And the National Academy of Sciences (US) report on global warming, drafted by the senior US scientists in the field, is wrong. As is every other major collaborative meta-analysis of existing evidence.
You point out that the EPA and UN-funded scientists have found evidence of global warming. Notice where their funding comes from. If Exxon was paying the bill, these same guys would no doubt have found the opposite. Government and industry researchers don't get tenure.
The UN didn't FUND the scientific research, only the report.
There actually is very little debate even on this topic anymore, either in the scientific community or in the VAST majority of world leaders (Dubya being an exception). The northern hemisphere is warming. Human generated gases are a principal cause. Even with climatic fluctuations, the changes in the last 50 years are ring clear as a bell. The situation is similar to that about 10 years ago, when everyone except the tobacco producers were claiming that nicotine was addictive. Well, guess what - it is the most addictive substance on the planet.
No one stands to make a tenth the money from global warming as the energy companies stand to make from selling energy. The bottom line is that there is really no way to get out of it without using clean energy or less energy. Clean energy costs more, and less energy stunts growth. Either way there are economic consequences.
But you have to think about the consequences of failing to act quickly enough. New Orleans is under sea level. So is Amsterdam. Virtually all the US east coast cities south of DC will be under water - places like Virginia Beach, Charleston, Savannah, Miami. And that pales in comparison to what will occur in low lying areas in Asia. (Note: so far Antarctic ice is unaffected. If it continues to be unaffected there will be no oceanic rise of note)
Besides that - entire ecosystems in the northern hemisphere are shifting climate so rapidly that native species do not have time to migrate further north. The amount of warming in the last 50 years can be translated to a shift in latitude. And in some areas, notably Alaska and Siberia, these shifts are killing native species.
I think if you do your research a little and read the works of the scientists who study climatic change, you would have very little doubt indeed about whether there is northern hemispheric warming or whether human generated gases are at least substantially to blame.
The debate is centered on whether or not man or natural processes (cycles of flora and fauna, volcanoes) are driving the current trend. I have not seen any convincing evidence to support the existence of anthropogenic phenomenon, and plenty to support the existence of natural phenomenon.
There have been about a dozen articles published in Science in the last year in which model after model of climate has been tested. Time after time the models have converged on one and only one solution: increases in greenhouse gases are responsible, and the increases parallel those produced by man. The jury is in. The decision is done. The only issue left is whether mankind can do anything about it, and whether we can live with it.
Seriously, see the EPAs opinion http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/climate/index.htm l
Also see the scientists commissioned by the UN to look into the problem - they also concur you are wrong
http://www.ipcc.ch/
TO paraphrase as at http://www.uic.com.au/nip24.htm
* Over the 20th century the global average surface temperature has increased by about 0.6 degrees C, more than earlier estimated to 1994. This appears to be the largest increase in any of the last ten centuries.
* Globally it is likely that the 1990s was the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year recorded (since 1861). Certainly this seems to be the case in the northern hemisphere not simply since 1861 but for the last ten centuries.
* On average, between 1950 and 1993, night time daily minimum air temperatures over land increased by about 0.2 degrees C per decade, lengthening the freeze-free period in many mid to high latitudes.
* Since the 1950s the lower part of the atmosphere has warmed at about 0.1 degrees C per decade, as snow and ice cover have decreased in extent by about 10%, and Arctic sea ice thickness more than this.
* However, some important aspects of climate appear not to have changed, including storm frequency and intensity and the extent of Antarctic sea ice.
Debian does - there is a package with PINE in it in nonfree. What's more, it even Debianises it, by having the source, and then a package that patches and makes it.
My main beef is that netscape is in non-free also. So is Wordperfect. These packages are completely closed in the source sense.
PINE allows the user enough freedom to be able to see clearly if there are security issues, and to be able to see clearly if there are ways in which user privacy is compromised. These are two large reasons for me to use open source. I can even patch PINE for my own use, and distribute my patches. The same is true of Dan Bernstein's programs.
Is it appropriate to place such a package in the same category as completely closed programs ?? To do so is to mark such a package as inappropriate and drum it out of free software.
I, for one, feel that free software would be a better place if it could more readily tolerate people who release the source to their packages and retain normal copyright, as opposed to only accepting packages that are GNU-free. Is qmail that intolerable ? or PINE ? or djbdns ?
What's wrong with grabbing a source package and doing rpm --rebuild? Okay, that's two steps instead of one, but it's not that much of a big deal.
Well, first you have to FIND the package. Then you can download it. Then build it.
Ports and apt-get (Debian) use standard distro archives. You never need to FIND the package. This may seem like a little step improvement, but it leads to a HUGE increase in user-friendliness.
As for apt vs ports - both are great and both work well. Competition is good. One can expect each of them to pull other free unices up to their level in the next two years. And that is good for everyone.
Ports: suck source and dependent source down across the net, configure for your system, build, install.
Apt-get for Debian: suck binaries down across the net, resolve dependencies, install
All other distros: trying to catch up.
