SOFTWARE PATENTS

Monopol jeste losa stvar i po ekonomiju i po pojedinca, ali kada su patenti u pitanju radi se o kompromisu gde se trazi najmanje lose resenje i za civilizaciju i za industriju - ne o nekom forsiranju monopola.

Analogija sa telekomom je bez veze ako mene pitas :) Telekom je drzavna firma i drzavni monopol, koji se manje vise uvek koristio za punjenje budzetske kase, kako za vreme "stare" tako i za vreme "nove" vlasti - tu se radi o potpuno drugacijim interesima "drzave" (tj. vladajuceg establismenta) versus interesa gradjana.



Jel - nadji skracenicu i za besplatni kompjuter, a za komplikvaniji sw moras i da platis vise kompjutera i programera (kompjuter je pretpostavljam skuplji od papira, lepka, srafcigera, eksera, srafoba, metala, lenjira i digitrona - a toliko ti materijala treba za ne-softverski patent)



Razlozi uvodnjenja patenata su to da se kompanije i individue ohrabre da pronalaske javno publikuju, jer ce im se to vise isplatiti - jer mogu da nadju sponzore, out-source-uju proizvodnju itd.. za "nagradu" objavljivanja, oni dobijaju privremeni monopol.



Sto opet ne sprecava manje firme da urade isto, sto se vidi u primeru za Microsoft i IE plug-inove :) Patentni zakon ne pravi diskriminaciju te vrste (po firmi)

Stavise, najveci broj "submarine" patenata (losa patentna praksa) je upravo dolazio od malih, nepoznatih firmi (kao taj patent za JPEG, zatim patent za browser plug-in, zatim bila je jedna firmica koja je tvrdila patent za MP3 i mogu da ti kazem da su sa pretecim pismom dobili dosta para - trazili su samo neku smesnu cifru, tipa $10K za "oslobadjanje" od obaveza, itd..) a ne od velikih korporacija. Velike korporacije obicno sw patente koriste za slucaj "counter-suing" , tj. arsenal u slucaju da ih neko tuzi - jedan od izuzetaka je na primer bio Unisys za LZW - no to nije sw patent...



Ako se radi o komplikovanom algoritmu - mozda je ipak bolje da se on objavi, nego da bude super-tajna formula neke kompanije?

Nije bas 100% sigurno da ce neko u dogledno vreme izmisliti isto/slicno, na kraju krajeva i sa sw patentima i bez njih niko ne sprecava da se nesto objavi kao OSS umesto kao patent, zar ne? Obrunuto jeste diskriminacija, ako neko bas zeli da nesto patentira.



Ti, naravno imas i naucni dokaz da je inovacija "leb bez motike" a implementacija inovacije "'leb sa motikom" - bas bih voleo da vidim koliko je mozdanih resursa potrebno da se jedan algoritam kao recimo GSM 6.10 ili ITU-H264 izmisli, i koliko da se efikasno implementira - onaj prvi deo se meri godinama, a onaj drugi mesecima ili max godinu-dve i postaje maltene automatizovani proces (da, automatizovan proces - outsourcing kompanija iz Indije ce ti implementirati to za vrlo kratko vreme i a vrlo male pare - ali sa opisom inovacije (ili tekstom standarda), bez toga mozete svi da se slikate u Foto-Bombaju za poster).

Posto imam malo iskustva u kontaktima sa velikim istrazivackim firmama, bas se secam razgovora sa jednim veoma dobrim inzenjerom koji mi je rekao da u njegovoj firmi (izuzetno poznata firma u domenu multimedije) postoje 3-4 coveka koja rade posao (tj. izmisljaju algoritme i od njih prave state-of-the-art) a ostalih 30-tak inzenjera i programera jednsotavno odradjuju posao, nekad dobro - nekad lose, njihov posao je da se odredjena tehnologija implementira na PC x86 / PPC / ARM / TI / Motorola itd arhitekturama.

Elem, ona 3-4 mogu biti vlasnici patenata jer je za to sto su kreirali zaista potreban znacajan intelektualni napor - implementacija (ono drugo) se stiti kopirajtom, sto je po meni i normalno.

Ja bas nesto vise vrednujem rad ovih 3-4 , jer dobrih programera koji mogu da isprogramiraju ono sto im kazes mozes svuda da nadjes - medjutim ono "iznad" dakle koncept i ideja za proces je malo teze razviti.



Ti sa softverom ne moras da objavis proces ili ideju - ona moze biti debelo ispod "fancy GUI" ja sa 2-3 dugmeta na sebi. Tvoj "advanced search" na marketing polju je samo "advanced search", na implementacionom polju je masinksi jezik iz koga se, ako su uradjene velike optimizacije, jako tesko moze izdedukovati originalna ideja... i, ako je tvoja tehnolgija namenjena da postane neki standard, ti bi svakako trazio prirodan nacin da sebi omogucis profit.

Ako se tehnologija objavi kao patent, ti imas ekskluzivno pravo na odredjen rok, i podrazumeva se da ti, kao izumitelj, vrlo dobro poznajes materiju koja je predmet patenta - sto te obicno kvalifikuje i da napravis vrlo dobru implementaciju.

Patent takodje omogucuje drugima da naprave alternativnu tehnologiju, koja je mozda i bolja - jer upravo mogu da prouce patent - tako recimo imas Ogg Vorbis (koji, smatram, da krsi jedan patent - no ovo im se moze oprostiti) koji je bas nastao jer postoje patenti - dakle Monty je mogao da vidi sta je patentirano a sta ne. Na kraju imas jednu "alternativnu" tehnologiju koja se razlikuje od trenutnih resenja - bas zato sto je patentni zakon primorao autora da nadje alternativno resenje.



Da, samo sto je koka-kola planirala da bude #1 malo duze od 20 godina pa su uradili internu cost-benefit analizu i zakljucili da je bolje da ne patentiraju njihovo pice, jer bi im patent istekao jos 1900-te godine, a onda bi mogli da se slikaju.

Medjutim, koka kola je imala slobodu da koka kolu patentira da je htela, u zavisnosti od poslovnih odluka firme - a to je ono sto programeri istrazivaci u EU nemaju.



Ne, ali ako ti prodajes tvoj softver u USA, online - i to moze da se dokaze, postoji nacin da USA intervenise - u vecini slucajeva se to nece desiti, ali ako je u pitanju neki vrlo ozbiljan proizvod koji krsi prava neke velike USA firme, svasta moze da se desi.

Ako neko u USA prekrsi tvoje patente prvo sto se gleda je da li imas medjunarodni patent - ako ga imas, mozes da tuzis, jer si ravnopravno tretiran.

U slucaju sw patenata nisi - USA mogu tebe da tuze ako online prodajes nesto u USA, a ti ne mozes obrnuto, osim ako ne registrujes USA firmu i eksplicitno nesto ne pateniras u USA - sto opet ne sprecava neku USA firmu da preko subsdiary-a u EU ukradu tvoju ideju i na teritoriji EU eksploatisu tvoje znanje.



