You're like the 15th person to say this in these comments.
Why can't you understand that people don't want to be sued. No-one will ever see the list of patent numbers and where they are apparently infringed upon until there is a court case. If the cost of a court case is X and the cost of a license is Y, and Y is less than X, then there will never be a court case.
Microsoft doesn't care if you don't believe them. People are buying the licenses.
Uhh.. the people who choose to use free software to run their servers would not do so if it didn't work with machines running Microsoft servers. It would not be in their business interests to do so.
That's why, as I said in another post, this guy is a retard. And whoever modded him up to +5 is a retard too.
Eventually Microsoft will decide to "make an example" of one of these Fortune 500 companies that refuses to buy a patent license.
Sure, most of the patents will be exposed as being crud that isn't worth patenting or just simply isn't being violated as Microsoft claims, but some of it will stick. The court will award Microsoft $X million for the violation and then, guess what? The Fortune 500 company will sue Redhat or Novell or whichever distributor it was that they got the Open Source from. Will it stop there? I don't know. It is very hard to imagine Redhat suing the individual developers. Novell? Well, it's possible I suppose.
The moment a Fortune 500 sues an individual developer for failing to ensure their code is clear of Microsoft patents is the moment Patent Armageddon has begun.
Did you read the whole article? Or did you get bored after looking at the pictures?
It presents both sides of the argument fairly to me. It has plenty of praise for RMS on page 2. It clearly states that Microsoft's actions are unsound and likely to result in harm to the software industry on page 3.
All in all, I think the article is pretty balanced.
A picture of Steve Ballmer, wearing a suit, looking harmless,
Oh, and your idea of harmless and mine are clearly different. He looks ready to explode in that picture.
It's not FUD they are after, it is folding green notes. They go into a Fortune 500, show them 1 patent that is being infringed in the Linux kernel (even if it is something that could easily be worked around) and say "you've been using Linux for 6 years now right?" and lean on the company's IP lawyers until they admit that, yes, they have been infringing at least one of Microsoft's patents for years and years.
Microsoft then says "hey, don't worry, we've got these patent licenses.. we promise not to sue you if you just pay us a whole lot of cash for the 6 years you've been using Linux and every year that you keep using Linux." Out come contracts with the big non-disclosure chapters and it's on to the next Fortune 500 company. None of us would have heard anything about this if they hadn't gone after the brass ring: Redhat and Novell.
Nah.. the music companies (through the RIAA) go straight to lawsuits without trying to sell anyone a "bridge" license, or patent gap insurance, or whatever you wanna call it. I prefer "extortion".
Microsoft has been approaching Fortune 500's for years now and offering to sell "patent licenses" on any of the software that the companies might be using without one. Basically, it's extortion. "We think you might be running software which utilizes our patented technology without a license, but don't worry, we're not going to sue you, so long as you buy this license from us."
That takes care of all the big fish.. last year they went after the little fish too, by approaching Novell and making that patent deal you might have heard of. When Redhat crumbles (assuming they haven't already) we'll all be paying a Microsoft tax.
I love the way Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith refers to selling these patent licenses as a "bridge to the FOSS community".
To all those Fortune 500 companies that have bought patent licenses from Microsoft.. I have a bridge you might like to buy.
Wait until your share holders find out that you've been paying Microsoft millions for something that is not only unnecessary, but is outright fraud on Microsoft's part.
I bet the patent license doesn't even list the products that supposedly infringe on these patents.
Is it a fact of nature that billion dollar companies are always run by idiots?
That's really not an argument for why we, the people, should be willing to enact copyright laws and obey them.
I'm sure a lot of surfers would like there to be a tax which enables them to surf all day and have us flip the bill, but just them expressing their desire is not a reason for us to pay for it.
Why should someone own the exclusive right to make copies?
The only sensible reason you could possibly have for such an extreme position like that is that it is somehow to the benefit of every person in society to willingly refrain from copying these works. That's a pretty hard argument to make.
Of course, you don't have to make the argument.. cause the status quo is one of restriction.. which the majority of people just ignore anyway.
The problem on Windows is that it is a single user operating system with delusions of being a multi-user operating system.
The problem on Unix is that it is a time sharing operating system which people inexplicably use as a workstation operating system.
The problem on OS X is that there are no serious threats, so no-one has any idea if their security model does anything because it never gets tested.
And the problem with all three of them is that they assume that the program will always do what the user wants and therefore the program should inherit permissions from the user. On Windows that was never true. On Unix it was only true back when all users were developers and had enough time to read the source code to all the programs they ran and thus felt they could trust them. On OS X it was actually true because, again, no-one writes malware for OS X.
The security model should be, quite simply: the program has a manifest that declares what permissions it needs with a fine granularity. The permissions should be placed into a hierarchy. For example: writes to disk -> writes to user files -> writes to user files of type X. The user should be able to inspect these permissions to determine if they are acceptable. If they are not, then the user should be free to uncheck "required" permissions.. the program should still run but those functions of the program which invoke a required permission should cause a prompt. The prompt should give the option to deny the request, or fake the request so it appears to the program that it completed successfully.
