It amazes me that such a blatant piece of PR propaganda by a company that is increasingly losing the offshore battle to its better-managed peers(Infosys, Wipro, Satyam, Cognizant) has been written by a senior editor at Fortune!
I'm from India and I've worked in the outsourcing industry for the last 5 years and believe me when I say that HCLT is absolutely the worst place to work amongst all the large IT companies. It is extremely political(careers get decided based on your camps), has no stable strategy/value proposition for the long run, has a long culture of employees back-stabbing each other to work their way up and has way more issues related to sexual harassment than its peers. For a company like this to claim superior management practices and employee satisfaction is like Enron trying to act like the paragon of corporate responsibility!
That apart - exactly where in the article is there *any* reference to managerial practices outside HCL, for the author to come to the conclusion that the "future of management is Indian"? Further, is there even an iota of innovation that seems to be borne from the article that the author is impressed with? Online suggestion tickets, 360-degree reviews? Please...if these are what the author is impressed with, then I suggest he visit real strategic innovators like Infosys(in India) or GE and Toyota(globally).
And this guy, David Kirkpatrick is a senior editor at Fortune?!? No wonder real business folks stick with the Economist!
It ain't BusinessWeek's opinion...
on
Google's DNA
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
...the article is written by Gabriel Stricker from BrandChannel. The tone seems to be a typical marketing/branding kind - lots of high-sounding assertions and phrases, and very few solid justifications for the same.
For instance, check this sentence: "Google is actually the first company with a brand that is built entirely of stem cells: able to grow and develop into whatever form it sees fit."
Huh? World's first company? Built entirely of stem cells? Into whatever it sees fit?
What is this guy smoking?
Google's decision to branch into many unrelated/related ideas is not due to any stem cells or mitochondria, but simply because it has enough money and talent to do so. More importantly, the stock market that usually punishes companies for expanding too fast/too much still seems to be in awe of Google.
Imagine Microsoft deciding to enter into server harware, or Sun into smartphones, or Dell into online dating! But when Google does it, its suddenly "stem cells" in action!
While there is not an iota of love inside me for copyright holders, both the poster and the blogger are trying to stir up reader's emotions by their choice of phrases.
The poster says "DRM more important than life or security" and the blogger's headline reads "Future DRM might threaten critical infrastructure and potentially endanger lives."
I read the article that is linked to, and from what I could decipher of the legal wording from the RIAA is that they're afraid that until someone clearly defines "privacy or security" or even "threaten critical infrastructure and potentially endanger lives", they don't want to commit anything.
Nowhere does it imply that they said DRM is "more important than life or privacy" but merely that "till you can define privacy, security etc., we don't want to commit".
I think Michael Dell's, as well as other wannabe-Linux users desires to see Linux converge into one single platform are not going to happen anytime soon. In fact, I don't think it even matters at all too.
Linux and most open-source software are by nature a federated, bottom-up form of software development where multiple versions abound. This is because there is no one single entity(person or corporation) who knows which features are best for users, *and* the best way for those to be implemented. Hence forks abound which allows users, aka the free market, to decide which versions/software suit their own requirement. Compare this to proprietary software where the corporation decides which features you want, when you want them and in what form you want them.
Waiting for Linux to converge into a single platform with a market share >80% would imply that other versions have failed to see what users desire, and one company(or group of individuals) has been able to capitalize on that and advance its market share.
Now Ubuntu(I use that myself) has to an extent been reading what lay users desire from a distro and implementing many of their needs well. But as Ubuntu becomes more popular are other distros going to sit still watching it reap all the laurels? I don't think so. They will evolve too. If you think that isn't possible then ask yourself how the hell Ubuntu managed to gain so much in the last couple of years? Do you think such innovation will stop after Ubuntu?
Finally, imho lay-users are not going to want to switch to Linux in the near-term. Because switching an OS for them represents a huge task which they will undertake only if:
1. They are thouroughly dissatisfied with Windows, or
2. They are thouroughly enamoured by the benefits that Linux offers
Unlike what we may all think, on the whole most people are not thouroughly dissatisfied with Windows. Sure they may have to deal with patchy security and those occasional crashes but hey, who says Linux doesn't have issues? I've had Ubuntu lock up on me more than a few times. I've spent a better part of the first month trying to get streaming videos to play on Firefox. Did I quit? No...so why would a Windows user?
