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yes becasue god forbid someone profit from innovation. open source and no ownership of one's own creations. gotta love the brave new world.

In that case, I propose we begin to patent mathematical formulas. That way Mathematicians can profit from innovation in this brave new world.

You're missing the point. Everytime a new idea is proposed, or implemented in software, the first thing that the vocal minority clamours for is "Open Source it".

The point is that development takes time. If somebody wants to be paid for their work, that's their perogative. Bringing up mathematic formulas doesn't really weigh into the argument. If Apple feels that they have to protect their code, they are entitled to do so.

It is not always good for the company to open their code. What's more, they shouldn't have too.

They can protect their code just fine with copyrights. Patents are to prevent anyone else from writing completely different code that accomplishes the same thing. Big difference. The sole purpose of software patents is to stifle innovation and profit in this brave new world.

Copyrights don't stop pirates armed with gdb and objdump.

And cops don't stop people from murdering and robbing. What's your point?

"They can protect their code just fine with copyrights."

Arrrr! They sure can.

"Patents are to prevent anyone else from writing completely different code that accomplishes the same thing."

One can't patent results. For example if I invented the printing press. The machine itself would be patentable. However I couldn't claim a patent on all machines that print books. Ideas and abstract principles likewise can't be patented.

>>Ideas and abstract principles likewise can't be patented.

Welcome to the USA. You must be new here.

*rolls eyes*

No, I just happen to make the effort to understand the law instead of just complaining about it.

>>Arrrr! They sure can.

You don't file a patent to keep pirates from redistributing your code, copyright protection would do just fine. If you're referring to the fact that it happens anyway, then please inform us of how a patent makes this harder.

If their goal was to keep someone else from using their code in their own product, then again, copyright law would be ample protection.

What a software company does when they patent a "method", such as double-clicking, one-click checkouts, tiling windows on a screen so that all are visible, etc, has nothing to do with protecting their code, because the patent has nothing to do with the code. The patent is about keeping anyone else from achieving the same results using different code.

Say it with me again, PATENTS DO NOT PROTECT CODE. That's what copyrights are for. Nowhere in the patent filing do I see any source code listed.

"You don't file a patent to keep pirates from redistributing your code, copyright protection would do just fine. If you're referring to the fact that it happens anyway, then please inform us of how a patent makes this harder."

I'm pointing out that copyright isn't the magical solution either.

"Say it with me again, PATENTS DO NOT PROTECT CODE. That's what copyrights are for. Nowhere in the patent filing do I see any source code listed."

Legally both provide "protection".* Real world however both copyright and patents (along with other IP) are violated via various means (sometimes unintentionally) on a regular basis.

*To be percise, they provide "after the fact" punitive action.

Who mentioned anything about "Open Sourcing" anything? We are talking about patents in software algorithms, not open source versus closed source. And if you have ever written software, or solved a mathematical riddle employing other peoples "ideas", you'd realize why patenting such things are repugnant and inimical. Start thinking and stop adulating Apple for once, damnit.

Exactly. The issue of software patenting has nothing to do with feelings for Apple, or any of the other OS or software companies. It has to do with the ridiculousness of patenting an idea, which can practically be implemented by anyone owning a computer without much need for physical resources.

If the amount of work that goes into an idea is supposed to be the gauge of patentability, then surely one should be able to patent plot concepts in books and scripts, mathematical formulas, visual art, musical themes, movie ideas, and other intellectual forms of expressions. Hell, it takes a lot of work arranging and planting a pretty garden too; should that be patentable? What makes software ideas so different from other ideas and concepts?



Software is basically a collection of ideas; almost all of them, to varying degree, intuitive and easily reproduced on any computer. There is no need for any physical construction. Patents were made to give the inventor of an invention a head start on making money of his/her invention while at the same time benefiting society by publishing the invention for the world to see. The only point of software patents is to stop other people from using your idea, and to make sure it's published so that you can sue people for violating your patent. It also serves the purpose of avoiding that pesky problem of people reverse engineering your work. They can't use the reverse engineered knowledge, because you have patented the idea, not the physical implementation.

