Why buy a device that you cannot control? If I buy a device I expect to be root by default, not to have to jailbreak through some random PDF exploit. iPhone turns its users into digital serfs.
First, let's consider the US company doing the suing...what if they have no assets the EU can touch?
Well I see no reason why selling a software patent removes liability (in the eyes of my hypothetical version of the European Commission). The European Commission (EC) would want to decide for itself whether the transfer of a software patent was performed in good faith or not. I.e. when you sell a software patent, the liability may not transfer in the eyes of the EC.
So for example, Dow Jones software company A, patents a software idea. They then grant themselves an eternal licence to use the idea and then sell the patent (i.e. the enforcement rights) to patent pool B. B then sues European-based company C.
C goes to the European Commission and asks for the refund. The EC then sues both B and A for the money.
Most software patents are developed within a context of software development. It is the fact that they are resold that creates the patent trolls. However, the patent still has the original company's name on it.
Sometimes getting the money will be difficult, but if it is a software patent that is generating income, there is usually a link somewhere.
In other cases, none of above stops the EC on behalf of A, from trying to prove that the patent is invalid within the US system.
Lastly because the EC is imposing punitive damages above the original damages awarded in the US, there should be enough profit in the pool from the successes to take a hit on the failures.
Easy way to sort that, make patents only for real substantial inventions. Not for abstract ideas or for incremental changes that can be implemented by anyone versed in the state of the art.
So you get a patent for inventing the first steam engine. You don't get a patent increasing that efficiency of a steam engine by 1%, or for controlling a steam engine using software.
It is the US' nonsense software patent system that is the bureaucracy. I am simply suggesting that the European Commission mitigate the US' bureaucracy so that software companies can compete in the free market.
It is not about whether one wants to comply with the laws of the US. I was suggesting that the hypothetical company pays the damages and so does comply with the law.
It is about fairness. The EU allows American software firms to sell and distribute their software in the EU. The American firms compete based on the merits of their products.
This needs to be a two way street. The US government grants exclusive monopolies on abstract ideas that are just part of the known Universe. This is unfair competition on countries.
EU firms (and others) cannot compete on the merits of their products in the US if they risk frivolous and expensive lawsuits based on these nonsense software patents. My suggested unfair competition law would mitigate this risk. The European Commission would 'insure' this by providing a European based way to get the money back.
I am suggesting that we should have fair competition between countries, where we compete on the merits of the products.
The US federal government's way is to game the system. So it is based on who has the most slippery lawyers and bureaucrats. Like the World Series of Baseball that only has the US competing. Federal and legal monarchy instead of a free market.
Well that is a real threat. The solution of course is to bin the WTO, and all the crazy US laws it dumps on everyone (software patents, anti-filesharing, private health care, etc).
exporting software would still require the software to respect laws in the the countries that the software was sold in.
I have long thought about this. I live in the EU, and the software patents are not valid (but they sometimes grant them anyway). I would make an unfair competition law to prevent foreign governments using their patent systems to stymie EU-based software firms.
The way it would work is as follows, an EU firm creates a program and sells or gives it away in the US (or other country with nonsense software patent systems). A US company sues for patent infringement damages in US court. The EU company pays but takes the receipt back to the EU.
The EU software firm then hands the receipt to the European Commission who then sues the US company under my new unfair-competition law. The European Commission recovers the damages back and hands them back to the EU software firm. The European Commission charges punitive damages above the initial amount which it pockets itself to cover its own costs (or even make a profit).
The European Commission could make the process so easy that the EU-based software firm just carries on with making software and competing on the merits of the software.
If the New Zealand government manages to get the bill enacted without bowing to pressure from foreign patent trolls, then New Zealand will be a safe habour for genuine software firms wanting to get on with developing software. If the New Zealand Software Industry now booms, hopefully other regulators will take note.
Historians will look back and see patent trolling as one of those mad schemes of the first decade of the 21st Century, alongside subprime mortgages, leveraged investment vehicles and so on.
To wrongs don't make a right. A more extreme version of your argument is that "My daughter was murdered, so why wasn't my neighbour's?".
In the rest of the developed world, you cannot lay off people without warning. If you do lay people off, then you have to give them a redundancy package, e.g. two times a month's pay for every year of employment.
The problem is that the state of California is pissing about with people's lives. If it was Britain or any European country, the whole workforce would go on immediate strike, and they would be correct to do so.
It is about time, however I am a bit scared we are building another shuttle:
"The capsule will use rockets to land and take off from the lunar surface and to touchdown back on Earth so that it can be reused."
