Would a French company be allowed to re-distribute GPL'd software in violation of the terms of the GPL by claiming this law frees them of the constraints of copyright?
Perhaps. Certainly if this idea were badly implemented that might happen. Now an optimist might instead think: "What if free/libre/open-source software gets included in this definition? Then perhaps that means that some of the tax money will necessarily have to be redistributed back to those who created the software." If OSS is included in the definition, and it's conventional copyright is replaced with this one, then indeed it would have to qualify for funding.
That might be a good thing. People create all kinds of OSS, distribute it freely. The software that becomes most recognized and useful results in funds (i.e.: incentives!) trickling back to those who created it. This could very well spawn the massive content-creation-without-copyright-enforcement that many of us yearn for.
If engineered wrong this will simply translate into a tax on internet access for everyone under French jurisdiction, which would be paid to businesses big enough to claim they represent content creators and nothing paid to the actual content creators themselves.
Yes, if engineered wrong this is a needless tax. However, I highly doubt that anyone using the internet would not be taking advantage of a fair amount of the things that are being indirectly funded. In such a scheme, people would indeed download and trade music, movies, software, etc. And if OSS were indeed receiving funding also, then you'd be hard-pressed to use the internet without in some using a piece of funded software (think webservers and such).
I am also worried that this could be turned into something really messed up. However, the current copyright system is also (in my opinion) flawed, so I think it is very much worthwhile to discuss and debate these new possibilities. I, for one, am a bit of an optimist.
You're quite right. I should have said "new architecture" rather than "new chip." And even then, this architecture is a largely incremental advance. In fact, moving from single-core architecture to dual-core architecture is much "safer" than designing a whole new chip (think going from P3 to P4), because the chip design (which is well tested) can stay mostly the same.
In fact I'm less worried about Intel screwing up the design, and more worried about the OS vendor (Apple or MS) not writing the kernel and system libraries properly, and thereby not taking full advantage of the extra processing power that is being made available. (Or making other implementation mistakes...)
New architectures always have some small growing pains. This is partly due to bugs in the design, but largely due to the OS/software developers not yet being comfortable with what the architecture can (and cannot) do. Hence why (in the short term) I said that I trusted Apple slightly more than MS to deliver a good user experience with this new Intel architecture.
Actually I think that's pretty good advice. New chips always have bugs and problems. So getting a laptop with a new Intel architecture is going to be a bit of a gamble.
Apple has a pretty good track record of: (a) Managing switches to new architectures in an efficient (seamless?) way; (b) Dealing with recalls, upgrades and problems; i.e.: they have good customer support.
So I would say if you want to be "bleeding edge" in this case, do it with Apple, who will "hold your hand" and smooth out many of the rough edges. I'm not trying to be an MS-basher, but I just don't think Windows will handle the transition as smoothly (whether it's something as bad as crashes or more subtle, like not taking full advantage of the dual-processors, I don't know). I have more confidence in Apple than MS in this case.
If you want Windows, then stick with what's known to work well, until the new architecture has gone through a few months of shakedown.
(Note: Please resist the urge to reply with the usual "Mac zealot" comments. For the record, I've never owned a Mac product.)
Many of the slashdot replies amount to "why are you asking us?" (with varying levels of rudeness) It's true that we cannot answer this question for you. Only you can decide whether your anti-patent principles are stronger/more important than easy employment.
That having been said, I would say that if you're considering leaving over this issue, then you should try a few other things first. For instance, consider talking to your boss and saying that you do not agree with patents, hence you are a bad choice to work on those projects (you won't perform optimally). The worst that could happen is they fire you (in which case you take your severance money and go get a job you like better). But if your boss is reasonable, they will re-assign you or have others do those duties. Make it clear that this is not because you are lazy or don't like the tedium of patents, but rather because you do not agree with them. This may get you into hot water if the company's bread-and-butter is patents, but so be it.
Of course, if management is not receptive (or your boss is not the type of person to respond well to honest disclosures of that type), then you have a harder choice: say nothing and write patents, or go find other work.
As I said, I think if you're seriously considering quitting then you should explore other (slightly less extreme) options. Good luck.
Fair enough. My comment wasn't intending to bash you... it was more of a rant against poor explanations of science making science sound silly when in fact it is so rigorous (tediously so, at times).
I see what you're saying about science establishing basic facts before going on to develop theories based on speculative facts. I guess I feel that science needs a healthy balance of people who work on very verifiable stuff, and people who propose outlandish ideas (that may take longer to actually connect with experiment). Even though the graviton has not yet been observed, I think it is worthwhile to consider theories that use it as a starting point. To do otherwise (to wait for every detail to be filled in before moving to the next step) would stunt progress.
But yes, you're right that ultimately these wacky theories have to be backed up with hard science that checks the fundamental assumptions. Hence why things like LIGO (searching for gravity waves, which would go also strongly insinuate that gravitons exist) are so important.
Gravity propagates at the speed of light. So in fact if the sun disappeared, we would have no way of knowing it for 8 minutes. The earth would keep rotating in its orbit for those 8 minutes, at the end of which time the sky would go dark and simultaneously the earth would fly off into space.
Relativity stipulates that no information/energy can go faster than light, so if gravity were instantaneous, it could be used to send messages faster than light. This simply isn't possible.
(Note: Although physicists all agree that gravity propagates at the speed of light, very careful measurements have/are being made of the speed of gravity, looking for subtle deviations that might point to interesting physics... which possibly could help explain things like dark matter or dark energy. In any case, the measurements thus far show that the speed of gravity is very close to the speed of light... but there is some debate, with some results hinting at a slightly higher or lower value. But in all cases the speed is not infinite; there is always a time lag for the effect of gravity to reach some point in space.)
I'm not just saying that it's a difficult choice, I'm saying that it's not clear they did the wrong thing. If you look at the comments on slashdot, you'll notice that some people think Google did the wrong thing (hence google is evil), while others think that Google did the right thing (hence sticking to their policy). This isn't a clear cut issue like "Google endorses eating babies"... it's not clear what "the right choice" is.
If you were in charge of a non-profit search engine, you would decide to not operate in China at all (rather than provide partial service)? I guess that's your stance.
