Does anyone still believe MS really has a patent that can affect Linux that hard? There should be tons of Unix and similar O.S. from the 70's to nuke any patent. Every supposed patent MS tries to show will get scrutinized and destroyed in no time. As long as we can see them, of course. How can your judicial system allow for a patent based suit, which includes a government granted monopoly, with the option for the plaintiff NOT disclosing the exact terms supposedly being infringed? If the company received a monopoly grant if also receives some obligations, not only rights.

The reason companies are signing patent agreements with MS is that it's painfully expensive to defend from a patent infringement suit and even more to invalidate a patent. So the cost to pay for each product is relatively small comparing to the millions spent on a trial. Look at the bill of costs from Google in Oracle vs Google: 4 million dollars on only DIRECT expenses, not counting time, bad image and so on.

This system cannot survive as it is, no new tech will ever be developed at USA (which is almost the case now), leaving USA as only leeches of other countries technology advances. If that happens, somewhere in time the other countries will stop paying USA for doing nothing, ACTA like treaties will be declared void and USA will reach a new low. No one will keep paying for rectangular shaped with round corners patents forever.

My hope is that the sanity prevails in short-to-medium time, cause it's already affecting all the economy, not only the USA. Can't you see the storm coming? This system is only making lawyers rich, the cost is growing for every one.

Flavio

Why would we accept a monopoly on some natural thing just because someone spent some money on something?

Patents should never be allowed to genes, even if someone spent the whole stock of money of the plant.

Just to begin, it's not an INVENTION, so a patent should not be allowed at all.

I'm not against all patents, but patents on genes, software and business process are ridiculous. This demonstration of greed without limits should not be rewarded.

Flavio

FreeNAS can use ZFS for aggregating multiples drives, independent of size, technology etc, all with varying degrees of protection.

It's by far the best solution to your case.

Flavio

I'm shocked!

Someone really understand what a patent is for even with all this media lobby-paid propaganda trying to blur the real intent of patents.

It's taking the less of two evils (monopoly vs not advancing the science), with some action from the State in conceding a monopoly (temporary), against all indications that a monopoly is bad for the society, in exchange for the precise explanation of a meaningful advance of the science, so all the society will benefit from that technology later, which would not be the case without the disclosure.

Congratulations for a concise, clear, dispassionate and correct view of patents.

Flavio

I think this kids' parents will soon face a mass lawsuit of some kind for a bogus patent on "making things on your own - with a computer" and have the choice of paying the college fund to an Intellectual Ventures-like patent troll or be processed at the cost of the all the family have and only them they'll understand that their country is so rotten.

If USA can't understand they are going to destroy themselves, better do it fast, so it can't spread too much to the rest of the world. Time for big corporations push the M.A.D. (Mutually Assured Destruction) patent war so we can all watch the decline of science and innovation on USA (and soon EU) for the bad of the world. When you are spending more very hard earned money on lawyers instead of R&D, something is so twisted that is almost beyond repair.

What a destiny to an once admired country for its freedom, incentive to creativity and innovation. Now you can't even create a web site without stepping on 1-click-like patents.

On the the Halloween theme, R.I.P. USA.

Seriously, are you really suggesting we believe in Florian Muller? My head is spinning so hard now ...

He is always wrong, his predictions always fail, his doom day alerts never ever got close to happening but you still suggest we hear from him?

F/RAND is not for agressors and they are not law, just some community/gentlemen deal. You sue me, I'll be no gentlemen to you.

As a rule, if Florian Muller puts his name on something, it's fake, outright lie or simple PR regurgitated, never the truth. As long as I've seen his comments and articles, he never got it right and he is not starting now.

That said, Apple is the AGRESSOR, others are just fighting back. Apple patents are as new and innovative as the act of moving forward using the legs.

Apple has the best overall product when you consider all factors like usability, design and so on, but nothing "NEW" on the sense that it carries a revolution. All the technology they used where developed a long time ago, they just rehashed them (very well) to a well rounded solution that achieved mass penetration. Point to Apple. But that's all. 100% of their "innovation" is combining other ones technologies and making a reasonably good product and marketing it as the best thing under the sun. Some believe and buy, as long as it's not my money, I'm ok with it. But point me to a single technology DEVELOPED at Apple that impacted the tech world like the mouse did or like graphic interface did (both from Xerox PARC), other than their first Apple computers (I owned an Apple II and it was great).

Apple fear competition as much as a vampire (classic one) fears the sun. When exposed to competition, they freak out and sue. They always did it and they will not learn unless someone makes them learn the hard way.

So, yes, Apple deserves to taste it's own medicine so someone can teach them a lesson on competition based on merits, not on beligerance.

