True "plugin/matrix" VR is decades away but even a mmorg in a VR would still be just a mmog unless you could -feel- things like they were real...
Yeah, I thought about VR style tech, and came to much the same conclusions.
Barring some unforseen breakthrough though, I think the next thing is going to be social. I reckon there'd be great interest in a massively distributed online game. Maybe based around parallel worlds and dimension hopping. Every player hasthe option of designing and running their own world where they set the rules, but with hyperlink like portals to other machines and other worlds. All you'd need would be a well designed interface. A low entry barrier design tool is probably essential as well.
Most MMOGs are currenly about where Compuserve was in the dark ages: single server, centralised control. I think the form is destined to wind up like the Web: decentralised, individualistic and anarchic. It's probably going to have to happen via free software, since making the business case would be difficult...
I suppose taking the web analogy further, you could have subscription nodes. So the initial main server would be a pay per play, but with anyone free to link to it. Similarly, like the web, it ought to be possible just to make money by hosting a popular node. Advertising would be one way to do it, although like a lot of sites on the web, it'd be possible to choke a game under the weight of advertising.
Possibly the most interesting approach would be have a virtual bank and exchange market on your node and to tax transactions. Since the trend seems to be toward incerasing interaction between game economies and real life ones, it should be possible for a thriving online economy to generate real world money.
In the 80's, yes. I don't believe they do so today. First off, at the speed hardware is changing it's not worth the effort to microoptimize like that.
Not worth the effort for Championship Rippof 27 perhaps. All the big games seem to require everyone to upgrade their hardware. Cool graphics sell games. If you can't force everyone to upgrade their graphics cars, you're going to have to find considerable tweakage.
In general, it's been my experience as a developer that the more constrained the API, the more work is entailed in porting software from one platform to another. You find you make assumptions working on a platform that you don't realise until you come to port. Then you discover that not only does the new system not work as assumed, but if you're unlucky, that the new system architecture is predicated around opposite assumption.
The tighter the API, the fewer assumptions work and the harder the port.
I don't buy it. Could you give a real example of a program using an undocumented feature, and also explain how it constituted a security problem?
Nope. I don't have a string of references for you; I'm just chatting about games on slashdot. Feel free to ignore me on this topic.
What I was thinking about was the load routine from one game that let Linux be installed, but as you say, that may well have been an overflow exploit.
I do know that OSs are very complex beasts, and that complexity lends itself to insecurity. I also know that MS have a history of coding for integration at the expense of security, but this probably should not be held against them on the Xbox where they have so much more control of the platform.
So yeah, I'm just theorising. On this subject, your opinion is at least as good as mine.
Ah well, that blows my reply out of the water. I was thinking of an alternatve to pay-by-the-hour MMOGs.
Basically, I'd be looking for the emergence of ad-hoc decentralised MOGs. It'd work well for 4X Space games perhaps, where each node could be designed, hosted and administerd by someone different.
Nothing we couldn't do now with a bit of work - the thing holding back free games like this is a lack of quality copylefted artwork and/or artists willing to contribute under free licences.
But if you're looking for the next big thing aftre MMOGs, I have no idea. The networking aspect is going to stay, I imagine. I'd expect to see more fragmetation, specialisation and decentralisation, analagous to the way that online BBs went from BBSs to USENET groups to a myriad phpBB fora to blogs beyond counting.
But that's just based on extrapolation and analogy. Probably safe in the short term, but the next BIG thing will be a pardigm shifter - and I don't think they are predictable by analogy.
All I'm meaning is that in order to push performance to the limits, game developers often use or find undocumented features of the system.
So a game designed for the PC ports fairly easily to the Xbox because it's basically Win2000. But the more they tighten the secuirity model, the more strictly compliant the ported code will need to be. This makes it more work for the porter, and thus raises the threshold before any profits are seen.
The homogeneneity of the Xbox platform helps, of course, but at the end of the day, devs who played fast and loose with guidelins to eke out a few extra FPS are going to be hurt by tighter enforecemnt of coding standards. The question MS have to ask is where what is the minimax between security and profit?
I suppose it could have been a marketing ploy: make the Xbox security circumventable (although not so much so as to prevent plausible deniability) and allow a user base to grow based on piracy ripping off your platform partners. Then once your userbase is established, upgrade to a secure model, knowing that you'll take most of your users with you.
On the other hand, security has been a big thing with MS in the last few years. I'll rephrase that - managing public perception of security has been a big thing for MS lately. I can't imagine that they'd deliberately build in security flaws... well, not as a matter of marketing policy... well, I still don't believe it, anyway.
So that leaves the question as to whether they have learned enough from the original XBox to make XBox2 impossible to hack. I have problems with "impossible" in this context. The harder they lock it down, the harder they make it for partners to port to their platform. Since MS' in house games studios still lack the output to satisfy demand solo, they're somewhat dependant on goodwill to get ports of cool games from other platforms. And where they make those allowances, that's where the next generation of hacks will come.
The online game thing? Well yes, that's unavoidable. On the other hand, I think there's a backlash brewing against these subscription games. I'm old enough to remember the first wave of computer moderated play-by-mail games and they dirty tricks some of them used to extort money from the players once they had invested deeply enough. From what I've read of most of the MMOGs, it's the same sort of scam, and people seem to be becoming aware of that.
I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be a fad. Just like video arcade games largely died off when home computers got good enough graphics to compete, so will the online ones when some free alternative gets good enough.
