The patent is only as powerful as the government's enforcement. If a patent impedes national security, the government (US) can do whatever it wants with the patent. I wouldn't mind seeing this get yanked from MS by some politician.
...of course. And Windows will never kill Netware. And Word will never kill Word Perfect. And Explorer will never kill Netscape.
These may be all on MS side but software revolution does take place. OpenOffice will take over MS Office before Linux takes over Windows, but the next phase always moves ahead. The question is... Can Linux muster up the next phase of development or will it just follow with free versions of proprietary software? Does it even want to? Is the OSS best served by making the current technology free and ubiquitious?
Come on... in the context, "developing" would refer to a country that is still developing a computer infrastructure; being systems in place in business and education, training available, skilled programmers with years of experience, etc...
(...and I will allow that may have just been my unspoken interpretation of "developing")
Some of those countries you refer to may be developing economies due to political upheaval, but they are not developing countries in terms of computer infrastructure.
It is most likely that if you are still a developing country, your people are playing catch up and not on the cutting edge of programming. By necessity, they will be creating alot of the same solutions that have already been developed in "developed" nations.
This is not to say that some novel ideas won't come out of these countries that can be used by the "developed" countries, just that someone with years of experience, all the tools available, strongly supported by the economy, (bored with the current technology), is more likely to come up with new development.
Regardless, even gauged by economy, a nation where people are more concerned where their next meal is coming from are not as likely to develop as countries where the people have time to burn and money for research.
Tech will flow from rich/developed to poor/undeveloped when the IP is open. The only reason to close IP is to make those who don't have IP (higher on the poor/undeveloped side) pay the current owners of IP (more often the rich/developed).
A side note to this is that even if the IP is left closed, what makes you think that the economically developed nations won't just buy out a single developer, use their developed economic resources to mass market and suck even more money out of the economically developing nations. Just because something is developed in a nation doesn't mean that they will benefit from it.
Open source levels the overhead for economic development.
If you take a developing country that hasn't had generations of technology infrastructure, how much new IP is produced there? The big guys produce more IP than the little guys because they have been doing it for years. Most IP produced by the developing nations is going to be wasted time recreating what has already been done elsewhere.
On the other hand, would you rather see this developing country with low budget try spending money to buy enough tech infrastructure to start to compete with the big guys? How does sucking that much money out of a developing country help them?
If anything, GPL levels out the baseline for developing countries saying
"here is a bunch of technology that all of us have used for years for free. This will help you get up to speed so you can appreciate all this new stuff we are developing."
Actually, this would make an excellent side discussion - I have used all the above methods and haven't personally had the problems with rpm dependancies that I have seen discussed.
What are the strengths of rpm that it continues to be used if other package management systems are so "obviously" better and is there a package system that incorporates all the strengths desired?
Actually, I have one of those mattresses! It is really comfortable. And, I've already put in a pre order for the solar panel to run the sono-refrigeration unit for my snake oil. (keeps longer when refrigerated and my zpe generator burned out last summer after only 3 years - what crap - I suspect planned obsolescence)
The other option is to go legal on them. Put in place an open waiver system. If they don't want to cooperate with the limitations, let them sign away any complaints that they have rights to make. When their system fails and they complain, pull out the waivers and explain why they shouldn't bypass security procedures but you would be happy to assist them in recovering whatever you can.
Make sure that they sign a separate waiver for each issue. It keeps the issue present in their minds, removes deniability and a pile of documentation helps you keep your job.
Many large companies have a waiver system for that very reason.
To my understanding, this is one script interpreter that is being developed for Java. It offers ease of use for people accostumbed to working with Ruby.
Mostly because they have alot of interesting articles on things that have little to do with technology. I want to find something that will stretch me in other directions.
Viruses
Keeping my kids out of my files
$300 for each of my 5 computers in my home
Software like MySql, openoffice, gimp, apache, etc...
Programming languages and scripting
The idea that something written once will not have time wasted on being reinvented in every other product out there.
(I hate the idea of paying for MS to re-invent something that they saw opensource or anyone else they can't buy do)
supporting inovation
to increase my standard of living
(more open source = less duplication of effort = less overhead = lower production costs = higher productivity = better standard of living)
This doesn't replace the file system on your windows(proprietary generic term) box but it does allow you to browse ext2/3 file structures and may provide you a sufficient alternative.
Re:Will this work with other materials?
on
Solar Cells Get Boost
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I simply don't know enough about the physics, but... can this be applied with the other developments like multi-band gap improvements? (New Material for More Efficient Solar Cells) I know that these use different materials but can the same principles be applied?
