Take claim 1, which is the broadest independent claim:
A software architecture for a distributed computing system comprising: an application configured to handle requests submitted by remote devices over a network; and an application program interface to present functions used by the application to access network and computing resources of the distributed computing system.
How are, for example, a web server (handles requests submitted by remote devices) and web browser (interface to present functions used to access resources) not covered by this claim?
The next independent claim is:
A distributed computer software architecture, comprising: one or more applications configured to be executed on one or more computing devices, the applications handling requests submitted from remote computing devices; a networking platform to support the one or more applications; and an application programming interface to interface the one or more applications with the networking platform.
A system comprising: means for exposing a first set of functions that enable browser/server communication; means for exposing a second set of functions that enable drawing and construction of client applications; means for exposing a third set of functions that enable connectivity to data sources and XML functionality; and means for exposing a fourth set of functions that enable system and runtime functionality.
...like, say, Mozilla.
Of course, there are dependent claims that try to make this more specific (ooh, using XML documents over a network, that's original). And, of course, the whole thing could be rejected by the patent office.
Still, it's like they didn't even make an effort to try and avoid the most obvious prior-art objections. Almost like they have complete contempt for the patent office, and confidence that no one will dare to challenge their multi-billion-dollar legal war chest if they ever do assert patent rights over someone. But no, that's crazy.
Xmingwin is
my label for, "Mingwin run as a cross-generating application." [emphasis added]
As another poster has pointed out, people have been cross-compiling with MinGW (not really "Mingwin") for years, and most people seem to just call it MinGW.
Note that Debian already comes with a MinGW cross-compiler package, which will soon be available for non-i386 architectures as well (e.g. cross-compiling from ppc to win32).
A hint to the Slashdot editors, who somehow managed to forget to proofread their post and URLs for the first time in memory. What is happening to Slashdot's high journalistic standards?
On the off chance that you actually read the article, you'll see that they're replacing Unix machines, not Windows, with Linux. This is a no-brainer, especially since their software is probably custom-developed and can easily be recompiled under GNU/Linux.
How will it benefit authors? Copyright already lasts for the life of the author plus an additional period. So an extension of this period will only benefit the author's estate or owning corporation.
Actually, it's worse than that. You could rationally argue that an author might be motivated by benefits to his/her heirs. However, because promises of future money have to be depreciated to arrive at a present value, even extending copyright terms to forever provides virtually no added incentive. (Put in more concrete terms, you could get the same benefit to your heirs by investing a few dollars now, so it's only worth a few dollars at best.)
In short, the only economic effect of extending copyright terms is a windfall to present copyright holders. See the amicus brief I linked to above for a full analysis.
windfalls are not an incentive to invest
on
Eldred vs. Ashcroft
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
By extending copyrights, congress is allowing large copyright holders to continue generating revenue from old works. The copyright holders then invest that revenue in new marginal and high risk works.
There is an amicus brief by 17 economists (including Nobel prizewinners) explaining why that argument is wrong, and also refuting other supposed incentives for new works from copyright extensions. (In fact, they argue that copyright extension forms a disincentive to new works by expanding the monopoly on building-block materials.) An excerpt:
One might argue that the windfall to authors of existing
copyrights has a positive consequence, by providing them with more resources for additional creative projects. However, this
argument ignores the profit maximization decision of a
producer, which takes into account the producer's cost of
capital for a given investment. In general, a profit-maximizing
producer should fund the set of projects that have an expected
return equal to or greater than their cost of capital. If a
producer lacks the cash on hand to fund a profitable project, the
producer can secure additional funding from financial
institutions or investors. If the producer has resources
remaining, after funding all the projects whose expected returns
are higher than the cost of capital, this remainder should be
invested elsewhere, not in sub-par projects that happen to be
available to the firm. If a producer pursues the same set of
projects in any event, then its incentives will not be improved
from the mere fact of a windfall from consumers.
Was the subject line supposed to be ironic? Brewster's angle is a specific angle at which the reflections for one polarization are zero. (That is why you use polarized sunglasses...reflections off of water, ice, etcetera will tend to be mostly polarized perpendicular to the ground, so filtering that out cuts the glare.)
