They (as IBM and other technology giants) have literaly hundred of thousand of patents for which they don't claim third parties fees.
That's all well and good until they try to pull a Unisys and claim royalties on a firmly entrenched standard. That is why frivolous patents are worrisome.
Since my submission got cut to a one line quote (sniff, it's okay) I thought I'd give some more details:
I'll start with a quote from the patent itself: Service providers, such as American Online.TM. ("AOL") and Compuserve increasingly must buy more powerful computers to service the additional members and the new content that is constantly being updated. These service providers could save on computer costs if some of the computational requirements of their system could be serviced by remote personal computers owned by private individuals and other independent entities who subscribe to the Internet provider services.
While it's true that this patent relates to distributed computing, that's not what this is about. What they've really got here is a patent on a method of stealing subscribers CPU cycles. Better check out the ToS when you sign up with an ISP cause, guess what? If this idea comes to be, you might just be required to do some of the processing for your ISP. Another quote to illustrate exactly what they're looking to process: Computers, including servers, must perform many tasks including the providing and generating of WEB pages, compressing Moving Pictures Expert Group ("MPEG") and Joint Photographic Expert Group ("JPEG") images, and serving up WEB pages.
Everyone who wants to serve AOL's web pages for them, raise your hand. Everyone who feels comfortable letting AOL initiate processes, raise your hand.
When you get paid a salary, you aren't just getting paid a direct equivalent of an hourly wage. If you are offered a job with a salary based on the above formula, run, don't walk to the next potential employer. In my particular case, as a salaried employee I'm compensated extremely well, even though I get nothing(but gratitute, and an increase in my "future earnings potential") for overtime. It's just factored into the salary. Then on top of that, there's the added benefits of job security, stocks, insurance, retirement, etc.
False positives don't matter...it's false negatives that are the real issue. That, and the fact that this is a scientific experement. The fact that there are hacked clients already jeopardizes the validity of the results. Open sourcing the software would unequivocally destroy the scientific validity.
In science, you want to hold as many of the variables as similar as possible, so that you can be sure they didn't create a false result
Thank you, I couldn't have said it better myself. I don't think most people realize what a disaster it would be to have everyone mucking with the seti@home client.
To everyone who thinks the client should be open sourced, I'll be blunt: Open sourcing the client would do no less than destroy the seti@home project. I'm not joking. The scientific validity would be gone. When you add those patches? You are hurting seti@home.
I noticed that that one was free, but that seems a bit long. I really think they deserve a very good domain name (as a side note, etext.* is taken as well!)
I just tried to register "gutenberg.org" so that I could give them a domain name. gutenberg.com, net and org are all taken.:( Any sugestions for a good domain name I can point at them?
They are the premier group doing online texts. You really have to give them that.
And the oldest! There's pretty much as old as the net. I have nothing but respect for PG and what they represent. I actually feel bad because I haven't visited the site in a while, but I remember them being the reason I started using the net...remember Gopher?
Good point. OTOH, in some settings, the physical machine is under lock and key. I suppose, though, in that case the sysadmin would know enough to disable ctrl-alt-del.
BTW, I'm curious. Why on earth would a distro default to rebooting on ctrl-alt-del. To me it seems like an outmoded artifact of single user, single task OS's. I can understand having the option, but it seems like this should be turned off by default...or at least require root privledges.
They aren't mutually exclusive. Something can be both "free as in beer" and "free as in freedom". However, "free as in freedom" usually implies free as in beer as well...at least to me.
Traditionally, free as in beer is used to refer to something which is free of charge. The other use of free is free as in freedom, which many feel is the real heart of the open source movement. Free as in freedom means you can do what you want with it. You have the source code, so you're free to modify it to suit your needs, and, generally, you are free to redistribute it at no charge.
Check out CellTech. They've made a fortune selling blue-green algae capsules as a cure-all (a while back they got busted by the FTC for claiming it cured cancer). They're based in Klamath Falls, OR, where I went to school (OIT) and scarily enough, it's one of the major industries of the area.
Or at the very least have a protected pre-patent period so someone can show evidence of prior art. The protected period would have the same protections as a patent for a specified period ( say 3 months ). It ends either in the approval of the patent or the discrediting of the claim
The problem with that sort of thing is that companies would just delay publicizing the patent until after the probabtionary period is up. Right now we find out about these things only after the patent is granted and the company sends out a press releae. It is very difficult and/or expensive to invalidate the patent at that point (even with prior art).
While searching for the patent in question (which someone else found here) I ran across this silly patent. What this fellow (from Intel) seems to be patenting is the remote triggering of a batch application. In other words: computer A sends a message over the network to computer B. Computer B executes a batch task in response. Computer B sends "I'm finished" response back to computer A. This seems to be angled as a way for a central computer(server) to use spare cycles on a client computer as directed by the server. I certainly wouldn't want some server to have the ability to start processes on my computer like that. Scary. Actually, the patent sums this up nicely (you'll want to sit down for this):
Service providers, such as American Online.TM. ("AOL") and Compuserve increasingly must buy more powerful computers to service the additional members and the new content that is constantly being updated. These service providers could save on computer costs if some of the computational requirements of their system could be serviced by remote personal computers owned by private individuals and other independent entities who subscribe to the Internet provider services.
