This could be extended. The bank could release an entire page of random letters, different for every customer. Then the bank could verify the customer ("What are the 4th, 5th and 9th letters on the 12th line?") and the cutomer could verify the bank as well (entry form where the customer selects row and column to get verification for). Stll doesn't help with man-in-the-middle though.
You're dreaming. Groups get together and beat up on the little guy. Doesn't matter whether you call those groups gangs or governments, corporations or countries.
And if you have even one group of people willing to do that then everybody else needs to join a group to counter-balance. And when somebody joins a group they have to repress their own needs in favor of the average needs of the group.
Pure libertarinism is an idea that doesn't work out too well in the real world. Just like pure communism.
Part of the problem is less experienced people who give up on some software/device installation without realizing they could've installed with more effort. It's still something that needs fixing of course, installation should be easy for everybody, but it does explain why there is a different perception.
I've installed dozens of different Linux computers in different form-factors and roles with a variety of obscure devices and software. Almost all devices/software install with minimal/no effort these days. To get maximum resolution in X-windows is not as simple as it should be. A few problem devices require something arcane. The only thing I haven't been able to get going satisfactorily was a locked down mobile phone and an IrDA device. Both I worked around (new mobile phone and bluetooth).
To the linux beginners out there: for a problem linux installation google is your friend. There is a huge amount of information on the net in unstructured form, usually mailing lists and discussion sites, about how to install pretty much any device you care to name. You probably don't need to ask a question on a mailing list yourself at all; just do a search for something like "linux-version obscure-device-model-number install" (e.g. "ubuntu epson stylus color 676 install" or similar - phrasing may be important) and you're likely to find at least a few people who've already discussed your exact problem. FAQ's on project sites can be helpful sometimes too.
---
It's not piracy, it's sharing. Didn't your parents teach you to share?
More reliable. It's pretty good already but I use it regularly and I would like it to be even better.
More testing for race conditions. Firefox is most unreliable when actions occur quickly or simultaneously such as multiple tabs being repainted and/or menu items being activated and/or windows being resized.
A working bug/crash reporting mechanism. And a guarantee not to publish the reporting email address on a web site indexable by a spammer.
Better behaviour in the presence of external failures of any sort. Not enough testing has been done for this.
Not have the user interface lock up when the DNS server is delayed/unavailable. Currently it can lock up for seconds at a time.
Not have the user interface lock up when a website is delayed/unavailable. Lockups can occur when website elements are delayed.
Not have the user interface lock up when a plugin is initializing/downloading content.
Not have the user interface lock up and fail to highlight correctly when keyboard autorepeat is being used to highlight a block of text in a form.
Faster startup and user interface would be nice. Test it on a slower machine.
Clearer handling of extension installation both for a single user and machine wide. Currently it's not clear how to install extensions machine wide or to avoid repeated downloads for repeated installations.
Mostly, I'd just like existing behaviour to be more robust. The only new functionality I'd like to see is much more sophisticated bookmark handling and the ability to export/export a full set of configuration settings, including extensions and bookmarks, between different firefox installations, including up-version. Kudos to the team.
Most steal people's time and attention and give nothing valuable in return. And the time of your life is the most important thing you have.
If the ads take away from the TV show to the point where you can't enjoy it, don't watch that show.
Since the net value of such TV is now zero I for one don't watch it. Ever wondered why network TV audiences are going down?
If advertising gets me the TV shows I enjoy and brings them to me for free, I'm all for it.
It's not free. You're actually paying twice over; once in time to watch/avoid the ad and twice to in the increased price of the product to pay for the ad. At least with pay TV you don't lose your time. Except of course they're increasing advertising in that as well and soon that media will be destroyed also.
There's no harm in having a bus with an ad on the side, it's not like it's taking away anything from the bus. The bus helps save the environment, the ad helps pay for the bus. Ad's on pavement aren't bad either, are they taking away from some beauty of paved ground?
