From the Washington Post. I did a doubletake when I read this article yesterday evening considering Mallaby is hardly a fan of the administration.

Quote :

"Bush's Talk And Results On AIDS By Sebastian Mallaby Monday, May 29, 2006; Page A23 The Bush administration's critics should give credit where it's due. And when it comes to the global AIDS crisis, it is due -- big-time. Five years ago, the U.S. government's total contribution to fighting HIV-AIDS abroad stood at $840 million. The Bush team was rightly pilloried for trade policies that impeded poor countries' efforts to buy cheap generic AIDS drugs. But at the start of 2003, the administration had a hallelujah moment. In that year's State of the Union address, President Bush promised $15 billion over five years to fight the pandemic. It was the biggest commitment to a global health challenge announced by any government, ever. Naturally, there were skeptics. The administration's envoys endured boos and yells at international AIDS conferences; they will probably face more at this week's United Nations AIDS summit. But three years after Bush's $15 billion pledge, the skepticism has proved mostly unfounded. One doubt was that the administration wouldn't back its rhetoric with money. Well, since the president's pledge, spending on global AIDS programs has risen steadily: to $2.3 billion in 2004, $2.7 billion in 2005 and to $3.3 billion this year. The administration's budget for 2007 requests $4 billion from Congress, more than quadruple the level in 2001. So the Bush team is on target to exceed the $15 billion promise. A second doubt was that the administration would waste money by purchasing branded AIDS drugs. Generics are not only cheaper than patented medicines; by combining two or three drugs into a single pill, they also make it simpler for patients to take their meds as they're supposed to. But the Bush administration began by refusing to buy pharmaceuticals that lacked approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, effectively closing the door to non-branded AIDS therapies. Starting in 2004, the administration fixed this problem. It directed the FDA to license generics for use in U.S. global AIDS programs, even when those generics could not be sold in the United States because they infringed U.S. patents. The skeptics continued to insist that obstacles lurked in the FDA's complex rules. But generic after generic was soon licensed, and in some countries around two-thirds of U.S. spending on AIDS drugs now goes to non-branded medicines. Given how often foreign aid is tied to exports from donor countries, it's remarkable that the Bush team stiffed Big Pharma in favor of cost-effective help for AIDS patients. A third doubt about the administration's AIDS promise concerned sexual abstinence. When it agreed to back Bush's AIDS initiative, Congress laid down that a third of the prevention budget should be used to advocate abstinence and faithfulness. The scientific literature suggests that combining abstinence messages with teaching about condoms can delay sexual debut and save lives but that abstinence-only messages are ineffective. So the congressional earmark, to which the administration acquiesced, seemed like a classic Republican mistake: a triumph of social-conservative ideology over science. This complaint is right -- but should not be exaggerated. Most of the U.S. AIDS budget goes toward treating people and caring for the dying and orphans. Abstinence and faithfulness teaching consumes only 7 percent of the total, and an unknown fraction of that is constructively combined with teaching about condoms. The critics cite a few wacko preachers who have received U.S. money even though they proclaim that condoms don't work, and the Government Accountability Office has described how the abstinence earmark complicates the work of front-line AIDS groups. But it's wrong to paint the entire Bush AIDS program as a Christian-conservative plot when the abstinence-only stuff is relatively limited. The most serious criticisms of the Bush AIDS program are that it involves too little collaboration with local governments and fellow donors and that pouring millions into AIDS sucks health workers away from other vital diseases. But even these criticisms can go too far. When the Bush program was set up, the noncollaborative approach was a way to get results quickly; now, by some accounts, collaboration is improving. In the early stages, equally, pouring money into AIDS programs was bound to siphon health workers away from other things. But there's talk that the administration may correct this problem, maybe by launching a program to train community health workers in poor countries. It's not that the Bush program is perfect, and it's not that the administration is the lone hero of the AIDS crisis. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which was set up just four years ago, has channeled $5 billion toward those diseases; the Bush team should acknowledge its contribution less grudgingly, especially since the United States provides 30 percent of the fund's resources. Yet the bottom line is that the administration has faced up to a killer that's taken 25 million lives in the 25 years since its discovery. There's much more to be done -- 5 million more people get infected every year. But if you want to denounce rich countries for their negligence, the United States is the wrong target."

