W3C Objects To Royalties On ISO Country Codes 374
An anonymous reader writes "Tim Berners-Lee has sent a letter of concern to the president of ISO about the idea of collecting royalties on...guess what...ISO language and country codes! According to the letter, the ISO Commercial Policies Steering Group is proposing a royalty on commercial use of ISO language, country and currency codes. The whole idea seems absurd. On what grounds could uttering lang="en-US" be subject to any intellectual property right that justified any royalty demand?"
Abolish "intellectual property". (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Abolish "intellectual property". (Score:5, Insightful)
If ISO had said from the start "we own these country code standards, you'll have to pay if you want to use them", we wouldn't have a problem -- nobody would be using them. The problem arose only because ISO waited until after their standard had been widely adopted before mentioning the issue.
Re:Abolish "intellectual property". (Score:3, Insightful)
I, myself, don't want intellectual property in the form that it has taken--that the primary beneficiary of the property is the temporary owner of the idea or work. Intellectual property was suppose to indicate the intangible ideas that are given short-term government protection. The idea, like land, in and of itself does not have worth; it's th
Re:Abolish "intellectual property". (Score:2)
My two cents:
It's one thing to charge ~$40 for a copy of the ISO9660 standard, but totally another thing to charge royalties on an implementation of the standard.
Re:Abolish "intellectual property". (Score:2)
Actually, since I can't for the life of me tell the diference since I have know way of knowing what ideas are owned and what are not, I think that IP in general is a bad idea. IP is having the following positive effects on the world:
* People are dying because of the artificial monopoly created by patents on drugs.
* Real software innovation is slowing due to patents.
* IP Litigation is a huge industry.
* Kids are being sued for copying
Re:Abolish "intellectual property". (Score:4, Insightful)
If the ISO starts treating its standards as IP, then ISO standards will cease to have value.
Re:No "intellectual property", no stealth. (Score:2)
Re:What about slavery? (Score:2)
and to what problems are you referring? so the unfortunate filthy rich landowners had to actually pay people to do work for them. awww, i'm so heartbroken. if you're talking about the civil war, forget about it. the civil war was about a lot more than the abolishment of slavery.
regardless, with slavery, we're talking about a fundamental human right that was being deprived. IP laws don't deal with people. they deal with inanimate
Re:What about slavery? (Score:2)
Re:What about slavery? (Score:2, Insightful)
This is incredibly naive. People are dying all the time thanks to IP laws. This is because many people in this world die because of the high cost of medication, which is due in large part to the exclusive monopolies granted by patents. While it is true that research and FDA approval cost a lot of money, there is a lot of money being made well beyond what it takes to pay back the research costs in a lot of biotech companies. A lot
Re:Abolish "intellectual property". (Score:3, Funny)
You are a robot, I presume? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Abolish "intellectual property". (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Abolish "intellectual property". (Score:2)
You appear to have confused capitalism with anarchy. In capitalism, we have a government which (at the bare minimum) recognizes and defends property rights: it's not capital if you can't own it, and it's not very effective capital if you can't own it without running your own police force to protect it.
Libertarianism != Capitalism (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfettered corporate capitalism leads to fascism (the state regulation of the economy) in that the state becomes a tool of the corporations, rather like you see in the USA today.
A well-structured capitalist society *requires* government intervention, for the same reasons a well-structured civil society requires government intervention (in the form of the police, and the judicial arm of the government). Even if you ignore the travesty of corporations-as-entities as practiced by the USA today, and concentrate on corporations-as-public-charters (such as the the US had before about 1880 or so), you still need regulation and monitoring. Otherwise, the biggest corporations will carry the most power, and therefore have the ability to "regulate" (in the political and economic sense) the functioning of corporations of lesser power.
This is why the US has the Sherman Act, and anti-trust laws. Now, these laws are not followed, as is evidenced by the recent anti-trust ruling against Microsoft, and the refusal by the US government to follow through on any meaningful penalty. But, even criminal law doesn't work against corporations, as seen by the recent inaction of the US government against the Enron corporation, and its executives responsible for those crimes.
The "true principals of capitalism" work no better than the true principles of communism. (*NOT* that there has been an implementation of true communism, except on extremely small scales. The most we've ever seen practiced by as large as a country is socialism.)
