If you're going to be fair, be fair.
Windows XP is to PC's as OS X 10.1 is to Macs. Both were initially released in 2001. OS X has seen a "metric shit-ton of new features" since 10.1.
In Britain, ISP's are required by the government to retain e-mail and web data on all their customers so that the police, members of parliment, your local counciler etc. can access this data under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) act.
In order to do this, they spend money on storage costs because they're required to. That it is "bad business practice" is neither here nor there, they have no choice, because the government noted that it was "technologically feasible" without considering was it "right" or "wrong", only that it could be done, and that the ISPs "could" retain the data.
Given that VoIP is likely to be regulated in the US, and probably falls under the RIP act in the UK, do you not think that is at least conceivable that the US government may require the companies to retain the data, simply because someone may suggest to them that it is technologically "feasible"?
I can't cite precedent right now, but I can tell you that non-compete clauses are generally valid and have survived both jury trial and appellate review. That said, such clauses must typically be appropriately limited in scope.
Yet in your follow up you quote a decision that seems to generally undermine that statement. Notably:
Noncompete agreements are enforced only to the extent reasonably necessary to protect a legitimate business interest
This clearly states the limitation of scope I presume you're discussing. However, note the limitations on the scope:
Noncompete agreements must be bargained for, and supported by adequate consideration
It must be signed before you work for the company
The employee must have agreed to the NC before his employment begins.
The article doesn't state whether any of these conditions have been met or broken, it only states that he'd been there for a long time ("Goglia worked at Seagate for 17 years"), and that Seagate were concerned that he would disclose some information useful to the competitor (""We believe he will inevitably disclose some of that proprietary information that he has gained through working at Seagate.")
It does not state that Goglia had signed a "non-compete" agreement, only that Segate were "concerned" that he may disclose secrets
For perspective: I've worked for my company for 10 years. I've learnt a lot about electronic commerce in that time simply because that's the field I've been working in. Should it be possible for my company to prevent me working for any other electronic commerce software house for (n) years, simply because they're afraid I may actually use my experience in this area? If this were the case, I'd have zero future job prospects. The easiest way for me to change job is to take one in the field I'm currently working, and have recent experience (10 years in one field is a long time. The 17 that Goglia had been working is even longer!) If I have to remove myself entirely from the e-commerce site, my last 10 years of experience is practically worthless.
With respect, I believe that you're mistaking "government" with "central government". In the UK "government" is everything from "central government" (parliment) through "regional" government (county council), and down to "local government" (town, or borough councils). Government is very local, and the more local you get, the smaller the noise you have to make to get noticed. I believe that the situation is much the same in any country.
Sometimes you don't even have to make a blip for the government to care who you are, whether you speed, and whether you drink coke or pepsi.
Recently in the UK, in the aftermath of a train crash, the survivors of the crash got together to lobby for a public enquiry. The government became very interested in these people. They wanted to know all about them, who they voted for, what the political affiliations were, what organisations they were associated with etc. etc. This was all done very quietly with private investigators, until they were found out. These people were too small for Big Brother to care about - until they were involved in a train crash.
Recently the same government increased provisions in a bill that was supposed to prevent access to people's private records to allow local police officers and town councillors to access these private records. Now, imagine that I want to protest about - for instance - a speed limit in the local area. Imagine - just imagine - that a black box in my car is a private record, but one that the local councillor or policeman can access. Now imagine my chances of being able to lobby for a change in the speed limit, when the public argument against my position may be "ahh, but you would say that - we've discovered that you speed through there all the time". I'm too small for Big Brother to care about - until I want to lobby for something that's against the local party's interest.
Parent should have been modded "insightful". The term "big brother" was chosen precisely because it originally instilled the idea of a friendly face looking out for your own best interest. The term in itself contains no hint of bad motives. "Big Brother is watching you" is a friendly gesture - he's keeping an eye out for you.
One of the biggest lessons to be learnt from 1984 is precisely that Big Brother will always say that he has your best interests at heart, and that it's only when it's too late will the ill-intent of his actions become clear.
Lobbying government only has any effect if the government has an incentive to listen. Most voters are not concerned about copyright and patent law, and most voters are not aware of the problems with laws such as the DMCA.
