A few years ago, when I was living in ancient Sumeria, the Hunter-Gatherers Association of Mesopotamia were not too happy about those meddling farmers with their disruptive wheat fields, orchards and dairies. "Whose gonna pay a hunter to hunt down an ox or a gatherer to gather berries from the forest when everyone's just growing their own right ouside their huts and giving away the seeds?", they whined to the Chiefs.
Yes I know all about that but things appear to have happened since then and given that it was last June it looks like they've dropped the ball again and if it's really so simple then who are the mysterious new tech guys who are finding the time to trial the mp3 format stuff? It's not as though no-one's continued to complain. I have certainly done so on more than one occasion including to the new boss Andrew Highfield.
"We use Real because it's really cross platform, and when we started streaming, there was very little alternative"
Fair enough, but now there are many formats for streaming audio and video and many players capable of playing them and have been for quite some time. It was two years ago that the BBC began to provide the Ogg streams which it then dropped, saying they'd get around to it again when they had the time. The BBC should be at the forefront of this kind of technology, experimenting with stuff like speex for it's speech oriented programming - I know the BBC would like to make the best use of it's bandwidth
"You find another deployed, free (beer) client that deals with Win32, Mac (9/X), GNU/Linux, Solaris, the BSDs, HP/UX, etc etc, and maybe the BBC will support it."
Huh? - Please explain why you think it is necessary for everyone in the country to use one single cross-platform capable client, imposed on us by the BBC, just to listen to an audio stream - or indeed any other kind of stream? If the BBC provided the streams in multiple formats, the problem wouldn't arise. Who are you to tell us what software we must use to listen to content that we have payed for?
"when you've found that client, come back and tell the BBC. We'd love to hear about it, really. We hate the nag stuff too, but the client works, gets our A/V content out to the most users."
No it doesn't. Providing a choice of stream formats would do that, providing only the 'most popular' (and most widely despised) one does not. Justifying the lack of choice by stating the irrelevant fact that the RealPlayer client is the only cross-platform client for that proprietary stream format is nonsensically circular. Why don't you tell us why the BBC is imposing this perverse and Rumpelstiltskinesque condition on the stream and therefore the client software instead of simply enabling the listeners to choose by damn well providing the Ogg streams that they already promised?
"Stuff that's 'ours' (reith lectures, for a start) is being trialled as mp3s - you have no idea how hard it would be to do for stuff that isn't"
So, now you are telling us that the BBC can provide mp3 streams but cannot provide the Ogg streams? Who do you think you are kidding? Was the BBC lying when it said: "Yay, the legal issues have been resolved. We now have rights to all the of the BBC's radio output. Hopefully we should start kicking off these streams soon." ? Just how hard would it be for the BBC to stream Radio 5 Live's 24 hour news and talk in Ogg or mp3? - Okay so you can't stream all of the sporting events or all of the other content on other channels but that is an understandable difficulty. There is an ocean of content out there that is 'yours' - ours actually - and these feeble excuses about cross-platform players hold no water, any more than the lame excuse I heard from another BBC insider, for the reason that certain episodes of Horizon cost 9 times the $20 that they do in the U.S. - "It's expensive to hire the equipment to make the DVDs".
FUD indeed. You say you work for the BBC and I believe you - your bizarre non-explanation of the BBC's intransigence and addiction to the Real formats is reminiscent of the patronising arrogance exhibited by programme makers when called to account by disgruntled listeners in BBC programmes like "Feedback". It is clear that the BBC has moved a very long way from it's Reithian ideals of public service and now behaves in some ways like the worst kind of corporate monopolist, imposing it's self-interested and commercially founded decisions on it's users and customers without conscience or consideration.
Then there was this 'analysis' by the infamous Stephen Evans, the BBC's North American business correspondent and friend of the BSA, RIAA etc. There is also the fact that they have reneged on their promise to provide ogg streams two years ago and the curious absence, despite complaints, of any reporting of the software patent furore, even on the BBCi Technology site (not one mention, even of the demonstrations - ever!).
The dumbing down of much of their output and the Horizon series in particular also caused/causes quite a stir on the message boards but their policy is always to ignore complaints and give complainers the brush off - just listen to the arrogance of those producers and programme makers defending themselves absolutely, no matter how valid the criticisms, on Radio 4's "Feedback" programme. I stopped watching the BBC TV some time ago - soon after they introduced those insipid, self promoting adverts. They have lost much of my respect.
No, that's not how patents work. In order for an invention to be protected by a patent, it must embody all of the claims in the patent. Similarly, in order for a work to infringe on a patent, it must infringe significantly on the claims in the patent.
That is an irrelevance, None of the other claims establish anything new. As is well known, I can infringe on this patent with a few lines of code. The fact that the code needs to be intended to run on the ubiquitous graphics display hardware described in the other claims of the patent is of no significance. Are you trying to imply that I need to design and build the hardware in order to infringe on it? Are you just ignorant or are you trying to deceive others into thinking that each and every claim in a patent is a claim to something new?
"I do believe there are a few algorithms which are sufficiently devious and clever that they might be deserving of patent protection. RSA is one example,.."
Well it's ironic that you chose the RSA algorithm as your example. Have you read the patent? If you were familiar with the trivial lttle lemma in elementary number theory on which it's based, you would be shocked and scandalised - as I was when I first came across it. It is no more devious and clever than Pythagoras's theorem, possibly less so.
"And that's just the abstract. You did all that? Amazing."
No - and neither did the patent applicant, as you damn well know. The substance of the patent, as with all patents, is in it's independent claim(s). In this case,claim 15 would appear to be the relevant one and it is indeed as simple and trivial as the parent poster originally suggested. The entire remainder of the text of the patent is the conventional and deliberate obfuscation designed to get it past the patent examiners in such a way that it has as broad an applicability as possible without it being so broad as to risk rejection.
