This reminds my of Harry Potter when Umbridge gives him a lifetime ban on quiddige. He thinks he'll never play again.
Until he is reminded that a lifetime ban doesn't last a lifetime, but only as long as Umbridge is around.
So even if congress (or whoever is doing it) intends to extend patents forever, congress itself will also change. And of course the rest of the world is not quite as crazy, so patents will still expire everywhere else.
While I quite agree with all your arguments, you really should use the prieview button and proofread your comment. I mean, one spelling or grammatical error can happen, but this doesn't look like you even tried to write good sentences.
However, you make good points, and I would have modded it up if I had mod points:-)
I have also thought of this, although I was more thinking about having two keyboards as well. Very useful for working (or playing) with two people on one computer, although that is getting less realistic since it isn't very hard to get two computers nowadays.
If implemented, you would of course get the extra bonus of using two mice in one program, as you (and others) described here.
With X, it is not possible, and it will not be possible without a new protocol version. X11R6 is full of event types like the pointer enters your window. They should all be changed to a pointer enters your window. Also, every function requesting information about the pointer must be changed, or there must be a function which specifies a default pointer.
All in all, quite an operation, and I haven't heard the X developers about it (I admit I haven't been listening;-) ), so I don't expect it anytime soon.
I for one, wouldn't want to be governed under laws that are inacted in a fashion where the person, or persons, responsible for them are not held accountable for thier decisions by the people.
That's the whole idea of the trias politica, the separation of executive, ligislative and judicial powers. The laws are made by politicians, and they can be held accountable.
The judges are appointed for life, which is to assure that their decisions are not based on being popular, but on the actual law. Most judges can be removed from their function by other judges, though, AFAIK.
It has always surprised me that in the USA it is so important if judges are democrats or republicans. If you would have any confidence in their doing their job well, that wouldn't matter a bit. Appearently nobody actually believes that those judges are doing their job well. If you don't even have confidence in your own judges, then it doesn't quite surprise me that you don't have confidence in an international crime court either. However, I can assure you, the judges here in the Netherlands have the confidence of most citizens. Also, I am confident that we can assure proper legal procedures.
Against the software industry? That's a good one. I'm a programmer. I release all I write under the GPL. Am I against the software industry, too? I'd think I'm part of it...
While I agree with you that the license will not permit it, actually I expect a license which says every translation you make is their property, let's assume for a moment they don't do this.
MS aren't going to be stupid enough to throw away their crown jewels (the source to Office or, $DEITY forbid, Windows) in this manner.
If such a translation was released under the GPL, they wouldn't need to open the code of their software. They would only need to do that if they would distribute the translation. Obviously, they wouldn't do that. In fact, the translation would not be allowed to be distributed at all (by anyone except MS), because it is a derivative work of something which cannot be GPL'd by the distributor.
The same is true for Microsoft Word, which is the prototype example of closed formats.
There are many problems with closed formats which are approximately known, one of which is that the designer of the format may claim copyright on it. I don't know if that would hold up in court, but I don't really like to test it. I'd rather just do it good to begin with, and use only well documented formats.
I agree that you can do nice things with flash. But you can do them without it as well, with open formats, such as javascript.
I think we should better be encouraging designers to use that, instead of encouraging MacroMedia to port flash. With flash ported, we may actually see more flash on the web. Perhaps even used for essential functionality, which makes the webbrowser on my text terminal completely useless (and the web browsers of blind people as well, by the way.)
"open format" means that the specifications of how to read and write files in the format are publicly available. swf does not fit that definition, it is as closed as it can be. The player even has a clause in the license agreement that you are not allowed to try to reverse engineer the format.
I think wine is especially great for this, because it lets people make the step to use GNU/Linux, but once they use it, they'll probably realise that it isn't an optimal solution, and they will want something native. I sure hope there will be a native solution to the same problem (but with an open format) which is free software.
Of course I also understand that MacroMedia doesn't want to see that happen, so we better not tell them until it's too late;-)
It's an open, extensible and stable platform with no licensing issues like Windows.
That's no longer true if flash, word, excel, dreamweaver and photoshop are ported. Or do you expect them to use the GPL?