A politician standing his ground and upsetting a trade agreement because of DMCA provisions will not win votes, he will loose them. His opposition will say he's a "trouble maker", and he's "upsetting important trade negotiations". They won't say "look at this guy, he's standing up for the consumer". So the message most voters get is "this man is a trouble maker". It's a lose-lose situation.
Of course sometimes politicians are able to get the right message through, but those situations are few and far between.
Re-reading the article, this little snippet got me thinking:
"somebody who is taking software pursuant to the GPL cannot take a license... Section 7 [of the GPL] is its own world."
I wonder if it's actually much simpler, the conversation may well go something like:
MS: "You're infringing our patent, pay us $x"
Company A: "But they're infringing too, and they're not paying?"
MS: "I know. But we've required them to pay a redistribution fee in order to redistribute the patented code. Under section 7 of the GPL they're not permitted to do that {evil laugh}".
If Microsoft are going to start licensing their patents, then the last thing they are going to want to do is be seen to support open source. Instead they're more likely to try to stop "infringing" GPL'd software in it's tracks by requiring a licensing fee for redistribution. No lawyers necessary unless someone coughs up to challenge the patent in court.
I don't buy that. If Microsoft refuse to go after Open Source shops for patent licenses, then they will not be able to license their software, period. If they go to a company a and say, "you're infringing our patent, would you mind paying us $x", then company a can point to the Open Source infringer and say, "well, they're not paying anything so is your license really worth anything?".
The last thing Microsoft is going to do is make it look like it's supporting Open Source software. If they try to get closed-source companies to pay licensing fees, but don't go after open source shops, then they're seen to be supporting open source. It's not going to happen.
Mono doesn't yet permit 100% compatability with.NET and in the short term at least will not be able to provide 100% compatability with real-world applications written in.NET, as many of these will require COM support - something that Linux (for starters) does not support, and anything other than a x86 platform cannot natively support as a binary.
If mono ever starts becoming a serious contender for 100% compatability with Windows.NET, do you really think that Microsoft will just roll-over and let it dominate Microsoft's position? That's just not going to happen.
Microsoft does not need to bribe Sun into ensuring that Mono gets dumped on, and they're probably smart enough to know that if there's any real corporate interest in it then someone will come along and support it. (I wonder, for example, if IBM haven't wondered about their past reliance on Java)
Microsoft can - and most likely will - play this game with library compatability. Just like they did with DrDOS. And what's more, they can get away with it. Putting money into a company like Sun, then having that company dump a potentially serious competitor to their core business just smacks too much of anti-trust. But modify the libraries to ensure just the right amount of incompatability, but while publishing just the right amount of "standards" documentation to look like a good guy provides the ideal solution.
The guy was asked KINDLY by the MPAA to take down the episodes (which were of very crappy quality to begin with) and he DID so. That was in 2002
From the article:
Adam was first tipped off about the investigation when the FBI raided his and his fiancee's apartment in May of 2002 and seized thousands of dollars worth of computer equipment
So yup, 2002 sounds about right - probably sometime around 2002, perhaps around the time he'd been raided by the FBI; which is certainly one way to ask politely.
If I were to speculate, I'd suggest that the site pulled the files very quickly as a result of an FBI raid, then posted a notice to state that "as a result of a request by the MPAA" in the hope he wouldn't have to publicly admit to breaking the law. But that is - of course - idle speculation
But the principle purpose of a car is not to break the law. The principle purpose of a car is to go from point A to point B. That in getting from point A to point B, the buyer of the car may exceed the speed limit is an entirely separate issue. The issue is that the principle purpose of buying a car is as a mode of transport.
The principle purpose of buying a mod chip is to break to the law. The principle purpose of modding a console is to play games that someone refuses to pay the licensing cost for
Slashdot is on the OSDN. Most people who read slashdot (including myself) support the concept of open source. The only reason that open source can work is because open source is protected by the very same copyright regulations that regulate closed source software No misuse of analogies will change the fact that copying software in breach of the licensing rules of that software is illegal. And remember that this goes for open source as much as closed source software.
If the GPL is abused, people get pissed off. If a BSD license is abused, people get pissed off. But if a proprietary license is abused, people applaud.
