GnuCash is not and has never claimed to be a full fledged double entry accounting system. There are no payroll, inventory, customer management, or web commerce modules either.
Nothing but a clear troll here. There is no desktop system that is light years ahead of Linux overall. If you wish to qualify that statement and limit it to just pertain to wireless support you may be correct. However, wireless support in tower systems; while on the agenda; is certainly lower priority than other issues like a hardware accelerated desktop.
Tax software is not really the problem. There is no real alternative to quickbooks on linux yet and until there is linux adoption will never hit the small business desktop. Small businesses will carry linux with them when I they hit critical mass and bring linux to the corporate desktop if there is an accounting package to run.
Once open office base becomes stable that will answer the other critical need for small business.
Wireless is not exactly a crowning feature for a DESKTOP system. It is important for notebooks but most still use real towers with permanent placements.
"If soldiers are instruments of the state, shouldn't you be directing your ire at the elected government (and by extension the electorate)"
No. Elected officials do not derive their power from those who elect them. Their power comes from two sources. The first is the corporations that purchase them and their position. The second is the military that puts a bite behind their bark.
Ultimately the law would not matter without the men with guns driving around threatening force and imprisonment. The men with guns would not obey without the men with bigger guns keeping them in line and so on. And ultimately the United States is the most powerful force in the world because it has the biggest military force. That is why nobody is able to stop it from overthrowing nations and installing puppet governments (in the guise of spreading democracy).
We long ago passed the point where individuals held enough military strength to mount a substantial resistance in the United States. It is now dependant on the military itself to refuse to answer when our corrupt government calls. I do not propose that the military should take action and leave us with a nation led by the military. I instead propose that the military do its part by simply not acting to defend the existing government.
Digital circuits operate entirely on the principle of mathematical logic and their functions have no meaning without that logic. Software IS that mathematical logic abstraction. AND, OR, and NOT are MATH. Anything that manipulates numbers as an abstract representation of something of "things" be they physical or otherwise is math. This encompases all digital logic and all computer programming. Turing machines all operate entirely within the realm of mathematics. Mathematics are public domain.
Physical inventions are actual inventions, new algorithms are discoveries. Mathematics and their results existed before you ever discovered them. The Edison bulb did not.
"An algorithm can be developed without any application of mathematics."
Algorithms are mathmatical constructs, how can you develope mathematics without applying mathematics?
In any case we are not going to solve the debate on software patents here. This is a debate that has been fought out time and time again without any real resolution. Most informed individuals do not agree with software patents. Those who do agree with them are typically employed by or own software firms and therefore have a conflict on interest in the debate. Without software patents this particular type of business would be deterimentally impacted while the rest of the industry and software development in general would benefit.
Actually that is a fair summary of everything wrong with the patent system in the US today. Patents do NOT exist to protect ideas. Patents are supposed to cover actual physical tangible inventions. Copyright covers an expression of an idea, patent covers an implementation of an idea. Neither is supposed to protect the idea itself.
Software is a simple mathmatical process. When one writes software, one is not inventing something. At most one might be working out the solution to a difficult math problem with a complex algorithm. Software is an expression of an idea, and that is why it falls under copyright.
"Horseshit! IT support IS about users and you'd better learn how to talk to them if you want to keep working in IT."
Spoken like a user. IT support is about the systems that are being used. It is not the job the IT guy to explain to a user how to click on Send/Receive Mail. The users have dummies books and training sessions for that.
"you have not seen how busy a competent IT technician is"
A competent IT technician has just enough time on his hands to learn new technology and retain sanity. A competent IT technician does not give users access to anything that could cause unpredictable consequences and makes sure that the systems they do have access to don't have problems in the first place.
An IT guy who is constantly running from place to place is the result of one (or more) of three things.
1. An understaffed department. Your IT guy is not working the floor in a retail outlet, if he's on his feet or crawled under a desk most of the day you need more IT guys.
2. An imcompetent IT guy (or IT decision maker causing IT guys to perform IT tasks incompetently). When IT is done properly there are not fires everywhere to put out.
3. Incompetent users. Incompetent users are the types who keep the IT guys busy fixing phantom problems, doing user training, or bug them with water cooler talk that fails to recognize that IT guys don't like people or talk. Your IT guy does not care to tell you about the cell phone or digital camera on the market.
"I don't think we will get fair patents in software until there are people in the software industry screening for obviousness."
The only way to have fair patents in the software world is not to have them at all. Software is covered under copyright law. There is a reason that the rules for things that fall under copyright are different than the rules for those that fall under patent. Developers (often it is really the companies that hire the developers)want to have all the benefits of both forms of protection. The result of combining them is made clear time and time again.
