Hi,

working still with this paper. Following is what I intend to include
from halloween documents. Everyone who advocates Linux should read them.
And probably those who advocate Windows should read them too :-)

Next I will start to learning the status of embedded market.

I did not get any comments for my second draft about patents...have I
used too much of this group...or not taking good care of the comments?

Best Regards
Kari




The Halloween Documents

Eric S. Raymond, an open source fame, published internal Microsoft memos
leaked to him at  http://www.catb.org/~esr/halloween/index.html

That happened October 1998 and years after that. They are still
interesting read. At that time Microsoft got scared of the open source
and Linux. Memos clearly depict how Microsoft is trying to figure out
how to contain the damage awaited.

Eric S. Raymond is an Open Source advocate who has done a lot to push
open source and Linux forward. Netscape named him as the main influencer
to release Netscape web browser as open source. That is the Firefox and
ThunderBird today. Eric S. Raymond has written several books and
articles and been in a position to really market Linux. He even were a
millionaire once when VA Systems (Larry Augustin) went public. I don�t
know whether Eric sold his stock options in time.  Eric has been UNIX
advocate before Linux. He has told that he had contributed to FSF�s GNU
project back then when Linux kernel was not even in existence. Also if
you have ever used Fetchmail, that�s Eric�s project.

About the writings from Eric I know of are:
Homesteading the Noosphere
Eric Steven Raymond
http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/homesteading/
The Cathedral and the Bazaar
By Eric Steven Raymond
http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/

The Art of Unix Programming
Still available and readable in O�Reilly Safari.

Following text is directly from Halloween documents site.
The Halloween Documents
Introduction



Where will Microsoft try to drag you today?

    Do you really want to go there?
In the last week of October 1998, a confidential Microsoft memorandum on
Redmond's strategy against Linux and Open Source software was leaked to
me by a source who shall remain nameless. I annotated this memorandum
with explanation and commentary over Halloween Weekend and released it
to the national press. Microsoft was forced to acknowledge its
authenticity. The press rightly treated it as a major story and covered
it (with varying degrees of cluefulness).

The now-infamous "Halloween Document" contained references to a second
memorandum specifically on Linux. Within days, copies of the second memo
had been forwarded to me from two separate sources. I renamed the first
annotated version "Halloween I" and set about annotating the second.
While not as dramatic or sinister in its implications as its
predecessor, Halloween II includes a lot of material at variance with
Microsoft's public party line on Linux.

This page originally continued with an anti-Microsoft jeremiad. On
reflection, however, I think I'd prefer to finish by thanking the
principal authors, Vinod Valloppillil and Josh Cohen, for authoring such
remarkable and effective testimonials to the excellence of Linux and
open-source software in general. I suspect that historians may someday
regard the Halloween memoranda as your finest hour, and the Internet
community certainly owes you a vote of thanks.

Over time, these memoranda have grown into quite a series. The Halloween
Documents I, II, III, VII, VIII and X are leaked Microsoft documents
with annotations. IV is a satire based on an idiotic lead-with-the-chin
remark by the person who was at the time Microsoft's anti-Linux point
person; V is serious comment on a statement by the same fool. VI is a
takedown of one of the bought-and-paid-for "independent studies"
Microsoft marketing leans on so heavily, IX refutes the Amended
Complaint by Microsoft's sock puppets at SCO, and XI is a field report
from one of Microsoft's marketing road shows. The common theme is that
the Halloween Documents reveal, from Microsoft's own words, the things
Microsoft doesn't want you to know.

Eric S. Raymond <esr@thyrsus.com>


I will try to pick most interesting parts and write my own comments.
Eric�s comment are in cur-lies { }
My comments are in [KL: <text> ] . There won�t be many because Eric did
so great job.

From the Halloween document I. These are directly lifted from the leaked
memo. Microsoft thrustly says:

-  OSS poses a direct, short-term revenue and platform threat to
Microsoft, particularly in server space. Additionally, the intrinsic
parallelism and free idea exchange in OSS has benefits that are not
replicable with our current licensing model and therefore present a long
term developer mindshare threat.
- Recent case studies (the Internet) provide very dramatic evidence ...
that commercial quality can be achieved / exceeded by OSS projects.
-...to understand how to compete against OSS, we must target a process
rather than a company.
-  OSS is long-term credible ... FUD tactics can not be used to combat it.
-  Linux and other OSS advocates are making a progressively more
credible argument that OSS software is at least as robust -- if not more
-- than commercial alternatives. The Internet provides an ideal,
high-visibility showcase for the OSS world.
-  Linux has been deployed in mission critical, commercial environments
with an excellent pool of public testimonials. ... Linux outperforms
many other UNIXes ... Linux is on track to eventually own the x86 UNIX
market ...
- Linux can win as long as services / protocols are commodities.
- OSS projects have been able to gain a foothold in many server
applications because of the wide utility of highly commoditized, simple
protocols. By extending these protocols and developing new protocols, we
can deny OSS projects entry into the market.
- The ability of the OSS process to collect and harness the collective
IQ of thousands of individuals across the Internet is simply amazing.
More importantly, OSS evangelization scales with the size of the
Internet much faster than our own evangelization efforts appear to scale.

That�s coming directly from key Microsoft executives. Though they
downplay the leaked documents as just an engineering mailing and
evaluating potential competitor.

Eric writes
�I believe that far and away the the most dangerous tactic advocated in
this memorandum is that embodied in the sinister phrase de-commoditize
protocols.�
�If publication of this document does nothing else, I hope it will alert
everyone to the stifling of competition, the erosion of consumer choice,
the higher costs, and the monopoly lock-in that this tactic implies.�
�The parallel with Microsoft's attempted hijacking of Java, and its
attempts to spoil the write once, run anywhere potential of this
technology, should be obvious.�

[KL: that means Microsoft would like to destroy IETF, who built Internet
with standards. Microsoft would like to take those standards and make
them proprietary in a way that only Microsoft provided software would be
able to talk them. Microsoft won�t give details out, so no competing
implementation could be done. To see an example how proprietary
standards affect everyday computing is to answer question �Is there any
other software that could open MS Office document�. Well the answer is
NO for the reason that Microsoft is not giving out documentation.]

Eric writes
{

   1. Buyers like being in a commodity market. Sellers dislike it.
   2. Commodity services and protocols are good for customers; they're
less expensive, they promote competition, they generate good choices.
   3. "De-commoditizing" protocols means reducing choice, raising
prices, and suppressing competition.
   4. Therefore, for Microsoft to win, the customer must lose.
   5. Open source pushes -- indeed relies upon -- commodity services and
protocols. It is therefore in harmony with consumer interests.


}

Microsoft memo states

�Open Source Software (OSS) is a development process which promotes
rapid creation and deployment of incremental features and bug fixes in
an existing code / knowledge base. In recent years, corresponding to the
growth of Internet, OSS projects have acquired the depth & complexity
traditionally associated with commercial projects such as Operating
Systems and mission critical servers.

Consequently, OSS poses a direct, short-term revenue and platform threat
to Microsoft -- particularly in server space. Additionally, the
intrinsic parallelism and free idea exchange in OSS has benefits that
are not replicable with our current licensing model and therefore
present a long term developer mindshare threat�.

{OK, this establishes that Microsoft isn't asleep at the switch.
TN explains the connection to Java as follows:
Okay, what does this basically mean? Microsoft perceives a product to be
a threat if it presents itself as any of these:

   1. a revenue alternative -- somebody might spend money on a non-MS --
product
   2. a platform alternative -- MS might lose its monopoly position
   3. a developer alternative -- people might actually write software
for a non-MS product.


In their minds, any alternative is a threat. Therefore, freedom of
choice is a source of fear and loathing to MS. The idea that there may
be zero (or negative!) costs with leaving MS and migrating to another
platform scares the daylights out of MS. }

Microsoft memo contains

�The largest case study of OSS is the Internet. Most of the earliest
code on the Internet was, and is still based on OSS as described in an
interview with Tim O'Reilly
(http://www.techweb.com/internet/profile/toreilly/interview):
TIM O'REILLY: The biggest message that we started out with was, "open
source software works." ... BIND has absolutely dominant market share as
the single most mission-critical piece of software on the Internet.
Apache is the dominant Web server. SendMail runs probably eighty percent
of the mail servers and probably touches every single piece of e-mail on
the Internet�

[KL: So Microsoft admits how great the open source idea is. Internet as
we know it today was build with open source principles. And now when
Microsoft is attacking open source it probably is going to attack
Internet with proprietary standards. ]

From Eric�s book
�Every good work of software starts by scratching a developer's personal
itch�
Microsoft comment on that

�This summarizes one of the core motivations of developers in the OSS
process -- solving an immediate problem at hand faced by an individual
developer -- this has allowed OSS to evolve complex projects without
constant feedback from a marketing / support organization.�

{ TN remarks:
In other words, open-source software is driven by making great products,
whereas Microsoft is driven by focus groups, psychological studies, and
marketing. As if we didn't know that already.... }

From Microsoft memo
�One advantage of parallel debugging is that bugs and their fixes are
found / propagated much faster than in traditional processes. For
example, when the TearDrop IP attack was first posted to the web, less
than 24 hours passed before the Linux community had a working fix
available for download.�

�Research/teaching projects on top of Linux are easily `disseminated'
due to the wide availability of Linux source. In particular, this often
means that new research ideas are first implemented and available on
Linux before they are available / incorporated into other platforms.�

[KL: does Microsoft here admit that innovation happens much faster in
open source field than inside Microsoft?]

From Microsoft memo
�Long-term credibility

Binaries may die but source code lives forever

One of the most interesting implications of viable OSS ecosystems is
long-term credibility.
Long-Term Credibility Defined

Long term credibility exists if there is no way you can be driven out of
business in the near term. This forces change in how competitors deal
with you.�

{ TN comments:
Note the terminology used here driven out of business. MS believes that
putting other companies out of business is not merely collateral damage
-- a byproduct of selling better stuff -- but rather, a direct business
goal. To put this in perspective, economic theory and the typical
honest, customer-oriented businessperson will think of business as a
stock-car race -- the fastest car with the most skillful driver wins.
Microsoft views business as a demolition derby -- you knock out as many
competitors as possible, and try to maneuver things so that your
competitors wipe each other out and thereby eliminate themselves. In a
stock car race there are many finishers and thus many drivers get a
paycheck. In a demolition derby there is just one survivor. Can you see
why Microsoft and freedom of choice are absolutely in two different
universes? }

Microsoft says

The likelihood that Apache will cease to exist is orders of magnitudes
lower than the likelihood that WordPerfect, for example, will disappear.
The disappearance of Apache is not tied to the disappearance of binaries
(which are affected by purchasing shifts, etc.) but rather to the
disappearance of source code and the knowledge base.

Inversely stated, customers know that Apache will be around 5 years from
now -- provided there exists some minimal sustained interested from its
user/development community.

One Apache customer, in discussing his rationale for running his
e-commerce site on OSS stated, "because it's open source, I can assign
one or two developers to it and maintain it myself indefinitely. "

Microsoft says in the memo
Linux is a real, credible OS + Development process

Like other Open Source Software (OSS) products, the real key to Linux
isn't the static version of the product but rather the process around
it. This process lends credibility and an air of future-safeness to
customer Linux investments.

          o Trusted in mission criticial environments. Linux has been
deployed in mission critical, commercial environments with an excellent
pool of public testimonials.

          o Linux = Best of Breed UNIX. Linux outperforms many other
UNIX's in most major performance category (networking, disk I/O, process
ctx switch, etc.). To grow their featurebase, Linux has also liberally
stolen features of other UNIX's (shell features, file systems, graphics,
CPU ports)

          o Only Unix OS to gain market share. Linux is on track to
eventually own the x86 UNIX market and has been the only UNIX version to
gain net Server OS market share in recent years. I believe that Linux --
moreso than NT -- will be the biggest threat to SCO in the near future.

          o Linux's process iterates VERY fast. For example, the Linux
equivalent of the TransmitFile() API went from idea to final
implementation in about 2 weeks time.





You really should read it whole (twice) at the Eric�s web-page. Link was
given above.

Then Halloween II memo from Microsoft, which targets Linux.

Microsoft memo says

* Linux represents a best-of-breed UNIX, that is trusted in mission
critical applications, and - due to it's open source code - has a long
term credibility which exceeds many other competitive OS's.
* Most of the primary apps that people require when they move to Linux
are already available for free. This includes web servers, POP clients,
mail servers, text editors, etc
* An advanced Win32 GUI user would have a short learning cycle to become
productive [under Linux].
* I previously had IE4/NT4 on the same box and by comparison the
combination of Linux / Navigator ran at least 30-40% faster when
rendering simple HTML + graphics.
* Long term, my simple experiments do indicate that Linux has a chance
at the desktop market ...
* Consumers Love It.
* Linux's (real and perceived) virtues over Windows NT include:
Customization ... Availability/Reliability ... Scaleability/Performance
.... Interoperability ...
* Linux is emerging as a key operating system in the nascent thin server
market
* Using today's server requirements, Linux is a credible alternative to
commercial developed servers in many, high volume applications.
*****
* The effect of patents and copyright in combatting Linux remains to be
investigated.
*****
* Note, however, that Compaq and Dell merely have to credibly threaten
Linux adoption in order to push for lower OEM OS pricing.

