I'll remind the next Dane who complains to me about how bad Americans treat native Americans that they've yet to "unoppress" (or is that "UN oppress"?) their own aboriginal inhabitants.
I would not use that argument on somebody who knows about the oppression of the native population in Greenland. It will backfire.
In fact one of the worst atrocities against the native population in Greenland was done after pressure from the US: In 1953 the native population was forced to relocate from Thule so that the US could build their radar station there. Despite an artic climate and the promise that new houses would be ready for them at their new location, they had to live in thin tents for almost half a year before they were given cheap wooden houses.
I'll tell you how we "oppress" the native population in Greenland:
They are all full danish citicens with voting rights to our national parliament.
They have an extensive home rule, and can decide almost all their local policy for themselves. Foreign policy is one of the few exceptions.
To ensure that they have a say in the few limits to their hole rule they are ensured 2 out of 179 seats in the danish parliament. This despite the fact that they only amount to 0.9 percent of the danish population.
When they decided not to be members of the EU in 1985, we respected that. Today Greenland is not a part of the EU although the rest of Denmark is.
To help them develop their infrastructure (expensive on the world's largest island with a sparse population) we each year give them what amounts to about US$10,000 per person in Greenland. For example this gives them affordable internet access, and today about 35 percent have internet access.
When I say "they" above, I mean all people living in Greenland. We do not make a difference between the native population and other people in Greenland, so it is hard to find statistics specifically on the native population. But I can tell you that we have not really invaded Greenland: In 1999 there were 56.087 persons living in Greenland, and only 6.806 were not born on Greenland.
Don't underestimate the people in Greenland, they are good and capable people who know what they want and how to achieve it. Think twice before saying they are oppressed.
All countries in the EU have to adhere to DMCA-like legislation. And my country has to adhere to worse legislation due to US pressure.
I am lucky that I cannot get jailed for viewing a legally purchased DVD under Linux. Our parliament didn't directly implement that in the law, but put an exception in the law comments that (I hope) will keep me out of jail while viewing legally purchased content with an non-approved DVD viewer.
That legislation was imposed on the EU from the US and US corporations.
Another law change was imposed specifically on our country after a threath of US trade restrictions through the WTO. This law change makes it possible for copyright holders to raid my private home if it is "probable" that I may have violated a copyright (or patent, or trademark). No need to get the police involved, a "probable violation" for a non-criminal offence is enough to get my private home raided.
In particular the last law change made it clear to me why so many people around the globe hate the US because they think the US tries to impose their views on them. This gave me a better understanding of why a lot of US-foreign people think the US is imperialistic, and condome terrorist actions.
I still do not concome terrorist actions, but I hate the US government now (fortunately not the US people although they are supposed to have democratically have selected their government), and understand why some people want to retailate against the US.
No, the resistance in the cable is the same, regardless if AC or DC is used.
The reason you think DC is lost more quickly is probably that DC generally is used at lower voltages. With lower voltage and constant power the current is higher, thus causing a higher power loss in the cable.
Why do you think your home circuit is AC, when DC has been around much longer?
Because AC is a lot easier to work with for those who transmit power. To avoid too much power loss in the transmission system the electricity has to be converted to high voltage in the transmission system, and that is a lot easier to do with AC.
All current starts out as DC
I do not know how you do at Lockheed Martin, but at my local power plant the turbines directly generate three-phase AC.
If you put AC in PoE, you'll lose your data - as a data line, it will then be worthless. Too much noise.
As long as the AC frequency is a lot lower than the data signal frequency you can still transmit AC over the data cable without any noise. It is a bit harder, but still possible. But it doesn't make sense to do so, as the equipment connected needs DC.
If you care about power effiency, please don't forget the power loss in the ethernet cable. The roundtrip DC resistance in the cable can be as high as 20 ohms.
Since the advent of digital cellular, though, you need more equipment and expertise needed to tap a cellphone.
Modern digital cellular systems like GSM are designed from the start to facilitate wiretapping. It is extremely simple for the network provider and the authorities to listen to your conversations.
And here they are trying to have software patents enforced within Europe?
I think there are three reasons why Microsoft wants to have software patents legalized in Europe:
They want it because they think it is their last possible way to fight their worst (and last remaining real) competitor: FOSS.
They want their current (illegally issued, and thus currently illegal) patents to be legalized so they can use them for defensive purposes.
They know that with about 50,000 illegally issued patents in Europe there will be a big patent war where everybody sues everybody in Europe if these illegal patents are legalized. This will give them (and the rest of the US software business) a big competitive advantage.
I guess we all remember the story of GIF. After this had become an established standard Unisys told the world that they had a patent on the compression algorithm for GIF.
And now the same is happening to JPEG.
What do you think is needed to avoid such 'submarine' patent attacks on established standards?
