1-3 years? Yeah right. Even in software that's nowhere near long enough to protect you from the Microsoft's, Google's and Yahoo!s of the world.
I mean, sure, if you're a Fortune 500 company, you can probably get a software product to market in under 18 months and still have a year or two to try and promote it and get people using it... but for the garage inventor they're supposed to protect, a 3 year patent is just an insult.
I'm sure I don't understand the distinction you're trying to make. It's not up to Microsoft to define what IP you can protect -- You can sue over misuse of your IP by anyone in MS-PL code: the only thing you loose by doing that is a FREE LICENSE TO THEIR IP.
This license doesn't affect your ability to protect your IP unless you release code under this license which is protected/covered by your patents. You get that? IANAL, but the MS-PL allows you to take the source of an MS-PL project, along with it's patent licenses, prepare derivative works based on your patented code, and distribute them without source under a closed source license without exposing your own patented code to this license.
As an alternate example, the GPL v3 is much stricter: if you bring a patent suit claiming the software infringes on your patents, your entire license is void, including the patent license. And of course, unlike MS-PL... GPL requires you to distribute modifications under the same license, so if you want to make a derivative work, you have to also give away any licenses to any patents which cover any of the code.
I think Microsoft is certainly going to use "Open Source" as a marketing and PR tool -- as does every other corporation which gets involved in Open Source.
Could they be perceived as the leader? I think they could actually become the leader, and not just in perception -- considering how much code they write, that's just a question of whether that's what they want to do or not. If they committed themselves to it, you couldn't stop them.
Would it be a bad thing if Microsoft (or another company) began to be perceived as a leader in open source development --if that perception was due to the huge volume of Open Source software they produced? I mean I hate to break it to you, but the FSF isn't exactly a leader in software development right now. What have you done for me lately?
(3.B) If you bring a patent claim against any contributor over patents that you claim are infringed by the software, your patent license from such contributor to the software ends automatically.
You can bring patent claims, as long you're not claiming THIS software violates your patents.
If you claim the software infringes YOUR patents, and aren't willing to allow that -- then you don't get a free pass on THEIR patents either. Ie: Share and Share alike. Also, your license for the software doesn't terminate -- just your license to the patents. Which brings us to:
(2.B) Patent Grant- Subject to the terms of this license, including the license conditions and limitations in section 3, each contributor grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license under its licensed patents...
So it's not a one-way non-agression pact. It's a two-way pact. As long as you don't sue them for patent infringement, you can (re)use all of their code without fear of them suing you for patent infringement...
Of course, since THEY are the ones giving YOU the source code, this is really slanted heavily in your favor -- you can have a look before you use it, decide if they violate your patents, and THEN choose to use it OR sue them. They have no such recourse.
The patent actually has several independent claims for the apparatus, the methods, and the computer program which determine the interestingness rank of "media objects" based on each of: the quantity of user-entered metadata (tags, comments, visits, refferers), the number of users who have assigned metadata, a lapse of time (since it was uploaded), the identity of the requester (and relationship, explicit or implied to the poster), and locality data... But incidentally, NOT based on the CONTENT of either tags or the actual media object.
So it patents the idea, the algorithm, and the code, for ranking based on each of those types of data independently... and I think it's fair to state that some of those should be tossed out:
I can't see claiming quantity of data or lapse of time as being different from, say, what del.icio.us or digg or even/. have been doing on their front page... except that they call it "interestingness."
As for the identity, rating interestingness based on the user is what Amazon and Netflix have been doing...
Locality data? That's what all those annoying "singles in your area" ads do...
I mean, it's certainly fair to claim that Parrot is newer, if by newer you mean "still not done" (at the current rate, we might see.NET 3 before Parrot 1.0), or "released a beta most recently" (0.4 came out JUST after.NET 2 went gold). But to say it has more languages is just ignorant.
Slashdot Mirror
MIT -- no extinguishing that https://github.com/PowerShell/...
Yeah, luckily, we've had this sort of graphical console on Windows for years from PoshConsole. http://poshconsole.codeplex.com/
Pretty standard fare for an IP suit
1-3 years? Yeah right. Even in software that's nowhere near long enough to protect you from the Microsoft's, Google's and Yahoo!s of the world. I mean, sure, if you're a Fortune 500 company, you can probably get a software product to market in under 18 months and still have a year or two to try and promote it and get people using it ... but for the garage inventor they're supposed to protect, a 3 year patent is just an insult.
