You smell kinda like a troll, but I'll bite anyway, you might "just" be uninformed, and if I'm wrong, some one may have believed you and gotten uninformed.
Could you give an example of anything in the software area that would have benefited from such a patent?
Also, what stops that from happening even with a patent system? Look here, written in easy-to-understand Slashdot style:
1. You write a nice piece of software doing X in a novel way
2. You apply for a patent
3. You get it, nice.:)
4. You start selling your app.
5. BigCorpCo notices your app, sees it fulfills a market desire and wants to use it without paying you royalties.
6. BigCorpCo asks its lawyers to find all of their "trivial" patents that you accidentally inflicted on when writing the software.
7. BigCorpCo sends you an C&D-letter asking you to
8a. Pay them royalties
8b. Grant them cross-licensing rights for free.
8c. Get sued into oblivion.
9. (...)
10. Profit!!! (ie for BigCorpCo, not for you...):(
Basically, there might (please give me one example, BTW, of such situations in the past) be situations, where software patents could be usable. But even though there is at least one such situation, the patent system would also carry so much bad things that it's basically not worth it.
Also, many software developers are really tiny. What you need is basically a computer (a $100 one does the job albeit slowly), and enough money to pay for food and possibly rent until you (hopefully) get your first sales.
For such companies, even the costs of applying for a patent may be inhibitely high to actually apply for them. And we shouldn't even talk about court conflicts. They could be the tenfold of the total yearly budget...
The only small companies being able to defend their own patents would be the ones not really using them, but having the business idea "sue every one who tries to do what we thought of (ie bought from some one else) first!".
Or are you saying only big companies should be able to hold software patents and be able to use them in practice???
Yep, it's pretty undemocratic, but of course, then EU never has been a democracy (even though there's even a demand that the member states have to be). It's basically nothing more then a union between the member states, dictated by the governments/majorities in each country.
Basically all of the power that EU has is held by the european council, which just is the prime ministers of each country (or in specific questions the minister whose area it is, eg agriculture/work market/whatever ministers). They have the right to sign treaties for their countries. (Which is basically the way "everything" decided in EU has to be decided, as EU really isn't a nation on its own).
This seemed so undemocratical though, so they created the parliament too. Basically, it has the right to give advice, and some vetoing rights, but not much more. Its purpose is more or less to make matters seem democratical. Then there's of course the commisionary, to further complicate the issue. Even though I'm interested in the topic, I don't really understand the system, and I hardly even expect my MEPs to understand it, as it is quite complicated...
Both IPv4 and IPv6 were designed to be implementable as software protocols. They were also smart enough to implement a version flag in the protocol. There is nothing at all stopping you from installing dual IP stacks on all of your computers, giving each interface an IPv4 and one IPv6 adress, and use both of them interchangably.
What is stopping the implementation of IPv6 are those pesky legacy devices, legacy operating systems (ie Windows) and legacy hardware accelerated routers, and the fact the Internet being as big as it is - it's basically impossible to do a clean switchover, and there ARE problems when combining the two systems - even though you can have both on the same network, they won't be interoperable (=really bad).
Of course IPv6 has been designed to work around these issues as well as possible, but there will be issues eg getting a IPv4 machine to connect to a IPv6 one. And NAT has been the easier-to-implement short-term-solution for home 'puters etc...
No, it's not to cover piracy at all. It's to cover private copying under the equivalent to the american fair use clause. However, it still is bad - they more or less outlawed private copying anyway, in that they outlawed breaking DRM (Digital (Rights)/Restrictions Management aka copy-protection) for making a copy, and also making spreading information about it illegal (I'm not quite sure how they get that to work without violating free speech rights). Basically, they lowered the possibilities to make a lawful copy considerably, and still the levy is raised, and also applied to new medias like general purpose CDR and DVDR, and to MP3 players etc. Earlier it was only applied to audio and videotapes, and special audio CDs.
But that's exactly where he goes wrong - there's no demand from the FSF definition (they were the first to use the term) of "free software" that it has to be gratis - it's totally possible to charge for it too...
1) They DO run both VoIP and video-on-demand, IIRC. Or if that's the other broadband supplier?
2) I DO suspect them to actually have some kind of cap, if nothing else only having a limited pipe to the intarweb (can't get very much fatter than 1 Gbit - is there really anything bigger than 10 Gbit? - and I would suspect it to be shared among quite a lot of users).
3) The prices mentioned in the article are quite hefty. 850 SEK / Month = appr. $120 / Month. And a connection fee a bit above $200 (this is for clients already connected to the "normal" service - so perhaps I should call it an "upgrade fee" instead).
4) This is for ISPs specializing in connecting whole neighborhoods, including grandma surfing (even though she won't sign up for this deal, she's paying part of it anyway).
