Red Hat watched its stock tumble 6.4% on Thursday as Wall Street digested the open-source software firm’s latest results and details on the drag its recent JBoss acquisition will have on its profit this year.
RedHat Shares Tumble as Result of JBoss Acquisition/Lawsuit
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Analysts are questioning why FireStar went after Red Hat in particular.
JBoss has little money. Red Hat buys JBoss. Red Hat has a fair amount of money, but not enough to be able to outlast a lawsuit forever. FireStar now sues Red Hat.
Can anybody else smell a whiff of opportunism here?
I think it smells a bit like a SCO-case.
It’s interesting to see which open source companies that gets sued. Quite interesting.
Wait until open source companies start suing other open source companies.
The code might be open, but the business is still a business.
We’ll see. Some licenses handle such matters, other licenses don’t.
But if you have complied with the license(s) in a safe manner you’ll be on the safe side. The question here is: How do you comply in a safe manner? Aahh.. lawyers… the plague of humanity…
<conspiracy>
I remember weeks ago that Oracle’s boss was pissed off when Red Hat bought JBOSS. Maybe Oracle is funding FireStar?
</conspiracy>
Anyway, I see this as opportunism, just like other vague lawsuits in the past. Tsk! Money really talks!
Edited 2006-07-01 07:10
> I remember weeks ago that Oracle’s boss was pissed
> off when Red Hat bought JBOSS.
Oracle could simply buy Red Hat if they wanted JBoss. And if they did, they would get their own Linux distro in the process as an added bonus. Oracle has been talking about creating a Linux distro for a while. And since Red Hat is the only officially supported distro on which Oracle products run…
I’m not sure the JBoss purchase was such a good idea for Red Hat. It left them very drained of cash.
Even if Red Hat won’t sell, they are so drained right now, a hostile takeover might be possible.
Just for the record, Oracle officially supports more than just Red Hat in the Linux arena…
http://www.oracle.com/technologies/linux/index.html
Yet another law suite bought about by some pathetic nobody company in the middle of no where, with no products, no profits, and hoping to use this as a last ditch attempt to get bought out by Red Hat or find some source of money.
I’d love the day when they finally get rid of software patents, especially on things that, quite frankly, are no innovations, but nothing more than sad attempts to lodge extremely generalised descriptions of every day things, and laying claim that they invented them.
Yep, the political party that capitalizes on the “patents suck pond water” meme will do well.
Hopefully such a party doesn’t endorse a lot of the other contemporary nonsense.
Yet another law suite bought about by some pathetic nobody company in the middle of no where, with no products, no profits, and hoping to use this as a last ditch attempt to get bought out by Red Hat or find some source of money.
Hopefully this will not succed this time. Borland and other did similar things somewhere in the early bit age. The patent is also rather obvious, so it should not be patentable.
The problem is that, when lawyers need to trust expert A, B and C that all have different view on obviousness, and if prior art actually was prior art, and they havn’t a clue of what either of them are talking about, and the jury have even less of a clue, the outcome of cases like this could be rather random.
This is a problem for the whole software industry, as patents introduces an uncertainty that might make it harder to get funding for software projects.
> I’d love the day when they finally get rid of
> software patents.
Software patents will become more common. Not less common. And they are a necessary evil.
Think about it from a commercial software company’s point of view. You spend millions of dollars on R&D to develop something, only to have what you developed become commoditized shortly after you release because open source “idea leaches” clone the idea and release a free version.
Software companies can no longer protect their investment at the product level because of open source cloning of commercial products. So they are left with no option except to protect their products at the intellectual property level.
I’m not saying software parents aren’t abused. Many times they are. But they are a necessary evil, that will only become more necessary as open source / free software becomes more common.
Edited 2006-07-01 14:05
I’m not saying software parents aren’t abused. Many times they are. But they are a necessary evil, that will only become more necessary as open source / free software becomes more common.
Why are they necessary evil?
Ignoring for a second the OSS line (which seems reasonable enough to me, though) that Software patents impeded development and innovation and that, by design, software patents allow big software companies to abuse the law and patent obvious software algorithms (Microsoft IsNot patent rings a bell?), there’s a third issue, which is, in my eyes, the biggest problem of all:
All major enterprises have been stockpiling 100’s, if not 1000’s of useless patents (Microsoft’s “Use an icon to notify when update is present”) that serve one purpose: Create a MAD-like situation where no-one is stupid enough to open a patent war, as it risk all-out war.
However, here’s the problem, when playing the MAD game, all you need is a single stupid player, who no longer gives a ***k to start an all out wat.
SCO already tried it (assuming SCO wasn’t Microsoft sock puppet… and I doubt it)… we just got lucky.
Oh, here’s another point for you.
Most of the software patents were patented in the U.S. If this ridicules situation continues, it is very unlikely that Europe, let alone Asia will continue to accept U.S. patents, making things even worse.
Cheers,
Gilboa
> that Software patents impeded development and innovation
Well, we can’t ignore this. And in fact, the opposite of what OSS claims is in fact, the reality. Inability to patent stuff is whatt impeeds development and innovation. Why? One word: Money. For the most part, money is what drives R&D. And the incentive to spend money on R&D comes from the fact that patents allow someone who invests a great deal of time and money in R&D to captialize on that investment. If the protection that allows them to capitalize on that investment is removed, then R&D spending will stop. Since no company is going to want to be the one that spends all the money on R&D only to be ripped off by all the leaches when their investment finally results in a breakthrough.
> patents allow big software companies to abuse the law
Patents also allow little companis to protect themselves against big ones. The case of Stac Electronics is an excellent example. Stac succesfully sued Micrsoft after Microsoft bundled doublespacee with MS DOS. Doublespace infringed on patents that Stac Electronics held for their flagship product.
> Most of the software patents were patented in the U.S. If
> this ridicules situation continues, it is very unlikely that Europe,
> let alone Asia will continue to accept U.S. patents, making
> things even worse.
I doubt it. The consequences of ignoring international patent laws would be way too high.
Edited 2006-07-01 15:43
“Patents also allow little companis to protect themselves against big ones. The case of Stac Electronics is an excellent example. Stac succesfully sued Micrsoft after Microsoft bundled doublespacee with MS DOS. Doublespace infringed on patents that Stac Electronics held for their flagship product.
Stac didn’t patent fresh new way to compress file system. They didn’t patent a revolutionary algorithm that enabled 5 to 1 compression. Did patented that mere idea of having a compressed file system. As much as I hate Microsoft, Microsoft should have never lost the case.
What’s next? Let winzip patent file compression, killing all ZIP, BZ2, ACE and RAR products? Patent “use of mouse to navigate menus” killing all GUI OS’? Patent the conditional statement “If” (Microsoft wasn’t far from that), killing all programing languages starting from Batch, SH to c, cpp, java and C#? Where does it end? Where do you draw the line?
“I doubt it. The consequences of ignoring international patent laws would be way too high.”
Software patents are anything but international. E.g. Neither Europe nor Asia accept U.S. software patents.
Oh… I just wonder, why didn’t you attack my main point (“Creating a MAD like
situation will undoubtedly trigger an all out patent war that may/will kill the
software industry.)
> Oh… I just wonder, why didn’t you attack my main point
> (“Creating a MAD like situation will undoubtedly trigger an all
> out patent war that may/will kill the software industry.)
I agree there are a lot of useless patents out there:
* Amazon’s one click order patent
* Apple’s Genie Effect patent
* Ask.com’s pending patent on the “binocular javascript”
But getting rid of the whole patent system is not the answer. See my example I posted in another comment. If I invent a struture for storing data in relational database, and a new search algorithm that makes retrieving data 50 times faster than any other known system. I should be able to patent that specific design. Copyright law alone, is not enough to protect software since there are usually many ways to write high level code that will generate the same machine code instructions.
Sadly enough, I fail to see how you can prevent a patent system, -any- patent system, from being abused by Amazon/Google/Microsoft/etc.
As it stands right now, the current patent system is so broken; so riddled with holed and ridicules patents, that I doubt that there’s any way to fix it.
> Sadly enough, I fail to see how you can prevent a patent system,
> -any- patent system, from being abused by Amazon
> /Google/Microsoft/etc.
You can prevent it by making sure the people approving software patents at the patent office actually know what they are doing. In otherwords, they should be software engineers / computer scientists themselves. That’s part of the main reason why it is broke right now. The people approving the patents don’t even understand what it is they are approving because they do not have sufficient training in the field.
Yeah, but how can you prevent someone from patenting all tree based compression algorithms instead of a certain compression algorithm (zip).
Or, how can you limit the patent to a certain application of idea (certain revolutionary speech recognition), instead of abstract idea? (“Using sound pattern analysis to extract text from audio stream”)
Having the experts is not enough. You need bullet-proof guidelines to limit software patent application.
International patent laws do not protect the US patents.
We do not have software patents in Denmark, and US patents on software are not valid outside USA (with exception of countries having software patents). There is no international protection of software patents. And software patents are invalid in all of EU.
Think about it from a commercial software company’s point of view. You spend millions of dollars on R&D to develop something, only to have what you developed become commoditized shortly after you release because open source “idea leaches” clone the idea and release a free version.
The obvious solution would be to allow softwarepatents for a very limited amount of time; say about 5 years (the way copyright used to work in the US). That way patent-trolling would still be a problem, but less of a problem, and only a temporary problem. And to top it off: innovations wouldn’t be left to rot in a dark corner if a single company doesn’t manage to make use of it; aka industry innovation would be boosted on average.
Think about it from a commercial software company’s point of view.
You spend millions of dollars on R&D to develop something, only to have what you developed become worhless because of companies that specializes in patent lawsuits, without having any products of their own, meaning that mutual destruction pacts won’t work.
You just have to pay up.
The problem with software and patents is that writing software really is a way of expression, just like writing a novel. This means you can put many different words on the same thing. This makes searching for existing patents more or less hopless.
Even if you actually could find all the patented parts of your software, you would find tha t large parts of your program would allready be patented, usually by something overly broad or obvious. You would then have to decide if you should pay or risk having a fight in court.
Yet another problem is that your developer wouldn’t know if he was writing patentable code. When you code something it is almost always obvious to the programmer or team who is coding it.
No, software patents doesn’t offer the protection you want. They just introduces more risks.
> companies that specializes in patent lawsuits, without having
> any products of their own, meaning that mutual destruction pacts
> won’t work.
Patent holding companies have to go. I agree.
> No, software patents doesn’t offer the protection you want.
> They just introduces more risks.
Again, I will point out the case of Stac Electronics. The only reason the tiny little company was able to successfully protect themselves against Microsoft is because of patents.
I’m not saying that all software patents are valid. But here is an example:
What I should not be able to patent:
“The general capability to search a relational database for results.”
What I should be able to patent:
“A specific algorithm and data storage scheme for allowing data in a database to be searched 50 times faster than any other currently known system, and that I have spent 3 years developing.”
After all, the fact that “My database from my tiny software company with 5 employees will allow you to perform searches 50 times faster than Microsoft SQL Server” may be the only competitive advantage I have against the software giant.
The problem with the argument that “Copyright is enough. Patents are not needed” is that there are usually many many different ways to write high level code that will generate the same machine code instructions, and ultimately end up performing the exact same operations. So copyright law simply isn’t sufficient to protect software.
Edited 2006-07-01 15:57
FireStar was founded in 2001, they are suing over Hibernate, an ORM, and if you look up ORM on wikipedia they mention the Enterprise Objects Framework from NeXT. According to wikipedia NeXT released the first version in 1994, how dose that support your argument?
So far I haven’t seen any lawsuits over software patent infringements that appeared sane, and I don’t blame the layers, they just do their job and represent their client but I’m starting to think they would sue a dog if the client had the will and money to pay for it.
You also totally discount that research happens in Universities not just Corporations and totally blow the effect of Open Source out of proportion. Most successful open source projects are formed around basic infrastructure and Red Hat doesn’t sell anything groundbreakingly new, just basic infrastructure that’s been available in one form or another for over a decade. If you can’t make your profit in the first ten years after you develop something in the computer world you probably never will.
> According to wikipedia NeXT released the first version in 1994,
> how dose that support your argument?
Oracle also had an ORM framework before this paent. So the overall concept of patenting ORM technology in general is probably a lost cause.
I think the bigger concern here is the part about generating database schema and queries automatically based on object models. That’s the only part I can see where there might be a leg to stand on.
> So far I haven’t seen any lawsuits over software patent
> infringements that appeared sane,
You must have slept through Stac Electronics vs. Microsoft Corporation then. That was a very sane and very legitimate software patent lawsuit.
Edited 2006-07-01 15:53
That battle wasn’t sane.
They used each other ideas and stole code from eachother.
Both companies won and lost. Two very stupid cases.
No, they are not a necessary evil.
Just because USA is getting more and more corrupted with each passing day doesn’t mean the rest of us have to be corrupted as well.
If you don’t want to “spend millions of dollars on R&D to develop something” alone on a hidden project, then don’t hide the project, and develop the project with somebody else.
It’ll lower your cost, increase your competition level, and lead to faster development cycles.
Patents are monopoly on ideas, which is unacceptable, since these ideas are not unique in any way.
Patents are expensive which means that few companies apart from large US-companies can afford them, giving them supreme control over the rest of us.
Thank you, but no. Never.
> Patents are monopoly on ideas, which is unacceptable, since
> these ideas are not unique in any way.
No. It is not unacceptable at all. The VAST majority of money spent on developing software is spent on R&D. Profeessional developers spend 80% of their time doing research, and 20% of their time writing code.