Bringing the shuttle back and "reusing" it is far more expensive than ditching it in space. "Reusing" here actually means pulling the whole thing apart, checking every piece, and then putting it all back together again. This is why the Shuttle costs $1 billion per mission by the soyuz can do a mission for just $20 million.
"However, I've got a feeling that some people won't be happy to see it online, since it makes no mention of the resurrection, which is a central part of Christian belief"
This is complete nonsense, Christians should be very happy to see the most important manuscript online. The "no mention of the resurrection" is a myth.
Nvidia is a company that exists to make money.The question that Nvidia needs to think about is whether the number of Linux users (including those on the EEEPC, high-end phones and more specialised embedded devices) have outgrown the number of hardcore Windows PC gamers?
Whatever you think about the answer to the question, I'm sure you will agree that going forwards, the growth in embedded devices will certainly increase faster than Windows gaming.
When a company makes an embedded device, time to market is often really critical, so of course it chooses whatever hardware causes the the least fuss. Nvidia might find that Intel and ATI will increasingly dominate this space.
If Nvidia wants a share of the open source market in five years time, then it needs to start planning for an open source driver now, e.g. not putting any more third party proprietary code in its driver.
I assume someone had to go and evaluate the software for inclusion in the product. Is is that hard to whack a tarball onto a server and give out the link.
We hear so many of these large companies have problems with this. Why?
Interesting Link, it is very Windows centric so probably won't ever work in Linux but I might look into how hard it would be to reimplement in say twisted or whatever.
I agree with the OP that portrait is best. After all, it is anti-social to write code or text more than 80 columns wide.
However, I am afraid they have to go with the lowest common denominator, that is people watching DVDs. Widescreens make sense if computers are DVD players that can check email.
Slashdot Mirror
"The light that burns twice as bright, burns half as long. And you have burned so very, very brightly." (Bladerunner)
I hope you keep that file secure.
I still it is an important question. Despite your cynicism.
[Why not have a script that just cynically comments 'I am so clever I have seen it all before' on every article.]
What about the GamePark holdings' handhelds? They run lots of cool stuff.
Why buy a device that you cannot control? If I buy a device I expect to be root by default, not to have to jailbreak through some random PDF exploit. iPhone turns its users into digital serfs.
First, let's consider the US company doing the suing...what if they have no assets the EU can touch?
Well I see no reason why selling a software patent removes liability (in the eyes of my hypothetical version of the European Commission). The European Commission (EC) would want to decide for itself whether the transfer of a software patent was performed in good faith or not. I.e. when you sell a software patent, the liability may not transfer in the eyes of the EC.
So for example, Dow Jones software company A, patents a software idea. They then grant themselves an eternal licence to use the idea and then sell the patent (i.e. the enforcement rights) to patent pool B. B then sues European-based company C.
C goes to the European Commission and asks for the refund. The EC then sues both B and A for the money.
Most software patents are developed within a context of software development. It is the fact that they are resold that creates the patent trolls. However, the patent still has the original company's name on it.
Sometimes getting the money will be difficult, but if it is a software patent that is generating income, there is usually a link somewhere.
In other cases, none of above stops the EC on behalf of A, from trying to prove that the patent is invalid within the US system.
Lastly because the EC is imposing punitive damages above the original damages awarded in the US, there should be enough profit in the pool from the successes to take a hit on the failures.
Easy way to sort that, make patents only for real substantial inventions. Not for abstract ideas or for incremental changes that can be implemented by anyone versed in the state of the art.
So you get a patent for inventing the first steam engine. You don't get a patent increasing that efficiency of a steam engine by 1%, or for controlling a steam engine using software.
It is the US' nonsense software patent system that is the bureaucracy. I am simply suggesting that the European Commission mitigate the US' bureaucracy so that software companies can compete in the free market.
It is not about whether one wants to comply with the laws of the US. I was suggesting that the hypothetical company pays the damages and so does comply with the law.
It is about fairness. The EU allows American software firms to sell and distribute their software in the EU. The American firms compete based on the merits of their products.
This needs to be a two way street. The US government grants exclusive monopolies on abstract ideas that are just part of the known Universe. This is unfair competition on countries.
EU firms (and others) cannot compete on the merits of their products in the US if they risk frivolous and expensive lawsuits based on these nonsense software patents. My suggested unfair competition law would mitigate this risk. The European Commission would 'insure' this by providing a European based way to get the money back.
I am suggesting that we should have fair competition between countries, where we compete on the merits of the products.
The US federal government's way is to game the system. So it is based on who has the most slippery lawyers and bureaucrats. Like the World Series of Baseball that only has the US competing. Federal and legal monarchy instead of a free market.