"See, right here what you're doing is this: you're demonstrating a lack of understanding of what a patent actually is. It describes an entire invention, in great detail."
Sensing that the parent poster is naive in the arcane ways of the patent procedure, you present the jargonised abstract, which mostly contains a description of the already existing technology upon which the patent is based, as though it were in it's entirety, a summary of the pertinent part of the patent claim itself. You know full well that the apparent complexity of the patent text belies it's actual triviality and you know as well as I do the purpose of this complexity.
You use this serendipitous advantage to bamboozle the innocent reader into a false belief of the sophistication of the invention itself, no doubt in order to further your contested assertions of the merits of software patentability. You are adept in your dissimulative practices, "my friend" but I cannot see the long term advantage in maintaining such a dishonest stance. Your cronies have already failed to successfully pull the wool over the eyes of the members of the European Parliament. Perhaps not everyone can be bought or lied to.
"Well, let's look at the industry. For the 30 years before 1981, not a lot happened."
By what measure? Are you trying to imply that there was little academic research? Is it instead the case that as you said - the industry was simply smaller then? Is it really likely that the I.T. industry would not have exploded anyway?
"It's seems to me, anyway, that this is pretty good evidence for patents encouraging innovation."
Of course it is not. It is mere correlation.
"Impossible to tell, but there is certainly some evidence it wouldn't have been as big as it was."
Where? - There is plenty of evidence to the contrary here
If you are right then perhaps you can explain why other creative industries have flourished without the need for patentability of their techniques, methods and ideas? The movie industry for example...
"Time costs money, either directly or through opportunity costs. Who's going to pay your rent while you sit around all day and gaze at your navel? Your computer and related resources obviously cost money: at the lowest level, even electricity is not free. And your "brain," i.e. your education, certainly cost you money. Have you paid off your student loans yet? If so, who gave you the money to do so? If not, where do you plan to get it?"
Ever heard of childhood? When I was a child my parents usually "paid the rent" and let me play on the computer instead of sending me up the chimneys or down the mines. Ever heard of leisure time - why can't I work in a bar _and_ write software whan I get home? Or temporary unemployment or disability or any number of reasons why you cannot blithely and naively equate time and money? Your flawed logic implies that everything worthwhile ever accomplished by any human being should be measured in dollars alone and that all intellectual works should be patentable too.
"We can test this hypothesis. Look at the world around you. Where does most useful software come from? Companies"
We can indeed - I for one have no non-free, commercial software and the fact that most people do is hardly a proof that it is necessarily so. Nor anyway does it support the argument for software patentability since most SMEs and independent software developers in Europe are themselves against it.
"So no, the development of software isn't inherently restricted to those with money, but it is practically restricted to those with money."
Nonsense. How is it that there are 1000 or more packages in the larger GNU/Linux distros? How many projects are there at savannah and sourceforge and in the wider free software community? Perhaps they should all be informed that they cannot hope to survive in your naive f: Omega -> $$ world.
"All your talk about "intellectual commons" is summarily ignored. The idea is morally bankrupt, as has been discussed at exhaustive length elsewhere."
Ignorance is a good summary of your position. To say that the idea of an intellectual commons is morally bankrupt would set every great thinker that has ever lived spinning in their grave. In fact it is your ideas that are morally bankrupt, and bankruptcy is an appropriate word since you seem unable to see the world in anything other than grossly distorted economic terms and in a way so naively simplistic it would embarass any true economist. These maybe your ideas but you share them only with a handful of corrupt, wilfully ignorant and intellectually crooked and evasive worms - those with vested interests in maintaining and promulgating the laughable mess that is the US patent system.
You can "summarily ignore" the opposition to your benighted views all you like but to imply that the argument has been resolved in your favour after 'discussion at exhaustive length elsewhere' is risible. Perhaps you are one of those easily exhausted by the inconvenient truths and irreducible complexity and richness of the real world. Perhaps you cannot face any facts which do not suit the false simplicity of your blinkered dollar determinism.
Okay I've read them. Now tell me which one is the software patent? Which one of them is utterly trivial? Which one of them is a progress impeding claim to ownership of a mathematical algorithm or scientific idea?
I have a suspicion that many people who talk about patents here do not have a strong background in computing or history or science or mathematics or the arts, copyright law and patent law or philosophy or indeed any discipline whatsoever that might enable them to think rationally and logically long enough to see the evident folly of software patents.
"Something can be simple, but we shouldn't be deceived by this," said Jack Slobodin, another patent attorney. "If no one has done it before or thought of it, it deserves a patent. Like the paper clip, or the Post-it note." And the inventor deserves compensation, Slobodin said."
Protecting the rights of inventors is a necessary part of the research and investment fields, said Slobodin.
Otherwise, he said, there would be little incentive for taking risks: "The inventor should have a key to the courthouse. There's a long, sordid history of big companies stealing the work of private inventors."
The same old hopelessly flawed logic and a very good example of it: To make paperclips available to the World, which is what you are expected to do in return for the exclusive rights to profit from doing so, you need to invest in a paperclip factory, it's workforce, distribution network and all the other expenses associated with manufacturing investment. There lies the risk - a very great financial risk and rightly addressed by the patent system. If you consider an equivalently simple software or business method idea, where is that risk now? Just what exactly is it that needs to be protected? The only investment risk that needs to be protected in this case is the investment in the patent application itself and the litigation expenses required to extort money from legitimate and honest businesses and organisations.
Just who do the legislators think they're protecting when they engineer a system that enables worthless parasites like PanIP to persecute small businesses and others even to gratuitously attack charities?
"If somebody was giving a question and came up with a truely original idea that no one else had thought of having had the same question given to them. That idea should be patentable."
Well that would be just marvellous wouldn't it?
