Clearly Sun and Bill Joy agrees with this statement. Firstly they have made great strides in making Java a modern component based environment through such things as Java Beans, Enterprise Java Beans and JINI. Secondly they have done everything they can to retain control of how those API's are developed in the future. Look at the licensing they employ. Look at the effort they went through to find an open standards organization willing to rubber stamp their requirements for Java itself. Look at this whole issue of code forking.
The problem is that they are in business to make money. I cannot find fault with that. If they feel a need to control the API's for Java, then more power to them. But they should not expect me, or anyone else, to want to play the game by their rules!
Nor should they expect me to believe the propaganda. Sun is trying to portray themselves as brothers with the Open Source community against a common enemy. What they are not saying is that they want to be Microsoft. That little fable about the "Lion's Share" near the end of the article was telling...
In my opinion it boils down to this: We need a fast, simple, powerful and complete Open Source solution for component based development. An API (preferably a cross platform one) that you can write code to in any of the most popular languages. And it must have a reference implementation that is open source with a GPL license. It should be highly Object Oriented and should provide base objects for every major Design Pattern. It should front-end the OS so completely that you can write a new OS which directly provided the relevant API's (making it a kind of Meta-OS). The API itself should be open and there should be a standards committee that isn't loaded with representatives from the big companies. Plus, no-one is penalized for producing a non-compatible version (other than the fact that compatible versions would probably receive a greater market share).
I have been working on my own for some time to develop the beginings of such a standard. A kind of hobby for me. And I know there are plenty of people out there who will claim such a thing already exists in (choose one) PERL, Python, Smalltalk, Gnome or some flavor of the month. I don't think any of those things meet all the criteria of the environment I want to see, but I can state one thing rather confidently...
Until we pull together a produce such a thing the Open Source movement will have a lot of difficulty competing against Sun and Microsoft in the Business Systems space.
As has been pointed out before, the important thing is programmer mindshare. Many programmers are locked into Windows development because they have spent a good deal of time learning the API's and the development tools for it. Not because they love it. And, so long as there are so many jobs available doing VB or MFC development, there is no incentive to retrain.
One point I haven't seen mentioned here much is this -- VB, MFC and COM make possible the creation and easy re-use of pre-built components. Although it is certainly true that 'real programmers' don't use ActiveX controls, business software development (the lion's share of code being written every day) is made easier and cheaper because of them. Until the Open Source movement can provide similar component based environments (and plenty of third party components to go with it) there will always be at least one good reason to develop that new accounting program in VB.
Enterprise Java Beans do provide much of the same plumbing as COM (arguably, even better), and many Java tools vendors are working to support EJB's as seamlessly as ActiveX controls in VB. But Java is not Open Source. It is controlled by yet another big company...
However Microsoft is dropping the ball in this area themselves. It seems to me there is a real opportunity here for the Open Source Movement. If we are willing to step up to the plate.
I think you miss my point. It isn't that I see computers as competitors. Rather that the particular instance of software the article spoke of is literally 'souless'. Something any musician will find at least a little repugnant and most music lovers will notice in action.
To really understand this point, listen to some really old blues. The musicians playing are often not all that good technically. But the point of the music isn't the precision of hitting the right notes at the right time. It is the feelings involved. If, after listening to some really old Leadbelly, Muddy Waters or Lightning Hopkins, this isn't clear to you -- then there is little I can do to help.
The article was over-written, pompous and missed the mark altogether. (Other than the physical description of Bill Gibson -- which I can testify is accurate.) I imagine Gibson cringes when he reads it. Hell, it didn't even talk about his new book outside of a couple of off-hand references in a single paragraph!
I have had a copy of 'All Tomorrow's Parties' on order for over a month now. It is vastly irritating that the publisher promised it for the beginning of October and not even Barnes and Nobles can get a copy. (I ordered from a local bookstore, gotta support 'em.) I guess I am gonna have to talk to some of my Seattle SF contacts and see if any of them have a galley copy they will loan me.
Oh well. Bad article. Book not yet available. Half the posts here dissing Gibson or asking who he is...
...After all I am a musician myself and am not sure I want to think that a computer can do everything that I can do.
But I am also a computer programmer, a Science Fiction writer and a (to a small extent) an extroprian believer in a future where computers do do all the things that people do. Even including emotions and creativity. Given time I do think that true AI will happen, it may just be so strange that we don't recognize it as such at first.
So I stepped back and looked at this a little more carefully -- and dang, it is just a simple rule based system. Easy, I could do it myself if I wanted! If the software produces a note that sounds expressive, it isn't because the computer is experiencing the feeling I know when I bend a note up and sustain it for a second before I do a full tremelo. It is just following rules that say 'Bend up at this speed, sustain this long, do tremelo with these parameters'.
