I gave up when we declared catsup to be a vegetable. Now we have commercials proudly saying that manwhiches (tm) contain two servings of veggies.
It's a vegetable in the same way a can of crushed tomatoes is a vegetable. They are just crushed more and have a bit of sugar and other things added for flavor.
Tomatoes, crushed or not, are not vegetables. Botanically tomatoes are fruits.
the France High Court declaring french to be the only language allowed to be spoken.
You do know the french right? If you suggest something like that, they will go for it
Some French not all. It was French voters after all who shot down the EU Constitution. French isn't the only language natively spoken in France either. For instance Breton is a native Celtic language spoken in Brittany in northern France. The language section of the wiki page on Brittany includes other languages of the area. Languages of France lists more used throughout France. Catalan is spoken in the Catalonia region of Spain as well as the bordering area of France.
No, the source code is available under the terms of the GPL. If they have distributed it with an Apache license that is compliant with the GPL and a clear copyright violation.
No, Google was accused of distributing GPL code. From engadget.com: "The single most relevant legal question is whether or not copying and distributing these files was authorized by Oracle, and the answer clearly appears to be "nope" -- even if Oracle licensed the code under the GPL."
And if you do not distribute GPLed source code but the software is distributed then you're violating the GPL too. Accuse Google of distributing GPLed source code all you want but that is not illegal.
The problem with this argument is that if the code was GPLed the source has to be freely available. In which case Google is not in violation of distributing the source code.
It was wrong the license was changed but the code being distributed was not wrong. One of the complaints against Google illegally distributing the source code.
Y2K. When the Y2K bug and other stuff didn't end the world, that left a lot of people pining for the next big end of the world. 2012 was the same sort of deal too, a calendar roll-date.
Yeah, maybe. Perhaps these people are too fatalistic.
No, it's not - it's an alpha testing opt-in program.
Google testing isn't research? It most certainly is! Just as much research as when Microsoft does it.
If you want a Google example, Wave was a genuine innovation and was based on some clear new R&D. Few other Google products are innovative in that sense, though. They're masters of creatively reusing mundane things to great effect, but they don't advance science nor engineering.
Neither does Microsoft, which if you go back up the thread was my point, that MS does little if any innovation. My first post started with the sentence "Almost nothing that is innovative comes from MS."
Do you still stand by your assertion there was not a result on the first page of result for Google Research without research being there? Oh, I just thought of some thing. Perhaps what you meant was "research" was not capitalized. Nope that doesn't explain it because it is capitalized in the title of the second page linked to. Now I wonder if you tried to apply the same (lack of) reasoning to the search for Microsoft Research. I bet I can go through and find the same things in those results.
It should be noted though that, so far as I know, Google doesn't have a dedicated pure R&D department like MSR;
Google labs isn't about research or development? If you don't think it is then I don't know what your definitions of research or development are. The Google FAQs even say it, Who builds these things, anyway?
"Google engineers and researchers do."
I added the bold to highlight the word being highlighted. Of the 8 other questions there was another one where research was used.
Haskell (the language) and GHC (the compiler) were both already going before MS joined, yes. But since when do you have to start a project to innovate in it?
I did not say MS does not innovate at all, what I did say was "Almost nothing that is innovative comes from MS." I then went further and said MS either "bought, or like Steve Jobs, copied or stole then brought to the masses."
Other than new methods of limiting competition and spreading FUD, MS has not innovated much in-house.
More broadly, just go to Google Scholar and search for "Microsoft Research".
I did and got about 598,000 results. I next googled Google Research and got 3,120,000 results. To make it more balanced I'll try another search engine too.. Wow, Blekko returned 89M for Microsoft Research and 145M for Google Research. Ah, go ahead and try MS's Bing: Microsoft Research returns 73,100,000 whereas Google Research returns 70,800,000 results. On 2 on out of 3 search engines "Google Research", without the double quotes, returns more results than "Microsoft Research".
Now I'm not sure if searching for "X Research" means much. It's actually start-ups that do most of the innovating. Established incumbents then either try to buy them out or copies them. Just look at web browsers. After Internet Explorer (IE), licensed by Microsoft from Spyglass Inc (which is another story), won the browser war in the '90s MS stopped improving IE. Internet Explorer 6 was released on 27 August 2001. It wasn't until 18 October 2006, more than 5 years later, when Internet Explorer 7 was released. So it wasn't until open source Firefox started gaining marketshare before MS released a new browser itself.
