At the very least there should be an enivronental surtax on it.
Ok.... as long as the taxes are actually used towards cleaning up the environment or research into clean technologies, instead of being poured into the black hole of the common treasury as usual.
And no, donations to Greenpeace or funding a governmental agency for clean technology (with people who produce nothing but useless paperwork) do not count as 'cleaning up the environment'
I wonder what they teach these hackers in a 5 year course? L33tspeak 101? (or would that be lol?). Maybe they have an advanced economics course in peddling h3rb4l v!4gra and running Nigerian scams too, to bring in money for the Glorious Cause
All the examples showing that patents kill software innovation could equally be applied to mechanical gizzmos too. eg. "Method to attach spring to washer" is just as much a problem for somebody making gizzmos as "Nesting identification by colorizing".
Not really. If "Method A to attach spring to washer" is patented, you can still try and invent a Method B. Patents on production methods protect the implementation but not the end goal (the concept) itself.
With software, it is both the concept and the implementation that are being protected. The mechanical analogy would be a patent on "the concept of attaching springs to washers". The implementation of software is already adequately protected by copyright; we do not need patents for that.
Giving people piles of cash in options, is one of the mistakes startups make over and over and over.
Working for a startup usually involves working your arse off, and as a rule they don't have the cash to pay you a high wage (or even your overtime).
I worked for a startup, with just a salary for renumeration, but lots of after-hours work. The startup wasn't very succesful... but I did learn that I will never put my blood, sweat and tears into building a company again, without a way in which I can reap the rewards as well.
The UN is a place to discuss problems between countries, to discuss world-wide problems.
Well yes. But which problems that plague the Internet are "problems between countries", that can only be solved by bringing the Internet under the control of the UN? If you're thinking about things like spam; the UN would solve that in a heartbeat by mandating a new email protocol... but so would any other centralised entity if it were given control of the Internet. If there is a problem with the Internet between countries, they UN might help solve it, but not by taking control.
The only reason the Internet is such a free place, is the fact that it isn't under one entity's control. Or as another poster put it, it routes around censorship. If the UN would govern the 'Net, this is what would happen:
- China would push for measures that would allow a more effective means to censor political stuff in their country. Once the technology is there, other countries will start using it to filter content: nazi stuff in France, pr0n in Islamic countries, info on abortion and teen pregnancy in the US.
- One country would probably push for a means to eliminate all anonymity on the Internet, and all the others would immediately vote it in. Useful for sooo many good things like tracking criminals, tax dodgers, dissidents.
- Corporations are already in bed with politicians around the world, and soon we'd see non-DRM media files or streams blocked. I think after a while all applications except those with a special license, will be blocked from sending data over the Internet.
Nothing bad about the UN per sé, but this is what central control under any politicians will bring you. Politicians live to meddle, and the civil servants working under them are even worse. Almost all of them think anything can be fixed by rules and that this is why they were "hired", so meddle they will.
In recent years, if anything our environment has gotten worse.
"Our environment" is messed by many different things, all leading to different problems. Greenhouse gases are just one aspect of the problem, besides waste (nuclear, landfill, toxic, etc), exhaust fumes, clearcutting of forests, you name it. Amongst all this pollution, the reduction of ozone layer depleting substances has been reasonably successful. Perhaps we are seeing the results, though it is much too early to tell.
Besides, has our environment as a whole really gotten any worse recently? I'm not so sure.
You don't make a killing by implementing trustworthy electronic voting. You make a killing by selling the presidency and other posts up for election to your friends.;)
First off the laser needs to be of significant power to do that from a distance.
Secondly it needs to be mounted to a telescope for aiming.
Which is exactly what makes this story worrying. Your two requirements make it unlikely that this happened by accident; someone must have done it on purpose. Terrorists or bored teenagers; the potential for disaster is just as great.
How can you patent something like a collar computor, thats like trying to patent shoes
No, it works like this: take two common items, and them patent their combined use. I have just sent off patent applications on the following similar inventions to the patent office:
- The ankle computer!
- Using a thermos can on the beach.
- The breast pocket wallet (rather than one carried in a pant pocket).
My brilliance is unmatched, surely.
I have also patented the bathroom break, so pony up or plug it up!
why does Linux need to keep telling and repeating its being compatible with crap when it does have its own fortes.
Because everyone else is using said crap to do their work on. We need MS Office compatibility because we want our suppliers and client to be able to read our documents, and we want to read their documents as well, without too much hassle. Face it, pretty much every business uses the MS Word format to swap editable documents. Not because it is the best format, but because if I send someone a Word document, I expect them to be able to read it without hassle, and they pretty much always can.
