This is insane. They committed fraud and don't get the book thrown at them. If it had been mail instead of email, they'd be on the way to prison right now.
While I think that the victims are foolish (the old rule about something being too good to be true holds), that doesn't mean that these two bozos deserve to get off the hook so lightly.
You are right. That is the origin of some neat stuff. nedit comes from an internal project at some research lab, and since they can't sell the software, they simply give it away. But the government does very little of this sort of thing. It is far more common to hire a contractor to do the work. Most of the work done at NASA is outsourced or joint ventures with companies. When Lockheed does something for NASA, guess who gets the patent? I believe that NASA gets unrestricted rights to use the patent, but Lockheed will sell it to everyone else.
Another vector is when NASA gives grants to universities to do applied research. As I understand it, professors who come up with something useful typically spin off small companies to focus on the new thing. This helps NASA because if that company can sell it to someone else, the company can continue its research without additional funding from NASA. And Universities seem to be trying to avoid directly running this sort of thing, but they have nothing against poneying up a bit of money and some office space so some research can do it without completely leaving the university. The university gets a stake, and a place for Grad Students to do research. I don't know the details, but on the surface it seems like most everyone wins.
In both cases it is federal tax money paying for the patents to go to someone else. This part of the system bothers the shit out of me, but that is the way it is. I'd prefer if there was a rule saying that if tax money payed for it, any US citizen or US based company can use it royalty free.
But when did I say the government held those patents? Money coming into the US is not the same as money going to the government. We haven't hit 100% taxation yet.
The two that I remember are velcro and miniturized TV cameras, but the list I saw was longer. I seem to remember a TV commercial from the 70s mentioning that tang (the orange flavored drink power) came from NASA too.
I agree that they could have been figured out elsewhere without using goverment money, but when? A decade or two later? If only six months, then that might not have been worth it. But what would be the cost if they were engineered by non-Americans? I imagine that those sorts of things generated lots of patent money that came into the US.
If I remember correctly the original 60's moon missions made money. Yep, they were "cash positive". Not directly of course, but all of the spin off technology added more to the economy than the taxes it took to pay for it.
Perhaps it would have been a better investment to take that money and put it in the stock market. I don't have those numbers, and even if it was, who cares? It was a wonderful program because it advanced basic science, created high paying jobs, gave us something positive to look forward to, and "grew" the economy. For a government program, it was a hat trick and then some.
I have no idea if a modern moon or mars program could do that again, but wouldn't it be worth trying? Even if it only broke even economically, wouldn't we be ahead in science and national pride?
Personally I'd like to see more private investment in space, but I think that there is going to have to be a core of federal money to get the ball rolling.
As someone who has used SCO before, I can say that they're sticking with what they know. They've been selling a dead OS for almost a decade. The fact that anyone is still using it means that the software embalmers over there know what they're doing.
Then Mr Boies comes out looking as good as he did when Al Gore lost in Florida, but a little bit poorer. I'm pretty sure that either the DNC or Gore's Campaign Committee paid Boies for the post-election Florida lawsuits.
I was amazed when I first read about tchrist's power tools project. Thanks for the link. I noticed that all the dates were from '98/'99. Did someone declare it done, or is limbo?
I agree that the Mexican system sounds kinda hokey to me. By what's this bit about "variable, like in Europe"? I don't know about most of Europe, but France has 9 digit numbers for everything. Period. The first digit tells you where in France the line is, with 1 for Paris, 2-5 for various regions, and 6 for mobiles. After that it is always an 8 digit number. Not too bad, I thought. Kinda like our system would be if we always required an area code.
ObAntiFrance comment: The one thing they did screw up was that damn leading 10th digit. The first digit all all french phone numbers is a code for which phone operator to use, with 0 meaning "use the default phone operator". 3 is reserved for Minitel and the other digits are assigned to various phone companies. This means that France is limited to a total of 8 phone companies. How completely fucked is that?
Back to cell phones, one thing that comes from this is that since all numbers starting with 06 are cell phones, both caller and callee pay something.
It was part of MIT's Project Athena and was basically a sessionless IM tool. It batched up everything and sent the entire message as a zephyrgram. I know it had some sort of notification process because one of my friends you to reply "yes?" before I could finish typing. That was back in 1993, well before Microsoft even learned about the Internet, so I imagine that it qualifies as prior art.