I thought about that, but the odds are against, even if you sound sincere in your deceptions.
Just imagine - twenty thousand slashdot linux fanatics all striving mightily to outdo one another in praising windows, in the hope that one of them might get a a chance to spit in the great man's eye.
Then MS awards it to some staffer's pretty daughter in law who is known to hate Linux and proceedes to launch an ad campaign fuelled largely by those who hate MS.
And Bill and Steve laugh all the way to the bank!
I suppose it's going to come down to what the courts deem as authorisation and deception. Disclaimer: IANAL, I have not yet RTFL.
I'd expect not for things like Gator, since that would be "authorised" access to your computer, with you authorising it. Spyware that comes bundled with other code could sneak past by havting the authorisation burined in the bundling software licence agreement.
On the bright side, it should make the covert installation of spy/malware from a web page illegal. Or maybe more illegal.
Of course, those who argue that web page access entails an implicit social contract are likely to feel they have been granted all the authority they need.
I'd guess it needs to be tested in the courts before we can tell wether this is going to be a CAN-SPY bill or not.
You might have got the impression I would support software patents because I said that if we got a proper non-obviousness criterium most of the damage would go away. I still believe that is true.
Not quite. We were discussing arguments against the push to have the EU enact into law US style software patent legislation. Bear in mind that software patents are already illegal under EU law, and that there is only the most tenuous legal support for those s/w patents that have been granted. Otherwise, of course, it would hardly be worth the while of all these big US software concerns to lobby so very hard.
Against this backdrop, you seem to propose that our best strategy is to ask for a stricter definition of obvuiousness in the context of software.
The problem I have is that for this argument to make any sense, we have to presuppose that software patents are legal. Otherwise we need no redefinition of obviousness. in a wider context it may be desirable, but not in the context of opposing the EU software patent lobby.
Now suppose you tell an MEP that the main problem with software patents is the question of obviousness. He or she could then be forgiven for thinking "Ah ha! So it's okay to vote for software patents then! All we need is strong wording concerning obviousness and all will be well"
Net result. Software patents get enacted undisputably into law and the EU anti-software patent movement takes a giant step backwards? Can you see a flaw in that scenario?
So, it seems to me that maybe you haven't thought this strategy through. It's a strategy that makes no sense unless you presuppose the legality of software patents. I belive software patents are deeply undesirable for reasons I have set out in previous posts. Any argument that starts out by tacitly accepting these unfounded monopolies is one I must view as deeply unsound.
To address a few of your other points:
Why are digital watches fundamentally different from analog ones? Or are they not since both deal with a "force of nature", time?
Lots of differences, including the fact that one has hands the other does not. As far as patents go, you can patent the watch but not the software. If you can kick it, you can apply for a patent. Kicking the container does not imply kicking the thing contained.
Where do we draw the line? Well, if the device is capable of running more than one instruction set, those instructions are software. If the logic is hardwired into it, you can patent the device, but the logic could be extracted and executed on another platform, so it's still not patentable. It can however be copyrighted.
In an analog computer, a capacitor could be used to integrate a function represented as an analog current. They had a rich library of devices that could represent various mathematical operations. What do you think? Shoud none of that be patentable? Do they not express human ideas?
If you can kick it, you can patent it, but to kick the container is not to kick the contents. The mathematical devices are patentable, the logic they embody is not.
I think that is clear and unambiguous.
More importantly, and as I said before, we don't need to demonstrate why software is different to hardware. Our opponents should have to demonstrate why they should be considered to be the same. Our position should be that software patents are A) bad, B) unnecessary and C) represive and that in view of the preceding we wish the legal distinction between software and hardware strengthened and the loophole that has been used to justify this odious practice closed.
Thanks for an overtly hostile response to my post.
You know, you should back and reread your previous post in this thread. Let me jog your memory
Your phone doesnt take pictures? Thats poor. Your phone doesnt have polyphonic ringtones? Bad. Your phone cant receive picture messages? Not good. What does your phone do? Oh, its built like a rubber brick to survive your clumsiness?!
That sounds pretty hostile to me, both overtly and overly so. You reap what you sow, man.
Its called shareholders and risk investment. Why should a company invest $5million in a new featureless phone...
Yeah, yeah, I understand the economics involved. It's the psychology that baffles me. Someone comes a long and says "this is what I would like" and gets his head chewed off for his pains.
Incidentally, I take it you're don't subscribe to the notion that the mobile market is approaching saturation? I remember two years ago when everyone overstocked in anticipation of a christmas demand that never came, for example. In fact, IIRC that was the trigger that started the drive towards "convergence" in the hope of shifting more mobiles by adding new features.
Now I've started seeing articles suggesting that convergence may not in fact be the holy grail[1].
The fact that noone has fulfilled such a niche market in mobile phones indicates that there just isnt a suitably sized niche market to support such a phone.
That turns out not to be the case [2,3]. According to the BBC:
The pared down phones represents a backlash against the drive to create more and more advanced services.
Looks like someone's filling your niche market. I guess there must be some money to be made there after all...
You do realise that you are no longer the profitable market for mobile phones?
Yes! Shame! Shame on you, GP, for your failure to conform to the most profitable demographic. Surely you know by now that there is no demand for anything you might want?
How dare you express your feeble opinions with out first undertaking extensive market research to ensure your desires are widely held?