Pa ovo i jeste politika, sta si mislio :)

Elem, ne bih rekao da je bas sve tako neujednaceno u korist $$$ firmi - prvo, postoji velika politicka motivisanost da se EU jasno "ogradi" od USA - takodje, ne zaboravi da ako je malih mnogo vise brojcano da se radi i o birackom telu - a na zapadu misle malo duze u napred od Trubije, pa jedan dobar "podmaz" od bilo koliko nula ne znaci nista ako puknes na sledecim izborima, jer su gubitci za ceo tvoj politicki establisment u stranci daleko veci.

Jasno je takodje i da je EU odlucila da zauzme vrlo cvrst stav po pitanju rigoroznosti patenata - dakle, zar ti se ne cini da je ovo malo u suprotnosti sa interesima "corporate industrije"? Sto je dokaz da podmazivanje ipak ne ide bas tako dobro...

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Ivane, ovo ti je totalno pogresno. Nama je trebao i Yamaha jednocilindricni motor, i livnica, i CNC glodalica i posebna termicka obrada materijala i jos puno toga i to iz nekoliko puta dok nismo dosli do onoga sto je trebalo.
Moze da se isprojektuje na papiru, ali na kraju kada se ceo sklop pusti u pogon se vrse merenja i uporedjuju sa teretskom postavkom. Zatim se pristupa izmenama, pa se nanovo pravi prototip i tako u krug. I tako se radi sve od malog fakulteta u maloj srbiji do Mercedesa, osim ako neces da patentiras nesto sto sutra nece raditi.

Molim te nemoj preterivati i velicati software patents iznad "klasicnih" odnosno pravih patenata.

Ne, nego obicno koriste "cross-licensing" da bi dosle do tudjih patenata. Medju svim onim linkovima od ranije negde se nalazi i clanak u kome je IBM izneo podatak da od prodaje licenci imaju 10% koristi, a od "cross-licensing" imaju 90% koristi

In 2001-01, the German Federal Ministery of Economy and Technology (BMWi) ordered a study on the economic effects of software patentability from well known think tanks with close affinity to the German patent establishment: the Fraunhofer Institute for Innovation Research (ISI.fhg.de), the Fraunhofer Patent Agency (PST.fhg.de) and the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Patent, Copyright and Competition Law (MPI = intellecprop.mpg.de). The study was largely concluded in 2001-06 and preliminary results were presented to a selected audience. The final report was published by the BMWi on 2001-11-15. The study is based on an opinion poll answered by several hundred software company representatives and independent software developpers, conducted by Fraunhofer ISI. Most respondents have had little experience with software patents and don't want software patents to become a daily reality like in the US. The poll also investigated the significance of open source software for these companies and found it to be of substantial importance as a common infrastructure. Based on these findings, the Fraunhofer authors predict that an increase in the use of software patents will put many software companies out of business and slow down innovation in the software field

http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/bmwi-fhgmpi01/index.en.html

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Dr. Probst is conducting research on the economics of the patent system at Mannheim University. In this position paper submitted to a hearing of the German Federal Parliament on 2001-06-21, he argues that patents monopolies are, depending on their field of application, viewed by economists as a more or less necessary evil and that much of the conventional wisdom about the effects of patents is wrong. Moreover, in the field of software there is little necessity and much evil in patents. Evidence and studies accumulated so far suggest that software patents negatively affect the total productivity and innovativity of the concerned industries. For a field such as software, the best thing the state can do to foster a productive climate is to invest in basic infrastructures such as network backbones and education.
http://swpat.ffii.org/events/2001/bundestag/probst/index.de.html

*************************************************************************************************************The German Monopoly Commission, a consultative state organ loosely associated with the Federal Cartel Office and the Ministry of Economics, has published its 14th main report (Hauptbericht) about the state of concentration in the German Economy. This report warns that software patents stifle innovation and competition, points out that the practise of the European Patent Office is "incompatible with Art 52 EPC" and asks the German government to resist the European Commission's current attempts at legalising software patents.
http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/e...t0202/mopoko0207/index.de.html
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Ovaj je valjda strucan? Dobio je i Nobelovu za ekonomiju....

Article in Le Monde in which Nobel Prize in economy 2001 Joseph E. Stiglitz says that the TRIPS intellectual property regime is detrimental to innovation and economic growth.
http://www.lemonde.fr/imprimer_article/0,6063,239761,00.html
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James Bessen (Research on Innovation and MIT) and Robert M. Hunt (Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia) in a study published in May 2003 present extensive statistical data and analysis to corroborate their hypothesis that software patenting has substituted rather than promoted R&D investments. Software patents are serving as cheap alternatives to real innovation.
http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/bessenhunt03/index.en.html
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Koliko ja vidim po ovim istrazivanjima raznih institucija po Evropi i USA, svi nesto pricaju da Software Patents skode R&D, Innovation&competition itd....

Pa dobro - ali opet mi onda nije jasno kako USA, potpomognuta svim mogucim orudjima i oruzjima za onemugacanje inovacija i sloboda (software patents, business model patents, DMCA) i dalje vode po Innovation&Competition u odnosu na EU?

Kako to da su Unix (i klonovi tipa AIX, IRIX), VMS, Windows, MacOS, OS/2
zatim koncepti tipa GUI (Xerox), i sl.. nastali bas tamo - u korporacijama koje patentiraju sve sto stignu, u oazi za velike kompanije?

Zasto je prva online prodavnica koja je patentirala biznis model upravo najveca online prodavnica knjiga - opet koncept izmisljen u USA? I na kraju krajeva, kako se bas potrefi da Amazon izmisli "one-click" , i da nikom drugom to nije palo na pamet...

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@Ivan

USA sigurno nece izgubiti vodece pozicije preko noci, ali i japanci su mic-po-mic "ugusili' proizvodnju "dvotockasa" sirom sveta i preuzeli apsolutnu dominaciju...

Samo da te podsetim npr. SuSE AG je nemacka a ne americka firma....
Kao sto i sam znas medju brojnim distribucijama Linux-a, neke su evropske, neke azijske...(a po neke i americke doduse)
Ne verujem da ovo ide u prilog razvoju samo americkog software-a:
(http://www.suse.de/us/company/...releases/archive03/munich.html)

"City of Munich Replaces Windows with Linux, May 28th 2003

The city council of Munich today made a key decision to deploy the open source operating system Linux instead of alternative operating systems.
This initiative will see Germany's third largest city migrate 14,000 desktop and notebook computers to Linux. Their objective is to deploy information
technology that stimulates more commercial and technological flexibility at a lower cost to the public sector. Although the council has not made a decision
on its choice of vendor, Linux distributor SUSE LINUX AG and IBM Germany will be participating in the resulting contract bid. "

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/30912.html :
"Munich will dump 14,000 PCs running Windows and install Linux instead in what is one of the biggest moves away from Redmond to date."

Verujem da ce sve vise biti ovakvih slucajeva u EU.... Zasto bi Nemci placali Microsoft-u (USA) kada mogu da se baziraju i na "domacu industriju" (SUSE Linux), te ce shodno tome vise para ulagati u razvoj sopstvene "pameti"...

Koliko ja vidim i ovaj prica da US gube pozicije....
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/...6042-2003Oct9?language=printer)
"Intel co-founder and chairman Andrew S. Grove, in which he warns that the US is losing competitivity in key tech sectors..."

