'I have traveled around the world, and [every corporation in] every nation is thinking how it can model [intellectual property governance] after the U.S,' Dudas said. 'It's a proven system, over 200 years old.'
There, I "truthified" what Dudas was trying to say. Regarding the part about the patent system being proven for the past 200 years, software has only been involved in that system for a few decades and it has hardly been "proven." Maybe by "proven" he meant flooding the courts with frivolous lawsuits over patents that should never have been granted in the first place.
Of course the best solution would almost completely abstract the presentation from the data. That would allow the programmers and designers to work independently and do what each does best. However, I have yet to find a method of developing web pages with this level of abstraction. Many people say "simply combine a, b, c, d, e, f...", but that always feels like a hack and never produces pleasant results.
This is unfortunate because software should not be patented. Ideas can NOT be patented. However, implementations of ideas CAN be patented. Software is only an idea until it has become realized through implemented source code. Since the source code is the tool used for implementation, that is what needs to be protected by intellectual property laws. And since source code is covered under copyright law, we already have a way to protect intellectual property for software.
It is a shame that no one has directly challenged software patents yet. Maybe the FSF could raise money and take this issue to court.
Shit, I can't even come up with a hooker/unprotected sex analogy that's silly enough to describe this.
Of course not! What you need is a car analogy. You can even combine the two ideas into a single analogy. For instance: Downloading Vista drivers from an unverified source is like a Hummer having unprotected sex with a Pinto.
Up until now, I was always apprehensive of visiting Sweden for fear of being assaulted from all angles by pirates trying to get me to buy a bootleg of Justin Timerlake's latest CD, but now I will be able walk the streets of Sweden with confidence.
All jokes aside, this is very disturbing. Even more disturbing is the fact that I have read several comments that don't seem too troubled by this behavior. People have forgotten that the police are a resource used to protect the physical well-being of their fellow citizens. They are not there to protect copyright holders from other countries. And time spent investigating copyright infringement by the police is less time spent investigating real CRIMES. Sweden needs to grow some balls and tell the MPAA to stay out of the police department.
Trust me, my fellow Americans have not forgotten that violence is occassionally necessary. We use violence even when it is not necessary. If you don't believe me, take a long, relaxing trip to Iraq.
I don't know why everyone seems to object to high-def porn. I personally look forward to being able to see actual strains of STD viruses crawling around on the actors.
Are these tattoos shaped like barcodes? All I know is that if an EMP devastates the United States, I'm going to move to Seattle, join the fight against Manticore and get a chance to meet Jessica Alba (with sexy results)!
In all, the instant watching feature requires only Internet connectivity with a minimum of one megabit per second of bandwidth
ONLY one megabit per second of bandwidth? I live in a well populated area and my ONLY option is 768Kbps DSL or a 6Mbps cable connection that is saturated with other users in the neighborhood. Verizon's FIOS is still a few years away from being installed in my neighborhood, so this service is useless to me.
Hopefully this service will get people to see the benefit of higher speed connections and spark a bigger demand for more speed.
No support for Cisco VPN software or Lotus Notes? Why would Microsoft cater its release of Vista to businesses when it doesn't support software that is essential for many businesses to run? I'm sure Microsoft will blame the developers of the incompatible software for not rushing out a release that is compatible with Vista and those developers will blame Microsoft for breaking compatibility to fix the broken security architecture of previous versions of Windows. I'm also sure that Microsoft's response to businesses that use Lotus Notes would be something to the tune "Have you considered using Microsoft Exchange? We can guarantee it's 100% compatible with Vista." It's things like this that make me happy that I no longer use Microsoft products.
The problem is that they try to offer too many services and can't dedicate enough resources to keep those features growing. Therefore, other companies who focus on one only service that competes with Yahoo can do a better job of catering to their users. I have used several of Yahoo's services for a few years and I have watched competing services expand to provide more features than Yahoo. It's not that Yahoo's services are bad - their competitors are simply growing faster since they only focus on one service.
