digitalmars.D - [OT] Microsoft filled patent applications for scoped and immutable types
- Max Klyga (6/6) Aug 26 2014 Microsoft being microsoft again.
- "Casper =?UTF-8?B?RsOmcmdlbWFuZCI=?= <shorttail gmail.com> (1/1) Aug 26 2014 How would this even work?
- Cliff (5/6) Aug 26 2014 It looks like this applies only to the inference of immutability
- Timon Gehr (2/8) Aug 26 2014 It does not look like that to me.
- Cliff (4/15) Aug 26 2014 Hmm, I went and re-read more closely, and it appears the Summary
- Brad Anderson (3/19) Aug 26 2014 In patents only the claims matter. What is written in the summary
- Idan Arye (1/1) Aug 26 2014 http://joelonsoftware.com/items/2013/07/22.html
- Chris (2/9) Aug 26 2014 That's why I absolutely love MS!
- Nick Sabalausky (4/16) Aug 26 2014 It's FAR more than just MS. For example, Apple's just as bad. Just look
- Chris (8/27) Aug 27 2014 Of course, the whole lot of them! I only wonder who they're
- =?UTF-8?B?IlRow6lv?= Bueno" (2/31) Aug 27 2014 Yeah, IMO these patents can't be a coincidence.
- monarch_dodra (8/18) Aug 27 2014 Big companies file patents. All of them do. That's just the way
- =?UTF-8?B?IlRow6lv?= Bueno" (5/24) Aug 27 2014 Their brand new type qualifier is the same as D's one. They even
- Chris (12/40) Aug 27 2014 From a linguistic point of view it is only logical one should
- Chris (2/21) Aug 27 2014
- Lee (3/6) Aug 28 2014 The inter-company vendetta isn't THAT big a deal, if they can
- MacAsm (3/10) Aug 26 2014 How bad will this be to D?
- H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d (6/22) Aug 26 2014 D has had immutable for years! Surely that counts as prior art?? Does
- Brad Anderson (4/8) Aug 26 2014 They do.
- =?UTF-8?B?QWxpIMOHZWhyZWxp?= (4/13) Aug 26 2014 There has been some changes in the US since that article was written:
- Brad Anderson (6/10) Aug 26 2014 True but First-to-file didn't take away Prior Art. In fact, the
- H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d (6/17) Aug 26 2014 Should the D community file for prior art in the immutable case? It
- =?UTF-8?B?IlRow6lv?= Bueno" (7/17) Aug 27 2014 I don't like that. Even if we want to break this patent with
- Brad Roberts via Digitalmars-d (6/24) Aug 27 2014 In the US, filing a patent app requires about $10k and a good lawyer.
- Paolo Invernizzi (15/21) Aug 29 2014 Once the patent is granted, it would take a LOT of money to prove
- Walter Bright (5/13) Aug 27 2014 Well, I attempted to make a filing of prior art. The application form re...
- Idan Arye (11/29) Aug 27 2014 There is a number in the patents' page at
- Walter Bright (2/3) Aug 27 2014 Nope. Too many digits. Tried them, the form rejected them.
- jollie (4/9) Aug 27 2014 Application number : 13/734750
- jollie (12/17) Aug 27 2014 Spoke too soon. A patent number has not been issued as far as I
- Walter Bright (4/20) Aug 27 2014 Yeah, and the form rejects all attempts to disclose prior art without a ...
- H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d (10/33) Aug 27 2014 Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by
- Nick Sabalausky (3/15) Aug 29 2014 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor
- Chris (3/27) Aug 29 2014 If something is incredibly stupid, it's often by design. (It's
- Chris (8/38) Aug 29 2014 "This reliability, combined with zero cost, poses a serious
- Kagamin (4/6) Aug 30 2014 True in casual setting, but false in professional field.
- Nick Sabalausky (11/17) Aug 30 2014 I admit: I would never claim that malice isn't common. It certainly is,
- =?UTF-8?B?IkrDqXLDtG1lIE0uIEJlcmdlciI=?= (9/25) Aug 27 2014 The patent number is the one in the "Document type and number"
- =?UTF-8?B?IkrDqXLDtG1lIE0uIEJlcmdlciI=?= (10/10) Aug 27 2014 Note however that as I understand it D does not have "immutable
- Dicebot (6/19) Aug 27 2014 In D it applies to type. When you "apply immutable to the
- Walter Bright (2/18) Aug 27 2014 Right. immutable(T) declares a transitive immutable type.
- =?UTF-8?B?IkrDqXLDtG1lIE0uIEJlcmdlciI=?= (23/45) Aug 28 2014 I should have said that in D it is used when declaring an instance
- Timon Gehr (5/11) Aug 28 2014 This works as expected:
- =?UTF-8?B?IkrDqXLDtG1lIE0uIEJlcmdlciI=?= (4/19) Aug 30 2014 Then we should be ok, assuming we can prove it already worked a
- monarch_dodra (3/24) Aug 30 2014 Who said anything about it having to work?
- Walter Bright (11/21) Aug 28 2014 Um,
- Timon Gehr (19/24) Aug 28 2014 I haven't actually read the claims, but there is an obvious way how to
- H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d (7/13) Aug 28 2014 Which is why it's extremely important that we fight against this patent,
- Chris (15/46) Aug 29 2014 This is why I don't believe in "coincidence". This could be
- Iain Buclaw via Digitalmars-d (10/17) Aug 29 2014 This is just FUD.
- Chris (10/37) Aug 29 2014 Nevertheless, it should be taken seriously. Dismissing it as
- =?UTF-8?B?IkrDqXLDtG1lIE0uIEJlcmdlciI=?= (9/31) Aug 30 2014 Yes it is, but that's lawyers for you. I've had a lawyer arguing
- Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d (18/22) Aug 28 2014 J=C3=A9r=C3=B4me,
- Dicebot (4/20) Aug 28 2014 Any links to quickly get into the topic? This is first time I
- =?UTF-8?B?U8O2bmtlIEx1ZHdpZw==?= (11/28) Aug 29 2014 What's really bad is that there is also CETA, which is an agreement
- Dicebot (3/15) Aug 29 2014 I don't want to live on this planet anymore >_<
- Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d (25/29) Aug 30 2014 ship#National_sovereignty_and_Investor_State_Dispute_Settlements_.28ISDS...
- Dicebot (15/32) Sep 01 2014 I believe this is not the core problem. Core one is that people
- Chris (5/41) Sep 01 2014 True, true. Most people don't realize / care about how all this
- Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d (12/16) Sep 01 2014 If it was an A-list celebrity having a sh!t, I suspect a lot of people
- Chris (14/27) Sep 02 2014 No worries, you're not being cynical. The word 'cynicism' is
- Dragos Carp (4/20) Aug 29 2014 The Süddeutsche Zeitung has an interesting series on the topic
- Marco Leise (16/29) Aug 31 2014 Am Thu, 28 Aug 2014 11:08:29 +0100
- Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d (28/38) Aug 31 2014 This is certainly the major issue against TTIP as far as the UK Greens
- Daniel Kozak via Digitalmars-d (11/17) Aug 28 2014 V Thu, 28 Aug 2014 11:53:35 +0200
- Marco Leise (7/27) Aug 31 2014 Am Thu, 28 Aug 2014 12:12:14 +0200
- Walter Bright (5/9) Aug 27 2014 "Required fields (Patent Number) cannot be empty or the data entered is
- Sean Kelly (3/15) Aug 28 2014 Sounds like someone should file a patent for a website with
- Kajal Sinha (3/15) Aug 31 2014 Walter, will it really become a threat for D? I have lot of hopes
- Walter Bright (2/3) Aug 31 2014 I have no idea.
- Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d (19/23) Aug 31 2014 There is a patent on multiply linked lists (cf.
- Walter Bright (10/11) Aug 31 2014 There's another aspect at work with this one. I'm a bit irked that somet...
- Chris (16/30) Sep 01 2014 I agree. I have had the feeling for a long time now that D is
- Walter Bright (6/8) Sep 01 2014 Another indispensable feature of github is everyone who forks it has a c...
- Brad Roberts via Digitalmars-d (6/15) Sep 01 2014 The database (along with everything else) is well backed up every night.
- Walter Bright (3/20) Sep 01 2014 I'm a failure at using cron. I follow the directions, but it doesn't wor...
- monarch_dodra (12/16) Sep 01 2014 Isn't there some way to "open source" a patent? Or at least, make
- Rikki Cattermole (4/20) Sep 01 2014 We didn't invent it. The only thing we did is make it as another part of...
- Dicebot (8/15) Sep 01 2014 Yeah speaking about any kind of innovation in programming
- Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d (22/33) Sep 01 2014 On Mon, 2014-09-01 at 09:43 +0000, monarch_dodra via Digitalmars-d
- Paolo Invernizzi (14/47) Sep 01 2014 I think that you are a little pessimistic about that, yes, that's
- Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d (21/27) Sep 01 2014 On Mon, 2014-09-01 at 19:35 +0000, Paolo Invernizzi via Digitalmars-d
- Nick Sabalausky (12/17) Sep 01 2014 That's actually true in much more than just a snide comment sort of way....
- Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d (27/37) Sep 01 2014 On Mon, 2014-09-01 at 16:06 -0400, Nick Sabalausky via Digitalmars-d
- Walter Bright (3/9) Sep 01 2014 The high P/E ratios for companies like Amazon are the counterexamples wh...
- Nick Sabalausky (6/10) Sep 01 2014 Yea, but I might catch vertigo!
- Steven Schveighoffer (27/46) Sep 16 2014 No.
- Nick Sabalausky (3/12) Sep 16 2014 Yes, sorry, I meant publicly traded corporation.
- =?UTF-8?Q?Tobias=20M=C3=BCller?= (6/9) Sep 02 2014 I think you misunderstood the "first to file" rule. In a strict "first t...
- Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d (30/42) Sep 01 2014 But the USA patent law was changed from "first to invent" to "first to
- Paolo Invernizzi (6/18) Aug 31 2014 Walter,
- Walter Bright (3/4) Sep 01 2014 Actually, yes.
- Chris (4/10) Sep 01 2014 Being on holiday at a crucial moment is dangerous, do you
- Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d (10/13) Sep 01 2014 Bill Gates' mother told the then IBM CEO to hire Microsoft?
- Chris (6/14) Sep 02 2014 Well, legend has it that he got the deal, because the DOS guy was
- Nick Sabalausky (10/20) Aug 26 2014 I doubt very much the USPTO gives a rat's ass about prior art. Their
- Rikki Cattermole (4/31) Aug 26 2014 You guys should totally move to New Zealand. Seriously you would
- H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d (6/9) Aug 26 2014 New D-land FTW! ;-)
- Nick Sabalausky (8/11) Aug 26 2014 Nice. I've heard that a lot of the scenery is stunning over there, too.
- Chris (5/20) Aug 27 2014 Take it easy. The most important things are the ideas and the
- Nick Sabalausky (30/41) Aug 27 2014 Unfortunately I need to use those gadgets in order to write software
- Messenger (12/13) Aug 27 2014 If the patent passes for whatever reason, this becomes a valid
- Weaseldog (1/1) Aug 26 2014 I think they're about 40 years late on these patents...
- Andrei Alexandrescu (7/14) Aug 27 2014 Now on reddit:
- Walter Bright (2/8) Aug 27 2014 The first release of D 2.000 in 2007 had transitive immutable types in i...
- H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d (8/23) Aug 27 2014 Since you're the inventor of D, perhaps it would be best if you could
- ketmar via Digitalmars-d (3/13) Aug 26 2014 support Windows, give m$ more money.
- Era Scarecrow (25/25) Aug 30 2014 This doesn't bode well...
- Nick Sabalausky (46/64) Aug 30 2014 Y'know, that link above is a good example of why FSF and GPL bug me.
- Era Scarecrow (27/33) Aug 30 2014 If it's something like being on the news floor where they are
- Nick Sabalausky (37/67) Aug 30 2014 Well, that page was an article written and posted by Stallman, not a TV
- ketmar via Digitalmars-d (5/7) Aug 30 2014 may i ask you: is DMD "open" and "open source"? and why the heck i
- Era Scarecrow (35/54) Aug 30 2014 Would you really be able to sift though possibly a 10-100 page
- ketmar via Digitalmars-d (4/6) Aug 31 2014 that's why i'm using the term "Free and Open Source Software" instead
- Nick Sabalausky (76/105) Aug 31 2014 I have a hard time believing there's no middle ground there.
- Era Scarecrow (33/62) Aug 31 2014 It's all based on the legal system and if it is taken to court,
- Kagamin (8/18) Sep 01 2014 Sure, but it's technically impossible yet. Hence things are the
- Kagamin (4/13) Sep 04 2014 AFAIK GPL3 is incompatible with any license, which doesn't
- "Ola Fosheim =?UTF-8?B?R3LDuHN0YWQi?= (8/11) Sep 04 2014 GPL3 is not incompatible with GPL2, because GPL2 has a clause
- Kagamin (6/20) Sep 04 2014 Hmm...
- David Nadlinger (8/14) Sep 04 2014 This is wrong. By itself, GPLv2 is indeed incompatible with
- "Ola Fosheim =?UTF-8?B?R3LDuHN0YWQi?= (45/59) Sep 04 2014 It is:
-
Iain Buclaw via Digitalmars-d
(7/11)
Sep 05 2014
- "Ola Fosheim =?UTF-8?B?R3LDuHN0YWQi?= (4/8) Sep 05 2014 Then FSF should update their own website:
- "Ola Fosheim =?UTF-8?B?R3LDuHN0YWQi?= (13/17) Sep 04 2014 1. You can statically link GPL2 code with GPL3 code if you have
- Nick Sabalausky (14/21) Sep 04 2014 I was just going by what Stallman said in the article linked to earlier:
- "Ola Fosheim =?UTF-8?B?R3LDuHN0YWQi?= (17/20) Sep 05 2014 Yeah, it is probably not a good idea to use GPL if you don't
- Kagamin (7/13) Sep 05 2014 Indeed, what if MS buys FSF and releases GPL4? Everyone will be
- "Ola Fosheim =?UTF-8?B?R3LDuHN0YWQi?= (16/21) Sep 05 2014 It has to be in the spirit of GPL according to clause 9, so GPL4
- ketmar via Digitalmars-d (7/9) Sep 05 2014 i can't see anything confusing here. v2 and v3 can't be mixed, but any
- Iain Buclaw via Digitalmars-d (9/15) Aug 31 2014 I find that using the term "open source" is like using the term "cloud
- Nick Sabalausky (12/28) Sep 01 2014 Well, I do hate "could" and other marketing buzzwords...
- Nick Sabalausky (2/3) Sep 01 2014 "could"? Ok, maybe time I pack up the NG reader for the night ;)
- Iain Buclaw via Digitalmars-d (9/17) Sep 01 2014 I should have said "More attractive to people in general". Simply
- Joakim (19/24) Aug 31 2014 What? Did you mean to write "BSD, unlike GPL?" Explain what you
- ketmar via Digitalmars-d (11/13) Aug 31 2014 ...a great thing to stop invasion of proprietary software. hey, i'm not
- Joakim (11/30) Aug 31 2014 Good luck with that, let me know when you find a GPLv3 smartphone
- ketmar via Digitalmars-d (4/6) Aug 31 2014 keep tolerate "permissive licenses", this will greatly help me to find
- Nick Sabalausky (10/24) Aug 31 2014 GPL forces companies to open-source (some of) their software...but
- ketmar via Digitalmars-d (11/17) Aug 31 2014 this will not change. it's not specifically GPL what scares away
- Nick Sabalausky (52/72) Aug 31 2014 There is some precedent for a commercial software package to be released...
- Joakim (57/115) Aug 31 2014 Ah, I wasn't sure what you meant by "cross-licensed," the
- Nick Sabalausky (20/78) Aug 31 2014 Come to think of it, the size/revenue-limit stuff I've seen may have all...
- Joakim (12/18) Aug 31 2014 Glad to hear that. :) Nobody has really tried my time-limited
- Nick Sabalausky (11/30) Aug 31 2014 I suspect they may actually get *that* much of it...I'm just not sure
- ketmar via Digitalmars-d (13/15) Sep 01 2014 which was used to produce vendor-locked smartphone. bwah, what's good
- Nick Sabalausky (19/30) Sep 01 2014 Yea, a vendor-locked smartphone that still gives you far more freedoms
- ketmar via Digitalmars-d (16/24) Sep 01 2014 "partially pregnant".
- Iain Buclaw via Digitalmars-d (13/59) Aug 31 2014 GPL can be summarised in four simple freedoms. Nothing complicated ther...
- Joakim (20/26) Aug 31 2014 The problems come up when you get into the details of how to
- Kagamin (9/14) Sep 01 2014 I can see Oracle having the biggest interest in the dynamic
- Nick Sabalausky (38/70) Sep 01 2014 Maybe so. I hope so. But I wouldn't know.
- Walter Bright (14/20) Sep 02 2014 Ok, I finally got the Patent Office on the horn.
- Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d (17/35) Sep 02 2014 On Tue, 2014-09-02 at 13:10 -0700, Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d
- Nick Sabalausky (6/12) Sep 02 2014 Bureaucratic inefficiency and insanity at their finest... :/
- Paolo Invernizzi (8/17) Sep 02 2014 I don't know if what they told you it's accurate...
- Paolo Invernizzi (21/39) Sep 03 2014 I phoned my consultant, and he told me that there are two
Microsoft being microsoft again. http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2014/0196015.html - DECLARATION OF LIFETIME OF RESOURCE REFERENCE This contains description of scoped classes, etc. http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2014/0196008.html - IMMUTABLE OBJECT TYPES I really hope patent office will reject these applications.
Aug 26 2014
How would this even work?
Aug 26 2014
On Tuesday, 26 August 2014 at 19:47:25 UTC, Casper Færgemand wrote:How would this even work?It looks like this applies only to the inference of immutability based on the structure of the type and its methods, as opposed to a declaration of immutability.
Aug 26 2014
On 08/26/2014 10:13 PM, Cliff wrote:On Tuesday, 26 August 2014 at 19:47:25 UTC, Casper Færgemand wrote:It does not look like that to me.How would this even work?It looks like this applies only to the inference of immutability based on the structure of the type and its methods, as opposed to a declaration of immutability.
Aug 26 2014
On Tuesday, 26 August 2014 at 20:27:55 UTC, Timon Gehr wrote:On 08/26/2014 10:13 PM, Cliff wrote:Hmm, I went and re-read more closely, and it appears the Summary differs from the claims in that very important detail... that sucks.On Tuesday, 26 August 2014 at 19:47:25 UTC, Casper Færgemand wrote:It does not look like that to me.How would this even work?It looks like this applies only to the inference of immutability based on the structure of the type and its methods, as opposed to a declaration of immutability.
Aug 26 2014
On Tuesday, 26 August 2014 at 20:55:26 UTC, Cliff wrote:On Tuesday, 26 August 2014 at 20:27:55 UTC, Timon Gehr wrote:In patents only the claims matter. What is written in the summary is not enforceable.On 08/26/2014 10:13 PM, Cliff wrote:Hmm, I went and re-read more closely, and it appears the Summary differs from the claims in that very important detail... that sucks.On Tuesday, 26 August 2014 at 19:47:25 UTC, Casper Færgemand wrote:It does not look like that to me.How would this even work?It looks like this applies only to the inference of immutability based on the structure of the type and its methods, as opposed to a declaration of immutability.
Aug 26 2014
http://joelonsoftware.com/items/2013/07/22.html
Aug 26 2014
On Tuesday, 26 August 2014 at 19:37:29 UTC, Max Klyga wrote:Microsoft being microsoft again. http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2014/0196015.html - DECLARATION OF LIFETIME OF RESOURCE REFERENCE This contains description of scoped classes, etc. http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2014/0196008.html - IMMUTABLE OBJECT TYPES I really hope patent office will reject these applications.That's why I absolutely love MS!
Aug 26 2014
On 8/26/2014 4:34 PM, Chris wrote:On Tuesday, 26 August 2014 at 19:37:29 UTC, Max Klyga wrote:It's FAR more than just MS. For example, Apple's just as bad. Just look at Steve Job's undying vendetta against Google (by way of Samsung as a proxy target).Microsoft being microsoft again. http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2014/0196015.html - DECLARATION OF LIFETIME OF RESOURCE REFERENCE This contains description of scoped classes, etc. http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2014/0196008.html - IMMUTABLE OBJECT TYPES I really hope patent office will reject these applications.That's why I absolutely love MS!