Ports is even a step more fine grained than apt-get, simply because it works with source, and incompatibilities are nearly impossible (the package will refuse to build instead).
PINE is not really part of the problem, and attempting to villainize them is wrong in my opinion. They make a program. As a user, you can download it, you can hack the source, you can use it. You simply cannot distribute changes to the source. This is essentially the same terms as DJB software packages such as qmail, djbdns, and publicfile.
The prompting of RMS to found GNU has been reported as the failure of a printer company to either fix their driver or allow RMS to see the source to fix it himself. Ask yourself, if they had allowed him to fix the driver for himself, but had insisted that he send his changes back to them for redistribution, how bad would that world be ? (That sentence is pretty awful - I feel kinda like Dubya).
I would MUCH rather see distributions like Debian allow the distribution of binaries or source for PINE in a non-free section. There oughta be a category for software like this. The criteria are that the author provides a copy of the source that the user owns in the copyright sense, and that nothing more than standard copyrights are allowed. This is a stark contrast to EULA contractually governed packages, and should not be categorized and villainized in the same manner.
There was a time, around when PINE was written, in which the vast majority of open source programs gave you a copy in the copyright sense, and no more. This gets you MOST of the way from an EULA-type agreement to a GNU type agreement, but not all the way.
BTW, I use mutt mainly because I HATE pico. PINE never included the functionality to plugin your own editor. You have to use pico first, and then exit to your own editor. That is a bad design, and I cannot fix it for others - only U Wash can.
However, as unices swap to cache much more aggressively than Windoze, the second start of mozilla will be MUCH faster than the first. If you combine that with long uptime, the only difference is the lack of the box locking up...
So then Windows loads two browsers permiently in memory, great.
Windows defaults to ALWAYS loading IE and Office into memory permanently (assuming Office is installed). Anytime you want to use a competitor's product you will find unpleasant things from Microsoft.
That depends on the LCD. The head of our academic center upgraded to 2000 against his best intentions to support HIS LCD screen.
The point remains though - new hardware for which drivers do not yet exist will only work under XP. This is a critical part of the strategy, just as forcing all OEMs to use XP is.
It seems that Seagate just released a virtually silent hard drive. It emits only 2.0 bels while spinning and 2.4 bels while seeking; the human ear can't hear sounds below 2.5 bels.
Human hearing thresholds are close to a tenth of the noise of this hard drive.
However, ambient noise will almost always exceed 25 dB.
P.S. Has anybody used XP yet? It looks like an OS for toddlers. Big, gawdy Fisher-Price/Tonka Truck icons and buttons. Very non-intimidating, and I'm using the professional beta. They really dumbed the OS down. I wonder what the final "server" release will be like? *shudder*
It doesn't matter. You will use it. So will most other people. Quality got nothing to do with it. Here is the plan.
1) Stop support and new device drivers for all old operating systems
2) Do not allow OEM sales of anything except XP.
3) Only allow Office XP to be set up on Windows XP.
This simple strategy will force all users into Office XP and Windows XP within 3 years. It will be horribly coercive. Ever notice Windows NT doesn't support LCD monitors ?? How about new sound cards/new NICs ??
All new hardware will be only supported under XP. Old office will not be supported or compatible with Windows XP.
Apples OWNS exclusive licensing of the Sorensen codec, according to Sorensen. He has no control of its use at this point, only Apple does.
And Apple is not playing along. They will provide Quicktime SERVERS that run on linux, but not a client. Nor will they allow one to be used.
It goes further though - Apple also has licensing rights for TrueType font patents. They make $$ from other operating systems (like Windows) for these patents. They are an obvious extension of Metafont (of TeX fame). They do not allow open source use of these patents, although they are not challenging the Freetype project at this point in time.
Apple is utterly unconcerned about the community. They are only concerned about their own $$. If they were really concerned, they could allow patent licensing to Freetype and xanim to ensure TrueType fonts and Quicktime movies are viewable under linux.
Right now, as a linux user, you simply feel like a door has been slammed in your face.
If we backstep 3-5 years, we see a different computing environment. Microsoft OWNS the desktop and office. UNIX OWNS servers.
Then, we look back another 15 years. CP/M is the best OS available. Microsoft buys DOS for $50000, ports BASIC to DOS, and undersells CP/M by a substantial amount, and owns desktops.
Then, to 1995. OS/2 comes out. Windows 95 comes out. OS/2 is good, Windows 95 is junk. Windows 95 sells for under $100. OS/2 sells for a few hundred. Microsoft owns graphical user interface environments. Mac could have owned it, but they made the same error made by CP/M and IBM - they went after the high end.
The low end takes over. This pattern has repeated itself over and over.
Back to the mid to late 1990s. Microsoft was concerned. As networking became more relevant, they needed a network presence. Hence Windows NT. It rapidly looked like NT would take over the low end server market. It didn't matter that it sucked badly compared to UNIX - it cost a third of UNIX. The low end would rule again.