To sum up, expecting Linux to converge into a super-distro isn't going to happen. Simply because open-source by nature is designed against the formation of monopolies. Since code upto a certain point is freely available to all, a new fork can be established by a brighter, more innovative, more responsive group in much lesser time than in the prop. s/w market. So an 80%+ distro would mean that nobody else read the market and changed course.
It would be cool if we could have the user agent switcher tool with the capability to assign a particular user agent with a particular site and automatically switch upon loading a site. And the switch must be for a specific tab not all open tabs.
- For example I might want the switcher to automatically switch to IE7/XP while visiting my bank's site that expects IE.
- But I may want the switcher to automatically switch to Googlebot while visiting password-protected news sites so that I can go directly in.
Jeez take it easy folks. It was supposed to be an attempt at humour. The point being that when you're down 7-8 drinks you might not remember that some device was supposed to do the knocking.
Anyway, seeing the insightful modifier on my ill-fated attempt at humour I take back my words.
They had to wait 3 years before realizing that Dan Brown stole from them? Where were they, in the middle ages?
Coming so close to the release of the movie I can only think that they were waiting for the stakes to be much higher before suing, so that the studio/publisher would be more amenable to a quick settlement.
Yeah...and look at the comments from people saying "I love Google Maps" and "Google Maps rocks" and "Google Maps" blah blah. Does *anyone* even bother reading the linked articles nowadays or are they just waiting to get in their pointless 2 cents?
I know quality of comments is/.'s strength, but people could you atleast take a couple of minutes to read what you're going to comment upon???
All Sky has to do is find one sucker each on a high-speed connection to download each movie they have on offer. After that they turn those computers into supernodes and sit back and watch while the movies are copied from user machines everywhere. A small notification is sent to them with each download that allows for billing/payments.
Of course that was really implausible. I'm sure media companies would never sink that low!
The first question to ask yourself before going in for any "x.1" system is about your usage pattern. Specifically, how often will you listen to music and how often will you watch movies on your system(assuming of course that you do not have two separate systems of course)?
If like me, and most other people in the world you listen to more of music than movies, then the entire "x.1" debate is, imho, DOA. Simply because a good stereo amp and quality stereo speakers blow the hell out of any(equally priced) "x.1" surround sound system. Heck, a good pair of floorstanders even obviate the need for sub-woofers!
"If I were Google, I would just drop perfect 10 from their search results entirely. I bet this would lose them more sales than thumbnails ever would."
Yeah sure, that would work. I'm sure Google going, "you mess with us, you're off the grid" is just the news that the ever-increasing number of people wary of Google's growing clout are just waiting for.
What next? Google removing Reporters without Borders from their index because they complained about their China policies?
I don't see a single new insight coming up from posts related to MPAA/RIAA suing bittorrent sites. All, and I mean *all* comments can either be classified as:
1. Screw MPAA/RIAA, they're bloodsuckers, they deserve it, hurrah to free music/video
2. Logical arguments about how its wrong to steal and that IP creators deserve their dues
3. Inane humour and jokes about post or other comments
So yeah, yeah...we know all of that already. Can we either just stop posting every bittorrent/MPAA development or try to come up with some new insightful comments?
From the article: Microsoft claims to provide "uncapped protection for legal costs associated with a patent, copyright, trademark or trade secret claim alleging infringement by their product". Open source majors like Red Hat also provide assurance programmes to protect their customers.
What has the world of patents and copyrights come to? We have product manufacturers offering to protect their customers from being sued for using their products!!! This is a feature?
Imagine Honda offering "uncapped protection" for their car users against being sued for driving them? Or Adidas offering the same for their shoes(they were recently sued by Nike for violating some "Air" patents)
I think I miss the vapourware days. Even if the features were imaginary, they at least sounded useful.
Music is essentially stereo in character and recording. Some new formats like DVD-Audio and SACD allow home theater owners to listen to recordings in surround sound format, but the vast majority of music that is recorded, sold and listened is still stereo.
Mind you I am not advocating maintaining stereo status quo for the heck of it...but because stereo really does sound better for music. Surround sound is more suitable for movie soundtracks. Most audiophiles already know this, thats why they prefer stereo. Surround takes away the clarity and precision from recordings. I just wish the average Joe would get it too...surround music is pointless.
I wonder why people are falling for this talk about "multiple versions" in Office 2007. The available retail versions of MS Office 2003, as listed on Microsoft.com
- MS 2003 Professional Ed.
- MS 2003 Standard Ed.
- MS 2003 Small Business Ed.
- MS 2003 Student & Teacher Ed.
