Microsoft's competitors and consumers aren't too happy with the result either. I'm sure they would have preferred that MS not have engaged in such practices in the first place.
And no matter what service you use, why would you not view by price unless you're looking for something so specific that price won't really be an option?
Sort of. Since Apple, the original article, and nearly everyone who has commented says it's against the law, the burden of proving otherwise is actually on the person claiming otherwise. You're espousing an unsupported theory, and it's not our responsibility to prove you wrong. When you're arguing against consensus, the burden becomes yours, perhaps not from a legal viewpoint, but it does shift.
And you missed the parent poster's point. At an Apple rollout, there are typically dozens or even hundreds of production units to play with. People actually get hands on time to play with the machines. They're not on "a tight leash". True, it's not the same as an in-depth review, but it's definitely hands-on, and very different from the situation with the Surface.
The lack of binary compatibility is a factor limiting linux mainstream usage, however, it does not need to be a factor for the manufacturers. The OSS community will happily build/repackage compatible binaries if the manufacturer will allow them to distribute things such as firmware blobs. No one is asking the manufacturers to do more work, they're asking the manufacturers to alter their policies on documentation and/or distribution so that the OSS community can do the work.
But they're not copying the site, nor even a major portion of it. They're extracting certain data and making it searchable, much like google and other search engines do, only they're taking only a specific subset of the data.
Data is not copyrightable. The organization, and presentation of data can be copyrighted, and in some instances, the complete collection data can be. If PadMapper is simply pulling key data and rearranging it into a searchable database, CL has a difficult, and likely untenable, claim.
A judge who dismisses a case on grounds of 'public interest' and not rule of law is overstepping his authority.
No, he's following the intent of the patent and copyright clause of the US Constitution. Article 1, Section 8 states:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
Promote the progress of science and the arts for whom and for what benefit? The public. This judge is one of the few who actually seems to understand that the primary purpose of patent and copyright is to bring the knowledge into the public domain by giving exclusive rights "for limited times" to the inventor, discoverer, or author. So, while the exclusive right is granted to a private person(s) or corporation, it is granted in exchange for contributing it to the public interest. If the rights holder is not fulfilling their public interest side of the bargain, it it within the rights of the courts to force them to do so, or revoke their exclusive rights.
A little expansion on my answer. A mathematical model of something is not the thing itself. Newton's law of gravity describes gravity mathematically, but it is not gravity. We can describe music mathematically, but the math isn't music. Mathematical models are simply models representing an idea, they are not the idea itself. Just because something can be described with a mathematical model, doesn't mean the idea or thing itself is just math. That's what you and everyone else who says that software is just math and therefore, not eligible for patent protection is missing. The ideas that the software represents may not be "just math", and some of those are eligible for patent protection, even if the only implementation of those ideas is in software.
Incorrect. The example I gave, "lossy compression" is not discovered, it's 100% invented.
More-over I am not in fact looking at the end product alone. I am saying that if this end product runs on a computer that tells me something ABOUT the idea- it tells me the idea is mathematics, because absolutely nothing that isn't mathematics can run on a computer.
Incorrect again. What you're seeing is that someone has figured out a way to represent, approximate, or control some model of the idea using logical operators. That doesn't mean the idea itself is logic or math. Everything can be represented, approximated, or controlled using math and logic. That doesn't mean the thing itself is math or logic."
So the end product isn't fooling us the way you think. We have an attribute of what you're trying to patent - it can be executed by a computer, and from that we can determine with absolute accuracy that it must be a purely mathematical process. That is not patentable.
No, you're still confusing the idea, or method with its implementation. You ARE confusing the end product (the program) with the patentable idea, of which the program is simply one representation, approximation, or a controller.
You have made the same mistake many other have made. You're looking the end product and saying the equivalent of "it's just a hunk of metal with some engineering (e.g. math) applied". It's not the end product that a patent protects, if it were, reverse engineering and independent invention would not be a patent violation. It's the idea/theory/process embodied by it that is patented, and the same apples to some software, no matter what the end product looks like, if it used the patented method/process/idea, it's protected. Software is simply one type of end product using that method/process/idea.
No need for the name calling. And I didn't fall for anything, I developed my theory independently, just as I have developed hundreds of algorithms independently. Some are simply mathematical, some are not.