It's not very secret really. It's just a comment in the html source.
In Netscape: view:page source In IE: view:source
If you're too lazy to do that, here is the message: Yes, there is a secret message, and this is it: Transmeta's policy has been to remain silent about its plans until it had something to demonstrate to the world. On January 19th, 2000, Transmeta is going to announce and demonstrate what Crusoe processors can do. Simultaneously, all of the details will go up on this Web site for everyone on the Internet to see. Crusoe will be cool hardware and software for mobile applications. Crusoe will be unconventional, which is why we wanted to let you know in advance to come look at the entire Web site in January, so that you can get the full story and have access to all of the real details as soon as they are available
Not to be nitpicky (well, okay, to be nitpicky) but isn't the title of this story a little inaccurate?
As far as I can tell, the ruling doesn't force anyone to change the pricing on anything. What it does is force the phone companies to allow competing DSL providers to use the same loop as the phone company uses for voice.
In other words: Previously, if I were to call up Covad (A competing DSL provider here in Seattle) they would have to use a seperate pair of wires to get DSL into my apartment. There is to technological barrier preventing them from using the same wires as my voice line. In fact, I get DSL service from US West, and they use my voice lines to carry DSL to my aparment. US West can charge less for DSL service, because they do not need to use an additional pair of wires for DSL. Covad would have to rent a whole seperate pair of wires in order to supply me with DSL, hence, the $20.
Slashdot Mirror
They (as IBM and other technology giants) have literaly hundred of thousand of patents for which they don't claim third parties fees.
That's all well and good until they try to pull a Unisys and claim royalties on a firmly entrenched standard. That is why frivolous patents are worrisome.
--GnrcMan--
Since my submission got cut to a one line quote (sniff, it's okay) I thought I'd give some more details:
I'll start with a quote from the patent itself:
Service providers, such as American Online.TM. ("AOL") and Compuserve increasingly must buy more powerful computers to service the additional members and the new content that is
constantly being updated. These service providers could save on computer costs if some of the computational requirements of their system could be serviced by remote personal computers
owned by private individuals and other independent entities who subscribe to the Internet provider services.
While it's true that this patent relates to distributed computing, that's not what this is about. What they've really got here is a patent on a method of stealing subscribers CPU cycles. Better check out the ToS when you sign up with an ISP cause, guess what? If this idea comes to be, you might just be required to do some of the processing for your ISP. Another quote to illustrate exactly what they're looking to process:
Computers, including
servers, must perform many tasks including the providing and generating of WEB pages, compressing Moving Pictures Expert Group ("MPEG") and Joint Photographic Expert Group
("JPEG") images, and serving up WEB pages.
Everyone who wants to serve AOL's web pages for them, raise your hand. Everyone who feels comfortable letting AOL initiate processes, raise your hand.
--GnrcMan--
When you get paid a salary, you aren't just getting paid a direct equivalent of an hourly wage. If you are offered a job with a salary based on the above formula, run, don't walk to the next potential employer.
In my particular case, as a salaried employee I'm compensated extremely well, even though I get nothing(but gratitute, and an increase in my "future earnings potential") for overtime. It's just factored into the salary. Then on top of that, there's the added benefits of job security, stocks, insurance, retirement, etc.
--GnrcMan--
has to be One-Click Ordering from Amazon.com.
(Laugh, it's funny!)
--GnrcMan--
False positives don't matter...it's false negatives that are the real issue. That, and the fact that this is a scientific experement. The fact that there are hacked clients already jeopardizes the validity of the results. Open sourcing the software would unequivocally destroy the scientific validity.
--GnrcMan--
In science, you want to hold as many of the variables as similar as possible, so that you can be sure they didn't create a false result
Thank you, I couldn't have said it better myself. I don't think most people realize what a disaster it would be to have everyone mucking with the seti@home client.
To everyone who thinks the client should be open sourced, I'll be blunt: Open sourcing the client would do no less than destroy the seti@home project. I'm not joking. The scientific validity would be gone. When you add those patches? You are hurting seti@home.
--GnrcMan--
Actually, they are very nearly as old as the net. PG was started in 1971. The original 4 computers of ARPANET were hooked up in 1969.
--GnrcMan--
I noticed that that one was free, but that seems a bit long. I really think they deserve a very good domain name (as a side note, etext.* is taken as well!)
--GnrcMan--
I just tried to register "gutenberg.org" so that I could give them a domain name. gutenberg.com, net and org are all taken. :( Any sugestions for a good domain name I can point at them?
--GnrcMan--
There's pretty much as old as the net
"There's"? Sorry, that should be "they're". I'll be going out back to beat myself with a clue stick now.