And the versions of the upcoming Office 2007 as listed in the article
- Professional
- Standard
- Enterprise
- Small Business
- Home & Student
Guess what - all of one extra edition - "Enterprise" (Student & Teacher appears to have been rebranded as Home & Student). The way the article and the submission is written it would appear that multiple versions were the next best thing to sliced bread since, um, Office 2003?
The statement that retail cards will not be able to play Blu-ray movies at full resolution is potentially misleading. The article says that retail cards available at present(and already sold in the past) cannot. It would not make sense for graphics card manufacturers to not build support for HDCP in the future, especially since licensing only costs half a cent per card(plus an annual $15K fee).
That said, it is obvious that buyers of cards advertised as "HDCP-compliant" have been had. But I guess not many people will naturally empathise(much less sympathise) with someone who "just spent $1500 on a pair of 7800GTX 512MB GPUs";-)
Finally, since this is a hardware-based requirement, are we Linux users going to sit out the era of Blu-ray movies on computers?
I don't know how many people noticed the subtle differences between what Safra Catz, Oracle CFO said and what Larry Ellison, its CEO said.
"We will retain...Siebel's product development and product sales and marketing teams," said Catz.
"We will retain 90 percent of Siebel's support, development engineers, sales and sales consultants," said Oracle CEO Larry Ellison.
Obviously Catz is the one who must be lying because no one would be daft enough(no, not even Ellison) to say 90% if it were really 100%. Makes you wonder how much trust should be placed in corporate annoucements.
From the brief description about the business the idea doesn't sound too radical for a VC(who typically stay away from risky early stage investments), and neither does it sound as something that requires VC money(typically in millions, not thousands). So I wonder why you need VC money?
As other commenters have already pointed out, first get your own skin in the game by investing your own money. Remember the golden order of early stage funding, founder->family->friends->fools. Only after you've exhausted these should you start looking at venture capital. VC money typically helps you scale up/expand rather than bootstrap.
Of course exceptions will always be there...but those are typically when you've got either a great idea(eg. Riya) or a great startup team or both. Simple ideas with unknown management teams don't even register in the eyes of VCs.
While patent reform may be far too complex a beast to be tackled in one comment(or even a whole post+comments), I think one place to begin must be patents granted for "business methods". From the article:
"For most of U.S. history, patents had traditionally been issued in tangible objects, like monkey wrenches. For years, the courts and the PTO took a hard line against granting patents on intangibles like software or "business methods," based perhaps on the instinct that such inventions are too abstract and might cause economic damage.
All that changed in the 1980s and '90s, when Congress concentrated patent's appellate duties in a single court--the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Over time, that court changed course on software and other questionable areas of patent, transforming the system from one that was highly conservative to one that's much more liberal."
I sincerely think we must abolish all patents on "ideas" and "methods". The whole notion of a corporation patenting a way to do business seems absurd and completely against the notion of free market competition. At the rate that we're going, pretty soon we'll have a stage where any person wanting to start a new business will need to purchase a set of licenses from corporations, not counties/states!
Another thought would be about how to resolve the multiple patent regimes around the world. As the Internet and globalization break down geographical barriers, we need a patent system(if at all) that will serve the entire world. What happens if a person in China or Brazil originally comes up with an idea for a new business? Will he need to check with the USPTO to see if it has been registered in the US? In Europe? Why? Does the USPTO check patent histories in other countries?
While I laud the initiative, I do(at the risk of getting negative karma) wonder why we're so fixated with Internet access as the sole metric for global freedom?
Is the press free all around the world? Do undertrials or accused enjoy fair trials everywhere? Does corporate money/advertising implicitly censor what we see in the media? Do citizens in democracies have access to all information that concerns them? Can the poor ever have equal chances to attend universities and schools?
I'm from India, a democracy and a market economy(mostly). I can say confidently that my answers to most of the above questions are "no". I'm guessing the same is true for countries around the world, including the US and the west.
So lets strive for unrestricted Internet access around the world, but lets also figure out what else comprises freedom for the non-/. folks out there.
Slashdot Mirror
It amazes me that such a blatant piece of PR propaganda by a company that is increasingly losing the offshore battle to its better-managed peers(Infosys, Wipro, Satyam, Cognizant) has been written by a senior editor at Fortune!
I'm from India and I've worked in the outsourcing industry for the last 5 years and believe me when I say that HCLT is absolutely the worst place to work amongst all the large IT companies. It is extremely political(careers get decided based on your camps), has no stable strategy/value proposition for the long run, has a long culture of employees back-stabbing each other to work their way up and has way more issues related to sexual harassment than its peers. For a company like this to claim superior management practices and employee satisfaction is like Enron trying to act like the paragon of corporate responsibility!