I'm quite familial with Knuth. And I'll be happy to debate the issue with him.
Take for example, lossy compression. These algorithms are not just math. If they were, they would always produce the same output from the same input. The don't. They embody many "judgement" calls about what can be skipped with minimal visual or audible notice. They embody psycho-visual and psycho-acoustic theories that have nothing to do with math. The compress a given item differently depending upon many factors that have no correlation to the input stream, including desired output size, previous audio/video frames, latency, buffer sizes, computer speed, and many other factors that have nothing to do with math. What mathematical algorithm describes how much audio or video data you can remove from a given stream while maintaining X level of quality? No matter how hard you try, you can not define that with math alone.
The law is correct. Software is more than just math, it is copyrightable, and some of it is patentable.
And, it's a false economy. I left a company that had 2 programmers, myself and one junior programmer because they were unwilling to pay anything close to a market rate. 3 years later, they had 7 programmers, each earning more than they had been paying me, and all 7 combined weren't accomplishing what I had been doing. They brought me back at 4x what they had been paying me, and within 12 months got rid of all 7 of the other programmers. The needed more than just one programmer, so they had me involved in reading resumes and in all programmer interviews to make sure we were getting good talent.
"You get what you pay for" isn't always correct, but "you don't get what you don't pay for" is nearly universal.
Google ask for, and be awarded legal costs, as a deterrent to every other similar lawsuit. The money won't really be a big deal to either company, but it would send a message.
Incorrect, in exactly the same way that all of the engineering that went into designing physical product X means that the product is simply the mathematical formula. Both involve math, but they are NOT math.
Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft's competitors and consumers aren't too happy with the result either. I'm sure they would have preferred that MS not have engaged in such practices in the first place.
And no matter what service you use, why would you not view by price unless you're looking for something so specific that price won't really be an option?
And you keep ignoring everyone who has linked to or posted PROOF that it IS the law. No, go away.
Sort of. Since Apple, the original article, and nearly everyone who has commented says it's against the law, the burden of proving otherwise is actually on the person claiming otherwise. You're espousing an unsupported theory, and it's not our responsibility to prove you wrong. When you're arguing against consensus, the burden becomes yours, perhaps not from a legal viewpoint, but it does shift.
Regardless, you are incorrect.
Your argument that "no one else is doing it" is a straw man.
And you missed the parent poster's point. At an Apple rollout, there are typically dozens or even hundreds of production units to play with. People actually get hands on time to play with the machines. They're not on "a tight leash". True, it's not the same as an in-depth review, but it's definitely hands-on, and very different from the situation with the Surface.
Then I suggest you consult a lawyer to find out exactly what the law does and doesn't allow.
The lack of binary compatibility is a factor limiting linux mainstream usage, however, it does not need to be a factor for the manufacturers. The OSS community will happily build/repackage compatible binaries if the manufacturer will allow them to distribute things such as firmware blobs. No one is asking the manufacturers to do more work, they're asking the manufacturers to alter their policies on documentation and/or distribution so that the OSS community can do the work.
But they're not copying the site, nor even a major portion of it. They're extracting certain data and making it searchable, much like google and other search engines do, only they're taking only a specific subset of the data.
Data is not copyrightable. The organization, and presentation of data can be copyrighted, and in some instances, the complete collection data can be. If PadMapper is simply pulling key data and rearranging it into a searchable database, CL has a difficult, and likely untenable, claim.
IANAL
Or am I the only one who first read it that way?
Yes, or movies.
But only if they're powered by amps capable of delivering 640W per speaker.
A judge who dismisses a case on grounds of 'public interest' and not rule of law is overstepping his authority.
No, he's following the intent of the patent and copyright clause of the US Constitution. Article 1, Section 8 states:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
Promote the progress of science and the arts for whom and for what benefit? The public. This judge is one of the few who actually seems to understand that the primary purpose of patent and copyright is to bring the knowledge into the public domain by giving exclusive rights "for limited times" to the inventor, discoverer, or author. So, while the exclusive right is granted to a private person(s) or corporation, it is granted in exchange for contributing it to the public interest. If the rights holder is not fulfilling their public interest side of the bargain, it it within the rights of the courts to force them to do so, or revoke their exclusive rights.
