Then don't tell them it's broken, just go "Oh, noesss!!! Those creepy scanner thingummajings destroyed my laptop!!!!" And break down in crying hysterics when they try to boot it up.
Well, there is still hope that it is overturned in the end.
I'm German and I have just read the whole shebang just now. Basically:
It was originally thrown out in the lower court because of "That's software, it's not patentable".
But there is a clause in the law that Software is patentable if "It solves a specific technical problem in a specific way". Now they argued that their patent does this.
They seem to propose a system where "normal" scripting languages can switch over to a reduced feature fall-back solution when there are not enough system resources available on a system to run the full scripting environment.
The High Court now ruled that this is a patentable solution to a specific technical problem.
The further check if there is prior art to this, or if there was any "inventive activity" going on (which would also be required for it to be valid) was given back to the lower court.
It could work with a higher "barrier" for "comments".
The "online petition" that can be made to the German Bundestag or the European Parliament might be an example. It takes maybe 15-20 minutes to draft a petition with all the required information. (When it gets accepted it is then only a matter of seconds to co-sign it, though).
Or the update process for the IMdB, to actually add a new movie. That is also possible, but nobody is really swamping them because there is a minimum of required information that has to be submitted with verifiable sources.
I'm pretty sure, once a process is in place to actually submit prior art there will be a lot of community portals sprinning up where people can discuss patents, submit information, verify information, etc... so that when all the required information is collected some admin/moderator/etc... can then submit it.
The thing about contracts is that both sides have to agree before they enter into the contract.
So if a customer only gets to see the EULA after he bought the shrink-wrapped product in a store, it can't be part of the contract.
If on the other hand they (for example) download a trial version and had to (or at least were able to) read the EULA before buying the License, then it can be enforceable.
There must be some funny effect with them. People who are perfectly able to do something when you tell them (quite complicated) "Do $STUFF" completely lock up mentally when you tell them "Do $STUFF on the computer"
Funny enough, the patent office seems to share this. Patents to "Do $STUFF in $WAY" that are completely obvious, and would be rejected immediately by any sane person get granted when they add two words. "Do $STUFF in $WAY on computer"
Actually, customer relations was one of the reasons Walmart failed in Europe (especially in Germany) when it tried to expand to over here a few years ago.;-P
The other thing regarding this case might be that every retailer has to give a 2 year warranty on any product. One more important fact is that in the first 6 month after the purchase, the law specifies that a consumer that claims the product is at fault is right unless the retailer can PROVE that the product works as advertised, or the customer damaged it on purpose. So there would be not much to gain for the retailer by going to court, unless he can prove that in court.
For the remaining 18 month of the warranty the burden of proof is reversed, so there the customer would have to prove that the product was already defective by design when he bought it.
I really hope they succeed. When a PUBLISHER can make money by publishing stuff that is actually free to get from somewhere else, that would pretty much contradict the preaching of the MPAA/RIAA that publishers can only make money when they put heavy DRM on their stuff and lock it down as much as possible.
And it *might* actually be a sensible service to offer. Putting together articles / web pages you need for something, and order a reasonably priced hardcopy of them might actually wind up up being cheaper than printing them on consumer printers.
2) I didn't need swap maybe 99.99% of the time. Just for the odd over night batch run doing 3D rendering for example. It wouldn't have been too bad if batch run had failed because of the swap drive dying.
Here, too. My basic "swap cycle" for hard drives was
1) Buy them 2) Use as data storage 2-3 Years 3) Use as OS drive 2-3 Years 4) Use for swap space 2-3 Years 5) Throw them out
I have gone through maybe 25-30 drives for various boxes at home so far, and exactly ONE has failed me so far, while it was already on "swap space" duty. Usually the ones I throw out are about 8-10 years old, just because they are now even to small to be useful as swap space.
Well said. The main thing to keep in mind when choosing software (especially for businesses, but also for me privately) is :
1) What does it cost me? 2) Does it solve my problem? What do I gain?
There are a lot of areas where GPL software solves my problem and there I will happily use it. (I would for example never run a Windows box at home any more, since it's just too much trouble for too much money). But when I see that I would need additional resources to use a OSS solution, which would cost me more than commercial software that does the same thing better, easier and cheaper in the long run, I have no problems choosing the commercial version.
Basically the ONLY thing they can add additional value is *quality* in reporting. Ironically, the BBCs quality is much higher than Mr. Murdochs quality in my opinion.
Probably *because* their priority can be the quality, not the immediate revenue.
News is also "Just there". Media organizations don't create it, they just report it. They had a solid business model when spreading it required designated infrastructure, like printing presses etc.
With the internet, a lot of news can spread without them globally just as fast as it did without them locally by people talking about it at the village pump.
