I agree with your argument in essence. In fact, I raised a similar argument when some sociopath, either Darl McBride or a spammer, complained of getting angry phone calls. Essentially, the desire to punish misbehavior is innate to human beings - when there is no effective public punishment, some type of vigilante action or at least shunning is inevitable.
What makes it silly here is that Unisys is behaving well within the bounds of its peer group, which includes other large corporations and doesn't include slashdotters. Most large tech companies seek out patents and assert them. We usually don't hear about it. Most companies that are forced to pay to license a patent don't want to talk about it.
I don't think any of Unisys's customers would be dismayed to know that Unisys sends cease and desist letters to patent infringers. And slashdotters cannot effectively boycott Unisys because we don't buy from them anyway.
For better or worse, the framework created by Congress is providing stronger incentives for companies to develop and exploit intellectual property. It's arguably unfair to attack the companies that are acting in accord with Congress's wishes. If those attacked are susceptible to such pressure, they will presumably be chased off and replaced by companies more hardened to resist such pressure.
There's no point in applying some ideological purity test to Unisys. As Rob pointed out, they speak with forked tongue. Not unlike IBM, who claims to be investing billions in Linux, but recommends Microsoft ® Windows ® XP Professional and generally assumes Windows is the only OS on the planet when they're not putting on their Linux act.
Unisys exists to make money, primarily by selling to big, dumb organizations that have a poor understanding of technology. If Linux is trendy they'll sell Linux. They don't care what slashdotters think. Nobody reading this will buy or recommend anything from Unisys, no matter how "nice" they act, because they simply inhabit a different sphere.
This idea that Unisys "sinned" by asserting their patent rights and should now beg for forgiveness is childish. Companies are moving to exploit their intellectual property. Read Rembrandts in the Attic if you don't understand this trend yet. You think they're going to carve out an exception for free software, when that free software is being used by businesses to make money by infringing patents?
Quit attributing moral good and bad to profit-driven companies. They are all essentially running the same algorithm.
The owners of the DVD patents have been battling the Chinese makers to extract very high royalties. They have succeeded in harming this industrial sector. Here's one story. This is a great example of how all the value is moving to IP, and what the stakes are in today's IP wars.
Just think - of the $50 purchase price, $27 goes to patent owners and only $1 in profit goes to the factory owners!
I had a look at the annotated keynote speech. While I see a lot of problems with Rob Enderle's thinking, I'm not very impressed with Neil, the analyst. He constantly complains of Enderle using "loaded language." For example, Enderle writes:
It just makes you a villain in your own life story.
Neil responds:
Villain is a loaded word.
Yes, Neil. That's why he used it.
Neil also complains a lot about lack of "evidence". Keynote speeches aren't legal pleadings. They express the viewpoint of the speaker. I think Neil's "lack of evidence" complaint is an objective-sounding way of saying "I disagree".
Oddly, this page made me feel some sympathy with Enderle. I have no doubt that Groklaw attracts a certain pathetic type of person who enjoys being a mob member and throwing stones where the mullah directs. The majority of posts on Groklaw are just breathless fanboyism, along the lines of, "Oh can I pull off the infidel's nose with red-hot tongs, pretty pretty please?"
In the end, though, I think that Enderle and the Groklaw crowd deserve each other. (Note - I don't include the very few who transcribe court proceedings or offer insightful arguments in that "crowd" catchall.)
Not disputing your larger point, but: google for Niro Scavone. They are contingency patent litigators. They have represented numerous clients like your father in exchange for 35%-45% of the proceeds. They have obtained many multi-million dollar judgements for their clients.
Juries tend to side with the small inventor over the big infringing corporation.
It may still be possible for your Dad to pursue the infringer this way.
Of course, a contingency litigator will only proceed if he thinks your position is strong. That's actually good news - if your Dad's patent is weak, you don't want to waste years in a lawsuit, which an hourly billing attorney may be willing to do.
Almost none of that spam contains a CAN-SPAM compliant notice, and one good reason it doesn't is the few spammers who tried that found our right away that having such a notice makes it very difficult to delivery your spam.
and:
It's really unfair of the people who WTFA to blame law enforcement; CAN-SPAM
was bought and paid for by the DMA...
Why did the DMA buy and pay for a law that mandates a notice which makes it very difficult to deliver ones spam? DMA members obey the law; hardcore spammers don't. By your logic, the DMA has deliberately handicapped themselves while allowing the hardcore spammers free reign.
FWIW, I have read the act, and I think that with adequate enforcement it could reduce spam to a rarity. As you hinted above, it's not possible to comply with the act and still get around filters.
