September 01, 2014
On 9/1/2014 2:31 AM, Chris wrote:
> Good on you! But make sure the evidence does not disappear miraculously, if you
> get my drift.

Another indispensable feature of github is everyone who forks it has a clone of the entire repository, usually on their own machine. Deleting all of those forks seems to be thoroughly impractical.

I'm more worried about bugzilla. One reason I keep all the bugzilla email notifications is it is a last resort, albeit crude, backup.
September 01, 2014
On Monday, 1 September 2014 at 19:12:05 UTC, Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> On Mon, 2014-09-01 at 09:43 +0000, monarch_dodra via Digitalmars-d
> wrote:
> […]
>> Isn't there some way to "open source" a patent? Or at least, make some sort of formal publication that this was invented, and may not be patented by someone else?
>
> No. What you hint at is "prior art" and is a proper defence  against (the
> dark arts and) the award of a patent. At least in the UK. USPTO  and
> increasingly EUPO award well formed patents and do not care  about prior
> art. They treat this as an issue for the courts not for them. Thus unless you have a lawyer who can be heard, you are cannon fodder to be milked for royalties.

I think that you are a little pessimistic about that, yes, that's the trend, but prior art still is relevant today: I'm about to reply to an action of the USPTO regarding a patent filed by my company in 2004, and the examiner keep objecting every time, arguing about new improbable prior-arts documentation every time...

>> Just because you don't want to "lock down" your inventions,  doesn't mean they are free to take...
>
> In the "first to file" USA patent system, yes they are.

Unless they are described in a form that let them available to the public (not counting the grace period...)

>> Then again, it takes a certain kind of corporate greed to try to put a patent on things we'd have never thought of as "inventions".
>
> Aren't corporate and greed synonyms?

Sometimes they are synonyms for "research" also...

>> Did we patent UFCS yet? It's an invention.
>> How about CTFE? That seems like a *huge* invention?
>> What about generic tuples? No language I know of uses these.
>> Static if? Let's patent that too while we're at it.
>
> In the USA, if you have a lawyer, yes do it. You might get away  with it in the EU as well.
> "First to file not first to invent" – by the corporations for the
> corporations. This should tell you everything you need to know about technological innovation in the USA.

Good luck with it! ;-P

--
Paolo Invernizzi
September 01, 2014
On 8/31/2014 11:59 PM, Paolo Invernizzi wrote:
> Have you tried dropping the first two digit? 140196015 and 140196008?

Actually, yes.

When the holiday is over, I plan on contacting the USPTO by phone.

September 01, 2014
On Monday, 1 September 2014 at 16:38:23 UTC, Dicebot wrote:
> On Saturday, 30 August 2014 at 17:05:40 UTC, Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d wrote:
>> On Fri, 2014-08-29 at 11:44 +0000, Dicebot via Digitalmars-d wrote:
>> […]
>>> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_Trade_and_Investment_Partnership#National_sovereignty_and_Investor_State_Dispute_Settlements_.28ISDS.29
>>> 
>>> I don't want to live on this planet anymore >_<
>>> ..yet again.
>>
>> But we have to!
>>
>> In a sense this is just the multinational corporations doing what they
>> should do create a market to maximize shareholder value. Sadly it is an
>> indirect return to a feudal system on a massive scale.
>>
>> ...
>>
>> The core problem here is that most politicians are directly or
>> indirectly reporting to these corporations as much as to the voters.
>
> I believe this is not the core problem. Core one is that people in general don't care much about those issue and consider many of those attempts perfectly legitimate. It is an education and cultural issue in the first place. You can block few really bad laws by creating enough fuss about it in media but this takes quite an effort. And all they need to do is to push the very same law later under different name, no risk here.
>
> What is even more frustrating the very same people will feel freaking smart by calling you paranoid and pretending that are reasonable pragmatical persons and you are some tin foil hat geek. It is not just the corporations we need to fight but established mass attituded successfully endorsed by those corporations. And _this_ really sucks.

True, true. Most people don't realize / care about how all this stuff affects them. In fact, your average iPhone user will be quite happy with the corporate prison, as long as they can watch the latest shit on youtube.
September 01, 2014
On 9/1/2014 12:30 PM, Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> On 9/1/2014 2:31 AM, Chris wrote:
>> Good on you! But make sure the evidence does not disappear
>> miraculously, if you
>> get my drift.
>
> Another indispensable feature of github is everyone who forks it has a
> clone of the entire repository, usually on their own machine. Deleting
> all of those forks seems to be thoroughly impractical.
>
> I'm more worried about bugzilla. One reason I keep all the bugzilla
> email notifications is it is a last resort, albeit crude, backup.

The database (along with everything else) is well backed up every night.

Also, didn't you setup a cron job to also download the db every night? I've been putting up a nightly tarball of it (in addition to the backup system) every night since about the day the system was setup.