Oh and about Spyglass Inc. MS licensed the source code to Mosaic and agreed to pay them a quarterly fee plus a royalty from Microsoft's Internet Explorer revenue. By including it free with Windows though MS thought "they did not have to pay royalties to Spyglass Inc". So Spyglass sued Microsoft before MS finally agreed in a deal to pay Spyglass $20 Million.
GHC is also not a Microsoft project - it's an open source (BSDL), community-developed project with many contributors.
SO you admit Haskell is not an MS innovation, that MS joined the project only after others were working on it?
So as I said MS does not innovate. Others do then MS buys, joins, or steals.
it's rather surprising that a Slashdotter wouldn't know what Haskell is.
No I don't know what it is, nor do I expect other Slashdotters to know everything about computers, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Information Management, or whatever. And from the looks of it, all the posts from Apple, Microsoft, or Open Source fanboise it's justifiable. Afterall computers and software are means to an end.
What's in it for Microsoft? Well, FP is emerging in mainstream software development in the last few years
I know or knew some BASIC, C/C++ (and want to learn Objective C), FORTRAN, Java, and Pascal as well as know of SOAP and Extreme programming but not Haskell or Functional Programming. SO I'm even further behind on new tech than I thought.
Falcon
Oh and I don't have a degree or work in any of the above areas. I haven't even worked in almost 15 years, since I was disabled in an accident. I was majoring in Computer Engineering then but my career path was derailed due to the accident.
Your previous post was "software is protected by copyright, and therefore doesn't need patent protection." Now, having conceded that that's clearly incorrect, you're now insisting that I should debate economics and that by failing to do so, I'm just arguing my opinion?
You accuse me of moving the post yet you do the same. It's bad if I do it but it's good if you do the same thing? I've argued all along I believe patents should be revoked. I've posted the same thing for more than 10 years on Slashdot.
Opinion? Excuse me, but we were talking about scope of coverage of different laws. If you want to change the topic to a different area, don't be a dick about it.
Yes opinion, but you're moving the post again. In the post where you replied I was wrong I stated I disputed the need for any protection. Right here I say "Even if protection is needed, which I dispute,". That was posted Thursday January 20, @02:50PM but the one above it was posted Thursday January 20, @01:21PM, an hour and a half before.
If you want to change the topic to a different area, don't be a dick about it.
I was replying in kind and if you think it was being dick then perhaps I thought yours was too. As a matter of fact I think in the post I am replying to now you're being a dick.
Software is simply not worthy of patent protection.
Why not? How is software unlike any other industry?
Software is already protected, by copyrights. Even if protection is needed, which I dispute, software doesn't need twice as much protection as other things.
the only company that has 'bet the farm' on android is HTC and Google
Think some more, HTC has Windows phones too. Oh, I see you say "that HTC at one time was a developer of MS phones". Well they still are.
It may be that the best way for MS to gain market share is to scare phone makes into not using Android.
The same tactics MS uses against Linux. But it is failing. More and more people and entities are switching to Linux and FOSS on desktops. It's servers where MS is gaining ground. Both Linux and MS Windows gained marketshare for servers.
Of course the problem with the numbers, whether from IDC or someone else, is that no one can know just how many servers are running Linux. Linux doesn't need to be activated or registered whereas Windows does. Company X may buy new Windows servers but after they're setup in the server room the admins may rip out all the software and install Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP. Or LAMP can be installed on older hardware.
Patents exist just as much for the "little guy" as they do for big business.
But if the cost of patents go up only those with money could afford them.
All I see happening if we just get rid of patents is a company like Sony or Microsoft catching wind of some little guy's cool new idea, and then utterly appropriating it without compensating him at all.
And how does this happen? They pay people to spy on others? What may happen, as does with FOSS, is a company will hire the person to work on the invention. Being where it's invented said company should have the capability and facilities to manufacture an item before anyone else. With First mover advantage they can then bring something to market ahead of everyone else.
Of course later a competitor can come along and either make it cheaper or make it better but that's progress. And for the first seller to stay in business they will have to do so itself thus creating more progress.
