There's a presumption of validity with patents (because they've gone through the examination process). In other words, a patent is presumed valid until it's challenged in the courts and found invalid. However, the examination system is so inadequate that there are probably a large number of granted patents that don't deserve the presumption of validity. That's small comfort to those threatened with bad patents and who may find it cheaper and easier to simply capitulate.
maybe refills will be sold in the form of methanol-filled aerosol canisters a-la the old refillable butane cigarette lighter refills. maybe the fuel cell itself will be safe, dunno about the cans of methanol refills though.
One of my chemistry lecturers said that the methanol in methylated spirits is deliberately added to make the stuff poisonous so that isn't otherwise a cheap source of ethanol (to get drunk on).
I knew a guy who drank methylated spirits with a couple of his friends. They died. He survived, but now sees the world with a permanent orange tint. (This was related to me by a third party, not the guy.)
Well, at least people aren't paying the M$ Office tax in the first place. If people don't like WP they might try that OpenOffice thingy that's on the PC magazine cover CD. That wouldn't happen if M$ Word was preloaded.
Whether it's Telstra or not, one of these days I'm sure there will be a big Linux desktop rollout somewhere. What will be interesting to see is the choice of desktop (KDE or Gnome). I wonder what effect a couple of high-profile coporate adoptions of one or the other might have?
I think it's pretty clear actually, and I think the final sentence summarises it quite well:
And the fact that open source may reduce the revenues of some software vendors does not mean that it reduces economic activity or economic success, but instead that it correctly allocates the profits to the developers of that software, its users.
Why do people or companies use software? They use it to achieve their own ends (eg. manufacturing widgets). In terms of the whole economy, the software industry isn't an end in itself, it's a means to an end (eg. making widgets or whatever you or your company does). Cheaper software might be bad for software vendors but that can be good for the economy overall. Widgets are bound to be cheaper if the companies that manufacture and sell them don't need to pay the M$ tax.
Please go to ICANN's public comment forum for the proposed waiting list service (WLS) and express your opinion about the proposal (preferably post a message opposing the WLS!).
The proposal has the potential to be a massive money-earner for both Verisign and Snapnames, at the expense of consumers.
Under the proposal, people will be able to "subscribe" to a waiting list a bit like Snapname's current service (www.snapnames.com). Unfortunately, under the scheme, subscriptions are likely to cost US$40-70 *PER YEAR*. Yes, that means if a domain name doesn't expire for 10 years, you'll be paying, say, US$50 every year just for the chance of owning it. This contrasts with other expiring-name services like www.namewinner.com that only charge you in the event that you get the name. One aim of the proposal is to address the massive speculation that occurs for expiring domain names. However, a WLS would just create speculation in WLS subscriptions!
Well, I think reality is delivering. I'm pretty impressed that these days I can fit a 40 gigabyte laptop harddrive in a USB/firewire case in my shirt pocket (and plug it in to practically any computer).
Well, i'd quite like to be able to backup about 15 of my DV tapes - they're 12Gb per 1hr tape. That's about 20% of your terabyte for not very many tapes. I'm sure that when video cameras start recording at better resolutions in coming years we'll have no problem filling up that Tb.
As i read the imdb quotes, i was reminded of some other movie i've seen whose name escaped me. It turns out i was reminded of two other movies: the fan site speculates that 'Sphere' and 'Event Horizon' may have been inspired by Solaris.
Clause 7 expressly acknowledges that patent rights may be enforceable inconsistently with some of the rights granted under the GPL. It says that if you can't meet the GPL obligations (because of other obligations) then you can't distribute at all.
So, if a patent holder actually released GPLed code then they must be taken to also be licensing the patent in a manner consistent with the GPL? Otherwise, according to the GPL, they may not distribute the code under the GPL.
But what's going to stop 3rd parties distributing copies of binary ISOs? If you don't stick the trademark on it they can't get you with trademark law. If there's proprietary software on it, just delete it and distribute copies lacking the proprietary stuff.
Para 3, GPL:
3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
* a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
* b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
* c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
I'm quite happy with Eudora's mail storage technique. The messages are stored in a format much like mbox except that the attachments are stripped out and dumped in a user-specified directory. This leaves text-only mailboxes that are reasonably small in size. They can be searched easily/quickly and they can be compressed even smaller for storage/backup. I really don't see the point of retaining attachments within the mbox file - apart from the inefficiency, they're not accessible from the shell/OS (eg. you can't grep your attachments unless you manually export them).