Seriously, what is it with companies today? If you aren't part of the maximally profitable marketing group, then you don't exist. Push off, there are paying customers waiting. Does it ever occur to anyone that the reason there's no profit in non camera/tevevision/secret-squirrel-decoder-ring phones is that no one is making the bloody things? Look at all the folks on/. saying "all I want is a phone that makes phone calls". I can think of half a dozen people in real life who've expressed that opinion to me lately as well. But no, apparently there's no demand.
You'd think suppliers would say "thank you for the free marketing feedback" but instead it's "Silence, Fool! Your Prattle Fails To Accord With My Preconceptions. Oz The Great And Terrible Has Spoken!"
4. Boycott the whole corrupt system, wait for the entire rancid industry to collapse under its own weight and encourage the fair and eqitable systems that emerge, after the anti-competetive pressure groups finally dry up and blow away because everyone has stopped buying their dreadful, overpriced, no-choice records.
OK. it may never happen, and probably not like that if it does. But it's worked for me thus far, and I like it much, much, much better than 1 through 3.
I've been trying to work out what it is I actually disagre with in your posts. And then it occurred to me: You're calling on us to support software patents in Europe.
As I see it, you argue that MEPs are never going to go for all that stuff about patents being harmful, unnecessary, and an infringement of long standing personal liberties. Instead, you suggest that the best way to stop software patents is in fact to support them: "Oh all right then, go ahead and enact software patents indisputably into law, just make sure the wording emphasises obviousness". Because, you know, that's worked really well in the states.
If I am mischaracterising your position, do please explain why. As it stands though, your strategy would seem to be either very zen or very foolish, or (how else can I say it?) deeply duplicitous.
There's a lot of fun stuff in your last post, and I'd love to talk about it. However, as long as we remain opposed on this basic point, everything else is sideshow and distraction.
I fully agree. The problem is that people, including the legislators, believe software embodies "working principles", i.e., methods, that need protection not provided by copyright.
But surely that's an easy one to disprove. Microsoft have forged a multi billion dollar company, with all their revenues coming from copyright. There is no need of software patents, else Mighty Microsoft would be a hole-in-the-wall operation and IBM still unmoved from its heyday.
But notice how this argument could be applied to any field.... What matters here is that little Johnny is unlikely to engage in making watches or kitchen appliances,
heh... picture the scene
Do you realise ma'am, the if little Johnny here were to design a jet turbine engine, spend 200 million dollars to set up a production line, and then market it internationally, he could be sued by Boeing and Lockheed and for No Good Reason!?!"
Of course, there is a definite and qualitative difference between software and hardware, so the scenarios are not equivalent. To look for analogues outside of computers, you should consider scenarios like Johnny sticking up the painting he made at school znd then
getting sued because EvilCorp patented the colour green. That's a much better analogy.
It's worth explaining to the parents as well.
For the way to legislate non-obviousness requirements, try: "In order to deem an invention non-obvious in the presence of previously known elements, it shall be given credible reasons to believe that a person having ordinary skill in the art, confronted with the problem at hand, would be unlikely to solve it without access to the novel teachings of the patent application, or teachings derived from them...."
That sounds very impressive. But consider: any patent clerk in issuing a patent has to consider the credibility of the reasons given; what constitutes ordinary skill, and the likelihood of solving the problem. (My emphasis, obviously).
The current EU law makes software absolutely non-patentable, apart from two words - "as such". Your wording allows three avenues of attack on the principle.
I agree that patents should not be granted where the only novel element lies in the context. But that's not enough. We can expect any redefinition of obviousnes will be circumvented in time. We need software patents outlawed, absolutely, without exception. nothing else will do.
What has happened in the USA is that strong groups have exploited the inattention and indifference of the society at large, partly hidden by the (percieved) complexity of the particular field
Very well, I'll take your point on that one. Let us by all means seek a wider understanding of the issues involved. We can do that as well. But the immediate concern is that software patents need to be outlawed. They don't work, they're bad, and they try and tell you what you're allowed to think about. Worse still, they're going to make little Johnny cry. Software patents are bad, bad, bad.
We do not need to buy these ideas. We already own them.
If we are talking about an idea that is truly non-obvious, it does not help to formally own it. We could need to convince the bright-heads to publish it.
Is that the old "without due recompense, researchers will not share their ideas with the world" argument? If so, it doesn't apply to software patents, since the copyright mechanism is more than adequate for recompense.
And notwithstanding: All Ideas Belong To Everyone.
We licence ideas back to their creators as a reward for their efforts, and not vice versa. This is an important principle. We would do well to keep it in mind.
While I do think that it is far better for society to treat software exactly the same way as mathematics, I think that at this time it is far the safest way forward to focus much more on those aspects of the patent issues that are really easy for the general public to grasp and relate to.
So far as I can see, the majority of the public don't care less one way or another about software patents. As such, I think our efforts would be better focussed upon the legislators, at least in the short term.
But if you want to explain it to the public in ways they can understand, tell them how little Johnny, if he shares that computer program he wrote and of which he is so proud, is going to get sued if he shares it with his friends. Tell them how if writes something useful and publishes it on the internet, someone is going to sue his ass off in case he damages their profits. That's an argument a parent can understand.
I think that countering obvious patents of all fields, for instance patents in bio-chemistry that are run-of-the-mill applications of previously known methods in new areas, will help society more because it will do more to stem the flood of harmfull patents.
