I challenge you to benefit from a 20-year-old binary anything.
I have. I've played old games under simulators. People have even hacked around some of these games to make them playable online with multiple players. I've run old mainframe software under simulators. Where there's a will, there's a way.
Yes, it is hard to say which ones are stupid. That's a reason to not grant them easily, not a reason to abolish them.
Many ideas are generally patent worthy, but I'd rather have the chance to re-invent it myself than have it monopolized for twenty years.
More harm is done to competitiveness through lack of implementation details (which patents require, and the current broken copyright system does not) than could ever be done by a waiting period.
No way. Open source can reverse engineer and re-implement around proprietary programs. Patents put up a significantly higher barrier.
Software is often distributed in binary form: a form which cannot be derived from.
And you call yourself "Lord Bitman"?
The protection, for a limited time, of original works, is meant to allow them to be developed so that people in the future can create derivative works based on them.
Even just having a copy without changes is to the public benefit.
Software patents aren't bad
Yes they are, because they are completely unneeded. They bring far too much harm for any proposed benefit. All you have to do is look at the industry before software patents were available.
they just have a bad name because stupid ones have been granted.
It's hard to say what is stupid. Lots of things sounds obvious after somebody has spent the time researching and coming up with a clever solution. Then again, research into software has such a low threshold that invariably somebody will come up with a good solution and make it popular. It's a damn shame to lock up all this technology for twenty years, because in the end it retards the growth and competitiveness of the industry.
Perhaps the Portugal government would like to fund the accelerated development of Moonlight by hiring a few developers to assist the project. That seems like a win-win for everyone involved. Faster Moonlight 2.0 and 3.0 and the warm cozy feeling that they made the world a better place.
By entrenching Microsoft standards as the new web standards, since they lost that position by letting IE stagnate. Great idea, Miguel. Maybe instead Portugal should support the open standards already in place.
Checked exceptions are in my mind a different sort of beast, since they circumvent the normal program flow.
Null return values eventually turn into null pointer exceptions, at least in Java. They are essentially the same principle. Where do you draw the line between the two? If call a parse function, should it throw an exception or return null if it fails? What do you do when you can't find a file on disk? What do you return when a network call fails?
Agreed, this is just another example of gcc failing to follow the spec. gcc is known to optimize away side-effects such as segmentation faults that might occur from a pointer dereference which is optimized away
gcc is not in error if the specification says the behavior is undefined. The problem is all the undefined behavior that C++ allows in the name of efficiency.
There is no excuse for these kinds of breaches. Strong security isn't actually hard. It is certainly expensive, and it is certainly inconvenient. However, it really isn't hard - you just need to be methodical.
Which is what makes it hard. Information is easily spread. People make mistakes. A security mistake won't crash your computer.
I'm not seeing any difference between "digital rights management" and the MicroProse C=64 disks I used to buy which used digital errors to block copying.
"Digital rights management" goes beyond just copying, though that is the primary driver. It includes not being able to use "region encoded" DVDs that you bought elsewhere. It means they don't want to let you skip over the copyright warning when you play your movie. It means they don't want to let you have a computer read a book that you just paid for. What does any of that have to do with "copy protection"?
it's been widely debated that the FAT patent would not hold up on a review
Already happened. In 2004 a request for re-examination was examined. In 2005 the patent claims were initially rejected. In 2006 the patent claims were upheld. Microsoft wins.
Not that anyone in this day and age learns from mistakes any longer -- following the economic crash, people are seeking to get back to "business as usual" failing to appreciate that "business as usual" is what caused the crash. (Interestingly, the great depression spawned all kinds of lessons and wisdom that carried for generations... it wasn't really until most of the great depression survivors died that this crash occurred.)
Big crashes are like earthquakes. They're going to happen. There was plenty of minor to large cases of corruption, greed, and bubbles that burst between the Great Depression and the current crash. Any time I hear statements like "in this day and age" I know what follows is likely to be somebody looking at the past with rose-colored glasses.
However, the e-book market share is too small for it to be worth my time as a small publisher to take the considerable effort required to reformat these books for the Kindle. And I check up on the market share every couple of months. If the e-book gets up to 10% or higher of the market share, it will become worthwhile for me to start producing commercial e-books.
