"OK, I'm going to stomp your dishonest ideas once and for all.:-)"
Good -- start right off with an ad hominem attack. Shows scientific thought. That two people disagree does *NOT* mean one is lying, ok?
The original poster is correct, every scientist should accept the possibility that their favorite theories may be refined or overturned. For some theories, the likelihood is small as you say, but it needs to be considered possible if science is to be more than dogma with a high probability of truth. Argue the evidence for evolution as you did quite well with that quote about speciation, but don't make generalizations about the reliability of scientific theory.
"There's a great deal of evidence that the Christian god is fabricated out of whole cloth. Similar evidence exists for every other god described in any human culture. By induction, I can extend that evidence to a tentative statement "There is no god." "
The existence of a god or gods is not a scientific question, unless you can frame it as a hypothesis and test it. Some of the beliefs of some religions may be disputable in this manner. To conclude that bears on the existence of gods is not logically sound. All existing religions could be completely wrong and their could still exist a god. I certainly haven't seen any papers on the subject of gods from any scientific journals.
Like you, I don't happen to think it likely there are gods most religions would recognize as such, but I'd rather not hear people incorrectly claiming that science "disproves the existence of God". Its not true, and besides it gets the rabid creationists even more fired up. The moderate Christian you replied to is not the enemy.
The universe is likely a stranger place than you, or I, or current science can imagine. Try not to assume you know the answers -- science doesn't.
RedHat performs the *service* of organizing the software and placing it on a CD, which they sell. Their brandname depends on the right stuff being in the right place on the CD.
I'd rather have my news straight thanks. Thats why I like slashdot and use -1 filtering. I prefer deciding for myself what I think is worth reading or true.
I guess I've been used to the fact that printed news isn't truth for about 30 years now, so it hardly surprises me when breaking news is distorted or wrong. If done intentionally that's something to worry about. If you think unverified reporting doesn't happen in the mainstream press, just read the first article on the hotmail hole from Reuters -- it's largely just Microsoft PR passed along as news. If you never read another story you wouldn't understand what really happened. If you were reading slashdot though, you already knew from the comments, by the time that "verified" story hit.
People slandering RedHat on the basis of rumors when they can't defend themselves is somewhat regrettable, true. But I don't blame slashdot, I blame those with the itchy trigger fingers. Did any of the anti-RedHat rants convince you of their evil? Didn't me.
Agreed, it was an awfully stupid thing to say. But you should be glad someone *did* get the enabling legislation passed, because geeks would have had a rather rough time with that part.
A bit of irony hearing the free speech of corporations defended with such vigor.
I'm sure there are many worthy corporations, especially among the non-profits. Legally they are persons, so their rights are the same as ours.
I wish I could say I viewed them as allies in the fight for free speech. Unfortunately, too many corporations have workplace environments that lack rather badly in privacy and ability to express opinions without fear of retaliation. I didn't see too many huge corporations funding ads against the CDA, did you? Too many are also very happy to hop on any "self-censorship" bandwagon rather than lobby against the threatened laws. When the insurance industry wants drug testing, they salute and implement -- no discussion by employees required.
I'm not for taking freedom of speech away from anyone or any group, but corporations just aren't at the top of my list either as victims of censorship, or proponents of free speech.
On this thirtieth birthday of the Internet, it might behoove us to think about whether corporations are helping to make the internet what we want it to be or not. Does it even matter what we think anymore?
ISPs billing by connection time would also be a threat to the thin client revenue model. Billing by bandwidth consumed wouldn't affect a web-editor as much.
If Microsoft gets a large share of the ISP market they could attempt to make web services less attractive to their customers by choosing billing means that discouraged them, yet still providing a discount over other flat rate services for casual web use.
GTI as a game publisher, like a music publisher or book publisher, is part of a market that maintains tight control of distribution, and is generally able to pay fairly low royalties to the authors they distribute for. Nearly all companies in these markets are very vocal against piracy.
Let me understand -- you are saying that causing 20K of credit card damage, plus the inconvenience of correcting credit histories, is a worse crime than a child or person being physically and mentally assulted? Because more people are affected? I doubt many would agree with you.
Even if that rather dubious judgement is accepted, lets punish according to the damage done, rather than the worst case damage possible. If someone falls asleep at the wheel and safely drifts to rest at the side of the road do we threaten them with manslaughter penalties because they *could* have killed someone?
