our profiling and "cleansing" of Native Americans.
I believe Himmler kept a picture of a Native American in his office to remind him of the United States' successful campaign. I also think one of Germans in the Nuremburg trial said something to the effect of "Why are you prosecuting us? You taught us this."
"Sure, you can try to rationalise it by saying "the big evil corporations get all the money and the artist doesn't get any". If you really mean this, go buy some shareware fonts or something --"
/their/ responsibility also.
This statement is analogous to:
"Sure, you can try to rationalise it by saying "the big evil corporations are exploiting poor third world countries". If you really mean this, go give to charity or something"
...as a means of avoiding redress of big corporations. Yes, I will give to charity, but I will also demand big evil corporations to own up to
"there are means of distribution that enable the artist to get compensation without a middleman intercepting all of the profits."
Yes. One means is MP3, which the big media corporations would brainwash you into thinking is inherently bad and should be universally banned.
"However, piracy is not one of them. The only people who benefit from piracy are the cheapskates who do the illegal copying."
Perhaps. But you still haven't proven't that someone is actually HURT by privacy. THAT should be your argument.
Not, say, if he developed it with some friends on the weekend. Can they prove he didn't? If he didn't develop it on the job, they can't touch him.
Well, so much for AOL being the kindly parent who was going to let its children go their own way. So much for the vision of the AOL-Netscape combination being a challanger to Microsoft. AOL is just another Microsoft now.
If I were Justin I'd be mad pissed...I'd walk out. If you're out there Justin, I, and probably many others, will pay good money for your products (open source or not)...I've freeloaded enough...I guess this is what I get.
Damn AOL bastards.
Ok, so it has been arbitrarily increased accross the board with disregard to individual markets. Which only makes my point stronger.
The duration of the patent should be tied to the reasonable lifespan in the market. That was the intent of the founding fathers. For a limited time...
The previous era of computing was hardware-limited. That constraint limited the domain of data that could be worked with and upon. We are no longer hardware-limited. We are overflowing with data, of myriad types and dimensions. The next era in computing will be filtering data and adapting it to the person...not adapting the person and data to the limited hardware.
/associative/ resource database, where resources are categorized not by arbitary position on disk, but by their very attributes and data characteristics. We are reaching a new level of abstraction.
Already we are seeing that the notion of a strictly one-dimensional hierarchical file system becoming archaic. Having a system of files is useless if you are so overrun with data that amongst the plethora of files nothing is meaningful. With the network-as-computer approaching I believe we will shift to the systems of "resources". We are already seeing this with distributed computing. URLs locate abstract "resources", whether they are on a local file system, or over the net, whether they are static data, or an executable service or agent. We have to move to an
That being said, a lot of Unix is based on the good old file system metaphor. At the time, addressing everything as a file was as novel as addressing everything as a resource (think system components as CORBA objects - check out AllianceOS). Because of the above reasons I think we need to graduate to a more abstract, associative model. Also, very simple security structures like ACLs are showing their age...they do not scale up well. We are seeing new security models, like capability-based systems, where each entity in a system, be it user, or program, has a set of "capabilities" which it can use to interact with other pieces. A higher level of abstraction. I think for Unix to stay in places requiring these features (associative data storage/filtering - desktop, new security paradigms - large networks, network OSs), it will have to change.
Where things like this don't matter one bit (like the mainframe), Unix will continue to reign supreme.
"I'm not a lawyer.. infact I hate the law and try to avoid it whenever possible. My hobby/job/most-enjoyable-recreational-activity is to put servers together, network them, and then make them do nifty stuff for me."
But I'm assuming you'd be pretty pissed off if MegaCorp Inc. calls you up one day and says you can no longer pursue your hobbies because they have a patent on "Putting computer equipment together".
"I'll just use java-script to create a hover-over-this-button shopping setup. Somebody patents the knife and fork? I'll use chopsticks then. Somebody patents the CPU? I'll grab my soldering gun and make an analog computer out of op amps and transistors with a level of parallelism unknown previous to this."
Not everybody wants to jump on MegaCorp's command, though. I don't really want to be forced to use chopsticks or solder my own CPUs. Big Business provides a very real danger of stifling and extinguishing innovation, on the net, or wherever.
The fundamental problem with patents, underlying all of these solutions, is /duration/. The above solutions fix /symptoms/. The /real/ problem is that some arbitrary duration of patent was conjured up some 200 or so years ago, and nothing has changed. Patent duration /must/ be inversely proportional to the speed of the industry they are in. In a fast moving industry like the computer industry, a patent is obsolete after a few years, let alone 7 or 17. It makes no sense to stifle all those wasted years worth of potential innovation. All that time that the current patent system allows the patent holder to sit on their patent, a lot of innovation could occur in a fast moving industry. I believe once the patent duration is tied, using common sense, to the market it is in that the symptoms will go away. We won't really need compulsory relicensing, because in a few years their competitors can have it anyway. I agree with points 2 and 3. Not sure about 4 and 5.
/not/ be based on a business model at all. The patent office's customers aren't the few companies that pay megabucks for patents, but to the few hundred million citizens. They should take the citizens' interests into hand when they examine patents.
In general the patent office should
Aren't what some of the patents cover actually coverable by trademarks? I mean, a series of shortcut keys for menu items (Brief/Star/Borland) isn't actually a /process/, but it is, in a sense, a mark of their product. Likewise, Apple's blue gel encasing is a mark of their trade, not a /process/ and not patentable (unless there is really something innovative in that casing as they would have us believe).
Where to trademarks play into this? I mean there has to be more use of tradmarks than to simply protect the word "Coca~Cola" (tm).