Or it can be bad when a large company purchases a patent for a "rival" technology just to suppress it so that sales of their main product will not be affected. I have heard stories (probably old wives tales) of such things as a large razor company purchasing the rights to something which inhibits the growth of facial hair.
Because it should not be necessary. The source to all open source products is, by definition, published and freely available. Therefore this should count as prior art if anyone else should subsequently attempt to patent it.
For the individual, rather than a company, the copyright "clock" does not start counting until the author's death. So, the copyright in everything I right is mine throughout my lifetime and belongs to my heirs for 50 (or 75) years after my death.
Also copyright only protects the actual representation. So even though every program is copyrighted, the copyright, unlike patents, does not prevent anyone else from using the same method (only that they must not copy your code, image or words etc.)
Is this not partially an apples/oranges comparison? If the customer buys the windows98 box then (s)he is basically just buying the OS - most applications have to be obtained separately. In Linux distributions, though, the OS forms just a small part of the package. Many distributions include a substantial number of applications as well.
As long as you are either not using your name by way of trade, or in a different (trade) area than than the big company, I think you should be allowed to use your own name. There would obviously be problems for a Mr Ford if he put up a web site on cars, or Ms MacDonald if she went into the food business. Otherwise, if they wanted the domain name they should have registered it before the private individual.
Re:Why are metered local calls "stupid"?
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ISP War in the UK
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· Score: 1
In which case it would be to BT's advantage to have offered 0845 numbers to ISPs in the same way as other telecos. Then they would be able to keep all of the charges paid by the caller instead of having to pay interconnect charges to the terminating teleco.
You don't have to ring up, you can set/change your friends & family and best friend using a Web form.
Re:Unmetered - You just have to know how.
on
ISP War in the UK
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· Score: 1
The FAQ on their website in answer to the question "Who should sign up?" states "Absolutely everybody". It does not say "Everybody running Windows 9x/NT". So maybe there is hope.
BT (and presumably OFTEL agree with them) would claim that you can provide ADSL. BT provide the ADSL line from the home/business to their exchange. Then they provide a (high speed) leased line to you over which they MUX together all of the ADSL connections.
Why should lawyers from the same firm not represent both parties in an action? Surely each laywer has a duty to his/her client, and the fact that the person acting for the other side has an office in the same building should not affect that. To think otherwise is question the professional integrity of the people concerned.
That, and the fact that this is one question that most *nix apps don't ask you (sometimes you really have to dig); which is odd, considering the longevity of a typical *nix system.
Almost all *nix installs allow you to select the destination and even change the name of the executable using options to the configure script.
Why is so much of the usability discussion concentrating on initial system setup, program installation and administration? Using the car analogy a little further, all you want to do is drive your car (and perform simple maintenance like refuelling and making sure the screen washer has water in it.) Most car drivers do not (and are not competent to) replace parts or tune the engine, they take the car to a workshop for a mechanic to do the work. So why should the average computer users be expected to perform the equivalent tasks themselves?
The nicest and easiest desktop that I have ever used is the OS/2 WPS. It has far more functionality and (IMHO) is more intuitive than windows. Though, I still prefer the "old" Windows 3 program manager interface to the newer 95/NT4 one.
Have some Windows applications managed to avoid an installation process that asks you lots of questions to which the answers might not be obvious?
Surely these are the sort of questions which it should be asking! If the answer is obvious then the installation should be able to obtain or work out the answer for itself. Only for non-obvious questions should the user need to be consulted. On the other hand, the user should be able to choose to take fuller control and have the installation program ask more questions rather than making assumptions.
If it's non-computerized, how do they ensure reliable records? what if there's a fire?
Presumably in the same way as banks have kept reliable records since a long time before computers were invented. Don't forget that banks came a long time before computers.
Not at all - certainly the code for the Kernel isn't exactly beta, but it's inclusion into their distribution *definitely* is.
How does distributing a combination of non-beta software make the "whole" a beta test of the distribution? You could just as easily say that almost every system is a beta test of the particular combination of applications which are installed.
As far as I am concerned, the Linux "distribution" is just a convenient starting point for building the particular system which I want. It is just more convenient that having to bootstrap a system by finding and building the kernel and the minimal utilities using a cross compiler, then building the rest on the target Linux system.
Yet 20 years ago when I started working in a mainframe programming site, there were plenty of women both as programmers and team leaders. So the very strong male bias seems to be more recent. But again, there were not many IT college courses in those days, so most people were qualified in some other discipline and "transfered" into computing.
They did say that they were interested mainly in those of us from the UK, but would consider others. Contrast this with the number of (especially click through adverts) offers etc on the net which are only available to US (or sometimes also Canadian) residents.
Or even to make politicians redundant. Does the net possibly have the potential to change political systems from representitive democracy to partipipatory democracy, where all citizens can participate in the discussion and vote on all issues rather than having politicians do so on their behalf.
Exported from where? The USA is not the only country in the world. If GNUpg is integrated outside of the USA (or other country with crypto export regulations) then it just needs to be imported into those countries, not exported from them. So only import regulations need be a problem, not export ones.
