Limited monopoly should only encourage innovation in one situation - where companies must outlay significant resources, time, and money in order to reap the productive yield of their research.
A competitive company will only invest in research if it can gain a competitive advantage from that research. This advantage is diminished when every other company is allowed to copy the productive yield of that research. Patents protect large coporations, such as pharmaceuticals, from losing billions of dollars of research to competitors who instantly copy the results of that research (drugs, in this case).
That being said, a limited monopoly harms innovation when a company is granted the ability to cripple entire industries through the patenting of fundamental, and often obvious, discoveries. This is especially the case when the company does not have to outlay a dime for research - often, the intellectual property is the by-product of an employee who is performing their job, which is usually not to create ideas, but rather to create products which are salable in a given market.
Marx posited that capitalism would eventually collapse in upon itself. Interestingly enough, he thought that private property would be the mechanism that inhibited, rather than secured, freedom.
I think he's right, except that intellectual property will be that mechanism.
It's a real shame this guy hasn't been around the block a few times with regards to management. There are some very clear actions he could have taken to ensure that the noose wasn't just around his neck, but also around the next of his supervisor and HR contact.
Just some examples:
Get all job requirements in writing or email. If your boss asks you to complete something, send him an email asking him to verify the scope and priority of the work to be performed. If necessary, use clauses such as "Do you agree that until completion of this task, this task takes precedence over all other requests made of me, unless otherwise communicated by you?"
Get all reprimands in writing or email, and get as much clarification as possible. If your boss reprimands you verbally, follow up with an email asking him if your interpretation of his reprimand is correct. Ask him to describe or verify the actions that will be required to resolve the issue.
Follow up on every contradiction. If your boss says "good job" one day, and yells at you the next, ask him via email to clarify the situation so that you can take steps to avoid repeating the situation. This is especially important if you need to represent yourself as a dutiful employee during future lawsuits.
Ask to be educated about the formal HR policies for reprimand. Many companies, in order to avoid lawsuits, have clearly defined policies for reprimanding employees. These include written warning, signed by the employee; mandatory HR sessions upon reprimand; follow-up performance evaluations, etc. Some companies get lazy and stop following the policies they've defined. If so, your lawsuit will be much stronger! Try to get all reprimands processes as clearly and officially as possible. This will require your employer to make clear and rational decisions regarding your reprimand, unless they want to risk facing an unlawful termination suit.
Save all email. During a lawsuit, your lawyer will need emails that may be years old, in order to make certain cases such as "this company promoted an atmosphere of such and such, as evidenced by these emails going as far back as..." I know of a lawsuit in which an employee saved his spam, and used that as evidence that the company wasn't serious about enforcing "corporate use only" policies.
I know at work, it may be impossible to choose or configure one's web browser. I know that's the case in my situation.
As an alternative, whenever you need to access sensitive data from work, you can inspect your hosts files manually, immediately prior to visiting the desired website, to ensure that no URL spoofing is going on.
Of course, this is dangerous if somehow, an ActiveX control spoofs the URL that you're visiting during the middle of one of your sessions. But I'm guessing that's not too likely.
Windows experts: is there a way to lock down the hosts file to prevent modification via an untrusted control or program?
BTW, the plural of virus is virii. Stop believing what you read on the internet and remember your highschool Latin.
Are you suggesting that there's no correct information on the internet? Are you suggesting that I'm incapable of distinguishing correct information on the internet from incorrect information on the internet? Are you suggesting that highschool Latin courses deal specifically with the plurality of virus, a medical term?
How about this. Instead of believing your claim, which I "read on the internet", I'm going to believe the following reputable claim:
Virii would be the plural of the word virius, and viri was the plural of the word vir, meaning man. The Latin word does not appear to have had a plural. Despite frequent claims to the contrary, the only correct English plural of the word for any of these senses is viruses.
Please, Anonymous Coward, teach me in the ways of ranting without getting modded down. A quick review of my posted messages indicate that my mod rating is not as high as it could be.
In fact, if I were to submit your rant, word for word, I'm sure I would somehow be modded at -1.
Yes. It's Enron. Or HealthSouth. Or Arthur Andersen. Or Adelphia Communications. Or Global Crossing.
Hmm. Enron, HealthSouth, Arthur Andersen, and Adelphia Communications were all instances of firms "cooking their books", which is merely the fraudulent misrepresentation of financial statements. That's a far cry from going out and infecting thousands of computers with a virus whose damage could reap billions of dollars in punative damages from a court ruling.
Global Crossing was simply a vendetta case of an employee gone wrong.
It's MUCH more unlikely that an anti-virus corporation would conspire to create new viruses. That's just like saying that firewall manufacturers go out and hack computers, or security firms go out and steal credit cards.