I've seen a claim that when both formats (printed and ebook) are available, 10% of sales are ebook. Beats me if that's accurate or not.
The scary proposition for publishers, and in the context of the Cory's article, is that people use e-readers but don't buy books. They go straight for illegal downloads. That is, after all, what Cory is claiming for movies and music. He thinks only the lack of a cheap e-reader will save print books.
I think for sure a good e-reader will be available within 5 years. On the other hand, I'm very uncertain how the ultimate battle for copyright on the Internet will turn out. Anyways, I'm done pontificating. We'll see what happens.
On a very basic level, there's the PC, the laptop, and quite a number of readers from quite a few companies. There's also the Palm Pilot, cell phones, and variations.
None of those devices make good e-readers. Sitting in front of your PC is not the same as curling up with a book. Laptops are hot, heavy, and have an awkward form factor compared to a book. Palm pilots and cell phones are too small and take too much battery. E Ink devices are still very new and it's only been in the past couple of years where you can say there is a reader comparable to a book.
Except for the up-front cost of e-book reader, and the price of the book if it's a new one. Aside from which, availability is a side issue - we're talking about technical merits.
We've been talking about price and convenience. You can't ignore instant downloading, and in the context of the article where the Internet eats your business, downloading for free. As I said, the up-front price for e-readers need to come way down, but it seems quite likely that they will, as display technology keeps on getting better and cheaper all the time.
And if it ever gets stolen, your entire library goes with it.
You really aren't getting the whole digital thing and Internet thing, where everything can be copied cheaply and can be downloaded for free from the Internet.
I've heard all of these arguments before. In 2000, they might have been convincing. Today, history has already spoken. For ten years, they haven't made a difference.
You have an early industry mindset. Up until a couple of years ago, there hasn't been a device that could replace a book. This thing is just getting started.
The printed book has one thing that the e-book doesn't, and simply cannot complete with: simplicity.
An e-reader will be simple enough that people aren't going to buy the media in print form when they are comfortable with using an e-reader. There's just far too much overlap to be worth it.
At the current growth rate, 30 years from now the e-book MIGHT have gotten up to 10% of the market share, making it competitive with audiobooks. As it stands, in the last nine years, the e-book has yet to break 1% of the total book market. I know - I've been following e-book sales recently.
Has a modern, viable e-reader been available at a reasonable price for the last 9 years? The Kindle was only introduced a little over a year ago. It's still a luxury item when you consider that you can buy a netbook for the same price. But as these things do, the technology will improve and the price will come down.
3. Just plain better: the printed book takes it easily. It is completely self-contained, and easy to use. Any part of it can be referenced at any time, and you don't need any equipment to use it.
Alternatively, an e-book can be downloaded instantly and for free instead of having to go out and buy it or wait for it to be shipped. I don't have to dedicate space to store each book. I can copy them around and thus preserve perfect working copies instead of having them worn down over time. No heavy books. Easy search. So instead of keeping track of many books I have one device to keep track of, that's self-contained and easy to use.
E-readers just need to come down in price. People are willing to pay a fair amount for a quality movie experience in their home. An e-reader will have to be considerably cheaper for mass adoption. Personally I would love one at $100, but with a screen the size of a magazine. I expect within 5 years that should be available. These guys are on the right track.
It's not a matter of making someone behave ethically, it's about giving people permission to behave ethically and trusting that they will.
Would you agree then, that if there were no copyright, freedom says that you have the right NOT to release source code? As examples, this means if you released a binary, somebody would have the freedom to copy and modify your binary, or if you released source code, somebody else could add in proprietary bits and just release the binary. However, under no circumstances would somebody be compelled to release source code.
Slashdot Mirror
I challenge you to benefit from a 20-year-old binary anything.
I have. I've played old games under simulators. People have even hacked around some of these games to make them playable online with multiple players. I've run old mainframe software under simulators. Where there's a will, there's a way.
Yes, it is hard to say which ones are stupid. That's a reason to not grant them easily, not a reason to abolish them.
Many ideas are generally patent worthy, but I'd rather have the chance to re-invent it myself than have it monopolized for twenty years.
More harm is done to competitiveness through lack of implementation details (which patents require, and the current broken copyright system does not) than could ever be done by a waiting period.