Linux can have the best word processor with the finest document file format, but if Word cannot read it, it will never be widely adopted. Remember that version of Word (98 I think) that produced files which could not be read by earlier versions of Word? Everybody bitched about it, and Microsoft finally gave in a made a plugin for earlier versions to read these files. You can be sure they never made that mistake again...
Similarly, you will often find Windows boxes in even the most Linux-friendly offices. Many applications are only available on Windows. For that reason, we need Samba capability. It is not so important for Linux to stand on its own, but it sure as hell makes the transition from Windows to Linux a lot easier.
It may happen that Linux is one of the best OS's only in my world, but then I'd like to stay in it. [...]For them Linux needs to be learned, and they more easily say it's crap and under-developed than to learn anything new regarding Linux. I just think I'm getting pretty offtopic
The point is: most people and especially businesses cannot afford to 'stay in their own world' as you put it. People who might be interested in Linux are not starting to use computers from scratch, they will in most cases have to ransition from Windows, and will want to continue to communicate with their Windows-using friends.
This is not off-topic at all, it is the heart of the matter that is hidden underneath this silliness about shipping Windows with no media player. There is nothing wrong per sé with selling software using closed and protected protocols and file formats. Microsoft however is (mis)using closed protocols and file formats, together with their virtual monopoly in the OS and Office suite markets, to make sure everyone stays locked into the Windows solution. They do this by making the transition to Linux exceptionally painful, and by trying to ostracise Linux users from their Windows-using friends (or from their computers and data, at least). That is why the Commission should demand open and freely usable standards from Microsoft instead of demanding a WMP-free OS; not because open standards are nice and cute, but because Microsoft has a virtual monopoly and is mis-using it and closed standards to keep out competitors like Linux.
Sorry guys, I can't help myself, I just had a giggling spasm:D:P
They worded it a bit funny perhaps, but they do have a very good point. Linux might not disappear like that, but the proliferation of Linux (especially in the desktop arena) does depend a great deal on interoperability (Samba for instance) and compatibility of popular Linux-based applications with those in use by the 'rest of the world' (MS Office OpenOffice).
Interoperability does not truly depend on MS granting access to its documentation; in most cases it is the result of some succesful reverse-engineering. I bet MS would love to put an end to that. The statement "grant access to [the] documentation" is right but should be more specific: "not deny interoperability by means of secrecy or patents or other means"... The Commission touches on an important point, even if they worded it funnily.
There's nothing more annoying than playing an FPS when some 12-year-old bowl-of-brain-mush comes in and decides to use all of the latest words he's picked up before they go out of style."
Age is a rather poor indicator of what behaviour to expect. I play a number of online games, both FPSs and MMORPGs, and I found there are well-spoken and mature 12 year olds, as well as foul mouthed immature adults.
IANAL but couldn't a corporation hold microsoft liable for damages incurred to an unpatched system?
Unlikely. I would be really worried if Microsoft was liable for damage due to a security bug, or obliged to provide patches to older versions of its OS.
Suppose you wrote, say, a free FTP server. Some games outfit decides to use it, then due to a bug in your software, some cracker makes off with their upcoming blockbuster game. They claim $500 mil. in lost revenue and send you the bill. Or a company is happy with version 0.01 that you wrote 10 years ago, and insist that you provide all relevant patches for that version. Twice the work for you with no added revenue.
Consider the implications to your own humble software efforts, if you're in favour of Microsoft's liability or obligation to patch old versions.
What concerns me though is: if we do away with patents what will replace them? Have any/.ers seen or thought of a solution to this problem? I'm all for making software as "free" as possible, but I'm also of the mind that there would have to be some kind of IP structure in place.
I think patents serve a useful function , however in the case of software patents we can do without them altogether.
Most software involves problem solving that is merely the means to an end, not an end in itself. Take for example the (patented) use of the XOR function for mouse pointers. The XOR function is not an invention that stands on its own as a result of long, painstaking and expensive research that eventually enabled the mouse pointer to be invented. It's the other way around: someone was programming a mouse pointer and decided to use the existing XOR function to solve the problem of restoring the graphics that the pointer passes over. This use of the XOR function does not qualify as an invention or research, it was simply a (very obvious) solution that needed to be solved to achieve the end result. It needed to be solved because these guys were the first to implement a mouse pointer, and as such they were able to patent this solution.
Simply being the first to solve a trivial and hitherto irrelevant problem should not be good enough to be awarded with a patent. Patents are designed to establish ownership of the result of expensive and difficult research, but most of the software patents protect things that were neither expensive or difficult to find, and are not worth 'protecting'
Our present system is skewed and prone to monopolism, and a total absence of ownership would entail its own set of problems. We have to pay for something, somewhere (not that I'm a free market capitalist, but when the flow of money stops people starve).