However, many other morally-minded people would also do what Google did, if they were faced with that decision. Others would do as you suggest: provide nothing rather than "enabling tyrants."
I'm not suggesting that morality be decided by democracy. I'm pointing out that this is one case where you have to prove that what they did is actually wrong before you say "Shame on Google"...
As has been pointed out many times on slashdot, Google had a tough choice to make. The options were:
1. Provide no content/index in China. 2. Provide a partial content/index in China.
I, for one, consider this a worthy moral dilemma. It's by no means obvious to me that "provide nothing" is less evil than "provide partial." Part of me feels that they should have said "it's all or nothing!" as a moral stance, so as to "teach China a lesson." On the other hand, the people of China get screwed in this case: they don't get *any* content/index. That's not a great solution.
What Google decided to do was provide a partial index, WITH A WARNING that the content had been censored. This obviously isn't as good as having full access, but at least they are trying to let people know what's going on (that they are complying with local law).
Whether Google did this to "be good" or for money is irrelevant to the moral question. If I were running a free and non-profit search engine whose goal was "to bring the world's information to everyone, for free" I think I would end up making the same compromise as Google (and obviously for ethical, not monetary, reasons). Probably Google realized that this compromise made the best of a bad situation (in terms of both money and morals).
So before you condemn Google for being evil, acknowledge that this is a difficult issue and that not everyone agrees with you that they made the wrong choice.
For example something as mundane as a web proxy log may be illegal depending on the context and jurisdiction.
Not to mention that in some places, bad people will use that as a justification to shut down things they don't like. In a country that is trying to enforce censorship, they may deem that open-source software is violating its own license by allowing citizens to circumvent blockages. They will argue that this software is giving them the ability to "illegally invade privacy" (of whatever), and hence is illegal by its own license. Imagine how awful it would be if such a regime had a way to prevent free/open-source software from being used! The censorship would become that much worse.
Sounds crazy perhaps, but twisting legal wordings to justify their actions is what some people do. That's why I'm always a little worried about the GPL being extended much beyond its original scope.
For a more up-to-date account of research in this area, consider reading The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene (available at Amazon of course). I heard Brian Greene give a talk and it was an excellent explanation of complex theories (relativity, string theory) for a general audience. I have not read The Elegant Universe, but I'm told it's a good book.
In terms of what has been disproven, I think the major changes that are worth noting are:
1. At the time the book was written, it was assumed that the universe was expanding, but the rate of expansion was slowing. The question was: how much mass is there in the universe? Will the universe re-contract at some point (Big Crunch) or expand forever? However, modern measurements have actually shown that the universe is expanding, and the rate is accelerating! This has required the introduction of a new concept into cosmology: dark energy, which is not at all understood.
2. As in point #1, it was previously assumed that the mass of the universe would control the shape/topology of the universe (open vs. closed)... Modern measuremens (of the CMB for instance) show that the curvature of the universe is nearly zero. That is, the universe is flat on large scales.
3. Previously, Hawking was very clear about the fact that information that goes into a black hole can never be recovered. He even made a bet that this would never be disproven. However, Hawking recently admitted defeat. Actually, it is Hawking himself who claims to have proven that information can escape from a black hole. However, the rest of the scientific community does not agree (yet--they are looking into the matter).
4. Modern versions of string theory have added alot to the discussion, although none of them have experimental evidence backing them up (yet).
That's all that I'm aware of... there may be more changes.
Still, most of the content in "A Brief History of Time" is a general explanation of relativity and cosmology. None of that has been disproven. Modern experimental results have further validated those theories, in fact, which is interesting in and of itself!
You are correct: thanks for the clarifications. I've very much interested in quantum field theory, even though it's WAY out of my field of expertise.
For my own edification, would you mind explaining something to me? Yes, the mass of a particle determines the range, but I thought that the decay length was in some way related to the strength. That is, the Heisenberg uncertainty relations could be used to predict decay length from interaction strength (or vice-versa) in a somewhat hand-waiving way. Or are the two based on fundamental constants that are not interrelated?
In any case, for a given strength and decay length, I have often used the Heisenberg relation as a way to think about why virtual particles extend to varying ranges (and was under the impression that this was mathematically true). High-strength interactions require high-energy particles that cannot exist for very long, whereas low-energy particles can exist over greater times/distances. Put otherwise, the farther away something is, the lower the probability of a virtual particle "making it there". Is this a bad way to picture it?
Note: some of the replies to my posts have fixed mistakes I made in the explanations. For instance, it is more correct to specify that the maximum range over which a force acts has to do with the mass of the particle (which is related to particle energy, of course). Massless particles can operate over (in principle) infinite distances, so there is no upper bound to EM and gravity forces... however the "perceived distance" over which a force acts also has to do with how quickly it decays, and I believe this is related to what I was describing.
It's important to distinguish between virutal particles and real particles. Take E&M for a moment: an electric field exists because of the exchange of virtual particles between the (charged) objects in question. However, a beam of light (or radio waves etc.) is an E&M wave, and is carried by real photons. The terms 'real' and 'virtual' were used because you can directly measure real particles, whereas virtual particles are detected only indirectly (by their effect). So a beam of light is 'real' and its constituent particles will not "pop out of existence" ever (they may be absorbed or otherwise interact with other particles, mind you). So a beam of light will eventually reach the other end of the universe. However, the field "emanating" from an electrically charged stationary particle will be infinitely weak if you go infinitely far away (because only extremely low-energy virtual particles can reach out that far).
Similarly, the graviational field is made by exchanging virtual gravitons. In principle, an accelerating mass creates gravitational waves: REAL gravitons. Efforts are underway to detect these gravitational waves directly (LIGO).
OpenOSX is a commercial offering that claims to do what you are saying. They say that they are able to run Windwos and Linux images on Intel-based iMacs right now.
(Disclaimer: I've never used that product, make no claims as to its usefullness, and only know about it because of a
recent slashdot post.)
A test charge will respond to another source of charge instantly, no matter how far away it is, despite the fact that electromagnetism is limited to the speed of light.
No, I don't think that's right. In the simple treatments of E&M (prior to the 1900s), it is assumed that the effects propagate instantly. However, in a full treatment, using quantum field theory, the fields propagate only at the speed of light. So there is no instantaneous effect. Instantaneous effects would violate relativity, after all.
