So was Microsoft in their videos. To say that because Google pulled Wave (a beta, experimental system that was never really picked up) means that it's dangerous to use Gmail or Google docs is no less disingenuous than saying because Microsoft pulled Plays4Sure (a small-yield system that never really took off) it's dangerous to use Hotmail.
Comparing a stable, mature product to an experimental one is an apples to oranges comparison - yet it was the basis of Microsoft's FUD.
The thing is, pretty much everything they point out is equally applicable to their own services. The privacy implications of Gmail are no more severe than those of Hotmail, and the updates for web-services like Google Docs are no more problematic than for Office 365.
What? Like Plays4Sure? or Microsoft Bob? Windows 98? Win 3.1?
Microsoft's got a history of EOLing products too; what's more, they've EOLed products that people had actually paid for. Good luck finding a software company that has never dropped support for a product. And when the product is exclusively delivered over the internet, that product is gone. As all the people who owned media files managed by Plays4Sure servers discovered.
Connectivity is not a problem with caching, local storage, and offline logic.
Which means you're basically writing an app that is installed (sorry, cached) via accessing a link rather than clicking an "install" button on a webstore. Not much difference between a cached, fully-offline-capable webapp and an actual app. Yes,w ebapps get the latest version each time you visit the page - but then, these days app auto-updates are pretty much par for the course as well.
Besides, we're heading towards a world where internet connectivity is pretty much ubiquitous. Even if you're on a plane, riding a train through a tunnel, hiking in the middle on nowhere or on the high seas.
Hell no. Ok, we might be heading there, but its still far, far off. I still hit black spots roaming around a suburb within my local metro area. Granted, that's because my provider sucks, and the only decent one is twice the price, but I still prefer local-running apps for that reason.
In addition, webapps can be pulled at any time by their maker. I don't want my apps just vanishing off my phone because someone's decided it's too much of a hassle to keep supporting a legacy app.
The whole point of this sort of model is that nobody really needs to care about piracy. I blogged about it four years ago (and basically describe Kickstarter in that post) as a way for creative industry to adapt to a digital world. If everyone's paid (by backers) before production begins, then there's no complaining about lost income due to "piracy". I wonder if I can get a job as a futurist?
The main problem for using HTML in publishing, as I understand it, is lack of kerning control. It probably doesn't matter with mass-market e-books, but I know a lot of print designers who cringe when they see HTML documents, as all they can see are the whitespace rivers. There's an obligatory xkcd for someone who wants to dig it up.
Not to mention the difficulty of finding installation media for many older systems. Or the legalities
If you're trying to port a system you currently have running as to a new OS, then you presumably have both the media and the licenses, as you are already running the OS.
Also, pretending that porting open source applications is equally as difficult as proprietary software is flat out laughable. Where do you people come from?
Apparently, you come from a place that just ignores any part of a sentence that comes after a comma. I said it's just as unfixable unless you can afford/have the expertise to port it to your OS/hardware of choice. And no, that expertise is not easy to come by, nor cheap enough for your average business to use as a matter of course.
It's not. However, supply and demand usually are usually the limiting factor. When demand goes up, prices go up because the supply is limited. In this case, the supply is unlimited, so you'd expect price to be static. It's increasing because the supplier has been granted a monopoly, generating artificial scarcity.
The copyright game has never been a fair one, it's just these particular circumstances are showing people that imbalance in practical terms. So people get antsy, not realising that this particular instance is just a symptom of the system as a whole.
And have the expertise and time to manage the programmer. Sure, for a minor feature here and there, one that's simple enough for a non-techie to spec and test themselves, sure, a short-term contract's fine (although I doubt you'd get much done for $100). But if you're looking at anything more than that, you're going to be employing someone for weeks or months, plus testing, scope and management overheads. A big company can probably throw money at their IT department, and get them to manage a couple of contractors to do that - but then, a big company can just as easily do that to rewrite their software that depends on the closed API too.
Small businesses get screwed either way.
Oh, and please don't think I'm anti-OS, either. I'm typing this on a linux machine as we speak, I work with OS products every day, and have even contributed (very minor) patches to a couple. But I'm realist enough to admit its not a panacea. API changes are going to be annoying/expensive no matter what development methodology is behind them. Which is why we have Long-Term Support options, and versioning schemes that indicate API changes.
You can often do something similar with a proprietary system - just keep running the old version. Yeah, you can't maintain and update it yourself, but with an Open Source project of even moderate complexity, only a very very few of its users are going to have the expertise to maintain and update a fork in the first place. It's a theoretical advantage for Open Source, but I imagine it would be realized only very rarely.
Chicken pox tends to be more severe the younger you get it. My Mum had it when she was an adult, and was barely inconvienced. I hate it when I was 10, and I was out of action for a week. If you get it when a baby or a toddler, it can be life threatening.
