What is it with nerds and implanting technology into their bodies? It doesn't seem to have much to do with practical use. Is it some kind of power fantasy?
No. Without copyright, all programs would be free to copy, but the source code would not be available. GPL forces anyone who distributes a program to also distribute the source code, and without copyright there would be no way to enforce it.
That's not the whole reason the GPL requires copyright. The GPL ensures that a purchaser of a program always has access to the source code so he can make needed changes, and that would not be possible without copyright. In a copyright-free world, every program would be free to copy, but nobody could force anyone to release the source code.
Not quite. The new testament says you shouldn't swear at all. From the King James Bible, Matt. 5:33:
[33] Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths:
[34] But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne:
[35] Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King.
[36] Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black.
[37] But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.
My interpretation of this is that if people swear oaths when they need to be truthful, it implies they don't always need to be truthful. If you can't trust a "no" to be a "no" and a "yes" to be a "yes", using oaths won't help.
I mean if you go by the old books Lucifer was the most beautiful of all the angels, the morning star, the most intelligent, the most perfect...so WTF would he be doing torturing his own people when he is gonna need them for the final battle between good and evil? It makes no damned sense!
The christian Bible doesn't support the modern notion of Hell. There is a reference to the existence of a realm for the dead in the old testament, and in Revelations, there is a reference to Satan being cast into a pit of fire and brimstone to suffer around Judgment Day, and that's about all. As far as I know, there is no support for the ideas that Hell is a place where sinners or non-christians go, that Satan rules in Hell, or that he tortures the inhabitants of Hell.
The concept of Hell (along with the concept of the Devil) seems to have been formed during Roman times and the Middle Ages, perhaps by mixing in elements from other religions.
No, copyright is only applicable to artistic expressions (like books, movies, plays, musical scores, sculptures, architecture, and, oddly enough, computer programs). Inventions, no matter how creative they are, are covered by patents, not copyright.
(continued) For example, looking at the source code of the competitor's program, usually won't help you much in writing your own. Most of the work lies in formulating your design clearly and implementing it in code, not in coming up with ideas. If an employee runs off with your ideas and starts their own firm, they still have 95% of the work ahead of them before they catch up.
The exception to this is when someone actually comes up with a genuinely new algorithm, like a new sorting algorithm. However, that kind of work is mostly done at universities, by salaried researchers, so patents are not needed as an economic incentive to do research.
Wrong, you are describing a copyrighted engine, which is quite easy for a competitor to clone without breaking the law, which is why inventors seek patents. A patented engine is much broader than a copyrighted engine.
You can't copyright an engine. You can only copyright artistic works, like books, movies or paintings.
Yes, but such an invention still depends and infringes on the original engine patent, which must be licensed if not expired.
You mean it is actually possible to patent something like "the method of increasing performance by increasing fuel injection by 3% for every degree below optimum temperature"? I wasn't aware of that. If that is true, I think ordinary patents have already become too broad and general.
Therefore, your statement that all software is obvious and easy is false.
No, all software is not obvious and easy. But very little of it is creative; most programming consists of applying known solutions to new situations. It requires intelligence and hard work, I don't deny that, but it rarely involves coming up with something genuinely new.
You miss the grandparent's point... if it was already possible to fix the problem, the first company who did so would kill off the competition and earn ****loads of money. All the profit from selling the solution would go to that compnay, so it would be very high, while the loss of shrinking the market would be evenly distributed between it and its competitors, so it would be comparatively low. Since competetitors have no reason to be loyal to eachother, the only way to prevent it would be if all the security companies participated in a cartel.
This is one of the many reasons that competitive markets are good, while monopolies and cartels are bad.
But I think it's more proper to say that the national laws are supersets of the EU laws. The EU laws contain minimum requirements, and each country within the EU is obliged to write national laws that contain at least those minimum requirements.
Or they might say, "Well yes, math in itself is unpatentable, but the process of using a certain mathematical relationship in an industrial or educational processes can be patented."
As to why the silliness just keeps going - the large corporations are always pushing to extend the scope of their own patents, in order to maximise revenue, block competitors and maintain monopolies. This is done both by convincing courts to interpret patent laws broader and broader, and by lobbying politicians to write new laws.
