> Copying the look and feel can definitely save tons of R&D time
And is perfectly legal. If he thought that it was only unethical, and not illegal, than he should have made his argument clearer. My impression was that he was representing it as illegal and deserving of punishment by the court.
Hi, nice to see you here on Slashdot (and with a smaller UID than me, no less).
I admit to have been confused (particularly on-topic here, I suppose) because I was very concentrated on the (seemingly frivolous) takedown of The Sweet 16.
I did not understand that the MMSE had historically been used and copied freely and only recently been licensed to PAR, and the consequences of the new licensing terms are perhaps even more consequential to the medical profession.
I would like to point you to a blog post by a professor of law, James Grimmelmann, who is of the opinion that PAR's claim, that copying the MMSE forms is infringement, is very weak. If he is correct, couldn't it be possible that the EFF would be interested in defending the ongoing free use of the MMSE?
I also read in the comments at The Laboratorium about another test called the Montreal Cognitive Assessment which is under a somewhat open license --- perhaps you should try to encourage them to move to a straight copyleft license?
I wish you success in shielding the medical profession from the dark side of the copyright force. And a Happy New Year!
The original owner would NOT have sold a license to the competitor. The competitor appears to have deprived the original owner of their LEAD TIME and possibly some sales.
The competitor allegedly downloaded the software illegally and analyzed it to produce a competing product.
This helped the competitor save lots of R&D time. And they sold many copies of the resulting competing product.
Don't misrepresent the competitor's actions as using the illegally downloaded software to discover trade secrets of the original owner. He merely copied "Look and Feel". The court decided that the use the competitor made of the software itself was perfectly legal, and the only illegal action was the download itself.
Or perhaps you didn't read the fine court decision?
You know what would make slash dot a lot more fun to read? If people like you would let go of the simple minded prejudices and easy pot shot posts and actually review someone's comment history before opening their mouth. It's easier than you think. Try it sometime.
. . . .
NB: No, I don't usually pretend to take myself this seriously --- actually, I just couldn't resist japing you via reiteration. Especially when, by chance, my comment history is full of Insightful mods. I actually pretty much agree with you, I'm not the most insightful commenter Slashdot has ever seen.
> We'll have to see if the authors' new version is actually copyright infringement on the old one.
I'm sorry to have confused the discussion here by emphasizing something not mentioned in the summary and only in the linked article. It's actually two tests from two different sets of authors. The newer test is called "The Sweet 16" (what a terrible name) and as far as anyone can tell (the newer test is unavailable, even in this era of the Internet, AFAIK), it is unlikely that any claim of infringement is valid.
I just hope some clinician who managed to download the newer test, in the few weeks it actually was available, will have the good idea to ask a favor from a friend who knows how to anonymously publish information on the net.
And having the money to defend yourself is a completely different matter.
It seems to me, however, that some medical institutions might be able to organize a not-for-profit holding corporation to which the copyrights of the newer test are assigned, and fund it to distribute the newer test for free with open licensing while having the means to defend against the infringement claim.
The corporation PAR, which benefits from the older test, the MMSE, has caused a newer, openly licensed test called "The Sweet 16", to be taken down by claiming infringement on elements of the older test, even though as far as anyone knows, they have no legal basis for doing so.
The corporation, PAR, to which the older test is licensed, is behind this. AFAIK, the doctors who authored the older test haven't personally claimed infringement. My guess is that they received a single payment for licensing their test to PAR, and therefore they have no financial stake in the success or failure of the newer test.
The authors were letting everyone download the new test for free; a corporation, PAR, to which the old test had been licensed is to blame for claiming copyright over (elements of) the new test which may eventually replace the old one.
Unfortunately, there's no easy way to leave them a comment about one's opinion of their behavior on their website. I looked.
> Also, not sure what the summary means with the last statement.
Seems to me that it means "I am a card-carrying member of the Church of RMS, and I'm not about to let any real facts get in the way of disparaging those of less pure faith".