Hell, perhaps that sounds good enough for a TV Producer, but it also means that any difference between one performance and another is based on random numbers. Not due to the mood of the performer and how he or she reacts to their audience. It will be a while before a computer can really play the blues...
There are several things I find very troubling about patent law, as I understand it and as it is portrayed in the article. First off, the views of both the Patent Examiner and the Patent Lawyers are held by the court to hold more weight than those of an engineer with practical experience. This means that the only experts whose opinions carry any weight are experts in the Patent laws, not in the things being patented!
Secondly, the following quote: "...lawyers routinely advise their clients to avoid reading patents in areas they are working in. The danger posed by the willful infringement doctrine is seen as outweighing any benefit that can be gained from reading patents. This state of affairs, of course, negates even the theoretical benefit of the patent system, that the public at large learns about new technology once it is patented. As it stands, the people who should be learning from patents in any given field are the same people who stand to lose the most if they dare to take a peek."
As the author of the article points out, this behavior tends to obliviate the intent of the patent laws, which are to protect the rights of the inventor while allowing the inventor to share the process. Although it isn't explicitly stated, it seems obvious the author agrees with many of us that the patent laws, as they stand, are broken.
But there does seem to be one important ray of light for Open Source here. Basically I refer to the statement that prior art can consist of anything 'published'. Open Source Code is published, or at least I would tend to believe it is published. Please correct me if I am wrong, but is it not possible to fight a Patent Infringement suit by simply pointing out that the code in question was 'published' before
the patent was applied for?
Of course this still means an Open Source developer might be liable for algolrithms used after the patent was applied for, but then what? How do you collect royalties from something distributed for free? The patent holder would be forced to prove a 'loss' due to an inability to sell their product, something that might be rather difficult to do.
If I was doing something this obvious, but no one else had done it... I'd patent it. In fact, I am patenting something.
Uh, I said 'obvious clunkers', not 'something this obvious'. I don't know what it is you are patenting, and I don't really care, but some things are clearly stupid and the Amazon patent is an excellent example. For one thing there is plenty of prior art.
Hell, I worked on something very similar myself three years ago as a contractor for a different eCommerce outfit in Seattle. So, if what you are patenting is just as dumb and has as few merits as the Amazon patent, I would hope the patent office chucks it out like a live skunk. No offense intended...
After all, this is exactly what Passport is supposed to do. Didn't Microsoft try to patent the idea themselves? If not, they obviously missed a trick for once...
How can people even file patents for stuff like this? In a rational world there would be gatekeepers at the patent office to toss out the obvious clunkers.
But you can be certain of one thing -- there will be a TV movie made within six months about a black hole created by clueless scientists that threatens to destroys the earth. Destroy, that is, until the hero scientist that no-one listened to comes up with a magic black hole plug...
This seems like yet another outgrowth of the Microsoft Trial. Here at work (not MS) we have been ordered to delete all email older than six months, and I imagine many other companies have enacted similar rules in the last few years. The use of email and other electronic correspondence in ligitation is definately a bad thing in the long term.
Not that this is all that new, even when everything was kept on dead trees it could be subpoenaed and used in evidence. The difference? You had to know it was there, or else you had to go through files and archive boxes by hand. An expensive and difficult process.
Now you can just GREP a hard drive or use Dejanews or Altavista or search a MS Exchange PST file. It is neither difficult nor expensive. An interesting example of why the paperless office may not improve on the old way of doing things. This bothers me a lot, because I am a believer in the digital age.
But the thought of removing personal correspondence from electronic databases bothers me even more. There was a time when people wrote letters the way we now write email; as a method of remaining in constant communication with others. They didn't have telephone, or even telegraph, so they had no other way to carry on conversations over great distances. And many of these people took great care to preserve their letters for posterity, correctly seeing these missives as a legacy of thought and person.
Without this preservation we would not have the access we possess today to the minds of men like Jefferson, Madison and others. Generations later these letters represent important historical documents. Could you imagine if they had decided to purge their files so that the expression of some youthful lack of sense could not be taken out of context or to avoid seeing the letters show up in court?
I repeat, this is a bad thing. Perhaps the best thing we can do is to never say anything, in email or otherwise, that we would be ashamed of. Personally I don't think that is entirely possible -- but I will keep it in mind from now on...
Considering how badly the Millenium re-launch was handled, and how easy it would have been to do it right, there is little hope that the a show as long-running as the X Files could continue without either of the stars.
Which leaves room for something entirely new, and perhaps even as daring as the first season of Millenium...
Perhaps not, but this only serves to polarize people further. The Microsoft faithful will wave this around as proof of their beliefs and the Linux zealots will point to it as more proof that Microsoft is a nothing more than a hive of marketing droids who can lie better than they can write code...
And those, like me, on the sidelines will be pushed more to one side or the other. Even if we might otherwise lean towards the NT camp, I think many will be so embarrassed and saddened by this kind of brookmanship that we may now move the other way. FUD or not, this was a mistake on Microsoft's part. I will not be surprised if the web page dissapears sometime real soon.
