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The Santa Clara conference on patents
Authored by: Tkilgore on Monday, July 30 2012 @ 10:17 PM EDT
A few weeks ago, I stated the intention to go to this conference and duly
registered for it. Today, I made the airline reservations. I did not want to put
this off because the conference takes place on the Friday immediately previous
to Thanksgiving, which can be a busy time for air travel.

I would welcome the advice of anyone who lives in the area about two things:

1. Any information about accommodations which are close to the conference. I
should say, "within easy walking distance." I do not intend to rent a
car if it is possible to avoid doing so without incurring extreme inconvenience.
I intend to arrive on Thursday evening and stay over for a couple of days after
the conference, since it is the weekend.

2. Information about exactly how to get to the accommodations which are near the
conference, preferably by public transportation from San Francisco Airport
(SFO). There are some instructions about how to do this on the web, but the
instructions are a bit confusing or vague for someone who has never been there.

Meanwhile, I will try to digest the documents on the "Resources" page
for the conference...

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Round corners? Click wheel?
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, July 31 2012 @ 02:09 AM EDT
Just saw one of these joysticks.


http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/161556-suncom-joy-sensor/

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Are Microsoft's websites still cowering behind Akamai Linux
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, July 31 2012 @ 08:40 AM EDT
Just want to know if they still are.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Microsoft, Linux, and Patents
Authored by: Gringo_ on Tuesday, July 31 2012 @ 08:55 AM EDT

I found a link to this frightening article on the Code Project site. It appears to be something deliberately leaked by Microsoft to give small children nightmares. It is a very long article about "those 237 patents Linux really infringes", and I have summarized it below...

Over the last 15 years we’ve seen two forces emerge that upset the delicate “mutually assured destruction” patent peace between companies. One is the rise in the “Patent Troll” industry. The other is the emergence of the anti-Intellectual Property community.

[Patent trolls] can be ethical or unethical. The ones that are ethical acquire stronger patents and seek reasonable (relative to the actual value of the patent to the infringer) royalties. The unethical ones acquire and assert (often) BS patents in the hope that potential infringers will find it cheaper to pay royalties than the legal fees (and bad PR, etc.) of fighting.

Nathan Myhrvold at Intellectual Ventures [is] an attempt at an ethical approach to patent trolling. Patent Trolls can serve a role in encouraging innovation.

The other force at work is the anti-Intellectual Property community lead by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and it’s GNU General Public License (GPL). The problem here is actually two-fold. There are those who really disdain patents and other forms of IP protection and those who support the idea of Intellectual Property for their own work but are willing to look the other way on theft of other’s property as long as it provides them sufficient economic gain. Those who turn a blind eye to the theft of another’s Intellectual Property while benefiting from it economically are pond scum.

Many of you are going to realize you are in the category I have just labeled “pond scum”. Yes, I know that is harsh. And that (most of) you aren’t really pond scum. And you certainly don’t consider yourself pond scum. But I am trying to make a point here, and it’s a point best made with a large hammer.

I may consider the FSF and it’s followers wrong (and I’m being kind) but at least they are intellectually honest. Those who turn a blind eye to the theft of another’s Intellectual Property while benefiting from it economically are pond scum.

What I believe is the crux of Microsoft’s patent strategy with regard to Linux and it’s Android variant, go after the pond scum. It is actually rather hard to figure out how to effectively go after the original authors of the infringing code.

Let’s say you went after Red Hat and they removed the offending code. CentOS is already out in the wild and it wouldn’t change availability of that. In fact you’d have to go after all the Linux distributions, and then any site hosting a distribution, and even if you win it wouldn’t stop Amdocs et al from shipping servers with an offending Linux Kernel. So you’d have to go after the Amdocs of the world. Or the end-users who are “receiving stolen property” and will continue to use the infringing product for their own economic gain. In other words, you’ll have to go after the pond scum even after you’ve spent years fighting those who stole the property in the first place. And since the pond scum actually have more to lose economically, why not simply go after them in the first place? So that’s what Microsoft has been doing, with both Android and (more quietly until now) Linux itself.

Infringing on Microsoft’s IP, and then giving it away for free, is no different from if you engaged directly in software piracy by stealing copies of Windows. There is nothing wrong with free software itself, but if you steal Microsoft’s intellectual property and give it away for free that is unfair competition. And so Microsoft (and Apple, just to make it clear this isn’t purely a Microsoft viewpoint) is fighting back against that unfair competition by demanding compensation for use of its intellectual property.

Information is power, and in any negotiation the party with more information has the advantage. Releasing the list of patents Microsoft thinks Linux is infringing on reduces Microsoft’s negotiating power. Why would it want to do that?

How does releasing the list of 237 patents help Microsoft’s primary cause? What Microsoft wants is for a user of Linux to make the Linux vs Windows decision on some basis other than “Linux is Free”. Releasing the list makes Linux no less free.

The only way [is to] go after those who are getting the most economic benefit from infringing on the patents. With Android that was the phone manufacturers. With Linux that is large IT shops and those who incorporate Linux into their own offerings such as Amdocs.

The companies [Microsoft] targets are more likely to settle than fight because Android/Linux is not their primary business. Samsung makes money selling phones and tablets, just how much money do they want to spend defending Android itself? And Microsoft (unlike Apple) isn’t trying to stop them from shipping Android-based phones, it just wants to be compensated for its IP. Amdocs makes CRM systems for the telecommunications industry. It uses Linux, but Linux is not its business. Fighting over Linux makes no sense for them (and as a long-term Amdocs shareholder I support management for avoiding this becoming a major legal distraction). And a large IT shop? Do they really want to spend a dime on lawyers to defend their use of Linux? Will their CEO, or particularly their Board of Directors, really want the company distracted from their actual business (like making and selling shoes or cars or operating restaurants) over an IP issue? No.

So that’s it, Microsoft is simply following a strategy that makes large users of Android and Linux stop thinking of them as free. I think it’s the right thing to do, though I don’t think it will change the market dynamics much at this point.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Europe's supply of IPv4 addresses nearing depletion
Authored by: JamesK on Tuesday, July 31 2012 @ 11:26 AM EDT
The European Internet registry -- RIPE NCC -- is expected to exhaust its supply of IPv4 addresses as early as next week, putting more pressure on U.S.-based multinational corporations to deploy the replacement technology known as IPv6.

It's quite clear that people should be moving to IPv6. I've been running it on my home network for over 2 years. If your ISP doesn't provide it yet, you can use a tunnel broker to obtain IPv6.

BTW, my home network is fully IPv6 ready. If a device supports IPv6, it gets an IPv6 address and can also use it over the Internet. My own subnet is over a trillion times the size of the entire IPv4 address space! Those with web sites should be pushing their providers for IPv6.

---
The following program contains immature subject matter. Viewer discretion is advised.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

an informal survey
Authored by: mcinsand on Tuesday, July 31 2012 @ 01:01 PM EDT
Yes, this is way off-topic, but I was pleasantly surprised at a weeklong
conference last week to see a near-total absence of Windows hardware. One was
my own work laptop, but my employer allows no choice. There were only 2 or 3
other Windows laptops that I noticed. Most of the rest were Macintoys, but
there was a high fraction of Ubuntu laptops. Most were Precise Pangolin with
the GNOME desktop (didn't see a single Unity version visible).

As you can tell, I had some time to survey. While most of the presentations
were very interesting, a few were a bit too far out of my area.

Regards,
mc

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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