YOU are basically admitting that there is no point in trying to classify inventions as software vs non-software because patent lawyers can always shoehorn the one into the other.
Well, they sure try, but the courts don't always agree with them.
Since the function and behavior of an engine can be represented mathematically, why was the engine granted a patent when it was created, since math is not patentable?
Presumably, because it is not the function and behaviour of an engine that's patented, but the specific method to achieve that function and behaviour (what parts are used, what materials they consist of, how they are put together, etc).
IMO, it's not obvious how you use mechanical parts to, say, increase the fuel injection by 3% for every degree below optimum temperature of the motor. There must be a number of non-obvious ways to do it using different mechanical parts and different materials.
But it IS obvious how to do the same thing in software. You can do it with a formula, with a series of if-then statements, with a switch statement, with a table, or some other programming construct, but all these methods are obvious once you've defined the problem. This is an example of why software patents are far too broad - granting a patent on the program would effectively grant a patent on the process of decreasing fuel injection by 3% for every degree below optimum itself - since any programming construct that does this is obvious from the others.
Not correct. Freenet used to have a board system called "Frost", where most of the pedos hanged out, and it had more spam than "real" messages.
Frost has since been depreciated in favour of FMS (Freenet Message System), which is completely spam-free due to the trust list system. A system which also allows you to filter out the pedos.
Ah, but I believe teaching about *several different* religions serves as an antidote to fundamentalism. Seeing how many different things people believe, puts your own beliefs into perspective. It becomes a little harder to treat your own religion as the only possible truth.
Of course, some people will become fundamentalists or fanatics anyway, but those who stand in the middle and can be swayed either way will benefit from religious education.
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Oh my god! He's got the virus too!
What is it with nerds and implanting technology into their bodies? It doesn't seem to have much to do with practical use. Is it some kind of power fantasy?
No. Without copyright, all programs would be free to copy, but the source code would not be available. GPL forces anyone who distributes a program to also distribute the source code, and without copyright there would be no way to enforce it.
That's not the whole reason the GPL requires copyright. The GPL ensures that a purchaser of a program always has access to the source code so he can make needed changes, and that would not be possible without copyright. In a copyright-free world, every program would be free to copy, but nobody could force anyone to release the source code.
Not quite. The new testament says you shouldn't swear at all. From the King James Bible, Matt. 5:33:
[33] Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths:
[34] But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne:
[35] Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King.
[36] Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black.
[37] But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.
My interpretation of this is that if people swear oaths when they need to be truthful, it implies they don't always need to be truthful. If you can't trust a "no" to be a "no" and a "yes" to be a "yes", using oaths won't help.
I mean if you go by the old books Lucifer was the most beautiful of all the angels, the morning star, the most intelligent, the most perfect...so WTF would he be doing torturing his own people when he is gonna need them for the final battle between good and evil? It makes no damned sense!
The christian Bible doesn't support the modern notion of Hell. There is a reference to the existence of a realm for the dead in the old testament, and in Revelations, there is a reference to Satan being cast into a pit of fire and brimstone to suffer around Judgment Day, and that's about all. As far as I know, there is no support for the ideas that Hell is a place where sinners or non-christians go, that Satan rules in Hell, or that he tortures the inhabitants of Hell.
The concept of Hell (along with the concept of the Devil) seems to have been formed during Roman times and the Middle Ages, perhaps by mixing in elements from other religions.
Btw, where did you get the idea that an inventions (like an engine) can be copyrighted? Are you thinking of pattern protections?
No, copyright is only applicable to artistic expressions (like books, movies, plays, musical scores, sculptures, architecture, and, oddly enough, computer programs). Inventions, no matter how creative they are, are covered by patents, not copyright.
(continued) For example, looking at the source code of the competitor's program, usually won't help you much in writing your own. Most of the work lies in formulating your design clearly and implementing it in code, not in coming up with ideas. If an employee runs off with your ideas and starts their own firm, they still have 95% of the work ahead of them before they catch up.
The exception to this is when someone actually comes up with a genuinely new algorithm, like a new sorting algorithm. However, that kind of work is mostly done at universities, by salaried researchers, so patents are not needed as an economic incentive to do research.