Aug 26 2014
On Tuesday, 26 August 2014 at 21:29:13 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:On 8/26/2014 4:34 PM, Chris wrote:Of course, the whole lot of them! I only wonder who they're trying to attack here? It must be some sort of strategy to put someone they deem dangerous off his stride. Probably the open source community and / or a competitor. I don't know the laws in the US and don't know how serious this is. It probably can't just be ignored. Is there some other big company they're trying to get at with this? Maybe they're preparing a counter strike.On Tuesday, 26 August 2014 at 19:37:29 UTC, Max Klyga wrote:It's FAR more than just MS. For example, Apple's just as bad. Just look at Steve Job's undying vendetta against Google (by way of Samsung as a proxy target).Microsoft being microsoft again. http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2014/0196015.html - DECLARATION OF LIFETIME OF RESOURCE REFERENCE This contains description of scoped classes, etc. http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2014/0196008.html - IMMUTABLE OBJECT TYPES I really hope patent office will reject these applications.That's why I absolutely love MS!
Aug 27 2014
On Wednesday, 27 August 2014 at 09:08:24 UTC, Chris wrote:On Tuesday, 26 August 2014 at 21:29:13 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:Yeah, IMO these patents can't be a coincidence.On 8/26/2014 4:34 PM, Chris wrote:Of course, the whole lot of them! I only wonder who they're trying to attack here? It must be some sort of strategy to put someone they deem dangerous off his stride. Probably the open source community and / or a competitor. I don't know the laws in the US and don't know how serious this is. It probably can't just be ignored. Is there some other big company they're trying to get at with this? Maybe they're preparing a counter strike.On Tuesday, 26 August 2014 at 19:37:29 UTC, Max Klyga wrote:It's FAR more than just MS. For example, Apple's just as bad. Just look at Steve Job's undying vendetta against Google (by way of Samsung as a proxy target).Microsoft being microsoft again. http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2014/0196015.html - DECLARATION OF LIFETIME OF RESOURCE REFERENCE This contains description of scoped classes, etc. http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2014/0196008.html - IMMUTABLE OBJECT TYPES I really hope patent office will reject these applications.That's why I absolutely love MS!
Aug 27 2014
On Wednesday, 27 August 2014 at 09:20:49 UTC, Théo Bueno wrote:On Wednesday, 27 August 2014 at 09:08:24 UTC, Chris wrote:Big companies file patents. All of them do. That's just the way it is. I wouldn't see anything more to it than that. It's not some conspiracy or corporate war. That's the way the game is played. We just need to make sure we don't become the losers here. It would help to have input from Walter here though: It's his language, and, AFAIK, he also happens to be savvy with this kind of stuff.Of course, the whole lot of them! I only wonder who they're trying to attack here? It must be some sort of strategy to put someone they deem dangerous off his stride. Probably the open source community and / or a competitor. I don't know the laws in the US and don't know how serious this is. It probably can't just be ignored. Is there some other big company they're trying to get at with this? Maybe they're preparing a counter strike.Yeah, IMO these patents can't be a coincidence.
Aug 27 2014
On Wednesday, 27 August 2014 at 09:28:17 UTC, monarch_dodra wrote:On Wednesday, 27 August 2014 at 09:20:49 UTC, Théo Bueno wrote:Their brand new type qualifier is the same as D's one. They even copied the name "immutable". Maybe it's part of a strategy, maybe not. In any case it's a "thief", I don't like this word because you can't steal an idea, but they took ownership of it.On Wednesday, 27 August 2014 at 09:08:24 UTC, Chris wrote:Big companies file patents. All of them do. That's just the way it is. I wouldn't see anything more to it than that. It's not some conspiracy or corporate war. That's the way the game is played. We just need to make sure we don't become the losers here. It would help to have input from Walter here though: It's his language, and, AFAIK, he also happens to be savvy with this kind of stuff.Of course, the whole lot of them! I only wonder who they're trying to attack here? It must be some sort of strategy to put someone they deem dangerous off his stride. Probably the open source community and / or a competitor. I don't know the laws in the US and don't know how serious this is. It probably can't just be ignored. Is there some other big company they're trying to get at with this? Maybe they're preparing a counter strike.Yeah, IMO these patents can't be a coincidence.
Aug 27 2014
On Wednesday, 27 August 2014 at 09:36:30 UTC, Théo Bueno wrote:On Wednesday, 27 August 2014 at 09:28:17 UTC, monarch_dodra wrote:From a linguistic point of view it is only logical one should come up with the word "immutable" in this context. If something (data, objects) are not "mutable" they are "immutable" (this may sound trivial but it is not). I suppose they filed the patent, because concurrency, thread safety and multi core programming have become so important over the last couple of years, and because it has become clear that some sort of "immutable" type is needed. Thus, they seek to get ownership of the word/idea/concept (which is ridiculous of course) to (pre-emptively) knock out others (or get money for it by licensing it to others, including those they stole it from). A shame, really.On Wednesday, 27 August 2014 at 09:20:49 UTC, Théo Bueno wrote:Their brand new type qualifier is the same as D's one. They even copied the name "immutable". Maybe it's part of a strategy, maybe not. In any case it's a "thief", I don't like this word because you can't steal an idea, but they took ownership of it.On Wednesday, 27 August 2014 at 09:08:24 UTC, Chris wrote:Big companies file patents. All of them do. That's just the way it is. I wouldn't see anything more to it than that. It's not some conspiracy or corporate war. That's the way the game is played. We just need to make sure we don't become the losers here. It would help to have input from Walter here though: It's his language, and, AFAIK, he also happens to be savvy with this kind of stuff.Of course, the whole lot of them! I only wonder who they're trying to attack here? It must be some sort of strategy to put someone they deem dangerous off his stride. Probably the open source community and / or a competitor. I don't know the laws in the US and don't know how serious this is. It probably can't just be ignored. Is there some other big company they're trying to get at with this? Maybe they're preparing a counter strike.Yeah, IMO these patents can't be a coincidence.
Aug 27 2014
On Wednesday, 27 August 2014 at 09:28:17 UTC, monarch_dodra wrote:On Wednesday, 27 August 2014 at 09:20:49 UTC, Théo Bueno wrote:I don't share your optimism.On Wednesday, 27 August 2014 at 09:08:24 UTC, Chris wrote:Big companies file patents. All of them do. That's just the way it is. I wouldn't see anything more to it than that. It's not some conspiracy or corporate war.Of course, the whole lot of them! I only wonder who they're trying to attack here? It must be some sort of strategy to put someone they deem dangerous off his stride. Probably the open source community and / or a competitor. I don't know the laws in the US and don't know how serious this is. It probably can't just be ignored. Is there some other big company they're trying to get at with this? Maybe they're preparing a counter strike.Yeah, IMO these patents can't be a coincidence.That's the way the game is played. We just need to make sure we don't become the losers here. It would help to have input from Walter here though: It's his language, and, AFAIK, he also happens to be savvy with this kind of stuff.
Aug 27 2014
On Tuesday, 26 August 2014 at 21:29:13 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:It's FAR more than just MS. For example, Apple's just as bad. Just look at Steve Job's undying vendetta against Google (by way of Samsung as a proxy target).The inter-company vendetta isn't THAT big a deal, if they can still come together to fix wages against their own employees :/
Aug 28 2014
On Tuesday, 26 August 2014 at 19:37:29 UTC, Max Klyga wrote:Microsoft being microsoft again. http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2014/0196015.html - DECLARATION OF LIFETIME OF RESOURCE REFERENCE This contains description of scoped classes, etc.http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2014/0196008.html - IMMUTABLE OBJECT TYPES I really hope patent office will reject these applications.How bad will this be to D?
Aug 26 2014
On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 09:02:43PM +0000, MacAsm via Digitalmars-d wrote:On Tuesday, 26 August 2014 at 19:37:29 UTC, Max Klyga wrote:D has had immutable for years! Surely that counts as prior art?? Does the patent office accept prior art submissions? T -- Кто везде - тот нигде.Microsoft being microsoft again. http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2014/0196015.html - DECLARATION OF LIFETIME OF RESOURCE REFERENCE This contains description of scoped classes, etc.http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2014/0196008.html - IMMUTABLE OBJECT TYPES I really hope patent office will reject these applications.How bad will this be to D?
Aug 26 2014
On Tuesday, 26 August 2014 at 21:26:36 UTC, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d wrote:D has had immutable for years! Surely that counts as prior art?? Does the patent office accept prior art submissions? TThey do. http://meta.patents.stackexchange.com/a/107
Aug 26 2014
On 08/26/2014 02:30 PM, Brad Anderson wrote:On Tuesday, 26 August 2014 at 21:26:36 UTC, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d wrote:There has been some changes in the US since that article was written: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_to_file_and_first_to_invent AliD has had immutable for years! Surely that counts as prior art?? Does the patent office accept prior art submissions? TThey do. http://meta.patents.stackexchange.com/a/107
Aug 26 2014
On Tuesday, 26 August 2014 at 21:35:39 UTC, Ali Çehreli wrote:There has been some changes in the US since that article was written: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_to_file_and_first_to_invent AliTrue but First-to-file didn't take away Prior Art. In fact, the America Invents Act actually broadened what qualifies as Prior Art so it's even easier* to submit prior art now. * And by "easier" I mean "still extremely hard but not as hard as it used to be".
Aug 26 2014
On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 09:30:39PM +0000, Brad Anderson via Digitalmars-d wrote:On Tuesday, 26 August 2014 at 21:26:36 UTC, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d wrote:Should the D community file for prior art in the immutable case? It might become very important for D's future. T -- If the comments and the code disagree, it's likely that *both* are wrong. -- ChristopherD has had immutable for years! Surely that counts as prior art?? Does the patent office accept prior art submissions? TThey do. http://meta.patents.stackexchange.com/a/107
Aug 26 2014
On Tuesday, 26 August 2014 at 21:30:40 UTC, Brad Anderson wrote:On Tuesday, 26 August 2014 at 21:26:36 UTC, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d wrote:I don't like that. Even if we want to break this patent with prior art, we need to publish one for ourselves. This system sucks, we can't choose not to be part of it if we want to be protected. And do we have the money to publish patents anyway? I feel pretty bad about this. What are the thoughts of Andrei and Walter on this stuff?D has had immutable for years! Surely that counts as prior art?? Does the patent office accept prior art submissions? TThey do. http://meta.patents.stackexchange.com/a/107
Aug 27 2014
On 8/27/2014 12:11 AM, via Digitalmars-d wrote:On Tuesday, 26 August 2014 at 21:30:40 UTC, Brad Anderson wrote:In the US, filing a patent app requires about $10k and a good lawyer. It's not in the realm of most small entities to do. It's a seriously bad use of $10k. The best defense is prior art, and there's a ton of it. I say this having my name on a handful of applications and one granted patent.On Tuesday, 26 August 2014 at 21:26:36 UTC, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d wrote:I don't like that. Even if we want to break this patent with prior art, we need to publish one for ourselves. This system sucks, we can't choose not to be part of it if we want to be protected. And do we have the money to publish patents anyway? I feel pretty bad about this. What are the thoughts of Andrei and Walter on this stuff?D has had immutable for years! Surely that counts as prior art?? Does the patent office accept prior art submissions? TThey do. http://meta.patents.stackexchange.com/a/107
Aug 27 2014
On Friday, 29 August 2014 at 02:10:40 UTC, Brad Roberts via Digitalmars-d wrote:On 8/27/2014 12:11 AM, via Digitalmars-d wrote: In the US, filing a patent app requires about $10k and a good lawyer. It's not in the realm of most small entities to do. It's a seriously bad use of $10k. The best defense is prior art, and there's a ton of it. I say this having my name on a handful of applications and one granted patent.Once the patent is granted, it would take a LOT of money to prove that it's invalid: usually you do that when you are forced by the fact that the patent holder has brought you in front of a judge. A much better strategy is to file the patent office the prior art _during_ the examination: or the patent is not granted, or it's stated _on paper_ that the patent does not comprehend what you have indicated as prior art, that usually it's related to your business (and it's a no-costs action). Well, if ignored, you can bring that action in front of the judge at least! So, Walter, go ahead with filing documentation to the USPO. --- Paolo
Aug 29 2014
On 8/26/2014 2:30 PM, Brad Anderson wrote:On Tuesday, 26 August 2014 at 21:26:36 UTC, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d wrote:Well, I attempted to make a filing of prior art. The application form requires an "application number" and a "patent number". I can't find the patent number, and the form rejects my filing. https://efs.uspto.gov/EFSWebUIUnregistered/EFSWebUnregistered?ActionString=go.BeginD has had immutable for years! Surely that counts as prior art?? Does the patent office accept prior art submissions? TThey do. http://meta.patents.stackexchange.com/a/107
Aug 27 2014
On Wednesday, 27 August 2014 at 19:35:38 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:On 8/26/2014 2:30 PM, Brad Anderson wrote:There is a number in the patents' page at http://www.freepatentsonline.com labeld under "Document Type and Number": Title: DECLARATION OF LIFETIME OF RESOURCE REFERENCE Document Type and Number: United States Patent Application 20140196015 Title: IMMUTABLE OBJECT TYPES Document Type and Number: United States Patent Application 20140196008 Aren't these the patent numbers?On Tuesday, 26 August 2014 at 21:26:36 UTC, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d wrote:Well, I attempted to make a filing of prior art. The application form requires an "application number" and a "patent number". I can't find the patent number, and the form rejects my filing. https://efs.uspto.gov/EFSWebUIUnregistered/EFSWebUnregistered?ActionString=go.BeginD has had immutable for years! Surely that counts as prior art?? Does the patent office accept prior art submissions? TThey do. http://meta.patents.stackexchange.com/a/107
Aug 27 2014
On 8/27/2014 12:50 PM, Idan Arye wrote:Aren't these the patent numbers?Nope. Too many digits. Tried them, the form rejected them.
Aug 27 2014
Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> Wrote in message:On 8/27/2014 12:50 PM, Idan Arye wrote:Application number : 13/734750 Patent number: 0196008 --Aren't these the patent numbers?Nope. Too many digits. Tried them, the form rejected them.
Aug 27 2014
Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> Wrote in message:On 8/27/2014 12:50 PM, Idan Arye wrote:Spoke too soon. A patent number has not been issued as far as I can tell. This is listed in the application database. From the USPTO FAQ: Does your database include data on pending patent applications? The database only includes data on Published Applications in accordance with the 18 month pre-grant publication rules. Pending patent applications where the applicant has elected to not publish prior to grant remain confidential. --Aren't these the patent numbers?Nope. Too many digits. Tried them, the form rejected them.
Aug 27 2014
On 8/27/2014 8:25 PM, jollie wrote:Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> Wrote in message:Yeah, and the form rejects all attempts to disclose prior art without a patent number. Reminds me of obamacare.gov :-)On 8/27/2014 12:50 PM, Idan Arye wrote:Spoke too soon. A patent number has not been issued as far as I can tell. This is listed in the application database. From the USPTO FAQ: Does your database include data on pending patent applications? The database only includes data on Published Applications in accordance with the 18 month pre-grant publication rules. Pending patent applications where the applicant has elected to not publish prior to grant remain confidential.Aren't these the patent numbers?Nope. Too many digits. Tried them, the form rejected them.
Aug 27 2014
On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 09:27:19PM -0700, Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d wrote:On 8/27/2014 8:25 PM, jollie wrote:Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence. -- Napoleon Bonaparte ;-) (P.S. Yes, I know the quote has probably been misattributed to Napoleon, but I forgot who the real author is/was since I failed to update my sigs file last time.) T -- One reason that few people are aware there are programs running the internet is that they never crash in any significant way: the free software underlying the internet is reliable to the point of invisibility. -- Glyn Moody, from the article "Giving it all away"Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> Wrote in message:Yeah, and the form rejects all attempts to disclose prior art without a patent number. Reminds me of obamacare.gov :-)On 8/27/2014 12:50 PM, Idan Arye wrote:Spoke too soon. A patent number has not been issued as far as I can tell. This is listed in the application database. From the USPTO FAQ: Does your database include data on pending patent applications? The database only includes data on Published Applications in accordance with the 18 month pre-grant publication rules. Pending patent applications where the applicant has elected to not publish prior to grant remain confidential.Aren't these the patent numbers?Nope. Too many digits. Tried them, the form rejected them.
Aug 27 2014
On 8/28/2014 1:04 AM, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d wrote:On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 09:27:19PM -0700, Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor One of my personal favorite quotes.Yeah, and the form rejects all attempts to disclose prior art without a patent number. Reminds me of obamacare.gov :-)Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence. -- Napoleon Bonaparte ;-) (P.S. Yes, I know the quote has probably been misattributed to Napoleon, but I forgot who the real author is/was since I failed to update my sigs file last time.)
Aug 29 2014
On Friday, 29 August 2014 at 10:01:17 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:On 8/28/2014 1:04 AM, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d wrote:If something is incredibly stupid, it's often by design. (It's usually 50+ year later that people find out)On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 09:27:19PM -0700, Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor One of my personal favorite quotes.Yeah, and the form rejects all attempts to disclose prior art without a patent number. Reminds me of obamacare.gov :-)Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence. -- Napoleon Bonaparte ;-) (P.S. Yes, I know the quote has probably been misattributed to Napoleon, but I forgot who the real author is/was since I failed to update my sigs file last time.)
Aug 29 2014
On Friday, 29 August 2014 at 10:06:59 UTC, Chris wrote:On Friday, 29 August 2014 at 10:01:17 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:"This reliability, combined with zero cost, poses a serious challenge to commercial outfits trying to sell their often bug-ridden programs. No one is more affected by this dichotomy than Microsoft, the most successful company ever built on the traditional software model." -- Glyn Moody http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2001/jan/25/hacking.security Coincidence me a*se!On 8/28/2014 1:04 AM, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d wrote:If something is incredibly stupid, it's often by design. (It's usually 50+ year later that people find out)On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 09:27:19PM -0700, Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor One of my personal favorite quotes.Yeah, and the form rejects all attempts to disclose prior art without a patent number. Reminds me of obamacare.gov :-)Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence. -- Napoleon Bonaparte ;-) (P.S. Yes, I know the quote has probably been misattributed to Napoleon, but I forgot who the real author is/was since I failed to update my sigs file last time.)
Aug 29 2014
On Friday, 29 August 2014 at 02:10:53 UTC, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d wrote:Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence. -- Napoleon BonaparteTrue in casual setting, but false in professional field. Incompetence is equivalent to malice there.
Aug 30 2014
On 8/30/2014 10:04 AM, Kagamin wrote:On Friday, 29 August 2014 at 02:10:53 UTC, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d wrote:I admit: I would never claim that malice isn't common. It certainly is, *especially* where suit-type professions occur (mba's, sales, etc). It's just that I'm also convinced that stupidity, OTOH, is freaking *pandemic*. Plus, if you ask me, a certain amount of stupidity is a necessary component of malice. If someone's being malicious about something, it's difficult to imagine there isn't *some* form of stupidity swimming around in their line of reasoning (if there even is a line of reasoning at all. And if not...well, lack of reasoning *is* a classic form of stupidity).Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence. -- Napoleon BonaparteTrue in casual setting, but false in professional field. Incompetence is equivalent to malice there.
Aug 30 2014
Walter Bright wrote:On 8/26/2014 2:30 PM, Brad Anderson wrote:The patent number is the one in the "Document type and number" field, where it says "United States Patent Application XXXXXXXXXXXX" (even though it says "application" in the text) and the application number is the one in the "Application number" field. So for patent number 20140196015, the application number is 13/734762 and for patent number 20140196008, the application number is 13/734750. JeromeOn Tuesday, 26 August 2014 at 21:26:36 UTC, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d wrote:Well, I attempted to make a filing of prior art. The application form requires an "application number" and a "patent number". I can't find the patent number, and the form rejects my filing. https://efs.uspto.gov/EFSWebUIUnregistered/EFSWebUnregistered?ActionString=go.BeginD has had immutable for years! Surely that counts as prior art?? Does the patent office accept prior art submissions? TThey do. http://meta.patents.stackexchange.com/a/107
Aug 27 2014
Note however that as I understand it D does not have "immutable types" as claimed by patent 20140196008. The difference is that according to the patent the immutable attribute is given to the type and applies to all instances of this type, whereas in D the immutable attribute applies to an instance (I may be wrong about that one, since I haven't done anything in D for years even if I try to keep up with the forums). However, scala case classes should constitute prior art for this patent. Jerome
Aug 27 2014
On Wednesday, 27 August 2014 at 20:08:45 UTC, Jérôme M. Berger wrote:Note however that as I understand it D does not have "immutable types" as claimed by patent 20140196008. The difference is that according to the patent the immutable attribute is given to the type and applies to all instances of this type, whereas in D the immutable attribute applies to an instance (I may be wrong about that one, since I haven't done anything in D for years even if I try to keep up with the forums). However, scala case classes should constitute prior art for this patent. JeromeIn D it applies to type. When you "apply immutable to the instance" you in fact create new type on the fly by adding immutable qualifier to the existing one. But it can also be aliased to always be immutable.
