I think we've had metered pay-as-you-go telephony experiences for most of the last century. Just ask AT&T how their business has worked over the decades.
It's kind-of pointless indicating to the USPTO that there is abundant ancient prior art, but I expect that if Microsoft ever try selling a licence to this patent, it will get invalidated within seconds.
It's not likely that the ISP would stay in business long if they did that. I imagine it would be considered criminal fraud if you kept taking someone's money and stopped providing the service you had contracted to provide.
If your competitor has a signed order from a customer, you shouldn't try to sell in such a way as to break up the contract. You can bid for the next contract, of course.
It's probably more a case of 'IBM has contracts in place with RedHat and Novell, and testing efforts in place, so that if a client buys (for example) IBM Websphere with an expectation of running on Linux, then IBM will warrant timely resolution of any defects that may threaten to get in the way of the IBM customer's use of the IBM product'.
I'm fairly sure that if someone offers enough money, they could have that assurance on Oracle, Ubuntu, or anyone else's Linux too.
The proposed directive seems to get in the way of commercial and academic research and development.
Really. If we propose to redistribute someone's copyright work, we'll seek a licence before doing so. Maybe pay money, maybe trade for distribution permission of one of ours. If we propose to learn from someone's patent, then we'll licence that, too; either money, or preferably a cross-licence for something we can teach them. We have loads.
If we infringe, it will be accidental. We don't want to go to jail. Some money chnaging hands would be the right remedy.
In the West, this wouldn't be a crime. It would be a civil matter, and the remedy would be in equity; i.e. a judge would require the teacher (or his employer) to pay Microsoft whatever sum of money he deemed appropriate.
Then the teacher could go straight back to teaching, and pay off his debt at some suitable rate as determined by the judge.
Even in the US, Copyright Infringement is only criminal if you do something like unauthorised distribution of the latest Star Wars movie before its release to cinemas.
So ling as they respect my right to rnu my Linux, or OS/2, or FreeBSD, or..., on any hardware I can get it to run on, then I have no problem with whatever they might want to do with their Windows.
I might well go to the expense of buying a Playstation 3, just to demonstrate that I have an alternative.
If you think it's worth patenting, go apply for one. Just explain what your invention is, what was done before, and hand over the money.
In the US, a patent is rather like the title deeds to a house; someone might well lend you money on the security of it to develop the thing. Or maybe they won't, depending on what they are feeling like that day.
Do you seek permission from the customers before putting this software on ?
I know on average it will probably help. But 'on average' and 'probably' are not good enough as-and-when Spybot makes a medical imaging machine behave in a way other than designed, for example.
Get that permission, and if it's not given then do not put any software on.
If you want a change in the law, write your congressman.
I think IBM is just trying to preserve its commercial freedom (to sign contracts with clients and to deliver solutions in accordance with those contracts).
If you allow stuff to be patented, IBM has got to have lots of them.
If you don't allow stuff to be patented, the cost of business will go down.
The thing the retailer is selling and warranting is 'Personal Computer with Microsoft Windows'. The OEM is buying permissions-to-copy from Microsoft, doing the copying, and selling the resulting 'Personal Computer with Windows' as a bundle to the retailer; rather like 'A textbook with printed pages'.
If you want an Intel-processor-powered computer without Windows, you can buy them from IBM, HP, Sun, etc; they are Server-type computers. Usually they are noisier becuase they have machine-room-type fans.
If you want (say) a disk controller subsystem from IBM, then IBM will generelly supply the adapter microcode as 'Object Code Only, All Rights Reserved'; and the device driver as open-source.
I don't know about redistribution rights; you can always ask.
If an open-source developer wants to see the source for the adapter microcode, ask about that one too.
At that price, there's no support for Softmaker Office; if it fails to interpret a Microsoft Word 2007 document correctly, or if drops a trojan-horse-keylogger as Microsoft Word is starting to do nowadays, or if it writes a document that Microsoft Word doesn't read correctly, then you are on your own; there is no-one who will fix it for you.
Besides, you can download RedHat Linux and SuSE Linux from the respective web sites. And you can sign a commercial warranty contract for Debian with a number of respected corporations if you need one.
If Microsoft use profits from the Office business to sell XBoxes and games toolkits 'below cost' in such a way that it drives Sony and/or Nintendo out of the market, that would represent abuse of a dominant position.