No harm? You're still paying for the ad through the increased price of the product. Not to mention the visual pollution and assorted deceptive propaganda.
How about you take a trip into the forset? There's less advertising. When I'm on a hike and I see an ad for pepsi painted on a tree, or I'm rock climbing, and there's a sign that says "This bolt brought to you by Coca-Cola" I'd be very upset,
Me too.
but I don't see that happening. There's no money in it because the people who are hiking and rock climbing aren't big fans of soda and that'd cause a lot of bad publicity.
You're living in a fool's paradise. Advertising is increasing all the time. And too much noise can compromise free speech just as much as too little signal.
---
The majority of modern marketing is nothing more than an arms race to get mind share. Everybody loses except the parasitic marketing "industry".
No, you misunderstand; I said, quite clearly, "This judgement is just one example of how broken copyright law currently is.". I know the law says this. The law is wrong.
As long as there is no misrepresentation of the modified copy it should be allowed. This ruling says no and that's wrong, in part because it breaks a normal free market principal (that of ownership by the customer to do as they please).
Don't be narrow minded and be trapped into assuming the current copyright law is the only possibility. That's just the RIAA's/MPAA's, the entrenched interests, fanatical self-serving point of view they are currently spamming to the world. Copright and patent law is a product of the mind and like software can be anything we want it to be. There are are huge number of ways that current law could be improved and these possibilities need to be discussed.
Allowing a person to have more than one copy of something, without selling it, would be a perfectly reasonable thing to allow since they can only watch one of them at a time anyway.
---
DRM'ed content breaks the copyright bargain, the first sale doctrine and fair use provisions. It should not be possible to copyright DRM'ed content.
Stop misrepresenting what they're doing. The modified movies are clearly labelled as such. There should be no problem as long as no misrepresentation (i.e. fraud) is going on.
What's worse is network TV butchering most movies left, right and center and misrepresenting that to the public as the original movie.
---
DRM'ed content breaks the copyright bargain, the first sale doctrine and fair use provisions. It should not be possible to copyright DRM'ed content.
Mass selfishness could bring many popular free sites to an end.
That's some chutzpah you've got there, claiming that somebody not looking at an ad is somehow selfish.
It's actually almost the reverse; doing pretty much anything that makes life hard for the marketing industry at the moment is performing a social service.
Oh, and your sky-is-falling scenario of free sites disappearing is so silly it's hardly worth talking about. They're not free, you're paying for them twice over; once in time/attention to watch/avoid the ad and secondly in the increased price of the product to pay for it. Not to mention all the associated transaction overheads.
All that would happen is that people would pay for what's worthwhile to them directly, including classified advertising directories. True market value would emerge and with luck the value shell game that is modern unsolicited advertising would go the way of the dodos.
---
The majority of modern marketing is nothing more than an arms race to get mind share. Everybody loses except the parasitic marketing "industry".
Free clue: A patent can be completely bogus even though fulfills every legal requirement, including the PTO's clueless version of "obviousness" and being written with nice legal language.
The patent mafia loves the circular reasoning that because it's legal it must be valid and because it's valid it must be legal.
Try to get you head around the fact that just because the law says something is okay doesn't necessarily mean it is okay.
The patent mafia's self serving assumption that because it's legally valid somehow makes it okay is bogus.
---
Like software, intellectual property law is a product of the mind, and can be anything we want it to be. Let's get it right.
So if the taxpayers of a nation are solely to get a benefit then the concept should not be freely available to the world in general through public domain.
What a poisonous idea. The automatic assumption that sharing ideas is bad.
Fact is, if tax money has paid for it then tax money has paid for it and the taxpayer should not pay more. That people in other countries benefit also is a plus, not a minus.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Do you really want other countries patenting ideas you could use when you start patenting ideas they could use? This is lose-lose.
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Like software, intellectual property law is a product of the mind, and can be anything we want it to be. Let's get it right.
You have no idea what "obvious" means in the sense used in patent law.