I'm not an expert in particle physics either, but here's what I know:
Is not one of the big problems with "gravitons" that gravity appears to act more or less instantaneously at great distances? And isn't that a little troubling from the "Action at a Distance is Big No-No" point of view?
No, according to the theories gravitons would travel at the speed of light. In fact, bear in mind that the exchange of virtual particles is what prevents "action at a distance", if you like. Instead of gravity (or magnetism) having an effect "just because", the theory explains that it is because virtual particles are flying back and forth between the two objects in question. In the case of gravity, it is virtual gravitons, and in the case of magnetism, it is virtual photons. Both travel at the speed of light, which explains why force effects (like gravity and magnetic fields) are not instantaneous: they propagate at the speed of light (this has been measured and is not in dispute).
Pioneer 10 is pretty damned far out there at this point.
Apparently
Pioneer 10 is 89 AU from the sun. 90 Astronomical Units is
12 light-hours. Still, your point is well-taken... gravity operates over distances of millions and even billions of light-years... so how can these "virtual gravitons" cover such distances? After all, supposedly virtual particles exist only for a short time!
My apologies to the hard-core particle physicists for this simplistic explanation, but here goes: When you look at the
Heisenberg Indeterminacy Principle, you find that there is a relation between space and momentum. We all know the famous "the more accurately you localize a particle, the more spread out its velocity is"... it turns out that this implies a similar relation for energy and time. What it means is that high-energy particles can "pop into existence" for very short periods of time... but low-energy particles could exist for longer times. This is what allows virtual particles to do their thing. Very strong forces (nuclear forces and electromagnetic) involve high-energy virtual particles, which can only travel short distances before "disappearing"... that's why those forces operate over short distances.
But gravity is very very weak (by comparison). So that means that a virtual graviton can pop into existence, and travel for a long distance and time (millions of years) before disappearing. That's what, in fact, causes gravity to operate over such vast distances. So in fact the distance-scales and force intensities are intrinsicaly related in quantum treatments. So "a short time" means something different for EM-forces and gravity-forces.
I hope this (simplistic) explanation is somewhat useful to someone.
I'm not an expert in gravitational theory, so I would appreciate others correcting any mistakes I make. The abstract to the paper says: "The theory allows for a variation with distance scales of the gravitational constant G, the fifth force skew symmetric field coupling strength (omega) and the mass of the skew symmetric field = 1/(lambda)."
I think this is quite a departure from what is conventional accepted about gravity. The gravitational constant, G, sets the scale for the force of interaction of gravity. It is normally assumed that this value is constant throughout the entire universe. They seem to be allowing that this value changes with distance, so that the interaction of gravity is different at small and large length-scales. That they are able to come up with a fit to actual experimental data is quite amazing... although so many bits of astronomical data have been computed assuming a particular (and constant) value of G, so to compare with "established facts" they will have to reconsider all of these previous calculations.
This is the problem when you read dumbed-down explanations of science. It really does sound like fantasy and BS. However, we have not moved into "the fantasy realm". According to our current best theories of particle physics (the standard model, etc.), virtual particles can indeed appear in the vacuum, exist for a short time, then disappear. All of this comes out of a quantum treatemnt of fields (quantum field theory, etc.), where Heisenberg indeterminacy (also called the Heisenberg uncertainty principle) leads to these quantum fluctuations on small scales.
That virtual particles appear and disappear from a vacuum is actually well established. It gives rise, for instance, to Hawking radiation, and one can even measure Casimir forces.
This new theory is clearly speculative, but that whole "particles appearing out of the vacuum" thing is not the new and interesting part. That is a plainly accepted aspect of all modern quantum theories.
The way the post is worded, I think there is some misunderstanding what a "graviton" is. The graviton is the force-carrying particle of gravity, in a similar way to the photon being the force-carrying particle for electromagnetic phenomena. Although the graviton has not yet been directly observed, there is little doubt among physicists that it does exist. The current best theories we have (standard model of particle physics, etc.) strongly suggest that it exists.
The post makes it sound like suggesting that gravitons exist is outlandish... but this is rather accepted. Instead, it seems that their theory is a particular attempt to quantize gravity (there have been many attempts over time, with all ultimately being unsatisfactory). Whether or not their new theory is useful remains to be seen.
Also, in TFA, they say: "In this case, a hypothetical particle called a graviton - which mediates gravity - appears in large numbers out of the vacuum of space in regions crowded with massive objects such as stars." Again, it is generally accepted that in any reasonable theory of quantum gravity, gravitons will be the force-carrying particle for gravity. Where there is a large gravitational field, virtual gravitons will be exchanged to mediate the force (more info on virtual particles). This is nothing new. And in particle physics, virtual particles can always appear and disappear from the vacuum.
So again, I think we can't coment much on this theory without reading the actual paper (anyone have a link?). I would like to understand what is actually novel about their formulation. Also, they are not the first to try and reformulate the basic laws of gravity to get rid of the "dark matter anomaly" and none have been found to be consistent with all the experimental data.
I'm not sure I understand what a "market for ideas" is... but assuming it's "setting a price on what an idea is worth" then I'm all for it. And incidentally, modern IP law is NOT based on setting free-market prices on ideas... it's about monopolies being granted to inflate the perceived value of ideas.
In a real free market for ideas, the value for an idea would be very, very low. Without protectionism, everyone knows that once they give out their idea, it can be spread infinitely. So people might hoard ideas and only give them out at a high price. But the problem is that "ideas" are so easy to come by that someone else, eventually, will have the same idea and will be willing to sell it for lower... or heck, they'll give it away for free. Witness what open-source (and related open concepts, like Wikipedia) has done to the cost of software: it's shown that intellectual constructs are easy enough to create that they can be commoditized... in fact, they can be created and distributed at essentially no cost.
It's been said on slashdot many times before: intellectual property law is NOT capitalistic. In a true capitalistic system, the value of an idea would be based on how hard it is to get at... in most situations, ideas are easy to get. If some inventor has an idea for a better mouse trap, you can bet that many other engineers on earth will have similar ideas. Why pay alot for something that is so trivial to generate? When it comes to software it's even worse: any decent programmer could come up with the things we see being patented. These ideas have a very low market value. I'm not trying to say that programming is worthless, or that ideas are worthless. Quite the opposite. The power in "ideas" is that: (1) they can be easily transmitted/replicated; (2) they can be modified by others easily; and (3) they are easy to come up with. Unfortunately, current IP monopolies are designed specifically to *destroy* all these advantages!