Although many of us would like to see Microsoft brought down, we want it more as a measure of revenge than because it would be good for the industry. Lets face it, the Open Source movement and similar mutations in the software development status quo are already changing the face of the software industry. Do you really think these things would have had as much impetus to get going if there had not been the spectre of Microsoft looming over everything? It is a simple, and compelling, example of the law of supply and demand in operation.
The problem with regulation is that it affects everyone, not just Microsoft. We will all pay the price for it, and the only winners will be those companies with enough money to take advantage of the new regulations and use them to hold down the competition. In other words regulation will end up with the opposite result from what we want. There is plenty of historical examples of this.
But 'we have to do something', so breaking up the 'monopoly' is a seductive notion. I would argue it is an idea with its own long reaching consequences, many of which will affect everyone for the worst. Not to mention the fact that there is no precedent I know of for breaking up a software company...
I have been thinking about this subject for a long time, and have even written an essay on the subject; An Open Letter to Orrin Hatch. Subtitled "What I would say if I were asked to Testify at the 'Market Power and Structural Change in the Software Industry' Hearings..." I wrote this approximately two weeks before the hearings by the the Senate Judiciary Committee. At the time (as now, although they are evolving) I had strong feelings about the government interfering in the Software Industry in any way, including going after Microsoft for 'Anti-Comptitive Practices'.
Not that I am a Microsoft defender mind you. I worked there for two and half years (as a contractor) and have seen the place from the inside. It is both better, and worse, than its detractors imagine. I know more about them than I really want to. But I needed to make a statement from the point of view of the average software developer just trying to make a living and get the job done for the customer. And I don't think that government intervention will have a positive effect in that regard, any more than I really want to see Microsoft replaced by Sun/AOL, Oracle or even by a resurgent Apple.
Replaced by Linux? Hmm... Now that might just be different story! But, like I said, this is already happening. The software industry, like most complex systems, is healing itself. I say we should let the economics sort themselves out and the best competitor win. I also say the Microsoft is no longer a good competitor because the rules are changing against them, just as they changed (to Microsoft's favor) in 1983...
Jack
P.S. I am working on a new essay, "The Decline and Fall of the Redmondian Empire" which gives more detail on why I think Microsoft, and the other software giants, are becoming uncompetitive dinosaurs. The one thing that might save Microsoft? Either strong regulation, or breaking it up...
So far as I know, none of the people described by that term call themselves 'Techies'. Geeks maybe (for those of us who consider that a badge of honor). But Techie? I guess they didn't want to call it National 'Be a Geek' Day. I wonder if we are supposed to have a party where we eat Chinese food, have Twinkies for dessert, drink Jolt cola and wear propeller beanies?
I also noticed there was a letter on the web site from V.P. Gore congratulating the 'Techies' of the world. Considering Gore thinks he 'invented' the Internet, perhaps the man believes he can win over the Geek vote in the coming election? If so, he had better rethink his stance on encryption policy.
Maybe someone should clue in GW Bush, let him know that he needs to get on the bandwagon quick. Bush could hold a press conference wearing a white button shirt with a pocket protector and do sound bytes containing the words 'Bandwidth' and 'Pipelined Architecture'. Of course Gore would probably retaliate by claiming he invented the microprocessor...
Jack
Has Japan lived up to your expectations?
on
Ask Bruce Sterling
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About twelve/thirteen years ago I heard a speach you gave at a technology conference in Olympia Washington. A major point of that speach had to do with the Japanese economic structure (zaibatsus and the like) and its pontential in a future of networked international corporations. You also made some predictions as to the future power of the Japanese and general Asian economy.
Would you say those predictions have been proved out? Would you say they missed the mark? Or would you say they are still operational given enough time?
Will you be doing any more stories set in the Shaper/Mechanist universe? If not, then why? Has it been mined out, made insignificant, is no longer fun or has it been copied by other's too much?
PHB stands for 'Pointy Haired Boss'. See Dilbert...
OLAP, others have already done an excellent job of describing 'On-Line Analytical Processing'. I will only point out that it is a management buzzword right now and, like most such buzzwords, it means different things to different people.
It is cogent, well written and covers a lot of ground. Someone really did their homework on that!
Much of the rest of the patent application is as deliberately dense as they can make it. Including one run-on sentence that would take me three huge breaths to speak aloud:-)
For information on what this thing actually does, read the 'DETAILED DESCRIPTION' section. On interesting fact gleaned from there in a quick reading is the fact the emulation co-processer is called a 'morph host' and it apparently executes some kind of special opcodes used for emulation. So to do the emulation you write 'code morphing software' that translates incoming instructions to the 'morph host' instruction set. Very Cool! And, of course, the 'transactioning' and error checking stuff noted in prior posts.