This is worse than simply non-novel. It also isn't an invention at all. Patents are for tangible inventions. Even software has a flimsy case for being called an invention. "Buy it now" is a concept or idea and not an invention. Even copyright does not cover ideas and concepts, merely individual expressions of them.
Ebay would probably like to point this out even less, since it would probably invalidate any of their patents that were somewhat novel in addition to ones that weren't. AFAIK Ebay doesn't produce anything that is legitimately patentable.
Personally I would love to see this case set some precident along these lines.
"Really though, there are alrealy analogues to this in the real auction world, so couldn't that be considered prior art?"
Certainly. If Ebay wants to establish a case to be put on the record that could in turn be used to invalidate all of their own patents.;) There is another strong case that this is a concept and not an invention and therefore the patents are invalid regardless of prior art. You can't patent ideas and concepts after all, patents are for tangible things. Even copyright only covers the expression of ideas and concepts, not the ideas and concepts themselves. Pushing this argument would establish a case for invalidating any patents ebay has that aren't patent related as well.;)
"The patent seems rather focused on e-commerce and on there being both an auction (best offer) and a "direct buy" (buy it now) price"
This concept is not exclusive to e-commerce and is likely as old as the concept of auctioning. It is certainly as old as the concept of haggling. Regardless, an existing concept does not become unique or non-obvious simply because it is implemented online.
Any practice that has been used in trade for over 100 years is obvious and has over 100 years worth of prior art. Using such a practice on a website does not suddenly make it a new patentable practice.
How can someone even claim "buy it now" is a tangible invention in the first place? Concepts and ideas are not supposed to be patentable!
"I think the remarkable progress that has taken place in physics over the last 50 years negates your position that such things impede scientific research in general."
Without interjecting an actual opinion of my own either way; I must note that this is not valid logic. Your conclusion does not follow your premise. It is impossible to show a negative. If "such things" had not impeded scientific research there could have infinately more progress in the past 50 years.
The problem here largely comes from comparing the progress of the last 50 years to prior years rather than to the progress that would have been achieved without said impediments. Yours was not a valid metric, his is an unknown metric.
In short, an attempt to reach a conclusion based upon logic by either of you would be invalid.
I'm the GP's attorney. The GP has patented the ideas expressed in his original post. We demand that you immediately cease and desist expression of ideas that expand upon or enchance the original patented ideas of the GP or we will see you in court.
Our patents expire in 20 years. At which point you may feel free to expand the patented ideas any way you like and advance the state of patent reform. Thank god for patents speeding this process along!
First of all, please stop using italics print for your entire post. It is highly annoying.
"Do you think that a pharmaceutical company would drop a billion dollars pushing a drug from discovery, to lab testing, to FDA approval if they were not guaranteed at least a few years to sell the drug without someone copying them for pocket change and under cutting them before they can turn a profit?"
A very qualified no. Since without patents there may not be quite so many billions to be made in producing a drug; pharmaceutical companies would produce them more economically.
First, your billion dollars is largely creative accounting. For instance, the entire cost of 100 million dollar lab equipment is counted for each drug despite the fact that it was only purchased once.
Next, that 100 million dollar machine probably cost 1-5 million to develop and probably more like $10,000 to produce an individual unit (probably half that it the developers didn't have to pay patent fees along the way). If the drug companies have less potential profits, they will demand less price inflation per piece of equipment like this. That will reduce costs.
The FDA process is again pushed by the market economics involved. Fees can be reduced.
Last but not least, an unsuccessful drug yields the drug companies 3-10 times that investment and a successful one gives 100 times that.
I am lucky to see a 5% profit on investment. I manage, somehow I think they will too.
"The factual record is that there was more economic growth in 100 years than there was in the previous 1000. Patents were a key component of that. You can hypothesize that it would have happened without the modern patent system, but the fact is that it didn't."
The factual record is that there was more economic growth in 100 years than there was in the previous 1000. Airplanes were a key component of that. You can hypothesize that it would have happened without the modern Airplane system, but the fact is that it didn't.
The factual record is that there was more economic growth in 100 years than there was in the previous 1000. Computers were a key component of that. You can hypothesize that it would have happened without the modern computer system, but the fact is that it didn't.
The factual record is that there was more economic growth in 100 years than there was in the previous 1000. Automobiles were a key component of that. You can hypothesize that it would have happened without the modern automobile, but the fact is that it didn't.
The factual record is that there was more economic growth in 100 years than there was in the previous 1000. Condoms were a key component of that. You can hypothesize that it would have happened without the modern condom, but the fact is that it didn't.
