Software Needs Philosophers

[Wolf Kirchmeir]

Mitch wrote:
[...]

http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ has some good (read short but clear)
articles on why patents aren't necessarily a good idea. The main one I
find is that they aren't needed.
[...]
The argument isn't against protecting intellectual property, just the
way in which it is implemented.

[...]
Agreed.

This whole buzz around software patents is there because European
companies do not want to pay American companies.

And the attitude that an algorithm is patentable is also about money.
even if it's an algorithm that any first- or second- year student could
devise as a solution to a set exercise. I mean, trying to patent one
click as a method of payment on the 'net, as Amazon tried to do As soon
as the problem is posed, the solution is plain, there's nothing
innovative about it, hence it's not patentable. I mean, how else is one
to do it? The click-to-send-some-information to a server already existed
- to argue that it's patentable to extending the method to send payment
data is nonsense.

In any case, many European companies (eg, SAP) want the legal right to
patent software. If SAP were to succeed in patenting its data-base
software, every ISV that wrote software with similar capabilities would
have to pay them a royalty. That would stifle development of faster,
more streamlined, leaner and meaner software. It would also make it
difficult to implement standardised data formats and data-interchange
protocols, which is urgently needed, since such formats and protocols
might infringe on some patent.

Likewise, China is developing it's own DVD technology to avoid patent
payments.

I think they're doing so to control access. If they have a China-only
DVD technology, and forbid acquisition of foreign technologies, they can
control the content available to their citizens. From their POV, that is
far more important than mere money. After all, money is just a a way of
tracking the movement of wealth; it's merely an accounting tool.

[...]

Software is written in a carefully designed subset of ordinary language.
So is a poem. So let's patent poems!

HTH

 

[Kay Schluehr]

There is a person on USENET, particularly in hr. hierarchy that
posts under three different accounts. Sometimes he argues with
himself, and sometimes event supports himself

Sounds like me. In rare moments I believe that I'm not alone on usenet
but there are other people as well. I wanted to go to the doctor
because I believed I had a multiple personality but than I discovered
that the doctor was me too.

Kay

 

[Mitch]

Mitch wrote:
[...]

http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ has some good (read short but clear)
articles on why patents aren't necessarily a good idea. The main one I
find is that they aren't needed.
[...]
The argument isn't against protecting intellectual property, just the
way in which it is implemented.

[...]
Agreed.

This whole buzz around software patents is there because european
companies do not want to pay american companies.

Likewise, China is developing it's own DVD technology to avoid patent
payments.

It is not about implementation, it is about money.

I remember times when Sony was sued about recording devices, not it is
sued about DRM. It is only words they say, do not buy it.

First I would like to say I agree with everything Wolf says in the other
reply to this post.

And I agree it is about money. And therefore also about implementation.
Copyright doesn't cost money, Patents do. There is nothing wrong with
the copyright system (I welcome any backlash on that statement), not
that the patent system will ultimately deal with at any rate.

 

[John Bokma]

There is a person on USENET, particularly in hr. hierarchy that
posts under three different accounts. Sometimes he argues with
himself, and sometimes event supports himself

Maybe we have the similar case here.

Wouldn't amaze me if some of the buddies of Xah are actually Xah sitting
in some Internet cafe, enjoying this troll fest, and already thinking up
the next one.

 

[Geoffrey Summerhayes]

Wouldn't amaze me if some of the buddies of Xah are actually Xah sitting
in some Internet cafe, enjoying this troll fest, and already thinking up
the next one.

That's right, we're all Xah, you're the only other one here.

After you kill Navarth, will it be nothing but gruff and deedle
with a little wobbly to fill in the chinks?

 

[John Bokma]

After you kill Navarth, will it be nothing but gruff and deedle
with a little wobbly to fill in the chinks?

Comparing Navarth with Xah is a huge insult to Jack Vance. You should be
ashamed of yourself for even thinking about it, let alone write it down.

 

[bob the builder]

If you patent youre great software idea then its get made public. And
everyone ca play around with it. Thats a good thing.

But i think thats patents are mainly used to slow down the competition.
The competition now has to program around the patent and thiss slows
them down.

So if you have the recources, just patent everything you can and let
youre lawyers handle youre competition.

 

[Dale King]

I'm sorry to trouble everyone. But as you might know, due to my
controversial writings and style, recently John Bokma lobbied people to
complaint to my web hosting provider. After exchanging a few emails, my
web hosting provider sent me a 30-day account cancellation notice last
Friday.