Wrong, you are describing a copyrighted engine, which is quite easy for a competitor to clone without breaking the law, which is why inventors seek patents. A patented engine is much broader than a copyrighted engine.
You can't copyright an engine. You can only copyright artistic works, like books, movies or paintings.
Yes, but such an invention still depends and infringes on the original engine patent, which must be licensed if not expired.
You mean it is actually possible to patent something like "the method of increasing performance by increasing fuel injection by 3% for every degree below optimum temperature"? I wasn't aware of that. If that is true, I think ordinary patents have already become too broad and general.
Therefore, your statement that all software is obvious and easy is false.
No, all software is not obvious and easy. But very little of it is creative; most programming consists of applying known solutions to new situations. It requires intelligence and hard work, I don't deny that, but it rarely involves coming up with something genuinely new.
You miss the grandparent's point... if it was already possible to fix the problem, the first company who did so would kill off the competition and earn ****loads of money. All the profit from selling the solution would go to that compnay, so it would be very high, while the loss of shrinking the market would be evenly distributed between it and its competitors, so it would be comparatively low. Since competetitors have no reason to be loyal to eachother, the only way to prevent it would be if all the security companies participated in a cartel.
This is one of the many reasons that competitive markets are good, while monopolies and cartels are bad.
But I think it's more proper to say that the national laws are supersets of the EU laws. The EU laws contain minimum requirements, and each country within the EU is obliged to write national laws that contain at least those minimum requirements.
Thanks for a well thought out post which addresses the other side of the issue.
I resent that. We Europeans are perfectly capable of making stupid patent laws on our own.
Or they might say, "Well yes, math in itself is unpatentable, but the process of using a certain mathematical relationship in an industrial or educational processes can be patented."
As to why the silliness just keeps going - the large corporations are always pushing to extend the scope of their own patents, in order to maximise revenue, block competitors and maintain monopolies. This is done both by convincing courts to interpret patent laws broader and broader, and by lobbying politicians to write new laws.
No, they have to come up with an excuse if they want to strike it down :-)
Germany produces excellent engineering products (although the user interfaces could be better).
Who cares about the system of interlocking alliances? Think of all the poor bureaucrats in Brussels and their starving families!
YOU are basically admitting that there is no point in trying
to classify inventions as software vs non-software because
patent lawyers can always shoehorn the one into the other.
Well, they sure try, but the courts don't always agree with them.
I'm pretty sure the parent was being ironic, so please mod him (her?) +1 Funny :)
Since the function and behavior of an engine can be represented mathematically, why was the engine granted a patent when it was created, since math is not patentable?
Presumably, because it is not the function and behaviour of an engine that's patented, but the specific method to achieve that function and behaviour (what parts are used, what materials they consist of, how they are put together, etc).
IMO, it's not obvious how you use mechanical parts to, say, increase the fuel injection by 3% for every degree below optimum temperature of the motor. There must be a number of non-obvious ways to do it using different mechanical parts and different materials.
But it IS obvious how to do the same thing in software. You can do it with a formula, with a series of if-then statements, with a switch statement, with a table, or some other programming construct, but all these methods are obvious once you've defined the problem. This is an example of why software patents are far too broad - granting a patent on the program would effectively grant a patent on the process of decreasing fuel injection by 3% for every degree below optimum itself - since any programming construct that does this is obvious from the others.
Not correct. Freenet used to have a board system called "Frost", where most of the pedos hanged out, and it had more spam than "real" messages.
Frost has since been depreciated in favour of FMS (Freenet Message System), which is completely spam-free due to the trust list system. A system which also allows you to filter out the pedos.
I think the developers are, so far, focused on the technical aspects and making it as secure as possible, not so much on usability.
On the upside, Freenet contains a distributed Usenet server, which has so far been kept spam-free by the use of trust lists.
Ah, but I believe teaching about *several different* religions serves as an antidote to fundamentalism. Seeing how many different things people believe, puts your own beliefs into perspective. It becomes a little harder to treat your own religion as the only possible truth.
Of course, some people will become fundamentalists or fanatics anyway, but those who stand in the middle and can be swayed either way will benefit from religious education.