Get with it! Copyright protects free software as much as it protects proprietary software. You want a PS2 that you can copy games onto? Build an F/LOSS PS2. Can't do that? Tough luck, you're lumbered with what's available.
Quit bitching that you can't run Linux on a glorified VCR
What percentage of cars are bought for the principal purpose of breaking the speed limit and using the horn when not in an emergency? Cars are bought to get from A to B, mod chips are bought to pirate games.
Cars can also be used to break the law, and most car owners break the law; but they are not bought for the principle purpose of breaking the law.
Mod chips are mostly bought to play pirated games. They can also be used to play one's own programs or early imports, but they are bought with the principle purpose of playing pirated games.
I'm not saying this ruling or the EUCD is a good thing, I'm just saying.
They are only attacking Bit Torrent because it broke Kazaa's record. Bit Torrent was created as a science project to see if it would work, and when it did, the usefulness of the project became apparent to anyone who wants to pass around large files. Actually the original use was not intended for copyright infringement at all... it was for public projects like games mods and stuff like that. Gamers really pushed its use more than anyone at first.
Absolutely correct
I'm currently mucking about with the Beta version of X-Plane 7.50, and this is only available for download - perfectly legally - through a BitTorrent client, and for a good reason. The chap who writes it is currently recording about 1 new beta every 2 days, and at over 200MB/beta download, that's a lot of potential bandwidth.
Even though it's run by a one-man-band, because I can get the download from BitTorrent I get a very fast download (about 40 minutes over my 1MB ADSL connection) which I could not get when I downloaded the 7.4x version directly from his site. This is what the RIAA and their ilk are conveniently trying to ignore: like video recorders, P2P software can be used for illegal purposes, but removing the ability to use the technology denies people the means to distribute their own works without having to fork out a fortune for bandwidth charges.
Which is ironic really, as it was Microware OS-9, not System 9:-) I worked with it about 10 years ago, and was most suprised when I first came across Mac OS 9.
I don't get this. The BBC was reporting the same thing, and I assumed it must be an error. AAC is normally encoded at 128kbs, and I believe that the figure Apple use when quoting 10,000 songs on an iPod. But in order for the Sony to store 13,000 songs on a hard disk, surely they'd have to store the songs encoded at 64kbps or less.
Compression technology is good, but a 64kbps encoded file is going to sound dreadful! Furthermore, if you wanted to store 64kbps encoded MP3's, then the 10,000 song limit just jumped to 128kbps. Could someone enlighten me, as I just don't buy the "3,000 more songs on a HD 1/2 the size" line.
I now have to use C# at work as our company has decided that this is what Microsoft's future is invested in. I've had a love-hate relationship with it, and my opinion of.NET is possibly clouded by my use of C#, rather than a criticism of.NET, but anyway:
Multi-language support by design is a hack. It's not real. C++, for example is not C++ as I, as a C/C++ hack, know it. It's a thing that is something like, but not quite C++.
structs as ValueTypes are a pain in the arse. They have the same syntactic semantics as classes but have no similarities. Because of this
flibble foo = new flibble();
flibble bar = new flibble();
foo==bar"
means two completely different things depending upon whether flibble is a struct or a class. Which has given me endless problems with DateTime.
Generics are not yet a standard feature of of.NET CLR. This is the reason given by Microsoft for not including generics as part of C#.
EMCA standardisation is a joke if the libraries can be butchered. The language is the least of the problems when portability is concerned. The precise way in which the libraries work and interoperate is the big problem.
.NET - as far as I can see - was simply a way of touting a "write once, run anywhere" platform, without actually proving the case. C# takes some things out of Java, and some out of C++, but never asks the question "why are these here". Operator overloads without templates, and without a good distinction between references are pointers spring to mind. (what does 'foo == bar' do?)
Some prefer C#, but I can't see why...
Sorry Miguel. Mono is a worthy project, and I have it running on OS/X - it's impressive from that point. But as.NET stands, and especially C#, Microsoft got it hideously wrong.
"You know, I believe in people taking initiative and helping out the community, and I also believe in taking responsibilities and powers away from government,"
What we could do is, perhaps, every member of a community could pay a certain amount of money every month into a pot. This would allow the community as a whole to pay for things that an individual on his or her own could not afford to pay for.
