In closed source/commercial land, there is significant competition because companies are trying to out do eachother. Unfortunately though, this often makes companies (particularly MS etc) competition focussed rather than customer focussed. Thus, more effort seems to go into disrupting competition rather than making truely meaningful customer experiences. From a whole industry perspective, this is rather wasteful since many teams end up doing pretty much the same work just competing with eachother making "me-too" products.
Open source tends to be far more collaborative. There is less need for directly competing products. This model tends to be far less wasteful.
Does this mean a lack of diversity in OSS? No! If anything it means more diversiity because instead of many teams all making "me-too" products, OSS teams tend to focus on adding real value and focussing on differentiation, rather than reinventing wheels.
For a very clear example of this, look at file systems. All versions of windows support only a few file systems: FAT,TFAT, NTFS, ImageFS + few custom third party file systems for use with WindowsCE; being generous here - less than ten. Linux supports at least... well you count! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_file_systems
National IDs really don't offer the powers that be any more control over your life than a drivers license etc which you need to show for many transactions etc. Face it: the real reason you don't have a national ID is because you don't need one and the Feds can do fine with what they have.
What this issue does really provide is an inflammatory diversion to attract the attention away from something else.
Australia is not USA's 51st state. Australian's don't get any of the rights of US citizens, just the down sides.
Thankfully we still have some sanity here in NZ. Although there was perhaps some keenness to hitch up withAustralia in the 1980s and 1990s, less kiwis think thta way now.
They say this because they have been reciting the Pledge of Allegience since birth. Theless generous might call this brainwashing.
It is clearly a hyporcracy since, for instance blacks were hardly receiving the "liberty and justice for all" until very recently and many people do not at present. Say it enough and you don't doubt it. That those liberties and justice don't exist hardly matters - people still believe they have them.
Sure, USA is better than China etc, but to be the world leader in freedom that USA claims to be it should be ranking a bit higher than 15/11 on http://www.worldaudit.org/press.htm
I don't think you're right. Trade secrets do not need copyrights to survive. Employees are (generally) not legally permitted to divulge reasonable trade secrets many of wich are already not covered by copyrights etc. For example, you may generally not divulge details of unreleased products etc. Copyrights possibly do limit the further distribution of code once it has escaped the company, but the removal of copyright would slam down the gates harder. ie. Rather than publishg some of its code under copyright, a company would just no longer publish any of its code and would apply even more draconian measures to prevent ther boundaries from "leaking" (eg. no mor company email containing code etc).
GPL does more than work against copyrights. It also works against trade secrets (which BSDL allows). You cannot use code under GPL with trade secret code. Doing away with copyright would not force the trade secret code into the pulic domain.
GPL would have no effect if there was no copyright. It would just become meaningless.
Yes, GPL does use copyright law to do its heavy lifting, and the removal of copyright would break GPL. For anti-copyright/pro-GPL people this is not necessarily inconsistent as it is somewhat like legal Jujitsu - using the enemies strength to defeat themselves.
However there are other forms of open source software too, many of which do not rely on copyright in any shape or form.
Ultimately, open source software is a philosophy and changing the legal tools will not change too much. The GPL is also just a tool and even if the GPL was to be ruled invalid (or was invalidated by the removal of copyright laws) not much would change. When the Shroud of Turin was shown to be fake the nuns didn't commit mass suicide; similarly open source software will continue, with or without copyright, GPL or whatever icons.
The VFS interface is probably the most complex part of Linux and is not stable (that is, it changes from release to release).
I maintain a Linux file system which is typically used across various kernel versions, including 2.4.x. Yes folk's 2.4.x is still used to ship new products. The changing interface makes for Fun-And-Games.
The VFS to file system is not particularly clean as you need to do pretty ugly things like increment page counts etc within the file system. Much of this is done to enhance performance, but could probably have been done better (ie. preserving a clean interface without real performance compromises).
Well I have approx 10 patents too. Two of those required reexamination of some claims, and in only one case did we drop claims. I have one patent application that did not make it and I'm sure I could have re-jigged it to fly, but I didn't because I could not be arsed doing it. I have never had a face-to-face with USPTO.
Blatant violation of prior art does often get trapped, but you can typically tweak your claims to still get around them.
The damage of bad patents can be huge: a small company can be set up around one patent and a screw up can cost the destruction of the company.
From the rules I have read, the USPTO appears to pitch themselves in a similar way to the courts. That is, if you dislike the results you can apply for a reexamination. If the judge/jury/etc misbehaves you can get a retrial. However, I doubt you can sue the Dept of Justice for legal costs etc due to needing a retrial.
And that extends to the way the press report about government issues.
Piss off the White House? Staffers return your calls a bit late or your sources dry up.
Piss off the military? Well your reports get indented with the folks washing Hummers in the transport park instead of with a section on patrol. So you end up sending home pictures of wet vehicles instead of action shots.
These ae the unwritten rules of the game that keep the media in check. The editors understand this and will discipline staffers who don't play ball.
Prior art never seems to be much of an obstacle to getting patents. This keeps the patent industry active, which of course appeals greatly to the patent lawyers.