You're better off having your neighbor sign it than getting it notarized. You need someone who can testify in court that he understood your notebook entry on a certain date. The only benefit in getting two witnesses is that you're more likely to be able to locate at least one of them if a controversy arises.
Exactly. It's depressing to see people getting excited over new technology without understanding the political-economic framework within which we'll be allowed to use the tech. Our current world is driven by business and politics, not by tech. So each rollout of new tech is an excuse for a further power shift from the individual to corporations, and sometimes the government.
Ironic, isn't it? It's like Joe claiming that pound-for-pound he's the best fighter in town, when in fact Bob is twice his size. Oh wait, it isn't ironic. That's what he meant.
We don't really feel that way now. Today, a lawyer is almost always better than a garbageman, no matter how the lawyer conducts his business.
Have you read any Chesterton? He explores similar themes. Many of his books are on Gutenberg. In particular, I think his Utopia of Usurers is relevant today.
Your comment on string delimiters made me smile. You advocate three delimiters, ", ', and one other. But this implies that we want to tie up a character (or balanced pair of characters) redundantly representing strings. Should we sacrifice (), [] or {}? Each would have repercussions.
The solution used in perl makes far more sense. The q operator introduces a non-interpolated string and qq introduces an interpolated string. Anything sensible can be used as the delimiters.
What happens if you have a string that heavily uses both " and your third delimiter? Or wouldn't we really need four delimiters in your scheme, two interpolating and two non-interpolating?
I don't find strings full of backslashes very readable. In practice, Perl often generates HTML, SQL, javascript, postscript and other embedded languages, each of which emphasizes different punctuation characters. I like the q and qq operators because they help me do this smoothly.
Sorry to tell you this, but you are a little out of your depth. The poster to whom you are replying clearly explained that he knows and uses a variety of languages and isn't speaking from zealotry.
Im sorry you hate a language merely because of run time errors. Woah! What a concept, a runtime error! All coders, great or small, have run time errors at some point.
Different languages apply different degrees of rigidity at compile time. One drawback to scripting languages is that mistakes that could have resulted in compile-time errors become run-time errors instead. Grandparent was making a very specific point, and anyone experienced in C and Perl should have understood that point.
He isn't advocating that you switch to O'Caml - he's not even ready to switch himself, in professional life. He is describing the mindset that comes to someone who has used the conventional languages heavily for many years. You may arrive at that mindset yourself one day.
I write a lot of Perl. I almost agree with you, but I think most of the code we write at work is just average. It's not great, but it's reasonably easy to understand and maintain. I have written great, beautiful code at times, but it takes more time.
The key reasons for shaggy code are deadlines and ever-shifting requirements. When the requirement is clearly defined and you have ample time, you can plan the solution and produce something great.
Really good perl code is, for many things, some of the best code I've ever seen. Really bad perl code is easily the worst I've ever seen. There is more bad perl than good perl.
I agree with both - but as I said, I mostly see (and write) average code at work.
How is it possible to defend a language that has so many string delimiters? How the hell are you going to maintain an app effectively if the person before you has used a different style quoting?
Doesn't bother me, but then I've been writing Perl professionally for a few years. It's kind of nice when someone uses a balanced delimiter because you can bounce it with the % key. Obviously that only counts when things get hairy and complex.
I often write something like:
$thing->{ id } = qq[<a href="...">$thing->{ id }</a>];
To me, that's nicer than escaping the internal "s.
Today I had to modify some code another guy wrote which used an odd delimiter, but after the first second I really didn't care. It's perfectly clear what it's doing.
Those are all legal defenses or counterattacks. How do they fit with the "bear and bees" theory? How does a mob of angry geeks help at all in implementing those defenses or counterattacks?
The only plausible one is search for prior art. BountyQuest tried that. Turns out geeks don't know what prior art really means - read any slashdot patent story for proof. One patent attorney is more valuable than 1000 geeks in these matters.
A preliminary injunction to stop selling Windows or Office would devastate MS.
On what basis would open source geeks request such an injuction? Patent infringement? We don't have any patents.
Oh, and IBM has quite a few patents, likes Linux, and doesn't particularly like MS. There are other companies that may also play the "white knight" for Linux and/or open source.
I don't think any company with a substantial patent portfolio will act as a "white knight". Such companies will act in their own interest. I think Microsoft and IBM are in the equivalent of a cold war. They could destroy each other with IP litigation, so they hold off. But they war through proxies, just like the US and USSR did. IBM used Linux to attack Microsoft and Sun. Then Microsoft used SCO to attack IBM and Linux.
If Microsoft starts suing over Linux patent infringement, they're probably smart enough to stay away from IBM, and IBM is probably smart enough not to retaliate. However, Microsoft might use a deniable puppet like SCO and have them sue IBM.
