Well yes, but you can get a patent on the idea of a couple of cylindrical things attached to an axle to help you move things about without having to actually implement it.
In countries other than Australia, you would of course have to worry about prior art.
No. Patents cover ideas. Designs and Copyrights cover implementations of the idea.
There are plenty of patents for things that have not been implemented yet. It is pretty common for someone to come up with an idea, patent it, and then look for investors to implement the idea, safe in the knowledge that they can't "steal" the idea. That is pretty much the whole point of the patent system.
I would take issue with a few things in that article. Firstly, Windows XP is not built on DOS, it is built on the NT Kernel. The display manager or whatever you like to call it is much more closely tied to the kernel than X11. That's why you generally get better graphics performance in NT. It's also one of the reasons it crashes more often and is less secure.
In any case, if MS wanted to build their system on top of a unix like kernel, they could choose one of the BSD kernels. That could potentially be a better solution technically than linux as well.
Yes, if you are doing your personal tax return once a year, then support isn't going to be too important as you can switch software next year pretty easily.
If you are a company who has to deal with things like VAT/Sales Tax every time you buy or sell something, and Income Tax/National Insurance or whatever every time you pay your staff, then it isn't going to be quite so easy to switch software every time the government changes the rules - generally once a year.
It is not beyond the bounds of possibility for Microsoft to go belly-up, especially after Bill Gates retires and is replaced with someone who has a different approach to management.
If you are in the UK, you may have heard of a company called GEC Marconi. Under its previous director Lord Weinstock, it amassed a cash pile that was almost as big as Microsoft's. When he retired, he was replaced by another director who went on a huge spending spree and turn the huge cash pile into a huge debt pile.
They were rescued from the bankruptcy process, but as a much smaller company. Shareholders were left with nothing.
Accountancy software needs to be updated for things like changes in tax legislation. That is why a support contract of some sort is essential, even if it is Free Software.
At least if there isn't copy-protection, you are pretty much guaranteed to be able to print out the data and re-key it into another system at the end of the tax year, but you don't want to have to do that too often.
Many people here have pointed out that free software projects generally don't make money.
They are absolutely right. They don't.
Proprietary software projects generally don't make money either. Just look at Appgen. Most projects don't even do as well as this.
Looking at the success level of every sourceforge project out there and comparing it with the very few proprietary software companies (probably less than ten) that actually make any sort of money out their efforts isn't really very fair.
Of course looking soley at the packaged software market isn't very fair either. It is tiny, insignificant proportion of the total IT spend. Most of the money goes on custom in-house development, support and consultancy. Even if the entire packaged software market were to completely vanish tonight, people would still pay money on these things, and the vast majority of IT professionals would still have a job. In fact, a switch to Free Software would help rather than hinder these people in their efforts.
Signing up for a US credit card is quite difficult if you don't live in the US - about 95% of the world population. ITunes only accepts US credit cards.
It is also difficult if you are under-age (18 in the UK).
I've no idea what the position in the US is, but there is no duty or VAT on importing books from US to the UK. However if you were to buy and download an ebook from a US supplier, there would be 17.5% VAT to pay.
Of course it is. The fact is, once you have burned it to CD, you can do whatever you like with it. That incluse ripping it to mp3/ogg and sharing it on your favourite file sharing network
For people who don't speak english, Alt Gr is pretty useful, as it lets you type accented characters. In EU countries, it is also used to let you type the Euro symbol - Alt-Gr+4 on UK and Irish Keyboards, Alt-Gr+E on most others.
Slashdot Mirror
Well yes, but you can get a patent on the idea of a couple of cylindrical things attached to an axle to help you move things about without having to actually implement it.
In countries other than Australia, you would of course have to worry about prior art.
No. Patents cover ideas. Designs and Copyrights cover implementations of the idea.
There are plenty of patents for things that have not been implemented yet. It is pretty common for someone to come up with an idea, patent it, and then look for investors to implement the idea, safe in the knowledge that they can't "steal" the idea. That is pretty much the whole point of the patent system.
That doesn't sound like a lot. Slightly more than 1 CD, or about 12 hours on the phone every year.
Amateurs. They forgot to ask for the bank username and password / pin.
Copyright extends to all works, not just those that have been published.
Trade secret law may apply in addition to copyright, or instead of it.