It's really hard. Obviously Microsoft want to grow the market, and good toolkits for collaboratively developed games are one thing towards that. But how do you set the price high enough that it's clear that the business is designed to stand profitably on its own ?
Money's a difficult thing; are you planning to use it to deploy Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Word, or are you planning to use it to deploy Linux and OpenOffice.org ?
I imagine (though I don't know) that Microsoft might be willing to fund the former but not the latter; and that RedHat might be willing to fund the latter but not the former.
So before expecting to be given money, you'd better make up your mind what you will do with it.
Usually, corporations will give goods and services; and individuals will give cash.
What you've set up your laws to do
on
Saving U.S. Science
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· Score: 0, Offtopic
You've set up your laws to favour commercial progress, rather than to favour scientific progress.
If I want to make scientific progress, then I have to do things the Linux way; build on other people's work, publish my own freely for all to share.
If I want to make commercial progress, then I have to do things the Windows way; sell everyone a copy and make a pile of $$$.
But you've got this Digital Millennium Copyright Act thing, which kind-of devalues scientific progress, in order that the commercial crew can make more $$$.
Perhaps if you rebalance it; encourage Bill Gates to put his money into Malaria research; you'll get somewhere.
They'll quote a patent number, and start trying to sell licences to businesses who develop, use, or distribute non-Microsoft software
They will then come across some big businesses, like ATT, who use Linux in their telephone exchnages. ATT will tell Microsoft that telephone exchanges are lights-out, that there is nothing useful they can learn from Windows.
Windows-running Personal Computers will cathc worms, viruses, and spyware, same as they do today. Someone will mount a defence saying that Microsoft have not reduced their invention to practice; that nowhere in the patent did it mention the way a Windows system on public Internet behaves.
We have had 'certificate revocation' schemes in things like Distributed Computing Environment for a while.
If you believe your password has been compromised, or your PIN had become known to someone else, then for 'high-value' systems you need to be able to administratively indicate that any 'authority to behave as you' is not to be believed any more.
The 'personal' computing market is splitting.
If you inflict this kind of feature on a lawyer, doctor, or engineer, who is trying to go about their professional work, you cause loss and damage and you get your product thrown out post-haste as unfit for purpose. Lawyer, doctor, and engineer have plenty of money and need the top-grade service.
If you give someone a cheap deal on a Star Wars DVD because of them being willing to accept the possibility that their permission to view it might disappear unexpectedly, then that's rather like having a 'standby list' of people who might or might not be able to get on a plane at cheap prices according as whether the plane fills up with full-price passengers.
Bill Gatea after Lou Gerstner, or Bill Gates standing against Lou Gerstner ?
Seriously, it's OK if Bill stands for President. But he needs to be in a position to represent all Americans; and I think that means he would need to sell all his Microsoft stock during the days between 'winning an election' and 'taking power'.
Does your client have any 'bespoke' software; i.e. which they wrote themselves, or which they employed the writers of ?
Does your client consider this software to either be sellable, or to give them a competitive advantage by keeping it hidden ?
If there is software which is owned but not an 'asset' in either sense, they may as well 'open' it; donate to the community for others to build on, reuse, and improve.
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I think we've had metered pay-as-you-go telephony experiences for most of the last century. Just ask AT&T how their business has worked over the decades. It's kind-of pointless indicating to the USPTO that there is abundant ancient prior art, but I expect that if Microsoft ever try selling a licence to this patent, it will get invalidated within seconds.
It's not likely that the ISP would stay in business long if they did that. I imagine it would be considered criminal fraud if you kept taking someone's money and stopped providing the service you had contracted to provide.
If your competitor has a signed order from a customer, you shouldn't try to sell in such a way as to break up the contract. You can bid for the next contract, of course.
I'm fairly sure that if someone offers enough money, they could have that assurance on Oracle, Ubuntu, or anyone else's Linux too.
Really. If we propose to redistribute someone's copyright work, we'll seek a licence before doing so. Maybe pay money, maybe trade for distribution permission of one of ours. If we propose to learn from someone's patent, then we'll licence that, too; either money, or preferably a cross-licence for something we can teach them. We have loads.
If we infringe, it will be accidental. We don't want to go to jail. Some money chnaging hands would be the right remedy.
Then the teacher could go straight back to teaching, and pay off his debt at some suitable rate as determined by the judge.
Even in the US, Copyright Infringement is only criminal if you do something like unauthorised distribution of the latest Star Wars movie before its release to cinemas.