I know so many people who "have a great idea" and think that they can sell it to some venture capitalists or someone for a ton of cash. But how much are VCs going to pay for an "idea"? Nothing. The real value lies in the actual *doing*, not just having an idea. The person who actually creates a company based on an idea is the one who becomes rich. But it wasn't really the idea that made them rich, it was all the hard work they put in to make the idea become a reality.
I agree with you that if conditions (1) and (2) were met, then software patents could be a good thing; they might encourage more innovation than they deter. However, given the world we live in (and seeing how allowing patenting of software in some countries has not worked, since (1) and (2) were certainly not respected), I'm worried that the EU will screw it up also. So part of me wants to fight for "no software patents--under ANY conditions" because once laws get passed it is too easy for them to be abused.
But what you suggest would perhaps be a middle-ground worth striving for. Incidentally, with regard to (2), there is a slashdot post I read recently that described a rather interesting idea: http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=173542&cid =14438087
Basically to avoid "obvious" patents one would enforce a system where each patent is reviewed by experts (hired consultants in the field) in a 'blind' way. The "problem" is given to them, and if any of them come up with a "solution" that is essentially identical to the patent, then the patent is automatically stamped as "obvious" and denied. The added cost of such a system could be handled by fees added to the patenting process; or, better yet, penalties applied to those who file patents that are rejected for being "obvious". A financial penalty for a patent being "obvious" would encourage most patent filers to be more cautious, and not make their patents so broad.
I like that proposal because it seems quite fair. So many of the patents we complain about would have been named as an "obvious" solution by any expert. Problem: "How to make online purchases easier." Solution: "One click and the purchase is made--easy to implement for any programmer." Result: "OneClick patent rejected for being too obvious." Truly novel ideas, however, could be patented under such a system.
As new cars start getting nicer head units with larger LED displays, what stops Google from using this space as a text ad? When people look down to see the name of the song, they get exposed to...
Interesting idea, but I don't think that would work. The problems I see are:
1. Most of the time, the person in a car listening to the radio is also driving... so they will seldomly look at that little LED, *unless* they are changing channel or suddenly hear a song they don't recognize, but like.
2. Based on point #2, people will STOP looking at that little LED (even when changing channels or hearing a new song) if it displays ads, instead of the information they want (even if it displays an ad only 20% of the time, people will no longer use it/trust it). In fact, cars will stop even implementing that feature, because the consumer won't be willing to put up with the added cost, since that LED-space becomes worse than a waste: it becomes annoying and a distraction. Witness what has happened with pop-ups on the web.
This article irritates me in the way that most news media coverage irritates me: they purposefully polarize an issue, then present two exaggerated extremes, and try to figure out which one is correct. In the real world, neither is correct, and the truth is somewhere in between.
This article tries to conclude "there is no open source community." They say: "Some software vendors believe that open source is an ideological movement." but say that this is an "entertaining narrative" and that the conventional wisdom (that ideological people drive open source) is wrong.
Why can the middle ground be true? Ideological believers in open source contribute significantly to open source. They evangelize and often they diretly contribute (with code, for instance!). Will an open source project die if the ideological believers abandon it? Will an open source project die if the community stops caring? The answer is (as always): it depends. Many projects are community-driven, so of course they require the community push. Others are driven more by companies, so as long as there are enough companies involved, the project will persist.
I have not finished reading the article, but already I'm annoyed. I find the black vs. white picture it paints a bit boring. The real world is complicated. It is worth making the point that companies should not fall into naive assumptions about open-source... but then again they would be silly to ignore the history of open-source, and the fact that alot of it really is driven and maintained by the community. Use that community to your advantage (but do not be led to believe that they are the final word in every respect).
So is there an Open-Source Community? Yes, of course.
I love Ghost too... it's a lifesaver. However it can get expensive if you need many copies. You should also consider using the (obviously free) linux partimage which can do the same things. In fact, it can make images of a greater variety of filesystem types (at least compared to the last version of Ghost I used). Even if you're running Windows boxes, you can still boot off of a Linux LiveCD, and use partimage to backup/restore partitions (in fact, there is a Linux LiveCD specifically optimized for rescuing your PC: System Rescue CD, which includes partimage).
It'll be interesting to see if Apple actually sues. This is a small-time outfit (total sales: 0, projected sales: 100... or maybe 0), so maybe Apple won't care.
On the other hand, if Apple does think about litigation, they have a very solid case. First off, copyright infringement. The guys have replicated text from the Apple site without even changing it, and have copied graphics too: Apple iTab
In terms of trademark, they are pretty clearly infringing. The use of the "iThing" naming scheme, in relation to computer devices (and specifically Apple/Mac computers!) is pretty clearly trademarked by Apple. I think a very legitimate case could be made for saying that consumers will be confused. For instance, the iTab people even claim, in the specs "Product Family: iTab"... as if it is officialy sanctioned by Apple. Slashdotters can tell the difference, but what about the population at large?
AFAIK it's legal to buy hardware, modify it, and resell it to someone else. They have not signed any contracts will Apple, and are buying the hardware at the retail price. However, it does seem that they are trying to act like a business, buying and selling in large quantities (they claim 100). I'm curious to know whether or not this is okay (if they resolved the trademark/copyright issues mentioned above).
Overall, this thing is such insane vaporware that we'll probably never see anything come of it. I can understand that they want to build them only as they are requested, but to not even have built a SINGLE ONE? That's crazy! How about you build one, sell it, and then start building the next? Who would actually buy the first one, without any guarantee that these guys know what they are doing?
Slashdot Mirror
Would a French company be allowed to re-distribute GPL'd software in violation of the terms of the GPL by claiming this law frees them of the constraints of copyright?
Perhaps. Certainly if this idea were badly implemented that might happen. Now an optimist might instead think: "What if free/libre/open-source software gets included in this definition? Then perhaps that means that some of the tax money will necessarily have to be redistributed back to those who created the software." If OSS is included in the definition, and it's conventional copyright is replaced with this one, then indeed it would have to qualify for funding.