Aug 27 2014
On 8/27/2014 1:17 PM, Dicebot wrote:On Wednesday, 27 August 2014 at 20:08:45 UTC, Jérôme M. Berger wrote:Right. immutable(T) declares a transitive immutable type.Note however that as I understand it D does not have "immutable types" as claimed by patent 20140196008. The difference is that according to the patent the immutable attribute is given to the type and applies to all instances of this type, whereas in D the immutable attribute applies to an instance (I may be wrong about that one, since I haven't done anything in D for years even if I try to keep up with the forums). However, scala case classes should constitute prior art for this patent. JeromeIn D it applies to type. When you "apply immutable to the instance" you in fact create new type on the fly by adding immutable qualifier to the existing one. But it can also be aliased to always be immutable.
Aug 27 2014
Dicebot wrote:On Wednesday, 27 August 2014 at 20:08:45 UTC, Jérôme M. Berger wrote:I should have said that in D it is used when declaring an instance (i.e. at the place of the instance declaration) whereas in the patent it is used when declaring the type. For a patent lawyer, this will be enough to say that the patent is new. Aliases are not really prior art either since they do not allow creating an immutable type without also creating the corresponding mutable type. Of course in addition to being new a patent must also be inventive (i.e. "not obvious"), which is a lot more difficult to prove or disprove (especially since it will be judged by lawyers who don't know anything about the technical side of things). Usually something is considered "obvious" if it results from the combination of not more than two prior art documents and if there is some incentive to combine the two. Jerome PS: The above does not mean that I think the patent is valid (as a matter of fact I don't). It only means that the "immutable" keyword in D is not enough to invalidate it IMO. PPS: IANAL but I have had lots of contacts with patent lawyers and I have taken part in several patent disputes as an expert witness. However, this was in France so most of my knowledge applies to French law and things may be different in the US.Note however that as I understand it D does not have "immutable types" as claimed by patent 20140196008. The difference is that according to the patent the immutable attribute is given to the type and applies to all instances of this type, whereas in D the immutable attribute applies to an instance (I may be wrong about that one, since I haven't done anything in D for years even if I try to keep up with the forums). However, scala case classes should constitute prior art for this patent. JeromeIn D it applies to type. When you "apply immutable to the instance" you in fact create new type on the fly by adding immutable qualifier to the existing one. But it can also be aliased to always be immutable.
Aug 28 2014
On 08/28/2014 11:53 AM, "Jérôme M. Berger" wrote:... I should have said that in D it is used when declaring an instance (i.e. at the place of the instance declaration) whereas in the patent it is used when declaring the type. For a patent lawyer, this will be enough to say that the patent is new. ...This works as expected: immutable class C{ // ... }
Aug 28 2014
Timon Gehr wrote:On 08/28/2014 11:53 AM, "Jérôme M. Berger" wrote:Then we should be ok, assuming we can prove it already worked a year and a half ago. Jerome... I should have said that in D it is used when declaring an instance (i.e. at the place of the instance declaration) whereas in the patent it is used when declaring the type. For a patent lawyer, this will be enough to say that the patent is new. ...This works as expected: immutable class C{ // ... }
Aug 30 2014
On Saturday, 30 August 2014 at 09:00:24 UTC, Jérôme M. Berger wrote:Timon Gehr wrote:Who said anything about it having to work?On 08/28/2014 11:53 AM, "Jérôme M. Berger" wrote:Then we should be ok, assuming we can prove it already worked a year and a half ago. Jerome... I should have said that in D it is used when declaring an instance (i.e. at the place of the instance declaration) whereas in the patent it is used when declaring the type. For a patent lawyer, this will be enough to say that the patent is new. ...This works as expected: immutable class C{ // ... }
Aug 30 2014
On 8/28/2014 2:53 AM, "Jérôme M. Berger" wrote:I should have said that in D it is used when declaring an instance (i.e. at the place of the instance declaration) whereas in the patent it is used when declaring the type. For a patent lawyer, this will be enough to say that the patent is new.Um, alias immutable(char)[] string; is declaring a type. It is not used in this case as a storage class, and there is no instance being declared. String is indeed a type.Aliases are not really prior art either since they do not allow creating an immutable type without also creating the corresponding mutable type.This seems to me to be reductio ad absurdum. And how does the patent say an immutable T is to be created without saying T anywhere?PS: The above does not mean that I think the patent is valid (as a matter of fact I don't). It only means that the "immutable" keyword in D is not enough to invalidate it IMO.It's more than immutable, you're right. D also has transitive immunity, which is a feature of the patent, and also relaxed immutability during construction, which is also a point in the patent. In fact, the patent looks like an explanation of how immutability works in D.
Aug 28 2014
On 08/28/2014 07:34 PM, Walter Bright wrote:I haven't actually read the claims, but there is an obvious way how to not create the mutable type as well: immutable class C{ D field; // error: D is not an immutable class // ... } class D{ // ... } immutable class E{ F field; // ok. } immutable class F{ // ... } I.e. you can make immutability a property of the type instead of a type constructor. This does not share the head-immutability issue D has with its classes.Aliases are not really prior art either since they do not allow creating an immutable type without also creating the corresponding mutable type.This seems to me to be reductio ad absurdum. And how does the patent say an immutable T is to be created without saying T anywhere?
Aug 28 2014
On Thu, Aug 28, 2014 at 10:34:16AM -0700, Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d wrote: [...]It's more than immutable, you're right. D also has transitive immunity, which is a feature of the patent, and also relaxed immutability during construction, which is also a point in the patent. In fact, the patent looks like an explanation of how immutability works in D.Which is why it's extremely important that we fight against this patent, since it may jeopardize the future of D. T -- If blunt statements had a point, they wouldn't be blunt...
Aug 28 2014
On Thursday, 28 August 2014 at 17:34:21 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:On 8/28/2014 2:53 AM, "Jérôme M. Berger" wrote:I should have said that in D it is used when declaring an instance (i.e. at the place of the instance declaration) whereas in the patent it is used when declaring the type. For a patent lawyer, this will be enough to say that the patent is new.Um, alias immutable(char)[] string; is declaring a type. It is not used in this case as a storage class, and there is no instance being declared. String is indeed a type.Aliases are not really prior art either since they do not allow creating an immutable type without also creating the corresponding mutable type.This seems to me to be reductio ad absurdum. And how does the patent say an immutable T is to be created without saying T anywhere?PS: The above does not mean that I think the patent is valid (as a matter of fact I don't). It only means that the "immutable" keyword in D is not enough to invalidate it IMO.It's more than immutable, you're right. D also has transitive immunity, which is a feature of the patent, and also relaxed immutability during construction, which is also a point in the patent.In fact, the patent looks like an explanation of how immutability works in D.This is why I don't believe in "coincidence". This could be either an attempt to crush D or some people might have realized that D's way of handling immutability is the way to go and they want to own it (or both). Where I'm from this is called "rip-off", "theft" or just "being a c**t". H.S. Teoh: "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence." I never liked this quote. What appears to be outright incompetence can more often than not be attributed to malice. But I agree, we should take this issue seriously. Even if the patent seems ridiculous, chances are that it will get through (exactly because it is so ridiculous). We should start to raise funds :-)
Aug 29 2014
On 29 August 2014 10:32, Chris via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> wrote:This is just FUD. Software patents in practice are now not only of generally poor quality, they are totally opposed to their original reason for existence.In fact, the patent looks like an explanation of how immutability works in D.This is why I don't believe in "coincidence". This could be either an attempt to crush D or some people might have realized that D's way of handling immutability is the way to go and they want to own it (or both). Where I'm from this is called "rip-off", "theft" or just "being a c**t".From my observation (newspapers, mostly), having a software patent isutterly useless, and not being tied to any particular network or device just doesn't hold water nowadays in court (in varying degrees across countries). Iain
Aug 29 2014
On Friday, 29 August 2014 at 12:27:59 UTC, Iain Buclaw via Digitalmars-d wrote:On 29 August 2014 10:32, Chris via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> wrote:Nevertheless, it should be taken seriously. Dismissing it as irrelevant could be a terrible mistake. Better safe than sorry. Big companies go to the rain forests in Latin America to get a patent on herbs and plants used as medicine, only to sue the medicine men who've been using the same herbs and plants for thousands of years. Speaking of not wanting to live on this planet anymore ...This is just FUD.In fact, the patent looks like an explanation of how immutability works in D.This is why I don't believe in "coincidence". This could be either an attempt to crush D or some people might have realized that D's way of handling immutability is the way to go and they want to own it (or both). Where I'm from this is called "rip-off", "theft" or just "being a c**t".Software patents in practice are now not only of generally poor quality, they are totally opposed to their original reason for existence.I hope you're right.From my observation (newspapers, mostly), having a software patent isutterly useless, and not being tied to any particular network or device just doesn't hold water nowadays in court (in varying degrees across countries). Iain
Aug 29 2014
Walter Bright wrote:On 8/28/2014 2:53 AM, "Jérôme M. Berger" wrote:Yes it is, but that's lawyers for you. I've had a lawyer arguing that an article does not constitute prior art for a patent because the article is about a submodule in a video *encoder* whereas the patent is about a submodule in a video *decoder*, and that even though most of the patent is a verbatim copy of the article text...I should have said that in D it is used when declaring an instance (i.e. at the place of the instance declaration) whereas in the patent it is used when declaring the type. For a patent lawyer, this will be enough to say that the patent is new.Um, alias immutable(char)[] string; is declaring a type. It is not used in this case as a storage class, and there is no instance being declared. String is indeed a type.Aliases are not really prior art either since they do not allow creating an immutable type without also creating the corresponding mutable type.This seems to me to be reductio ad absurdum.And how does the patent say an immutable T is to be created without saying T anywhere?That is the point, you don't create an "immutable T", you create an "immutable class ..." without ever naming the class. Jerome
Aug 30 2014
J=C3=A9r=C3=B4me, On Thu, 2014-08-28 at 11:53 +0200, "J=C3=A9r=C3=B4me M. Berger" via Digital= mars-d wrote: [=E2=80=A6]PPS: IANAL but I have had lots of contacts with patent lawyers and I have taken part in several patent disputes as an expert witness. However, this was in France so most of my knowledge applies to French law and things may be different in the US.Are you tracking the new EU unitary patent and TTIP activity? We need to make sure the US does impose on the EU the same insane patent framework the US has. --=20 Russel. =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D Dr Russel Winder t: +44 20 7585 2200 voip: sip:russel.winder ekiga.n= et 41 Buckmaster Road m: +44 7770 465 077 xmpp: russel winder.org.uk London SW11 1EN, UK w: www.russel.org.uk skype: russel_winder
Aug 28 2014
On Friday, 29 August 2014 at 02:10:57 UTC, Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d wrote:Jérôme, On Thu, 2014-08-28 at 11:53 +0200, "Jérôme M. Berger" via Digitalmars-d wrote: […]Any links to quickly get into the topic? This is first time I hear about it.PPS: IANAL but I have had lots of contacts with patent lawyers and I have taken part in several patent disputes as an expert witness. However, this was in France so most of my knowledge applies to French law and things may be different in the US.Are you tracking the new EU unitary patent and TTIP activity? We need to make sure the US does impose on the EU the same insane patent framework the US has.
Aug 28 2014
Am 29.08.2014 04:15, schrieb Dicebot:On Friday, 29 August 2014 at 02:10:57 UTC, Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d wrote:What's really bad is that there is also CETA, which is an agreement between the EU and Canada, and which is nothing than an inconspicuous back door to achieve much of the same thing as TTIP. Unfortunately it has gotten basically no media attention at all (at least in Germany, TTIP has been mentioned several times at least), despite being ratified soon, and despite its potentially far reaching consequences for the western society in general. You can get an overview on Wikipedia. Apart from the patent system and several environmental "unifications", an especially concerning part is ISDS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_Trade_and_Investment_Partnership#National_sovereignty_and_Investor_State_Dispute_Settlements_.28ISDS.29Jérôme, On Thu, 2014-08-28 at 11:53 +0200, "Jérôme M. Berger" via Digitalmars-d wrote: […]Any links to quickly get into the topic? This is first time I hear about it.PPS: IANAL but I have had lots of contacts with patent lawyers and I have taken part in several patent disputes as an expert witness. However, this was in France so most of my knowledge applies to French law and things may be different in the US.Are you tracking the new EU unitary patent and TTIP activity? We need to make sure the US does impose on the EU the same insane patent framework the US has.
Aug 29 2014
On Friday, 29 August 2014 at 10:30:49 UTC, Sönke Ludwig wrote:What's really bad is that there is also CETA, which is an agreement between the EU and Canada, and which is nothing than an inconspicuous back door to achieve much of the same thing as TTIP. Unfortunately it has gotten basically no media attention at all (at least in Germany, TTIP has been mentioned several times at least), despite being ratified soon, and despite its potentially far reaching consequences for the western society in general. You can get an overview on Wikipedia. Apart from the patent system and several environmental "unifications", an especially concerning part is ISDS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_Trade_and_Investment_Partnership#National_sovereignty_and_Investor_State_Dispute_Settlements_.28ISDS.29I don't want to live on this planet anymore >_< ..yet again.
Aug 29 2014
On Fri, 2014-08-29 at 11:44 +0000, Dicebot via Digitalmars-d wrote: [=E2=80=A6]ship#National_sovereignty_and_Investor_State_Dispute_Settlements_.28ISDS.29http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_Trade_and_Investment_Partner==20 I don't want to live on this planet anymore >_< ..yet again.But we have to! In a sense this is just the multinational corporations doing what they should do create a market to maximize shareholder value. Sadly it is an indirect return to a feudal system on a massive scale. Today in the UK was a big day of 38 Degrees and The Green Party trying to create public consciousness of the issues. The Conservative and LibDems here are just up for signing TTIP because of the good bits (of which there are some), The Greens are against because of all the bits that are bad for UK voters and UK society (of which there are many, many). Labour are saying they both support and don't support it. The core problem here is that most politicians are directly or indirectly reporting to these corporations as much as to the voters. --=20 Russel. =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D Dr Russel Winder t: +44 20 7585 2200 voip: sip:russel.winder ekiga.n= et 41 Buckmaster Road m: +44 7770 465 077 xmpp: russel winder.org.uk London SW11 1EN, UK w: www.russel.org.uk skype: russel_winder
Aug 30 2014
On Saturday, 30 August 2014 at 17:05:40 UTC, Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d wrote:On Fri, 2014-08-29 at 11:44 +0000, Dicebot via Digitalmars-d wrote: […]I believe this is not the core problem. Core one is that people in general don't care much about those issue and consider many of those attempts perfectly legitimate. It is an education and cultural issue in the first place. You can block few really bad laws by creating enough fuss about it in media but this takes quite an effort. And all they need to do is to push the very same law later under different name, no risk here. What is even more frustrating the very same people will feel freaking smart by calling you paranoid and pretending that are reasonable pragmatical persons and you are some tin foil hat geek. It is not just the corporations we need to fight but established mass attituded successfully endorsed by those corporations. And _this_ really sucks.But we have to! In a sense this is just the multinational corporations doing what they should do create a market to maximize shareholder value. Sadly it is an indirect return to a feudal system on a massive scale. ... The core problem here is that most politicians are directly or indirectly reporting to these corporations as much as to the voters.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_Trade_and_Investment_Partnership#National_sovereignty_and_Investor_State_Dispute_Settlements_.28ISDS.29I don't want to live on this planet anymore >_< ..yet again.
Sep 01 2014
On Monday, 1 September 2014 at 16:38:23 UTC, Dicebot wrote:On Saturday, 30 August 2014 at 17:05:40 UTC, Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d wrote:True, true. Most people don't realize / care about how all this stuff affects them. In fact, your average iPhone user will be quite happy with the corporate prison, as long as they can watch the latest shit on youtube.On Fri, 2014-08-29 at 11:44 +0000, Dicebot via Digitalmars-d wrote: […]I believe this is not the core problem. Core one is that people in general don't care much about those issue and consider many of those attempts perfectly legitimate. It is an education and cultural issue in the first place. You can block few really bad laws by creating enough fuss about it in media but this takes quite an effort. And all they need to do is to push the very same law later under different name, no risk here. What is even more frustrating the very same people will feel freaking smart by calling you paranoid and pretending that are reasonable pragmatical persons and you are some tin foil hat geek. It is not just the corporations we need to fight but established mass attituded successfully endorsed by those corporations. And _this_ really sucks.But we have to! In a sense this is just the multinational corporations doing what they should do create a market to maximize shareholder value. Sadly it is an indirect return to a feudal system on a massive scale. ... The core problem here is that most politicians are directly or indirectly reporting to these corporations as much as to the voters.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_Trade_and_Investment_Partnership#National_sovereignty_and_Investor_State_Dispute_Settlements_.28ISDS.29I don't want to live on this planet anymore >_< ..yet again.
Sep 01 2014
On Mon, 2014-09-01 at 19:49 +0000, Chris via Digitalmars-d wrote: […]True, true. Most people don't realize / care about how all this stuff affects them. In fact, your average iPhone user will be quite happy with the corporate prison, as long as they can watch the latest shit on youtube.If it was an A-list celebrity having a sh!t, I suspect a lot of people would make a very serious amount of dosh. Apologies for the apparent cynicism, but it is really just reality (television) sinking home. -- Russel. ============================================================================= Dr Russel Winder t: +44 20 7585 2200 voip: sip:russel.winder ekiga.net 41 Buckmaster Road m: +44 7770 465 077 xmpp: russel winder.org.uk London SW11 1EN, UK w: www.russel.org.uk skype: russel_winder
Sep 01 2014
On Monday, 1 September 2014 at 20:02:41 UTC, Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d wrote:On Mon, 2014-09-01 at 19:49 +0000, Chris via Digitalmars-d wrote: […]No worries, you're not being cynical. The word 'cynicism' is often used wrongly. It is usually used to shut up those who raise critical questions. And it's usually the real cynics who use this strategy. You are just being sarcastic in your comments. And sarcasm usually means that someone does care, albeit s/he might be a bit frustrated. In fact, if you were cynical, you wouldn't even bother to write these comments, you wouldn't give a damn any more. The guys who wrote "Arbeit macht frei" ("Work makes (you) free") over the entrances to various concentration camps were cynical. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynicism_%28contemporary%29#OverviewTrue, true. Most people don't realize / care about how all this stuff affects them. In fact, your average iPhone user will be quite happy with the corporate prison, as long as they can watch the latest shit on youtube.If it was an A-list celebrity having a sh!t, I suspect a lot of people would make a very serious amount of dosh. Apologies for the apparent cynicism, but it is really just reality (television) sinking home.
Sep 02 2014
The Süddeutsche Zeitung has an interesting series on the topic (unfortunately German only): http://www.sueddeutsche.de/thema/TTIP-Recherche There is also http://stop-ttip.org .Any links to quickly get into the topic? This is first time I hear about it.What's really bad is that there is also CETA, which is an agreement between the EU and Canada, and which is nothing than an inconspicuous back door to achieve much of the same thing as TTIP. Unfortunately it has gotten basically no media attention at all (at least in Germany, TTIP has been mentioned several times at least), despite being ratified soon, and despite its potentially far reaching consequences for the western society in general. You can get an overview on Wikipedia. Apart from the patent system and several environmental "unifications", an especially concerning part is ISDS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_Trade_and_Investment_Partnership#National_sovereignty_and_Investor_State_Dispute_Settlements_.28ISDS.29
Aug 29 2014
Am Thu, 28 Aug 2014 11:08:29 +0100 schrieb Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d puremagic.com>:J=C3=A9r=C3=B4me, =20 On Thu, 2014-08-28 at 11:53 +0200, "J=C3=A9r=C3=B4me M. Berger" via Digit=almars-dwrote: [=E2=80=A6]Haha :*). Don't worry, we EU citizens are more concerned about the issues of privacy, food regulations and corporate entities suing states for changing laws that cause them profit losses. A rubber stamping patent system without professionals investigating the claims has already been established years ago. All in all I am not too worried about TTIP anymore, seeing that the US reps didn't move in all the years of negotiations. With NGOs running against TTIP and an overall negative public stance I don't see it being bent over the knee. --=20 MarcoPPS: IANAL but I have had lots of contacts with patent lawyers and I have taken part in several patent disputes as an expert witness. However, this was in France so most of my knowledge applies to French law and things may be different in the US.=20 Are you tracking the new EU unitary patent and TTIP activity? We need to make sure the US does impose on the EU the same insane patent framework the US has.