Worthwhile endavour as that is, how will you find an objective test for this very abstract condition? Without one, all that is likely to result is some wooly-worded placebo bill that will get ripped to shreds by the patent lawyers the first time it goes to court.
Software patents are absolutely different. Since the current debate concerns software patents, we are best serving by focussing on the strongest arguments against software patentability. In my view this is that expressions of ideas are not subject to patent, and the computer programs are expressions of ideas. That's a proposal that could be enacted in law and actually make a difference.
Still I think it helps winning credibility by winning a battle that is easier to win, over the much more easily determinable question of obviousness.
I'm a little confused here. In an earlier post you referred to
The extreme difficulty in coming up with a working definition of "obvious" or "common sense"
Not meaning to split hairs, but I'm not clear on how you intend "easily determinable" to be interpeted here.
Incidentally, I'm not arguing against patents in the general case. I'm just talking about software patents. Software is absolutely different to hardware. Software patents are unnecessary for their supposed purpose, and cause demonstrable harm to the industry they purport to help. Furthermore, software patents are creative works and as such not patentable. No ifs, buts, or as suches.
I don't think Libertarians belive harrasment should be legal.
That probably depends upon the libertarian. In the context of the libertarian there seem to be three basic types.
Type one are the classic libertarians, who are pro individial civic rights. They tend to oppose censorship and government snooping, and to promote open standards. Generally they have a sense of proportion. They either think harassment should be illegal, or failing that, that they should have a right to shoot you if you harass them.
Type two are the Reganite/Thacherite libertarians, who tend to believe that large corporations have the right to do whatever they damn well please, and that the rest of us have the right to like it. Anyone who disagrees with this gets called a "communist". They think that harrassment should be legal, as long as it's them doing it.
Type three libertarians are your basic anarchists, who belive that they have they right to host kiddie pr0n, own your machine, and how are you going to stop them, l@m3r?
The sad thing is that although type one seems to have all the good ideas, type twos have all the funding and type threes get all the publicity. Any discussion of why this might be will require tin foil helmets/.
I am afraid that the general public, and the MEPs as well, do presuppose this.
And yet as you argued earlier, (presuming that MEPs are as ignorant and confused as you paint them, a meme we'd be foolish to adopt)
the task before us is one of education. The ignorance of a particular group has no bearing upon the srength of our argument. As for the public, I would say they the numbers that have turned out in anti software patent demos in Europe testify to the fact that the public are neither so monolithic nor so naive as you suggest. However, it is the MEPs that will actually decide this issue, so perhaps we'd be better considering the descision makers, rather than confusing the issue with tangenital concerns.
Those are the ideas that the society wants to buy from the inventors at an offered price of granting them a time-limited monopoly.
Speaking of presuppositions, we do not need to buy these ideas. We already own them. Ideas are not property. We grant a limited control over ideas to the originator as a reward for his or her efforts, but the ideas always belong to everyone.
Once more for emphasis: Ideas. Belong. To. Everyone.
We should explain that many of the so-called novel ideas that today receive patents are novel only because they were not needed before. The form of this time-limited indulgence is best expressed by copyright and patents (another persupposition) are not required to make this happen.
Instead, we should explain that they are not to receive patents because the entire principle of softare patents is bad. That they offer no benefit to society and bring serious drawbacks.
Sir, you seem to be arguing that we accept unreservedly those arguments that best support the pro-patent lobby, while advising us to adopt some weak-as-dishwater argument based upon differences as a matter of degree. I cannot help but regard this regard this as ill advised in the extreme.
We have strong arguments of our own, and we would be foolish to abandon them, just as we would be foolish allow the debate to be conducted upon the metaphorical ground of our opponents choosing.
We pretend that software is absolutely different, but all we can show are fairly relative differences.
Are we pretending? All differences are relative if you choose your frame of reference caefully enough. Black and white are only relative if you consider them in terms of incoming luminosity.
For that matter, do we need to pretend? The patent lawyers have been asking the question "why is software different?" since the start of this debate. However, the question is loaded. It presupposes that software is in fact the same as hardware, and then challenges us to find reasons why it isn't.
I think we should challenge that presupposition. Show us why software should be lumped into the same category as hardware. People seem to be assuming that because software and hardware both end in "-ware" they are related above and beyond the simple fact that both can be sold. That's hardly a compelling arguemnt.
Neither ideas nor the expression of ideas should be patentable. Computer programs, I would maintain are expressions of ideas, in exactly the same way as books and films and music.
In another branch of this thread, Christian Engstrom posted a
link which presents this argument better than I can, so I'll just say that by any sane set of criteria, as well as the current law, software should be considered in the sam category as other creative works.
Doing so would prevent neither individuals nor coders from profiting from their labours in this field - copyright law has allowed this and the might of microsoft stands as testament to effectivness in this role. There is no need for software patents to reward individuals.
On the other hand, software patents can be, and are being used in an anti-competetive manner.
This alone should win the argument. There is no need for software patents, and furthermore they are actively harmful, QED
Which brings me to the best counterargument to the "tell me why software is different" ploy. Software is different precisely because allowing software patents is demonstrably harmful to the competetiveness of the IT industry, and to the civil liberties of countless software enthusiasts, whilst at the same time being unnecessary to reward innovation in the field. And one of the functions of the law is to draw such distinctions for the benefit of the common good.
So challenge the assumption that software and hardware are in some manner similar -- it's very hard to defend if you get beyond the common suffix. Maintain that software must be treated as are other creative works, show that patents are both unnecessary and undesirable, and point out that the role of lawmakers is to draw such distinctions should they be required, based upon the need and benefit for the community.
