A better model would hypothesize that the initial programmer creates bugs at a constant rate. In reliability terms the "hazard rate" would be flat.
This would say a given piece of code has a finite number of bugs proportional to either the number of lines or to the time spent coding (without debugging). Debugging should be modelled as a separate process that removes bugs at a rate proportional to the bug density and time spent debugging.
Under this kind of model, the critical number is the mean time to zero bugs, which is going to depend on the ratio of debuggers to coders, and open source enables this to soar, while in proprietary systems it's something around 1, maybe 2 if you do code reviews.
What if we added a clause to the GPL and all other OSI licences that said "by accepting possession of this software, you agree to grant technological protection measure access rights that otherwise would be reserved under the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA to any software developer who releases the resulting software under this licence (or any other OSI approved licence) in a way that does not otherwise infringe the copyright"?
Such a clause would immunize open source software developers from DMCA claims by corporations that use *any* open source software. That sounds like a fair trade to me: we work for free to build software for them in return for the right to not be sued under the DMCA.
I have no doubt that such disruptive practices occur.
What the publishers probably don't yet understand is how to predict the results of a given level of attack. For example, I'm willing to bet that they distribute their attacks over the various P2P networks. It seems obvious from this paper that a focused attack that uses all available resources on one P2P network is probably more effective than splitting resources over all the networks. It's clearly a non-linear disruption to attack resources curve. In some sense, an attack that doesn't kill the network is useless when viewed as a long term battle.
Only if you believe in security through obscurity.
If these weaknesses exist, then sooner or later the RIAA & MPAA will find them. The RIAA will probably hire some "experts" and pay them big wads of cash for "consulting" to find such weaknesses. I wouldn't expect them to monitor Slashdot for research relevent to the P2P battles -- they are far too arrogant for that. Consider their CSS encryption scheme and misguided attempts to use watermarking, which were derided as buffoonery here. This is a battle that will be won by the side that has the better scientific analysis, and I believe that open discussion is a better scientific analysis paradigm.
I think that ultimately, the weaknesses this author discusses must be addressed through some kind of peer review/rating system. A desireable attribute of a P2P system would be robustness to "attack". The internet has posed tremendously interesting problems in "signal-to-noise" improvement, and making networked systems filter noise better is a very desirable feature with important societal implications. Analysis like this can only spur the drive for solutions. If that drive is stronger on the P2P side than the publisher's side, then P2P will perpetually be ahead.
An open forum might be able to achieve a state of "innovation dominance" over a "proprietary" opponent if a critical mass is achieved such that the opponent's practical capability is maximized only if they spend all of their time trying to "keep up" with innovations available in the open forum. Knowledge is power, so the more knowledge that enters the fray via an open forum, the closer that forum is to innovation dominance.
How many contracts agreements allow one party to change there side without permission of the other party?
Lots of contracts say this, except that it isn't "without permission of the other party" if you agreed to allow them to change the terms in the future by accepting terms that say as much. Every time they change the terms, you have the right to abort the contract if you don't like the changes.
You still have the right to resell your copy of the software, which probably isn't much comfort, but legally it is all you get.
Unlike other EULA's, MMORPGs repeat their EULA's every time a user connects to play the game.
Oh. This changes everything. This is not a shrinkwrap/clickwrap style installation EULA, but a web-access EULA. The former is the highly controversial case. The latter is not -- they were settled long ago in the Hotmail case. They are enforcable and there isn't much case for saying that they shouldn't be.
Here you are actually getting something more than the ability to install what you already own (which is an explicit statutory right for the owner of a copy). All the elements of a contract are present: the parties communicate directly, there is consideration (you get access to their server, they get agreement to restrictions), and there is a record of assent (I'm sure they make some record when you click "OK", since that info is sent to them).
If a software application representing 5000 hours uses GPL code that reflects only 100 hours, is the GPL fair in its argument that the entire product is GPL? This point is of considerable concern to software companies that value their secrets, design and architecture strategies. Proponents of the GPL argue that each party in the exchange is benefiting equally, but without a means to properly make this evaluation, this position at best is over-assuming.
This person is an idiot and fails to understand even basic economics.