Oddly enough, I have found Yahoo's search to be more accurate than Google for certain topics. Google has always been great when doing narrow searches and it used to be pretty good at wide searches too, but lately I have been finding that I need to go through several pages to find what I am looking for on a wide Google search. I got fed up with this, so I tried Yahoo search and I was pleasantly surprised. Yahoo seems to consistently provide the results I look for within the first few entries. I'm not saying that Yahoo search is better than Google, but it seems like Google doesn't appear to be the magic bullet that it used to be.
To all of you naysayers out there who said that the war was hopeless and our leaders' plans lacked foresight, you should be kicking yourselves. The U.S. clearly achieved all of its objectives and can happily retreat^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hwithdraw. This just proves that you should not question your leaders because they know what they are doing. I bet the president's approval rating is going to skyrocket when word gets out about our victory!
Microsoft does have a gigantic software patent portfolio but they are not going to sue anyone and here's why:
Most of their patents contain obvious ideas as well as prior art. If they went to court wielding these weak patents, they would probably lose the case and the patent could be revoked.
Microsoft is not going to sue customers of Linux because it doesn't make sense. It would be analogous to a person who has been a victim of car theft prosecuting the unwitting buyer of the stolen car instead of the known car theif who stole it. If they did go after anybody, it would be the distributors of Linux.
Microsoft will not sue the distributors of Linux because Microsoft has a world-reknowned monopoly on operating systems and it would face many sactions and reparations from the governments of many countries, especially the governments who use Linux.
So there is little reason to buy into the Microsoft FUD. If anything, this is a sign that Microsoft is beginning to fear losing users to Linux. Between the number of people switching to Linux and Mac OS X, I would say that they have every reason to be fearful of what could happen within the next 10 years.
You still need to know how to perform the correct movements in order to create something that sounds close to the original song. The whole purpose of air guitar is that you don't need to know anything about playing guitar and any mistakes you make aren't usually apparent.
How will we feed it? How will it be tamed? And how soon will it, in its inevitable turn, become a dinosaur?
We will feed it four human babies each week (as per Vista's requirements) and we will tame it like every good system administrator tames his defiant machines - with a swift kick from a steel-tipped boot.
It will become a dinosaur after scientists decode the DNA of the data center and splice it with dinosaur DNA that was found in a mosquito that got trapped in tree sap.
Thank you! I'll be here all week. Seriously, I'll be on Slashdot all week. It's kinda depressing when you think about it.
Slashdot Mirror
No worries - their web site says that a scanner capable of scanning objects as small as 2" will be available soon.
So now whenever I search for information about caves or black holes, I'll get sent to goatse.
Of course the best solution would almost completely abstract the presentation from the data. That would allow the programmers and designers to work independently and do what each does best. However, I have yet to find a method of developing web pages with this level of abstraction. Many people say "simply combine a, b, c, d, e, f...", but that always feels like a hack and never produces pleasant results.
I'm still using Arpanet, you insensitive clod!
This is unfortunate because software should not be patented. Ideas can NOT be patented. However, implementations of ideas CAN be patented. Software is only an idea until it has become realized through implemented source code. Since the source code is the tool used for implementation, that is what needs to be protected by intellectual property laws. And since source code is covered under copyright law, we already have a way to protect intellectual property for software.
It is a shame that no one has directly challenged software patents yet. Maybe the FSF could raise money and take this issue to court.
In Soviet England, TV watches YOU!
Oh no, I've sunken to the level of telling Soviet jokes on Slashdot. Please kill me. Preferrably with a Beowulf cluster of Slashdot overlords!
Up until now, I was always apprehensive of visiting Sweden for fear of being assaulted from all angles by pirates trying to get me to buy a bootleg of Justin Timerlake's latest CD, but now I will be able walk the streets of Sweden with confidence.
All jokes aside, this is very disturbing. Even more disturbing is the fact that I have read several comments that don't seem too troubled by this behavior. People have forgotten that the police are a resource used to protect the physical well-being of their fellow citizens. They are not there to protect copyright holders from other countries. And time spent investigating copyright infringement by the police is less time spent investigating real CRIMES. Sweden needs to grow some balls and tell the MPAA to stay out of the police department.
