Posted on 09/13/2003 7:32:43 PM PDT by chilepepper
Hey, I'm just pointing out MS's business model -- find a product of another company that is successful, then tie that product as closely to the Windows OS, then use fraud, coercion, FUD, predatory pricing, marketing, purposeful breach of contract, etc to destroy the original company, so that there's no danger of having to compete on equal terms.
Every product you just mentioned uses this same business model.
Indeed.
Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.
Yes, they can own a patent on the file format itself which means the style of formatting the data. They own many patents and have threatened the SAMBA team in the past with patent suits if they made SAMBA able to interoperate with Windows too well for MS' liking.
And guess what? SAMBA did exactly as you suggested, they sat down and wrote their own code and still got threatened. Microsoft has openly stated in the past that if open source .NET tools reimplement its proprietary .NET extensions like Windows Forms and ASP.NET too well that it reserves the right to sue the developers for patent infringement.
Patents are for those people who believe in a "fair marketplace" rather than a more or less hands off marketplace. The former draws a bit from market socialism....
Yes. You have no right to "own" an idea. That "right" was created by the government, it is not something you have a natural right to. Patents are a pox on a free market. They let little vermin sue the hell out of big producers and by the same token they let monopolies and big producers sue small competitors into oblivion.
If you want true competition, abolish the patent system and most federal regulations on production. That will make the barrier to entry much lower and will encourage excellence. The problems with the BS patents like "1 click shopping" are not extreme examples. They are the natural conclusion to the idea that you can own an idea. What we are seeing now is nothing more than the true nature of "idea ownership" taken to its natural conclusion.
Americans need to get over the idea of fairness in the economy. Life isn't fair so stop trying to make it fair.
I'll just have to come up with something different and better.
Ok then smart guy, how are your users going to transfer their data from Microsoft Office to your new Office suite? Copy and paste the data and pray that it is preserved in the clipboard accurately? Your "solution" which allows Microsoft to own the file formats they use works when the amount of data is small. What about businesses that have terabytes of data to transition? Your "solution" makes it functionally impossible for them to go out and buy a cheap product that is able to take the data from their Microsoft apps and turn it into data for a new product they just bought.
It is better to have too little government involvement in the economy than too much. I'd rather err on the side of economic anarchy than economic central planning.
Geezus, dude. Put down the Communist Manifesto and join capitalist society.
Patents are a rejection of the anarchaic free market capitalism of yesteryear. Why should anyone, from you to Microsoft, have to pay anything to use someone else's ideas? You build a better mouse trap and you should be free to sell it to anyone that wants it without paying out your ass in patent fees to the guy who came up with the original mouse trap.
As long as you have patents you won't have true competition. Congress has the authority to provide certain industries like the pharmaceuticals with select protection, but leave the rest unprotected. That's the other side of Article I, Section 8, Clause 3.
And speaking of Communists, how are you liking Bush's Keynesian deficit spending, massive handouts to old people who didn't bother to buy health insurance and/or save for it and calls for more and more cash to be thrown at Iraq? I'm sure there's a good rational argument for adding much of Iraq to the federal payrolls during a time of budgetary crisis.
China has never had political freedom and the current regime's founder was a diehard communist. But hey, someday you'll see the futility in comparing apples to oranges.
By comparing everything you don't like to communism, you make anti-communism seem like a cult, not a serious political stance.
I think your cause ("it grants no protection to intellectual property") is not the sole reason there is no Chinese "domestic software industry." Granted, it may contribute to it, but I think the stronger causes are probably the economic system they have (Everything belongs to the state), and the lack of true university-level education in that industry. There are undoubtedly more reasons, but I think the one you mentioned is kinda far down the list.
Again you pick a pathetic set of examples. Neither country has a government that functions at all. This country for much of its existance had a government that only minimally intervened in the economy and it didn't collapse. In the 1790s when our federal government was first being established we had virtually a state of anarchy compared to what we have today that's how little government we had. Guess what? We made it.
First of all, you don't know what you're talking about. Ideas can't be patented.
Then why is Microsoft allowed to own a patent on ASP.NET or Amazon allowed to own a patent on the idea of "one-click transactions?"
Second, it's in the Constitution.
No, only the power to provide for some form of IP system is in there. The Congress is under no constitutional obligation to setup such a system. It is completely their perogative. Congress could quite legally abolish every last trace of the system today if they wanted to and the IP interests couldn't stop them.
Then again you support a very strong IP system which itself flies in the face of much of the rest of the constitution. You value wealth over freedom.
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen
The US Congress did not have the authority to pass most of what is in the DMCA. It does not have the power to ever restrict freedom of speech outside of the "clear and present danger" exception nor does it does not have the power to in any way regulate how someone uses IP in their house for their own use as that is within a state's borders and outside the feds' jurisdiction
I'll believe that when you denounce his waste of an administration.
Granted, Bush needs Congress to pass a budget
Congress needs Bush to sign the budget. Bush's limited vocabulary apparently doesn't include the word "veto." Bush has never met a big spending bill he didn't sign or for that matter actively campaign for.
(it's not fair to lay all of it on his shoulders)
Until he vetos his way back into fiscal responsibility, yes it is. He has the power to bring the Republicans' hog wild spending to its knees.
Bush needs to get us the hell out of Iraq. We have no responsibility to pick up the pieces and it is not his place to make the American people "make the sacrifices to do what is necessary, to spend what is necessary....." to continue getting our soldiers killed by a bunch of Islamofasicsts.
but I don't believe in deficit spending.
Then here's a novel thought: don't support the two party system. Vote for either the LP or the USA Patriot Party. If we would go back to a true capitalist system and republican foreign policy our federal govenrment would spend less than $200B a year total. If we'd just mind our own business and let other countries do their own thing our military could easily operate on a $75-$125B budget.
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