If I can spend, say 1 hour, to find and integrate code that would take me 100 hours to build myself, then I have saved 99 hours. If the bill rate to hire a programmer capable of producing the replacement is $100/hr, then that is a cost savings of $9900. That is a black letter number you can place is a cost-benefit analysis.
Second, nobody said the sides are benefiting "equally", nor is this important or even expected. If you are dying of thirst and you purchase a soda for 50 cents, thereby saving your life, would anyone argue that the soda vendor is "benefiting equally" to you? All that is important is that both sides in the exchange each believe they are benefiting, period. Third party opinion is not important. They each indicate, in 100% objectively knowable fashion, that they believe they come out favorably in a cost/benefit analysis by *voluntarily* choosing to use the GPL.
Unless the person in the example can find a $9900 benefit to staying proprietary, the decision is easy. *Even* at companies whose business model is founded on selling proprietary software I would think this would sometimes be the case: if your marketing, production, and distribution expenses will likely exceed your sales revenue because you aren't first to market and aren't likely to capture substantial market share, then by GPL'ing you are still able to attack your competitors revenue stream.
Having had a look at the site, I'm guessing that it's cam #2 [weathermatrix.net] that's causing the issue. All it really needs is to be tilted up by a couple of degrees more to get those windows on the bottom left out of the picture.
If that was my house it would bother me. It might be illegal and it might not -- that shouldn't matter to you nearly as much as offending your neighbor. The biggest cause for alarm on their part is that the windows are visible. Perhaps you can't see in them, but at a minimum you could monitor the lighting and try to infer when they are and aren't home.
Regardless of the law, be a good neighbor and respond to their request. You don't have to take the webcam down, just make sure their house isn't in the picture. You can do this one of two ways: tilt the camera or block the line of sight to their house with a blinder.
You should also go talk to them in person and explain that your only interest in webcams is as weathercams, that you showed their house only incidentally and meant no offense, and that you respect their request and will comply.
Some database shops use CASE tools for data model generation and reverse engineering. Ultimately, these sorts of tools represent a data model with an object model, allow direct editing of the internal representation, can import by examining the data dictionary of a datbase, and can generate SQL DDL as needed to apply the difference or create from scratch.
In proprietary realm, Oracle Designer is pretty good at this sort of thing. You can get a developer licence for free from technet.oracle.com, but it's big $ for production use.
There are some open source tools for this, but they all seem to be are fairly young. I happened to notice one on Freshmeat today called Alzabo.
I've tried that, but I'm currently at an impasse with the vendors over price and order fulfilment time. In order to meet my requirements, I've had to outsource the function that you describe. Besides, felt-tip markers violate section 1201 of the DMCA and worse, occasionally cause discoloration of my fingers.
The legal system described in the constitution set juries up to be the arbiter of whether laws were proper, not the judges.
Um, no. Again the Constitution says: "The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish."
The quotes that you cite refer to the fact that in criminal procedings, a "not guilty" verdict by a jury is final, regardless of how they reached it. No one is disputing that, and generally criminal matters arise in state court anyway.
In civil matters, however, especially the ones described in Article 3, Section 2, there is no right to a jury trial, and even when a jury is used their decision, even including findings of fact, can be reversed by the trial judge or a higher court. Nothing you quoted contradicts this.
Your thesis is that ONLY juries can strike down unconstitutional laws. That is not supported by any legal precedent. In fact, per Sparf & Hansen v. U S, 156 U.S. 51 (1895), the prefered method is clearly not jury nullification, since the judiciary is not obliged to even inform juries of their veto power.
Even most people who support a wider awareness of the jury veto do not argue it is the sole method for striking down laws:
"There are five separate tribunals to veto laws: representative,senate, executive, judicial and jury." - Lysander Spooner "An Essay On the Trial by Jury" 1852
In fact, there are six, the public itself can revolt, of course.
You cannot use the population mean to make decisions regarding an individual case. The total litigation cost is no doubt dominated by a few outliers that are BigCo vs HugeCo. Your whole analysis is absurd. Also, I sincerely doubt that the total cost of all patent litigation is knowable. How exactly would one go about verifying the $4.2 Billion number?