And Capitalism!=Liberty (Score:2)
I get tired of people who talk about the Cold War as "defending capitalism" and who refer to the US as a "capitalist country".
Capitalism is at best a secondary player to the real principle that underlies the founding of the Republic: Liberty.
Now, because we have liberty, capitalism tends to arise within that framework, but it's an effect, not a cause in any sense of that word.
When liberty comes into conflict with capitalism (and it often does) it's our moral duty to defer to liberty. For example, th
Re:Abolish "intellectual property". (Score:2)
Anything that requires government intervention to protect is against the true principles of capitalism.
Nonsense. By that reasoning, laws against murder are "against the true principles of capitalism".
Re:Abolish "intellectual property". (Score:2)
I think it's time people who accused other people of being "communists" understood what that term actually means.
If you are against property rights (in general, not just intellectual) then you are an anarchist. Like the Diggers, the Levellers, the Autonomen, etc.
You are absolutely, totally and utterly NOT a communist!
Re:Abolish "intellectual property". (Score:2)
Re:Abolish "intellectual property". (Score:5, Informative)
Publishers and lawyers like to describe copyright as ``intellectual property''---a term that also includes patents, trademarks, and other more obscure areas of law. These laws have so little in common, and differ so much, that it is ill- advised to generalize about them. It is best to talk specifically about ``copyright,'' or about ``patents,'' or about ``trademarks.''
The term ``intellectual property'' carries a hidden assumption---that the way to think about all these disparate issues is based on an analogy with physical objects, and our ideas of physical property.
When it comes to copying, this analogy disregards the crucial difference between material objects and information: information can be copied and shared almost effortlessly, while material objects can't be. Basing your thinking on this analogy is tantamount to ignoring that difference. (Even the US legal system does not entirely accept the analogy, since it does not treat copyrights or patents like physical object property rights.)
If you don't want to limit yourself to this way of thinking, it is best to avoid using the term ``intellectual property'' in your words and thoughts.
``Intellectual property'' is also an unwise generalization. The term is a catch-all that lumps together several disparate legal systems, including copyright, patents, trademarks, and others, which have very little in common. These systems of law originated separately, cover different activities, operate in different ways, and raise different public policy issues. If you learn a fact about copyright law, you would do well to assume it does not apply to patent law, since that is almost always so.
Since these laws are so different, the term ``intellectual property'' is an invitation to simplistic thinking. It leads people to focus on the meager common aspect of these disparate laws, which is that they establish monopolies that can be bought and sold, and ignore their substance--the different restrictions they place on the public and the different consequences that result. At that broad level, you can't even see the specific public policy issues raised by copyright law, or the different issues raised by patent law, or any of the others. Thus, any opinion about ``intellectual property'' is almost surely foolish.
If you want to think clearly about the issues raised by patents, copyrights and trademarks, or even learn what these laws require, the first step is to forget that you ever heard the term ``intellectual property'' and treat them as unrelated subjects. To give clear information and encourage clear thinking, never speak or write about ``intellectual property''; instead, present the topic as copyright, patents, or whichever specific law you are discussing.
According to Professor Mark Lemley of the University of Texas Law School, the widespread use of term "intellectual property" is a recent fad, arising from the 1967 founding of the World Intellectual Property Organization. (See footnote 123 in his March 1997 book review, in the Texas Law Review, of Romantic Authorship and the Rhetoric of Property by James Boyle.) WIPO represents the interests of the holders of copyrights, patents and trademarks, and lobbies governments to increase their power. One WIPO treaty follows the lines of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which has been used to censor useful free software packages in the US. See http://www.wipout.net/ for a counter-WIPO campaign.
Re:Abolish "intellectual property". (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Abolish "intellectual property". (Score:2)
Three words:
Baby, bath water.
Re:Abolish "intellectual property". (Score:2)
Baby, bath water.
Eldred vs. Ashcroft said it was OK to retroactivly extend copyright so I would think it would be OK to retoactivly remove copyright. Right? Sigh, one should hope...
Ill-Informed Juvenile Political Ranting (Score:4, Interesting)
The existence of intellectual property is not the issue here. In fact, it looks like the ever-histrionic Timothy is the one who introduced the phrase into the conversation. (You really have to be careful to watch where the quotation marks are in Timothy's stories.)