(http://www.elitesecurity.org/tema/1162)
"Drugo, Microsoft softver je skup. Nasa zemlja moze da ostvari znacajne ustede koriscenjem besplatnog Open Source softvera, obzirom da imamo
dovoljno strucnjaka u ovoj oblasti. Open Source softver ima jako puno uspeha, a navescu neke najpoznatije predstavnike. Mail server Sendmail
prenese preko 85% Internet poste, Web server Apache trenutno koristi 62,55% ili 17.238.004 servera u svetu, operativni sistem Linux ima nekoliko
miliona korisnika i veoma brzo osvaja trzista najbogatijih zemalja, DNS server BIND je na gotovo svim DNS serverima sveta, ukljucujuci i ROOT
servere koji pogone Internet, stotine drugih besplatnih programa"

Cisto sumnjam da sve veca zastupljenost Linux-a ide u prilog daljem jacanju americke dominantne pozicije na IT sceni.

A ima tu i malo neceg, kako bih rekao, tradicije ili trendova mozda?
A i dok je evropa jos uvek obnavljala sebe posle WWII, ameri su vec krajem '50-tih pravili ARPANet od kojeg nastade Internet....
Slozices se da je prednost koju je USA stekla time sto se nisu bacali bombama na sopstvenom tlu kao u evropi, ipak povelika i da se ne da preko noci nadmasiti....
Do I WW je USA bila duznik evropi, a nakon njega evropa duznik USA.
Nakon WWII jos su i mnogo vise poboljsali svoj status poverioca evropi...
Nece to bas tako lako da se preokrene....Sve to ima veze sa ekonomskom sposobnoscu USA da izdvaja i sredstva za R&D.... A i velikoooo su trziste za razliku od evropskog gde je sve razdeljeno na mnogo zemalja (videcemo sta ce EU tu popraviti) optereceno ralicitim jezicima, carinama, zakonima....

Mimo toga, Nemci, za sada, jos uvek vise vole da prave besna kola, a bogami i italijani, a i Pezo voli da ide vise na Pariz-Dakar nego sto bi da se nadmecu sa kompjuterima....
A ameri? Ko o cemu oni o filmovima, kompjuterima i spejs-satlovima....

Nego, Srki, da te pitam, odakle ti podatak da je clanak od prof. Donald Knuth-a od pre 10 godina?
"A letter from Donald E. Knuth to the U.S. Patent Office (translated in Spanish by Colibrí in Sept. 2003)."

@Ivan

A Amazon....?
Pa ne bih rekao da su oni "izmislili" "One Click"...
http://www.forbes.com/2000/10/13/1013amazon_print.html

Uostalom, sta je tu tako velicanstveno...
Da ne moram da svaki put iznova ukucavam br. kr. kartice i tako to...?
Nego da mi "bace" "cookie" u racunar, da me raspozna i sledeci put...?

Znas, kada odem u biblioteku, izvadim clansku karticu i onda idem da tragam za knjigom koja mi treba. Ne moram svaki put da bibliotekarki dajem licnu kartu i sve podatke iz nje.
Isto, kada odem u prodavnicu na cosku kod Paje, dam kasirki jednu plasticnu ID karticu na kojoj pise "Pajin MiniMarket" sa brojem na njoj i mojim imenom. Kasirka, kada unese u kasu sta sam sve kupio, upise i u jednu svesku broj te moje kartice (da ja ne bih onako malo slucajno rekao tudji broj)...
A i u DVD-teci me pitaju za broj (sa sve slicnom karticom) a ne stalno da im dajem licne podatke..
Posle kada se "skupi" na kraju meseca mi naplate...
I to je vrsta "one-click"-a. Mozda i oni treba to da patentiraju..?
A Amazon... Zasto oni prvi to koriste na internetu i hoce svima da zabrane isto...?

Da ja imam knjizaru i prodajem "on-line" knjige, mozda bih imao nekoliko kupaca dnevno... Pa bi jedan server odlicno odradjivao posao...
Kada dnevno (na Amazonu) kupuju desetine hiljada ljudi iz celog sveta, onda je logicno da malo pojednostave/ubrzaju/olaksaju proces i time pre svega rasterete svoje servere (brze se procesira porudzbina nego da se stalno ceka na unosenje licnih podataka svaki put iznova).
To isto se primenjuje u mnogim prodavnicama sirom sveta, doduse ne putem interneta, pa niko to niti je patentirao, niti namerava da zabrani ostalima.
Sto nije Hewlett-Packard uradio tako nesto? Pa, ne znam bas da li oni prodaju dnevno 10000 stampaca preko on-line prodavnice... Ili Adobe....svoje proizvode.. ili Corel.... Nije im bilo ni potrebno pa nisu ni razmiljali o upotrebi tog nacina u svojim on-line prodavnicama...


"Amazon's response to people who write about the patent contains a subtle misdirection which is worth analyzing:

"The patent system is designed to encourage innovation, and we spent thousands of hours developing our 1-ClickR shopping feature. "
If they did spend thousands of hours, they surely did not spend it thinking of the general technique that the patent covers. So if they are telling the truth, what did they spend those hours doing?

Perhaps they spent some of the time writing the patent application. That task was surely harder than thinking of the technique. Or perhaps they are talking about the time it took designing, writing, testing, and perfecting the scripts and the web pages to handle one-click shopping. That was surely a substantial job. Looking carefully at their words, it seems the "thousands of hours developing" could include either of these two jobs.

But the issue here is not about the details in their particular scripts (which they do not release to us) and web pages (which are copyrighted anyway). The issue here is the general idea, and whether Amazon should have a monopoly on that idea.

Are you, or I, free to spend the necessary hours writing our own scripts, our own web pages, to provide one-click shopping? Even if we are selling something other than books, are we free to do this? That is the question. Amazon seeks to deny us that freedom, with the eager help of a misguided US government.

When Amazon sends out cleverly misleading statements like the one quoted above, it demonstrates something important: they do care what the public thinks of their actions. They must care--they are a retailer. Public disgust can affect their profits. "


I o "Business methods" patentima..

Jonathan Zittrain, director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, thinks the whole notion of patenting a particular means of doing business is just a passing fancy. The concept was largely unheard of until the onset of the Internet. Since then, companies such as Priceline.com (nasdaq: PCLN), Pitney Bowes (nyse: PBI) and CarOrder.com have filed for these business method patents.

"This whole [trend] is just a barely modulated form of insanity," he says. "Business method patents are generally a joke. I think it's only a matter of time before we see legislation barring any further business method patents and possibly casting doubt upon the ones that already exist."

By then, the new media lawyers will probably have dreamed up another way to milk the e-commerce cash cow.


I na kraju, sta misli jedan od bivsih programera Amazon.com-a:
http://www.equalarea.com/paul/amazon-1click.html

As one of the founding programmers at Amazon.com, I was very dismayed to learn of the company's legal attempts to enforce its 1-Click (TM) patent. Richard Stallman and many others have already done much to outline why the patent was a bad one to begin with, and why the legal enforcement is even worse. Amazon.com's early development relied on the use of tools that could not have been developed if other companies and individuals had taken the same approach to technological innovation that the company is now following. Tools like the GNU C and C++ compilers, Perl, the Unix mmap(2) call, the Berkeley DBM library: these are all software tools that contain far more innovative and significant ideas than Amazon.com's 1-Click (TM) system, and in turn depend upon ideas and innovations that came before them. If developers of these tools, or the researchers and software engineers who worked on the systems that led to their development, had sought and been awarded patents on the many marvellous computational methods that their tools embody, Amazon.com's early existence would have been a costlier and less efficient one.

