An appologist for patent law would say:
"Patents encourage innovation because it enables persons and legal entities to profit from their inventions. Companies would not continue to develop innovative software without patents because there would be no guarantee that a competitor would rush to market with a 'knock-off' thereby killing the return on investment."
I however believe that software isn't a manufactured good, it is a service. You can't patent good service.
I think Opera is hurting itself by doing this. Accurately reporting the "User Agent" helps webmasters (in theory) know what browser the viewer is using. If 95 percent of my viewership is using IE why should I have to rewrite thousands of lines of proprietary html, or recode my ASP/SQL webserver? (I'm playing devil's advocate here). Maybe if I found out that 20+ percent of my page hits were actually comming from the alt browsers, maybe I would attempt to cater to them.
To those not taking the time to complain to webmasters about locking alt. browsers out, don't bitch to me about it.
I'm listening to Rush right now at 1:12 CDT. First time I've ever heard him mention Slashdot. He's talking about this story now. He attributed the defacement to a small minority of the population, but read the L.A. Times quote about/.
As an aside, Rush does have the largest subscriber base of an podcasting service on the web, is a Mac advocate and no stranger to technology as his deafness requires his show to be transcribed in real time so he can "hear" his callers.
You can't give away huge quantities of something that has intrinsic value and expect it not to have an effect on market pricing.
That's a specious arguement. Most programming happens to be "in house" custom applications. Not OTB solutions that FOSS can replace. Try reading "The Cathedral and the Bazzaar" and you would know this. If it's Linux you speak of, replacing Unix or Windows solutions then you should know that the programmers working on operating systems for Microsoft/HP/Sun/SCO are just a drop in the bucket.
Yakov Smirnoff appears regularly in Branson, MO. USA where he has his own comedy club. A soviet defector, ironicaly his career of poking fun of the Soviet Empire died with it.
In my case I was in a hurry point out what I meant by the word reasonable. It simply means that I can't in court expect to get off of a charge by saying something to the effect of, "Space aliens replaced my body with a decoy that couldn't possibly maintain the velocity of human piloted vehicles." That is not at all "reasonable," unless you listen to Art Bell.
Sorry, IANAL, but I have had enough civics classes and been in enough courtrooms to know that you don't just have to introduce doubt, but you have to produce a reasonable doubt if you expect to be assured of a dismissal/aquital. And this applies for criminal matters, like criminal dui, dwi, reckless driving, vehicular assault, vehicular homicide.
If we are just talking about civil actions like normal moving violations are then a preponderance of evidence is all the plantiff (state or local jurisdiction) needs.
Please, if you are a lawyer and I am wrong, correct me.
You're exactly right. I called a local (conservative) radio talk show and tried to tell the host this. The host is a former law enforcement professional, but didn't want me to explain the difference between civil and criminal law. He said "this behavior is criminal." My head nearly exploded, which would have been bad because I was driving down the street. I told him that he had lost his mind and that he had no idea that he was talking about it. He hung up on me and then took a dozen calls from listeners that thought I was a complete kook.
Which leads me to my point, it's not necessarily the fault of the Politicians, they don't jump in to the back pocket of the MPAA until their stupid constituency buys into the lies that the **AA tells them over and over. Everyone agrees, I hope, that theft is wrong, but people, downloading a movie is not theft, providing a download is not theft. Stealing a DVD from Walmart is theft.
For those of us with AMD64 systems try this one: http://people.freebsd.org/~kensmith/5.4-torrent/5. 4-RELEASE-amd64-all.torrent
I'm going to test it's stability against my gentoo and ubuntu amd64 solutions. I'm currently happy with neither. Not necessarily because of the distros themselves. But from the lack of 64-bit support from certain apps.
I'm sure that the parent poster meant his comments to be tongue-in-cheek.
This is the problem I have with the FCC. They have no constitutional authority, but the executive branch has usurped legislational authority through agencies like the FCC, EPA, and other cabinet-level authorities.
The courts are right in saying that the FCC has no right to enforce the broadcast flag. But, IMHO, the FCC has overstepped it's bounds imposing a lot of authority over private industry, and consumer choice.
