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Morpheus: Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad.
We now have a Blog!
For the last few years the European Patent Office (EPO) has, contrary to the letter and spirit of the existing law, granted more than 30000 patents on computer-implemented rules of organisation and calculation (programs for computers). Now Europe's patent movement is pressing to consolidate this practise by writing a new law. Europe's programmers and citizens are facing considerable risks. Here you find the basic documentation, starting from a short overview and the latest news.
For a perfect example of why software patents are a bad idea we only have to look at the case of R++.
US Patent June 16, 1998, US Patent Number 5768480 Integrating Rules into Object-Oriented Programming Systems.
R++ extends the C++ language with a single new programming construct -- the rule. In addition to data-members and member functions, R++ + adds a new kind of member to C++ classes namely "member rules". A rule is a statement composed of a condition and an action that specifies what to do when the condition becomes true. Whenever some program data changes, rules whose conditions involve that data are examined, and if a rule's condition evaluates to true, its action is executed. The action may of course modify data and therefore trigger other rules. Currently R++ is implemented as a pre-processor. It translates R++ R++ rules into C++ code.
R++ sounds like a fantastic idea of developing safer software, but the lawyers won't let us have it because they can't figure out who owns it. My simple minded solution is put it in the public domain so that we all benefit. "All information should be free" - The Hackers Ethic (not to be confused with the varmints of crackers).
Lucent has a patent on the technology in R++ but AT&T
owns the production version of the software. Commercial
use of R++ is a bit more tricky.
Neither Bell Labs Research nor AT&T Labs - Research are in
the business of distributing research generated software for
commercial use.
However, it may be possible for some software vendor to license the rights to R++. This possibility has been investigated in the past, but the AT&T/Lucent breakup and the resulting legal hassles caused problems and the effort was abandoned.
One of the people involved had this to say when I asked what the current status of R++ availability was:
"I was wondering of you could tell me the current status of this R++ legal hang up? ""The current status is that there is no progress. I don't expect any, given the recent changes at AT&T Research."
C++ would not exist out side of the lab today if these new laws where in effect when Bjarne Stroustrup's, created C++ , while at AT&T.
Kind of ironic when one of the research projects, AT&T
LEARNs to PROFIT, is about customer satisfaction. I'm
not a happy customer because I can't play with R++, nor that
fact that I can't get high speed Internet connections from them
in my location.
Bjarne Stroustrup's , who created C++ has many interesting things to say about the language.
Articles from Research by AT&T researcher Bjarne Stroustrup:
If your a C programmer who has managed to avoid C++ for all of these years then check out: A Quick C++ Introduction for RCS Library Users.
- A Brief Look at C++
- A Perspective on ISO C++
- What is "Object-Oriented Programming"? (1991 revised version)
- Why C++ is not just an Object-Oriented Programming Language
When will I be able to fit C++ on my AVR or my Z8E+?
A case of patenting the obvious, TV remote controls:
United States Patent 6,539,437Remote control inputs to java applications
Abstract
A method of delivering input from a device's remote control to a Java.TM. application uses asynchronous method invocation in a processing device.
The input from the remote control is captured in system-specific (native) code and delivered to a Java.TM. application asynchronously. This is achieved by calling an event method in the Java.TM. application in response to the received input signals. The event method is then executed to transfer the input signals from the remote control.
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If hyperspace navigators get paid by the hour, then what is the pay-scale in a place where time has no meaning?
 (FROM THE US NAVAL OBSERVATORY) |