The relevant quantity in fibers is the critical angle, beyond which all light is reflected inside the higher-index core. (Actually, the whole ray-optics picture is not completely accurate for fibers with features, like the core size, comparable to the wavelength...but it's qualitatively the right idea.) (Which, by the way, has nothing to do with the reflection disappearing from the puddle, since that is a reflection into the lower-index medium, air. The puddle effect has more to do with your shadow blocking the light.)
Note also, by the way, that it's not so much that the index of the polymer fiber core has been increased, its that the effective index of the cladding is decreased (by adding lots of thin holes/veins, hence the name microstructured fiber). And you can do the same thing with glass fibers. (Because of the higher effective contrast, you can confine light more tightly and e.g. enhance nonlinear effects.
(You were on the right track that it's the bending light loss, and the advantage therein of higher index contrast, that the article was referring to.)
The original point of patents (in the US) was neither to protect profits nor the small inventor, it was to encourage invention and progress:
The Congress shall have Power [...] 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
[US Constitution, Article I, Sec. 8].
You're confusing the means with the end, which is the sort of thinking that got us into this mess.
The essay on the main League for Programming Freedom page is one of the more cogent ones that I've seen, although being written in 1991 it doesn't have as many case studies as it could now. (It makes the important point that it's not enough to simply eliminate software patents with the most obvious prior art, as some have argued.)
The basic problem, I think, is that there is no shortage of ideas for computer software...there is mostly a shortage of good implementations of old ideas, and locking down the ideas so that only one entity has a monopoly on implementing them doesn't help matters.
Put another way, when most patent infringement cases seem to involve independent invention, the patent system is not doing its job.
You're all wrong. From Tolkien's words at the end of the Fellowship:
Here ends the first part of the history of the War of the Ring. The second part is called The Two Towers, since the events recounted in it are dominated by Orthanc, the citadel of Saruman, and the fortress of Minas Morgul that guards the secret entrance to Mordor; it tells of the deeds and perils of all the members of the now sundered fellowship, until the coming of the Great Darkness.
Note also that the former name of Minas Morgul was Minas Ithil. In Elrond's words:
And on a time evil things came forth, and they took Minas Ithil and abode in it, and they made it into a place of dread; and it is called Minas Morgul, the Tower of Sorcery. Then Minas Anor was named anew Minas Tirith, the Tower of Guard; and these two cities were ever at war...
Getting things started is hard, I agree, especially with a project of this size. But now that it exists, it's not going away.
Even if AOL abandons it completely, that will only slow down Mozilla's progress, not halt it. Other individuals will continue working on it, and likely other companies as well. Businesses from Sun to HP to IBM have a considerable interest in open Web standards, and I'd bet that some would donate money and/or engineering time to Mozilla if push came to shove.
Open Source provides a level playing field for differing entities to cooperate.
As long as Mozilla has its foot in the door with a significant niche of web users, as long as it is Free software that can never disappear simply because a company goes under, as long as it guarantees a viable browsing solution for all the platforms Microsoft would rather you forgot, then it has won. It will prevent Microsoft from completely dictating web standards, from creating a world where only Windows can browse the web.
The problem Microsoft (and others of its ilk) has with Free software is that it doesn't go away. When Mozilla first came out, there was a huge hype, but that hype evaporated and turned (in some quarters) to derision when Mozilla didn't deliver right away. For most MS competitors, that would have been the end. But Mozilla kept plugging along, getting better and better...it never has to go back to square one with a new company and codebase.
...and the longer it holds on with the high quality it has demonstrated so far, the more companies will jump on to its bandwagon. Everyone except for Microsoft benefits from open standards, and almost everyone knows it.
Photonic crystals are periodically-structured optical media that, with the right structure, completely forbid the propagation of light in a certain range of wavelengths (analogous to electronic band gaps). They form a sort of "optical insulator" that you can use to trap, guide, and control light. The work at essentially any wavelength (in contrast to metallic waveguides) provided that you can fabricate a periodic structure with periodicity on the order of half a wavelength, and have a number of potential applications, including:
Integrated optics: optimally miniaturized networks of optical devices to offload some analog signal-processing or telecommunications tasks, circumventing e.g. bandwidth limitations of electronic circuits. (Few these days are predicting all-optical computers.)