Aug 31 2014
On Sun, 2014-08-31 at 09:35 +0200, Marco Leise via Digitalmars-d wrote: [=E2=80=A6]Haha :*). Don't worry, we EU citizens are more concerned about the issues of privacy, food regulations and corporate entities suing states for changing laws that cause them profit losses.This is certainly the major issue against TTIP as far as the UK Greens are concerned. Government passes law for voters good. Company doesn't like it because it ruins their income stream, sues government for loss of income. Due to TTIP, government loses. Tobacco companies are going to love this.A rubber stamping patent system without professionals investigating the claims has already been established years ago.The EU patent office yes, but not the UK one. The issue here is to stop the EU patent office becoming the only one. There is a very serious strategy issue here and it isn't a done deal thankfully.All in all I am not too worried about TTIP anymore, seeing that the US reps didn't move in all the years of negotiations. With NGOs running against TTIP and an overall negative public stance I don't see it being bent over the knee.TTIP and CETA are still very serious issues so people should continue to worry. Even if there is negative public opinion, the politicians will ram it through on the grounds they are the elected representatives, even though in reality they are doing it because their corporate paymasters of the future tell them to. In the UK the government are using the Scottish independence referendum as a smoke screen to avoid TTIP becoming news. This is a clear indicator it is bad for voters. --=20 Russel. =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D Dr Russel Winder t: +44 20 7585 2200 voip: sip:russel.winder ekiga.n= et 41 Buckmaster Road m: +44 7770 465 077 xmpp: russel winder.org.uk London SW11 1EN, UK w: www.russel.org.uk skype: russel_winder
Aug 31 2014
V Thu, 28 Aug 2014 11:53:35 +0200 "Jérôme M. Berger" via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> napsáno:I should have said that in D it is used when declaring an instance (i.e. at the place of the instance declaration) whereas in the patent it is used when declaring the type. For a patent lawyer, this will be enough to say that the patent is new.I don't agree completly // immutable is used when declaring the type IS immutable struct IS { string s; } IS s = IS("fff"); s.s = "d"; writeln(s);
Aug 28 2014
Am Thu, 28 Aug 2014 12:12:14 +0200 schrieb Daniel Kozak via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d puremagic.com>:V Thu, 28 Aug 2014 11:53:35 +0200 "J=C3=A9r=C3=B4me M. Berger" via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d puremagic.c=om>naps=C3=A1no:^ That I agree with! Prior art. --=20 Marco=20 I should have said that in D it is used when declaring an instance (i.e. at the place of the instance declaration) whereas in the patent it is used when declaring the type. For a patent lawyer, this will be enough to say that the patent is new. =20=20 I don't agree completly =20 // immutable is used when declaring the type IS immutable struct IS { string s; } =20 IS s =3D IS("fff"); s.s =3D "d"; writeln(s);
Aug 31 2014
On 8/27/2014 1:02 PM, "Jérôme M. Berger" wrote:So for patent number 20140196015, the application number is 13/734762 and for patent number 20140196008, the application number is 13/734750. Jerome"Required fields (Patent Number) cannot be empty or the data entered is incorrectly formatted." "The field contains over 9 characters which cannot be processed in the USPTO system."
Aug 27 2014
On Wednesday, 27 August 2014 at 21:19:47 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:On 8/27/2014 1:02 PM, "Jérôme M. Berger" wrote:Sounds like someone should file a patent for a website with broken input fields and then force them to change theirs.So for patent number 20140196015, the application number is 13/734762 and for patent number 20140196008, the application number is 13/734750. Jerome"Required fields (Patent Number) cannot be empty or the data entered is incorrectly formatted." "The field contains over 9 characters which cannot be processed in the USPTO system."
Aug 28 2014
On Wednesday, 27 August 2014 at 21:19:47 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:On 8/27/2014 1:02 PM, "Jérôme M. Berger" wrote:Walter, will it really become a threat for D? I have lot of hopes from D language.So for patent number 20140196015, the application number is 13/734762 and for patent number 20140196008, the application number is 13/734750. Jerome"Required fields (Patent Number) cannot be empty or the data entered is incorrectly formatted." "The field contains over 9 characters which cannot be processed in the USPTO system."
Aug 31 2014
On 8/31/2014 8:26 PM, Kajal Sinha wrote:Walter, will it really become a threat for D?I have no idea.
Aug 31 2014
On Sun, 2014-08-31 at 22:01 -0700, Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d wrote:On 8/31/2014 8:26 PM, Kajal Sinha wrote:There is a patent on multiply linked lists (cf. http://www.google.co.uk/patents/US7028023) but I am fairly sure it hasn't been asserted against anyone as yet. The US patent system is, in this regard, a complete shambles. It is so sad the US government is intent on imposing the same system on the rest of the world :-( I guess it must be a "keep patent lawyers in work" scheme.=20 --=20 Russel. =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D Dr Russel Winder t: +44 20 7585 2200 voip: sip:russel.winder ekiga.n= et 41 Buckmaster Road m: +44 7770 465 077 xmpp: russel winder.org.uk London SW11 1EN, UK w: www.russel.org.uk skype: russel_winderWalter, will it really become a threat for D?=20 I have no idea.
Aug 31 2014
On 8/31/2014 10:15 PM, Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d wrote:I guess it must be a "keep patent lawyers in work" scheme.There's another aspect at work with this one. I'm a bit irked that something Andrei and I came up with in 2007 is claimed by others to have been invented 5 years later. A number of features pioneered by D have been showing up in other languages, and D has not been acknowledged. I'm happy to acknowledge ideas from other languages that have made it into D, and it is right for other languages to reciprocate. What I don't intend to do is patent D's innovations. What D has done is our gift to the programming community. I'm also glad we're using github, as it is a fine way to document and timestamp the provenance of D's features.
Aug 31 2014
On Monday, 1 September 2014 at 05:56:33 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:On 8/31/2014 10:15 PM, Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d wrote:I agree. I have had the feeling for a long time now that D is some sort of pariah among programming languages. Whatever D offers is never good enough, until one of the big languages rips it, then it's _the_ ultimate new thing!I guess it must be a "keep patent lawyers in work" scheme.There's another aspect at work with this one. I'm a bit irked that something Andrei and I came up with in 2007 is claimed by others to have been invented 5 years later. A number of features pioneered by D have been showing up in other languages, and D has not been acknowledged.I'm happy to acknowledge ideas from other languages that have made it into D, and it is right for other languages to reciprocate.Yeah, but it never happens, does it? I wonder is that sheer ignorance / carelessness or by design? Anyway, I think that D is not being taken seriously (at least officially), because it is not backed up / owned by one of the big players. It is entirely community driven, which is something big corporations hate, and many users get the (wrong) impression that D is half-baked and not reliable. So they rather put up with Java where they have to wait for useful features for years and are locked into rigid programming paradigms.What I don't intend to do is patent D's innovations. What D has done is our gift to the programming community. I'm also glad we're using github, as it is a fine way to document and timestamp the provenance of D's features.Good on you! But make sure the evidence does not disappear miraculously, if you get my drift.
Sep 01 2014
On 9/1/2014 2:31 AM, Chris wrote:Good on you! But make sure the evidence does not disappear miraculously, if you get my drift.Another indispensable feature of github is everyone who forks it has a clone of the entire repository, usually on their own machine. Deleting all of those forks seems to be thoroughly impractical. I'm more worried about bugzilla. One reason I keep all the bugzilla email notifications is it is a last resort, albeit crude, backup.
Sep 01 2014
On 9/1/2014 12:30 PM, Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d wrote:On 9/1/2014 2:31 AM, Chris wrote:The database (along with everything else) is well backed up every night. Also, didn't you setup a cron job to also download the db every night? I've been putting up a nightly tarball of it (in addition to the backup system) every night since about the day the system was setup. No need to be nervous about bugzilla.Good on you! But make sure the evidence does not disappear miraculously, if you get my drift.Another indispensable feature of github is everyone who forks it has a clone of the entire repository, usually on their own machine. Deleting all of those forks seems to be thoroughly impractical. I'm more worried about bugzilla. One reason I keep all the bugzilla email notifications is it is a last resort, albeit crude, backup.
Sep 01 2014
On 9/1/2014 12:50 PM, Brad Roberts via Digitalmars-d wrote:On 9/1/2014 12:30 PM, Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d wrote:I'm a failure at using cron. I follow the directions, but it doesn't work :-( I know, I know.On 9/1/2014 2:31 AM, Chris wrote:The database (along with everything else) is well backed up every night. Also, didn't you setup a cron job to also download the db every night? I've been putting up a nightly tarball of it (in addition to the backup system) every night since about the day the system was setup. No need to be nervous about bugzilla.Good on you! But make sure the evidence does not disappear miraculously, if you get my drift.Another indispensable feature of github is everyone who forks it has a clone of the entire repository, usually on their own machine. Deleting all of those forks seems to be thoroughly impractical. I'm more worried about bugzilla. One reason I keep all the bugzilla email notifications is it is a last resort, albeit crude, backup.
Sep 01 2014
On Monday, 1 September 2014 at 05:56:33 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:What I don't intend to do is patent D's innovations. What D has done is our gift to the programming community. I'm also glad we're using github, as it is a fine way to document and timestamp the provenance of D's features.Isn't there some way to "open source" a patent? Or at least, make some sort of formal publication that this was invented, and may not be patented by someone else? Just because you don't want to "lock down" your inventions, doesn't mean they are free to take... Then again, it takes a certain kind of corporate greed to try to put a patent on things we'd have never thought of as "inventions". Did we patent UFCS yet? It's an invention. How about CTFE? That seems like a *huge* invention? What about generic tuples? No language I know of uses these. Static if? Let's patent that too while we're at it.
Sep 01 2014
On 1/09/2014 9:43 p.m., monarch_dodra wrote:On Monday, 1 September 2014 at 05:56:33 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:We didn't invent it. The only thing we did is make it as another part of the "normal" part of the language. LISP family of languages have had the ability to use CTFE for ages.What I don't intend to do is patent D's innovations. What D has done is our gift to the programming community. I'm also glad we're using github, as it is a fine way to document and timestamp the provenance of D's features.Isn't there some way to "open source" a patent? Or at least, make some sort of formal publication that this was invented, and may not be patented by someone else? Just because you don't want to "lock down" your inventions, doesn't mean they are free to take... Then again, it takes a certain kind of corporate greed to try to put a patent on things we'd have never thought of as "inventions". Did we patent UFCS yet? It's an invention. How about CTFE? That seems like a *huge* invention?What about generic tuples? No language I know of uses these. Static if? Let's patent that too while we're at it.
Sep 01 2014
On Monday, 1 September 2014 at 09:48:10 UTC, Rikki Cattermole wrote:Yeah speaking about any kind of innovation in programming language domain is usually completely meaningless. Many of theoretical concepts come from as early as 60s-70s it just happened that using them became feasible only recently. Any time I am seeing someone trying to patent _ANY_ language feature I am going to call it bullshit.Did we patent UFCS yet? It's an invention. How about CTFE? That seems like a *huge* invention?We didn't invent it. The only thing we did is make it as another part of the "normal" part of the language. LISP family of languages have had the ability to use CTFE for ages.What about generic tuples? No language I know of uses these. Static if? Let's patent that too while we're at it.
Sep 01 2014
On Mon, 2014-09-01 at 09:43 +0000, monarch_dodra via Digitalmars-d wrote: […]Isn't there some way to "open source" a patent? Or at least, make some sort of formal publication that this was invented, and may not be patented by someone else?No. What you hint at is "prior art" and is a proper defence against (the dark arts and) the award of a patent. At least in the UK. USPTO and increasingly EUPO award well formed patents and do not care about prior art. They treat this as an issue for the courts not for them. Thus unless you have a lawyer who can be heard, you are cannon fodder to be milked for royalties.Just because you don't want to "lock down" your inventions, doesn't mean they are free to take...In the "first to file" USA patent system, yes they are.Then again, it takes a certain kind of corporate greed to try to put a patent on things we'd have never thought of as "inventions".Aren't corporate and greed synonyms?Did we patent UFCS yet? It's an invention. How about CTFE? That seems like a *huge* invention? What about generic tuples? No language I know of uses these. Static if? Let's patent that too while we're at it.In the USA, if you have a lawyer, yes do it. You might get away with it in the EU as well. "First to file not first to invent" – by the corporations for the corporations. This should tell you everything you need to know about technological innovation in the USA. -- Russel. ============================================================================= Dr Russel Winder t: +44 20 7585 2200 voip: sip:russel.winder ekiga.net 41 Buckmaster Road m: +44 7770 465 077 xmpp: russel winder.org.uk London SW11 1EN, UK w: www.russel.org.uk skype: russel_winder
Sep 01 2014
On Monday, 1 September 2014 at 19:12:05 UTC, Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d wrote:On Mon, 2014-09-01 at 09:43 +0000, monarch_dodra via Digitalmars-d wrote: […]I think that you are a little pessimistic about that, yes, that's the trend, but prior art still is relevant today: I'm about to reply to an action of the USPTO regarding a patent filed by my company in 2004, and the examiner keep objecting every time, arguing about new improbable prior-arts documentation every time...Isn't there some way to "open source" a patent? Or at least, make some sort of formal publication that this was invented, and may not be patented by someone else?No. What you hint at is "prior art" and is a proper defence against (the dark arts and) the award of a patent. At least in the UK. USPTO and increasingly EUPO award well formed patents and do not care about prior art. They treat this as an issue for the courts not for them. Thus unless you have a lawyer who can be heard, you are cannon fodder to be milked for royalties.Unless they are described in a form that let them available to the public (not counting the grace period...)Just because you don't want to "lock down" your inventions, doesn't mean they are free to take...In the "first to file" USA patent system, yes they are.Sometimes they are synonyms for "research" also...Then again, it takes a certain kind of corporate greed to try to put a patent on things we'd have never thought of as "inventions".Aren't corporate and greed synonyms?Good luck with it! ;-P -- Paolo InvernizziDid we patent UFCS yet? It's an invention. How about CTFE? That seems like a *huge* invention? What about generic tuples? No language I know of uses these. Static if? Let's patent that too while we're at it.In the USA, if you have a lawyer, yes do it. You might get away with it in the EU as well. "First to file not first to invent" – by the corporations for the corporations. This should tell you everything you need to know about technological innovation in the USA.
Sep 01 2014
On Mon, 2014-09-01 at 19:35 +0000, Paolo Invernizzi via Digitalmars-d wrote: […]I think that you are a little pessimistic about that, yes, that's the trend, but prior art still is relevant today: I'm about to reply to an action of the USPTO regarding a patent filed by my company in 2004, and the examiner keep objecting every time, arguing about new improbable prior-arts documentation every time...[…] Prior art is more or less the only tool left against the steamroller of large corporate gaming of the patent system, especially in the USA which is fundamentally oriented towards patent lawyers. The UK patent system used to be very careful about research into prior art etc. and totally against software patents which are technically forbidden in UK law. However, with the EU patent office in the pocket of the USTR and Cameron clearly lined up for a lucrative post in a big corporate once ousted as leader of the conservative party, it is clear that UK government is telling UKIPO to let the lawyers do all the work, and allow everything large corporate want. Funny how so many UK MPs were lawyers. -- Russel. ============================================================================= Dr Russel Winder t: +44 20 7585 2200 voip: sip:russel.winder ekiga.net 41 Buckmaster Road m: +44 7770 465 077 xmpp: russel winder.org.uk London SW11 1EN, UK w: www.russel.org.uk skype: russel_winder
Sep 01 2014
On 9/1/2014 3:11 PM, Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d wrote:On Mon, 2014-09-01 at 09:43 +0000, monarch_dodra via Digitalmars-d wrote:That's actually true in much more than just a snide comment sort of way. A corporation is *legally obligated* to put shareholder profit above all other concerns. Either they act like greedy f&#ks or they risk getting the crap sued out of them. The problem is we've permitted, and promoted, a system where companies are owned by people (shareholders) whose *sole* interest in the company is purely financial. The *real* role of businesses in a society is to provide worthwhile goods and/or services. Revenue, and even profit, is ultimately just a necessary means to that end. But stocks and incorporation flip this around, to disastrous results. [Steps down from soapbox...]Then again, it takes a certain kind of corporate greed to try to put a patent on things we'd have never thought of as "inventions".Aren't corporate and greed synonyms?
Sep 01 2014
On Mon, 2014-09-01 at 16:06 -0400, Nick Sabalausky via Digitalmars-d wrote: […]A corporation is *legally obligated* to put shareholder profit above allActually not profit but value. Profit is clearly a factor but value is more than just that.other concerns. Either they act like greedy f&#ks or they risk getting the crap sued out of them. The problem is we've permitted, and promoted, a system where companies are owned by people (shareholders) whose *sole* interest in the company is purely financial.Apart from some pension fund managers who have serious long term goals, the problem can be laid fairly and squarely at the feet of traders and hedge funds. They have horizons of minutes or months rather than decades and so have no concerns about long term viability just short term profit. The obsession with quarterly returns and growth in such timescales is all the proof needed of the problem. Clearly the Internet and extremely fast information flow is a core factor in the overall problem, which means software developers have some of the culpability even though traders are the main agents of doom.The *real* role of businesses in a society is to provide worthwhile goods and/or services. Revenue, and even profit, is ultimately just a necessary means to that end. But stocks and incorporation flip this around, to disastrous results.'Fraid not. Given the rules of society we have put in place, "worthwhile" is an irrelevance. The only metric is growth. Oh and the other is profit. The corporates are actually doing nothing more that that which we as a society in the "the west" have set them up to do. Obviously the "we" isn't just the current generation, but it is everyone in the last two centuries or so.[Steps down from soapbox...]Don't, it's a good soapbox to shout from. -- Russel. ============================================================================= Dr Russel Winder t: +44 20 7585 2200 voip: sip:russel.winder ekiga.net 41 Buckmaster Road m: +44 7770 465 077 xmpp: russel winder.org.uk London SW11 1EN, UK w: www.russel.org.uk skype: russel_winder
Sep 01 2014
On 9/1/2014 1:39 PM, Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d wrote:Apart from some pension fund managers who have serious long term goals, the problem can be laid fairly and squarely at the feet of traders and hedge funds. They have horizons of minutes or months rather than decades and so have no concerns about long term viability just short term profit. The obsession with quarterly returns and growth in such timescales is all the proof needed of the problem.The high P/E ratios for companies like Amazon are the counterexamples where investors are clearly valuing long term potential over short term results.
Sep 01 2014
On 9/1/2014 4:39 PM, Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d wrote:On Mon, 2014-09-01 at 16:06 -0400, Nick Sabalausky via Digitalmars-d wrote:Yea, but I might catch vertigo! It's not a very mobile soapbox either; can't get around while on it unless I just kinda stoop down, grab it and sorta hop around. And who's gonna put any stock in the words of some loony awkwardly getting around like that, huh? Nobody, I tell ya![Steps down from soapbox...]Don't, it's a good soapbox to shout from.
