I guess Intouch is just using a "defensive" patent, like the one Amazon used against B&N....They just don't have my sympathy. Of course, that doesn't I agree with Intouch. This whole thing is just getting more insane.
I guess the only way to prevent that kind of thing in the near future is for small companies (even larger) to join their patents so they can have a big enough patent pool to be protected against those attacks.
As soon as you can gather 10-20% of software patents in a "defense pool", software patents become useless, since you can't sue over one patent without being sued over 30.
...or give me a good laser, and it'll fly too. The only thing is that it's no going to be about photons and gravitons, nor photon momentum. I'll be because the photons of the laser will create enough heat to vaporize small particles, which will produce thrust (you know ye old jet engine!)
I'm pretty sure the thing does fly... give me 300 A and I'll make your device fly. I'm gessing that the fact that his thing flies (if it does) is a side effect of the 300 A (you know, 300 A in a coil makes an interresting magnetic field)
1- Photons DO have an inertial mass (this has been known for ~70 years)... unless they are at rest (haven't seen a photon at rest yet!)
2- Photons do have a gravitational mass is some sense (this is the base for the General Theory of Relativity). Remember stars curving light (as they curve space-time).
3- "There is a photon in opposition to each incident graviton". This either implies that photons interact with gravitons (which is not true AFAIK)... or that the forces balance, which is not correct, since the "force" (due to momentum) exerted by a photon depends on its wavelength anyway.
4- If you can have zero gravity by "opposing photons to gravitons", then you can also have negative gravity, which would violate energy conservation laws, since you could build a mass that goes up and down without energy.
5- If you consider General Relativity: "There's no such thing as the gravity force, it's just a curve in space-time", then *any* object just follow the curve. Zero-ing the gravity would mean something like "I have a device that cancels the spherical curve of the earth".
6- His "formulas" rely on special relativity, while he says it would allow him to go faster than light, which is against special (and general) relativity (if that was possible, then he can't use relativity his calculations, since relativity would be "false")
7- I don't believe a word of that.
8- Don't believe everything that's on the internet.
I really think artists would have a lot to gain from allowing people to freely copy their music. Most of the revenues from CD's go to music stores and music companies, but I'm sure most artists make about $1 per CD (if not less). Artists make money with shows. CD's are just a way to have people hear their music so they go to the show.
Now if artists start putting their music free for download, that makes a lot more people likely to hear it and more likely to go to their show. The main thing that needs to be done is more organization and more marketing power for free music. I'm sure if a "Free Music Foundation" becomes as organized as the open source mouvement, artists will think twice before giving up their copyrights to music companies for $1/CD and less people hearing their music.
I forgot the other key issue is to have the radios play this "free music"... Though internet radios could do that and give a hard time to the "normal radio".
Never said a computer couldn't control an airplane. I just said I wouldn't trust any UNIX (or NT) system to do it. The reason for that is that these operating systems are way too complex to be totally bug free (which is what you need). Currently most (all) "real critical" applications are very low complexity, so they can be bug free.
This type of disclaimer is perfectly normal. There's a difference between a bank loosing $10M because of an OS bug and people dying in an airplane crash or a nuclear powerplant meltdown. If I know that the odds of my product failing is once every 10M years, then I'm willing to garranty it for a bank... not for an airplane. I don't believe I'd trust any UNIX (forget NT!) in charge of the low-level (navigation, autopilot) stuff in an airplane.
IANAL, but I think copying features, as long as long as you haven't looked at the source (I don't think MS showed him!) and that there's no patent, is perfectly legal. There's nothing they can do. Otherwise, the Octave guys would be sued by the ones who do Matlab, VMWare and FreeMWare (or whatever it became), or they could also sue Wine... but as I said, that's legal.
OK, now we say that everybody's copying on Micro$oft... Don't forget that they've copied most their stuff from someone else. Not that there's anything wrong with that. You can't (and shouldn't) always reinvent the wheel.
This is how it goes. A invents something, B starts doing the same, as well as C... then Micro$oft copies it, then when GNOME does the same, they've been copying microsoft. That's simply because they're the ones you see the most.
This is even worse: The big companies can afford to pay for many years, while the small ones are forced to give up. Besides that, who would get the money?
