> Narrowing what the Federal Circuit thinks is patentable, yes. Narrowing what the Supreme Court thinks is patentable, no.

The Supreme Court rarely narrows what it thinks. They look for ways to judge each case in a way that (they can claim) is consistent with prior rulings.

The Supreme Court had never ruled on the subject matter of Mayo or Myriad before. Until they rule on something, the patents are "valid" if the PTO grants them and if the courts uphold them. In those two cases, the Supreme Court's ruling means the PTO has to stop granting a certain category of patents, and the lower courts have to stop upholding them against product developers. That means patentable subject matter got narrowed.

> we can see pretty well which way they're leaning, based on Bilski and other cases.

If you check, you'll find that the last three subject matter cases taken by the Supreme Court have resulted in *narrowing* what is patentable.

The Mayo and Myriad cases narrowed subject matter very explicitly, and while I originally read Bilski was neutral, it did actually cause the CAFC to start rejecting certain types of previously-accepted patents, and Bilski is also the reason we're seeing this case today.

> You can patent a new method for ranking relevant web pages in search results.

Well, no. That's only the patent office's point of view. We don't know what the Supreme Court thinks about this, and that's what this case is going to decide.

> I'd say that's pretty much the definition of generally accepted

Wearing Google Glass isn't common. I've never seen anyone wearing it. If I saw someone wearing it in a bar, I think I'd ask the barman to ask them to put it away or leave.

P.S. In that last sentence I meant "person" in the general sense, not specifically the person mentioned in this particular article. What I'm criticising is that the article portrays the behaviour of filming people without their consent as being perfectly fine, and that people who object just "don't understand". (Don't understand what??)

I wouldn't be aggressive, but I also think it's unacceptable that people film me constantly when I'm trying to relax. Especially in bars and similar places where I have high expectations of being away from the scrutiny of everyone but the people I've chosen to socialise with.

Pointing cameras at people (and optionally saying "I swear it's not recording"), in the form of phones or Glass or whatever, is simply a really anti-social thing to do.

So is aggression and theft, but one wrong doesn't mean we should turn the other person into a white knight as this article tries to do.

There was an initial surge of pro-mpeg votes by people connected to the WikiMedia Foundation and the technical team which would have been implementing it, then there were many days of mostly anti-mpeg voting when normal Wikipedia contributors heard about this idea.

As someone who has been campaigning for many years against software patents, it was very encouraging to see that the general Wikipedia populous (i.e. after the initial pro-mpeg surge from employees and pre-briefed technicians) was two-thirds against the use of patented formats.

> Since the programmer is a subset of the end-user and the
> programmer gets less freedom

Programmers get the same freedoms as normal users. Private modification isn't restricted by any free software licence.

The GPL puts extra requirements on distributors, and in particular distributors of modified versions. Someone who modifies and redistributes is not a mere end-user.

As I said, the users - the people who download and run the program - get the same freedoms. And this is also true for programmers who make private modifications.

> We don't "just sign it and scan it."

Then my delightful news for you is that not all contributions require assignment. FSF makes certain exceptions, including in cases where copyright assignment is not possible.

Some people's complaints about FSF should be taken with a pinch of salt.

> 20 years of GPL and legal advice is still coming in;

This has nothing to do with the GPL. You were talking about copyright assignment.

> therefor do not wonder that big non-profit academic organizations
> still consider GPL varieties "non-green" licenses:
> http://geant3.archive.geant.ne...

I've never heard of GEANT's software licence list. Since I've been working in the field for ten years, I can assure you it's not a reference. And if you read their document, you'll see it's based on an error. They classify just BSD, MIT, and Apache as "green" because they think that with every other licence "further authorisation is required". Nonsense. Somebody should contact them.

> The part where [GPLv3] doesn't allow them to distribute signed binaries

GPLv3 doesn't prohibit signed binaries.

What is it that you think Apple wanted to do, and you think is blocked by GPLv3?

> Apple simply couldn't fit gcc into their ecosystem anymore,
> what with the transition to GPLv3

What part of GPLv3 was a compiler problem for Apple?

> Stallman is an idiot. Remember the EGCS!

If he was an idiot, EGCS would today be a software package instead of a historical note.

> Our lawyers have forbidden us to touch anything GPL under any circumstances.

You need new lawyers.

> undermine's Stallman's argument about corporations not supporting

The LLVM model for attracting funding doesn't scale, and it defeats itself in the long term.

LLVM are only getting funding because Apple wants to undermine GCC. Most projects can't be used in that way, so they can't be of any interest to the Apple category of funders. And Apple's interest in funding the free parts of LLVM will dry up as soon as they (if they ever) achieve the goal of undermining GCC. The LLVM licence allows Apple to switch to a proprietary approach whenever they want. (Although, in reality, they'll continue to contribute the non-flashy bits of code - the stuff they want other people to maintain for them.)

> feeding back their changes upstream, despite not having to.

For Apple's plan to work, yes, they have to. For the moment.

Taking users and developers away from GCC is main point, so they have to get FreeBSD to switch, and get some of the free software community to switch, etc.

The goal is not about having a great free software compiler. If that was the goal, they would have just continued with GCC.

And if Apple's funding was about helping free software, they would have funded development of something we didn't already have.