As you point out, it seems a bit stupid. Possibly useful for artificially pumping the Firehose to get a submission on the front page, though.
Yeah, sure. Just like the fact that I, like most people, don't donate 10% of my income to the FSF or some other open-source project hinders it. So what?
If you want to judge others from a particular ideological position (concealing code is unethical), you should state that clearly rather than impugn others indirectly.
I actually "inherited" this card from a relative who had bought it and found out he didn't need it.
This really has to show you how bad Linksys's customer relations were with me: I didn't even pay for the adapter myself and Linksys still managed to totally piss me off with their lying stories about their developers working on new drivers.
(Disclaimer: I've posted this before here, when it was on-topic. I'll probably stop bothering to post it sometime in the next 10 years or so.)
> The death penalty is currently legal in Israel for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, > terrorism, and crimes against the Jewish People
Along with spouting that long, vague list, you (disingenuously?) forgot the practical part of that Wikipedia article --- only two executions have ever been actually carried out in over 60 years, one of whom was Eichmann.
The reality of the legality of the Israeli death penalty is nothing like the reality of the legality of the US one.
But I mean, seriously... how much of a difference is there between deliberately conspiring to help somebody else break the law and then actually directly helping them?
Beats me. What difference is there between being "unlimited in length of term" and merely practically so because the length is constantly being enlarged at a rate which is faster or equal to the progression of time?
You totally miss the implications of his post (possibly because he forgot to add the phrase "all of" to "Once all of the patents are identified"). Just because Microsoft decided to use X numbers of patents against Motorola doesn't mean they don't have another Y waiting in line for the next court case. So your quoted source makes no difference.
Since there is no legal way to require Microsoft to reveal all of the patents they think might infringe on Android, his post is, rather than FUD, merely fantasy. The fact that it is fantasy showcases a major problem with the patent system. The law should be that if someone pays licensing fees, they can require the party they are paying to reveal all of their patents which they feel are infringed (by that particular technology), and any patents which are not revealed are automatically rendered toothless (against that particular technology), even against third parties. (Now I'm fading into fantasy... <sigh/>)
> no one has resources to track down all the reasons why they are crap, and sue Microsoft over each and every of them.
You also missed a second major problem with his post: there is no legal penalty for filing an invalid patent. Or at least, for all practical purposes.
Sorry if I offended, you're now the second one I've caught at this (the first was quite anti-Google, it seemed to me).
Google is far from being entirely free from sin, but it bugs the hell out of me when people misquote that motto (perhaps not the right word for it but... whatever) as a way to subtly introduce a strawman fallacy into their argument.
A second problem is that the misquotation is infectious.
it would appear that Google is paying for substantially ALL of the development for TWO browsers, Chrome, and Mozilla, as well as providing code for Chromium.
And more power to them, for that. Whenever I think about a future time when (non-server) Linux has a large enough user base that it is a common target for malicious attacks, I wonder exactly how much I would benefit from jumping ship to a more fringe OS like Plan 9. It seems to me that to have the same level of usability, I'd be running ports of the same FOSS user-land programs (browsers, etc.) to do my work, and then I'd still inherit the same vulnerabilities at the application level (I'd be protected if the black hat merely tries to infect my OS via these vulnerabilities, but not if he uses them to infect the applications themselves --- e.g., chrome malware injection into FF itself). However, more competing FOSS projects filling a specific application niche (browsers, in this case) means less vulnerability overall (assuming that the diversity doesn't affect the overall quality of the projects --- probably a very optimistic assumption).
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> Copying the look and feel can definitely save tons of R&D time
And is perfectly legal. If he thought that it was only unethical, and not illegal, than he should have made his argument clearer. My impression was that he was representing it as illegal and deserving of punishment by the court.
Hi, nice to see you here on Slashdot (and with a smaller UID than me, no less).
I admit to have been confused (particularly on-topic here, I suppose) because I was very concentrated on the (seemingly frivolous) takedown of The Sweet 16.