Will it? I doubt if the CISC=>RISC translation is slowing anything down by much. It adds to the latency, which will get you at branches and whatnot. But for the most part it is handled early on in parallel with the launching of an earlier instruction.
Also even though you're not using the CISC=>RISC translation layer, that hardware is still there. Unless there is a mode bit to say "no translations, everything is RISC" all of the timing will have to assume that a CISC instruction can show up. Since CISC instructions can appear, the synchronization model will have to give the translator enough time to do its thing.
Note that I'm not saying this won't be faster, just that I don't see it as being a huge win.
Back in the '80s, all sorts of open forwarding were great ideas. Do you remember having to put someone%domain@att.com because AT&T seemed to have better routing abilities than your local box?
Root access always was a hack, but it is a quick and easy way to get around file permissions. Back before pop/imap when everyone read directly from $MAIL, you needed a way to restrict mail to the user and the sendmail program. Who bothered with complicated groups just for that?
I agree that these justifications have gone the way of the dodo, but anyone who's been around understands where they came from.
I'm not trying to defend how sendmail works today, just to explain why those features are present. Personally, I prefer the old "trust everyone" model for mail than the insanity that we have today, but that isn't realistic. DJB's paranoia is useful thing in these modern times.
He doesn't provide material directly to the combatants (spamers and spam fighters), but is more interested in helping the people on the ground. Think of it as support for NGOs like the Red Cross or Doctors without Borders. His software is used by both sides, but in real wars aid convoys get ambushed routinely.
At worst he'd be a medical or pharmacetuical company selling to the victims.
I think it is clear which side he wants to win, but his efforts are more dedicated to keeping email functioning than fighting spam
There needs to be some sort of feedback loop to make the system work better. Most systems work better with checks and balances. Most of the money up front, but some of it later (6 months?) after the employee has been there a while. Maybe give the headhunter bonuses based off of the employee's performance. The headhunter would want more money because of the higher risk, and longer period until payment is complete.
- doug
PS: I've never seen this in action, so take this with a grain of salt.
The funding is to scratch an itch for email, calendars, and that sort of office groupware thingie. While Exchange Server is the best known example of this, please don't think it is the only one. Lotus Notes has scratched this itch for quite a while, and I think Novell has something that does this too. In the 80s IBM had PROFS for VM/CMS that did much of the same thing.
I'm not trying to be pedantic here, I'm just trying to avoid the impression that Free/Open development always chases Microsoft's taillights. There are lots of other taillights to chase:-)
Didn't Phillips say that the various protection extensions were different from "real" CDs and thus were not allowed to use the CD logo? If so, check to see if that icon is on your disk and/or case. If it is there then the manufacturer is guilty of false advertising. If not, well, I guess your just outta luck unless you feel like being a long term pain in someone's backside.
Wasn't Linux originally billed as a free POSIX compliant OS? I don't remember this changing, but I don't spend a lot of time keeping up with these things.
Although I think POSIX has some flaws, it is much better than what came before it (unix vendor hell). POSIX should be followed unless there is a good reason not to.
Remember this is how we have applications that flow back and forth from Unix without problems. Although I don't use Solaris at this job (I'm suck with XP), when I do use Solaris, step one is to grab lots of useful software. POSIX is what allows the developpers to gloss over the differences between Linux and Solaris. This is a good thing. Remember the kernel is nice, but applications are what we really use.
Your preconceptions aren't based on reality. When I worked at Gilbarco (the largest gas pump maker in the US, now branded as part of Marconi) I was told that those pay-at-pump* systems generated huge sales in the store. Most folks aren't buying anything, so they just leave. Other people who might buy are more likely to do so because they won't have to wait in a long line. I think that this increase in sales motivated the use of pay-at-pump more than having fewer clerks.
- doug
* the internal name for this boxes is one of the dumbest I've ever heard: crind. Yep, that stands for Card Reader IN Dispenser. I jokingly called them Card Reader At Pump, but that never seemed to catch on.
Everybody in the article was an Aussie, so I assume that this Goddless Group of Techno-Anarchists (tm) are Aussies too. I didn't think that Oz had a DMCA like law on the books yet.