That you can't imagine a successful antivirus company risking legal ramifications to ramp up business says less about corporate wisdom and more about your defective imagination.
Oh, believe you me, I have imagination. And I'll use it to build you a foil hat to protect you from the mind-control rays.
This "age old" question is perhaps the stupidest conspiracy theory I've ever heard. Corporations go to great lengths to avoid lawsuits, and I can't imagine that any successful antivirus company would risk losing all of their money in a class action lawsuit by pulling such a stupid move. Why would an antivirus corporation risk writing viruses? There are plenty of socially stunted 15 year olds to do that.
BTW the pural of "virus" is "viruses". Look it up on google.
Kleinrock said he predicted in 1969 that the small network would eventually expand across the globe, making a vast amount of information accessible at any time from anywhere in the world.
The prediction was so close!
Modified for correctness:
Kleinrock said he predicted in 1969 that the small network would eventually expand across the globe, making a vast amount of junk email accessible at any time from anywhere in the world.
They used the wrong test program...
on
Flying By Brain
·
· Score: 1
I propose that they hook up the brain to Grand Theft Auto... Let's see what kind of screwed up morals those rat neurons learn.
Should the Apple retail model be applied to Sony, and if so why didn't it work for Gateway?
Yes, the Apple retail model should be applied to Sony! Both companies produce over-priced products, allow them to earn high profit margins. Products with high profit margins help offset the cost of store operations and real estate. Plus, interactive product demonstration is vital for Apple and Sony - customers who haven't had a chance to play with one of their products would probably not be inclined to pay the high profit margin in an otherwise competitive market.
Gateway, on the other hand, had no such advantages.
Should Dell be next to enter you local shopping mall?
No. Dell makes money through scale of economies and efficiency of operations. They make low profit margins on high volumes of products.
Retail stores are one of the least efficient operations, and don't do well with products with low profit margins, unless volume can somehow compensate. But computer stores generally have the problem with slow inventory turnover, due to the >$1000 average price barrier.
There are several other reasons why Dell shouldn't enter this market. Dell offers very dynamic pricing on its website - today, it might offer 15% off its Inspiron notebooks, and tomorrow that pricing might disappear. It much more difficult to attract customers to a store with seemingly random pricing.
Also, Dell is heavily into the market of selling peripherals. In fact, customize a computer on Dell's website, and you'll see the option to buy a printer before you see the option to configure the computer's memory.
Should large retailers like Best Buy and others be afraid of this model?
Not at all. Best Buy competes through the resale of a wide variety of goods at competitive prices. Sony and Apple compete through the sale of a small variety of products at high prices.
I just ran the linked news article through my Marketing Cut-N-Paste Detector(TM), and have displayed the results below. All phrases in bold are determined to have been directly cut-n-paste from previous marketing articles.
...
Analysts have warned that software makers might license their server products at double the price for double the number of cores, but many have also indicated that software companies have little to gain from multicore price increases.
...
Although some vendors have hinted they may charge more for software licensing on multicore processors, most have moved closer to Microsoft's announced stance, which seeks to maintain the status quo without charging more for multicores.
"Microsoft software that is currently licensed on a per-processor model will continue to be licensed per processor, not per core, for hardware that contains dual-core and multicore processors," the company said in a statement.
Microsoft said its multicore licensing decision is aimed at driving higher volume and better value with the advent of dual-core and multicore server processors from both AMD (NYSE: AMD) and Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) , which are expected in hardware beginning next year.
...
"Our customers want to understand software costs as they evaluate the return on investment of new technologies, such as multicore processors," said Microsoft vice president of licensing and pricing Brent Callinicos in a statement.
...
According to Gartner analyst Martin Reynolds, the fear has been that software vendors would double their prices for dual-core processor coverage, creating big cost jumps for enterprise customers. Gartner recommends customers attempt to negotiate software licenses that count a single-chip device as one processor, regardless of how many cores it carries.
While some vendors, including IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) , have signaled they might charge more in licensing for dual-core and multicore products, Microsoft confirmed what many analysts had predicted -- that the addition of processor cores was by no means an opportunity for software vendors.
Yankee Group senior analyst Laura DiDio told TechNewsWorld that Microsoft was making a proactive move to address the issue, but was also signaling to its customers that it is not a hardware vendor and could not lower software prices along with the dip in hardware costs that comes with the efficiency of multicore chips.
DiDio said that while customers might benefit from more efficient processors and interaction with the software, they will pay the same rate they've been paying to license Microsoft products with the new hardware.
"This multicore technology really illustrates the dichotomy between the rapid advancement of hardware capability, which is in turn making issues with how software companies license the technology," DiDio said.
[Editor's note: I admit that the previous three paragraphs come from an alternate universe in which everyone speaks marketing lingo, and understands each other.]