We may end with a situation where you need the shelter of an IP superpower to use Linux. Maybe IBM will buy RHAT and that huge license cost will protect customers from Microsoft's patent litigation. Debian and Gentoo will have a problem.
Slashdot Mirror
Interesting point. Too bad you were modded down as a troll. It's a good example of moderators silencing a dissenting view.
I agree with your argument in essence. In fact, I raised a similar argument when some sociopath, either Darl McBride or a spammer, complained of getting angry phone calls. Essentially, the desire to punish misbehavior is innate to human beings - when there is no effective public punishment, some type of vigilante action or at least shunning is inevitable.
What makes it silly here is that Unisys is behaving well within the bounds of its peer group, which includes other large corporations and doesn't include slashdotters. Most large tech companies seek out patents and assert them. We usually don't hear about it. Most companies that are forced to pay to license a patent don't want to talk about it.
I don't think any of Unisys's customers would be dismayed to know that Unisys sends cease and desist letters to patent infringers. And slashdotters cannot effectively boycott Unisys because we don't buy from them anyway.
For better or worse, the framework created by Congress is providing stronger incentives for companies to develop and exploit intellectual property. It's arguably unfair to attack the companies that are acting in accord with Congress's wishes. If those attacked are susceptible to such pressure, they will presumably be chased off and replaced by companies more hardened to resist such pressure.
IBM sells a lot of products and services that are invisible from the slashdot viewpoint. Here is software relating to high-volume printing. See any Linux?
To be fair, while researching this I saw several things supporting Linux now that I wasn't aware of.
There's no point in applying some ideological purity test to Unisys. As Rob pointed out, they speak with forked tongue. Not unlike IBM, who claims to be investing billions in Linux, but recommends Microsoft ® Windows ® XP Professional and generally assumes Windows is the only OS on the planet when they're not putting on their Linux act.
Unisys exists to make money, primarily by selling to big, dumb organizations that have a poor understanding of technology. If Linux is trendy they'll sell Linux. They don't care what slashdotters think. Nobody reading this will buy or recommend anything from Unisys, no matter how "nice" they act, because they simply inhabit a different sphere.
This idea that Unisys "sinned" by asserting their patent rights and should now beg for forgiveness is childish. Companies are moving to exploit their intellectual property. Read Rembrandts in the Attic if you don't understand this trend yet. You think they're going to carve out an exception for free software, when that free software is being used by businesses to make money by infringing patents?
Quit attributing moral good and bad to profit-driven companies. They are all essentially running the same algorithm.
The owners of the DVD patents have been battling the Chinese makers to extract very high royalties. They have succeeded in harming this industrial sector. Here's one story. This is a great example of how all the value is moving to IP, and what the stakes are in today's IP wars.
Just think - of the $50 purchase price, $27 goes to patent owners and only $1 in profit goes to the factory owners!
You have sinned against groupthink. May you be scourged a thousand times with RMS's beard.
I'm suspicious of Perelman's claim that someone patented Kirchoff's law. His cite points to a book and doesn't mention the patent number. Any clues?
Attempts to paraphrase a patent's claims are often inaccurate.
Neil responds:
Yes, Neil. That's why he used it.
Neil also complains a lot about lack of "evidence". Keynote speeches aren't legal pleadings. They express the viewpoint of the speaker. I think Neil's "lack of evidence" complaint is an objective-sounding way of saying "I disagree".
Oddly, this page made me feel some sympathy with Enderle. I have no doubt that Groklaw attracts a certain pathetic type of person who enjoys being a mob member and throwing stones where the mullah directs. The majority of posts on Groklaw are just breathless fanboyism, along the lines of, "Oh can I pull off the infidel's nose with red-hot tongs, pretty pretty please?"
In the end, though, I think that Enderle and the Groklaw crowd deserve each other. (Note - I don't include the very few who transcribe court proceedings or offer insightful arguments in that "crowd" catchall.)
Not disputing your larger point, but: google for Niro Scavone. They are contingency patent litigators. They have represented numerous clients like your father in exchange for 35%-45% of the proceeds. They have obtained many multi-million dollar judgements for their clients.
Juries tend to side with the small inventor over the big infringing corporation.
It may still be possible for your Dad to pursue the infringer this way.
Of course, a contingency litigator will only proceed if he thinks your position is strong. That's actually good news - if your Dad's patent is weak, you don't want to waste years in a lawsuit, which an hourly billing attorney may be willing to do.
and:
Why did the DMA buy and pay for a law that mandates a notice which makes it very difficult to deliver ones spam? DMA members obey the law; hardcore spammers don't. By your logic, the DMA has deliberately handicapped themselves while allowing the hardcore spammers free reign.