That might be a good thing. People create all kinds of OSS, distribute it freely. The software that becomes most recognized and useful results in funds (i.e.: incentives!) trickling back to those who created it. This could very well spawn the massive content-creation-without-copyright-enforcement that many of us yearn for.
If engineered wrong this will simply translate into a tax on internet access for everyone under French jurisdiction, which would be paid to businesses big enough to claim they represent content creators and nothing paid to the actual content creators themselves.
Yes, if engineered wrong this is a needless tax. However, I highly doubt that anyone using the internet would not be taking advantage of a fair amount of the things that are being indirectly funded. In such a scheme, people would indeed download and trade music, movies, software, etc. And if OSS were indeed receiving funding also, then you'd be hard-pressed to use the internet without in some using a piece of funded software (think webservers and such).
I am also worried that this could be turned into something really messed up. However, the current copyright system is also (in my opinion) flawed, so I think it is very much worthwhile to discuss and debate these new possibilities. I, for one, am a bit of an optimist.
You're quite right. I should have said "new architecture" rather than "new chip." And even then, this architecture is a largely incremental advance. In fact, moving from single-core architecture to dual-core architecture is much "safer" than designing a whole new chip (think going from P3 to P4), because the chip design (which is well tested) can stay mostly the same.
In fact I'm less worried about Intel screwing up the design, and more worried about the OS vendor (Apple or MS) not writing the kernel and system libraries properly, and thereby not taking full advantage of the extra processing power that is being made available. (Or making other implementation mistakes...)
New architectures always have some small growing pains. This is partly due to bugs in the design, but largely due to the OS/software developers not yet being comfortable with what the architecture can (and cannot) do. Hence why (in the short term) I said that I trusted Apple slightly more than MS to deliver a good user experience with this new Intel architecture.
Actually I think that's pretty good advice. New chips always have bugs and problems. So getting a laptop with a new Intel architecture is going to be a bit of a gamble.
Apple has a pretty good track record of:
(a) Managing switches to new architectures in an efficient (seamless?) way;
(b) Dealing with recalls, upgrades and problems; i.e.: they have good customer support.
So I would say if you want to be "bleeding edge" in this case, do it with Apple, who will "hold your hand" and smooth out many of the rough edges. I'm not trying to be an MS-basher, but I just don't think Windows will handle the transition as smoothly (whether it's something as bad as crashes or more subtle, like not taking full advantage of the dual-processors, I don't know). I have more confidence in Apple than MS in this case.
If you want Windows, then stick with what's known to work well, until the new architecture has gone through a few months of shakedown.
(Note: Please resist the urge to reply with the usual "Mac zealot" comments. For the record, I've never owned a Mac product.)
Many of the slashdot replies amount to "why are you asking us?" (with varying levels of rudeness) It's true that we cannot answer this question for you. Only you can decide whether your anti-patent principles are stronger/more important than easy employment.
That having been said, I would say that if you're considering leaving over this issue, then you should try a few other things first. For instance, consider talking to your boss and saying that you do not agree with patents, hence you are a bad choice to work on those projects (you won't perform optimally). The worst that could happen is they fire you (in which case you take your severance money and go get a job you like better). But if your boss is reasonable, they will re-assign you or have others do those duties. Make it clear that this is not because you are lazy or don't like the tedium of patents, but rather because you do not agree with them. This may get you into hot water if the company's bread-and-butter is patents, but so be it.
Of course, if management is not receptive (or your boss is not the type of person to respond well to honest disclosures of that type), then you have a harder choice: say nothing and write patents, or go find other work.
As I said, I think if you're seriously considering quitting then you should explore other (slightly less extreme) options. Good luck.
Fair enough. My comment wasn't intending to bash you... it was more of a rant against poor explanations of science making science sound silly when in fact it is so rigorous (tediously so, at times).
I see what you're saying about science establishing basic facts before going on to develop theories based on speculative facts. I guess I feel that science needs a healthy balance of people who work on very verifiable stuff, and people who propose outlandish ideas (that may take longer to actually connect with experiment). Even though the graviton has not yet been observed, I think it is worthwhile to consider theories that use it as a starting point. To do otherwise (to wait for every detail to be filled in before moving to the next step) would stunt progress.
But yes, you're right that ultimately these wacky theories have to be backed up with hard science that checks the fundamental assumptions. Hence why things like LIGO (searching for gravity waves, which would go also strongly insinuate that gravitons exist) are so important.
Gravity propagates at the speed of light. So in fact if the sun disappeared, we would have no way of knowing it for 8 minutes. The earth would keep rotating in its orbit for those 8 minutes, at the end of which time the sky would go dark and simultaneously the earth would fly off into space.
Relativity stipulates that no information/energy can go faster than light, so if gravity were instantaneous, it could be used to send messages faster than light. This simply isn't possible.
(Note: Although physicists all agree that gravity propagates at the speed of light, very careful measurements have/are being made of the speed of gravity, looking for subtle deviations that might point to interesting physics... which possibly could help explain things like dark matter or dark energy. In any case, the measurements thus far show that the speed of gravity is very close to the speed of light... but there is some debate, with some results hinting at a slightly higher or lower value. But in all cases the speed is not infinite; there is always a time lag for the effect of gravity to reach some point in space.)
Hope that helps.
I'm not just saying that it's a difficult choice, I'm saying that it's not clear they did the wrong thing. If you look at the comments on slashdot, you'll notice that some people think Google did the wrong thing (hence google is evil), while others think that Google did the right thing (hence sticking to their policy). This isn't a clear cut issue like "Google endorses eating babies"... it's not clear what "the right choice" is.
If you were in charge of a non-profit search engine, you would decide to not operate in China at all (rather than provide partial service)? I guess that's your stance.
However, many other morally-minded people would also do what Google did, if they were faced with that decision. Others would do as you suggest: provide nothing rather than "enabling tyrants."
I'm not suggesting that morality be decided by democracy. I'm pointing out that this is one case where you have to prove that what they did is actually wrong before you say "Shame on Google"...