At some point congress needs to step up and take it's authority back from both the executive AND judicial branches. I could rant on, but I've probably bored you to death already.
Most Congresscritters have law degrees, do they not?
Yeah, that was actually the point of my post. And if they're not lawyers, e.g. my Tennessee Senator Frist, MD. they have at least a few on their congressional/senatorial staff. But I don't know why I ever expected everyone to know that.
This is extortion plain and simple, and it would have killed any smaller company. If it was IBM trying to snuff out SCO, SCO would have gone under within months.
I think this kind of stuff scares some smaller companies away from FOSS, because of a lack (perceived) of legal protection.
Why do people get away with this stuff? Because attorneys are the extortionist and they exempt themselves from the law, because they write the law.
Unless of course you live in the State of Tennessee, U.S.A. where the MPAA is the law. Children under the age of 18 are not allowed, by law, to attend a movie with an "R" rating. Compliance is not voluntary and theaters have been fined. Here we allow a private organization to censor public theaters. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to subject children to Pr0n, but I also think that as a parent you should know where your children are, and stop expecting movie theaters and the police department to babysit for you.
Wikipedia? Yeah I guess so, but I think Bezos has patented the whole idea of the World Wide Web. A bunch of users, with a bunch of content, all linked to each other when some sort of relevant information is available.
Damnit, this is running right in to Hitler Youth day. Now what are I an the new Pope going to do?
j/k, Me and the Pope are HY because we were forced to by Government. My relationship with the BSA exists only because I opened a box that inside said, "Because you opened this box you agreed to march in lock-step on 04/27"
Is this Slashdot: News for nerds or Slashdot: commentary for the mindless.
I know that most paid music services are a waste of money if I want quality music. But why do I need a/. contributer to tell me that Rhapsody is worthless.
This is how the article should have read:
In order to enlist a subscriber base Real's Rhapsody service is now offering 25 free songs for members.
There, no opinion, only news. Or is Slashdot so unpopular that the contributors need to generate news via provocation?
Can someone explain why this post is redundant since this was only about the sixth post to this news report? Maybe someone needs to look up the definition of redundant. I know because I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Slashdot Mirror
An appologist for patent law would say:
"Patents encourage innovation because it enables persons and legal entities to profit from their inventions. Companies would not continue to develop innovative software without patents because there would be no guarantee that a competitor would rush to market with a 'knock-off' thereby killing the return on investment."
I however believe that software isn't a manufactured good, it is a service. You can't patent good service.
Mod parent up, so readers who browse at 4 or 5 can see a somewhat official response.
In other news,
The CEO of Tyco today blames their multi billion dollar security and fire alarm business on burglars and arsonists.
I think Opera is hurting itself by doing this. Accurately reporting the "User Agent" helps webmasters (in theory) know what browser the viewer is using. If 95 percent of my viewership is using IE why should I have to rewrite thousands of lines of proprietary html, or recode my ASP/SQL webserver? (I'm playing devil's advocate here). Maybe if I found out that 20+ percent of my page hits were actually comming from the alt browsers, maybe I would attempt to cater to them.
To those not taking the time to complain to webmasters about locking alt. browsers out, don't bitch to me about it.
I'm listening to Rush right now at 1:12 CDT. First time I've ever heard him mention Slashdot. He's talking about this story now. He attributed the defacement to a small minority of the population, but read the L.A. Times quote about /.
As an aside, Rush does have the largest subscriber base of an podcasting service on the web, is a Mac advocate and no stranger to technology as his deafness requires his show to be transcribed in real time so he can "hear" his callers.
Yeah, on Fark.com the articles are much more believable.
Yakov Smirnoff appears regularly in Branson, MO. USA where he has his own comedy club. A soviet defector, ironicaly his career of poking fun of the Soviet Empire died with it.
In my case I was in a hurry point out what I meant by the word reasonable. It simply means that I can't in court expect to get off of a charge by saying something to the effect of, "Space aliens replaced my body with a decoy that couldn't possibly maintain the velocity of human piloted vehicles." That is not at all "reasonable," unless you listen to Art Bell.