I'm probably stupid for contributing in this flame fest, but here goes.

The reason that I consider Xah a troll and net abuser has little to do
with cross-posting (which is still bad) or the length of his messages
(he really should post them on his website and provide a summary and a
link).

My main problem is that he unloads his crap and then runs away. He
doesn't participate in any discussion after that. This shows that he has
no actual interest in discussion of the issues just in using Usenet as a
form of publishing.

The mention of free speech was raised. But the fact is that Usenet is
not free (as in beer). We all pay for it. Your ISP has to pay for a
server, the space for the messages, the bandwidth to download the
messages, and the bandwidth to send them to your news reader. In reality
the cost is shared among all of us.

Therefore you do not have the "right" to do what you want with Usenet.
You have a responsibility to use Usenet in a way that benefits the group
as a whole (e.g. asking interesting questions that educate others).

 

[Fred Gilham]

Therefore you do not have the "right" to do what you want with
Usenet. You have a responsibility to use Usenet in a way that benefits
the group as a whole (e.g. asking interesting questions that educate
others).

....or at least, in a way that follows the TOS of your ISP.

The problem is that every time Xah posts, there are dozens and maybe
even hundreds of postings that get provoked. One might say, "Don't
feed the troll," but it's clear that this spate of posting happens no
matter what anyone says. It happens in every newsgroup I've ever
read.

It's recognized that trollish behaviour such as cross posting
irrelevant messages to many newsgroups causes this response. So
instead of whacking dozens or hundreds of people with a clue stick,
which is probably the right thing to do but which is impossible, it's
better to thrash the one who has actually started it all by violating
USENET etiquette in the first place.

Xah's postings are occasionally (*very* occasionally) interesting in a
warped sort of way, but I would much rather see him post pointers to
his web site. It would be even better if he actually figured out the
groups his messages were relevant to before posting them.

BTW, one time I tried a little social engineering to get rid of an
irrelevant cross-posted thread. I replied to the messages in the
thread (an irrelevant political thread posted in rec.audio.tubes) with
(somewhat) inflammatory replies but deleted my newsgroup from the
follow-up line. I kept doing this for a day or two to every message
that showed up in rec.audio.tubes. The result was that the threads
actually died out pretty fast in that newsgroup. Unfortunately (but
understandably) people in the other newsgroups got pretty mad and
complained to some authority figure somewhere. The authority figure
had no authority over me but was nice about it, so I stopped. I
decided my method was a bad idea. Or rather, a good idea but
dangerous.

 

[Geoffrey Summerhayes]

Comparing Navarth with Xah is a huge insult to Jack Vance. You should be
ashamed of yourself for even thinking about it, let alone write it down.

Mr. Vance is too intelligent to be insulted by this.
OTOH, Mad Navarth is free to be as insulted as much
as his fictional soul will allow.

 

[=?ISO-8859-2?Q?Dra=BEen_Gemi=E6?=]

Sounds like me. In rare moments I believe that I'm not alone on usenet
but there are other people as well. I wanted to go to the doctor
because I believed I had a multiple personality but than I discovered
that the doctor was me too.

That's bad, because all of you must be in different shifts, so you never
meet each other in person.

DG

 

[John Bokma]

Mr. Vance is too intelligent to be insulted by this.

OTOH he changed Wankh to Wannek. [1]

OTOH, Mad Navarth is free to be as insulted as much
as his fictional soul will allow.

One can only wonder what he would say, but if it comes out in print, I
will buy it and read it and probably enjoy it.


[1] http://starling.us/wankh_vs_wannek.html

 

[P.L.Hayes]

John Bokma wrote:
[...]

You're mistaken. All you need to do is report it. After some time
Xah will either walk in line with the rest of the world, or has
found somewhere else to yell. As long as it's not my back garden
and not around 4AM, I am ok with it.

Walk in line with the rest of the world? Pah.
This is no-ones back garden.

But it is a place where John Bokma can engage in a little power play.

Notice how John Bokma pretends to own these newsgroups. In every
analogy, Bokma uses "ownership" concepts to support his harassment of
Xah.

John Bokma conceptualizes these newsgroups as something that he
dominates. Without other people to recognize his power, it's empty, so
he bashes and then trashes Xah, and in doing so, proves that he is
dominant here.

Don't let it happen. Write the abuse address at Dreamhost, and try to
help Xah out.