This pot could be used to do things like provide for the cleaning of public parks, or perhaps provide books for the members of the community. How this money is spent could be decided by the community. Perhaps the community might decide that it is the best interests of the community to hire somebody - perhaps one of their own, or perhaps somebody from outside - to clean these parks, or to run the places where books are kept.
I think it's a fantastic idea! Why has nobody thought of this before!
"In fact, the US, European and Japanse patent offices have made an agreement "
There's no "European" patent office. Each country within the EU has its own separate patent office, and its own separate patent laws. Some countries permit the patenting of software patents, some currently do not.
Even if (when) the EU patent directive is introduced there still will not be a "European" patent office, or even a Europe-wide agreement as to what is and is not patentable.
"The Thunder system, based on 4,096 Intel Corp. Itanium 2 processors, at LLNL recorded a maximum performance of 20T flops"
I hope they're not using Linux. That's a LOT of SCO licenses...
Re:What We're All Missing --
on
Meet Joe Blog
·
· Score: 1
Also blame lazy readers/listeners/viewers who don't actually read enough to distinguish between rubbish and truth
This reminds me of a "street interview" I heard after the BBC were hauled over the coals by the Hutton inquiry. Asking a passer-by whether the inquiry had changed their opinion of the BBC, the passer-by responded "Well, I've always trusted the BBC, but now I think I'll be a little more sceptical".
That was, perhaps, the most pleasing thing to come out of the (IMHO) whitewash that was Hutton. If more viewers are now looking at the BBC, and asking, "How true is this?", then perhaps people will finally learn to doubt what they read or hear.
The concept of "patent trolls" did not seem to be related to the merit of the patent originally applied Indeed the issue of patent "merit" appears to be treated independently of the issue of patent enforcement.
It's the issue of patent enforcement by companies that buy patents for pennies, then attempt to exploit those patents by suing those companies that have genuinely innovated technology for millions in order to find a return on a miniscule investment.
I'd not heard the term "patent troll" before. I think it's kind of apt.
Slashdot Mirror
If you're going to be fair, be fair. Windows XP is to PC's as OS X 10.1 is to Macs. Both were initially released in 2001. OS X has seen a "metric shit-ton of new features" since 10.1.
In Britain, ISP's are required by the government to retain e-mail and web data on all their customers so that the police, members of parliment, your local counciler etc. can access this data under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) act.
In order to do this, they spend money on storage costs because they're required to. That it is "bad business practice" is neither here nor there, they have no choice, because the government noted that it was "technologically feasible" without considering was it "right" or "wrong", only that it could be done, and that the ISPs "could" retain the data.
Given that VoIP is likely to be regulated in the US, and probably falls under the RIP act in the UK, do you not think that is at least conceivable that the US government may require the companies to retain the data, simply because someone may suggest to them that it is technologically "feasible"?
I can't cite precedent right now, but I can tell you that non-compete clauses are generally valid and have survived both jury trial and appellate review. That said, such clauses must typically be appropriately limited in scope.
Yet in your follow up you quote a decision that seems to generally undermine that statement. Notably:
Noncompete agreements are enforced only to the extent reasonably necessary to protect a legitimate business interest
This clearly states the limitation of scope I presume you're discussing. However, note the limitations on the scope:
- Noncompete agreements must be bargained for, and supported by adequate consideration
- It must be signed before you work for the company
- The employee must have agreed to the NC before his employment begins.
The article doesn't state whether any of these conditions have been met or broken, it only states that he'd been there for a long time ("Goglia worked at Seagate for 17 years"), and that Seagate were concerned that he would disclose some information useful to the competitor (""We believe he will inevitably disclose some of that proprietary information that he has gained through working at Seagate.")It does not state that Goglia had signed a "non-compete" agreement, only that Segate were "concerned" that he may disclose secrets
For perspective: I've worked for my company for 10 years. I've learnt a lot about electronic commerce in that time simply because that's the field I've been working in. Should it be possible for my company to prevent me working for any other electronic commerce software house for (n) years, simply because they're afraid I may actually use my experience in this area? If this were the case, I'd have zero future job prospects. The easiest way for me to change job is to take one in the field I'm currently working, and have recent experience (10 years in one field is a long time. The 17 that Goglia had been working is even longer!) If I have to remove myself entirely from the e-commerce site, my last 10 years of experience is practically worthless.