Oh and you mean Microsoft doesn't steal and infringe on others' patents now? HAHA!! And all these lawsuits don't hinder progress? HAHA!!! All the money spent on lawyers could be spent on research instead. Heck MS, who argues against FOSS, hires and employs FOSS programmers. I believe Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, even said he'd work for MS if they allowed him to do what he wanted and they paid enough.
Almost nothing that is innovative comes from MS. The last, er only, thing I can think of from MS that was innovative was MS BASIC. Though BASIC itself had been around, Bill Gates and Steve Allen created the first version that ran on a microcomputer, the Altair 8800. Everything else MS bought, or like Steve Jobs, copied or stole then brought to the masses.
Slashdot Mirror
I gave up when we declared catsup to be a vegetable. Now we have commercials proudly saying that manwhiches (tm) contain two servings of veggies.
It's a vegetable in the same way a can of crushed tomatoes is a vegetable. They are just crushed more and have a bit of sugar and other things added for flavor.
Tomatoes, crushed or not, are not vegetables. Botanically tomatoes are fruits.
Falcon
the France High Court declaring french to be the only language allowed to be spoken.
You do know the french right? If you suggest something like that, they will go for it
Some French not all. It was French voters after all who shot down the EU Constitution. French isn't the only language natively spoken in France either. For instance Breton is a native Celtic language spoken in Brittany in northern France. The language section of the wiki page on Brittany includes other languages of the area. Languages of France lists more used throughout France. Catalan is spoken in the Catalonia region of Spain as well as the bordering area of France.
Falcon
Apparently India's Supreme Court has already made a ruling about this
Yeah, RTFA. TFA says "Bombay High Court" and there are other high courts in India. See Kerala High Court clears way for India's first Islamic bank.
Falcon
No, the source code is available under the terms of the GPL. If they have distributed it with an Apache license that is compliant with the GPL and a clear copyright violation.
No, Google was accused of distributing GPL code. From engadget.com: "The single most relevant legal question is whether or not copying and distributing these files was authorized by Oracle, and the answer clearly appears to be "nope" -- even if Oracle licensed the code under the GPL."
I put the pertinent parts in bold.
Falcon
And if you do not distribute GPLed source code but the software is distributed then you're violating the GPL too. Accuse Google of distributing GPLed source code all you want but that is not illegal.
Falcon
Except that Google *DID* distribute the copyrighted code in question,
But the GPL requires source code to be distributed if the software is distributed.
Falcon
The problem with this argument is that if the code was GPLed the source has to be freely available. In which case Google is not in violation of distributing the source code.
It was wrong the license was changed but the code being distributed was not wrong. One of the complaints against Google illegally distributing the source code.
Falcon
Y2K. When the Y2K bug and other stuff didn't end the world, that left a lot of people pining for the next big end of the world. 2012 was the same sort of deal too, a calendar roll-date.
Yeah, maybe. Perhaps these people are too fatalistic.
Falcon
I very much want to see Larry take his Java patents to court and get smacked down on abundant prior art.
I hope you meant Larry Ellison and not Larry Page.
Falcon
Come 22 December 2012 there will come another Great Disappointment.
Falcon
No, it's not - it's an alpha testing opt-in program.
Google testing isn't research? It most certainly is! Just as much research as when Microsoft does it.
If you want a Google example, Wave was a genuine innovation and was based on some clear new R&D. Few other Google products are innovative in that sense, though. They're masters of creatively reusing mundane things to great effect, but they don't advance science nor engineering.
Neither does Microsoft, which if you go back up the thread was my point, that MS does little if any innovation. My first post started with the sentence "Almost nothing that is innovative comes from MS."
Falcon
I next googled Google Research and got 3,120,000 results.
Yes, you should put the search terms in quote.
If you had bothered to click on the links you would have seen I did not use quotes for either search.
Even on the very first page of your search results, none of the hits are for "Research"
Let's see... The first result is Diagnostic criteria for research studies: Report of the NINDSAIREN International Workshop*. Notice how "research is in the title. However there is a problem with that page, the only place with Google is a link for Google Scholar searches. There's nothing about Google research.
Now let's try the second result... Research Commentary: Technology-Mediated Learning—A Call for Greater Depth and Breadth of Research, again has research in the title. But like the first there's nothing about Google research.
Do you still stand by your assertion there was not a result on the first page of result for Google Research without research being there? Oh, I just thought of some thing. Perhaps what you meant was "research" was not capitalized. Nope that doesn't explain it because it is capitalized in the title of the second page linked to. Now I wonder if you tried to apply the same (lack of) reasoning to the search for Microsoft Research. I bet I can go through and find the same things in those results.