Referring to the complexity of per-processor licensing, even without the addition of dual-core technology, DiDio said software makers do not want to be seen as raising their prices, for fear of losing customers.
Nevertheless, software vendors have proceeded cautiously on the core question, with rivals IBM, Oracle, Sun, Microsoft and others waiting to see how the others approach the issue, partly to learn what works and partly to have the opportunity to counter, according to DiDio.
She said IBM is in a different situation since it makes money not only from software and services but also from hardware.
Hey jackass new product does not equal obsolete. Apple products have a much longer lifespan period.
But I guess an asshat like yourself just wants to bitch, go back to your XP box and leave us alone.
Are you a Windows user in disguise, trying to give Apple users a bad name? If not, return to your master, Apple drone.
It's not as much about obsolescence as it is about Apple making choices on behalf of the consumer, by withholding information about their products. Tell me QuickTime 5.2 wasn't obsolete the day QuickTime 6 upgraded itself onto my computer, and continually flashed "Why upgrade?" ads on my computer whenever I watched a QuickTime movie.
It's not the reseller, it's Apple. Apple obscures EVERYTHING in a cloud of secrecy. I've bought THREE Apple products which were obsoleted within two weeks, simply because Apple NEVER informs the public about their future products.
Go into an Apple store during the Christmas season, after Apple releases one of their new products, and ask "Are you going to get these things in?" They'll say, "I don't know, Apple doesn't tell us and we don't find out until the shipment arrives at the store." And this is an Apple store, not some random reseller!
I love some of my Apple products. But screw Apple for burning its customers so often (like the time I bought QuickTime 5.2 nine days before QuickTime 6 came out, and Apple wouldn't upgrade me.)
That's how Apple makes money on upgrades. A poor sap buys an iBook and then two weeks later, a new one comes out. Said sap thinks "man, this thing is already behind the curve and I'll definitely have to upgrade again next year!". Screw Apple for pulling this shit.
Whenever I recommend an Apple product to someone, I always warn them about this shit that Apple pulls. Since most Apple customers have sworn fealty to Apple since birth, they don't care if Apple pulls this shit.
I recommend that people don't buy an Apple product unless it's just been released. Otherwise, it's going to be obsoleted within a very short time, and you're going to feel screwed.
What's the difference between Apple and a prostitute? When you get screwed for money by Apple, it doesn't feel good.
Thus, the lesson is...
on
Rob Pike Responds
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Well that was a complete and total ignoring of the intent of the patent question on the basis of not agreeing with a minor portion of the question.
Thus, today's lesson is: don't insert your own stupid analogies into the question just to appear intelligent.
I would have loved to see his response to the same question without the analogy. He would have been forced to answer, or explicitly acknowledge his dodging, if the submitter had merely posed the question by itself.
Obviously, as an employee of a corporation with major intellectual property interests, he's not going to kill his career by speaking out against software patents. You gave him an easy out.
Slashdot Mirror
It's 100% capitalism if you're allowed to choose, by vote, the leaders who determine the tax rate.
Why would the collapse of communism invalidate the future collapse of capitalism?
Well stated. I've totally changed my mind in response to your convincing argument.
Limited monopoly should only encourage innovation in one situation - where companies must outlay significant resources, time, and money in order to reap the productive yield of their research.
A competitive company will only invest in research if it can gain a competitive advantage from that research. This advantage is diminished when every other company is allowed to copy the productive yield of that research. Patents protect large coporations, such as pharmaceuticals, from losing billions of dollars of research to competitors who instantly copy the results of that research (drugs, in this case).
That being said, a limited monopoly harms innovation when a company is granted the ability to cripple entire industries through the patenting of fundamental, and often obvious, discoveries. This is especially the case when the company does not have to outlay a dime for research - often, the intellectual property is the by-product of an employee who is performing their job, which is usually not to create ideas, but rather to create products which are salable in a given market.
Marx posited that capitalism would eventually collapse in upon itself. Interestingly enough, he thought that private property would be the mechanism that inhibited, rather than secured, freedom. I think he's right, except that intellectual property will be that mechanism.
Considering that many managers, especially those who need to pin the blame on underlings, are incompetent - yes, I do.
Just some examples:
Aren't there plenty of available solutions today that make the sender "work for it?"
As an alternative, whenever you need to access sensitive data from work, you can inspect your hosts files manually, immediately prior to visiting the desired website, to ensure that no URL spoofing is going on.
Of course, this is dangerous if somehow, an ActiveX control spoofs the URL that you're visiting during the middle of one of your sessions. But I'm guessing that's not too likely.
Windows experts: is there a way to lock down the hosts file to prevent modification via an untrusted control or program?
Are you suggesting that there's no correct information on the internet? Are you suggesting that I'm incapable of distinguishing correct information on the internet from incorrect information on the internet? Are you suggesting that highschool Latin courses deal specifically with the plurality of virus, a medical term?