Intellectual property is as real as the chair I'm sitting on. If someone makes something, they own it until they decide otherwise. If a make a chair, it's my property. If I write a book, it's my property.
Only utopian fools who believe that "Everything Belongs to Everyone" seriously espouse the abolition of property rights. (Including those that protect the vaunted halls of open source software. Absent IP rights, open source would not be possible.)
That said, Timothy and many others need to understand that this ISO proposal is simply a bad decision. Even if they do approve it, how are they going to enforce it?
Re:Ill-Informed Juvenile Political Ranting (Score:4, Insightful)
However, if I make a copy of your book after you've started distributing it, it costs you nothing. Therefore, describing the outcome as theft is rediculous -- you still have your book, and now I have one, too. In fact, having additional copies of your work in circulation should bring you additional future rewards, as later works will be more highly valued.
Re:Ill-Informed Juvenile Political Ranting (Score:3, Interesting)
There is no "Intellectual Property". There are Copyright, Trademark, Patent, and Trade Secret laws to protect your ideas, name, and inventions. Each of these are vastly different, covering different subjects and having different rules. To point at someone and say "you're violating my 'intellectual property'" is bogus. You must pick one of the above, and defend your claim appropriately.
Even if they do approve it, how are they going to enfor
Welcome ! (Score:4, Funny)
How long ... (Score:3, Insightful)
This on the same level of absurdity as the SCO lawsuit.
Re:How long ... (Score:2)
Re:How long ... (Score:2)
"Ehh? We own the gene for blond hair! Your child includes some of our intellectual property, pay up or terminate it..."
Top Level Royalties! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Top Level Royalties! (Score:2)
And in other news (Score:4, Funny)
Re:And in other news (Score:2)
Cela veux dire que tu leur doit trente et un mille dollars (en comptant les milles dollars US comme quatre mots) et que l'idiot qui va essayer de me traduire leur devra environ trente quatre milles dollars.
Cost of Databases? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Cost of Databases? (Score:2)
It's not surprising, not surprising at all. I predict that doing anything commercial on the internet is going to incur some costs, just like putting together a car costs money.
Standards are quite expensive. On the other hand, you have RFCs, which are publically available. And you also have IEEE giving away their 802 standards for free, in PDF form, once those standards a
I'll just use my *own* charset! (Score:3, Insightful)
Too incompatible for you? If so, we should just use GIFs and cough up to Unisys. Or these ISO yahoos could stop trying to charge for everything. If it's going to be standard, you shouldn't charge money for it.
The other half is... (Score:2)
Seriously, though, what are you to do with Japanese? Use the Japanese word in ASCII? Use the English word? Somewhere, you'll need standarisation, and you'll have to look close, because perhaps your standards entity will just pull a stunt like this...
umm... (Score:4, Insightful)
but LANG="en_US" might
Re:umm... (Score:2)
Well, we've got a solution! We define the OSI language code standard that's exactly the same as this one, but replaces all _s with -s. See, Slashdot can produce things other than bad BSD trolls and SCO stories!
Money, of course... (Score:3, Insightful)
Not Surprised (Score:5, Insightful)
Try Googling for most major standards and you'll get nothing but price lists, despite the fact that their entire organisation's publishing needs could be run off a 486 in a cupboard running a Web server.
I hope we can use this incident to start a wider discussion with ISO and educate them that a public standard that isn't available to the public free of charge kind of defeats the purpose of the exercise.
Re:Not Surprised (Score:5, Informative)
You're right, but this proposal is an order of magnitude worse. Even if the ISO C spec is non-free, it is possible to write implementations of that standard which are free (GCC, TCC etc). If this proposal were to be followed, it'd be impossible to write open-source software which used ISO 3166 / 639 codes for countries or languages. This is especially problematic since they've waited for these codes to become widespread (e.g. as vital parts of the HTML, XML and POSIX standards) before saying they might have a problem with their free use.
This suggests to me that the proponent doesn't understand about free / open-source software, which is currently contributing hugely towards the very standardisation ISO is supposed to promote.
Re:Not Surprised (Score:2)
They charge the comiitie members to *make* the standards.
They charge the public to view the standards.
And for what? They provide no value.