They don't care about openness, they only care about money. They think they can make some money here. Perhaps they are right, perhaps they are not. But I don't think the free software crowd should cheer them on when they start porting proprietary Windows applications into proprietary GNU/Linux applications.
Not always. Many people in this discussion are calling for Photoshop or Dreamweaver to be ported to GNU/Linux. I don't think I'd like to see that. It might get some people to use some free software, sure. But it will also get people away from using free software. I mean, someone who wants Photoshop ported probably wants to use it as well, while currently he might use the Gimp, for example.
Think about what your goal is. In my opinion, it should be "make the (software) world free". Initially, having proprietary programs on GNU/Linux may help that goal. But at some point, it will only be counterproductive.
Of course, how could I forget... All the clueless people are using GNU/Linux. If I just stick to Windows with my products, I'm sure to have only intelligent customers.
I don't hate Microsoft that much. I just hate all their products.
I heard Windows XP is actually a decent operating system. I don't know, I don't want to try. That's because I dislike Microsoft, and the way they handle things. I don't expect Windows XP to be technically bad (it may be, but I don't have an expectation about it.) I just expect they'll do evil things with it (or its licence.) Just like before.
And of course, even if I wouldn't expect them to abuse their customers, their products still aren't free software, which means to me they're bad for innovation and other good things on the long term.
In short: I don't hate their products, I just hate Microsoft. (not unconditionally, but I don't think it'll change.)
I don't think they have so different meanings, actually. I trust software of which I can see the code a lot more than software which doesn't want to show itself. The same applies here. Although it is pretty obvious why the leak doesn't want to show him/herself, if it is real. And if it isn't, too, actually;-)
As ESR says on the page: "I cannot certify its authenticity". We all know that, and it makes the memo a lot less trustworthy. Just like proprietary code.
I don't know about things in the US, but in Germany, as you probably know, SCO is not allowed to make false claims in order to scare people away from something. Probably Microsoft isn't allowed to pay them for doing it either, but that is very hard to prove, I guess.
At least this document doesn't prove at all that Microsoft payed them for spreading FUD. Actually, it seems to say SCO is just extracting money from Microsoft, and to make that happen they are spreading FUD. I don't think Microsoft is punishable for that, but IANAL.
Apple is the only company I see spending the money to fight MS on these silly patents.
I have more hope in the fsf or eff. They have lawyers, and they are used to fighting over stuff like this. Actually, they are likely to jump in and offer help to anyone who gets sued for it.
If the creaters of the license agree on a particular interpretation of the license, and are willing to write that down and sign it, then why didn't they put the interpretation in the license?
Those guarantees are what a license is for. If I need to call every author of code I want to use, I might as well use proprietary stuff. One of the main points of free software is that you can use it without asking the author.
Incidentally, this exists in practice. In particular, the Linux kernel license (the GPL) prevents the distribution of binary-only kernel modules. However, Linus has stated publically, as well as in writing in the kernel source, that no action will be taken against parties who distribute such modules.
However, Linus is not at all the only copyright holder on the kernel source. And I doubt if these statements are legally binding, even for Linus. He just tries to tell how he interprets the license. I remember him saying on a mailinglist that those statements don't legally mean anything, they just explain what he thinks the license is saying. If tomorrow he changes his mind, you may have a problem. If Alan Cox (or any other copyright holder on part of the kernel) doesn't agree with Linus' interpretation, you may have a problem as well.
Indeed, autofs is not infringing as far as I can see. Hotplug on the other hand sounds an awful lot like it. Especially when it's used to do something in response to inserting, for example, a USB memory stick.
I don't see how the Nazis fit into this, but I don't think I want to know either;-)
OO code is not meant to be as inefficient as possible. If non-OO code is twice as efficient, then you probably had a bad OO coder. And there's no reason that an update should be slower. If you are considering the slowness just because of the OO design, that is.
Problems arise when you say: Who cares about efficiency, as long as we can release our product in time. That is what Microsoft usually seems to do, and that does indeed mean that the update will be even slower. If you are coding well, however, there is no reason for an update to be any slower at all. And in that case, a factor of at most 2 below the most efficient possible program is a fair price for maintainability.