With respect, I believe that you're mistaking "government" with "central government". In the UK "government" is everything from "central government" (parliment) through "regional" government (county council), and down to "local government" (town, or borough councils). Government is very local, and the more local you get, the smaller the noise you have to make to get noticed. I believe that the situation is much the same in any country.
Sometimes you don't even have to make a blip for the government to care who you are, whether you speed, and whether you drink coke or pepsi.
Recently in the UK, in the aftermath of a train crash, the survivors of the crash got together to lobby for a public enquiry. The government became very interested in these people. They wanted to know all about them, who they voted for, what the political affiliations were, what organisations they were associated with etc. etc. This was all done very quietly with private investigators, until they were found out. These people were too small for Big Brother to care about - until they were involved in a train crash.
Recently the same government increased provisions in a bill that was supposed to prevent access to people's private records to allow local police officers and town councillors to access these private records. Now, imagine that I want to protest about - for instance - a speed limit in the local area. Imagine - just imagine - that a black box in my car is a private record, but one that the local councillor or policeman can access. Now imagine my chances of being able to lobby for a change in the speed limit, when the public argument against my position may be "ahh, but you would say that - we've discovered that you speed through there all the time". I'm too small for Big Brother to care about - until I want to lobby for something that's against the local party's interest.
Parent should have been modded "insightful". The term "big brother" was chosen precisely because it originally instilled the idea of a friendly face looking out for your own best interest. The term in itself contains no hint of bad motives. "Big Brother is watching you" is a friendly gesture - he's keeping an eye out for you.
One of the biggest lessons to be learnt from 1984 is precisely that Big Brother will always say that he has your best interests at heart, and that it's only when it's too late will the ill-intent of his actions become clear.
Lobbying government only has any effect if the government has an incentive to listen. Most voters are not concerned about copyright and patent law, and most voters are not aware of the problems with laws such as the DMCA.
A politician standing his ground and upsetting a trade agreement because of DMCA provisions will not win votes, he will loose them. His opposition will say he's a "trouble maker", and he's "upsetting important trade negotiations". They won't say "look at this guy, he's standing up for the consumer". So the message most voters get is "this man is a trouble maker". It's a lose-lose situation.
Of course sometimes politicians are able to get the right message through, but those situations are few and far between.
"somebody who is taking software pursuant to the GPL cannot take a license ... Section 7 [of the GPL] is its own world."
I wonder if it's actually much simpler, the conversation may well go something like:
MS: "You're infringing our patent, pay us $x"
Company A: "But they're infringing too, and they're not paying?"
MS: "I know. But we've required them to pay a redistribution fee in order to redistribute the patented code. Under section 7 of the GPL they're not permitted to do that {evil laugh}".
If Microsoft are going to start licensing their patents, then the last thing they are going to want to do is be seen to support open source. Instead they're more likely to try to stop "infringing" GPL'd software in it's tracks by requiring a licensing fee for redistribution. No lawyers necessary unless someone coughs up to challenge the patent in court.
Of course I could just be paranoid ;)
I don't buy that. If Microsoft refuse to go after Open Source shops for patent licenses, then they will not be able to license their software, period. If they go to a company a and say, "you're infringing our patent, would you mind paying us $x", then company a can point to the Open Source infringer and say, "well, they're not paying anything so is your license really worth anything?".
The last thing Microsoft is going to do is make it look like it's supporting Open Source software. If they try to get closed-source companies to pay licensing fees, but don't go after open source shops, then they're seen to be supporting open source. It's not going to happen.
Mono doesn't yet permit 100% compatability with .NET and in the short term at least will not be able to provide 100% compatability with real-world applications written in .NET, as many of these will require COM support - something that Linux (for starters) does not support, and anything other than a x86 platform cannot natively support as a binary.
.NET, do you really think that Microsoft will just roll-over and let it dominate Microsoft's position? That's just not going to happen.