Much having to do with lawsuits occurs prior to the suit being filed, and 90% of lawsuits settle before going to trial, so it is highly likely that your suit count is much lower than it should be. Also, most of the costs are bourne by the defendent in a case, especially in the early parts. Juries generally favor the small guy, sometimes beyond reason, by the way.
Further, if someone infringes your patent, a plaintiff firm will take the case on a "contingency basis" if they feel it is a good business decision to do so, which isn't as unworkable as you say. To evaluate this, they weigh the liklihood of success, estimated damages (actual + statutory), and the contingency percentage (typically 40%). Plaintiffs lawyers are very good at controlling costs, since they are paying for them. They are also good at driving up defendents costs, since they know that defendants generally have to pay out of pocket for all legal services and that this effects their settlement calculations.
Are patents useful? Yes, absolutely, they encourage capital investment to create novel technologies. Can a small business benefit? Yes, absolutely. In fact, one of the factors that a VC will look at in evaluating whether to invest in a start-up is the potential IP assets, because these can be liquidated if the company's business model doesn't measure up.
Are patents useful for some guy at his house who has no real plans to bring a product to market. Probably not, unless you are interested in making sure that a technology you like isn't patentable by someone else. In this case, you can publish your idea and cc the PTO and let them do the rest. If you are not trying to get investment to bring your idea to market, then guess what: you aren't the person the patent law is trying to help, so don't act surprised when it doesn't do much for you. The economy is far better off when VC's can safely invest in startups. If you are employed at a company perhaps you should think about how life would be different for you if you company's investors calculations couldn't factor in the company's IP assets.
That would be the literal meaning of "judicial power" (the power to judge, ie to say "what the law is" as explained in Marbury v Madison) granted to the Supreme Court by the People via the US Constitution:
Article. III.
Section. 1. The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.
Section. 2. Clause 1: The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;--to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;--to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;--to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;--to Controversies between two or more States;--between a State and Citizens of another State; (See Note 10)--between Citizens of different States, --between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.
---- You may be technically correct in a pedantic sense. The Court may simply exercise their judicial power "as if" the law is unconstitutional when they decide "who wins" the decision. If you wish to view this as somehow different from "actually declaring a law unconstitutional", then please go ahead. I won't be joinging you, however, nor will anybody who deals with the law on a day to day basis.
I saw both within a few days. I don't understand why Spiderman is so popular. It was OK, not great. It had the great benefit of low (no?) expectations.
I cringed twice during AoC at the mushy stuff, and twice during Spiderman. The bad guys had about the same level of character development (which was not much). The action was better in AoC (Did anybody really find the "Green Goblin" to be a good bad guy). The acting was a little better in Spiderman (but neither deserve Academy nominations). The overall plot complexity of AoC was much more rich.
I believe that all the people that knock AoC are basically just bitter about the fact that they have had to grow up. The original Star Wars movies were "magical", right? How can any movie live up to the *demand* that it restore people's feelings of childhood wonderment.
This was an absurd lawsuit. I hope the plaintiffs have to pay for the D's attourney fees.
-The idea and Q&A format of an FAQ is not copyrightable (not original, idea, etc...) -It is unlikely that any particular question statement of a "Frequently Asked Question" is original to the authors of the FAQ anyway -The idea and facts embodied in an answer are also not copyrightable
On the other hand, some elements of a particular FAQ probably are copyrightable: - The exact choice and order of the questions might be copyrightable in some cases if it truly was the result of some creative selection process by the author. On the other hand, if it is just a record of the order of questions asked by others in a particular forum, it wouldn't qualify. Here, the select and order of questions vary between the two FAQ's, so this isn't an issue. - The exact expression of the answers, especially when treated as a group. This is clearly original work of the author(s) of the FAQ. Here, the exact expression was not copied, so this isn't an issue.
There is no principle that says if someone else uses your work that there is a constraint on them to name the resulting derivite work accordingly. Such a restriction would make naming of highly collaborative compilations unworkable.