I did not know Mr. Mick but I've read the text and the comments and they are not much different from slashdot's post and comments.

Flavio

Google now can spend 1 or 2 billion buying some anti-patent legislation (like MS bought a law months ago) and destroy 4.5 billion of his enemies (and even regain some "Don't be evil" karma), all with one smart move. This could even protect them from other expensive and baseless suits in the future and, as a bonus, mock at Apple and MS for their futile expenditure. Talk about money well spent.

Can someone please stop this patent madness and resume innovation? Please? Can't USA see that it's hurting so much more than helping (if it helps)? If it would affect only USA, I would be the first to say "go on" but it hurts all the world, even if indirectly.

That's what the 1:100 or 1:1000 (or whatever ratio) ratio for the deposit should be for. US$ 10000.00 for a possible income of 10,000,000 seems acceptable to me. Since actual court system is already a casino, why not take it literally and transform it on a bet?

And it can be temporary, until someone figure how to fix the laws to not allow this abuse.

Fellow North Americans,

    How can you ever allow this to happen? The least a court can do is to disbar the lawyers, followed by a class action from all the offended to the amount of 10X the amount demanded by RightRaven. It would even be in the interest of the justice since a LOT less "adventurers of the new judicial business model" (MAFIA?) would be interested in losing all their possesions, including the underwear.

    There has to have a way to rebalance the court system in USA or else there will be all kind of problems. Justice can't be a weapon against competition, even less against potential customers.

    I made a proposition once that the plaintiff should have to make a deposit of at least half the value demanded and if they lose, that money would go the defendant to pay defense costs and if something is left, half would be donated to charity, half back to the plaintiff. I foresee that only very meritful claims would ever arrive at civil court because the risk of losing. Seems crazy, but less crazier than actual system that only tilts to big corporations or the bullies. The judge would need to make some factor to preserve the little guy (like a 1:100 or 1:1000 deposit proportion) so the big one loses more.

    The other alternatives are: troll lawyers hunting season; civil disobedience (thousands of sites doing similar things hosted on russia servers, better yet with disposable domain names and/or some very sarcastic ones); voting right next time. Every one of this has some drawbacks, but alternative 1 would be the funniest if made legal. The most effective (and harder) is the last one.

Flávio
CNOPEBR21

PS: If the hunting season gets approved I expect to be invited to the party as an observer :)

We need a volunteer from those shouting out loud "chicken" for an easy solution: do something to attract the wrath of Sony, publish it and wait for Sony to sue. Than ask Hotz to send whatever was left of the defense fund to this volunteer and get the train rolling again. You can even ask for more defense fund, noone will refrain to help you.

This volunteer can then sacrifice himself for the cause. Reward for that will be constant travelling to California, endless depositions, subpoenas, investigations, motions, being named as a criminal on the entire press, losing all your money, including your house, car, computers, videogames, all that to face a judge that already judged for an enterprise in a similar case, in a state that has one of the most unbalanced laws (favoring enterprises, of course) to criminalize hacking (the good word). WOW!! What a vision of the new life!

We promise to pray for you when Big Third Leg Joe calls you in his jail cell for a more intimate talk late of the night. You'll be a hero for the next 2 months after conviction, after then all attention shifts to the next freaking cool videogame or new line of processors or even some crazy youtube video of the day (you can't expect us to remember you forever).

Volunteers? No? Anyone ...

If you desire, use SARCASM tag as you wish.

Flavio

(Or at least do as Florian, get paid for doing it)

Guys, can't you see a bogus claim whenerver you see it? Using header files for developing userland software IS allowed by GPL without being necessary to license the application code as GPL. EXPLICITLY!!!!

Please stop spreading FUD or igniting another BSD x GPL x Proprietary flame war. It is a disservice to us all and a service to the puppet master: Microsoft.

Please read Groklaw (www.groklaw.net) for much more deep and accurate analysis and trust yourself to decide what is wrong or not but AFTER reading about it, not just a comment from a MS paid apologist. Or at least wait for Eben Moglen to talk about it, HE knows GPL more than almost all other living beings.

So please calm down. Just because some stooge screamed FIRE on the theather, look to see if some smoke really appears before creating more havoc than the first stooge started.

If you do want to continue spreading this stuff, at least try to get a job from MS for doing it, make it at least cost them a lot instead of doing their job for free.

No, Linux vendors would claim theirs OS is safer but they would not bribe (or "give outrageous discounts just get close to almost zero price") another company on spreading it's point of view. MS is free to claim Windows is safer/better/the best thing since sliced bread. Like you said, it can be a point of view but they should at least try to present their case as why they think their software is safer/better/the best thing since sliced bread.