It should be noted though that, so far as I know, Google doesn't have a dedicated pure R&D department like MSR;
Google labs isn't about research or development? If you don't think it is then I don't know what your definitions of research or development are. The Google FAQs even say it, Who builds these things, anyway?
"Google engineers and researchers do."
I added the bold to highlight the word being highlighted. Of the 8 other questions there was another one where research was used.
Falcon
Haskell (the language) and GHC (the compiler) were both already going before MS joined, yes. But since when do you have to start a project to innovate in it?
I did not say MS does not innovate at all, what I did say was "Almost nothing that is innovative comes from MS." I then went further and said MS either "bought, or like Steve Jobs, copied or stole then brought to the masses."
Other than new methods of limiting competition and spreading FUD, MS has not innovated much in-house.
More broadly, just go to Google Scholar and search for "Microsoft Research".
I did and got about 598,000 results. I next googled Google Research and got 3,120,000 results. To make it more balanced I'll try another search engine too.. Wow, Blekko returned 89M for Microsoft Research and 145M for Google Research. Ah, go ahead and try MS's Bing: Microsoft Research returns 73,100,000 whereas Google Research returns 70,800,000 results. On 2 on out of 3 search engines "Google Research", without the double quotes, returns more results than "Microsoft Research".
Now I'm not sure if searching for "X Research" means much. It's actually start-ups that do most of the innovating. Established incumbents then either try to buy them out or copies them. Just look at web browsers. After Internet Explorer (IE), licensed by Microsoft from Spyglass Inc (which is another story), won the browser war in the '90s MS stopped improving IE. Internet Explorer 6 was released on 27 August 2001. It wasn't until 18 October 2006, more than 5 years later, when Internet Explorer 7 was released. So it wasn't until open source Firefox started gaining marketshare before MS released a new browser itself.
Oh and about Spyglass Inc. MS licensed the source code to Mosaic and agreed to pay them a quarterly fee plus a royalty from Microsoft's Internet Explorer revenue. By including it free with Windows though MS thought "they did not have to pay royalties to Spyglass Inc". So Spyglass sued Microsoft before MS finally agreed in a deal to pay Spyglass $20 Million.
Falcon
So another person realizes the truth.
Falcon
Yes, it's the programming language
Okay.
GHC is also not a Microsoft project - it's an open source (BSDL), community-developed project with many contributors.
SO you admit Haskell is not an MS innovation, that MS joined the project only after others were working on it?
So as I said MS does not innovate. Others do then MS buys, joins, or steals.
it's rather surprising that a Slashdotter wouldn't know what Haskell is.
No I don't know what it is, nor do I expect other Slashdotters to know everything about computers, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Information Management, or whatever. And from the looks of it, all the posts from Apple, Microsoft, or Open Source fanboise it's justifiable. Afterall computers and software are means to an end.
What's in it for Microsoft? Well, FP is emerging in mainstream software development in the last few years
I know or knew some BASIC, C/C++ (and want to learn Objective C), FORTRAN, Java, and Pascal as well as know of SOAP and Extreme programming but not Haskell or Functional Programming. SO I'm even further behind on new tech than I thought.
Falcon
Oh and I don't have a degree or work in any of the above areas. I haven't even worked in almost 15 years, since I was disabled in an accident. I was majoring in Computer Engineering then but my career path was derailed due to the accident.
I dunno, do you consider Haskell innovative?
Haskell? I don't recall ever hearing of it... Is it another programming language? If that's what you meant, the Wiki article Haskell (programming language) doesn't mention Microsoft once. A brief introduction to Haskell doesn't mention Microsoft either. Well maybe it's something else... If so I don't know what it is.
Falcon
Your previous post was "software is protected by copyright, and therefore doesn't need patent protection." Now, having conceded that that's clearly incorrect, you're now insisting that I should debate economics and that by failing to do so, I'm just arguing my opinion?
You accuse me of moving the post yet you do the same. It's bad if I do it but it's good if you do the same thing? I've argued all along I believe patents should be revoked. I've posted the same thing for more than 10 years on Slashdot.
Opinion? Excuse me, but we were talking about scope of coverage of different laws. If you want to change the topic to a different area, don't be a dick about it.