If so, it should multiply efficiency. I would love to see multi-band gap using 2-3 times wider percentage of the light to move multiple electrons. You should be able to pull 80%+ efficiency if that is possible.
Someone contribute some understanding on the physics please.
I do truly hope that you are right. It would be a much better world in that view.
I have seen the Free software movement to be, at least in part, a backlash against the increasing oppression of poor protections of the public domain. I have concerns about the free software ferver waning should the legal intellectual monopolies ease their grip or worse yet, gain enough legal strength with such things as software patents to marginalize the movement.
I think that if all protections were removed, these same influences would exert their power in less controlled ways.
I have not seen enough legal pushback to open up the intellectual monopolies and shorten the time periods. I fear that the greater power to make those decisions lies with those receiving the money and that the populace won't be moved enough to stand against it. It is a matter of incentive. The populace with little understanding of it's loss gets outweighed by the greed incentive of a selfish individual(s) to lobby the law. I think that laws have been placed that will never be taken back.
I hope that I have just been made too cynical by recent news.
"The only thing necessary for the triumph [of personally incentivized detriment to society] is for uninformed/ignorant/concerned/apathetic men to do insufficient/ineffectual application of effort to restore their loss." - (my own twist of a fake quote attributed to Burke!)
The real quote:
"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle" Burke's quote
hmmmmm... Burke had the original idea for slashdot?
Developers do well to go with their instincts but the real question here is "will the Gnome developers listen to the user base and provide easier access to configuration/revert back to previous defaults, or will they forge on with their own beliefs regardless of the userbase response?"
That will tell how attuned to the userbase they really are.
Ethics and practicality don't always go hand in hand. Ethics depends largely on point of view.
The most important part of patents (and from the beginning in theory, copyrights) was the registration/publication of the information.
I would not want to see society take the step back to the dark ages where people horded information in guilds, abbeys and personal libraries. The true purpose of patent/copyright laws is to transfer the greed/control incentive from protection by restriction to protection by law, thereby allowing information to give more benefit to the creator if given to the public than if kept to himself.
There is also the matter of compensation. I have a very good friend that wrote a much needed technical text for a major publishing company. He spent months struggling and studying to create it. It sold ok but just ok and no one really made much money. Just enough that it was worth the time to create it. He freely admits that he could have never done it without the compensation.
If it were not for the copyrights to extract the profit for the work of the masses, only the rich, self serving, fanatical or self sacrificing could afford to produce the information.
BTW, I do think that the "limited time" is too great and kills incentive of the best and brightest to continue to produce but I would not wish to see us fall too far the other way either.
They will come down on it as people complain -
"...oh, we didn't mean that it would be the minimum requirements. we meant that when Longhorn comes out, that will be the most likely level of new machine currently being produced..."
It is all spin - that way when people see the real requirements are 2 GHz processor, 1 GB RAM, 50GB HD, they will say "oh, ok, that sounds much more realistic!" even though 98% of current computers don't meet the criteria.
The most important aspect of this article is the insight that it shows in how to become the front runner in a software battle.
Key points are:
Look for major shifts in disruptive technology and be prepared to ride the wave ahead of the opponent
GUI in this case, WP missed it and couldn't play catchup quick enough
Don't forsake backward compatibility
Apple did it with IIe to Mac, WordStar did it in this article. It gives people the opportunity to re-evaluate a leveled playing field when they are already pissed at you.
If you have to play catchup, don't alienate your users with a crappy, halfbaked compromise
Backward compatibility doesn't mean backward thinking
Research and play on the design grievances against the current front runner
Word was designed against WP defects
Develop features and function against the mud slinging of the front runner
takes the sting out of the foundation of the front runner argument
Cross compatibility
=backward compatibility - if the road that the fake detour sign points to looks better than the real road, it will be believed.
These are some excellent insights that GPL software designers should keep in mind. Both from the stance of priority in design and what to expect from the competition.
I would have gotten my family out and if that was not possible I would have stood up for my freedom and fought for my people though ill equiped to do so. I and my family would have been murdered by Machiavellian people who used terror, rape and torture to maintain their power and luxury.
Even though I do not agree with everything that is happening in Iraq, the 20,000 who would have died under Saddam's regime would have been chosen based on their dissention with the powers that be.
The current warring is based on people enacting violence upon others(whichever side you want to take on that).
I hope that I never have to live or die through something like that and I hope that the Iraqis can find a society for themselves that will permit dissention without destruction.