If mono ever starts becoming a serious contender for 100% compatability with Windows
Microsoft does not need to bribe Sun into ensuring that Mono gets dumped on, and they're probably smart enough to know that if there's any real corporate interest in it then someone will come along and support it. (I wonder, for example, if IBM haven't wondered about their past reliance on Java)
Microsoft can - and most likely will - play this game with library compatability. Just like they did with DrDOS. And what's more, they can get away with it. Putting money into a company like Sun, then having that company dump a potentially serious competitor to their core business just smacks too much of anti-trust. But modify the libraries to ensure just the right amount of incompatability, but while publishing just the right amount of "standards" documentation to look like a good guy provides the ideal solution.
5% according to the BBC. That's 5% of 350,000 applications submitted each year.
I believe this is what's technically referred to as "percussive maintenance" :-)
From the article:
Adam was first tipped off about the investigation when the FBI raided his and his fiancee's apartment in May of 2002 and seized thousands of dollars worth of computer equipment
So yup, 2002 sounds about right - probably sometime around 2002, perhaps around the time he'd been raided by the FBI; which is certainly one way to ask politely.
If I were to speculate, I'd suggest that the site pulled the files very quickly as a result of an FBI raid, then posted a notice to state that "as a result of a request by the MPAA" in the hope he wouldn't have to publicly admit to breaking the law. But that is - of course - idle speculation
But the principle purpose of a car is not to break the law. The principle purpose of a car is to go from point A to point B. That in getting from point A to point B, the buyer of the car may exceed the speed limit is an entirely separate issue. The issue is that the principle purpose of buying a car is as a mode of transport.
The principle purpose of buying a mod chip is to break to the law. The principle purpose of modding a console is to play games that someone refuses to pay the licensing cost for
Slashdot is on the OSDN. Most people who read slashdot (including myself) support the concept of open source. The only reason that open source can work is because open source is protected by the very same copyright regulations that regulate closed source software No misuse of analogies will change the fact that copying software in breach of the licensing rules of that software is illegal. And remember that this goes for open source as much as closed source software.
If the GPL is abused, people get pissed off. If a BSD license is abused, people get pissed off. But if a proprietary license is abused, people applaud.
Get with it! Copyright protects free software as much as it protects proprietary software. You want a PS2 that you can copy games onto? Build an F/LOSS PS2. Can't do that? Tough luck, you're lumbered with what's available.
Quit bitching that you can't run Linux on a glorified VCR
What percentage of cars are bought for the principal purpose of breaking the speed limit and using the horn when not in an emergency? Cars are bought to get from A to B, mod chips are bought to pirate games.
Cars can also be used to break the law, and most car owners break the law; but they are not bought for the principle purpose of breaking the law.
Mod chips are mostly bought to play pirated games. They can also be used to play one's own programs or early imports, but they are bought with the principle purpose of playing pirated games.
I'm not saying this ruling or the EUCD is a good thing, I'm just saying.
They are only attacking Bit Torrent because it broke Kazaa's record. Bit Torrent was created as a science project to see if it would work, and when it did, the usefulness of the project became apparent to anyone who wants to pass around large files. Actually the original use was not intended for copyright infringement at all... it was for public projects like games mods and stuff like that. Gamers really pushed its use more than anyone at first.
Absolutely correct
I'm currently mucking about with the Beta version of X-Plane 7.50, and this is only available for download - perfectly legally - through a BitTorrent client, and for a good reason. The chap who writes it is currently recording about 1 new beta every 2 days, and at over 200MB/beta download, that's a lot of potential bandwidth.
Even though it's run by a one-man-band, because I can get the download from BitTorrent I get a very fast download (about 40 minutes over my 1MB ADSL connection) which I could not get when I downloaded the 7.4x version directly from his site. This is what the RIAA and their ilk are conveniently trying to ignore: like video recorders, P2P software can be used for illegal purposes, but removing the ability to use the technology denies people the means to distribute their own works without having to fork out a fortune for bandwidth charges.
Which is ironic really, as it was Microware OS-9, not System 9 :-) I worked with it about 10 years ago, and was most suprised when I first came across Mac OS 9.