1) Lawyer/amateur coder A has good idea for e-commerce software: Widget X, patents it, Returns to lawyering, hoping to cash in if anyone actually writes the Widget X software.
2) Student/amateur coder B thinks of clever way around Lawyer A's patent. Patents it.
3) Porn baron/amateur coder C discovers method of avoiding both A and B patents. Patents it.
4) Web designer/amateur coder D....
5) Large software company E hires one software patent expert per programmer to ensure nothing is missed and nothing is not patented.
6) Database designer F informs government that patent database is too large to be contained in any Earth based installation.
7) Professional coder G, with the assistance of his company's lawyer horde, searches the Lunar patent database in vain - looking for something, anything that isn't already patented. Gives up. Joins the Army. Company folds.
8) Free software coder H releases version 2.2 of his widely used package X-Tribble which contains an implementation of Widget X - and has done since before Lawyer A was born.
9) PanIP buys up all Widget X related patents, threatens X-Tribble, X-Tribble project is shut down.
Patents are for protecting innovators be they individuals or companies who put a great deal of time, money and effort into designing, testing and building material objects that they hope the consumer will want to buy. They're for protecting those who've already spent a lot of money on getting a prototype working and because they or someone else will need to spend yet more on the manufacturing of it. Patents are designed to ensure that the patentee can expect reasonable recompense for his efforts and contributions to society.
Patents were not designed so that people could cash in on abstract ideas that others can and will have independently and need never actually do anything with anyway.
Patents are not supposed to be granted in order that idle patentees can exact a tax from those that actually do put in the work of building a complete, working product.
They are not supposed to work so that transient monopolies can be transformed into permanent monopolies by deploying yet more patents designed to block interoperability.
Historically at least, the patent system did not exist in order that the patent-wealthy could bully the patent-poor into handing over what little they may already have had.
It did not exist to ensure that only the largest companies could afford the licensing of the myriad patents necessary to produce products of any size or sophistication and at the same time destroy the rights of everyone else to engage in the arts,sciences and free communication of ideas.
The fully fledged software application that actually does require all the time, expense and effort to create is and always has been, protected by copyright. Software patents are insane, in concept aswell as in practice.
Errm... yes but I thought we were talking about textbooks for business/management students - not CS students. Anyway, your comment is extremely depressing if it's true that CS departments really are now so dependent on (and influenced or corrupted by) the corporates.
As it happens, I was just having a couple of pints with some physics student friends who are trying to complete a project for which they 'need' to use IDL (from rsinc.com) because the guy that wrote the analysis code they've got, wrote it for IDL v5.2. Unfortunately, the solar images from the ESA they need to analyse (and which the analysis code is designed for) are in gif format which isn't supported in the university provided version of IDL (5.4 I think). Apparently, rsinc couldn't get a license for the LZW patent from unisys for that version.
Anyway, because of that (and similar issues) I was wondering why the other departments (especially the sciences) don't complain more about this sort of thing to the CS people. Maybe if physics and maths etc. got their acts together, they could exert some influence on CompSci? I really can't see how any scientist can be happy about using proprietary, closed source software.
There must be solutions that don't involve such major financial upheavals as you've described. Every university needs hardware and software whether it has an academic CS dept. or not. I can't believe it's beyond the abilities of the heads of department, working together, to beat this destructive addiction.
"Microsoft has heavily infuenced US business schools with low priced licensing and faculty sponsored research, Linux does not have this advantage."
So much for academic integrity then.
"Alos, I would mention that Linux+Unices only have 8% of the marketplace while Windows occupies 85% therefore if Linux/Unix have 3 references and you see more then 30 references for Windows then it really is out of whack with reality."
These text books are supposed to be informing their readership of the relative merits of the various platforms, not equating relative popularity with relative merit.
"Finally, university textbooks are NOTORIOUS for being behind the curve when it comes to new developments in fields so you can't really fault the books for being behind the times when it comes to Linux,"
Really? Well I remember there was there a/. article some time ago complaining about the exorbitant prices of textbooks and how the authors/publishers would make damned sure they 'updated' them each year (whether there was any need to or not) so that students had to buy the new editions instead of going to the second hand store.
There are some links on this page you might find useful. There's plenty of free stuff too: some student radio stations like icradio.com archive their shows and make them available for free download and some artists provide a few downloadable mp3s on their own websites - Kate Rusby for example.
You make it sound like the BBC would do it if they could and may do so in the future. I hope you're right because there are wider concerns surrounding the media formats used by the BBC than just the superior coolness, efficiency or usefulness of Ogg, important though those concerns undoubtedly are. Their inertia is very disappointing.
Sadly the good stuff in the Technology section, including Bill Thomson's stuff, does not seem to influence the rest of the BBC. Stephen Evans's recent vitriolic attack in the business section (aswell as the technology section) and his pro copyright extension piece on the Today prog. seem more representative of the general BBC attitude to me. What struck me as most significant was the absence of any coverage of last year's anti-software patent battles. Little if any attention is paid to this or related issues like the EUCD and the -now hot- IP enforcement directive - despite the ramifications for society as a whole rather than just the people who read the technology pages.
No they don't stream OGG. The fact that they don't and that they only stream in Real format is a major letdown by the BBC. They promised it but never delivered. As for free software; they use it a lot but they also take a hypocritically antithetical stance on it in their reporting and with regard to their internal policy on it.
Not paying for the TV license is really an irrelevance - the BBC isn't just a TV station, it is radio too and more than that, it is part of the national infrastructure. You can't really regard it as though it was just another commercial TV station and as though the original poster was criticising something he didn't buy or want to buy anyway.
Me too - and I've replied to the unsatisfactory response from the editor:
On Thursday 05 February 2004 19:12, NewsOnline (Tim Weber) wrote:
> Dear Sir > > Thanks for your e-mail. > > I have noted the points you made - as well as the vigorous debate on > Slashdot.org about this article. > > Well, Stephen Evans's weekly "stateside" column is not a news story, but > an analytical look at major events and business trends in the United > States.