Even if there was some kind of principle that said that the dominent element in an aggregate must be recognized in the name, then it would still be up to the creator of the publication to decide on which element is in fact the most dominent. In the absense of a licence restriction, convention and etiquette require deferal to the "official" name used by the publisher.
When Red Hat, SuSE, and Mandrake call their disto's "Linux", they have not only voiced their opinion on the dominent elment question, but they have also named their product. If RMS disagrees on the dominent element question, he is free to voice his opinion, and to boycott organizations that do not share his opinion. This does not change the fact that "GNU/Linux" is the minority opinion, but more importantly, he has no case whatsoever for trying to rename someone else's product. This could even border on a trademark violation.
I take the belief that anything you actually did while on the job can go on your resume. After all, the copyright of the code you wrote is likely held by the company (work for hire), so it is only fair that you can list any skills you actually used to create intellectual property for them on your resume.
There is a definiate art to writing a resume when your experience is in one job tilte but you are seeking a job in another. As long as you do not make up facts, spin the hell out of what you did. Market yourself: there is no rule that says the description you give of your job duties has to be proportional to the amount of time you spent doing them.
List bullet items for each of the programming tools you actually used, no matter how "small" your use of it was, and give a short technical and functional description of what you did.
For example, if you wrote code to use PHP/MYSQL to track something at work, then devote several lines to this, even if was done "in your spare time" and wasn't your primary job duty. Your attitude to a prospective employer has to be "I've done X before, I can do it again for you". If you find yourself thinking along the lines of "Well I was only really asked to do Y, and Z and only did X on my own when Y and Z were slow" then you need to slap yourself. Frankly, if you weren't asked to do X, all the better: that's called proactively identifying business needs and solving them. Employers do not want people who sit there waiting to be told what to do.
Java with IBM's Eclipse SWT should allow you to write pretty peppy stuff that uses native GUI widgets but is truly cross platform. You even have a choice between a good IDE (netbeans) and powerful text editor (jEdit) for your programming environment. Hell, you can even write your macros in Jython (or JRuby) if that floats your boat.
Somebody here will no doubt whine that Java isn't open source. If the whining seems a bit abrupt, that's because these people no doubt are in a hurry to get back to tonights checkin to the GNU Classpath project (or was it gpj?)
Why put anything in the licence that benefits the infringer? Let the primary author have the heavy hand. Most of the time such people have an incentive to respond positively to a good faith effort to stop the infraction (after all they licenced it under the GPL in the first place), but these provisions are needed so that the author can negotiate from a position of dominance with the rare asshole who wants to get away with things.
Good point. That leads to the other obvious missing element: a "forum selection" clause. All disputes should be settled under US law, which does afford for very strong arbitration support.
Also, there is no reason why such disputes have to be arbitrated with both (or even either) parties physically present.
And in every one of the cases, the infringed party has stood up and used words like "theft". It's called advocacy -- use the words that make your case sound strongest.
By the way, by 17 USC 504(a)(1), if NuSphere's actions were "willful" then they are in fact criminal.
If they are shipping MySQL without a licence, even if they are complying with the terms of the licence they would like to have, they are essentially pirating MySQL and basing a business on piracy. The irreparable harm to MySQL is that NuSphere is stealing business based on theft of intelletual property.
Yes, but dynamic lining does NOT produce indivisible executable object code.
Correct, but that's not an issue here, since my understanding is that NuSphere is statically linked.
If I'm wrong about that, then we need to delve deeper. If executable A can be extended by dynamically linking binary B, then the two executables are A and A+B, both of which are obviously derivitives of A when they are in memory. I also think that the law is pretty well settled that in-memory copies of code are "copies", so that even the A+B case is an integrated copy once its in memory, which would still meet the definition of a derivitive work. Moreover, if B was designed from the outset to only be used with A, then A+B is a derivitive.
The judge appears to have asked the right question when she asked "can NuSphere's binary run without MySQL installed on the same machine?" Answer No. Conclusion, this is not two separate programs interoperating, but a derivitive form of one program.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree completely.
A better model would hypothesize that the initial programmer creates bugs at a constant rate. In reliability terms the "hazard rate" would be flat.
