if you look at http://ubuntu.com/ versus http://debian.org/ you'll notice that one is quite pretty and modern, and the other looks like it fell out of a wormhole circa 1996.
Eh, the Ubuntu site looks like every other corporate site out there. I prefer the Debian site, but those blue button links could probably be a less jarring color.
My original contents was (intended to be) that the only way for patents to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" (what the US constitution says patents (and copyright) are for, which I was assuming everyone knows) is by causing things to not be kept as trade secrets (meaning, they don't cause things to be invented that otherwise wouldn't be, at least to any significant degree), as opposed to harming progress just because the inventor is somehow "entitled" to exclusively receive any benefits. Just, worded more as a bit of a troll/flamebait.
made available to you under the condition that any changes you make to the code which doesn't belong to you, and any code which talks to it too closely,
be made available under the same conditions.
Believe it or not, many patent-protected inventions took an up-front investment Sure.
that no company would have tried to protect without patent law. Well, how can we know that either way, without something to compare against?
Sometimes because the novel elements would be obvious to anyone buying/using the invention. Sometimes because the risk of protecting it as a trade secret just doesn't justify the investment.
The patent's purpose is to ensure the inventor -- be it an individual with limited resources for production, marketing, etc. or be it a large company that has deep pockets but that always has to look for a profit -- has the chance to profit from his/her/its work.
Doing that by granting a two-decade monopoly seems to be a bit of a "nuclear option". Sure it solves the immediate problem, but it also has lots of nasty fallout. Any product has an up-front development cost. Why has this become impossible to recover, apparently regardless of size, without monopoly protection?
Patents are here to allow the inventor to have a temporary monopoly on their idea as to give them enough time to make money on it.
If no one can make any money, why should a company innovate?
Um, it is possible to make money without having a monopoly, by being better at what you do than your competitors are. One of the ways to be better is to be innovative. Something of any complexity still takes time to get right.
Personally I think the idea of the hand print on the laptop is an interesting idea, and assuming there is no prior inventor, they should hold the patent on this....but I don't know if they should hold the patent for 20 years...
Why? It's not like adding handprints to things requires enormous R&D costs that can only be recovered with the ability to charge monopoly rents...
"Entitlement is the cancer that is destroying our society."
And, commensurate with that less disclosure is narrower patent scope. I don't see the issue. Large number of claim limitations just means that there's less patent protection and more alternatives. No, it's a lesser disclosure than just showing (selling) an implementation. Because you're not allowed to actually *use* that disclosure without paying up (if they're even willing to sell licenses).
No, but they're not that expensive. If we get an actual in-the-wild piece of malware that does this, I'd expect decent PC repair shops to start keeping one around.
Not everything that is patentable (or ought to be patentable) must also be trade secret. This is a perfect example (actually most any mechanical invention is a good example). Once it's sold, used, displayed, demoed, described, photograph, etc. it would lose any and all protection. The protection isn't (supposed to be) the point. The societal benefit received in exchange for the sacrifice of granting that protection is the point.
Now, arguably, one of the purposes of patents is to encourage people to disclose EARLIER rather than later. Here, you probably see this disclosure before you've actually seen it sold, used, displayed, demoed, described, photograph, etc. But this is a much lesser disclosure, in that there are heavy restrictions on what you can do with it.
Just about EVERYTHING seems obvious once you see it. So patents ONLY provide a benefit when the patented thing would otherwise never be invented (or at least not be invented for another several years).
Patents are supposed to promote progress, by imposing restrictions for a couple decades. This only makes sense if what's being restricted would have been restricted for longer/forever (trade secrets), or wouldn't have existed at all. Given that people like to invent things just for fun, and that there was plenty of innovation before patents were invented, I suspect that that second category is close to empty.
it seems to be a reasonable idea, and a reasonable patent... Well, it depends on what effect patents are supposed to have. If you think they're supposed to encourage people to publish what they'd otherwise try to keep as trade secrets, then patenting something which is very obvious when inspected isn't reasonable. If you think they're supposed to let people hold progress hostage by recording their daydreams, it's very reasonable.
I'm pretty sure I remember stories about viruses that could destroy hardware, I remember stories about viruses that could infect the computer human user.
I didn't believe in them, though. Sure, but these at least are believable if you don't have the spare resources to provide proper encapsulation for the interfaces to your hardware. The OS shouldn't be able to drive a bus while some other device is talking on it, but sufficiently dumb/cheap driver hardware might not prevent this.
I'm pretty sure I remember stories about viruses that could destroy hardware, by doing things like making the drives seek in "funny" ways (past the edge of the disc or something?) or driving wired-together pins to opposite voltages. Those sound *really* permanent, where a bad flash can be fixed by anyone with the proper equipment (JTAG programmer) unless it does that same sort of thing.
Japan has (by and large) a market economy. There is no such thing as a shortage in a market economy. If they want more people to do engineering, pay engineers more. How long does it take for this to work? It's not like your average language arts graduate can just wake up one day and start doing engineering work, they'll have to train for several years first. The supply can't just increase on demand, there's a significant lag time. And during that lag time, I would expect that there could well be shortages.