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Or if another company is working on the same line of research they may have to abandon it when the first company is awarded the patent.
Or it can be bad when a large company purchases a patent for a "rival" technology just to suppress it so that sales of their main product will not be affected. I have heard stories (probably old wives tales) of such things as a large razor company purchasing the rights to something which inhibits the growth of facial hair.
Because it should not be necessary. The source to all open source products is, by definition, published and freely available. Therefore this should count as prior art if anyone else should subsequently attempt to patent it.
If 2 people submitted the same idea in a short period of time, should not both of them be disallowed because of obviousness?
Also copyright only protects the actual representation. So even though every program is copyrighted, the copyright, unlike patents, does not prevent anyone else from using the same method (only that they must not copy your code, image or words etc.)
Is this not partially an apples/oranges comparison? If the customer buys the windows98 box then (s)he is basically just buying the OS - most applications have to be obtained separately. In Linux distributions, though, the OS forms just a small part of the package. Many distributions include a substantial number of applications as well.
As long as you are either not using your name by way of trade, or in a different (trade) area than than the big company, I think you should be allowed to use your own name. There would obviously be problems for a Mr Ford if he put up a web site on cars, or Ms MacDonald if she went into the food business. Otherwise, if they wanted the domain name they should have registered it before the private individual.
In which case it would be to BT's advantage to have offered 0845 numbers to ISPs in the same way as other telecos. Then they would be able to keep all of the charges paid by the caller instead of having to pay interconnect charges to the terminating teleco.
You don't have to ring up, you can set/change your friends & family and best friend using a Web form.
The FAQ on their website in answer to the question "Who should sign up?" states "Absolutely everybody". It does not say "Everybody running Windows 9x/NT". So maybe there is hope.
BT (and presumably OFTEL agree with them) would claim that you can provide ADSL. BT provide the ADSL line from the home/business to their exchange. Then they provide a (high speed) leased line to you over which they MUX together all of the ADSL connections.
Why should lawyers from the same firm not represent both parties in an action? Surely each laywer has a duty to his/her client, and the fact that the person acting for the other side has an office in the same building should not affect that. To think otherwise is question the professional integrity of the people concerned.
Almost all *nix installs allow you to select the destination and even change the name of the executable using options to the configure script.
Apples and oranges.
Why is so much of the usability discussion concentrating on initial system setup, program installation and administration? Using the car analogy a little further, all you want to do is drive your car (and perform simple maintenance like refuelling and making sure the screen washer has water in it.) Most car drivers do not (and are not competent to) replace parts or tune the engine, they take the car to a workshop for a mechanic to do the work. So why should the average computer users be expected to perform the equivalent tasks themselves?
The nicest and easiest desktop that I have ever used is the OS/2 WPS. It has far more functionality and (IMHO) is more intuitive than windows. Though, I still prefer the "old" Windows 3 program manager interface to the newer 95/NT4 one.
Surely these are the sort of questions which it should be asking! If the answer is obvious then the installation should be able to obtain or work out the answer for itself. Only for non-obvious questions should the user need to be consulted. On the other hand, the user should be able to choose to take fuller control and have the installation program ask more questions rather than making assumptions.
If it's non-computerized, how do they ensure reliable records? what if there's a fire?
Presumably in the same way as banks have kept reliable records since a long time before computers were invented. Don't forget that banks came a long time before computers.
Not at all - certainly the code for the Kernel isn't exactly beta, but it's inclusion into their distribution *definitely* is.
How does distributing a combination of non-beta software make the "whole" a beta test of the distribution? You could just as easily say that almost every system is a beta test of the particular combination of applications which are installed.
As far as I am concerned, the Linux "distribution" is just a convenient starting point for building the particular system which I want. It is just more convenient that having to bootstrap a system by finding and building the kernel and the minimal utilities using a cross compiler, then building the rest on the target Linux system.
Yet 20 years ago when I started working in a mainframe programming site, there were plenty of women both as programmers and team leaders. So the very strong male bias seems to be more recent. But again, there were not many IT college courses in those days, so most people were qualified in some other discipline and "transfered" into computing.
They did say that they were interested mainly in those of us from the UK, but would consider others. Contrast this with the number of (especially click through adverts) offers etc on the net which are only available to US (or sometimes also Canadian) residents.
Or even to make politicians redundant. Does the net possibly have the potential to change political systems from representitive democracy to partipipatory democracy, where all citizens can participate in the discussion and vote on all issues rather than having politicians do so on their behalf.
Copyright is automatic
Trademarks have to be actively defended.
Exported from where?
The USA is not the only country in the world. If GNUpg is integrated outside of the USA (or other country with crypto export regulations) then it just needs to be imported into those countries, not exported from them. So only import regulations need be a problem, not export ones.
Gnus (which has more features than many people would know what to do with) supports GNUpg (as well as PGP) using mailcrypt.
And in the UK Fry's is a brand of chocolate, though they have probably been taken amalgamated into one of the "big" brands.