This would say a given piece of code has a finite number of bugs proportional to either the number of lines or to the time spent coding (without debugging). Debugging should be modelled as a separate process that removes bugs at a rate proportional to the bug density and time spent debugging.
Under this kind of model, the critical number is the mean time to zero bugs, which is going to depend on the ratio of debuggers to coders, and open source enables this to soar, while in proprietary systems it's something around 1, maybe 2 if you do code reviews.
What if we added a clause to the GPL and all other OSI licences that said "by accepting possession of this software, you agree to grant technological protection measure access rights that otherwise would be reserved under the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA to any software developer who releases the resulting software under this licence (or any other OSI approved licence) in a way that does not otherwise infringe the copyright"?
Such a clause would immunize open source software developers from DMCA claims by corporations that use *any* open source software. That sounds like a fair trade to me: we work for free to build software for them in return for the right to not be sued under the DMCA.
I have no doubt that such disruptive practices occur.
What the publishers probably don't yet understand is how to predict the results of a given level of attack. For example, I'm willing to bet that they distribute their attacks over the various P2P networks. It seems obvious from this paper that a focused attack that uses all available resources on one P2P network is probably more effective than splitting resources over all the networks. It's clearly a non-linear disruption to attack resources curve. In some sense, an attack that doesn't kill the network is useless when viewed as a long term battle.
Aiding the enemy, huh?
Only if you believe in security through obscurity.
If these weaknesses exist, then sooner or later the RIAA & MPAA will find them. The RIAA will probably hire some "experts" and pay them big wads of cash for "consulting" to find such weaknesses. I wouldn't expect them to monitor Slashdot for research relevent to the P2P battles -- they are far too arrogant for that. Consider their CSS encryption scheme and misguided attempts to use watermarking, which were derided as buffoonery here. This is a battle that will be won by the side that has the better scientific analysis, and I believe that open discussion is a better scientific analysis paradigm.
I think that ultimately, the weaknesses this author discusses must be addressed through some kind of peer review/rating system. A desireable attribute of a P2P system would be robustness to "attack". The internet has posed tremendously interesting problems in "signal-to-noise" improvement, and making networked systems filter noise better is a very desirable feature with important societal implications. Analysis like this can only spur the drive for solutions. If that drive is stronger on the P2P side than the publisher's side, then P2P will perpetually be ahead.
An open forum might be able to achieve a state of "innovation dominance" over a "proprietary" opponent if a critical mass is achieved such that the opponent's practical capability is maximized only if they spend all of their time trying to "keep up" with innovations available in the open forum. Knowledge is power, so the more knowledge that enters the fray via an open forum, the closer that forum is to innovation dominance.
How many contracts agreements allow one party to change there side without permission of the other party?
Lots of contracts say this, except that it isn't "without permission of the other party" if you agreed to allow them to change the terms in the future by accepting terms that say as much. Every time they change the terms, you have the right to abort the contract if you don't like the changes.
You still have the right to resell your copy of the software, which probably isn't much comfort, but legally it is all you get.
Unlike other EULA's, MMORPGs repeat their EULA's every time a user connects to play the game.
Oh. This changes everything. This is not a shrinkwrap/clickwrap style installation EULA, but a web-access EULA. The former is the highly controversial case. The latter is not -- they were settled long ago in the Hotmail case. They are enforcable and there isn't much case for saying that they shouldn't be.
Here you are actually getting something more than the ability to install what you already own (which is an explicit statutory right for the owner of a copy). All the elements of a contract are present: the parties communicate directly, there is consideration (you get access to their server, they get agreement to restrictions), and there is a record of assent (I'm sure they make some record when you click "OK", since that info is sent to them).
You mean 1 of the 3 highest courts that have considered this.
You forgot Step-Saver (3rd Circuit) and Vault v. Quaid (5th Circuit) which held they were not enforceable.
If a software application representing 5000 hours uses GPL code that reflects only 100 hours, is the GPL fair in its argument that the entire product is GPL? This point is of considerable concern to software companies that value their secrets, design and architecture strategies. Proponents of the GPL argue that each party in the exchange is benefiting equally, but without a means to properly make this evaluation, this position at best is over-assuming.