--GnrcMan--
They are the premier group doing online texts. You really have to give them that.
And the oldest! There's pretty much as old as the net.
I have nothing but respect for PG and what they represent. I actually feel bad because I haven't visited the site in a while, but I remember them being the reason I started using the net...remember Gopher?
--GnrcMan--
That's a "Cell Tech independent distributor". That's something I forgot to mention. Cell tech is also a MLM scheme.
--GnrcMan--
Actually, BeOS does do an insta-reboot on Ctrl-Alt-Del (I just checked). My original post is seeming sillier and sillier. I blame Microsoft. :)
--GnrcMan--
Good point. OTOH, in some settings, the physical machine is under lock and key. I suppose, though, in that case the sysadmin would know enough to disable ctrl-alt-del.
--GnrcMan--
BTW, I'm curious. Why on earth would a distro default to rebooting on ctrl-alt-del. To me it seems like an outmoded artifact of single user, single task OS's. I can understand having the option, but it seems like this should be turned off by default...or at least require root privledges.
--GnrcMan--
Now now, let's not be distro snobs. It's all the same software. Would you rather I be running Windows?
--GnrcMan--
Well there I go showing my ignorance again.
:)
The scariest part is that I'm running RH. Learn something new every day.
--GnrcMan--
They aren't mutually exclusive. Something can be both "free as in beer" and "free as in freedom". However, "free as in freedom" usually implies free as in beer as well...at least to me.
--GnrcMan--
sorry about that, I really wanted to see how many of you almost rebooted your computer
:)
I really hope you're not still running an OS that reboots on ctrl-alt-del!
--GnrcMan--
Traditionally, free as in beer is used to refer to something which is free of charge.
The other use of free is free as in freedom, which many feel is the real heart of the open source movement.
Free as in freedom means you can do what you want with it. You have the source code, so you're free to modify it to suit your needs, and, generally, you are free to redistribute it at no charge.
--GnrcMan--
Check out CellTech. They've made a fortune selling blue-green algae capsules as a cure-all (a while back they got busted by the FTC for claiming it cured cancer). They're based in Klamath Falls, OR, where I went to school (OIT) and scarily enough, it's one of the major industries of the area.
--GnrcMan--
Or at the very least have a protected pre-patent period so someone can show evidence of prior art. The protected period would have the same protections as a patent for a specified period ( say 3 months ). It ends either in the approval of the patent or the discrediting of the claim
The problem with that sort of thing is that companies would just delay publicizing the patent until after the probabtionary period is up. Right now we find out about these things only after the patent is granted and the company sends out a press releae. It is very difficult and/or expensive to invalidate the patent at that point (even with prior art).
--GnrcMan--
While searching for the patent in question (which someone else found here) I ran across this silly patent. What this fellow (from Intel) seems to be patenting is the remote triggering of a batch application. In other words: computer A sends a message over the network to computer B. Computer B executes a batch task in response. Computer B sends "I'm finished" response back to computer A. This seems to be angled as a way for a central computer(server) to use spare cycles on a client computer as directed by the server. I certainly wouldn't want some server to have the ability to start processes on my computer like that. Scary. Actually, the patent sums this up nicely (you'll want to sit down for this):
Service providers, such as American Online.TM. ("AOL") and Compuserve increasingly must buy more powerful computers to service the additional members and the new content that is constantly being updated. These service providers could save on computer costs if some of the computational requirements of their system could be serviced by remote personal computers owned by private individuals and other independent entities who subscribe to the Internet provider services.
--GnrcMan--
It's not very secret really. It's just a comment in the html source.
In Netscape: view:page source
In IE: view:source
If you're too lazy to do that, here is the message:
Yes, there is a secret message, and this is it:
Transmeta's policy has been to remain silent about its plans
until it had something to demonstrate to the world.
On January 19th, 2000, Transmeta is going to announce and demonstrate
what Crusoe processors can do.
Simultaneously, all of the details will go up on this Web site
for everyone on the Internet to see.
Crusoe will be cool hardware and software for mobile applications.
Crusoe will be unconventional, which is why we wanted
to let you know in advance to come look at the entire Web site
in January, so that you can get the full story and have access to all
of the real details as soon as they are available
--GnrcMan--
Not to be nitpicky (well, okay, to be nitpicky) but isn't the title of this story a little inaccurate?
As far as I can tell, the ruling doesn't force anyone to change the pricing on anything. What it does is force the phone companies to allow competing DSL providers to use the same loop as the phone company uses for voice.
In other words: Previously, if I were to call up Covad (A competing DSL provider here in Seattle) they would have to use a seperate pair of wires to get DSL into my apartment. There is to technological barrier preventing them from using the same wires as my voice line. In fact, I get DSL service from US West, and they use my voice lines to carry DSL to my aparment. US West can charge less for DSL service, because they do not need to use an additional pair of wires for DSL. Covad would have to rent a whole seperate pair of wires in order to supply me with DSL, hence, the $20.
--GnrcMan--