Red Hat Linux Summit Day By Day 59
Joe Barr writes "NewsForge (also owned by OSTG) has complete coverage of the second annual Red Hat Summit, covering everything from the announcements of Mugshot and 108, Eben Moglen's inspirational and FUD-countering defense of free software and the GPL, to One Laptop Per Child's Nicholas Negroponte asserting that Intel is 'pissing on us.'" From the defense of Free Software: "He spoke primarily about freedom, and the American legacy inherent in free software. He reminded us that there was a day when the word 'yankee' was not automatically preceded by the word 'damn' or followed by the words 'go home.' In fact, he noted, it was once most often followed by the word ingenuity. He also spent a lot of time discussing patents, and explaining why they were added to our legal system so that the world's brightest, most creative people, would move here. Today, however, Moglen says, 'the patent system is an unbridled and unnecessary headache.' He then went on to describe how patents stifle innovation and creativity today. "
Intel (Score:3, Funny)
It'll be quicker to list the persons and organisations Intel's not pissing on or it'll take forever.
Re:Intel (Score:1)
Re:Intel (Score:2)
Re:Intel (Score:2)
Intel is actually competing with the OLPC project by producing the SUV of modern computing: big bulky boxes with CRT-s, the boxes have built-in UPS and "sand filters" and other special stuff.
The idea is Intel sells those to "internet caffee" shops in poor countries, while Negroponte makes Intel's efforts obsolete.
Intel and their CEO are publicaly making fun on Negroponte and his project and calling the $100 laptop "a useless gadg
Pissing against the wind (Score:2)
Unnecessary headache? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Unnecessary headache? (Score:3, Insightful)
No, really. They are. I am mathematican and I think it is just plain STUPID to have algorithms patented. So, I cannot think a certain way? Just because someone else did? And (with patents) even though I did it first???
Re:Unnecessary headache? (Score:2)
Re:Unnecessary headache? (Score:3, Insightful)
You should really check the JPEG patent case, the EOLAS patent case, the "algorithm" of e-commerce patent cases, the "three-columns interface" patent of Creative sues Apple case and more and more.
Half of those have no product involved. The other half has patented ridiculously basic stuff you can't call an algorithm even if you tried real har
Re:Unnecessary headache? (Score:1)
IMHO there are things that should not be protectable. For inctance, ideas. There is nothing on earth that will change my mind. So, if I
Re:Unnecessary headache? (Score:2)
How does that not describe the world of physical patents? Sure, you eventually have to go to the machine shop and grind some iron into the proper shape for your invention, but the thing being invented is really some great unique thought that somebody had. I don't know how the patents on it played out, but when one of Edison's scientists invented the light bulb the patent on making glass or hook
Re:Unnecessary headache? (Score:1)
I am for patents where they are needed. Can you give me ONE example of an algorithm that was invented BECAUSE of the patents, not DESPITE?
Anyway, patents used to be about inventions, not ideas. Patenting ideas is stupid. You know, Edison patented the light bulb, not the idea of electric light? See the difference? By the way, first electric (usable) light was made by the russian inventor Nikolai Tesla. Tesla Coils from R
Re:Unnecessary headache? (Score:2)
Corporations without products would suffer, but corporations with products would continue to make money as they always have: by selling products.
I don't think our society is at r
Re:Unnecessary headache? (Score:2)
Re:Unnecessary headache? (Score:2)
Cite? It looks like most patents are used to curtail competition. They're made as broad as possible to try to slow down or stop competitors, or to try to extract license fees from actual inventors.
How *should* patents be used, and what do you propose to move things in that direction?
It would be nice if that were true, but most pat
Re:Unnecessary headache? (Score:2)
What makes something your idea or my idea? Answer: if you or I know an idea, it is our idea.
How can anyone steal an idea? Answer: it can't be done. You sharing an idea with someone else doesn't eliminate your possession of that idea.
If anything is "stealing an idea", it's using patent law to prevent somebody from using an idea that they came up with independently.
Re:Unnecessary headache? (Score:2)
Surely patents bring no economical damage right now? When you change the status quo, damage occurs, but it heals. You can either change the status quo or slowly die with your problems unsolved.