And if you want more proof that the world's gone mad, check out this article from the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-love/bush-administration-plays_b_21714.html

5/30/2006 10:53:16 AM

i am a hardheaded liberal and refuse to listen to anything at least semi-positive about george bush because im so convinced he is the biggest idiot in the entire 7 billion + population of the world

5/30/2006 11:16:00 AM

Quote :

"Most of the U.S. AIDS budget goes toward treating people and caring for the dying and orphans. Abstinence and faithfulness teaching consumes only 7 percent of the total, and an unknown fraction of that is constructively combined with teaching about condoms."

Of course, only a small portion of the money goes towards abstinence-only education; nobody ever presumed otherwise. It was the fact that you can't get any of the money unless you agree to push abstinence-only that folks had a problem with... To suggest that Bush's international campaign has been a success is absurd.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but in the US, Maine used to have one of the largest teen pregnancy rates. After pushing comprehensive sex education, they went to having one of the smallest teen pregnancy rates. So when they were offered money from federal government with the stipulation that they teach abstinence-only, they said NO THANKS. And they were fucking right.

5/30/2006 12:08:53 PM

Quote :

"i am a hardheaded liberal and refuse to listen to anything at least semi-positive about george bush because im so convinced he is the biggest idiot in the entire 7 billion + population of the world"

5/30/2006 12:10:30 PM

Bush promised money and then delivered on that promise!! Amazing! We should all rejoice.

Hey, wait a minute:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Uganda+AIDS+Bush&btnG=Google+Search

5/30/2006 12:31:51 PM

holy shit check this shit out!!!

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=democrats+still+baffled+over+losing+to+idiot

5/30/2006 12:35:14 PM

There is a bigger problem at hand. It is an abomination that these companies are able to patent (ie: monopolize) LIFE SAVING medications because of patents. It is even more of an abomination as public tax dollars pay for alot of the research that goes into these drugs (universities and such) and then these companies are able to patent the drugs and sell them back to us for profits? Two things need to happen. One is that the patent system needs to be abolished. Why should you be able to monopolize an idea, especially considering the fact that is most likely NOT original? The second thing that needs to happen is that corporate personhood needs to be done away with. Why should a piece of paper have the same rights (almost always more IRL) as a living breathing human being? Makes no sense whatsoever.

5/30/2006 12:35:29 PM

Quote :

"Two things need to happen. One is that the patent system needs to be abolished. Why should you be able to monopolize an idea, especially considering the fact that is most likely NOT original?"

what about when it IS an original idea? somebody makes a great invention and gets nothing for it? no thanks, comrade

Quote :

"The second thing that needs to happen is that corporate personhood needs to be done away with. Why should a piece of paper have the same rights (almost always more IRL) as a living breathing human being? Makes no sense whatsoever."

maybe because the "piece of paper" that is a corporation is also "thousands of living breathing human beings"???

5/30/2006 12:38:33 PM

Quote :

"should give credit where it's due"

yup

5/30/2006 12:47:30 PM

This is a separate issue from this thread, but is there evidence to show that increased funding has affected the infection rates?

5/30/2006 12:47:38 PM

Quote :

"what about when it IS an original idea? somebody makes a great invention and gets nothing for it? no thanks, comrade"

Still it doesn't change that fact that you are monopolizing an idea. Why should the rest of us pay to protect your idea? Open ideas are a good thing. They promote innovation as everyone would be able to improve upon said idea and make it better. You only have to look as far as the open source movement to see how great this works out. Also imagine how little humanity would have progressed if patents had been around in the age of the ancient Egyptians or Greeks. Patents stifle innovation, not promote it. The free flow of ideas is always good. If you donot want anyone to copy your idea, then keep it to yourself. I'm sure someone else will come up with a similar idea (if they haven't already).

Quote :

"maybe because the "piece of paper" that is a corporation is also "thousands of living breathing human beings"???"

