Less stores selling music means not only are stores keeping smaller inventories, but some store inventories fell to zero as they left the business. There's just plain less "unsold" disks sitting in the system.
This seems like a highly debateable point as to causes of lower inventory levels. Traditionally, inventory levels have been an indirect measure of confidence in the economy. However, utilization of JIT methods aided by technology enables businesses to run at lower levels than previously thought acceptable. In fact, there really isn't any contradiction to the principles of economic order quantity because both ordering costs and turn around times are much lower. This is truly a new paradign.
Yes, but these guys must be quite specialists of national security since they have the nerve to question the doings of this governmental organization with track record for not having that nonchalant attitude towards security issues:)
I've no idea how difficult it is to synthesize Viagra or any other drug or chemical either. I do know that the manufacturing of it would require a chemical plant which is no trivial investment in pp&e. The problem with your examples is that they are of real products.
With IP squatters like Pangia referenced by the MSNBC article, there is no product, no invention, no original idea. They file a vaguely worded, broadly sweeping patent on a business process or method that already exists (ecommerce) and sue a bunch of little guys to get an out of court settlement which is cheaper than the cost of legal defense. Note that they didn't sue Amazon or any other well-heeled retailer. It's no more than a lunch money shakedown by sleazy parasites who use the legal process to bully those without sufficient resources.
Suppose I do patent research on self-serve gas stations and find that the concept has never been patented. I file a patent for the business process and I should receive it if no previous patent has been granted. Now, it should be more obvious that self-service gas stations already exist. However, that fact does not seem to prevent the patent office from granting a patent for self-serve gas stations. With my patent rights in pocket, I commence suing retailers are violating my IP rights (i.e. own self-serve stations). I don't sue any of the big guys who would crush me under foot like the scummy opportunist that I am and probably have my patent invalidated. I sue the little independents who don't have the resources to put up a challenge to my patent.
Of course MS could just make their own port of TeX and call it MSReX or something... claim they invented it. At least then it would be something I'd use.
If you've been following the discussion, you'd realize that this hypothetical situation assumes the original "Screw patents" idea -- namely, that patents are a bad thing and that they shouldn't exist. My analogy used this assumption to show an undesireable situation which could arise from such a lack of market protection.
My reply is that a non-trivial invention such as this hypothetical scanner would require non-trivial resources to reverse engineer. It would require non-trivial business contacts with overseas manufacturers. The entire enterprise of stealing a non-trivial invention cannot be done by Pat and Mike in their garage.
However, a bogus patent on ecommerce where no real effort other than filing a patent application can be had by carpetbagging shyster looking for an easy payday.
How exactly does a 2 person company have the know how and resources to reverse engineer this hypothetical scanner and contract it to an off-shore manufacturer? In truth, any non-trivial invention, such as your hypothetical scanner, will require a non-trivial effort to reverse engineer and manufacture abroad. You would have a clash of titans in enforcing the patent rights for said scanner.
However, it only takes a 2 person (or fewer) company to file a broad and vaguely worded application for a patent on ecommerce, edonations or ewhatever. With an understaffed and underclued patent office, I have to like my chances of getting a patent no matter how obvious or prevalent this "invention" might be.
It would lend more credence against the SCO argument. "It's my unix and I'll GPL if I want to..."
But SCO really doesn't have much of an argument. They're claiming that IBM's contribution of IBM technology, which was previously incorporated into AIX and Dynix, is a breach of contract.
They could make the same bogus arguments against Sun regarding NFS.
Perhaps, the pom-poms they were waving obscured their vision. I'm all for the success of Linux as a desktop alternative, but not at the expense of the truth.
I run nVidia's non-GPL binary only drivers as well as other proprietary software on my Linux desktop. I also run GPL covered software on my Windows XP desktop. I have also paid for Debian cd's (it was only $20 but that's more than the Cheapbytes price). I doubt that I am one of the few who've mixed and matched proprietary and non-proprietary applications and operating systems, so I don't find the TurboLinux actions either surprising or sacrilegious.
File compatibilty is not usually a problem between OO and MS Office unless you use alot of the advanced features or have alot of formatting. I'm convinced that for most users, OO does everything you want it to do. It seems to me that most organizations could deploy OO company-wide and have a few instances of MS Office for those who really use the advanced features.
Stretch claims that their CPU running at 300MHz has shown superior performance to a 2GHz box. We have no details of their testing and I wonder about the real world performance.
Natural questions come to mind like how quickly does the chip configure itself to optimize for the application, does the configuration only occur at start of the application, how many chip-configuring applications can it run concurrently, will it optimize for interpreted languages, can some configurations be made "permanent" to accommodate the OS used. I can see how this chip would optimize some specialized tasks, but I don't know if it will run well in an evironment where many different types of tasks are expected to run at the same time.