So the acticvity where 80% of the time and money is spent is what you are telling people they cannot protect. And that is what is unacceptable.
> US-companies can afford them
Ah… Now the truth starts to come out. It’s a “I hate the USA because I am jealous that they spend more money on R&D than any other country in the world, and thus reap more rewards from it”. issue.
Basically, just more America bashing and America hating.
Ah… Now the truth starts to come out. It’s a “I hate the USA because I am jealous that they spend more money on R&D than any other country in the world, and thus reap more rewards from it”. issue.
Basically, just more America bashing and America hating.
I’m the last european to hate USA (USA isn’t the entire America btw). However, I prefer competion and freedom over monopolies, and lack of competition and freedom. USA has some internal problems and calling critical voices for communist and stuff like that isn’t going to solve the problems.
I am aware that many europeans have a lot against USA. I don’t share their sentiments, but I must admit that USA is slightly offensive against it’s allies from time to time. You wouldn’t believe how often I’ve been bashed because I’ve defended the actions of USA.
You can find many US-citizens fighting against software patents. Are they communistic non-patriots? You sound like you think that. Could it be that persons can be fine with USA and it’s citizens, while having second thoughts about the laws of USA?
So the acticvity where 80% of the time and money is spent is what you are telling people they cannot protect. And that is what is unacceptable.
It’s a result of their own actions. It doesn’t have to be that way. It’s their actions and they have to suffer the consequences of their own actions. They must adapt to the situation or vanish. That’s the spirit of the free market. I won’t leave democracy behind just to give you the right to oppress me.
> You can find many US-citizens fighting against software patents.
> Are they communistic non-patriots? You sound like you think that.
No. They are socialists. And socialism and patriotism are not at all incompatible. Being a socialist does not make one unpatriotic. The problem with socialism is that although it looks good on paper, in reality, it simply doesn’t work. The Soviet Union proved quite specatularily that it didn’t work. People are simply too selfish by nature to go along with the “Everyone must work for the good of everyone else” ideals of socialsm. Our selfish human nature (which we inherited along with every other animal in the world) is simply too powerful to make socialism work on wide scale. And so what happened in the Sovient Union, is everyone got sick of the fact that they were working harder than others, but not reaping greater rewards for their extra effort. And so they did as little work as possible. After all, if I am going to get paid the same whether I produce 5 units of work per day, or 50 units of work per day, where is my incentive to do 50 units of work per day? And the very nature of socialism causes it to collapse if there are even a few decenters (game theory models prove it).
> They must adapt to the situation or vanish. That’s the spirit of
> the free market.
Except how do you adapt to a system where you cannot protect your R&D investment? I will tell you how. You simply kill your R&D budget. And you stop R&D. And you wait to see what your competitor is going to come up with in the R&D department so that you can copy it. You let them do all the expensive and hard work for you, and then you exploit their efforts once you find out what they have done. And since you didn’t ahve to spend all the R&D money, you can undercut them greatly on price since your development costs are much lower.
Only problem with this strategy? Your competition is implementing the exact same strategy… They kill their R&D budget as well, and wait around to see what you are gonna do so they can exploit you.
So now what do we have? In programming terms, we have what is called a deadlock. Entity A is waiting on data from Entity B before it starts working. And Entity B needs data from Entity A before it will start working. But Entity A won’t send that data to Entity B until it has the data from Entity B. So we are deadlocked, and thus, no work gets done.
That’s why I say getting rid of software patents will stop innovation. Not foster it like the OSS people like to claim.
> I won’t leave democracy behind just to give you the right to
> oppress me.
Except the system you are promoting is not democracy. It is socialism. It is a system where everyone is required by law to work for the good of everyone else. Now tell me… Which one is more opressive? I argue it is a system where the government tells me I do not have the right to protect something I spent a lot of money, and a lot of time coming up with against exploitation by others who didn’t spend any money, and instead, just sat around to see what others were going to come up with and what they could rip off.
Edited 2006-07-01 17:49
Except how do you adapt to a system where you cannot protect your R&D investment? I will tell you how. You simply kill your R&D budget. And you stop R&D.
We got along in the computer industry without software patents for forty years – the forty years in which most of the innovation in software was done.
The trend in R&D spending, by the way, is the other direction. Most companies spend far less now on software R&D than they did fifteen years ago, and the numbers have been declining steadily since the late ’80s.
> We got along in the computer industry without software patents
> for forty years – the forty years in which most of the innovation
> in software was done.
False conclusion. You cannot prove a cause effect relationship here. In fact, this is a common pattern in any new industry. There is an explosion of innovation, followed by a period where not much really changes. Simply because the idea well runs dry. Or because the ideas we have are so incredibly complex that implementing them is beyond our current knowledge of math and computer science. Or lack of understanding in other areas. Example, we fall way short at implementing a true human AI because we don’t even understand what it is that makes us human.
I would also argue that a lot of the reason R&D at commercial software companies has slowed down is because of budget shortfalls. And sometimes those budget shortfalls are caused by the fact that their flagship products have been comoditized by open source. Commercial UNIX competes with Linux, Web app servers complete with tons of free versions, databases compete with MySQL and Postgres, etc.
Edited 2006-07-01 19:12
> We got along in the computer industry without
>software patents for forty years – the forty years
> in which most of the innovation in software was done.
False conclusion. You cannot prove a cause effect relationship here.
It’s not a conclusion, it’s a statement of fact. Despite dire claims to the contrary, the industry did without software patents for all that time.
More money was spent on R&D when there was no patent protection for software than is being spent now that there is.
And sometimes those budget shortfalls are caused by the fact that their flagship products have been comoditized by open source. Commercial UNIX competes with Linux,
We stopped spending on R&D in commercial Unix systems long before Linux was stable enough to be competitive. Unix as an OS was already dying, and the major players were aware of why, before Linus even announced that he was going to write an OS.
But even now there’s no evidence to support the claim that software patents are valuable. The major innovator in internet commerce is the porn industry, and they neither hold nor enforce software patents.
As far as I’m aware, Adobe has never used a patent to defend its market position for Photoshop and it still dominates that market.
There are far more examples of software market domination not relying on patents than there are of cases where enforcing a patent has provided a benefit.
> It’s not a conclusion, it’s a statement of fact.
Citation please? I didn’t think so. Please show me the industry study that concludes that the drop in innovation is a result of software patents. You can’t? Of course not. Cause it doesn’t exist.
Your so called “fact” is something you just made up. And it holds no water at all.
> More money was spent on R&D when there was no
> patent protection for software than is being spent
> now that there is.
Citation please?
Sorry. But the real fact is that is that software development costs more now than it ever has in the past.
> The major innovator in internet commerce is the
> porn industry
Oh give me a break. All the porn industry does is build ontop of aleeady existing software. There is no innovation here at all.
> It’s not a conclusion, it’s a statement of fact.
Citation please? I didn’t think so. Please show me the industry study that concludes that the drop in innovation is a result of software patents. You can’t? Of course not. Cause it doesn’t exist.
You’re not reading for comprehension, you’re reading for points to argue with. My claim is not that the drop in innovation is a result of software patents.
My claim is that software patents are unnecessary to protect innovation and that 40 years of innovation without them pretty much demonstrates that.
Sorry. But the real fact is that is that software development costs more now than it ever has in the past.
Sorry, no one claimed otherwise. The correct claim, once again, is that R&D spending is down. You’ve confused “development” with R&D, just as earlier you confused requirements analysis with R&D.
Oh give me a break. All the porn industry does is build ontop of aleeady existing software. There is no innovation here at all.
All anyone ever does is build on top of existing ideas.
But the fact is that the porn industry were the first, and still are the best, at making money out of the internet. They figured out how to set up the web sites, how to finance, how to bill, and how to convince the customers that it was safe. You may not find that innovating, but most people in the business do.
> But the fact is that the porn industry were the first, and still are
> the best, at making money out of the internet.
The only reason they are good at making money is because people are perverts. It’s the same reason the X rated film industry can make money. Sex sells, even if the acting is horrible, and the story lines are complete crap. It doesn’t take any innovation or skill to sell porn.
> They figured out how to set up the web sites, how to finance,
> how to bill, and how to convince the customers that it was safe.
Totally wrong. In fact, that porn industry has done more too HARM customer’s confideence in safe internet shopping that virtually any other industry. Why? Because there are so many scams involving Internet porn.
Totally wrong. In fact, that porn industry has done more too HARM customer’s confideence in safe internet shopping that virtually any other industry. Why? Because there are so many scams involving Internet porn.
To quote you: citation?
> To quote you: citation?
Citation: (Inbox, pick whatever inbox you want that doesn’t have a good spam filer.)
The number of porn scam emails is enough to support that claim.
> To quote you: citation?
Citation: (Inbox, pick whatever inbox you want that doesn’t have a good spam filer.)
The number of porn scam emails is enough to support that claim.
That proves you get a lot of porn scam email. It doesn’t prove that a) The porn industry was not the first to gain customer trust on the internet or b) that because there is a lot of porn scam email people don’t spend a lot of money on porn.
It is well documented that porn was the first field to make money on the internet, and it is well documented that the problems they managed to solve were those of customer trust and internet commerce.
They’re still leading the way. Google for recent articles on porn industry and video streaming/downloading and you’ll find plenty of examples of industry pundits saying so.
You are the one making the claim that the porn industry was responsible for establishing consunmer confidence in e-commerce. So you are the one required to cite it and back it up. Turning that around and asking me to cite the claim that you are wrong is a logical fallacy.
You are the one making the claim that the porn industry was responsible for establishing consunmer confidence in e-commerce. So you are the one required to cite it and back it up. Turning that around and asking me to cite the claim that you are wrong is a logical fallacy.
Which logical fallacy? It’s not a logical fallacy, it’s merely demanding that you play to the standards you’ve demanded of others. In the post above the one I’m replying to (which I’m sure crossed yours “in the mail”) I pointed out generally where you can look for supporting evidence. If you want to make this more formal than that, than we have to go back to your original claim and you have to state it as a formal thesis and provide supporting evidence.
> Which logical fallacy? It’s not a logical fallacy
It is a logical fallacy to ask others to provide citations to disprove a claim you have made, when you have not provided a citation to prove the claim.
The fact that it is a logical fallacy can be demonstratd by a Reductio ad absurdum scenario:
The Earth is actually made out of oreo cookiees, and it is just an illusion that we think it is made up of what modern science claims it is.
Think I am wrong? Find me a citation that says I am wrong.
That’s where the logical fallacy happens. Because chancees are, you will never find any reference to support the idea that I am wrong, because no one has ever taken up the cause of proving the Earth is not made out of oreo cookies and it is just an illusion that it appears to be made up of something else.
In otherwords, you cannot use the abscence of documentation to the contrary to a support claim of truth in the absence of any documentation that supports the original claim. Doing so is a logical fallacy.
And with that, I am really going to bed now. Good night.
Edited 2006-07-02 06:53
> Which logical fallacy? It’s not a logical fallacy
It is a logical fallacy to ask others to provide citations to disprove a claim you have made, when you have not provided a citation to prove the claim.
You’ve been doing that for a large part of this discussion, and it’s not a ‘logical fallacy’, it’s a rhetorical technique to shift the burden of proof. I just thought that since you were busily shifting it, I’d shift it back.
(My citation on the lack of logical fallacy, in this instance, by the way, is the alt.atheism FAQ on logical fallacies)
Your example, by the way, is not an example of reductio ad absurdum. To accomplish a reductio, you must state a proposition, assume it’s negation, and demonstrate that the negation leads to a contradiction.
(Why yes, I am qualified to lecture you on formal logic.
If nothing else it is unscientific to do wat you tried to do. Because science demands that you cannot use the absence of evidence to support a claim as evidence that the claim is true, when there is also a lack of evidence to support the claim.
And no, I ahve never done that in this thread. I have never asked anyone to provide citations to prove I am wrong. Only to prove they are right.
(Why yes, I am qualified to lecture you on formal logic.
No you aren’t. Because your appeal to Denniss Ritchie was a logical fallacy. It meets the criteria of “This is true because so and so said so”. And that is one of the criteria that I can call you on Argumentum ad verecundiam for. So it looks like you aren’t qualified to lecture me on formal logic after all
Edited 2006-07-02 07:13
(Why yes, I am qualified to lecture you on formal logic.
No you aren’t. Because your appeal to Denniss Ritchie was a logical fallacy. It meets the criteria of “This is true because so and so said so”. And that is one of the criteria that I can call you on Argumentum ad verecundiam for. So it looks like you aren’t qualified to lecture me on formal logic after
Actually, as I’ve already explained, but you probably haven’t seen yet, I didn’t cite Ritchie as an exampe of so and so said, I cited him as an example of so and so did.
It may have escaped your notice, but R&D is what researchers do, and I’m citing these various people as examples of those who do research.
By the way, argumentum ad vericundiam is not a logical fallacy, it’s a rhetorical technique, and it is valid when the authority cited is an authority on the subject matter.
You citing the WSJ as if it were an authority on the reasons for the demise of Unix is a fallacious argumentum ad vericundiam. If I were to cite Ritchie as an expert on what tasks Ritchie did when he did research, (as I did) it would not be.
(When we’re done with logic, I can do you a lecture in epistemology. You seem to be needing one of those as well.)
> By the way, argumentum ad vericundiam is not a logical fallacy
It is a logical fallacy when it is used to try to establish truth in the way you used it. Which is to say “This is true because so and so thought it was” No amount of back peddling now or trying to play semantic games is going to get you out of that. It was a logical fallacy to use it the way you did. Just admit it and move on.