Do you speak of the employees or the stockholders? Also, why should multiple human beings be considered one in a legal sense? If you and I work together closely for a common cause, does that make us one person? By allowing groups of people to work together and consider them one person in a legal sense, you put the rest of us (individuals) at a HUGE disadvantage. Corporations use their "personhood" to buy influence in our government which is suppose to represent the people. It is one of the main reasons this country is so fucked up now (one of the other reasons would be apathy on the part of the people).

5/30/2006 12:53:53 PM

Quote :

"Open ideas are a good thing. They promote innovation as everyone would be able to improve upon said idea and make it better. You only have to look as far as the open source movement to see how great this works out."

yeah it works really great, like giving hackers access to codes so they can make more spyware and trojans and viruses to sabotage our computers...really really worked out great didnt it

Quote :

"Do you speak of the employees or the stockholders?"

the employees

Quote :

"Also, why should multiple human beings be considered one in a legal sense?"

maybe because they work together for a common cause? maybe because a $1 million lawsuit against an individual would kill them, but a corporation could relieve some risk? you know the difference from classes back in the day about sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation, etc? each has advantages and disadvantages?

Quote :

"By allowing groups of people to work together and consider them one person in a legal sense, you put the rest of us (individuals) at a HUGE disadvantage. Corporations use their "personhood" to buy influence in our government which is suppose to represent the people."

what kind of beings work at these corporations? i always thought it was people (individuals) who worked at these companies

5/30/2006 1:02:26 PM

you can't do away with patents

if you do not protect a person's right to their new idea
people will stop thinking up new ideas

5/30/2006 1:08:53 PM

Quote :

"yeah it works really great, like giving hackers access to codes so they can make more spyware and trojans and viruses to sabotage our computers...really really worked out great didnt it"

If hackers want access to code/financial info/whatever, they will get it. Thats what you get for using an inferior operating system. Millions of eyes catch more mistakes than than the thousands of select eyes in Redmond. If there is a security vulnerability found in a Linux distro or other open source application, it is usually patched in a few hours. Compare that to a couple of weeks with Microsoft (sometimes even more than that). So yes, the open source movement does work out great. One of its chief hinderances is the anti-freedom, anti-innovative corporations always looking to make a quick buck instead of actually innovating on their own. Why innovate when you can simply buy patents and then sue others for patent infringement. Idiocy.

Quote :

"aybe because they work together for a common cause? maybe because a $1 million lawsuit against an individual would kill them, but a corporation could relieve some risk? you know the difference from classes back in the day about sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation, etc? each has advantages and disadvantages?"

Nothing wrong with working together for a common cause. What I am saying is that corporations should not be considered "persons" because they are not human beings. They are made up OF human beings, but a corporation by itself is simply a legal construct. A corporation cannot breathe, it cannot fuck, it cannot procreate, it cannot be drafted off to war. So why does it get the same rights as you and I? Why does it have the ability to lobby our government to pass legislation in its favor (which is much easier to do since most large corporations have nearly limitless cash reserves)? I have nothing against pooling money together to offset the risk of business. But still, that should only be looked at as a group of people, not one person.

Quote :

"what kind of beings work at these corporations? i always thought it was people (individuals) who worked at these companies"

What was the point of this statement? Of course people work at corporations.

5/30/2006 1:19:26 PM

Quote :

"you can't do away with patents if you do not protect a person's right to their new idea people will stop thinking up new ideas"

I was not aware that human beings all of a sudden started innovating when patents came into existence. I guess all the ideas like algebra, geometry, etc. that came before the establishment of the patent system were given to us by aliens or something like that.

5/30/2006 1:22:36 PM

i'm sick of this socialist drivel

just because you cant make money doesnt mean everything should be free and shared by all

5/30/2006 1:25:02 PM

Quote :

"i'm sick of this socialist drivel just because you cant make money doesnt mean everything should be free and shared by al"

Where did I say everything should be free and shared by all? Ideas yes. If you don't want to share your ideas, then don't. But as the saying goes, "Two heads are better than one". Whats funny is that you are screaming socialism but what you are pushing (the patent system) is the very definition of socialism, as it requires the government to intervene in the economy to protect your idea. Its quite childish, once you really think about it. "OMG, he is stealing my idea!!! Government save me!!11" You are the socialist here dude. Anyway, I'm off to lunch.