As Slashdot grows, the problem of Slashdotted sites becomes more important... I agree that we can't just copy the linked page on Slashdot, since this would (rightly) be copyright violation. However, many of the linked pages are not copyrighted (or have a liberal license) and most of the slashdoted sites are small (often OSS sites) which would allow their pages to be copied on Slashdot.
So why not ask some OSS (and other small) sites whether they'd allow their pages to be copied on Slashdot. This would benefit both those sites and Slashdot readers. If something of the like is not done, it would mean that eventually slashdot could only link to major sites, which would restrict a lot (in terms of point of view) the information available to slashdot readers.
Actually, we've still got a good margin before electrons start jumping beween wires... The smallest lab transistor to data is ~30nm and I don't think the electrons tunnel between wires yet at these distances... I think the bottleneck will be with the CMOS technology, not the electrons switching wires...
Actually, this is not the only technology that promisses to bring lithography to even lower scales... There's also Lucent's Scalpel, Intel's Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) and an X-Ray technology from IBM. There all saying they're stuff is better that all other technologies... let's see which on comes first
OK, this is just my opinion (usual flames >/dev/null)... I'd tend to blame the idea of XPToolkit for the stability and speed problems in Mozilla. It adds another layer to something that's already complicated enough: Mozilla->XPToolkit->GTK->GDK->X (am I forgetting anything).
Actually, I think the problem is not necessarly with the idea of a cross-platform toolkit, but the idea that widgets should look exactly the same on all OS's. This way you need to rewrite all the widgets for all toolkits, which adds both bloat and bugs. For instance, the scrolling in the message (mail) window is way too slow. A simple GTK widget would be 10x faster. Why not an XPToolkit that keeps the look of the original toolkit? This makes even more sense with GTK when you have themes...
As anyone been able to use mozilla on Linux with 100dpi fonts? I'm running 1600x1200 on a 17", so 100dpi fonts are vital! No matter what I chose in the font preferences, I'm still stuck with 75dpi fonts, which is simply unreadable.
Besides that, for me M14 seems to be even less stable than the two previous builds (It took me 5 minutes to crash it, doing nothing unusual).
Though Octave is a very useful math package (I use it all the time), it doesn't have any symbolic math support. I don't know what made you think otherwise. It's almost Matlab compatible though.
As for symbolic stuff... you should look at SAL.KachinaTech.com which is a site for scientific applications under Linux
OK, I may have chosen a bad example... but the fact remains that lots of companies (including Microsoft) release stuff for free and it doesn't count as Open Source... take the first versions of IE (those that weren't bundled), and all the "free for non-commercial use" stuff that's available.
Yes, Borland giving away its compiler is probably (I don't use win32 anyway) a good thing. However, it has *nothing* to do with Open Source until they open their source. I'm not whining and I don't want to bash them, but what they've done now (however good it might be) doesn't help open source. There are tons of companies that release software for free (the first one being Microsoft) and nobody says it's helping OSS. Once again, I'm still happy to hear they're doing that.
why when Borland releases BC++ free (as in beer), that's a great step towards Open Source... and when Microsoft makes IE available for free (still as in beer), they're against Open Source.
I'd say so far that it doesn't do any good to OSS. Except eventy\ually draw some people away from real OSS IDE (like kdevelop,...)
Not necessarly, when MS changes their API, it still has to remail backwards compatible. They can just add new features. But those features have to be relatively well documented for new programs to use it. The result: old (before API change) applications will still run, while WINE will have time to catch up for the API change at the same time as new programs use added functions.
Though what you say makes sense, I think you missed one point: Software vendors could allow big companies (who buy lots of licenses) to use the software as they use it now and force individuals to agree to UCITA-style licenses...
Then once again, I live in Canada and hopefully, this kind of license is still invalid here (otherwise, I'll move!)
Slashdot Mirror
I guess Intouch is just using a "defensive" patent, like the one Amazon used against B&N. ...They just don't have my sympathy. Of course, that doesn't I agree with Intouch. This whole thing is just getting more insane.
I guess the only way to prevent that kind of thing in the near future is for small companies (even larger) to join their patents so they can have a big enough patent pool to be protected against those attacks.