Do I? You could mechanically parse all sorts of ambiguities if you incorporate a random number generator into the parser. Mechanism does not necessarily bestow consistency.
Contraiwise, formalism does.
Alas, any attempt at formal parsing will fail unless the gammar is unambiguous. So perhaps I should have said, "isn't it a shame the language of law isn't formally specified". If we can write programming langaues that lack any element of ambiguity then we should it not be possible to construct a legal language, similarly unambiguous?
I do appreciate that this is what "the law" is supposed to be. However, it seems that the current euro patent mess derives from an inconsistent weight plaed upon two words, "as such", in the law. So, all in all, they seem to be making a right pigs ear of it.
I thought the ban was against trade with Cuba? This would be more of the nature of a gift.
Moreover, they'd not be giving anything to anyone. They'd just be releasing some code with a licence for others to use it if they so desired.
No net benefit for Cuba, so no reason it should be covered by embargo.
And in the event that the entire legal establishment loses their collective marbles overnight or gets suddenly borged by bill gates - the patches could always be removed and Linux distribution proceed as normal.
Think about it. How ridiculous does it sound. Or not?
Stop the bullshit. Software should not be patentable, not pure software, not embedded software, NO software.
First, it is simply impossible to draw the line between a pure software patent and an embedded one, and between an embedded one and a pure hardware patent.
Interesting. Not least because the GP was specifically asking for such a line not to be drawn. Viewed in that light, your rebuttal doesn't carry much force, does it? Between software and hardware, certainly. But that one is easy to draw - hardware is the bit you can kick.
Second, in this view, the RSA algorithm is not patentable
And the reason that it should be patentable is... what exactly? There is lots of brilliant mathematical work that can't be patented. There are good reasons for that. Once you start handing out state monopolies on ideas, people will start trying to control how and when they may be discussed and applied. This runs contrary to the stated intent of patent law which is to encourage the production of new ideas. I will grant that a patent on a bi-directional printer seems a little obvious, but that doesn't make software patents any more desirable.
The problem isn't software patents vs. hardware patents, the problem is bad patents vs. good patents.
Change that to read "the problem isn't only software patents..." and I might agree with you.
The law should not be modified to forbid a certain type of patents
That's your opinion, and you are of course entitled to hold. Well so long as no one else patents it, anyway. Once ideas such as algorithms are patented, how long before someone looks to push the envelope and extend it to other ideas.
However, to address your point, I have my doubts about simply raising the obviousness bar. The current requirement it that a patent be "innovative" and "non-obvious". That's not "quite innovative" and "fairly non-obvious" you'll notice. These are absolutes. To seek to change the law in that direction would be like trying to make it "more impossibler" to get bad patents - it would both miss the point, and have no discernable effect.
It's a pity legal documents don't need to be parsed - that'd get the ambiguity out of them
under no circumstances whatsoever shall patents be granted upon software, algorithms, business methods, or mathematical {expressions, techniques, constructs, concepts}
Slashdot Mirror
Barring some unforseen breakthrough though, I think the next thing is going to be social. I reckon there'd be great interest in a massively distributed online game. Maybe based around parallel worlds and dimension hopping. Every player hasthe option of designing and running their own world where they set the rules, but with hyperlink like portals to other machines and other worlds. All you'd need would be a well designed interface. A low entry barrier design tool is probably essential as well.
Most MMOGs are currenly about where Compuserve was in the dark ages: single server, centralised control. I think the form is destined to wind up like the Web: decentralised, individualistic and anarchic. It's probably going to have to happen via free software, since making the business case would be difficult...
I suppose taking the web analogy further, you could have subscription nodes. So the initial main server would be a pay per play, but with anyone free to link to it. Similarly, like the web, it ought to be possible just to make money by hosting a popular node. Advertising would be one way to do it, although like a lot of sites on the web, it'd be possible to choke a game under the weight of advertising.
Possibly the most interesting approach would be have a virtual bank and exchange market on your node and to tax transactions. Since the trend seems to be toward incerasing interaction between game economies and real life ones, it should be possible for a thriving online economy to generate real world money.
Just a few musings on the subject
Not worth the effort for Championship Rippof 27 perhaps. All the big games seem to require everyone to upgrade their hardware. Cool graphics sell games. If you can't force everyone to upgrade their graphics cars, you're going to have to find considerable tweakage.
In general, it's been my experience as a developer that the more constrained the API, the more work is entailed in porting software from one platform to another. You find you make assumptions working on a platform that you don't realise until you come to port. Then you discover that not only does the new system not work as assumed, but if you're unlucky, that the new system architecture is predicated around opposite assumption. The tighter the API, the fewer assumptions work and the harder the port.
I don't buy it. Could you give a real example of a program using an undocumented feature, and also explain how it constituted a security problem?
Nope. I don't have a string of references for you; I'm just chatting about games on slashdot. Feel free to ignore me on this topic.
What I was thinking about was the load routine from one game that let Linux be installed, but as you say, that may well have been an overflow exploit.
I do know that OSs are very complex beasts, and that complexity lends itself to insecurity. I also know that MS have a history of coding for integration at the expense of security, but this probably should not be held against them on the Xbox where they have so much more control of the platform.
So yeah, I'm just theorising. On this subject, your opinion is at least as good as mine.