However, as NT was starting to make ground, enter linux. UNIX admins EVERYWHERE set up linux boxes to do server tasks for free instead of tolerating NT. This ate into Microsoft's market.
Microsoft would OWN the low end server market today if it were not for open source OSs, primarily linux.
And now Microsoft is attacking the GPL. They are attacking it because it owns markets that otherwise would rightfully belong to Microsoft, following the age old rule that the cheaper system wins independently of function. They can now see the writing on the wall. Linux (and *BSD) has eaten the low end server market, and Microsoft is not getting it back. You cannot undersell free, and Microsoft has never won by competing on quality of software.
This is alien to their entire business strategy. They make crappier products, sell them cheaply, provide no support, and own the market. Once they own one market, they leverage into other markets as strongly as possible.
This strategy today makes them a PROFIT ABOVE TAXES OF A BILLION DOLLARS A MONTH. And Microsoft wants more. If they could merely keep new quality software out of the GPL, they have a chance.
The GPL, you see, does not prevent a business from using software. But it does assign the IP to the open source community. And that scares Redmond to death. Open source has already eaten markets Microsoft had earmarked. They are now worried about the home base - the main monopoly, the billion dollar a month monopoly.
Stable: security upgrades and other REALLY solid upgrades only. You are expected to perform a dist upgrade from time to time because otherwise you will have really old packages. However, NOTHING EVER BREAKS EVER.
Testing: You get reasonably well tested updates and security updates. Your box is cutting edge. Things still don't seem to break ever, but notice ever is not capitalized anymore. This is more stable than any other distribution's stable.
Unstable: Not just cutting edge, bleeding edge. Perl may break. Dpkg may break. But mostly things will still hum along, with an occasional hiccup. Power users will want unstable on their workstations - not on production servers. This now has recent mozilla, konqueror, kword, gnumeric, and other production apps that are changing reasonably fast right now.
On the other hand Apple's also been contributing back a lot too (unlike MS) and while they may not have released your favorite bits they've been playing fairly.
Right.
Like when I went to play the latest greatest Quicktime movie with the Sorensen codec under linux..... no, wait. Apple EXPLICITLY doesn't allow use of its patent license of the codec under linux. They do not provide a player. They refuse, even under NDA, to provide developers with the licensing of the patent.
In the words of Steve Jobs (quoting someone else) "Good artists borrow; great artists steal." Apple is replacing perhaps the least stable OS ever (OS 9) with FreeBSD. If they wanted to give back, they could at least consider a Quicktime player for linux. Or at least allow xanim to incorporate the codec in binary form.
I wonder how long this will last. A company like Compaq has made its money, and built its business, on the PC and Server market. I dont think that this will pan out to be much more than 5 or 10% of compaq's business model. They rely to heavily on the markets they have to ever be able to shift gears like this.
Easy now. Compaq is a large company with a lot of cash in the bank. Part of this is a reshaping of the former Dec portfolio. Cash in the Alpha, roll-over everything to Itanium (where there are two existing open source operating systems to sort out the bugs before our engineers need to look at it). The money from the Digital side is in competitive support contracts, support for Tru64 and VMS (both of which have sizeable userbases).
And on the flip side Compaq is one of the largest players in the business sector for contracts - competing head to head with Dell. And the sooner they can provide a comprehensive support package, the better. As computing becomes increasingly networked, large companies need support. They want a network with Unices and Windows boxes working together, and complementing the company's interests. They want someone to come out and replace the motherboard that fried last night. This is the way Compaq can achieve an edge in corporate computing. They can go to those corporate contracts and sell them Unix and support in addition to the gazillion Windows ME boxes.
This is risky though... Compaq OWNED the high performance computing market with the alpha, and they are throwing that to the wind to compete on services.
Actually, Pfizer invented an ugly, smarmy way to extend its Prozac patent. It repackaged prozac in a pretty pink and green capsule, and named it "sarafem."
Right.
But this new use comes with a new claim. The new claim is the ability to treat PMDD, and Pfizer will have a monopoly on that market.
However, its monopoly on the use of Prozac for depression is ending very soon. And generics containing the same chemical (named something other than the trademarked prozac) will be very broadly dispensed.
Patents can be extended by new discoveries or new claims. However, that does not affect the expiration of the patent on the previous invention and its claims.
This begs the question of whether marketability should really be the end goal of research. As you say yourself, prozac might not be as ubiquitously used if it were not marketed and "aggressively pushed". But you fail to answer whether this is a GOOD thing or not. Would an equivalent product have taken prozac's place? Your argument is that if prozac hadn't have been patented Pfizer wouldn't have been able to accumulate should a large amount of marketing money to market it. This says NOTHING about the quality of the product. Your assumption seems to be that producing products should be the end goal.
Actually, I didn't make assumptions, and I didn't speak to the issue of whether our current IP system is worthwhile.
Prozac is the best treatment of depression that is widely deployed. It is not the best treatment of depression. However, it is better than almost all widely deployed treatments before it. It has helped MILLIONS of depressed people get better. If it were not patented as it was discovered, it is a certainty that MILLIONS of depressed people would have used less efficacious drugs with worse side effects.