As has been pointed out many times on slashdot, Google had a tough choice to make. The options were:
1. Provide no content/index in China.
2. Provide a partial content/index in China.
I, for one, consider this a worthy moral dilemma. It's by no means obvious to me that "provide nothing" is less evil than "provide partial." Part of me feels that they should have said "it's all or nothing!" as a moral stance, so as to "teach China a lesson." On the other hand, the people of China get screwed in this case: they don't get *any* content/index. That's not a great solution.
What Google decided to do was provide a partial index, WITH A WARNING that the content had been censored. This obviously isn't as good as having full access, but at least they are trying to let people know what's going on (that they are complying with local law).
Whether Google did this to "be good" or for money is irrelevant to the moral question. If I were running a free and non-profit search engine whose goal was "to bring the world's information to everyone, for free" I think I would end up making the same compromise as Google (and obviously for ethical, not monetary, reasons). Probably Google realized that this compromise made the best of a bad situation (in terms of both money and morals).
So before you condemn Google for being evil, acknowledge that this is a difficult issue and that not everyone agrees with you that they made the wrong choice.
For example something as mundane as a web proxy log may be illegal depending on the context and jurisdiction.
Not to mention that in some places, bad people will use that as a justification to shut down things they don't like. In a country that is trying to enforce censorship, they may deem that open-source software is violating its own license by allowing citizens to circumvent blockages. They will argue that this software is giving them the ability to "illegally invade privacy" (of whatever), and hence is illegal by its own license. Imagine how awful it would be if such a regime had a way to prevent free/open-source software from being used! The censorship would become that much worse.
Sounds crazy perhaps, but twisting legal wordings to justify their actions is what some people do. That's why I'm always a little worried about the GPL being extended much beyond its original scope.
There's an easy way to answer that question... just look at his "signature"! In a shell:
man rsync
man samba
(or check out an equivalent webpage on rsync, or samba)
In the "Author" section he always writes it:
Andrew Tridgell (that's the name used in the wikipedia entry, too).
In the examples section of rsync, however, he writes:
rsync -az -e ssh --delete ~ftp/pub/samba/ nim-bus:"~ftp/pub/tridge/samba"
So I guess he uses "tridge" as a nickname for himself.
For a more up-to-date account of research in this area, consider reading The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene (available at Amazon of course). I heard Brian Greene give a talk and it was an excellent explanation of complex theories (relativity, string theory) for a general audience. I have not read The Elegant Universe, but I'm told it's a good book.
In terms of what has been disproven, I think the major changes that are worth noting are:
1. At the time the book was written, it was assumed that the universe was expanding, but the rate of expansion was slowing. The question was: how much mass is there in the universe? Will the universe re-contract at some point (Big Crunch) or expand forever? However, modern measurements have actually shown that the universe is expanding, and the rate is accelerating! This has required the introduction of a new concept into cosmology: dark energy, which is not at all understood.
2. As in point #1, it was previously assumed that the mass of the universe would control the shape/topology of the universe (open vs. closed)... Modern measuremens (of the CMB for instance) show that the curvature of the universe is nearly zero. That is, the universe is flat on large scales.
3. Previously, Hawking was very clear about the fact that information that goes into a black hole can never be recovered. He even made a bet that this would never be disproven. However, Hawking recently admitted defeat. Actually, it is Hawking himself who claims to have proven that information can escape from a black hole. However, the rest of the scientific community does not agree (yet--they are looking into the matter).
4. Modern versions of string theory have added alot to the discussion, although none of them have experimental evidence backing them up (yet).
That's all that I'm aware of... there may be more changes. Still, most of the content in "A Brief History of Time" is a general explanation of relativity and cosmology. None of that has been disproven. Modern experimental results have further validated those theories, in fact, which is interesting in and of itself!
You are correct: thanks for the clarifications. I've very much interested in quantum field theory, even though it's WAY out of my field of expertise. For my own edification, would you mind explaining something to me? Yes, the mass of a particle determines the range, but I thought that the decay length was in some way related to the strength. That is, the Heisenberg uncertainty relations could be used to predict decay length from interaction strength (or vice-versa) in a somewhat hand-waiving way. Or are the two based on fundamental constants that are not interrelated? In any case, for a given strength and decay length, I have often used the Heisenberg relation as a way to think about why virtual particles extend to varying ranges (and was under the impression that this was mathematically true). High-strength interactions require high-energy particles that cannot exist for very long, whereas low-energy particles can exist over greater times/distances. Put otherwise, the farther away something is, the lower the probability of a virtual particle "making it there". Is this a bad way to picture it?
Note: some of the replies to my posts have fixed mistakes I made in the explanations. For instance, it is more correct to specify that the maximum range over which a force acts has to do with the mass of the particle (which is related to particle energy, of course). Massless particles can operate over (in principle) infinite distances, so there is no upper bound to EM and gravity forces... however the "perceived distance" over which a force acts also has to do with how quickly it decays, and I believe this is related to what I was describing.
It's important to distinguish between virutal particles and real particles. Take E&M for a moment: an electric field exists because of the exchange of virtual particles between the (charged) objects in question. However, a beam of light (or radio waves etc.) is an E&M wave, and is carried by real photons. The terms 'real' and 'virtual' were used because you can directly measure real particles, whereas virtual particles are detected only indirectly (by their effect). So a beam of light is 'real' and its constituent particles will not "pop out of existence" ever (they may be absorbed or otherwise interact with other particles, mind you). So a beam of light will eventually reach the other end of the universe. However, the field "emanating" from an electrically charged stationary particle will be infinitely weak if you go infinitely far away (because only extremely low-energy virtual particles can reach out that far).
Similarly, the graviational field is made by exchanging virtual gravitons. In principle, an accelerating mass creates gravitational waves: REAL gravitons. Efforts are underway to detect these gravitational waves directly (LIGO).
OpenOSX is a commercial offering that claims to do what you are saying. They say that they are able to run Windwos and Linux images on Intel-based iMacs right now.
(Disclaimer: I've never used that product, make no claims as to its usefullness, and only know about it because of a recent slashdot post.)
A test charge will respond to another source of charge instantly, no matter how far away it is, despite the fact that electromagnetism is limited to the speed of light.