The factual record is that there was more economic growth in 100 years than there was in the previous 1000. Sliced bread was a key component of...
Not really, those reviews came from people who hollywood could court or who have such oddball taste in movies that nobody actually relies on their reviews. In fact I could only name two film critics (one of them is no longer around) and I haven't agreed with a single review of theirs that I ever heard.
On the other hand, reviews from real people rate about 80% of the time. Hollywood also needs to get over their obsession with making their money in the theater. If they were smart they would cut out the middleman and do unlimited dvd by mail (ala netflix and blockbuster) with PERMISSION to copy the rented films.
It doesn't impact hollywood one bit if I have 1 movie or 10,000 movies. It does impact hollywood if I am spending $30/month on movies and that is all going to blockbuster online (tip, they don't throttle and give free weekly instore rentals on top of it).
"front end server dies service can roll over to a backend until the front is replaced and is quickly made jsut like the orginal"
This is a pretty shakey solution at best. You could change the default bootloader config and tell the machine to reboot using the chosen image but if there were the slightest problem that required a tweak on the system it may never come up and give network access again. If you replicate using a hybrid system where some portion of the configuration is already setup on the backup server and just the portions that vary are backed up from the various production servers then you increase the possibility of complications as well. The biggest problems do not come from technical limitations but from unforseen consequences and oversights during configuration.
So is this. The difference between redundancy and backup is the ability to step back to a previous state. With a redundant system all writes are immediately copied or nearly so and you lose the ability to retrieve a file you just deleted, this shares that characteristic.
"In the end though you can do this 100% on the up and up and still get sued. A good lawyer will tell you that."
He can NOT do this at all and still get sued. A good lawyer will tell him that too. Interesting system the lawyers have devised in which everyone so blatantly should have a lawyer on staff and everyone who can afford them does.
The best thing would probably be to release the information anonymously. He can still be sued (as with every other course of action) but this way he can be sure to take a legal course of action without having to pay a lawyer to figure it out. At least that way the bloodsucking lawyers only get paid if he actually does get sued.
Slashdot Mirror
GnuCash is not and has never claimed to be a full fledged double entry accounting system. There are no payroll, inventory, customer management, or web commerce modules either.
"Both are light years ahead of Linux"
Nothing but a clear troll here. There is no desktop system that is light years ahead of Linux overall. If you wish to qualify that statement and limit it to just pertain to wireless support you may be correct. However, wireless support in tower systems; while on the agenda; is certainly lower priority than other issues like a hardware accelerated desktop.
Tax software is not really the problem. There is no real alternative to quickbooks on linux yet and until there is linux adoption will never hit the small business desktop. Small businesses will carry linux with them when I they hit critical mass and bring linux to the corporate desktop if there is an accounting package to run.
Once open office base becomes stable that will answer the other critical need for small business.
Wireless is not exactly a crowning feature for a DESKTOP system. It is important for notebooks but most still use real towers with permanent placements.
"If soldiers are instruments of the state, shouldn't you be directing your ire at the elected government (and by extension the electorate)"
No. Elected officials do not derive their power from those who elect them. Their power comes from two sources. The first is the corporations that purchase them and their position. The second is the military that puts a bite behind their bark.
Ultimately the law would not matter without the men with guns driving around threatening force and imprisonment. The men with guns would not obey without the men with bigger guns keeping them in line and so on. And ultimately the United States is the most powerful force in the world because it has the biggest military force. That is why nobody is able to stop it from overthrowing nations and installing puppet governments (in the guise of spreading democracy).
We long ago passed the point where individuals held enough military strength to mount a substantial resistance in the United States. It is now dependant on the military itself to refuse to answer when our corrupt government calls. I do not propose that the military should take action and leave us with a nation led by the military. I instead propose that the military do its part by simply not acting to defend the existing government.
I fully agree with the principle of your statement.
"They should excise the boring and repetitive parts from their games. WoW did this for the most part"
WOW only did so at the low level. At the higher levels the game is nothing but grind.
Digital circuits operate entirely on the principle of mathematical logic and their functions have no meaning without that logic. Software IS that mathematical logic abstraction. AND, OR, and NOT are MATH. Anything that manipulates numbers as an abstract representation of something of "things" be they physical or otherwise is math. This encompases all digital logic and all computer programming. Turing machines all operate entirely within the realm of mathematics. Mathematics are public domain.
Physical inventions are actual inventions, new algorithms are discoveries. Mathematics and their results existed before you ever discovered them. The Edison bulb did not.
"An algorithm can be developed without any application of mathematics."
Algorithms are mathmatical constructs, how can you develope mathematics without applying mathematics?