When I agreed to join Amazon.com, I required several clauses in my contract detailing techniques that Amazon.com was prohibited from patenting or claiming as proprietary. These included the use of the `path info' component of a URL for state management, since at that time, cookies were not in wide use. I was almost certainly not the first person to have devised such a system, and in in truth, there was enough prior art that seeking such a clause was probably unnecessary. However, this was just one example of the way in which the company benefited enormously from the wealth of ideas circulating in the open and/or free software world of the middle 1990's. Both Amazon's patent application and now legal enforcement of the patent is a cynical and ungrateful use of an extremely obvious technology. 1-Click (TM) is a simple, logical and obvious use of the cookie system pioneered by Netscape and others. It did not deserve to be patented, and the patent does not deserve legal upholding, let alone enforcement.

I left Amazon.com quite a long time (relatively speaking) before the 1-Click system was developed. I do not know the motivations of those who sought the patent, nor how connected those people were to the software engineers who developed the technology. But I encourage others to join in calling upon Amazon.com to cease enforcement of its patent. I call upon the United States Patent Office to cease issuing software patents, or at the very least improve its standards for judging software patent applications. I also welcome the use of a boycott to reinforce these points. I wish we had a bigger stick, but we should do what we can.

Paul Barton-Davis <[email protected]>
[email protected], November 1994-January 1996

Ivane, sve gore sto si rekao je tipicno tehnokratsko razmisljanje, bez uvrede... IMHO patenti, pogotovo softverski, na nacin na koji su to pokusali da uvedu, vodili bi nista drugo nego upravo u tehnokratiju... Doduse mi u eri tehnokratije vec zivimo, mada toga jos nismo svesni.

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Hmm - ja uopste nisam pominjao Linux u mom postu (to bi bilo stvarno paradoksalno ako pricamo o patentima, ne? :) vec druge OS-eve, pa i AT&T Unix koji je osnova za sve unixoide pa i Linux.

Nego - primetices da je vecina stvari u besnim kolima patentirana i ne verujem da se jedan Audi ili Mercedes (koji je sada polu-USA firma, jel) gadi patenata :) A i doticni motor na unutr... pardon, ovo smo vec diskutovali :)

Ne znam, ja uopste ne branim koncept patenata nesto preterano, ali mislim da je u danasnjem ekonomskom i drustvenom sistemu taj koncept dobar, i bolji nego anarhija koja bi nastala da tih patenata nema.

I takodje smatram softversku inovaciju podjednako vrednom kao obicnu, pa mislim da bi trebalo da zasluzuje slican tretman zastite.

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Leko, to mozda jeste "tehnokratija" ali svim ne-tehnokratama koji bi da svoje inovacije stave u PD nikakvi softverski patenti ne ogranicavaju da radove objavljuju. Pre ce biti da ih digitalni copyright zakoni aka DMCA u tome mnogo vise sprecavaju samo oni toga uopste i nisu svesni izgleda pa napadaju potpuno drugu stranu.

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To nije tacno. I dalje ce da kupuju Windows i terace ga pod VMWare-om.
http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?doc_cd=115336

ili

http://www.muenchen.de/aktuell/clientstudie_kurz.pdf
Strana 34, u fusnoti ima i broj: 80%.


Pa ipak ce placati. Neko je pogresno preneo i preveo vest sa Nemackog i to se onda prenelo i na slashdot i na ostale sajtove a posle su uvideli da nece bataliti Windows pa su se i te vesti pojavile na tim sajtovima.

Pazi sad ovo:
Znaci uopste to ne rade da bi ustedeli.

MS software jeste skup ali je jos skuplja obuka ljudi da koriste linux. A posto sada dosta njih koristi windows dovoljno je samo u oglasima da stavis da je potrebno neko osnovno poznavanje windowsa. Ako bi to stavio za linux ne bi se dovoljno ljudi javilo i morao bi da placas obuku. Mozda tebi i meni (posto koristimo linux/unix) linux ne izgleda tako komplikovan ali mnogima jeste i zaista bi im trebala obuka. Pa ja retko koga znam ko je koristio linux a da nije citao HOW-TO dokumenta ili neku drugu dokumentaciju. I ja sam morao to da citam da bih znao neke stvari da uradim a ne secam se da sam pri koriscenju windowsa citao bilo kakvu dokumentaciju. Tada sam jos bio i klinac pa nisam ni znao dobro engleski pa sam samo znao sta znace naredbe copy, move, print itd...ups, skrenusmo sa teme.

Bice on jos zastupljeniji jer MS nece skoro izbaciti longhorn.

Pa naravno! Ipak ako dosta ljudi zna da koristi windows lakse jeplatiti windows nego obucavati ljude da koriste linux. Stedis pare na obuci i na vremenu za koje bi radnik radio umesto da se obucava.

Pa zato sto su u automobilskoj industriji na istom polozaju kao Ameri pa tako i Japanci mogu da patentiraju nesto na isti nacin kao i Ameri. U softverskoj industriji nije takav slucaj pa onda evropske firme ne mogu da sprece americke da koriste neke njihove "inovacije" dok Amerikanci to mogu da urade. Zbog toga kazem da im kao odjednom sada smeta a pre im nije smetalo. Sto se ne bune protiv softv. patenata u Americi? A i jos smesnije mi je sto se ljudi koji se bore za opensource bore protiv patenata a u stvari njima to koristi. Recimo klame ne bi mogao besplatno da izbacuje svoj mp3 koder da ga ne izbacuje kao opensource pod lgpl licencom. Zato meni tu nista nije jasno. Oni koji treba da se bore za patente se bore protiv toga, onda umesto da se bore da se u samom izvoru ukinu patenti njima odjednom smeta sada itd...

Pa tada je prevedeno ali je original jos od pre 10 godina. A oni su se tek sada setili toga i preveli to pismo kada odjednom svima smeta a nije im smetalo sto takva praksa postoji 30 godina u Americi i zbog cega je (in my opinion) Amerika i u prednosti nad ostatkom sveta u razvijanju softvera. Naravno ja sam za ukidanje softv. patenata u Evropi ako se oni ukinu u Americi jer sam protiv prednosti bilo koje strane ali za sada ne mogu da budem protiv softverskih patenata u Evropi ako oni postoje u Americi. Zanima me zasto su sada svi odjednom protiv toga a pre im nije smetalo (ne mislim na tebe nego na neke vlasnike sajtova o linuxu i neke druge korisnike linuxa) A evo RedHat najvise zaradjuje od linuxa a on je Americka firma.
A i svi su se nesto sada zabrinuli oko softverskih patenata a ti problemi postoje i u mnogim drugim granama industrije koje se jako brzo razvijaju (npr. telekomunikacije). Pa i ne samo tu nego recimo to sto je amazon patentirao nije sofverski patent.