The C++/C fiaso is a joke - they are allowing the two language to diverge for no good reason. C++ should be a superset of C, but not accoring to the ISO - it's getting harder all the time to create proper ISO C code that works with an ISO C++ compiler in C++ mode withoug a crap load of macros and kl
How much is that in smoots? (Score:4, Interesting)
Oliver has had a unit named after him, the smoot [catb.org]
This is an ESR standard in the public domain, and not an ISO standard, hence we can continue to measure objects in smoots for free.
ISO (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:ISO (Score:5, Informative)
We're running TCP/IP because the CSRG decided to release BSD under a free license.
TCP/IP might be better than OSI, but we're not using TCP/IP for any technical reasons; we're using TCP/IP because it is the standard, it is the standard because everyone supports it, and everyone supports it because there was a free TCP/IP stack available for anyone who wanted it.
Re:ISO (Score:2, Informative)
But back to the grandparent's point -- it's been said that the RFCs don't fully specify TCP/IP. That's why a "official" reference implementation like Berkeley helps adoption immensely.
Re:ISO (Score:2)
One-tenth of a penny (Score:3, Insightful)
The future looks bright!
Clearly, ISO invented the use of "US" for United States and "UK" for United Kingdom. They deserve to be rewarded for their creativity.
[walks away shaking his head]
-- Max
lang="en_US" (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, us Brits invented the language, so you've been violating our intellectual property for the last 400 years or so. But don't worry, we'll only charge you 699 per sentence, as long as you say it before October 15.
Re:lang="en_US" (Score:2)
Re:lang="en_US" (Score:2)
Yeah, but your poor attempts at obfuscation do not hide the fact that center is a clear derivative of the word centre.
And having deliberately obfuscated the language demonstrate willful infringement which means triple damages. Bouahahahaha.
Re:lang="en_US" (Score:2)
The are very few modern german words in use in Britain - much fewer than the US, which had a large germanic population in the early part of it's history.
Re:lang="en_US" (Score:2)
Note that I didn't include just similar sounding words (School-Schule, modern-modern, nurse-Nurse,population-Population); the former are of german origin, while the latter both german and english inherited from the "roman invaders"
Re:lang="en_US" (Score:2)
Yeah, but are they descending from German or are German and English inheriting them from an older language common to both culture?
Re:lang="en_US" (Score:2)
No, "the, word, is, in, than, had, a" did not come from "das, wort, ist, in, denn, hat, ein", any more than humans came from apes or you came from your cousin. Both came from a common ancestor.
Part of the problem is that in English the words "German" and "Germanic" are similar. That doesn't mean that all Germanic languages come from German. In other languages, the confusion doesn't arise: deutsch/germanisch, aleman/germanico, tedesco/germanico, for example.
Re:lang="en_US" (Score:2)
If I could only stand the taste of salmalki though.
ISO to charge for use of proteins, amino acids (Score:5, Funny)
Critics were quick to denounce the proposal, but admitted that the "cash-grab" move was unlikely to provoke any real backlash.
"Once they got that whole country and money code license fee put through, it was game over," said one US government official on condition of anonymity. "Now they're just, like, 'Well, what else can we charge for?'"
ISO distanced itself from the white paper, saying that it was "a modest proposal" put forth by an intern. "However, we will consider the ideas within as we would any other source," said Dr. Oliver Smoot, president of ISO. "And if there should happen to be megabucks within those ideas, we are most definitely there. W00t!"
Free Software Foundation founder Richard Stallman was unavailable for comment. However, those close to the computing guru said that he had been prepared for such an eventuality. "Richard switched long ago to non-carbon amino-like compounds," said one source close to Stallman. "It took some work to come up with a Free organic chemical basis for life, but he thought it was worthwhile. Looks like he was right."
Re:ISO to charge for use of proteins, amino acids (Score:2)
Yes, I figured it has to be something like that [jinwicked.com]. It sounds like RMS, all right. But hey, if he's managed to get something better, I'm game---I'll switch over when I'm old and gray, and then hopefully my new body will expand my lifespan! Until then, I want to have some chance of
Re:ISO to charge for use of proteins, amino acids (Score:3, Funny)
And he will insist that everyone refer to it as "GNU/DNA"
Metric System (Score:4, Funny)
Conflict of interest? (Score:5, Funny)
Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1
Slashdot - objective news source? I think not!
Go ahead... (Score:3, Insightful)
What IP law would they use? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm having a hard time seeing what would cover them.
