Red Hat Files Amicus Brief In Bilski Patent Case 219
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Red Hat has filed a friend of the court brief with the Supreme Court in regards to the In Re Bilski case, which has become incredibly important due to the possibility that it could redefine the scope of patentable subject matter in a way that affects software patents. In the brief, Red Hat argues that software should not be considered patentable subject matter because it causes economic harm due to patents being granted with vague subject matter, which makes it impossible to say that a given piece of software doesn't arguably infringe upon someone's patent. They also point out Knuth's famous quote that you can't differentiate between 'numeric' and 'non-numeric' algorithms, because numbers are no different from other kinds of precise information." Read below for the submitter's thoughts on an earlier amicus brief filed in the Bilski case by Professor Lee Hollaar.
It's a pity, though, that they don't seem to directly address Professor Lee Hollaar's brief that gave a hand-waving excuse about the Curry-Howard correspondence being merely 'cosmetic' (whatever that means), even though you can turn ZFC into a program (ZFC being the axiomatic framework in which almost all math is done) and you can turn programs into math in order to verify them. Of course, this is the guy who called the successor function 'essentially nonsense', presumably because he doesn't think that mathematicians can differentiate between assignment and equality the way computer scientists can.
Re:I think (Score:4, Informative)
As much as people hate to hear it, the Windows OS is pretty good these days.
Of course, MS as a company sucks ass. If they would stop trying to be the abby sitters for the media companies and pull out DRM, I suspect it would be an awesome OS.
Windows has the most applications. It is not the best by most any other measure. The APIs are horrible, the security architecture is a house of cards, and it's still too easy for a single application to go crazy and freeze the system -- either because your game crashes and the video card can't be reset, or some system resource locks and then the application zombifies and brings everything to its knees in short order, or one of a dozen other failure conditions that are the result of poor programming.
But it's what everybody knows and uses so we'll overlook all of those problems.
Re:Is math discovered or created? (Score:3, Informative)
Is it bullshit? Yes, but it has legal precedent.
Re:Software patents are teh suck (Score:3, Informative)
It's right there in 35 USC 101. In fact, I quoted the relevant part in my previous post.
A general purpose computer programmed with software is a machine, and 35 USC 101 says that machines are patent-eligible. A computer-readable storage medium embodying software which, when executed, performs the steps of some method is an article of manufacture, and 35 USC 101 says that articles of manufacture are patent-eligible.
Re:It's been a while since math was relevant to CS (Score:3, Informative)
Are you really linking to an article that debunks the 7 basic plots myth as part of an argument that we have only seven basic plots? Or are the missing words in your third sentence critical?
Re:I think (Score:2, Informative)
we can play bluray without DRM. It's called Matroska/H264/Theora.
Re:I think (Score:3, Informative)
...the company who created a video memorial was unable to show it on a digital projector under XP because of DRM.
How do you know it was "because of DRM"? If it actually was caused by DRM (unlikely), then the company who created the memorial had to have put digital restrictions in to the video. The question you should be asking is why they did that?
More likely, the problem you experienced with the video portion showing a black rectangle through the projector is the same problem countless other people have had, which has nothing whatsoever to do with DRM. Google it. There are lots of people solving exactly that problem. Most involve either updating the video drivers, changing hardware acceleration settings, or ensuring that you switch the laptop video output to external only rather than both external and laptop screen at the same time. None of the solutions involve DRM in any way.
By the way, I've seen the exact same problem with Linux connected to a TV. But hey, if you want to hate Microsoft for that, I guess that's your choice.
Re:I think (Score:4, Informative)
Actually DRM has nothing to do with being able to enjoy blueray.
What's stopping blueray from being DRM free is a patent on blueray that you only get a license to use if you agree to implement DRM.
Re:I think (Score:3, Informative)