Software patents are having a tough time in the EU parlement. Nokia's move is merely an effort to remove a major objection to SW patents so they can cash in on their portfolio. RMS was actually being kind.
I'm not against patents, nor even SW patents, for genuinely original thinking that was unlikely to be derived or released elsewhere. RSA is perhaps the best example. But many patents are far less than original or non-obvious, and that is the major problem. The US has a very bad situation (patent everything), the EU has a somewhat better but still bad situation (no SW patents).
France uses "code civile" which is very different from English Common law. Judges have a different role, and in particular are much less bound by precedent than under common law. Judicial activism is a built-in feature. Not a bug.
Hey, this is perfectly OK under current law since this info is a "deemed export". If you don't like the idea of Export Controls (which date back to the Rev.War forbidding the export of timber that could be used for spars and masts) then take it to Congress.
Under Equal Employment Opportunities Laws, employers are forbidden from asking prospective or actual employees for their birthplaces. Somethings gotta give...:)
The worst problem I see with older machines and newer MS-OSes is the lack of memory. A 300 MHz P2 isn't that bad until it starts swapping. Then it becomes unusuable.
What are they going to do to put MS-WinXP on a diet from being barely usable in 128MB? And MS-IE that needs about the same? Many of these machines are only 64 MB RAM or less.
Look: if anybody is seriously concerned about cache snooping, just patch in a WBINVD instruction as part of return-from-interrupt. That will flush the dirty cache lines back to RAM and invalidate the rest. Yes, there's a horrible cost. Perhaps higher than doing without HT. But you will be secure against the boogyman! FWIW, I agree with Linus -- this is a theoretical, negligible threat, vulnerability. It doesn't yield data, and most crypto has fixed (rather than revealing) access patterns.
First, dry ice attracts the wet kind, freezing moisure right out of the air. This will melt if it ever gets warm and you will have water in unexpected places. Worse if you still have some CO2 being weathered off, because then it will form carbonic acid, a dilute but fairly corrosive acid.
Rime from water and other substances is a major problem in cryo work. So is heat transfer. We normally use acetone or isopropyl alcohol in vacumm trap cold bath dewars to improve heat transfer.
Usually when I have this task, it's for work and I have access to a double sided laser printer. Then I use the printer driver features to print two or four pages per side of 8.5x11" floppy.
Most large doc are laid-out for printing on smaller paper and are actually oversized on A4/8.5x11. This is only good if you have reduced visual acuity. I don't, and usually go for the 4x to save paper and page flipping.
More people should look into `noatime` for file-intensive systems. Peter said all the access time updates doubled his load average, and I've seen worse. Try running the `updatedb` to freshen the locate database. Takes minutes. remount FS noatime, flush buffers with a grepbomb, and it takes seconds. Remount with atime, back to minutes.
There is much misunderstanding of non-monetary motivation. The mercenary just don't understand and are very likely to thrash around and trash motivation. People donate thinking and work for a number of reasons: for reputation, to influence others and to help others.
When they charge people (even with advertising), they reduce their hits. When they do something as obviously classist as charging some people for posting, they frustrate casual readers, greatly reduce readership and the motivation of others to post -- less rep, influence & help.
This sort of more is very likely to backfire on the Bush Administration. IMHO Canadians are a stalwart people who define themselves by how they are different from Americans (kinder, gentler, with a strong sense of fair play). Brazenly giving in to media corporations is not in their playbook.
Pork-barrel US restrictions on Canadian on lumber and ag already rankle, especially after the WTO rulings against the US. The Canadian govt is also under considerable pressure from internal scandal, and they cannot afford kowtowing to the US.... unless this is all a Bush scheme to help out the Cdn PM and he doesn't expect anything to succeed.
A shredder is good for small quantities, but becomse very slow for large. I typically tear sensitive documents to separate information (name from acct number and balance) often vertically. Then dispose in recycle/trash on different pickups or to different locations.
If the only thing to ever read the code is a compiler, then comments are irrelevant. When humans read the code (presumably because they have been assigned the unenviable job of maintaining it -- worst of all their own code!) then comments matter.
So the importance of comments comes down to the issue of maintainability. Under the pressure to issue v1.0, comments (and even coding style & practices) often get short shrift. Other things are more important at that time, but it becomes "pay me now, or pay me later".
Personally, I believe in modular coding. Any module that cannot be easily and quickly re-written is too big. Then documentation can be reduced to interfaces -- required inputs, and produced outputs. But nooo... everybody wants to cram more functionality into the calls.
Once out, the licensor of GPL code has no way of withdrawing the licence.