Re:What IP law would they use? (Score:3, Interesting)
They're not suing people for damages, they're
charging royalties. They could make minor changes then put a click through license on the website. "Non-commercial use free; commercial have your credit card ready" is the usual scam. Royalties are charged on standards all the time, unfortunately. Most of the defunct "wireless" standards from the tail end of the dot-com bust were this way. ISO gets karma points for nostalgia.
I agree it's silly. Standards are easily avoided. If not covered by a freely distr
systems (Score:5, Funny)
MPAA method: Release item under copyright. When market is saturated or copyright nears expiration (whichever is soonest) change a scene or two, or add different colour, re-release, generating 'new' item and copyright.
SCO method:Release item. Hide recipe. Claim that all competitors stole and used said recipe. Refuse to produce until suitably bribed by appeasements and concessions.
Amazon method: release item that uses obvious method. Patent said obvious method.
ISO method: Release item. Wait until standard is commonly adopted, as with SCO method. When market has adopted standard, charge for using said standard.
Windows method:Release item into market. Use all of the above whenever possible. proceeSystem error: (a)bort, (r)etry, (f)ail???
Re:systems (Score:2)
Actually, that's the Unisys method. The ISO method is to rip off the Unisys method.
Re: Unisys method (Score:2)
1. Unisys developed and patented a compression algorithm.
2. Compuserve licensed that algorithm for their graphics format (.GIF).
3. The original web browser programmers built in compatibility for the popular Compuserve graphic format. (I have read stories that imply they knew it used protected IP, but did not care.)
4. Most web site developers used the format to build web pages with graphics.
5. Uni
Re: Unisys method (Score:3, Informative)
While I will grant you that Unisys may have helped pay some very small part of the salaries of some of the originators of the LZW algorithm, you are stretching the truth quite a bit here. All that can be said is that at some point Unisys had the foresight to try to patent the algorithm and the USPTO was stupid enough to actually award it (not necessarily the fault of Unisys, but that is another story). From what I under
Intellectual property (Score:2, Funny)
Intel (TM) claims that the word "intellectual" is covered by their trademark Intel.
All intellectual property should therby be considered intellectual property of Intel (TM)
Dr. Who? (Score:2)
Much like in scandinavia then? (Score:3, Interesting)
(yeah vauge, but i can't find a link right now)
Let them. (Score:2)
We don't need ISO ... use SIL (Score:5, Informative)
We don't need ISO for language codes. Besides, two letter codes are too limiting. SIL [sil.org] has organized a very thorough set of three letter codes [ethnologue.com] (usable according to their terms [ethnologue.com]) for every language as part of the Ethnologue [ethnologue.com] project, including artificial [ethnologue.com] languages and sign [ethnologue.com] languages.
As for country codes, I'm sure we can make something up. Just ask the leader of each country what they'd like for us to use for their country, work out the collisions, and compile our own standard (and issue an RFC).
Re:We don't need ISO ... use SIL (Score:2)
SIL licence too restrictive (Score:3, Informative)
But the SIL licence terms are too restrictive: you can't use their tables in an open source/free software program, because the SIL tables themselves are not freely redistributable: "You are not authorized to redistribute the downloadable code or mapping tables, whether in the exact form they were obtained from this site or in a modified form you have developed, without the written consent of SIL International.
Doug Moen.
Re:We don't need ISO ... use SIL (Score:3, Insightful)
You'd suggest a standard proposed by someone with a Terms Of Use statement attached to it?
If we want to pick a standard for something, it should typically be about 20 pages of text, with an RFC number at the top, and copyight notice, if absolutely required, with the
Special Ops (Score:2, Funny)
in related news... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:in related news... (Score:2)
Actually, the prime minister of Nada (i.e. nothing) is Mr. Chretien.
We can rant all we want... Dewey Decimal is next (Score:4, Interesting)
And yes, this means silly things like ISO country codes and the Dewey Decimal System (you saw the prediction here, despite Melvile being dead these 100 years....)
"IP" is like tollbooths on highways. Start paying and they will never take them away. Building roads without them takes planning, maybe regime change too (see France, 1789; U.S.A., 1776).
=googol=
Intellecutal property in two easy lessons:
Theft by value: you have something and I take it.
Theft by reference: you think of something and I
think of the same thing.