Yes opinion, but you're moving the post again. In the post where you replied I was wrong I stated I disputed the need for any protection. Right here I say "Even if protection is needed, which I dispute,". That was posted Thursday January 20, @02:50PM but the one above it was posted Thursday January 20, @01:21PM, an hour and a half before.
If you want to change the topic to a different area, don't be a dick about it.
I was replying in kind and if you think it was being dick then perhaps I thought yours was too. As a matter of fact I think in the post I am replying to now you're being a dick.
Falcon
Software doesn't have twice the protection as other things.
My argument may be incorrect but so is yours. Patents are not needed. Many Economists say copyright and patent laws are killing innovation; hurting economy. If you disagree with this, argue with economic studies or facts not your opinion.
Falcon
is "would this happen without patents".
I can agree on that. And science studies have shown that progress would "happen" without patents; Promoting Intellectual Discovery: Patents Versus Markets.
Drugs simply won't happen without patents
But, besides the above science link, I totally disagree with this. There are alternatives to pharmaceutical patents. Governments fund drug reseach too. The US's National Institutes of Health's National Cancer Institute spent hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars developing and testing Taxol, a drug used to treat breast and other cancers. The NCI then sold all the exclusive rights to the use of the research for FDA approval to Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS). How much did BMS pay? A fraction of NCI's costs. Add how much money did BMS make? In 2000, BMS bought the rights in 1988-9, BMS made almost $1 Billion. Besides that, answering the question Do drug companies do more marketing or research? is answered as thus: Drug industry spends nearly twice as much on marketing than on research and development. Beyond that, Economists say copyright and patent laws are killing innovation; hurting economy. Thomas Jefferson once said "inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property."
Falcon
Software is simply not worthy of patent protection.
Why not? How is software unlike any other industry?
Software is already protected, by copyrights. Even if protection is needed, which I dispute, software doesn't need twice as much protection as other things.
Falcon
It's not so much about how much money they have, but what they do with it. Google does much nicer things with their money than Oracle.
By your definition of "nicer things". So far I partially agree however not everyone does, and things can change.
Falcon
anti-patent cause
It sounds like I should support him them. Despite what Adam Smith said patents are an unnecessary evil.
Falcon
the only company that has 'bet the farm' on android is HTC and Google
Think some more, HTC has Windows phones too. Oh, I see you say "that HTC at one time was a developer of MS phones". Well they still are.
It may be that the best way for MS to gain market share is to scare phone makes into not using Android.
The same tactics MS uses against Linux. But it is failing. More and more people and entities are switching to Linux and FOSS on desktops. It's servers where MS is gaining ground. Both Linux and MS Windows gained marketshare for servers.
Of course the problem with the numbers, whether from IDC or someone else, is that no one can know just how many servers are running Linux. Linux doesn't need to be activated or registered whereas Windows does. Company X may buy new Windows servers but after they're setup in the server room the admins may rip out all the software and install Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP. Or LAMP can be installed on older hardware.
Falcon
protected.
Why?
Patents exist just as much for the "little guy" as they do for big business.
But if the cost of patents go up only those with money could afford them.
All I see happening if we just get rid of patents is a company like Sony or Microsoft catching wind of some little guy's cool new idea, and then utterly appropriating it without compensating him at all.
And how does this happen? They pay people to spy on others? What may happen, as does with FOSS, is a company will hire the person to work on the invention. Being where it's invented said company should have the capability and facilities to manufacture an item before anyone else. With First mover advantage they can then bring something to market ahead of everyone else.
Of course later a competitor can come along and either make it cheaper or make it better but that's progress. And for the first seller to stay in business they will have to do so itself thus creating more progress.
Oh and you mean Microsoft doesn't steal and infringe on others' patents now? HAHA!! And all these lawsuits don't hinder progress? HAHA!!! All the money spent on lawyers could be spent on research instead. Heck MS, who argues against FOSS, hires and employs FOSS programmers. I believe Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, even said he'd work for MS if they allowed him to do what he wanted and they paid enough.
Falcon
Almost nothing that is innovative comes from MS. The last, er only, thing I can think of from MS that was innovative was MS BASIC. Though BASIC itself had been around, Bill Gates and Steve Allen created the first version that ran on a microcomputer, the Altair 8800. Everything else MS bought, or like Steve Jobs, copied or stole then brought to the masses.
Falcon