Sorry, IANAL, but I have had enough civics classes and been in enough courtrooms to know that you don't just have to introduce doubt, but you have to produce a reasonable doubt if you expect to be assured of a dismissal/aquital. And this applies for criminal matters, like criminal dui, dwi, reckless driving, vehicular assault, vehicular homicide.
If we are just talking about civil actions like normal moving violations are then a preponderance of evidence is all the plantiff (state or local jurisdiction) needs.
Please, if you are a lawyer and I am wrong, correct me.
You're exactly right. I called a local (conservative) radio talk show and tried to tell the host this. The host is a former law enforcement professional, but didn't want me to explain the difference between civil and criminal law. He said "this behavior is criminal." My head nearly exploded, which would have been bad because I was driving down the street. I told him that he had lost his mind and that he had no idea that he was talking about it. He hung up on me and then took a dozen calls from listeners that thought I was a complete kook.
Which leads me to my point, it's not necessarily the fault of the Politicians, they don't jump in to the back pocket of the MPAA until their stupid constituency buys into the lies that the **AA tells them over and over. Everyone agrees, I hope, that theft is wrong, but people, downloading a movie is not theft, providing a download is not theft. Stealing a DVD from Walmart is theft.
For those of us with AMD64 systems try this one:. 4-RELEASE-amd64-all.torrent
http://people.freebsd.org/~kensmith/5.4-torrent/5
I'm going to test it's stability against my gentoo and ubuntu amd64 solutions. I'm currently happy with neither. Not necessarily because of the distros themselves. But from the lack of 64-bit support from certain apps.
I'm sure that the parent poster meant his comments to be tongue-in-cheek.
This is the problem I have with the FCC. They have no constitutional authority, but the executive branch has usurped legislational authority through agencies like the FCC, EPA, and other cabinet-level authorities.
The courts are right in saying that the FCC has no right to enforce the broadcast flag. But, IMHO, the FCC has overstepped it's bounds imposing a lot of authority over private industry, and consumer choice.
At some point congress needs to step up and take it's authority back from both the executive AND judicial branches. I could rant on, but I've probably bored you to death already.
This is extortion plain and simple, and it would have killed any smaller company. If it was IBM trying to snuff out SCO, SCO would have gone under within months.
I think this kind of stuff scares some smaller companies away from FOSS, because of a lack (perceived) of legal protection.
Why do people get away with this stuff? Because attorneys are the extortionist and they exempt themselves from the law, because they write the law.
Unless of course you live in the State of Tennessee, U.S.A. where the MPAA is the law. Children under the age of 18 are not allowed, by law, to attend a movie with an "R" rating. Compliance is not voluntary and theaters have been fined. Here we allow a private organization to censor public theaters. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to subject children to Pr0n, but I also think that as a parent you should know where your children are, and stop expecting movie theaters and the police department to babysit for you.
Isn't this kind of how the human brain works to identify objects your eye hasn't seen before?
IANABP, I am not a bio-physicist but it seems very much like artificial intelligence to me.
Wikipedia? Yeah I guess so, but I think Bezos has patented the whole idea of the World Wide Web. A bunch of users, with a bunch of content, all linked to each other when some sort of relevant information is available.
Can you say "Prior Art?" We knew you could.
If he is deserving of one he is certainly deserving of the other.
Mod Parent up. This is the only informative post in in this thread. It's the only one that accurately describes the legislation without opining.
One thing's for sure, you know exactly where it is not.
If someone will pay for a Firefox tatoo I will get one. Email me.
j/k, Me and the Pope are HY because we were forced to by Government. My relationship with the BSA exists only because I opened a box that inside said, "Because you opened this box you agreed to march in lock-step on 04/27"
Is this Slashdot: News for nerds or Slashdot: commentary for the mindless.
I know that most paid music services are a waste of money if I want quality music. But why do I need a /. contributer to tell me that Rhapsody is worthless.
This is how the article should have read:
In order to enlist a subscriber base Real's Rhapsody service is now offering 25 free songs for members.
There, no opinion, only news. Or is Slashdot so unpopular that the contributors need to generate news via provocation?
Can someone explain why this post is redundant since this was only about the sixth post to this news report? Maybe someone needs to look up the definition of redundant. I know because I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.