FWIW, I have read the act, and I think that with adequate enforcement it could reduce spam to a rarity. As you hinted above, it's not possible to comply with the act and still get around filters.
You're better off having your neighbor sign it than getting it notarized. You need someone who can testify in court that he understood your notebook entry on a certain date. The only benefit in getting two witnesses is that you're more likely to be able to locate at least one of them if a controversy arises.
Exactly. It's depressing to see people getting excited over new technology without understanding the political-economic framework within which we'll be allowed to use the tech. Our current world is driven by business and politics, not by tech. So each rollout of new tech is an excuse for a further power shift from the individual to corporations, and sometimes the government.
The obvious answer is, "They don't have any money; you do.". Look at Fraunhoffer, LAME and MP3.
Ironic, isn't it? It's like Joe claiming that pound-for-pound he's the best fighter in town, when in fact Bob is twice his size. Oh wait, it isn't ironic. That's what he meant.
Have you read any Chesterton? He explores similar themes. Many of his books are on Gutenberg. In particular, I think his Utopia of Usurers is relevant today.
Really? Please tell me about the rich inner life of Odysseus.
Were the wood elves good or bad? Was it a good or bad thing for them to insist on blindfolding Gimli?
Was Boromir good or bad? And his attempt to take the ring?
Sam and Frodo were clearly good. But was it good to kill Gollum or to spare him?
And Pippin looking into the Palantir - good or evil?
And then:
Retail products will not have rewritable tags. But each unit will have a different serial number. See the EPC specs of the AutoID center.
Your comment on string delimiters made me smile. You advocate three delimiters, ", ', and one other. But this implies that we want to tie up a character (or balanced pair of characters) redundantly representing strings. Should we sacrifice (), [] or {}? Each would have repercussions.
The solution used in perl makes far more sense. The q operator introduces a non-interpolated string and qq introduces an interpolated string. Anything sensible can be used as the delimiters.
What happens if you have a string that heavily uses both " and your third delimiter? Or wouldn't we really need four delimiters in your scheme, two interpolating and two non-interpolating?
I don't find strings full of backslashes very readable. In practice, Perl often generates HTML, SQL, javascript, postscript and other embedded languages, each of which emphasizes different punctuation characters. I like the q and qq operators because they help me do this smoothly.
Different languages apply different degrees of rigidity at compile time. One drawback to scripting languages is that mistakes that could have resulted in compile-time errors become run-time errors instead. Grandparent was making a very specific point, and anyone experienced in C and Perl should have understood that point.
He isn't advocating that you switch to O'Caml - he's not even ready to switch himself, in professional life. He is describing the mindset that comes to someone who has used the conventional languages heavily for many years. You may arrive at that mindset yourself one day.
The key reasons for shaggy code are deadlines and ever-shifting requirements. When the requirement is clearly defined and you have ample time, you can plan the solution and produce something great.
I agree with both - but as I said, I mostly see (and write) average code at work.
Doesn't bother me, but then I've been writing Perl professionally for a few years. It's kind of nice when someone uses a balanced delimiter because you can bounce it with the % key. Obviously that only counts when things get hairy and complex.
I often write something like:
$thing->{ id } = qq[<a href="...">$thing->{ id }</a>];
To me, that's nicer than escaping the internal "s.
Today I had to modify some code another guy wrote which used an odd delimiter, but after the first second I really didn't care. It's perfectly clear what it's doing.
lynx -dump filename.html
The only plausible one is search for prior art. BountyQuest tried that. Turns out geeks don't know what prior art really means - read any slashdot patent story for proof. One patent attorney is more valuable than 1000 geeks in these matters.
On what basis would open source geeks request such an injuction? Patent infringement? We don't have any patents.
I don't think any company with a substantial patent portfolio will act as a "white knight". Such companies will act in their own interest. I think Microsoft and IBM are in the equivalent of a cold war. They could destroy each other with IP litigation, so they hold off. But they war through proxies, just like the US and USSR did. IBM used Linux to attack Microsoft and Sun. Then Microsoft used SCO to attack IBM and Linux.
If Microsoft starts suing over Linux patent infringement, they're probably smart enough to stay away from IBM, and IBM is probably smart enough not to retaliate. However, Microsoft might use a deniable puppet like SCO and have them sue IBM.
We may end with a situation where you need the shelter of an IP superpower to use Linux. Maybe IBM will buy RHAT and that huge license cost will protect customers from Microsoft's patent litigation. Debian and Gentoo will have a problem.