"That's a great idea, until it becomes obvious that viewing so many patents makes you an ineffective contributor to open source projects."
Right. So the developers don't read the site. This will be a way for people who do not code to contribute to OSS.
"Here's one (of many) example of Linus' views on patents on LKML"
I don't think people respect Linus as much as they used to. He totally messed up the bitkeeper situation, he rejected the GPL3, and he has said nothing about the threats by MS to sue linux developers, distributors and users. You would think that he would at least condemn Ballmers remarks but not a peep.
It's clear that linus doesn't get IP. He doesn't care and he thinks everybody is like him. Maybe the one good thing to come out of all this will be that linus learns to care about the threats of patents, DRM and licenses but somehow I doubt it. He will remain uncaring I am sure.
Right. They will be used by the population to kill each other. The govt will not be harmed. Look at Israel-Palestine for a perfect example of this. The pals have had no luck for 30 years with AK47s. Thirty years of occupation!. They need more firepower then small arms.
Here is how it will go. MS will sue (or they will get novell to sue). There is already a pool of patents donated by Novell and IBM and others so somebody will countersue MS. Furthermore they will demand the source code for windows and start combing through the source code for GPL violations. The community will immediately find prior art which would completely invalidate the MS patent(s) in question. Some GPL violation would be found and MS would be embarrased as hell.
MS isn't going to sue anybody. Not even ballmer is that stupid.
Why don't we do that. Why don't we put together a web site that lists all of MS patents and then declare open season on them. Let's invalidate all of them by digging up prior art. This is a fantastic opportunity for the OSS community to launch an DDOS on MS patents.
Once MS sees it's patents start being picked apart by the community they will start to panic, it will be fun to watch.
Microsoft makes a lot of money buying and selling it's own stock. Without agressive growth the stock won't go up as much. MS profits will decrease because they will be making less money buying and selling their own stock. The decreased profits will drop the price of the stock. Rinse, and repeat.
It's clear MS has jumped the shark. It no longer even pretends to compete on features anymore. The CEO of the company had just started to wage a war patents. The war is not over, it's just started but this is their waterloo. MS will implode, they have just started a war they can't possibly win and have de-facto admitted that they are unable to compete on the quality and the desirability of their products.
It's not their last gasp, that won't come for a while but it's their first step along a path that spells their doom.
Sell your stock now, this company has nowhere to go but down.
US has been unable to support the dollar so far. All other currencies have been beating up on the dollar like it was a red headed stepchild.
The dollar is due for a complete collapse. China has trillions of dollars and they are seriously considering insisting on other currencies for payment, same with oil producing companies all of whom hate our guts and would love to see the dollar collapse.
If you have money to invest do it on commodities. Food, minerals, oils, water etc. The smart corporations have already raided the water supplies of most of the world and very soon people in africa, india, and asia will be paying big bucks to companies so they can stay alive.
I think most people know the success of google and ms had nothing to do with offices and everything to do with luck plus having a few smart key people in the key positions.
Right now MS could make all of it's employees stand knee deep in shit all day still make more money then god.
Don't underestimate the importance of a nice office. Potential customers base their impressions on your office space. If you look like you have an efficient, clean, professional space then you are more likely to land that client. If all your people are working from home and you have to meet the client at the starbucks they are not going to give you their business.
Depends on your company doesn't it? I used to work for a giant company. The decisions about our working conditions were made across the country literally thousands of miles away. Yes you could email those people but they literally had no idea who you were and didn't give a flying fuck. To them your entire location was just one number on the spreadsheet. If updrading the bathroom so that it doesn't smell like stale ass made that number go up then they wouldn't do it.
In large companies it's another world. At my company when the programmers requested offices with doors (two to an office) the company refused. When the assistant to the accountant demanded an office she got one. The only office available was too big for her position so they spent a ton of money making the office smaller. What's odd is that making the office smaller for her actually cost more then building walls in the programmers space to give the programmers walls (we know this because we got quotes from the same construction company).
"Most importantly, in 50 or 60 years when the copyrights actually expire, will you still even want your 128kbps mp3? Of course not. The public domain file will be provided in a superior format from a master recording. "
People still want those old 78 RPM records, they still want those vax recordings from even earlier. So yes fifty years from now they will still want 128kbps MP3 by that artist that died and posthumously was recognized as a genius. Too bad they won't be allowed to listen to them.
"First of all the sun remains constant." completely wrong. the sun is NOT CONSTANT. it's ouput varies wildly with solar flares and obviously with the seasons and other solar cycles. "
I meant that when you are considering the sun it's effects on the oceans and the irrigation areas constant.