@Srki & Ivan

Ivan je naveo da su USA prvi po R&D u IT i smatra da je to zbog software patents

Ja sam zato naveo primer auto industrije (u kojoj takodje naravno ima zilion patenata) kao protiv tezu tome - naime smatram da je to pre pitanje kako bih ga nazvao "nacionalnog interesovanja" (ne "interesa") pojedinacne zemlje u sta ce da investira pare, to jest njihovih kompanija.

Hteo sam da kazem i mislim da sam rekao, ako pazljivo procitate, da sam siguran da ako bi Italijani vise voleli da prave tehnoloski superiorne racunare umesto to prave tehnoloski superiorne automobile, oni bi to i ucinili. Ako su bili dovoljno pametni da prave Ferrari, bogami pravili bi i anolagono tome tehnicka dostignuca vezana za IT. Isto se odnosi i na Nemce ili Francuze.

Takodje svaka Honda, Suzuki i Yamaha... su hi-tech..

Po meni, izmedju ostalog je u evropi bio podcenjen razvoj IT i vise se ulagalo u neke druge industrije, i pre je to razlog USA liderstva na tom polju, nego software patents.

A amerikanci mogu da budu poluvlasnici svega i svacega kada su puni novaca (a to sve datira od WWI i WWII da sad ne zalazim u ekonomiju), ali to ne mora da znaci da su i puni znanja u toj oblasti.

Gledano tako i Mandrake je sada poluamericki zato sto preko dve trecine svojih proizvoda prodaju u USA.

Ukoliko bih imao puno, puno novaca i pod uslovom da mogu da kupim njihove akcije onda bi i Mandrake Soft bio polu-srpski (po pitanju ucesca kapitala), ali to ne znaci da bih i u R&D segmentu toliko doprinosio.

@Srki
Dobro, a gde pise da je taj clanak od pre 10 god.?
A i ako jeste, covek je bio u pravu, a to dokazuje Linux (mimo red hat-a). Svaki Mandrake ili SuSE ili bilo koji ne-americki koji se zavrti na nekoj masini je manje novaca microsoft-u.

IBM plans to deliver world's most powerful Linux supercomputer running SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server
ARMONK, N.Y. and TOKYO, 30.07.2003
http://www.suse.de/en/company/...s/archive03/supercomputer.html
Linux SuSE nije Microsoft i nije americki nego nemacki, te shodno tome proizilazi da se nece koristiti samo americka pamet (Microsoft ili neki USA UNIX/LINUX + IBM) nego "mesovita" pamet (IBM americka+ SuSE Linux nemacka).
Do pre 5 godina bi bila samo americka hardware pamet + americka software pamet



E, tacno je. Preci ce na Linux SuSE, a ono sto ne mogu da teraju pod Linuxom, koristice VMWare narednih 4 ili 5 godina



Da ali nece spucati SVE pare Microsoft-u.
I ne, naravno nije im primarno da "ustede" nego da "otkace" Microsoft, da ne bi pare "isle iz zemlje" nego da stimulisu razvoj domace IT. Oko toga se vrti i cela prica. Sa svakim ovakvim potezom se vise finansira domaca "pamet" a to onda (ukoliko ta "domaca" pamet, nije americka) dovodi do slabljenja dominantne pozicije amerike na iT sceni



U stvari tih 80% koje pominjes ce imati "emulatore" da bi mogli na njima da se izvrsavaju i Windows aplikacije. I to se predvidja da ce period "tranzicije" trajati 4 - 5 godina.

I sta tu nije tacno? Linux SuSE ce biti instaliran na doskora ISKLJUCIVO windows masinama. Da, windows ce se i dalje koristiti, ali uopste ne mora da znaci da ce kupovati NOVE licence. Zasto bi kupovali NOVE windows licence, kada ih vec imaju? Ionako kupuju nove masine, stave linux, stave wmvare, stave winddows za koji vec imaju licence. Stare windows 3.11 i 98 nemogu, zato sto VMware ne emulira njih nego samo novije, za njih ce "dokupiti" "upgrade".


Press Releases 2003
http://www.suse.de/en/company/..._releases/archive03/index.html

A to u vezi prevoda. Nisam ni citao informaciju na slash-dot, niti me zanima sta je tamo neko prevodio, postavio sam ti link ka SuSE press pa procitaj tamo.
http://www.suse.de/en/company/...releases/archive03/munich.html
City of Munich Replaces Windows with Linux

".....

Walter Raizner, Country General Manager IBM Germany: "In the public sector in Germany we have seen a variety of new implementations of open standards-based software such as Linux. And worldwide, more than 75 IBM government customers - including agencies in France, Spain, UK, Australia, Mexico, the United States and Japan - have now embraced open computing and Linux to save costs, consolidate workloads, increase efficiency and enact e-government transformation. With Munich's decision, one thing is clear - it's open season for open computing. Linux represents freedom and flexibility. This is essential in e-government - they need more flexibility to serve their constituencies better and faster, and freedom of choice to do it at less cost to the public. Munich is leading the way." "


Ukoliko se jos uvek nismo razumeli, do pre 5 godina, SVE pare bi otisle za "americku" pamet. Software + hardware. Sada se situacija menja. Software pocinje da se kupuje od "domace" evropske pameti. A naravno da menohu u trenutku da predju na novi OS. Kao sto ni u cemu drugome nije bilo tako. Da li su CD ovi momentalno izbacili ploce sa trzista? I kasete? kolika je bila cena CD-ova, a kolika je sada?

I naravno da je Microsoft poceo da daje popuste kada je video sta se sprema. Ne brinem se, dace ih i SuSe ako treba. ali opet je sustina u tome da sa SuSE om pare ostaju u germaniji a sa windows idu preko. uostalom i mercedes Truck je godinama poslovao sa ogromnim gubicima, ali ne zele da izadju iz segmenta transportnih vozila i popuste pred scaniom ili kime god vec. Jos jednom, sustina je da se pare investiraju u razvoj domace "pameti" i na taj nacin ojaca sopstvena industrija.

A tih 30 mil eur-a ne ide samo na software i OS nego bogami i na hardware.

Inace, po pitanju citanja How-to. I ja sam omatorio, ali se secam da sam i te kako i za Windows morao da citam sve i svasta. Pocesvsi od raznih casopisa pa do prve knjige koju sam kupio. Bese od Mikroknjige "DOS x.xx" - tako nekako se zvala, plave korice, zuta slova, secam se. A bilo je tu i mnogo "readme" i help fajlova. A asembler sam i te kako ucio iz fotokopiranih knjiga na engleskom.
Dan danas me cimaju ljudi da dodjem da im podesim modem pod Windows. Pa i nema mi puno razlike nego kada koristim "Kppp" u odnosu na "Dial-up". I zilion njih nezna da kada mu "usfali" neki fajl iz win. instalacije moze da pokrene "System File Checker" da mu extract-uje taj jedan fajl, nego se hvata za glavu, zove okolo i onda njih 3 strucnjaka nanovo sve instaliraju.
Moj komsija je prvoklasni crtac i dizajner, radio je i za americki "Marvel comics", bukvalno sve moze da nacrta u corel ili Photoshop-u, ali i dalje (pazi sad ovo) 1)ne ume da instalira windows (sa sve formatom i fdiskom) 2)Ne ume da podesi svoj novi novcati monitor, niti je cuo za sta mu sluzi ICC profil. Onda lepo cimne nekog od nas drugara i mi mu to obavimo. A takvih kao sto je on, i pored "jednostavnosti" koriscenja Windows ima zilion.