If someone were to crack and break critical life support software and people died, I'd be all for the maximum penalty. But to say that someone who caused a government web site to cease functioning for a few hours is worse than a molester or rapist is ridiculous, until you specifically list the severe damage they *actually* caused.
I still remember the people who took advantage of a GTI offer to pre-register DOOM II (which they distributed.) Those lucky enough to fall for this got their copy 3-5 days after it hit the shelves in stores, and usually for a higher price. I knew then we weren't dealing with rocket scientists here.
*Every* new and upcoming "thing" has it's crowd of people who associate themselves with it for their own amusement or identity crutch and make loud rude noises. If a BSD were the one making the headlines they would have exactly the same problem with this that Linux does now.
Please, before we see slams against the "Linux community" could we at least define who we're talking about? The clueless advocates? The slashdot readership? Everyone who has booted Linux? Those who actually contribute to Linux development?
The Linux community, however you define it, is under a lot of pressure right now. Microsoft has them on the radar screen, a lot of controversy surrounds the increasing commercialization, and a lot of development work needs to be completed to really bring the OS to the desktop and enterprise. When you tug on someone's sleeve and say "Please try BSD -- its better!" you probably *will* get your head bit off. Maybe suggesting some good ideas like the ports collection that the BSDs have implemented that Linux might look at would be more helpful.
Suppose for a moment that BSD *is* better. As you know, "good enough" often wins over "better" due to extraneous market forces or historical accident. Linux is the vanguard of a move by Unix-like OSen to recapture a workable market share across all aspects of computing. Arguing we should switch the focus to BSD is very bad strategy just now. I'm sure Gates is ROTFL over the Linux/BSD holy wars. He's also taking notes.
It's nice to see the Puritan ethic still alive and well:). How 'bout those people working 12 hours and getting paid for 8? They supposed to concentrate on work and nothing but work all 12 hours? Thanks to unions most folks have lunch and coffee breaks now, at least.
Separate the moral issue from the rest. If someone isn't producing, warn them, then fire them. Don't worry about analyzing why unless the employee asks for help. Similarly for drugs, test functionality, not blood or urine.
The liability issue is one I can't see an easy solution for. I think it arises from our basically broken culture -- sexual harassment seems to be a combination of asshole behavior with extreme sensitivity. When a company engages in a culture of sexual favors for promotion they deserve being sued. I can't see their liability when an employee misbehaves unless they refuse to discipline them, or if repeated, fire them.
Possession of illegal information being a crime (say what!?), the normal standards should apply. Presumption of innocence, requirements for probable cause for search. Corporate workplaces define the 'laws' we live most intimately with, what good are general civil rights if we surrender our civil rights there? Can't you imagine a future where corporations provide very nice housing for their employees and monitor everyone's internet connection 24/7? Don't worry, you'll still be able to choose *which* corporation monitors you!
If their workflow is "fscking everything else up" why don't you fire them for that? Isn't that enough?
It seems to me that scanning email for porn is less effective than firing those that aren't doing their job for whatever reason.
Waiting 'til someone gets spammed with porn then firing them is too easy to abuse.
The liability of the company for contraband and sexual harassment is another matter. The company should define *exactly* what they wish to ban in that case -- it shouldn't be up to a sysadmin to make decisions about liability or morality -- they haven't been trained in those fields.
When a programmer screws up and creates a buffer overflow do you object to calling the discovery of the problem hacking or cracking?
Discovery of the URL that allowed entry was a crack.
After it was published, using it wasn't difficult enough to deserve the name "cracking". Even script kiddies would disavow it I'm sure. I'd personally judge Microsoft's statements about the "advanced web programming knowledge" required to access mail accounts a plain lie to falsely reassure customers.
Having a rogue script active on a machine can be called a mistake, not necessarily negligence. I don't know if they tested the service enough to escape negligence there. However, leaving customers vulnerable for 10 hours after the exploit was widely known is awfully hard to justify, and I think it can be fairly easily documented.
What part of "anyone's hotmail can be read or sent by anyone on the web" didn't you understand Mr. Gates?":)
I think you have a valid point that most people expect their reading to be subject to critical review prior to purchasing it. I don't understand what will happen when someone downloads a $20 work from ematter and then finds it's just a one page piece of junk. Refund? Never use the service again?