That apart - exactly where in the article is there *any* reference to managerial practices outside HCL, for the author to come to the conclusion that the "future of management is Indian"? Further, is there even an iota of innovation that seems to be borne from the article that the author is impressed with? Online suggestion tickets, 360-degree reviews? Please...if these are what the author is impressed with, then I suggest he visit real strategic innovators like Infosys(in India) or GE and Toyota(globally).
And this guy, David Kirkpatrick is a senior editor at Fortune?!? No wonder real business folks stick with the Economist!
...the article is written by Gabriel Stricker from BrandChannel. The tone seems to be a typical marketing/branding kind - lots of high-sounding assertions and phrases, and very few solid justifications for the same.
For instance, check this sentence: "Google is actually the first company with a brand that is built entirely of stem cells: able to grow and develop into whatever form it sees fit."
Huh? World's first company? Built entirely of stem cells? Into whatever it sees fit?
What is this guy smoking?
Google's decision to branch into many unrelated/related ideas is not due to any stem cells or mitochondria, but simply because it has enough money and talent to do so. More importantly, the stock market that usually punishes companies for expanding too fast/too much still seems to be in awe of Google.
Imagine Microsoft deciding to enter into server harware, or Sun into smartphones, or Dell into online dating! But when Google does it, its suddenly "stem cells" in action!
While there is not an iota of love inside me for copyright holders, both the poster and the blogger are trying to stir up reader's emotions by their choice of phrases.
The poster says "DRM more important than life or security" and the blogger's headline reads "Future DRM might threaten critical infrastructure and potentially endanger lives."
I read the article that is linked to, and from what I could decipher of the legal wording from the RIAA is that they're afraid that until someone clearly defines "privacy or security" or even "threaten critical infrastructure and potentially endanger lives", they don't want to commit anything.
Nowhere does it imply that they said DRM is "more important than life or privacy" but merely that "till you can define privacy, security etc., we don't want to commit".
I think Michael Dell's, as well as other wannabe-Linux users desires to see Linux converge into one single platform are not going to happen anytime soon. In fact, I don't think it even matters at all too.
Linux and most open-source software are by nature a federated, bottom-up form of software development where multiple versions abound. This is because there is no one single entity(person or corporation) who knows which features are best for users, *and* the best way for those to be implemented. Hence forks abound which allows users, aka the free market, to decide which versions/software suit their own requirement. Compare this to proprietary software where the corporation decides which features you want, when you want them and in what form you want them.
Waiting for Linux to converge into a single platform with a market share >80% would imply that other versions have failed to see what users desire, and one company(or group of individuals) has been able to capitalize on that and advance its market share.
Now Ubuntu(I use that myself) has to an extent been reading what lay users desire from a distro and implementing many of their needs well. But as Ubuntu becomes more popular are other distros going to sit still watching it reap all the laurels? I don't think so. They will evolve too. If you think that isn't possible then ask yourself how the hell Ubuntu managed to gain so much in the last couple of years? Do you think such innovation will stop after Ubuntu?
Finally, imho lay-users are not going to want to switch to Linux in the near-term. Because switching an OS for them represents a huge task which they will undertake only if:
1. They are thouroughly dissatisfied with Windows, or
2. They are thouroughly enamoured by the benefits that Linux offers
Unlike what we may all think, on the whole most people are not thouroughly dissatisfied with Windows. Sure they may have to deal with patchy security and those occasional crashes but hey, who says Linux doesn't have issues? I've had Ubuntu lock up on me more than a few times. I've spent a better part of the first month trying to get streaming videos to play on Firefox. Did I quit? No...so why would a Windows user?
To sum up, expecting Linux to converge into a super-distro isn't going to happen. Simply because open-source by nature is designed against the formation of monopolies. Since code upto a certain point is freely available to all, a new fork can be established by a brighter, more innovative, more responsive group in much lesser time than in the prop. s/w market. So an 80%+ distro would mean that nobody else read the market and changed course.
It would be cool if we could have the user agent switcher tool with the capability to assign a particular user agent with a particular site and automatically switch upon loading a site. And the switch must be for a specific tab not all open tabs.
- For example I might want the switcher to automatically switch to IE7/XP while visiting my bank's site that expects IE.
- But I may want the switcher to automatically switch to Googlebot while visiting password-protected news sites so that I can go directly in.