I also hope that the US soldiers that have been assigned there will be treated with the same understanding that you expressed for the Iraqi enlisted men. If not, I hope they can protect themselves.
It is much easier to overlook shady business practices when the company doesn't wield the kind of power and market dominance that MS does.
If Apple does something detestable, the marginal Apple users will say "fine, I'll use MS or Unix*". Apple loses market share and rethinks it's actions. Most people will not concern themselves enough to get riled up.
In fact, when the macintosh came out and was not backward compatible with IIe, many Apple users did just that.
If a market dominator is not abusive, there will be detractors but most will not take issue. Novell's dominance of networking during the 80's is a good example of that. If you wanted to use something else to do the networking, Novell would even provide the clients/server components to make your transition easier. They were content that their product could stand on it's own merits.
*term used as generic description of operating system - not to be inferred as trademark infringement upon claims by infantile litiguous companies currently disputing ownership.
No. It is dangerous to speak of business as if it is an entity in and of itself. That removes personal responsibility from those that make decisions.
Businesses are not like nature. Nature is not directed by self aware entities making choices.
Businesses don't think or make choices for themselves. Businesses are ethereal structures that only exist by the permission of the society/government.
Businesses are made of people that wield power and make decisions.
Those people will try to convince society/government that their business is good for the public and that they should retain control.
Those people make choices that will help customers/society/technology/progress or hurt it.
Those people are ethical or not.
Those people can delude themselves that unethical behaviour is for the good of the business to benefit their own greed at the expense of others.
Those people will hide behind the face of a business to avoid showing their ethics whenever they know they are being unethical.
Since a business is not a real entity, if a society/government chooses, it can disband a business and take away everything from it.
Business does not equate directly to money.
Money is an intended side effect.
Business can be run ethically and still be competitive and make money. Many businesses do. Because the individuals running the business make ethical choices.
Unethical business practices is like harboring a traitor. How long before their traitorous values are used against you? Employees that are not ethical outside the business cannot be trusted to be ethical inside the business.
People who are ethical fight within a business against unethical actions. When unsupported, ethical people will leave businesses that don't reinforce ethics and the degeneration spirals.
I have personally watched businesses implode because of exactly this kind of problem.
There are business ethics - it is the ethics of the individuals running the business.
The truth is that Bill Gates doesn't trust the society that he lives in to make the best choices and will push society to his own benefit.
We won't have to rebuild with coal. They oil companies will reengineer for mining Methane clathrate out of the ocean and buy out the thermal depolymerization industry long before they relenquish to the coal industry.
Usability frequently means reducing options to the user and streamlining advanced functions. For example, how many windows users know what to do with a command prompt? Most companies running windows disable the command prompt because it is not needed for the average user.
Fewer options and less user access to advanced features may increase the security of the system.
The user interface can be viewed like a protocol. The underlying framework makes more of a difference to security than the asthetics, form or content. Linux isn't secure because it was originally designed as "not usable". It is secure because it (and it's components) was designed as a multi-user system with security in mind.
The absolute demonstration of this is to compare windows 2000 with MS-DOS. Which is more "usable" and which is more secure?
Slashdot Mirror
The patent is only as powerful as the government's enforcement. If a patent impedes national security, the government (US) can do whatever it wants with the patent. I wouldn't mind seeing this get yanked from MS by some politician.
These may be all on MS side but software revolution does take place. OpenOffice will take over MS Office before Linux takes over Windows, but the next phase always moves ahead. The question is... Can Linux muster up the next phase of development or will it just follow with free versions of proprietary software? Does it even want to? Is the OSS best served by making the current technology free and ubiquitious?
(...and I will allow that may have just been my unspoken interpretation of "developing")
Some of those countries you refer to may be developing economies due to political upheaval, but they are not developing countries in terms of computer infrastructure.
It is most likely that if you are still a developing country, your people are playing catch up and not on the cutting edge of programming. By necessity, they will be creating alot of the same solutions that have already been developed in "developed" nations.
This is not to say that some novel ideas won't come out of these countries that can be used by the "developed" countries, just that someone with years of experience, all the tools available, strongly supported by the economy, (bored with the current technology), is more likely to come up with new development.
Regardless, even gauged by economy, a nation where people are more concerned where their next meal is coming from are not as likely to develop as countries where the people have time to burn and money for research.
Tech will flow from rich/developed to poor/undeveloped when the IP is open. The only reason to close IP is to make those who don't have IP (higher on the poor/undeveloped side) pay the current owners of IP (more often the rich/developed).