I've also noticed that there has been severe pressure on small independent bookstores -- they are going out of business, leaving me with less choice. Many new SF authors are forced to find an established author to collaborate with to get noticed and "break in". Critical review today is too influenced by "sure fire" returns -- already known author or formulaic work. To some extent the publishing industry is partially responsible for these trends, and I welcome any competition for them for that reason.
Like slashdot, you'll mostly want to read the stuff that gets moderated/reviewed way up. This is another way for new authors to break in to a somewhat closed business, so I like it.
One thing I am still unclear on, suppose a commercial web page uses donated GIF's? Do they have to make sure all their contributors (some of whom may be anonymous) use the proper software to create them? Or else pay the license fee?
I'm also wondering how the net porn industry will react to this. Though many have converted to jpeg, not all have, and there's lots of animated banners probably too. Most are commercial sites. Might be a lobby and some bucks for a trial there.
After reading the original CNET story, evidently many people wrote in to correct Microsoft's statements about the shutdown timing and the need for knowledge of "advanced web technology" to exploit the hole. They dispute Microsoft on these statements a bit now.
Wired and ZD Net also have stories up that debunk Microsoft pretty well. I just haven't seen any stories that get it right in "mainstream" press yet, like Reuters, AP, CNN, or NYT. Any links? I would think that this is a story that has some legs still...
POP3 is a little safer simply because normally the user downloads mail and it's deleted from the server. Attacking the server can only compromise mails still undownloaded.
Webmail, you can often see the entire history of mails received by the all the accounts on the web server. That makes an exploit more damaging.
This is covered specifically in the DJGPP FAQ. If you want to use C++, as most do, you must make sure both that the longfilename switch in DJGPP.ENV is set to "y" and that you use a long-filename capable tool to unzip it (which PKUNZIP 2.04g isn't.) The most recent version of PKUNZIP will work, as will most versions of WinZip.
Yes, long filenames under Win9x are an abomination, no argument there.:)
I enjoyed the article too, and agree completely that Linus makes a good role model. He seems to be a genuinely nice guy and refreshingly unaffected by all this fame.
What worries me is that sometimes the American media can't seem to co-exist with a non-traditional hero very well. They'll pick, and research, and probe, until they find a weakness, then blow it completely out of proportion.
I suspect being well liked by the media, *and not a threat to the power structure* is about as invulnerable as you can get to this effect. His concentration on technical matters rather than open source politics is very smart in this context.
I just hope that Linus can tolerate the kind of pressure and scrutiny most politicians and celebrities have to endure. I admire him, and I thank him, but I don't necessarily envy him.
"the number of people who benefit from open source on windows will be next to none."
I can't agree. Being a long time djgpp gcc user under Windows, I valued open source a long time before I heard about Linux as a serious alternative.
I've talked to some young computer owners that had outgrown Basic and wanted to know if there is a decent C/C++ compiler that doesn't cost hundreds of dollars. Their usual reaction on hearing that djgpp is free is - wow, must be really bad huh? After they try it, they are usually amazed at the completeness and high quality, not to mention better standards. They are forced to think about how that can happen, and they get used to unix-like tools in the process.
I agree that people should switch their OS to Linux as soon as possible, dual boot if not. But a good way to get people to switch is to associate high quality zero price software on the Windows platform with the names "open source" and "free software". This lends credibility to the idea that Linux can be as good as people say.
That's all tactics though. The real issue is that "open source" and "free software" isn't about any one operating system. GNU is NOT Unix!
Yes, my friend is still at Intel, and you're likely right that patents lead to raises and bonuses, even stock options, I would expect that as well.
However if he had moved to another job, been laid off, or fired over a dispute he would no longer be gaining benefit from those patents, other than as nice resume trophies (which are worth money, but enough?)
My point is that patents are for the benefit of corporations. And hey, I like a vibrant economy as much as you do. They do let it trickle down to their employees. But it is disingenuous to say that their purpose is to allow individual software innovators to profit from their ideas since that rarely happens, except indirectly.
Slashdot Mirror
"OK, I'm going to stomp your dishonest ideas once and for all. :-)"
Good -- start right off with an ad hominem attack. Shows scientific thought. That two people disagree does *NOT* mean one is lying, ok?
The original poster is correct, every scientist should accept the possibility that their favorite theories may be refined or overturned. For some theories, the likelihood is small as you say, but it needs to be considered possible if science is to be more than dogma with a high probability of truth. Argue the evidence for evolution as you did quite well with that quote about speciation, but don't make generalizations about the reliability of scientific theory.