Patents sent away will bring less catastrophic results than one could imagine, companies will be a lot more secreteive about their works and release products early and often with les
Re:Unnecessary headache? (Score:2)
Re:Unnecessary headache? (Score:2)
Bombing facilities would still be illegal, so the police/FBI/CIA would have the tools to fight with that.
Of course there will be some unpleasantr situations, but at least it won't be SO DAMN EASY to lock up knowledge in a box and extort the entire world for a ransom.
Once something is known, it can be used. This alone is worth all the negative sites of a patent-free world.
Re:Unnecessary headache? (Score:2, Insightful)
The exhaltation soon passed, however, when I realized I wouldn't benefit from this because anybody else could use my idea as well.
And that's why we're all sitting here, cold, damp and miserable today when if we only had a patent system you could all be paying me a tribute to be dry and toasty.
Damn I hate b
Re:Unnecessary headache? (Score:2)
Complete rubbish. What about copyright? What about simply not publishing the source code?
"For someone in the business world to wish away the patenting system is irresponsible."
Unless they live in Europe, of course. Or various other places which aren't the USA.
"Without someone to intervene, businesses could collapse, economical and industrial warf
Re:Unnecessary headache? (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, the patent system does not protect ideas. No intellectual property does. The patent system protects a way of doing something useful and novel as a way of incentivizing creation. The problem is that ways of doing things are being cranked out so fast that their very speed of being cranked out is a prove of non-novelty, yet people are capitalizing them economically as if they were a proof of "infringement", w
Re:Unnecessary headache? (Score:3, Insightful)
Close, but there's a critical flaw in that oversimplification. Patents, like copyrights, were designed to strike a balance between the rights of creators and the rights of everybody else. But like any other legal fiction, the concept of "intellectual property" has been distorted far beyond its original intent, in the ways most profitable to those who already profit from it.
Patent systems were meant to help you prote
Redhat? (Score:2, Funny)
We need more Moglen talks (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet, I believe we are headed for some serious turbulence in the not-too-distant future, and the "use the best tool for the job" crowd, the "I use it because it is free (as in beer)" crowd or even the corporations currently making money from free software are not going to be the ones solving the difficult technical/legal problems that are to come for software to be truly free. It will be the idealistic crowd. And that's why we need, more than ever, a lot of evangelization.
According to TFA, Moglen's speech was the only one not "business"-focused; all the other speakers addressed "the wonders of open-source software", as a means of making money while involving a community (which means "reducing costs"). While there is nothing wrong with that, it is important to realize there are ethical reasons for some people to spend a lot of time on something that is not reverted to them in the form of money.
When difficulties arise, are these companies to back-up the free software community, investing developer and lawyer time, or are they going to go the short-term solution of reverting to the closed-software business model? While expecting moral decisions on the part of a company is unreal, it may make business sense to stick to free software, specially if there is a strong enough community behind it to actually have an influence on the market.
Of particular importance, IMHO, is the GPL v3 subject. A lot of ignorance, misinformation, prejudice and even FUD seems to be currently associated with GPL v3. The new GPL is going to be very important, but the community needs to understand it *correctly* ASAP. And I surely hope more *accurate* stuff is written about it, and Moglen is probably the person to do it.
Moglen's Deany Boppers (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Redhat (Score:2)
Yankee, not proceeded by... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Yankee, not proceeded by... (Score:2)
Why not just PODCAST each session, already? (Score:2)
we could all partake, OK, as 1-way participants
Bandwidth cost an issue? So, BitTorrentCast 'em
Simple
Back to class! (Score:2, Informative)
Satellite server just acts as a cache to stop every machine pulling updates from Red Hat individually, plus the ability to do PIXie boots, to clone systems and,
Re:Back to class! (Score:1)
Re:fuck eben moglen (Score:2)
Richard Stallman is a radical but he is trustworthy.
A flamebait against Moglen? No.
The problem is that Moglen has a different ideology and free-rides on the free software movement and spreads his dangerous ideas.
I am an opponent of software patents but I believe that audiences will not realise that Moglen did *nothing* against US
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