From the Microsoft memo

�NatBro points out:

An important attribute to note which has led to volume drivers is the
ease with which you can write drivers for linux, and the relatively
powerful debugging infrastructure that linux has. Finding and installing
the DDK, and trying to hook up the kernel debugger and do any sort of
interaction with user-mode without tearing the NT system to bits is much
more challenging than writing the simple device-drivers for linux. Any
idiot could write a driver in 2 days with a book like "Linux Device
Drivers" � there is no such thing as a 2-day device-driver for NT�

{ A Microsoft developer who wishes to remain anonymous comments:
MS really shoots themselves in the foot in driver space. For those of us
that will willingly spend effort to improve the quality, functionality,
and availability of device drivers for MS OSs, the tools, etc. they
provide are actually getting progressively worse. This is happening
largely because MS fails to grasp the basic concepts you've been talking
about. In response to driver quality and availability issues, they've
consistently made exactly the wrong decisions: rather than encouraging
more people to help and providing better tools, they try to make the
system more and more closed and dumb down the tools.

A significant side effect of this is the killing of innovation - MS,
being a monolithic organization, can really only concentrate on a few
initiatives at a time, and improving device (printers, video, input,
disk, ...) functinality and performance is rarely very high on the list.
This is a great example of where they should let someone else (either a
partner or an industry standards body - or maybe even an open-source
community!) `homestead' a driver space. Instead they intentionally make
it more difficult for these 3rd parties to contribute. The reasonably
plausible reason MS gives for this is to improve system stability - they
blame a lot of NT robustness issues on bad 3rd party drivers. Instead of
helping the 3rd parties build better drivers (better tools, better tech
support/documentation, actually soliciting input from the 3rd parties,
etc.), though, the MS approach is to assert more control of the driver
space by making more of the system closed.

The ironic effect of this, though, is that the 3rd parties still have
the business need to innovate despite the MS restrictions, so they end
up frequently hacking around the closed parts of the MS solutions with
no documentation - and the overall system stability goes down, not up.
By making the system more closed, they are decreasing stability &
quality, slowing innovation, and losing the opportunity to take
advantage of 3rd parties willing to contribute for free. The desire by
MS to own and control the interfaces is so strong, though, that they
can't step back far enough to understand what they are doing.
}

In Halloween III

[KL: Microsoft tries to downplay the content of leaked documents. I
won�t paste much of it you should read it in net. But I paste the
following, which is the strategy MS has chosen against open source]

Microsoft utters
�Unless Linux violates IP rights, it will fail to deliver innovation
over the long run.�

Eric comments
{ This final remark is worthy of an essay all by itself. It is the least
logical -- and at the same time, most damning -- assertion in Ms. van
den Berg's entire statement.

As propaganda, it has a superficial cleverness. It plants the idea that
any MIS manager so foolish as to use Linux will find his operating
system yanked out from under him by a future patent lawsuit -- perhaps
one initiated by (whisper it) Microsoft itself. It's a perfect FUD tactic.
There are lots of pragmatic and legal reasons to believe this FUD is a
phantom. But to wander off into those would be to miss the key point --
what it reveals about Microsoft's own assumptions.

To see why this is true, try out the claim Unless SCO violates IP
rights, it will fail to deliver innovation over the long run. Or: Unless
Solaris violates IP rights, it will fail to deliver innovation over the
long run. Or, best of all, Unless NT violates IP rights, it will fail to
deliver innovation over the long run.. Nobody has a natural monopoly on
talent (and, as VinodV pointed out, The ability of the OSS process to
collect and harness the collective IQ of thousands of individuals across
the Internet is simply amazing.) If these claims are not credible,
neither is hers.

If we believe Ms. van den Berg means her claim, we must deduce that
Microsoft actually cannot imagine anyone inventing innovations that
don't violate existing IP rights.

Perhaps this is understandable, giving Microsoft's own long record of
buying or outright stealing key technologies rather than innovating.
MS-DOS: bought (from Tim Paterson). PC1 BIOS code: stolen (almost
bit-for-bit from Gary Kildall's CP/M BIOS). On-the-fly disk compression:
stolen (from Stac Electronics). Internet Explorer: bought or stolen,
depending on who you believe (from Spyglass). And the list only starts
with these...

Microsoft truly behaves as though it corporately believes that there's
only a fixed pool of key ideas, most already discovered, which software
designers must squabble over in zero-sum competition until the end of
time. In that game, the only definition of `winning' is cornering enough
goodies to guarantee you a monopoly lock.

But this raises a question for everyone betting on a Microsoft future;
can people with beliefs like that deliver innovation themselves? Or are
they more likely to lag further and further behind a culture like
Linux's, which perpetually seeks unexplored territory, believes in
innovation -- and practices it with the exuberance that made VinodV
observe the feeling was exhilarating and addictive.

The interpretation of Ms. van den Berg's parting shot kindest to
Microsoft, then, is that it is a lie intended to frighten the gullible.
If it is the true Microsoft line, it reveals an astonishing poverty of
creative energy there -- that for all their billions and all their
putative brilliance, they cannot truly imagine anyone creating anything
genuinely new.}


[KL: I won�t paste more Halloweens here because they are big and anyone
can read them in the net anyway. Halloween VII is very interesting read.]	

"Kari Laine" <klaine8@gmail.com> schreef in bericht 
news:hOqdnaq3ZdK1VafQnZ2dnUVZ8ridnZ2d@giganews.com...
> Hi,
>
> working still with this paper. Following is what I intend to include
> from halloween documents. Everyone who advocates Linux should read them.
> And probably those who advocate Windows should read them too :-)
>
> Next I will start ........................

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ 

Verily I say unto thee, that Kari Laine spake thusly:

> Microsoft utters
> “Unless Linux violates IP rights, it will fail to deliver innovation
> over the long run.”
[...]
> Eric comments
> { This final remark is worthy of an essay all by itself. It is the
> least logical -- and at the same time, most damning -- assertion in
> Ms. van den Berg's entire statement.
>
> As propaganda, it has a superficial cleverness. It plants the idea
> that any MIS manager so foolish as to use Linux will find his
> operating system yanked out from under him by a future patent lawsuit
> -- perhaps one initiated by (whisper it) Microsoft itself. It's a
> perfect FUD tactic.  There are lots of pragmatic and legal reasons to
> believe this FUD is a phantom. But to wander off into those would be
> to miss the key point -- what it reveals about Microsoft's own
> assumptions.
>
> To see why this is true, try out the claim Unless SCO violates IP
> rights, it will fail to deliver innovation over the long run. Or:
> Unless Solaris violates IP rights, it will fail to deliver innovation
> over the long run. Or, best of all, Unless NT violates IP rights, it
> will fail to deliver innovation over the long run.. Nobody has a
> natural monopoly on talent (and, as VinodV pointed out, The ability of
> the OSS process to collect and harness the collective IQ of thousands
> of individuals across the Internet is simply amazing.) If these claims
> are not credible, neither is hers.
>
> If we believe Ms. van den Berg means her claim, we must deduce that
> Microsoft actually cannot imagine anyone inventing innovations that
> don't violate existing IP rights.
>
> Perhaps this is understandable, giving Microsoft's own long record of
> buying or outright stealing key technologies rather than innovating.
> MS-DOS: bought (from Tim Paterson). PC1 BIOS code: stolen (almost
> bit-for-bit from Gary Kildall's CP/M BIOS). On-the-fly disk
> compression: stolen (from Stac Electronics). Internet Explorer: bought
> or stolen, depending on who you believe (from Spyglass). And the list
> only starts with these...
>
> Microsoft truly behaves as though it corporately believes that there's
> only a fixed pool of key ideas, most already discovered, which
> software designers must squabble over in zero-sum competition until
> the end of time. In that game, the only definition of `winning' is
> cornering enough goodies to guarantee you a monopoly lock.

Microsoft is clearly ambivalent in its views over "IP". On the one hand
it claims to be a leading "innovator", but on the other it claims
innovation isn't possible, because all things have already been
invented, so now it's just a big Gold Rush to stake a claim in existing
"IP", with Microsoft hoping to grab the biggest rocks (or all of them,
if possible).

Witness its recent attempts to patent the "record button" and "sudo",
for example, or its shell company IP Innovations LLC trying to patent
multiple desktop workspaces. Such companies, and let's face it, nearly
/all/ companies that use patents, are not really "inventing" anything,
they're just staking a claim to lumps of rock that have existed for
years, decades, or even centuries. In the 19th century, they'd have been
called claim jumpers. Today, they call themselves "innovators". I call
them patent trolls.

In their rush to grab lumps of "IP", they've become cynics, blind to the
truth. New inventions, creations and discoveries certainly /are/
possible, it's just that nothing exists in isolation - all new knowledge
is based on the foundation of what came before, and thus none of it can
ever be legitimately claimed as "exclusive property". And that bugs
Microsoft, because its not a team player, it doesn't like cooperation,
it doesn't like building on existing foundations as part of the
community, it simply wants to own and control the community, like a mad
dictator, greedily hoarding the results of everyone else's
contributions.

But the existence of foundations shouldn't mean mean we stop building on
them. The objective should be to keep building, not to monopolise the
foundations, to prevent others benefiting from doing so.

But that seems to be Microsoft's goal, and the goal of every "IP"
fanatic: grab the land, to exclusively monetise everything that's built
on it, and to own and control everything and everyone who lives on it.
Microsoft can't innovate, so it believes no one else can either, and yet
it's quite content to leech off the collective pool of everyone else's
contributions, then try to monopolise them. "IP" fanatics are greedy,
cold-blooded, morally-bankrupt, totalitarian hypocrites.

-- 
K.                           | Ancient Chinese Proverb:
http://slated.org            | "The road to Hell is paved with
Fedora 8 (Werewolf) on sky   | ignorant twits who know nothing
kernel 2.6.31.5, up 28 days  | about GNU/Linux."

Homer stated in post hecr08-p2n.ln1@sky.matrix on 1/22/11 9:15 AM:

....
> Microsoft is clearly ambivalent in its views over "IP". On the one hand
> it claims to be a leading "innovator", but on the other it claims
> innovation isn't possible, because all things have already been
> invented, so now it's just a big Gold Rush to stake a claim in existing
> "IP", with Microsoft hoping to grab the biggest rocks (or all of them,
> if possible).

MS never said all things have already been invented.  You made that up.

.... 
> In their rush to grab lumps of "IP", they've become cynics, blind to the
> truth. New inventions, creations and discoveries certainly /are/
> possible, it's just that nothing exists in isolation - all new knowledge
> is based on the foundation of what came before, and thus none of it can
> ever be legitimately claimed as "exclusive property".

Why not?  If I invent a new way of doing something, what gives the rights to
it?  You keep repeating this claim based on your own feelings and
intuitions, but I want you to understand it is not based on logic.

For example, say I find some way of making an almost perfect voice
interpreter, one that can handle background noises as well or better than
people and is not confused by any but the most extreme accents and voice
impediments.   Let's also say it took me 10 years and millions of dollars to
come up with this. 

I then make a product for Windows and OS X that pushes dictation
capabilities to a whole new level, beyond anything Dragon and the others
have developed.  I sell my software for, say, $500 a system.  At this rate
it will take me up to tens of thousands of sales to make up for the millions
I spent to make it, but so be it... I think the product will be that popular
(and I will have improvements in the future that do not cost as much, but I
will still be able to charge upgrade fees).

Better yet, I also have plans for making a system that be controlled by eye
movement and subtle nods and the like - so in the future I can make systems
where you do not need a mouse our keyboard at all.  You will just be able to
look at buttons and basically just think what you want as you dictate any
writing you want done.  Boom.  A whole new UI can be made based on this.

Now you come along and insist there is no such thing as Intellectual
Property, so you pass a law that the software I just made is now public
domain.  It is communal property... your communist ideals are accepted and I
have no more rights to my software than you do.  Boom.  My sales plummet
because, of course, others can sell my software for $50 a seat and they can
make money.  I now have no way to recoup my expenditures.

Some questions for you:

1) Do you think I will spend the time and money to work on the eye movement
technology since doing so would be a huge *loss* to me and my company?

2) If I did end up doing it, and someone else made a new UI based on the
improved input methods I invented, do you think you or I should have rights
to *their* work?  After all, their invention is dependent on mine.  Without
my input methods their UI does not even work.

For me, the answers are pretty obvious - no, I likely would not spend the
time and money knowing that your communist ideals have ruined my business
plan, and for two, no, I have no rights to what others are inventing.  Now
if they want to bundle my software with their and sell it at a bundle price
or something then, sure, I have rights to decide how that is done (or if),
but if someone else invents something, even based on my invention, it is
*theirs*.  I do not own it and neither do you.  It is not communal property.

.... 
> But that seems to be Microsoft's goal, and the goal of every "IP" fanatic:
> grab the land, to exclusively monetise everything that's built on it, and to
> own and control everything and everyone who lives on it.

The idea that IP laws are handled amazingly poorly I think is accepted by
just about everyone in COLA.  Where people disagree is your "fix" which is
just forcing private property into communal hands.

> Microsoft can't innovate,

What makes you think this?

> so it believes no one else can either, and yet it's quite content to leech off
> the collective pool of everyone else's contributions, then try to monopolise
> them. "IP" fanatics are greedy, cold-blooded, morally-bankrupt, totalitarian
> hypocrites.