Optical fibers (from 2d or 1d patterns) that circumvent fundamental loss/nonlinearity/PMD limits of silica fiber, and for other novel applications (e.g. high-power or highly-nonlinear fiber devices).
More-efficient LEDs and lasers, both by enhancing the optical density of states and by making the light go where you want it to go.
Slow-light devices for time-delays, nonlinear interactions...
Super-lenses (that can focus beyond the diffraction limit via negative effective indices of refraction).
Super-prisms (very wavelength-sensitive refraction, e.g. for wavelength demultiplexing).
...
1d photonic crystals (multilayer films) have been known since Rayleigh in 1887 (although there are new twists) but 2d and 3d crystals weren't conceived until 1987, via a marriage of solid-state physics and electromagnetism.
The paper Slashdot linked to is considering photonic-crystals made by self-assembly of microspheres into close-packed lattices. A perfect crystal has limited use; you need to make defects to carve devices out of it, and that is what they are doing here. (There are many problems of precision, etcetera, that still need to be overcome for practical integrated devices, I think.)
Note that one can also make photonic crystals with traditional lithography, but that poses its own set of challenges (especially for full 3d-periodic crystals).
It is only illegal to copy it if you have specifically given up that right. As the GPL says, "Most [licences] are created with the purpose of taking away your rights..."
You've got that backwards. It is only legal to copy a copyrighted work (other than for fair use) if you've been specifically granted that right by a license (e.g. the GPL). (IANAL)
The default under copyright law is to forbid copying; most shrink-wrap "licenses" try to restrict your rights beyond the ordinary powers of copyright.
You obviously haven't used LyX much. You can type LaTeX macros directly into its equations, instead of using the GUI panel.
Try typing \frac {\gamma}{2} in LyX (first hitting C-m to start math mode, equivalent to typing $... $ in LaTeX:
Type \frac: notice that the \ switches you into TeX mode, and the text is in red. Hit the spacebar to exit TeX mode: boom, you have a graphical fraction with two empty boxes for numerator and denominator.
Type \gamma, space, and boom: you have a Greek gamma.
arrow down to the denominator (no need to type {}), and type 2. You're done.
LyX gives you all the power of LaTeX plus the advantages of a GUI and WYSIWYM (not WYSIWYG) display. An extra nicety is that when you select something in the GUI (e.g. click the gamma icon in the math panel), it tells you the keyboard shortcut (\gamma) in the status bar...so it teaches you the relevant TeX as you go, but you always have the GUI as a backup if you forget.
Not that LyX is perfect (I'm required to hack in LaTeX more often than I think should be required), but it is really a step in the right direction. Note that it can output DocBook too.
Oh please...I meant force every user of the software to buy it. Nor was I taking position on whether this is right or wrong, per se, just that I feel that he's intentionally confusing the issue by focusing on the GPL---he's rejecting all free software (and open source) licenses.
If you read the essay, it really sounds like the Kompany wants to give up on all free (open-source) licenses altogether, not just the GPL. He wants to be able to force every user to buy the software:
Look at it this way. I can send 1,000 copies to a distributor who will put it on store shelves around the world. People will walk in, pick it up and buy it. Now let's say that the software was free (as in cost) and I just sell services. Well, now I can't put it on a store shelf and for every customer; I have to go and hunt them down somehow and persuade them to use our free software and then pay us for support -- but they should only really need support if our software is hard to use or poorly designed, which isn't the case or our objective.
I certainly agree that it is (often) harder to make money with free-software licensing than with a proprietary model (although it's not true that you "can't put [free software] on a store shelf").
However, I am disappointed that he (apparently) tries to shield himself from criticism for abandoning free software by ostensibly attacking only the GPL, everyone's favorite bogeyman (citing unnamed "ambiguities," complaining that RMS doesn't like them,...)