It is looking more and more like the early rumors of a Transmeta 'emulate anything' design were on the nose...
All we really need is one (or both) of two things:
Everyone writing standards compliant HTML for all content. Do the fancy stuff (if you really need to have it) with Java applets or Flash.
Next generation browsers built on XML and a few standard DTD's for different document types. Then all formatting can be done with XSL appropriate to the browser/delivery system/user's special needs.
Something like this IBM thing is overkill. My guess it will be used by cell phone companies on their proxy servers and otherwise die on the vine. Or, at least, I hope so.
This isn't news really, but it is a well written article. The real interest I have in this is the insistance, even among researchers who should know better, that some people are 'normal' and others deviate from that normalcy in some way. In this case by having a 'mild form of Asperger's syndrome'. One scientist mentioned in the article even goes so far as to discount the idea on the basis of the fact we Geeks are not horribly impaired. Meaning we are normal I guess...
So, just what is normal? I used to wonder that a lot when I was a kid, because I knew for a fact I wasn't 'normal'. I even wondered if I smelled different from everyone else in some way, although the truth was simply that I could not socialize in the same manner other kids did -- and had an intuitive understanding of math, could read at a college level and had a better volcabulary than my teachers. These simple facts were enough to isolate me; an isolation so common among geeks that we have already discussed it at length here on/.
The thing is, I have come to understand that none of the other kids were 'normal' either! They were just better at pretending. At picking up the little cues that control flocking behavior in the schoolyard. Inside most of them were wondering the same thing I did, and hoping like hell they didn't have to go through the hazing I lived with on a daily basis. Those few who felt no doubts at all probably lacked the intelligence and imagination it takes to see yourself as the victim, or else they were true sociopaths. Doubt what I am saying? Talk at length with your spouse or your 'normal' siblings...
So, what is normal? Aren't we all really part of a continuum? On the one hand you have highly disfunctional people who cannot even feed themselves and on the other you have highly socialized individuals who -- as they are often lawyers, salesmen, politicians and actors -- don't really contribute that much to society themselves. The rest make up the middle of the bell curve, and those of us blessed with an ability to concentrate to extremes, remember seemingly inconsequential details and avoid wasting time with dumb stuff like style and appearance are the prime movers of the new era.
Geeks of the world unite! You have nothing to loose but your propeller beanies!
More seriously, perhaps the real need here is to avoid discussions of 'normal' versus geek and focus more on ways each person can maximize their effectiveness in the world. For some of us this means computers and programming, our natural skills and inclinations make us good at it. Others are particuarily good hairdressers. We are each born with a mix of talents and abilities that, together, make up our IQ. The really good thing about being a geek, and this I know from personal experience, is that we can actually apply many of the traits that make us what we are to becoming good at the other stuff if we decide it is important enough. I once took the time to seriously study body language, basic psychology and public speaking. Now I have those skills when I need them, even if I choose not to exercize them most of the time...
Find what? The Desert Storm mention? I blew that, I meant Iraq, not Iran. And there were articles available in several sources documenting the problems the Iraqies had with things like printers that turned out to have bogus firmware (but they weren't allowed to sue of course, and later denials were made by the US gov). Anyway I don't remember specific sources, but I do remember reading about it in magazines with serious reputations.
If you are referring to the rest of the post, do a net search on 'Infowar' and 'Cyberwar' for starters. Also read Infowar by G. Stocker and Powershift by A. Toffler. Then do what I did -- sit down and think out some realistic scenarios (I am a wannabe SF writer, so this is something I do with lots of things). It also wouldn't hurt to read some war memoirs and strategy/tactic books, just to give you some idea of what has been done along these lines without computers...
Real cyberwar occurred during Desert Storm when the Iranian governement found that their networks systems had been compromised on several levels.
Cyberwar of the future will include everything from intelligence operations to subtle data modifications that result in supply snafus and bad descision making. In World War II one of the most important 'data' tools available was not encryptionm -- but good maps. And both sides attempted to degrade the other's maps through disinformation and spies. Think how much more powerful it would be to throw off an attacking force by a few miles by messing with their navigation systems?
For real cyberwar look for attacks on databases, inventory control, truck routing, payroll, navigation and targeting systems. Not web pages...
This is nothing new. It has been evident for years that Sun (and Oracle) want to dethrone Microsoft only so they can ascend to the vacated heights themselves.
If you need a metric as to how predatory and controlling a company is, you need look no further than how they handle their API's. If they use API's controlled by independant standards organizations without adding proprietary extensions then the company is open. If they produce in-house API's and turn them over to independant standards organizations then the company is open.
However, if the company extends open API's, keeps their own API's proprietary and constantly changes the API's themselves so that anyone using the API's must use the companies toolsets and must compete against the company at a disadvantage, then the company is not open.
