How does not voting become effectively anything? It is only "effectively Nay" if a vote's success is based on getting a majority of possible votes not a majority of votes actually cast.
If you go to that standard(which is the one that actually counts in the real world), you get a somewhat different set of percentages. It is still true that a strong majority of Republicans voted for it but it is also true that a majority of Democrats did.
At least one vendor (IBM) looked around at what SCO was claiming, said "you have to be kidding" and realized that if they let SCO get away with their little extortion scheme(let's call it what it is -- i am going to sue you so that you buy my company isnt exactly a business plan) then there will be a lineup of equally baseless lawsuits.
While it is certainly true that IBM has the financial resources to cut a cheque to make SCO go away it will only encourage other bottom-feeders to line up at the trough(sorry for the mixed metaphor) and that would make for a constant distraction.
Even a company the size of IBM can be impaired by a barrage of deposition requests, email hunts, paperwork diving expeditions, etc.
Don't think that IBM defended the lawsuit because of some political stance in favour of Open Source. They defended the lawsuit for pure practical purposes. They saw that the long term costs of the lawsuit went far beyond the $100,000,000 (for sake of argument) that it would have taken to make SCO go away
To my feeble mind much of the idiocy surrounding software and business methods patents stems from the premise that if I "create" an idea then it costs me something(in an economic sense - not only cash) if someone else uses that idea. The problem with this premise is that it is false. If I find a method of organizing my company that has the effect that I have increased my profit margin by 20% how does it cost me if someone else uses that method. It seems to me that I will still be benefiting from my "invention".
Even if you insist that it does cost me something(perhaps the overall market will be influenced because my competitor lower's her prices) how is that as a direct result of the patent. It is a choice that they have made to give up economic benefit to increase theit market share.
To my feeble mind it seems that patents are meant to protect things that have real costs if they are taken. An idea is not such a thing. To the contrary, an idea can have a net benefit the more folks that know about it.
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How does not voting become effectively anything? It is only "effectively Nay" if a vote's success is based on getting a majority of possible votes not a majority of votes actually cast.
If you go to that standard(which is the one that actually counts in the real world), you get a somewhat different set of percentages. It is still true that a strong majority of Republicans voted for it but it is also true that a majority of Democrats did.
At least one vendor (IBM) looked around at what SCO was claiming, said "you have to be kidding" and realized that if they let SCO get away with their little extortion scheme(let's call it what it is -- i am going to sue you so that you buy my company isnt exactly a business plan) then there will be a lineup of equally baseless lawsuits.
While it is certainly true that IBM has the financial resources to cut a cheque to make SCO go away it will only encourage other bottom-feeders to line up at the trough(sorry for the mixed metaphor) and that would make for a constant distraction.
Even a company the size of IBM can be impaired by a barrage of deposition requests, email hunts, paperwork diving expeditions, etc.
Don't think that IBM defended the lawsuit because of some political stance in favour of Open Source. They defended the lawsuit for pure practical purposes. They saw that the long term costs of the lawsuit went far beyond the $100,000,000 (for sake of argument) that it would have taken to make SCO go away
"And rule one of capitalism: without incentives, there's no innovation."
And your incentives are not necessarily my incentives.
To my feeble mind much of the idiocy surrounding software and business methods patents stems from the premise that if I "create" an idea then it costs me something(in an economic sense - not only cash) if someone else uses that idea. The problem with this premise is that it is false. If I find a method of organizing my company that has the effect that I have increased my profit margin by 20% how does it cost me if someone else uses that method. It seems to me that I will still be benefiting from my "invention".
Even if you insist that it does cost me something(perhaps the overall market will be influenced because my competitor lower's her prices) how is that as a direct result of the patent. It is a choice that they have made to give up economic benefit to increase theit market share.
To my feeble mind it seems that patents are meant to protect things that have real costs if they are taken. An idea is not such a thing. To the contrary, an idea can have a net benefit the more folks that know about it.