-- 
[INSERT .SIG HERE]

Hi Snit,


Snit wrote:
> Homer stated in post hecr08-p2n.ln1@sky.matrix on 1/22/11 9:15 AM:
> 
> ...
>> Microsoft is clearly ambivalent in its views over "IP". On the one hand
>> it claims to be a leading "innovator", but on the other it claims
>> innovation isn't possible, because all things have already been
>> invented, so now it's just a big Gold Rush to stake a claim in existing
>> "IP", with Microsoft hoping to grab the biggest rocks (or all of them,
>> if possible).
> 
> MS never said all things have already been invented.  You made that up.
> 
I have tendency to believe that MS would say this kind of thing. Like no
one ever needs more than 640k memory and other as stupid things. Now one
knows at what speed innovations happen and Microsoft certainly is not
one to innovate.

If you read the book about patents I referred earlier, there is quote
from Microsoft Bill Gates who states something in line
"Have the patent system existed as it is now it would have brought the
whole industry in the standstill"

Maybe Microsoft was referring the fact that there are now so many
patents that it is basically impossible to innovate....


> ... 
>> In their rush to grab lumps of "IP", they've become cynics, blind to the
>> truth. New inventions, creations and discoveries certainly /are/
>> possible, it's just that nothing exists in isolation - all new knowledge
>> is based on the foundation of what came before, and thus none of it can
>> ever be legitimately claimed as "exclusive property".
> 
> Why not?  If I invent a new way of doing something, what gives the rights to
> it?  You keep repeating this claim based on your own feelings and
> intuitions, but I want you to understand it is not based on logic.
> 
> For example, say I find some way of making an almost perfect voice
> interpreter, one that can handle background noises as well or better than
> people and is not confused by any but the most extreme accents and voice
> impediments.   Let's also say it took me 10 years and millions of dollars to
> come up with this. 
IBM probably have patents to stop you in your track...
Point is that about 95% of software patents are not enforceable. That
was figure given by a patent buster lawyer whose name now escapes me.
They are trivial or try to patent something which was invented a long
time ago - prior art.
But if you really have capabilities to create what you tell here - why
are you wasting you time here?

> 
> I then make a product for Windows and OS X that pushes dictation
> capabilities to a whole new level, beyond anything Dragon and the others
> have developed.  I sell my software for, say, $500 a system.  At this rate
> it will take me up to tens of thousands of sales to make up for the millions
> I spent to make it, but so be it... I think the product will be that popular
> (and I will have improvements in the future that do not cost as much, but I
> will still be able to charge upgrade fees).
> 
> Better yet, I also have plans for making a system that be controlled by eye
> movement and subtle nods and the like - so in the future I can make systems
> where you do not need a mouse our keyboard at all.  You will just be able to
> look at buttons and basically just think what you want as you dictate any
> writing you want done.  Boom.  A whole new UI can be made based on this.
> 
> Now you come along and insist there is no such thing as Intellectual
> Property, so you pass a law that the software I just made is now public
> domain.  It is communal property... your communist ideals are accepted and I
> have no more rights to my software than you do.  Boom.  My sales plummet
> because, of course, others can sell my software for $50 a seat and they can
> make money.  I now have no way to recoup my expenditures.
You would still have the choice to keep the technology secret and
produce it yourself and take a big part of the market. Naturally others
will try to imitate but you would have a head start. And as long you
innovate and keep your customers happy others will play catch up game.


> 
> Some questions for you:
> 
> 1) Do you think I will spend the time and money to work on the eye movement
> technology since doing so would be a huge *loss* to me and my company?
> 
I bet there are lot of people who would still innovate if there weren't
patent system.


> 2) If I did end up doing it, and someone else made a new UI based on the
> improved input methods I invented, do you think you or I should have rights
> to *their* work?  After all, their invention is dependent on mine.  Without
> my input methods their UI does not even work.
> 
> For me, the answers are pretty obvious - no, I likely would not spend the
> time and money knowing that your communist ideals have ruined my business
> plan, and for two, no, I have no rights to what others are inventing.  Now
> if they want to bundle my software with their and sell it at a bundle price
> or something then, sure, I have rights to decide how that is done (or if),
> but if someone else invents something, even based on my invention, it is
> *theirs*.  I do not own it and neither do you.  It is not communal property.
> 
> ... 
I am not a communist - I am a socialist. And I also think there might be
need to be some kind of patent system in the "perfect" world but it
certainly is the current one. And software patents should be abolished
or the time span shortened to 5 years or shorter. 20 years is life time
in software industry.


>> But that seems to be Microsoft's goal, and the goal of every "IP" fanatic:
>> grab the land, to exclusively monetise everything that's built on it, and to
>> own and control everything and everyone who lives on it.
> 
> The idea that IP laws are handled amazingly poorly I think is accepted by
> just about everyone in COLA.  Where people disagree is your "fix" which is
> just forcing private property into communal hands.
> 
That would not hurt...

>> Microsoft can't innovate,
> 
> What makes you think this?
> 
Name an innovation from Microsoft ?


Best Regards
Kari

Kari Laine <klaine8@gmail.com> writes:

> Hi Snit,
>
> Snit wrote:
>> Homer stated in post hecr08-p2n.ln1@sky.matrix on 1/22/11 9:15 AM:
>> 
>> ...
>>> Microsoft is clearly ambivalent in its views over "IP". On the one hand
>>> it claims to be a leading "innovator", but on the other it claims
>>> innovation isn't possible, because all things have already been
>>> invented, so now it's just a big Gold Rush to stake a claim in existing
>>> "IP", with Microsoft hoping to grab the biggest rocks (or all of them,
>>> if possible).
>> 
>> MS never said all things have already been invented.  You made that up.
>> 
> I have tendency to believe that MS would say this kind of thing. Like no
> one ever needs more than 640k memory and other as stupid things. Now one
> knows at what speed innovations happen and Microsoft certainly is not
> one to innovate.

Except they did. They created the home GUI desktop OS and made
billions. Innovation isnt the same as "invention". They also crossed the
bridges between OS maker and third parties to assure support for
DirectX/3d accelerating the PC games development and market while IB;
and the OGL comittee sat there and fiddled while Rome burnt.

re 640k : Lots of people say things that seem silly in hindsight. I do
find it funny where some know nothing, give nothing arsehole like Homer
repeats this kind of things.

On 26/01/2011 09:33, Kari Laine wrote:
> Hi Snit,
>
>
> Snit wrote:
>> Homer stated in post hecr08-p2n.ln1@sky.matrix on 1/22/11 9:15 AM:
>>
>> ...
>>> Microsoft is clearly ambivalent in its views over "IP". On the one hand
>>> it claims to be a leading "innovator", but on the other it claims
>>> innovation isn't possible, because all things have already been
>>> invented, so now it's just a big Gold Rush to stake a claim in existing
>>> "IP", with Microsoft hoping to grab the biggest rocks (or all of them,
>>> if possible).
>>
>> MS never said all things have already been invented.  You made that up.
>>
> I have tendency to believe that MS would say this kind of thing. Like no
> one ever needs more than 640k memory and other as stupid things. Now one
> knows at what speed innovations happen and Microsoft certainly is not
> one to innovate.
>
> If you read the book about patents I referred earlier, there is quote
> from Microsoft Bill Gates who states something in line
> "Have the patent system existed as it is now it would have brought the
> whole industry in the standstill"
>
> Maybe Microsoft was referring the fact that there are now so many
> patents that it is basically impossible to innovate....

Basically the case. The thing that makes me laugh is Microsoft's 
resistance to the DOJ trial was headlined "Freedom to innovate vs..." 
and now they're basically restricting others right to do so with these 
massive patent landgrabs. Bear in mind also that it doesn't affect any 
of the other big players, they all have cross licensing agreements with 
each other. Big business' patent portfolios are designed to hinder small 
companies which may one day rise up to threaten the big guys.


>> ...
>>> In their rush to grab lumps of "IP", they've become cynics, blind to the
>>> truth. New inventions, creations and discoveries certainly /are/
>>> possible, it's just that nothing exists in isolation - all new knowledge
>>> is based on the foundation of what came before, and thus none of it can
>>> ever be legitimately claimed as "exclusive property".
>>
>> Why not?  If I invent a new way of doing something, what gives the rights to
>> it?  You keep repeating this claim based on your own feelings and
>> intuitions, but I want you to understand it is not based on logic.
>>
>> For example, say I find some way of making an almost perfect voice
>> interpreter, one that can handle background noises as well or better than
>> people and is not confused by any but the most extreme accents and voice
>> impediments.   Let's also say it took me 10 years and millions of dollars to
>> come up with this.
> IBM probably have patents to stop you in your track...
> Point is that about 95% of software patents are not enforceable. That
> was figure given by a patent buster lawyer whose name now escapes me.
> They are trivial or try to patent something which was invented a long
> time ago - prior art.

Because the USPTO are inundated with a deluge of (mostly) bogus patents. 
Their policy is to basically wave a software patent through and let the 
courts sort it out if required. Trouble is, as I mentioned earlier in 
the post the big guys basically leave each other alone in the main it 
will always be a big guy vs little guy case. Little guys don't have the 
legal or financial resources to tackle a big software patent case. And 
any software project of any reasonable size will potentially infringe on 
dozens if not hundreds of software patents.


> But if you really have capabilities to create what you tell here - why
> are you wasting you time here?
>
>>
>> I then make a product for Windows and OS X that pushes dictation
>> capabilities to a whole new level, beyond anything Dragon and the others
>> have developed.  I sell my software for, say, $500 a system.  At this rate
>> it will take me up to tens of thousands of sales to make up for the millions
>> I spent to make it, but so be it... I think the product will be that popular
>> (and I will have improvements in the future that do not cost as much, but I
>> will still be able to charge upgrade fees).
>>
>> Better yet, I also have plans for making a system that be controlled by eye
>> movement and subtle nods and the like - so in the future I can make systems
>> where you do not need a mouse our keyboard at all.  You will just be able to
>> look at buttons and basically just think what you want as you dictate any
>> writing you want done.  Boom.  A whole new UI can be made based on this.
>>
>> Now you come along and insist there is no such thing as Intellectual
>> Property, so you pass a law that the software I just made is now public
>> domain.  It is communal property... your communist ideals are accepted and I
>> have no more rights to my software than you do.  Boom.  My sales plummet
>> because, of course, others can sell my software for $50 a seat and they can
>> make money.  I now have no way to recoup my expenditures.

Not having software patents does not equate with what you said. 
Businesses have been keeping trade secrets for hundreds of years now. 
Fact is if you market your invention it *is* in the public domain 
whether you like it or not. The question is whether others have the 
right to copy your invention for their own commercial interests. 
Remember the patent system was invented because the lawmakers at the 
time were worried that too many trade secrets being kept meant that 
information on how to make things was not getting into the public 
domain. A patent is a covenant that you will disclose how to do a thing 
in exchange for exclusivity of 20 years after which anybody can use your 
invention. That ideal is being twisted and eroded of late, and this myth 
that is being peddled that the patent system was created to protect 
inventors is pure baloney.


> You would still have the choice to keep the technology secret and
> produce it yourself and take a big part of the market. Naturally others
> will try to imitate but you would have a head start. And as long you
> innovate and keep your customers happy others will play catch up game.
>
>
>>
>> Some questions for you:
>>
>> 1) Do you think I will spend the time and money to work on the eye movement
>> technology since doing so would be a huge *loss* to me and my company?
>>
> I bet there are lot of people who would still innovate if there weren't
> patent system.
>
>
>> 2) If I did end up doing it, and someone else made a new UI based on the
>> improved input methods I invented, do you think you or I should have rights
>> to *their* work?  After all, their invention is dependent on mine.  Without
>> my input methods their UI does not even work.
>>
>> For me, the answers are pretty obvious - no, I likely would not spend the
>> time and money knowing that your communist ideals have ruined my business
>> plan, and for two, no, I have no rights to what others are inventing.  Now
>> if they want to bundle my software with their and sell it at a bundle price
>> or something then, sure, I have rights to decide how that is done (or if),
>> but if someone else invents something, even based on my invention, it is
>> *theirs*.  I do not own it and neither do you.  It is not communal property.
>>
>> ...
> I am not a communist - I am a socialist. And I also think there might be
> need to be some kind of patent system in the "perfect" world but it
> certainly is the current one. And software patents should be abolished
> or the time span shortened to 5 years or shorter. 20 years is life time
> in software industry.
>
>
>>> But that seems to be Microsoft's goal, and the goal of every "IP" fanatic:
>>> grab the land, to exclusively monetise everything that's built on it, and to
>>> own and control everything and everyone who lives on it.
>>
>> The idea that IP laws are handled amazingly poorly I think is accepted by
>> just about everyone in COLA.  Where people disagree is your "fix" which is
>> just forcing private property into communal hands.
>>
> That would not hurt...
>
>>> Microsoft can't innovate,
>>
>> What makes you think this?
>>
> Name an innovation from Microsoft ?

Bob. Clippy. Both now dead. Thankfully.