That makes it even worse - anyone knowledgeable about the technical and business background to this story has probably assumed that Mr. Evans's article is a silly and irresponsible opinion piece by someone too lazy or incompetent to do even the most cursory research. Now you are telling us that it is an 'analytical look' at the subject? The only reasonable conclusion then is that he is intentionally slandering the Linux/Open source community. It is also known to the community that Mr. Evans has shown a marked tendency to side with certain powerful segments of the mostly U.S. industry in other pieces he has written eg: http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/audio/38879000/rm/ _3 8879607_copyright08_evans.ram
> It is, of course, debatable whether MyDoom/Novarg/Shimgapi was written > just to bring down the SCO website, or whether the installation of > spamming tools on numerous computers was an additional - or even the > main - motive.
No it isn't really, as many of the slashdot postings point out; it is the considered opinion of the industry that the SCO/Microsoft attacks were intended merely as smokescreens. Yet even if it was genuinely debatable, debate is hardly the word I would use to describe Mr. Evans's approach.
> That was not the point of Stephen's article.
You could have fooled me - it is certainly one of the major points he made.
> In his piece he wanted to draw the attention of BBC News Online's > audience - many of whom are unlikely to know the ins and outs of the > Open Source debate - to the rapid spread of Linux as a commercial > application, SCO's attempts to cash in on this fact, and the deep anger > that SCO has caused within the Linux community through its legal > actions.
Exactly, and that is precisely why so many people are so appalled. His scurrilous accusations masquerading as facts are likely to do serious damage to companies doing business by selling Linux based services and open source software. That audience you speak of who are unfamiliar with the debate are going to be left with a completely false and negative opinion about Linux etc. because of the hysterical zealotry of an article the likes of which I have never before seen on the BBC site. I don't think the BBC realises just how serious this matter is.
I don't know why Mr. Evans has decided to side with certain large companies and business organisations against the interests of the public and any competitors of those particular narrow interests but he is certainly no longer a reliable or impartial journalist. I must reiterate; this matter is extremely serious - what would've been the position of the BBC morally and legally if Mr. Evans had made his article an attack on IBM, for example? Would you have let past your editorial filter an article containing statements such as "Zealous programmers working for IBM have unleashed a new virus on the internet aimed at destroying their competitors"?
Thankyou for replying, I take it that it means you are treating this issue conscientiously but I would humbly suggest you think harder about the meaning and implications of Mr. Evans's article and the very unimpartial and unjournalistic motivations that may lie behind it. Certainly I am moved to take this matter further if for no other reason than that I have seen the regard for the BBC in many quarters, like slashdot, change from one of respect and admiration to one of cynicism and disdain. As a fan of the BBC and a UK citizen I was especially hurt to read one comment which likened the BBC's journalism to that of it's corrupted American 'rivals'.
The BBC tends to ignore any criticism, as we've probably all realised by now but it's always worth informing them when they do mess up so that they can't claim they didn't know:
"This article is especially inappropriate for the BBC to be publishing in the light of recent criticisms. The section entitled "Wrath of Geeks" in particular, is so biased and loaded in it's use of language that one can only assume that the author is himself a Microsoft/SCO 'zealot'. The article as a whole carries the clear implication that a member of the Linux/open source software community is responsible for the virus and that the community as a whole is some kind of internet terrorist organization that supports this action. This is contrary to the facts and the already well publicised statements by leaders of the Linux community.
Many small, medium and even large businesses rely on Linux and the associated open source model of software development. Unfounded scare-mongering by supposedly responsible and impartial journalists aimed at discrediting a particular 'product' in this way is surely beneath the BBC. I hope you will consider removing this article before it does any damage to businesses that provide products and services based on Linux and open source software. Please try to remember that your own site and effectively the entire internet relies on such software, provided for you by the 'zealots' and 'wrathful geeks'."
Now they can either take down the article and replace it with some real journalism or they can sit back and do nothing while their reputation sinks further into the gutter.
Happy to help:). BTW - I don't know which side (if either) of the Open Source/Free Software debate you favour but I notice that there is a fsf.org for America, Europe and India. Perhaps there should be a Middle East version too?
I think the suspicion of trolling arose because of your use of slang like 'kinda' and the almost l33tspeakishly liberal use of elements of techno-dialect such as 'ppl', 'up2date' and emoticons which makes your posts look rather odd. L33tspeak is not taken very seriously by most people these days and it is regarded as a sign of immaturity to use it in a 'serious' context and is typical of trolls. So it looked very peculiar in what purported to be a post from a genuine Iraqi who might be expected to be familiar with no more than standard English.
If the AC had bothered to follow your link as I did he/she would've seen that you were in fact quite genuine but had simply picked up some dialectical oddities which one would not normally expect from someone who had learned English in a formal setting such as in the Iraqi education system. You should congratulate yourself on the sophistication of your command of dialectical forms of English but I'd suggest not using them too frequently when you need to be taken seriously.:)
Yes, it does look ridiculously over ambitious, especially as they are going about it in exactly the wrong way. Given the nature of the U.N. I'd not normally worry too much about platforms being given to despots - it's pretty much inevitable and in the interests of diplomatic harmony. In this case however it does seem there has been excessive suppression - they even banned Reporters Sans Frontieres. What we both agree on I think is the whole process has been perverted by the way the internet and information technology is being abused by WSIS for purposes and ends other than those it has claimed to wish to promote and that may have damaging consequences for everyone.