In my mind, that is a very good thing indeed. You can easily point at other really crappy products and say that marketing should not make the product widely deployed, but the fact exists that this is the world we currently live in. If an inventor wants his invention to be widely deployed, he needs to establish IP and get lots of marketing money behind it.
The ingredients are :
1) worthhwile IP
2) strong IP protection
3) strong financial backing in the form of marketing and sales
1) is always necessary. 2) and 3) relate to our current marketplace, and for most products I do not see any way around it. There are of course useless products that are made successful through good marketing tactics (Windows comes to mind), but that doesn't take away from the argument that improvements to the consumer come from all three.
"If the patents were not in place, the discoveries would not lead to aggressive products in the market, since no one will fund a company based on public domain IP."
False. Many companies make generic drugs based on formerly patented drugs. They even make money that way.
Right. Take prozac as an example. Its patent protection has expired. It has made about a zillion dollars for its company (Pfizer, I think). Knockoffs will come next year, and make a few million.
However, to support my argument, if prozac had never been patented, it would hardly be used now. And no one would be making much money off it. Pfizer marketed the heck out of it to give it the prominent place in the market it has now. And if it were not for that, generic knockoffs would be nearly worthless too.
So, yes, there is some place for public domain products. But if initial intellectual property is not patented, corporations will not aggressively push the products into the marketplace.
But if you were required to sign an EULA like agreement which gave your employer or university full patent and intellectual property rights then your screwed. Basically it belongs to them and they can patent it. Many universities do not use the NIH policy because its too liberal in the eye's of corporations.
First of all, only inventors can patent something. A university is a non-entity when it comes to getting patents granted. Universities routinely control the licensing of a patent. They almost always give a percentage of the royalties to the inventor, or else there would be no patents filed. Patenting something takes time and effort, and if an academic scientist is not paid, he will not patent. He establishes his livelihood through publications, not patents. Patents are like icing on the cake - good if you can get it, but you keep your day job either way.
At corporations it is different. The corporation creates a job agreement in which generation of patents is part of the scientist's job, and it is expected the scientist will not be paid extra for it. Still, most reasonable corporations reward in the form of bonuses and promotions those scientists that create worthy patents. They do this because they want to create incentive. In fact, the entire patent system is created on the premise of incentive to the inventor.
In a university I bet the dean will say sign this agreement that is for ABC corporation and not under the NIH and forfit all rights or you wont get any credits and wont graduate. If your were in that situation which option would you choose?
This does not EVER happen. This sort of conflict of interest is the stuff by which deans are ejected from academia. Grants at academic institutions are simply not allowed with patent strings attached. If they were, the scientist would effectively be an employee of the granting agency. And believe you me, academic institutions have a substantial financial incentive to retain their own employees.
Once research is published, it establishes prior art. Only the authors may apply for patent coverage, and they must apply within a year. It is often the case that a head scientist will prefer to submit the patent first. Other scientists on the project will be hurt by such a maneuver. Without it, there will be a compromise in the establishment of intellectual property. This intellectual property will make money for the university and for the inventors.
For other issues, there are NEVER patent strings attached to research dollars. If a company funds research that is done at a university, the university will control the patent licensing. Often the university feels it is in their best interests to license exclusively to the corporation that funded the research, but the university chooses to do this because it will generate the most revenue. And patent licensing from universities is all about making money.
It is quite a natural act that public university research leads to discovery that is patentable, even if not intended. If the patents were not in place, the discoveries would not lead to aggressive products in the market, since no one will fund a company based on public domain IP. So, universities choose to allow patentable research, and they profit from it substantially.
Even public grants allow this to occur. NIH has a policy that allows any grant to create patents, provided that the patent application is disclosed to the granting agency. As long as that step is fulfilled, the patent is invented by the researcher, and its licensing is controlled by the university.
It is in the scientists best interests to patent his discoveries. Although he can make money from that, he cannot control how the patent is used. In this way the scientist is dissociated from the revenue generation portion of the patent process. The royalty checks come in, and it is kinda like being paid for something you did a long time ago and rarely think about anymore.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/imedia/window sm edia/sdk/wm7sdkmac.asp
This was largely a play to get all clients to use its format. Otherwise, REAL likely would have dominated the market. Microsoft specializes in giving free products to establish market dominance.
The bottom line is that all clients can READ wma format (if they choose to). REAL format, OTOH, is patented. Therefore, only REAL clients can read REAL streams (or anyone else REAL allows to).
This gives Microsoft an obvious advantage in the server market. Once they own the servers... it is all over.
Slashdot Mirror
OK. You are right.
And the National Academy of Sciences (US) report on global warming, drafted by the senior US scientists in the field, is wrong. As is every other major collaborative meta-analysis of existing evidence.
You point out that the EPA and UN-funded scientists have found evidence of global warming. Notice where their funding comes from. If Exxon was paying the bill, these same guys would no doubt have found the opposite. Government and industry researchers don't get tenure.