> I can do you a lecture in epistemology
No. I don’t need one. And you aren’t qualified to give it anyway.
Edited 2006-07-02 07:27
> By the way, argumentum ad vericundiam is not a logical fallacy
It is a logical fallacy when it is used to try to establish truth in the way you used it. Which is to say “This is true because so and so thought it was” No amount of back peddling now or trying to play semantic games is going to get you out of that. It was a logical fallacy to use it the way you did. Just admit it and move on.
I have never claimed Ritchie as an example of so and so thought it was. I tried to make it clear in my original comment that I was citing myself, Ritchie, and others as examples of researchers and what they do. I’ve since amplified that point several times, and I know you’ve read at least a few of those amplifications.
The thing to admit here is that you’ve either originally misunderstood or constructed a strawman from my argument and that you are now using it merely as a strawman.
You really should stick around for the lecture on epistemology though. Or at least go read the draft talk.origins “What is Science” FAQ. You seem to have a Kuhnian view of science, which has long since been debunked, and your comments about oreo cookies and illusions suggest you’re not that familiar with the relationship between empiricism and mysticism.
Anyway, if you want to call requirements analysis “R&D”, go ahead, but don’t be surprised when developers don’t understands you, or they laugh when you tell them that they’re spending 80% of their time doing R&D.
Actually, let’s pop the stack back to that. Where did you get the idea that developers spend 80% of their time doing requirements analysis?
Anyway, I’m done… This is just going back and forth now and it is clear no resolution or agreement will come out of it.
I seriously have better things to do with my time. And if you don’t as well, then you really need to get a life
Edited 2006-07-02 07:28
I seriously have better things to do with my time. And if you don’t as well, then you really need to get a life
I’m just good at time management. Web forums are how I kill time while I’m waiting for large compiles to finish.
besides, life’s too short to take seriously.
If nothing else it is unscientific to do wat you tried to do. Because science demands that you cannot use the absence of evidence to support a claim as evidence that the claim is true, when there is also a lack of evidence to support the claim.
Now that’s an example of using a domain of discourse transition error to grasp at straws. But it’s just not your night. (Guess who is a philosopher of science
I think you need to rewrite that second sentence. I suspect that the first occurance of “support” should have been “refute”. I offer you as a counter the history of the neutrino. Pauli did, indeed, use the absences of evidence that refuted the existance of the neutrino as justification for introducing it into his theories. The neutrino was well established in theory long before it was finally discovered in practice, twenty five years after Pauli introduced it.
Before I go on, though, I will say I’m amused that you’re using precisely the distractionary tactics that you’ve accused me of using.
So, you made the first claim in this thread. And, as you’ve admitted, you’ve cited no support. I’ve made the occasional counter claim, backed up with various arguments, citations, and annecedotal evidence. Now you are mumbling about unscientific behavior in a discussion that has had no prior pretention of being “scientific”.
(Why yes, I am qualified to lecture you on what science is.)
> Unix as an OS was already dying, and the major
> players were aware of why, before Linus even
> announced that he was going to write an OS.
And yet the mid 90s were the most profitable time in Sun’s entire history… But Unix was already dying at the time… Interesting conflict you have there.
And yet the mid 90s were the most profitable time in Sun’s entire history… But Unix was already dying at the time… Interesting conflict you have there.
There’s no conflict. Sun was primarily a hardware company, and it made its money off the margin on its servers. It never turned a profit on SunOS.
Sun quit being profitable when it could no longer sustain the margins, and the culprit there is Intel and the commodification of the PC, not Linus Torvalds.
> There’s no conflict. Sun was primarily a hardware company, and it
> made its money off the margin on its servers. It never turned a
> profit on SunOS.
The PC had already been comoditized by this time. The only probleem is that there was no enterprise level OS that could take advantage of it that people wanted to pay for. Until Linux came along that is.
> There’s no conflict. Sun was primarily a hardware
> company, and it made its money off the margin on its
> servers. It never turned a profit on SunOS.
The PC had already been comoditized by this time. The only probleem is that there was no enterprise level OS that could take advantage of it that people wanted to pay for. Until Linux came along that is.
You have an amazing habit of non-sequiter. Nothing in your comment addresses the observation.
> You have an amazing habit of non-sequiter. Nothing in your
> comment addresses the observation.
Sure it does. There is nothing at all non-sequiter about it. Because UNIX and Sun hardware are linked in a very tight way. And if UNIX was dying in the mid 90s, then Sun’s sales should have been going down. But they were not. Sun’s sales did not drop until Linux came along.
Edited 2006-07-02 06:20
> You have an amazing habit of non-sequiter. Nothing in
> your comment addresses the observation.
Sure it does. There is nothing at all non-sequiter about it. Because UNIX and Sun hardware are linked in a very tight way. And if UNIX was dying in the mid 90s, then Sun’s sales should have been going down. But they were not. Sun’s sales did not drop until Linux came along.
Sun’s sales were going down, check the 10Ks. They were profitable because they were in a high margin hardware business, but they were already losing that business to other players in the server arena.
The first fortune 500 company to get out of the Unix business was Intergraph. They got out of it and went to NT; not Linux. Many of the former Unix players, like DEC, were already obviously dying by ’92, and many of them had already gone under or been bought out.
The first major users of PC hardware servers were the ISPs, and in the early to late 90s, they mostly went with FreeBSD. It wasn’t until around 2000 that Linux started gaining ground in the server business, and at first it mainly replaced FreeBSD as the server choice.
It wasn’t really until IBM, in the middle of converting itself from a primarily hardware company back into a primarily services company started pushing Linux in a big way in the early 2000s that Linux/PC servers started making serious headway against Unix/proprietary servers, and by then even the trade press knew that Unix’s days were numbers.
and @ 2:38 pm
there goes the first loser to mod down a GOOD post that makes actual sense on this server. Bravo!
… Company AB example …
That’s why I say getting rid of software patents will stop innovation. Not foster it like the OSS people like to claim.
And that is why you’re dead wrong. Most of companies (involved with R&D) I know, never filled single patent, but never left R&D.
Now, what is the problem with patents? First example it comes to my mind:
That company A “patents credit card sized appliance for storing personal data”, never does any R&D or product. Waits for Palm to create that appliance, sues them and earns 64mio$
Why in the world did Palm spent all that money on R&D? Did they stopped with R&D? Both, no. Did they get screwed by your R&D holly bread aka. patents? Yes.
Now explain your “company A&B” claim on this example please.
> Most of companies (involved with R&D) I know, never filled
> single patent, but never left R&D.
You must not know of very many companies invovled in R&D then. Lets take a look at a few and see how many patents they hold, shall we? Some on this list I bet will surprise you.
Red Hat: 6 patents (Yeah. That’s right. Even Red Hat has software patents)
Google: 21 patents
Yahoo: 48 patents
IBM: 43,135 patents
HP: 15,848 patents
Novell: 269 patents
Microsoft: 5,179 patents
Oracle: 770 patents
I could keep going… But you get the point. Unless you have never heard of any of these companies, then you have have heard of companies involved in R&D that have filed multiple patent applications. So it seems the only one here that is dead wrong is you.
> A “patents credit card sized appliance for storing personal data”,
> never does any R&D or product. Waits for Palm to create
> that appliance, sues them and earns 64mio$
You don’t know very much about the patent system do you? (Either that or you are just intentionally trying to spread FUD).
You cannot patent something that generic. You have to provide supporting documentation showing that you really did come up with a design. That is it is “not trivial, and not obvious”, etc. That means you have to provide things like lab notes, formulas, mathematical proofs, schematic diagrams, etc.
> Why in the world did Palm spent all that money on R&D? Did
> they stopped with R&D? Both, no. Did they get screwed by your
> R&D holly bread aka. patents? Yes.
You do know that Palm holds over 200 patents that came out of their R&D work right?
> Now explain your “company A&B” claim on this example please.
I don’t see how I could have explained it any clearer then I did.
Edited 2006-07-01 22:57
You must not know of very many companies invovled in R&D then. Lets take a look at a few and see how many patents they hold, shall we? Some on this list I bet will surprise you.
Why would I be surprised?
Off course they have patents. Everyone is forced to have patents. Doesn’t matter if he wants it or not.
Hell, even I have 2 (not to enforce, just to protect my self). My friend even works in their local IBMs patenting department, so I hear quite a lot of stories.
I never disputed that any of those companies don’t have patents. They do. In fact they are forced to have them.
You don’t know very much about the patent system do you? (Either that or you are just intentionally trying to spread FUD).
Actualy, more than you
You cannot patent something that generic.
Although I was wrong with Palm losing the suit. As I was searching for link I found out they won on appeal court.
http://www.macworld.com/news/2002/08/15/palm/index.php
Few non-sense patents which don’t exist in your mind
“Amazon on-click buy” – currently under examination, but if you look at the history. This patent was the way how Amazon got rid of competition
Another 20 example non-sense:
http://webshop.ffii.de/
Non-sense usual gui functions:
http://gauss.ffii.org/PatentView/EP1460525
MS Patenting Virtul desktops in 2002 (images are extremely amusing)
http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&…
XOR screen drawing:
http://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/www/chapter2_105.html
MS Alt use to switch between hyperlinks
http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&…
Skyline patenting hirearchical data:
http://www.techliberation.com/archives/039647.php
Wang patenting binary data over network:
http://www.ibiblio.org/patents/txt/061594.txt
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-210967.html
(fortunatelly they lost their claim)
Another ones, just a few from my mind
MS patenting wearable device in 2004?
Virtual hierarchy providing for data recording on CD-R?
Apples alpha chanell on pixmap?
Now, you might say those people often lost their claims. Like with Palm. Agreed, but little companies don’t have resources or money to fight against claims. Lawsuit against smaller companies often means defeat by default.
Now, why does this happen’? People working in patent offices are usualy either payed to accept the claim or they have no knowlegde to follow what it is being patented. This usually end in triivial patent being accepted. And as such, this patent is immidietly endangering smaller companies.
I don’t see how I could have explained it any clearer then I did.
Actualy, you’ve been missing the point again.
p.s. I wouldn’t have nothing against patents, if any possibility of trivial patent would be excluded. In current state, I can only say I detest them.
Edited 2006-07-02 16:51
Sorry, I’m answering you twice.
But I forgot the most amusing trivial patent ever.
Pantone named colors. It is a patented naming convention where colors represented with numbers are represented with pattern like name.
Yep, that one had to be ingenious inventor (and imagine how much secretary R&D has gone to provide all those named constants on the list) to be able to name the colors by a simple naming pattern
btw. This is not to be confused with Pantones main line of work, mixing inks. That one has no dispute from me. I wouldn’t mind their patents, if they wouldn’t patent the value color representations in other color spaces. But now it is just like that in case of computers
constant Pantone something = CMYK (X:Y:Z:W)
is not allowed to be used without paying them for using this constant.
Just to set the record straight.
I am not a socialist. I find the accusation very offensive and insulting. I am an ultraliberalist/quasi-libertarian. Therefore the accusation leaves me in a rather agitated state, so you will have to wait for my reply till I have reached a calmer state of mind.
I will however add that you have grossly misquoted me. Prepare for a lecture later.
> I am not a socialist.
I didn’t say you were. I said the ideas you are promoting are socialism.
> Therefore the accusation leaves me in a rather agitated state
That says more about you then it does about me. It’s a bit like a religious person who gets all agitated when anyone challenges their beliefs… Well, if they get agitated that easily, then how secure can they really be in their own beliefs?
It has nothing to do with my belief. It has something to do with me, my family and my friends. I will explain later.
But a good advice. Don’t jump the conclusions.
EDIT: You do not challenge my belief by calling me a socialist. And you imply I was a socialist. You are at any given time free to challenge my beliefs. I enjoy such discussions. They tend to extend one’s horizont. And I think that’s a good thing.
Edited 2006-07-01 23:22
This is going to be difficult, but I will do my best to remain calm. I will however have to set the record straight as the first thing.
I am not a socialist, and I find the accusation of being one highly insulting and offensive.
If you’ve read my profile you’d know that I am the president of the Danish Progress Party’s Youth Organisation and have been so for more than 5 years, and is the administrative editor of the Progress Party’s member magazine (Bladet Fremskridt – The Magazine Progress). The party is ultraliberalistic, quasi-libertarian and the most anti-socialistic party in Denmark, probably in whole Scandinavia.
I want to abolish the income taxes, multimedia taxes (paying for the right to have a tv, radio or tuner (be it in a PC)) and general abolishment of any kind of restrictions imposed on the individual.
I have received death threats and have been attacked from extreme socialistic movements, due to my work against Socialism. My friends have been attacked and have received death threats because of their work against Socialism. My family have received threats. So don’t call me a socialist or imply it.
I agree with you about the problems of Socialism in regard to economy, but do not forget the restrictions imposed on individuals, nor should you forget the means whereby these restrictions are imposed. Governmental enforcement (laws etc.)
USSR broke down partly in due to lack of intelligent economical politics (working harder for less will never return good a performance/benefit-value), and in part due to the lack of individual freedom.
Your claim that all opponents of software patents are socialists is highly offensive and inaccurate. There are many anti-socialistic U.S.-citizens fighting against software patents, and you can easily find socialists supporting software patents. You should know better.