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In a previous post to /. attached to It's the Developers, Stupid!: The Real NT-Linux Battle I mentioned my belief that the only thing that is really important is the API's and that the most important API's today are those which allow for component based programming.
Clearly Sun and Bill Joy agrees with this statement. Firstly they have made great strides in making Java a modern component based environment through such things as Java Beans, Enterprise Java Beans and JINI. Secondly they have done everything they can to retain control of how those API's are developed in the future. Look at the licensing they employ. Look at the effort they went through to find an open standards organization willing to rubber stamp their requirements for Java itself. Look at this whole issue of code forking.
The problem is that they are in business to make money. I cannot find fault with that. If they feel a need to control the API's for Java, then more power to them. But they should not expect me, or anyone else, to want to play the game by their rules!
Nor should they expect me to believe the propaganda. Sun is trying to portray themselves as brothers with the Open Source community against a common enemy. What they are not saying is that they want to be Microsoft. That little fable about the "Lion's Share" near the end of the article was telling...
In my opinion it boils down to this: We need a fast, simple, powerful and complete Open Source solution for component based development. An API (preferably a cross platform one) that you can write code to in any of the most popular languages. And it must have a reference implementation that is open source with a GPL license. It should be highly Object Oriented and should provide base objects for every major Design Pattern. It should front-end the OS so completely that you can write a new OS which directly provided the relevant API's (making it a kind of Meta-OS). The API itself should be open and there should be a standards committee that isn't loaded with representatives from the big companies. Plus, no-one is penalized for producing a non-compatible version (other than the fact that compatible versions would probably receive a greater market share).
I have been working on my own for some time to develop the beginings of such a standard. A kind of hobby for me. And I know there are plenty of people out there who will claim such a thing already exists in (choose one) PERL, Python, Smalltalk, Gnome or some flavor of the month. I don't think any of those things meet all the criteria of the environment I want to see, but I can state one thing rather confidently...
Until we pull together a produce such a thing the Open Source movement will have a lot of difficulty competing against Sun and Microsoft in the Business Systems space.
Jack
As has been pointed out before, the important thing is programmer mindshare. Many programmers are locked into Windows development because they have spent a good deal of time learning the API's and the development tools for it. Not because they love it. And, so long as there are so many jobs available doing VB or MFC development, there is no incentive to retrain.
One point I haven't seen mentioned here much is this -- VB, MFC and COM make possible the creation and easy re-use of pre-built components. Although it is certainly true that 'real programmers' don't use ActiveX controls, business software development (the lion's share of code being written every day) is made easier and cheaper because of them. Until the Open Source movement can provide similar component based environments (and plenty of third party components to go with it) there will always be at least one good reason to develop that new accounting program in VB.
Enterprise Java Beans do provide much of the same plumbing as COM (arguably, even better), and many Java tools vendors are working to support EJB's as seamlessly as ActiveX controls in VB. But Java is not Open Source. It is controlled by yet another big company...
However Microsoft is dropping the ball in this area themselves. It seems to me there is a real opportunity here for the Open Source Movement. If we are willing to step up to the plate.
Jack
Hmm...
I think you miss my point. It isn't that I see computers as competitors. Rather that the particular instance of software the article spoke of is literally 'souless'. Something any musician will find at least a little repugnant and most music lovers will notice in action.
To really understand this point, listen to some really old blues. The musicians playing are often not all that good technically. But the point of the music isn't the precision of hitting the right notes at the right time. It is the feelings involved. If, after listening to some really old Leadbelly, Muddy Waters or Lightning Hopkins, this isn't clear to you -- then there is little I can do to help.
Jack
The article was over-written, pompous and missed the mark altogether. (Other than the physical description of Bill Gibson -- which I can testify is accurate.) I imagine Gibson cringes when he reads it. Hell, it didn't even talk about his new book outside of a couple of off-hand references in a single paragraph!
I have had a copy of 'All Tomorrow's Parties' on order for over a month now. It is vastly irritating that the publisher promised it for the beginning of October and not even Barnes and Nobles can get a copy. (I ordered from a local bookstore, gotta support 'em.) I guess I am gonna have to talk to some of my Seattle SF contacts and see if any of them have a galley copy they will loan me.
Oh well. Bad article. Book not yet available. Half the posts here dissing Gibson or asking who he is...
I need a vacation...
Jack
...After all I am a musician myself and am not sure I want to think that a computer can do everything that I can do.
But I am also a computer programmer, a Science Fiction writer and a (to a small extent) an extroprian believer in a future where computers do do all the things that people do. Even including emotions and creativity. Given time I do think that true AI will happen, it may just be so strange that we don't recognize it as such at first.
So I stepped back and looked at this a little more carefully -- and dang, it is just a simple rule based system. Easy, I could do it myself if I wanted! If the software produces a note that sounds expressive, it isn't because the computer is experiencing the feeling I know when I bend a note up and sustain it for a second before I do a full tremelo. It is just following rules that say 'Bend up at this speed, sustain this long, do tremelo with these parameters'.