No way. Open source can reverse engineer and re-implement around proprietary programs. Patents put up a significantly higher barrier.
What is he preaching for?
His opinion on life.
It works both ways. That is, if you are on the "right" side of change, then chances are you'll have to make many attempts to overturn the law.
Software is often distributed in binary form: a form which cannot be derived from.
And you call yourself "Lord Bitman"?
The protection, for a limited time, of original works, is meant to allow them to be developed so that people in the future can create derivative works based on them.
Even just having a copy without changes is to the public benefit.
Software patents aren't bad
Yes they are, because they are completely unneeded. They bring far too much harm for any proposed benefit. All you have to do is look at the industry before software patents were available.
they just have a bad name because stupid ones have been granted.
It's hard to say what is stupid. Lots of things sounds obvious after somebody has spent the time researching and coming up with a clever solution. Then again, research into software has such a low threshold that invariably somebody will come up with a good solution and make it popular. It's a damn shame to lock up all this technology for twenty years, because in the end it retards the growth and competitiveness of the industry.
It's too damn preachy. Dilbert manages to make a point and actually be funny in a cute and charming way (plus no stick figures).
I thought the left was the "think of the children party"
That would be both parties.
and the right was "he who has the biggest gun makes the rules" party
That would be foreign policy, for either party as well.
Perhaps the Portugal government would like to fund the accelerated development of Moonlight by hiring a few developers to assist the project. That seems like a win-win for everyone involved. Faster Moonlight 2.0 and 3.0 and the warm cozy feeling that they made the world a better place.
By entrenching Microsoft standards as the new web standards, since they lost that position by letting IE stagnate. Great idea, Miguel. Maybe instead Portugal should support the open standards already in place.
You8r missinf the bigges and most important use:
You seem to be missing some letters on your keyboard.
on top of my daily half-marathon run
How long can a human body stand up to such punishment?
Checked exceptions are in my mind a different sort of beast, since they circumvent the normal program flow.
Null return values eventually turn into null pointer exceptions, at least in Java. They are essentially the same principle. Where do you draw the line between the two? If call a parse function, should it throw an exception or return null if it fails? What do you do when you can't find a file on disk? What do you return when a network call fails?
Agreed, this is just another example of gcc failing to follow the spec. gcc is known to optimize away side-effects such as segmentation faults that might occur from a pointer dereference which is optimized away
gcc is not in error if the specification says the behavior is undefined. The problem is all the undefined behavior that C++ allows in the name of efficiency.
[sibling said] Can you give me a drummer's opinion on:
Ooh, can I play too? What do you think of the drums in Hot for Teacher?
Whoosh? I'm pretty sure he was joking.
You know, ending your post in "Cheers" when you're highly critical of something is discordant.
There is no excuse for these kinds of breaches. Strong security isn't actually hard. It is certainly expensive, and it is certainly inconvenient. However, it really isn't hard - you just need to be methodical.
Which is what makes it hard. Information is easily spread. People make mistakes. A security mistake won't crash your computer.
I'm not seeing any difference between "digital rights management" and the MicroProse C=64 disks I used to buy which used digital errors to block copying.
"Digital rights management" goes beyond just copying, though that is the primary driver. It includes not being able to use "region encoded" DVDs that you bought elsewhere. It means they don't want to let you skip over the copyright warning when you play your movie. It means they don't want to let you have a computer read a book that you just paid for. What does any of that have to do with "copy protection"?
Thanks.
What the hell, where is the cop's reply?
MyEclipse is open-source
No it isn't.
it's been widely debated that the FAT patent would not hold up on a review
Already happened. In 2004 a request for re-examination was examined. In 2005 the patent claims were initially rejected. In 2006 the patent claims were upheld. Microsoft wins.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table#Appeal
http://news.cnet.com/Microsofts-file-system-patent-upheld/2100-1012_3-6025447.html
Not that anyone in this day and age learns from mistakes any longer -- following the economic crash, people are seeking to get back to "business as usual" failing to appreciate that "business as usual" is what caused the crash. (Interestingly, the great depression spawned all kinds of lessons and wisdom that carried for generations... it wasn't really until most of the great depression survivors died that this crash occurred.)