While I agree with what you are saying philosophically, I try to keep my feet planted in the real world. Spam generates costs that innocent people have to pay, and any scheme where the victims have to pay for the crimes of the guity is broken. To me that has a higher value than the goal of perfect communication.
Right now I'm in the US and I pay a flat rate for my cable modem, but not too long ago I lived in France and had to pay per-minute charges to the phone company for my dialup. My ISP charged a flat rate, but the French have to pay for all calls, even local ones. This ment that it was money out of my pocket to download and trash spam. That sucks big time, and it is unfair. Part of the implied social contract is that only things of interest should be sent. I understand that there are grey areas, but basically anything that has no chance of interesting me is abusive when it is on my nickel. How would you like to pay for the pleasure of getting telemarkerters? People outside the US often pay for the joy of spam, and that is pure bullshit.
Equally unfair is the companies that have to buy more resorces (bandwidth, storage, etc) to manage the flow of spam. Why should they have to spend a single cent for someone to send spam?
As the father of two, I think the "common knowledge" is true, but it won't sink in until you go through it yourself. But just in case, here are the highlights:
- it is a lot more work than you think it will be - you will get less sleep - plan on it - your fun activities will pretty much stop
_What To Expect When You're Expecting_ was the best book that we looked at. That series is good, but shows so many possible problems that you might get depressed. You won't encounter most of the problems in those books (knock on wood). But when you do, the advice is usually pretty good.
The one thing that I wish someone had told me early on was: use your vacation wisely. Sure, I saved up for the birth, but I used most of it in the first few days after my first son was born. With my second son I rationed a lot better, so I was taking three or four half days per week instead of full days up front. My wife was so happy after the births that she could handle the first few days well, but it was the cumulative lack of sleep from the all night feedings that was killing her.
Another thing that we had problems with was managing relatives. They came over and "helped out", but often just wanted to play with the newborn instead of doing useful stuff. For us that would have been helping with the older kid (doesn't apply to you yet), cleaning up, preparing meals, and genearlly running the house. The new mom is usually quite happy to attend to the newborn, but everything else gets pushed off. If no one in your family wants to help with this stuff, and you don't have the time to handle it by yourself, plan on hiring a maid to stop by once a week. It would be money well spent.
Another thing I learned the hard way: don't get a puppy when she's 5 months pregnant. Having a companion for our first child sounded like such a good idea at the time, but boy did that backfire. We still have the dog, but there were more than a few rough moments. And anyway, kids don't really start playing with dogs until they are 3-5 years old.
It not all sunshine and fun. You will do things you don't like (imagine crawling around the carpet looking for bits of crap when the kid took his messy diaper off). You will spend more money than you want to. But if you're anything like me, it is all worth it in the end. They're the greatest things in my life and I wouldn't give them up for the world. Except maybe for some peace and quiet....
- doug
PS: While this isn't "News for Nerds", I really think it qualifies as "Stuff that Matters".
Yes, there is L'Acadamie Francais, but it isn't like most of 'em really care. They will happily steal words like "le hot dog", and "le weekend", because even they understand that "la fin du semaine" is just too long.
And German has the same thing. They publish the Duden and make the schools teach Hoch Deutsch.
But if you want serious linguistic hardasses, look no further than Iceland. They can still read texts from the 13th century. I met an American who was trying to move there (his wife is Icelandic) and the government was requiring that he adopt a traditional Icelandic name so his name wouldn't polute the language.
I've often heard that one of the weaknesses of the GPL is that is basically unproven in court. Some folks say that this is because it is so well crafted that most violations are cut and dry and there is little or no need to go to court. Although I don't know enough to either agree or disagree with that, I'd like to see some judge throw the book at someone for GPL violations. Note that I'm not talking about any particular revision of the (L)GPL, but the extended concept of forcing people who use GPL based software to make the changes available.
What are your thoughts on the necessity of having a ruling, surviving appeal, and generally working its way into our legal culture? Will it give us pro-GPL folks a "big stick" for thwacking violators? Is it even necessary? Has it already happened and I missed it?
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This is insane. They committed fraud and don't get the book thrown at them. If it had been mail instead of email, they'd be on the way to prison right now.