This is one feature i miss in Linux mail clients. At one stage i wrote a perl filter to achieve this functionality with Kmail.
I was looking at page 6, hit the next page link and got:
"This site has exceeded its limit of 3 Gigabytes of transfer for the month. You may buy extra Gigabytes of transfer by logging in to the user menu and choosing "upgrade".
Thank you,
0catch.com"
Slashdot Mirror
There's a presumption of validity with patents (because they've gone through the examination process). In other words, a patent is presumed valid until it's challenged in the courts and found invalid. However, the examination system is so inadequate that there are probably a large number of granted patents that don't deserve the presumption of validity. That's small comfort to those threatened with bad patents and who may find it cheaper and easier to simply capitulate.
And, from the USPTO itself: US 5794003 and US 5560028
And, for future reference: search the USPTO
maybe refills will be sold in the form of methanol-filled aerosol canisters a-la the old refillable butane cigarette lighter refills. maybe the fuel cell itself will be safe, dunno about the cans of methanol refills though.
I knew a guy who drank methylated spirits with a couple of his friends. They died. He survived, but now sees the world with a permanent orange tint. (This was related to me by a third party, not the guy.)
http://davidcoulson.net/writing/pcp/187/masterclas s-linuxexpert.pdf
Well, at least people aren't paying the M$ Office tax in the first place. If people don't like WP they might try that OpenOffice thingy that's on the PC magazine cover CD. That wouldn't happen if M$ Word was preloaded.
Whether it's Telstra or not, one of these days I'm sure there will be a big Linux desktop rollout somewhere. What will be interesting to see is the choice of desktop (KDE or Gnome). I wonder what effect a couple of high-profile coporate adoptions of one or the other might have?
This is the only link I could find.
Original link didn't seem to work for me. Try this.
Why do people or companies use software? They use it to achieve their own ends (eg. manufacturing widgets). In terms of the whole economy, the software industry isn't an end in itself, it's a means to an end (eg. making widgets or whatever you or your company does). Cheaper software might be bad for software vendors but that can be good for the economy overall. Widgets are bound to be cheaper if the companies that manufacture and sell them don't need to pay the M$ tax.
The proposal has the potential to be a massive money-earner for both Verisign and Snapnames, at the expense of consumers.
Under the proposal, people will be able to "subscribe" to a waiting list a bit like Snapname's current service (www.snapnames.com). Unfortunately, under the scheme, subscriptions are likely to cost US$40-70 *PER YEAR*. Yes, that means if a domain name doesn't expire for 10 years, you'll be paying, say, US$50 every year just for the chance of owning it. This contrasts with other expiring-name services like www.namewinner.com that only charge you in the event that you get the name. One aim of the proposal is to address the massive speculation that occurs for expiring domain names. However, a WLS would just create speculation in WLS subscriptions!
Well, I think reality is delivering. I'm pretty impressed that these days I can fit a 40 gigabyte laptop harddrive in a USB/firewire case in my shirt pocket (and plug it in to practically any computer).
Well, i'd quite like to be able to backup about 15 of my DV tapes - they're 12Gb per 1hr tape. That's about 20% of your terabyte for not very many tapes. I'm sure that when video cameras start recording at better resolutions in coming years we'll have no problem filling up that Tb.
As i read the imdb quotes, i was reminded of some other movie i've seen whose name escaped me. It turns out i was reminded of two other movies: the fan site speculates that 'Sphere' and 'Event Horizon' may have been inspired by Solaris.
So, if a patent holder actually released GPLed code then they must be taken to also be licensing the patent in a manner consistent with the GPL? Otherwise, according to the GPL, they may not distribute the code under the GPL.
"Newtons per second" = 18 bytes
18-15 = 3 bytes.
...where's that old ouija board of mine gone?
Para 3, GPL:
yeh, but he said 'impotent'. that might dismay a few ppl.
This is one feature i miss in Linux mail clients. At one stage i wrote a perl filter to achieve this functionality with Kmail.
Anything over 50 metres diameter would probably be big enough to wipe out all life on the moon ...
I was looking at page 6, hit the next page link and got: "This site has exceeded its limit of 3 Gigabytes of transfer for the month. You may buy extra Gigabytes of transfer by logging in to the user menu and choosing "upgrade". Thank you, 0catch.com"