Big crashes are like earthquakes. They're going to happen. There was plenty of minor to large cases of corruption, greed, and bubbles that burst between the Great Depression and the current crash. Any time I hear statements like "in this day and age" I know what follows is likely to be somebody looking at the past with rose-colored glasses.
However, the e-book market share is too small for it to be worth my time as a small publisher to take the considerable effort required to reformat these books for the Kindle. And I check up on the market share every couple of months. If the e-book gets up to 10% or higher of the market share, it will become worthwhile for me to start producing commercial e-books.
I've seen a claim that when both formats (printed and ebook) are available, 10% of sales are ebook. Beats me if that's accurate or not.
The scary proposition for publishers, and in the context of the Cory's article, is that people use e-readers but don't buy books. They go straight for illegal downloads. That is, after all, what Cory is claiming for movies and music. He thinks only the lack of a cheap e-reader will save print books.
I think for sure a good e-reader will be available within 5 years. On the other hand, I'm very uncertain how the ultimate battle for copyright on the Internet will turn out. Anyways, I'm done pontificating. We'll see what happens.
On a very basic level, there's the PC, the laptop, and quite a number of readers from quite a few companies. There's also the Palm Pilot, cell phones, and variations.
None of those devices make good e-readers. Sitting in front of your PC is not the same as curling up with a book. Laptops are hot, heavy, and have an awkward form factor compared to a book. Palm pilots and cell phones are too small and take too much battery. E Ink devices are still very new and it's only been in the past couple of years where you can say there is a reader comparable to a book.
Except for the up-front cost of e-book reader, and the price of the book if it's a new one. Aside from which, availability is a side issue - we're talking about technical merits.
We've been talking about price and convenience. You can't ignore instant downloading, and in the context of the article where the Internet eats your business, downloading for free. As I said, the up-front price for e-readers need to come way down, but it seems quite likely that they will, as display technology keeps on getting better and cheaper all the time.
And if it ever gets stolen, your entire library goes with it.
You really aren't getting the whole digital thing and Internet thing, where everything can be copied cheaply and can be downloaded for free from the Internet.
I've heard all of these arguments before. In 2000, they might have been convincing. Today, history has already spoken. For ten years, they haven't made a difference.
You have an early industry mindset. Up until a couple of years ago, there hasn't been a device that could replace a book. This thing is just getting started.
The printed book has one thing that the e-book doesn't, and simply cannot complete with: simplicity.
An e-reader will be simple enough that people aren't going to buy the media in print form when they are comfortable with using an e-reader. There's just far too much overlap to be worth it.
At the current growth rate, 30 years from now the e-book MIGHT have gotten up to 10% of the market share, making it competitive with audiobooks. As it stands, in the last nine years, the e-book has yet to break 1% of the total book market. I know - I've been following e-book sales recently.
Has a modern, viable e-reader been available at a reasonable price for the last 9 years? The Kindle was only introduced a little over a year ago. It's still a luxury item when you consider that you can buy a netbook for the same price. But as these things do, the technology will improve and the price will come down.
3. Just plain better: the printed book takes it easily. It is completely self-contained, and easy to use. Any part of it can be referenced at any time, and you don't need any equipment to use it.
Alternatively, an e-book can be downloaded instantly and for free instead of having to go out and buy it or wait for it to be shipped. I don't have to dedicate space to store each book. I can copy them around and thus preserve perfect working copies instead of having them worn down over time. No heavy books. Easy search. So instead of keeping track of many books I have one device to keep track of, that's self-contained and easy to use.
E-readers just need to come down in price. People are willing to pay a fair amount for a quality movie experience in their home. An e-reader will have to be considerably cheaper for mass adoption. Personally I would love one at $100, but with a screen the size of a magazine. I expect within 5 years that should be available. These guys are on the right track.
It's not a matter of making someone behave ethically, it's about giving people permission to behave ethically and trusting that they will.
Would you agree then, that if there were no copyright, freedom says that you have the right NOT to release source code? As examples, this means if you released a binary, somebody would have the freedom to copy and modify your binary, or if you released source code, somebody else could add in proprietary bits and just release the binary. However, under no circumstances would somebody be compelled to release source code.