And you seem to have no idea what "obvious" means in real life.
Just because the PTO is currently using a bogus definition of "obvious" doesn't somehow make it okay.
A lot of ideas are "ideas whose time has come". They are obvious to people in the field because the conditions are right and are going to be independently reinvented many times.
The fact that patent law can't even cope with something as simple as that shows just how badly broken patent law is.
---
Creating simple artificial scarcity with copyright and patents on things that can be copied billions of times at minimal cost is a fundamentally stupid economic idea.
That's a complete joke. The BBC annoys me everytime I watch it, and because their income is guaranteed they are the most arrogant, smug, complacent TV company in the world.
And still far superior to virtually every commercial TV station on the planet.
If you want to pay twice, once in time to watch the useless ad, and twice in money in the increased price of the product to pay for the ad then go right ahead. I for one have got better things to do with my time.
90% of modern marketing is nothing more than an arms race to get mind share. Everybody loses except the marketing parasites.
Well, it could spark an arms race where everybody loses except the patent mafia.
If the government is patenting then other players will feel the need to patent simply as a preemptive defensive measure in case the government changes it's mind and starts charging. Just like has already happened with public universities. Meaning the players will want to cross-license. Could create idea ghettos and major market distortion. Not to mention bureacratic overhead.
To break a competitive vicious circle like this you have to change the rules so people compete positively with improved product, not negatively with legal manipulation dragging down the competition.
---
Like software, intellectual property law is a product of the mind, and can be anything we want it to be. Let's get it right.
free != reduced profit != never would've made a sale anyway. Don't be a fanatic.
---
It's wrong that an intellectual property creator should not be rewarded for their work. It's equally wrong that an IP creator should be rewarded too many times for the one piece of work, for exactly the same reasons. Reform IP law and stop the M$/RIAA abuse.
There are a growing number of different manufacturers making players that can play this evil MS format and a large number of different stores you can buy this evil MS format from.
Hardly a choice. All with the same OS and similar user interfaces. Just because the hardware comes from different vendors doesn't mean the software does. The Apple hardware could well be built in more than one factory also.
Different retailers selling the same wholesaler's product with added chrome is in no realistic sense the same as a free market selling different products from different vendors.
---
I love the free market zealots who think monopoly is a good thing.
About as worthwhile as collecting stamps, plane spotting or paying for the privilege of watching meatheads kick around an airfilled leather sack on TV.
I'd suggest you broaden your mind; different people have different interests. And there's nothing to suggest this project might not branch off in different directions in future.
[Assuming we're speaking about the same parent - your parent was not modded as troll] The were spamming the same tired old RIAA/MPAA viewpoint that everybody here is already very familiar with.
With absolutely no new evidence or rational argument to justify it.
Since that same viewpoint is being repeatedly spammed in every second movie theatre on the entire planet without evidence or argument and there is no "spam" moderation here they are rightly regarded as trolls.
Incidently, by claiming slashdot is a collective you are being unnecessarily insulting and probably should be modded troll as well. Slashdot hosts a wide spectrum of opinions on copyright and patents. The current incarnation in law is only one of an infinite number of possibilities.
---
Scientific, evidence based IP law. Now there's a thought.
You are mistaken. Have you had a look at the bytes of a typical binary format such as MSDOC? It's mostly zeroes.
A text format with general purpose compression (as ODF is) can be considerably faster than a primitive binary "memory image". The reason is that that by far the biggest limiting factor is disk speed, not CPU, and if compression can reduce the disk size then the CPU needed to decode the text is not important. That's why read+decompress is often faster than read uncompressed.
M$ have highly optimized MSDOC read/write routines. OO's routines aren't highly optimized. The ODF document format is almost irrelevant.
Typical numbers. This is 719 pages. It's about 0.5MB in both sxw and odt forms. A typical disk drive can read 10MB/s (just measured it). The entire document can be read in 50ms. Modern PC's have memory speeds of typically 1GB+/s. The entire document can be read from memory in 500 microseconds.