At the risk of taking a side-track - this is the perfect example of why I hate the concept of "self-documenting" code. A quick couple of words, indicating why the programmer was doing something weird, and this probably wouldn't have happened.
When dragons belch and hippos flee My thoughts, Ankh-Morpork, are of thee Let others boast of martial dash For we have boldly fought with cash We own all your helmets, we own all your shoes. We own all your generals - touch us and you'll lose. Morporkia! Morporkia! Morporkia owns the day! We can rule you wholesale Touch us and you'll pay.
We bankrupt all invaders, We sell them souvenirs, We ner ner ner ner ner ner by the ears, Er ner ner ner ner ner ner ner ner ner, Ner ner ner ner ner ner, ner ner ner ner ner, Ner your gleaming swords, we mortgaged to the hilt. Morporkia! Morporkia! Ner ner ner ner ner ner ner ner ner ner ner ner ner ner ner ner We can rule you wholesale Credit where it's due."
Society doesn't work like that, even quite nasty criminals are eventually forgiven and don't have to declare their crimes when applying for jobs and the like any more. Getting a bit drunk and posting some stupid pics on Facebook is a fairly minor indiscretion in comparison.
And yet, we don't expunge all public records of your crime; if your employer goes looking for it, they're going to find out about your criminal past. I quite agree you shouldn't be forced to add your employer as a friend on facebook as part of the hiring process - which is about the equivalent of being forced to disclose convictions.
Yes, the patent office sucks. However, first to file makes to difference in their suckage. They were ignoring prior art when it was first to invent, and they're ignoring it when it's first to file. They shouldn't be in either case.
Slashdot Mirror
So was Microsoft in their videos. To say that because Google pulled Wave (a beta, experimental system that was never really picked up) means that it's dangerous to use Gmail or Google docs is no less disingenuous than saying because Microsoft pulled Plays4Sure (a small-yield system that never really took off) it's dangerous to use Hotmail.
Comparing a stable, mature product to an experimental one is an apples to oranges comparison - yet it was the basis of Microsoft's FUD.
The thing is, pretty much everything they point out is equally applicable to their own services. The privacy implications of Gmail are no more severe than those of Hotmail, and the updates for web-services like Google Docs are no more problematic than for Office 365.
What? Like Plays4Sure? or Microsoft Bob? Windows 98? Win 3.1?
Microsoft's got a history of EOLing products too; what's more, they've EOLed products that people had actually paid for. Good luck finding a software company that has never dropped support for a product. And when the product is exclusively delivered over the internet, that product is gone. As all the people who owned media files managed by Plays4Sure servers discovered.
Ahh, right. Got lost in the thread and the maze of pronouns
I think he means personalized medicine that is inexpensive compared to the current cost of personalized medicine (i.e. totally infeasible).
For one thing, correlations between people tagged in the same photo
Huh? My boss wouldn't have access to view the photos on the account he doesn't know about, so he couldn't correlate.
Woosh
Connectivity is not a problem with caching, local storage, and offline logic.
Which means you're basically writing an app that is installed (sorry, cached) via accessing a link rather than clicking an "install" button on a webstore. Not much difference between a cached, fully-offline-capable webapp and an actual app. Yes,w ebapps get the latest version each time you visit the page - but then, these days app auto-updates are pretty much par for the course as well.
Besides, we're heading towards a world where internet connectivity is pretty much ubiquitous. Even if you're on a plane, riding a train through a tunnel, hiking in the middle on nowhere or on the high seas.
Hell no. Ok, we might be heading there, but its still far, far off. I still hit black spots roaming around a suburb within my local metro area. Granted, that's because my provider sucks, and the only decent one is twice the price, but I still prefer local-running apps for that reason.
In addition, webapps can be pulled at any time by their maker. I don't want my apps just vanishing off my phone because someone's decided it's too much of a hassle to keep supporting a legacy app.
Then HTML isn't a suitable format for an ebook; PDF is.
The whole point of this sort of model is that nobody really needs to care about piracy. I blogged about it four years ago (and basically describe Kickstarter in that post) as a way for creative industry to adapt to a digital world. If everyone's paid (by backers) before production begins, then there's no complaining about lost income due to "piracy". I wonder if I can get a job as a futurist?
The main problem for using HTML in publishing, as I understand it, is lack of kerning control. It probably doesn't matter with mass-market e-books, but I know a lot of print designers who cringe when they see HTML documents, as all they can see are the whitespace rivers. There's an obligatory xkcd for someone who wants to dig it up.
poor bugger who's had "octopuses garden" stuck in their head for a week
You bastard
Every system can't be emulated
Name one
Not to mention the difficulty of finding installation media for many older systems. Or the legalities
If you're trying to port a system you currently have running as to a new OS, then you presumably have both the media and the licenses, as you are already running the OS.