"There's a great deal of evidence that the Christian god is fabricated out of whole cloth. Similar evidence exists for every other god described in any human culture. By induction, I can extend that evidence to a tentative statement "There is no god." "
The existence of a god or gods is not a scientific question, unless you can frame it as a hypothesis and test it. Some of the beliefs of some religions may be disputable in this manner. To conclude that bears on the existence of gods is not logically sound. All existing religions could be completely wrong and their could still exist a god. I certainly haven't seen any papers on the subject of gods from any scientific journals.
Like you, I don't happen to think it likely there are gods most religions would recognize as such, but I'd rather not hear people incorrectly claiming that science "disproves the existence of God". Its not true, and besides it gets the rabid creationists even more fired up. The moderate Christian you replied to is not the enemy.
The universe is likely a stranger place than you, or I, or current science can imagine. Try not to assume you know the answers -- science doesn't.
Jim
RedHat performs the *service* of organizing the software and placing it on a CD, which they sell.
Their brandname depends on the right stuff being in the right place on the CD.
They don't own Linux, hence they can't sell it.
I'd rather have my news straight thanks. Thats why I like slashdot and use -1 filtering. I prefer deciding for myself what I think is worth reading or true.
I guess I've been used to the fact that printed news isn't truth for about 30 years now, so it hardly surprises me when breaking news is distorted or wrong. If done intentionally that's something to worry about. If you think unverified reporting doesn't happen in the mainstream press, just read the first article on the hotmail hole from Reuters -- it's largely just Microsoft PR passed along as news. If you never read another story you wouldn't understand what really happened. If you were reading slashdot though, you already knew from the comments, by the time that "verified" story hit.
People slandering RedHat on the basis of rumors when they can't defend themselves is somewhat regrettable, true. But I don't blame slashdot, I blame those with the itchy trigger fingers. Did any of the anti-RedHat rants convince you of their evil? Didn't me.
Agreed, it was an awfully stupid thing to say. But you should be glad someone *did* get the enabling legislation passed, because geeks would have had a rather rough time with that part.
Jim
A bit of irony hearing the free speech of corporations defended with such vigor.
I'm sure there are many worthy corporations, especially among the non-profits. Legally they are persons, so their rights are the same as ours.
I wish I could say I viewed them as allies in the fight for free speech. Unfortunately, too many corporations have workplace environments that lack rather badly in privacy and ability to express opinions without fear of retaliation. I didn't see too many huge corporations funding ads against the CDA, did you? Too many are also very happy to hop on any "self-censorship" bandwagon rather than lobby against the threatened laws. When the insurance industry wants drug testing, they salute and implement -- no discussion by employees required.
I'm not for taking freedom of speech away from anyone or any group, but corporations just aren't at the top of my list either as victims of censorship, or proponents of free speech.
On this thirtieth birthday of the Internet, it might behoove us to think about whether corporations are helping to make the internet what we want it to be or not. Does it even matter what we think anymore?
Jim
If you've *really* got cause for a revolution it just means you've got to get over half the police and army on your side first.
You'll need the tanks and anti-aircraft guns anyway, trust me.
ISPs billing by connection time would also be a threat to the thin client revenue model. Billing by bandwidth consumed wouldn't affect a web-editor as much.
If Microsoft gets a large share of the ISP market they could attempt to make web services less attractive to their customers by choosing billing means that discouraged them, yet still providing a discount over other flat rate services for casual web use.
GTI as a game publisher, like a music publisher or book publisher, is part of a market that maintains tight control of distribution, and is generally able to pay fairly low royalties to the authors they distribute for. Nearly all companies in these markets are very vocal against piracy.
s/wandering in/breaking out/
"Why should all our tax dollars go to build a bigger cage to keep overgrown children from breaking out and breaking things?"
Build cages around your computers or your children -- it's your choice. You can use judgement in individual cases -- it's allowed.
Jim
Let me understand -- you are saying that causing 20K of credit card damage, plus the inconvenience of correcting credit histories, is a worse crime than a child or person being physically and mentally assulted? Because more people are affected? I doubt many would agree with you.
Even if that rather dubious judgement is accepted, lets punish according to the damage done, rather than the worst case damage possible. If someone falls asleep at the wheel and safely drifts to rest at the side of the road do we threaten them with manslaughter penalties because they *could* have killed someone?