Sure, the corp can buy the original copyright (and maybe some important later contributions) but that only gives them the ability to relicence the code.
Practically speaking, they'd have to make substantial improvements/service (ala sendmail) or market to the uninformed before the product would be saleable. And any improvement likely could be added into the free tree.
That's basically what RMS said, and it's true. He can afford to be a bit magnanamous. But the point remains. If you're dependant on a non-free tool, your future is in jeopardy. More generally, do not trust data to proprietary systems (formats) that you will need later.
Personally, I'd rather see Lotus 1-2-3 source released. Especially PC v3.3 or Unix v1.0 (curses?). This is still very good code and _far_ more reliable than MS-Excel. We still have & use character-based systems.
You might try learning some of the new WWW search technology. I went to Googleand it returned some excellent references, such as this first. One trick is using good keywords, and you must have missed my including "Sovereign immunity" in the OP.
As for international violations, they apply only where the patent has jurisdiction. The US government is free to violate french patents so long as they do so on American soil.
In a second-generation starsystem, there's a pile of heavier fusion products (Silicon, Iron, Oxygen) left over. They've got to go somewhere. Is it surprising they wind up in the same spot, having started from the same solar core strata?
More interesting would be why why didn't coalesce into rocky planets. Perhaps the influence of gas giants?
I'd be more impressed if I saw a better challenge process in place. I don't much care if questionable patents are granted so long as they can be easily challenged. Preferably in: some sort of pre-grant filings to the examiner, post-grant challenge to the USPTO, and courts who do not automatically defer to the examiner's judgement.
The heads of modern HDs are riding on gas(air) bearings to keep them a controlled distance from the mdia platters. In a vaccum (the cases cannot hold 15 psi and would leak out) the heads would be scratching the media.
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I'm not against patents, nor even SW patents, for genuinely original thinking that was unlikely to be derived or released elsewhere. RSA is perhaps the best example. But many patents are far less than original or non-obvious, and that is the major problem. The US has a very bad situation (patent everything), the EU has a somewhat better but still bad situation (no SW patents).
Eventually the silliness of many laws is exposed.
Under Equal Employment Opportunities Laws, employers are forbidden from asking prospective or actual employees for their birthplaces. Somethings gotta give ... :)
What are they going to do to put MS-WinXP on a diet from being barely usable in 128MB? And MS-IE that needs about the same? Many of these machines are only 64 MB RAM or less.
Rime from water and other substances is a major problem in cryo work. So is heat transfer. We normally use acetone or isopropyl alcohol in vacumm trap cold bath dewars to improve heat transfer.
Most large doc are laid-out for printing on smaller paper and are actually oversized on A4/8.5x11. This is only good if you have reduced visual acuity. I don't, and usually go for the 4x to save paper and page flipping.
When they charge people (even with advertising), they reduce their hits. When they do something as obviously classist as charging some people for posting, they frustrate casual readers, greatly reduce readership and the motivation of others to post -- less rep, influence & help.
Pork-barrel US restrictions on Canadian on lumber and ag already rankle, especially after the WTO rulings against the US. The Canadian govt is also under considerable pressure from internal scandal, and they cannot afford kowtowing to the US. ... unless this is all a Bush scheme to help out the Cdn PM and he doesn't expect anything to succeed.
More important is a credible threat, probability and loss analysis, compared with a list of countermeasures and their costs.
Otherwise, it's just the cops featherbedding, just like the CIA did over the strength of the USSR -- even just before the collapse and perestroika.
Don't give in to fear.
So the importance of comments comes down to the issue of maintainability. Under the pressure to issue v1.0, comments (and even coding style & practices) often get short shrift. Other things are more important at that time, but it becomes "pay me now, or pay me later".
Personally, I believe in modular coding. Any module that cannot be easily and quickly re-written is too big. Then documentation can be reduced to interfaces -- required inputs, and produced outputs. But nooo ... everybody wants to cram more functionality into the calls.
Sure, the corp can buy the original copyright (and maybe some important later contributions) but that only gives them the ability to relicence the code.
Practically speaking, they'd have to make substantial improvements/service (ala sendmail) or market to the uninformed before the product would be saleable. And any improvement likely could be added into the free tree.
'nuff said. Trivia: emacs = Editor MACroS
As for international violations, they apply only where the patent has jurisdiction. The US government is free to violate french patents so long as they do so on American soil.
More interesting would be why why didn't coalesce into rocky planets. Perhaps the influence of gas giants?
Lawyers & politicians haven't been doing much new and innovative that might be stopped by patent. That's one of their many problems.