The whole point is massive storage for very little money. That means using a commodity motherboard, not a specialist server one. The application is not CPU limited, so my Athlon-FX64 PCI-E will run the RAID card in the PCI-E slot (which is the nice thing about PCI-E compared to AGP) and will get as good performance as the fastest PCI-X slot on an expensive server board... Not to mention that 64bit support on the Athlon is much faster than in the Xeon.
The PC needs to get past BIOS booting soon... I cannot boot my 4TB RAID array because the BIOS is limited to 32bit partition-tables. EFI would allow 64-bit partition tables and the ability to boot from a disk larger than 4TB... (Note: because this is a partition table problem you cannot just set up a small partition to boot from at the beginning of the disk - and if you want the OS on RAID, the only way round it is to set up a small RAID array for booting as well as the main array...)
The original intent of patents was to get companies to reveal their trade secrets in exchange for a limited monopoly. Like everything in business it is a trade, in this case between the inventor and the people. The inventor recieves the limited monopoly, and the people get detailed instructions on how to reproduce the invention in exchange. If the invention is trivial then the people do not get a fair trade, the monopoly is effectively givenaway for nothing. It seems obvious that for something to be patentable it must have some value as a "secret" - IE if you could not keep the technology in question as a trade-secret, you should not be able to get a patent on it. Independant invention is a sure sign that something is too trivial to be patentable. This leads to the "trade secret test". A patent should only be granted if the technology could be reasonanly kept as a trade secret. On this grounds Coca-Cola could apply for a patent for the "coke secret formula" but Amazon would have been denied the one-click patent, as any web designer could copy the technology after one look at Amazon's website (Amazon would not be able to keep this as a trade secret)...
You don't even need to a computer to program much less an IDE. Real programming is about algorithms and data-structures. Read knuth, write programs with pen and paper...
How does an IDE help you choose the right algorithm? How does it help you _design_ data structures? Answer? It Doesn't!
What it does is help you deal with the 'plumbing' which isn't really programming anyway.
So the answer is that everyone is correct! IDEs help you produce working softare faster (good thing) - but they have nothing at all to do with programming!
I'm sorry but this is simply not historically accurate.
Patents were introduced to encourage people to share their inventions. Originally people would protect their investment by keeping "trade-secrets". This was considered to slow scientific and technological progress - so patents were created, granting a limited monopoly in exchange for the details of the innovation (this is why you must provide complete details of how to implement the invention in the patent application). After the period of limited monopoly the information becomes public domain and anyone can use it.
So, the purpose of patents is to increase the rate of scientific and technological innovation.
So, if the method could not be a "trade-secret", then it is obvious and should not be patentable.
So apply this test to Amazon - could this method be protected as a trade-secret, or would other people be able to independantly re-invent this? I think the answer is obvious!
When justifying war, the argument is often made that the death of a few is justified by the saving of many more.
We often say the moral action is the one that brings the greatest benefit to the largest number of people.
Therefore copying software, many gain something for free, at the cost of depriving a few of income.
By the above argument you have a moral obligation to copy as much software as possible... Or the justification for 'moral-war' is invalid. Both cannot be true as that would be a self contradiction.
You could argue that by copying, people will stop writing software - but that is obviously rubbish as we can see from the free-software movement.
Besides, if people stop writing generic software because of piracy, people will have to pay programmers directly to adapt free software to their needs. If the ammount of money available to invest in new software is constant - more money will now be spent on new features and entirely new software products... In other words copying software stops companies writing one product and then sitting back and collecting money for effectively doing nothing.
As far as I can tell that is not true. Anyone can implement a patent, for personal/educational reasons and is under no obligation to license the patent.
I can build myself a car engine using patented technologies, but I cannot sell the car.
My point above is that if someone else sells the car, you cannot be liable (unless you recieve money for it).
So the solution is you write it, and allow it to be distributed by a limited company... (I don't think there is a law against assisting patent infingement... yet!)
As the software is 'free' software the company makes no money from the distribution and therefore has no assets so nobody's going to sue it... and if anyone does you just fold the company and start a new one.
1) I am allowed to implement any patent (for educational purposes) as long as I keep the solution to my self. 2) your share of damages to a limited liability company are limited to the ammount you invested in that company.
Implement any patent you like, and set up a limited liability distribution company. If anyone sues you, well you are not liable because you do not distribute infinging code - you only wrote it which is perfectly legal.
If someone sues the company, fold it and start a new one... You are not personally liable for patent royalties from the distribution and as the assets of the company are zero, nobody will ever bother to sue it anyway.
Truly open hardware (the source code for it is downloadable and simulatable - just contact your local silicon foundry to have a batch manufactured)
As you will see there is already a project for a VGA/LCD driver, it is PRODUCTION/STABLE so there already is a commercialy viable free (as in speach) open controller chip which has already been ASIC proven.
You can download the Verilog code and inspect it alter it etc... We are not just talking the registers but the complete internal workings to the gate level in a format suitable for mask generation.
I have to say I'm surprised by the ammount of negative comments towards the concept of openIP - it seems the suits have taken over/.