No need to be nervous about bugzilla.
September 01, 2014
On Mon, 2014-09-01 at 19:35 +0000, Paolo Invernizzi via Digitalmars-d
wrote:
[…]
> I think that you are a little pessimistic about that, yes, that's the trend, but prior art still is relevant today: I'm about to reply to an action of the USPTO regarding a patent filed by my company in 2004, and the examiner keep objecting every time, arguing about new improbable prior-arts documentation every time...
[…]

Prior art is more or less the only tool left against the steamroller of large corporate gaming of the patent system, especially in the USA which is fundamentally oriented towards patent lawyers.

The UK patent system used to be very careful about research into prior art etc. and totally against software patents which are technically forbidden in UK law.  However, with the EU patent office in the pocket of the USTR and Cameron clearly lined up for a lucrative post in a big corporate once ousted as leader of the conservative party, it is clear that UK government is telling UKIPO to let the lawyers do all the work, and allow everything large corporate want.

Funny how so many UK MPs were lawyers.

-- 
Russel. ============================================================================= Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200   voip: sip:russel.winder@ekiga.net 41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077   xmpp: russel@winder.org.uk London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk  skype: russel_winder

September 01, 2014
On Mon, 2014-09-01 at 19:49 +0000, Chris via Digitalmars-d wrote: […]
> True, true. Most people don't realize / care about how all this stuff affects them. In fact, your average iPhone user will be quite happy with the corporate prison, as long as they can watch the latest shit on youtube.

If it was an A-list celebrity having a sh!t, I suspect a lot of people would make a very serious amount of dosh.

Apologies for the apparent cynicism, but it is really just reality
(television) sinking home.

-- 
Russel. ============================================================================= Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200   voip: sip:russel.winder@ekiga.net 41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077   xmpp: russel@winder.org.uk London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk  skype: russel_winder

September 01, 2014
On 9/1/2014 3:11 PM, Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> On Mon, 2014-09-01 at 09:43 +0000, monarch_dodra via Digitalmars-d
> wrote:
>
>> Then again, it takes a certain kind of corporate greed to try to
>> put a patent on things we'd have never thought of as "inventions".
>
> Aren't corporate and greed synonyms?
>

That's actually true in much more than just a snide comment sort of way. A corporation is *legally obligated* to put shareholder profit above all other concerns. Either they act like greedy f&#ks or they risk getting the crap sued out of them. The problem is we've permitted, and promoted, a system where companies are owned by people (shareholders) whose *sole* interest in the company is purely financial.

The *real* role of businesses in a society is to provide worthwhile goods and/or services. Revenue, and even profit, is ultimately just a necessary means to that end. But stocks and incorporation flip this around, to disastrous results.

[Steps down from soapbox...]

September 01, 2014
On Mon, 2014-09-01 at 16:06 -0400, Nick Sabalausky via Digitalmars-d
wrote:
[…]
> A corporation is *legally obligated* to put shareholder profit above all

Actually not profit but value. Profit is clearly a factor but value is more than just that.

> other concerns. Either they act like greedy f&#ks or they risk getting the crap sued out of them. The problem is we've permitted, and promoted, a system where companies are owned by people (shareholders) whose *sole* interest in the company is purely financial.

Apart from some pension fund managers who have serious long term goals, the problem can be laid fairly and squarely at the feet of traders and hedge funds. They have horizons of minutes or months rather than decades and so have no concerns about long term viability just short term profit. The obsession with quarterly returns and growth in such timescales is all the proof needed of the problem.

Clearly the Internet and extremely fast information flow is a core factor in the overall problem, which means software developers have some of the culpability even though traders are the main agents of doom.

> The *real* role of businesses in a society is to provide worthwhile goods and/or services. Revenue, and even profit, is ultimately just a necessary means to that end. But stocks and incorporation flip this around, to disastrous results.

'Fraid not. Given the rules of society we have put in place, "worthwhile" is an irrelevance. The only metric is growth. Oh and the other is profit. The corporates are actually doing nothing more that that which we as a society in the "the west" have set them up to do. Obviously the "we" isn't just the current generation, but it is everyone in the last two centuries or so.

> [Steps down from soapbox...]

Don't, it's a good soapbox to shout from.

-- 
Russel. ============================================================================= Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200   voip: sip:russel.winder@ekiga.net 41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077   xmpp: russel@winder.org.uk London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk  skype: russel_winder

September 01, 2014
On 9/1/2014 12:50 PM, Brad Roberts via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> On 9/1/2014 12:30 PM, Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d wrote:
>> On 9/1/2014 2:31 AM, Chris wrote:
>>> Good on you! But make sure the evidence does not disappear
>>> miraculously, if you
>>> get my drift.
>>
>> Another indispensable feature of github is everyone who forks it has a
>> clone of the entire repository, usually on their own machine. Deleting
>> all of those forks seems to be thoroughly impractical.
>>
>> I'm more worried about bugzilla. One reason I keep all the bugzilla
>> email notifications is it is a last resort, albeit crude, backup.
>
> The database (along with everything else) is well backed up every night.
>
> Also, didn't you setup a cron job to also download the db every night? I've been
> putting up a nightly tarball of it (in addition to the backup system) every
> night since about the day the system was setup.
>
> No need to be nervous about bugzilla.

I'm a failure at using cron. I follow the directions, but it doesn't work :-(

I know, I know.