> Best Regards
> Kari

On 26/01/2011 12:29, Hadron wrote:
> Kari Laine<klaine8@gmail.com>  writes:
>
>> Hi Snit,
>>
>> Snit wrote:
>>> Homer stated in post hecr08-p2n.ln1@sky.matrix on 1/22/11 9:15 AM:
>>>
>>> ...
>>>> Microsoft is clearly ambivalent in its views over "IP". On the one hand
>>>> it claims to be a leading "innovator", but on the other it claims
>>>> innovation isn't possible, because all things have already been
>>>> invented, so now it's just a big Gold Rush to stake a claim in existing
>>>> "IP", with Microsoft hoping to grab the biggest rocks (or all of them,
>>>> if possible).
>>>
>>> MS never said all things have already been invented.  You made that up.
>>>
>> I have tendency to believe that MS would say this kind of thing. Like no
>> one ever needs more than 640k memory and other as stupid things. Now one
>> knows at what speed innovations happen and Microsoft certainly is not
>> one to innovate.
>
> Except they did. They created the home GUI desktop OS and made
> billions. Innovation isnt the same as "invention". They also crossed the
> bridges between OS maker and third parties to assure support for
> DirectX/3d accelerating the PC games development and market while IB;
> and the OGL comittee sat there and fiddled while Rome burnt.
>
> re 640k : Lots of people say things that seem silly in hindsight. I do
> find it funny where some know nothing, give nothing arsehole like Homer
> repeats this kind of things.

There is also some question about whether he actually said it or not. He 
certainly denies it.

"Kari Laine" <klaine8@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:UKSdnb58SPkYd6LQnZ2dnUVZ8vCdnZ2d@giganews.com...
> Hi Snit,
>
>
> Snit wrote:
>> Homer stated in post hecr08-p2n.ln1@sky.matrix on 1/22/11 9:15 AM:
>>
>> ...
>>> Microsoft is clearly ambivalent in its views over "IP". On the one hand
>>> it claims to be a leading "innovator", but on the other it claims
>>> innovation isn't possible, because all things have already been
>>> invented, so now it's just a big Gold Rush to stake a claim in existing
>>> "IP", with Microsoft hoping to grab the biggest rocks (or all of them,
>>> if possible).
>>
>> MS never said all things have already been invented.  You made that up.
>>
> I have tendency to believe that MS would say this kind of thing. Like no
> one ever needs more than 640k memory and other as stupid things. Now one
> knows at what speed innovations happen and Microsoft certainly is not
> one to innovate.

I think that is fairly true in terms of technological discovery. 
Microsoft's expertise has been its ability to take these discoveries and 
bring them to the mass market at an appropriate time and in an effective 
way.  In a commercial sense, that is just as innovative as the original 
discovery, but it is a different kind of talent, I.e. the ability to work 
with customers rather than with technical concepts or physical facts.

It was effectively true that no one needed more than 640K of memory at one 
point in time.  Of course there were one or two or so users who needed more 
at that time, but the mass market did not.  By adhering to that "stupid 
thing", MS was able to focus on an available market segment  that did not 
need the multiple megabytes offered (and needed)by OS/2.  At a later date, 
when many more customers had the need for larger memory, it was easy enough 
to introduce Win 95 and meet their needs.  Timing is everything.
>
> If you read the book about patents I referred earlier, there is quote
> from Microsoft Bill Gates who states something in line
> "Have the patent system existed as it is now it would have brought the
> whole industry in the standstill"
>
> Maybe Microsoft was referring the fact that there are now so many
> patents that it is basically impossible to innovate....
>
I think that it is more along the line that it would have been impossible to 
operate with so many patent threats against a start-up company.  In the 
early days of PCs, companies copycatted one another's ideas, improving on 
the performance and capacity along the way.  For example consider the 
progression of VisiCalc to 123 to Excel.  Such a thing today would be 
impossible because someone certainly would patent the idea of a spreadsheet 
and chill any competitor's interest.

 I think the problem with the so-called "software patents" is that they do 
not truly represent any innovative leap.  They are often things that are 
obvious on their face to anyone "skilled in the art", but are not obvious to 
patent examiners who grant the patents.  They are not so obvious down the 
road to the judge and jury who hear the patent suits either, so holding one 
of these patents is a real threat to a competitor.

Big companies arm themselves with many patents on many items so that any big 
company suing them can be countersued in other venues.  It is much like the 
USA and USSR each having enough nuclear devices to guarantee mutual 
destruction.  The big companies have learned to live with that system. The 
little company, like Luxemburg in the Cold War, has to simply hope for the 
best and doubtless feels left out.  To continue the analogy, there are 
patent trolls who operate like terrorists and exact some ransom for their 
efforts.
>
>> ...
>>> In their rush to grab lumps of "IP", they've become cynics, blind to the
>>> truth. New inventions, creations and discoveries certainly /are/
>>> possible, it's just that nothing exists in isolation - all new knowledge
>>> is based on the foundation of what came before, and thus none of it can
>>> ever be legitimately claimed as "exclusive property".
>>
>> Why not?  If I invent a new way of doing something, what gives the rights 
>> to
>> it?  You keep repeating this claim based on your own feelings and
>> intuitions, but I want you to understand it is not based on logic.
>>
>> For example, say I find some way of making an almost perfect voice
>> interpreter, one that can handle background noises as well or better than
>> people and is not confused by any but the most extreme accents and voice
>> impediments.   Let's also say it took me 10 years and millions of dollars 
>> to
>> come up with this.
> IBM probably have patents to stop you in your track...
> Point is that about 95% of software patents are not enforceable. That
> was figure given by a patent buster lawyer whose name now escapes me.
> They are trivial or try to patent something which was invented a long
> time ago - prior art.
> But if you really have capabilities to create what you tell here - why
> are you wasting you time here?
>
Things that are truly innovative are not the problem.  If you read a few 
patents these days, it is hard to see where what is disclosed is actually 
disclosed, too.  Long ago, the patent described a way to implement the idea. 
Today, the implementation is so obvious that it is only abstractly 
presented.  That is a clue to the fact that it is not such a brilliant idea 
and would have occurred to many others in due course of development.
>>
>> I then make a product for Windows and OS X that pushes dictation
>> capabilities to a whole new level, beyond anything Dragon and the others
>> have developed.  I sell my software for, say, $500 a system.  At this 
>> rate
>> it will take me up to tens of thousands of sales to make up for the 
>> millions
>> I spent to make it, but so be it... I think the product will be that 
>> popular
>> (and I will have improvements in the future that do not cost as much, but 
>> I
>> will still be able to charge upgrade fees).
>>
>> Better yet, I also have plans for making a system that be controlled by 
>> eye
>> movement and subtle nods and the like - so in the future I can make 
>> systems
>> where you do not need a mouse our keyboard at all.  You will just be able 
>> to
>> look at buttons and basically just think what you want as you dictate any
>> writing you want done.  Boom.  A whole new UI can be made based on this.
>>
>> Now you come along and insist there is no such thing as Intellectual
>> Property, so you pass a law that the software I just made is now public
>> domain.  It is communal property... your communist ideals are accepted 
>> and I
>> have no more rights to my software than you do.  Boom.  My sales plummet
>> because, of course, others can sell my software for $50 a seat and they 
>> can
>> make money.  I now have no way to recoup my expenditures.
> You would still have the choice to keep the technology secret and
> produce it yourself and take a big part of the market. Naturally others
> will try to imitate but you would have a head start. And as long you
> innovate and keep your customers happy others will play catch up game.
>
Now you are talking!  That is the concept of being a market leader in an 
established market.  Linux works great and so does Windows, but Windows is 
now on the lion's share of the machines in the world.  That causes the 
customers to "expect" that a new computer would be a Windows computer.  That 
does not mean that you cannot sell them a Linux computer on its merits, but 
it does mean that you will have to explain why it is not a Windows computer. 
There are so many computers sold and so few people to sell them that there 
is simply not enough time in the day to go through the details.  So 
retailers and OEMs dodge the question by only offering the Windows machine 
and not bothering with trying to change the world.  That is never going to 
change because the OEMs and retailers could never recoup the cost of 
changing minds, even if they were successful, which is not a certainty 
either.

>
>>
>> Some questions for you:
>>
>> 1) Do you think I will spend the time and money to work on the eye 
>> movement
>> technology since doing so would be a huge *loss* to me and my company?
>>
> I bet there are lot of people who would still innovate if there weren't
> patent system.
>
Certainly that is true.  I don't think that it is even possible to truly 
innovate for the money involved.
>
>> 2) If I did end up doing it, and someone else made a new UI based on the
>> improved input methods I invented, do you think you or I should have 
>> rights
>> to *their* work?  After all, their invention is dependent on mine. 
>> Without
>> my input methods their UI does not even work.
>>
>> For me, the answers are pretty obvious - no, I likely would not spend the
>> time and money knowing that your communist ideals have ruined my business
>> plan, and for two, no, I have no rights to what others are inventing. 
>> Now
>> if they want to bundle my software with their and sell it at a bundle 
>> price
>> or something then, sure, I have rights to decide how that is done (or 
>> if),
>> but if someone else invents something, even based on my invention, it is
>> *theirs*.  I do not own it and neither do you.  It is not communal 
>> property.
>>
>> ...
> I am not a communist - I am a socialist. And I also think there might be
> need to be some kind of patent system in the "perfect" world but it
> certainly is the current one. And software patents should be abolished
> or the time span shortened to 5 years or shorter. 20 years is life time
> in software industry.
>
The key element is to sort the true inventions out of a sea of simple and 
more or less obvious improvements.  Patent examiners are not skilled in the 
software arts and there perhaps could be a way for "industry comment" 
regarding the degree of invention posed by an application.  If there were 
serious objections voiced by industry reviewers, then a more detailed 
examination would be conducted.  That would help reduce the number of new 
patents.
>
>>> But that seems to be Microsoft's goal, and the goal of every "IP" 
>>> fanatic:
>>> grab the land, to exclusively monetise everything that's built on it, 
>>> and to
>>> own and control everything and everyone who lives on it.
>>
>> The idea that IP laws are handled amazingly poorly I think is accepted by
>> just about everyone in COLA.  Where people disagree is your "fix" which 
>> is
>> just forcing private property into communal hands.
>>
> That would not hurt...
>
>>> Microsoft can't innovate,
>>
>> What makes you think this?
>>
> Name an innovation from Microsoft ?
>
MS-DOS for $50 retail and $5 OEM.  Finding a need and filling it.

 

Hadron wrote:
> Kari Laine <klaine8@gmail.com> writes:
> 
>> Hi Snit,
>>
>> Snit wrote:
>>> Homer stated in post hecr08-p2n.ln1@sky.matrix on 1/22/11 9:15 AM:
>>>
>>> ...
>>>> Microsoft is clearly ambivalent in its views over "IP". On the one hand
>>>> it claims to be a leading "innovator", but on the other it claims
>>>> innovation isn't possible, because all things have already been
>>>> invented, so now it's just a big Gold Rush to stake a claim in existing
>>>> "IP", with Microsoft hoping to grab the biggest rocks (or all of them,
>>>> if possible).
>>> MS never said all things have already been invented.  You made that up.
>>>
>> I have tendency to believe that MS would say this kind of thing. Like no
>> one ever needs more than 640k memory and other as stupid things. Now one
>> knows at what speed innovations happen and Microsoft certainly is not
>> one to innovate.
> 
> Except they did. They created the home GUI desktop OS and made
> billions. Innovation isnt the same as "invention". They also crossed the
> bridges between OS maker and third parties to assure support for
> DirectX/3d accelerating the PC games development and market while IB;
> and the OGL comittee sat there and fiddled while Rome burnt.
> 
> re 640k : Lots of people say things that seem silly in hindsight. I do
> find it funny where some know nothing, give nothing arsehole like Homer
> repeats this kind of things.
> 

Hi Hadron,

they did not create the GUI - they stole the concept from Apple.
Naturally they did not steal any code but those gog programmers were
easy and cheap to get. First implementation was horrible as was the
second... I can tell I used to install those and support the darn things.

You must know how Microsoft got it's position - or should I spell it out
again. I remember finding a good source in the net documenting how they
did it. If someone has link please post.

It is sad that UNIX companies were so "stupid" at the time that they
left Microsoft freely take advantage of the low end market. UNIX wars
dis not exactly help either.

Then you make it sound like a innovation to extort OEMs to agree MS
contracts - you are an artist in a way.

I make an statement - I am convinced Linux is going to control 30% of
the desktop 3 years from now, if major patent wars are not fought.

And by the way - what I have read OPEN GL is still more advanced - I
personally does not know that.

Best Regards
Kari

Kari Laine <klaine8@gmail.com> writes:

> Hadron wrote:
>> Kari Laine <klaine8@gmail.com> writes:
>> 
>>> Hi Snit,
>>>
>>> Snit wrote:
>>>> Homer stated in post hecr08-p2n.ln1@sky.matrix on 1/22/11 9:15 AM:
>>>>
>>>> ...
>>>>> Microsoft is clearly ambivalent in its views over "IP". On the one hand
>>>>> it claims to be a leading "innovator", but on the other it claims
>>>>> innovation isn't possible, because all things have already been
>>>>> invented, so now it's just a big Gold Rush to stake a claim in existing
>>>>> "IP", with Microsoft hoping to grab the biggest rocks (or all of them,
>>>>> if possible).
>>>> MS never said all things have already been invented.  You made that up.
>>>>
>>> I have tendency to believe that MS would say this kind of thing. Like no
>>> one ever needs more than 640k memory and other as stupid things. Now one
>>> knows at what speed innovations happen and Microsoft certainly is not
>>> one to innovate.
>> 
>> Except they did. They created the home GUI desktop OS and made
>> billions. Innovation isnt the same as "invention". They also crossed the
>> bridges between OS maker and third parties to assure support for
>> DirectX/3d accelerating the PC games development and market while IB;
>> and the OGL comittee sat there and fiddled while Rome burnt.
>> 
>> re 640k : Lots of people say things that seem silly in hindsight. I do
>> find it funny where some know nothing, give nothing arsehole like Homer
>> repeats this kind of things.
>> 
>
> Hi Hadron,
>
> they did not create the GUI - they stole the concept from Apple.