If someone were to crack and break critical life support software and people died, I'd be all for the maximum penalty. But to say that someone who caused a government web site to cease functioning for a few hours is worse than a molester or rapist is ridiculous, until you specifically list the severe damage they *actually* caused.
I still remember the people who took advantage of a GTI offer to pre-register DOOM II (which they distributed.) Those lucky enough to fall for this got their copy 3-5 days after it hit the shelves in stores, and usually for a higher price. I knew then we weren't dealing with rocket scientists here.
*Every* new and upcoming "thing" has it's crowd of people who associate themselves with it for their own amusement or identity crutch and make loud rude noises. If a BSD were the one making the headlines they would have exactly the same problem with this that Linux does now.
Please, before we see slams against the "Linux community" could we at least define who we're talking about? The clueless advocates? The slashdot readership? Everyone who has booted Linux? Those who actually contribute to Linux development?
The Linux community, however you define it, is under a lot of pressure right now. Microsoft has them on the radar screen, a lot of controversy surrounds the increasing commercialization, and a lot of development work needs to be completed to really bring the OS to the desktop and enterprise. When you tug on someone's sleeve and say "Please try BSD -- its better!" you probably *will* get your head bit off. Maybe suggesting some good ideas like the ports collection that the BSDs have implemented that Linux might look at would be more helpful.
Suppose for a moment that BSD *is* better. As you know, "good enough" often wins over "better" due to extraneous market forces or historical accident. Linux is the vanguard of a move by Unix-like OSen to recapture a workable market share across all aspects of computing. Arguing we should switch the focus to BSD is very bad strategy just now. I'm sure Gates is ROTFL over the Linux/BSD holy wars. He's also taking notes.
Jim
"Your at work, to work. "
:). How 'bout those people working 12 hours and getting paid for 8? They supposed to concentrate on work and nothing but work all 12 hours? Thanks to unions most folks have lunch and coffee breaks now, at least.
It's nice to see the Puritan ethic still alive and well
Separate the moral issue from the rest. If someone isn't producing, warn them, then fire them. Don't worry about analyzing why unless the employee asks for help. Similarly for drugs, test functionality, not blood or urine.
The liability issue is one I can't see an easy solution for. I think it arises from our basically broken culture -- sexual harassment seems to be a combination of asshole behavior with extreme sensitivity. When a company engages in a culture of sexual favors for promotion they deserve being sued. I can't see their liability when an employee misbehaves unless they refuse to discipline them, or if repeated, fire them.
Possession of illegal information being a crime (say what!?), the normal standards should apply. Presumption of innocence, requirements for probable cause for search. Corporate workplaces define the 'laws' we live most intimately with, what good are general civil rights if we surrender our civil rights there? Can't you imagine a future where corporations provide very nice housing for their employees and monitor everyone's internet connection 24/7? Don't worry, you'll still be able to choose *which* corporation monitors you!
Jim
If their workflow is "fscking everything else up" why don't you fire them for that? Isn't that enough?
It seems to me that scanning email for porn is less effective than firing those that aren't doing their job for whatever reason.
Waiting 'til someone gets spammed with porn then firing them is too easy to abuse.
The liability of the company for contraband and sexual harassment is another matter. The company should define *exactly* what they wish to ban in that case -- it shouldn't be up to a sysadmin to make decisions about liability or morality -- they haven't been trained in those fields.
Jim
Leave it inactive for 90 days. If you're lucky, they'll notice and delete it. Thats really how to do it as far as I can tell.
If you're concerned about security, just delete all your mail. It only takes them a few days to empty the trashcan.
Jim
When a programmer screws up and creates a buffer overflow do you object to calling the discovery of the problem hacking or cracking?
:)
Discovery of the URL that allowed entry was a crack.
After it was published, using it wasn't difficult enough to deserve the name "cracking". Even script kiddies would disavow it I'm sure. I'd personally judge Microsoft's statements about the "advanced web programming knowledge" required to access mail accounts a plain lie to falsely reassure customers.
Having a rogue script active on a machine can be called a mistake, not necessarily negligence. I don't know if they tested the service enough to escape negligence there. However, leaving customers vulnerable for 10 hours after the exploit was widely known is awfully hard to justify, and I think it can be fairly easily documented.