As soon as you can gather 10-20% of software patents in a "defense pool", software patents become useless, since you can't sue over one patent without being sued over 30.
...or give me a good laser, and it'll fly too. The only thing is that it's no going to be about photons and gravitons, nor photon momentum. I'll be because the photons of the laser will create enough heat to vaporize small particles, which will produce thrust (you know ye old jet engine!)
I'm pretty sure the thing does fly... give me 300 A and I'll make your device fly. I'm gessing that the fact that his thing flies (if it does) is a side effect of the 300 A (you know, 300 A in a coil makes an interresting magnetic field)
1- Photons DO have an inertial mass (this has been known for ~70 years)... unless they are at rest (haven't seen a photon at rest yet!)
2- Photons do have a gravitational mass is some sense (this is the base for the General Theory of Relativity). Remember stars curving light (as they curve space-time).
3- "There is a photon in opposition to each incident graviton". This either implies that photons interact with gravitons (which is not true AFAIK)... or that the forces balance, which is not correct, since the "force" (due to momentum) exerted by a photon depends on its wavelength anyway.
4- If you can have zero gravity by "opposing photons to gravitons", then you can also have negative gravity, which would violate energy conservation laws, since you could build a mass that goes up and down without energy.
5- If you consider General Relativity: "There's no such thing as the gravity force, it's just a curve in space-time", then *any* object just follow the curve. Zero-ing the gravity would mean something like "I have a device that cancels the spherical curve of the earth".
6- His "formulas" rely on special relativity, while he says it would allow him to go faster than light, which is against special (and general) relativity (if that was possible, then he can't use relativity his calculations, since relativity would be "false")
7- I don't believe a word of that.
8- Don't believe everything that's on the internet.
9- Linux rulez.
10- Hey, that's ten!
I really think artists would have a lot to gain from allowing people to freely copy their music. Most of the revenues from CD's go to music stores and music companies, but I'm sure most artists make about $1 per CD (if not less). Artists make money with shows. CD's are just a way to have people hear their music so they go to the show.
Now if artists start putting their music free for download, that makes a lot more people likely to hear it and more likely to go to their show. The main thing that needs to be done is more organization and more marketing power for free music. I'm sure if a "Free Music Foundation" becomes as organized as the open source mouvement, artists will think twice before giving up their copyrights to music companies for $1/CD and less people hearing their music.
I forgot the other key issue is to have the radios play this "free music"... Though internet radios could do that and give a hard time to the "normal radio".
Never said a computer couldn't control an airplane. I just said I wouldn't trust any UNIX (or NT) system to do it. The reason for that is that these operating systems are way too complex to be totally bug free (which is what you need). Currently most (all) "real critical" applications are very low complexity, so they can be bug free.
This type of disclaimer is perfectly normal. There's a difference between a bank loosing $10M because of an OS bug and people dying in an airplane crash or a nuclear powerplant meltdown. If I know that the odds of my product failing is once every 10M years, then I'm willing to garranty it for a bank... not for an airplane. I don't believe I'd trust any UNIX (forget NT!) in charge of the low-level (navigation, autopilot) stuff in an airplane.
Not to mention that Apple already tried something like that: the sued MS over Windows, which they claimed was like the Mac... they lost
IANAL, but I think copying features, as long as long as you haven't looked at the source (I don't think MS showed him!) and that there's no patent, is perfectly legal. There's nothing they can do. Otherwise, the Octave guys would be sued by the ones who do Matlab, VMWare and FreeMWare (or whatever it became), or they could also sue Wine... but as I said, that's legal.
OK, now we say that everybody's copying on Micro$oft... Don't forget that they've copied most their stuff from someone else. Not that there's anything wrong with that. You can't (and shouldn't) always reinvent the wheel.
This is how it goes. A invents something, B starts doing the same, as well as C... then Micro$oft copies it, then when GNOME does the same, they've been copying microsoft. That's simply because they're the ones you see the most.
Let's see... the load is now 12... number of top processes running: 120...
> killall top
load is back to 2
Wow! The next distro I install will have:
-Linux 2.4
-XFree86 4.0
-KDE 2.0
-(gnome 1.2?)
