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Comment Re:Change schools. (Score 1) 416

I have a hunch that she has an empathy for children which is what drove her to pursue the education thing. While it might be more practical to choose a different career, it is unlikely that she would ever be happy with anything less than engaging young minds.

Oh, how I wish I had mod points right now. This is an excellent point that is missing from almost all of the comments here.

Comment Re:Steve Jobs on video codecs and patents (Score 1) 149

Variable-lifetime patents already exist to a certain extent (utility patents vs. design patents). But it would be interesting to extend the idea further.

As long as we can make arbitrary changes to patent law, I think the most valuable thing you could do is to mandate a periodic investigation into whether or not the current policies encourage innovation. Are algorithm patents slowing down innovation? Shorten their duration by a few years/be stricter about what you accept.

  • Frivolous lawsuits would be severely discouraged. And I mean severely.
  • The patent process now involves wrestling with a live bear. Anyone who successfully survives the experience is awarded the patent.

I can only imagine the punishment you have in mind for a frivolous lawsuit.

Comment Re:Incorrect. (Score 1) 566

* speaking of plugins, they are not considered GPL-able software despite many of them existing with GPL licenses - I suggested adding it during v3 ratification, but they did not feel there was a need (there are several clauses that make them not applicable), so if you write GPL plugins, I suggest moving to another license because the one you're using is not valid.

Could you explain this further? I'm not sure if you're saying that licensing a plugin under the GPL is (1) a legal mess, (2) a potential legal mess, (3) an impossibility,or (4) something else entirely.

Comment Re:So, h264 is (Score 1) 663

Have the patents been released? I was under the impression that the irrevocable thing was the license to use the patents specifically for VP8 implementations. Google still owns the patents and can still sue if you use them in non-VP8 applications. I remember reading that Google might want patent defense, so that if someone goes after VP8, Google can fire a salvo right back at H.264 (i.e., Google supposedly knows of VP8 patents that cover H.264 and could sink them).

Comment Re:And BOOM (Score 4, Informative) 131

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