You dont steal "concepts" like that. "GUI" was well before Apple. If
someone makes a walking stick have they "stolen" the idea? Please.


> Naturally they did not steal any code but those gog programmers were
> easy and cheap to get. First implementation was horrible as was the
> second... I can tell I used to install those and support the darn
> things.

As did I. other alternatives were not much better.

>
> You must know how Microsoft got it's position - or should I spell it out
> again. I remember finding a good source in the net documenting how they
> did it. If someone has link please post.

By writing SW people wanted and marketing it well.

On 26/01/2011 15:10, Hadron wrote:
> Kari Laine<klaine8@gmail.com>  writes:
>
>> Hadron wrote:
>>> Kari Laine<klaine8@gmail.com>  writes:
>>>
>>>> Hi Snit,
>>>>
>>>> Snit wrote:
>>>>> Homer stated in post hecr08-p2n.ln1@sky.matrix on 1/22/11 9:15 AM:
>>>>>
>>>>> ...
>>>>>> Microsoft is clearly ambivalent in its views over "IP". On the one hand
>>>>>> it claims to be a leading "innovator", but on the other it claims
>>>>>> innovation isn't possible, because all things have already been
>>>>>> invented, so now it's just a big Gold Rush to stake a claim in existing
>>>>>> "IP", with Microsoft hoping to grab the biggest rocks (or all of them,
>>>>>> if possible).
>>>>> MS never said all things have already been invented.  You made that up.
>>>>>
>>>> I have tendency to believe that MS would say this kind of thing. Like no
>>>> one ever needs more than 640k memory and other as stupid things. Now one
>>>> knows at what speed innovations happen and Microsoft certainly is not
>>>> one to innovate.
>>>
>>> Except they did. They created the home GUI desktop OS and made
>>> billions. Innovation isnt the same as "invention". They also crossed the
>>> bridges between OS maker and third parties to assure support for
>>> DirectX/3d accelerating the PC games development and market while IB;
>>> and the OGL comittee sat there and fiddled while Rome burnt.
>>>
>>> re 640k : Lots of people say things that seem silly in hindsight. I do
>>> find it funny where some know nothing, give nothing arsehole like Homer
>>> repeats this kind of things.
>>>
>>
>> Hi Hadron,
>>
>> they did not create the GUI - they stole the concept from Apple.
>
> You dont steal "concepts" like that. "GUI" was well before Apple. If
> someone makes a walking stick have they "stolen" the idea? Please.

OMG. This after your long rant decrying companies stealing other 
companies ideas from a summer or two ago?


>> Naturally they did not steal any code but those gog programmers were
>> easy and cheap to get. First implementation was horrible as was the
>> second... I can tell I used to install those and support the darn
>> things.
>
> As did I. other alternatives were not much better.
>
>>
>> You must know how Microsoft got it's position - or should I spell it out
>> again. I remember finding a good source in the net documenting how they
>> did it. If someone has link please post.
>
> By writing SW people wanted and marketing it well.

Hadron stated in post ihp436$ptd$3@news.eternal-september.org on 1/26/11
5:29 AM:

> Kari Laine <klaine8@gmail.com> writes:
> 
>> Hi Snit,
>> 
>> Snit wrote:
>>> Homer stated in post hecr08-p2n.ln1@sky.matrix on 1/22/11 9:15 AM:
>>> 
>>> ...
>>>> Microsoft is clearly ambivalent in its views over "IP". On the one hand
>>>> it claims to be a leading "innovator", but on the other it claims
>>>> innovation isn't possible, because all things have already been
>>>> invented, so now it's just a big Gold Rush to stake a claim in existing
>>>> "IP", with Microsoft hoping to grab the biggest rocks (or all of them,
>>>> if possible).
>>> 
>>> MS never said all things have already been invented.  You made that up.
>>> 
>> I have tendency to believe that MS would say this kind of thing. Like no
>> one ever needs more than 640k memory and other as stupid things. Now one
>> knows at what speed innovations happen and Microsoft certainly is not
>> one to innovate.
> 
> Except they did. They created the home GUI desktop OS and made
> billions.

Hmmm, they added some things to it... contextual menus, drag indicators
(copy / move / make shortcut), etc.

> Innovation isnt the same as "invention". They also crossed the
> bridges between OS maker and third parties to assure support for
> DirectX/3d accelerating the PC games development and market while IB;
> and the OGL comittee sat there and fiddled while Rome burnt.
> 
> re 640k : Lots of people say things that seem silly in hindsight. I do
> find it funny where some know nothing, give nothing arsehole like Homer
> repeats this kind of things.
> 



-- 
[INSERT .SIG HERE]

Hadron stated in post ihpdgp$nmm$1@news.eternal-september.org on 1/26/11
8:10 AM:

> Kari Laine <klaine8@gmail.com> writes:
> 
>> Hadron wrote:
>>> Kari Laine <klaine8@gmail.com> writes:
>>> 
>>>> Hi Snit,
>>>> 
>>>> Snit wrote:
>>>>> Homer stated in post hecr08-p2n.ln1@sky.matrix on 1/22/11 9:15 AM:
>>>>> 
>>>>> ...
>>>>>> Microsoft is clearly ambivalent in its views over "IP". On the one hand
>>>>>> it claims to be a leading "innovator", but on the other it claims
>>>>>> innovation isn't possible, because all things have already been
>>>>>> invented, so now it's just a big Gold Rush to stake a claim in existing
>>>>>> "IP", with Microsoft hoping to grab the biggest rocks (or all of them,
>>>>>> if possible).
>>>>> MS never said all things have already been invented.  You made that up.
>>>>> 
>>>> I have tendency to believe that MS would say this kind of thing. Like no
>>>> one ever needs more than 640k memory and other as stupid things. Now one
>>>> knows at what speed innovations happen and Microsoft certainly is not
>>>> one to innovate.
>>> 
>>> Except they did. They created the home GUI desktop OS and made
>>> billions. Innovation isnt the same as "invention". They also crossed the
>>> bridges between OS maker and third parties to assure support for
>>> DirectX/3d accelerating the PC games development and market while IB;
>>> and the OGL comittee sat there and fiddled while Rome burnt.
>>> 
>>> re 640k : Lots of people say things that seem silly in hindsight. I do
>>> find it funny where some know nothing, give nothing arsehole like Homer
>>> repeats this kind of things.
>>> 
>> 
>> Hi Hadron,
>> 
>> they did not create the GUI - they stole the concept from Apple.
> 
> You dont steal "concepts" like that. "GUI" was well before Apple. If
> someone makes a walking stick have they "stolen" the idea? Please.

The general GUI paradigm we consider the norm did come from Xerox and
Apple... menus, overlapping windows, double clicking, etc.

But MS added their own innovation to it... I listed some of the items
elsewhere.
 
>> Naturally they did not steal any code but those gog programmers were
>> easy and cheap to get. First implementation was horrible as was the
>> second... I can tell I used to install those and support the darn
>> things.
> 
> As did I. other alternatives were not much better.
> 
>> 
>> You must know how Microsoft got it's position - or should I spell it out
>> again. I remember finding a good source in the net documenting how they
>> did it. If someone has link please post.
> 
> By writing SW people wanted and marketing it well.



-- 
[INSERT .SIG HERE]

Kari Laine stated in post UKSdnb58SPkYd6LQnZ2dnUVZ8vCdnZ2d@giganews.com on
1/26/11 2:33 AM:

> Hi Snit,
> 
> 
> Snit wrote:
>> Homer stated in post hecr08-p2n.ln1@sky.matrix on 1/22/11 9:15 AM:
>> 
>> ...
>>> Microsoft is clearly ambivalent in its views over "IP". On the one hand
>>> it claims to be a leading "innovator", but on the other it claims
>>> innovation isn't possible, because all things have already been
>>> invented, so now it's just a big Gold Rush to stake a claim in existing
>>> "IP", with Microsoft hoping to grab the biggest rocks (or all of them,
>>> if possible).
>> 
>> MS never said all things have already been invented.  You made that up.
>> 
> I have tendency to believe that MS would say this kind of thing.

Believe it or not, is there any *evidence* they did?

> Like no
> one ever needs more than 640k memory and other as stupid things.

Please show where MS (or even Gates) ever said that.  He denies it and I
have never seen any evidence he did.
<http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/1997/01/1484>

> Now one
> knows at what speed innovations happen and Microsoft certainly is not
> one to innovate.

They have certainly added innovations: they were the first to bring many
technologies to the public eye - either inventing them themselves or
recognizing the importance and bringing them to popularity.  Some examples
off the top of my head:

* contextual menus
* toolbars
* the ribbon
* drag indictors
* short cut indicators

Etc.  Now do not get me wrong, if you compare them to Apple - Apple clearly
is ahead in the innovation area.  Apple is amazing at finding, creating,
mixing and building systems of technology that serve people better than
anything any other company has come up with - this is seen with the Mac, the
iPod, the iPhone, the iPad and more.  There is a reason all of these have
the highest user satisfaction ratings of any similar device.

When Apple or MS or other companies do innovate, you quickly see OS projects
working to copy them.  The idea that OSS advocates would be putting down
*others* for copying is a bit schizophrenic... esp. given how Apple and MS
and others often (though certainly not always) pay for the ideas they use
and OSS developers only very rarely do.
 
> If you read the book about patents I referred earlier, there is quote
> from Microsoft Bill Gates who states something in line
> "Have the patent system existed as it is now it would have brought the
> whole industry in the standstill"
> 
> Maybe Microsoft was referring the fact that there are now so many
> patents that it is basically impossible to innovate....
> 
> 
>> ... 
>>> In their rush to grab lumps of "IP", they've become cynics, blind to the
>>> truth. New inventions, creations and discoveries certainly /are/
>>> possible, it's just that nothing exists in isolation - all new knowledge
>>> is based on the foundation of what came before, and thus none of it can
>>> ever be legitimately claimed as "exclusive property".
>> 
>> Why not?  If I invent a new way of doing something, what gives the rights to
>> it?  You keep repeating this claim based on your own feelings and
>> intuitions, but I want you to understand it is not based on logic.
>> 
>> For example, say I find some way of making an almost perfect voice
>> interpreter, one that can handle background noises as well or better than
>> people and is not confused by any but the most extreme accents and voice
>> impediments.   Let's also say it took me 10 years and millions of dollars to
>> come up with this.
> IBM probably have patents to stop you in your track...
> Point is that about 95% of software patents are not enforceable. That
> was figure given by a patent buster lawyer whose name now escapes me.
> They are trivial or try to patent something which was invented a long
> time ago - prior art.
> But if you really have capabilities to create what you tell here - why
> are you wasting you time here?

I never said I could create what I talked about... it was an example.

The criticism that patents might get in the way has some merit... and I
agree the IP laws are poorly done.  As shown in the example, though, doing
away with them is *not* the solution.  It would be very, very bad.

>> I then make a product for Windows and OS X that pushes dictation
>> capabilities to a whole new level, beyond anything Dragon and the others
>> have developed.  I sell my software for, say, $500 a system.  At this rate
>> it will take me up to tens of thousands of sales to make up for the millions
>> I spent to make it, but so be it... I think the product will be that popular
>> (and I will have improvements in the future that do not cost as much, but I
>> will still be able to charge upgrade fees).
>> 
>> Better yet, I also have plans for making a system that be controlled by eye
>> movement and subtle nods and the like - so in the future I can make systems
>> where you do not need a mouse our keyboard at all.  You will just be able to
>> look at buttons and basically just think what you want as you dictate any
>> writing you want done.  Boom.  A whole new UI can be made based on this.
>> 
>> Now you come along and insist there is no such thing as Intellectual
>> Property, so you pass a law that the software I just made is now public
>> domain.  It is communal property... your communist ideals are accepted and I
>> have no more rights to my software than you do.  Boom.  My sales plummet
>> because, of course, others can sell my software for $50 a seat and they can
>> make money.  I now have no way to recoup my expenditures.
> You would still have the choice to keep the technology secret and
> produce it yourself and take a big part of the market. Naturally others
> will try to imitate but you would have a head start. And as long you
> innovate and keep your customers happy others will play catch up game.

If there are no IP laws, the secret could be leaked in a million ways and I
would have no recourse.

>> Some questions for you:
>> 
>> 1) Do you think I will spend the time and money to work on the eye movement
>> technology since doing so would be a huge *loss* to me and my company?
>> 
> I bet there are lot of people who would still innovate if there weren't
> patent system.

That does not answer the question.