Slashdot Mirror
A few years ago, when I was living in ancient Sumeria, the Hunter-Gatherers Association of Mesopotamia were not too happy about those meddling farmers with their disruptive wheat fields, orchards and dairies. "Whose gonna pay a hunter to hunt down an ox or a gatherer to gather berries from the forest when everyone's just growing their own right ouside their huts and giving away the seeds?", they whined to the Chiefs.
Fortunately the Chiefs were wise in those days.
Yes I know all about that but things appear to have happened since then and given that it was last June it looks like they've dropped the ball again and if it's really so simple then who are the mysterious new tech guys who are finding the time to trial the mp3 format stuff? It's not as though no-one's continued to complain. I have certainly done so on more than one occasion including to the new boss Andrew Highfield.
"We use Real because it's really cross platform, and when we started streaming, there was very little alternative"
Fair enough, but now there are many formats for streaming audio and video and many players capable of playing them and have been for quite some time. It was two years ago that the BBC began to provide the Ogg streams which it then dropped, saying they'd get around to it again when they had the time. The BBC should be at the forefront of this kind of technology, experimenting with stuff like speex for it's speech oriented programming - I know the BBC would like to make the best use of it's bandwidth
"You find another deployed, free (beer) client that deals with Win32, Mac (9/X), GNU/Linux, Solaris, the BSDs, HP/UX, etc etc, and maybe the BBC will support it."
Huh? - Please explain why you think it is necessary for everyone in the country to use one single cross-platform capable client, imposed on us by the BBC, just to listen to an audio stream - or indeed any other kind of stream? If the BBC provided the streams in multiple formats, the problem wouldn't arise. Who are you to tell us what software we must use to listen to content that we have payed for?
"when you've found that client, come back and tell the BBC. We'd love to hear about it, really. We hate the nag stuff too, but the client works, gets our A/V content out to the most users."
No it doesn't. Providing a choice of stream formats would do that, providing only the 'most popular' (and most widely despised) one does not. Justifying the lack of choice by stating the irrelevant fact that the RealPlayer client is the only cross-platform client for that proprietary stream format is nonsensically circular. Why don't you tell us why the BBC is imposing this perverse and Rumpelstiltskinesque condition on the stream and therefore the client software instead of simply enabling the listeners to choose by damn well providing the Ogg streams that they already promised?
"Stuff that's 'ours' (reith lectures, for a start) is being trialled as mp3s - you have no idea how hard it would be to do for stuff that isn't"
So, now you are telling us that the BBC can provide mp3 streams but cannot provide the Ogg streams? Who do you think you are kidding? Was the BBC lying when it said: "Yay, the legal issues have been resolved. We now have rights to all the of the BBC's radio output. Hopefully we should start kicking off these streams soon." ? Just how hard would it be for the BBC to stream Radio 5 Live's 24 hour news and talk in Ogg or mp3? - Okay so you can't stream all of the sporting events or all of the other content on other channels but that is an understandable difficulty. There is an ocean of content out there that is 'yours' - ours actually - and these feeble excuses about cross-platform players hold no water, any more than the lame excuse I heard from another BBC insider, for the reason that certain episodes of Horizon cost 9 times the $20 that they do in the U.S. - "It's expensive to hire the equipment to make the DVDs".
FUD indeed. You say you work for the BBC and I believe you - your bizarre non-explanation of the BBC's intransigence and addiction to the Real formats is reminiscent of the patronising arrogance exhibited by programme makers when called to account by disgruntled listeners in BBC programmes like "Feedback". It is clear that the BBC has moved a very long way from it's Reithian ideals of public service and now behaves in some ways like the worst kind of corporate monopolist, imposing it's self-interested and commercially founded decisions on it's users and customers without conscience or consideration.
Then there was this 'analysis' by the infamous Stephen Evans, the BBC's North American business correspondent and friend of the BSA, RIAA etc. There is also the fact that they have reneged on their promise to provide ogg streams two years ago and the curious absence, despite complaints, of any reporting of the software patent furore, even on the BBCi Technology site (not one mention, even of the demonstrations - ever!).
The dumbing down of much of their output and the Horizon series in particular also caused/causes quite a stir on the message boards but their policy is always to ignore complaints and give complainers the brush off - just listen to the arrogance of those producers and programme makers defending themselves absolutely, no matter how valid the criticisms, on Radio 4's "Feedback" programme. I stopped watching the BBC TV some time ago - soon after they introduced those insipid, self promoting adverts. They have lost much of my respect.
Your complete ignorance of what a patent is and especially what constitutes the actual invention contained therein is getting very tiresome.
"You cannot infringe upon the described patent with "a few lines of code." That's just silly."
Yes it is silly but it is true:
http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Patents/patents.html
"No, I'm not trying to imply that. I'm saying it."
Perhaps you can explain that to Autodesk - maybe with your expert legal assistance they can get their money back.
That is an irrelevance, None of the other claims establish anything new. As is well known, I can infringe on this patent with a few lines of code. The fact that the code needs to be intended to run on the ubiquitous graphics display hardware described in the other claims of the patent is of no significance. Are you trying to imply that I need to design and build the hardware in order to infringe on it? Are you just ignorant or are you trying to deceive others into thinking that each and every claim in a patent is a claim to something new?
"I do believe there are a few algorithms which are sufficiently devious and clever that they might be deserving of patent protection. RSA is one example,.."
Well it's ironic that you chose the RSA algorithm as your example. Have you read the patent? If you were familiar with the trivial lttle lemma in elementary number theory on which it's based, you would be shocked and scandalised - as I was when I first came across it. It is no more devious and clever than Pythagoras's theorem, possibly less so.
"And that's just the abstract. You did all that? Amazing."
,claim 15 would appear to be the relevant one and it is indeed as simple and trivial as the parent poster originally suggested. The entire remainder of the text of the patent is the conventional and deliberate obfuscation designed to get it past the patent examiners in such a way that it has as broad an applicability as possible without it being so broad as to risk rejection.