When they're telling something about an other VA linux company, they do say such things. I guess in this case they didn't notice. There'll probably be an update about it soon;-)
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Strange, I would expect web designers who care about that to at least follow the w3c recommendations. However, I hardly see any website that does.
This reminds my of Harry Potter when Umbridge gives him a lifetime ban on quiddige. He thinks he'll never play again.
Until he is reminded that a lifetime ban doesn't last a lifetime, but only as long as Umbridge is around.
So even if congress (or whoever is doing it) intends to extend patents forever, congress itself will also change. And of course the rest of the world is not quite as crazy, so patents will still expire everywhere else.
While I quite agree with all your arguments, you really should use the prieview button and proofread your comment. I mean, one spelling or grammatical error can happen, but this doesn't look like you even tried to write good sentences.
However, you make good points, and I would have modded it up if I had mod points :-)
I have also thought of this, although I was more thinking about having two keyboards as well. Very useful for working (or playing) with two people on one computer, although that is getting less realistic since it isn't very hard to get two computers nowadays.
If implemented, you would of course get the extra bonus of using two mice in one program, as you (and others) described here.
With X, it is not possible, and it will not be possible without a new protocol version. X11R6 is full of event types like the pointer enters your window. They should all be changed to a pointer enters your window. Also, every function requesting information about the pointer must be changed, or there must be a function which specifies a default pointer.
All in all, quite an operation, and I haven't heard the X developers about it (I admit I haven't been listening ;-) ), so I don't expect it anytime soon.
That's the whole idea of the trias politica, the separation of executive, ligislative and judicial powers. The laws are made by politicians, and they can be held accountable.
The judges are appointed for life, which is to assure that their decisions are not based on being popular, but on the actual law. Most judges can be removed from their function by other judges, though, AFAIK.
It has always surprised me that in the USA it is so important if judges are democrats or republicans. If you would have any confidence in their doing their job well, that wouldn't matter a bit. Appearently nobody actually believes that those judges are doing their job well. If you don't even have confidence in your own judges, then it doesn't quite surprise me that you don't have confidence in an international crime court either. However, I can assure you, the judges here in the Netherlands have the confidence of most citizens. Also, I am confident that we can assure proper legal procedures.
If I would pay for RedHat, then I would expect them to do those things. Well, they do, so that's ok ;-)
Against the software industry? That's a good one. I'm a programmer. I release all I write under the GPL. Am I against the software industry, too? I'd think I'm part of it...
While I agree with you that the license will not permit it, actually I expect a license which says every translation you make is their property, let's assume for a moment they don't do this.
If such a translation was released under the GPL, they wouldn't need to open the code of their software. They would only need to do that if they would distribute the translation. Obviously, they wouldn't do that. In fact, the translation would not be allowed to be distributed at all (by anyone except MS), because it is a derivative work of something which cannot be GPL'd by the distributor.
Somehow I think someone with the open source spirit would prefer using open source to translating the OS he or she probably hates very much.
The same is true for Microsoft Word, which is the prototype example of closed formats.
There are many problems with closed formats which are approximately known, one of which is that the designer of the format may claim copyright on it. I don't know if that would hold up in court, but I don't really like to test it. I'd rather just do it good to begin with, and use only well documented formats.
I agree that you can do nice things with flash. But you can do them without it as well, with open formats, such as javascript.
I think we should better be encouraging designers to use that, instead of encouraging MacroMedia to port flash. With flash ported, we may actually see more flash on the web. Perhaps even used for essential functionality, which makes the webbrowser on my text terminal completely useless (and the web browsers of blind people as well, by the way.)
"open format" means that the specifications of how to read and write files in the format are publicly available. swf does not fit that definition, it is as closed as it can be. The player even has a clause in the license agreement that you are not allowed to try to reverse engineer the format.
I think wine is especially great for this, because it lets people make the step to use GNU/Linux, but once they use it, they'll probably realise that it isn't an optimal solution, and they will want something native. I sure hope there will be a native solution to the same problem (but with an open format) which is free software.