Basically, I'd be looking for the emergence of ad-hoc decentralised MOGs. It'd work well for 4X Space games perhaps, where each node could be designed, hosted and administerd by someone different.
Nothing we couldn't do now with a bit of work - the thing holding back free games like this is a lack of quality copylefted artwork and/or artists willing to contribute under free licences.
But if you're looking for the next big thing aftre MMOGs, I have no idea. The networking aspect is going to stay, I imagine. I'd expect to see more fragmetation, specialisation and decentralisation, analagous to the way that online BBs went from BBSs to USENET groups to a myriad phpBB fora to blogs beyond counting.
But that's just based on extrapolation and analogy. Probably safe in the short term, but the next BIG thing will be a pardigm shifter - and I don't think they are predictable by analogy.
So a game designed for the PC ports fairly easily to the Xbox because it's basically Win2000. But the more they tighten the secuirity model, the more strictly compliant the ported code will need to be. This makes it more work for the porter, and thus raises the threshold before any profits are seen.
The homogeneneity of the Xbox platform helps, of course, but at the end of the day, devs who played fast and loose with guidelins to eke out a few extra FPS are going to be hurt by tighter enforecemnt of coding standards. The question MS have to ask is where what is the minimax between security and profit?
On the other hand, security has been a big thing with MS in the last few years. I'll rephrase that - managing public perception of security has been a big thing for MS lately. I can't imagine that they'd deliberately build in security flaws... well, not as a matter of marketing policy... well, I still don't believe it, anyway.
So that leaves the question as to whether they have learned enough from the original XBox to make XBox2 impossible to hack. I have problems with "impossible" in this context. The harder they lock it down, the harder they make it for partners to port to their platform. Since MS' in house games studios still lack the output to satisfy demand solo, they're somewhat dependant on goodwill to get ports of cool games from other platforms. And where they make those allowances, that's where the next generation of hacks will come.
The online game thing? Well yes, that's unavoidable. On the other hand, I think there's a backlash brewing against these subscription games. I'm old enough to remember the first wave of computer moderated play-by-mail games and they dirty tricks some of them used to extort money from the players once they had invested deeply enough. From what I've read of most of the MMOGs, it's the same sort of scam, and people seem to be becoming aware of that.
I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be a fad. Just like video arcade games largely died off when home computers got good enough graphics to compete, so will the online ones when some free alternative gets good enough.
Just imagine - twenty thousand slashdot linux fanatics all striving mightily to outdo one another in praising windows, in the hope that one of them might get a a chance to spit in the great man's eye.
Then MS awards it to some staffer's pretty daughter in law who is known to hate Linux and proceedes to launch an ad campaign fuelled largely by those who hate MS. And Bill and Steve laugh all the way to the bank!
Nope, it's just not worth it.
I'd expect not for things like Gator, since that would be "authorised" access to your computer, with you authorising it. Spyware that comes bundled with other code could sneak past by havting the authorisation burined in the bundling software licence agreement.
On the bright side, it should make the covert installation of spy/malware from a web page illegal. Or maybe more illegal. Of course, those who argue that web page access entails an implicit social contract are likely to feel they have been granted all the authority they need.
I'd guess it needs to be tested in the courts before we can tell wether this is going to be a CAN-SPY bill or not.
Not quite. We were discussing arguments against the push to have the EU enact into law US style software patent legislation. Bear in mind that software patents are already illegal under EU law, and that there is only the most tenuous legal support for those s/w patents that have been granted. Otherwise, of course, it would hardly be worth the while of all these big US software concerns to lobby so very hard.
Against this backdrop, you seem to propose that our best strategy is to ask for a stricter definition of obvuiousness in the context of software.
The problem I have is that for this argument to make any sense, we have to presuppose that software patents are legal. Otherwise we need no redefinition of obviousness. in a wider context it may be desirable, but not in the context of opposing the EU software patent lobby.
Now suppose you tell an MEP that the main problem with software patents is the question of obviousness. He or she could then be forgiven for thinking "Ah ha! So it's okay to vote for software patents then! All we need is strong wording concerning obviousness and all will be well"
Net result. Software patents get enacted undisputably into law and the EU anti-software patent movement takes a giant step backwards? Can you see a flaw in that scenario?
So, it seems to me that maybe you haven't thought this strategy through. It's a strategy that makes no sense unless you presuppose the legality of software patents. I belive software patents are deeply undesirable for reasons I have set out in previous posts. Any argument that starts out by tacitly accepting these unfounded monopolies is one I must view as deeply unsound.
To address a few of your other points:
Lots of differences, including the fact that one has hands the other does not. As far as patents go, you can patent the watch but not the software. If you can kick it, you can apply for a patent. Kicking the container does not imply kicking the thing contained.
Where do we draw the line? Well, if the device is capable of running more than one instruction set, those instructions are software. If the logic is hardwired into it, you can patent the device, but the logic could be extracted and executed on another platform, so it's still not patentable. It can however be copyrighted.
If you can kick it, you can patent it, but to kick the container is not to kick the contents. The mathematical devices are patentable, the logic they embody is not.
I think that is clear and unambiguous.
More importantly, and as I said before, we don't need to demonstrate why software is different to hardware. Our opponents should have to demonstrate why they should be considered to be the same. Our position should be that software patents are A) bad, B) unnecessary and C) represive and that in view of the preceding we wish the legal distinction between software and hardware strengthened and the loophole that has been used to justify this odious practice closed.