Hell, perhaps that sounds good enough for a TV Producer, but it also means that any difference between one performance and another is based on random numbers. Not due to the mood of the performer and how he or she reacts to their audience. It will be a while before a computer can really play the blues...
Jack
First off, excellent article and many kudos!
There are several things I find very troubling about patent law, as I understand it and as it is portrayed in the article. First off, the views of both the Patent Examiner and the Patent Lawyers are held by the court to hold more weight than those of an engineer with practical experience. This means that the only experts whose opinions carry any weight are experts in the Patent laws, not in the things being patented!
Secondly, the following quote: "...lawyers routinely advise their clients to avoid reading patents in areas they are working in. The danger posed by the willful infringement doctrine is seen as outweighing any benefit that can be gained from reading patents. This state of affairs, of course, negates even the theoretical benefit of the patent system, that the public at large learns about new technology once it is patented. As it stands, the people who should be learning from patents in any given field are the same people who stand to lose the most if they dare to take a peek."
As the author of the article points out, this behavior tends to obliviate the intent of the patent laws, which are to protect the rights of the inventor while allowing the inventor to share the process. Although it isn't explicitly stated, it seems obvious the author agrees with many of us that the patent laws, as they stand, are broken.
But there does seem to be one important ray of light for Open Source here. Basically I refer to the statement that prior art can consist of anything 'published'. Open Source Code is published, or at least I would tend to believe it is published. Please correct me if I am wrong, but is it not possible to fight a Patent Infringement suit by simply pointing out that the code in question was 'published' before
the patent was applied for?Of course this still means an Open Source developer might be liable for algolrithms used after the patent was applied for, but then what? How do you collect royalties from something distributed for free? The patent holder would be forced to prove a 'loss' due to an inability to sell their product, something that might be rather difficult to do.
Jack
If I was doing something this obvious, but no one else had done it... I'd patent it. In fact, I am patenting something.
Uh, I said 'obvious clunkers', not 'something this obvious'. I don't know what it is you are patenting, and I don't really care, but some things are clearly stupid and the Amazon patent is an excellent example. For one thing there is plenty of prior art.
Hell, I worked on something very similar myself three years ago as a contractor for a different eCommerce outfit in Seattle. So, if what you are patenting is just as dumb and has as few merits as the Amazon patent, I would hope the patent office chucks it out like a live skunk. No offense intended...
Jack
After all, this is exactly what Passport is supposed to do. Didn't Microsoft try to patent the idea themselves? If not, they obviously missed a trick for once...
How can people even file patents for stuff like this? In a rational world there would be gatekeepers at the patent office to toss out the obvious clunkers.
Jack
But you can be certain of one thing -- there will be a TV movie made within six months about a black hole created by clueless scientists that threatens to destroys the earth. Destroy, that is, until the hero scientist that no-one listened to comes up with a magic black hole plug...
Jack
Need I say more?
Jack
This seems like yet another outgrowth of the Microsoft Trial. Here at work (not MS) we have been ordered to delete all email older than six months, and I imagine many other companies have enacted similar rules in the last few years. The use of email and other electronic correspondence in ligitation is definately a bad thing in the long term.
Not that this is all that new, even when everything was kept on dead trees it could be subpoenaed and used in evidence. The difference? You had to know it was there, or else you had to go through files and archive boxes by hand. An expensive and difficult process.
Now you can just GREP a hard drive or use Dejanews or Altavista or search a MS Exchange PST file. It is neither difficult nor expensive. An interesting example of why the paperless office may not improve on the old way of doing things. This bothers me a lot, because I am a believer in the digital age.
But the thought of removing personal correspondence from electronic databases bothers me even more. There was a time when people wrote letters the way we now write email; as a method of remaining in constant communication with others. They didn't have telephone, or even telegraph, so they had no other way to carry on conversations over great distances. And many of these people took great care to preserve their letters for posterity, correctly seeing these missives as a legacy of thought and person.
Without this preservation we would not have the access we possess today to the minds of men like Jefferson, Madison and others. Generations later these letters represent important historical documents. Could you imagine if they had decided to purge their files so that the expression of some youthful lack of sense could not be taken out of context or to avoid seeing the letters show up in court?
I repeat, this is a bad thing. Perhaps the best thing we can do is to never say anything, in email or otherwise, that we would be ashamed of. Personally I don't think that is entirely possible -- but I will keep it in mind from now on...
Jack
Considering how badly the Millenium re-launch was handled, and how easy it would have been to do it right, there is little hope that the a show as long-running as the X Files could continue without either of the stars.
Which leaves room for something entirely new, and perhaps even as daring as the first season of Millenium...