In other news, Mr. Sleedwidge Numbscull of Oxygen Bottling Inc. criticised farmers and the forestry commission for providing free oxygen in the atmosphere, making it 'incredibly hard for private oxygen bottlers to ask people to pay for their oxygen.'
There was always free news available in some form or another. Newspapers were able to make money by providing more value than the news that was freely available. If the quality of the free news increases, if you still want to make money, you have to find a new or at least improved business model.
Well, I had one very pleasant surprise from history when the "Big Evil" eastern block crumbled in my lifetime, so I guess it's only fair that I also get a nasty one one day.
And, If I had the choice between $1,913.76 for a real one or $40 for a not-in-jail fake one, I think I would take the fake one, even if I had to press harder to get the screen working.
(Not to make it *perfect*, but at least to make it *better*, mind)
When a DMCA takedown notice is sent, there should be a simple reply mechanism for the person that posted the material.
If the person agrees with the takedown, all legal proceedings can stop right there.
If the person disagrees, the case should be put before an independent Ombudsman, which is perhaps paid for by both sides. I estimate in most cases that Ombudsman would need maybe half an hour max for each case, and not keep lawyers and judges busy for days. And I would probably prefer a hosting site that has a "DMCA Ombudsman protection" for $1 per video or something like that.
After his decision, the party that does not agree with his ruling would still have the ability to sue before an court.
Or users could just switch go Gentoo and make the binaries themselves.
I think a lot of headaches for OSS developers could be avoided if the didn't ship binaries themselves, but left the binary compilation to the distribution or the user.
Of course then their "You are not allowed to ship a self-compiled Firefox binary under the Firefox name/trademark" might bite them back, when everybody compiling it with additional codecs has to rename it to something else.
Slashdot Mirror
Brilliant. He has to keep the porn encrypted to be PCI compliant. ;->
"And what happens when we have bent the rules so far that they stab us in the back?"
Then don't tell them it's broken, just go "Oh, noesss!!! Those creepy scanner thingummajings destroyed my laptop!!!!" And break down in crying hysterics when they try to boot it up.
Might keep them busy for a while, too.
Well, there is still hope that it is overturned in the end.
I'm German and I have just read the whole shebang just now. Basically:
It was originally thrown out in the lower court because of "That's software, it's not patentable".
But there is a clause in the law that Software is patentable if "It solves a specific technical problem in a specific way". Now they argued that their patent does this.
They seem to propose a system where "normal" scripting languages can switch over to a reduced feature fall-back solution when there are not enough system resources available on a system to run the full scripting environment.
The High Court now ruled that this is a patentable solution to a specific technical problem.
The further check if there is prior art to this, or if there was any "inventive activity" going on (which would also be required for it to be valid) was given back to the lower court.
Still a step in the wrong direction, though.
It could work with a higher "barrier" for "comments".
The "online petition" that can be made to the German Bundestag or the European Parliament might be an example. It takes maybe 15-20 minutes to draft a petition with all the required information. (When it gets accepted it is then only a matter of seconds to co-sign it, though).
Or the update process for the IMdB, to actually add a new movie. That is also possible, but nobody is really swamping them because there is a minimum of required information that has to be submitted with verifiable sources.
I'm pretty sure, once a process is in place to actually submit prior art there will be a lot of community portals sprinning up where people can discuss patents, submit information, verify information, etc... so that when all the required information is collected some admin/moderator/etc... can then submit it.
Unfortunately the rules about notability had to be deleted, because they were not notable since they lacked reliable sources.
Yes:
/holy-grail
The thing about contracts is that both sides have to agree before they enter into the contract.
So if a customer only gets to see the EULA after he bought the shrink-wrapped product in a store, it can't be part of the contract.
If on the other hand they (for example) download a trial version and had to (or at least were able to) read the EULA before buying the License, then it can be enforceable.
When the "reading material" you carry stabbed into your side in the packed subway a paper newspaper hurts less than a e-book.
On the other hand, you can hit the person next to you groping you better with a rolled-up newspaper.
But it has to do with them thar "Com-Puh-Tars"
There must be some funny effect with them. People who are perfectly able to do something when you tell them (quite complicated) "Do $STUFF" completely lock up mentally when you tell them "Do $STUFF on the computer"
Funny enough, the patent office seems to share this. Patents to "Do $STUFF in $WAY" that are completely obvious, and would be rejected immediately by any sane person get granted when they add two words. "Do $STUFF in $WAY on computer"
Actually, customer relations was one of the reasons Walmart failed in Europe (especially in Germany) when it tried to expand to over here a few years ago. ;-P
The other thing regarding this case might be that every retailer has to give a 2 year warranty on any product. One more important fact is that in the first 6 month after the purchase, the law specifies that a consumer that claims the product is at fault is right unless the retailer can PROVE that the product works as advertised, or the customer damaged it on purpose. So there would be not much to gain for the retailer by going to court, unless he can prove that in court.