>> 2) If I did end up doing it, and someone else made a new UI based on the
>> improved input methods I invented, do you think you or I should have rights
>> to *their* work?  After all, their invention is dependent on mine.  Without
>> my input methods their UI does not even work.
>> 
>> For me, the answers are pretty obvious - no, I likely would not spend the
>> time and money knowing that your communist ideals have ruined my business
>> plan, and for two, no, I have no rights to what others are inventing.  Now
>> if they want to bundle my software with their and sell it at a bundle price
>> or something then, sure, I have rights to decide how that is done (or if),
>> but if someone else invents something, even based on my invention, it is
>> *theirs*.  I do not own it and neither do you.  It is not communal property.
>> 
>> ... 
> I am not a communist - I am a socialist.

The question here though is if you support the idea of forcing private
property into being communal (as Homer does).  It seems you do not.

> And I also think there might be
> need to be some kind of patent system in the "perfect" world but it
> certainly is the current one. And software patents should be abolished
> or the time span shortened to 5 years or shorter. 20 years is life time
> in software industry.

I certainly am not defending the IP laws as they are.  Moving to 5 years is
reasonable in my view.

>>> But that seems to be Microsoft's goal, and the goal of every "IP" fanatic:
>>> grab the land, to exclusively monetise everything that's built on it, and to
>>> own and control everything and everyone who lives on it.
>> 
>> The idea that IP laws are handled amazingly poorly I think is accepted by
>> just about everyone in COLA.  Where people disagree is your "fix" which is
>> just forcing private property into communal hands.
>> 
> That would not hurt...

I show an example where it clearly would.

>>> Microsoft can't innovate,
>> 
>> What makes you think this?
>> 
> Name an innovation from Microsoft ?

I have elsewhere.  Can you explain why you think they never innovate?



-- 
[INSERT .SIG HERE]

On 26/01/2011 16:58, Snit wrote:
> Kari Laine stated in post UKSdnb58SPkYd6LQnZ2dnUVZ8vCdnZ2d@giganews.com on
> 1/26/11 2:33 AM:
>
>> Hi Snit,
>>
>>
>> Snit wrote:
>>> Homer stated in post hecr08-p2n.ln1@sky.matrix on 1/22/11 9:15 AM:
>>>
>>> ...
>>>> Microsoft is clearly ambivalent in its views over "IP". On the one hand
>>>> it claims to be a leading "innovator", but on the other it claims
>>>> innovation isn't possible, because all things have already been
>>>> invented, so now it's just a big Gold Rush to stake a claim in existing
>>>> "IP", with Microsoft hoping to grab the biggest rocks (or all of them,
>>>> if possible).
>>>
>>> MS never said all things have already been invented.  You made that up.
>>>
>> I have tendency to believe that MS would say this kind of thing.
>
> Believe it or not, is there any *evidence* they did?
>
>> Like no
>> one ever needs more than 640k memory and other as stupid things.
>
> Please show where MS (or even Gates) ever said that.  He denies it and I
> have never seen any evidence he did.
> <http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/1997/01/1484>
>
>> Now one
>> knows at what speed innovations happen and Microsoft certainly is not
>> one to innovate.
>
> They have certainly added innovations: they were the first to bring many
> technologies to the public eye - either inventing them themselves or
> recognizing the importance and bringing them to popularity.  Some examples
> off the top of my head:
>
> * contextual menus
> * toolbars
> * the ribbon
> * drag indictors
> * short cut indicators
>
> Etc.  Now do not get me wrong, if you compare them to Apple - Apple clearly
> is ahead in the innovation area.  Apple is amazing at finding, creating,
> mixing and building systems of technology that serve people better than
> anything any other company has come up with - this is seen with the Mac, the
> iPod, the iPhone, the iPad and more.  There is a reason all of these have
> the highest user satisfaction ratings of any similar device.
>
> When Apple or MS or other companies do innovate, you quickly see OS projects
> working to copy them.  The idea that OSS advocates would be putting down
> *others* for copying is a bit schizophrenic... esp. given how Apple and MS
> and others often (though certainly not always) pay for the ideas they use
> and OSS developers only very rarely do.
>
>> If you read the book about patents I referred earlier, there is quote
>> from Microsoft Bill Gates who states something in line
>> "Have the patent system existed as it is now it would have brought the
>> whole industry in the standstill"
>>
>> Maybe Microsoft was referring the fact that there are now so many
>> patents that it is basically impossible to innovate....
>>
>>
>>> ...
>>>> In their rush to grab lumps of "IP", they've become cynics, blind to the
>>>> truth. New inventions, creations and discoveries certainly /are/
>>>> possible, it's just that nothing exists in isolation - all new knowledge
>>>> is based on the foundation of what came before, and thus none of it can
>>>> ever be legitimately claimed as "exclusive property".
>>>
>>> Why not?  If I invent a new way of doing something, what gives the rights to
>>> it?  You keep repeating this claim based on your own feelings and
>>> intuitions, but I want you to understand it is not based on logic.
>>>
>>> For example, say I find some way of making an almost perfect voice
>>> interpreter, one that can handle background noises as well or better than
>>> people and is not confused by any but the most extreme accents and voice
>>> impediments.   Let's also say it took me 10 years and millions of dollars to
>>> come up with this.
>> IBM probably have patents to stop you in your track...
>> Point is that about 95% of software patents are not enforceable. That
>> was figure given by a patent buster lawyer whose name now escapes me.
>> They are trivial or try to patent something which was invented a long
>> time ago - prior art.
>> But if you really have capabilities to create what you tell here - why
>> are you wasting you time here?
>
> I never said I could create what I talked about... it was an example.
>
> The criticism that patents might get in the way has some merit... and I
> agree the IP laws are poorly done.  As shown in the example, though, doing
> away with them is *not* the solution.  It would be very, very bad.
>
>>> I then make a product for Windows and OS X that pushes dictation
>>> capabilities to a whole new level, beyond anything Dragon and the others
>>> have developed.  I sell my software for, say, $500 a system.  At this rate
>>> it will take me up to tens of thousands of sales to make up for the millions
>>> I spent to make it, but so be it... I think the product will be that popular
>>> (and I will have improvements in the future that do not cost as much, but I
>>> will still be able to charge upgrade fees).
>>>
>>> Better yet, I also have plans for making a system that be controlled by eye
>>> movement and subtle nods and the like - so in the future I can make systems
>>> where you do not need a mouse our keyboard at all.  You will just be able to
>>> look at buttons and basically just think what you want as you dictate any
>>> writing you want done.  Boom.  A whole new UI can be made based on this.
>>>
>>> Now you come along and insist there is no such thing as Intellectual
>>> Property, so you pass a law that the software I just made is now public
>>> domain.  It is communal property... your communist ideals are accepted and I
>>> have no more rights to my software than you do.  Boom.  My sales plummet
>>> because, of course, others can sell my software for $50 a seat and they can
>>> make money.  I now have no way to recoup my expenditures.
>> You would still have the choice to keep the technology secret and
>> produce it yourself and take a big part of the market. Naturally others
>> will try to imitate but you would have a head start. And as long you
>> innovate and keep your customers happy others will play catch up game.
>
> If there are no IP laws, the secret could be leaked in a million ways and I
> would have no recourse.
>
>>> Some questions for you:
>>>
>>> 1) Do you think I will spend the time and money to work on the eye movement
>>> technology since doing so would be a huge *loss* to me and my company?
>>>
>> I bet there are lot of people who would still innovate if there weren't
>> patent system.
>
> That does not answer the question.
>
>>> 2) If I did end up doing it, and someone else made a new UI based on the
>>> improved input methods I invented, do you think you or I should have rights
>>> to *their* work?  After all, their invention is dependent on mine.  Without
>>> my input methods their UI does not even work.
>>>
>>> For me, the answers are pretty obvious - no, I likely would not spend the
>>> time and money knowing that your communist ideals have ruined my business
>>> plan, and for two, no, I have no rights to what others are inventing.  Now
>>> if they want to bundle my software with their and sell it at a bundle price
>>> or something then, sure, I have rights to decide how that is done (or if),
>>> but if someone else invents something, even based on my invention, it is
>>> *theirs*.  I do not own it and neither do you.  It is not communal property.
>>>
>>> ...
>> I am not a communist - I am a socialist.
>
> The question here though is if you support the idea of forcing private
> property into being communal (as Homer does).  It seems you do not.

Why the hell do you people always talk in black and white terms? Doing 
away with software patents (which are generally accepted as being a 
terrible idea) will not do away with IP in general. Copyright is more 
than adequate protection for software, and patents do have a role to 
play in other fields of innovations. Just because somebody says that 
they are against software patenting, that does not make them a "commie".


>
>> And I also think there might be
>> need to be some kind of patent system in the "perfect" world but it
>> certainly is the current one. And software patents should be abolished
>> or the time span shortened to 5 years or shorter. 20 years is life time
>> in software industry.
>
> I certainly am not defending the IP laws as they are.  Moving to 5 years is
> reasonable in my view.
>
>>>> But that seems to be Microsoft's goal, and the goal of every "IP" fanatic:
>>>> grab the land, to exclusively monetise everything that's built on it, and to
>>>> own and control everything and everyone who lives on it.
>>>
>>> The idea that IP laws are handled amazingly poorly I think is accepted by
>>> just about everyone in COLA.  Where people disagree is your "fix" which is
>>> just forcing private property into communal hands.
>>>
>> That would not hurt...
>
> I show an example where it clearly would.
>
>>>> Microsoft can't innovate,
>>>
>>> What makes you think this?
>>>
>> Name an innovation from Microsoft ?
>
> I have elsewhere.  Can you explain why you think they never innovate?
>
>
>

Phil Da Lick! stated in post
55GdndrwycdL3NzQnZ2dnUVZ7oudnZ2d@brightview.co.uk on 1/27/11 2:58 AM:

.... 
>> The question here though is if you support the idea of forcing private
>> property into being communal (as Homer does).  It seems you do not.
> 
> Why the hell do you people always talk in black and white terms? Doing
> away with software patents (which are generally accepted as being a
> terrible idea) will not do away with IP in general. Copyright is more
> than adequate protection for software, and patents do have a role to
> play in other fields of innovations. Just because somebody says that
> they are against software patenting, that does not make them a "commie".

I never said anyone was a "commie".  You made that up.

I did note that Homer's views, which are that IP laws should be eliminated
(he does not believe in IP at all), necessitates moving private property
into communal hands.  This is a Communist idea, but that does not imply that
he (or others who agree with him) are Communists.  The irony here is your
claim that I was calling him or others "Commies" is based on, get this,
*your* black and white thinking - your belief that if *some* of your ideas
are in line with Communist theory then *all* must be.

Yes: your thinking suffered from the exact flaw you incorrectly claimed of
my thoughts.


-- 
[INSERT .SIG HERE]

On 27/01/2011 15:59, Snit wrote:
> Phil Da Lick! stated in post
> 55GdndrwycdL3NzQnZ2dnUVZ7oudnZ2d@brightview.co.uk on 1/27/11 2:58 AM:
>
> ...
>>> The question here though is if you support the idea of forcing private
>>> property into being communal (as Homer does).  It seems you do not.
>>
>> Why the hell do you people always talk in black and white terms? Doing
>> away with software patents (which are generally accepted as being a
>> terrible idea) will not do away with IP in general. Copyright is more
>> than adequate protection for software, and patents do have a role to
>> play in other fields of innovations. Just because somebody says that
>> they are against software patenting, that does not make them a "commie".
>
> I never said anyone was a "commie".  You made that up.

Did I say that you called him a "commie"?


> I did note that Homer's views, which are that IP laws should be eliminated
> (he does not believe in IP at all), necessitates moving private property
> into communal hands.  This is a Communist idea, but that does not imply that
> he (or others who agree with him) are Communists.  The irony here is your
> claim that I was calling him or others "Commies" is based on, get this,
> *your* black and white thinking - your belief that if *some* of your ideas
> are in line with Communist theory then *all* must be.

> Yes: your thinking suffered from the exact flaw you incorrectly claimed of
> my thoughts.

My irony meter just exploded again. You accuse me of telling you what 
you think by... telling me what I'm thinking. Brilliant.

Notice the questioning tone of the first sentence of my previous post 
subtly and cunningly indicating the fact that it was posed as a question?

Phil Da Lick! stated in post
b4CdnUKMVM_oAdzQnZ2dnUVZ7rmdnZ2d@brightview.co.uk on 1/27/11 9:25 AM:

> On 27/01/2011 15:59, Snit wrote:
>> Phil Da Lick! stated in post
>> 55GdndrwycdL3NzQnZ2dnUVZ7oudnZ2d@brightview.co.uk on 1/27/11 2:58 AM:
>> 
>> ...
>>>> The question here though is if you support the idea of forcing private
>>>> property into being communal (as Homer does).  It seems you do not.
>>> 
>>> Why the hell do you people always talk in black and white terms? Doing
>>> away with software patents (which are generally accepted as being a
>>> terrible idea) will not do away with IP in general. Copyright is more
>>> than adequate protection for software, and patents do have a role to
>>> play in other fields of innovations. Just because somebody says that
>>> they are against software patenting, that does not make them a "commie".
>> 
>> I never said anyone was a "commie".  You made that up.
> 
> Did I say that you called him a "commie"?

What, then, did you mean by:
    
    that does not make them a "commie".

Seems you *thought* I was saying this... or maybe you were just, um... what
were you doing?