5) As far as I know, there isn't any special government subsidizing. There ARE some subsidize systems, but they're more aimed at getting broadband at all (the coverage is still really spotty on the countryside, my parents are still on phonemodem even though they live in one of the more densely populated parts of non-urban Sweden) - and even for that the money is far from enough. (The socialdemocrats promised "Bredband åt alla" during the elections, but it have hardly helped anyone at all to get it).
6) This is still an exception, even in Sweden, even 100/100 is still really unusual except at universities (the normal being 10/10 or X/1 where X=2,4,6,8 or 28), if nothing else because it also costs quite a lot.
7) There's no chance in hell that the connections are being used to their full potential, even with P2P'ing, unless you connect a small sized LAN party to them. At gigabit speeds, you would fill a 200 GB harddrive in only approximately 45 minutes (and uploading as much). Normal computers can't even handle that rate of I/O in theory, and nevertheless, it isn't very likely you would be able to bypass the human bottleneck in the system...
8) Basically, I think the answer is really to find in the swedish market structure: a) swedes are hightech-people, knowing what to get, b) there has been quite a lot of competition on the swedish market, with Bredbandsbolaget pioneering really affordable and easy-to-get symmetrical broadband connections (10/10) really early (multiappartment house LAN connections), making swedes expect more. Basically, it's lead to a kind of bandwidth race...
Loss of limb:
The main problem is a mouse replacement. Trackball or touchpad on the keyboard works well. Alternatively, a foot based control could work, and may be better in some ways (you could type and mouse simultaneously.
How exactly were you thinking? With one arm left, you could type and use the mouse with that one. With none, you neiter can type or use the mouse - ie an alternative keyboard technology is needed...
I wouldn't count on it. They are even voting for the software patents in the European parliament, the only other swedish political party doing that is Moderaterna (conservative/liberal for you non-swedes)
Not sure about tarballs, but Internet Explorer (!!!) does support some kind of format based off of the MIME-format usually used in emails for this (don't have a windows 'puter running right now so I can't actually check it) - and as far as I know they HAVEN'T embraced and extended it.
Perhaps because as far as I know none of the open-source really uses it all. Of course the implementation in MSIE still is buggy and inconsistent (got documentation at work from a vendor in that format once and of course it didn't work properly at first try)
It's available somewhere under the File menu, "Save whole page" or something similar, IIRC. I've seen requests for it in Mozilla's Bugzilla, but as far as I know it isn't going to be implemented anytime soon - a pity actually.
As I noticed, the summary says dual athlon, and they're not really actual anymore (as far as I know the Opteron was introduced about two years ago). AMD did make Athlon MP processors earlier, which was why I reacted (why buy three year old tech?).
The server hardware spec link said the "athlons" in fact are opterons. *sigh*
You totally miss the point. The keys have glue on the underside, so you can put them in just about any way you like. Just because they put them stupidly in the review, you don't have to do it!
most aerospace engineers (at least the ones dealing with the specific problems like aerodynamics, turbulence, jet motors etc are mechanical engineers... Aerospace engineers at many universities is a subclass of mechanical engineers, to put it in programmers' terms.
The location of the headquarter shouldn't matter, unless it would mean all customers being totally international (totally removing the national branch of the company). As long as the customer is a customer of the national branch, the national should apply. When being a customer of a company somewhere abroad (ie no national branch), OTOH, you would probably be a bit more suspicious...
I'm a geek and I still view emails as a set in stone thingie. That's because it's a PITA to spread the new adress to absolutely everybody who might want to contact you. Actually, this is worse for geeks - having the adress all over the place and not only with their friends...
Especially as I made my adress available in files around 98. I actually got contacted through one of thoes adress notes in '02 or something, so I was kinda lucky I hadn't scrapped it yet...
A patent claim on software on any media. Stored on disk, printed on paper, anything.
The only time software "as such" is not subject to a program claim is when it does not exist anywhere. Only imaginary software is not patentable "as such". The moment you write it down it is covered by the program claim. That program scribbled down on paper "would, when loaded and executed in a programmable computer, programmable computer network or other programmable apparatus, put into force a product or process claimed in the same patent application". The fact that you scribbled it on paper and it would need to be "loaded" with some fancy optical text recognition system does not matter. It is covered by Article 5.2 Program Claims.
Damn! I though it at least would be half consistent. You shouldn't trust those pro-SW-patent-guys with anything, I suppose. I get really upset - I see this as a really big chunk of my right to free speech! Even if allowing patents on software (in the computer system-way I said which was how I had understood the software patent proposal) there really isn't any reason to make publishing of code illegal, is there? Or is publishing drawings, photos etc of patented "traditional" inventions also being outlawed??? That would be the appropiate comparison...