Freedom of Expression is dead. (Score:3, Informative)
it's just owned [alternet.org]
Let's countersue... (Score:2, Funny)
What legal basis? (Score:3, Interesting)
So my question is: what kind of drugs do they smoke over there at ISO, and can I get some?
Obsolescene in public use (Score:4, Insightful)
Wouldn't this, in a reasonable world, suddenly come under the same purview as when a company fails to defend a trademark. Unless ISO has been hiding under a rock for the past 10 years, they would be clearly aware of the widespread adoption of these standards, and the adoption does not reference ISO as holding copyright, etc. It could be considered defensible to make such a decision were it simply to have been used in a small program, but when implemented by just about every browser and published by another standards group, it becomes impossible to defend such a decision.
Simply put, somewhere in this world I'm sure is a country that will recognise that ISO's failure to react earlier has effectively allowed the standard into public domain.
Why not charge? (Score:2)
This is exactly the type of thing IP laws were made for, organisations alowing free use of a product until it saturates the market, the kind of marketing stratergy any shrood business man would be proud of.
Re:Why not charge? (Score:2)
Here's What Started This (Score:5, Informative)
The CPSG was created by the ISO Council in 2000, and serves as an advisory body to the Secretary-General; rather than a policy-setting body, the group offers recommendations to be forwarded to Council at the Secretary-General's discretion.
Among topics of discussion was the proposed development of a new business plan for working with the Joint Technical Committee 1 (JTC-1) and ways to build awareness and increase distribution of JTC-1 standards.
The CPSG also discussed the ISO 3166 country codes, ISO 4217 currency codes, and ISO 639 language codes and proposed clarifications for their distribution.
Noting the necessity for a number of ISO standards to be published as databases, the CPSG asked that the Secretary-General recommend a consideration of the publication of some ISO standards as such, and promoted studying related pricing, delivery, and maintenance issues.
The group also addressed the changing needs of customers in varied electronic environment, and looked at revising some distribution methods to better meet ISO customer needs.
The relevant paragraph:
Noting the necessity for a number of ISO standards to be published as databases, the CPSG asked that the Secretary-General recommend a consideration of the publication of some ISO standards as such, and promoted studying related pricing, delivery, and maintenance issues.
Perhaps I've misunderstood this, but this doesn't seem to be the ISO saying that they want to charge royalties on language and country codes. It is the CPSG saying that they want to study pricing issues related to publishing ISO standards as databases. It seems to me that studying the issues would include such things as taking comment on them.
It also seems to me that the whole
Even so, I'm with Tim Berners-Lee's position that collecting royalties on a commonly used standards seems self-defeating.
s/4127/4217/ (Score:3, Informative)
From the letter:
Make that ISO 4217 for the currency codes
Don't click that sig... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Don't click that sig... (Score:2)
Re:Don't click that sig... (Score:2)
Re:Sorry but you leftist bastards piss me off. (Score:2, Informative)
Perhaps the following discussion [findlaw.com] would better help you understand just how fucked up IP & Copyrights have now become.
Re:Sorry but you partisan bastards piss me off. (Score:2)
* I for one welcome our new C Library overlords.
Re:Sorry but you leftist bastards piss me off. (Score:2)
is current IP law broken? yes. is IP law unnecessary? it would simplify things so much if that were the case, but i think IP law is most definitely necessary.
while i'm a proponent of free software (both as in speech and in beer), i refuse to tell other people what their philosophies should be. if others want to write software, make music, write books, invent new ways of doing things, etc.
That's the point, Companies are not individuals (Score:2, Insightful)
BigComp gets *your* bill of rights and then some while you are increasingly being denied those rights, not even mentioning what a head on collision between BigComp and you would be.
This is the whole motivation behind the notion that advertising the untruth == free speech, same thing.
"Intellectual property" is a legal fiction (Score:2)
This is the wrong way round. Suppose we developed a device that could copy objects, wouldn't that be wonderful? But no, it would be illegal to use it.
Re:en-US (Score:2)
Re:ha (Score:2)
The tech industry is now nothing more than a commodity market, with relatively little change and no explosive growth. Not until the next big thing (i.e. radio, internet) comes along will we such growth, and everybody that expected to get rich from the internet but missed their chance or held on too long is no suing anyone or anything.