Sep 01 2014
On Mon, 01 Sep 2014 16:06:10 -0400, Nick Sabalausky <SeeWebsiteToContactMe semitwist.com> wrote:On 9/1/2014 3:11 PM, Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d wrote:No.On Mon, 2014-09-01 at 09:43 +0000, monarch_dodra via Digitalmars-d wrote:Then again, it takes a certain kind of corporate greed to try to put a patent on things we'd have never thought of as "inventions".Aren't corporate and greed synonyms?That's actually true in much more than just a snide comment sort of way. A corporation is *legally obligated* to put shareholder profit above all other concerns. Either they act like greedy f&#ks or they risk getting the crap sued out of them. The problem is we've permitted, and promoted, a system where companies are owned by people (shareholders) whose *sole* interest in the company is purely financial.Not true. A corporation is run by its managers for the benefit of the shareholders. It's up to the shareholders to determine the best course of action, and what the value should be. I think what you are referring to is public companies, whose shareholder interest is often purely financial by definition. And yes, there are legal requirements to put the shareholders' interests above other concerns, but not ALL other concerns. There are MANY OTHER legal requirements as well. But as many people may surmise, maximizing profits isn't always the best course of action for shareholders' interests. There is a reason shareholders vote, it's to express their position on what the company should do, and that isn't always "screw all our customers and employees so we can make a few more bucks." See e.g. Market Basket.The *real* role of businesses in a society is to provide worthwhile goods and/or services. Revenue, and even profit, is ultimately just a necessary means to that end. But stocks and incorporation flip this around, to disastrous results.Please don't confuse publicly traded companies with corporations. The pure reason for a corporation existence is to shield owners from liability. In other words, if you sue a corporation, you can only go after the assets of the corporation, not the assets of its owners. A corporation can be a company owned by one or 2 people, who simply don't want to risk their entire family's assets to go into business. There is a LOT of misinformation and demonization of corporations going on in the US. It's actually quite sad that people have no idea what they are fighting for, or who they are demonizing. And yes, my family owns a corporation. -Steve
Sep 16 2014
On 09/16/2014 11:05 AM, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:On Mon, 01 Sep 2014 16:06:10 -0400, Nick Sabalausky <SeeWebsiteToContactMe semitwist.com> wrote:[...]That's actually true in much more than just a snide comment sort of way. A corporation is *legally obligated* to put shareholder profit above all other concerns. Either they act like greedy f&#ks or they risk getting the crap sued out of them. The problem is we've permitted, and promoted, a system where companies are owned by people (shareholders) whose *sole* interest in the company is purely financial.I think what you are referring to is public companies,Yes, sorry, I meant publicly traded corporation.
Sep 16 2014
Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> wrote:"First to file not first to invent" – by the corporations for the corporations. This should tell you everything you need to know about technological innovation in the USA.I think you misunderstood the "first to file" rule. In a strict "first to file" system (like in the EU), any early disclosure counts as prior art. First to file is only between two competing patent applications of an undisclosed invention. USA is a bit less strict and grants a grace period after disclosure.
Sep 02 2014
On Sun, 2014-08-31 at 22:56 -0700, Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d wrote:On 8/31/2014 10:15 PM, Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d wrote:But the USA patent law was changed from "first to invent" to "first to file" so it doesn't matter a jot who invented the invention, only who had the nous and cash to file. Irked no longer matters in the USA patent system, only having the cash to file. The USA patent system is a total mess and must be fought against, especially with the USA trying to enforce it on the rest of the world. EU patent office is already trying to be a subsidiary of the USPTO and it really stinks. Maybe get the EFF to help get a prior art notice registered with USPTO. Prior art is now the only tool and it is likely the USPTO will totally ignore submissions unless you have big-time lawyers on the case.I guess it must be a "keep patent lawyers in work" scheme.There's another aspect at work with this one. I'm a bit irked that something Andrei and I came up with in 2007 is claimed by others to have been invented 5 years later. A number of features pioneered by D have been showing up in other languages, and D has not been acknowledged.I'm happy to acknowledge ideas from other languages that have made it into D, and it is right for other languages to reciprocate.In the world of corporations this isn't going to happen, they do not give a shit about science, unless you have a massive offensive patent portfolio.What I don't intend to do is patent D's innovations. What D has done is our gift to the programming community. I'm also glad we're using github, as it is a fine way to document and timestamp the provenance of D's features.So prior art notification is the tool. EFF may be the best recourse. Lawyers will be able to prove that the repository history is fabricated by calling on high profile shills, aka expert witnesses. You have been involved in all this sort of stuff previously, as have I from a different perspective, nothing has changed except that sane people require even more cynicism to appreciate what is going on. The only good side of this is that if you ignore the USA market all the problems go away. Until the USA takes over the world – if the Chinese let them. -- Russel. ============================================================================= Dr Russel Winder t: +44 20 7585 2200 voip: sip:russel.winder ekiga.net 41 Buckmaster Road m: +44 7770 465 077 xmpp: russel winder.org.uk London SW11 1EN, UK w: www.russel.org.uk skype: russel_winder
Sep 01 2014
On Wednesday, 27 August 2014 at 21:19:47 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:On 8/27/2014 1:02 PM, "Jérôme M. Berger" wrote:Walter, Have you tried dropping the first two digit? 140196015 and 140196008? -- /Paolo InvernizziSo for patent number 20140196015, the application number is 13/734762 and for patent number 20140196008, the application number is 13/734750. Jerome"Required fields (Patent Number) cannot be empty or the data entered is incorrectly formatted." "The field contains over 9 characters which cannot be processed in the USPTO system."
Aug 31 2014
On 8/31/2014 11:59 PM, Paolo Invernizzi wrote:Have you tried dropping the first two digit? 140196015 and 140196008?Actually, yes. When the holiday is over, I plan on contacting the USPTO by phone.
Sep 01 2014
On Monday, 1 September 2014 at 19:45:17 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:On 8/31/2014 11:59 PM, Paolo Invernizzi wrote:Being on holiday at a crucial moment is dangerous, do you remember how Bill Gates got his first big job that started it all? :-)Have you tried dropping the first two digit? 140196015 and 140196008?Actually, yes. When the holiday is over, I plan on contacting the USPTO by phone.
Sep 01 2014
On Mon, 2014-09-01 at 21:01 +0000, Chris via Digitalmars-d wrote: […]Being on holiday at a crucial moment is dangerous, do you remember how Bill Gates got his first big job that started it all? :-)Bill Gates' mother told the then IBM CEO to hire Microsoft? -- Russel. ============================================================================= Dr Russel Winder t: +44 20 7585 2200 voip: sip:russel.winder ekiga.net 41 Buckmaster Road m: +44 7770 465 077 xmpp: russel winder.org.uk London SW11 1EN, UK w: www.russel.org.uk skype: russel_winder
Sep 01 2014
On Monday, 1 September 2014 at 21:35:04 UTC, Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d wrote:On Mon, 2014-09-01 at 21:01 +0000, Chris via Digitalmars-d wrote: […]Well, legend has it that he got the deal, because the DOS guy was on holidays. But your version is probably closer to the truth ;) I don't know how much truth is in the Wiki entry about this whole issue.Being on holiday at a crucial moment is dangerous, do you remember how Bill Gates got his first big job that started it all? :-)Bill Gates' mother told the then IBM CEO to hire Microsoft?
Sep 02 2014
On 8/26/2014 5:24 PM, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d wrote:On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 09:02:43PM +0000, MacAsm via Digitalmars-d wrote:I doubt very much the USPTO gives a rat's ass about prior art. Their strategy has been to sell patents to as many applicants as they can and let the courts sort them all out. (The gov like to pretend that that their court system, and therefore justice itself, doesn't cost $$$$$.) As for the specific patents, meh, I've long been convinced that it's physically impossible to write any useful software without inadvertently "infringing" on several US patents. I doubt very much that even a "Hello World" wouldn't involve anything that some patent could make a claim over. This is what happens when corporations are permitted free reign.On Tuesday, 26 August 2014 at 19:37:29 UTC, Max Klyga wrote:D has had immutable for years! Surely that counts as prior art?? Does the patent office accept prior art submissions?http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2014/0196008.html - IMMUTABLE OBJECT TYPES I really hope patent office will reject these applications.How bad will this be to D?
Aug 26 2014
On Tuesday, 26 August 2014 at 21:38:11 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:On 8/26/2014 5:24 PM, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d wrote:You guys should totally move to New Zealand. Seriously you would fit right in. Best part? No software patents.On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 09:02:43PM +0000, MacAsm via Digitalmars-d wrote:I doubt very much the USPTO gives a rat's ass about prior art. Their strategy has been to sell patents to as many applicants as they can and let the courts sort them all out. (The gov like to pretend that that their court system, and therefore justice itself, doesn't cost $$$$$.) As for the specific patents, meh, I've long been convinced that it's physically impossible to write any useful software without inadvertently "infringing" on several US patents. I doubt very much that even a "Hello World" wouldn't involve anything that some patent could make a claim over. This is what happens when corporations are permitted free reign.On Tuesday, 26 August 2014 at 19:37:29 UTC, Max Klyga wrote:D has had immutable for years! Surely that counts as prior art?? Does the patent office accept prior art submissions?http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2014/0196008.html - IMMUTABLE OBJECT TYPES I really hope patent office will reject these applications.How bad will this be to D?
Aug 26 2014
On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 10:52:17PM +0000, Rikki Cattermole via Digitalmars-d wrote: [,..]You guys should totally move to New Zealand. Seriously you would fit right in. Best part? No software patents.New D-land FTW! ;-) T -- Once the bikeshed is up for painting, the rainbow won't suffice. -- Andrei Alexandrescu
Aug 26 2014
On 8/26/2014 6:52 PM, Rikki Cattermole wrote:You guys should totally move to New Zealand. Seriously you would fit right in. Best part? No software patents.Nice. I've heard that a lot of the scenery is stunning over there, too. Slow and expensive electronics importing AIUI, but maybe that'd be in my best interest anyway...biggest thing to raise my blood pressure lately was my last trip to MicroCenter[1]. As soon as I finally snap and go all luddite hermit or something, maybe that's where I'll retire ;) New Zealand that is, not MicroCenter. [1] http://www.microcenter.com/site/stores/default.aspx
Aug 26 2014
On Wednesday, 27 August 2014 at 03:00:26 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:On 8/26/2014 6:52 PM, Rikki Cattermole wrote:Take it easy. The most important things are the ideas and the software. The latests gadgets are for users :-)You guys should totally move to New Zealand. Seriously you would fit right in. Best part? No software patents.Nice. I've heard that a lot of the scenery is stunning over there, too. Slow and expensive electronics importing AIUI, but maybe that'd be in my best interest anyway...biggest thing to raise my blood pressure lately was my last trip to MicroCenter[1].As soon as I finally snap and go all luddite hermit or something, maybe that's where I'll retire ;) New Zealand that is, not MicroCenter.Swapping your chip for sheep.[1] http://www.microcenter.com/site/stores/default.aspx
Aug 27 2014
On 8/27/2014 5:20 AM, Chris wrote:On Wednesday, 27 August 2014 at 03:00:26 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:Unfortunately I need to use those gadgets in order to write software on/for them. :/ Heh, man, all I wanted was to find a reasonable inexpensive laptop, that won't choke on Linux, and be certain VT-x was supported in the big three: CPU, mainboard and BIOS. (And the CPU I was looking at supports VT-d too, so I was curious to see if it was actually *usable*, ie not blocked by lack of support in mainboard/BIOS, 'cause that could influence my choice of exact model.) Back in the 90's that all would have been trivial: Slap CPUID (or some 90's equivalent thereof) onto the machine and run it. Heck, published specs used to be detailed and, well, somewhat less unreliable. But these days everyone's so afraid of their own shadow, they've got everything locked down so tightly that the demo units may as well be cardboard props. And expecting published spec to be both complete and accurate? Pfft. No buzzwords == hide the info. And then there's having to hear all of the dumb things coming out of the sales monkeys mouths. Like the password-protected windows admin account being referred to as a "firewall". Or the word "cloud" used for freaking *everything* (with no utterance of the *real* word: "Internet"). And *all* the verbal nonsense always coming with a heavy dose of suited-smugness and self-assuredness. 'Course, I blame "portlandian" silicon valley for that whole "cloud" bs. But whatever. And then there's all the glare-magnet fingerprinted glossy half-height screens, DRM and lockouts to deal with even *after* you buy it, basic-yet-still-missing features that some suit decided I don't need because it saves twenty cents, etc, etc...Ugh. Computing used to be fun. Now it's just corporate paranoia, warring and idiocy. And that's just *real* computers, I haven't even mentioned "phones"...Nice. I've heard that a lot of the scenery is stunning over there, too. Slow and expensive electronics importing AIUI, but maybe that'd be in my best interest anyway...biggest thing to raise my blood pressure lately was my last trip to MicroCenter[1].Take it easy. The most important things are the ideas and the software. The latests gadgets are for users :-)Sheep are fuzzy!! And tasty! I like! :)As soon as I finally snap and go all luddite hermit or something, maybe that's where I'll retire ;) New Zealand that is, not MicroCenter.Swapping your chip for sheep.
Aug 27 2014
On Tuesday, 26 August 2014 at 21:26:36 UTC, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d wrote:D has had immutable for years! Surely that counts as prior art??If the patent passes for whatever reason, this becomes a valid point if and only if you have the resources to contest its validity. The patent holder can effectively strongarm you into paying for licensing unless you have the (upwards of) hundreds of thousands of dollars needed for lawyer fees. They need only to drag out the court proceedings to starve you monetarily and win by walkover. It's not a far stretch to make an analogy to protection rackets, and it seems to me that the very point of patents has been subverted.
Aug 27 2014
I think they're about 40 years late on these patents...
Aug 26 2014
On 8/26/14, 12:37 PM, Max Klyga wrote:Microsoft being microsoft again. http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2014/0196015.html - DECLARATION OF LIFETIME OF RESOURCE REFERENCE This contains description of scoped classes, etc. http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2014/0196008.html - IMMUTABLE OBJECT TYPES I really hope patent office will reject these applications.Now on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/2eohiv/microsoft_filed_patent_applications_for_scoped Two links of interest you may want to contribute to: https://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/10128/prior-art-for-us-patent-application-20140196008-immutable-object-types https://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/10122/looking-for-prior-art-for-patent-application-us20140196015-declaration-of-lifet Andrei
Aug 27 2014
On 8/26/2014 12:37 PM, Max Klyga wrote:Microsoft being microsoft again. http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2014/0196015.html - DECLARATION OF LIFETIME OF RESOURCE REFERENCE This contains description of scoped classes, etc. http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2014/0196008.html - IMMUTABLE OBJECT TYPES I really hope patent office will reject these applications.The first release of D 2.000 in 2007 had transitive immutable types in it.
Aug 27 2014
On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 11:59:12AM -0700, Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d wrote:On 8/26/2014 12:37 PM, Max Klyga wrote:Since you're the inventor of D, perhaps it would be best if you could submit a prior art submission to the patent office? (Somebody has already posted links earlier in this thread where you can submit it to them directly.) T -- May you live all the days of your life. -- Jonathan SwiftMicrosoft being microsoft again. http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2014/0196015.html - DECLARATION OF LIFETIME OF RESOURCE REFERENCE This contains description of scoped classes, etc. http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2014/0196008.html - IMMUTABLE OBJECT TYPES I really hope patent office will reject these applications.The first release of D 2.000 in 2007 had transitive immutable types in it.
Aug 27 2014
On Tue, 26 Aug 2014 22:37:29 +0300 Max Klyga via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> wrote:Microsoft being microsoft again. =20 http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2014/0196015.html - DECLARATION OF=20 LIFETIME OF RESOURCE REFERENCE This contains description of scoped classes, etc. =20 http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2014/0196008.html - IMMUTABLE OBJECT TYPES =20 I really hope patent office will reject these applications.support Windows, give m$ more money.
Aug 26 2014
This doesn't bode well... Capcom is currently trying to sue another company on a patented function which basically allows a game to be updated/modified/expanded, yet there are examples of those techniques being used for 20 years before they patented their function. Although M$ doing this seems more like a move in order to muscle their way in for other things. Take the actions of their actions regarding Novell. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/rms-why-gplv3.html [quote] Another threat that GPLv3 resists is that of patent deals like the Novell-Microsoft pact. Microsoft wants to use its thousands of patents to make users pay Microsoft for the privilege of running GNU/Linux, and made this pact to try to achieve that. The deal offers rather limited protection from Microsoft patents to Novell's customers. [/quote] It feels like they are trying to make a monopoly where they are the only ones able to make compilers, and anything with 'more useful features' have to pay them royalties or get a very expensive & limited license in order to be left alone. Of course there's other cases similar where idiots try to copyright the symbol pi, so they can then exploit it in order to sue companies and individuals for easy cash...
Aug 30 2014
On 8/30/2014 9:49 PM, Era Scarecrow wrote:Although M$ doing this seems more like a move in order to muscle their way in for other things. Take the actions of their actions regarding Novell. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/rms-why-gplv3.html [quote] Another threat that GPLv3 resists is that of patent deals like the Novell-Microsoft pact. Microsoft wants to use its thousands of patents to make users pay Microsoft for the privilege of running GNU/Linux, and made this pact to try to achieve that. The deal offers rather limited protection from Microsoft patents to Novell's customers. [/quote] It feels like they are trying to make a monopoly where they are the only ones able to make compilers, and anything with 'more useful features' have to pay them royalties or get a very expensive & limited license in order to be left alone. Of course there's other cases similar where idiots try to copyright the symbol pi, so they can then exploit it in order to sue companies and individuals for easy cash...Y'know, that link above is a good example of why FSF and GPL bug me. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a "GPL vs BSD" guy. I genuinely believe both have their place, and the difference lies in is what your, and your project's, exact goals are. And I completely agree with the full extent of Stallman's famously ultra-strict villainization of closed-box proprietary shackle-ware. That shit pisses me off far more than it does most people. And I *do* appreciate that GPL, unlike BSD, can *realistically* be cross-licensed with a commercial license in a meaningful way and used on paid commercial software (at least, I *think* so, based on what little anyone actually *can* comprehend of the incomprehensible GPL). I *do* agree with Stallman's views, even most of the more extreme ones, I *want* to like FSF and GPL, but... ...but then there's stuff like that link above. He keeps harping on how MS is being evil, and GPL v3 prevents the evil MS is attempting...but jesus crap he *WILL NOT* spend ONE FUCKING WORD on ***HOW*** the shit any of that supposedly works. We're supposed to just blindly accept all of it just like the good little corporate whores he keeps trying to crusade that we *shouldn't* be. Shit. The FSF constantly sounds just like one of those worthless pro-issue #XX / anti-issue #XX asshats we have to put up with every voting season: Stallman: MS is being EEEEeeevil!! Me: Um. Ok. I honestly don't doubt that. How are they doing this? Stallman: They're being evil!! With the evil MS-Novell pact! Me: God dammit, Rick, *HOW*?!? Stallman: ... Stallman: EEEVIIILL!!! Me: Fuck. Fine. Forget it. So tell me about your GPL v3. Stallman: It stops the MS eeeeviiil!!! Tivoization is bad! Upgrade to GPL v3! Stallman: (But don't feel pressured to upgrade. But do it anyway. Have I used the word "tivoization" yet?) Me: Ok, *how* does your GPL v3 stop the MS evil? Stallman: [Full, detailed explanation of DVD's anti-competitive backdoor shenanigans] Me: Yes, I'm well aware of that. Let's try this again: How does your GPL v3 stop *the MS-Novell evil* that you were just...sort of...telling me about? Stallman: It stops it. Duh. Because it's freedom! FREEDOM! Did I mention I live under my desk? Me: ... Stallman: Also, my awesome GPL(v3) is so fucking awesome IT EVEN FREAKING **BANS ITSELF(v2)**! How freaking FREEDOM is that!?! Sweet, right?! FREEEEDOOOOMMM!!! Me: Goddammit Stallman, GTF out of here.
Aug 30 2014
On Sunday, 31 August 2014 at 04:25:11 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:He keeps harping on how MS is being evil, and GPL v3 prevents the evil MS is attempting...but jesus crap he *WILL NOT* spend ONE FUCKING WORD on ***HOW*** the shit any of that supposedly works. We're supposed to just blindly accept all of it just like the good little corporate whores he keeps trying to crusade that we *shouldn't* be. Shit.If it's something like being on the news floor where they are talking to him, he doesn't have time. The loopholes he is talking about could take an hour of talk, not only in legal speak but in references and how things connect from law A to law B to law C, and how things actually work to the written letter of the law for an individual state (not to mention the whole country). They honestly aren't going to give him more than 5 minutes of screen time which means quite often for the large majority of people you have to greatly simplify it and keep it understandable for the general populous. The impression i got on the Novell pact: M$ would have acquired certain copyright ownership of all the programs that the OS contained. This would include programs such as: sort, awk, sed, grep, sh, tar, cpio, cp, mv, etc. Now since they have partial ownership, rights of all related programs that duplicate their effects fall under M$'s curfew (regardless who wrote them); They could start hampering on anyone trying to distribute OSes that involve any of these programs required to make the OS run, or sue them into the ground for infringing on copyright or patents; Thereby either you paid to keep the software somewhat free (probably each and every version/subversion) or they would gain total monopoly and Windows is the only OS you can get your hands on which you pay your usual $100-$200 for. I'm not sure how close i hit the bullseye, but i would imagine i'm not too far off. And if taken to court, they have the money and the influence to win regardless if they are right or wrong.