I did not understand that the MMSE had historically been used and copied freely and only recently been licensed to PAR, and the consequences of the new licensing terms are perhaps even more consequential to the medical profession.
I would like to point you to a blog post by a professor of law, James Grimmelmann, who is of the opinion that PAR's claim, that copying the MMSE forms is infringement, is very weak. If he is correct, couldn't it be possible that the EFF would be interested in defending the ongoing free use of the MMSE?
I also read in the comments at The Laboratorium about another test called the Montreal Cognitive Assessment which is under a somewhat open license --- perhaps you should try to encourage them to move to a straight copyleft license?
I wish you success in shielding the medical profession from the dark side of the copyright force. And a Happy New Year!
Don't misrepresent the competitor's actions as using the illegally downloaded software to discover trade secrets of the original owner. He merely copied "Look and Feel". The court decided that the use the competitor made of the software itself was perfectly legal, and the only illegal action was the download itself.
Or perhaps you didn't read the fine court decision?
You know what would make slash dot a lot more fun to read? If people like you would let go of the simple minded prejudices and easy pot shot posts and actually review someone's comment history before opening their mouth. It's easier than you think. Try it sometime.
NB: No, I don't usually pretend to take myself this seriously --- actually, I just couldn't resist japing you via reiteration. Especially when, by chance, my comment history is full of Insightful mods. I actually pretty much agree with you, I'm not the most insightful commenter Slashdot has ever seen.
Uggh. Reminds me of how Pantone has all the colors copyrighted.
It's things like this which make me even surer that copyright needs a really big overhaul, if not being abolished totally.
> We'll have to see if the authors' new version is actually copyright infringement on the old one.
I'm sorry to have confused the discussion here by emphasizing something not mentioned in the summary and only in the linked article. It's actually two tests from two different sets of authors. The newer test is called "The Sweet 16" (what a terrible name) and as far as anyone can tell (the newer test is unavailable, even in this era of the Internet, AFAIK), it is unlikely that any claim of infringement is valid.
I just hope some clinician who managed to download the newer test, in the few weeks it actually was available, will have the good idea to ask a favor from a friend who knows how to anonymously publish information on the net.
And having the money to defend yourself is a completely different matter.
It seems to me, however, that some medical institutions might be able to organize a not-for-profit holding corporation to which the copyrights of the newer test are assigned, and fund it to distribute the newer test for free with open licensing while having the means to defend against the infringement claim.
The corporation PAR, which benefits from the older test, the MMSE, has caused a newer, openly licensed test called "The Sweet 16", to be taken down by claiming infringement on elements of the older test, even though as far as anyone knows, they have no legal basis for doing so.
The corporation, PAR, to which the older test is licensed, is behind this. AFAIK, the doctors who authored the older test haven't personally claimed infringement. My guess is that they received a single payment for licensing their test to PAR, and therefore they have no financial stake in the success or failure of the newer test.
Sorry, I didn't see that the summary incorrectly states that the authors of the older test were claiming infringement. AFAIK, they're not.
I guess I failed the comprehension test. Actually, I didn't really read the summary carefully, since I was already familiar with the actual facts.
The authors did. That didn't help them against the infringement claims of the corporation which benefits from an older test.
This is one example why many believe copyright does on the whole more damage than benefit to society.
The authors were letting everyone download the new test for free; a corporation, PAR, to which the old test had been licensed is to blame for claiming copyright over (elements of) the new test which may eventually replace the old one.
Unfortunately, there's no easy way to leave them a comment about one's opinion of their behavior on their website. I looked.
> Also, not sure what the summary means with the last statement.
Seems to me that it means "I am a card-carrying member of the Church of RMS, and I'm not about to let any real facts get in the way of disparaging those of less pure faith".
As you point out, it seems a bit stupid. Possibly useful for artificially pumping the Firehose to get a submission on the front page, though.
"hindering open source development"?
Yeah, sure. Just like the fact that I, like most people, don't donate 10% of my income to the FSF or some other open-source project hinders it. So what?