And yes, developers should use this mode.. and they would, because it is actually useful instead of just being a pain.
If you have a hearing aid that can filter out sound not coming from a particular direction, then presumably the people who are looking at you are a good direction not to filter sound from.
Well, ya know, PDF has a similar reputation to Java.. it freezes the browser. As such, I almost always curse myself when I click on a link that takes me to a PDF instead of right clicking and selecting save-as. There's a firefox extension which will prompt you every time you click on a PDF whether or not you want to view in the browser or save-as.
There is nothing wrong withy that, nor is the idea of copyright a bad one. Yeah there is. Spock summed it up perfectly: the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Why should the few have the right to control the actions of the many? So they can make a buck from something?
Lemme tell you some other scams like this. Some countries make it illegal for anyone to do their own wiring. They claim this is because they want to reduce the number of houses that are burning down.. but if you actually look at the people who introduce these laws, they're not firefighters.. they're electricians.
My personal favourite (in terms of hatred) is the Install Shield updater. WTF? Why would I ever need to update install shield? Why is that even "installed"?
Which could be done at browser initialization time.
It is also to be hoped that GPLing the JDK will lead to some performance improvements eventually. Yep.. it needs to be done by Sun. We can hope that someone will care enough in the distant future to have a look at pre-loading the JVM, but if Sun wants it done any time soon, and they should, then they need to contribute this. Shouldn't be hard for the biggest contributor to Open Source on the planet.
I think he was referring to this site which is the one that most people link to when they want to tell someone to install Java.. because Sun recommends you link to this site.
Anyway, I tried java.com, using Mozilla Firefox, and it gave me this page which is really quite good. One thing I gotta ask though, why is Sun asking me to install an unsigned extension? Why can't they go get a signing certificate already?
the dumbest thing Sun ever did was to strongarm Netscape into renaming JavaScript into JavaScript. Uhhh.. they did? I vaguely remember them suing someone because they called it Javascript.
Slashdot Mirror
Ummm.. so what?
You're like the 15th person to say this in these comments.
Why can't you understand that people don't want to be sued. No-one will ever see the list of patent numbers and where they are apparently infringed upon until there is a court case. If the cost of a court case is X and the cost of a license is Y, and Y is less than X, then there will never be a court case.
Microsoft doesn't care if you don't believe them. People are buying the licenses.
Uhh.. the people who choose to use free software to run their servers would not do so if it didn't work with machines running Microsoft servers. It would not be in their business interests to do so.
That's why, as I said in another post, this guy is a retard. And whoever modded him up to +5 is a retard too.
Give it time.
Eventually Microsoft will decide to "make an example" of one of these Fortune 500 companies that refuses to buy a patent license.
Sure, most of the patents will be exposed as being crud that isn't worth patenting or just simply isn't being violated as Microsoft claims, but some of it will stick. The court will award Microsoft $X million for the violation and then, guess what? The Fortune 500 company will sue Redhat or Novell or whichever distributor it was that they got the Open Source from. Will it stop there? I don't know. It is very hard to imagine Redhat suing the individual developers. Novell? Well, it's possible I suppose.
The moment a Fortune 500 sues an individual developer for failing to ensure their code is clear of Microsoft patents is the moment Patent Armageddon has begun.
Did you read the whole article? Or did you get bored after looking at the pictures?
It presents both sides of the argument fairly to me. It has plenty of praise for RMS on page 2. It clearly states that Microsoft's actions are unsound and likely to result in harm to the software industry on page 3.
All in all, I think the article is pretty balanced.
A picture of Steve Ballmer, wearing a suit, looking harmless,
Oh, and your idea of harmless and mine are clearly different. He looks ready to explode in that picture.
Heh, why would they want to do that?
It's not FUD they are after, it is folding green notes. They go into a Fortune 500, show them 1 patent that is being infringed in the Linux kernel (even if it is something that could easily be worked around) and say "you've been using Linux for 6 years now right?" and lean on the company's IP lawyers until they admit that, yes, they have been infringing at least one of Microsoft's patents for years and years.
Microsoft then says "hey, don't worry, we've got these patent licenses.. we promise not to sue you if you just pay us a whole lot of cash for the 6 years you've been using Linux and every year that you keep using Linux." Out come contracts with the big non-disclosure chapters and it's on to the next Fortune 500 company. None of us would have heard anything about this if they hadn't gone after the brass ring: Redhat and Novell.
One down, one to go.
You are a retard.
EOM
Nah.. the music companies (through the RIAA) go straight to lawsuits without trying to sell anyone a "bridge" license, or patent gap insurance, or whatever you wanna call it. I prefer "extortion".
but if you go read it, you'll see how.