5/30/2006 1:30:31 PM

you seem to be saying "everyone has ideas, i think i should be able to use them, even though somebody busted their ass for 20 years of research to come up with this, we should disband the government and patents and free market economy and turn to communism!"

Quote :

"If you don't want to share your ideas, then don't"

if you want to use everybody's ideas, pay them

5/30/2006 1:35:37 PM

did protostar really just compare "geometry" and "teflon" or "prozac"

?

5/30/2006 1:53:18 PM

and all this time I thought he was pro-AIDS

5/30/2006 2:17:01 PM

Uganda's AIDS Decline Attributed to Deaths
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48464-2005Feb23.html

US 'harming' Uganda's Aids battle
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4195968.stm

Quote :

"Speaking at the ceremony, the Uganda Aids Commission (UAC) Director General, Dr. Kihumuro Apuuli, said despite financial support from the donor community, the rate of people acquiring HIV/Aids is still increasing. The World HIV/Aids Vaccine Awareness Day is celebrated every year to recognise volunteers, scientists, and health professionals involved in HIV/Aids vaccine research and to raise awareness about the hope and promise that the vaccine will be found. "Despite all the commitment and large amounts of resources mobilised and commitment by the world, every minute, 6 people die of HIV/Aids and every minute, 10 people get infected globally," Apuuli said. He said, in 2005 130,000 Ugandans got infected compared to 70,000 in 2003."

Uganda: 130,000 Got Aids in 2005
http://allafrica.com/stories/200605180712.html

Uganda was actually seeing real success until it began pushing abstinence-only. Perhaps Apuuli has an interest in reporting inflated statistics (to keep people aware, I assume).

Either way, what are we applauding Bush for again?

5/30/2006 3:28:45 PM

Quote :

"I was not aware that human beings all of a sudden started innovating when patents came into existence. "

Well, patent law became settled in England during the 17th century. As of the start of the 18th century we had an industrial revolution on our hands. It is purely curcumstantial evidence that patents came shortly before a flood of new inventions and practices, but there is no evidence to the contrary.

Quote :

"If you don't want to share your ideas, then don't"

Conversely, we have corporations around the world that do nothing but invent stuff. Without legal protections we would have two potential outcomes:

First, the financial value of new technology by itself is worthless, everyone will just steal it. As such, investors pull out, all these companies go bust, we have to learn to live without whatever they would have invented.

Second potential outcome, the financial value of new technology is limited arbitrarily by what can be protected as a "trade Secret". An example would be a drug that you must take inside our hospitals so we can protect our technology with walls and guns. An historical example involves an English businessman that acquired the first machine to spin wool into thread. His factory was built like a fortress, only employed family members, and was heavily armed with the latest weaponry. He managed to protect his "trade secret" for a lifetime until the crown ordered it made public. Another example would be the elimination of broadcast and DVD movie sales so that in order to watch a movie you must attend one of our theaters and we will frisk you at the door.

[Edited on May 30, 2006 at 3:51 PM. Reason : .,.]

5/30/2006 3:49:59 PM

I dont agree with Protostar's overall thoughts on the economy

unless he can convince the RIAA and MPAA to share everything for free

5/30/2006 4:19:02 PM

Quote :

"Uganda was actually seeing real success until it began pushing abstinence-only. Perhaps Apuuli has an interest in reporting inflated statistics (to keep people aware, I assume)."

By no means saying that the administration's policies are perfect nor that there isn't more that can be done, but President Bush has done much more than his predecessors or many of his counterparts in the industrialized world.

5/30/2006 6:03:22 PM

Quote :

"I was not aware that human beings all of a sudden started innovating when patents came into existence. I guess all the ideas like algebra, geometry, etc. that came before the establishment of the patent system were given to us by aliens or something like that. "

Someone else already said it well, but you also have to take into account the billions that pharmeceutical companies invest in a new drug, and when they work with the universities to develop these drugs the universities have a stake in profits so its not like they are just using tax payer money and the university isn't getting anything in return. Many universities make millions and millions of dollars off drug patents. When you take away patents then the pharmaceutical companies have no incentive and no funding to further develop drugs. If you want to lower drug prices then a better fix might be to extend patents. As it is companies often use up half the life of their patent before getting FDA approval, forcing them to charge as much as possible to recoup their investment before the patent expires.