That's a hell of a quantum leap. This is gonna do a lot of good to OSS
This is even worse: The big companies can afford to pay for many years, while the small ones are forced to give up. Besides that, who would get the money?
As Slashdot grows, the problem of Slashdotted sites becomes more important... I agree that we can't just copy the linked page on Slashdot, since this would (rightly) be copyright violation. However, many of the linked pages are not copyrighted (or have a liberal license) and most of the slashdoted sites are small (often OSS sites) which would allow their pages to be copied on Slashdot.
So why not ask some OSS (and other small) sites whether they'd allow their pages to be copied on Slashdot. This would benefit both those sites and Slashdot readers. If something of the like is not done, it would mean that eventually slashdot could only link to major sites, which would restrict a lot (in terms of point of view) the information available to slashdot readers.
Actually, we've still got a good margin before electrons start jumping beween wires... The smallest lab transistor to data is ~30nm and I don't think the electrons tunnel between wires yet at these distances... I think the bottleneck will be with the CMOS technology, not the electrons switching wires...
What's next... Quantum Computing???
Actually, this is not the only technology that promisses to bring lithography to even lower scales... There's also Lucent's Scalpel, Intel's Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) and an X-Ray technology from IBM. There all saying they're stuff is better that all other technologies... let's see which on comes first
Let's promote thsi kind of software! Once 50% of the web is blocked by these filters (most of it wrongly), not using a filter will be a "big feature"!
OK, this is just my opinion (usual flames > /dev/null)... I'd tend to blame the idea of XPToolkit for the stability and speed problems in Mozilla. It adds another layer to something that's already complicated enough:
Mozilla->XPToolkit->GTK->GDK->X (am I forgetting anything).
Actually, I think the problem is not necessarly with the idea of a cross-platform toolkit, but the idea that widgets should look exactly the same on all OS's. This way you need to rewrite all the widgets for all toolkits, which adds both bloat and bugs. For instance, the scrolling in the message (mail) window is way too slow. A simple GTK widget would be 10x faster. Why not an XPToolkit that keeps the look of the original toolkit? This makes even more sense with GTK when you have themes...
Any comment on that?
As anyone been able to use mozilla on Linux with 100dpi fonts? I'm running 1600x1200 on a 17", so 100dpi fonts are vital! No matter what I chose in the font preferences, I'm still stuck with 75dpi fonts, which is simply unreadable.
Besides that, for me M14 seems to be even less stable than the two previous builds (It took me 5 minutes to crash it, doing nothing unusual).
Though Octave is a very useful math package (I use it all the time), it doesn't have any symbolic math support. I don't know what made you think otherwise. It's almost Matlab compatible though.
As for symbolic stuff... you should look at SAL.KachinaTech.com which is a site for scientific applications under Linux
OK, I may have chosen a bad example... but the fact remains that lots of companies (including Microsoft) release stuff for free and it doesn't count as Open Source... take the first versions of IE (those that weren't bundled), and all the "free for non-commercial use" stuff that's available.
Yes, Borland giving away its compiler is probably (I don't use win32 anyway) a good thing. However, it has *nothing* to do with Open Source until they open their source. I'm not whining and I don't want to bash them, but what they've done now (however good it might be) doesn't help open source. There are tons of companies that release software for free (the first one being Microsoft) and nobody says it's helping OSS. Once again, I'm still happy to hear they're doing that.
why when Borland releases BC++ free (as in beer), that's a great step towards Open Source... and when Microsoft makes IE available for free (still as in beer), they're against Open Source.
...)
I'd say so far that it doesn't do any good to OSS. Except eventy\ually draw some people away from real OSS IDE (like kdevelop,
Not necessarly, when MS changes their API, it still has to remail backwards compatible. They can just add new features. But those features have to be relatively well documented for new programs to use it. The result: old (before API change) applications will still run, while WINE will have time to catch up for the API change at the same time as new programs use added functions.
Though what you say makes sense, I think you missed one point: Software vendors could allow big companies (who buy lots of licenses) to use the software as they use it now and force individuals to agree to UCITA-style licenses...
Then once again, I live in Canada and hopefully, this kind of license is still invalid here (otherwise, I'll move!)