Jeez take it easy folks. It was supposed to be an attempt at humour. The point being that when you're down 7-8 drinks you might not remember that some device was supposed to do the knocking.
Anyway, seeing the insightful modifier on my ill-fated attempt at humour I take back my words.
What happens after the designated driver drops you off home?
"Bye dude...thanks and whatever...yeehaa..."
"Okie...so now what was the knock again...."
knockity, knockity, knoccck
Invalid entry. Please try again.
knock, knock-de-knock
Invalid entry. Please try again.
knock, knock, knock
Invalid entry. Please try again.
Kicks the door. Mutters all known curses.
Invalid entry. You have 2 more options before the system is locked for the next 12 hours.
They had to wait 3 years before realizing that Dan Brown stole from them? Where were they, in the middle ages?
Coming so close to the release of the movie I can only think that they were waiting for the stakes to be much higher before suing, so that the studio/publisher would be more amenable to a quick settlement.
Yeah...and look at the comments from people saying "I love Google Maps" and "Google Maps rocks" and "Google Maps" blah blah. Does *anyone* even bother reading the linked articles nowadays or are they just waiting to get in their pointless 2 cents?
/.'s strength, but people could you atleast take a couple of minutes to read what you're going to comment upon???
I know quality of comments is
So here's a really implausible thought:
All Sky has to do is find one sucker each on a high-speed connection to download each movie they have on offer. After that they turn those computers into supernodes and sit back and watch while the movies are copied from user machines everywhere. A small notification is sent to them with each download that allows for billing/payments.
Of course that was really implausible. I'm sure media companies would never sink that low!
The first question to ask yourself before going in for any "x.1" system is about your usage pattern. Specifically, how often will you listen to music and how often will you watch movies on your system(assuming of course that you do not have two separate systems of course)?
If like me, and most other people in the world you listen to more of music than movies, then the entire "x.1" debate is, imho, DOA. Simply because a good stereo amp and quality stereo speakers blow the hell out of any(equally priced) "x.1" surround sound system. Heck, a good pair of floorstanders even obviate the need for sub-woofers!
"If I were Google, I would just drop perfect 10 from their search results entirely. I bet this would lose them more sales than thumbnails ever would."
Yeah sure, that would work. I'm sure Google going, "you mess with us, you're off the grid" is just the news that the ever-increasing number of people wary of Google's growing clout are just waiting for.
What next? Google removing Reporters without Borders from their index because they complained about their China policies?
I don't see a single new insight coming up from posts related to MPAA/RIAA suing bittorrent sites. All, and I mean *all* comments can either be classified as:
1. Screw MPAA/RIAA, they're bloodsuckers, they deserve it, hurrah to free music/video
2. Logical arguments about how its wrong to steal and that IP creators deserve their dues
3. Inane humour and jokes about post or other comments
So yeah, yeah...we know all of that already. Can we either just stop posting every bittorrent/MPAA development or try to come up with some new insightful comments?
If only Al Gore had applied for a patent after inventing the Internet.
Oh wait, he didn't. It's just that when I see news articles like this, I wish he had!
From the article:
Microsoft claims to provide "uncapped protection for legal costs associated with a patent, copyright, trademark or trade secret claim alleging infringement by their product". Open source majors like Red Hat also provide assurance programmes to protect their customers.
What has the world of patents and copyrights come to? We have product manufacturers offering to protect their customers from being sued for using their products!!! This is a feature?
Imagine Honda offering "uncapped protection" for their car users against being sued for driving them? Or Adidas offering the same for their shoes(they were recently sued by Nike for violating some "Air" patents)
I think I miss the vapourware days. Even if the features were imaginary, they at least sounded useful.
Exactly!
Music is essentially stereo in character and recording. Some new formats like DVD-Audio and SACD allow home theater owners to listen to recordings in surround sound format, but the vast majority of music that is recorded, sold and listened is still stereo.
Mind you I am not advocating maintaining stereo status quo for the heck of it...but because stereo really does sound better for music. Surround sound is more suitable for movie soundtracks. Most audiophiles already know this, thats why they prefer stereo. Surround takes away the clarity and precision from recordings. I just wish the average Joe would get it too...surround music is pointless.
2.0 is the best the space industry could manage after all these decades and billions of dollars?
;-)
Heck, Gillette and Schick managed to take us all into 4.0 just by themselves
I wonder why people are falling for this talk about "multiple versions" in Office 2007. The available retail versions of MS Office 2003, as listed on Microsoft.com
- MS 2003 Professional Ed.
- MS 2003 Standard Ed.
- MS 2003 Small Business Ed.