I might well go to the expense of buying a Playstation 3, just to demonstrate that I have an alternative.
In the US, a patent is rather like the title deeds to a house; someone might well lend you money on the security of it to develop the thing. Or maybe they won't, depending on what they are feeling like that day.
I know on average it will probably help. But 'on average' and 'probably' are not good enough as-and-when Spybot makes a medical imaging machine behave in a way other than designed, for example.
Get that permission, and if it's not given then do not put any software on.
I think IBM is just trying to preserve its commercial freedom (to sign contracts with clients and to deliver solutions in accordance with those contracts).
If you allow stuff to be patented, IBM has got to have lots of them.
If you don't allow stuff to be patented, the cost of business will go down.
If you want an Intel-processor-powered computer without Windows, you can buy them from IBM, HP, Sun, etc; they are Server-type computers. Usually they are noisier becuase they have machine-room-type fans.
Yeah, I think it sucks too.
Linux integrates just fine with IBM Lotus Notes, and with 'open' NFS.
I don't know about redistribution rights; you can always ask.
If an open-source developer wants to see the source for the adapter microcode, ask about that one too.
Either one will work.
Besides, you can download RedHat Linux and SuSE Linux from the respective web sites. And you can sign a commercial warranty contract for Debian with a number of respected corporations if you need one.
As far as I know, there are only 2 forces in the world; 'love' and 'money'
OpenOffice.org has a monopoly in the 'distributed for love' channel.
Microsoft Office has a monopoly in the 'distributed for money' channel.
Who will buy Softmaker Office, and why ?
It's really hard. Obviously Microsoft want to grow the market, and good toolkits for collaboratively developed games are one thing towards that. But how do you set the price high enough that it's clear that the business is designed to stand profitably on its own ?
Far better to sell Microsoft Office off to a lower-overhead producer, and concentrate wholeheartedly on the new business.
I imagine (though I don't know) that Microsoft might be willing to fund the former but not the latter; and that RedHat might be willing to fund the latter but not the former.
So before expecting to be given money, you'd better make up your mind what you will do with it.
Usually, corporations will give goods and services; and individuals will give cash.
If I want to make scientific progress, then I have to do things the Linux way; build on other people's work, publish my own freely for all to share.
If I want to make commercial progress, then I have to do things the Windows way; sell everyone a copy and make a pile of $$$.
But you've got this Digital Millennium Copyright Act thing, which kind-of devalues scientific progress, in order that the commercial crew can make more $$$.
Perhaps if you rebalance it; encourage Bill Gates to put his money into Malaria research; you'll get somewhere.
I built a Linux which runs as a Windows screensaver. You can get it here.
They'll quote a patent number, and start trying to sell licences to businesses who develop, use, or distribute non-Microsoft software
They will then come across some big businesses, like ATT, who use Linux in their telephone exchnages. ATT will tell Microsoft that telephone exchanges are lights-out, that there is nothing useful they can learn from Windows.
Windows-running Personal Computers will cathc worms, viruses, and spyware, same as they do today. Someone will mount a defence saying that Microsoft have not reduced their invention to practice; that nowhere in the patent did it mention the way a Windows system on public Internet behaves.
And that will be the end of the matter.
If you believe your password has been compromised, or your PIN had become known to someone else, then for 'high-value' systems you need to be able to administratively indicate that any 'authority to behave as you' is not to be believed any more.
The 'personal' computing market is splitting.
If you inflict this kind of feature on a lawyer, doctor, or engineer, who is trying to go about their professional work, you cause loss and damage and you get your product thrown out post-haste as unfit for purpose. Lawyer, doctor, and engineer have plenty of money and need the top-grade service.
If you give someone a cheap deal on a Star Wars DVD because of them being willing to accept the possibility that their permission to view it might disappear unexpectedly, then that's rather like having a 'standby list' of people who might or might not be able to get on a plane at cheap prices according as whether the plane fills up with full-price passengers.
Seriously, it's OK if Bill stands for President. But he needs to be in a position to represent all Americans; and I think that means he would need to sell all his Microsoft stock during the days between 'winning an election' and 'taking power'.
Does your client have any 'bespoke' software; i.e. which they wrote themselves, or which they employed the writers of ?
Does your client consider this software to either be sellable, or to give them a competitive advantage by keeping it hidden ?
If there is software which is owned but not an 'asset' in either sense, they may as well 'open' it; donate to the community for others to build on, reuse, and improve.
That's how STAF got there.