A side note to this is that even if the IP is left closed, what makes you think that the economically developed nations won't just buy out a single developer, use their developed economic resources to mass market and suck even more money out of the economically developing nations. Just because something is developed in a nation doesn't mean that they will benefit from it.
Open source levels the overhead for economic development.
On the other hand, would you rather see this developing country with low budget try spending money to buy enough tech infrastructure to start to compete with the big guys? How does sucking that much money out of a developing country help them?
If anything, GPL levels out the baseline for developing countries saying
What are the strengths of rpm that it continues to be used if other package management systems are so "obviously" better and is there a package system that incorporates all the strengths desired?
Actually, I have one of those mattresses! It is really comfortable. And, I've already put in a pre order for the solar panel to run the sono-refrigeration unit for my snake oil. (keeps longer when refrigerated and my zpe generator burned out last summer after only 3 years - what crap - I suspect planned obsolescence)
Make sure that they sign a separate waiver for each issue. It keeps the issue present in their minds, removes deniability and a pile of documentation helps you keep your job.
Many large companies have a waiver system for that very reason.
A quick google search shows that there are also rpms available for download.
routeplanner-gnome-0.9-1.noarch RPM
... and the main sourceforge site is Project: RoutePlanner: Summary
Thanks for the tip! I've been passively looking for something like this for a while. I'm planning on downloading it and playing with it also.
For a larger view of the language development being done similar to this, take a look at List of Java virtual machine languages.
I should think that most people will find at least something that appeals to them.
Mostly because they have alot of interesting articles on things that have little to do with technology. I want to find something that will stretch me in other directions.
Viruses
Keeping my kids out of my files
$300 for each of my 5 computers in my home
Software like MySql, openoffice, gimp, apache, etc...
Programming languages and scripting
The idea that something written once will not have time wasted on being reinvented in every other product out there.
(I hate the idea of paying for MS to re-invent something that they saw opensource or anyone else they can't buy do)
supporting inovation
to increase my standard of living
(more open source = less duplication of effort = less overhead = lower production costs = higher productivity = better standard of living)
Explore ex2fs
If so, it should multiply efficiency. I would love to see multi-band gap using 2-3 times wider percentage of the light to move multiple electrons. You should be able to pull 80%+ efficiency if that is possible.
Someone contribute some understanding on the physics please.
I do truly hope that you are right. It would be a much better world in that view.
I have seen the Free software movement to be, at least in part, a backlash against the increasing oppression of poor protections of the public domain. I have concerns about the free software ferver waning should the legal intellectual monopolies ease their grip or worse yet, gain enough legal strength with such things as software patents to marginalize the movement.
I think that if all protections were removed, these same influences would exert their power in less controlled ways.
I have not seen enough legal pushback to open up the intellectual monopolies and shorten the time periods. I fear that the greater power to make those decisions lies with those receiving the money and that the populace won't be moved enough to stand against it. It is a matter of incentive. The populace with little understanding of it's loss gets outweighed by the greed incentive of a selfish individual(s) to lobby the law. I think that laws have been placed that will never be taken back.
I hope that I have just been made too cynical by recent news.
"The only thing necessary for the triumph [of personally incentivized detriment to society] is for uninformed/ignorant/concerned/apathetic men to do insufficient/ineffectual application of effort to restore their loss." - (my own twist of a fake quote attributed to Burke!)
The real quote:
"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle"
Burke's quote
hmmmmm... Burke had the original idea for slashdot?
That will tell how attuned to the userbase they really are.
The most important part of patents (and from the beginning in theory, copyrights) was the registration/publication of the information.
I would not want to see society take the step back to the dark ages where people horded information in guilds, abbeys and personal libraries. The true purpose of patent/copyright laws is to transfer the greed/control incentive from protection by restriction to protection by law, thereby allowing information to give more benefit to the creator if given to the public than if kept to himself.
There is also the matter of compensation. I have a very good friend that wrote a much needed technical text for a major publishing company. He spent months struggling and studying to create it. It sold ok but just ok and no one really made much money. Just enough that it was worth the time to create it. He freely admits that he could have never done it without the compensation.
If it were not for the copyrights to extract the profit for the work of the masses, only the rich, self serving, fanatical or self sacrificing could afford to produce the information.
BTW, I do think that the "limited time" is too great and kills incentive of the best and brightest to continue to produce but I would not wish to see us fall too far the other way either.
"...oh, we didn't mean that it would be the minimum requirements. we meant that when Longhorn comes out, that will be the most likely level of new machine currently being produced..."