Of course I also understand that MacroMedia doesn't want to see that happen, so we better not tell them until it's too late ;-)
That's no longer true if flash, word, excel, dreamweaver and photoshop are ported. Or do you expect them to use the GPL?
They don't care about openness, they only care about money. They think they can make some money here. Perhaps they are right, perhaps they are not. But I don't think the free software crowd should cheer them on when they start porting proprietary Windows applications into proprietary GNU/Linux applications.
Not always. Many people in this discussion are calling for Photoshop or Dreamweaver to be ported to GNU/Linux. I don't think I'd like to see that. It might get some people to use some free software, sure. But it will also get people away from using free software. I mean, someone who wants Photoshop ported probably wants to use it as well, while currently he might use the Gimp, for example.
Think about what your goal is. In my opinion, it should be "make the (software) world free". Initially, having proprietary programs on GNU/Linux may help that goal. But at some point, it will only be counterproductive.
Of course, how could I forget... All the clueless people are using GNU/Linux. If I just stick to Windows with my products, I'm sure to have only intelligent customers.
I heard Windows XP is actually a decent operating system. I don't know, I don't want to try. That's because I dislike Microsoft, and the way they handle things. I don't expect Windows XP to be technically bad (it may be, but I don't have an expectation about it.) I just expect they'll do evil things with it (or its licence.) Just like before.
And of course, even if I wouldn't expect them to abuse their customers, their products still aren't free software, which means to me they're bad for innovation and other good things on the long term.
In short: I don't hate their products, I just hate Microsoft. (not unconditionally, but I don't think it'll change.)
I don't think they have so different meanings, actually. I trust software of which I can see the code a lot more than software which doesn't want to show itself. The same applies here. Although it is pretty obvious why the leak doesn't want to show him/herself, if it is real. And if it isn't, too, actually ;-)
As ESR says on the page: "I cannot certify its authenticity". We all know that, and it makes the memo a lot less trustworthy. Just like proprietary code.
I don't know about things in the US, but in Germany, as you probably know, SCO is not allowed to make false claims in order to scare people away from something. Probably Microsoft isn't allowed to pay them for doing it either, but that is very hard to prove, I guess.
At least this document doesn't prove at all that Microsoft payed them for spreading FUD. Actually, it seems to say SCO is just extracting money from Microsoft, and to make that happen they are spreading FUD. I don't think Microsoft is punishable for that, but IANAL.
I have more hope in the fsf or eff. They have lawyers, and they are used to fighting over stuff like this. Actually, they are likely to jump in and offer help to anyone who gets sued for it.
If the creaters of the license agree on a particular interpretation of the license, and are willing to write that down and sign it, then why didn't they put the interpretation in the license?
Those guarantees are what a license is for. If I need to call every author of code I want to use, I might as well use proprietary stuff. One of the main points of free software is that you can use it without asking the author.
However, Linus is not at all the only copyright holder on the kernel source. And I doubt if these statements are legally binding, even for Linus. He just tries to tell how he interprets the license. I remember him saying on a mailinglist that those statements don't legally mean anything, they just explain what he thinks the license is saying. If tomorrow he changes his mind, you may have a problem. If Alan Cox (or any other copyright holder on part of the kernel) doesn't agree with Linus' interpretation, you may have a problem as well.
Indeed, autofs is not infringing as far as I can see. Hotplug on the other hand sounds an awful lot like it. Especially when it's used to do something in response to inserting, for example, a USB memory stick.
I don't see how the Nazis fit into this, but I don't think I want to know either ;-)
OO code is not meant to be as inefficient as possible. If non-OO code is twice as efficient, then you probably had a bad OO coder. And there's no reason that an update should be slower. If you are considering the slowness just because of the OO design, that is.
Problems arise when you say: Who cares about efficiency, as long as we can release our product in time. That is what Microsoft usually seems to do, and that does indeed mean that the update will be even slower. If you are coding well, however, there is no reason for an update to be any slower at all. And in that case, a factor of at most 2 below the most efficient possible program is a fair price for maintainability.
When they're telling something about an other VA linux company, they do say such things. I guess in this case they didn't notice. There'll probably be an update about it soon ;-)