In any case we are not going to solve the debate on software patents here. This is a debate that has been fought out time and time again without any real resolution. Most informed individuals do not agree with software patents. Those who do agree with them are typically employed by or own software firms and therefore have a conflict on interest in the debate. Without software patents this particular type of business would be deterimentally impacted while the rest of the industry and software development in general would benefit.
"Only patents can protect novel ideas."
Actually that is a fair summary of everything wrong with the patent system in the US today. Patents do NOT exist to protect ideas. Patents are supposed to cover actual physical tangible inventions. Copyright covers an expression of an idea, patent covers an implementation of an idea. Neither is supposed to protect the idea itself.
Software is a simple mathmatical process. When one writes software, one is not inventing something. At most one might be working out the solution to a difficult math problem with a complex algorithm. Software is an expression of an idea, and that is why it falls under copyright.
"Horseshit! IT support IS about users and you'd better learn how to talk to them if you want to keep working in IT."
Spoken like a user. IT support is about the systems that are being used. It is not the job the IT guy to explain to a user how to click on Send/Receive Mail. The users have dummies books and training sessions for that.
"you have not seen how busy a competent IT technician is"
A competent IT technician has just enough time on his hands to learn new technology and retain sanity. A competent IT technician does not give users access to anything that could cause unpredictable consequences and makes sure that the systems they do have access to don't have problems in the first place.
An IT guy who is constantly running from place to place is the result of one (or more) of three things.
1. An understaffed department. Your IT guy is not working the floor in a retail outlet, if he's on his feet or crawled under a desk most of the day you need more IT guys.
2. An imcompetent IT guy (or IT decision maker causing IT guys to perform IT tasks incompetently). When IT is done properly there are not fires everywhere to put out.
3. Incompetent users. Incompetent users are the types who keep the IT guys busy fixing phantom problems, doing user training, or bug them with water cooler talk that fails to recognize that IT guys don't like people or talk. Your IT guy does not care to tell you about the cell phone or digital camera on the market.
"I don't think we will get fair patents in software until there are people in the software industry screening for obviousness."
The only way to have fair patents in the software world is not to have them at all. Software is covered under copyright law. There is a reason that the rules for things that fall under copyright are different than the rules for those that fall under patent. Developers (often it is really the companies that hire the developers)want to have all the benefits of both forms of protection. The result of combining them is made clear time and time again.
This is worse than simply non-novel. It also isn't an invention at all. Patents are for tangible inventions. Even software has a flimsy case for being called an invention. "Buy it now" is a concept or idea and not an invention. Even copyright does not cover ideas and concepts, merely individual expressions of them.
Ebay would probably like to point this out even less, since it would probably invalidate any of their patents that were somewhat novel in addition to ones that weren't. AFAIK Ebay doesn't produce anything that is legitimately patentable.
Personally I would love to see this case set some precident along these lines.
"Really though, there are alrealy analogues to this in the real auction world, so couldn't that be considered prior art?"
;) There is another strong case that this is a concept and not an invention and therefore the patents are invalid regardless of prior art. You can't patent ideas and concepts after all, patents are for tangible things. Even copyright only covers the expression of ideas and concepts, not the ideas and concepts themselves. Pushing this argument would establish a case for invalidating any patents ebay has that aren't patent related as well. ;)
Certainly. If Ebay wants to establish a case to be put on the record that could in turn be used to invalidate all of their own patents.
"The patent seems rather focused on e-commerce and on there being both an auction (best offer) and a "direct buy" (buy it now) price"
This concept is not exclusive to e-commerce and is likely as old as the concept of auctioning. It is certainly as old as the concept of haggling. Regardless, an existing concept does not become unique or non-obvious simply because it is implemented online.
Any practice that has been used in trade for over 100 years is obvious and has over 100 years worth of prior art. Using such a practice on a website does not suddenly make it a new patentable practice.
How can someone even claim "buy it now" is a tangible invention in the first place? Concepts and ideas are not supposed to be patentable!
"I think the remarkable progress that has taken place in physics over the last 50 years negates your position that such things impede scientific research in general."
Without interjecting an actual opinion of my own either way; I must note that this is not valid logic. Your conclusion does not follow your premise. It is impossible to show a negative. If "such things" had not impeded scientific research there could have infinately more progress in the past 50 years.
The problem here largely comes from comparing the progress of the last 50 years to prior years rather than to the progress that would have been achieved without said impediments. Yours was not a valid metric, his is an unknown metric.
In short, an attempt to reach a conclusion based upon logic by either of you would be invalid.
"But the ultimate standard is the dollar."
Only in the corporate world.