While I think that the victims are foolish (the old rule about something being too good to be true holds), that doesn't mean that these two bozos deserve to get off the hook so lightly.
- doug
You are right. That is the origin of some neat stuff. nedit comes from an internal project at some research lab, and since they can't sell the software, they simply give it away. But the government does very little of this sort of thing. It is far more common to hire a contractor to do the work. Most of the work done at NASA is outsourced or joint ventures with companies. When Lockheed does something for NASA, guess who gets the patent? I believe that NASA gets unrestricted rights to use the patent, but Lockheed will sell it to everyone else.
Another vector is when NASA gives grants to universities to do applied research. As I understand it, professors who come up with something useful typically spin off small companies to focus on the new thing. This helps NASA because if that company can sell it to someone else, the company can continue its research without additional funding from NASA. And Universities seem to be trying to avoid directly running this sort of thing, but they have nothing against poneying up a bit of money and some office space so some research can do it without completely leaving the university. The university gets a stake, and a place for Grad Students to do research. I don't know the details, but on the surface it seems like most everyone wins.
In both cases it is federal tax money paying for the patents to go to someone else. This part of the system bothers the shit out of me, but that is the way it is. I'd prefer if there was a rule saying that if tax money payed for it, any US citizen or US based company can use it royalty free.
Understood.
But when did I say the government held those patents? Money coming into the US is not the same as money going to the government. We haven't hit 100% taxation yet.
- doug
The two that I remember are velcro and miniturized TV cameras, but the list I saw was longer. I seem to remember a TV commercial from the 70s mentioning that tang (the orange flavored drink power) came from NASA too.
I agree that they could have been figured out elsewhere without using goverment money, but when? A decade or two later? If only six months, then that might not have been worth it. But what would be the cost if they were engineered by non-Americans? I imagine that those sorts of things generated lots of patent money that came into the US.
If I remember correctly the original 60's moon missions made money. Yep, they were "cash positive". Not directly of course, but all of the spin off technology added more to the economy than the taxes it took to pay for it.
Perhaps it would have been a better investment to take that money and put it in the stock market. I don't have those numbers, and even if it was, who cares? It was a wonderful program because it advanced basic science, created high paying jobs, gave us something positive to look forward to, and "grew" the economy. For a government program, it was a hat trick and then some.
I have no idea if a modern moon or mars program could do that again, but wouldn't it be worth trying? Even if it only broke even economically, wouldn't we be ahead in science and national pride?
Personally I'd like to see more private investment in space, but I think that there is going to have to be a core of federal money to get the ball rolling.
- doug
As someone who has used SCO before, I can say that they're sticking with what they know. They've been selling a dead OS for almost a decade. The fact that anyone is still using it means that the software embalmers over there know what they're doing.
- doug
Then Mr Boies comes out looking as good as he did when Al Gore lost in Florida, but a little bit poorer. I'm pretty sure that either the DNC or Gore's Campaign Committee paid Boies for the post-election Florida lawsuits.
I was amazed when I first read about tchrist's power tools project. Thanks for the link. I noticed that all the dates were from '98/'99. Did someone declare it done, or is limbo?
- doug
I agree that the Mexican system sounds kinda hokey to me. By what's this bit about "variable, like in Europe"? I don't know about most of Europe, but France has 9 digit numbers for everything. Period. The first digit tells you where in France the line is, with 1 for Paris, 2-5 for various regions, and 6 for mobiles. After that it is always an 8 digit number. Not too bad, I thought. Kinda like our system would be if we always required an area code.
ObAntiFrance comment: The one thing they did screw up was that damn leading 10th digit. The first digit all all french phone numbers is a code for which phone operator to use, with 0 meaning "use the default phone operator". 3 is reserved for Minitel and the other digits are assigned to various phone companies. This means that France is limited to a total of 8 phone companies. How completely fucked is that?
Back to cell phones, one thing that comes from this is that since all numbers starting with 06 are cell phones, both caller and callee pay something.
- doug
Am I the only old fart who used to use zephyr?
It was part of MIT's Project Athena and was basically a sessionless IM tool. It batched up everything and sent the entire message as a zephyrgram. I know it had some sort of notification process because one of my friends you to reply "yes?" before I could finish typing. That was back in 1993, well before Microsoft even learned about the Internet, so I imagine that it qualifies as prior art.