Microsoft burned quite a few bridges with alot of people and unless they can turn that PR machine around 180 degrees, people will continue to see them as bullies who are looking out for nobody but themselves.
I think you overestimate the general population of browser users. Most of those who have not switched have nothing else to compare MSIE with, and thus think that MSIE is the best browser that ever existed. And even among those who got burned there is the general problem of short memory (ie. most will forget if they see something acceptable from MS).
And Microsofts PR machine has a history of successfully turning around 180 degress. Just thinks of the events that lead to the first browser war.
Really? Software patents are extremely hard to read. To properly read a software patent you have to know both software and patent law, and you also have to know the special obscure language the software patents are written in.
TFA states that the cost of an informed opinion on possible infringement on a patent costs 20-100,000 US$. And there are at least 100,000 software patents.
Let's do some really simple math. For example let us assume that you have a fine idea and it costs you 20-100 US$ to implement it in software. Before you can sell your fine small piece of software (it is extremely small as it only contains one idea), you have to do your research.
You need an informed expert opinion on 100,000 patents. This will cost you 2-10 billion US$. Now, since this is a big job for the patent law firm giving the opinion, you could get lucky and negotiate a 99 percent rebate, which drops the research price down to 20-100 million US$. Of course this research gives you no guarantee that you did not infringe on any software patents.
In this example the price of the research is a million times higher than the actual development cost.
In real life it is practically impossible to check your software for infringement. This is the reason why no software companies do any real checks for infringement. The software companies that are big enough to do it instead create a portfolio of software patents for defensive use and hope that their defensive patent portfolio will help them if they step on one of the patent land mines. (Smaller companies just have to hope that they will never step on one of the land mines.)
No wonder that the main proponents of software patents are patent lawyers.
I prefer to let the free market forces rule, and this seems to be what has happened here.
But in some cases it makes sense for government to regulate the free market, in particular about (near) monopolies and anticompetitive behaviour. Forcing customers to buy fixed-line telephony from the same company if they want DSL is clearly anticompetitive behaviour.
In Denmark where I live more people have high-speed Internet access than in the United States. This is mostly due to our government imposing restrictions on anticompetitive behaviour in the telecom sector. For example we have no requirement to buy fixed-line telephony if we want high speed Internet access. And market-dominant telecoms are required to lease access wires (last mile of cobber to the consumer) to competitors at a reasonable rate (the ones owning the wires are still getting a good price so they can earn money). In some cases you can even buy telephony from one company and buy Internet access from another company on the same physical wire, but I do not think this is government-mandated.
Don't blame USPTO, they have not yet published the patent.
Instead blame the European Patent Office (EPO) for publishing a garbled patent.
And don't forget to blame them for yet another software patent which is illegal in Europe. And besides this patent is likely illegal anyway, as it is a method of disturbing the operations of computer systems (which is illegal).
It would be nice if somebody could post at least the claims of this patent.
Most of these solutions are proprietary, and probably will die as 2-3 FOSS solutions gets generally accepted.
But these 60 companies will probably prosper anyway, with supplying consultancy and support for what I think is the most successful FOSS project ever in it's application domain.
Actually there was some thought about malicious users in the first place. Basically they thought that malicious users could always be tracked down. This line of thought was something like:
If some user behaves too bad, the host operator will disable access for that user.
If some host behaves too bad, the local network operator will disable access for that host.
If some local network behaves too bad, the network operator will disable access for that local network.
If some network behaves too bad, the other networks will refuse to interconnect with that network.
Unfortunately, as time has shown, there are various problems with this protection against malicious users, most noticably:
It does not scale to the size that the internet has today.
It does not stop malicious users until after they have done something malicious, which is too late.
The old security model worked fine until the early nineties. But it is obvious to everybody that it does not work today.
Is this brain drain going to cripple the project eventually or contribute to the problems we've read in March about the Firefox development review process?
No, the companies are hiring these developers because they think can get a market advantage by using/extending/embrasing the Firefox project. And they know that their strategy is depending on an active and thriving Firefox project.
These companies are not interested in a "brain drain" from the project. If Firefox starts suffering from "brain drain" they will likely assign more developers to working on Firefox.
And of course the possibility of a well-paid job working with Firefox development will probably attract more developers to the project.
Therefore, in the matter of defendant Thomas Alva Edison versus respondent the Book Authors Guild and respondent the Sheet Music Publishers Association, this court unanimously concurs with the lower court's decree. In inventing and offering for sale his "moving picture" and "phonograph" devices, the defendant induced countless infringing acts against the holders of copyrights for books and music. Defendant Edison's assets are to be seized in order to make restitution to the respondents. Furthermore, all phonographs, record players, moving picture equipment and similar devices are to be confiscated and destroyed. All "record" companies and "film studios" most disgorge their ill-gotten gains and henceforth cease and desist all operations now and forevermore.