Money drives 99% of innovation, no money=no innovation

5/30/2006 6:19:37 PM

5/30/2006 6:40:52 PM

check out the child in the bottom right

5/30/2006 7:23:11 PM

Quote :

"RedGuard: By no means saying that the administration's policies are perfect nor that there isn't more that can be done, but President Bush has done much more than his predecessors or many of his counterparts in the industrialized world."

I agree that Bush has done much more; it was about fucking time. It's not clear that he's achieved much more though, and that lack of progress could be attributed to his arrogant sense of morality.

I really appreciated Clinton but I do not think he was perfect. Handing health care reform over to his wife was self-serving and ridiculous. Making a big deal about accepting gays in the military after he ran as a moderate was silly and seemed spiteful. And not manning-up in the global fight against AIDS was thoughtless and almost cruel. Man, there's a lot more stuff...

^The child on the bottom right is adorable. He needs his own sitcom. Where are the girls?

[Edited on May 30, 2006 at 7:59 PM. Reason : sss]

5/30/2006 7:46:35 PM

Quote :

"his arrogant sense of morality"

bwahahahaha talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

5/30/2006 8:03:27 PM

I wish you had said "pot meet kettle" because then I could have introduced myself to kettle and asked it to bwn. I've been waiting so long to do that.

[Edited on May 30, 2006 at 8:25 PM. Reason : ]

5/30/2006 8:14:54 PM

Quote :

"Someone else already said it well, but you also have to take into account the billions that pharmeceutical companies invest in a new drug, and when they work with the universities to develop these drugs the universities have a stake in profits so its not like they are just using tax payer money and the university isn't getting anything in return. Many universities make millions and millions of dollars off drug patents. When you take away patents then the pharmaceutical companies have no incentive and no funding to further develop drugs. If you want to lower drug prices then a better fix might be to extend patents. As it is companies often use up half the life of their patent before getting FDA approval, forcing them to charge as much as possible to recoup their investment before the patent expires. Money drives 99% of innovation, no money=no innovation"

And like I have pointed out before, how and why did people innovate before that the creation of the patent system. Humanity seemed to have been advancing forward far before its creation. Noone is saying without patents you cannot make money off your idea. You can still bring your product to market, but will have to constantly innovate on your idea to keep ahead of competitors. You can also provide superior quality and customer service, to attract more customers. The open source movement of today is carrying on the open and free flow of ideas allowed humanity to advance so in the past. And corporations, anti-liberty and freedom as usual, are doing everything in their power to crush it.

Quote :

"you seem to be saying "everyone has ideas, i think i should be able to use them, even though somebody busted their ass for 20 years of research to come up with this, we should disband the government and patents and free market economy and turn to communism!""

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!!!! ROFLMAO!!11 So much nonsense in one post. Yeah, we wouldn't want to stop people from protecting original ideas like this:

http://patft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=2&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=6,368,227&OS=6,368,227&RS=6,368,227

Free market economy my ass.

5/31/2006 6:19:48 PM

Quote :

"It is an abomination that these companies are able to patent (ie: monopolize) LIFE SAVING medications because of patents."

Yeah, so we should take that away and then expect medicines to improve at or faster than the rate they are now. Who said incentives? ::head in sand::

5/31/2006 6:24:40 PM

Quote :

"(the patent system) is the very definition of socialism"

Let me try this...
(black) is the very definition of white!

No, it didn't work.

5/31/2006 6:29:06 PM

Quote :

"Yeah, so we should take that away and then expect medicines to improve at or faster than the rate they are now. Who said incentives? ::head in sand::"

For alot of people the incentive is to be able to say you saved someones life. Alot of inventors invent for the thrill of inventing, money is a secondary concern.