If software patents had a life of half a year to a year, then I'd not be as opposed to them as I am. That would give the inventor a head start, however with patents having a life of 20 years just serves to make sure that nobody can implement your idea for the foreseeable future...

Bringing up mathematic formulas doesn't really weigh into the argument

Of course it does. You see, any program is nothing more than a mathematical exprerssion. It's a complicated one, but not one qualitatively different from any other mathematica expression. The very theory underlying computation shows this to be true.

Mathematical expressions, for very good reasons, are not patentable. If they were, Leonard Euler would have patented physics and we'd be sending these messages via carrier pigeon. At a theoretical level, a piece of code is no different than Euler's moment equation. The onus for those who are in favor of software patents is to argue why one mathematical expression should be treated any differently from another.

"Of course it does. You see, any program is nothing more than a mathematical exprerssion. It's a complicated one, but not one qualitatively different from any other mathematica expression. The very theory underlying computation shows this to be true."

Actually math and logic. Anyway programs however are useless without computers to run them on. Mathmatical expressions however can run on any properly trained human mind.

Logic is just a subbranch of mathematics. And what exactly is the point of making the destinction of programs being useless without computers? Any experienced programmer can "run" a program in his head (or at least, parts of it), and computers can quite easily work with the symbolic equations of mathematics. Does:

det(M) = ac - bd

change when I write it as:

(defun det(M)
(- (* a c) (* b d)))

One's meant for a human, the other is meant for the computer, but its still the same underlying mathematical truth.

Sorry but quite the opposite there is no mathematics without logic.
Logic is the basic of mathematics and science in general.
Only logic is important, because it can't be taught at school unlike physics, mathematics ...

"Logic is the basic of mathematics and science in general. Only logic is important, because it can't be taught at school unlike physics, mathematics ..."

I know I'm beating an OT here, but exactly were do you think people acquire logic?

You're missing the point. Ideas should not be patentable. Ideas are also not open or close source.

A company, such as Apple, can (even should if you prefer) protect their product. They can implement a way of creating tamper-proof code (if they're so naive as to think it is really 100% tamper-proof). What they should not be able to do is patent the general idea of "just in time obfuscating", preventing any other company from doing something similar with their own code, in their own way.

And you don't think mathematical formula's take time? There is such an incredible amount of work (understanding, background, whatever) required that most individuals will never make a significant contribution, and those who do, will not manage to until well into their postdocs. It is an interesting topic though, as it does demonstrate my major gripe with idea patents.

Read through some of the major math theorems. Most of them are a hell of a long way from obvious (especially compared to what has is being patented in the software industry), and yet a great deal of them were independently worked out by at least two individuals within a short timeframe (frequently without even any common background). You can have what is physically yours (which is also a cultural thing), but I don't appreciate you being able to control what I can think and innovate.

And on the subject of innovation, how is it that such a huge body of mathematics dates back to prior centuries when there was no incentives to innovate (or even any use at all for the stuff)? Huge portions of the population routinely engage in problem solving (even if it is only their daily crossword puzzle) for which their can never be any possible monitory grab. If money was the sole (or even major) innovator, how is it that it itself is a relatively recent (in the time scale of human development) innovation? Shouldn't we all still be sitting back on our cave floors gnawing on raw meat. A large part of why people work on stuff is because we are a curious bunch that take pleasure in figuring stuff out.

I used to believe in innovation of the person, but after much exposure to mathematics (working on my PhD), I am now more inclined to believe that ideas arising in the minds of specific individuals have a lot more to do with the state of the population in general. Strangely enough, this seems to be even true when there isn't even any common background that would make it seem reasonable.

Did you know that that even something like integration was developed entirely independently by at least two people (working with their own invented notation and sharing no common background) within a few short years of each other? Or to pull an example a little closer to home for most, lets talk about the vaunted RSA. Did you know that it was independently developed by Cocks, a British mathematician working for GCHQ, four years before Rivest, Shamir and Adleman came along and figured it out (and patented it). Now that is something I think most would not call obvious.