Injunction against who? The European Commission? What does it care about doing business in the US?
True, but patent trolls are only part of the story. Big US-based proprietary software companies are pilling up the software patents.
My suggestion is about making the American system a problem for Americans, and removing EU companies from this unfair competition.
Well that is a real threat. The solution of course is to bin the WTO, and all the crazy US laws it dumps on everyone (software patents, anti-filesharing, private health care, etc).
exporting software would still require the software to respect laws in the the countries that the software was sold in.
I have long thought about this. I live in the EU, and the software patents are not valid (but they sometimes grant them anyway). I would make an unfair competition law to prevent foreign governments using their patent systems to stymie EU-based software firms.
The way it would work is as follows, an EU firm creates a program and sells or gives it away in the US (or other country with nonsense software patent systems). A US company sues for patent infringement damages in US court. The EU company pays but takes the receipt back to the EU.
The EU software firm then hands the receipt to the European Commission who then sues the US company under my new unfair-competition law. The European Commission recovers the damages back and hands them back to the EU software firm. The European Commission charges punitive damages above the initial amount which it pockets itself to cover its own costs (or even make a profit).
The European Commission could make the process so easy that the EU-based software firm just carries on with making software and competing on the merits of the software.
If the New Zealand government manages to get the bill enacted without bowing to pressure from foreign patent trolls, then New Zealand will be a safe habour for genuine software firms wanting to get on with developing software. If the New Zealand Software Industry now booms, hopefully other regulators will take note.
Historians will look back and see patent trolling as one of those mad schemes of the first decade of the 21st Century, alongside subprime mortgages, leveraged investment vehicles and so on.
Indeed it sounds like the worst of Microsoft's past:
"skillful use of network effects"
Sounds like the fast track to an EU competition commission prosecution.
To wrongs don't make a right. A more extreme version of your argument is that "My daughter was murdered, so why wasn't my neighbour's?".
In the rest of the developed world, you cannot lay off people without warning. If you do lay people off, then you have to give them a redundancy package, e.g. two times a month's pay for every year of employment.
The problem is that the state of California is pissing about with people's lives. If it was Britain or any European country, the whole workforce would go on immediate strike, and they would be correct to do so.
It is about time, however I am a bit scared we are building another shuttle:
"The capsule will use rockets to land and take off from the lunar surface and to touchdown back on Earth so that it can be reused."
Bringing the shuttle back and "reusing" it is far more expensive than ditching it in space. "Reusing" here actually means pulling the whole thing apart, checking every piece, and then putting it all back together again. This is why the Shuttle costs $1 billion per mission by the soyuz can do a mission for just $20 million.
"However, I've got a feeling that some people won't be happy to see it online, since it makes no mention of the resurrection, which is a central part of Christian belief"
This is complete nonsense, Christians should be very happy to see the most important manuscript online. The "no mention of the resurrection" is a myth.
Nvidia is a company that exists to make money.The question that Nvidia needs to think about is whether the number of Linux users (including those on the EEEPC, high-end phones and more specialised embedded devices) have outgrown the number of hardcore Windows PC gamers?
Whatever you think about the answer to the question, I'm sure you will agree that going forwards, the growth in embedded devices will certainly increase faster than Windows gaming.
When a company makes an embedded device, time to market is often really critical, so of course it chooses whatever hardware causes the the least fuss. Nvidia might find that Intel and ATI will increasingly dominate this space.
If Nvidia wants a share of the open source market in five years time, then it needs to start planning for an open source driver now, e.g. not putting any more third party proprietary code in its driver.
I assume someone had to go and evaluate the software for inclusion in the product. Is is that hard to whack a tarball onto a server and give out the link.
We hear so many of these large companies have problems with this. Why?
Cheers,
Interesting Link, it is very Windows centric so probably won't ever work in Linux but I might look into how hard it would be to reimplement in say twisted or whatever.
Since the Google throttling detector does not yet exist, does any bright spark know how to achieve the same result using software that already exists?
...until your cat chews through it.
Ah well, there is a mug born every minute. I start selling $500 USB cables, anyone want one?
Yeah, you hit the nail on the head.
What to do about the 23 million pound so-called Church of Scientology that has been erected in London using foreign money?
Well since scientologists believe in Aliens, we should consider Ripley's advice:
"I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit"
I agree with the OP that portrait is best. After all, it is anti-social to write code or text more than 80 columns wide.
However, I am afraid they have to go with the lowest common denominator, that is people watching DVDs. Widescreens make sense if computers are DVD players that can check email.