No - and neither did the patent applicant, as you damn well know. The substance of the patent, as with all patents, is in it's independent claim(s). In this case
"See, right here what you're doing is this: you're demonstrating a lack of understanding of what a patent actually is. It describes an entire invention, in great detail."
Sensing that the parent poster is naive in the arcane ways of the patent procedure, you present the jargonised abstract, which mostly contains a description of the already existing technology upon which the patent is based, as though it were in it's entirety, a summary of the pertinent part of the patent claim itself. You know full well that the apparent complexity of the patent text belies it's actual triviality and you know as well as I do the purpose of this complexity.
You use this serendipitous advantage to bamboozle the innocent reader into a false belief of the sophistication of the invention itself, no doubt in order to further your contested assertions of the merits of software patentability. You are adept in your dissimulative practices, "my friend" but I cannot see the long term advantage in maintaining such a dishonest stance. Your cronies have already failed to successfully pull the wool over the eyes of the members of the European Parliament. Perhaps not everyone can be bought or lied to.
By what measure? Are you trying to imply that there was little academic research? Is it instead the case that as you said - the industry was simply smaller then? Is it really likely that the I.T. industry would not have exploded anyway?
"It's seems to me, anyway, that this is pretty good evidence for patents encouraging innovation."
Of course it is not. It is mere correlation.
"Impossible to tell, but there is certainly some evidence it wouldn't have been as big as it was."
Where? - There is plenty of evidence to the contrary here
If you are right then perhaps you can explain why other creative industries have flourished without the need for patentability of their techniques, methods and ideas? The movie industry for example...
Ever heard of childhood? When I was a child my parents usually "paid the rent" and let me play on the computer instead of sending me up the chimneys or down the mines. Ever heard of leisure time - why can't I work in a bar _and_ write software whan I get home? Or temporary unemployment or disability or any number of reasons why you cannot blithely and naively equate time and money? Your flawed logic implies that everything worthwhile ever accomplished by any human being should be measured in dollars alone and that all intellectual works should be patentable too.
"We can test this hypothesis. Look at the world around you. Where does most useful software come from? Companies"
We can indeed - I for one have no non-free, commercial software and the fact that most people do is hardly a proof that it is necessarily so. Nor anyway does it support the argument for software patentability since most SMEs and independent software developers in Europe are themselves against it.
"So no, the development of software isn't inherently restricted to those with money, but it is practically restricted to those with money."
Nonsense. How is it that there are 1000 or more packages in the larger GNU/Linux distros? How many projects are there at savannah and sourceforge and in the wider free software community? Perhaps they should all be informed that they cannot hope to survive in your naive f: Omega -> $$ world.
"All your talk about "intellectual commons" is summarily ignored. The idea is morally bankrupt, as has been discussed at exhaustive length elsewhere."
Ignorance is a good summary of your position. To say that the idea of an intellectual commons is morally bankrupt would set every great thinker that has ever lived spinning in their grave. In fact it is your ideas that are morally bankrupt, and bankruptcy is an appropriate word since you seem unable to see the world in anything other than grossly distorted economic terms and in a way so naively simplistic it would embarass any true economist. These maybe your ideas but you share them only with a handful of corrupt, wilfully ignorant and intellectually crooked and evasive worms - those with vested interests in maintaining and promulgating the laughable mess that is the US patent system.
You can "summarily ignore" the opposition to your benighted views all you like but to imply that the argument has been resolved in your favour after 'discussion at exhaustive length elsewhere' is risible. Perhaps you are one of those easily exhausted by the inconvenient truths and irreducible complexity and richness of the real world. Perhaps you cannot face any facts which do not suit the false simplicity of your blinkered dollar determinism.
Okay I've read them. Now tell me which one is the software patent? Which one of them is utterly trivial? Which one of them is a progress impeding claim to ownership of a mathematical algorithm or scientific idea?
I have a suspicion that many people who talk about patents here do not have a strong background in computing or history or science or mathematics or the arts, copyright law and patent law or philosophy or indeed any discipline whatsoever that might enable them to think rationally and logically long enough to see the evident folly of software patents.
"Something can be simple, but we shouldn't be deceived by this," said Jack Slobodin, another patent attorney. "If no one has done it before or thought of it, it deserves a patent. Like the paper clip, or the Post-it note." And the inventor deserves compensation, Slobodin said."
Protecting the rights of inventors is a necessary part of the research and investment fields, said Slobodin.
Otherwise, he said, there would be little incentive for taking risks: "The inventor should have a key to the courthouse. There's a long, sordid history of big companies stealing the work of private inventors."
The same old hopelessly flawed logic and a very good example of it: To make paperclips available to the World, which is what you are expected to do in return for the exclusive rights to profit from doing so, you need to invest in a paperclip factory, it's workforce, distribution network and all the other expenses associated with manufacturing investment. There lies the risk - a very great financial risk and rightly addressed by the patent system. If you consider an equivalently simple software or business method idea, where is that risk now? Just what exactly is it that needs to be protected? The only investment risk that needs to be protected in this case is the investment in the patent application itself and the litigation expenses required to extort money from legitimate and honest businesses and organisations.
Just who do the legislators think they're protecting when they engineer a system that enables worthless parasites like PanIP to persecute small businesses and others even to gratuitously attack charities?
"If somebody was giving a question and came up with a truely original idea that no one else had thought of having had the same question given to them. That idea should be patentable."
Well that would be just marvellous wouldn't it?
1) Lawyer/amateur coder A has good idea for e-commerce software: Widget X, patents it, Returns to lawyering, hoping to cash in if anyone actually writes the Widget X software.
2) Student/amateur coder B thinks of clever way around Lawyer A's patent. Patents it.
3) Porn baron/amateur coder C discovers method of avoiding both A and B patents. Patents it.
4) Web designer/amateur coder D....