5/31/2006 6:52:25 PM

i bet his niece has got the aids

5/31/2006 7:07:51 PM

Quote :

"You can still bring your product to market, but will have to constantly innovate on your idea to keep ahead of competitors."

Or you can do what lots of people did before the patent system and hoard your invention so that no one can have it. You do realize the purpose of the patent system was so that people would release their inventions to the world. Do you know how many new drugs and new forms of drugs are designed based on other patents even though those patents haven't expired. What do you think would happen if people couldn't be guaranteed some measure of claim to their inventions when they spend hundreds of millions inventing and developing them? My money is on doing what lots of people do and keeping it secret.

That isn't to say the patent system doesn't need reform, but abolishment is not the answer.

Quote :

" The open source movement of today is carrying on the open and free flow of ideas allowed humanity to advance so in the past. "

As much as I like OSS that's hardly a poster boy for your cause. Most OSS is shody quality at best and almost all is years behind commercial competitors.

Quote :

"And corporations, anti-liberty and freedom as usual, are doing everything in their power to crush it."

Right *cough*IBM**cough*Apple**cough*

PS: Red Hat.... it's a corporation.

Quote :

"Alot of inventors invent for the thrill of inventing, money is a secondary concern."

And I love fixing things. Would do it for free if I could. But I got bills to pay, and quite frankly, my life is my primary concern, doing what I enjoy is secondary. Yes, a lot of inventors invent for the thrill of it, but if they didn't think they could make anything off of it, a lot of them would work a lot less on it.

For an example, please see the common OSS reply to a feature request: "Code it yourself or pay me"

5/31/2006 9:00:26 PM

Quote :

"And like I have pointed out before, how and why did people innovate before that the creation of the patent system. Humanity seemed to have been advancing forward far before its creation"

and i'm so glad those pharmaceutical companies back in the 1600's were pumping out the drugs w/o patents. oh, thats right if you got sick you prayed you didn't die and sometimes you got lucky. Patents are open source, people can look at them an understand how things are made/work. after a set number of years you can duplicate them w/o penalty. Like previously stated before people took their secrets with them to the grave. You ever wonder why we are constantly finding ancient inventions that prove some of our new ideas aren't so new? its because the knowledge of how these things worked died with their inventors or the few people that knew how to operate them. patents are more than just pieces of paper giving you ownership of an idea, they are also records of these ideas. And you still haven't answered the biggest question, where will the money come from for this patentless pharmaceutical research? its not like these drugs are cooked up by someone in their garage. It takes serious capital to be able to create and test these drugs.

6/1/2006 1:55:09 AM

Quote :

"Or you can do what lots of people did before the patent system and hoard your invention so that no one can have it. You do realize the purpose of the patent system was so that people would release their inventions to the world. Do you know how many new drugs and new forms of drugs are designed based on other patents even though those patents haven't expired. What do you think would happen if people couldn't be guaranteed some measure of claim to their inventions when they spend hundreds of millions inventing and developing them? My money is on doing what lots of people do and keeping it secret. That isn't to say the patent system doesn't need reform, but abolishment is not the answer."

Hoard your invention? Yes, you can but like I've said before eventually someone else will cvome up with a similar idea and bring it to market. You can still make considerable amounts of money off of providing superior service and quality. Without patents I gurantee you Windows wouldn't suck as much ass as it does, if it even existed at all. People would still create drugs as people desire to live to see another day. I see yet another industry that cooperatives would be useful in.

Quote :

"As much as I like OSS that's hardly a poster boy for your cause. Most OSS is shody quality at best and almost all is years behind commercial competitors."

FUD!! I'm so goddamn tired of people saying OSS is inferior to propreitary. Its a fucking pack of lies and you know it. Amarok (an OS audio player) is far superior in quality than iTunes (I don't even consider WMP a vaild competitor). OpenOffice has just as much functionality for most people as MSFT Office does. VLC beats the hell out of Quicktime Player, WMP, and Realplayer and Xine is even better than the VLC (but is Linux/Unix only I'm afriad). Any Linux distro you download and install is MUCH (and much is an understatement) more secure and stable than Microsoft Windows.
The reason for GNU/Linux's limited spread is because of patent issues, driver issues (manufacturers not making drivers for Linux and refusing to release hardware specs, forcing Linux developers to guess and check), and forking. None of it has to do with the software being "shoddy".

