For KDE the question is how to attract more developers to the plattform. The answer is of course to remove entrance barriers, e.g. the small annoyances which regularly break stuff and need certain more or less trivial knowledge to fix them.
Cmake has to sides: a) you have to learn it and it is different from the usual toolchain b) it solves certain problems.
I don't think that is true. What is probably most surprising is how theming affects the way people view a desktop environment.
The future is not KDE vs. Gnome but both.
But according to the article, the application was not rejected for lack of novelty (ie. inventiveness), but rather due to subject matter. The subject matter which is patentable has nothing to do with invention and everything to do with the kind of social contract the citizens of a country want to make with inventors.
I am afraid. Subject matter defines what constitutes an invention on a fundamental level.
When a patent fails on subject matter it is not only that no patent is granted but the application is also a non-invention in Europe.
Very good btw. this is exactly the way it should be applies.
Article 52,2 defines what is at least to be considered a non-inventions by subject matter. Article 52,3 makes sure that patents on inventions can be granted regardless that they involve the components of Art 52.2, a loophole which was abused.
Article 52
Patentable inventions
(1) European patents shall be granted for any inventions which are susceptible of industrial application, which are new and which involve an inventive step.
(2) The following in particular shall not be regarded as inventions within the meaning of paragraph 1:
(a) discoveries, scientific theories and mathematical methods;
(b) aesthetic creations;
(c) schemes, rules and methods for performing mental acts, playing games or doing business, and programs for computers;
(d) presentations of information.
(3) The provisions of paragraph 2 shall exclude patentability of the subject-matter or activities referred to in that provision only to the extent to which a European patent application or European patent relates to such subject-matter or activities as such.
The UK is party to the European Patent convention which clearly says that software, organisational rules and business methods are not inventions, not patentable subject matters.
In the past ten years the European Patent Office tried to establish case law which perverted the EPC and created the EU software patent mess. As we see now, patentability advocats are on retreat thanks to the intense lobbying of software patent critics. And the courts follow.
The major task is now to gain ground and continue advocacy. What Sony proposes here is no INVENTION. So no surprise that it is not patentable.
What will be further crucial is the US getting real and abolishing software and business method patents.
Now, the patent system and the patent community faced a major blow from the EU efforts. But the current problem is that US citizens are not organised and raise the issue of software patenting.
Us citizens like to play with the red herrings which are novelty and non-obviousness. You are unable to solve anything that way. The fundamental problem is not examination but that the patent system is applied to fields where it has no meaningful role/foundation such as software and business methods. there is no way to fix the problem with wiki solutions or input. The way to solve the problem is ptressure. The institutions will then come up with "wiki style participation and baseless patent reform discussions which lead nowhere. But what you really have to say is that there is no role for patents in software. Too radical? It is not. It is the only advocacy way to solve the problem.
Lawyers as an interest group. Sure, this should be made public. How our legal system and lawyers exploit business for their dirty battles. You know there was a funny caricature: One person takes the cow from the front, his antoganist pulls her from the back and the attoney sits in the middle and melks it. Political economy and economic foundation, these are the weak elements of the system.
Non-obviousness, novelty discussions, then you participate as an amateur in the patent toyground and the patent institutions laugh at you and aducate you about the importance of patent reform, however no improvements will be made.
"prior art assessment, demonstrating novelty and non-obviousness"
True, but: It is very important to understand that these steps are formal assessments in a patent process driven by patent examination logic. What the patent system rules as beeing "non-obvious" will be thought of as "trivial" by most of us. But that does not mean that the patent system made a "mistake" or did not examine properly. You cannot glue market "non-obviousness" in patent system "non-obviousness", in fact "non-obviousness" is just a label for a test in the patent process.
When you want to exclude "obvious" patents it is better to discuss subject matter. It will be impossible to exclude "obvious" patents by tinkering with the "obviousness" test.
The general problem: Either market is fooled by the patent system because the labels of the tests do not mean what they say or you try to apply the meaning of the market to the patent system tests and fail or you redesign will fuck up the patent examination process.
When you don't like software patents then discuss "subject matter", not "obviousness", not "novelty" etc.
For me the whole approach looks amaterurish. It's like some persons who are clueless about patent reality thought of a new solution at the round table. It sounds nice and that is why Slashdot reported it, but in fact it is toyground action.
The patent problem has to be solved and the patent problem is NO problem of prior art, novelty assessment, "triviality" or "obviousness", patent examiner laziness or mistakes etc. However patent institutions and patent professionals like to let you enter the toyground. There you can think up solutions, but they will not solve the problems, and the institutions are safe.
Patent reform of Congress went into the same trap. They discussed the issue for the..hmm... third time(?) in 2006. It makes no sense to follow the red herrings. Red herrings serve the purpose that you don't get the fish.