This doesn't prove that the ODF document can be parsed quickly but unless the ODF document format is totally brain dead, it does strongly suggest that decoding is not a big deal time-wise. It's not as if serial decompression and parsing is a computationally challenging task. e.g. This XML parser read from disk cache the entire uncompressed 5MB (400KB compressed) content.xml from the above document and processed it in 0.7s.
So please, stop spreading the all too common student excuses about primitive binary formats being magically faster. They may be but it's not automatic.
---
Open source software is everything that closed source software is. Plus the source is available.
Meaningless. All things can be labelled "property" and made valuable by defining the rules appropriately.
The government could say I have the right to charge anybody who has a shit. That would be a very valuable intellectual property indeed. Doesn't mean that it's desirable or of net benefit to society to organise the rules that way.
The same reasoning applies to the USA exporting "their" "intellectual property". If the rest of the world decides the USA's fanatical view of "intellectual property" is of no net benefit to them then the USA could very well find itself being told to take a walk.
---
Scientific, evidence based IP law. Now there's a thought.
... shouldn't be able to make value judgments on content they don't own...
And there you have in a nutshell what your fanaticism is blinding you to. Your reasoning is circular.
Ownership, by definition implies control. Look up the definition.
Try to get your head around the fact that ownership is arbitrary and that just because an artist has created the first copy does not automatically imply they should have control of every other copy. Copyright is a privilege, not a right.
The RIAA, the fraudulent parasites that they are, is continually trying to push the "we own it therefore we should control all copies" meme. That's bullshit in everything except a very limited legal sense. The law needs to change.
---
Scientific, evidence based IP law. Now there's a thought.
Slashdot Mirror
This could be extended. The bank could release an entire page of random letters, different for every customer. Then the bank could verify the customer ("What are the 4th, 5th and 9th letters on the 12th line?") and the cutomer could verify the bank as well (entry form where the customer selects row and column to get verification for). Stll doesn't help with man-in-the-middle though.
---
Keep your options open!
You're dreaming. Groups get together and beat up on the little guy. Doesn't matter whether you call those groups gangs or governments, corporations or countries.
And if you have even one group of people willing to do that then everybody else needs to join a group to counter-balance. And when somebody joins a group they have to repress their own needs in favor of the average needs of the group.
Pure libertarinism is an idea that doesn't work out too well in the real world. Just like pure communism.
---
Keep your options open!
And life is very, very, hard to enjoy when you're not making good money.
Depends what you mean by "good money". The science says that above a minimum money does not buy happiness
---
You communist! Breathing shared air!
Part of the problem is less experienced people who give up on some software/device installation without realizing they could've installed with more effort. It's still something that needs fixing of course, installation should be easy for everybody, but it does explain why there is a different perception.
I've installed dozens of different Linux computers in different form-factors and roles with a variety of obscure devices and software. Almost all devices/software install with minimal/no effort these days. To get maximum resolution in X-windows is not as simple as it should be. A few problem devices require something arcane. The only thing I haven't been able to get going satisfactorily was a locked down mobile phone and an IrDA device. Both I worked around (new mobile phone and bluetooth).
To the linux beginners out there: for a problem linux installation google is your friend. There is a huge amount of information on the net in unstructured form, usually mailing lists and discussion sites, about how to install pretty much any device you care to name. You probably don't need to ask a question on a mailing list yourself at all; just do a search for something like "linux-version obscure-device-model-number install" (e.g. "ubuntu epson stylus color 676 install" or similar - phrasing may be important) and you're likely to find at least a few people who've already discussed your exact problem. FAQ's on project sites can be helpful sometimes too.
---
It's not piracy, it's sharing. Didn't your parents teach you to share?
Mostly, I'd just like existing behaviour to be more robust. The only new functionality I'd like to see is much more sophisticated bookmark handling and the ability to export/export a full set of configuration settings, including extensions and bookmarks, between different firefox installations, including up-version. Kudos to the team.