About maths - it's interesting they want to cover code - which doesn't really do anything on it's own unless loaded on a computer, it's just "weirdly looking maths" (all code have an absolute, matehematical defined semantical meaning). Basically it would allow patents on maths soon too, if you only describe it in code and not in "maths notation". Code in your favourite language really isn't anything else than applied maths...
Omron makes a real robot cat. Don't really understand what the page says. IIRC, the price is about double that of Aibo though, not thanks to the electronics, but thanks to the fake fur.
Sorry for making two answer posts, but I just thought about a good joke on the topic (read: only half off topic)...
Why did God create blondes?
The sheep couldn't fetch beer from the fridge! Then, why did God create brownhaired girls?
Neither could the blondes... Then, why am I studying automation
To build me a god damn robot, so I finally can get that beer fetched for me!!!
Slashdot Mirror
Could you give an example of anything in the software area that would have benefited from such a patent?
Also, what stops that from happening even with a patent system? Look here, written in easy-to-understand Slashdot style:
1. You write a nice piece of software doing X in a novel way :) :(
2. You apply for a patent
3. You get it, nice.
4. You start selling your app.
5. BigCorpCo notices your app, sees it fulfills a market desire and wants to use it without paying you royalties.
6. BigCorpCo asks its lawyers to find all of their "trivial" patents that you accidentally inflicted on when writing the software.
7. BigCorpCo sends you an C&D-letter asking you to
8a. Pay them royalties
8b. Grant them cross-licensing rights for free.
8c. Get sued into oblivion.
9. (...)
10. Profit!!! (ie for BigCorpCo, not for you...)
Basically, there might (please give me one example, BTW, of such situations in the past) be situations, where software patents could be usable. But even though there is at least one such situation, the patent system would also carry so much bad things that it's basically not worth it.
Also, many software developers are really tiny. What you need is basically a computer (a $100 one does the job albeit slowly), and enough money to pay for food and possibly rent until you (hopefully) get your first sales.
For such companies, even the costs of applying for a patent may be inhibitely high to actually apply for them. And we shouldn't even talk about court conflicts. They could be the tenfold of the total yearly budget...
The only small companies being able to defend their own patents would be the ones not really using them, but having the business idea "sue every one who tries to do what we thought of (ie bought from some one else) first!".
Or are you saying only big companies should be able to hold software patents and be able to use them in practice???
Basically all of the power that EU has is held by the european council, which just is the prime ministers of each country (or in specific questions the minister whose area it is, eg agriculture/work market/whatever ministers). They have the right to sign treaties for their countries. (Which is basically the way "everything" decided in EU has to be decided, as EU really isn't a nation on its own).
This seemed so undemocratical though, so they created the parliament too. Basically, it has the right to give advice, and some vetoing rights, but not much more. Its purpose is more or less to make matters seem democratical. Then there's of course the commisionary, to further complicate the issue. Even though I'm interested in the topic, I don't really understand the system, and I hardly even expect my MEPs to understand it, as it is quite complicated...
What is stopping the implementation of IPv6 are those pesky legacy devices, legacy operating systems (ie Windows) and legacy hardware accelerated routers, and the fact the Internet being as big as it is - it's basically impossible to do a clean switchover, and there ARE problems when combining the two systems - even though you can have both on the same network, they won't be interoperable (=really bad).
Of course IPv6 has been designed to work around these issues as well as possible, but there will be issues eg getting a IPv4 machine to connect to a IPv6 one. And NAT has been the easier-to-implement short-term-solution for home 'puters etc...
No, it's not to cover piracy at all. It's to cover private copying under the equivalent to the american fair use clause. However, it still is bad - they more or less outlawed private copying anyway, in that they outlawed breaking DRM (Digital (Rights)/Restrictions Management aka copy-protection) for making a copy, and also making spreading information about it illegal (I'm not quite sure how they get that to work without violating free speech rights). Basically, they lowered the possibilities to make a lawful copy considerably, and still the levy is raised, and also applied to new medias like general purpose CDR and DVDR, and to MP3 players etc. Earlier it was only applied to audio and videotapes, and special audio CDs.
But that's exactly where he goes wrong - there's no demand from the FSF definition (they were the first to use the term) of "free software" that it has to be gratis - it's totally possible to charge for it too...
Obviously, if they're hiring, being an actual troll would certainly be a positive side to emphasize, wouldn't it? *ducks*
2) I DO suspect them to actually have some kind of cap, if nothing else only having a limited pipe to the intarweb (can't get very much fatter than 1 Gbit - is there really anything bigger than 10 Gbit? - and I would suspect it to be shared among quite a lot of users).
3) The prices mentioned in the article are quite hefty. 850 SEK / Month = appr. $120 / Month. And a connection fee a bit above $200 (this is for clients already connected to the "normal" service - so perhaps I should call it an "upgrade fee" instead).