I am not sure you are right here. And your assert that patents are beneficial for large corporations in particular lack evidence.
think in terms of a scenario model
Scenario a) with patents Scenerio b) without
----
Or: scenario a) bogota, individual security scenario b) safe place
You know, sure you are better off in an unsecure situation when you can afford guards and fences, probably this also makes you a more visible target. But in a secure place no one needs to take guns. And you don't have to pay for the security service.
I do not aim to rescue the world.
Maybe there is a legitimate role in some markets. All I know for sure is that it makes little sense in the software market.
Now. I said Mac has a User community. Has Linux a user community and what does it look like?
Think of a tool, let's take The Gimp.
We have a lot of Blogs, posts etc. intrested in GIMP development.
The Linux user community is a programmer community.
A real user community would discuss means to work with the software, offer tutorials, provide templates etc.
Linux takes off when it attracts user communities.
Take 5 Linux programmers who develop a game and look for artists. --> good code, crappy visuals Take an existing engine, a game with a user community and think of the game modder scene.
Now with some game engines open sourced the game modder community goes "open source" and a lot of intresting spinoffs emerge.
Game modding and open source development have much in common. All you need is a working plattform.
Getting user communities involved is sometimes difficult. But without these special communities we will see little progress. E.g. FreePascal has the potential to take the leftovers from the TurboPascal user community over. TP is not developed anymore. But there are still people out there who code TP, qbasic etc. and they run websites, provide tutorials etc.
Special user communities, be it visual art specialists, be it musicians have to be attracted. the rest will just emerge. Now visual art and music are bad examples but there are better examples. Support for special languages like Kmer or Farsi or Arabic in order to attract users from these nations and get a competitive advantage. Flight simulation might be an intresting field. Radio activism and podcasting.
Quicksort is applied information science. Science funded with a lot of public money.
"If you cut out all the crap, you'd probably have a pretty good bunch of patents. I've yet to find a good logical paper that contrasts the pros and cons of software patents, and presents a good reason on why or not they should exist."
Good idea. Show me the good ones.
Patents and software patents are not much different, that is true. I do not aim to abolish the patent system at large. But I don't want them in software.
You are wrong, the software patent problem is no 'prior art' problem and cannot be solved that way.
"Prior art as a solution" is what the institutions want to make you believe. The US debate focuses on prior art/novelty and obviousness/triviality. It is a reason why they cannot fix it in the US. Two red herrings of patent reform policy.
In Europe the patent system is in defense and the attempt Riordan decribes are important to win grounds.
That's gotta be one of the largest trolls I've ever heard in my entire life. Remember the whole "Anti-Trust" thing we went through years ago? Remember Microsoft being convicted of abusing their monopoly powers because of the fact that crucial parts of their platforms are closed? Ever tried to use NTFS on any other platform? Windows is as open as Aqua, and that is to say: NOT AT ALL.
Okay then. I am not questioning that.
Just remember what the computer world outside the IBM PC/XT/AT looked like. IBM's monopoly is gone. The architecture still stands. It was an open architecture.
Just as the VHS was more open than betamax which was produced exclusively by Sony.
Restricted interoperability, control of Microsoft. True. But when you compare it too Apple's policy what plattform is more open. Or: What does the fact change that Apple licensed some backend parts open source?
When you have a plattform that is more open you likely also face a complexity trap or a standardisation problem.
The Windows PC is a more or less open plattform. We often blame Microsoft but have to keep in mind that real mess is created by ugly third party drivers. Apple does not aim to support the whole hardware universe. It is a interoperability hell from a competition perspective and a interoperability paradise from a plattform perspective. Happiness in proprietary slavery?
It is technically possible to port Mac OS X in order to be executable on general cheap Intel-Computers. But they do not want it. You know that GNUstep aimed at creating a runtime plattform for Linux, Windows and Mac. So it should not be a problem for Apple to provide software which makes OS X apps run on Windows but they just don't want it.
What are the advantages of Apple? - a strong, often specialised, user community, esp. in media and design - many commercial applications esp. Video, graphic and Microsoft Office. Earlier IE was an argument. - a fame of good usability - some well designed applications such as iTunes - marketing
On the long run I do not think Apple's Operating Systems will survive. If the Open source community chose GNUstep instead of GNOME Apple would be history or liberated today.
Slashdot Mirror
So why did Novell-ximian develop it in a closed process, enabling Gnome to be the first on stage?
The proper way is followed by RedHat anyway, not Novell. Xgl is obsolete despite the hype.
From my perspective English Breakfast Network looks like the greatest infrastructure improvement.
For KDE the question is how to attract more developers to the plattform. The answer is of course to remove entrance barriers, e.g. the small annoyances which regularly break stuff and need certain more or less trivial knowledge to fix them.