>> I did note that Homer's views, which are that IP laws should be eliminated
>> (he does not believe in IP at all), necessitates moving private property
>> into communal hands.  This is a Communist idea, but that does not imply that
>> he (or others who agree with him) are Communists.  The irony here is your
>> claim that I was calling him or others "Commies" is based on, get this,
>> *your* black and white thinking - your belief that if *some* of your ideas
>> are in line with Communist theory then *all* must be.
> 
>> Yes: your thinking suffered from the exact flaw you incorrectly claimed of
>> my thoughts.
> 
> My irony meter just exploded again. You accuse me of telling you what
> you think by... telling me what I'm thinking. Brilliant.

    -----
    that does not make them a "commie".
    -----

But you did not mean I was saying anyone might be a "commie".

Interesting.  :)

> Notice the questioning tone of the first sentence of my previous post
> subtly and cunningly indicating the fact that it was posed as a question?

The answer to your question about me thinking in such terms is I do not.

But nice back pedal from you to turn your clear accusations into just a
question.  

-- 
[INSERT .SIG HERE]

On 27/01/2011 16:30, Snit wrote:
> Phil Da Lick! stated in post
> b4CdnUKMVM_oAdzQnZ2dnUVZ7rmdnZ2d@brightview.co.uk on 1/27/11 9:25 AM:
>
>> On 27/01/2011 15:59, Snit wrote:
>>> Phil Da Lick! stated in post
>>> 55GdndrwycdL3NzQnZ2dnUVZ7oudnZ2d@brightview.co.uk on 1/27/11 2:58 AM:
>>>
>>> ...
>>>>> The question here though is if you support the idea of forcing private
>>>>> property into being communal (as Homer does).  It seems you do not.
>>>>
>>>> Why the hell do you people always talk in black and white terms? Doing
>>>> away with software patents (which are generally accepted as being a
>>>> terrible idea) will not do away with IP in general. Copyright is more
>>>> than adequate protection for software, and patents do have a role to
>>>> play in other fields of innovations. Just because somebody says that
>>>> they are against software patenting, that does not make them a "commie".
>>>
>>> I never said anyone was a "commie".  You made that up.
>>
>> Did I say that you called him a "commie"?
>
> What, then, did you mean by:
>
>      that does not make them a "commie".
>
> Seems you *thought* I was saying this... or maybe you were just, um... what
> were you doing?
>
>>> I did note that Homer's views, which are that IP laws should be eliminated
>>> (he does not believe in IP at all), necessitates moving private property
>>> into communal hands.  This is a Communist idea, but that does not imply that
>>> he (or others who agree with him) are Communists.  The irony here is your
>>> claim that I was calling him or others "Commies" is based on, get this,
>>> *your* black and white thinking - your belief that if *some* of your ideas
>>> are in line with Communist theory then *all* must be.
>>
>>> Yes: your thinking suffered from the exact flaw you incorrectly claimed of
>>> my thoughts.
>>
>> My irony meter just exploded again. You accuse me of telling you what
>> you think by... telling me what I'm thinking. Brilliant.
>
>      -----
>      that does not make them a "commie".
>      -----
>
> But you did not mean I was saying anyone might be a "commie".
>
> Interesting.  :)
>
>> Notice the questioning tone of the first sentence of my previous post
>> subtly and cunningly indicating the fact that it was posed as a question?
>
> The answer to your question about me thinking in such terms is I do not.
>
> But nice back pedal from you to turn your clear accusations into just a
> question.

The first sentence was clearly a question indicated by the questioning 
tone and question mark. The last sentence was an observation based upon 
the opinions described between. The vague connection in topic between 
the sentences within neccesitated the use of a paragraph but in general 
grammar new sentence=new point.

Phil Da Lick! stated in post
WaKdnUaDF6tLA9zQnZ2dnUVZ8tqdnZ2d@brightview.co.uk on 1/27/11 9:35 AM:

> On 27/01/2011 16:30, Snit wrote:
>> Phil Da Lick! stated in post
>> b4CdnUKMVM_oAdzQnZ2dnUVZ7rmdnZ2d@brightview.co.uk on 1/27/11 9:25 AM:
>> 
>>> On 27/01/2011 15:59, Snit wrote:
>>>> Phil Da Lick! stated in post
>>>> 55GdndrwycdL3NzQnZ2dnUVZ7oudnZ2d@brightview.co.uk on 1/27/11 2:58 AM:
>>>> 
>>>> ...
>>>>>> The question here though is if you support the idea of forcing private
>>>>>> property into being communal (as Homer does).  It seems you do not.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Why the hell do you people always talk in black and white terms? Doing
>>>>> away with software patents (which are generally accepted as being a
>>>>> terrible idea) will not do away with IP in general. Copyright is more
>>>>> than adequate protection for software, and patents do have a role to
>>>>> play in other fields of innovations. Just because somebody says that
>>>>> they are against software patenting, that does not make them a "commie".
>>>> 
>>>> I never said anyone was a "commie".  You made that up.
>>> 
>>> Did I say that you called him a "commie"?
>> 
>> What, then, did you mean by:
>> 
>>      that does not make them a "commie".
>> 
>> Seems you *thought* I was saying this... or maybe you were just, um... what
>> were you doing?
>> 
>>>> I did note that Homer's views, which are that IP laws should be eliminated
>>>> (he does not believe in IP at all), necessitates moving private property
>>>> into communal hands.  This is a Communist idea, but that does not imply
>>>> that he (or others who agree with him) are Communists.  The irony here is
>>>> your claim that I was calling him or others "Commies" is based on, get
>>>> this, *your* black and white thinking - your belief that if *some* of your
>>>> ideas are in line with Communist theory then *all* must be.
>>>> 
>>>> Yes: your thinking suffered from the exact flaw you incorrectly claimed of
>>>> my thoughts.
>>> 
>>> My irony meter just exploded again. You accuse me of telling you what
>>> you think by... telling me what I'm thinking. Brilliant.
>> 
>>      -----
>>      that does not make them a "commie".
>>      -----
>> 
>> But you did not mean I was saying anyone might be a "commie".
>> 
>> Interesting.  :)
>> 
>>> Notice the questioning tone of the first sentence of my previous post
>>> subtly and cunningly indicating the fact that it was posed as a question?
>> 
>> The answer to your question about me thinking in such terms is I do not.
>> 
>> But nice back pedal from you to turn your clear accusations into just a
>> question.
> 
> The first sentence was clearly a question indicated by the questioning
> tone and question mark.

Ah, so when you asked:
    -----
    Why the hell do you people always talk in black and
    white terms?
    -----

You did not mean to imply that I actually *do* talk in black and white
terms.  LOL!

As I said, nice back pedal.  Oh, and your use of the word "always" there
shows black and white thinking... which is ironic and funny.  :)

> The last sentence was an observation based upon the opinions described
> between. 

And it was an incorrect observation... based on your black and white
thinking that if I note some Communist ideas which are being supported I
must think someone is a Communist.  Again: irony.  :)

> The vague connection in topic between the sentences within neccesitated the
> use of a paragraph but in general grammar new sentence=new point.

Feel free to re-word your comments to try to match what you now say you
meant.  I would welcome it.

-- 
[INSERT .SIG HERE]

On 27/01/2011 17:04, Snit wrote:
> Phil Da Lick! stated in post
> WaKdnUaDF6tLA9zQnZ2dnUVZ8tqdnZ2d@brightview.co.uk on 1/27/11 9:35 AM:
>
>> On 27/01/2011 16:30, Snit wrote:
>>> Phil Da Lick! stated in post
>>> b4CdnUKMVM_oAdzQnZ2dnUVZ7rmdnZ2d@brightview.co.uk on 1/27/11 9:25 AM:
>>>
>>>> On 27/01/2011 15:59, Snit wrote:
>>>>> Phil Da Lick! stated in post
>>>>> 55GdndrwycdL3NzQnZ2dnUVZ7oudnZ2d@brightview.co.uk on 1/27/11 2:58 AM:
>>>>>
>>>>> ...
>>>>>>> The question here though is if you support the idea of forcing private
>>>>>>> property into being communal (as Homer does).  It seems you do not.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Why the hell do you people always talk in black and white terms? Doing
>>>>>> away with software patents (which are generally accepted as being a
>>>>>> terrible idea) will not do away with IP in general. Copyright is more
>>>>>> than adequate protection for software, and patents do have a role to
>>>>>> play in other fields of innovations. Just because somebody says that
>>>>>> they are against software patenting, that does not make them a "commie".
>>>>>
>>>>> I never said anyone was a "commie".  You made that up.
>>>>
>>>> Did I say that you called him a "commie"?
>>>
>>> What, then, did you mean by:
>>>
>>>       that does not make them a "commie".
>>>
>>> Seems you *thought* I was saying this... or maybe you were just, um... what
>>> were you doing?
>>>
>>>>> I did note that Homer's views, which are that IP laws should be eliminated
>>>>> (he does not believe in IP at all), necessitates moving private property
>>>>> into communal hands.  This is a Communist idea, but that does not imply
>>>>> that he (or others who agree with him) are Communists.  The irony here is
>>>>> your claim that I was calling him or others "Commies" is based on, get
>>>>> this, *your* black and white thinking - your belief that if *some* of your
>>>>> ideas are in line with Communist theory then *all* must be.
>>>>>
>>>>> Yes: your thinking suffered from the exact flaw you incorrectly claimed of
>>>>> my thoughts.
>>>>
>>>> My irony meter just exploded again. You accuse me of telling you what
>>>> you think by... telling me what I'm thinking. Brilliant.
>>>
>>>       -----
>>>       that does not make them a "commie".
>>>       -----
>>>
>>> But you did not mean I was saying anyone might be a "commie".
>>>
>>> Interesting.  :)
>>>
>>>> Notice the questioning tone of the first sentence of my previous post
>>>> subtly and cunningly indicating the fact that it was posed as a question?
>>>
>>> The answer to your question about me thinking in such terms is I do not.
>>>
>>> But nice back pedal from you to turn your clear accusations into just a
>>> question.
>>
>> The first sentence was clearly a question indicated by the questioning
>> tone and question mark.
>
> Ah, so when you asked:
>      -----
>      Why the hell do you people always talk in black and
>      white terms?
>      -----
>
> You did not mean to imply that I actually *do* talk in black and white
> terms.  LOL!

"you people". It was a generalisation. In the context of your 
conversation in this thread you were painting a picture of a land 
without IP laws were you not?


>
> As I said, nice back pedal.  Oh, and your use of the word "always" there
> shows black and white thinking... which is ironic and funny.  :)
>
>> The last sentence was an observation based upon the opinions described
>> between.
>
> And it was an incorrect observation... based on your black and white
> thinking that if I note some Communist ideas which are being supported I
> must think someone is a Communist.  Again: irony.  :)

That accusation has been levelled many times in this group, against many 
people including myself. And totally without evidence. So I just thought 
a polite inquiry as to why might shed some light on why.


>
>> The vague connection in topic between the sentences within neccesitated the
>> use of a paragraph but in general grammar new sentence=new point.
>
> Feel free to re-word your comments to try to match what you now say you
> meant.  I would welcome it.
>

Phil Da Lick! wrote:
> Snit wrote:
>> Phil Da Lick! stated:
>>
>>> The last sentence was an observation based upon the opinions described
>>> between.
>>
>> And it was an incorrect observation... based on your black and white
>> thinking that if I note some Communist ideas which are being supported
>> I must think someone is a Communist.  Again: irony.  :)
> 
> That accusation has been levelled many times in this group, against many
> people including myself. And totally without evidence. So I just thought
> a polite inquiry as to why might shed some light on why.

Phil, this is coming from someone who claims to be "honest and honorable",
who in the least sense of it displays multitudinous words and cretinous
behaviour.