Ownership of software can be (and is) established through copyright; we don't need patents on top of that. Look at the current crop of lawsuits concerning software patents. Are they
a) An effort to defend the fruits of painstaking, expensive research that resulted in genuinely new ideas, or
b) An effort to lock out competitors, who would have spent the same 5 minutes to solve the problem under dispute without any effort, had they been there first rather than second.
Most cases are of type B. This is not surprising as another./ poster pointed out with a good analogy, comparing software to a recipy for apple pie.
Take Mom's Secret Recipe for apple pie. Copyright protects the entire recipe: I'm not allowed to publish it without Mom's permission. However if I decide to publish a slighty different recipe, using cinnamon rather than vanilla essence or something, I'll probably be in the clear.
Software patents are similar to patents on the various steps to make the pie: Mom might have patented the use of flour and butter to protect her particular recipe, but this means that I owe Mom royalties even if I am making apple pie to my own recipe, or even a completely different kind of pie.
You can beat keystroke loggers by entering your password a few letters at a time in random order, using the mouse to place the cursor at the correct location in the half-finished password. I don't think there's a keystroke logger that is able to work out where you clicked in the password entry box.
Cumbersome, but it's something I do on untrusted computers like the ones in web cafés.
Wasn't that the answer given, when the US president demanded to know how the Russians got Sputnik up before the Americans managed a similar feat? "Because their Germans are better than our Germans".
IMHO completely dropping email as we have it now is the only way against spam.
Whitelists work quite well against spam. The only way spam will get through a whitelist is: - By faking the "I am a real person" replies to messages bounced by the whitelist. This can be made very hard for machines. At the very least this will require them to have a return email address in the spam.
- By spoofing the email address of someone already on your whitelist. Even by spoofing the address of popular mailing lists will not get them very far.
If whitelists were widely adopted, it might make email too unattractive a medium for spam while still allowing you to communicate with complete strangers. The only problem is that there isn't a lot of decent software out there, and virtually no ISPs offer this service to their customers. We also need an easy and flexible way to manage our whitelists, which means a standard protocol that any e-mail client can use to incorporate whitelist management features. The nice thing about whitelists is that it is fully backward compatible with existing mail.
Slashdot Mirror
And no, donations to Greenpeace or funding a governmental agency for clean technology (with people who produce nothing but useless paperwork) do not count as 'cleaning up the environment'
I wonder what they teach these hackers in a 5 year course? L33tspeak 101? (or would that be lol?). Maybe they have an advanced economics course in peddling h3rb4l v!4gra and running Nigerian scams too, to bring in money for the Glorious Cause
With software, it is both the concept and the implementation that are being protected. The mechanical analogy would be a patent on "the concept of attaching springs to washers". The implementation of software is already adequately protected by copyright; we do not need patents for that.
I worked for a startup, with just a salary for renumeration, but lots of after-hours work. The startup wasn't very succesful... but I did learn that I will never put my blood, sweat and tears into building a company again, without a way in which I can reap the rewards as well.
The only reason the Internet is such a free place, is the fact that it isn't under one entity's control. Or as another poster put it, it routes around censorship. If the UN would govern the 'Net, this is what would happen:
- China would push for measures that would allow a more effective means to censor political stuff in their country. Once the technology is there, other countries will start using it to filter content: nazi stuff in France, pr0n in Islamic countries, info on abortion and teen pregnancy in the US.
- One country would probably push for a means to eliminate all anonymity on the Internet, and all the others would immediately vote it in. Useful for sooo many good things like tracking criminals, tax dodgers, dissidents.
- Corporations are already in bed with politicians around the world, and soon we'd see non-DRM media files or streams blocked. I think after a while all applications except those with a special license, will be blocked from sending data over the Internet.
Nothing bad about the UN per sé, but this is what central control under any politicians will bring you. Politicians live to meddle, and the civil servants working under them are even worse. Almost all of them think anything can be fixed by rules and that this is why they were "hired", so meddle they will.
Besides, has our environment as a whole really gotten any worse recently? I'm not so sure.
I stopped taking Gartner seriously a long time ago, except as a group that PHBs pay some attention to.
- The ankle computer!
- Using a thermos can on the beach.
- The breast pocket wallet (rather than one carried in a pant pocket).
My brilliance is unmatched, surely.
I have also patented the bathroom break, so pony up or plug it up!
Linux can have the best word processor with the finest document file format, but if Word cannot read it, it will never be widely adopted. Remember that version of Word (98 I think) that produced files which could not be read by earlier versions of Word? Everybody bitched about it, and Microsoft finally gave in a made a plugin for earlier versions to read these files. You can be sure they never made that mistake again...
Similarly, you will often find Windows boxes in even the most Linux-friendly offices. Many applications are only available on Windows. For that reason, we need Samba capability. It is not so important for Linux to stand on its own, but it sure as hell makes the transition from Windows to Linux a lot easier.