This person is an idiot and fails to understand even basic economics.
If I can spend, say 1 hour, to find and integrate code that would take me 100 hours to build myself, then I have saved 99 hours. If the bill rate to hire a programmer capable of producing the replacement is $100/hr, then that is a cost savings of $9900. That is a black letter number you can place is a cost-benefit analysis.
Second, nobody said the sides are benefiting "equally", nor is this important or even expected. If you are dying of thirst and you purchase a soda for 50 cents, thereby saving your life, would anyone argue that the soda vendor is "benefiting equally" to you? All that is important is that both sides in the exchange each believe they are benefiting, period. Third party opinion is not important. They each indicate, in 100% objectively knowable fashion, that they believe they come out favorably in a cost/benefit analysis by *voluntarily* choosing to use the GPL.
Unless the person in the example can find a $9900 benefit to staying proprietary, the decision is easy. *Even* at companies whose business model is founded on selling proprietary software I would think this would sometimes be the case: if your marketing, production, and distribution expenses will likely exceed your sales revenue because you aren't first to market and aren't likely to capture substantial market share, then by GPL'ing you are still able to attack your competitors revenue stream.
Having had a look at the site, I'm guessing that it's cam #2 [weathermatrix.net] that's causing the issue. All it really needs is to be tilted up by a couple of degrees more to get those windows on the bottom left out of the picture.
If that was my house it would bother me. It might be illegal and it might not -- that shouldn't matter to you nearly as much as offending your neighbor. The biggest cause for alarm on their part is that the windows are visible. Perhaps you can't see in them, but at a minimum you could monitor the lighting and try to infer when they are and aren't home.
Regardless of the law, be a good neighbor and respond to their request. You don't have to take the webcam down, just make sure their house isn't in the picture. You can do this one of two ways: tilt the camera or block the line of sight to their house with a blinder.
You should also go talk to them in person and explain that your only interest in webcams is as weathercams, that you showed their house only incidentally and meant no offense, and that you respect their request and will comply.
Some database shops use CASE tools for data model generation and reverse engineering. Ultimately, these sorts of tools represent a data model with an object model, allow direct editing of the internal representation, can import by examining the data dictionary of a datbase, and can generate SQL DDL as needed to apply the difference or create from scratch.
In proprietary realm, Oracle Designer is pretty good at this sort of thing. You can get a developer licence for free from technet.oracle.com, but it's big $ for production use.
There are some open source tools for this, but they all seem to be are fairly young. I happened to notice one on Freshmeat today called Alzabo.
I've tried that, but I'm currently at an impasse with the vendors over price and order fulfilment time. In order to meet my requirements, I've had to outsource the function that you describe. Besides, felt-tip markers violate section 1201 of the DMCA and worse, occasionally cause discoloration of my fingers.
I've been using AudioGalaxy, but I just read they are going to be sued, and presumably go under soon.
What is the easiest way to get MP3's now that doesn't have a company that can be sued?
The legal system described in the constitution set juries up to be the arbiter of whether laws were proper, not the judges.
Um, no. Again the Constitution says: "The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish."
The quotes that you cite refer to the fact that in criminal procedings, a "not guilty" verdict by a jury is final, regardless of how they reached it. No one is disputing that, and generally criminal matters arise in state court anyway.
In civil matters, however, especially the ones described in Article 3, Section 2, there is no right to a jury trial, and even when a jury is used their decision, even including findings of fact, can be reversed by the trial judge or a higher court. Nothing you quoted contradicts this.
Your thesis is that ONLY juries can strike down unconstitutional laws. That is not supported by any legal precedent. In fact, per Sparf & Hansen v. U S, 156 U.S. 51 (1895), the prefered method is clearly not jury nullification, since the judiciary is not obliged to even inform juries of their veto power.
Even most people who support a wider awareness of the jury veto do not argue it is the sole method for striking down laws:
"There are five separate tribunals to veto laws: representative,senate, executive, judicial and jury." - Lysander Spooner "An Essay On the Trial by Jury" 1852
In fact, there are six, the public itself can revolt, of course.