That is why men like Tesla come along and solve all these problems. Edison had nothing to do with it.
I'm the GP's attorney. The GP has patented the ideas expressed in his original post. We demand that you immediately cease and desist expression of ideas that expand upon or enchance the original patented ideas of the GP or we will see you in court.
Our patents expire in 20 years. At which point you may feel free to expand the patented ideas any way you like and advance the state of patent reform. Thank god for patents speeding this process along!
First of all, please stop using italics print for your entire post. It is highly annoying.
"Do you think that a pharmaceutical company would drop a billion dollars pushing a drug from discovery, to lab testing, to FDA approval if they were not guaranteed at least a few years to sell the drug without someone copying them for pocket change and under cutting them before they can turn a profit?"
A very qualified no. Since without patents there may not be quite so many billions to be made in producing a drug; pharmaceutical companies would produce them more economically.
First, your billion dollars is largely creative accounting. For instance, the entire cost of 100 million dollar lab equipment is counted for each drug despite the fact that it was only purchased once.
Next, that 100 million dollar machine probably cost 1-5 million to develop and probably more like $10,000 to produce an individual unit (probably half that it the developers didn't have to pay patent fees along the way). If the drug companies have less potential profits, they will demand less price inflation per piece of equipment like this. That will reduce costs.
The FDA process is again pushed by the market economics involved. Fees can be reduced.
Last but not least, an unsuccessful drug yields the drug companies 3-10 times that investment and a successful one gives 100 times that.
I am lucky to see a 5% profit on investment. I manage, somehow I think they will too.
"The factual record is that there was more economic growth in 100 years than there was in the previous 1000. Patents were a key component of that. You can hypothesize that it would have happened without the modern patent system, but the fact is that it didn't."
The factual record is that there was more economic growth in 100 years than there was in the previous 1000. Airplanes were a key component of that. You can hypothesize that it would have happened without the modern Airplane system, but the fact is that it didn't.
The factual record is that there was more economic growth in 100 years than there was in the previous 1000. Computers were a key component of that. You can hypothesize that it would have happened without the modern computer system, but the fact is that it didn't.
The factual record is that there was more economic growth in 100 years than there was in the previous 1000. Automobiles were a key component of that. You can hypothesize that it would have happened without the modern automobile, but the fact is that it didn't.
The factual record is that there was more economic growth in 100 years than there was in the previous 1000. Condoms were a key component of that. You can hypothesize that it would have happened without the modern condom, but the fact is that it didn't.
The factual record is that there was more economic growth in 100 years than there was in the previous 1000. Sliced bread was a key component of...
Starting to get the idea?
Not really, those reviews came from people who hollywood could court or who have such oddball taste in movies that nobody actually relies on their reviews. In fact I could only name two film critics (one of them is no longer around) and I haven't agreed with a single review of theirs that I ever heard.
On the other hand, reviews from real people rate about 80% of the time. Hollywood also needs to get over their obsession with making their money in the theater. If they were smart they would cut out the middleman and do unlimited dvd by mail (ala netflix and blockbuster) with PERMISSION to copy the rented films.
It doesn't impact hollywood one bit if I have 1 movie or 10,000 movies. It does impact hollywood if I am spending $30/month on movies and that is all going to blockbuster online (tip, they don't throttle and give free weekly instore rentals on top of it).
"front end server dies service can roll over to a backend until the front is replaced and is quickly made jsut like the orginal"
This is a pretty shakey solution at best. You could change the default bootloader config and tell the machine to reboot using the chosen image but if there were the slightest problem that required a tweak on the system it may never come up and give network access again. If you replicate using a hybrid system where some portion of the configuration is already setup on the backup server and just the portions that vary are backed up from the various production servers then you increase the possibility of complications as well. The biggest problems do not come from technical limitations but from unforseen consequences and oversights during configuration.
So is this. The difference between redundancy and backup is the ability to step back to a previous state. With a redundant system all writes are immediately copied or nearly so and you lose the ability to retrieve a file you just deleted, this shares that characteristic.
"After all most businesses are a bit shy about having totally uncontrolled conduits for data flowing into and out of the network, no? "
You mean like briefcases and printouts?
"In the end though you can do this 100% on the up and up and still get sued. A good lawyer will tell you that."
He can NOT do this at all and still get sued. A good lawyer will tell him that too. Interesting system the lawyers have devised in which everyone so blatantly should have a lawyer on staff and everyone who can afford them does.
The best thing would probably be to release the information anonymously. He can still be sued (as with every other course of action) but this way he can be sure to take a legal course of action without having to pay a lawyer to figure it out. At least that way the bloodsucking lawyers only get paid if he actually does get sued.