Quote :

"Right *cough*IBM**cough*Apple**cough* PS: Red Hat.... it's a corporation."

You have something there with IBM and RedHat. I personally don't like Redhat linux but to each his own. Apple is fucking worthless as far as open source is concerned. They take from the community but don't give back. They built their entire OS on an open source project, and how many apps have the ported to Linux/BSDs? Hell, you have to run iTunes though an emulator on Linux and its the Windows version at that!!! Fuck Apple, thats all I have to say.

Quote :

"And I love fixing things. Would do it for free if I could. But I got bills to pay, and quite frankly, my life is my primary concern, doing what I enjoy is secondary. Yes, a lot of inventors invent for the thrill of it, but if they didn't think they could make anything off of it, a lot of them would work a lot less on it."

I understand you have bills to pay. Who doesn't? But why should the rest of us pay to protect someone elses ideas? Like I have pointed out you can still make money by providing superior service and/or product.

Quote :

"For an example, please see the common OSS reply to a feature request: "Code it yourself or pay me""

Link to a reply like this? Because a while ago, the Ubuntu developers got together for a conference and all input was encouraged for news ideas to be incorporated into the next release. That is to say they were taking feature requests.

6/2/2006 10:11:17 AM

Look, both sides to this argument are layed out rather well on wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent#Economic_rationale

First, in accordance with the original definition of the term "patent", it is argued that patents facilitate and encourage disclosure of innovations into the public domain for the common good. If inventors did not have the legal protection of patents, they may prefer or tend to keep their inventions secret. Awarding patents generally makes the details of new technology publicly available, for exploitation by anyone after patent protection ends, or for further improvement by other inventors (who may in turn patent these improvements). Furthermore, when a patent's term has expired, the public record ensures that the patentee's idea is not lost to humanity.

Second, it is broadly believed that patents incentivize economically efficient research and development (R&D). Many large modern corporations have annual R&D budgets of hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars. Without patent protection, R&D spending would be significantly less or eliminated altogether, limiting the possibility of technological advances or breakthroughs. Corporations would be much more conservative about the R&D investments they made, as third parties would be free to exploit any developments. This second justification is closely related to the basic idea underlying traditional property rights: why build a house if another person could freely occupy it?

Third, in many industries (especially those with high fixed costs and low marginal costs and low reverse engineering costs - pharmaceuticals and computers being the two prototyical examples), once an invention exists and has been tested, the cost of actually turning it into a product is typically six times or more the R&D cost. [citation needed] Unless there is some way to prevent copies from competing at the marginal cost of production, companies will not make that productization investment.

Fourth, many believe that patent rights create an incentive for companies to develop workarounds to patented inventions, thereby creating improved or alternative technologies that might not otherwise have been developed.

One interesting side effect of modern day patent usage is that the small-time inventor can use the exclusive right status to become a licensor. This allows the inventor to accumulate capital quickly from licensing the invention and may allow rapid innovation to occur because he/she may choose to not manage a manufacturing buildup for the invention. Thus, time and energy can be spent on pure innovation and allow others to concentrate on manufacturability.

6/2/2006 12:54:35 PM

Quote :

"Hoard your invention? Yes, you can but like I've said before eventually someone else will cvome up with a similar idea and bring it to market. You can still make considerable amounts of money off of providing superior service and quality. "

What part of patents prevents someone from comming up with a similar idea and bringing it to market? In fact, patents would promote that as it forces other inventors to come up with ideas different from that which is already patented.

Quote :

"Without patents I gurantee you Windows wouldn't suck as much ass as it does, if it even existed at all."

You honestly believe the company which more often than not buys out whatever small competitor is in it's way and under cuts the larger ones is being held back by patents?

Quote :

" People would still create drugs as people desire to live to see another day. I see yet another industry that cooperatives would be useful in. "

Who's going to pay for the FDA testing? Who's going to pay for all the machines and research? Why would someone pay for all of that when they can wait for someone else to market it, and then sell it themselves minus all the research and testing costs.