I recently had a look at the area in which I have one of my patents and found no less than five patents which have claims that mine had. One of them even cited my patent in the search list and still made conflicting claims that were allowed.
This situation is of course ridiculous. There is no accountability in the patent system. That is, there is no feedback in the system that ensures the USPTO provides high quality patents. The USPTO does not get sued if they give out stupid patents. No, you need to hire a patent lawyer and go sort it out in court. There are even some patent lawyers that specialise in mining the patents for prior art conflicts and solicite business that way.
This situation wiill not fix itself because those in the system really like it the way it is. The USPTO keeps cranking out money for Uncle Sam by essentially selling the same property many times over. The lawyers love it. They get to charge fees to apply for a patent, then get to charge even more to fix the mess caused by broken patents. So why would it change?
The only way it will change is if the practitioners become accountable for their actions. If they issue a bad patent then USPTO should pay for fixing the mess. USPTO would not like that, but it would soon improve patent quality. That would reduce patent disputes too, so the lawyers would not like it either.
Surely at this stage it is just hype. With MS you can only consider something to be information when it has been shipping for a few versions. Most announcements from MS have a lot of hype about fancy features that don't make the cut.
The digester in this small (330k population) plant generates methane which fires converted gasoline engines to generate electricity. The waste heat goes to warming the digester. There's still solid waste though.
Burning methane is a GoodTHing. Methane has approx 27 times the greenhouse effect of CO2, so burning it produces power and reduces greenhouse gases.
Yet again we have a case where a system is broken for the citizens, but working just fine for the practitioners. Another system that is siliarly broken is the patent system.
Sure, there are theoretically ways that these systems could be fixed, but in practice that would be very difficult to do.
Why? The people who have the positions and power to make the changes are benefitting from how the status quo, so why would they really want a change?
First off, Greenpeace has not just singled out Apple. It has raised this issue with some other computer suppliers, some of whom rated better.
Greenpeace is not working against these companies, it is really working with them to help reduce the environmental mess. Much of the environmental cost is driven by rampant consumerism and a quest for dollar cost over other costs. Highlighting environmental responsibility via the ipod sends a very strong message because the ipod is used by so many people.
Perhaps in a while people will be prepared to pay a premium (??$5?? per ipod, ??$20?? per laptop etc) for proper environmental handling.
The energy must come from somewhere, so it must be ultimately coming from the gas powered car. However, if it is being taken in the right way it is energy that would otherwise be converted into waste heat/sound.
In other words, if the car drag is causing a wind of sorts, that wind would normally dissipate its energy as friction against the surfaces it blows along - causing the energy top be lost as heat. Now we're just providing an alternative energy soak that extracts the useful enrgy.
Let's say you have 4096 bytes arranged as 8x512-byte blocks and each block can correct one error. Now lets say that we RANDOMLY (ie statisticly independently) introduce, say, 4 errors into that set of 8 blocks. Sometimes the errors will fall so that there are at most one error per block. That is correctable. Sometimes the errors will fall so that there are more than one per block. In that case data will be lost.
However, if we can correct up to, say, 6 arbitrarily placed errors per 4096 bytes we can then have 4 errors anywhere in that block and we won't lose data. It does not matter whether they are spread out or clustered together we can always handle those errors.
Slashdot Mirror
If nobody RTFA then there would be no click through revenue and this type of crappiness would go away.
Anyway, this is slashdot. You don't need to RTFA to express an opinion!
Open source tends to be far more collaborative. There is less need for directly competing products. This model tends to be far less wasteful.
Does this mean a lack of diversity in OSS? No! If anything it means more diversiity because instead of many teams all making "me-too" products, OSS teams tend to focus on adding real value and focussing on differentiation, rather than reinventing wheels.
For a very clear example of this, look at file systems. All versions of windows support only a few file systems: FAT,TFAT, NTFS, ImageFS + few custom third party file systems for use with WindowsCE; being generous here - less than ten. Linux supports at least... well you count! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_file_systems
What this issue does really provide is an inflammatory diversion to attract the attention away from something else.
It was a bit of a leap.
Burn victim with bandage huh? That's just a disguise, you can't fool me! He's really a nanotech terrorist!
Thankfully we still have some sanity here in NZ. Although there was perhaps some keenness to hitch up withAustralia in the 1980s and 1990s, less kiwis think thta way now.
It is clearly a hyporcracy since, for instance blacks were hardly receiving the "liberty and justice for all" until very recently and many people do not at present. Say it enough and you don't doubt it. That those liberties and justice don't exist hardly matters - people still believe they have them.
Sure, USA is better than China etc, but to be the world leader in freedom that USA claims to be it should be ranking a bit higher than 15/11 on http://www.worldaudit.org/press.htm
I don't think you're right. Trade secrets do not need copyrights to survive. Employees are (generally) not legally permitted to divulge reasonable trade secrets many of wich are already not covered by copyrights etc. For example, you may generally not divulge details of unreleased products etc. Copyrights possibly do limit the further distribution of code once it has escaped the company, but the removal of copyright would slam down the gates harder. ie. Rather than publishg some of its code under copyright, a company would just no longer publish any of its code and would apply even more draconian measures to prevent ther boundaries from "leaking" (eg. no mor company email containing code etc).