4) This is for ISPs specializing in connecting whole neighborhoods, including grandma surfing (even though she won't sign up for this deal, she's paying part of it anyway).
5) As far as I know, there isn't any special government subsidizing. There ARE some subsidize systems, but they're more aimed at getting broadband at all (the coverage is still really spotty on the countryside, my parents are still on phonemodem even though they live in one of the more densely populated parts of non-urban Sweden) - and even for that the money is far from enough. (The socialdemocrats promised "Bredband åt alla" during the elections, but it have hardly helped anyone at all to get it).
6) This is still an exception, even in Sweden, even 100/100 is still really unusual except at universities (the normal being 10/10 or X/1 where X=2,4,6,8 or 28), if nothing else because it also costs quite a lot.
7) There's no chance in hell that the connections are being used to their full potential, even with P2P'ing, unless you connect a small sized LAN party to them. At gigabit speeds, you would fill a 200 GB harddrive in only approximately 45 minutes (and uploading as much). Normal computers can't even handle that rate of I/O in theory, and nevertheless, it isn't very likely you would be able to bypass the human bottleneck in the system...
8) Basically, I think the answer is really to find in the swedish market structure: a) swedes are hightech-people, knowing what to get, b) there has been quite a lot of competition on the swedish market, with Bredbandsbolaget pioneering really affordable and easy-to-get symmetrical broadband connections (10/10) really early (multiappartment house LAN connections), making swedes expect more. Basically, it's lead to a kind of bandwidth race...
And also, IIRC, those gigabit connections were available in Japan/Korea before in Sweden, don't have any link to use as confirmation though.
The main problem is a mouse replacement. Trackball or touchpad on the keyboard works well. Alternatively, a foot based control could work, and may be better in some ways (you could type and mouse simultaneously.
How exactly were you thinking? With one arm left, you could type and use the mouse with that one. With none, you neiter can type or use the mouse - ie an alternative keyboard technology is needed...
Sorry for answering myself, just remembered the name of the format though, it's MTHML.
I wouldn't count on it. They are even voting for the software patents in the European parliament, the only other swedish political party doing that is Moderaterna (conservative/liberal for you non-swedes)
Perhaps because as far as I know none of the open-source really uses it all. Of course the implementation in MSIE still is buggy and inconsistent (got documentation at work from a vendor in that format once and of course it didn't work properly at first try)
It's available somewhere under the File menu, "Save whole page" or something similar, IIRC. I've seen requests for it in Mozilla's Bugzilla, but as far as I know it isn't going to be implemented anytime soon - a pity actually.
Why not ask for the document on paper?
Yeah, we could do practical tests too. Only ISPs withstanding a slashdotting would get positive ratings?
The server hardware spec link said the "athlons" in fact are opterons. *sigh*
You totally miss the point. The keys have glue on the underside, so you can put them in just about any way you like. Just because they put them stupidly in the review, you don't have to do it!
most aerospace engineers (at least the ones dealing with the specific problems like aerodynamics, turbulence, jet motors etc are mechanical engineers... Aerospace engineers at many universities is a subclass of mechanical engineers, to put it in programmers' terms.
What they used to build it with?
The location of the headquarter shouldn't matter, unless it would mean all customers being totally international (totally removing the national branch of the company). As long as the customer is a customer of the national branch, the national should apply. When being a customer of a company somewhere abroad (ie no national branch), OTOH, you would probably be a bit more suspicious...
Especially as I made my adress available in files around 98. I actually got contacted through one of thoes adress notes in '02 or something, so I was kinda lucky I hadn't scrapped it yet...
Btw, we have a localized variant in Sweden too...
Damn! I though it at least would be half consistent. You shouldn't trust those pro-SW-patent-guys with anything, I suppose. I get really upset - I see this as a really big chunk of my right to free speech! Even if allowing patents on software (in the computer system-way I said which was how I had understood the software patent proposal) there really isn't any reason to make publishing of code illegal, is there? Or is publishing drawings, photos etc of patented "traditional" inventions also being outlawed??? That would be the appropiate comparison...
About maths - it's interesting they want to cover code - which doesn't really do anything on it's own unless loaded on a computer, it's just "weirdly looking maths" (all code have an absolute, matehematical defined semantical meaning). Basically it would allow patents on maths soon too, if you only describe it in code and not in "maths notation". Code in your favourite language really isn't anything else than applied maths...
Sigh!
More links which I didn't bother to read...
Why did God create blondes?
The sheep couldn't fetch beer from the fridge!
Then, why did God create brownhaired girls?
Neither could the blondes...
Then, why am I studying automation
To build me a god damn robot, so I finally can get that beer fetched for me!!!
Damn! That should have been my comment...