As several have observed of Snit:

26- Edward Stanfield: "Snit thinks the rules that apply to honest and
honorable people apply to him.  That is absurd.  He is the biggest liar in
Usenet history.  Mackay posted the email to prove Snit was using sock
puppets and he still is.  Snit can not give up his socks puppets and
shills.  They are the only ones who ever support him."  28 Jan 2009

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.advocacy/msg/5b52494d96d12229

36- Glenn Hall (COLA): "That person is like a constantly running toilet
that won't stop. Does he ever stop talking about UI consistency? No matter
what anyone replies, he adds a few more branches to the spider web as it
grows and grows. It's a waste of time."  31 Oct 2010

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.advocacy/msg/c8dd8a244fe1eb2c

39- Hadron (COLA): "Would you please stop the whining. FFS he has you
jumping to his every post. How many more fucking times are you going to
post the same repetitive garbage? Please ..at least change the record
sometimes!!!!!!!"  13 Aug 2010

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.advocacy/msg/1e0ecbb776623473

73- Marious Barrier (COLA): "I must recognize that it is the first time I
see that kind of troll, once that start asking moderately serious
questions and since the first answer, gradually starts to degenerate it
by, in many failed attempts of being sarcastic, inserting various indirect
insults and calling all people ignorant and unable to answer what he asks
for."  14 Oct 2010 

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.advocacy/msg/c6607ea64f436821

RonB: (COLA): "Why do you bother responding to Snit? He makes no point, he
simply gainsays whatever you say. Just another version of Hadron's 'you're
a liar' mantra, which is about all he can muster nowadays."  27 May 2010

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.advocacy/msg/279210dd877d7aa0

-- 
HPT

Phil Da Lick! stated in post
KL-dnQ5I24eaFt_QnZ2dnUVZ8jOdnZ2d@brightview.co.uk on 1/28/11 2:23 AM:

> On 27/01/2011 17:04, Snit wrote:
>> Phil Da Lick! stated in post
>> WaKdnUaDF6tLA9zQnZ2dnUVZ8tqdnZ2d@brightview.co.uk on 1/27/11 9:35 AM:
>> 
>>> On 27/01/2011 16:30, Snit wrote:
>>>> Phil Da Lick! stated in post
>>>> b4CdnUKMVM_oAdzQnZ2dnUVZ7rmdnZ2d@brightview.co.uk on 1/27/11 9:25 AM:
>>>> 
>>>>> On 27/01/2011 15:59, Snit wrote:
>>>>>> Phil Da Lick! stated in post
>>>>>> 55GdndrwycdL3NzQnZ2dnUVZ7oudnZ2d@brightview.co.uk on 1/27/11 2:58 AM:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> ...
>>>>>>>> The question here though is if you support the idea of forcing private
>>>>>>>> property into being communal (as Homer does).  It seems you do not.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Why the hell do you people always talk in black and white terms? Doing
>>>>>>> away with software patents (which are generally accepted as being a
>>>>>>> terrible idea) will not do away with IP in general. Copyright is more
>>>>>>> than adequate protection for software, and patents do have a role to
>>>>>>> play in other fields of innovations. Just because somebody says that
>>>>>>> they are against software patenting, that does not make them a "commie".
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I never said anyone was a "commie".  You made that up.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Did I say that you called him a "commie"?
>>>> 
>>>> What, then, did you mean by:
>>>> 
>>>>       that does not make them a "commie".
>>>> 
>>>> Seems you *thought* I was saying this... or maybe you were just, um... what
>>>> were you doing?
>>>> 
>>>>>> I did note that Homer's views, which are that IP laws should be
>>>>>> eliminated
>>>>>> (he does not believe in IP at all), necessitates moving private property
>>>>>> into communal hands.  This is a Communist idea, but that does not imply
>>>>>> that he (or others who agree with him) are Communists.  The irony here is
>>>>>> your claim that I was calling him or others "Commies" is based on, get
>>>>>> this, *your* black and white thinking - your belief that if *some* of
>>>>>> your
>>>>>> ideas are in line with Communist theory then *all* must be.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Yes: your thinking suffered from the exact flaw you incorrectly claimed
>>>>>> of
>>>>>> my thoughts.
>>>>> 
>>>>> My irony meter just exploded again. You accuse me of telling you what
>>>>> you think by... telling me what I'm thinking. Brilliant.
>>>> 
>>>>       -----
>>>>       that does not make them a "commie".
>>>>       -----
>>>> 
>>>> But you did not mean I was saying anyone might be a "commie".
>>>> 
>>>> Interesting.  :)
>>>> 
>>>>> Notice the questioning tone of the first sentence of my previous post
>>>>> subtly and cunningly indicating the fact that it was posed as a question?
>>>> 
>>>> The answer to your question about me thinking in such terms is I do not.
>>>> 
>>>> But nice back pedal from you to turn your clear accusations into just a
>>>> question.
>>> 
>>> The first sentence was clearly a question indicated by the questioning
>>> tone and question mark.
>> 
>> Ah, so when you asked:
>>      -----
>>      Why the hell do you people always talk in black and
>>      white terms?
>>      -----
>> 
>> You did not mean to imply that I actually *do* talk in black and white
>> terms.  LOL!
> 
> "you people". It was a generalisation.

Yes: you have lots of black and white thinking.  In this case you are
grouping people who share any similar ideas and assuming they all think
alike.

> In the context of your
> conversation in this thread you were painting a picture of a land
> without IP laws were you not?

I am in reference to Homer and others who push that.  I am not in support of
it.  I have been very clear about this.

>> As I said, nice back pedal.  Oh, and your use of the word "always" there
>> shows black and white thinking... which is ironic and funny.  :)
>> 
>>> The last sentence was an observation based upon the opinions described
>>> between.
>> 
>> And it was an incorrect observation... based on your black and white
>> thinking that if I note some Communist ideas which are being supported I
>> must think someone is a Communist.  Again: irony.  :)
> 
> That accusation has been levelled many times in this group, against many
> people including myself. And totally without evidence. So I just thought
> a polite inquiry as to why might shed some light on why.

So you are asking me why *others* might think you are a Communist... based
on my noting that Homer and some others have some Communist ideals but are
not, in my view, Communists.

Um, what?

If that is what you meant you worded it very poorly.
 
>>> The vague connection in topic between the sentences within neccesitated the
>>> use of a paragraph but in general grammar new sentence=new point.
>> 
>> Feel free to re-word your comments to try to match what you now say you
>> meant.  I would welcome it.
>> 
> 



-- 
[INSERT .SIG HERE]

High Plains Thumper stated in post ihub04$t46$1@news.albasani.net on 1/28/11
4:57 AM:

> Phil Da Lick! wrote:
>> Snit wrote:
>>> Phil Da Lick! stated:
>>> 
>>>> The last sentence was an observation based upon the opinions described
>>>> between.
>>> 
>>> And it was an incorrect observation... based on your black and white
>>> thinking that if I note some Communist ideas which are being supported
>>> I must think someone is a Communist.  Again: irony.  :)
>> 
>> That accusation has been levelled many times in this group, against many
>> people including myself. And totally without evidence. So I just thought
>> a polite inquiry as to why might shed some light on why.
> 
> Phil, this is coming from someone who claims to be "honest and honorable",
> who in the least sense of it displays multitudinous words and cretinous
> behaviour.

And yet, as noted, you cannot show examples of this.  In the end, Phil has
admitted he was not asking about people "like me" nor even people with my
views.  He was asking why people - people other than me - might call him a
Communist.  He couched this request very poorly - and included insults in
his request for me to help him understand.

I do not know in his case, but with Homer, who is the biggest anti-IP person
in COLA (or at least the most vocal), he focused a *lot* on his ideals which
are shared with what Communists want - the idea of moving private property
into Communal hands.  Some might think this makes him a Communist.  If you
pay attention to what he says, though, he does not want *all* property or
even most property to be moved into Communal hands so the idea he is a
Communist is clearly incorrect.  He shares Communist ideals in *some* areas,
but he does not present himself as a Communist.


-- 
[INSERT .SIG HERE]

On 28/01/2011 14:56, Snit wrote:
> High Plains Thumper stated in post ihub04$t46$1@news.albasani.net on 1/28/11
> 4:57 AM:
>
>> Phil Da Lick! wrote:
>>> Snit wrote:
>>>> Phil Da Lick! stated:
>>>>
>>>>> The last sentence was an observation based upon the opinions described
>>>>> between.
>>>>
>>>> And it was an incorrect observation... based on your black and white
>>>> thinking that if I note some Communist ideas which are being supported
>>>> I must think someone is a Communist.  Again: irony.  :)
>>>
>>> That accusation has been levelled many times in this group, against many
>>> people including myself. And totally without evidence. So I just thought
>>> a polite inquiry as to why might shed some light on why.
>>
>> Phil, this is coming from someone who claims to be "honest and honorable",
>> who in the least sense of it displays multitudinous words and cretinous
>> behaviour.
>
> And yet, as noted, you cannot show examples of this.  In the end, Phil has
> admitted he was not asking about people "like me" nor even people with my
> views.  He was asking why people - people other than me - might call him a
> Communist.  He couched this request very poorly - and included insults in
> his request for me to help him understand.

Well I've just been back and reread my original message and "insults" 
are conspicuous by their absence.

>
> I do not know in his case, but with Homer, who is the biggest anti-IP person
> in COLA (or at least the most vocal), he focused a *lot* on his ideals which
> are shared with what Communists want - the idea of moving private property
> into Communal hands.  Some might think this makes him a Communist.  If you
> pay attention to what he says, though, he does not want *all* property or
> even most property to be moved into Communal hands so the idea he is a
> Communist is clearly incorrect.  He shares Communist ideals in *some* areas,
> but he does not present himself as a Communist.
>
>

Phil Da Lick! stated in post
fM2dnRoCcaLJRt_QnZ2dnUVZ8hOdnZ2d@brightview.co.uk on 1/28/11 8:05 AM:

> On 28/01/2011 14:56, Snit wrote:
>> High Plains Thumper stated in post ihub04$t46$1@news.albasani.net on 1/28/11
>> 4:57 AM:
>> 
>>> Phil Da Lick! wrote:
>>>> Snit wrote:
>>>>> Phil Da Lick! stated:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> The last sentence was an observation based upon the opinions described
>>>>>> between.
>>>>> 
>>>>> And it was an incorrect observation... based on your black and white
>>>>> thinking that if I note some Communist ideas which are being supported
>>>>> I must think someone is a Communist.  Again: irony.  :)
>>>> 
>>>> That accusation has been levelled many times in this group, against many
>>>> people including myself. And totally without evidence. So I just thought
>>>> a polite inquiry as to why might shed some light on why.
>>> 
>>> Phil, this is coming from someone who claims to be "honest and honorable",
>>> who in the least sense of it displays multitudinous words and cretinous
>>> behaviour.
>> 
>> And yet, as noted, you cannot show examples of this.  In the end, Phil has
>> admitted he was not asking about people "like me" nor even people with my
>> views.  He was asking why people - people other than me - might call him a
>> Communist.  He couched this request very poorly - and included insults in
>> his request for me to help him understand.
> 
> Well I've just been back and reread my original message and "insults"
> are conspicuous by their absence.

Your first sentence:

    Why the hell do you people always talk in black and white terms?

So you do not find it an insult to accuse someone of talking in black and
white terms... esp. when they are not?

You do not think the term "you people" is an insult - grouping people by
some vague association you cannot name?

And you also insinuated I was calling someone a "Commie"... which is
dishonest.  I think it is insulting to be dishonest (which is not to say I
am insulted - if you cannot deal with insults you should not be posting to
COLA).

In the end, you have changed your story quite a bit... to the point where it
*seems* you are asking why people *other than me* (and not like me) might
consider those who are against at least some of the IP laws to be
Communists.  

I have offered my reasoning on that, below... including why I think such
reasoning is wrong (which does not stop Homer from saying I think as I note
I do not).

>> I do not know in his case, but with Homer, who is the biggest anti-IP person
>> in COLA (or at least the most vocal), he focused a *lot* on his ideals which
>> are shared with what Communists want - the idea of moving private property
>> into Communal hands.  Some might think this makes him a Communist.  If you
>> pay attention to what he says, though, he does not want *all* property or
>> even most property to be moved into Communal hands so the idea he is a
>> Communist is clearly incorrect.  He shares Communist ideals in *some* areas,
>> but he does not present himself as a Communist.



-- 
[INSERT .SIG HERE]

Phil Da Lick! wrote:
> Snit wrote:
>
>> In the end, Phil has admitted he was not asking about people "like me"
>> nor even people with my views.  He was asking why people - people other
>> than me - might call him a Communist.  He couched this request very
>> poorly - and included insults in his request for me to help him
>> understand.
> 
> Well I've just been back and reread my original message and "insults"
> are conspicuous by their absence.

It is typical of Snit to falsely accuse others by introducing insults with
falsehoods.

44- Homer (COLA): "Word of advice for anyone concerned: don't be tempted
to get drawn into a Snit circus, it's literally a waste of time. He's just
an attention seeker who'll keep stringing you along, in a never-ending
circle of obtuse questions, for which he has no genuine interest in the
answers."  14 Oct 2010

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.advocacy/msg/0d06eb2e900e3058

45- hophead: "I have been reading and occasionally posting to CSMA for a
long time now, since 1995 at least. There have always been trolls and
morons, but I've never seen anything quite so disruptive as the Snit
circus. Snit will *never* back down or stop, and neither will most of his
opponents.  A good kill file is your only hope."  20 Aug 2009

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.mac.advocacy/msg/3161a78667e299eb

59- John Slade: "I don't get posts from Snit. I wouldn't be shocked that
he has some kind of disorder. He made up stuff about being a computer
repairman and teacher. He's just plain loony and best ignored. Let him
deal with his disorder by medication. He's here to do one thing, get
attention from people. He says the crazy stuff just to get a reaction. You
say you like to beat him over the head. Well that's what he's counting on,
he says stuff he knows isn't true in hopes to get a rise out of people
like you. Ignore him, you won't regret it."  3 Apr 2007

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.mac.advocacy/msg/394a53a65c28d314

-- 
HPT

High Plains Thumper stated in post ihvr8n$5hu$1@news.albasani.net on 1/28/11
6:41 PM:

> Phil Da Lick! wrote:
>> Snit wrote:
>> 
>>> In the end, Phil has admitted he was not asking about people "like me"
>>> nor even people with my views.  He was asking why people - people other
>>> than me - might call him a Communist.  He couched this request very
>>> poorly - and included insults in his request for me to help him
>>> understand.
>> 
>> Well I've just been back and reread my original message and "insults"
>> are conspicuous by their absence.
> 
> It is typical of Snit to falsely accuse others by introducing insults with
> falsehoods.


And yet you cannot show a single example of my doing so.  Why not?  LOL!


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