- doug
Will it? I doubt if the CISC=>RISC translation is slowing anything down by much. It adds to the latency, which will get you at branches and whatnot. But for the most part it is handled early on in parallel with the launching of an earlier instruction.
Also even though you're not using the CISC=>RISC translation layer, that hardware is still there. Unless there is a mode bit to say "no translations, everything is RISC" all of the timing will have to assume that a CISC instruction can show up. Since CISC instructions can appear, the synchronization model will have to give the translator enough time to do its thing.
Note that I'm not saying this won't be faster, just that I don't see it as being a huge win.
- doug
Back in the '80s, all sorts of open forwarding were great ideas. Do you remember having to put someone%domain@att.com because AT&T seemed to have better routing abilities than your local box?
Root access always was a hack, but it is a quick and easy way to get around file permissions. Back before pop/imap when everyone read directly from $MAIL, you needed a way to restrict mail to the user and the sendmail program. Who bothered with complicated groups just for that?
I agree that these justifications have gone the way of the dodo, but anyone who's been around understands where they came from.
I'm not trying to defend how sendmail works today, just to explain why those features are present. Personally, I prefer the old "trust everyone" model for mail than the insanity that we have today, but that isn't realistic. DJB's paranoia is useful thing in these modern times.
- doug
He doesn't provide material directly to the combatants (spamers and spam fighters), but is more interested in helping the people on the ground. Think of it as support for NGOs like the Red Cross or Doctors without Borders. His software is used by both sides, but in real wars aid convoys get ambushed routinely.
At worst he'd be a medical or pharmacetuical company selling to the victims.
I think it is clear which side he wants to win, but his efforts are more dedicated to keeping email functioning than fighting spam
Bingo. You've hit the nail right on the head.
There needs to be some sort of feedback loop to make the system work better. Most systems work better with checks and balances. Most of the money up front, but some of it later (6 months?) after the employee has been there a while. Maybe give the headhunter bonuses based off of the employee's performance. The headhunter would want more money because of the higher risk, and longer period until payment is complete.
- doug
PS: I've never seen this in action, so take this with a grain of salt.
The funding is to scratch an itch for email, calendars, and that sort of office groupware thingie. While Exchange Server is the best known example of this, please don't think it is the only one. Lotus Notes has scratched this itch for quite a while, and I think Novell has something that does this too. In the 80s IBM had PROFS for VM/CMS that did much of the same thing.
:-)
I'm not trying to be pedantic here, I'm just trying to avoid the impression that Free/Open development always chases Microsoft's taillights. There are lots of other taillights to chase
Didn't Phillips say that the various protection extensions were different from "real" CDs and thus were not allowed to use the CD logo? If so, check to see if that icon is on your disk and/or case. If it is there then the manufacturer is guilty of false advertising. If not, well, I guess your just outta luck unless you feel like being a long term pain in someone's backside.
- doug
Wasn't Linux originally billed as a free POSIX compliant OS? I don't remember this changing, but I don't spend a lot of time keeping up with these things.
Although I think POSIX has some flaws, it is much better than what came before it (unix vendor hell). POSIX should be followed unless there is a good reason not to.
Remember this is how we have applications that flow back and forth from Unix without problems. Although I don't use Solaris at this job (I'm suck with XP), when I do use Solaris, step one is to grab lots of useful software. POSIX is what allows the developpers to gloss over the differences between Linux and Solaris. This is a good thing. Remember the kernel is nice, but applications are what we really use.
- doug
Your preconceptions aren't based on reality. When I worked at Gilbarco (the largest gas pump maker in the US, now branded as part of Marconi) I was told that those pay-at-pump* systems generated huge sales in the store. Most folks aren't buying anything, so they just leave. Other people who might buy are more likely to do so because they won't have to wait in a long line. I think that this increase in sales motivated the use of pay-at-pump more than having fewer clerks.
- doug
* the internal name for this boxes is one of the dumbest I've ever heard: crind. Yep, that stands for Card Reader IN Dispenser. I jokingly called them Card Reader At Pump, but that never seemed to catch on.
Everybody in the article was an Aussie, so I assume that this Goddless Group of Techno-Anarchists (tm) are Aussies too. I didn't think that Oz had a DMCA like law on the books yet.
