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Originally posted by SA_Dave
I'm glad you appreciate it!

I love this sentence:



It's sad that this applies to patents as well, although patents are another issue altogether. The largest software companies : Microsoft, Adobe, Lotus, Sun, Borland etc. all made their fortunes before people started patenting software ideas and algorithms. Now defensive patents are almost necessary, and even then they're insufficient protection from IBM.

Jefferson wrote a letter to a colleague, in which he sympathised with him for being sued by a patent holder. The patent covered a series of square buckets being tied together with string, attached to a wheel and used to draw water from a well. The only difference between the ancient Egyptian method and this one was the fact that the buckets were square and metallic instead of round and leathern!

You might also enjoy Stallman's short story, The Right to Read. {It really is short compared to this essay.} It's rather chilling!

yeah good stuff dave..

you could not install one if you had one, without knowing your computer's root password. And neither the FBI nor Microsoft Support would tell you that.

Until recently, there was one exception: the idea that the FBI and Microsoft will keep the root passwords for personal computers, and not let you have them, was not proposed until 2002. It is called "trusted computing" or "palladium".

i have often tried to imagine computer users of the future..cpoing with the laws and regulations being set up by corporations..now
its not the governments..it just plain old greedy ppl..