What is your answer? You complain about the current system a great deal but have no alternatives to suggest in terms of protecting the investments / innovations companies make.

Largely, Roy, it comes down to you knowing that the OSS ecosystem cannot compete on a level playing field (on desktop products at least, and apparently your fear stretches to hand-held devices) – so much of OSS is designed to be a cheap knock-off of the “real” thing.

I have more faith in the OSS world – I think they can and should be able to come up with innovative products which are not just the results of plagiarizing the works of others. And I think these products can be excellent. Of course, by the nature of being OSS, others can and do use those ideas more freely than the ideas of groups which opt to protect their IP in an more stringent way. That is the “cost” of electing to use an open source model – you are agreeing that others can use your ideas and “plagiarize” freely. If you do not want them to, use a different license.

But to insist that others must adopt a license more like the one you prefer is just insane. No: companies have choice and to take it from them, as you want, is not right. The “Free” community talks a big talk when it comes to the concept of choice, but when push comes to shove, the only choices they will accept as being valid are the ones they would make. This is not *real* choice.

Support choice. Let companies protect their IP the way they see best to do so – even if you disagree with it and think it is harmful to the company or to you. If someone thought open source was harmful would you want them to be able to take that choice away? I certainly would not… but that is the type of thinking you show: people should not be able to eliminate the ability of others to make non-harmful choices simply because they do not like those choices.

Your right to swing your arm ends where my nose begins. Company X protecting its own IP and working to reduce others plagiarizing it does not infringe on anyone’s rights… thus there is no reason to be against it. Even Stallman agrees with this and protects his IP with licenses much more restrictive than the GPL – when he sees fit to do so.

http://www.epo.org/law-practice/legal-texts/html/epc/1973/e/ar52.html

Why can’t the politicians in charge just take the pro-SW patent noise makers and rub their noses in Article 52?

The same goes for the other EU countries.

If schools could teach history people would know Capitalism made the US such a great country. We need Capitalism. We need a market controlled by the people and not by the corporations.

When Apple (a privately owned company) hires a swat team (the State) to raid someone’s house – that’s not Capitalism – that’s Fascism.

News Roundup | Techrights – Part 33…

10″ is a bit unwieldy, and yet still not big enough to view most web pages/pdfs’ without juggling zoom/pan (and search is a pain). Media playing is so so. And the ‘app store’ is full of rubbish – most of it is 90′s pc shareware type crap at best.

I just got one to develop a client application: for a turn-key application platform they’re quite cute, but as a general purpose computing device – or even information/entertainment platform – they leave a bit to be desired.

http://goo.gl/oglA9

Apple profits surge 94% on sales of 35.1M iPhones, 11.8M iPads

The Company sold 35.1 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 88 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 11.8 million iPads during the quarter, a 151 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter.

And this is what you call a *decline*. An 88% unit growth from last year!

LOL! Really… that is just insane. For you up is down and black is white. The idea that Apple’s phone business is declining is just loony. It is growing amazingly fast… as has been for years.

This is the company which is still suing Open Source using software patents.

Microsoft has never sued open source. How could it… open source is a development model… and unless you think MS is claiming to have invented that then they could not even have a slight basis for “suing” over it.

You are simply wrong… to the point of showing you have no idea what the legal issues are even about. None of them are about the development method. None.

Patents are protectionism, they’re a monopoly, they are by all economic standpoints “bad”.

People also used to say that old-style “slavery” was beneficial. But we left those lies behind. We grew up, we moved forward.

And that would be a good thing.

But I prefer to talk about technology. Notice how I made it very clear how I use multiple OSs and respect them and their development processes for their strengths and also recognize their weaknesses. Unlike you I do not deny the innovations – nor the challenges – of OS X, Windows, or desktop Linux.

Your comments show this is not the same for you. To say that you are close minded and see little other than the benefits of desktop Linux and its development model and the downsides of the competition is just a fact – one you advertise in almost every post of yours.

When you have such tunnel vision you are, by definition, close minded. And I think it is clear your vision is very much aligned with Stallman’s cult-like teachings. If you disagree perhaps you can speak about where you think he is wrong. A no-brainer on that is to speak about his repulsive comments / views on sexuality and kids. Only the most die-hard cultist could accept his comments on such topics without revulsion… and you can speak of him being so grotesque there without even putting down his views on technology and how it should be.

Or maybe you can comment on the fact you previously rejected: the massive innovation that happens when different groups work *without* direct and extensive collaboration, such as war-time technologies during WWII and other war-based technologies. Very clearly true and completely contrary to your claims.

These are the types of things you can speak about and show you do have a deeper and more open understanding than how you have presented yourself. Sure, you might not be ready to acknowledge the downsides of the OSS model (or the “Free” model if you prefer that term, as dishonest as it is), but you can acknowledge smaller things which a reasonable person would have no compunction with disagreeing with.

Can you do that? If not you are showing you are more closely tied to the Stallman cult-like group than I have said. If you can, however, you will be showing an indication you are not as fully tied to such irrationality as some others who hold similar beliefs as yours. I would welcome that and would be happy to see you being more open minded than I have insinuated and, at least to some extent, suggested.

So shock me and prove me wrong and do those things. I would welcome it. I do not mind being wrong – but I do ask for evidence to show it, not just empty claims of your “experience” teaching you that facts are not real. That was a rather silly claim of yours.

You started with the insults. Implying I have some pro stallman bias, that i’m part of a cult, etc. You even called me insane in another posting.

Can’t take what you dish out?