- doug
But then again, much of what I look up is pretty specialized.
- doug
I think you mean Beowulf.
While I agree with what you are saying philosophically, I try to keep my feet planted in the real world. Spam generates costs that innocent people have to pay, and any scheme where the victims have to pay for the crimes of the guity is broken. To me that has a higher value than the goal of perfect communication.
Right now I'm in the US and I pay a flat rate for my cable modem, but not too long ago I lived in France and had to pay per-minute charges to the phone company for my dialup. My ISP charged a flat rate, but the French have to pay for all calls, even local ones. This ment that it was money out of my pocket to download and trash spam. That sucks big time, and it is unfair. Part of the implied social contract is that only things of interest should be sent. I understand that there are grey areas, but basically anything that has no chance of interesting me is abusive when it is on my nickel. How would you like to pay for the pleasure of getting telemarkerters? People outside the US often pay for the joy of spam, and that is pure bullshit.
Equally unfair is the companies that have to buy more resorces (bandwidth, storage, etc) to manage the flow of spam. Why should they have to spend a single cent for someone to send spam?
- doug
As the father of two, I think the "common knowledge" is true, but it won't sink in until you go through it yourself. But just in case, here are the highlights:
- it is a lot more work than you think it will be
- you will get less sleep - plan on it
- your fun activities will pretty much stop
_What To Expect When You're Expecting_ was the best book that we looked at. That series is good, but shows so many possible problems that you might get depressed. You won't encounter most of the problems in those books (knock on wood). But when you do, the advice is usually pretty good.
The one thing that I wish someone had told me early on was: use your vacation wisely. Sure, I saved up for the birth, but I used most of it in the first few days after my first son was born. With my second son I rationed a lot better, so I was taking three or four half days per week instead of full days up front. My wife was so happy after the births that she could handle the first few days well, but it was the cumulative lack of sleep from the all night feedings that was killing her.
Another thing that we had problems with was managing relatives. They came over and "helped out", but often just wanted to play with the newborn instead of doing useful stuff. For us that would have been helping with the older kid (doesn't apply to you yet), cleaning up, preparing meals, and genearlly running the house. The new mom is usually quite happy to attend to the newborn, but everything else gets pushed off. If no one in your family wants to help with this stuff, and you don't have the time to handle it by yourself, plan on hiring a maid to stop by once a week. It would be money well spent.
Another thing I learned the hard way: don't get a puppy when she's 5 months pregnant. Having a companion for our first child sounded like such a good idea at the time, but boy did that backfire. We still have the dog, but there were more than a few rough moments. And anyway, kids don't really start playing with dogs until they are 3-5 years old.
It not all sunshine and fun. You will do things you don't like (imagine crawling around the carpet looking for bits of crap when the kid took his messy diaper off). You will spend more money than you want to. But if you're anything like me, it is all worth it in the end. They're the greatest things in my life and I wouldn't give them up for the world. Except maybe for some peace and quiet....
- doug
PS: While this isn't "News for Nerds", I really think it qualifies as "Stuff that Matters".
Yes, there is L'Acadamie Francais, but it isn't like most of 'em really care. They will happily steal words like "le hot dog", and "le weekend", because even they understand that "la fin du semaine" is just too long.
And German has the same thing. They publish the Duden and make the schools teach Hoch Deutsch.
But if you want serious linguistic hardasses, look no further than Iceland. They can still read texts from the 13th century. I met an American who was trying to move there (his wife is Icelandic) and the government was requiring that he adopt a traditional Icelandic name so his name wouldn't polute the language.
I've often heard that one of the weaknesses of the GPL is that is basically unproven in court. Some folks say that this is because it is so well crafted that most violations are cut and dry and there is little or no need to go to court. Although I don't know enough to either agree or disagree with that, I'd like to see some judge throw the book at someone for GPL violations. Note that I'm not talking about any particular revision of the (L)GPL, but the extended concept of forcing people who use GPL based software to make the changes available.
What are your thoughts on the necessity of having a ruling, surviving appeal, and generally working its way into our legal culture? Will it give us pro-GPL folks a "big stick" for thwacking violators? Is it even necessary? Has it already happened and I missed it?