Except the system you are promoting is not democracy. It is socialism. It is a system where everyone is required by law to work for the good of everyone else. Now tell me… Which one is more opressive? I argue it is a system where the government tells me I do not have the right to protect something I spent a lot of money, and a lot of time coming up with against exploitation by others who didn’t spend any money, and instead, just sat around to see what others were going to come up with and what they could rip off.
My idea is not Socialism. I do not support a society where people are required by law to work for the good of everybody else. Such a law would be completely unacceptable. Nor do I support a law that tells you, you cannot protect something you have made. Of course you should be allowed to protect your interests with any resources of your own.
1* I challenge you to quote me for saying or implying that there should be a law which requires you to work for the good of everybody else.
2* I challenge you yo quote me for saying or implying that there should be a law which prohibits you from protecting your interests, being it an investment in an idea or anything else.
I’m sure you cannot quote me for anything like that. Because all I did was saying that laws should be removed, not that new laws should be made. I agree with you that it would be very oppressing if the government told you, you could not protect your interests. It’s like saying you are not allowed to lock your door. Protection against exploitation of your work can be done in several ways. Obfuscating the binaries, using DRM, using undocumented proprietary protocols and other methods to hide what your idea is. You will of course have to accept that there will be no DMCA, meaning that other individuals or groups of individuals are allowed to break through that protection. Whether or not you succeed depends on how well you protect yourself and your interests.
In the long term your company would most likely not survice such a strategy. And there is only one reason for that. Your development model is inferior to the competition.
Except how do you adapt to a system where you cannot protect your R&D investment? I will tell you how. You simply kill your R&D budget. And you stop R&D. And you wait to see what your competitor is going to come up with in the R&D department so that you can copy it. You let them do all the expensive and hard work for you, and then you exploit their efforts once you find out what they have done. And since you didn’t ahve to spend all the R&D money, you can undercut them greatly on price since your development costs are much lower.
Only problem with this strategy? Your competition is implementing the exact same strategy… They kill their R&D budget as well, and wait around to see what you are gonna do so they can exploit you.
So now what do we have? In programming terms, we have what is called a deadlock. Both entities in question are waiting on data from the other until they will start working. And the data needed cannot be produced by either entity until it has the data from the other entity. So we are deadlocked, and thus, no work gets done.
That’s why I say getting rid of software patents will stop innovation. Not foster it like the OSS people like to claim.
You are talking nonsense and you know it. I will give you a rudimentary lecture in economics.
No law should prevent you from protecting your R&D investment. No law should prevent competitors from competing with you or enhancing your idea.
No law should prevent your competitors from protecting their R&D investments. No law should prevent you from competing with them or enhancing their ideas.
No law should be protecting your R&D investment. You will have to protect your idea yourself. It can be very difficult when you’re selling products based on that idea (because the idea is sort of floating around by then – the products reflects the idea), but at the very least you can make it difficult for the competitors to figure out how you did it. And vice versa.
[continued in PART TWO]
> You are talking nonsense and you know it.
No, I am not talking nonsense. I’m just not brainwashed by the anti-patent people like you are.
And I do not need a lesson from you in economics. You clearly are not qualified to teach it.
More insults.
I am not brainwashed by anti-patent people. Who are these anti-patent people?
You haven’t apologized yet for misquoting me. Can you prove that you quoted me correctly or will you admit you misquoted me?
Where is the evidence that F/LOSS cannot innovate?
Where is the evidence that Joint Venture projects cannot innovate?
Why it is that I cannot teach you about economics?
Fact is that F/LOSS can innovate. So can Joint Venture projects.
Fact is that you cannot compete and therefore wants the government to protect your interests because you will not adapt.
You want to abolish democracy, you want to abolish capitalism and the free market. And for one reason only.
SURVIVAL.
The free market is about survival of the fittest and your development model is no longer fit. You will not survive in the free market. You need software patents or you need to change your development model.
Look at what you write. You whine about not being able to compete and therefore you want the government to intervene. How sad is that!?
> Why it is that I cannot teach you about economics?
Cause you clearly don’t understand them on more than a surface level. And unless you have a graduate degree in the field of economics, you have no leg to stand on to even think you have the capacity to teach me about economics. Or are you really just that arrogant? That you think you are qualified to lecture others on fields that are outside of your area of expertise?
> Fact is that you cannot compete and therefore wants
> the government to protect your interests because
> you will not adapt.
As of yet, you have failed to explain how a company can adapt to open source cloners that give away competing products for free. Despite the fact that I have asked you on more than one occasion to do so.
> You want to abolish democracy, you want to
> abolish capitalism
You hide behind the guies of democracy and capitalism. But what you advocate is neither. What you advocate is pure anarchy. No laws, cause they repress people, etc.
Cause you clearly don’t understand them on more than a surface level. And unless you have a graduate degree in the field of economics, you have no leg to stand on to even think you have the capacity to teach me about economics. Or are you really just that arrogant? That you think you are qualified to lecture others on fields that are outside of your area of expertise?
If what you have written today is an evidence of your knowledge of economics, then you’ve wasted your college money.
I don’t have a graduate degree, nor is it necessary. You can gain knowledge equal to that without necessarily having such a degree. I’ve met many persons with graduate degrees in various fields, and so far I haven’t met one in economics or politics that can outwit me.
Physics is a different issue though. And Chemical Biology (or whatever the word is in English).
You have learned so much, you have forgotten how to use what you have learned. You need to unlearn before you understand, I’m afraid.
As of yet, you have failed to explain how a company can adapt to open source cloners that give away competing products for free. Despite the fact that I have asked you on more than one occasion to do so.
By using some of the same mechanisms. Work with other companies. A Joint Venture project. Anything that reduces R&D expenses. The only efficient way is to work with other partners.
I have given that reply constantly.
You hide behind the guies of democracy and capitalism. But what you advocate is neither. What you advocate is pure anarchy. No laws, cause they repress people, etc.
No, it is not anarchy.
You are reading what you want to read, and only replying to what you want to reply to. Fair enough, but it leaves out some of my answers.
What I want is democracy, which means that the government is limited, does not interfere at all with the economical sector. Plain old laizzes-faire liberalism in regard to economics. I didn’t say there shouldn’t be laws, I didn’t say there shouldn’t be a government. I clearly stated there would be laws, as well as a government.
> If what you have written today is an evidence of
> your knowledge of economics
At least I didn’t make make the “survival of the fittest claim” to prove that I buy into the common misconception of ecomonics that real economists know is not really the case. You however, did prove you buy into that misconception, and were not familar with the game theory models that prove it doesn’t work that way in reality.
> I’ve met many persons with graduate degrees
> in various fields, and so far I haven’t met one
> in economics or politics that can outwit me.
Ah. Well, thanks for clearing that up. So yeah, you really are just that arrogant. You think you know more about econoics and politics than people who specialized it in and went to school for years to obtains graduate degrees in those fields.
Sorry. I really can’t stand this kind of arrogance.
> You need to unlearn before you understand, I’m afraid.
On the contrary. You need to learn more before you understand. Such as you need to learn the game theory models that prove your simplistic “surivival of the fittest” ideas just don’t happen in reality.
> No it’s not anarchy
Yes it is. If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck…
Edited 2006-07-02 05:28
How can it be anarchy when I want laws and authorities to secure those laws are not broken?
The rest of your reply is not worthy to my time. You still haven’t quoted me even once for saying there shouldn’t be any laws at all.
You have misquoted me several times though.
So, with all due respect. I am your superior. It’s not arrogance. It’s just a fact.
> So, with all due respect. I am your superior. It’s not arrogance.
> It’s just a fact.
Ok.. you are officially one of the most ARROGANT assholes I have ever had the displeasure of running into. I’m surprised you don’t pass out considering your ego is somewhere up in the ionosphere.
You are only superior in your own mind. And the fact that you think you are, is why you are so wrong on so many things. Cause you refuse to admit you don’t know nearly as much as you think you do. And that’s why you are so good at being so wrong.
Well, it was about time you tasted your own medicine.
Considering the amount of insults you have given me, you have a very sore personality yourself.
However, so far you haven’t been able to prove me wrong.
You have however proved yourself incapable of answering my questions every single time I took you in misquoting me, or right misrepresenting facts.
There are many things I don’t know anything about and many things I only know little about.
But since you don’t know how much I think I know, you cannot possibly know whether I refuse to admit that my knowledged is more limited than I think it is. So far you haven’t asked me if I thought my knowledge was more limited than I thought it was. So it’s quite hard answering such a question, when it hasn’t be asked yet.
dylansmrjones,
You used one of the most famous copouts of debate. You made a very insulting and antagonistic statement to try to get the other person to drop out of the debate, because you knew you were losing the debate. It’s that simple. But you were too arrogant and egotistical to simply decide to drop it. So you pulled the “Lets see if I can piss the other guy off so much he storms out of the building, and then I can claim I won based on the fact that the other person didn’t want to debate anymore”
Well, as I said, I’m not going to continue this discussion with you, because your arrogance and ego is more than I can deal with.
But any “I win” you think you can claim from that is, is transparent and hollow. And the real fact is simple. You pulled the “piss the other guy off” card because you knew you were losing the debate. End of story.
Edited 2006-07-02 06:44
You used one of the most famous copouts of debate. You made a very insulting and antagonistic statement to try to get the other person to drop out of the debate, because you knew you were losing the debate. It’s that simple.
I did not intend to get you out of the debate. I merely intended to make you taste your own medicine. You’ve been grossly insulting me since your very first “reply”, and it honestly pissed me off very much.
I do not think I am losing this debate – nor had I intended to claim victory. I personally considered it inconclusive, since you stated you leave the “debate”.
The mere notion of me claiming a victory on such a background, is so insulting that I lack words to describe it.
It hasn’t been much debate, since you have decided not to answer my questions, nor have been willing to correct your misquoting of my statements.
But you were too arrogant and egotistical to simply decide to drop it. So you pulled the “Lets see if I can piss the other guy off so much he storms out of the building, and then I can claim I won based on the fact that the other person didn’t want to debate anymore”
More insults incoming. You keep giving me intents that I did not have, and do not have and never will have. It would be most unethical to do you what you think I intended.
Well, as I said, I’m not going to continue this discussion with you, because your arrogance and ego is more than I can deal with.
I merely gave you a taste of your own medicine. You have been behaving in a manner you would call arrogant since your very first “reply”.
But any “I win” you think you can claim from that is, is transparent and hollow. And the real fact is simple. You pulled the “piss the other guy off” card because you knew you were losing the debate. End of story.
Now, that’s a funny paragraph. You claim I intend to pull a “I win” claim, and to prevent that you pull a pre-emptive “I win” claim. Your claim is as transparent and hollow as the “I win” claim you believe I intended to pull.
I most surely DID NOT pull “piss the other guy off” card because I knew I were losing the debate. I don’t know that I’ll lose the debate. It has hardly begun. I pissed you off with intent, simply to give you a taste of your own medicine. There is no hidden agenda behind my actions. That would be most unethical, though probably a great survival technique, I suppose.
The most hilarious part so far, is the fact that you claimed that the deadlock with no software patents had been proved with a game theory. You cannot prove anything with these theories as long as you only apply them to models using specific rules for interaction. You have to see it happen in real life, which is quite difficult since some countries have software patents and other countries do not. And these countries interact with eachother, so there is no real life evidence for the theories, and the result of the models merely reflects the models and not reality.
You know that, and I know that. If you really believe the game theories can be applied to reality just like that, you simply haven’t learned anything.
I hope the taste of your own medicine do not leave a longer lasting bitter taste, and hope you are ready to a debate on a mature level.
It will however require that you answer my questions.
Until then the result of the debate must be considered to be inconclusive.
And unless you have a graduate degree in the field of economics, you have no leg to stand on to even think you have the capacity to teach me about economics. Or are you really just that arrogant? That you think you are qualified to lecture others on fields that are outside of your area of expertise?
Do you have a graduate degree in economics? Care to cite your thesis?
I prefer to stay anonymous and let the arguments speak for themselves. The color of authority is a bad choice for deciding.
old joke: Q How do you get three opinions on economics? A: Ask two economists.
> Do you have a graduate degree in economics?
I never claimed I did. But I am also not the one who claimed I was qualified to give lessons on economics or give lectures on it.
But it doesn’t matter anymore. He lost any and all respect I had for him with that “I am your supperior” comment. All he did was prove he is one of the most arrogant people I have ever run into in my life.
> Do you have a graduate degree in economics?
I never claimed I did. But I am also not the one who claimed I was qualified to give lessons on economics or give lectures on it.
Nah, you just mumbled a couple of words from game theory and asserted that dylanmrjones was wrong.
dylanmrjones isarrogant. But then, so are you. You’re a match, I’d say. And no, neither of you are among the most arrogant people I’ve run into.
> The free market is about survival of the fittest
You’ve never studied game theory have you? Or looked into things like Nash equilibriums?
Well, it turns out economics and evolution have a lot in common. And it turns out, that “survival of the fittest” is not really the game. You know what the real survivors really tend to be? The ones who do the best job of exploiting and taking advantage of their competition. And THAT’S what we need laws to protect againt.
No, we don’t need laws against that.
Let all exploit all and everything will work. If you don’t want to exploited then do something to make it harder. Use encryption algorithms to make it harder to figure out what you’ve done.
But don’t call “MAMA! MAMA!” just because you can’t compete.
Joint Venture projects and bazaar-style projects are about mutual exploitation. And that’s why they work so well.
> Let all exploit all and everything will work
No. It won’t. It will deadlock.
> Use encryption algorithms to make it harder to
> figure out what you’ve done.
Um… You can’t encrypt machine code instructions. The processor won’t understand them if you do. So that’s not even a realistic option.