I'm sure I don't understand the distinction you're trying to make. It's not up to Microsoft to define what IP you can protect -- You can sue over misuse of your IP by anyone in MS-PL code: the only thing you loose by doing that is a FREE LICENSE TO THEIR IP.
This license doesn't affect your ability to protect your IP unless you release code under this license which is protected/covered by your patents. You get that? IANAL, but the MS-PL allows you to take the source of an MS-PL project, along with it's patent licenses, prepare derivative works based on your patented code, and distribute them without source under a closed source license without exposing your own patented code to this license.
As an alternate example, the GPL v3 is much stricter: if you bring a patent suit claiming the software infringes on your patents, your entire license is void, including the patent license. And of course, unlike MS-PL ... GPL requires you to distribute modifications under the same license, so if you want to make a derivative work, you have to also give away any licenses to any patents which cover any of the code.
A little paranoia is healthy. ;)
I think Microsoft is certainly going to use "Open Source" as a marketing and PR tool -- as does every other corporation which gets involved in Open Source.
Could they be perceived as the leader? I think they could actually become the leader, and not just in perception -- considering how much code they write, that's just a question of whether that's what they want to do or not. If they committed themselves to it, you couldn't stop them.
Would it be a bad thing if Microsoft (or another company) began to be perceived as a leader in open source development --if that perception was due to the huge volume of Open Source software they produced? I mean I hate to break it to you, but the FSF isn't exactly a leader in software development right now. What have you done for me lately?
(3.B) If you bring a patent claim against any contributor over patents that you claim are infringed by the software, your patent license from such contributor to the software ends automatically.
You can bring patent claims, as long you're not claiming THIS software violates your patents. If you claim the software infringes YOUR patents, and aren't willing to allow that -- then you don't get a free pass on THEIR patents either. Ie: Share and Share alike. Also, your license for the software doesn't terminate -- just your license to the patents. Which brings us to:
(2.B) Patent Grant- Subject to the terms of this license, including the license conditions and limitations in section 3, each contributor grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license under its licensed patents...
So it's not a one-way non-agression pact. It's a two-way pact. As long as you don't sue them for patent infringement, you can (re)use all of their code without fear of them suing you for patent infringement... Of course, since THEY are the ones giving YOU the source code, this is really slanted heavily in your favor -- you can have a look before you use it, decide if they violate your patents, and THEN choose to use it OR sue them. They have no such recourse.
Unless you're Apple. Then the iPod helps you reach your goal of guiding lusers in to your music, tv, and movie purchasing master plan...
While it's true that put together, the 77 claims of this patent are not a patent on interestingness, but for a sort of algorithm for doing so ... don't forget, Violation of one claim is sufficient to find patent infringement.
... and I think it's fair to state that some of those should be tossed out:
/. have been doing on their front page ... except that they call it "interestingness."
...
The patent actually has several independent claims for the apparatus, the methods, and the computer program which determine the interestingness rank of "media objects" based on each of: the quantity of user-entered metadata (tags, comments, visits, refferers), the number of users who have assigned metadata, a lapse of time (since it was uploaded), the identity of the requester (and relationship, explicit or implied to the poster), and locality data... But incidentally, NOT based on the CONTENT of either tags or the actual media object.
So it patents the idea, the algorithm, and the code, for ranking based on each of those types of data independently
I can't see claiming quantity of data or lapse of time as being different from, say, what del.icio.us or digg or even
As for the identity, rating interestingness based on the user is what Amazon and Netflix have been doing...
Locality data? That's what all those annoying "singles in your area" ads do
* Send this information, alng with everything you were working on, to Microsoft for detailed analysis.
I'm all for another multi-language VM, especially if it's built from the ground up for dynamic typing, but you're joking about the languages, right?
I count 33 Parrot Languages (including duplicates) but only 15 that have ANY tests (even ones that fail).
Of all the lists that I checked, the only one that short was the one for the Mono Project (and they list 13)...
I mean, it's certainly fair to claim that Parrot is newer, if by newer you mean "still not done" (at the current rate, we might see .NET 3 before Parrot 1.0), or "released a beta most recently" (0.4 came out JUST after .NET 2 went gold). But to say it has more languages is just ignorant.
Stable?
Too bad it can't even render plain html + css without crashing!
I'm about ready to switch.