5) Large software company E hires one software patent expert per programmer to ensure nothing is missed and nothing is not patented.
6) Database designer F informs government that patent database is too large to be contained in any Earth based installation.
7) Professional coder G, with the assistance of his company's lawyer horde, searches the Lunar patent database in vain - looking for something, anything that isn't already patented. Gives up. Joins the Army. Company folds.
8) Free software coder H releases version 2.2 of his widely used package X-Tribble which contains an implementation of Widget X - and has done since before Lawyer A was born.
9) PanIP buys up all Widget X related patents, threatens X-Tribble, X-Tribble project is shut down.
Patents are for protecting innovators be they individuals or companies who put a great deal of time, money and effort into designing, testing and building material objects that they hope the consumer will want to buy. They're for protecting those who've already spent a lot of money on getting a prototype working and because they or someone else will need to spend yet more on the manufacturing of it. Patents are designed to ensure that the patentee can expect reasonable recompense for his efforts and contributions to society.
Patents were not designed so that people could cash in on abstract ideas that others can and will have independently and need never actually do anything with anyway.
Patents are not supposed to be granted in order that idle patentees can exact a tax from those that actually do put in the work of building a complete, working product.
They are not supposed to work so that transient monopolies can be transformed into permanent monopolies by deploying yet more patents designed to block interoperability.
Historically at least, the patent system did not exist in order that the patent-wealthy could bully the patent-poor into handing over what little they may already have had.
It did not exist to ensure that only the largest companies could afford the licensing of the myriad patents necessary to produce products of any size or sophistication and at the same time destroy the rights of everyone else to engage in the arts,sciences and free communication of ideas.
The fully fledged software application that actually does require all the time, expense and effort to create is and always has been, protected by copyright. Software patents are insane, in concept aswell as in practice.
Errm... yes but I thought we were talking about textbooks for business/management students - not CS students. Anyway, your comment is extremely depressing if it's true that CS departments really are now so dependent on (and influenced or corrupted by) the corporates.
As it happens, I was just having a couple of pints with some physics student friends who are trying to complete a project for which they 'need' to use IDL (from rsinc.com) because the guy that wrote the analysis code they've got, wrote it for IDL v5.2. Unfortunately, the solar images from the ESA they need to analyse (and which the analysis code is designed for) are in gif format which isn't supported in the university provided version of IDL (5.4 I think). Apparently, rsinc couldn't get a license for the LZW patent from unisys for that version.
Anyway, because of that (and similar issues) I was wondering why the other departments (especially the sciences) don't complain more about this sort of thing to the CS people. Maybe if physics and maths etc. got their acts together, they could exert some influence on CompSci? I really can't see how any scientist can be happy about using proprietary, closed source software.
There must be solutions that don't involve such major financial upheavals as you've described. Every university needs hardware and software whether it has an academic CS dept. or not. I can't believe it's beyond the abilities of the heads of department, working together, to beat this destructive addiction.
"Microsoft has heavily infuenced US business schools with low priced licensing and faculty sponsored research, Linux does not have this advantage."
/. article some time ago complaining about the exorbitant prices of textbooks and how the authors/publishers would make damned sure they 'updated' them each year (whether there was any need to or not) so that students had to buy the new editions instead of going to the second hand store.
So much for academic integrity then.
"Alos, I would mention that Linux+Unices only have 8% of the marketplace while Windows occupies 85% therefore if Linux/Unix have 3 references and you see more then 30 references for Windows then it really is out of whack with reality."
These text books are supposed to be informing their readership of the relative merits of the various platforms, not equating relative popularity with relative merit.
"Finally, university textbooks are NOTORIOUS for being behind the curve when it comes to new developments in fields so you can't really fault the books for being behind the times when it comes to Linux,"
Really? Well I remember there was there a
The Kinks, Billie Holiday, Patsy Cline, Ray Charles, Gustav Mahler, Ludwig Beethoven, Franz Liszt,...
;)
They may be nobodies now but from the samples I listened to I think some of these artists may make it big one day.
There are some links on this page you might find useful. There's plenty of free stuff too: some student radio stations like icradio.com archive their shows and make them available for free download and some artists provide a few downloadable mp3s on their own websites - Kate Rusby for example.
You make it sound like the BBC would do it if they could and may do so in the future. I hope you're right because there are wider concerns surrounding the media formats used by the BBC than just the superior coolness, efficiency or usefulness of Ogg, important though those concerns undoubtedly are. Their inertia is very disappointing.
Sadly the good stuff in the Technology section, including Bill Thomson's stuff, does not seem to influence the rest of the BBC. Stephen Evans's recent vitriolic attack in the business section (aswell as the technology section) and his pro copyright extension piece on the Today prog. seem more representative of the general BBC attitude to me. What struck me as most significant was the absence of any coverage of last year's anti-software patent battles. Little if any attention is paid to this or related issues like the EUCD and the -now hot- IP enforcement directive - despite the ramifications for society as a whole rather than just the people who read the technology pages.
No they don't stream OGG. The fact that they don't and that they only stream in Real format is a major letdown by the BBC. They promised it but never delivered. As for free software; they use it a lot but they also take a hypocritically antithetical stance on it in their reporting and with regard to their internal policy on it.
Not paying for the TV license is really an irrelevance - the BBC isn't just a TV station, it is radio too and more than that, it is part of the national infrastructure. You can't really regard it as though it was just another commercial TV station and as though the original poster was criticising something he didn't buy or want to buy anyway.
Me too - and I've replied to the unsatisfactory response from the editor:
3 8879607_copyright08_evans.ram
On Thursday 05 February 2004 19:12, NewsOnline (Tim Weber) wrote:
> Dear Sir
>
> Thanks for your e-mail.
>
> I have noted the points you made - as well as the vigorous debate on
> Slashdot.org about this article.