How about this. Instead of believing your claim, which I "read on the internet", I'm going to believe the following reputable claim:
Virii would be the plural of the word virius, and viri was the plural of the word vir, meaning man. The Latin word does not appear to have had a plural. Despite frequent claims to the contrary, the only correct English plural of the word for any of these senses is viruses.
Please, Anonymous Coward, teach me in the ways of ranting without getting modded down. A quick review of my posted messages indicate that my mod rating is not as high as it could be.
In fact, if I were to submit your rant, word for word, I'm sure I would somehow be modded at -1.
Hmm. Enron, HealthSouth, Arthur Andersen, and Adelphia Communications were all instances of firms "cooking their books", which is merely the fraudulent misrepresentation of financial statements. That's a far cry from going out and infecting thousands of computers with a virus whose damage could reap billions of dollars in punative damages from a court ruling.
Global Crossing was simply a vendetta case of an employee gone wrong.
It's MUCH more unlikely that an anti-virus corporation would conspire to create new viruses. That's just like saying that firewall manufacturers go out and hack computers, or security firms go out and steal credit cards.
That you can't imagine a successful antivirus company risking legal ramifications to ramp up business says less about corporate wisdom and more about your defective imagination.
Oh, believe you me, I have imagination. And I'll use it to build you a foil hat to protect you from the mind-control rays.
This "age old" question is perhaps the stupidest conspiracy theory I've ever heard. Corporations go to great lengths to avoid lawsuits, and I can't imagine that any successful antivirus company would risk losing all of their money in a class action lawsuit by pulling such a stupid move. Why would an antivirus corporation risk writing viruses? There are plenty of socially stunted 15 year olds to do that.
BTW the pural of "virus" is "viruses". Look it up on google.
Modified for correctness:
I propose that they hook up the brain to Grand Theft Auto... Let's see what kind of screwed up morals those rat neurons learn.
Gateway, on the other hand, had no such advantages.
No. Dell makes money through scale of economies and efficiency of operations. They make low profit margins on high volumes of products.
Retail stores are one of the least efficient operations, and don't do well with products with low profit margins, unless volume can somehow compensate. But computer stores generally have the problem with slow inventory turnover, due to the >$1000 average price barrier.
There are several other reasons why Dell shouldn't enter this market. Dell offers very dynamic pricing on its website - today, it might offer 15% off its Inspiron notebooks, and tomorrow that pricing might disappear. It much more difficult to attract customers to a store with seemingly random pricing.
Also, Dell is heavily into the market of selling peripherals. In fact, customize a computer on Dell's website, and you'll see the option to buy a printer before you see the option to configure the computer's memory.
Not at all. Best Buy competes through the resale of a wide variety of goods at competitive prices. Sony and Apple compete through the sale of a small variety of products at high prices.
Mrs. Bailey, the retards escaped from special ed class and got into the computer room.
Is today April 1?
It's not as much about obsolescence as it is about Apple making choices on behalf of the consumer, by withholding information about their products. Tell me QuickTime 5.2 wasn't obsolete the day QuickTime 6 upgraded itself onto my computer, and continually flashed "Why upgrade?" ads on my computer whenever I watched a QuickTime movie.
I'm guess there's probably a difference between advertising a product before its design, and advertising a product two months before its release.
Go into an Apple store during the Christmas season, after Apple releases one of their new products, and ask "Are you going to get these things in?" They'll say, "I don't know, Apple doesn't tell us and we don't find out until the shipment arrives at the store." And this is an Apple store, not some random reseller!
I love some of my Apple products. But screw Apple for burning its customers so often (like the time I bought QuickTime 5.2 nine days before QuickTime 6 came out, and Apple wouldn't upgrade me.) That's how Apple makes money on upgrades. A poor sap buys an iBook and then two weeks later, a new one comes out. Said sap thinks "man, this thing is already behind the curve and I'll definitely have to upgrade again next year!". Screw Apple for pulling this shit.
Whenever I recommend an Apple product to someone, I always warn them about this shit that Apple pulls. Since most Apple customers have sworn fealty to Apple since birth, they don't care if Apple pulls this shit.
I recommend that people don't buy an Apple product unless it's just been released. Otherwise, it's going to be obsoleted within a very short time, and you're going to feel screwed.
What's the difference between Apple and a prostitute? When you get screwed for money by Apple, it doesn't feel good.
I would have loved to see his response to the same question without the analogy. He would have been forced to answer, or explicitly acknowledge his dodging, if the submitter had merely posed the question by itself.
Obviously, as an employee of a corporation with major intellectual property interests, he's not going to kill his career by speaking out against software patents. You gave him an easy out.
So is child pornography and prostitution. Go to hell!
I tried it today... it crashed when I clicked the right mouse button.