One side of this court case does IMHO not know what they are doing.
The recording industry tried the courts to stop radio airplay of recordings. Now radio is both a revenue source and a major free (except for payola) advertising channel.
The movie industry tried the courts to make the video recorder illegal. Now video rentals and sales are one of their largest revenue streams.
And now they try the courts to make new technology illegal - again. I bet that p2p will end up generating more revenue for these companies. (In France and several other european countries they already are generating revenue from p2p.)
This shutdown notice is nothing but a political statement. Software patents are still illegal in Europe.
What happened on Mar 7th was that an amended directive was passed without a vote or discussion by the European Council (not the European Commission). That amended directive would allow almost unlimited patentability of software and computer-supported business methods.
But the directive is not yet European law. It still needs a second reading in the Parliament.
And even after the directive has become European law it may take up to 18 months more before it becomes national law in the EU member states.
Slashdot Mirror
In fact one of the worst atrocities against the native population in Greenland was done after pressure from the US: In 1953 the native population was forced to relocate from Thule so that the US could build their radar station there. Despite an artic climate and the promise that new houses would be ready for them at their new location, they had to live in thin tents for almost half a year before they were given cheap wooden houses.
I'll tell you how we "oppress" the native population in Greenland:
-
They are all full danish citicens with voting rights to our national parliament.
-
They have an extensive home rule, and can decide almost all their local policy for themselves. Foreign policy is one of the few exceptions.
-
To ensure that they have a say in the few limits to their hole rule they are ensured 2 out of 179 seats in the danish parliament. This despite the fact that they only amount to 0.9 percent of the danish population.
-
When they decided not to be members of the EU in 1985, we respected that. Today Greenland is not a part of the EU although the rest of Denmark is.
-
To help them develop their infrastructure (expensive on the world's largest island with a sparse population) we each year give them what amounts to about US$10,000 per person in Greenland. For example this gives them affordable internet access, and today about 35 percent have internet access.
When I say "they" above, I mean all people living in Greenland. We do not make a difference between the native population and other people in Greenland, so it is hard to find statistics specifically on the native population. But I can tell you that we have not really invaded Greenland: In 1999 there were 56.087 persons living in Greenland, and only 6.806 were not born on Greenland.Don't underestimate the people in Greenland, they are good and capable people who know what they want and how to achieve it. Think twice before saying they are oppressed.
I am lucky that I cannot get jailed for viewing a legally purchased DVD under Linux. Our parliament didn't directly implement that in the law, but put an exception in the law comments that (I hope) will keep me out of jail while viewing legally purchased content with an non-approved DVD viewer.
That legislation was imposed on the EU from the US and US corporations.
Another law change was imposed specifically on our country after a threath of US trade restrictions through the WTO. This law change makes it possible for copyright holders to raid my private home if it is "probable" that I may have violated a copyright (or patent, or trademark). No need to get the police involved, a "probable violation" for a non-criminal offence is enough to get my private home raided.
In particular the last law change made it clear to me why so many people around the globe hate the US because they think the US tries to impose their views on them. This gave me a better understanding of why a lot of US-foreign people think the US is imperialistic, and condome terrorist actions.
I still do not concome terrorist actions, but I hate the US government now (fortunately not the US people although they are supposed to have democratically have selected their government), and understand why some people want to retailate against the US.
The reason you think DC is lost more quickly is probably that DC generally is used at lower voltages. With lower voltage and constant power the current is higher, thus causing a higher power loss in the cable.
Because AC is a lot easier to work with for those who transmit power. To avoid too much power loss in the transmission system the electricity has to be converted to high voltage in the transmission system, and that is a lot easier to do with AC. I do not know how you do at Lockheed Martin, but at my local power plant the turbines directly generate three-phase AC. As long as the AC frequency is a lot lower than the data signal frequency you can still transmit AC over the data cable without any noise. It is a bit harder, but still possible. But it doesn't make sense to do so, as the equipment connected needs DC.If you care about power effiency, please don't forget the power loss in the ethernet cable. The roundtrip DC resistance in the cable can be as high as 20 ohms.
When the signal from the rover disappears, we finally have proof of life on Mars ;-)
Think of the economics, and the number of people earning their income from the current prohibition:
- Prisons and prison personnel, who hold convicted marijuana consumers and dealers.
- Police and police officers, who investigate marijuana "crimes".
- Judges, court personnel and public procutors, who judge marijuana "criminals"
- Marijuana dealers, who can sell their marijuana at a higher price because of the prohibition.
All of these groups will strongly oppose legalization of marijuana, as it threathens their income.And even if you do not worry about your network provider and authorities listening, you should be aware that the GSM encryption was deliberately designed to be weak, and that it has been broken.