In short, in looking at the history of mathematics, it seems more likely that innovation and incite happens because, from the global perspective of humanity, "the time was right." It's a weired and wonderful thing (especial all the cases where you cannot even argue that general knowledge had reached certain levels) and (IMHO) should not be artificially curbed by those with legislative power.

Actually you still "own" your creation in open source, it's just that your agreeing to make it available to anyone.

Idiot, you can profit by copyrighting your work/product. Trying to own the entire means of doing some particular thing, which in the software world is not likely to meet the patent criteria of "novel" and "non-obvious", but still likely to be patented anyway, merely stifles the ability of others to bring competitive offerings to market. These days, many people have the same idea in development or in variations of the same thing, but one gets the patent rammed through first...the one who has a larger legal budget. Yeah, the small guy can innovate in that environment. He'll make a great living too, given that eventually he will only be able to get a job at a corporation at a standardized salary, rather than innovating and making the profit that his work deserves. You, my friend, have it backwards. Say no to software patents, but yes to software copyright.

Acquiring such a patent does rather little to promote security.

Makes it easier to sue people who make cracks for it though. They can argue that you havn't licensed the patent and therefore are not permitted to crack it. Crazy shit.

Nothing stops pirates or crackers. The DMCA allows any company to sue anybody who creates a means for circumventing copy protection. This has nothing to do with either of those things. All patents like this accomplish is preventing other legitimate software vendors from creating similar functionality on their own, using completely different code.

No it doesn't. Circumvention of a security device does not require the usage of the device. Simply understanding the device and how to undermine it does not constitute a violation of the patent. Nor does distributing a program or collection of programs that undermine such a device. Where applicable the DMCA could be used to that end, and hypothetically the terms of EULAs could be attempted to be used where applicable.

You can patent a method of securing a bicycle and I can sell bolt cutters.

And pray tell, where are all these Linux pc's? where are all those ISV's clammering over each other to get their software ported to Linux?

Pulease, I see nothing wrong with the patent; if there was no NEED for patents, then Apple would never have needed to patent it; the fact is, had they not, someone else would - face that simple fact.

As for 'proprietary', if you don't like it, don't purchase it; no one is holding a gun to your head and demanding that you must purchase an Apple product. Apple has their products out in the market, and so far, the consumer doesn't give a shit about your so-called jihad against the 'great satan' - the average user wants to purchase a sexy laptop, take it home, write letters, send email and watch a bit of porn - the simple fact is, he doesn't care, because shock horror, he has a life beyond computers.

the average user wants to purchase a sexy laptop ... and watch a bit of porn - ... he has a life beyond computers.

From what you've just said, admittedly taken out of context, not much of a life.

:-)

Meh; personally, I can't work out the attraction of trying to install MacOS X on a non-Apple hardware considering how cheap their ibooks, iMacs, mini-macs and so forth are.

I mean, honestly, compare HP to Apple, and Apple still comes out pretty well in the price/performance/battery life matrix - hell, this little G3 600Mhz iBook I'm using right now (the one with 16MB of video memory (ATI Radeon Mobility GPU)) and to be bloody honest, it runs MacOS X 10.4.3 like a champ; hence, with that sort of situation, one wouldn't need to upgrade simply to benefit from OS improvements equals money saved.

Ultimately what the spec comparers fail to take into account is the Mac OS X factor; that is what people buy a Mac for, not the hardware, but the operating system and the whole experience that the operating system delivers.

Does this need to come up every single time that there's a discussion about Apple, or can you all eventually see that some of you want more control over selecting what the "experience" means, that others of you find Apple's offerings a "good value," and others do not?

Because this is about a software patent which is a broader matter.

It was a pre-emptive jab at those who come in and do the fly-by-night Mac bash under an anonymous account (hence the reason I would have prefered to see NO anonymous postings in favour of forced registration) - it is also a response to the original "mac sux because its proprietary and expensive" arguement to which I originally replied (my first post).