GPL would have no effect if there was no copyright. It would just become meaningless.
If you're sending them a paper fax then you're using the same amount of toner to print the white-on-black original.
However there are other forms of open source software too, many of which do not rely on copyright in any shape or form.
Ultimately, open source software is a philosophy and changing the legal tools will not change too much. The GPL is also just a tool and even if the GPL was to be ruled invalid (or was invalidated by the removal of copyright laws) not much would change. When the Shroud of Turin was shown to be fake the nuns didn't commit mass suicide; similarly open source software will continue, with or without copyright, GPL or whatever icons.
I maintain a Linux file system which is typically used across various kernel versions, including 2.4.x. Yes folk's 2.4.x is still used to ship new products. The changing interface makes for Fun-And-Games.
The VFS to file system is not particularly clean as you need to do pretty ugly things like increment page counts etc within the file system. Much of this is done to enhance performance, but could probably have been done better (ie. preserving a clean interface without real performance compromises).
Blatant violation of prior art does often get trapped, but you can typically tweak your claims to still get around them.
By the time any of this technology could ship we'd probably have thought controlled car locks. No need for keys then.
From the rules I have read, the USPTO appears to pitch themselves in a similar way to the courts. That is, if you dislike the results you can apply for a reexamination. If the judge/jury/etc misbehaves you can get a retrial. However, I doubt you can sue the Dept of Justice for legal costs etc due to needing a retrial.
This question of culpability was raised here http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20051216/0312216. shtml
Piss off the White House? Staffers return your calls a bit late or your sources dry up.
Piss off the military? Well your reports get indented with the folks washing Hummers in the transport park instead of with a section on patrol. So you end up sending home pictures of wet vehicles instead of action shots.
These ae the unwritten rules of the game that keep the media in check. The editors understand this and will discipline staffers who don't play ball.
You're how old?
I recently had a look at the area in which I have one of my patents and found no less than five patents which have claims that mine had. One of them even cited my patent in the search list and still made conflicting claims that were allowed.
This situation is of course ridiculous. There is no accountability in the patent system. That is, there is no feedback in the system that ensures the USPTO provides high quality patents. The USPTO does not get sued if they give out stupid patents. No, you need to hire a patent lawyer and go sort it out in court. There are even some patent lawyers that specialise in mining the patents for prior art conflicts and solicite business that way.
This situation wiill not fix itself because those in the system really like it the way it is. The USPTO keeps cranking out money for Uncle Sam by essentially selling the same property many times over. The lawyers love it. They get to charge fees to apply for a patent, then get to charge even more to fix the mess caused by broken patents. So why would it change?
The only way it will change is if the practitioners become accountable for their actions. If they issue a bad patent then USPTO should pay for fixing the mess. USPTO would not like that, but it would soon improve patent quality. That would reduce patent disputes too, so the lawyers would not like it either.
Surely at this stage it is just hype. With MS you can only consider something to be information when it has been shipping for a few versions. Most announcements from MS have a lot of hype about fancy features that don't make the cut.
The digester in this small (330k population) plant generates methane which fires converted gasoline engines to generate electricity. The waste heat goes to warming the digester. There's still solid waste though.
Burning methane is a GoodTHing. Methane has approx 27 times the greenhouse effect of CO2, so burning it produces power and reduces greenhouse gases.
Sure, there are theoretically ways that these systems could be fixed, but in practice that would be very difficult to do.
Why? The people who have the positions and power to make the changes are benefitting from how the status quo, so why would they really want a change?
Healthcare workers get huge salaries, http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/layouthtmls/swz l_compresult_national_HC07000007.html Anesthetist Nurse:$130k+, etc etc.
There is no motivation from within the healthcare sector to fix the problem. Any moves from outside to do so will get lobbied to death pretty soon.
Greenpeace is not working against these companies, it is really working with them to help reduce the environmental mess. Much of the environmental cost is driven by rampant consumerism and a quest for dollar cost over other costs. Highlighting environmental responsibility via the ipod sends a very strong message because the ipod is used by so many people.
Perhaps in a while people will be prepared to pay a premium (??$5?? per ipod, ??$20?? per laptop etc) for proper environmental handling.
In other words, if the car drag is causing a wind of sorts, that wind would normally dissipate its energy as friction against the surfaces it blows along - causing the energy top be lost as heat. Now we're just providing an alternative energy soak that extracts the useful enrgy.
"I don't know what this does but the pictures are cool"
Let's say you have 4096 bytes arranged as 8x512-byte blocks and each block can correct one error. Now lets say that we RANDOMLY (ie statisticly independently) introduce, say, 4 errors into that set of 8 blocks. Sometimes the errors will fall so that there are at most one error per block. That is correctable. Sometimes the errors will fall so that there are more than one per block. In that case data will be lost.
However, if we can correct up to, say, 6 arbitrarily placed errors per 4096 bytes we can then have 4 errors anywhere in that block and we won't lose data. It does not matter whether they are spread out or clustered together we can always handle those errors.
This makes for stronger correction.