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The whole point is massive storage for very little money. That means using a commodity motherboard, not a specialist server one. The application is not CPU limited, so my Athlon-FX64 PCI-E will run the RAID card in the PCI-E slot (which is the nice thing about PCI-E compared to AGP) and will get as good performance as the fastest PCI-X slot on an expensive server board... Not to mention that 64bit support on the Athlon is much faster than in the Xeon.
The PC needs to get past BIOS booting soon... I cannot boot my 4TB RAID array because the BIOS is limited to 32bit partition-tables. EFI would allow 64-bit partition tables and the ability to boot from a disk larger than 4TB... (Note: because this is a partition table problem you cannot just set up a small partition to boot from at the beginning of the disk - and if you want the OS on RAID, the only way round it is to set up a small RAID array for booting as well as the main array...)
The original intent of patents was to get companies to reveal their trade secrets in exchange for a limited monopoly. Like everything in business it is a trade, in this case between the inventor and the people. The inventor recieves the limited monopoly, and the people get detailed instructions on how to reproduce the invention in exchange. If the invention is trivial then the people do not get a fair trade, the monopoly is effectively givenaway for nothing. It seems obvious that for something to be patentable it must have some value as a "secret" - IE if you could not keep the technology in question as a trade-secret, you should not be able to get a patent on it. Independant invention is a sure sign that something is too trivial to be patentable. This leads to the "trade secret test". A patent should only be granted if the technology could be reasonanly kept as a trade secret. On this grounds Coca-Cola could apply for a patent for the "coke secret formula" but Amazon would have been denied the one-click patent, as any web designer could copy the technology after one look at Amazon's website (Amazon would not be able to keep this as a trade secret)...
You don't even need to a computer to program much less an IDE. Real programming is about algorithms and data-structures. Read knuth, write programs with pen and paper...
How does an IDE help you choose the right algorithm? How does it help you _design_ data structures? Answer? It Doesn't!
What it does is help you deal with the 'plumbing' which isn't really programming anyway.
So the answer is that everyone is correct! IDEs help you produce working softare faster (good thing) - but they have nothing at all to do with programming!
I'm sorry but this is simply not historically accurate.
Patents were introduced to encourage people to share their inventions. Originally people would protect their investment by keeping "trade-secrets". This was considered to slow scientific and technological progress - so patents were created, granting a limited monopoly in exchange for the details of the innovation (this is why you must provide complete details of how to implement the invention in the patent application). After the period of limited monopoly the information becomes public domain and anyone can use it.
So, the purpose of patents is to increase the rate of scientific and technological innovation.
So, if the method could not be a "trade-secret", then it is obvious and should not be patentable.
So apply this test to Amazon - could this method be protected as a trade-secret, or would other people be able to independantly re-invent this?
I think the answer is obvious!
When justifying war, the argument is often made that the death of a few is justified by the saving of many more.
We often say the moral action is the one that brings the greatest benefit to the largest number of people.
Therefore copying software, many gain something for free, at the cost of depriving a few of income.
By the above argument you have a moral obligation to copy as much software as possible... Or the justification for 'moral-war' is invalid. Both cannot be true as that would be a self contradiction.
You could argue that by copying, people will stop writing software - but that is obviously rubbish as we can see from the free-software movement.
Besides, if people stop writing generic software because of piracy, people will have to pay programmers directly to adapt free software to their needs. If the ammount of money available to invest in new software is constant - more money will now be spent on new features and entirely new software products... In other words copying software stops companies writing one product and then sitting back and collecting money for effectively doing nothing.
As far as I can tell that is not true. Anyone can implement a patent, for personal/educational reasons and is under no obligation to license the patent. I can build myself a car engine using patented technologies, but I cannot sell the car. My point above is that if someone else sells the car, you cannot be liable (unless you recieve money for it). So the solution is you write it, and allow it to be distributed by a limited company... (I don't think there is a law against assisting patent infingement ... yet!)
As the software is 'free' software the company makes no money from the distribution and therefore has no assets so nobody's going to sue it... and if anyone does you just fold the company and start a new one.
The solution seems easy to me...
1) I am allowed to implement any patent (for educational purposes) as long as I keep the solution to my self.
2) your share of damages to a limited liability company are limited to the ammount you invested in that company.
Implement any patent you like, and set up a limited liability distribution company. If anyone sues you, well you are not liable because you do not distribute infinging code - you only wrote it which is perfectly legal.
If someone sues the company, fold it and start a new one... You are not personally liable for patent royalties from the distribution and as the assets of the company are zero, nobody will ever bother to sue it anyway.
I would much rather have a Panasonic R3 than any tablet PC... 8.5 hours battery life, 0.7kg and wifi.
I am surprised nobody else has mentioned
/.
http://www.opencores.org
Truly open hardware (the source code for it is downloadable and simulatable - just contact your local silicon foundry to have a batch manufactured)
As you will see there is already a project for a VGA/LCD driver, it is PRODUCTION/STABLE so there already is a commercialy viable free (as in speach) open controller chip which has already been ASIC proven.
You can download the Verilog code and inspect it alter it etc... We are not just talking the registers but the complete internal workings to the gate level in a format suitable for mask generation.
I have to say I'm surprised by the ammount of negative comments towards the concept of openIP - it seems the suits have taken over