"AGAIN you couldn't be more wrong. evaporation has nothing to with with depth, and everything to do with SURFACE AREA, of which the ocean clearly dwarfs our irrigation."
It has to with the temprature. Shallow waters heat up faster and evaporate faster. Furthermore a lot of irrigation is done by spraying water from sprinklers which also evaporates at a much higher rate then the ocean.
About the surface area. Yes the ocean has more surface area but that's not the point. If there was no irrigation then the water vapor would be less. Agriculture adds a tremendous amount of water vapor into the air that would not be there otherwise. As I said virtually every square inch of land that can be cultivated is being cultivated. Sure it's less then the oceans which cover 75% of the planet but it's a significant chunk of the remaining 25%.
But hey don't let common sense get in the way. Just ignore the fact that agriculture puts water vapor into the air.
"I have trouble believing that irrigation even compares to ocean+sun."
Why?
First of all the sun remains constant. Secondly the evaporation from shallow channels would be much higher then deep colder bodies of water like lakes, rivers or the ocean.
Finally virtually every arable square inch of the planet is under cultivation for one thing or another.
Certainly that would add a substantial amount of water vapor into the atmosphere over and above what is already happening in the oceans and lakes.
"Nice straw-man attack. I've never seen any of those of us who defend the Israelis' right to exist ever say anything like this."
You said israel is hated because they are jews and won't convert to islam. This indicates that you can not fathom any other reason why israel might be hated.
So I will ask you again. Why do you think israel is hated by it's neighbors and dislikes by virtually every other country in the world?
"Yes, they got along very well as long as the Jews converted to Islam when asked, or threw themselves on the swords of the Muslim invaders, or as long as the Jews never objected when being forced to follow Muslim religious laws imposed on them. Yes, just like "historically, blacks and whites in the old American South have gotten along very well".
Look up what was happening during the inquisition regarding muslims and jews. Learn some history for gods sake.
This is why MS should have been broken up all those years ago. The only way any company can spend hundreds of millions of dollars making, marketing, designing a product to purposfully fail in the marketplace is if they have a monopoly.
"And then you would realize that you are hated merely because you are of the wrong religion,"
So let me get this straight. Israel has never done anything wrong, ever. It's so perfect and faultless that the only reason to hate them is because of their religion. Hey I know what maybe their neighbors also hate them for their freedom!.
Anyway historically jews and muslims have gotten along very well. It's the xtians that have historically persecuted the jews.
"That's a rather close analogy."
If you are complete idiot who lives in total ignorance then yes that's a close analogy.
More likely balmers statements will harm the US software industry and not linux. Since all non trivial software infringes on some patent or another anybody who writes or sells software can be sued by MS one of the richest companies in the world.
MS is now promising to sue companies for patent infringement. Not just the producers of software but also users of software (in fact they are promising specifically to sue the users of software). This means that anybody who writes or uses software in the US is a potential target of MS.
Scary, truly scary. We all kid about MS being evil but they really are a vile organization. I don't know how any MS employee sleeps at night knowing they are helping these bastards make more money.
"IT managers have nothing to fear on that point. It's Microsoft that fears the collective power of the IT managers. It's just SO good when there is real competition. And that's what we have now, due to Linux, Oracle, Sun, etc. So Microsoft is forced to respond."
IT managers as a whole are some of the dumbest people I have ever met. More often then not they know nothing about computers, technology, legal issues, licences or patents. If they did they would never use any piece of software they reserves the right to scan their computers and send the information back to the vendor.
If you are relying on the wisdom of the IT managers you are going to be sorely disappointed.
The FSF has come out and said that they will tweak the GPL3 to make sure it covers stuff like this. Linus has been silent. He doesn't care about these things and he is openly hostile to the FSF and the GPL3. If he does ever speak on the issue I suspect he won't have any problems with it.
"In my opinion, the israelis need to invest in far better armor and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles."
In my opinion israel needs to invest in finding ways to get along with it's neighbors and stop it's occupation of 3.5 million people.
If I was hated by my neighnors (and lets face it disliked by most of the rest of the world) then I might ask myself why and see I could maybe change one or two things to see if I could get along better.
It would be cheaper too and as an american who funds the majority if not all of the israeli military budget I would appreciate that.
Slashdot Mirror
So what? It's not like the civillians are going around launching missilies from drones into crowded cities. It's the military that's doing that.
"That's a great idea, until it becomes obvious that viewing so many patents makes you an ineffective contributor to open source projects."
Right. So the developers don't read the site. This will be a way for people who do not code to contribute to OSS.