If you want to judge others from a particular ideological position (concealing code is unethical), you should state that clearly rather than impugn others indirectly.
You think you have it bad --- my doctor told me I had to stop posting comments on Slashdot!
> So what would they be selling? A handful of prototypes?
Pagehits on the the linked sites.
After getting the "our developers are working on it" runaround for months and months when Linksys didn't issue new drivers without the Broadcom vulnerability for my WPC54G v.4 adapter, rendering it totally useless, I decided to never, never, buy Linksys equipment.
I actually "inherited" this card from a relative who had bought it and found out he didn't need it.
This really has to show you how bad Linksys's customer relations were with me: I didn't even pay for the adapter myself and Linksys still managed to totally piss me off with their lying stories about their developers working on new drivers.
(Disclaimer: I've posted this before here, when it was on-topic. I'll probably stop bothering to post it sometime in the next 10 years or so.)
> The death penalty is currently legal in Israel for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes,
> terrorism, and crimes against the Jewish People
Along with spouting that long, vague list, you (disingenuously?) forgot the practical part of that Wikipedia article --- only two executions have ever been actually carried out in over 60 years, one of whom was Eichmann.
The reality of the legality of the Israeli death penalty is nothing like the reality of the legality of the US one.
See:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111220/03135817138/myth-that-sopapipa-only-impact-foreign-sites.shtml
Beats me. What difference is there between being "unlimited in length of term" and merely practically so because the length is constantly being enlarged at a rate which is faster or equal to the progression of time?
SCOTUS thought there was some kind of difference. Unfortunately...
You totally miss the implications of his post (possibly because he forgot to add the phrase "all of" to "Once all of the patents are identified"). Just because Microsoft decided to use X numbers of patents against Motorola doesn't mean they don't have another Y waiting in line for the next court case. So your quoted source makes no difference.
Since there is no legal way to require Microsoft to reveal all of the patents they think might infringe on Android, his post is, rather than FUD, merely fantasy. The fact that it is fantasy showcases a major problem with the patent system. The law should be that if someone pays licensing fees, they can require the party they are paying to reveal all of their patents which they feel are infringed (by that particular technology), and any patents which are not revealed are automatically rendered toothless (against that particular technology), even against third parties. (Now I'm fading into fantasy... <sigh/>)
> no one has resources to track down all the reasons why they are crap, and sue Microsoft over each and every of them.
You also missed a second major problem with his post: there is no legal penalty for filing an invalid patent. Or at least, for all practical purposes.
Sorry if I offended, you're now the second one I've caught at this (the first was quite anti-Google, it seemed to me).
Google is far from being entirely free from sin, but it bugs the hell out of me when people misquote that motto (perhaps not the right word for it but... whatever) as a way to subtly introduce a strawman fallacy into their argument.
A second problem is that the misquotation is infectious.
I love it when all the anti-Google crowd misquote the "don't be evil" into "do no evil".
For those of you who are American English challenged, these two phrases have totally different connotations.
"Don't be evil" is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, more like "don't emulate Hollywood villains".
"Do no evil" is fire-and-brimstone church preacher telling you you're going to Hell.
If you want to rank on Google for being hypocritical, you should first try to understand this. It's important.
And more power to them, for that. Whenever I think about a future time when (non-server) Linux has a large enough user base that it is a common target for malicious attacks, I wonder exactly how much I would benefit from jumping ship to a more fringe OS like Plan 9. It seems to me that to have the same level of usability, I'd be running ports of the same FOSS user-land programs (browsers, etc.) to do my work, and then I'd still inherit the same vulnerabilities at the application level (I'd be protected if the black hat merely tries to infect my OS via these vulnerabilities, but not if he uses them to infect the applications themselves --- e.g., chrome malware injection into FF itself). However, more competing FOSS projects filling a specific application niche (browsers, in this case) means less vulnerability overall (assuming that the diversity doesn't affect the overall quality of the projects --- probably a very optimistic assumption).