No, I don't think that's right. In the simple treatments of E&M (prior to the 1900s), it is assumed that the effects propagate instantly. However, in a full treatment, using quantum field theory, the fields propagate only at the speed of light. So there is no instantaneous effect. Instantaneous effects would violate relativity, after all.
I'm not an expert in particle physics either, but here's what I know:
Is not one of the big problems with "gravitons" that gravity appears to act more or less instantaneously at great distances? And isn't that a little troubling from the "Action at a Distance is Big No-No" point of view?
No, according to the theories gravitons would travel at the speed of light. In fact, bear in mind that the exchange of virtual particles is what prevents "action at a distance", if you like. Instead of gravity (or magnetism) having an effect "just because", the theory explains that it is because virtual particles are flying back and forth between the two objects in question. In the case of gravity, it is virtual gravitons, and in the case of magnetism, it is virtual photons. Both travel at the speed of light, which explains why force effects (like gravity and magnetic fields) are not instantaneous: they propagate at the speed of light (this has been measured and is not in dispute).
Pioneer 10 is pretty damned far out there at this point.
Apparently Pioneer 10 is 89 AU from the sun. 90 Astronomical Units is 12 light-hours. Still, your point is well-taken... gravity operates over distances of millions and even billions of light-years... so how can these "virtual gravitons" cover such distances? After all, supposedly virtual particles exist only for a short time!
My apologies to the hard-core particle physicists for this simplistic explanation, but here goes: When you look at the Heisenberg Indeterminacy Principle, you find that there is a relation between space and momentum. We all know the famous "the more accurately you localize a particle, the more spread out its velocity is"... it turns out that this implies a similar relation for energy and time. What it means is that high-energy particles can "pop into existence" for very short periods of time... but low-energy particles could exist for longer times. This is what allows virtual particles to do their thing. Very strong forces (nuclear forces and electromagnetic) involve high-energy virtual particles, which can only travel short distances before "disappearing"... that's why those forces operate over short distances.
But gravity is very very weak (by comparison). So that means that a virtual graviton can pop into existence, and travel for a long distance and time (millions of years) before disappearing. That's what, in fact, causes gravity to operate over such vast distances. So in fact the distance-scales and force intensities are intrinsicaly related in quantum treatments. So "a short time" means something different for EM-forces and gravity-forces.
I hope this (simplistic) explanation is somewhat useful to someone.
Sorry to reply to my own post, but here are, possibly, the scientific papers in question. Doing a search on arXiv for the names of the authors (Joel Brownstein John Moffat) provides a paper entitled "Gravitational solution to the Pioneer 10/11 anomaly" (warning: PDF).
I'm not an expert in gravitational theory, so I would appreciate others correcting any mistakes I make. The abstract to the paper says: "The theory allows for a variation with distance scales of the gravitational constant G, the fifth force skew symmetric field coupling strength (omega) and the mass of the skew symmetric field = 1/(lambda)."
I think this is quite a departure from what is conventional accepted about gravity. The gravitational constant, G, sets the scale for the force of interaction of gravity. It is normally assumed that this value is constant throughout the entire universe. They seem to be allowing that this value changes with distance, so that the interaction of gravity is different at small and large length-scales. That they are able to come up with a fit to actual experimental data is quite amazing... although so many bits of astronomical data have been computed assuming a particular (and constant) value of G, so to compare with "established facts" they will have to reconsider all of these previous calculations.
This is the problem when you read dumbed-down explanations of science. It really does sound like fantasy and BS. However, we have not moved into "the fantasy realm". According to our current best theories of particle physics (the standard model, etc.), virtual particles can indeed appear in the vacuum, exist for a short time, then disappear. All of this comes out of a quantum treatemnt of fields (quantum field theory, etc.), where Heisenberg indeterminacy (also called the Heisenberg uncertainty principle) leads to these quantum fluctuations on small scales.
That virtual particles appear and disappear from a vacuum is actually well established. It gives rise, for instance, to Hawking radiation, and one can even measure Casimir forces.
This new theory is clearly speculative, but that whole "particles appearing out of the vacuum" thing is not the new and interesting part. That is a plainly accepted aspect of all modern quantum theories.
The way the post is worded, I think there is some misunderstanding what a "graviton" is. The graviton is the force-carrying particle of gravity, in a similar way to the photon being the force-carrying particle for electromagnetic phenomena. Although the graviton has not yet been directly observed, there is little doubt among physicists that it does exist. The current best theories we have (standard model of particle physics, etc.) strongly suggest that it exists.
The post makes it sound like suggesting that gravitons exist is outlandish... but this is rather accepted. Instead, it seems that their theory is a particular attempt to quantize gravity (there have been many attempts over time, with all ultimately being unsatisfactory). Whether or not their new theory is useful remains to be seen.
Also, in TFA, they say: "In this case, a hypothetical particle called a graviton - which mediates gravity - appears in large numbers out of the vacuum of space in regions crowded with massive objects such as stars." Again, it is generally accepted that in any reasonable theory of quantum gravity, gravitons will be the force-carrying particle for gravity. Where there is a large gravitational field, virtual gravitons will be exchanged to mediate the force (more info on virtual particles). This is nothing new. And in particle physics, virtual particles can always appear and disappear from the vacuum.
So again, I think we can't coment much on this theory without reading the actual paper (anyone have a link?). I would like to understand what is actually novel about their formulation. Also, they are not the first to try and reformulate the basic laws of gravity to get rid of the "dark matter anomaly" and none have been found to be consistent with all the experimental data.
I'm not sure I understand what a "market for ideas" is... but assuming it's "setting a price on what an idea is worth" then I'm all for it. And incidentally, modern IP law is NOT based on setting free-market prices on ideas... it's about monopolies being granted to inflate the perceived value of ideas.
In a real free market for ideas, the value for an idea would be very, very low. Without protectionism, everyone knows that once they give out their idea, it can be spread infinitely. So people might hoard ideas and only give them out at a high price. But the problem is that "ideas" are so easy to come by that someone else, eventually, will have the same idea and will be willing to sell it for lower... or heck, they'll give it away for free. Witness what open-source (and related open concepts, like Wikipedia) has done to the cost of software: it's shown that intellectual constructs are easy enough to create that they can be commoditized... in fact, they can be created and distributed at essentially no cost.