"Here's one (of many) example of Linus' views on patents on LKML"
I don't think people respect Linus as much as they used to. He totally messed up the bitkeeper situation, he rejected the GPL3, and he has said nothing about the threats by MS to sue linux developers, distributors and users. You would think that he would at least condemn Ballmers remarks but not a peep.
It's clear that linus doesn't get IP. He doesn't care and he thinks everybody is like him. Maybe the one good thing to come out of all this will be that linus learns to care about the threats of patents, DRM and licenses but somehow I doubt it. He will remain uncaring I am sure.
"Small arms are effective for a civil war."
Right. They will be used by the population to kill each other. The govt will not be harmed. Look at Israel-Palestine for a perfect example of this. The pals have had no luck for 30 years with AK47s. Thirty years of occupation!. They need more firepower then small arms.
Nah.
Here is how it will go. MS will sue (or they will get novell to sue). There is already a pool of patents donated by Novell and IBM and others so somebody will countersue MS. Furthermore they will demand the source code for windows and start combing through the source code for GPL violations. The community will immediately find prior art which would completely invalidate the MS patent(s) in question. Some GPL violation would be found and MS would be embarrased as hell.
MS isn't going to sue anybody. Not even ballmer is that stupid.
Why don't we do that. Why don't we put together a web site that lists all of MS patents and then declare open season on them. Let's invalidate all of them by digging up prior art. This is a fantastic opportunity for the OSS community to launch an DDOS on MS patents.
Once MS sees it's patents start being picked apart by the community they will start to panic, it will be fun to watch.
Microsoft makes a lot of money buying and selling it's own stock. Without agressive growth the stock won't go up as much. MS profits will decrease because they will be making less money buying and selling their own stock. The decreased profits will drop the price of the stock. Rinse, and repeat.
Employees? Offices?
No the mailings lists are not offices. Why would you say such an absurdly stupid thing.
It's clear MS has jumped the shark. It no longer even pretends to compete on features anymore. The CEO of the company had just started to wage a war patents. The war is not over, it's just started but this is their waterloo. MS will implode, they have just started a war they can't possibly win and have de-facto admitted that they are unable to compete on the quality and the desirability of their products.
It's not their last gasp, that won't come for a while but it's their first step along a path that spells their doom.
Sell your stock now, this company has nowhere to go but down.
US has been unable to support the dollar so far. All other currencies have been beating up on the dollar like it was a red headed stepchild.
The dollar is due for a complete collapse. China has trillions of dollars and they are seriously considering insisting on other currencies for payment, same with oil producing companies all of whom hate our guts and would love to see the dollar collapse.
If you have money to invest do it on commodities. Food, minerals, oils, water etc. The smart corporations have already raided the water supplies of most of the world and very soon people in africa, india, and asia will be paying big bucks to companies so they can stay alive.
If you want to diversify invest in the far east.
I think most people know the success of google and ms had nothing to do with offices and everything to do with luck plus having a few smart key people in the key positions.
Right now MS could make all of it's employees stand knee deep in shit all day still make more money then god.
Don't underestimate the importance of a nice office. Potential customers base their impressions on your office space. If you look like you have an efficient, clean, professional space then you are more likely to land that client. If all your people are working from home and you have to meet the client at the starbucks they are not going to give you their business.
Depends on your company doesn't it? I used to work for a giant company. The decisions about our working conditions were made across the country literally thousands of miles away. Yes you could email those people but they literally had no idea who you were and didn't give a flying fuck. To them your entire location was just one number on the spreadsheet. If updrading the bathroom so that it doesn't smell like stale ass made that number go up then they wouldn't do it.
In large companies it's another world. At my company when the programmers requested offices with doors (two to an office) the company refused. When the assistant to the accountant demanded an office she got one. The only office available was too big for her position so they spent a ton of money making the office smaller. What's odd is that making the office smaller for her actually cost more then building walls in the programmers space to give the programmers walls (we know this because we got quotes from the same construction company).
"Third, virtually every arable inch of land on Earth is not under cultivation,"
Look I don't mind people arguing what I say but it makes no sense in arguing with somebody who argues something I never said.
"Most importantly, in 50 or 60 years when the copyrights actually expire, will you still even want your 128kbps mp3? Of course not. The public domain file will be provided in a superior format from a master recording. "
People still want those old 78 RPM records, they still want those vax recordings from even earlier. So yes fifty years from now they will still want 128kbps MP3 by that artist that died and posthumously was recognized as a genius. Too bad they won't be allowed to listen to them.
"First of all the sun remains constant." completely wrong. the sun is NOT CONSTANT. it's ouput varies wildly with solar flares and obviously with the seasons and other solar cycles. "
I meant that when you are considering the sun it's effects on the oceans and the irrigation areas constant.