Jack
Perhaps not, but this only serves to polarize people further. The Microsoft faithful will wave this around as proof of their beliefs and the Linux zealots will point to it as more proof that Microsoft is a nothing more than a hive of marketing droids who can lie better than they can write code...
And those, like me, on the sidelines will be pushed more to one side or the other. Even if we might otherwise lean towards the NT camp, I think many will be so embarrassed and saddened by this kind of brookmanship that we may now move the other way. FUD or not, this was a mistake on Microsoft's part. I will not be surprised if the web page dissapears sometime real soon.
Jack
It should be http://www.sff.net/people/jac kb/openletter2hatch.html
Jack
Although many of us would like to see Microsoft brought down, we want it more as a measure of revenge than because it would be good for the industry. Lets face it, the Open Source movement and similar mutations in the software development status quo are already changing the face of the software industry. Do you really think these things would have had as much impetus to get going if there had not been the spectre of Microsoft looming over everything? It is a simple, and compelling, example of the law of supply and demand in operation.
The problem with regulation is that it affects everyone, not just Microsoft. We will all pay the price for it, and the only winners will be those companies with enough money to take advantage of the new regulations and use them to hold down the competition. In other words regulation will end up with the opposite result from what we want. There is plenty of historical examples of this.
But 'we have to do something', so breaking up the 'monopoly' is a seductive notion. I would argue it is an idea with its own long reaching consequences, many of which will affect everyone for the worst. Not to mention the fact that there is no precedent I know of for breaking up a software company...
I have been thinking about this subject for a long time, and have even written an essay on the subject; An Open Letter to Orrin Hatch. Subtitled "What I would say if I were asked to Testify at the 'Market Power and Structural Change in the Software Industry' Hearings..." I wrote this approximately two weeks before the hearings by the the Senate Judiciary Committee. At the time (as now, although they are evolving) I had strong feelings about the government interfering in the Software Industry in any way, including going after Microsoft for 'Anti-Comptitive Practices'.
Not that I am a Microsoft defender mind you. I worked there for two and half years (as a contractor) and have seen the place from the inside. It is both better, and worse, than its detractors imagine. I know more about them than I really want to. But I needed to make a statement from the point of view of the average software developer just trying to make a living and get the job done for the customer. And I don't think that government intervention will have a positive effect in that regard, any more than I really want to see Microsoft replaced by Sun/AOL, Oracle or even by a resurgent Apple.
Replaced by Linux? Hmm... Now that might just be different story! But, like I said, this is already happening. The software industry, like most complex systems, is healing itself. I say we should let the economics sort themselves out and the best competitor win. I also say the Microsoft is no longer a good competitor because the rules are changing against them, just as they changed (to Microsoft's favor) in 1983...
Jack
P.S. I am working on a new essay, "The Decline and Fall of the Redmondian Empire" which gives more detail on why I think Microsoft, and the other software giants, are becoming uncompetitive dinosaurs. The one thing that might save Microsoft? Either strong regulation, or breaking it up...
So far as I know, none of the people described by that term call themselves 'Techies'. Geeks maybe (for those of us who consider that a badge of honor). But Techie? I guess they didn't want to call it National 'Be a Geek' Day. I wonder if we are supposed to have a party where we eat Chinese food, have Twinkies for dessert, drink Jolt cola and wear propeller beanies?
I also noticed there was a letter on the web site from V.P. Gore congratulating the 'Techies' of the world. Considering Gore thinks he 'invented' the Internet, perhaps the man believes he can win over the Geek vote in the coming election? If so, he had better rethink his stance on encryption policy.
Maybe someone should clue in GW Bush, let him know that he needs to get on the bandwagon quick. Bush could hold a press conference wearing a white button shirt with a pocket protector and do sound bytes containing the words 'Bandwidth' and 'Pipelined Architecture'. Of course Gore would probably retaliate by claiming he invented the microprocessor...
Jack
About twelve/thirteen years ago I heard a speach you gave at a technology conference in Olympia Washington. A major point of that speach had to do with the Japanese economic structure (zaibatsus and the like) and its pontential in a future of networked international corporations. You also made some predictions as to the future power of the Japanese and general Asian economy.
Would you say those predictions have been proved out? Would you say they missed the mark? Or would you say they are still operational given enough time?
Jack
Will you be doing any more stories set in the Shaper/Mechanist universe? If not, then why? Has it been mined out, made insignificant, is no longer fun or has it been copied by other's too much?
Jack
Jack
It is cogent, well written and covers a lot of ground. Someone really did their homework on that!
Much of the rest of the patent application is as deliberately dense as they can make it. Including one run-on sentence that would take me three huge breaths to speak aloud :-)
For information on what this thing actually does, read the 'DETAILED DESCRIPTION' section. On interesting fact gleaned from there in a quick reading is the fact the emulation co-processer is called a 'morph host' and it apparently executes some kind of special opcodes used for emulation. So to do the emulation you write 'code morphing software' that translates incoming instructions to the 'morph host' instruction set. Very Cool! And, of course, the 'transactioning' and error checking stuff noted in prior posts.