You cannot use the population mean to make decisions regarding an individual case. The total litigation cost is no doubt dominated by a few outliers that are BigCo vs HugeCo. Your whole analysis is absurd. Also, I sincerely doubt that the total cost of all patent litigation is knowable. How exactly would one go about verifying the $4.2 Billion number?
Much having to do with lawsuits occurs prior to the suit being filed, and 90% of lawsuits settle before going to trial, so it is highly likely that your suit count is much lower than it should be. Also, most of the costs are bourne by the defendent in a case, especially in the early parts. Juries generally favor the small guy, sometimes beyond reason, by the way.
Further, if someone infringes your patent, a plaintiff firm will take the case on a "contingency basis" if they feel it is a good business decision to do so, which isn't as unworkable as you say. To evaluate this, they weigh the liklihood of success, estimated damages (actual + statutory), and the contingency percentage (typically 40%). Plaintiffs lawyers are very good at controlling costs, since they are paying for them. They are also good at driving up defendents costs, since they know that defendants generally have to pay out of pocket for all legal services and that this effects their settlement calculations.
Are patents useful? Yes, absolutely, they encourage capital investment to create novel technologies. Can a small business benefit? Yes, absolutely. In fact, one of the factors that a VC will look at in evaluating whether to invest in a start-up is the potential IP assets, because these can be liquidated if the company's business model doesn't measure up.
Are patents useful for some guy at his house who has no real plans to bring a product to market. Probably not, unless you are interested in making sure that a technology you like isn't patentable by someone else. In this case, you can publish your idea and cc the PTO and let them do the rest. If you are not trying to get investment to bring your idea to market, then guess what: you aren't the person the patent law is trying to help, so don't act surprised when it doesn't do much for you. The economy is far better off when VC's can safely invest in startups. If you are employed at a company perhaps you should think about how life would be different for you if you company's investors calculations couldn't factor in the company's IP assets.
That would be the literal meaning of "judicial power" (the power to judge, ie to say "what the law is" as explained in Marbury v Madison) granted to the Supreme Court by the People via the US Constitution:
Article. III.
Section. 1.
The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.
Section. 2.
Clause 1: The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;--to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;--to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;--to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;--to Controversies between two or more States;--between a State and Citizens of another State; (See Note 10)--between Citizens of different States, --between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.
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You may be technically correct in a pedantic sense. The Court may simply exercise their judicial power "as if" the law is unconstitutional when they decide "who wins" the decision. If you wish to view this as somehow different from "actually declaring a law unconstitutional", then please go ahead. I won't be joinging you, however, nor will anybody who deals with the law on a day to day basis.
I saw both within a few days. I don't understand why Spiderman is so popular. It was OK, not great. It had the great benefit of low (no?) expectations.
I cringed twice during AoC at the mushy stuff, and twice during Spiderman. The bad guys had about the same level of character development (which was not much). The action was better in AoC (Did anybody really find the "Green Goblin" to be a good bad guy). The acting was a little better in Spiderman (but neither deserve Academy nominations). The overall plot complexity of AoC was much more rich.
I believe that all the people that knock AoC are basically just bitter about the fact that they have had to grow up. The original Star Wars movies were "magical", right? How can any movie live up to the *demand* that it restore people's feelings of childhood wonderment.
This was an absurd lawsuit. I hope the plaintiffs have to pay for the D's attourney fees.
-The idea and Q&A format of an FAQ is not copyrightable (not original, idea, etc...)
-It is unlikely that any particular question statement of a "Frequently Asked Question" is original to the authors of the FAQ anyway
-The idea and facts embodied in an answer are also not copyrightable
On the other hand, some elements of a particular FAQ probably are copyrightable:
- The exact choice and order of the questions might be copyrightable in some cases if it truly was the result of some creative selection process by the author. On the other hand, if it is just a record of the order of questions asked by others in a particular forum, it wouldn't qualify. Here, the select and order of questions vary between the two FAQ's, so this isn't an issue.
- The exact expression of the answers, especially when treated as a group. This is clearly original work of the author(s) of the FAQ. Here, the exact expression was not copied, so this isn't an issue.
This is exactly correct.