It is all spin - that way when people see the real requirements are 2 GHz processor, 1 GB RAM, 50GB HD, they will say "oh, ok, that sounds much more realistic!" even though 98% of current computers don't meet the criteria.
Key points are:
- Look for major shifts in disruptive technology and be prepared to ride the wave ahead of the opponent
- GUI in this case, WP missed it and couldn't play catchup quick enough
- Don't forsake backward compatibility
- Apple did it with IIe to Mac, WordStar did it in this article. It gives people the opportunity to re-evaluate a leveled playing field when they are already pissed at you.
- If you have to play catchup, don't alienate your users with a crappy, halfbaked compromise
- Backward compatibility doesn't mean backward thinking
- Research and play on the design grievances against the current front runner
- Word was designed against WP defects
- Develop features and function against the mud slinging of the front runner
- takes the sting out of the foundation of the front runner argument
- Cross compatibility
- =backward compatibility - if the road that the fake detour sign points to looks better than the real road, it will be believed.
These are some excellent insights that GPL software designers should keep in mind. Both from the stance of priority in design and what to expect from the competition.I would have gotten my family out and if that was not possible I would have stood up for my freedom and fought for my people though ill equiped to do so. I and my family would have been murdered by Machiavellian people who used terror, rape and torture to maintain their power and luxury.
Even though I do not agree with everything that is happening in Iraq, the 20,000 who would have died under Saddam's regime would have been chosen based on their dissention with the powers that be.
The current warring is based on people enacting violence upon others(whichever side you want to take on that).
I hope that I never have to live or die through something like that and I hope that the Iraqis can find a society for themselves that will permit dissention without destruction.
I also hope that the US soldiers that have been assigned there will be treated with the same understanding that you expressed for the Iraqi enlisted men. If not, I hope they can protect themselves.
It is much easier to overlook shady business practices when the company doesn't wield the kind of power and market dominance that MS does.
If Apple does something detestable, the marginal Apple users will say "fine, I'll use MS or Unix*". Apple loses market share and rethinks it's actions. Most people will not concern themselves enough to get riled up.
In fact, when the macintosh came out and was not backward compatible with IIe, many Apple users did just that.
If a market dominator is not abusive, there will be detractors but most will not take issue. Novell's dominance of networking during the 80's is a good example of that. If you wanted to use something else to do the networking, Novell would even provide the clients/server components to make your transition easier. They were content that their product could stand on it's own merits.
*term used as generic description of operating system - not to be inferred as trademark infringement upon claims by infantile litiguous companies currently disputing ownership.
Businesses are not like nature. Nature is not directed by self aware entities making choices.
Businesses don't think or make choices for themselves. Businesses are ethereal structures that only exist by the permission of the society/government.
Businesses are made of people that wield power and make decisions.
Those people will try to convince society/government that their business is good for the public and that they should retain control.
Those people make choices that will help customers/society/technology/progress or hurt it.
Those people are ethical or not.
Those people can delude themselves that unethical behaviour is for the good of the business to benefit their own greed at the expense of others.
Those people will hide behind the face of a business to avoid showing their ethics whenever they know they are being unethical.
Since a business is not a real entity, if a society/government chooses, it can disband a business and take away everything from it.
Business does not equate directly to money.
Money is an intended side effect.
Business can be run ethically and still be competitive and make money. Many businesses do. Because the individuals running the business make ethical choices.
Unethical business practices is like harboring a traitor. How long before their traitorous values are used against you? Employees that are not ethical outside the business cannot be trusted to be ethical inside the business.
People who are ethical fight within a business against unethical actions. When unsupported, ethical people will leave businesses that don't reinforce ethics and the degeneration spirals.
I have personally watched businesses implode because of exactly this kind of problem.
There are business ethics - it is the ethics of the individuals running the business.
The truth is that Bill Gates doesn't trust the society that he lives in to make the best choices and will push society to his own benefit.
Don't underestimate their ego.
Usability frequently means reducing options to the user and streamlining advanced functions. For example, how many windows users know what to do with a command prompt? Most companies running windows disable the command prompt because it is not needed for the average user.
Fewer options and less user access to advanced features may increase the security of the system.
The user interface can be viewed like a protocol. The underlying framework makes more of a difference to security than the asthetics, form or content. Linux isn't secure because it was originally designed as "not usable". It is secure because it (and it's components) was designed as a multi-user system with security in mind.
The absolute demonstration of this is to compare windows 2000 with MS-DOS. Which is more "usable" and which is more secure?