In case you don't know, Greenland is danish territory, and Prince Frederik is the heir to the danish throne.
Nonetheless the Mickey Mouse copyright extension was upheld by the US supreme court.
The US of A signed TRIPS, so they have to let patents be valid for at least 20 years according to article 33.
And now the same is happening to JPEG.
What do you think is needed to avoid such 'submarine' patent attacks on established standards?
And Microsofts PR machine has a history of successfully turning around 180 degress. Just thinks of the events that lead to the first browser war.
TFA states that the cost of an informed opinion on possible infringement on a patent costs 20-100,000 US$. And there are at least 100,000 software patents.
Let's do some really simple math. For example let us assume that you have a fine idea and it costs you 20-100 US$ to implement it in software. Before you can sell your fine small piece of software (it is extremely small as it only contains one idea), you have to do your research.
You need an informed expert opinion on 100,000 patents. This will cost you 2-10 billion US$. Now, since this is a big job for the patent law firm giving the opinion, you could get lucky and negotiate a 99 percent rebate, which drops the research price down to 20-100 million US$. Of course this research gives you no guarantee that you did not infringe on any software patents.
In this example the price of the research is a million times higher than the actual development cost.
In real life it is practically impossible to check your software for infringement. This is the reason why no software companies do any real checks for infringement. The software companies that are big enough to do it instead create a portfolio of software patents for defensive use and hope that their defensive patent portfolio will help them if they step on one of the patent land mines. (Smaller companies just have to hope that they will never step on one of the land mines.)
No wonder that the main proponents of software patents are patent lawyers.
I never liked Linspire, but this statement has just become my #1 reason to recommend users against ever trying it.
There are lots of fine Linux distributions around that care about security, so why choose one that doesn't care?
But in some cases it makes sense for government to regulate the free market, in particular about (near) monopolies and anticompetitive behaviour. Forcing customers to buy fixed-line telephony from the same company if they want DSL is clearly anticompetitive behaviour.
In Denmark where I live more people have high-speed Internet access than in the United States. This is mostly due to our government imposing restrictions on anticompetitive behaviour in the telecom sector. For example we have no requirement to buy fixed-line telephony if we want high speed Internet access. And market-dominant telecoms are required to lease access wires (last mile of cobber to the consumer) to competitors at a reasonable rate (the ones owning the wires are still getting a good price so they can earn money). In some cases you can even buy telephony from one company and buy Internet access from another company on the same physical wire, but I do not think this is government-mandated.
Instead blame the European Patent Office (EPO) for publishing a garbled patent.
And don't forget to blame them for yet another software patent which is illegal in Europe. And besides this patent is likely illegal anyway, as it is a method of disturbing the operations of computer systems (which is illegal).
It would be nice if somebody could post at least the claims of this patent.
Most of these solutions are proprietary, and probably will die as 2-3 FOSS solutions gets generally accepted.
But these 60 companies will probably prosper anyway, with supplying consultancy and support for what I think is the most successful FOSS project ever in it's application domain.
This is just another example of why using the GPL for content other than programs is a bad idea.
- If some user behaves too bad, the host operator will disable access for that user.
- If some host behaves too bad, the local network operator will disable access for that host.
- If some local network behaves too bad, the network operator will disable access for that local network.
- If some network behaves too bad, the other networks will refuse to interconnect with that network.
Unfortunately, as time has shown, there are various problems with this protection against malicious users, most noticably:- It does not scale to the size that the internet has today.
- It does not stop malicious users until after they have done something malicious, which is too late.
The old security model worked fine until the early nineties. But it is obvious to everybody that it does not work today.But this is Slashdot, and nothing seems to be impossible here ;-)
This is good news to the astronauts. They don't have to go on welfare yet.
These companies are not interested in a "brain drain" from the project. If Firefox starts suffering from "brain drain" they will likely assign more developers to working on Firefox.
And of course the possibility of a well-paid job working with Firefox development will probably attract more developers to the project.
One side of this court case does IMHO not know what they are doing.
The recording industry tried the courts to stop radio airplay of recordings. Now radio is both a revenue source and a major free (except for payola) advertising channel.
The movie industry tried the courts to make the video recorder illegal. Now video rentals and sales are one of their largest revenue streams.
And now they try the courts to make new technology illegal - again. I bet that p2p will end up generating more revenue for these companies. (In France and several other european countries they already are generating revenue from p2p.)
Don't these companies want to earn money?
What happened on Mar 7th was that an amended directive was passed without a vote or discussion by the European Council (not the European Commission). That amended directive would allow almost unlimited patentability of software and computer-supported business methods.
But the directive is not yet European law. It still needs a second reading in the Parliament.
And even after the directive has become European law it may take up to 18 months more before it becomes national law in the EU member states.