I would take issue with a few things in that article. Firstly, Windows XP is not built on DOS, it is built on the NT Kernel. The display manager or whatever you like to call it is much more closely tied to the kernel than X11. That's why you generally get better graphics performance in NT. It's also one of the reasons it crashes more often and is less secure.
In any case, if MS wanted to build their system on top of a unix like kernel, they could choose one of the BSD kernels. That could potentially be a better solution technically than linux as well.
No we should not. That is exactly what SCO is hoping will happen, and it would just encourage others to do the same.
The fact of the matter is that SCO is completely finished. Their OS is totally obsolete, and inferior to the free alternatives available.
If I was SCO, I'd be demanding a refund from the lawyers.
Yes, if you are doing your personal tax return once a year, then support isn't going to be too important as you can switch software next year pretty easily.
If you are a company who has to deal with things like VAT/Sales Tax every time you buy or sell something, and Income Tax/National Insurance or whatever every time you pay your staff, then it isn't going to be quite so easy to switch software every time the government changes the rules - generally once a year.
It isn't difficult. It is as easy as typing
sc stop messenger
sc config messenger start= disabled
on the command line.
If typing things on a DOS style prompt scares you, you can go into control panel and disable the messenger service.
It is not beyond the bounds of possibility for Microsoft to go belly-up, especially after Bill Gates retires and is replaced with someone who has a different approach to management.
If you are in the UK, you may have heard of a company called GEC Marconi. Under its previous director Lord Weinstock, it amassed a cash pile that was almost as big as Microsoft's. When he retired, he was replaced by another director who went on a huge spending spree and turn the huge cash pile into a huge debt pile.
They were rescued from the bankruptcy process, but as a much smaller company. Shareholders were left with nothing.
Accountancy software needs to be updated for things like changes in tax legislation. That is why a support contract of some sort is essential, even if it is Free Software.
At least if there isn't copy-protection, you are pretty much guaranteed to be able to print out the data and re-key it into another system at the end of the tax year, but you don't want to have to do that too often.
Many people here have pointed out that free software projects generally don't make money.
They are absolutely right. They don't.
Proprietary software projects generally don't make money either. Just look at Appgen. Most projects don't even do as well as this.
Looking at the success level of every sourceforge project out there and comparing it with the very few proprietary software companies (probably less than ten) that actually make any sort of money out their efforts isn't really very fair.
Of course looking soley at the packaged software market isn't very fair either. It is tiny, insignificant proportion of the total IT spend. Most of the money goes on custom in-house development, support and consultancy. Even if the entire packaged software market were to completely vanish tonight, people would still pay money on these things, and the vast majority of IT professionals would still have a job. In fact, a switch to Free Software would help rather than hinder these people in their efforts.
Signing up for a US credit card is quite difficult if you don't live in the US - about 95% of the world population. ITunes only accepts US credit cards.
It is also difficult if you are under-age (18 in the UK).
I've no idea what the position in the US is, but there is no duty or VAT on importing books from US to the UK. However if you were to buy and download an ebook from a US supplier, there would be 17.5% VAT to pay.
A photograph would be harder to refute than even a printout or a forwarded copy.
The GIMP will presumably start supporting GIF once the patent expires in the EU and Japan next year.
Of course it is. The fact is, once you have burned it to CD, you can do whatever you like with it. That incluse ripping it to mp3/ogg and sharing it on your favourite file sharing network
Well you can choose your timezone and locale preferences. What more do you want?
I'm sure I've seen copyrighted works on PG that are distributed with the permission of the copyright holder.
However, most, if not all O'Reilly books are in electronic format anyway, so they would just need to copy them.
Yes, Emacs is the best around.
Some people will tell you that vi is better.
Yes, torrent links are here
L in ux-9.2_disk1of3.i586.iso.torrentn terprise.biz/suprnova/torrents/444 /MandrakeLinux-9.2_disk2of3.i586.iso.torrentp ://suprnova.lagalot.com/torrents/445/MandrakeL inux-9.2_disk3of3.i586.iso.torrent
http://suprnova.gunny.org/torrents/444/Mandrake
http://www.jj-e
htt
O'Reilly's Safari Online is the closest I've seen.
For people who don't speak english, Alt Gr is pretty useful, as it lets you type accented characters. In EU countries, it is also used to let you type the Euro symbol - Alt-Gr+4 on UK and Irish Keyboards, Alt-Gr+E on most others.
Maybe, but anyone who works around it is infringing the patent.