What part of "anyone's hotmail can be read or sent by anyone on the web" didn't you understand Mr. Gates?"
Jim
Don't you think that if email went down on hotmail Saturday morning they'd call people in to fix it before Monday?
So why isn't a major security problem given the same priority?
Jim
I think you have a valid point that most people expect their reading to be subject to critical review prior to purchasing it. I don't understand what will happen when someone downloads a $20 work from ematter and then finds it's just a one page piece of junk. Refund? Never use the service again?
I've also noticed that there has been severe pressure on small independent bookstores -- they are going out of business, leaving me with less choice. Many new SF authors are forced to find an established author to collaborate with to get noticed and "break in". Critical review today is too influenced by "sure fire" returns -- already known author or formulaic work. To some extent the publishing industry is partially responsible for these trends, and I welcome any competition for them for that reason.
Like slashdot, you'll mostly want to read the stuff that gets moderated/reviewed way up. This is another way for new authors to break in to a somewhat closed business, so I like it.
Jim
I agree completely about the precise language.
One thing I am still unclear on, suppose a commercial web page uses donated GIF's? Do they have to make sure all their contributors (some of whom may be anonymous) use the proper software to create them? Or else pay the license fee?
I'm also wondering how the net porn industry will react to this. Though many have converted to jpeg, not all have, and there's lots of animated banners probably too. Most are commercial sites. Might be a lobby and some bucks for a trial there.
Jim
Wired and ZD Net also have stories up that debunk Microsoft pretty well. I just haven't seen any stories that get it right in "mainstream" press yet, like Reuters, AP, CNN, or NYT. Any links? I would think that this is a story that has some legs still...
JimPOP3 is a little safer simply because normally the user downloads mail and it's deleted from the server. Attacking the server can only compromise mails still undownloaded.
Webmail, you can often see the entire history of mails received by the all the accounts on the web server. That makes an exploit more damaging.
Neither is a secure channel, for sure.
Jim
This is covered specifically in the DJGPP FAQ. If you want to use C++, as most do, you must make sure both that the longfilename switch in DJGPP.ENV is set to "y" and that you use a long-filename capable tool to unzip it (which PKUNZIP 2.04g isn't.) The most recent version of PKUNZIP will work, as will most versions of WinZip.
:)
Yes, long filenames under Win9x are an abomination, no argument there.
I enjoyed the article too, and agree completely that Linus makes a good role model. He seems to be a genuinely nice guy and refreshingly unaffected by all this fame.
What worries me is that sometimes the American media can't seem to co-exist with a non-traditional hero very well. They'll pick, and research, and probe, until they find a weakness, then blow it completely out of proportion.
I suspect being well liked by the media, *and not a threat to the power structure* is about as invulnerable as you can get to this effect. His concentration on technical matters rather than open source politics is very smart in this context.
I just hope that Linus can tolerate the kind of pressure and scrutiny most politicians and celebrities have to endure. I admire him, and I thank him, but I don't necessarily envy him.
"the number of people who benefit from open source on windows will be next to none."
I can't agree. Being a long time djgpp gcc user under Windows, I valued open source a long time before I heard about Linux as a serious alternative.
I've talked to some young computer owners that had outgrown Basic and wanted to know if there is a decent C/C++ compiler that doesn't cost hundreds of dollars. Their usual reaction on hearing that djgpp is free is - wow, must be really bad huh? After they try it, they are usually amazed at the completeness and high quality, not to mention better standards. They are forced to think about how that can happen, and they get used to unix-like tools in the process.
I agree that people should switch their OS to Linux as soon as possible, dual boot if not. But a good way to get people to switch is to associate high quality zero price software on the Windows platform with the names "open source" and "free software". This lends credibility to the idea that Linux can be as good as people say.
That's all tactics though. The real issue is that "open source" and "free software" isn't about any one operating system. GNU is NOT Unix!
Jim
Yes, my friend is still at Intel, and you're likely right that patents lead to raises and bonuses, even stock options, I would expect that as well.
However if he had moved to another job, been laid off, or fired over a dispute he would no longer be gaining benefit from those patents, other than as nice resume trophies (which are worth money, but enough?)
My point is that patents are for the benefit of corporations. And hey, I like a vibrant economy as much as you do. They do let it trickle down to their employees. But it is disingenuous to say that their purpose is to allow individual software innovators to profit from their ideas since that rarely happens, except indirectly.
Jim