> Joint Venture projects and bazaar-style projects
> are about mutual exploitation.
Even joint venture projects have to protect themselves against leaches.
And again, i will point out that even yout precious OSS company Red Hat, holds software patents. Yep. That’s right. They have six software patents.
Edited 2006-07-02 05:27
No. It won’t. It will deadlock.
No. It won’t deadlock. It has worked in all history of mankind. It’s your solution that deadlocks. Just take a look at USA right now. Patents are creating a deadlock. Removing patents ensure that there will never be a deadlock. Your theories are flawed and several times proven wrong.
Um… You can’t encrypt machine code instructions. The processor won’t understand them if you do. So that’s not even a realistic option.
Of course you can encrypt machine code instructions. You will however have to decrypt them at runtime, which of course compromises it somewhat with the technology we have today. But that’s your own problem. And not the problem of society.
Even joint venture projects have to protect themselves against leaches.
And even Open Source projects need to protect themselves against leeches (companies violating the licenses). I support copyright, but not patents.
Of course Red Hat holds patents. It has to. It’s required in USA because the areas will be patented by somebody else, if Red Hat didn’t hold the patents.
Holding patents is a defence against other patent holders.
The US patent system is completely broken. You are just stuck in deprecated theories, so you cannot see it.
> Of course you can encrypt machine code instructions
Um… If you encrypt them, they aren’t machine code instructions anymore… Since the machine cannot execute them.
Anyway, I am done talkng with you. I can’t stand your arrogance and ego any longer after that “I am your supperior claim”
Keep dreaming, child.
(Continued from PART ONE)
When you pay for a patent, you are not protecting your idea. You are paying the government to protect your idea. You are buying a government granted monopoly thereby restricting other individuals. You are basically bribing the government so it will stiffle competition and circumvent the free market.
Getting a patent isn’t your right, but merely an option the government has. The government should not have the right to receive bribes and oppressing individuals that way, stiffling competition and innovation and violating the rules of the free market.
Put another way: You are free to protect your investment with any resource you have yourself. But you do not have the right to stiffle competition by law (that would be oppressing other individuals). You must use other means to protect your idea.
In a society where there are no laws preventing people from working together the result will be lower R&D expenses because more people are sharing these expenses. That’s what happens in Joint Venture projects. Open Source projects based on the bazaar-model is merely an open, rather informal form of Joint Venture.
The expenses of R&D can be calculated in this way:
expenses_per_participant EQUALS total_expenses DIVIDED BY number_of_participants
This means that if you develop something alone you will have high expenses and cannot sell cheap. If you develop with somebody else you will have lower R&D expenses and can sell cheaper. It’s simple math and a natural part of the free market. If you make the decision of developing on your own – completely alone – that is your choice, and the consequenses are a result of your own actions.
The closed single-participant development form is very incompetitive with Joint Venture projects and Open Source bazaar-style projects. But you can only blame yourself. No laws are forcing you to develope alone, and no laws are forcing you to develope with somebody else. However, the nature of the free market, and the nature of math will make it a wiser long-term choice if you work with somebody else. But the decision is entirely yours.
Your claim that companies would kill their R&D budget is obviously flawed. They wouldn’t kill, merely reduce it or start more projects for the same money. Redhat sure as hell have a R&D budget, so does Novell. The fact that development is cheaper does not stiffle innovation. On the contrary. It creates more innovation.
A small lecture:
* INNOVATION is provided by COMPETITION
* COMPETITION is provided by FREEDOM
* FREEDOM is provided by LACK OF LAWS
– Therefore LACK OF LAWS provides COMPETITION
– Therefore LACK OF LAWS provides INNOVATION
PATENTS removes FREEDOM
– Therefore PATENTS stiffles COMPETITION
– Therefore PATENTS stiffles INNOVATION
LACK OF PATENTS provides FREEDOM
– Therefore LACK OF PATENTS provides COMPETITON
– Therefore LACK OF PATENTS provides INNOVATION
Internet Explorer is one of the good examples of this. When the competition (Netscape) was eradicated, IE ceased to innovate. When the competition reemerged (Mozilla), Microsoft began work on IE, using ideas from other closed development projects (Opera) as well as Open Source bazaar-style projects (Mozilla).
Your claim that Open Source projects are ripping off the ideas from companies or persons using the closed development model is highly offensive and insulting. You are very good at insults. I think that is a bad trait in your personality. You probably want to do something about that. Soon.
There is no evidence of “ripping off” – there is evidence of mutual influence between products developed following the cathedral model, and products developed following the bazaar model. But the “ripping off” or copying ideas and enhancing them goes both ways.
There is no evidence that Open Source projects following the bazaar model haven’t innovated. Au contraire! There is plenty of such evidence. The linux desktop contains many elements not present in Windows XP and 2K3. However some of these elements will be implemented in Vista (unless they will be removed as well as pretty much everything else).
The reason why you want to have software patents is because you cannot compete on the free market with your development model. You are afraid of the competition. That’s why you want to bribe the government so it will protect your idea by prosecuting those who enhance your idea.
You know what? Keep your model and vanish or adapt to the market. If you do not adapt you will suffer the fate of the dinosaurs. But it’s your call. The society you want is what I call “Authoritarian Conservatism”. The socialists would call it “Fascism” but that is very inaccurate. “Authoritarian Conservatism” is much more correct. But neither ideology is any good for the individual.
> Put another way: You are free to protect
> your investment with any resource you have
> yourself. But you do not have the right to
> stiffle competition by law (that would be
> oppressing other individuals).
Oh please… Give me a break…
You do not have the right to tell someone they cannot drive 200 Mph down the highway. Cause that opressing them.
You do not have the right to tell them they cannot rob a bank. Cause that is opressing them.
You do not have the right to tell them they cannot vandalize property. Cause that is oppressing them.
Please tell me what world you live in where society can function without placing some restricrtions on what people can and cannot do?
> * INNOVATION is provided by COMPETITION
Not when competition is totally unregulated as to how bad they can steal your efforts and clone.
> * FREEDOM is provided by LACK OF LAWS
Is it? So if we have no laws that say it’s illegal to murder your fellow man, your freedom is protected? I don’t think so.
> – Therefore PATENTS stiffles COMPETITION
You have not been able to prove this in any way shape or form. And you have not even provided any supporting evidence for your claims. And you have utterly failed to debunk the evidence I have provided for mine.
Again, I don;t need a lecture from you. You clearly are not qualified to give one.
And I was wrong… you are not a socialist. But you are not a libertarian as you claim either. You are an anarchist.
Good day to you.
You do not have the right to tell someone they cannot drive 200 Mph down the highway. Cause that opressing them.
Poor metaphor, since I support unrestricted speed on the highway. However, if something goes wrong you will suffer the consequenses. You can do as you please as long as you don’t harm other people. If you kill someone – even accidentally – you have been irresponsible and therefore forefeited the right to freedom. Freedom under responsibility.
You do not have the right to tell them they cannot rob a bank. Cause that is opressing them.
Yes, it is oppression. However, they don’t have the right to take other persons property, nor do they have the right to harm other persons (with intent). That’s one of the few restrictions in democracy.
It is however completely irrelevant for (software) patents, because ideas aren’t property. You want software patents everywhere because you cannot compete otherwise. I say: Let the fittest survive. The government should not interfere in the economy.
You do not have the right to tell them they cannot vandalize property. Cause that is oppressing them.
Same as above.
Please tell me what world you live in where society can function without placing some restricrtions on what people can and cannot do?
Of course some restrictions are necessary in large-scale communities. You can do everything you want, as long as you don’t restrict or harm (except in selfdefense) other persons. An important aspect of freedom is the responsibility that goes with that freedom. If you are irresponsible you will lose your freedom. That’s the restriction.
Not when competition is totally unregulated as to how bad they can steal your efforts and clone.
They cannot steal anything. They may be succesfull in duplicating and enhancing, but there is no stealing involved. You want it to be theft so you can call on the government to protect you. But boo-hoo. It’s not theft. You just won’t or can’t adapt to the free market. Boo-hoo.
You can “steal” their efforts too. That will make development much cheaper, and result in higher profit. Go check upon a person called Adam Smith. He have written something that just might expand your limited horizont.
Is it? So if we have no laws that say it’s illegal to murder your fellow man, your freedom is protected? I don’t think so.
I have never said the freedom would be protected by law. Actually I said the exact opposite. You will have to protect yourself, but you will have complete freedom. I just can’t say for how long.
You have not been able to prove this in any way shape or form. And you have not even provided any supporting evidence for your claims. And you have utterly failed to debunk the evidence I have provided for mine.
I have given much evidence. Take a look at several open source projects, or several closed source Joint Venture projects. Take a look at Redhat or Novell. They are evidence for my points. Take a look at KDE and Gnome and GNUstep and Syllable, and Haiku. Take a look at eclipse, Mozilla. Look at how much leeching Microsoft and Apple have performed. More than enough evidence. The rest of it is simple math as well as a simple matter of free market. Study Adam Smith, please.
You have provided zero evidence for your points. You have merely provided several insults and some claims, but no evidence. Please point to your evidence.
I have debunked your claims completely. I cannot debunk your evidence, for you have provided none.
Again, I don;t need a lecture from you. You clearly are not qualified to give one.
Why am I not qualified? Do I not understand the free market? The fact that I don’t care that some companies are bound to die because they are not fit for survival do not make me unqualified. I just won’t accept that you use the government to protect your falling marketshare.
And I was wrong… you are not a socialist. But you are not a libertarian as you claim either. You are an anarchist.
Why, thank you
Unfortunately I have to inform you that I’m not an anarchist. I’d like anarchy to work, but it doesn’t. it would require that mankind was perfect and you clearly prove it’s not the case.
Since mankind are imperfect, certain protection mechanisms are required to avoid oppression of individuals. These mechanisms are meant to kick in, the moment an individual violates the right of another individual.
I am not an anarchist, I am in many ways a good old style laizzes-faire liberalist, for that matter I can qualify as libertarian. Some might call me an anarcholibertarian. I’d like that. The difference between being an anarchist and a libertarian (or laizzes-faire liberalist) is very small. But distinctive.
You should read up on your knowledge about ideologies.
And good day to you. I have no idea what the time is where you are, but it’s probably night now. In which case, sleep well. And that I mean seriously and honestly.
> It is however completely irrelevant for (software)
> patents, because ideas aren’t property.
I disagree. And at this point in time, so does the government. So whehter you think they are property or not doesn’t really matter. You can whine all you want that they aren’t. But the law currently says they are provided that they meet certain criteria.
> But boo-hoo. It’s not theft. You just won’t or
> can’t adapt to the free market. Boo-hoo.
You say it’s not theft. Law says it is. So again, you are just wrong.
> You can “steal” their efforts too. That will
> make development much cheaper, and result in
> higher profit.
I refer back to the deadlock problem.
> I have never said the freedom would be protected
> by law.
Again. What you promote is not democracy. it is anarchy. So you are an anarchist. Plain and simple.
> I have given much evidence. Take a look at
> several open source project
None of your examples are valid. Because most of their developers are unpaid. So again. unless you don’t care if developers are unemployed and cannot be paid for their skills, these examples are invalid.
> I have debunked your claims completely.
You have debunked nothing. All you have done is make claims of “fact” with no supporting evidence. And not any ideological arguments to suport them.
> Why am I not qualified? Do I not understand the
> free market?
No, you do not. Your understanding is shallow at best. As you proved by your statement that free market is “surivival of the fittest”– a concept that modern economics has debunked and provem mathematically, that it is not necessarily the fittest that survives.
> I am not an anarchist
You are an anarchist. if you had your way there would be no laws. And that would plunge us back into a time where people settled their problems by taking them into their own hands and having a gun dual and such… No thanks.
Your ideas are outdated, barbaric, and society cannot function on them.
> In which case, sleep well.
You too. And rest in the knowledge that thanks to the fact that your ideas are not implemented, it is far less likely you will be mugged in the middle of the night, cause we have these thngs called laws that allow us to keep repeat offenders locked up.
I disagree. And at this point in time, so does the government. So whehter you think they are property or not doesn’t really matter. You can whine all you want that they aren’t. But the law currently says they are provided that they meet certain criteria.
Not in my country. And the government’s opinion is irrelevant. It’s merely meant as a representation. The laws currently in effect in your part of the world is flawed and needs to be replaced. Ideas are not property no matter how much you whine. Ideas are merely a combination of electrical signals, and happens in all people.
A few years ago it was not possible to obtain software patents in USA. It is possible today, and it may be impossible in a few decades from now.
Things changes from time to time – cope with it.
None of your examples are valid. Because most of their developers are unpaid. So again. unless you don’t care if developers are unemployed and cannot be paid for their skills, these examples are invalid.
Why should I care about it? If they can improve my product in their spare time who am I to complain about that? It’s a matter of exploting it. It would be stupid not to. My examples are also perfectly valid for Joint Venture projects. You keep forgetting about those. There are many factors you are forgetting, but that is to be expected considering your semi-fascistic orientation.
No, you do not. Your understanding is shallow at best. As you proved by your statement that free market is “surivival of the fittest”– a concept that modern economics has debunked and provem mathematically, that it is not necessarily the fittest that survives.
It has never been debunked. Nor has it ever been proved mathematically. Actually it’s opposite. The survivor is per definition always the fittest. If something doesn’t survive it wasn’t the fittest. The last couple of decades has shown a tendency to revert to laizzes-faire liberalism on the economics. And for a good reason. Other theories have been proven to be flawed.
