Answer to this Moron

Story: Linux users could face European patent threatTotal Replies: 12
Author Content
Abe

Sep 20, 2007
2:53 PM EDT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YExl9ojclo

Sander_Marechal

Sep 20, 2007
3:50 PM EDT
Ahh, I love that speech. Eben is such a masterful speaker :-)
Scott_Ruecker

Sep 20, 2007
4:03 PM EDT
I just watched it, AWESOME!

Listening to him makes me point and laugh..at Microsoft.

land0

Sep 21, 2007
8:14 AM EDT
Can you say SCO? I knew you could. If M$ pursued this they would be faced with such a backlash and lawsuits they would be torn to pieces. Not necessarily by the "FOSS" community either. Their partners and customers would end up being opened up for lawsuits that sought retribution for prior art and IP violation. Then again they did launch the turd that is Vista. WOW! As in wow that is a big turd! :p
dinotrac

Sep 21, 2007
8:31 AM EDT
What on earth is everybody so up in arms about?

Did the article say that Linux infringed on any patents?

NOOOOOO.

This was just a guy talking about differences in patent law and patent standards between the US, the UK, and Europe.

In fact, the bottom line seems to be that European and British users have less to worry about than American users.

That conclusion seems reasonable to me. Do you have some reason to think it's wrong?

If it's wrong, was the FSF just being silly when it changed the patent protection provisions of GPLV3 in response to Novell?

Things are looking better in the US than they had been WRT to IP, but the SCO case was not about anybody's patents and certainly wasn't about Microsoft's.

We are not out of the woods yet.

Abe

Sep 21, 2007
9:06 AM EDT
Quoting:What on earth is everybody so up in arms about?
To start with, this is old news, why bring it up again? I guess with all the good news for Linux lately and a slow day for Linux bad news for ZDNet to publish, they had to dig deep for some old news and rap around it a new spin.

Quoting:Linux users could face European patent threat
That was the title

Quoting:Linux users in the United Kingdom could face a greater threat from Microsoft than previously thought, but experts agree that British open source users are in far less danger than US users from Microsoft's claim that open source software infringes its patents.
And this is the introduction abstract.

So, Isn't that enough to call him a moron?

And remind him that the game MS is playing hasn't worked?

And the propaganda warfare should stop?

dinotrac

Sep 21, 2007
9:41 AM EDT
> So, Isn't that enough to call him a moron?

No. You need to establish that he's wrong. I see no reason to believe that. I think the nasty patent system in the US leaves American Linux users at greater risk than those in the US and Europe.

I also believe, that you are being incredibly two-faced here, given your rants about mono.
Abe

Sep 21, 2007
12:15 PM EDT
moron: a person who is notably stupid or lacking in good judgment.

I don't have to prove him wrong, you just have to read what his talking about. He is trying to bring a dead horse alive. That is being a moron.

Quoting:I also believe, that you are being incredibly two-faced here, given your rants about mono.


Sorry, your are not making much sense here. How is it I am being two-faced? I don't see any contradictions with what you call " your rants".

dinotrac

Sep 21, 2007
12:26 PM EDT
>I don't see any contradictions with what you call " your rants"

I may have your rants mixed up with some of the others, so please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but one common theme of the mono-paranoid is fear of Microsoft patents.

If you fear patents in Mono, that implies that software patents are something to be feared. If that is the case, the author's position that users in the UK and Europe have less to fear from Microsoft patents than users in the US (nearly 20 times as many US patents as European) is fair ground for disagreement, but hardly moronic. If there are morons to be found, it is in the knee jerk reactions to this story.
Abe

Sep 21, 2007
5:32 PM EDT
Quoting:but one common theme of the mono-paranoid is fear of Microsoft patents.
In this case Dino, you are probably referring to my posts among others.

Actually no, I am not paranoid or afraid of patents, I am just concerned about them like many others are. My main concern about Mono is ingesting MS patents in Free Software that will give MS some validity to their claims and shouting it out very loudly. MS says .Net is open and free to use, but I don't trust MS since they always have somethings up their sleeves. Do you trust them yourself?

MS might have patents infringed upon in Linux, there is always this possibility right? but they wouldn't be a major concern since they can be either nullified, worked around, or removed.

Now the reason I call this writer moron is because he is bringing up an issue which even MS stopped bringing up. MS was challenged and was told to put up of shut up, so far they chose to shut up. So why is this guy bringing it up again! Let's hear it from MS if they have something new.

The reason I linked to Moglen's clip is because it does logically demonstrates why MS is reluctant to continue its patent attacks. Ballmer started his campaign and never heard about it again since the challenge.

dinotrac

Sep 21, 2007
6:19 PM EDT
>Now the reason I call this writer moron is because he is bringing up an issue which even MS stopped bringing up

Sorry, but that response makes you sound like a bigger moron than he is, on a couple of counts.

First, he is referring to the climate overseas, and the chance that Brits and Europeans might be lulled into an "It can't happen here" complacency.

As to the greater damage here, you should make up your mind. Patent danger exists or it doesn't. Just because Microsoft has shut up doesn't mean they will stay that way. Personally, I think they'd be foolish to press the issue, but arrogance is just foolishness with clout, so you never know.

Heed your own counsel or stop giving it -- Microsoft is not to be trusted. They are most especially not to be trusted when you think you've got the upper hand. Ask IBM.
Abe

Sep 22, 2007
5:45 AM EDT
Quoting:Sorry, but that response makes you sound like a bigger moron than he is...
I suggest you read my previous post multiple times. It is obvious you are not understanding what you are reading. Here are couple I said for you to comprehend.

Quoting:MS says .Net is open and free to use, but I don't trust MS since they always have somethings up their sleeves.


Quoting:MS might have patents infringed upon in Linux, there is always this possibility right?


If you have understood these two, you wouldn't have called me moron unless your are one.

You are being shallow here and don't have the insight to understand my posts.



dinotrac

Sep 22, 2007
9:10 AM EDT
>You are being shallow here and don't have the insight to understand my posts.

I'm sure that's it, especially given your ability to contradict yourself at will.

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