Cmake has to sides:
a) you have to learn it and it is different from the usual toolchain
b) it solves certain problems.
I don't think that is true. What is probably most surprising is how theming affects the way people view a desktop environment. The future is not KDE vs. Gnome but both.
I am afraid. Subject matter defines what constitutes an invention on a fundamental level.
When a patent fails on subject matter it is not only that no patent is granted but the application is also a non-invention in Europe.
Very good btw. this is exactly the way it should be applies.
Article 52,2 defines what is at least to be considered a non-inventions by subject matter. Article 52,3 makes sure that patents on inventions can be granted regardless that they involve the components of Art 52.2, a loophole which was abused.
The UK is party to the European Patent convention which clearly says that software, organisational rules and business methods are not inventions, not patentable subject matters.
In the past ten years the European Patent Office tried to establish case law which perverted the EPC and created the EU software patent mess. As we see now, patentability advocats are on retreat thanks to the intense lobbying of software patent critics. And the courts follow.
The major task is now to gain ground and continue advocacy. What Sony proposes here is no INVENTION. So no surprise that it is not patentable.
What will be further crucial is the US getting real and abolishing software and business method patents.
Now, the patent system and the patent community faced a major blow from the EU efforts. But the current problem is that US citizens are not organised and raise the issue of software patenting.
Us citizens like to play with the red herrings which are novelty and non-obviousness. You are unable to solve anything that way. The fundamental problem is not examination but that the patent system is applied to fields where it has no meaningful role/foundation such as software and business methods. there is no way to fix the problem with wiki solutions or input. The way to solve the problem is ptressure. The institutions will then come up with "wiki style participation and baseless patent reform discussions which lead nowhere. But what you really have to say is that there is no role for patents in software. Too radical? It is not. It is the only advocacy way to solve the problem.
Lawyers as an interest group. Sure, this should be made public. How our legal system and lawyers exploit business for their dirty battles. You know there was a funny caricature: One person takes the cow from the front, his antoganist pulls her from the back and the attoney sits in the middle and melks it. Political economy and economic foundation, these are the weak elements of the system.
Non-obviousness, novelty discussions, then you participate as an amateur in the patent toyground and the patent institutions laugh at you and aducate you about the importance of patent reform, however no improvements will be made.
"prior art assessment, demonstrating novelty and non-obviousness"
True, but: It is very important to understand that these steps are formal assessments in a patent process driven by patent examination logic. What the patent system rules as beeing "non-obvious" will be thought of as "trivial" by most of us. But that does not mean that the patent system made a "mistake" or did not examine properly. You cannot glue market "non-obviousness" in patent system "non-obviousness", in fact "non-obviousness" is just a label for a test in the patent process.
When you want to exclude "obvious" patents it is better to discuss subject matter. It will be impossible to exclude "obvious" patents by tinkering with the "obviousness" test.
The general problem: Either market is fooled by the patent system because the labels of the tests do not mean what they say or you try to apply the meaning of the market to the patent system tests and fail or you redesign will fuck up the patent examination process.
When you don't like software patents then discuss "subject matter", not "obviousness", not "novelty" etc.
For me the whole approach looks amaterurish. It's like some persons who are clueless about patent reality thought of a new solution at the round table. It sounds nice and that is why Slashdot reported it, but in fact it is toyground action.
..hmm ... third time(?) in 2006. It makes no sense to follow the red herrings. Red herrings serve the purpose that you don't get the fish.
The patent problem has to be solved and the patent problem is NO problem of prior art, novelty assessment, "triviality" or "obviousness", patent examiner laziness or mistakes etc. However patent institutions and patent professionals like to let you enter the toyground. There you can think up solutions, but they will not solve the problems, and the institutions are safe.
Patent reform of Congress went into the same trap. They discussed the issue for the
"Is this "open source" as in Microsoft's "shared source" projects, where it's totally not open source at all except in a PR sense?"
Microsoft also has REAL open source licenses that are free as in free-issimo.
I am not sure you are right here. And your assert that patents are beneficial for large corporations in particular lack evidence.
think in terms of a scenario model
Scenario a) with patents
Scenerio b) without
----
Or:
scenario a) bogota, individual security
scenario b) safe place
You know, sure you are better off in an unsecure situation when you can afford guards and fences, probably this also makes you a more visible target.
But in a secure place no one needs to take guns. And you don't have to pay for the security service.
I do not aim to rescue the world. Maybe there is a legitimate role in some markets. All I know for sure is that it makes little sense in the software market.
Complexity.
In a company which produces one car T-model with one color things are easier than in the world of x different configuration and modding options.