Also, pretending that porting open source applications is equally as difficult as proprietary software is flat out laughable. Where do you people come from?
Apparently, you come from a place that just ignores any part of a sentence that comes after a comma. I said it's just as unfixable unless you can afford/have the expertise to port it to your OS/hardware of choice. And no, that expertise is not easy to come by, nor cheap enough for your average business to use as a matter of course.
It's not always posible to run old closed source software. Sometimes in wont work on newer OSs, or even newer hardware, and this is 100% unfixable.
Emulation. And it's just as unfixable for Open Source, unless you can afford/have the expertise to port it to your OS/hardware of choice.
It's not. However, supply and demand usually are usually the limiting factor. When demand goes up, prices go up because the supply is limited. In this case, the supply is unlimited, so you'd expect price to be static. It's increasing because the supplier has been granted a monopoly, generating artificial scarcity.
The copyright game has never been a fair one, it's just these particular circumstances are showing people that imbalance in practical terms. So people get antsy, not realising that this particular instance is just a symptom of the system as a whole.
And have the expertise and time to manage the programmer. Sure, for a minor feature here and there, one that's simple enough for a non-techie to spec and test themselves, sure, a short-term contract's fine (although I doubt you'd get much done for $100). But if you're looking at anything more than that, you're going to be employing someone for weeks or months, plus testing, scope and management overheads. A big company can probably throw money at their IT department, and get them to manage a couple of contractors to do that - but then, a big company can just as easily do that to rewrite their software that depends on the closed API too.
Small businesses get screwed either way.
Oh, and please don't think I'm anti-OS, either. I'm typing this on a linux machine as we speak, I work with OS products every day, and have even contributed (very minor) patches to a couple. But I'm realist enough to admit its not a panacea. API changes are going to be annoying/expensive no matter what development methodology is behind them. Which is why we have Long-Term Support options, and versioning schemes that indicate API changes.
The only way to lose weight is to eat less than your body can burn.
And excretes.
You can often do something similar with a proprietary system - just keep running the old version. Yeah, you can't maintain and update it yourself, but with an Open Source project of even moderate complexity, only a very very few of its users are going to have the expertise to maintain and update a fork in the first place. It's a theoretical advantage for Open Source, but I imagine it would be realized only very rarely.
I'm surprised they didn't get a federal bailout.
Chicken pox tends to be more severe the younger you get it. My Mum had it when she was an adult, and was barely inconvienced. I hate it when I was 10, and I was out of action for a week. If you get it when a baby or a toddler, it can be life threatening.
At the risk of taking a side-track - this is the perfect example of why I hate the concept of "self-documenting" code. A quick couple of words, indicating why the programmer was doing something weird, and this probably wouldn't have happened.
When dragons belch and hippos flee
My thoughts, Ankh-Morpork, are of thee
Let others boast of martial dash
For we have boldly fought with cash
We own all your helmets, we own all your shoes.
We own all your generals - touch us and you'll lose.
Morporkia! Morporkia!
Morporkia owns the day!
We can rule you wholesale
Touch us and you'll pay.
We bankrupt all invaders,
We sell them souvenirs,
We ner ner ner ner ner ner by the ears,
Er ner ner ner ner ner ner ner ner ner,
Ner ner ner ner ner ner, ner ner ner ner ner,
Ner your gleaming swords, we mortgaged to the hilt.
Morporkia! Morporkia!
Ner ner ner ner ner ner ner ner ner ner ner ner ner ner ner ner
We can rule you wholesale
Credit where it's due."
Society doesn't work like that, even quite nasty criminals are eventually forgiven and don't have to declare their crimes when applying for jobs and the like any more. Getting a bit drunk and posting some stupid pics on Facebook is a fairly minor indiscretion in comparison.
And yet, we don't expunge all public records of your crime; if your employer goes looking for it, they're going to find out about your criminal past. I quite agree you shouldn't be forced to add your employer as a friend on facebook as part of the hiring process - which is about the equivalent of being forced to disclose convictions.
morons living in their idiocrasy
The irony. It hurts.
In making your point, you failed to mention that patents were 14 years from 1790–1835.
Which doesn't make the current term "ridiculously long". The OP was obviously getting confused between patents and copyrights.
This applies only in the United States, which you assume we are reside in.
Given that the OP was talking about the changes in US law regarding first to file, yes, that's pretty obviously what I', talking about.
Great point about prior art. In theory it should invalidate bogus patent claims. Please listen to: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack
Yes, the patent office sucks. However, first to file makes to difference in their suckage. They were ignoring prior art when it was first to invent, and they're ignoring it when it's first to file. They shouldn't be in either case.
I would point out that TFS clearly states that one of the subreddits was " pre teen_girls"; as in, not even teenagers yet.
FTFY