The point is: most people and especially businesses cannot afford to 'stay in their own world' as you put it. People who might be interested in Linux are not starting to use computers from scratch, they will in most cases have to ransition from Windows, and will want to continue to communicate with their Windows-using friends.
This is not off-topic at all, it is the heart of the matter that is hidden underneath this silliness about shipping Windows with no media player. There is nothing wrong per sé with selling software using closed and protected protocols and file formats. Microsoft however is (mis)using closed protocols and file formats, together with their virtual monopoly in the OS and Office suite markets, to make sure everyone stays locked into the Windows solution. They do this by making the transition to Linux exceptionally painful, and by trying to ostracise Linux users from their Windows-using friends (or from their computers and data, at least). That is why the Commission should demand open and freely usable standards from Microsoft instead of demanding a WMP-free OS; not because open standards are nice and cute, but because Microsoft has a virtual monopoly and is mis-using it and closed standards to keep out competitors like Linux.
Interoperability does not truly depend on MS granting access to its documentation; in most cases it is the result of some succesful reverse-engineering. I bet MS would love to put an end to that. The statement "grant access to [the] documentation" is right but should be more specific: "not deny interoperability by means of secrecy or patents or other means"... The Commission touches on an important point, even if they worded it funnily.
I'd eat the M&M's before the game was done. That's why computers were invented.
Suppose you wrote, say, a free FTP server. Some games outfit decides to use it, then due to a bug in your software, some cracker makes off with their upcoming blockbuster game. They claim $500 mil. in lost revenue and send you the bill. Or a company is happy with version 0.01 that you wrote 10 years ago, and insist that you provide all relevant patches for that version. Twice the work for you with no added revenue.
Consider the implications to your own humble software efforts, if you're in favour of Microsoft's liability or obligation to patch old versions.
Most software involves problem solving that is merely the means to an end, not an end in itself. Take for example the (patented) use of the XOR function for mouse pointers. The XOR function is not an invention that stands on its own as a result of long, painstaking and expensive research that eventually enabled the mouse pointer to be invented. It's the other way around: someone was programming a mouse pointer and decided to use the existing XOR function to solve the problem of restoring the graphics that the pointer passes over. This use of the XOR function does not qualify as an invention or research, it was simply a (very obvious) solution that needed to be solved to achieve the end result. It needed to be solved because these guys were the first to implement a mouse pointer, and as such they were able to patent this solution.
Simply being the first to solve a trivial and hitherto irrelevant problem should not be good enough to be awarded with a patent. Patents are designed to establish ownership of the result of expensive and difficult research, but most of the software patents protect things that were neither expensive or difficult to find, and are not worth 'protecting'
Ownership of software can be (and is) established through copyright; we don't need patents on top of that. Look at the current crop of lawsuits concerning software patents. Are they
a) An effort to defend the fruits of painstaking, expensive research that resulted in genuinely new ideas, or
b) An effort to lock out competitors, who would have spent the same 5 minutes to solve the problem under dispute without any effort, had they been there first rather than second.
Most cases are of type B. This is not surprising as another
Take Mom's Secret Recipe for apple pie. Copyright protects the entire recipe: I'm not allowed to publish it without Mom's permission. However if I decide to publish a slighty different recipe, using cinnamon rather than vanilla essence or something, I'll probably be in the clear.
Software patents are similar to patents on the various steps to make the pie: Mom might have patented the use of flour and butter to protect her particular recipe, but this means that I owe Mom royalties even if I am making apple pie to my own recipe, or even a completely different kind of pie.
You can beat keystroke loggers by entering your password a few letters at a time in random order, using the mouse to place the cursor at the correct location in the half-finished password. I don't think there's a keystroke logger that is able to work out where you clicked in the password entry box.
Cumbersome, but it's something I do on untrusted computers like the ones in web cafés.
Wasn't that the answer given, when the US president demanded to know how the Russians got Sputnik up before the Americans managed a similar feat? "Because their Germans are better than our Germans".
5 comments before the server collapses under the slashdotting. Pretty close?
- By faking the "I am a real person" replies to messages bounced by the whitelist. This can be made very hard for machines. At the very least this will require them to have a return email address in the spam.
- By spoofing the email address of someone already on your whitelist. Even by spoofing the address of popular mailing lists will not get them very far.
If whitelists were widely adopted, it might make email too unattractive a medium for spam while still allowing you to communicate with complete strangers. The only problem is that there isn't a lot of decent software out there, and virtually no ISPs offer this service to their customers. We also need an easy and flexible way to manage our whitelists, which means a standard protocol that any e-mail client can use to incorporate whitelist management features. The nice thing about whitelists is that it is fully backward compatible with existing mail.