Same goes for operating systems and hardware. Apple has not the size to deal with hardware vendors, control drivers etc. It is a scaling problem.
Now. I said Mac has a User community. Has Linux a user community and what does it look like?
Think of a tool, let's take The Gimp.
We have a lot of Blogs, posts etc. intrested in GIMP development.
The Linux user community is a programmer community.
A real user community would discuss means to work with the software, offer tutorials, provide templates etc.
Linux takes off when it attracts user communities.
Take 5 Linux programmers who develop a game and look for artists. --> good code, crappy visuals
Take an existing engine, a game with a user community and think of the game modder scene.
Now with some game engines open sourced the game modder community goes "open source" and a lot of intresting spinoffs emerge.
Game modding and open source development have much in common. All you need is a working plattform.
Getting user communities involved is sometimes difficult. But without these special communities we will see little progress. E.g. FreePascal has the potential to take the leftovers from the TurboPascal user community over. TP is not developed anymore. But there are still people out there who code TP, qbasic etc. and they run websites, provide tutorials etc.
Special user communities, be it visual art specialists, be it musicians have to be attracted. the rest will just emerge. Now visual art and music are bad examples but there are better examples. Support for special languages like Kmer or Farsi or Arabic in order to attract users from these nations and get a competitive advantage. Flight simulation might be an intresting field. Radio activism and podcasting.
It would be no real problem for apple to get a 20% market share. But I assume they cannot manage a community of that size.
Quicksort is applied information science. Science funded with a lot of public money.
"If you cut out all the crap, you'd probably have a pretty good bunch of patents. I've yet to find a good logical paper that contrasts the pros and cons of software patents, and presents a good reason on why or not they should exist."
Good idea. Show me the good ones.
Patents and software patents are not much different, that is true. I do not aim to abolish the patent system at large. But I don't want them in software.
You are wrong, the software patent problem is no 'prior art' problem
and cannot be solved that way.
"Prior art as a solution" is what the institutions want to make you believe.
The US debate focuses on prior art/novelty and obviousness/triviality. It is
a reason why they cannot fix it in the US. Two red herrings of patent reform
policy.
In Europe the patent system is in defense and the attempt Riordan decribes
are important to win grounds.
What we need is a strong US movement which is organised activists.
True. Guess the same applies to Abiword. But who will write an Abiword worm?
That's gotta be one of the largest trolls I've ever heard in my entire life. Remember the whole "Anti-Trust" thing we went through years ago? Remember Microsoft being convicted of abusing their monopoly powers because of the fact that crucial parts of their platforms are closed? Ever tried to use NTFS on any other platform? Windows is as open as Aqua, and that is to say: NOT AT ALL.
Okay then. I am not questioning that.
Just remember what the computer world outside the IBM PC/XT/AT looked like.
IBM's monopoly is gone. The architecture still stands. It was an open architecture.
Just as the VHS was more open than betamax which was produced exclusively by Sony.
Restricted interoperability, control of Microsoft. True. But when you compare it too Apple's policy what plattform is more open. Or: What does the fact change that Apple licensed some backend parts open source?
When you have a plattform that is more open you likely also face a complexity trap or a standardisation problem.
driver code is usually ugly. Also think of these stupid configuration panels which are a usability hell.
Linux guis look much more clean and consistend when it comes to driver configuration.
Mac OS X supports a restricted set of hardware from the same vendor.
Imagine you could install Mac OS X on a simple PC. What would you chose? OSX or Vista?
I miss Amiga and Geoworks.
Ok ok. A Mac fanboy.
The Windows PC is a more or less open plattform. We often blame Microsoft but have to keep in mind that real mess is created by ugly third party drivers. Apple does not aim to support the whole hardware universe. It is a interoperability hell from a competition perspective and a interoperability paradise from a plattform perspective. Happiness in proprietary slavery?
It is technically possible to port Mac OS X in order to be executable on general cheap Intel-Computers. But they do not want it. You know that GNUstep aimed at creating a runtime plattform for Linux, Windows and Mac. So it should not be a problem for Apple to provide software which makes OS X apps run on Windows but they just don't want it.
What are the advantages of Apple?
- a strong, often specialised, user community, esp. in media and design
- many commercial applications esp. Video, graphic and Microsoft Office. Earlier IE was an argument.
- a fame of good usability
- some well designed applications such as iTunes
- marketing
On the long run I do not think Apple's Operating Systems will survive. If the Open source community chose GNUstep instead of GNOME Apple would be history or liberated today.
The US feeds attorneys, so no wonder the lawyer scum takes over the world.
What about: Less lawyers, more engineers...
No real problems anymore.
Because it will provide better support or likelihood of support of the program. Wine is not perfect, not at all.
Oh well, lets wait for the next processor generation, just a matter of time.