This is what you get when you value short-term convenience over freedom, when you get excited over something because it's "cool," when you think that any software for Linux is good for Linux (forgetting what made GNU/Linux special in the first place).
You're completely dependent on the whims and fortunes of a single vendor, and are now up a creek. By all means, beg them to release it as free software, but don't hold your breath.
There's a time and a place for proprietary software, but there is also a very real cost that has nothing to do with price. Valuing freedom over features is not just thinking with your gonads.
A point that doesn't seem to be raised much, but which I think requires the vigilance of consumers, is that Microsoft may use "security" as an excuse to further entrench its monopoly.
Want to install a non-Microsoft program?
Send an attachment in an open format (as opposed to MS Office)?
Buy something from a website that doesn't use Passport?
You'll get:
Warning: this program/file/site is INSECURE and may contain a virus. We recommend consulting two programmers, a lawyer, and a priest before opening it.
Of course, Microsoft won't make it too hard to have third-party software (as long as it doesn't compete with Office). You'll just have to pay a small fee for a MS-certified crypto signature. (Oops, free software can't pay the fee? Gee.)
Well, in most "goods" sales, you can't disclaim warranty. It must be fit for the purpose designed.
In a word: bullshit. See the
Uniform Commercial Code, section 2-316. You can disclaim all warranty, provided sufficient notice up-front. (Haven't you ever bought anything at a closeout, or at the Salvation Army, where things were prominently labelled "as-is?")
Unlike typical EULAs, the GPL only grants rights, it does not take any away.
Copyright law makes certain restrictions on redistribution by default. The GPL lifts some of those restrictions, allowing redistribution/modification under certain conditions.
If you bothered to read the GPL, you would notice that it even says:
You are not required to accept this License, since you have not
signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or
distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are
prohibited by law if you do not accept this License.
I think software manufacturers should be able to disclaim warranty, just like you can in any other industry: by prominently labeling the product to be "AS IS, no warranty" before money changes hands.
For free software that you just download (i.e. excluding vendors such as Red Hat), no money changes hands, so it should be enough to have the warranty disclaimer attached clearly to the downloaded package. (Or better yet, for gratis software there should be a presumption of no warranty.)
I never understood how unilaterally imposed "contracts" that take away rights you have by default under copyright law, and which you can't even read until after the sale (much less negotiate) could be held up as valid.
The best curve-fitting software that I've ever used is a shareware program called MacCurveFit:
very fast, a simple interface for entering arbitrary equations and initial parameters, and one of the few programs that returns the error in each parameter of the fit (from the covariance matrix...much simpler to interpret than R^2). Anyone interested in writing a free software equivalent would do well to look at its example.
What do you think of OpenNap, Gnutella, Freenet, Morphius, and similar file-sharing systems? Do you think it is legal for a person to distribute unauthorized copies of a copyrighted recording or video that way, especially if no commercial entity is involved (e.g. excluding Napster or Morphius)? Should it be legal? (Should it matter how many copies you distribute, or to whom?)
If you think it should not be legal, what remedies should the law consider, since these systems can have significant non-infringing uses as well?
Slashdot Mirror
How are, for example, a web server (handles requests submitted by remote devices) and web browser (interface to present functions used to access resources) not covered by this claim? The next independent claim is:
Like, e.g. SETI@Home over TCP/IP? Or PVM?
Or claim 19:
...like, say, Mozilla.
Of course, there are dependent claims that try to make this more specific (ooh, using XML documents over a network, that's original). And, of course, the whole thing could be rejected by the patent office.
Still, it's like they didn't even make an effort to try and avoid the most obvious prior-art objections. Almost like they have complete contempt for the patent office, and confidence that no one will dare to challenge their multi-billion-dollar legal war chest if they ever do assert patent rights over someone. But no, that's crazy.
As another poster has pointed out, people have been cross-compiling with MinGW (not really "Mingwin") for years, and most people seem to just call it MinGW.
Note that Debian already comes with a MinGW cross-compiler package, which will soon be available for non-i386 architectures as well (e.g. cross-compiling from ppc to win32).