I don't get this. The BBC was reporting the same thing, and I assumed it must be an error. AAC is normally encoded at 128kbs, and I believe that the figure Apple use when quoting 10,000 songs on an iPod. But in order for the Sony to store 13,000 songs on a hard disk, surely they'd have to store the songs encoded at 64kbps or less.
Compression technology is good, but a 64kbps encoded file is going to sound dreadful! Furthermore, if you wanted to store 64kbps encoded MP3's, then the 10,000 song limit just jumped to 128kbps. Could someone enlighten me, as I just don't buy the "3,000 more songs on a HD 1/2 the size" line.
I now have to use C# at work as our company has decided that this is what Microsoft's future is invested in. I've had a love-hate relationship with it, and my opinion of .NET is possibly clouded by my use of C#, rather than a criticism of .NET, but anyway:
- Multi-language support by design is a hack. It's not real. C++, for example is not C++ as I, as a C/C++ hack, know it. It's a thing that is something like, but not quite C++.
- structs as ValueTypes are a pain in the arse. They have the same syntactic semantics as classes but have no similarities. Because of this
- Generics are not yet a standard feature of of
.NET CLR. This is the reason given by Microsoft for not including generics as part of C#.
- EMCA standardisation is a joke if the libraries can be butchered. The language is the least of the problems when portability is concerned. The precise way in which the libraries work and interoperate is the big problem.
- .NET - as far as I can see - was simply a way of touting a "write once, run anywhere" platform, without actually proving the case. C# takes some things out of Java, and some out of C++, but never asks the question "why are these here". Operator overloads without templates, and without a good distinction between references are pointers spring to mind. (what does 'foo == bar' do?)
- Some prefer C#, but I can't see why...
Sorry Miguel. Mono is a worthy project, and I have it running on OS/X - it's impressive from that point. But asflibble foo = new flibble();
flibble bar = new flibble();
foo==bar"
means two completely different things depending upon whether flibble is a struct or a class. Which has given me endless problems with DateTime.
"You know, I believe in people taking initiative and helping out the community, and I also believe in taking responsibilities and powers away from government," What we could do is, perhaps, every member of a community could pay a certain amount of money every month into a pot. This would allow the community as a whole to pay for things that an individual on his or her own could not afford to pay for. This pot could be used to do things like provide for the cleaning of public parks, or perhaps provide books for the members of the community. How this money is spent could be decided by the community. Perhaps the community might decide that it is the best interests of the community to hire somebody - perhaps one of their own, or perhaps somebody from outside - to clean these parks, or to run the places where books are kept. I think it's a fantastic idea! Why has nobody thought of this before!
"In fact, the US, European and Japanse patent offices have made an agreement " There's no "European" patent office. Each country within the EU has its own separate patent office, and its own separate patent laws. Some countries permit the patenting of software patents, some currently do not. Even if (when) the EU patent directive is introduced there still will not be a "European" patent office, or even a Europe-wide agreement as to what is and is not patentable.
"FAGS!?!?!?!"
Cigarettes? What's that got to do with the price of fish?
Basingstoke does, however, have a very nice road leading away from it... :)
"The Thunder system, based on 4,096 Intel Corp. Itanium 2 processors, at LLNL recorded a maximum performance of 20T flops"
I hope they're not using Linux. That's a LOT of SCO licenses...
Also blame lazy readers/listeners/viewers who don't actually read enough to distinguish between rubbish and truth
This reminds me of a "street interview" I heard after the BBC were hauled over the coals by the Hutton inquiry. Asking a passer-by whether the inquiry had changed their opinion of the BBC, the passer-by responded "Well, I've always trusted the BBC, but now I think I'll be a little more sceptical".
That was, perhaps, the most pleasing thing to come out of the (IMHO) whitewash that was Hutton. If more viewers are now looking at the BBC, and asking, "How true is this?", then perhaps people will finally learn to doubt what they read or hear.
Hey. I can wish.
The concept of "patent trolls" did not seem to be related to the merit of the patent originally applied Indeed the issue of patent "merit" appears to be treated independently of the issue of patent enforcement.
It's the issue of patent enforcement by companies that buy patents for pennies, then attempt to exploit those patents by suing those companies that have genuinely innovated technology for millions in order to find a return on a miniscule investment.
I'd not heard the term "patent troll" before. I think it's kind of apt.