"AGAIN you couldn't be more wrong. evaporation has nothing to with with depth, and everything to do with SURFACE AREA, of which the ocean clearly dwarfs our irrigation."
It has to with the temprature. Shallow waters heat up faster and evaporate faster. Furthermore a lot of irrigation is done by spraying water from sprinklers which also evaporates at a much higher rate then the ocean.
About the surface area. Yes the ocean has more surface area but that's not the point. If there was no irrigation then the water vapor would be less. Agriculture adds a tremendous amount of water vapor into the air that would not be there otherwise. As I said virtually every square inch of land that can be cultivated is being cultivated. Sure it's less then the oceans which cover 75% of the planet but it's a significant chunk of the remaining 25%.
But hey don't let common sense get in the way. Just ignore the fact that agriculture puts water vapor into the air.
"I have trouble believing that irrigation even compares to ocean+sun."
Why?
First of all the sun remains constant. Secondly the evaporation from shallow channels would be much higher then deep colder bodies of water like lakes, rivers or the ocean.
Finally virtually every arable square inch of the planet is under cultivation for one thing or another.
Certainly that would add a substantial amount of water vapor into the atmosphere over and above what is already happening in the oceans and lakes.
Alas the pissers and moaners get most attention while the people doing the coding get pissed on.
Sad really.
"Nice straw-man attack. I've never seen any of those of us who defend the Israelis' right to exist ever say anything like this."
You said israel is hated because they are jews and won't convert to islam. This indicates that you can not fathom any other reason why israel might be hated.
So I will ask you again. Why do you think israel is hated by it's neighbors and dislikes by virtually every other country in the world?
"Yes, they got along very well as long as the Jews converted to Islam when asked, or threw themselves on the swords of the Muslim invaders, or as long as the Jews never objected when being forced to follow Muslim religious laws imposed on them. Yes, just like "historically, blacks and whites in the old American South have gotten along very well".
Look up what was happening during the inquisition regarding muslims and jews. Learn some history for gods sake.
This is why MS should have been broken up all those years ago. The only way any company can spend hundreds of millions of dollars making, marketing, designing a product to purposfully fail in the marketplace is if they have a monopoly.
"And then you would realize that you are hated merely because you are of the wrong religion,"
So let me get this straight. Israel has never done anything wrong, ever. It's so perfect and faultless that the only reason to hate them is because of their religion. Hey I know what maybe their neighbors also hate them for their freedom!.
Anyway historically jews and muslims have gotten along very well. It's the xtians that have historically persecuted the jews.
"That's a rather close analogy."
If you are complete idiot who lives in total ignorance then yes that's a close analogy.
Wow. I guess any critisim of israel no matter how minor is flamebait.
Ok here we go.
Israel is the light and love of the world. They have never done anything wrong and without them the world would be plunged into darkness and chaos.
Can I get an upmod for that?
More likely balmers statements will harm the US software industry and not linux. Since all non trivial software infringes on some patent or another anybody who writes or sells software can be sued by MS one of the richest companies in the world.
MS is now promising to sue companies for patent infringement. Not just the producers of software but also users of software (in fact they are promising specifically to sue the users of software). This means that anybody who writes or uses software in the US is a potential target of MS.
Scary, truly scary. We all kid about MS being evil but they really are a vile organization. I don't know how any MS employee sleeps at night knowing they are helping these bastards make more money.
"IT managers have nothing to fear on that point. It's Microsoft that fears the collective power of the IT managers. It's just SO good when there is real competition. And that's what we have now, due to Linux, Oracle, Sun, etc. So Microsoft is forced to respond."
IT managers as a whole are some of the dumbest people I have ever met. More often then not they know nothing about computers, technology, legal issues, licences or patents. If they did they would never use any piece of software they reserves the right to scan their computers and send the information back to the vendor.
If you are relying on the wisdom of the IT managers you are going to be sorely disappointed.
The FSF has come out and said that they will tweak the GPL3 to make sure it covers stuff like this. Linus has been silent. He doesn't care about these things and he is openly hostile to the FSF and the GPL3. If he does ever speak on the issue I suspect he won't have any problems with it.
"In my opinion, the israelis need to invest in far better armor and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles."
In my opinion israel needs to invest in finding ways to get along with it's neighbors and stop it's occupation of 3.5 million people.
If I was hated by my neighnors (and lets face it disliked by most of the rest of the world) then I might ask myself why and see I could maybe change one or two things to see if I could get along better.
It would be cheaper too and as an american who funds the majority if not all of the israeli military budget I would appreciate that.