A hint to the Slashdot editors, who somehow managed to forget to proofread their post and URLs for the first time in memory. What is happening to Slashdot's high journalistic standards?
On the off chance that you actually read the article, you'll see that they're replacing Unix machines, not Windows, with Linux. This is a no-brainer, especially since their software is probably custom-developed and can easily be recompiled under GNU/Linux.
Actually, it's worse than that. You could rationally argue that an author might be motivated by benefits to his/her heirs. However, because promises of future money have to be depreciated to arrive at a present value, even extending copyright terms to forever provides virtually no added incentive. (Put in more concrete terms, you could get the same benefit to your heirs by investing a few dollars now, so it's only worth a few dollars at best.)
In short, the only economic effect of extending copyright terms is a windfall to present copyright holders. See the amicus brief I linked to above for a full analysis.
There is an amicus brief by 17 economists (including Nobel prizewinners) explaining why that argument is wrong, and also refuting other supposed incentives for new works from copyright extensions. (In fact, they argue that copyright extension forms a disincentive to new works by expanding the monopoly on building-block materials.) An excerpt:
The relevant quantity in fibers is the critical angle, beyond which all light is reflected inside the higher-index core. (Actually, the whole ray-optics picture is not completely accurate for fibers with features, like the core size, comparable to the wavelength...but it's qualitatively the right idea.) (Which, by the way, has nothing to do with the reflection disappearing from the puddle, since that is a reflection into the lower-index medium, air. The puddle effect has more to do with your shadow blocking the light.)
Note also, by the way, that it's not so much that the index of the polymer fiber core has been increased, its that the effective index of the cladding is decreased (by adding lots of thin holes/veins, hence the name microstructured fiber). And you can do the same thing with glass fibers. (Because of the higher effective contrast, you can confine light more tightly and e.g. enhance nonlinear effects.
(You were on the right track that it's the bending light loss, and the advantage therein of higher index contrast, that the article was referring to.)
Microstructuring can also go in the other direction to photonic crystal fibers and guiding light in air.)
You're confusing the means with the end, which is the sort of thinking that got us into this mess.
The basic problem, I think, is that there is no shortage of ideas for computer software...there is mostly a shortage of good implementations of old ideas, and locking down the ideas so that only one entity has a monopoly on implementing them doesn't help matters.
Put another way, when most patent infringement cases seem to involve independent invention, the patent system is not doing its job.
Note also that the former name of Minas Morgul was Minas Ithil. In Elrond's words:
Even if AOL abandons it completely, that will only slow down Mozilla's progress, not halt it. Other individuals will continue working on it, and likely other companies as well. Businesses from Sun to HP to IBM have a considerable interest in open Web standards, and I'd bet that some would donate money and/or engineering time to Mozilla if push came to shove.
Open Source provides a level playing field for differing entities to cooperate.
As long as Mozilla has its foot in the door with a significant niche of web users, as long as it is Free software that can never disappear simply because a company goes under, as long as it guarantees a viable browsing solution for all the platforms Microsoft would rather you forgot, then it has won. It will prevent Microsoft from completely dictating web standards, from creating a world where only Windows can browse the web.
The problem Microsoft (and others of its ilk) has with Free software is that it doesn't go away. When Mozilla first came out, there was a huge hype, but that hype evaporated and turned (in some quarters) to derision when Mozilla didn't deliver right away. For most MS competitors, that would have been the end. But Mozilla kept plugging along, getting better and better...it never has to go back to square one with a new company and codebase.
...and the longer it holds on with the high quality it has demonstrated so far, the more companies will jump on to its bandwagon. Everyone except for Microsoft benefits from open standards, and almost everyone knows it.
The GPL requires that:
The original BSD license, in contrast, has an obnoxious clause requiring credit in any advertising, not just in the copyright notice and source code.
Since I actually do research in this area and there is some confusion here, let me give a very brief introduction to photonic crystals (which can be studied using free software).