The UN didn't FUND the scientific research, only the report.
There actually is very little debate even on this topic anymore, either in the scientific community or in the VAST majority of world leaders (Dubya being an exception). The northern hemisphere is warming. Human generated gases are a principal cause. Even with climatic fluctuations, the changes in the last 50 years are ring clear as a bell. The situation is similar to that about 10 years ago, when everyone except the tobacco producers were claiming that nicotine was addictive. Well, guess what - it is the most addictive substance on the planet.
No one stands to make a tenth the money from global warming as the energy companies stand to make from selling energy. The bottom line is that there is really no way to get out of it without using clean energy or less energy. Clean energy costs more, and less energy stunts growth. Either way there are economic consequences.
But you have to think about the consequences of failing to act quickly enough. New Orleans is under sea level. So is Amsterdam. Virtually all the US east coast cities south of DC will be under water - places like Virginia Beach, Charleston, Savannah, Miami. And that pales in comparison to what will occur in low lying areas in Asia. (Note: so far Antarctic ice is unaffected. If it continues to be unaffected there will be no oceanic rise of note)
Besides that - entire ecosystems in the northern hemisphere are shifting climate so rapidly that native species do not have time to migrate further north. The amount of warming in the last 50 years can be translated to a shift in latitude. And in some areas, notably Alaska and Siberia, these shifts are killing native species.
I think if you do your research a little and read the works of the scientists who study climatic change, you would have very little doubt indeed about whether there is northern hemispheric warming or whether human generated gases are at least substantially to blame.
The debate is centered on whether or not man or natural processes (cycles of flora and fauna, volcanoes) are driving the current trend. I have not seen any convincing evidence to support the existence of anthropogenic phenomenon, and plenty to support the existence of natural phenomenon.
m l
There have been about a dozen articles published in Science in the last year in which model after model of climate has been tested. Time after time the models have converged on one and only one solution: increases in greenhouse gases are responsible, and the increases parallel those produced by man. The jury is in. The decision is done. The only issue left is whether mankind can do anything about it, and whether we can live with it.
Seriously, see the EPAs opinion http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/climate/index.ht
Also see the scientists commissioned by the UN to look into the problem - they also concur you are wrong
http://www.ipcc.ch/
TO paraphrase as at http://www.uic.com.au/nip24.htm
* Over the 20th century the global average surface temperature has increased by about 0.6 degrees C, more than earlier estimated to 1994. This appears to be the largest increase in any of the last ten centuries.
* Globally it is likely that the 1990s was the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year recorded (since 1861). Certainly this seems to be the case in the northern hemisphere not simply since 1861 but for the last ten centuries.
* On average, between 1950 and 1993, night time daily minimum air temperatures over land increased by about 0.2 degrees C per decade, lengthening the freeze-free period in many mid to high latitudes.
* Since the 1950s the lower part of the atmosphere has warmed at about 0.1 degrees C per decade, as snow and ice cover have decreased in extent by about 10%, and Arctic sea ice thickness more than this.
* However, some important aspects of climate appear not to have changed, including storm frequency and intensity and the extent of Antarctic sea ice.
Debian does - there is a package with PINE in it in nonfree. What's more, it even Debianises it, by having the source, and then a package that patches and makes it.
My main beef is that netscape is in non-free also. So is Wordperfect. These packages are completely closed in the source sense.
PINE allows the user enough freedom to be able to see clearly if there are security issues, and to be able to see clearly if there are ways in which user privacy is compromised. These are two large reasons for me to use open source. I can even patch PINE for my own use, and distribute my patches. The same is true of Dan Bernstein's programs.
Is it appropriate to place such a package in the same category as completely closed programs ?? To do so is to mark such a package as inappropriate and drum it out of free software.
I, for one, feel that free software would be a better place if it could more readily tolerate people who release the source to their packages and retain normal copyright, as opposed to only accepting packages that are GNU-free. Is qmail that intolerable ? or PINE ? or djbdns ?
What's wrong with grabbing a source package and doing rpm --rebuild? Okay, that's two steps instead of one, but it's not that much of a big deal.
Well, first you have to FIND the package. Then you can download it. Then build it.
Ports and apt-get (Debian) use standard distro archives. You never need to FIND the package. This may seem like a little step improvement, but it leads to a HUGE increase in user-friendliness.
As for apt vs ports - both are great and both work well. Competition is good. One can expect each of them to pull other free unices up to their level in the next two years. And that is good for everyone.
Ports: suck source and dependent source down across the net, configure for your system, build, install.
Apt-get for Debian: suck binaries down across the net, resolve dependencies, install
All other distros: trying to catch up.
Ports is even a step more fine grained than apt-get, simply because it works with source, and incompatibilities are nearly impossible (the package will refuse to build instead).
PINE is not really part of the problem, and attempting to villainize them is wrong in my opinion. They make a program. As a user, you can download it, you can hack the source, you can use it. You simply cannot distribute changes to the source. This is essentially the same terms as DJB software packages such as qmail, djbdns, and publicfile.