What's wrong with ads exactly?
Most steal people's time and attention and give nothing valuable in return. And the time of your life is the most important thing you have.
If the ads take away from the TV show to the point where you can't enjoy it, don't watch that show.
Since the net value of such TV is now zero I for one don't watch it. Ever wondered why network TV audiences are going down?
If advertising gets me the TV shows I enjoy and brings them to me for free, I'm all for it.
It's not free. You're actually paying twice over; once in time to watch/avoid the ad and twice to in the increased price of the product to pay for the ad. At least with pay TV you don't lose your time. Except of course they're increasing advertising in that as well and soon that media will be destroyed also.
There's no harm in having a bus with an ad on the side, it's not like it's taking away anything from the bus. The bus helps save the environment, the ad helps pay for the bus. Ad's on pavement aren't bad either, are they taking away from some beauty of paved ground?
No harm? You're still paying for the ad through the increased price of the product. Not to mention the visual pollution and assorted deceptive propaganda.
How about you take a trip into the forset? There's less advertising. When I'm on a hike and I see an ad for pepsi painted on a tree, or I'm rock climbing, and there's a sign that says "This bolt brought to you by Coca-Cola" I'd be very upset,
Me too.
but I don't see that happening. There's no money in it because the people who are hiking and rock climbing aren't big fans of soda and that'd cause a lot of bad publicity.
You're living in a fool's paradise. Advertising is increasing all the time. And too much noise can compromise free speech just as much as too little signal.
---
The majority of modern marketing is nothing more than an arms race to get mind share. Everybody loses except the parasitic marketing "industry".
No, you misunderstand; I said, quite clearly, "This judgement is just one example of how broken copyright law currently is.". I know the law says this. The law is wrong.
As long as there is no misrepresentation of the modified copy it should be allowed. This ruling says no and that's wrong, in part because it breaks a normal free market principal (that of ownership by the customer to do as they please).
Don't be narrow minded and be trapped into assuming the current copyright law is the only possibility. That's just the RIAA's/MPAA's, the entrenched interests, fanatical self-serving point of view they are currently spamming to the world. Copright and patent law is a product of the mind and like software can be anything we want it to be. There are are huge number of ways that current law could be improved and these possibilities need to be discussed.
Allowing a person to have more than one copy of something, without selling it, would be a perfectly reasonable thing to allow since they can only watch one of them at a time anyway.
---
DRM'ed content breaks the copyright bargain, the first sale doctrine and fair use provisions. It should not be possible to copyright DRM'ed content.
we're talking about about third party copies of copyrighted material.
No, we're talking about them purchasing one copy, modifying it, and then on-selling the one modified version.
The essence of a free market.
This judgement is just one example of how broken copyright law currently is.
---
DRM'ed content breaks the copyright bargain, the first sale doctrine and fair use provisions. It should not be possible to copyright DRM'ed content.
and sell them as Disney movies.
Stop misrepresenting what they're doing. The modified movies are clearly labelled as such. There should be no problem as long as no misrepresentation (i.e. fraud) is going on.
What's worse is network TV butchering most movies left, right and center and misrepresenting that to the public as the original movie.
---
DRM'ed content breaks the copyright bargain, the first sale doctrine and fair use provisions. It should not be possible to copyright DRM'ed content.
Mass selfishness could bring many popular free sites to an end.
That's some chutzpah you've got there, claiming that somebody not looking at an ad is somehow selfish.
It's actually almost the reverse; doing pretty much anything that makes life hard for the marketing industry at the moment is performing a social service.
Oh, and your sky-is-falling scenario of free sites disappearing is so silly it's hardly worth talking about. They're not free, you're paying for them twice over; once in time/attention to watch/avoid the ad and secondly in the increased price of the product to pay for it. Not to mention all the associated transaction overheads.