Aug 30 2014
On 8/31/2014 12:57 AM, Era Scarecrow wrote:On Sunday, 31 August 2014 at 04:25:11 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:Well, that page was an article written and posted by Stallman, not a TV sound bite.He keeps harping on how MS is being evil, and GPL v3 prevents the evil MS is attempting...but jesus crap he *WILL NOT* spend ONE FUCKING WORD on ***HOW*** the shit any of that supposedly works. We're supposed to just blindly accept all of it just like the good little corporate whores he keeps trying to crusade that we *shouldn't* be. Shit.If it's something like being on the news floor where they are talking to him, he doesn't have time. The loopholes he is talking about could take an hour of talk, not only in legal speak but in references and how things connect from law A to law B to law C, and how things actually work to the written letter of the law for an individual state (not to mention the whole country). They honestly aren't going to give him more than 5 minutes of screen time which means quite often for the large majority of people you have to greatly simplify it and keep it understandable for the general populous.The impression i got on the Novell pact: M$ would have acquired certain copyright ownership of all the programs that the OS contained. This would include programs such as: sort, awk, sed, grep, sh, tar, cpio, cp, mv, etc. Now since they have partial ownership, rights of all related programs that duplicate their effects fall under M$'s curfew (regardless who wrote them); They could start hampering on anyone trying to distribute OSes that involve any of these programs required to make the OS run, or sue them into the ground for infringing on copyright or patents; Thereby either you paid to keep the software somewhat free (probably each and every version/subversion) or they would gain total monopoly and Windows is the only OS you can get your hands on which you pay your usual $100-$200 for. I'm not sure how close i hit the bullseye, but i would imagine i'm not too far off. And if taken to court, they have the money and the influence to win regardless if they are right or wrong.Yea could be. And again, I don't doubt it. I just wish Stallman would have stepped out of evangelist mode long enough to be straightforward about things. And not pretend that "GPL incompatible with GPL" somehow isn't one hell of a gaping whole in that big 'ol "GPL == Freeeedooooom!!!!" assertion. In a more general sense, I think Stallman/FSF have a very unfortunate habit of letting the strict goals and evangelism get in the way of the practical realities of actually *attaining* said goals and successfully getting the messages across. Another example of that self-defeat: The OS distros which staunchly exclude non-open software (codecs, drivers, etc). Heck, I'm totally with Stallman that that stuff is horrible and we need to work against it. But if you're saying... "Here, use our OS, it's more ethical. Oh and BTW it won't let you watch your beloved dancing pig Flash animations without putting up a fight. (Or even easily connect to the internet at all if you have the wrong wireless chipset...You *DO* know the make and model of the chipset your motherboard uses for 802.11 don't you? Huh? Whadda mean 'Greek'?? It's Engl...oh.)" If you're doing that, then all you accomplish is hijacking your own cause. Nobody cares about your/our/his cause, they care about their dancing pigs and bowling elves. People will just stick with systems that are even LESS open, not more. It just won't work. That's why we have Mint and such. To make the transition easy and painless enough that even minor, unappreciated reasons like "ethincs" and "freedom" are enough to draw them over and hurt the shackleware peddler's bottom line. And that kinda leads to another example: I know FSF prefers "free" over the "open" I've been using. But really, everybody knows what "open" and "open source" mean, and it's *not* confusing and ambiguous. So the whole "free" obsession is just semantic pedantry that introduces ambiguity and confusion ("free as in...what, which 'free' now? Because Linux...I mean GNU/Linux...is both types, right?") and distracts people from the more important matters.
Aug 30 2014
On Sun, 31 Aug 2014 01:53:07 -0400 Nick Sabalausky via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> wrote:I know FSF prefers "free" over the "open" I've been using. But really, everybody knows what "open" and "open source" meanmay i ask you: is DMD "open" and "open source"? and why the heck i can't fork it and redistribute, if it's "open"? everyone has it's own definition of what is "open" and what is "free".
Aug 30 2014
On Sunday, 31 August 2014 at 05:53:39 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:Well, that page was an article written and posted by Stallman, not a TV sound bite.Would you really be able to sift though possibly a 10-100 page description that you can't properly decipher unless you were a lawyer?straightforward about things. And not pretend that "GPL incompatible with GPL" somehow isn't one hell of a gaping whole in that big 'ol "GPL == Freeeedooooom!!!!" assertion.The updated GPL handles cases that weren't come up with before the previous version was drafted. Like you mentioned with Tivoization.In a more general sense, I think Stallman/FSF have a very unfortunate habit of letting the strict goals and evangelism get in the way of the practical realities of actually *attaining* said goals and successfully getting the messages across.He is strict probably because taking any steps back could have horrible consequences. Sometimes you can't accept the lesser evil.I know FSF prefers "free" over the "open" I've been using. But really, everybody knows what "open" and "open source" mean, and it's *not* confusing and ambiguous. So the whole "free" obsession is just semantic pedantry that introduces ambiguity and confusion ("free as in...what, which 'free' now? Because Linux...I mean GNU/Linux...is both types, right?") and distracts people from the more important matters.I always thought he was quite clear on what kind of 'free' he was talking about. But i guess more importantly is to see things from his view. Stallman was around when software was free and sources were open; There was no copyright in effect, and everyone helped with everything; You shared source and specs and programs and got your work done. Then NDA (Non-disclosure agreements) and closed source from corporations preventing you from being able to help everyone because they didn't want to share the source or specs on how to use it. (At the time it was XeroX printers i believe) which was a big warning of what was to come. He watched first hand as software and the computer industry went from thriving and open and growing, to closed and proprietary and secretive. His goal and wish is never to have it all so closed again that can't do anything besides sell your ethics or soul to get by day to day. On Sunday, 31 August 2014 at 06:19:24 UTC, ketmar via Digitalmars-d wrote:everyone has it's own definition of what is "open" and what is "free".With lack of understanding, it's similar to comparing what is sweet when you have grapefruit coated with sugar vs an orange. Stallman has a strict criteria of what is 'free', but he refers to it as a programmer. You are free to run the program, to look at the source, to improve the source, to share the source... It has nothing to do with price/money. 'Open' can merely means you can see the source, nothing else. Really comes down to the license it's attached to.
Aug 30 2014
On Sun, 31 Aug 2014 06:59:34 +0000 Era Scarecrow via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> wrote:'Open' can merely means you can see the source, nothing else.=20 Really comes down to the license it's attached to.that's why i'm using the term "Free and Open Source Software" instead of "Open Source Software" (which ESR promotes).
Aug 31 2014
On 8/31/2014 2:59 AM, Era Scarecrow wrote:On Sunday, 31 August 2014 at 05:53:39 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:I have a hard time believing there's no middle ground there. Shoot, even theoretical physics has simplified explanations ("A Brief History of Time"). No doubt this could be summarized too without resorting to "MS try be bad. GPLv3 stop MS be bad. Ug."Well, that page was an article written and posted by Stallman, not a TV sound bite.Would you really be able to sift though possibly a 10-100 page description that you can't properly decipher unless you were a lawyer?Yea, I know there were reasons a new version needed to be created. But if a license designed with the specific and sole purpose of promoting openness can't even get along with another version itself, then something's clearly gone horribly, horribly wrong with it. I can link BSD 2-clause, 3-clause and even 4-clause all into the same program just fine. Forget the usual "BSD vs GPL" argument about GPL viral unwillingness to play nice with other licenses, the thing can't even play nice with *itself*! Know what I really want to see? I wanna see some smart-ass make a GPL program statically linking GPLv2 code with GPLv3 code. Then drift it past the FSF's nose. I'd be fascinated to see what happens. Does FSF conveniently drop the "GPLv2 and GPLv3 are incompatible" bullshit and just let it slide? Or do they lawyer-up in an idiotic brawl against their own creations? Or do their heads just spin around, let out a puff of smoke and explode?straightforward about things. And not pretend that "GPL incompatible with GPL" somehow isn't one hell of a gaping whole in that big 'ol "GPL == Freeeedooooom!!!!" assertion.The updated GPL handles cases that weren't come up with before the previous version was drafted. Like you mentioned with Tivoization.So, through his stubbornness to accept the lesser as a stepping stone to his ultimate goal, he allows the larger evil to thrive instead. Brilliant strategy. Bravo. A real win for freedom. It's like a little kid kicking and screaming about not getting a 20lb crate of candy when he's already being offered a chocolate bar the size of his head. Or a third place runner who pouts and storms off because he didn't get the gold. Take what you *can* get, and *then* continue moving towards the real goal. All-or-nothing is self-defeat.In a more general sense, I think Stallman/FSF have a very unfortunate habit of letting the strict goals and evangelism get in the way of the practical realities of actually *attaining* said goals and successfully getting the messages across.He is strict probably because taking any steps back could have horrible consequences. Sometimes you can't accept the lesser evil.Stallman was around when software was free and sources were open; There was no copyright in effect, and everyone helped with everything; You shared source and specs and programs and got your work done. Then NDA (Non-disclosure agreements) and closed source from corporations preventing you from being able to help everyone because they didn't want to share the source or specs on how to use it. (At the time it was XeroX printers i believe) which was a big warning of what was to come. He watched first hand as software and the computer industry went from thriving and open and growing, to closed and proprietary and secretive. His goal and wish is never to have it all so closed again that can't do anything besides sell your ethics or soul to get by day to day.Yea, that's a fascinating story. But honestly, I really am totally with him on all that. I *really* genuinely am, no BS. But reality doesn't give a crap how much he wants openness or what his background is: Things aren't going to go his way just because he wants it badly enough. He has attempt his goals within the framework of reality. Displace proprietary junk in favor of open? Hell yea, I'll take some of that. Absolutely. But without giving people what they want, even if what they want happens to include a little bit of *eeeeviiilll* closed stuff, then THEY'RE NOT FUCKING GONNA JUMP ON BOARD. It just NOT going to happen. It's been how many freaking decades and it *HASN'T* happened. Has he really not noticed, after all those years, that the puritanical all-or-nothing approach DOES NOT WORK? Shoot, "pragmatic" distros like Mint and Ubuntu have done FAR more to get people onboard with, and embracing, and pushing for more open software than ANY purity distro. This is plainly evident. He can't *not* see it. It's basic marketing: Offer them what they want. Give them a taste. They might want more. But *don't* offer what they want, and you seriously think you'll get takers? Fat chance. I'm not sure Stallman really gets this. Or if he does, then he's too stubborn about it for his own good. (And believe me, I know a thing or two about being stubborn ;)) Luckily, he has followers who *do* grasp basic marketing and *do* get it right (again, Mint and Ubuntu as a couple modern examples), and *they're* the ones dragging his stubborn idealism down the road towards success. Seriously, I have about a metric shit-ton of direct experience being highly non-mainstream on things. Stubbornly so. And I've watched things in the world go from good, to bad, to worse. Believe me, I know from experience: You do NOT get people onboard with something by trying to convince them. And certainly not by wanting them to or telling them to. *No* amount of well-reasoned well-explained logic works, at least not on any meaningful scale. People don't get logic, people don't like reason, people don't give a crap what sounds good on paper or what's in their best interest. "In my best interest" is boring. Dancing cats aren't. No, the way to get them onboard with something is to make it *into* what they want. Or at least make it appear to be what they think they want (Most people can't tell the difference). Give them the right gimmicky dumb hook, and they'll bite just about anything (Steve Jobs proved that...man did he prove that...to an incredibly depressing degree). Luckily, it'll work even on something people find as unpalatable as ethics and their own freedom. tl;dr: Gotta hide that vitamin in people's doggie biscuit. It's usually the only way.'Open' can merely means you can see the source, nothing else. Really comes down to the license it's attached to.We can bang the dictionary all we want, but really, aside from the ultra-pedantics, nobody actually means that narrow definition when they say "open source".
Aug 31 2014
On Sunday, 31 August 2014 at 09:23:28 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:I have a hard time believing there's no middle ground there. Shoot, even theoretical physics has simplified explanations ("A Brief History of Time"). No doubt this could be summarized too without resorting to "MS try be bad. GPLv3 stop MS be bad. Ug."It's all based on the legal system and if it is taken to court, so that's where it's at. I'd love to say there's no middle ground, but i honestly don't know. Could ask him for exact details.But if a license designed with the specific and sole purpose of promoting openness can't even get along with another version itself, then something's clearly gone horribly, horribly wrong with it.I've glanced over sources and put in my own for License GPLv2 or later. Each progressive version adds more protection. It's probably only incompatible so someone can't take a GPLv3 of a program and slap a GPLv2 on it 'cause it's compatible' then use the lesser protection to get around it for which the v3 was specifically giving. Beyond that both licenses work to grant and protect the author as much as possible.I can link BSD 2-clause, 3-clause and even 4-clause all into the same program just fine. Forget the usual "BSD vs GPL" argument about GPL viral unwillingness to play nice with other licenses, the thing can't even play nice with *itself*!The viral nature is to ensure programs and software grows (hopefully) and stays to it's original intent. A sed program suddenly no longer being free or changing owners would be scooped up by a greedy company in a heartbeat, especially if it's heavily used.Know what I really want to see? I wanna see some smart-ass make a GPL program statically linking GPLv2 code with GPLv3 code. Then drift it past the FSF's nose. I'd be fascinated to see what happens. Does FSF conveniently drop the "GPLv2 and GPLv3 are incompatible" bullshit and just let it slide? Or do they lawyer-up in an idiotic brawl against their own creations? Or do their heads just spin around, let out a puff of smoke and explode?As for GPLv2 and GPLv3 code, depends on the license in the sourcecode. As mentioned the GPLv2 code could automatically be upgraded as it would offer no disadvantages, especially if the source says you can use v2 or later... no problems. Course if some software does have to link there's always the LGPL for libraries and whatnot...But reality doesn't give a crap how much he wants openness or what his background is: Things aren't going to go his way just because he wants it badly enough. He has attempt his goals within the framework of reality. <snip>The ones to control who or what works is the people who vote with their wallets. If no one buys proprietary software, then it won't work. Unfortunately even if no citizens bought it, businesses still do. It's entirely possible things will go his way, and i surely hope so since the vision is a very good one. However i don't feel up to a really long rant or discussion on this, this isn't why i brought this all up.We can bang the dictionary all we want, but really, aside from the ultra-pedantics, nobody actually means that narrow definition when they say "open source".Perhaps not. But quite often you can only take it 'to the letter'. And the lawyers love to take it 'to the letter'; Along with companies that own the 'open source' that is spoken about.
Aug 31 2014
On Sunday, 31 August 2014 at 09:23:28 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:Shoot, "pragmatic" distros like Mint and Ubuntu have done FAR more to get people onboard with, and embracing, and pushing for more open software than ANY purity distro. This is plainly evident. He can't *not* see it.What distro are they based on? :)It's basic marketing: Offer them what they want.Sure, but it's technically impossible yet. Hence things are the way they are. There's no easy way to talk away real technical issues.*No* amount of well-reasoned well-explained logic works, at least not on any meaningful scale. People don't get logic, people don't like reason, people don't give a crap what sounds good on paper or what's in their best interest. "In my best interest" is boring. Dancing cats aren't.If people don't get logic, don't ask Stallman to appeal to logic, because, as you correctly pointed out, there's no point to do that.
Sep 01 2014
On Sunday, 31 August 2014 at 09:23:28 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:Yea, I know there were reasons a new version needed to be created. But if a license designed with the specific and sole purpose of promoting openness can't even get along with another version itself, then something's clearly gone horribly, horribly wrong with it. I can link BSD 2-clause, 3-clause and even 4-clause all into the same program just fine. Forget the usual "BSD vs GPL" argument about GPL viral unwillingness to play nice with other licenses, the thing can't even play nice with *itself*!AFAIK GPL3 is incompatible with any license, which doesn't address patent problem, not just GPL2. Think of it as a next generation of opensource licenses.
Sep 04 2014
On Thursday, 4 September 2014 at 08:24:37 UTC, Kagamin wrote:AFAIK GPL3 is incompatible with any license, which doesn't address patent problem, not just GPL2. Think of it as a next generation of opensource licenses.GPL3 is not incompatible with GPL2, because GPL2 has a clause that allows you to upgrade to any later version of the GPL. GPL3 can use modules under the following common licenses: GPL2, LGPL2, LGPL3, modified 3-clause BSD, Apache v2, FreeBSD, Boost, Mozilla Public License, Intel Open Source License, W3C, and many others… http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLCompatibleLicenses
Sep 04 2014
On Thursday, 4 September 2014 at 08:35:49 UTC, Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:On Thursday, 4 September 2014 at 08:24:37 UTC, Kagamin wrote:Hmm...AFAIK GPL3 is incompatible with any license, which doesn't address patent problem, not just GPL2. Think of it as a next generation of opensource licenses.GPL3 is not incompatible with GPL2, because GPL2 has a clause that allows you to upgrade to any later version of the GPL. GPL3 can use modules under the following common licenses: GPL2, LGPL2, LGPL3, modified 3-clause BSD, Apache v2, FreeBSD, Boost, Mozilla Public License, Intel Open Source License, W3C, and many others… http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLCompatibleLicensesPlease note that GPLv2 is, by itself, not compatible with GPLv3. However, most software released under GPLv2 allows you to use the terms of later versions of the GPL as well.Boost does indeed allow to use software free of charge. Does it really prevent patent claims? What if they come in form other than royalties?
Sep 04 2014
On Thursday, 4 September 2014 at 08:35:49 UTC, Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:On Thursday, 4 September 2014 at 08:24:37 UTC, Kagamin wrote:This is wrong. By itself, GPLv2 is indeed incompatible with GPLv3. However, many (most?) projects using the GPLv2 in fact say "or any later version" in their licensing conditions, as recommended by the FSF. I don't think that this is a proper part of the license, however. DavidAFAIK GPL3 is incompatible with any license, which doesn't address patent problem, not just GPL2. Think of it as a next generation of opensource licenses.GPL3 is not incompatible with GPL2, because GPL2 has a clause that allows you to upgrade to any later version of the GPL.
Sep 04 2014
On Thursday, 4 September 2014 at 14:54:31 UTC, David Nadlinger wrote:On Thursday, 4 September 2014 at 08:35:49 UTC, Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:It is: « 9. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions of the General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns. Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation.» And the following text is recommended to be put in each source file: «<one line to give the program's name and a brief idea of what it does.> Copyright (C) <year> <name of author> This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA.»On Thursday, 4 September 2014 at 08:24:37 UTC, Kagamin wrote:This is wrong. By itself, GPLv2 is indeed incompatible with GPLv3. However, many (most?) projects using the GPLv2 in fact say "or any later version" in their licensing conditions, as recommended by the FSF. I don't think that this is a proper part of the license, however.AFAIK GPL3 is incompatible with any license, which doesn't address patent problem, not just GPL2. Think of it as a next generation of opensource licenses.GPL3 is not incompatible with GPL2, because GPL2 has a clause that allows you to upgrade to any later version of the GPL.
Sep 04 2014
On 5 September 2014 04:20, via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> wrote:And the following text is recommended to be put in each source file:<snip>You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA.»No one should really use the 51 Franklin Street reference anymore. This is instead replaced with: If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>. Iain.
Sep 05 2014
On Friday, 5 September 2014 at 09:34:23 UTC, Iain Buclaw via Digitalmars-d wrote:No one should really use the 51 Franklin Street reference anymore. This is instead replaced with: If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.Then FSF should update their own website: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html
Sep 05 2014
On Sunday, 31 August 2014 at 09:23:28 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:Know what I really want to see? I wanna see some smart-ass make a GPL program statically linking GPLv2 code with GPLv3 code. Then drift it past the FSF's nose. I'd be fascinated to see what happens.1. You can statically link GPL2 code with GPL3 code if you have received the source code through proper channels. I think you are confusing GPL2 with Linux "GPL" which isn't GPL2. Linus removed the upgrade clause, thus creating an island for Linux. Bad idea in my opinion. If you want to use a license, use it unmodified or write your own… 2. FSF becomes a party if it has copyright to the code. Otherwise the author of the codebase is the only source for litigation. The author can relicense the code in any license he wants. GPL is based on international copyright treaties, it gives you rights as a recipient (if you received it in a legal manner), but does not take away publishing rights from the author.