The prompting of RMS to found GNU has been reported as the failure of a printer company to either fix their driver or allow RMS to see the source to fix it himself. Ask yourself, if they had allowed him to fix the driver for himself, but had insisted that he send his changes back to them for redistribution, how bad would that world be ? (That sentence is pretty awful - I feel kinda like Dubya).
I would MUCH rather see distributions like Debian allow the distribution of binaries or source for PINE in a non-free section. There oughta be a category for software like this. The criteria are that the author provides a copy of the source that the user owns in the copyright sense, and that nothing more than standard copyrights are allowed. This is a stark contrast to EULA contractually governed packages, and should not be categorized and villainized in the same manner.
There was a time, around when PINE was written, in which the vast majority of open source programs gave you a copy in the copyright sense, and no more. This gets you MOST of the way from an EULA-type agreement to a GNU type agreement, but not all the way.
BTW, I use mutt mainly because I HATE pico. PINE never included the functionality to plugin your own editor. You have to use pico first, and then exit to your own editor. That is a bad design, and I cannot fix it for others - only U Wash can.
No. It will not work in Unix.
However, as unices swap to cache much more aggressively than Windoze, the second start of mozilla will be MUCH faster than the first. If you combine that with long uptime, the only difference is the lack of the box locking up...
So then Windows loads two browsers permiently in memory, great.
Windows defaults to ALWAYS loading IE and Office into memory permanently (assuming Office is installed). Anytime you want to use a competitor's product you will find unpleasant things from Microsoft.
All your apps are belong to BG. And your $$.
The release notes *still* don't document how to install Mozilla properly on a multi-user system.
It is pretty easy.
apt-get install mozilla
That depends on the LCD. The head of our academic center upgraded to 2000 against his best intentions to support HIS LCD screen.
The point remains though - new hardware for which drivers do not yet exist will only work under XP. This is a critical part of the strategy, just as forcing all OEMs to use XP is.
One bel is .1 of a decible.
Right.
And one deciliter is 10 liters. One decimeter is 10 meters, and you need to go back to second grade and learn it properly this time.
20-25 dB is still rather quiet. One would never listen to radio or television at this level. Conversations are largely held at 50 dB and up.
It seems that Seagate just released a virtually silent hard drive. It emits only 2.0 bels while spinning and 2.4 bels while seeking; the human ear can't hear sounds below 2.5 bels.
Human hearing thresholds are close to a tenth of the noise of this hard drive.
However, ambient noise will almost always exceed 25 dB.
P.S. Has anybody used XP yet? It looks like an OS for toddlers. Big, gawdy Fisher-Price/Tonka Truck icons and buttons. Very non-intimidating, and I'm using the professional beta. They really dumbed the OS down. I wonder what the final "server" release will be like? *shudder*
It doesn't matter. You will use it. So will most other people. Quality got nothing to do with it. Here is the plan.
1) Stop support and new device drivers for all old operating systems
2) Do not allow OEM sales of anything except XP.
3) Only allow Office XP to be set up on Windows XP.
This simple strategy will force all users into Office XP and Windows XP within 3 years. It will be horribly coercive. Ever notice Windows NT doesn't support LCD monitors ?? How about new sound cards/new NICs ??
All new hardware will be only supported under XP. Old office will not be supported or compatible with Windows XP.
All your $$ belong to BG & Co.
Apples OWNS exclusive licensing of the Sorensen codec, according to Sorensen. He has no control of its use at this point, only Apple does.
And Apple is not playing along. They will provide Quicktime SERVERS that run on linux, but not a client. Nor will they allow one to be used.
It goes further though - Apple also has licensing rights for TrueType font patents. They make $$ from other operating systems (like Windows) for these patents. They are an obvious extension of Metafont (of TeX fame). They do not allow open source use of these patents, although they are not challenging the Freetype project at this point in time.
Apple is utterly unconcerned about the community. They are only concerned about their own $$. If they were really concerned, they could allow patent licensing to Freetype and xanim to ensure TrueType fonts and Quicktime movies are viewable under linux.
Right now, as a linux user, you simply feel like a door has been slammed in your face.
This article really misses the boat.
If we backstep 3-5 years, we see a different computing environment. Microsoft OWNS the desktop and office. UNIX OWNS servers.
Then, we look back another 15 years. CP/M is the best OS available. Microsoft buys DOS for $50000, ports BASIC to DOS, and undersells CP/M by a substantial amount, and owns desktops.
Then, to 1995. OS/2 comes out. Windows 95 comes out. OS/2 is good, Windows 95 is junk. Windows 95 sells for under $100. OS/2 sells for a few hundred. Microsoft owns graphical user interface environments. Mac could have owned it, but they made the same error made by CP/M and IBM - they went after the high end.
The low end takes over. This pattern has repeated itself over and over.