All that would happen is that people would pay for what's worthwhile to them directly, including classified advertising directories. True market value would emerge and with luck the value shell game that is modern unsolicited advertising would go the way of the dodos.
---
The majority of modern marketing is nothing more than an arms race to get mind share. Everybody loses except the parasitic marketing "industry".
Free clue: A patent can be completely bogus even though fulfills every legal requirement, including the PTO's clueless version of "obviousness" and being written with nice legal language.
The patent mafia loves the circular reasoning that because it's legal it must be valid and because it's valid it must be legal.
Try to get you head around the fact that just because the law says something is okay doesn't necessarily mean it is okay.
The patent mafia's self serving assumption that because it's legally valid somehow makes it okay is bogus.
---
Like software, intellectual property law is a product of the mind, and can be anything we want it to be. Let's get it right.
So if the taxpayers of a nation are solely to get a benefit then the concept should not be freely available to the world in general through public domain.
What a poisonous idea. The automatic assumption that sharing ideas is bad.
Fact is, if tax money has paid for it then tax money has paid for it and the taxpayer should not pay more. That people in other countries benefit also is a plus, not a minus.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Do you really want other countries patenting ideas you could use when you start patenting ideas they could use? This is lose-lose.
---
Like software, intellectual property law is a product of the mind, and can be anything we want it to be. Let's get it right.
You have no idea what "obvious" means in the sense used in patent law.
And you seem to have no idea what "obvious" means in real life.
Just because the PTO is currently using a bogus definition of "obvious" doesn't somehow make it okay.
A lot of ideas are "ideas whose time has come". They are obvious to people in the field because the conditions are right and are going to be independently reinvented many times.
The fact that patent law can't even cope with something as simple as that shows just how badly broken patent law is.
---
Creating simple artificial scarcity with copyright and patents on things that can be copied billions of times at minimal cost is a fundamentally stupid economic idea.
That's a complete joke. The BBC annoys me everytime I watch it, and because their income is guaranteed they are the most arrogant, smug, complacent TV company in the world.
And still far superior to virtually every commercial TV station on the planet.
If you want to pay twice, once in time to watch the useless ad, and twice in money in the increased price of the product to pay for the ad then go right ahead. I for one have got better things to do with my time.
90% of modern marketing is nothing more than an arms race to get mind share. Everybody loses except the marketing parasites.
---
Paid marketers are the worst zealots.
Well, it could spark an arms race where everybody loses except the patent mafia.
If the government is patenting then other players will feel the need to patent simply as a preemptive defensive measure in case the government changes it's mind and starts charging. Just like has already happened with public universities. Meaning the players will want to cross-license. Could create idea ghettos and major market distortion. Not to mention bureacratic overhead.
To break a competitive vicious circle like this you have to change the rules so people compete positively with improved product, not negatively with legal manipulation dragging down the competition.
---
Like software, intellectual property law is a product of the mind, and can be anything we want it to be. Let's get it right.
free != reduced profit != never would've made a sale anyway. Don't be a fanatic.
---
It's wrong that an intellectual property creator should not be rewarded for their work.
It's equally wrong that an IP creator should be rewarded too many times for the one piece of work, for exactly the same reasons.
Reform IP law and stop the M$/RIAA abuse.
There are a growing number of different manufacturers making players that can play this evil MS format and a large number of different stores you can buy this evil MS format from.
Hardly a choice. All with the same OS and similar user interfaces. Just because the hardware comes from different vendors doesn't mean the software does. The Apple hardware could well be built in more than one factory also.
Different retailers selling the same wholesaler's product with added chrome is in no realistic sense the same as a free market selling different products from different vendors.
---
I love the free market zealots who think monopoly is a good thing.
As a hobby, it's silly.
About as worthwhile as collecting stamps, plane spotting or paying for the privilege of watching meatheads kick around an airfilled leather sack on TV.
I'd suggest you broaden your mind; different people have different interests. And there's nothing to suggest this project might not branch off in different directions in future.