Trust me, my fellow Americans have not forgotten that violence is occassionally necessary. We use violence even when it is not necessary. If you don't believe me, take a long, relaxing trip to Iraq.
I don't know why everyone seems to object to high-def porn. I personally look forward to being able to see actual strains of STD viruses crawling around on the actors.
Because it's in HIGH DEFINITION! You're probably the kind of guy who buys stereo amps with volumes knobs that stop at 10.
Are these tattoos shaped like barcodes? All I know is that if an EMP devastates the United States, I'm going to move to Seattle, join the fight against Manticore and get a chance to meet Jessica Alba (with sexy results)!
ONLY one megabit per second of bandwidth? I live in a well populated area and my ONLY option is 768Kbps DSL or a 6Mbps cable connection that is saturated with other users in the neighborhood. Verizon's FIOS is still a few years away from being installed in my neighborhood, so this service is useless to me.
Hopefully this service will get people to see the benefit of higher speed connections and spark a bigger demand for more speed.
No support for Cisco VPN software or Lotus Notes? Why would Microsoft cater its release of Vista to businesses when it doesn't support software that is essential for many businesses to run? I'm sure Microsoft will blame the developers of the incompatible software for not rushing out a release that is compatible with Vista and those developers will blame Microsoft for breaking compatibility to fix the broken security architecture of previous versions of Windows. I'm also sure that Microsoft's response to businesses that use Lotus Notes would be something to the tune "Have you considered using Microsoft Exchange? We can guarantee it's 100% compatible with Vista." It's things like this that make me happy that I no longer use Microsoft products.
The problem is that they try to offer too many services and can't dedicate enough resources to keep those features growing. Therefore, other companies who focus on one only service that competes with Yahoo can do a better job of catering to their users. I have used several of Yahoo's services for a few years and I have watched competing services expand to provide more features than Yahoo. It's not that Yahoo's services are bad - their competitors are simply growing faster since they only focus on one service.
Oddly enough, I have found Yahoo's search to be more accurate than Google for certain topics. Google has always been great when doing narrow searches and it used to be pretty good at wide searches too, but lately I have been finding that I need to go through several pages to find what I am looking for on a wide Google search. I got fed up with this, so I tried Yahoo search and I was pleasantly surprised. Yahoo seems to consistently provide the results I look for within the first few entries. I'm not saying that Yahoo search is better than Google, but it seems like Google doesn't appear to be the magic bullet that it used to be.
To all of you naysayers out there who said that the war was hopeless and our leaders' plans lacked foresight, you should be kicking yourselves. The U.S. clearly achieved all of its objectives and can happily retreat^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hwithdraw. This just proves that you should not question your leaders because they know what they are doing. I bet the president's approval rating is going to skyrocket when word gets out about our victory!
- Most of their patents contain obvious ideas as well as prior art. If they went to court wielding these weak patents, they would probably lose the case and the patent could be revoked.
- Microsoft is not going to sue customers of Linux because it doesn't make sense. It would be analogous to a person who has been a victim of car theft prosecuting the unwitting buyer of the stolen car instead of the known car theif who stole it. If they did go after anybody, it would be the distributors of Linux.
- Microsoft will not sue the distributors of Linux because Microsoft has a world-reknowned monopoly on operating systems and it would face many sactions and reparations from the governments of many countries, especially the governments who use Linux.
So there is little reason to buy into the Microsoft FUD. If anything, this is a sign that Microsoft is beginning to fear losing users to Linux. Between the number of people switching to Linux and Mac OS X, I would say that they have every reason to be fearful of what could happen within the next 10 years.You still need to know how to perform the correct movements in order to create something that sounds close to the original song. The whole purpose of air guitar is that you don't need to know anything about playing guitar and any mistakes you make aren't usually apparent.
It will become a dinosaur after scientists decode the DNA of the data center and splice it with dinosaur DNA that was found in a mosquito that got trapped in tree sap.
Thank you! I'll be here all week. Seriously, I'll be on Slashdot all week. It's kinda depressing when you think about it.
Wow. I didn't know Steve Ballmer reads slashdot. Please put that chair down, Steve. It was just a joke.
Now if only we can get them to pull out of America. Or at least start using astroglide.