That sounds pretty hostile to me, both overtly and overly so. You reap what you sow, man.
Yeah, yeah, I understand the economics involved. It's the psychology that baffles me. Someone comes a long and says "this is what I would like" and gets his head chewed off for his pains.
Incidentally, I take it you're don't subscribe to the notion that the mobile market is approaching saturation? I remember two years ago when everyone overstocked in anticipation of a christmas demand that never came, for example. In fact, IIRC that was the trigger that started the drive towards "convergence" in the hope of shifting more mobiles by adding new features.
Now I've started seeing articles suggesting that convergence may not in fact be the holy grail[1].
That turns out not to be the case [2,3]. According to the BBC:
Looks like someone's filling your niche market. I guess there must be some money to be made there after all...
[1]http://www.mobilepipeline.com/56900571/ 05/21/1726216&tid=215&tid=137 s tm
[2]http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05
[3]http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4566809.
Yes! Shame! Shame on you, GP, for your failure to conform to the most profitable demographic. Surely you know by now that there is no demand for anything you might want? How dare you express your feeble opinions with out first undertaking extensive market research to ensure your desires are widely held?
Seriously, what is it with companies today? If you aren't part of the maximally profitable marketing group, then you don't exist. Push off, there are paying customers waiting. Does it ever occur to anyone that the reason there's no profit in non camera/tevevision/secret-squirrel-decoder-ring phones is that no one is making the bloody things? Look at all the folks on /. saying "all I want is a phone that makes phone calls". I can think of half a dozen people in real life who've expressed that opinion to me lately as well. But no, apparently there's no demand.
You'd think suppliers would say "thank you for the free marketing feedback" but instead it's "Silence, Fool! Your Prattle Fails To Accord With My Preconceptions. Oz The Great And Terrible Has Spoken!"
OK. it may never happen, and probably not like that if it does. But it's worked for me thus far, and I like it much, much, much better than 1 through 3.
Like you say, we have options.
As I see it, you argue that MEPs are never going to go for all that stuff about patents being harmful, unnecessary, and an infringement of long standing personal liberties. Instead, you suggest that the best way to stop software patents is in fact to support them: "Oh all right then, go ahead and enact software patents indisputably into law, just make sure the wording emphasises obviousness". Because, you know, that's worked really well in the states.
If I am mischaracterising your position, do please explain why. As it stands though, your strategy would seem to be either very zen or very foolish, or (how else can I say it?) deeply duplicitous.
There's a lot of fun stuff in your last post, and I'd love to talk about it. However, as long as we remain opposed on this basic point, everything else is sideshow and distraction.
I think maybe it needs a bigger sample before it can give reliable answers :)
I was thinking something along the lines of "we agressively promote the interests of people who sell stuff".
Granted, it doesn't suggest anything about "for money", but such a nice publication has to be very dependant on ad revenue.
Of course, there is a definite and qualitative difference between software and hardware, so the scenarios are not equivalent. To look for analogues outside of computers, you should consider scenarios like Johnny sticking up the painting he made at school znd then getting sued because EvilCorp patented the colour green. That's a much better analogy.
It's worth explaining to the parents as well.
That sounds very impressive. But consider: any patent clerk in issuing a patent has to consider the credibility of the reasons given; what constitutes ordinary skill, and the likelihood of solving the problem. (My emphasis, obviously).
The current EU law makes software absolutely non-patentable, apart from two words - "as such". Your wording allows three avenues of attack on the principle.
I agree that patents should not be granted where the only novel element lies in the context. But that's not enough. We can expect any redefinition of obviousnes will be circumvented in time. We need software patents outlawed, absolutely, without exception. nothing else will do.
Very well, I'll take your point on that one. Let us by all means seek a wider understanding of the issues involved. We can do that as well. But the immediate concern is that software patents need to be outlawed. They don't work, they're bad, and they try and tell you what you're allowed to think about. Worse still, they're going to make little Johnny cry. Software patents are bad, bad, bad.And notwithstanding: All Ideas Belong To Everyone. We licence ideas back to their creators as a reward for their efforts, and not vice versa. This is an important principle. We would do well to keep it in mind.
So far as I can see, the majority of the public don't care less one way or another about software patents. As such, I think our efforts would be better focussed upon the legislators, at least in the short term.But if you want to explain it to the public in ways they can understand, tell them how little Johnny, if he shares that computer program he wrote and of which he is so proud, is going to get sued if he shares it with his friends. Tell them how if writes something useful and publishes it on the internet, someone is going to sue his ass off in case he damages their profits. That's an argument a parent can understand.
Worthwhile endavour as that is, how will you find an objective test for this very abstract condition? Without one, all that is likely to result is some wooly-worded placebo bill that will get ripped to shreds by the patent lawyers the first time it goes to court.Software patents are absolutely different. Since the current debate concerns software patents, we are best serving by focussing on the strongest arguments against software patentability. In my view this is that expressions of ideas are not subject to patent, and the computer programs are expressions of ideas. That's a proposal that could be enacted in law and actually make a difference.
I'm a little confused here. In an earlier post you referred to Not meaning to split hairs, but I'm not clear on how you intend "easily determinable" to be interpeted here.Incidentally, I'm not arguing against patents in the general case. I'm just talking about software patents. Software is absolutely different to hardware. Software patents are unnecessary for their supposed purpose, and cause demonstrable harm to the industry they purport to help. Furthermore, software patents are creative works and as such not patentable. No ifs, buts, or as suches.