As for software patents, if no country had software patents, the issue wouldn't even arise, thats the simple fact of the matter; the only reason why its an issue, there is one country with it, and a counter weight against it; the pro-patent group can't seem to rationalise their stance, and personally, in the case of patent software, if they do wish to find a middle ground, then why not allow those software titles that are free, to be able to use patented technologies - since no money is made, there force, no money has been taken off the originator of the idea.

"personally, I can't work out the attraction of trying to install MacOS X on a non-Apple hardware considering how cheap their ibooks, iMacs, mini-macs and so forth are."

I can't either.

However, if this is what the customers want, the sensible thing is to stop telling them they are wrong, and just get on and sell it to them. Its called listening to the market. If you are a restaurant, do you refuse to sell the customer red wine when he orders fish? Its not about rights and wrongs, its about listening.

Think about what happened to Next. The customer was wrong. He had no business wanting hard drives, and those magnesium laser cut cases were worth every penny, and the OS was too good to waste on crappy generic hardware. And then?

Well, this once more confirms the impression that when reading articles on OSNews about Apple, the way to browse is at -5. This is where all the intelligent comments will be found, not to mention any funny ones.

We need some way of setting the threshold for reading in both directions. So, could we have a second button? The first choice would set the threshold as now. The second would allow us to cut off in either direction. This would let us browse at 0 and below, as well as at 0 and above, for instance. This would have the great merit of stopping the idiotic markdowns, because people would no longer know which way to mark.

As to the fundamental point the OP of this thread makes, it does seem likely that the technology is a variety of DRM. And if it is used to prevent OS X running on any hardware which doesn't have a "paid Apple" chip in it, he is right. This way of doing business is on a hiding to nowhere. The experience of the market over ten years is that you cannot sell a locked OS/hardware combination, and be a force in the market in terms of share. Yes, you can be a niche player, and you can make money as a niche player, at least for a while. But its a precarious living.

You can see this if you look at the numbers being shipped. Last year Apple shipped a few more machines than it did in '95. This is where you end up if your attempt to have a monopoly of hardware and software fails: you end up in a niche. At best. If you were Next, you ended up bust.

The problem really is the Cupertino mindset. They really believe in lock-in, both with the iPods and with the computers. But you have to ask, with the computers, what exactly are they locking you into, and for whose benefit? When your controlled hardware environment only differs from the rest because it comes in a different case, and it has an extra chip in the main board - but the rest of it is identical boards, drives, processors, memory - how exactly is this a controlled environment?

They keep on making this original lock-in mistake over and over again, the one where they refused to license the OS to MS. The trouble is, if you don't succeed in becoming a monopoly, your share declines to insignificance.

And, one has to say, given the mindset, a good thing if it does.

"Nowadays whenever any of the big software companies creates a new button, widget, tool, animation, feedback method, etc, they patent the hell out of it to keep anyone else from doing anything similar."

Let me guess. You missed the "Look and Feel" court case between Apple and Microsoft (a copyright case BTW).

Plus you also forgot about trademark as well.

There are four forms of IP. Patents, Trademark, Copyright, and Trade Secrets. The thing to keep in mind is that something can be covered by more than one. Plus there can be subdivisions within a catagory. e.g. Utility patent, Design Patent, etc.

>>You missed the "Look and Feel" court case between Apple and Microsoft (a copyright case BTW).

Yes, that was a case Apple brought up against Microsoft under copyright law, and Apple lost to Microsft. Please tell me what that has to do with patents. The point was that things like the Save button, Print button, dialog boxes, etc, were not patented when they were invented, so everyone was able to write their own code to implement those IDEAS, but nowadays any new thing like that gets patented, so no one can write their own code to implement that IDEA. Get the point? Where would computer technology be today if they'd been as patent crazy in the '80s as they are now? Pretty well behind, I'm sure of that.

It was only after Apple lost the look-and-feel copyright case to Microsoft that they started patenting abstract ideas in software.

>>People! Stop talking about Apple's software patents!

Why?

>>Is it like the first time Apple has patented anything?

Unfortunately, no.

>>As if incessantly arguing about that is going to improve anything.

As if shutting up and ignoring it is going to improve anything.