Photonic crystals are periodically-structured optical media that, with the right structure, completely forbid the propagation of light in a certain range of wavelengths (analogous to electronic band gaps). They form a sort of "optical insulator" that you can use to trap, guide, and control light. The work at essentially any wavelength (in contrast to metallic waveguides) provided that you can fabricate a periodic structure with periodicity on the order of half a wavelength, and have a number of potential applications, including:
1d photonic crystals (multilayer films) have been known since Rayleigh in 1887 (although there are new twists) but 2d and 3d crystals weren't conceived until 1987, via a marriage of solid-state physics and electromagnetism.
The paper Slashdot linked to is considering photonic-crystals made by self-assembly of microspheres into close-packed lattices. A perfect crystal has limited use; you need to make defects to carve devices out of it, and that is what they are doing here. (There are many problems of precision, etcetera, that still need to be overcome for practical integrated devices, I think.)
Note that one can also make photonic crystals with traditional lithography, but that poses its own set of challenges (especially for full 3d-periodic crystals).
You've got that backwards. It is only legal to copy a copyrighted work (other than for fair use) if you've been specifically granted that right by a license (e.g. the GPL). (IANAL)
The default under copyright law is to forbid copying; most shrink-wrap "licenses" try to restrict your rights beyond the ordinary powers of copyright.
Try typing \frac {\gamma}{2} in LyX (first hitting C-m to start math mode, equivalent to typing $ ... $ in LaTeX:
LyX gives you all the power of LaTeX plus the advantages of a GUI and WYSIWYM (not WYSIWYG) display. An extra nicety is that when you select something in the GUI (e.g. click the gamma icon in the math panel), it tells you the keyboard shortcut (\gamma) in the status bar...so it teaches you the relevant TeX as you go, but you always have the GUI as a backup if you forget.
Not that LyX is perfect (I'm required to hack in LaTeX more often than I think should be required), but it is really a step in the right direction. Note that it can output DocBook too.
Oh please...I meant force every user of the software to buy it. Nor was I taking position on whether this is right or wrong, per se, just that I feel that he's intentionally confusing the issue by focusing on the GPL---he's rejecting all free software (and open source) licenses.
I certainly agree that it is (often) harder to make money with free-software licensing than with a proprietary model (although it's not true that you "can't put [free software] on a store shelf"). However, I am disappointed that he (apparently) tries to shield himself from criticism for abandoning free software by ostensibly attacking only the GPL, everyone's favorite bogeyman (citing unnamed "ambiguities," complaining that RMS doesn't like them, ...)
This is what you get when you value short-term convenience over freedom, when you get excited over something because it's "cool," when you think that any software for Linux is good for Linux (forgetting what made GNU/Linux special in the first place).
You're completely dependent on the whims and fortunes of a single vendor, and are now up a creek. By all means, beg them to release it as free software, but don't hold your breath.
There's a time and a place for proprietary software, but there is also a very real cost that has nothing to do with price. Valuing freedom over features is not just thinking with your gonads.
You'll get:
Of course, Microsoft won't make it too hard to have third-party software (as long as it doesn't compete with Office). You'll just have to pay a small fee for a MS-certified crypto signature. (Oops, free software can't pay the fee? Gee.)
Copyright law makes certain restrictions on redistribution by default. The GPL lifts some of those restrictions, allowing redistribution/modification under certain conditions.
If you bothered to read the GPL, you would notice that it even says:
For free software that you just download (i.e. excluding vendors such as Red Hat), no money changes hands, so it should be enough to have the warranty disclaimer attached clearly to the downloaded package. (Or better yet, for gratis software there should be a presumption of no warranty.)
I never understood how unilaterally imposed "contracts" that take away rights you have by default under copyright law, and which you can't even read until after the sale (much less negotiate) could be held up as valid.
The best curve-fitting software that I've ever used is a shareware program called MacCurveFit: very fast, a simple interface for entering arbitrary equations and initial parameters, and one of the few programs that returns the error in each parameter of the fit (from the covariance matrix...much simpler to interpret than R^2). Anyone interested in writing a free software equivalent would do well to look at its example.
If you think it should not be legal, what remedies should the law consider, since these systems can have significant non-infringing uses as well?