- MS 2003 Student & Teacher Ed.
And the versions of the upcoming Office 2007 as listed in the article
- Professional
- Standard
- Enterprise
- Small Business
- Home & Student
Guess what - all of one extra edition - "Enterprise" (Student & Teacher appears to have been rebranded as Home & Student). The way the article and the submission is written it would appear that multiple versions were the next best thing to sliced bread since, um, Office 2003?
The statement that retail cards will not be able to play Blu-ray movies at full resolution is potentially misleading. The article says that retail cards available at present(and already sold in the past) cannot. It would not make sense for graphics card manufacturers to not build support for HDCP in the future, especially since licensing only costs half a cent per card(plus an annual $15K fee).
;-)
That said, it is obvious that buyers of cards advertised as "HDCP-compliant" have been had. But I guess not many people will naturally empathise(much less sympathise) with someone who "just spent $1500 on a pair of 7800GTX 512MB GPUs"
Finally, since this is a hardware-based requirement, are we Linux users going to sit out the era of Blu-ray movies on computers?
I don't know how many people noticed the subtle differences between what Safra Catz, Oracle CFO said and what Larry Ellison, its CEO said.
"We will retain...Siebel's product development and product sales and marketing teams," said Catz.
"We will retain 90 percent of Siebel's support, development engineers, sales and sales consultants," said Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. Obviously Catz is the one who must be lying because no one would be daft enough(no, not even Ellison) to say 90% if it were really 100%. Makes you wonder how much trust should be placed in corporate annoucements.
What in the hell does laying off *jobs* mean? I thought employees were laid off(or hired), and jobs were created or destroyed.
Although this could be correct if it were at Apple. Imagine:
"Apple lays off 1 Job(s)"
"every business plan must have at least ONE chart with a line going up and left".
;-)
You're right, it does sound silly. Probably because a line going up and left would essentially mean dropping sales/profits/market share.
Yeah, that kind of graphic would not have too great a psychological impact with VCs
From the brief description about the business the idea doesn't sound too radical for a VC(who typically stay away from risky early stage investments), and neither does it sound as something that requires VC money(typically in millions, not thousands). So I wonder why you need VC money?
As other commenters have already pointed out, first get your own skin in the game by investing your own money. Remember the golden order of early stage funding, founder->family->friends->fools. Only after you've exhausted these should you start looking at venture capital. VC money typically helps you scale up/expand rather than bootstrap.
Of course exceptions will always be there...but those are typically when you've got either a great idea(eg. Riya) or a great startup team or both. Simple ideas with unknown management teams don't even register in the eyes of VCs.
While patent reform may be far too complex a beast to be tackled in one comment(or even a whole post+comments), I think one place to begin must be patents granted for "business methods". From the article:
"For most of U.S. history, patents had traditionally been issued in tangible objects, like monkey wrenches. For years, the courts and the PTO took a hard line against granting patents on intangibles like software or "business methods," based perhaps on the instinct that such inventions are too abstract and might cause economic damage.
All that changed in the 1980s and '90s, when Congress concentrated patent's appellate duties in a single court--the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Over time, that court changed course on software and other questionable areas of patent, transforming the system from one that was highly conservative to one that's much more liberal."
I sincerely think we must abolish all patents on "ideas" and "methods". The whole notion of a corporation patenting a way to do business seems absurd and completely against the notion of free market competition. At the rate that we're going, pretty soon we'll have a stage where any person wanting to start a new business will need to purchase a set of licenses from corporations, not counties/states!
Another thought would be about how to resolve the multiple patent regimes around the world. As the Internet and globalization break down geographical barriers, we need a patent system(if at all) that will serve the entire world. What happens if a person in China or Brazil originally comes up with an idea for a new business? Will he need to check with the USPTO to see if it has been registered in the US? In Europe? Why? Does the USPTO check patent histories in other countries?
While I laud the initiative, I do(at the risk of getting negative karma) wonder why we're so fixated with Internet access as the sole metric for global freedom?
Is the press free all around the world? Do undertrials or accused enjoy fair trials everywhere? Does corporate money/advertising implicitly censor what we see in the media? Do citizens in democracies have access to all information that concerns them? Can the poor ever have equal chances to attend universities and schools?
I'm from India, a democracy and a market economy(mostly). I can say confidently that my answers to most of the above questions are "no". I'm guessing the same is true for countries around the world, including the US and the west.
So lets strive for unrestricted Internet access around the world, but lets also figure out what else comprises freedom for the non-/. folks out there.