@Ivan

ne diskutujemo (niti nameravam o OS) nego je stvar u tome da je Microsoft americki, a mnogi Linux-i nisu americki, te shodno tome svaka masina na kojoj je instaliran ne americki OS ne vodi ka jacanju USA dominacije na IT sceni, nego ka slabljenju.

@srki
Inace 70% korisnika koje poznajem zapravo i koriste samo Win OS i Office, ne vidim kakva im je narocita obuka potrebna da bi presli na KDE i OpenOffice...
SUSE LINUX Brings Microsoft Office to the Linux Desktop
http://www.suse.de/en/company/.../archive03/office_desktop.html

http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html
"...However, it is clear that at least for major office tasks, GNU/Linux systems are about as usable as Windows systems. For example, one usability study comparing GNU/Linux to Microsoft Windows XP found that it was almost as easy to perform most major office tasks using GNULinux as with Windows: Linux users, for example, needed 44.5 minutes to perform a set of tasks, compared with 41.2 minutes required by the XP users. Furthermore, 80% of the Linux users believed that they needed only one week to become as competent with the new system as with their existing one, compared with 85% of the XP users. The detailed report (in German) is also available."


Nego, po pitanju automobila. Pre sam sklon da verujem da su u evropi pravljeni BRZI automobili zato sto su u germaniji po autbanu mogao da jurcas koliko ti je volja, a u americi koliko bese 120? Sta cem im onda brza kola? Gde da jurca sa njima?
Dakle OGRANICENJA (na putevima u USA) su ih sputala u pravljenju lepih i brzih Audija, BMW-ova, mecki, porsche-a...
Analogija: OGRANICENJA = PATENTI

(mada da se razumemo, mene bas briga, ja bas danas, idem u jednu fabriku , novu modernu, lepu, finansiranu od "preko" da ih ucim kako da se nakace na internet, skidaju e-mail, prave svakakve obrasce u excelu i kuckaju dopise u Word-u. Ince jos pre sam i probao da ih naucim da odrzavaju i podese tu njihovu Win98+WinXp mrezu. Kazu mi da nece ni da cuju, lakse im je da mene zovu kada treba i placaju. Kada je vec tako, kakve veze ima da li sam ja Windows ili Linux sistem administrator. Taj posao ionako radi jedan - dva coveka, a ne cela firma. Inace koriste i neki specijalizovan softver koji kontrolise stanje zaliha, prijeme, isporuke, naplatu robe, kolicinu sirovina u proizvodnji i koji odlicno radi i pod Linux-om....



@Srki
Takodje , ako pazljivo procitas onaj izvestaj, moze se videto da se na puno tih racunara u Minhenu jos uvek "vrti" Win 3.11 kao i Win98. U svakom slucaju ce zaposleni morati da idu na obuku zato sto Win 3.11 ( a i Win98) ima malo slicnosti sa WinXP.

Tradicije i trendove sam pomenuo u kontekstu toga sto u evropi ocigledno vise vole da se bave proizvodnjom hi-tech automobila a u USA hi-tech kompjutera.

Po tebi ispada da nikada nismo trebali da predjemo na CD-ove zato sto su svi imali gramofone i kasetofone. Zar ne? Sto smo se ucili kako se presnimava CD sa NTI ili Nero kada smo imali kasetofone. A za CD ti treba racunar i OS i puno znanja i cd-rezac i mastering software....
Uostalom nekada se komercijala i knjigovodstvo radilo "rucno". Pa su onda kupljeni racunari, pa obuka za rad na njima....pa puno troskova...

Evo i ja sada treba da idem do grada. Sta ce mi auto. Puno kosta, a i obuka za voznju, pa polaganje, pa odrzavanje kola...mogu i peske ili autobusom, je'l da?

E sad, gde su bili japanci pre 50 godina a gde su danas. SONY, TEAC, TOYOTA itd.



Ma bunili su se i oni od samog pocetka. A sada i sve vise.

Takodje, ne verujem da se u evropi prave dobra kola zbog toga sto su po pitanju patentne zastite bili u istoj poziciji kao amerika.
Zasto se onda u evropi ne prave SONY ili Tehnics ili Panasonic ili TEAC....?

Zasto japanci prave tako dobre foto-aparate...?

Ja japanca nikad nisam video bez foto-aparata (a putovao sam puno). mozda je to razlog? Vole da slikaju sve sto vide ili snime na video... (nota: a u Srbiji svaka kuca ima svoj poseban tajni nacin za proizvodnju shljivovice). Svako ima nesto cime vise voli da se bavi - nacionalno interesovanje.
Ili Yamahe i ostala cuda na 2 tocka...? Kao i puno toga sto je made in japan ili je barem origin iz japana. Tu su svi bili u istoj poziciji po pitanju patentne zastite...pa su svejedno neki iskocili ispred drugih...

E, da i to po pitanju "free licence", tj. da ce u USA da budu u prednosti zato sto oni mogu da koriste "ideje" ovih iz open-source....

Sto se Trade secret-a tice, samo neka oni koji hoce zadrzavaju Trade Secret za sebe. Milion puta se do sada desavalo da se neko doseti potpuno ili skoro slicne stvari na razlicitim delovima sveta... Ako neko napravi SuperVideoFileFormat, sjajno, neka mu bude trade secret, ali neka ne sprecava mene i moje ljude da ako nemamo para da od njih kupimo licencu ili jednostavno necemo zato sto mi mislimo da to mozemo bolje, mi napravimo TurboVideoFileFormat koji moze biti veoma ili delimicno slican sa tim njihovim Super formatom...

Primera radi citao sam prosle nedelje kako su neka dva studenta ovde negde iz evrope napravila neku app. za rad sa MP3 i trazili su licencu od freihof-a a ovi su ih "oduvali" trazeci 20000EUR + proviziju od svake njihove instalirane app. Prema tome svaka mala firma automatski biva izbacena sa trzista....


Medjutim, "hajde da zamenimo Microsoft sa Linuxom" se nastavlja..
A da da podsetim, Linux je Open Source... a Windows nije...

"Telstra goes open-source
Michael Sainsbury and Kelly Mills
SEPTEMBER 02, 2003
TELSTRA, Australia's largest technology company, has nailed its colours firmly to the mast of open source software, creating a potential nightmare for Microsoft and sending shivers through a range of traditional platform providers."
"I would see a big movement from Windows and Unix to Linux," Mr Smith said. "One of the by-products of Linux having its heritage in Unix is that it is a very stable operating system."

http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,7136841^15306^^nbv^,00.html

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/32913.html
"The company runs 45,000 desktops, and is shooting to cut up to $750 million from its annual IT budget of $1.5 billion...."