Back to the mid to late 1990s. Microsoft was concerned. As networking became more relevant, they needed a network presence. Hence Windows NT. It rapidly looked like NT would take over the low end server market. It didn't matter that it sucked badly compared to UNIX - it cost a third of UNIX. The low end would rule again.
However, as NT was starting to make ground, enter linux. UNIX admins EVERYWHERE set up linux boxes to do server tasks for free instead of tolerating NT. This ate into Microsoft's market.
Microsoft would OWN the low end server market today if it were not for open source OSs, primarily linux.
And now Microsoft is attacking the GPL. They are attacking it because it owns markets that otherwise would rightfully belong to Microsoft, following the age old rule that the cheaper system wins independently of function. They can now see the writing on the wall. Linux (and *BSD) has eaten the low end server market, and Microsoft is not getting it back. You cannot undersell free, and Microsoft has never won by competing on quality of software.
This is alien to their entire business strategy. They make crappier products, sell them cheaply, provide no support, and own the market. Once they own one market, they leverage into other markets as strongly as possible.
This strategy today makes them a PROFIT ABOVE TAXES OF A BILLION DOLLARS A MONTH. And Microsoft wants more. If they could merely keep new quality software out of the GPL, they have a chance.
The GPL, you see, does not prevent a business from using software. But it does assign the IP to the open source community. And that scares Redmond to death. Open source has already eaten markets Microsoft had earmarked. They are now worried about the home base - the main monopoly, the billion dollar a month monopoly.
Now THAT is something to worry about.
For those not in the know on Debian:
Stable: security upgrades and other REALLY solid upgrades only. You are expected to perform a dist upgrade from time to time because otherwise you will have really old packages. However, NOTHING EVER BREAKS EVER.
Testing: You get reasonably well tested updates and security updates. Your box is cutting edge. Things still don't seem to break ever, but notice ever is not capitalized anymore. This is more stable than any other distribution's stable.
Unstable: Not just cutting edge, bleeding edge. Perl may break. Dpkg may break. But mostly things will still hum along, with an occasional hiccup. Power users will want unstable on their workstations - not on production servers. This now has recent mozilla, konqueror, kword, gnumeric, and other production apps that are changing reasonably fast right now.
On the other hand Apple's also been contributing back a lot too (unlike MS) and while they may not have released your favorite bits they've been playing fairly.
Right.
Like when I went to play the latest greatest Quicktime movie with the Sorensen codec under linux..... no, wait. Apple EXPLICITLY doesn't allow use of its patent license of the codec under linux. They do not provide a player. They refuse, even under NDA, to provide developers with the licensing of the patent.
In the words of Steve Jobs (quoting someone else) "Good artists borrow; great artists steal." Apple is replacing perhaps the least stable OS ever (OS 9) with FreeBSD. If they wanted to give back, they could at least consider a Quicktime player for linux. Or at least allow xanim to incorporate the codec in binary form.
I wonder how long this will last. A company like Compaq has made its money, and built its business, on the PC and Server market. I dont think that this will pan out to be much more than 5 or 10% of compaq's business model. They rely to heavily on the markets they have to ever be able to shift gears like this.
Easy now. Compaq is a large company with a lot of cash in the bank. Part of this is a reshaping of the former Dec portfolio. Cash in the Alpha, roll-over everything to Itanium (where there are two existing open source operating systems to sort out the bugs before our engineers need to look at it). The money from the Digital side is in competitive support contracts, support for Tru64 and VMS (both of which have sizeable userbases).
And on the flip side Compaq is one of the largest players in the business sector for contracts - competing head to head with Dell. And the sooner they can provide a comprehensive support package, the better. As computing becomes increasingly networked, large companies need support. They want a network with Unices and Windows boxes working together, and complementing the company's interests. They want someone to come out and replace the motherboard that fried last night. This is the way Compaq can achieve an edge in corporate computing. They can go to those corporate contracts and sell them Unix and support in addition to the gazillion Windows ME boxes.
This is risky though... Compaq OWNED the high performance computing market with the alpha, and they are throwing that to the wind to compete on services.
Actually, Pfizer invented an ugly, smarmy way to extend its Prozac patent. It repackaged prozac in a pretty pink and green capsule, and named it "sarafem."
Right.
But this new use comes with a new claim. The new claim is the ability to treat PMDD, and Pfizer will have a monopoly on that market.
However, its monopoly on the use of Prozac for depression is ending very soon. And generics containing the same chemical (named something other than the trademarked prozac) will be very broadly dispensed.
Patents can be extended by new discoveries or new claims. However, that does not affect the expiration of the patent on the previous invention and its claims.
This begs the question of whether marketability should really be the end goal of research. As you say yourself, prozac might not be as ubiquitously used if it were not marketed and "aggressively pushed". But you fail to answer whether this is a GOOD thing or not. Would an equivalent product have taken prozac's place? Your argument is that if prozac hadn't have been patented Pfizer wouldn't have been able to accumulate should a large amount of marketing money to market it. This says NOTHING about the quality of the product. Your assumption seems to be that producing products should be the end goal.