I think this is a lesson on "How to distort the reality". No one cares where the Linux code comes from as long as the code abides to the license and do not try to bend the license terms out of context. This is not what this is all about. People will blame MS not for trying to sell their software (they are encouraged to sell their software) but to have to bribe, lie or tell half-truths to be able to undermine their competition, leaving only their software to be bought/acquired. More precisely (being less polite) abusing it's monopolist position. Why they can't just compete like anyone else, promoting what their software is good for and not trying to get competition out of business with questionable tactics. Only MS gains from it: consumer/user gets screwed (no competition = higher prices and less innovation) and the competition obviously gets screwed.

USA should stop citing "it's all capitalism as it should be" cause it's not. Capitalism says monopolies are bad cause they distort the market. And no bad action can use the excuse of "business as usual", as the companies with better governance and ethics are always the ones that resist more time on market.

But do not forget the 945 chipset eats energy like there is no tomorrow, so combine Atom (~4W)+ 945 (~24W) and then compare to AMD + AMD Chipset and they end like almost same (even favoring AMD a bit) power envelope but AMD will be much more powerful. 945GC eats a little less but only because better idle control.

Even Intel acknowledges it and is using a new chipset will far less consumption, but still with very weak video.

ION plataform is powerful with video but eats almost same power than 945 chipset.

Ok, let me explain some things: yes, I used genius word wrongly, should be "genie" (in portuguese they are translated to the same word, sorry).

Second: about USA position as being the bigger influencer and/or attacker since WWII. Can you just count WWI as 1 conflict and count all big conflicts that happened from WWII up to today? I was trying to say that almost every conflict from 1945 to now has USA deeply entrenched or playing behind curtains. Say Vietnan, Korea, Iraq (2 times), Israel, Lebanon (helping Israel), Afghanistan (2 times), Cold War (ok, not a conflict, just almost one, god bless), and whatever conflict you choose (with exception to some tribe conflicts on Africa). Are you sure any other nation, even old Soviet Union or new Russia or Israel can stand above USA in this infamous dispute?

Ok, let's see: Vietnan started as a French conflict, but USA got there (objective: get mineral resources); Afghanistan started with Russia but USA got there to counter all the influence from Russia (Cold War) and got there again after some towers got down; Kuwait (I was forgetting it) got invaded by Iraq and USA (wanting to ensure oil would not get too expensive and to keep it available) got there; then, after some towers got down, USA decide it was time to fake some reports and go after Iraq again (to get all oil this time); Nicaragua, Panama and Grenada was there just to counter URSS. See, not even the Soviets could ever get close to USA. And I did not count all Israel backing on every conflict they got involved. Like I said, every major conflict known to us has USA in some "privileged" position or playing "World Police" (see North Korea, Libia and a lot of others).

My intention was to show that a paranoid state is not a good response but an expected one from a country that made a lot of enemies and consider eveyone as potential enemy. The better response should not be "every stranger is a potential terrorist" but "let's try to smooth things out" with everyone you can. Good faith and a real demonstration of change can make wonders in destroying terrorist arguments that USA is the representative of Satan on earth (an argument used a lot by terrorists). People all over the world got on USA side cause they were the victims on 09/11 events. The terrorists got arguments of being victims (at least for the population they wanted to influence) when Iraq got attacked for nothing more than oil greed, for example.

I'm not on the side of the terrorists in any way, they are wrong on every aspect, in my opinion. What I'm trying to show is that excluding all the world and making everyone suspicious of trying to destroy USA is not the answer. You can get your wish granted (by a GENIE or by everyone else) and people just exclude USA too. Bad for everyone, worse for USA.

Sorry for any other language or expression error I did, english is NOT my main language (brazilian portuguese is, for reference).

Brazil and Argentina have historical disputes over who is the "best" on South America. Obviously it leads to some funny jokes on either side.

One closely related to USA auto induced paranioa state of mind says that an "argentino" and a "brasileiro" found a lamp. The argentino rubbed the lamp first but the brasileiro hold the lamp for him to do it. A genius emerged and saw the problem immediately: he could not grant 3 wishes, one of them would get 2 wishes and other 1. So he granted 2 wishes, one for each of them. Since the argentino rubbed the lamp first, he wished a great wall would appear on all Argentina frontiers so they could be isolated from the bad interference of their neighbors, being Argentina the greatest nation of all. Wish granted, the genius made a wall one mile high around all Argentina. Next the genius asked the brazilian what was his wish. He asked the genius before anything if the Argentina's wall was really high and resistant. The genius answered that nothing could break that wall. The brasileiro asked immediately: fill it with water.

USA is almost asking for problems when they think all the world want to attck them when USA is the most common attacker or influencer on all wars from World War II and later. They must take care with what they wish: it can be granted.

Disclaimer: I'm brazilian, so the joke is biased.