Ahh, who am I kiddin'? Here's the skinny:
Microsoft has been approaching Fortune 500's for years now and offering to sell "patent licenses" on any of the software that the companies might be using without one. Basically, it's extortion. "We think you might be running software which utilizes our patented technology without a license, but don't worry, we're not going to sue you, so long as you buy this license from us."
That takes care of all the big fish.. last year they went after the little fish too, by approaching Novell and making that patent deal you might have heard of. When Redhat crumbles (assuming they haven't already) we'll all be paying a Microsoft tax.
I love the way Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith refers to selling these patent licenses as a "bridge to the FOSS community".
To all those Fortune 500 companies that have bought patent licenses from Microsoft.. I have a bridge you might like to buy.
Wait until your share holders find out that you've been paying Microsoft millions for something that is not only unnecessary, but is outright fraud on Microsoft's part.
I bet the patent license doesn't even list the products that supposedly infringe on these patents.
Is it a fact of nature that billion dollar companies are always run by idiots?
Wonder how long before the marketing boys start calling it that.
That's really not an argument for why we, the people, should be willing to enact copyright laws and obey them.
I'm sure a lot of surfers would like there to be a tax which enables them to surf all day and have us flip the bill, but just them expressing their desire is not a reason for us to pay for it.
except, of course, all the astrophysicists who often pointed out that exactly this kind of discovery was just around the corner.
How can you be for any copyrights?
Why should someone own the exclusive right to make copies?
The only sensible reason you could possibly have for such an extreme position like that is that it is somehow to the benefit of every person in society to willingly refrain from copying these works. That's a pretty hard argument to make.
Of course, you don't have to make the argument.. cause the status quo is one of restriction.. which the majority of people just ignore anyway.
on Windows, on Unix and on OS X.
The problem on Windows is that it is a single user operating system with delusions of being a multi-user operating system.
The problem on Unix is that it is a time sharing operating system which people inexplicably use as a workstation operating system.
The problem on OS X is that there are no serious threats, so no-one has any idea if their security model does anything because it never gets tested.
And the problem with all three of them is that they assume that the program will always do what the user wants and therefore the program should inherit permissions from the user. On Windows that was never true. On Unix it was only true back when all users were developers and had enough time to read the source code to all the programs they ran and thus felt they could trust them. On OS X it was actually true because, again, no-one writes malware for OS X.
The security model should be, quite simply: the program has a manifest that declares what permissions it needs with a fine granularity. The permissions should be placed into a hierarchy. For example: writes to disk -> writes to user files -> writes to user files of type X. The user should be able to inspect these permissions to determine if they are acceptable. If they are not, then the user should be free to uncheck "required" permissions.. the program should still run but those functions of the program which invoke a required permission should cause a prompt. The prompt should give the option to deny the request, or fake the request so it appears to the program that it completed successfully.
And yes, developers should use this mode.. and they would, because it is actually useful instead of just being a pain.
If you have a hearing aid that can filter out sound not coming from a particular direction, then presumably the people who are looking at you are a good direction not to filter sound from.
Use your imagination.
The code would be compiled on my dev box, deployed to the server and run on the client as bytecode.
Well, ya know, PDF has a similar reputation to Java.. it freezes the browser. As such, I almost always curse myself when I click on a link that takes me to a PDF instead of right clicking and selecting save-as. There's a firefox extension which will prompt you every time you click on a PDF whether or not you want to view in the browser or save-as.
I've done it before too. I don't remember where I read the docs for doing it.
If you get stuck writing those docs, drop me an email and I'll see if I remember anything useful for ya.
Lemme tell you some other scams like this. Some countries make it illegal for anyone to do their own wiring. They claim this is because they want to reduce the number of houses that are burning down.. but if you actually look at the people who introduce these laws, they're not firefighters.. they're electricians.
Ya know, this post I can understand, but what's your story?
chord.wav is probably too young to remember the US from 10 or 20 years ago.
He probably has no idea that things have progressively gotten worse there.
He probably didn't see the writing on the wall back then and wonder why the americans were letting things get so out of control.
My personal favourite (in terms of hatred) is the Install Shield updater. WTF? Why would I ever need to update install shield? Why is that even "installed"?
It is also to be hoped that GPLing the JDK will lead to some performance improvements eventually. Yep.. it needs to be done by Sun. We can hope that someone will care enough in the distant future to have a look at pre-loading the JVM, but if Sun wants it done any time soon, and they should, then they need to contribute this. Shouldn't be hard for the biggest contributor to Open Source on the planet.
I think he was referring to this site which is the one that most people link to when they want to tell someone to install Java.. because Sun recommends you link to this site.
Anyway, I tried java.com, using Mozilla Firefox, and it gave me this page which is really quite good. One thing I gotta ask though, why is Sun asking me to install an unsigned extension? Why can't they go get a signing certificate already?
It should be hidden by default.. it confuses users.
The first 30 seconds of user testing would have told the engineers at Sun that.. so clearly they didn't do any.