You have no understanding at all, or you are grossly misunderstanding what you have learned.
You cannot even quote me correctly – how can you possibly understand economics when you cannot read?
You are an anarchist. if you had your way there would be no laws. And that would plunge us back into a time where people settled their problems by taking them into their own hands and having a gun dual and such… No thanks.
Your ideas are outdated, barbaric, and society cannot function on them.
No. If I had my way there would be laws prohibiting harming other persons. You are lying about what I want. My other posts, including the one you just replied to, clearly states I want certain minimal laws. Therefore I am not an anarchist.
If there was no laws we would end in chaos, because mankind are not perfect. Anarchy doesn’t work therefore we need some minimal laws.
I don’t have the ideas you claim I have. You keep claiming I have said that there should be no laws at all. I have never said that. I have however said that some minimal laws are required to protect people against oppression. You are again grossly misquoting me.
Find just one quote where I say there should be no laws at all.
You too. And rest in the knowledge that thanks to the fact that your ideas are not implemented, it is far less likely you will be mugged in the middle of the night, cause we have these thngs called laws that allow us to keep repeat offenders locked up.
Those ideas are not mine. I do not want anarchy nor have I said anything about having anarchy. I want laizzes-faire society. The minimalist state. How many times do I have to say that? How many times will you lie about what I’ve written?
According to all my statements in our debate, there should be laws preventing individuals for oppressing other individuals. Like mugging them to take your example. You do not have the right to mug people – unless in selfdefense. If you mug people you should be locked up. I have never stated otherwise.
Quote me just once that I want anarchy and no laws at all!
> The laws currently in effect in your part of the world is flawed
> and needs to be replaced.
You sure like to state personal opinion as if it were fact. I argue the laws in effect in your part of the world are flawed. Whether you like our laws or hate them, we are the richest country in the world. And we are responsible for more innovation than any other country in the world. We must be doing something right.
> and it may be impossible in a few decades from now.
I will be retired a few decades from now, And I will let the next generation of developers deal with it if and when that happens.
> Why should I care about it?
If you aren’t a professional developer, then I can see why you wouldn’t. But that’ rather selfish and short sighted. It’s the whol “I don’t care about unemployment until it hits me personally” attitude.
> It has never been debunked. Nor has it ever been
> proved mathematically.
Yes it has. Get back to me when you understand even the basics of game theory. I bet you didn’t even know what game theory was without going to Google or Wikipedia first.
> You cannot even quote me correctly – how can you
> possibly understand economics when you cannot read?
Ah. Resorting to red herring arguments and personal off topic attacks now I see… The mark of a someone who really has good debating skills (not).
> No. If I had my way there would be laws prohibiting harming
> other persons.
Harming other persons is a very broad topic. You harm me if you insult my religous beliefs. I can make that argument. So you have no right to free speach less you emotionaly harm me.
>You have no understanding at all
I have a great deal of understanding. You, on the other hand, want to grossly simplify things into a an “Economics for high school students” model, that doesn’t exist in the real world.
> According to all my statements in our debate, there should be
> laws preventing individuals for oppressing other individuals
Who defines what is oppression?
BTW, I asume you are against the Microsoft anti-trust lawsuits? After all, given your views, Microsoft should be free to conduct business in any fashion they want as long as it does not involve physically roughing people up right?
You sure like to state personal opinion as if it were fact. I argue the laws in effect in your part of the world are flawed. Whether you like our laws or hate them, we are the richest country in the world. And we are responsible for more innovation than any other country in the world. We must be doing something right.
Well.. it depends on how you measure it. If we measure it per citizen Denmark is the richest nation.
But don’t forget USA is the worlds #1 exploiter. And software patents are one of several ways to exploit persons. Unfortunately a rather disruptive way, and the brokenness of the US patent system is evidence of this. You will probably not argue that the system is b0rked.
I will be retired a few decades from now, And I will let the next generation of developers deal with it if and when that happens.
It will happen. If you will be retired a few decades from now, I wonder when you got your graduate degree in economics. During the 1960’es or the 1970’es? It would explain why you don’t grasp anything.
If you aren’t a professional developer, then I can see why you wouldn’t. But that’ rather selfish and short sighted. It’s the whol “I don’t care about unemployment until it hits me personally” attitude.
Selfishness is the idea behind software patents. Selfishness is essential to survival. So is software patents. For companies. But not for developers. Don’t forget that many developers are code in their spare time in regard to F/LOSS and that most developers are spending time on maintaining internal systems. They will not be affected by F/LOSS. No matter the price of the system it will still need to be maintained.
Harming other persons is a very broad topic. You harm me if you insult my religous beliefs. I can make that argument. So you have no right to free speach less you emotionaly harm me.
Free Speech is a fundamental right – ownership to ideas are not. At least it is not mentioned in the danish constitution. May be different in USA. In which case it should be respected. At least for the time being.
If a person insults you there may be the possibility to sue that person. It depends on the insult. In such cases I’d recommend getting a lawyer as the laws are today. In a minimalist state, the laws would be so simple it would most likely be unnecessary with one of those plagues.
Yes it has. Get back to me when you understand even the basics of game theory. I bet you didn’t even know what game theory was without going to Google or Wikipedia first.
I haven’t googled on it, nor been at wikipedia or any other website. Why should I visit wikipedia to read up on something I’ve studied for years? Remember, you asked me if had a graduate degree, and not if I had studied it
Ah. Resorting to red herring arguments and personal off topic attacks now I see… The mark of a someone who really has good debating skills (not).
Come on. You’ve been insulting me from the very beginning, coming with off-topic personal attacks in everyone of your replies, misquote me grossly along the way. Do you want me to quote those insults?
Interesting to see your reaction, when I stooped to your level.
I have a great deal of understanding. You, on the other hand, want to grossly simplify things into a an “Economics for high school students” model, that doesn’t exist in the real world.
Your model has no place in the real world. You are grossly overcomplicating quite simple matters. At least these matters are simple if you use common sense. Having a graduate degree does not exactly make your “knowledge” trustworthy. Quite opposite actually.
Who defines what is oppression?
Who defines what is oppression? Well, one answer would be the majority, because they are in power. Another answer would be that every single individual defines oppression. In every legal sense it is the majority (or the representants of said majority) that defines it.
Usually those who have the power defines oppression in its legal sense. The definition may be correct or it may be incorrect. Only time will show that. What is wrong today may be right tomorrow. Or opposite. And of course we cannot not how the future will view our decisions. But we may be capable of making qualified guesses. We may be incapable, though. That remains to be seen.
BTW, I asume you are against the Microsoft anti-trust lawsuits? After all, given your views, Microsoft should be free to conduct business in any fashion they want as long as it does not involve physically roughing people up right?
I am unhappy about the anti-trust lawsuits. In a completely free market they should be allowed to use any method short of restricting a person’s constitutional rights (whatever they are – it’s different from country to country – from time to time).
However the market isn’t completely free. Some of the anti-trust lawsuits seems to be based on settlements that appears to be broken. I haven’t spent much time on those trials though. I could be mistaken, it has happened a few times before, though on very rare occasions.
If the market was made completely free tomorrow, I would support terminating the anti-trust lawsuits immediately.
Are the answer sufficient or do you want me to elaborate the answer?
Profeessional developers spend 80% of their time doing research, and 20% of their time writing code.
If by ‘research’ you mean debugging what they’ve written, then yes. But as an industry the average amount of time on R&D by developers is closer to 1%.
> f by ‘research’ you mean debugging what they’ve written, then yes.
> But as an industry the average amount of time on R&D by developers
> is closer to 1%.
No. I mean time spent in the planning stage. Unless you want a project to end in disaster, you don’t just start writing code and pull stuff out of thin air as you go along.
No. I mean time spent in the planning stage. Unless you want a project to end in disaster, you don’t just start writing code and pull stuff out of thin air as you go along.
And this would have what in common with R&D. R&D is R&D, planing is planing. Two completely separate parts.
R&D is about getting new (not yet) things/methods done.
Planing is a project when you plan how to achieve result with already known methods. (Research part in planing problem has nothing in common with R&D, it is only involved in problem or goal research)
Example:
Lets say I code for .net. I have to plan my distributed app to work remote. After long and carefull consideration I decide on using Remoting (which I wouldn’t). Did I create remoting? No. I only decided on using remoting during my project planing.
MS R&D software department made remoting.
This is common difference between R&D and planing.
Edited 2006-07-01 20:31
> R&D is about getting new (not yet) things/methods done.
Wrong. R&D is also about things like usability studies, customer need studies, etc.
Wrong. R&D is also about things like usability studies, customer need studies, etc.
Ah. Now I see where your confusion is coming from. That’s not R&D, that’s requirements analysis.
> Ah. Now I see where your confusion is coming
> from. That’s not R&D, that’s requirements analysis.
That is R&D
> Ah. Now I see where your confusion is coming
> from. That’s not R&D, that’s requirements analysis.
That is R&D
Hmm… I used to be in charge of operating systems R&D for a Fortune 50 company, and I can state that we never did anything at all like what you think is R&D.
I know Dennis Ritchie from the old days, and most of the people who developed Research Edition Unix, and I can guarentee that none of what they did hit your definition of R&D.
Likewise for McKusick and the rest of the folks from UC Berkeley who did the R&D that created BSD.
Actually, I doubt you’ll find anyone, anywhere, who’ll agree to your definition of R&D.
If you want to speak a private language, by all means go ahead, but don’t expect to communicate in it.
> Hmm… I used to be in charge of operating systems R&D for a Fortune
> 50 company.
Anyone can claim to be whoever they want on the Internet. And claim to know whoever they want. Thee vast majority of them are not telling the truth when they make such claims, as I am sure you know. Which is why it is basically useless to make such claims on the Internet. It actually reduces your credibility rather than enhances it.
> Hmm… I used to be in charge of operating systems R&D
> for a Fortune 50 company.
Anyone can claim to be whoever they want on the Internet. And claim to know whoever they want. Thee vast majority of them are not telling the truth when they make such claims, as I am sure you know. Which is why it is basically useless to make such claims on the Internet. It actually reduces your credibility rather than enhances it.
Which is why I cited the examples of Bell Labs and UC Berkeley’s BSD development as well. You don’t have to rely on whether or not I was who I claim to be, you can check with Ritchie and see if he agrees abut r&d is. You can even read his published works on the topic.
Although I do enjoy the irony of you demanding that poor dylanmrjones not lecture you unless he has a graduate degree in economics and then complaining about someone else’s assertions.
It’s boring you know, this ploy you’re using of suddenly demanding higher standards of argumentation from others than you’ve exhibited yourself. You should try leading by example.
Wrong. R&D is also about things like usability studies, customer need studies, etc.
While on one hand, usability studies are near to R&D. Hell, MS and Apple have few trivial patents on those (it is wrong that those are treated as R&D). Customer study isn’t. Job description isn’t. Researching how to achieve goal to calculate 1+1 isn’t.
Ok, look from another perspective, a window widget. For example combo box. If you find new way to make it more flexible and usable that is near R&D (but it would be better treated if it would belong into usability study). But to fill it with data isn’t.
Ok, I’ve been in that department for quite a long time now as a software developer for HPC client-server services. But, never heard that kind of non-sense.
Look at the books of computer history, SCO-IBM lawsuit is full of prominent people telling the same as I do. I don’t expect you believe me as you don’t know me, look at the AT&T against BSD lawsuit, again the same. Look how MS defeated some trivial patents (by saying the same). In all those a lot of known people are telling the same as I do.
Hopefully, you will take their word over yours. Again, I don’t expect to be treated specialy, but at least provide some links as I did on your request in my previous answer.
I guess you just speak your own language and live in your own world. It must be nice to be you.
Based on what evidence? the patents, like I said, are extremely generalised; its like me going off to patent a ‘this is a piece of technology that is in liquid form, it is used to improve the growth of plants, helps humans survive and can conduct electricity to an acceptable level’, and going by the STUPID situation in the US regarding patents, I would have successful just patented water, and virtually any other liquid that fullfills that description.
Take UNIX, for example – all the specifications are open to every tom, dick and harry to implement, we have opensource implementations of the UNIX specficiation, and yet, the UNIX vendors around the world are quite able to continue on innovating, adding to their product, and turning a profit, even with this so-called ‘leeching effect’.
How is it also bad for someone to re-implement the technology? most cases in the technology world, if a technology is implemented, its for compatibility reasons NOT so that they can leech off technology, as the respective company already has, what they believe as a SUPERIOR solution to the competitors technology.
Simba, going by your logic, Apple is leeching WMA technology off Microsoft simply because they offer a WMA importing facility in itunes, which is further form the truth which one can get. Apple includes WMA support (along with mp3) to allow consumers to migrate to the ‘superior’ technology.
Take the opensource world, WMA and faad/faac support is provided and yet, most people normally use those as migration tools to convert their music to mp3, ogg or some other unencombered encoding technology.
To say that there is all out technology leeching is missing the point of software design altogether; 9/10, if a oompany has encroached onto someone elses patented technology, it would have been done unintentially or simply for compatibility reasons; if these said companies who sue had a decent product, people who be using their product irrespective of what products others put out.
All it tells me is when I see these cases, it is a bad case of sour grapes; the RIM suite is the prime example of this; some half baked company pissed off that their product hasn’t gotten the same limelight as the blackberry, so the trumpet up their extremely openended patent description as justification for a suit-a-thon.