---
Paid marketers are the worst zealots.
Don't worry, M$ Windows Disingenuous Disadvantage will start enforcing that soon.
That's the marvellous thing about DRM; it can all be done retroactively.
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Unregulated DRM = Total Customer Control = Ultimate Customer Lockin = Death of the free market.
[Assuming we're speaking about the same parent - your parent was not modded as troll] The were spamming the same tired old RIAA/MPAA viewpoint that everybody here is already very familiar with.
With absolutely no new evidence or rational argument to justify it.
Since that same viewpoint is being repeatedly spammed in every second movie theatre on the entire planet without evidence or argument and there is no "spam" moderation here they are rightly regarded as trolls.
Incidently, by claiming slashdot is a collective you are being unnecessarily insulting and probably should be modded troll as well. Slashdot hosts a wide spectrum of opinions on copyright and patents. The current incarnation in law is only one of an infinite number of possibilities.
---
Scientific, evidence based IP law. Now there's a thought.
Please get real. Quoting M$ marketing material is pretty much the opposite of evidence.
M$ programmers as a rule can't even handle race conditions, let alone the more stringent requirements of real time programming.
---
Marketing talk is not just cheap, it has negative value. Free speech can be compromised just as much by too much noise as too little signal.
They don't print the completely unbiased press release verbatim? Tell me it isn't so!
I'd suggest you learn to deal with alternative points of view. M$ is simply reaping what it sows.
---
Like trademarks, and for much the same reason, copyright should be lost if a product line becomes generic.
BUT it is slow..
You are mistaken. Have you had a look at the bytes of a typical binary format such as MSDOC? It's mostly zeroes.
A text format with general purpose compression (as ODF is) can be considerably faster than a primitive binary "memory image". The reason is that that by far the biggest limiting factor is disk speed, not CPU, and if compression can reduce the disk size then the CPU needed to decode the text is not important. That's why read+decompress is often faster than read uncompressed.
M$ have highly optimized MSDOC read/write routines. OO's routines aren't highly optimized. The ODF document format is almost irrelevant.
Typical numbers. This is 719 pages. It's about 0.5MB in both sxw and odt forms. A typical disk drive can read 10MB/s (just measured it). The entire document can be read in 50ms. Modern PC's have memory speeds of typically 1GB+/s. The entire document can be read from memory in 500 microseconds.
This doesn't prove that the ODF document can be parsed quickly but unless the ODF document format is totally brain dead, it does strongly suggest that decoding is not a big deal time-wise. It's not as if serial decompression and parsing is a computationally challenging task. e.g. This XML parser read from disk cache the entire uncompressed 5MB (400KB compressed) content.xml from the above document and processed it in 0.7s.
So please, stop spreading the all too common student excuses about primitive binary formats being magically faster. They may be but it's not automatic.
---
Open source software is everything that closed source software is. Plus the source is available.
has worthwhile I.P. to protect
Meaningless. All things can be labelled "property" and made valuable by defining the rules appropriately.
The government could say I have the right to charge anybody who has a shit. That would be a very valuable intellectual property indeed. Doesn't mean that it's desirable or of net benefit to society to organise the rules that way.
The same reasoning applies to the USA exporting "their" "intellectual property". If the rest of the world decides the USA's fanatical view of "intellectual property" is of no net benefit to them then the USA could very well find itself being told to take a walk.
---
Scientific, evidence based IP law. Now there's a thought.
And there you have in a nutshell what your fanaticism is blinding you to. Your reasoning is circular.
Ownership, by definition implies control. Look up the definition.
Try to get your head around the fact that ownership is arbitrary and that just because an artist has created the first copy does not automatically imply they should have control of every other copy. Copyright is a privilege, not a right.
The RIAA, the fraudulent parasites that they are, is continually trying to push the "we own it therefore we should control all copies" meme. That's bullshit in everything except a very limited legal sense. The law needs to change.
---
Scientific, evidence based IP law. Now there's a thought.