What people mean when they say "there is a shortage of engineers" is "there is shortage of engineers prepared to do amazing work while being paid less than the idiot with the history of art major in middle management". Big surprise there. But yes, if there really were shortages, I'd expect them to get paid rather insane amounts.
It seems like a part of the story is missing. The part that talks about people's varying levels of familiarity with not-really-advertised features of the OS they use?
foo () { // do stuff
blocking_operation() // do other stuff
}
is nicer to work with than
foo1 () { // do stuff
when_done(async_operation(), foo2)
}
foo2 () { // do other stuff
}
, espicially if you have lots if local variables used by both "do stuff" and "do other stuff". It doesn't really matter for this use whether the compiler maps the first example to the second example or to OS threads.
Also, gNewSense is relevant for providing a promise of no legal hassles for new distributions built on top of it. No hassles as long as you distribute it by itself, sure. But there are extra rules to follow if you distribute it as part of a system.
Slashdot Mirror
How does one "open source" a protocol? There's no source to open, just a specification.
*reads article*
Ah, it's actually a set of libraries that use a new protocol.
Distributed Hash Table.
if you look at http://ubuntu.com/ versus http://debian.org/ you'll notice that one is quite pretty and modern, and the other looks like it fell out of a wormhole circa 1996.
Eh, the Ubuntu site looks like every other corporate site out there. I prefer the Debian site, but those blue button links could probably be a less jarring color.It costs money to raise kids too...
My original contents was (intended to be) that the only way for patents to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" (what the US constitution says patents (and copyright) are for, which I was assuming everyone knows) is by causing things to not be kept as trade secrets (meaning, they don't cause things to be invented that otherwise wouldn't be, at least to any significant degree), as opposed to harming progress just because the inventor is somehow "entitled" to exclusively receive any benefits. Just, worded more as a bit of a troll/flamebait.
Sometimes because the novel elements would be obvious to anyone buying/using the invention. Sometimes because the risk of protecting it as a trade secret just doesn't justify the investment.
The patent's purpose is to ensure the inventor -- be it an individual with limited resources for production, marketing, etc. or be it a large company that has deep pockets but that always has to look for a profit -- has the chance to profit from his/her/its work.
Doing that by granting a two-decade monopoly seems to be a bit of a "nuclear option". Sure it solves the immediate problem, but it also has lots of nasty fallout. Any product has an up-front development cost. Why has this become impossible to recover, apparently regardless of size, without monopoly protection?Patents are here to allow the inventor to have a temporary monopoly on their idea as to give them enough time to make money on it.
If no one can make any money, why should a company innovate?
Um, it is possible to make money without having a monopoly, by being better at what you do than your competitors are. One of the ways to be better is to be innovative. Something of any complexity still takes time to get right. Personally I think the idea of the hand print on the laptop is an interesting idea, and assuming there is no prior inventor, they should hold the patent on this....but I don't know if they should hold the patent for 20 years...Why? It's not like adding handprints to things requires enormous R&D costs that can only be recovered with the ability to charge monopoly rents...
"Entitlement is the cancer that is destroying our society."
No, but they're not that expensive. If we get an actual in-the-wild piece of malware that does this, I'd expect decent PC repair shops to start keeping one around.
Or nobody thought to even look at the problem.
Patents are supposed to promote progress, by imposing restrictions for a couple decades. This only makes sense if what's being restricted would have been restricted for longer/forever (trade secrets), or wouldn't have existed at all. Given that people like to invent things just for fun, and that there was plenty of innovation before patents were invented, I suspect that that second category is close to empty.
Because it seems to be something that we could reasonably expect that they really are doing?
I'm pretty sure I remember stories about viruses that could destroy hardware, by doing things like making the drives seek in "funny" ways (past the edge of the disc or something?) or driving wired-together pins to opposite voltages. Those sound *really* permanent, where a bad flash can be fixed by anyone with the proper equipment (JTAG programmer) unless it does that same sort of thing.
- Likes to talk, humorous, friendly.
BonziBUDDY pre-installed.- Likes movies, walks along the beach at sunset, and recharging by an open fireplace.
No fans/vents for sand to get in.- Likes cooking.
Poor thermal design, or maybe overclocked.- Has own job.
Part of a botnet.- Light enough to carry with one hand.
Not a "desktop replacement".- Happy with all positions, including upside-down and backwards.
Solid-state disk, so there's nothing to break when you drop it.- Color is not important to me, but dress sense is.
Thinks its a Mac.- Looking for casual to long term commitment. Emphasis on fun.
Compatible with most off-the-shelf (and under-the-table) games.They made up their own format, I think it's called "MSI" or something.
...and where did the 'nothing' before the big bang come from, and why did it go bang?
foo () {
// do stuff
// do other stuff
is nicer to work with thanblocking_operation()
}
foo1 () {
// do stuff
// do other stuff
, espicially if you have lots if local variables used by both "do stuff" and "do other stuff". It doesn't really matter for this use whether the compiler maps the first example to the second example or to OS threads.when_done(async_operation(), foo2)
} foo2 () {
}
/me is curious why this article is displayed as abbreviated while the gNewSense article is displayed as full text.