Edited 2006-07-01 23:31
> the patents, like I said, are extremely generalised; its like me going
> off to patent a ‘this is a piece of technology that is in liquid form,
You can’t patent something that generic. You’ve never actually filed a patent application have you? I have. You have to provide tons of supporting documentation.
> and yet, the UNIX vendors around the world are quite able to continue > on innovating, adding to their product, and turning a profit,
Please show me one commercial UNIX vendor that is profitable anymore (And IBM doesn’t count since they are not primarily a UNIX vendor). Some of them aren’t even in businesss anymore before of FOSS alternativves. BSDi for example.
> How is it also bad for someone to re-implement the technology?
Simple. Because it destroys the competitive advantage that someone spent a lot of money and time researching and developing.
Again, take my database structure example. If I spend a ton of money and time developing a database structure and search algorithm that is 30 times faster than anything else out there right now, and I don’t patent it. How long do you think it will be before I lose my competitive advantage and most of my R&D investment because Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, MySQL, etc. all copy my algorithm / structure?
> Simba, going by your logic, Apple is leeching WMA technology
> off Microsoft simply because they offer a WMA importing facility
> in itunes, which is further form the truth which one can get
You obviously don’t understand my argument. And no, that is not my logic at all.
> most cases in the technology world, if a technology is
> implemented, its for compatibility reasons NOT so that they
> can leech off technology
Wrong. the OSS world has leached tons of stuff from commercial companies in such a way that commercial companies have seen their profits very damaged. Take Web application servers for example. You can’t sell one anymore because OSS has leeached all the ideas and copied them. Take ReactOS. It’s an attempt to clone Windows because people are too cheap to pay for Windows. (I still predict ReactOS gets sued out of existence if they ever get to the point where Microsoft considers them a threat).
> if these said companies who sue had a decent product, people
> who be using their product irrespective of what products others
> put out.
No, they would not. And that has been more than proven. Again, look at Web application servers. The commercial servers offer more features because so far, OSS has not been ablee to clone everything. Only a subset. But guess which ones people are using? The OSS ones. Because they are cheaper / free. And many of the once large application server vendors are barely making it anymore because of open source leaching.
> All it tells me is when I see these cases, it is a bad case of
> sour grapes;
Sometimes it is abused. But other times it is not. if you rip off my ideas that I spend years and and millions of dollars in research dollars to come up with, and you release a clone of something I did, which you can sell much cheaper than I can because you didn’t have any R&D expenses, then I have every right to sue you for patent infringement.
Edited 2006-07-02 00:06
Please show me one commercial UNIX vendor that is profitable anymore (And IBM doesn’t count since they are not primarily a UNIX vendor). Some of them aren’t even in businesss anymore before of FOSS alternativves. BSDi for example.
Sun is turning a profit; take away the ‘paper’ asset downgrades as they shrink the size of property, they’re actually making a profit without any problems. IBM’s UNIX division makes a profit, sure, its part of a ‘larger organisation’ but it still is turning a profit, because as you know, in IBM, the divisions must operate profitably like a standalone business.
Again, take my database structure example. If I spend a ton of money and time developing a database structure and search algorithm that is 30 times faster than anything else out there right now, and I don’t patent it. How long do you think it will be before I lose my competitive advantage and most of my R&D investment because Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, MySQL, etc. all copy my algorithm / structure?
Why would they do that? it would be better for them to improve their own products than it would be to copy you; if they wanted your technology and the people who created it, they could buy you out, but if they do implement the technology, it’ll be compatibility reasons.
I’ve yet to see a single vendor copy a technology simply so that they can ‘beat’ a competitor; it makes no sense; you’re going to beat your competitor with the same technology which they offer? thats stupid.
Wrong. the OSS world has leached tons of stuff from commercial companies in such a way that commercial companies have seen their profits very damaged. Take Web application servers for example. You can’t sell one anymore because OSS has leeached all the ideas and copied them. Take ReactOS. It’s an attempt to clone Windows because people are too cheap to pay for Windows. (I still predict ReactOS gets sued out of existence if they ever get to the point where Microsoft considers them a threat).
No, they would not. And that has been more than proven. Again, look at Web application servers. The commercial servers offer more features because so far, OSS has not been ablee to clone everything. Only a subset. But guess which ones people are using? The OSS ones. Because they are cheaper / free. And many of the once large application server vendors are barely making it anymore because of open source leaching.
Which is false; Websphere is selling quite nicely, SAP’s application server is still growing at a great pace; so where is this cannibalisation which you claim is occuring by the OSS community?
As for ReactOS, why would they get sued? I doubt ReactOS will EVER get even CLOSE to compatibility with Windows 2000 let alone get Windows XP compatibility; its a nice proof of concept project for the wine developers to look upon, but I doubt it’ll go beyond that.
Oh, and going by your logic, Microsoft has killed off Webservers because they include it with Windows, or Microsoft killed off payed-for media players because of the inclusion of Mediaplayer with Windows, or Microsoft killed off TCP/IP stack makers like Trumpet software, because they included it with Windows.
Please, those companies who go under, go under because they have no vision, no imagination, and crap marketing; those companies who are successful are able to carve out a niche, even in a market full of free software – Microsoft seems to be able to do it with their software, people are still purchasing Windows for servers, even though FreeBSD + JBoss could do the same thing.
All that is happening now, customers are now demanding MORE from their software vendors, demanding that software vendors JUSTIFY the prices they charge their customers via better customer support, more feature rich products, better response times to security and updates.
I don’t know about you, but I love this new competition, its keeping companies on their toes, constantly looking over their shoulders, making sure that they’re investing sufficient funds in ensuring that the software they’re selling has compelling enough features to make people purchase it.
I’m sorry, but the vendors who do sell software, sell it for MASSIVE prices; do I care? nope; too long these companies have leeched us consumers for more and more money each year, demanding that we upgrade for a massive fee simply to get one or two crummy half baked features.
I’m sorry, but consumers like me have had enough; we aren’t going to be price gouged and demanded to pay $800-$1200 for office suites, graphics suites and the like; I’m not going to pay Microsoft $699-$999 for a copy of Microsoft Office 2004 when a cheaper alternative like iWork is available, I’m not going to pay IBM $100,000+ for Websphere when JBoss or SUN Application Server can do the same thing, when including setup costs, 1/10000 the price of which IBM is charging.
You may like to get price gouged, and mini-monopolies setup on each technology to allow people to exploit their very jubious claims of innovation, but I for one, are not going to be lead down the garden path of the Microsoft enspired bullshit that opensource is destroying commercial software – as you claim.
Edited 2006-07-02 01:11
> Sun is turning a profit;
I don’t know where you get your financial data from. Sun reported a $217 million dollar loss for the fiscal third quarter.
> IBM’s UNIX division makes a profit, sure, its part of
> a ‘larger organisation’ but it still is turning
> a profit, because as you know, in IBM, the
> divisions must operate profitably like a
> standalone business.
I suppose next you are going to try to tell me they are making a profit on OS/2 as well? No, IBM is not making a profit on AIX.
> but if they do implement the technology, it’ll
> be compatibility reasons.
No, they won’t. They will implement it so that they can get the same 300% speed increase I got in query processing. There would be no legimite compatibility reason to implement it. (hint: Oracle tables are not compatible with MySQL tables are not compatble with PgSQL tables, etc)
Websphere profit growth rates are down nearly 70% from what they were a few years ago because of competition from open source and the fact that Web Apps servers have been comoditized.
> As for ReactOS, why would they get sued?
I’m sure Microsoft could find something in their collection of 5000+ patents that ReactOS is violating.
> Microsoft has killed off Webservers because
> they include it with Windows
Actually, it was Apache that killed off commercial Web servers. Not Microsoft.
> Please, those companies who go under, go
> under because they have no vision, no
> imagination, and crap marketing;
Oh please. Linux has ripped of so many technologies from Sun it’s not even funny. Commercial companies simply can’t compete against free clones.
> making sure that they’re investing sufficient
> funds in ensuring that the software they’re
> selling has compelling enough features to make
> people purchase it.
Why bother investing those funds to develop those features? After all, how long will it be before the open source crowd decided “Hey… That’s cool. We need to clone that and add it to open source project X”?
> do I care? nope; too long these companies
> have leeched us consumers for more and more
> money each year.
Of course you don’t care. Cause you are just as selfish as the companies you slam. “To hell with those developers. They don’t need jobs. They don’t need to feed their families… Who cares about them? as long as I don’t have to pay for software.”
> I’m not going to pay IBM $100,000+ for Websphere
> when JBoss or SUN Application Server can do the s
> same thing, when including setup costs, 1/10000
> the price of which IBM is charging.
Would you be signing the same tune if you were the one getting the layoff notice cause product you had been hired to create was no longer profitable thanks to open source cloning? Somehow, I doubt it. Everyone wants cheaper products, or free products… unttil they are the one that ends up losing their job because of it.
> You may like to get price gouge
Na. I just look out for the welfare of my fellow developers. Which is something you obviously don’t care about. “To hell with those other developers. They don’t need jobs. As long as I have a few extra dollars in my pocket at the end of the day.”
I don’t know where you get your financial data from. Sun reported a $217 million dollar loss for the fiscal third quarter.
And obviously you can’t disguish between paper loss and actual loss. If a company makes a $200million asset right down, they haven’t physically lost $200million off their profit, but it is reported as such.
In terms of money in/out of Sun, they’ have continuously made a profit, their revenue may decline, but they have remained profitable.
I suppose next you are going to try to tell me they are making a profit on OS/2 as well? No, IBM is not making a profit on AIX.
Bullcrap, when you add the AIX sales plus the hardware sales plus the service sales that go with that, they come out infront. When you add all the things they sell as part of the AIX/POWER picture, they come out ok.
Websphere profit growth rates are down nearly 70% from what they were a few years ago because of competition from open source and the fact that Web Apps servers have been comoditized.
And obviously you know very little about business. The profit growth rates were up because of issues external to the commoditisation of application servers, then it flattens off once a wall has been hit – hint, it isn’t the free application servers, they lack the same muscle which Websphere has.
As for the rest, I don’t care if you lose your job, quite frankly its time you moved out of your comfy job and did some hard slog rather than sitting behind your nicely padded chair dictating to the world that all those mere mortels should tremble before the almighty programmer and pay that individual thousands per year.
I know the bullshit that gets pulled; this crap programmers try to pull that some how, what they do is some sort of mystical, special skill that only a few have a capability to understand.
I’ve been in IT, and quite frankly, thank god I no longer work in the field, the parastic nature of the people, the dishonesty of management and those who work in the industry, I’ve seen more integrity in the mafia than I’ve seen in the IT industry.
Sorry to break the ‘cone of silence’ but there is nothing magical about programming, nothing special about system design, nothing amazing about what the software companies do; its no more special than a person who can speak two languages.
Edited 2006-07-02 04:17
> In terms of money in/out of Sun, they’
> have continuously made a profit, their revenue
> may decline, but they have remained profitable.
Citation please?
You are simply WRONG! Sun is NOT profitable right now. I mean haven’t you been following the Sun story at all?
> Bullcrap, when you add the AIX sales plus the
> hardware sales plus the service sales that go
> with that, they come out infront.
Citation please?
> And obviously you know very little about
> business. The profit growth rates were up because
> of issues external to the commoditisation
> of application servers.
Citation please?
Apparently Wall Street Journal and other publications known nothing about business either then. It was widely reported in trade publications that the reason for loss of profitablity was that open source had commotized app servers. The only one here who knows nothing about business is you. And you apparently don’t keep up on industry news very well.
> I know the bullshit that gets pulled; this
> crap programmers try to pull that some how, what
> they do is some sort of mystical, special skill
> that only a few have a capability to understand.
It IS a specialized field, and it DOES take a lot of training and practice to become good at it… Now please tell me.. Why is it that you think I (and other developers for that matter) have skills that do not have monetary value? Why are we any less entitled to get paid for our skills then a police man? Or construction worker? or plumber? Or electrician? or whatever?
> I’ve been in IT, and quite frankly, thank god I
> no longer work in the field,
And you clearly don’t understand the field anymore either, and are out of touch with it.
> Sorry to break the ‘cone of silence’ but there
> is nothing magical about programming
There is nothing magical about medicine or rocket science either. That DOES not mean that everyone has the training an experience necessary to be able to do it.
> its no more special than a person who can speak
> two languages.
You clearly don;t know the first thing about programming if you think you can simplify it that much. Programming is NOTHING at all like learning a new language. In fact, learning the syntax of a programming language is virtually trivial compared to learning the techniques etc.
And now that you hae gone out of you way to insult all programmers and try to claim that their skills have no monetary value, and that idiots can write software, I don’t think I wish to talk to you anymore. you clearly don’t have a clue, and have just resorted to completely wild ass statements to justify your position.
Personally, I’m starting to think you are just one of the washouts who couldn’t cut it in IT. And that is why you don’t work in it anymore, and why you have such vile words for those of us that do. And now you are just bitter and that is why you think no one should be able to make money at it, and why you try to claim it’s not a highly skilled profession, etc. If you can’t make money at it, no one should be able to. Right?
Edited 2006-07-02 04:46
Apparently Wall Street Journal and other publications known nothing about business either then. It was widely reported in trade publications that the reason for loss of profitablity was that open source had commotized app servers.
To quote you: Citations? And the WSJ is not a trade publication, it’s a financial newspaper.
It may be possible that web aps are suffering from competition with open source. I don’t follow that bit of the business. But it’s definitely not the reason that Unix lost ground when it did.