Actually, I didn't make assumptions, and I didn't speak to the issue of whether our current IP system is worthwhile.
Prozac is the best treatment of depression that is widely deployed. It is not the best treatment of depression. However, it is better than almost all widely deployed treatments before it. It has helped MILLIONS of depressed people get better. If it were not patented as it was discovered, it is a certainty that MILLIONS of depressed people would have used less efficacious drugs with worse side effects.
In my mind, that is a very good thing indeed. You can easily point at other really crappy products and say that marketing should not make the product widely deployed, but the fact exists that this is the world we currently live in. If an inventor wants his invention to be widely deployed, he needs to establish IP and get lots of marketing money behind it.
The ingredients are :
1) worthhwile IP
2) strong IP protection
3) strong financial backing in the form of marketing and sales
1) is always necessary. 2) and 3) relate to our current marketplace, and for most products I do not see any way around it. There are of course useless products that are made successful through good marketing tactics (Windows comes to mind), but that doesn't take away from the argument that improvements to the consumer come from all three.
"If the patents were not in place, the discoveries would not lead to aggressive products in the market, since no one will fund a company based on public domain IP."
False. Many companies make generic drugs based on formerly patented drugs. They even make money that way.
Right. Take prozac as an example. Its patent protection has expired. It has made about a zillion dollars for its company (Pfizer, I think). Knockoffs will come next year, and make a few million.
However, to support my argument, if prozac had never been patented, it would hardly be used now. And no one would be making much money off it. Pfizer marketed the heck out of it to give it the prominent place in the market it has now. And if it were not for that, generic knockoffs would be nearly worthless too.
So, yes, there is some place for public domain products. But if initial intellectual property is not patented, corporations will not aggressively push the products into the marketplace.
But if you were required to sign an EULA like agreement which gave your employer or university full patent and intellectual property rights then your screwed. Basically it belongs to them and they can patent it. Many universities do not use the NIH policy because its too liberal in the eye's of corporations.
First of all, only inventors can patent something. A university is a non-entity when it comes to getting patents granted. Universities routinely control the licensing of a patent. They almost always give a percentage of the royalties to the inventor, or else there would be no patents filed. Patenting something takes time and effort, and if an academic scientist is not paid, he will not patent. He establishes his livelihood through publications, not patents. Patents are like icing on the cake - good if you can get it, but you keep your day job either way.
At corporations it is different. The corporation creates a job agreement in which generation of patents is part of the scientist's job, and it is expected the scientist will not be paid extra for it. Still, most reasonable corporations reward in the form of bonuses and promotions those scientists that create worthy patents. They do this because they want to create incentive. In fact, the entire patent system is created on the premise of incentive to the inventor.
In a university I bet the dean will say sign this agreement that is for ABC corporation and not under the NIH and forfit all rights or you wont get any credits and wont graduate. If your were in that situation which option would you choose?
This does not EVER happen. This sort of conflict of interest is the stuff by which deans are ejected from academia. Grants at academic institutions are simply not allowed with patent strings attached. If they were, the scientist would effectively be an employee of the granting agency. And believe you me, academic institutions have a substantial financial incentive to retain their own employees.
Once research is published, it establishes prior art. Only the authors may apply for patent coverage, and they must apply within a year. It is often the case that a head scientist will prefer to submit the patent first. Other scientists on the project will be hurt by such a maneuver. Without it, there will be a compromise in the establishment of intellectual property. This intellectual property will make money for the university and for the inventors.
For other issues, there are NEVER patent strings attached to research dollars. If a company funds research that is done at a university, the university will control the patent licensing. Often the university feels it is in their best interests to license exclusively to the corporation that funded the research, but the university chooses to do this because it will generate the most revenue. And patent licensing from universities is all about making money.
It is quite a natural act that public university research leads to discovery that is patentable, even if not intended. If the patents were not in place, the discoveries would not lead to aggressive products in the market, since no one will fund a company based on public domain IP. So, universities choose to allow patentable research, and they profit from it substantially.
Even public grants allow this to occur. NIH has a policy that allows any grant to create patents, provided that the patent application is disclosed to the granting agency. As long as that step is fulfilled, the patent is invented by the researcher, and its licensing is controlled by the university.
It is in the scientists best interests to patent his discoveries. Although he can make money from that, he cannot control how the patent is used. In this way the scientist is dissociated from the revenue generation portion of the patent process. The royalty checks come in, and it is kinda like being paid for something you did a long time ago and rarely think about anymore.
Microsoft's format is already open?
w sm edia/sdk/wm7sdkmac.asp
http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/imedia/windo
This was largely a play to get all clients to use its format. Otherwise, REAL likely would have dominated the market. Microsoft specializes in giving free products to establish market dominance.
The bottom line is that all clients can READ wma format (if they choose to). REAL format, OTOH, is patented. Therefore, only REAL clients can read REAL streams (or anyone else REAL allows to).
This gives Microsoft an obvious advantage in the server market. Once they own the servers... it is all over.