It's been said on slashdot many times before: intellectual property law is NOT capitalistic. In a true capitalistic system, the value of an idea would be based on how hard it is to get at... in most situations, ideas are easy to get. If some inventor has an idea for a better mouse trap, you can bet that many other engineers on earth will have similar ideas. Why pay alot for something that is so trivial to generate? When it comes to software it's even worse: any decent programmer could come up with the things we see being patented. These ideas have a very low market value. I'm not trying to say that programming is worthless, or that ideas are worthless. Quite the opposite. The power in "ideas" is that: (1) they can be easily transmitted/replicated; (2) they can be modified by others easily; and (3) they are easy to come up with. Unfortunately, current IP monopolies are designed specifically to *destroy* all these advantages!
I know so many people who "have a great idea" and think that they can sell it to some venture capitalists or someone for a ton of cash. But how much are VCs going to pay for an "idea"? Nothing. The real value lies in the actual *doing*, not just having an idea. The person who actually creates a company based on an idea is the one who becomes rich. But it wasn't really the idea that made them rich, it was all the hard work they put in to make the idea become a reality.
--end random musing mode--
I agree with you that if conditions (1) and (2) were met, then software patents could be a good thing; they might encourage more innovation than they deter. However, given the world we live in (and seeing how allowing patenting of software in some countries has not worked, since (1) and (2) were certainly not respected), I'm worried that the EU will screw it up also. So part of me wants to fight for "no software patents--under ANY conditions" because once laws get passed it is too easy for them to be abused.
d =14438087
But what you suggest would perhaps be a middle-ground worth striving for. Incidentally, with regard to (2), there is a slashdot post I read recently that described a rather interesting idea:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=173542&ci
Basically to avoid "obvious" patents one would enforce a system where each patent is reviewed by experts (hired consultants in the field) in a 'blind' way. The "problem" is given to them, and if any of them come up with a "solution" that is essentially identical to the patent, then the patent is automatically stamped as "obvious" and denied. The added cost of such a system could be handled by fees added to the patenting process; or, better yet, penalties applied to those who file patents that are rejected for being "obvious". A financial penalty for a patent being "obvious" would encourage most patent filers to be more cautious, and not make their patents so broad.
I like that proposal because it seems quite fair. So many of the patents we complain about would have been named as an "obvious" solution by any expert. Problem: "How to make online purchases easier." Solution: "One click and the purchase is made--easy to implement for any programmer." Result: "OneClick patent rejected for being too obvious." Truly novel ideas, however, could be patented under such a system.
As new cars start getting nicer head units with larger LED displays, what stops Google from using this space as a text ad? When people look down to see the name of the song, they get exposed to...
Interesting idea, but I don't think that would work. The problems I see are:
1. Most of the time, the person in a car listening to the radio is also driving... so they will seldomly look at that little LED, *unless* they are changing channel or suddenly hear a song they don't recognize, but like.
2. Based on point #2, people will STOP looking at that little LED (even when changing channels or hearing a new song) if it displays ads, instead of the information they want (even if it displays an ad only 20% of the time, people will no longer use it/trust it). In fact, cars will stop even implementing that feature, because the consumer won't be willing to put up with the added cost, since that LED-space becomes worse than a waste: it becomes annoying and a distraction. Witness what has happened with pop-ups on the web.
This article irritates me in the way that most news media coverage irritates me: they purposefully polarize an issue, then present two exaggerated extremes, and try to figure out which one is correct. In the real world, neither is correct, and the truth is somewhere in between.
This article tries to conclude "there is no open source community." They say: "Some software vendors believe that open source is an ideological movement." but say that this is an "entertaining narrative" and that the conventional wisdom (that ideological people drive open source) is wrong.
Why can the middle ground be true? Ideological believers in open source contribute significantly to open source. They evangelize and often they diretly contribute (with code, for instance!). Will an open source project die if the ideological believers abandon it? Will an open source project die if the community stops caring? The answer is (as always): it depends. Many projects are community-driven, so of course they require the community push. Others are driven more by companies, so as long as there are enough companies involved, the project will persist.
I have not finished reading the article, but already I'm annoyed. I find the black vs. white picture it paints a bit boring. The real world is complicated. It is worth making the point that companies should not fall into naive assumptions about open-source... but then again they would be silly to ignore the history of open-source, and the fact that alot of it really is driven and maintained by the community. Use that community to your advantage (but do not be led to believe that they are the final word in every respect).
So is there an Open-Source Community? Yes, of course.
I love Ghost too... it's a lifesaver. However it can get expensive if you need many copies. You should also consider using the (obviously free) linux partimage which can do the same things. In fact, it can make images of a greater variety of filesystem types (at least compared to the last version of Ghost I used). Even if you're running Windows boxes, you can still boot off of a Linux LiveCD, and use partimage to backup/restore partitions (in fact, there is a Linux LiveCD specifically optimized for rescuing your PC: System Rescue CD, which includes partimage).
It'll be interesting to see if Apple actually sues. This is a small-time outfit (total sales: 0, projected sales: 100... or maybe 0), so maybe Apple won't care.
... as if it is officialy sanctioned by Apple. Slashdotters can tell the difference, but what about the population at large?
On the other hand, if Apple does think about litigation, they have a very solid case. First off, copyright infringement. The guys have replicated text from the Apple site without even changing it, and have copied graphics too:
Apple
iTab
In terms of trademark, they are pretty clearly infringing. The use of the "iThing" naming scheme, in relation to computer devices (and specifically Apple/Mac computers!) is pretty clearly trademarked by Apple. I think a very legitimate case could be made for saying that consumers will be confused. For instance, the iTab people even claim, in the specs "Product Family: iTab"
AFAIK it's legal to buy hardware, modify it, and resell it to someone else. They have not signed any contracts will Apple, and are buying the hardware at the retail price. However, it does seem that they are trying to act like a business, buying and selling in large quantities (they claim 100). I'm curious to know whether or not this is okay (if they resolved the trademark/copyright issues mentioned above).
Overall, this thing is such insane vaporware that we'll probably never see anything come of it. I can understand that they want to build them only as they are requested, but to not even have built a SINGLE ONE? That's crazy! How about you build one, sell it, and then start building the next? Who would actually buy the first one, without any guarantee that these guys know what they are doing?