I jos malo o Minhenu i tako tome....sto se sve kanda siri okolo i time malo po malo "izbacuje" Americki software = Microsoft iz igre...

http://www.itworld.com/Man/2713/030625germanlinux/
"One year after the German Federal Ministry of the Interior agreed to a partnership with IBM Corp. to supply open-source software on new computers to federal, state and local governments as well as other government agencies, more than 500 groups have signed up for the service.
On Wednesday, Minister Otto Schily referred to the agreement during a news conference in Berlin as a "milestone" in the government's efforts to create a diverse, open software landscape in the public sector. "The numbers speak for themselves," he said in a statement released at the conference. "Demand is so great that we will offer an online registration service to speed up the process for all interested parties."
In June last year, Schily and Erwin Staudt, chairman of IBM Deutschland GmbH, signed a deal whereby public sector groups could receive discounts on IBM computers preinstalled with a version of the open-source Linux operating system supplied by SuSE Linux AG in Nuremberg, Germany.

Among the government bodies to sign up for the service are the Cartel Office, Monopoly Commission, Federal Data Protection Commissioner and the Animal Breeding Agency, according to Schily.

The list also includes Schwäbisch Hall, which was the first city in Europe to make a complete switch to a Linux-based IT infrastructure, Schily said, and the city of Munich, which has also chosen to migrate its 14,000 computers to open-source software.
"Schwäbisch Hall is an example of how a migration to Linux can reduce costs for software licenses and thus free up capital to modernize IT infrastructure in the government in sector," he said in the statement.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/10/10/HNibmbrazil_1.html
"SAN FRANCISCO - Brazil has become the latest country this week to show its support for Linux. Following moves by the U.K. and Russia, the government of Brazil announced Friday that it has signed a letter of intent with IBM pledging to develop initiatives that will promote the use of Linux in the Latin American country."

Sve vise zemalja sveta se okrece ka Open Source i time se slabi pozicija "Daj-Da-Patentiramo-Sve-Sto-Stignemo" software-u...


Sto se SCO "..i daj sad da probamo da "zabranimo" linux svima tice...
http://www.itnews.com.au/storycontent.asp?ID=10&Art_ID=17461
COMMENTARY: SCO revealed this week that a judge ruled in favor of IBM last week in SCO's trade secret violation lawsuit against the computing giant, a stunning legal victory for IBM.
"IBM has said all along that SCO has failed to show evidence to back its claims," an IBM spokesperson said. "We are very pleased that the court has indicated it will compel SCO to finally back up its claims instead of relying on marketplace FUD [fear, uncertainty, and doubt]."
SCO's claims, though serious, have always seemed a bit spurious. The company has never publicly provided any meaningful proof that its claims about Linux are true, and as IBM complained in court, SCO attempted to shift the burden of proof to the accused.

Ovo sigurno ne ide u prilog razvoju "proprietary" software-a sa kojim su i "software patents" tako bliski... (a i americka dominacija)
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6884
"A new report from Finland says that FLOSS use is increasing around the world for business, education and political needs."

Rajani, a geek with a Master's degree in Philosophy who is originally from Pakistan but is now based in Finland, says three factors "stand out" when asking why third-world countries choose FLOSS: cost, the anti-piracy campaign and security concerns. "Definitely the most overarching factor is the lower cost, despite a well known assertion that people in developing countries don't pay for software anyway. It is true that a large number of users in the developing countries don't and, more importantly, can't really pay for software", says the report, pointing to the phenomenally high price of proprietorial software compared to the average incomes of people in these countries.
Free software and open source's "inherent qualities" also make it a prime tool for achieving local language educational software, "especially for languages which are not deemed commercially viable for proprietary software vendors". "If the adoption of FLOSS in developing countries is done wisely, it can help stimulate indigenous software industry and create local jobs", says the study. The report then looks at the possibilities of FLOSS playing a role in "reducing conflict, enhancing independence and meeting international obligations".
In Asia, of some 20+ countries looked at, "the highest overall FLOSS related activity" seems to be taking place in countries like India, China and Taiwan, (excluding Japan, which is not object of this study) followed by South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.

Da rezimiram.... Nekada su evropljani "drmali" auto-moto scenom (dok su im kljucni patenti u auto industriji to omogucavali), a danas su na moto sceni marginalni pored Japanaca, a i Toyota je najveca svetska fabrika automobila, a ne USA Ford, mada je Ford-T oznacio pojavu komercijalnih vozila u svetu...
Pitanje je vremena kada ce se i softverska dominacija amerike izgubiti, te ce se raspodeliti na evropu i aziju...
Lider na tom polju je svakako Linux, a tu i nema Software patents, osim onih koji zapravo stite slobodu distribucije i razvoja...

@Srki
Naveo si izvestaj Gartnera u vezi Minhena...
pogledaj i ovo:
"Unfortunately Abramson's main sources of information on market realities are Microsoft and Gartner Research, a company widely coming to be known in technology circles as a Microsoft lapdog.
http://oss.netmojo.ca/
http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html

Ide li ovo u prilog prop. software sa sve softw. patents
http://www.itmanagersjournal.com/mobility/03/12/05/0619257.shtml
Japanese telcom giant DoCoMo has announced that it will urge its handset manufacturers -- Panasonic, Toshiba, Fujitsu, NEC -- to use Linux in their phones instead of proprietary operating systems. This probably means that most cellular phone companies will be joining Motorola in this decision.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk...s/story/0,6903,1101344,00.html
The National Health Service, Britain's biggest employer, is considering ditching Microsoft software after a row over mounting licensing costs.
Richard Granger, NHS IT director, has ordered a trial of a Linux-based system from Sun Microsystems as part of a £2.3 billion computer modernisation plan. The plan could see Java Desktop software rolled out across the NHS's 1 million staff and 800,000 computers to replace Microsoft's Windows operating system and Office suite of programmes

Tako da ti citaj ako hoces, ali ja necu "Gartner"-ove analize...
Ocigledno ih ne citaju ni Japanci sa sve onim projektom o LinuxSuSE superkompjuterom, kao ni oni koji koriste Apache server...

Nego, pa zar nije bas Microsoft, eto, jako bogat i ima puno softw. patenata... i kobajagi ulaze milijardu godisnje u R&D....?
I sta su sa svime time uspeli da naprave...? Windows :-))) hahaha LOL

Znas, PAMET ne moze da se patentira, i licencira, da se samo u Americi radjaju najpametnija deca.... mada bi oni to voleli... ali eto jos nisu uspeli da PATENTIRAJU radjanje talentovane dece...

@Srki - off topic
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I jos malo o "Gartner"-u, posto tvoj link u vezi Minhena vodi ka "Gartneru"

http://www.thestreet.com/tech/ronnaabramson/10129847.html

Date of article: 2003-12-04 Posted by: BK @ 2003-12-04 13:53:54 PST
Ronna Abramson writes for this financial/investment website on the hype about Linux and whether the market realities justify that hype. She thinks not. People involved in finance usually focus on the bottom line, and Novell's soaring stock prices, up 150% since their acquisition of SuSE, raises questions about hype vs reality. Unfortunately Abramson's main sources of information on market realities are Microsoft and Gartner Research, a company widely coming to be known in technology circles as a Microsoft lapdog.

http://old.lwn.net/1999/1021/
.......................................................................................................
This all just looks like the usual sort of Gartner stuff. The fine print at the bottom of the articles caught some people's attention, however:

Microsoft Web Letter is published by Microsoft. Additional editorial material supplied by Gartner Group, Inc. 1999. Editorial supplied by Microsoft is independent of Gartner Group analysis and in no way should this information be construed as a Gartner Group endorsement of Microsoft's products and services....