A little expansion on my answer. A mathematical model of something is not the thing itself. Newton's law of gravity describes gravity mathematically, but it is not gravity. We can describe music mathematically, but the math isn't music. Mathematical models are simply models representing an idea, they are not the idea itself. Just because something can be described with a mathematical model, doesn't mean the idea or thing itself is just math. That's what you and everyone else who says that software is just math and therefore, not eligible for patent protection is missing. The ideas that the software represents may not be "just math", and some of those are eligible for patent protection, even if the only implementation of those ideas is in software.
Software isn't invented, it's discovered.
Incorrect. The example I gave, "lossy compression" is not discovered, it's 100% invented.
More-over I am not in fact looking at the end product alone. I am saying that if this end product runs on a computer that tells me something ABOUT the idea- it tells me the idea is mathematics, because absolutely nothing that isn't mathematics can run on a computer.
Incorrect again. What you're seeing is that someone has figured out a way to represent, approximate, or control some model of the idea using logical operators. That doesn't mean the idea itself is logic or math. Everything can be represented, approximated, or controlled using math and logic. That doesn't mean the thing itself is math or logic."
So the end product isn't fooling us the way you think. We have an attribute of what you're trying to patent - it can be executed by a computer, and from that we can determine with absolute accuracy that it must be a purely mathematical process. That is not patentable.
No, you're still confusing the idea, or method with its implementation. You ARE confusing the end product (the program) with the patentable idea, of which the program is simply one representation, approximation, or a controller.
You have made the same mistake many other have made. You're looking the end product and saying the equivalent of "it's just a hunk of metal with some engineering (e.g. math) applied". It's not the end product that a patent protects, if it were, reverse engineering and independent invention would not be a patent violation. It's the idea/theory/process embodied by it that is patented, and the same apples to some software, no matter what the end product looks like, if it used the patented method/process/idea, it's protected. Software is simply one type of end product using that method/process/idea.
No need for the name calling. And I didn't fall for anything, I developed my theory independently, just as I have developed hundreds of algorithms independently. Some are simply mathematical, some are not.
I'm quite familial with Knuth. And I'll be happy to debate the issue with him.
Take for example, lossy compression. These algorithms are not just math. If they were, they would always produce the same output from the same input. The don't. They embody many "judgement" calls about what can be skipped with minimal visual or audible notice. They embody psycho-visual and psycho-acoustic theories that have nothing to do with math. The compress a given item differently depending upon many factors that have no correlation to the input stream, including desired output size, previous audio/video frames, latency, buffer sizes, computer speed, and many other factors that have nothing to do with math. What mathematical algorithm describes how much audio or video data you can remove from a given stream while maintaining X level of quality? No matter how hard you try, you can not define that with math alone.
The law is correct. Software is more than just math, it is copyrightable, and some of it is patentable.
The law is correct, you are incorrect. Software is NOT just math. You can argue until you're blue in the face, but that won't change the facts.
Or you need to admit that you're technically correct, and legally wrong.
If software isn't the embodiment of anything, then it's not eligible for copyright either. Ergo, you are incorrect.
And, it's a false economy. I left a company that had 2 programmers, myself and one junior programmer because they were unwilling to pay anything close to a market rate. 3 years later, they had 7 programmers, each earning more than they had been paying me, and all 7 combined weren't accomplishing what I had been doing. They brought me back at 4x what they had been paying me, and within 12 months got rid of all 7 of the other programmers. The needed more than just one programmer, so they had me involved in reading resumes and in all programmer interviews to make sure we were getting good talent.
"You get what you pay for" isn't always correct, but "you don't get what you don't pay for" is nearly universal.
Neither one is the mathematical formula. The program is the embodiment of much more than just math.
Google ask for, and be awarded legal costs, as a deterrent to every other similar lawsuit. The money won't really be a big deal to either company, but it would send a message.
Incorrect, in exactly the same way that all of the engineering that went into designing physical product X means that the product is simply the mathematical formula. Both involve math, but they are NOT math.
First Sale is alive and well in the USA. That case was not about First Sale, despite Psystar's attempt to claim otherwise.