There is no principle that says if someone else uses your work that there is a constraint on them to name the resulting derivite work accordingly. Such a restriction would make naming of highly collaborative compilations unworkable.
Even if there was some kind of principle that said that the dominent element in an aggregate must be recognized in the name, then it would still be up to the creator of the publication to decide on which element is in fact the most dominent. In the absense of a licence restriction, convention and etiquette require deferal to the "official" name used by the publisher.
When Red Hat, SuSE, and Mandrake call their disto's "Linux", they have not only voiced their opinion on the dominent elment question, but they have also named their product. If RMS disagrees on the dominent element question, he is free to voice his opinion, and to boycott organizations that do not share his opinion. This does not change the fact that "GNU/Linux" is the minority opinion, but more importantly, he has no case whatsoever for trying to rename someone else's product. This could even border on a trademark violation.
I take the belief that anything you actually did while on the job can go on your resume. After all, the copyright of the code you wrote is likely held by the company (work for hire), so it is only fair that you can list any skills you actually used to create intellectual property for them on your resume.
There is a definiate art to writing a resume when your experience is in one job tilte but you are seeking a job in another. As long as you do not make up facts, spin the hell out of what you did. Market yourself: there is no rule that says the description you give of your job duties has to be proportional to the amount of time you spent doing them.
List bullet items for each of the programming tools you actually used, no matter how "small" your use of it was, and give a short technical and functional description of what you did.
For example, if you wrote code to use PHP/MYSQL to track something at work, then devote several lines to this, even if was done "in your spare time" and wasn't your primary job duty. Your attitude to a prospective employer has to be "I've done X before, I can do it again for you". If you find yourself thinking along the lines of "Well I was only really asked to do Y, and Z and only did X on my own when Y and Z were slow" then you need to slap yourself. Frankly, if you weren't asked to do X, all the better: that's called proactively identifying business needs and solving them. Employers do not want people who sit there waiting to be told what to do.
Java with IBM's Eclipse SWT should allow you to write pretty peppy stuff that uses native GUI widgets but is truly cross platform. You even have a choice between a good IDE (netbeans) and powerful text editor (jEdit) for your programming environment. Hell, you can even write your macros in Jython (or JRuby) if that floats your boat.
Somebody here will no doubt whine that Java isn't open source. If the whining seems a bit abrupt, that's because these people no doubt are in a hurry to get back to tonights checkin to the GNU Classpath project (or was it gpj?)
Why put anything in the licence that benefits the infringer? Let the primary author have the heavy hand. Most of the time such people have an incentive to respond positively to a good faith effort to stop the infraction (after all they licenced it under the GPL in the first place), but these provisions are needed so that the author can negotiate from a position of dominance with the rare asshole who wants to get away with things.
Good point. That leads to the other obvious missing element: a "forum selection" clause. All disputes should be settled under US law, which does afford for very strong arbitration support.
Also, there is no reason why such disputes have to be arbitrated with both (or even either) parties physically present.
And in every one of the cases, the infringed party has stood up and used words like "theft". It's called advocacy -- use the words that make your case sound strongest.
By the way, by 17 USC 504(a)(1), if NuSphere's actions were "willful" then they are in fact criminal.
If they are shipping MySQL without a licence, even if they are complying with the terms of the licence they would like to have, they are essentially pirating MySQL and basing a business on piracy. The irreparable harm to MySQL is that NuSphere is stealing business based on theft of intelletual property.
Yes, but dynamic lining does NOT produce indivisible executable object code.
Correct, but that's not an issue here, since my understanding is that NuSphere is statically linked.
If I'm wrong about that, then we need to delve deeper. If executable A can be extended by dynamically linking binary B, then the two executables are A and A+B, both of which are obviously derivitives of A when they are in memory. I also think that the law is pretty well settled that in-memory copies of code are "copies", so that even the A+B case is an integrated copy once its in memory, which would still meet the definition of a derivitive work. Moreover, if B was designed from the outset to only be used with A, then A+B is a derivitive.
The judge appears to have asked the right question when she asked "can NuSphere's binary run without MySQL installed on the same machine?" Answer No. Conclusion, this is not two separate programs interoperating, but a derivitive form of one program.