Sep 04 2014
On 9/4/2014 4:56 AM, "Ola Fosheim Grøstad" <ola.fosheim.grostad+dlang gmail.com>" wrote:On Sunday, 31 August 2014 at 09:23:28 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:I was just going by what Stallman said in the article linked to earlier: "When we say that GPLv2 and GPLv3 are incompatible, it means there is no legal way to combine code under GPLv2 with code under GPLv3 in a single program. This is because both GPLv2 and GPLv3 are copyleft licenses: each of them says, “If you include code under this license in a larger program, the larger program must be under this license too.” There is no way to make them compatible. We could add a GPLv2-compatibility clause to GPLv3, but it wouldn't do the job, because GPLv2 would need a similar clause." - Richard Stallman: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/rms-why-gplv3.html I think this thread, and every other discussion of GPL on the net, demonstrate one of my earlier points: GPL is freaking confusing.Know what I really want to see? I wanna see some smart-ass make a GPL program statically linking GPLv2 code with GPLv3 code. Then drift it past the FSF's nose. I'd be fascinated to see what happens.1. You can statically link GPL2 code with GPL3 code if you have received the source code through proper channels. I think you are confusing GPL2 with Linux "GPL" which isn't GPL2.
Sep 04 2014
On Friday, 5 September 2014 at 06:23:45 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:I think this thread, and every other discussion of GPL on the net, demonstrate one of my earlier points: GPL is freaking confusing.Yeah, it is probably not a good idea to use GPL if you don't agree with the political views of FSF and the policy-making they are championing. The idea that an external party, that you are not affiliated with, can change the license of an author is extraordinary! And probably at at odds with what is taken as basic authorship rights in some jurisdictions. But it might stand a chance if the author explicitly grant FSF the right to do it in every single source file… It makes it more difficult for the author to claim that he has been tricked by FSF to give them the authority without understanding the consequences fully. Some of the GPL weirdness is caused by FSF using copyright treaties to take away authorship rights in all countries, while the treaties are about granting the author rights in all countries.
Sep 05 2014
On Friday, 5 September 2014 at 08:39:06 UTC, Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:The idea that an external party, that you are not affiliated with, can change the license of an author is extraordinary!Indeed, what if MS buys FSF and releases GPL4? Everyone will be screwed.And probably at at odds with what is taken as basic authorship rights in some jurisdictions. But it might stand a chance if the author explicitly grant FSF the right to do it in every single source file…Well, this is what the author does: grants the right to relicense to everybody. It's granted outside GPL, so one can't refer to GPL being hard to understand.
Sep 05 2014
On Friday, 5 September 2014 at 09:26:22 UTC, Kagamin wrote:Indeed, what if MS buys FSF and releases GPL4? Everyone will be screwed.It has to be in the spirit of GPL according to clause 9, so GPL4 has to be aligned with the current FSF philosophies...Well, this is what the author does: grants the right to relicense to everybody. It's granted outside GPL, so one can't refer to GPL being hard to understand.Not sure what you meant with this. GPL grants the legal recipient of the object the right to obtain the source code and create copies of it under the same terms. But you cannot claim the right to the source without having obtained the object in a legal manner first and you cannot demand that others give you a copy. (Matters little for wide distributions… but a group of people could in theory cross license programs under GPL and have a mutual non-distribution agreement that if broken would cause full distribution of all the programs.) So anyone sitting on a GPL2 licensed object with a valid upgrade clause can release it as GPL3? And you can relicense a derived work built on top of GPL2 as GPL2+another license that does not contradict the rights granted by GPL2?
Sep 05 2014
On Fri, 05 Sep 2014 02:23:09 -0400 Nick Sabalausky via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> wrote:I think this thread, and every other discussion of GPL on the net,=20 demonstrate one of my earlier points: GPL is freaking confusing.i can't see anything confusing here. v2 and v3 can't be mixed, but any *properly* licensed v2 software can be upgraded to v3, due to "or any later version...". and those who artificially broke this upgrade system using GPL not the way it's intended to use. it's not forbidden, just plain stupid.
Sep 05 2014
On 31 August 2014 06:53, Nick Sabalausky via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> wrote:I know FSF prefers "free" over the "open" I've been using. But really, everybody knows what "open" and "open source" mean, and it's *not* confusing and ambiguous. So the whole "free" obsession is just semantic pedantry that introduces ambiguity and confusion ("free as in...what, which 'free' now? Because Linux...I mean GNU/Linux...is both types, right?") and distracts people from the more important matters.I find that using the term "open source" is like using the term "cloud computing". It's a buzzword to make free software sound more attractive to commercial businesses. By preferring the term "free" over "open", you are merely pointing out that a "Waste Management and Disposal Technician" is just a "Bin-man", no matter what angle you take on it. Iain.
Aug 31 2014
On 8/31/2014 6:16 PM, Iain Buclaw via Digitalmars-d wrote:On 31 August 2014 06:53, Nick Sabalausky via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> wrote:Well, I do hate "could" and other marketing buzzwords... But "open" and "openness" *do* have connotations of freedom. (Just ask any hippie/new ager ;) )I know FSF prefers "free" over the "open" I've been using. But really, everybody knows what "open" and "open source" mean, and it's *not* confusing and ambiguous. So the whole "free" obsession is just semantic pedantry that introduces ambiguity and confusion ("free as in...what, which 'free' now? Because Linux...I mean GNU/Linux...is both types, right?") and distracts people from the more important matters.I find that using the term "open source" is like using the term "cloud computing". It's a buzzword to make free software sound more attractive to commercial businesses.By preferring the term "free" over "open", you are merely pointing out that a "Waste Management and Disposal Technician" is just a "Bin-man", no matter what angle you take on it.I can't say I agree with that analogy, but maybe there are either regional or subcultural differences in the connotations of "open". I see "open" not as being a marketer buzzword, but as clear and concise way to not let Average Joe easily mistake it for meaning "free as in 'free beer'". The fact that we even have the whole "free as in..." thing at all indicates we've already *acknowledged* there's a communication problem with "free". OTOH, when you say "open", everyone knows what you mean. "Free" requires configuring while "Open" just works out-of-the-box. ;)
Sep 01 2014
On 9/1/2014 4:27 AM, Nick Sabalausky wrote:Well, I do hate "could" and other marketing buzzwords..."could"? Ok, maybe time I pack up the NG reader for the night ;)
Sep 01 2014
On 1 September 2014 09:27, Nick Sabalausky via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> wrote:I can't say I agree with that analogy, but maybe there are either regional or subcultural differences in the connotations of "open". I see "open" not as being a marketer buzzword, but as clear and concise way to not let Average Joe easily mistake it for meaning "free as in 'free beer'". The fact that we even have the whole "free as in..." thing at all indicates we've already *acknowledged* there's a communication problem with "free". OTOH, when you say "open", everyone knows what you mean. "Free" requires configuring while "Open" just works out-of-the-box. ;)I should have said "More attractive to people in general". Simply your own comments about free software serves as a partial example of my point. Everyone knows what you mean when you say "Cloud" too. Or at least, they get the general idea. (Their heads may go dizzy when you drop saas/paas on them). Iain.
Sep 01 2014
On Sunday, 31 August 2014 at 04:25:11 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:And I *do* appreciate that GPL, unlike BSD, can *realistically* be cross-licensed with a commercial license in a meaningful way and used on paid commercial software (at least, I *think* so, based on what little anyone actually *can* comprehend of the incomprehensible GPL).What? Did you mean to write "BSD, unlike GPL?" Explain what you mean. As for Stallman, his problem is that his "all software must be free" crusade happens to have a few real benefits from some source being open, but will never happen to his idealistic extreme of all source becoming free because closed source has real benefits too. That's why when linux finally got deployed to the majority of computing devices over the last 5 years- though still not on the desktop ;) - it wasn't a full GPL stack but a permissively-licensed Apache stack (bionic, dalvik, ART, etc) on top of the GPL'd linux kernel combined with significant closed binary blobs and patches. That mixed model is dominant these days, whether with iOS/OS X and their mix of open source (mach, darwin, llvm, webkit, etc) and closed or Android with its greater mix of open source. As such, his GPL, which doesn't allow such pragmatic mixing of open and closed source, is an antiquity and fast disappearing.
Aug 31 2014
On Sun, 31 Aug 2014 09:23:24 +0000 Joakim via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> wrote:As such, his GPL, which doesn't allow such=20 pragmatic mixing of open and closed source, is...a great thing to stop invasion of proprietary software. hey, i'm not *renting* my smartphone, i'm *buying* it! and i want to be able to change it's software as i like. yet what i got is a bunch of blobs and a locked loader. i don't want to pay my money for jailing me: the ones who want to put me in a jail should pay to me to compensate my inconvience. i don't care about what is good for some corporation out here. what i really care about is what is good for *me*. GPLv3 makes me happy. BSDL makes corporations happy. so it's obvious choice.
Aug 31 2014
On Sunday, 31 August 2014 at 09:37:35 UTC, ketmar via Digitalmars-d wrote:On Sun, 31 Aug 2014 09:23:24 +0000 Joakim via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> wrote:Good luck with that, let me know when you find a GPLv3 smartphone to buy. I'll predict when that'll happen: never. That's because _you_ may care about changing the software on your smartphone and don't want to use the binary blobs that make switching harder, but almost nobody else does. Those who want to change the software right now simply work around and reuse the blobs, ie cyanogen, AOKP, etc. At least you can do that when there's a mix, as opposed to the previously dominant model of pure closed source, which didn't allow such updating at all.As such, his GPL, which doesn't allow such pragmatic mixing of open and closed source, is...a great thing to stop invasion of proprietary software. hey, i'm not *renting* my smartphone, i'm *buying* it! and i want to be able to change it's software as i like. yet what i got is a bunch of blobs and a locked loader. i don't want to pay my money for jailing me: the ones who want to put me in a jail should pay to me to compensate my inconvience. i don't care about what is good for some corporation out here. what i really care about is what is good for *me*. GPLv3 makes me happy. BSDL makes corporations happy. so it's obvious choice.
Aug 31 2014
On Sun, 31 Aug 2014 10:23:42 +0000 Joakim via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> wrote:Good luck with that, let me know when you find a GPLv3 smartphone=20 to buy. I'll predict when that'll happen: never.keep tolerate "permissive licenses", this will greatly help me to find such smartphone, yes.
Aug 31 2014
On 8/31/2014 5:37 AM, ketmar via Digitalmars-d wrote:On Sun, 31 Aug 2014 09:23:24 +0000 Joakim via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> wrote:I *completely* agree. Very, VERY strongly.As such, his GPL, which doesn't allow such pragmatic mixing of open and closed source, is...a great thing to stop invasion of proprietary software. hey, i'm not *renting* my smartphone, i'm *buying* it! and i want to be able to change it's software as i like. yet what i got is a bunch of blobs and a locked loader. i don't want to pay my money for jailing me: the ones who want to put me in a jail should pay to me to compensate my inconvience.i don't care about what is good for some corporation out here. what i really care about is what is good for *me*. GPLv3 makes me happy.GPL forces companies to open-source (some of) their software...but *ONLY* if the company willingly uses the GPL software in the first place. So what do they do? Not use the GPL software in the first place. So we end up with second-rate crap (like Bionic) or worse - closed source proprietary - just because GPL scared them away.BSDL makes corporations happy. so it's obvious choice.Hah. BSD/etc is NOT what corporations typically like - they like proprietary closed source. BSD gives them incentive to at least *use* OSS software. GPL gives them incentive to stay away from OSS software.
Aug 31 2014
On Sun, 31 Aug 2014 06:46:15 -0400 Nick Sabalausky via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> wrote:So what do they do? Not use the GPL software in the first place. So we end up with second-rate crap (like Bionic) or worse - closed source proprietary - just because GPL scared them away.this will not change. it's not specifically GPL what scares away corporations, it's about "losing control". corporations will always be hostile to any license that tries to give end users some rights that can be enforced by user. releasing software under "permissive" licenses will not help to turn corporations to FOSS. so i can't see any reason to think about "how we can drag corporations into FOSS culture".Hah. BSD/etc is NOT what corporations typically like - they like=20 proprietary closed source. BSD gives them incentive to at least *use*=20 OSS software. GPL gives them incentive to stay away from OSS software.i don't care what source code was used to build binary blob: proprietary or BSD-licensed. the result is the same for me. so i don't care if they use [F]OSS software or not.
Aug 31 2014
On 8/31/2014 5:23 AM, Joakim wrote:On Sunday, 31 August 2014 at 04:25:11 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:There is some precedent for a commercial software package to be released like this: "This is available under either a commercial license or GPL. You can freely download and use the software and its source code, at no cost, under the terms of the GPL. Companies that do not wish to be bound by the GPL can purchase a commercial license instead." Or there will be a common variant like: "Students, home users and small businesses can use it under the terms of GPL, but companies with annual revenue >= $xxxxx require a commercial license." Or something roughly along those lines anyway. I don't know what the FSF would have to say about it, or how well it works in practice, but the idea is that the source code is both free and free, AND since the OSS license used is GPL, there is still (at least in theory) sufficient added value to to justify a paid version (beyond just premium support. Being a support-based business has its own pros/cons - if you're just a group of developers trying to make a living, the Red Hat model may not be a great option). And, the OSS-version, being GPLed, cannot easily be used by another company *as* a competitor to you. Theoretically, you *could* do that with BSD/MIT/zlib/etc instead of GPL. Nothing's explicitly prohibiting it. But then where's the "added value" in the paid version? They can already do anything they want. Or how do you restrict the OSS version to small businesses or home users only? It's BSD, it already permits *anyone* to use it or re-grant the same permissive license to anyone else. And what's to stop a competitor from competing against you with your own product? Don't get me wrong, I like BSD/MIT/zlib/etc., and I use such licenses whenever my intent is to get my software USED rather than directly make money off it. But trying to mix them with a commercial model (for example, if you want to make a living directly off your software) seems very problematic. Being a support company seems the only theoretical way, and even then, anyone else, any corporation, etc., can still just pop up and offer support for your software too, and without the overhead of being a primary developer.And I *do* appreciate that GPL, unlike BSD, can *realistically* be cross-licensed with a commercial license in a meaningful way and used on paid commercial software (at least, I *think* so, based on what little anyone actually *can* comprehend of the incomprehensible GPL).What? Did you mean to write "BSD, unlike GPL?" Explain what you mean.As for Stallman, his problem is that his "all software must be free" crusade happens to have a few real benefits from some source being open, but will never happen to his idealistic extreme of all source becoming free because closed source has real benefits too.Yea, I can agree there's some truth to that. And even if you can argue that closed doesn't TRULY have real genuine benefits, it still doesn't matter: As long as people perceive a benefit, then that's real enough in its effects.That's why when linux finally got deployed to the majority of computing devices over the last 5 years- though still not on the desktop ;) - it wasn't a full GPL stack but a permissively-licensed Apache stack (bionic, dalvik, ART, etc) on top of the GPL'd linux kernel combined with significant closed binary blobs and patches. That mixed model is dominant these days, whether with iOS/OS X and their mix of open source (mach, darwin, llvm, webkit, etc) and closed or Android with its greater mix of open source. As such, his GPL, which doesn't allow such pragmatic mixing of open and closed source, is an antiquity and fast disappearing.Yea. I hate that the mixing is necessary, but big business has all the money, and big business likes closed/proprietary, so if you want some of the money (*or* just a significant chunk of the market), then you have to please them enough to get them to fork it over. *Then* you can go from there and swing around as much clout as you've earned. It's sickening, but that's where things are right now. At least it beats the hell out of the Windows model. And it *could* still lead to further acceptance of and demand for even more openness. Like burgers or crack: Give 'em a taste, maybe they'll like it and want more. And maybe by then you'll have earned enough clout that you'll be *able* to given them more. The world may not be ready for full-on Stallman openness yet, but the mixed model at least gets the foot in the door. It's a step in the right direction.
Aug 31 2014
On Sunday, 31 August 2014 at 10:30:24 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:There is some precedent for a commercial software package to be released like this: "This is available under either a commercial license or GPL. You can freely download and use the software and its source code, at no cost, under the terms of the GPL. Companies that do not wish to be bound by the GPL can purchase a commercial license instead."Ah, I wasn't sure what you meant by "cross-licensed," the GPL/commercial licensing model you're referring to is commonly called dual-licensing.Or there will be a common variant like: "Students, home users and small businesses can use it under the terms of GPL, but companies with annual revenue >= $xxxxx require a commercial license." Or something roughly along those lines anyway.Under the terms of the GPL, it's not feasible to set an arbitrary revenue limit like that, as those getting the source under the GPL are free to redistribute it to anyone they like. However, since the GPLv2 doesn't deal with software patents, it may be possible to set such a revenue limit with patent licensing, ie license the software patents employed in the code for free to those you mentioned but charge for the patents with larger businesses.I don't know what the FSF would have to say about it, or how well it works in practice, but the idea is that the source code is both free and free, AND since the OSS license used is GPL, there is still (at least in theory) sufficient added value to to justify a paid version (beyond just premium support. Being a support-based business has its own pros/cons - if you're just a group of developers trying to make a living, the Red Hat model may not be a great option). And, the OSS-version, being GPLed, cannot easily be used by another company *as* a competitor to you.This dual-licensing model works fairly well, as a handful of companies have used it successfully and MySQL AB brought in almost 9 figures in revenue using this model before getting bought out by Sun for $1 billion almost seven years ago (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MySQL_AB), although most think that was a big overpay by the soon-to-be-sold Sun. The MySQL CEO went on to head another company called Eucalyptus, which uses a similar GPLv3/commercial dual-licensing model. The big drawbacks are that dual licensing requires full copyright assignment from anyone who contributes to the GPL'd code, or the company won't be able to re-license those patches commercially, and that usually only one company can make money off the code through commercial licensing, which as you mentioned keeps competitors out.Theoretically, you *could* do that with BSD/MIT/zlib/etc instead of GPL. Nothing's explicitly prohibiting it. But then where's the "added value" in the paid version? They can already do anything they want. Or how do you restrict the OSS version to small businesses or home users only? It's BSD, it already permits *anyone* to use it or re-grant the same permissive license to anyone else. And what's to stop a competitor from competing against you with your own product?The dual-licensing model doesn't make sense with permissive licenses like BSD/MIT/zlib/boost so they use a different model, where they provide an "open core" of BSD-licensed code for free and then charge for proprietary features added through closed-source patches, sometimes called "freemium." This is the model Apple and Google/Samsung use with iOS and Android, only the most successful software projects of the last decade, :) though Android obviously makes available a lot more open source than iOS does. This mixed model doesn't stop competitors from taking the permissively-licensed source, but that's actually a benefit for users as it means more competition. For example, you can see this with all the companies that forked Android, whether Amazon, Nokia, or Xiaomi, which now sells more smartphones in China than anyone else, including Samsung. As long as the companies provide enough value in their closed patches, they do fine.Don't get me wrong, I like BSD/MIT/zlib/etc., and I use such licenses whenever my intent is to get my software USED rather than directly make money off it. But trying to mix them with a commercial model (for example, if you want to make a living directly off your software) seems very problematic. Being a support company seems the only theoretical way, and even then, anyone else, any corporation, etc., can still just pop up and offer support for your software too, and without the overhead of being a primary developer.On the contrary, the mixed model that such permissive licenses allow is much more commercially successful than any GPL-based model. If you insist that _all_ source must be open, only then the GPL dual-licensing model may work better.Yea, I can agree there's some truth to that. And even if you can argue that closed doesn't TRULY have real genuine benefits, it still doesn't matter: As long as people perceive a benefit, then that's real enough in its effects.There are genuine _commercial_ benefits to closed-source, ie you can keep others from simply taking your code. There may not be any inherent _technical_ benefits, but if you're not making any money, you can't fund much technical development either. So a mixed open/closed source model mixes these commercial and technical benefits, rather than ignoring one for the other.Yea. I hate that the mixing is necessary, but big business has all the money, and big business likes closed/proprietary, so if you want some of the money (*or* just a significant chunk of the market), then you have to please them enough to get them to fork it over. *Then* you can go from there and swing around as much clout as you've earned. It's sickening, but that's where things are right now. At least it beats the hell out of the Windows model. And it *could* still lead to further acceptance of and demand for even more openness. Like burgers or crack: Give 'em a taste, maybe they'll like it and want more. And maybe by then you'll have earned enough clout that you'll be *able* to given them more. The world may not be ready for full-on Stallman openness yet, but the mixed model at least gets the foot in the door. It's a step in the right direction.I have argued, on the contrary, that the mixed model is the best one, not pure open or closed source: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=sprewell_licensing I think the evidence is in that my article from four years ago called it right. :)
Aug 31 2014
On 8/31/2014 7:57 AM, Joakim wrote:On Sunday, 31 August 2014 at 10:30:24 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:Ah, ok. My mind registered "cross-" and "dual-" as being the same.There is some precedent for a commercial software package to be released like this: "This is available under either a commercial license or GPL. You can freely download and use the software and its source code, at no cost, under the terms of the GPL. Companies that do not wish to be bound by the GPL can purchase a commercial license instead."Ah, I wasn't sure what you meant by "cross-licensed," the GPL/commercial licensing model you're referring to is commonly called dual-licensing.Come to think of it, the size/revenue-limit stuff I've seen may have all just been plain old closed-source.Or there will be a common variant like: "Students, home users and small businesses can use it under the terms of GPL, but companies with annual revenue >= $xxxxx require a commercial license." Or something roughly along those lines anyway.Under the terms of the GPL, it's not feasible to set an arbitrary revenue limit like that, as those getting the source under the GPL are free to redistribute it to anyone they like. However, since the GPLv2 doesn't deal with software patents, it may be possible to set such a revenue limit with patent licensing, ie license the software patents employed in the code for free to those you mentioned but charge for the patents with larger businesses.The big drawbacks are that dual licensing requires full copyright assignment from anyone who contributes to the GPL'd code, or the company won't be able to re-license those patches commercially,Good point. I wasn't aware of that. (One of the dangers of GPL: It's too big and convoluted to really grok.)The dual-licensing model doesn't make sense with permissive licenses like BSD/MIT/zlib/boost so they use a different model, where they provide an "open core" of BSD-licensed code for free and then charge for proprietary features added through closed-source patches,Ahh, ok. Now that makes sense. That method hadn't occurred to me. (I don't know *why* it didn't. I mean, using the "temporarily closed source" you mention below, it's basically the id/Carmack model.) I don't like that it's still requires a closed element, but still, it's definitely something worth considering, especially the "time limit" version.sometimes called "freemium."I'm accustomed to "freemium" referring to so-called "free to play" gaming, but yea, I can see how it applies here too.This is the model Apple and Google/Samsung use with iOS and Android, only the most successful software projects of the last decade, :) though Android obviously makes available a lot more open source than iOS does.Yea, true.Could be. That is a fairly convincing article, at least for the "time limit" version of mixed closed/open. But in any case, even if one takes the Stallman "all must be open, period" stance, the mixed stuff is STILL a step in the desired direction. So regardless of whether or not mixed is the final end-goal, it's still a good direction to taking.Yea. I hate that the mixing is necessary, but big business has all the money, and big business likes closed/proprietary, so if you want some of the money (*or* just a significant chunk of the market), then you have to please them enough to get them to fork it over. *Then* you can go from there and swing around as much clout as you've earned. It's sickening, but that's where things are right now. At least it beats the hell out of the Windows model. And it *could* still lead to further acceptance of and demand for even more openness. Like burgers or crack: Give 'em a taste, maybe they'll like it and want more. And maybe by then you'll have earned enough clout that you'll be *able* to given them more. The world may not be ready for full-on Stallman openness yet, but the mixed model at least gets the foot in the door. It's a step in the right direction.I have argued, on the contrary, that the mixed model is the best one, not pure open or closed source: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=sprewell_licensing I think the evidence is in that my article from four years ago called it right. :)
Aug 31 2014
On Sunday, 31 August 2014 at 19:58:03 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:Could be. That is a fairly convincing article, at least for the "time limit" version of mixed closed/open.Glad to hear that. :) Nobody has really tried my time-limited version, which I believe is the final step.But in any case, even if one takes the Stallman "all must be open, period" stance, the mixed stuff is STILL a step in the desired direction. So regardless of whether or not mixed is the final end-goal, it's still a good direction to taking.This is what guys like Stallman or ketmar don't seem to get, that mixed-source still leads to _more_ open source, even if it isn't _pure_ open source. For example, the success of Android means that there's more open source code running on computing devices than ever before, a billion at last count, even if it's not _pure_ open source. As you said, that pragmatic mixed approach has done more to advance open source than their purist approach ever will. And my time-limited model advances it even more, by making sure you get the source to all the binary blobs eventually.