That's the line we should be pursuing.
That probably depends upon the libertarian. In the context of the libertarian there seem to be three basic types.
Type one are the classic libertarians, who are pro individial civic rights. They tend to oppose censorship and government snooping, and to promote open standards. Generally they have a sense of proportion. They either think harassment should be illegal, or failing that, that they should have a right to shoot you if you harass them.
Type two are the Reganite/Thacherite libertarians, who tend to believe that large corporations have the right to do whatever they damn well please, and that the rest of us have the right to like it. Anyone who disagrees with this gets called a "communist". They think that harrassment should be legal, as long as it's them doing it.
Type three libertarians are your basic anarchists, who belive that they have they right to host kiddie pr0n, own your machine, and how are you going to stop them, l@m3r?
The sad thing is that although type one seems to have all the good ideas, type twos have all the funding and type threes get all the publicity. Any discussion of why this might be will require tin foil helmets/.
It was indeed. I even thought it was funny. I guess that didn't come across.
Oh, wait... yes you can, can't you?
Once more for emphasis: Ideas. Belong. To. Everyone.
Instead, we should explain that they are not to receive patents because the entire principle of softare patents is bad. That they offer no benefit to society and bring serious drawbacks.Sir, you seem to be arguing that we accept unreservedly those arguments that best support the pro-patent lobby, while advising us to adopt some weak-as-dishwater argument based upon differences as a matter of degree. I cannot help but regard this regard this as ill advised in the extreme.
We have strong arguments of our own, and we would be foolish to abandon them, just as we would be foolish allow the debate to be conducted upon the metaphorical ground of our opponents choosing.
For that matter, do we need to pretend? The patent lawyers have been asking the question "why is software different?" since the start of this debate. However, the question is loaded. It presupposes that software is in fact the same as hardware, and then challenges us to find reasons why it isn't.
I think we should challenge that presupposition. Show us why software should be lumped into the same category as hardware. People seem to be assuming that because software and hardware both end in "-ware" they are related above and beyond the simple fact that both can be sold. That's hardly a compelling arguemnt.
Neither ideas nor the expression of ideas should be patentable. Computer programs, I would maintain are expressions of ideas, in exactly the same way as books and films and music. In another branch of this thread, Christian Engstrom posted a link which presents this argument better than I can, so I'll just say that by any sane set of criteria, as well as the current law, software should be considered in the sam category as other creative works.
Doing so would prevent neither individuals nor coders from profiting from their labours in this field - copyright law has allowed this and the might of microsoft stands as testament to effectivness in this role. There is no need for software patents to reward individuals.
On the other hand, software patents can be, and are being used in an anti-competetive manner. This alone should win the argument. There is no need for software patents, and furthermore they are actively harmful, QED
Which brings me to the best counterargument to the "tell me why software is different" ploy. Software is different precisely because allowing software patents is demonstrably harmful to the competetiveness of the IT industry, and to the civil liberties of countless software enthusiasts, whilst at the same time being unnecessary to reward innovation in the field. And one of the functions of the law is to draw such distinctions for the benefit of the common good.
So challenge the assumption that software and hardware are in some manner similar -- it's very hard to defend if you get beyond the common suffix. Maintain that software must be treated as are other creative works, show that patents are both unnecessary and undesirable, and point out that the role of lawmakers is to draw such distinctions should they be required, based upon the need and benefit for the community.
That seems clear enough.
Do I? You could mechanically parse all sorts of ambiguities if you incorporate a random number generator into the parser. Mechanism does not necessarily bestow consistency.
Contraiwise, formalism does. Alas, any attempt at formal parsing will fail unless the gammar is unambiguous. So perhaps I should have said, "isn't it a shame the language of law isn't formally specified". If we can write programming langaues that lack any element of ambiguity then we should it not be possible to construct a legal language, similarly unambiguous?
I do appreciate that this is what "the law" is supposed to be. However, it seems that the current euro patent mess derives from an inconsistent weight plaed upon two words, "as such", in the law. So, all in all, they seem to be making a right pigs ear of it.
Just my two hap'orth.
Moreover, they'd not be giving anything to anyone. They'd just be releasing some code with a licence for others to use it if they so desired.
No net benefit for Cuba, so no reason it should be covered by embargo.
And in the event that the entire legal establishment loses their collective marbles overnight or gets suddenly borged by bill gates - the patches could always be removed and Linux distribution proceed as normal.
Think about it. How ridiculous does it sound. Or not?
I'm tending toward "ridiculous" myself
The problem isn't software patents vs. hardware patents, the problem is bad patents vs. good patents.
Change that to read "the problem isn't only software patents..." and I might agree with you.
That's your opinion, and you are of course entitled to hold. Well so long as no one else patents it, anyway. Once ideas such as algorithms are patented, how long before someone looks to push the envelope and extend it to other ideas.However, to address your point, I have my doubts about simply raising the obviousness bar. The current requirement it that a patent be "innovative" and "non-obvious". That's not "quite innovative" and "fairly non-obvious" you'll notice. These are absolutes. To seek to change the law in that direction would be like trying to make it "more impossibler" to get bad patents - it would both miss the point, and have no discernable effect.
It's a pity legal documents don't need to be parsed - that'd get the ambiguity out of them
under no circumstances whatsoever shall patents be granted upon software, algorithms, business methods, or mathematical {expressions, techniques, constructs, concepts}