For the remaining 18 month of the warranty the burden of proof is reversed, so there the customer would have to prove that the product was already defective by design when he bought it.
I also wonder how much of the alleged "DOS" attack was their own games trying to connect all the time.
I really hope they succeed. When a PUBLISHER can make money by publishing stuff that is actually free to get from somewhere else, that would pretty much contradict the preaching of the MPAA/RIAA that publishers can only make money when they put heavy DRM on their stuff and lock it down as much as possible.
And it *might* actually be a sensible service to offer. Putting together articles / web pages you need for something, and order a reasonably priced hardcopy of them might actually wind up up being cheaper than printing them on consumer printers.
The last one I *really* needed was a 2GB disk when the RAM was 256MB
Right now I use a 100GB Disk with 20GB for swap with 8GB physical RAM . and the rest for some other "Temporary" Data.
Two reasons basically
1) Size. Swap needed the least size.
2) I didn't need swap maybe 99.99% of the time. Just for the odd over night batch run doing 3D rendering for example. It wouldn't have been too bad if batch run had failed because of the swap drive dying.
Here, too.
My basic "swap cycle" for hard drives was
1) Buy them
2) Use as data storage 2-3 Years
3) Use as OS drive 2-3 Years
4) Use for swap space 2-3 Years
5) Throw them out
I have gone through maybe 25-30 drives for various boxes at home so far, and exactly ONE has failed me so far, while it was already on "swap space" duty. Usually the ones I throw out are about 8-10 years old, just because they are now even to small to be useful as swap space.
Well said. The main thing to keep in mind when choosing software (especially for businesses, but also for me privately) is :
1) What does it cost me?
2) Does it solve my problem? What do I gain?
There are a lot of areas where GPL software solves my problem and there I will happily use it. (I would for example never run a Windows box at home any more, since it's just too much trouble for too much money). But when I see that I would need additional resources to use a OSS solution, which would cost me more than commercial software that does the same thing better, easier and cheaper in the long run, I have no problems choosing the commercial version.
So:
Basically the ONLY thing they can add additional value is *quality* in reporting. Ironically, the BBCs quality is much higher than Mr. Murdochs quality in my opinion.
Probably *because* their priority can be the quality, not the immediate revenue.
News is also "Just there". Media organizations don't create it, they just report it. They had a solid business model when spreading it required designated infrastructure, like printing presses etc.
With the internet, a lot of news can spread without them globally just as fast as it did without them locally by people talking about it at the village pump.
In other news, Mr. Sleedwidge Numbscull of Oxygen Bottling Inc. criticised farmers and the forestry commission for providing free oxygen in the atmosphere, making it 'incredibly hard for private oxygen bottlers to ask people to pay for their oxygen.'
There was always free news available in some form or another. Newspapers were able to make money by providing more value than the news that was freely available. If the quality of the free news increases, if you still want to make money, you have to find a new or at least improved business model.
Well, I had one very pleasant surprise from history when the "Big Evil" eastern block crumbled in my lifetime, so I guess it's only fair that I also get a nasty one one day.
... If you don't count TFA.
And, If I had the choice between $1,913.76 for a real one or $40 for a not-in-jail fake one, I think I would take the fake one, even if I had to press harder to get the screen working.
>Or barbarians/robbers taking down mail couriers.
Or barbarians/robbers sending such a large amount of mail that the couriers horse collapsed and they could rob him easily.
On the other hand, would people with the "must-have-now-syndrome" buy something when most of the content in it is delayed for month?
(Not to make it *perfect*, but at least to make it *better*, mind)
When a DMCA takedown notice is sent, there should be a simple reply mechanism for the person that posted the material.
If the person agrees with the takedown, all legal proceedings can stop right there.
If the person disagrees, the case should be put before an independent Ombudsman, which is perhaps paid for by both sides. I estimate in most cases that Ombudsman would need maybe half an hour max for each case, and not keep lawyers and judges busy for days. And I would probably prefer a hosting site that has a "DMCA Ombudsman protection" for $1 per video or something like that.
After his decision, the party that does not agree with his ruling would still have the ability to sue before an court.
Or users could just switch go Gentoo and make the binaries themselves.
I think a lot of headaches for OSS developers could be avoided if the didn't ship binaries themselves, but left the binary compilation to the distribution or the user.
Of course then their "You are not allowed to ship a self-compiled Firefox binary under the Firefox name/trademark" might bite them back, when everybody compiling it with additional codecs has to rename it to something else.