Aug 31 2014
On 8/31/2014 4:43 PM, Joakim wrote:On Sunday, 31 August 2014 at 19:58:03 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:I suspect they may actually get *that* much of it...I'm just not sure they seem to *care*. I get the impression it's basically toddler-style "it's not EXACTLY what I want so I don't want ANY of it!" pouting. Anyway, either way, that's probably just splitting hairs. Regardless of their exact level of awareness, the end result is the same.Could be. That is a fairly convincing article, at least for the "time limit" version of mixed closed/open.Glad to hear that. :) Nobody has really tried my time-limited version, which I believe is the final step.But in any case, even if one takes the Stallman "all must be open, period" stance, the mixed stuff is STILL a step in the desired direction. So regardless of whether or not mixed is the final end-goal, it's still a good direction to taking.This is what guys like Stallman or ketmar don't seem to get, that mixed-source still leads to _more_ open source, even if it isn't _pure_ open source.For example, the success of Android means that there's more open source code running on computing devices than ever before, a billion at last count, even if it's not _pure_ open source. As you said, that pragmatic mixed approach has done more to advance open source than their purist approach ever will. And my time-limited model advances it even more, by making sure you get the source to all the binary blobs eventually.Exactly. And if Google had insisted on *pure* OSS for android, you *Know* the carriers (and to a lesser extent, manufacturers) *NEVER* would have gone for it. And then there we'd be, stuck with Apple owning a 1990's-MS-style monopoly, but worse because of the iOS's third-party restrictions and gatekeeping.
Aug 31 2014
On Sun, 31 Aug 2014 20:43:23 +0000 Joakim via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> wrote:This is what guys like Stallman or ketmar don't seem to get, that=20 mixed-source still leads to _more_ open sourcewhich was used to produce vendor-locked smartphone. bwah, what's good in this "open source" then? "look but don't touch"? and i won't buy freedroid/cyanogen too: they are in the same jail due to hardware drivers (especially videodrivers), which are blobs again. yes, they can make workarounds, but... working on workarounds for proprietary software neither fun nor good. so yes, i don't care about *that* *kind* of "open source". "you are free but you must report yourself to police once per day" !=3D "free". RMS is not a fanatic and his "all or nothing" strategy has solid foundation behind it. there are no "partially pregnant" women and there is no "partially open" software. "partially open" means "closed".
Sep 01 2014
On 9/1/2014 3:00 AM, ketmar via Digitalmars-d wrote:On Sun, 31 Aug 2014 20:43:23 +0000 Joakim via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> wrote:Yea, a vendor-locked smartphone that still gives you far more freedoms than iOS or WinRT ever will. You're not seriously going to try to tell me that someone as pro-OSS as you *genuinely* believes we'd be better off with an Apple monopoly, are you? Because that's exactly what we'd have right now if Google had insisted on 100% openness. *NO* vender would have touched it. Besides, you *CAN* buy android smartphones that aren't service vendor locked. Quite easily, in fact. You can even get one directly from Google. Just don't expect the *vendor* to be one of the sellers.This is what guys like Stallman or ketmar don't seem to get, that mixed-source still leads to _more_ open sourcewhich was used to produce vendor-locked smartphone.bwah, what's good in this "open source" then?Seriously? Go put your software and OS mods on an iPhone or WinRT and *then* try to tell everyone that the open portions of Android don't do any good. Are you trolling or just genuinely naive?"look but don't touch"? and i won't buy freedroid/cyanogen too: they are in the same jail due to hardware drivers (especially videodrivers), which are blobs again. yes, they can make workarounds, but... working on workarounds for proprietary software neither fun nor good.And what phone do *you* use? Rotary? Telegraph? Even the cordless landline phones have microcontrollers running closed-source firmware. I don't like the proprietary crap any more than you do. But guess what? You don't have a choice. It's either "partially closed" (android) or "very closed" (everything else). Nothing else exists right now.
Sep 01 2014
On Mon, 01 Sep 2014 04:00:46 -0400 Nick Sabalausky via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> wrote:Yea, a vendor-locked smartphone that still gives you far more freedoms than iOS or WinRT ever will."partially pregnant".Go put your software and OS mods on an iPhone or WinRT and *then* try to tell everyone that the open portions of Android don't do any good.android is far more dangerous to FOSS than iphone, for example. iphone is simply hostile to FOSS, and android makes people think that half-opened crap is "good OSS". no, it's not good. i'd better see android dead.Are you trolling or just genuinely naive?neither.And what phone do *you* use?N900. but i'm not happy with it either, 'cause it has alot of blobs, including videodriver. but otherwise it's a normal GNU/Linux. we are slowly working on replacing closed components (and with Neo900 -- to have open schematics). and if we'll ditch OpenGL (hell, i don't need that *so* much) we can use FB driver instead of powervr blob. so what we'll have in the end is the device with open schematics and open software, free to build and modify by anyone.I don't like the proprietary crap any more than you do. But guess what? You don't have a choice.yet i have.
Sep 01 2014
On 31 August 2014 05:24, Nick Sabalausky via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> wrote:On 8/30/2014 9:49 PM, Era Scarecrow wrote:GPL can be summarised in four simple freedoms. Nothing complicated there. In any case, you do know that there are paid gpl software too, right? Ardour is a good example of this. http://ardour.org/download.htmlAlthough M$ doing this seems more like a move in order to muscle their way in for other things. Take the actions of their actions regarding Novell. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/rms-why-gplv3.html [quote] Another threat that GPLv3 resists is that of patent deals like the Novell-Microsoft pact. Microsoft wants to use its thousands of patents to make users pay Microsoft for the privilege of running GNU/Linux, and made this pact to try to achieve that. The deal offers rather limited protection from Microsoft patents to Novell's customers. [/quote] It feels like they are trying to make a monopoly where they are the only ones able to make compilers, and anything with 'more useful features' have to pay them royalties or get a very expensive & limited license in order to be left alone. Of course there's other cases similar where idiots try to copyright the symbol pi, so they can then exploit it in order to sue companies and individuals for easy cash...Y'know, that link above is a good example of why FSF and GPL bug me. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a "GPL vs BSD" guy. I genuinely believe both have their place, and the difference lies in is what your, and your project's, exact goals are. And I completely agree with the full extent of Stallman's famously ultra-strict villainization of closed-box proprietary shackle-ware. That shit pisses me off far more than it does most people. And I *do* appreciate that GPL, unlike BSD, can *realistically* be cross-licensed with a commercial license in a meaningful way and used on paid commercial software (at least, I *think* so, based on what little anyone actually *can* comprehend of the incomprehensible GPL).I *do* agree with Stallman's views, even most of the more extreme ones, I *want* to like FSF and GPL, but... ...but then there's stuff like that link above. He keeps harping on how MS is being evil, and GPL v3 prevents the evil MS is attempting...but jesus crap he *WILL NOT* spend ONE FUCKING WORD on ***HOW*** the shit any of that supposedly works. We're supposed to just blindly accept all of it just like the good little corporate whores he keeps trying to crusade that we *shouldn't* be. Shit. The FSF constantly sounds just like one of those worthless pro-issue #XX / anti-issue #XX asshats we have to put up with every voting season:<snip> Having spoken to RMS in person, I can say that you are far from the reality of their stance on promoting free software. This is the sort of attitude I'd expect from a sorely misunderstood teenager. Your heart might be in the right place, but your actually insulting both sides of the border. Iain.
Aug 31 2014
On Sunday, 31 August 2014 at 22:06:09 UTC, Iain Buclaw via Digitalmars-d wrote:GPL can be summarised in four simple freedoms. Nothing complicated there.The problems come up when you get into the details of how to write those "freedoms" into legalese, for example, the whole dynamic linking issue. While they now claim that dynamic linking requires full GPL compliance, that's not actually written in the GPLv2 license.In any case, you do know that there are paid gpl software too, right? Ardour is a good example of this. http://ardour.org/download.htmlI had not heard of Ardour using such a paid model, so I just looked it up. Turns out the lead dev of Ardour announced last month that he had to shift focus from the project because it isn't bringing in much money (http://lwn.net/Articles/604718/), which is exactly what I predicted in my article four years ago because it has happened countless times already. I'll note that the one guy who was able to build a sustainable business for a GPL software product before dual-licensing was the original ghostscript developer, who sold a closed GUI frontend along with the open GPL backend, which was apparently legal because the two were separate executables. He started a successful software company that made millions off this early mixed model decades ago.
Aug 31 2014
On Monday, 1 September 2014 at 05:26:52 UTC, Joakim wrote:The problems come up when you get into the details of how to write those "freedoms" into legalese, for example, the whole dynamic linking issue. While they now claim that dynamic linking requires full GPL compliance, that's not actually written in the GPLv2 license.I can see Oracle having the biggest interest in the dynamic linking issue, because MySQL's GPL license can be worked around by dynamic linking. But the issue is really trivial to understand: FSF doesn't want proprietary software to build upon free software, it was clear from day one. That's why in order to use MySQL, proprietary software vendors must buy commercial license and not try to use it under terms of GPL. And FSF has the same interest.
Sep 01 2014
On 8/31/2014 6:05 PM, Iain Buclaw via Digitalmars-d wrote:On 31 August 2014 05:24, Nick Sabalausky via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> wrote:Maybe so. I hope so. But I wouldn't know. I can read BSD, MIT or zlib and pretty much understand them. Within minutes. GPL, it would take me longer just to *read* it let alone comprehend. I'm not saying that makes GPL inferior to the others. I'm just saying: that's one hell of a dense, cryptic, gigantic wall of text. (And yes, I don't doubt that there are far bigger and less comprehensible legal documents out there. Like the average software patent ;))And I *do* appreciate that GPL, unlike BSD, can *realistically* be cross-licensed with a commercial license in a meaningful way and used on paid commercial software (at least, I *think* so, based on what little anyone actually *can* comprehend of the incomprehensible GPL).GPL can be summarised in four simple freedoms. Nothing complicated there.In any case, you do know that there are paid gpl software too, right? Ardour is a good example of this. http://ardour.org/download.htmlWell, actually, that was pretty much the main point of my paragraph that you quoted above. So yes, I do know ;) But the link is appreciated.Actually, I *am* genuinely glad to hear that, that my impression about him was apparently completely off the mark after all. Obviously some things are very good to be wrong about. I do still wish he would have actually elaborated in that article. Just enough to actually give *some* idea of *how* this MS thing allegedly[1] causes problems and *how* the GPLv3 allegedly[1] puts an end to it. He explained the DVD thing well enough (although I was already aware of how that worked). I wish he would have done the same to the primary issues that article was all about in the first place. [1] I only say "allegedly", not to be contentious, but simply because *I* wouldn't know...because his article didn't explain it. It just claimed it and then left it as mere claims. I'd *like* to say "yes, that's great, I agree and I'm onboard with you", but the article gives me NO foundation for doing so - only claims. And that just isn't enough for a point to be made. *THAT's* the main thing I was finding irritating: The article is almost a bit of a disservice to the very point he's trying to make. I'd like to believe him, but he gives me no basis for it.I *do* agree with Stallman's views, even most of the more extreme ones, I *want* to like FSF and GPL, but... ...but then there's stuff like that link above. He keeps harping on how MS is being evil, and GPL v3 prevents the evil MS is attempting...but jesus crap he *WILL NOT* spend ONE FUCKING WORD on ***HOW*** the shit any of that supposedly works. We're supposed to just blindly accept all of it just like the good little corporate whores he keeps trying to crusade that we *shouldn't* be. Shit. The FSF constantly sounds just like one of those worthless pro-issue #XX / anti-issue #XX asshats we have to put up with every voting season:<snip> Having spoken to RMS in person, I can say that you are far from the reality of their stance on promoting free software.This is the sort of attitude I'd expect from a sorely misunderstood teenager. Your heart might be in the right place, but your actually insulting both sides of the border.Fair enough. I would actually be very interested if you could elaborate more about on his actual stance. Especially (if possible) as it relates to the other side-discussion on the role and acceptability of a limited amount of "necessary evil" closed source (such as codes/drivers, even if only until sufficient OSS alternatives can be made) for the sake of increasing OSS's foothold, because, well GNU/Linux with a few closed parts is at least more free than Windows or iOS. Or, really, any other first-hand insight you'd be willing to offer would be appreciated.
Sep 01 2014
On 8/26/2014 12:37 PM, Max Klyga wrote:Microsoft being microsoft again. http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2014/0196015.html - DECLARATION OF LIFETIME OF RESOURCE REFERENCE This contains description of scoped classes, etc. http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2014/0196008.html - IMMUTABLE OBJECT TYPES I really hope patent office will reject these applications.Ok, I finally got the Patent Office on the horn. They said this is an "ex partae" thing, where until the patent is granted, I am not allowed to be part of the process. Only after a patent is granted can I file a prior art notice. However, I was able to notify the inventor, J. Duffy, of the prior art, and he acknowledged receipt of my email. He is legally obliged to notify the Patent Examiner of any relevant prior art. I don't think there's anything I can do further at this point. We'll see what happens. The status of the patent can be found at: http://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair Click on "Publication Number" and enter 20140196008 in the search box. Then click on "Image File Wrapper".
Sep 02 2014
On Tue, 2014-09-02 at 13:10 -0700, Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d wrote: […]Ok, I finally got the Patent Office on the horn. They said this is an "ex partae" thing, where until the patent is granted, I am not allowed to be part of the process. Only after a patent is granted can I file a prior art notice.[…] Well this seems proof incontrovertible that the USA patent system isHowever, I was able to notify the inventor, J. Duffy, of the prior art, and he acknowledged receipt of my email. He is legally obliged to notify the Patent Examiner of any relevant prior art. I don't think there's anything I can do further at this point. We'll see what happens. The status of the patent can be found at: http://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair Click on "Publication Number" and enter 20140196008 in the search box. Then click on "Image File Wrapper".It seems that as ever the USPTO grants all well formed patent applications and leaves it to the courts to deal with validity. What a profits in all circumstances. Well done Walter for doing what can be done in such a stupid system. -- Russel. ============================================================================= Dr Russel Winder t: +44 20 7585 2200 voip: sip:russel.winder ekiga.net 41 Buckmaster Road m: +44 7770 465 077 xmpp: russel winder.org.uk London SW11 1EN, UK w: www.russel.org.uk skype: russel_winder
Sep 02 2014
On 9/2/2014 4:10 PM, Walter Bright wrote:They said this is an "ex partae" thing, where until the patent is granted, I am not allowed to be part of the process. Only after a patent is granted can I file a prior art notice.Bureaucratic scams at their finest... :/However, I was able to notify the inventor, J. Duffy, of the prior art, and he acknowledged receipt of my email. He is legally obliged to notify the Patent Examiner of any relevant prior art.Bureaucratic inefficiency and insanity at their finest... :/ Doesn't this go AGAINST the USPTO's very own current rules? At least according to what Joel on Software said regarding "Ask Patents". Fucking USPTO.
Sep 02 2014
On Tuesday, 2 September 2014 at 21:00:53 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:On 9/2/2014 4:10 PM, Walter Bright wrote:I don't know if what they told you it's accurate... http://www.uspto.gov/aia_implementation/faqs-preissuance-submissions.jsp I'm going to ask to my consultant about that... it seems I totally need some clarification... *sigh* -- /Paolo InvernizziThey said this is an "ex partae" thing, where until the patent is granted, I am not allowed to be part of the process. Only after a patent is granted can I file a prior art notice.Bureaucratic scams at their finest... :/
Sep 02 2014
On Wednesday, 3 September 2014 at 05:33:22 UTC, Paolo Invernizzi wrote:On Tuesday, 2 September 2014 at 21:00:53 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:I phoned my consultant, and he told me that there are two distinct things: The first is related to perhaps the most important news coming out from the AIA (America Invent Act), and it is the possibility of attack someone else patent without having to go in front of a judge, as in Europe can be done with an opposition via the EPO. That procedures are called "post grant review" and "inter partes review", and as in Europe are against granted patents. The second is related to what in EU are called "third part observations" and by the USPTO are called "Third Party Inquiries and Correspondence in a Published Application". They are informations about documents relevant to the exam process that the examiner is performing. That filing can be done, as obvious, after that the patent is published and before that the patent is granted, exactly the same as in EU. So it seems that informations about prior art can be posted to the examiner also for not granted patent... -- /Paolo InvernizziOn 9/2/2014 4:10 PM, Walter Bright wrote:I don't know if what they told you it's accurate... http://www.uspto.gov/aia_implementation/faqs-preissuance-submissions.jsp I'm going to ask to my consultant about that... it seems I totally need some clarification... *sigh* -- /Paolo InvernizziThey said this is an "ex partae" thing, where until the patent is granted, I am not allowed to be part of the process. Only after a patent is granted can I file a prior art notice.Bureaucratic scams at their finest... :/
Sep 03 2014