I looked into this further. I did specifically use the term "Transmission lines," not "copper."

Apparently, we Just use cheaper cables now.

Of course, you bring up another possibility: just use wireless transmission. Either packet-switched satellites (Meaning you only have to go up and down once), or a series of towers (difficult for ocean hops).

In any case, we still won't break 66ms for sending a packet to Australia (from North America).

I found the footnote where they invoke the name of the W3C to justify patents interesting:

Emphasis in original (page 29, 42 in pdf). I don't think that is the purpose of the W3C's patent policy, which states that any patented methods described in w3c standards must be freely licensed. The W3C makes recommendations based on common industry practice. IBM's interpretation implies that Patents must be used to rigorously impose standards as is done by: 3D-3C, LLC, DVD Format/Logo Licensing Corporation, 4C Entity, Digital Content Protection LLC, and Digital Transmission Licensing Administrator.

The main point of the Brief seems to be that the test for patentability should not rely on an arbitrary method of implementation. The Brief explicitly states that it relies on the US constitution that says that advances in the "useful arts" (technology) are patentable. As such, many of the claims may not apply in other jurisdictions such as my own. From the brief:

- Page 7.8 of Brief (pages 20,21 of pdf)

I supposed if the scope of software patents is limited enough such that entire fields of innovation are not cut-off (a patent on Morse code was used as an example), I suppose they can't do to much harm.

INAL, and don't know enough about Tex to answer directly, but I believe TeX may be "prior art" under the following conditions:

1. The choice of font/formatting must be stored in a separate file, or there must be a documented option of doing this.
2. The above functionality must have been implemented and documented since before the patent was filed (June 2, 1994).
3. If the developers learned of the concept of "separating content from formatting" from: Michel J. M. G. Vulpe or Stephan P. Owens of Toronto, Canada, documentation may be needed from June 2, 1993 or earlier.

In my opinion, yes.

Back to HTML 3.2 for US websites!

I have come up with a partial work-around to get the media to actually consider the issue:

1. Watch you favorite news broadcast.
2. Note external Video sources like YouTube and Google earth.
3. Watch for how these sources are used/acknowledged. Are they just using a screen shot, or do they have permission?
4. Go to the original source and read their "Terms of Service". Got to the "IP licensing" section of the site if necessary.
5. Send a friendly note with the data you collected to the producer. Note that while allowed under fair use, proposed copyright reform provisions (like giving web-site terms the force of law) may open them up to liability.
6. ???
7. Profit from sane copyright laws.

I have actually done this on one occasion. I sent feedback on the local CBC (Edmonton) web-site pointing out that the YouTube TOS prohibited filming the screen (as was done for a story about a YouTube Video). The proposed legislation I read (forget if it was C-60 or C-61) actually had a section saying web-site terms take precedence over the rest of the law. I think with reforms such as that, the media is open to larger liability than individual file-sharers.

One potential draw-back of such a campaign is that the media may just "license" the work or make it hard to determine if the video is a screen-shot. Such behavior would miss the point entirely.

Oops. that should read: "Kilowatt-hours per 100km" in Canada.

-lazy coward.

Logged in because the captcha stopped working.

Um.. the law prohibits circumventing effective copyright protection measures.

I it was me, I would ask my lawyer to argue I wasn't breaking any laws. (Because they are subject to interpretation.)

In my view, the so-called "realists" are being short-sighted.

A memory dump is not a good, inter-operable file format. I have heard stories about how Microsoft word for the Mac really couldn't inter-operate with word for the PC. There is a reason MS jumped on the XML bandwagon (developing a standard that basically included every word quirk from that last 20 years).

Fossil fuels have practical uses that don't involve burning them. I wear nylon while riding my oil-lubricated bike in adverse conditions (for example).

You have succeeded only in showing why you feel you can't make any money off of GPL'd software. Most of us live in a capitalistic society. The only way for FOSS to thrive in such an environment is for a large portion of the developers to get paid for their time. Everyone knows that "important, but boring" things can get neglected in hobby projects. I think the onerous conditions of the App Store justify the amount the story submitter is charging.

The GPL (v2) specifically allows distributers to charge a fee for their service. With the source code available, you are free to take the enhancements the submitter made for the iPhone and apply them to a more open mobile platform.

You seem to be concerned that somebody is making money off your hobby project. There is not much you can do about it. The GPL seems only to be concerned that the community gets improvements back; not that the original contributers get compensated.

In the back of my mind I am working on my own business model where the (yet to be developed) software has two (or more) distinct "releases" (for lack of a better term). One "Bleeding Edge" public version and one or more "Certified" versions for corporate use. This hinges on the observation that in the corporate world software is sometimes only considered if it priced similar to what they expect to pay. Corporations (or governments) may also require the software to be certified by various third-parties (costing money). I envision the price negotiation to go something like this:

• Me: The Certified version will be $30,000 a seat.
• Buyer: Hmm, that's a little pricey...
• Me: Tell you what, I like you. I can make it $20,000.
• Buyer: I can budget $300,000 for a site license.
• Me: Done.

The point is that with a free software economy, the charge will be for providing a value-added service, rather than for the software itself. Proceeds from the "Certified Version" would got towards hiring programmers more competent than myself, lawyers, standards bodies for certification, and support.

I have started derating gray-to-gray response times by a factor of 10.

That is, an advertised 5ms response time is actually 50ms. One other thing to consider: was the shutter speed on the camera used less than 5ms? Obviously, you will capture two frames if the camera's shutter speed is only 1/30th of a second.

Rationale:

Response time used to be listed as the time it takes a pixel to go from Black-to-White-to-Black.

Therefore, (in theory) a relatively "slow" 40ms response time should be enough for 50fps (with minor blurring between adjacent frames).

Knowing that the (LCD) pixels have capacitance, I decided to approximate the the color change as proportional to the (charge or) discharge of a capacitor through a resistor.

The common rule of thumb is that it takes 5 time constants to reach "steady state" (within 5% of final value). I could only assume that the "grey-to-grey" response time refers to that time constant. Therefore, to go from black to white and back takes 5 time constants each way. (for a total of 10)

Now, I do have a post-secondary diploma in electronics, but not a lot of experience in the field. My reasoning may be completely invalid. YMMV.

I actually rethought my position after seeing google maps. I still don't like it.

I think most things can be handled using "helper applications" like telnet, Java runtime, Video player, File transfer application, etc.

The point is the whole concept of "not having to install" software is ludicrous. Why should I let any random website "push" software out to my machine?