It may be possible that web aps are suffering from competition with open source. I don’t follow that bit of the business. But it’s definitely not the reason that Unix lost ground when it did.
Its pretty easy as to why they lost ground; SCO was too busy charging thousands for their base operating system, and then thousands for parts which one could consider ‘standard operating system components’, SUN was concerning itself with its own Solaris and SPARC combination, and couple that with the commodatisation of hardware and the rise of the x86 as a server platform, it was only a matter of time.
Those who had the money and time, chose to go with Windows 2000; SCO might in theory have the superior (technologically) product, but the simple fact was, Windows 2000 marked the death keal for proprioprietary, over priced UNIX’s. Those who wanted a ‘good as’ UNIX found Linux – the first use of Linux was in the ISP’s who needed a cheap, configurable UNIX without the massive price tag which SCO demanded, then it grew from there.
Ultimately, it was the UNIX vendors stance of charging excessively high licencing fees for their products that killed off their marketshare coupled with the lack of embracing x86 commodity hardware rather than an anything to do with Linux; Linux has only gained mainstream acceptance in the last 5 years, up until then, Windows NT/2000, no matter how much people who love to badmouth it, was the doing the damage to the UNIX world.
You clearly don;t know the first thing about programming if you think you can simplify it that much. Programming is NOTHING at all like learning a new language. In fact, learning the syntax of a programming language is virtually trivial compared to learning the techniques etc.
I know how to programme, and done so on many occasions, I even dabbled with learning COBOL, and let me tell you, there is nothing spectacular about writing code; you design in, which is actually the more complicated aspect, then implement it using a language of your choice.
And now that you hae gone out of you way to insult all programmers and try to claim that their skills have no monetary value, and that idiots can write software, I don’t think I wish to talk to you anymore. you clearly don’t have a clue, and have just resorted to completely wild ass statements to justify your position.
No, that isn’t the case, it isn’t my responsibility as a consumer to care about how it is written; I work in the wine industry, should I *care* whether there are people at home, moonshining their own wine and spirits? of course not! do you think Allied Domecq gives a toss about whether there are people trying to copy their fermentation techniques? of course not!
Personally, I’m starting to think you are just one of the washouts who couldn’t cut it in IT. And that is why you don’t work in it anymore, and why you have such vile words for those of us that do. And now you are just bitter and that is why you think no one should be able to make money at it, and why you try to claim it’s not a highly skilled profession, etc. If you can’t make money at it, no one should be able to. Right?
I owned my own IT company, I made my own money – when you’re making enough money to pay oneself $22,000 for two months work, you can then say that yes, I have had some experience; and for me, the rise of Linux and FreeBSD bought great profits to my little business – so yes, I do have ‘experience’.
For me, I chose to leave that profession in persute of an occupation which I actually ENJOY; one which drives and motivates me, I wake up each morning and can’t wait till I get to work.
Edited 2006-07-02 09:50
You are being so childish.
Just because somebody can implement a system better and cheaper than you can, you get all nasty.
Wrong. the OSS world has leached tons of stuff from commercial companies in such a way that commercial companies have seen their profits very damaged.
Oooh… sooooo saaad. Competition is too strong so all I can do is whining about the “leechers”. Hmm.. why do you think the are so few steam locomotives these days? Could it be because they were too expensive?
Could it be that companies have lost money because they cannot sell their product because people figured out how to work together, making products cheaper?
You should be wiser than to whine about the competition.
Boo-hoo.
Please show me one commercial UNIX vendor that is profitable anymore (And IBM doesn’t count since they are not primarily a UNIX vendor). Some of them aren’t even in businesss anymore before of FOSS alternativves. BSDi for example.
The vast majority of commercial Unix implemetations never made any money. They were, and remain, enabling technology, a necessary cost of selling the hardware that was their company’s real product.
The vast majority of commercial Unix vendors got out of Unix because of competition from PCs eroding their hardware margin at the same time as competition from Microsoft eroded the amount of their Unix development costs they could recover by charging for their Unix implementation.
Even those still in the Unix business, such as HP are only there because they need the Unix implementation to sell to an installed customer base.
Fragmentation killed the Unix business, and the battle between AT&T and one side and OSF on the other was its death knell. Linus didn’t even start on Linux until that was over, nor did UC Berkeley settle with AT&T.
You can’t patent something that generic. You’ve never actually filed a patent application have you? I have. You have to provide tons of supporting documentation.
Having filed a patent does not make one an expert on patent law. The supporting documentation you are talking about is to establish priority in the event of attempts to patent similar ideas, not to document the idea at all.
Once upon a time a patent required a working model but that requirement was dropped a long time ago.
And yes, people get “generic” patents all the time. Any good patent attorney will tell you that the patent application should be as broad as possible while still perserving novelty and priority.
They are not a necessary evil.
The companies in question can just adobt the new development model. This will make their products cheaper to develop and speed up development while making their products better.
Rather than trying to keep an inferior development model alive they ought to adapt to the situation.
If you don’t want your idea to be commoditized, then don’t release the products reflecting your idea. Your idea will be secret. You won’t earn any money, but your idea will be safe. Unless somebody else has a similar idea. That happens quite often.
Nobody are forcing the companies to use a closed development model. They can only blame them self.
Simba,
If this is true, please explain to me why it is proprietary software companies suing other proprietary software companies over patents?
In-fact, why is it, 99% of the time, companies that DON’T EVEN MAKE PRODUCTS, OR HAVE STOPPED MAKING PRODUCTS, that are doing the suing because it is a more lucrative business model and easier than actually having to compete?
Why is it small companies like Opera are opposing software patents, while bigger companies in the exact same field that have sat on their ass and done absolutely nothing with their product for 5 years (Microsoft) want them?
I wonder if Red Hat starts getting into trouble if some other big companies will step in to help. Hibernate is used by a lot of companies. It’s a pretty good ORM tool, and I can’t see anyone wanting to re-write all of the apps to remove it. It would be cheaper to just make sure that these false claims to the idea are squashed.
It’s been discussed on other news sites how there were examples of ORM well before this patent was even filed.
This is sort of funny, to think that software patents where supposed to spur business by providing incentives to innovate. Then when it became apparent that there is a “danger” to software patents people start to make MAD (mutually assured destruction) type arguments, company X wont sue us over their patents because we have patents we can use against them. If the cold war had gone as well as this software patent war we would all be glowing in the dark right now. When will there finally be enough consensus to get rid of software patents?
> The trend in R&D spending, by the way, is the other direction.
> Most companies spend far less now on software R&D than they
> did fifteen years ago, and the numbers have been declining
> steadily since the late ’80s.
Citation please?
Check any of the NSF reports on R&D for the last ten years. This is pretty well known stuff.
Or look at HP’s 10K for the last ten years, where the budget for HP Labs has declined steadily.
> This is pretty well known stuff.
If it’s well known stuff, you shouldn’t have a hard time citing a specific reference should you? So come on. Where’s the citation? I want a specific reference for your claim.
> This is pretty well known stuff.
If it’s well known stuff, you shouldn’t have a hard time citing a specific reference should you? So come on. Where’s the citation? I want a specific reference for your claim.
Well, as you’re the person who started making claims without support, if you want the references, provide your own.
I’ll be happy to move this from random internet chat to formal argument as soon as you do. State your thesis, show your support, and I’ll happily provide you with a documented rebuttal.
> Well, as you’re the person who started making claims without
> support, if you want the references, provide your own.
I did support my claims. I made arguments and presented evidence and ideas to support them. You have not done the same. All you have done is make claims of “fact” that you have not even provide ancedotal evidence to back up.
> Well, as you’re the person who started making
> claims without support, if you want the references,
> provide your own.
I did support my claims. I made arguments and presented evidence and ideas to support them. You have not done the same. All you have done is make claims of “fact” that you have not even provide ancedotal evidence to back up.
[i]
Would you care to provide a few URLs showing where in this tread you presented evidence, because I sure missed it.
I, on the other hand, have pointed you to the NFS reports on research spending and to HP’s 10ks as evidence.
Oh, and mentioning that Ritchie et al and McKusick et all never did what [i]you claim is “research” is, indeed, anecdotal evidence. Shall I point you to Dennis’ web site for his papers on research, or do you think you can look up the Bell Systems Journal articles describing Unix research on your own?
> Would you care to provide a few URLs showing where in this tread
> you presented evidence, because I sure missed it.
I did not say I cited my claims. I said I provided a valid argument for my claims You can look through the thread for them.
> I, on the other hand, have pointed you to the NFS reports on r
> research spending and to HP’s 10ks as evidence.
You did not cite a specific reference. And I know what kind of tactic you are trying to use here. By casting a wide net, you can claim that “somewhere in those documents it exists” and since I don’t have the time to look through all of them, I won’t do it, and thus will never be able to prove you wrong. I know how that tactic works.
> Shall I point you to Dennis’ web site for his papers on research
I’ve read quite a few of his papers. But that’s not relevant to this discussion at all. It’s a diversionary tactic.
Anyway, I am going to bed. And I am done with this thread and will not be checking it again,. It’s already wasted too much time, and it has become obvious that:
A: dylansmrjones has proven he is an arrogant egotistical jerk who is not worth talking to anymore.
B: You and I could go around on this issue forever and never see eye to eye on it.
So have a good night.
I did not say I cited my claims. I said I provided a valid argument for my claims You can look through the thread for them.
Actually, what you did say was:
I did support my claims. I made arguments and presented evidence and ideas to support them.
You have, as far as I can tell, presented no evidence.
> I, on the other hand, have pointed you to the NFS
> reports on research spending and to HP’s 10ks as
> evidence.
You did not cite a specific reference.
Which part of “HP’s 10ks” isn’t specific?
The claim was that HP’s spending on HP labs has declined steadily over the last decade. The evidence consists of looking at HP’s 10Ks and seeing what their spending on HP labs was. That’s known as checking the primary source.
I’ve read quite a few of his papers. But that’s not relevant to this discussion at all. It’s a diversionary tactic.
You claimed a meaning for “R&D”. I cited, as a counter example, Dennis Ritchie and his team at Bell Labs, who among them never did any of the things you were claiming as R&D. Citing the most successful OS research team in history as an example of actual R&D is very relevant to countering a bogus claim about what R&D is.
> You claimed a meaning for “R&D”.
You are playing semantic games to divert attention from the real issue.
> I cited, as a counter example, Dennis Ritchie and his team at Bell
> Labs, who among them never did any of the things you were
> claiming as R&D.
Argumentum ad verecundiam (Appeal to authority) is also a logical fallacy.
Because in this case it meets the criteria of saying “this is true because so and so thought so.” And that is a logical fallacy.
> Citing the most successful OS research team in history
That’s stating an opinion as fact. And it is very arguable.
Edited 2006-07-02 07:06
Argumentum ad verecundiam (Appeal to authority) is also a logical fallacy.
It is, but citing Ritchie’s team as a counter example isn’t an appeal to authority. It’s an example.
I can list a very large number of researchers in software who have never done what you claim to be R&D. Your definition is very atypical, and citing as examples Bell Labs and UC Berkeley merely illustrates that.
> Citing the most successful OS research team in
> history
That’s stating an opinion as fact. And it is very arguable.
Unless you have a graduate degree in OS research, you have no business lecturing me on who is or isn’t successful in OS research. </remove tongue from cheek>
It’s too bad you’ve gone to bed, because it would be very amusing to hear you argue that the team that produced Unix and Plan 9 isn’t, by my definition of success, the most successful. Especially to hear you who you would put in their place.
> It is, but citing Ritchie’s team as a counter example isn’t an appeal
> to authority.
No, it’s not. It’s an appeal to authority. It is “This is true becausse so and so thought it was” And that is a logical fallacy.
R&D is a very subjective term Answers.com defines it simply as:
“A company’s activities that are directed at developing new products or procedures.”
And given that definition, everything I classified as R&D is, in fact R&D. Your Dennis Ritchie example was definitely a logical fallacy appeal to authority to say “This is what R&D is, because so and so thought so”.
> You have no business lecturing me on who is or isn’t successful
> in OS research.
I never said they were not successful. Obviously they were. But to claim they are the most successful OS research team in history is clearly a subjective claim.
> by my definition of success the most successful
You didn’t say it was your definition of success when you said it. You stated it as absolute fact. Not as an opinion.
And besides, it doesn’t change the fact. Even if they were, it was still a logical fallacy to appear to them for a definition of R&D.
R&D is a very subjective term
Not sufficiently subjective to allow you to get away with your original assertion that 80% of what developers do is R&D meaning requirments analysis.
(Why yes, I do remember what this started out about.)
to claim they are the most successful OS research team in history is clearly a subjective claim.
You stated it as absolute fact. Not as an opinion.
Um, why do I have to condescend to my reader? If the statement is “clearly a subjective claim”, then why add the extra wording to point out what is already clear?
But then, you couldn’t possibly have known that I happen to agree with Nietszche that there are no facts, only interpretations.
Even if they were, it was still a logical fallacy to appear to them for a definition of R&D.
I appealed to them as an example of R&D, not a definition. Are you going to now suggest that Bell Labs didn’t do OS research? Or perhaps that the UC Berkeley didn’t?
By the way, if you must do dictionary wars, could you at least have the dignity of using the OED and not some random web site?
I didn’t say you were. I said the ideas you are promoting are socialism.
Simba, I cannot believe you said that to dylanmrsjones. You must not be aware of his past post history to say something so off-the-mark…
Don’t get me wrong, I like dylanmrjones, but as far as politics go we are total opposites (right dmj?), and I am a leftist (though a libertarian one…)