I agree. I have already written to Dreamhost and I hope more people
will do so. I have found some of what has been posted here quite
astonishing and the actions of certain people to be reprehensible: by
far the most serious violation of netiquette I see here is this
thoroughly wrong-headed campaign to try to censor Xah by appealing to
his service provider. In my opinion it is that, not anything Xah has
done, which comes any where near deserving any sort of termination of
access to the Internet. Since Xah's website is hosted by Dreamhost,
the unwarranted censorship will be compounded by an act of gratuitous
vandalism, potentially depriving people of useful resources:

http://online.redwoods.cc.ca.us/instruct/darnold/CalcProj/Index.htm

Paul.

 

[Robert Sedlacek]

All that I snipped is your opinion, which is yours to do with as you
please. "I like it just the way it is." is *MY* opinion, so please
don't try to change it. I think I know my opinion best.

Wrong. You don't like it how it is. Because as it is now, if someone
acts irresponsible for his own actions, his ISP might get an abuse
message and might act on that. You want it to follow you own personal
moral standards that you feel are being hurt by the usenet as it is.

And as for setting it to reply to only you, I changed that back. I
don't think you censoring (redirecting) other peoples replies/opinions
serves the purpose of this thread well.

It's certanily not speaking for you that you compare that and abuse
messages to "censorship." It mostly seems like you try to make an
argument by acting emtionally.

Won't do.


p

 

[Chris Uppal]

BTW, one time I tried a little social engineering to get rid of an
irrelevant cross-posted thread. I replied to the messages in the
thread (an irrelevant political thread posted in rec.audio.tubes) with
(somewhat) inflammatory replies but deleted my newsgroup from the
follow-up line. I kept doing this for a day or two to every message
that showed up in rec.audio.tubes. The result was that the threads
actually died out pretty fast in that newsgroup.

Clever idea. Evil, but clever ;-)

-- chris

 

[Chris Uppal]

[apologies to the whole flaming crowd for sending this to the whole flaming
crowd...]

After you kill Navarth, will it be nothing but gruff and deedle
with a little wobbly to fill in the chinks?

Where does that come from ? It sounds like a quote, and Navarth is a Jack
Vance name (and /what/ a character), but I don't remember the rest of it
occurring in Vance.

-- chris

 

[Timo Stamm]

Mitch wrote:
[...]

http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ has some good (read short but clear)
articles on why patents aren't necessarily a good idea. The main one I
find is that they aren't needed.
[...]
The argument isn't against protecting intellectual property, just the
way in which it is implemented.

[...]
Agreed.

This whole buzz around software patents is there because european
companies do not want to pay american companies.

I am sure there are a lot of small software companies in america as
well. How should these companies be able to even check if they violate
any software patent?

You would be unable to write a single line of code without consulting a
lawyer. This is crazy.

Large companies will be able to protect themselves with a patent
portfolio ("If you sue me, I sue you").



Timo

 

[Mumia W.]

All that I snipped is your opinion, which is yours to do with as you
please. "I like it just the way it is." is *MY* opinion, so please
don't try to change it. I think I know my opinion best.

Wrong. You don't like it how it is. Because as it is now, if someone
acts irresponsible for his own actions, his ISP might get an abuse
message and might act on that. [...]

To suggest that Xah's *on-topic* posts to *five* newsgroups is
irresponsible is ludicrous. In this newsgroup, there's a message
crossposted to about a dozen newsgroups with a subject of "teen sister
peeing outside." This message contains a trojan.

*That*'s an example of an irresponsible message. Xah's posts are not.

 

[John Bokma]

[apologies to the whole flaming crowd for sending this to the whole
flaming crowd...]

After you kill Navarth, will it be nothing but gruff and deedle
with a little wobbly to fill in the chinks?

Where does that come from ? It sounds like a quote, and Navarth is a
Jack Vance name (and /what/ a character), but I don't remember the
rest of it occurring in Vance.

Navarth is very present in "the palace of dreams" (Demon princes series)

The gruff, deedle and wobbly is mentioned IIRC in Wyst (Alastor 1716), but
not sure about it. IIRC it's all you need in the egalistic world of Wyst.

 

[Roedy Green]

FACT: Java has no first-class functions and no macros. This results in
warped code that hacks around the problem, and as the code base grows,
it takes on a definite, ugly shape, one that's utterly unique to Java.

You need to back up a sweeping statement like that with an least an
example code showing how it could much better be handled with macros.

Java has lots of macro languages, including C++'s preprocessor. What
it does not have is a sanctioned one. It has instead on-the-fly code
generation. See http://mindprod.com/jgloss/onthefly.html