>
> Well, Stephen Evans's weekly "stateside" column is not a news story, but
> an analytical look at major events and business trends in the United
> States.
That makes it even worse - anyone knowledgeable about the technical and
business background to this story has probably assumed that Mr. Evans's
article is a silly and irresponsible opinion piece by someone too lazy or
incompetent to do even the most cursory research. Now you are telling us that
it is an 'analytical look' at the subject? The only reasonable conclusion
then is that he is intentionally slandering the Linux/Open source community.
It is also known to the community that Mr. Evans has shown a marked tendency
to side with certain powerful segments of the mostly U.S. industry in other
pieces he has written eg: http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/audio/38879000/rm/
_
> It is, of course, debatable whether MyDoom/Novarg/Shimgapi was written
> just to bring down the SCO website, or whether the installation of
> spamming tools on numerous computers was an additional - or even the
> main - motive.
No it isn't really, as many of the slashdot postings point out; it is the
considered opinion of the industry that the SCO/Microsoft attacks were
intended merely as smokescreens. Yet even if it was genuinely debatable,
debate is hardly the word I would use to describe Mr. Evans's approach.
> That was not the point of Stephen's article.
You could have fooled me - it is certainly one of the major points he made.
> In his piece he wanted to draw the attention of BBC News Online's
> audience - many of whom are unlikely to know the ins and outs of the
> Open Source debate - to the rapid spread of Linux as a commercial
> application, SCO's attempts to cash in on this fact, and the deep anger
> that SCO has caused within the Linux community through its legal
> actions.
Exactly, and that is precisely why so many people are so appalled. His
scurrilous accusations masquerading as facts are likely to do serious damage
to companies doing business by selling Linux based services and open source
software. That audience you speak of who are unfamiliar with the debate are
going to be left with a completely false and negative opinion about Linux
etc. because of the hysterical zealotry of an article the likes of which I
have never before seen on the BBC site. I don't think the BBC realises just
how serious this matter is.
I don't know why Mr. Evans has decided to side with certain large companies
and business organisations against the interests of the public and any
competitors of those particular narrow interests but he is certainly no
longer a reliable or impartial journalist. I must reiterate; this matter is
extremely serious - what would've been the position of the BBC morally and
legally if Mr. Evans had made his article an attack on IBM, for example?
Would you have let past your editorial filter an article containing
statements such as "Zealous programmers working for IBM have unleashed a new
virus on the internet aimed at destroying their competitors"?
Thankyou for replying, I take it that it means you are treating this issue
conscientiously but I would humbly suggest you think harder about the meaning
and implications of Mr. Evans's article and the very unimpartial and
unjournalistic motivations that may lie behind it. Certainly I am moved to
take this matter further if for no other reason than that I have seen the
regard for the BBC in many quarters, like slashdot, change from one of
respect and admiration to one of cynicism and disdain. As a fan of the BBC
and a UK citizen I was especially hurt to read one comment which likened the
BBC's journalism to that of it's corrupted American 'rivals'.
Regards,
Paul.
The BBC tends to ignore any criticism, as we've probably all realised by now but it's always worth informing them when they do mess up so that they can't claim they didn't know:
"This article is especially inappropriate for the BBC to be publishing in the light of recent criticisms. The section entitled "Wrath of Geeks" in particular, is so biased and loaded in it's use of language that one can only assume that the author is himself a Microsoft/SCO 'zealot'. The article as a whole carries the clear implication that a member of the Linux/open source software community is responsible for the virus and that the community as a whole is some kind of internet terrorist organization that supports this action. This is contrary to the facts and the already well publicised statements by leaders of the Linux community.
Many small, medium and even large businesses rely on Linux and the associated open source model of software development. Unfounded scare-mongering by supposedly responsible and impartial journalists aimed at discrediting a particular 'product' in this way is surely beneath the BBC. I hope you will consider removing this article before it does any damage to businesses that provide products and services based on Linux and open source software. Please try to remember that your own site and effectively the entire internet relies on such software, provided for you by the 'zealots' and 'wrathful geeks'."
Now they can either take down the article and replace it with some real journalism or they can sit back and do nothing while their reputation sinks further into the gutter.
Happy to help :). BTW - I don't know which side (if either) of the Open Source/Free Software debate you favour but I notice that there is a fsf.org for America, Europe and India. Perhaps there should be a Middle East version too?
Anyway, good luck nabil_IQ !
I think the suspicion of trolling arose because of your use of slang like 'kinda' and the almost l33tspeakishly liberal use of elements of techno-dialect such as 'ppl', 'up2date' and emoticons which makes your posts look rather odd. L33tspeak is not taken very seriously by most people these days and it is regarded as a sign of immaturity to use it in a 'serious' context and is typical of trolls. So it looked very peculiar in what purported to be a post from a genuine Iraqi who might be expected to be familiar with no more than standard English.
:)
If the AC had bothered to follow your link as I did he/she would've seen that you were in fact quite genuine but had simply picked up some dialectical oddities which one would not normally expect from someone who had learned English in a formal setting such as in the Iraqi education system. You should congratulate yourself on the sophistication of your command of dialectical forms of English but I'd suggest not using them too frequently when you need to be taken seriously.
Come on people - mod this up: I had to dig hard to find the only post in here from someone who _really_ knows what they're talking about.
Yes, it does look ridiculously over ambitious, especially as they are going about it in exactly the wrong way. Given the nature of the U.N. I'd not normally worry too much about platforms being given to despots - it's pretty much inevitable and in the interests of diplomatic harmony. In this case however it does seem there has been excessive suppression - they even banned Reporters Sans Frontieres. What we both agree on I think is the whole process has been perverted by the way the internet and information technology is being abused by WSIS for purposes and ends other than those it has claimed to wish to promote and that may have damaging consequences for everyone.