Gartner has subsequently claimed that the results represent Gartner's research, and that the research had not been funded by Microsoft. But what is one to make of the "Microsoft Web Letter," published on Gartner's site? "Published by" and "funded by" evidently mean different things.

[Update: it is interesting note that, since October 19, Gartner has changed the fine print on the above articles so that it no longer mentions Microsoft. Trust us that it was previously written as above. Artur Skura points out that another article in the same series retains the old copyright at the bottom - until they change it too...]
...............................................................................................................

@Ivan
"Pre ce biti da ih digitalni copyright zakoni aka DMCA u tome mnogo vise sprecavaju samo oni toga uopste i nisu svesni izgleda pa napadaju potpuno drugu stranu."

Ma, da, i onaj sirotan iz francuske sto je dobio nobelovu za ekonomiju i sto isto smatra da "software patents" nisu dobri za ekonomiju nije svestan...
Eto, "nesvestan" covek, sta ces....

A sad, "reality" check....

http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html
"Historically, proprietary vendors eventually lose to vendors selling products available from multiple sources, even when their proprietary technology is (at the moment) better. Sony's Betamax format lost to VHS in the videotape market, IBM's microchannel architecture lost to ISA in the PC architecture market, and Sun's NeWS lost to X-windows in the networking graphics market, all because customers prefer the reduced risk (and eventually reduced costs) of non-proprietary products. This is sometimes called "commodification", a term disparaged by proprietary vendors and loved by users. Since users spend the money, users eventually find someone who will provide what they want, and then the other suppliers discover that they must follow or give up the market area.

With OSS/FS, users can choose between distributors, and if a supplier abandons them they can switch to another supplier. As a result, suppliers will be forced to provide good quality products and services for relatively low prices, because users can switch if they don't. Users can even band together and maintain the product themselves (this is how the Apache project was founded), making it possible for groups of users to protect themselves from abandonment. "

5. There is ample evidence that OSS/FS encourages, not quashes, innovation. Microsoft publicly claims that OSS/FS (especially its most common license, the GPL) will eliminate innovation, but the facts undermine these claims. Most IT managers reject Microsoft's claims; in 2000 a Forrester Research study interviewed 2,500 IT managers and found that 84% of them forecast that open source software would be the spark behind major innovations throughout the industry. Indeed, when examining the most important software innovations, it's quickly discovered that Microsoft invented no key innovations, nor was Microsoft the first implementor of any of them. In fact, there is significant evidence that Microsoft is not an innovator at all. In contrast, many of the key innovations were OSS/FS projects. For example, Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, stated in December 2001 that "A very significant factor [in widening the Web's use beyond scientific research] was that the software was all (what we now call) open source. It spread fast, and could be improved fast - and it could be installed within government and large industry without having to go through a procurement process." Note that this didn't end after the ideas were originally developed; the #1 web server in 2001 (Apache) is open source and the #2 web browser in 2001 (Netscape Navigator) is almost completely OSS/FS, ten years after the original development of the web. Indeed, recent court cases give strong evidence that the only reason the proprietary Internet Explorer was the #1 web browser was due to years of illegal use of monopoly power by Microsoft. In public, Microsoft has long asserted that OSS/FS cannot innovate, but in February 2003 even Microsoft's Bill Gates admitted that many developers are building innovative capabilities using OSS/FS systems.

This history of innovation shouldn't be surprising; OSS/FS approaches are based on the scientific method, allowing anyone to make improvements or add innovative techniques and then make them immediately available to the public. Eric Raymond has made a strong case for why innovation is more likely, not less likely, in OSS/FS projects. The Sweetcode web site reports on innovative free software. Here's what Sweetcode says about their site: "Innovative means that the software reported here isn't just a clone of something else or a minor add-on to something else or a port of something else or yet another implementation of a widely recognized concept... Software reported on sweetcode should surprise you in some interesting way."

If Microsoft's proprietary approaches were better for research, then you would expect that to be documented in the research community. However, the opposite is true; the paper "NT Religious Wars: Why Are DARPA Researchers Afraid of Windows NT?" found that, in spite of strong pressure by paying customers, computer science researchers strongly resisted basing research on Windows. Reasons given were: developers believe Windows is terrible, Windows really is terrible, Microsoft's highly restrictive non-disclosure agreements are at odds with researcher agendas, and there is no clear technology transition path for OS and network research products built on Windows (since only Microsoft can distribute changes to its products). Microsoft's own secret research (later leaked as "Halloween I") found that "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. " Stanford Law School professor Lawrence Lessig (the special master in Microsoft's antitrust trial) noted that "Microsoft was using its power to protect itself against new innovation" and that Microsoft's practices generally threaten technical innovation - not promote it.

Developers themselves report that OSS/FS is innovative. According to the BCG study of OSS/FS developers, 61.7% of surveyed developers claimed that their OSS/FS project was either their most creative effort or was equally as creative as their most creative experience.

Given an whole site dedicated to linking to innovative OSS/FS projects, OSS/FS's demonstrated history in key innovations, Microsoft's failure to demonstrate innovation itself, reports from IT managers supporting OSS/FS, reports of dissatisfaction by researchers and others about Microsoft's proprietary approaches, and Microsoft's own research finding that new research ideas are often first implemented and available on Linux before other platforms, the claim that OSS/FS quashes innovation is demonstrably false.

While I cannot quantitatively measure these issues, these issues (especially the first four) are actually the most important issues to many.

About the Author

David A. Wheeler is an expert in computer security and has a long history of working with large and high-risk software systems. His books include Software Inspection: An Industry Best Practice (published by IEEE CS Press), Ada 95: The Lovelace Tutorial (published by Springer-Verlag), and the Secure Programming for Linux and Unix HOWTO. Articles he's written include More than a Gigabuck: Estimating GNU/Linux's Size and The Most Important Software Innovations. Mr. Wheeler's web site is at http://www.dwheeler.com; you may contact him at [email protected], but you may not send him spam (he reserves the right to charge fees to those who send him spam).


I jos nesto, neko spomenu da ako nema patenata, nece biti ni ulaganja u "R&D"...
Da nece imati motiva...

A sta je ovo..?

"How Big Blue Fell For Linux" (http://www.salon.com/tech/fsp/.../chapter_7_part_one/index.html)
...is an article on how IBM transitioned to becoming a major backer. IBM announced that it planned to invest $1 Billion in GNU/Linux in 2001 all by itself (see the IBM annual report). In 2002 IBM reported that they had already made almost all of the money back; I and others are a little skeptical of these claims, but it's clear that IBM has significantly invested in GNU/Linux and seem to be pleased with the results (for an example, see their Linux-only mainframe). This is not just a friendly gesture, of course; companies like IBM view OSS/FS software as a competitive advantage, because OSS/FS frees them from control by another organization, and it also enables customers to switch to IBM products and services (who were formerly locked into competitor's products). Thankfully, this is a good deal for consumers too. In 2002, IBM had 250 employees working full time to improve Linux.

Draze im je da investiraju u Linux, nego da placaju lincence za patente svuda naokolo...