It is looking more and more like the early rumors of a Transmeta 'emulate anything' design were on the nose...
Jack
All we really need is one (or both) of two things:
Something like this IBM thing is overkill. My guess it will be used by cell phone companies on their proxy servers and otherwise die on the vine. Or, at least, I hope so.
Jack
This isn't news really, but it is a well written article. The real interest I have in this is the insistance, even among researchers who should know better, that some people are 'normal' and others deviate from that normalcy in some way. In this case by having a 'mild form of Asperger's syndrome'. One scientist mentioned in the article even goes so far as to discount the idea on the basis of the fact we Geeks are not horribly impaired. Meaning we are normal I guess...
So, just what is normal? I used to wonder that a lot when I was a kid, because I knew for a fact I wasn't 'normal'. I even wondered if I smelled different from everyone else in some way, although the truth was simply that I could not socialize in the same manner other kids did -- and had an intuitive understanding of math, could read at a college level and had a better volcabulary than my teachers. These simple facts were enough to isolate me; an isolation so common among geeks that we have already discussed it at length here on /.
The thing is, I have come to understand that none of the other kids were 'normal' either! They were just better at pretending. At picking up the little cues that control flocking behavior in the schoolyard. Inside most of them were wondering the same thing I did, and hoping like hell they didn't have to go through the hazing I lived with on a daily basis. Those few who felt no doubts at all probably lacked the intelligence and imagination it takes to see yourself as the victim, or else they were true sociopaths. Doubt what I am saying? Talk at length with your spouse or your 'normal' siblings...
So, what is normal? Aren't we all really part of a continuum? On the one hand you have highly disfunctional people who cannot even feed themselves and on the other you have highly socialized individuals who -- as they are often lawyers, salesmen, politicians and actors -- don't really contribute that much to society themselves. The rest make up the middle of the bell curve, and those of us blessed with an ability to concentrate to extremes, remember seemingly inconsequential details and avoid wasting time with dumb stuff like style and appearance are the prime movers of the new era.
Geeks of the world unite! You have nothing to loose but your propeller beanies!
More seriously, perhaps the real need here is to avoid discussions of 'normal' versus geek and focus more on ways each person can maximize their effectiveness in the world. For some of us this means computers and programming, our natural skills and inclinations make us good at it. Others are particuarily good hairdressers. We are each born with a mix of talents and abilities that, together, make up our IQ. The really good thing about being a geek, and this I know from personal experience, is that we can actually apply many of the traits that make us what we are to becoming good at the other stuff if we decide it is important enough. I once took the time to seriously study body language, basic psychology and public speaking. Now I have those skills when I need them, even if I choose not to exercize them most of the time...
Jack
Find what? The Desert Storm mention? I blew that, I meant Iraq, not Iran. And there were articles available in several sources documenting the problems the Iraqies had with things like printers that turned out to have bogus firmware (but they weren't allowed to sue of course, and later denials were made by the US gov). Anyway I don't remember specific sources, but I do remember reading about it in magazines with serious reputations.
If you are referring to the rest of the post, do a net search on 'Infowar' and 'Cyberwar' for starters. Also read Infowar by G. Stocker and Powershift by A. Toffler. Then do what I did -- sit down and think out some realistic scenarios (I am a wannabe SF writer, so this is something I do with lots of things). It also wouldn't hurt to read some war memoirs and strategy/tactic books, just to give you some idea of what has been done along these lines without computers...
Jack
Real cyberwar occurred during Desert Storm when the Iranian governement found that their networks systems had been compromised on several levels.
Cyberwar of the future will include everything from intelligence operations to subtle data modifications that result in supply snafus and bad descision making. In World War II one of the most important 'data' tools available was not encryptionm -- but good maps. And both sides attempted to degrade the other's maps through disinformation and spies. Think how much more powerful it would be to throw off an attacking force by a few miles by messing with their navigation systems?
For real cyberwar look for attacks on databases, inventory control, truck routing, payroll, navigation and targeting systems. Not web pages...
Jack
This is nothing new. It has been evident for years that Sun (and Oracle) want to dethrone Microsoft only so they can ascend to the vacated heights themselves.
If you need a metric as to how predatory and controlling a company is, you need look no further than how they handle their API's. If they use API's controlled by independant standards organizations without adding proprietary extensions then the company is open. If they produce in-house API's and turn them over to independant standards organizations then the company is open.
However, if the company extends open API's, keeps their own API's proprietary and constantly changes the API's themselves so that anyone using the API's must use the companies toolsets and must compete against the company at a disadvantage, then the company is not open.
Does this sound like anyone you know?
Jack