Another issue relating to the gaining acceptance is whether Stretch releases specs so that others can write their own compilers. Is Stretch pursuing a pure hardware strategy (not trying to sell compilers, create their own OS, etc)?
Re:Openness is the first casualty of going public?
on
How does Google do it?
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· Score: 3, Funny
With google: before I give them my money, I would like to know how many servers they have, how close to capacity they are, what softwares they use (compatibility issues).
Not to mention source code for custom applications, maintenance schedules, software upgrade schedules, standard permissions settings, root passwords, type and model of CPU cooling fans used, average uptimes and other relevant information which all prudent investors need.
Slashdot Mirror
Somebody has a patent on fourth level domain names. Truly stranger than fiction.
I've no idea how difficult it is to synthesize Viagra or any other drug or chemical either. I do know that the manufacturing of it would require a chemical plant which is no trivial investment in pp&e. The problem with your examples is that they are of real products.
With IP squatters like Pangia referenced by the MSNBC article, there is no product, no invention, no original idea. They file a vaguely worded, broadly sweeping patent on a business process or method that already exists (ecommerce) and sue a bunch of little guys to get an out of court settlement which is cheaper than the cost of legal defense. Note that they didn't sue Amazon or any other well-heeled retailer. It's no more than a lunch money shakedown by sleazy parasites who use the legal process to bully those without sufficient resources.
Suppose I do patent research on self-serve gas stations and find that the concept has never been patented. I file a patent for the business process and I should receive it if no previous patent has been granted. Now, it should be more obvious that self-service gas stations already exist. However, that fact does not seem to prevent the patent office from granting a patent for self-serve gas stations. With my patent rights in pocket, I commence suing retailers are violating my IP rights (i.e. own self-serve stations). I don't sue any of the big guys who would crush me under foot like the scummy opportunist that I am and probably have my patent invalidated. I sue the little independents who don't have the resources to put up a challenge to my patent.
Opt for the director's cut. That'll get you a 20% improvement.
However, a bogus patent on ecommerce where no real effort other than filing a patent application can be had by carpetbagging shyster looking for an easy payday.
Perhaps, the alternatives were not just within BSD projects, but among Linux, Windows, OSX, etc.
How exactly does a 2 person company have the know how and resources to reverse engineer this hypothetical scanner and contract it to an off-shore manufacturer? In truth, any non-trivial invention, such as your hypothetical scanner, will require a non-trivial effort to reverse engineer and manufacture abroad. You would have a clash of titans in enforcing the patent rights for said scanner.
However, it only takes a 2 person (or fewer) company to file a broad and vaguely worded application for a patent on ecommerce, edonations or ewhatever. With an understaffed and underclued patent office, I have to like my chances of getting a patent no matter how obvious or prevalent this "invention" might be.
If you're not a competitor, why does anybody care how many servers Google uses? Is there a light bulb joke in here that I'm missing?
But SCO really doesn't have much of an argument. They're claiming that IBM's contribution of IBM technology, which was previously incorporated into AIX and Dynix, is a breach of contract.
They could make the same bogus arguments against Sun regarding NFS.
if the pilot is a socially maladroit 14 year old who keeps muttering, "I mustn't run away, I mustn't run away."
Perhaps, the pom-poms they were waving obscured their vision. I'm all for the success of Linux as a desktop alternative, but not at the expense of the truth.
I thought it was because everything he does is done on Windows where he is used to flakey dll's, BSOD's, non-functioning product until sp2.
... the use of Linux on hate sites?
I run nVidia's non-GPL binary only drivers as well as other proprietary software on my Linux desktop. I also run GPL covered software on my Windows XP desktop. I have also paid for Debian cd's (it was only $20 but that's more than the Cheapbytes price). I doubt that I am one of the few who've mixed and matched proprietary and non-proprietary applications and operating systems, so I don't find the TurboLinux actions either surprising or sacrilegious.
When you choose the GPL route, you should go in with eyes wide open. You don't decide at midstream to take it all back and make it proprietary.
File compatibilty is not usually a problem between OO and MS Office unless you use alot of the advanced features or have alot of formatting. I'm convinced that for most users, OO does everything you want it to do. It seems to me that most organizations could deploy OO company-wide and have a few instances of MS Office for those who really use the advanced features.
Natural questions come to mind like how quickly does the chip configure itself to optimize for the application, does the configuration only occur at start of the application, how many chip-configuring applications can it run concurrently, will it optimize for interpreted languages, can some configurations be made "permanent" to accommodate the OS used. I can see how this chip would optimize some specialized tasks, but I don't know if it will run well in an evironment where many different types of tasks are expected to run at the same time.
Another issue relating to the gaining acceptance is whether Stretch releases specs so that others can write their own compilers. Is Stretch pursuing a pure hardware strategy (not trying to sell compilers, create their own OS, etc)?
There's nothing like an advertising laden chandelier to make your ballroom feel like a subway station.
Wish I had mod points right now. :^)