Originally, patents were granted so that companies
could recoup the money spend on development, and to
allow the ideo originator gain an advantage in the
market place before other companies were alowed to
compete. Now, however, companies (ehem, read
Microsoft , Apple, SUN, IBM .. and the list goes on)
are using patents as a survival strategy. It's a
shoddy way of doing business. Microsoft is loosing
whatever potential for innovation that they claim to
have had. The more patents they collect the more they
lock themselves in. We on the other hand are now free
to take LINUX in it's own direction. With the way
open source works, we gain a distinct advantage.
Produce the best software and system in the world. We
do not need projects like Mona, or Cross-Over Office.
What we do need is to improve the Linux operating
system, and it's applications so that it will be
complete by itself. Until Linux can compete on it's
own, it will not take the Desktop... That's just my
prediction, but look at history. SUN had solaris.
Could it have been on every desktop in America..
certainly, but they would have had to have something
that the average user would want... cheap hardware, a
stable system, and lots of applications. Linux has
all this with the exception of a stable system.
Developers are wary of Linux because of the different
configurations each distro has... change one
library... updat it... and something breaks. Users
are wary of it because it too difficult to use, and
maintain. One area that Microsoft has done
exceedingly well at is fooling the users into thinking
that any monkey could run and maintain a computer
system. I've done enough tech work to know that it's
just not true. I think Lindows and such have the
right idea ... almost. Quit trying to compete with
Microsoft. Sell Linux as system/applications in it's
own right. That way we won't have to worry about what
patents or copywrights someone owns. If I remember
right.. a copywright holder has to prove that you
coppied from them, and make a profit from it in order
to succeed in court... Patent holders I'm not sure
about. Maybe someone could help me out on this one.
The way I figure it.. we would just come out with
newer and better technologies anyway. Linux people
will need to start getting patents... maybe that a
call to start an open source organization to collect
the patents. If you can't beat'em... Join'em...
--- Bill Canaday <bill13510@wwnet.net> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> On Sunday 09 May 2004 10:39 pm, you wrote:
> > On Sun, May 09, 2004 at 10:53:48AM -0400, Ken
> Elliott wrote:
> > > That's the good news. Here's the bad news...
> > >
> > > http://news.com.com/2100-1001-984052.html
> >
> > This is one of the reasons patents only last a
> limited time, unlike
> > copyrights. (Well, copyright lifetime is limited
> as well, but _much_
> > longer.) If companies could lock down patents for
> decades, they would
> > effectively have monopoly status for that amount
> of time. Unfortunately,
> > the 17 years or so that patents last is many
> generations in computer
> > technology time.
> >
> > Paul
>
> It would make sense to me to extend a software
> patent for perhaps 3 years, 5
> if renewal is unopposed (unlikely if the idea was
> worth anything to start
> with). That was the approximate lifetime of software
> prior to patents.
>
> Bill
>
> - --
> http://cannaday.us (genealogy)
> http://organic-earth.com (organic gardening)
> Uptimes below for the machines that created / host
> these sites.
> 23:05:00 up 4 days, 8:54, 4 users, load
> average: 0.46, 0.27, 0.21
> 22:58:00 up 4 days, 6:59, 3 users, load
> average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
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> xtqAV3egQm3p8HYpuJA8Bxo=
> =bZ9Q
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>
>
>
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