Quote :

"Its a fucking pack of lies and you know it."

no, no it's not.

Quote :

"Amarok (an OS audio player) is far superior in quality than iTunes (I don't even consider WMP a vaild competitor)."

Really? Let's take a look at the FAQ:

It's likely that one file in your Collection triggers a bug in the TagLib library, and makes amaroK crash. You can identify this file by looking at ~/.kde/share/apps/amarok/collection_scan.log. You should report this crash to the TagLib bug database on bugs.kde.org and attach the broken file. Afterward you can remove the file from your Collection and repeat the scanning.

amaroK crashes often, what can I do?
Upgrade your ALSA libs and utils to the latest version, or use OSS, or OSS emulation
If you use MySQL as the database backend, try the SQLite one, it is slightly more mature (the amaroK code, not the db itself)
Try a different audio-engine.
Make sure that all the libraries that amaroK uses were compiled with the same GCC version as amaroK itself. The situation when amaroK is compiled using GCC 3.4.x and linked against taglib which was compiled using GCC 3.3.x can lead to crashes even if you are not editing tags.
If you're using KDE with artsd, try disabling "auto suspend if idle after..." in the sound system settings or at least don't use a value of 1 second since that will interfere every time amarok switches songs.

plus another 5 entries on getting MP3s to play. Quality has to do with more than just a feature set.

Quote :

"OpenOffice has just as much functionality for most people as MSFT Office does."

And runs like dog shit on a stick. I spent a whole semester doing lab reports and such in OO, when I finaly got Office installed it was like a breath of fresh air. Faster, cleaner, and honestly a little bit easier to get things done right in. Again, quality is more than a feature set.

Quote :

"LC beats the hell out of Quicktime Player, WMP, and Realplayer and Xine is even better than the VLC (but is Linux/Unix only I'm afriad)."

Sure, VLC is awsome. Except on windows, where it looks like a pile of shit and the interface is horrible. It doesn't even come close to some other players. Even on a mac which has one of the better VLC versions there are all sorts of wierd things it doesn't do right.

Quote :

"Any Linux distro you download and install is MUCH (and much is an understatement) more secure and stable than Microsoft Windows. "

Security is only part of the battle. You do have to get it installed. Last linux install I did, I had to go find drivers for the ethernet card (which can be rather difficult when you don't have a working ethernet card because you need drivers for it). Again quality is more than just a feature set.

Quote :

"The reason for GNU/Linux's limited spread is because of patent issues, driver issues (manufacturers not making drivers for Linux and refusing to release hardware specs, forcing Linux developers to guess and check), and forking. None of it has to do with the software being "shoddy"."

So of the major things making OSS software fail, only ONE of them is patents. Driver issues and forking are just as common with or without patents. In fact, forking is caused in part by a lack of direct control (intentional to be sure but still you're the one that listed it as a reason for problems).

Quote :

"Apple is fucking worthless as far as open source is concerned. They take from the community but don't give back."

Dude, you seriously might want to chill out and back off the rabid OSS fanboy image, it's hurting your cause something awful. Ignoring that they do release back their changes to the OSS stuff they use, the very fact that they are using it and promoting using it helps your cause not hurts it.

Quote :

"They built their entire OS on an open source project, and how many apps have the ported to Linux/BSDs? Hell, you have to run iTunes though an emulator on Linux and its the Windows version at that!!! Fuck Apple, thats all I have to say. "

Getting very off topic now, but are you seriously suggesting that in order to be a good OSS comunity meber, you have to port your applications over too?

Quote :

"I understand you have bills to pay. Who doesn't? But why should the rest of us pay to protect someone elses ideas? Like I have pointed out you can still make money by providing superior service and/or product. "

The problem is, I have to pay for the reasearch and development costs, meanwhile my competitor just has to pay for manufacture and distribution.

In order for me to provide superior and better I have to spend more money improving what I've already made, but I still need to make back the research costs from my first release. Meanwhile my competitors can under cut me because they don't have to make up those costs.

Or I could refuse to release my invention except under extremely strict contracts and licenses and keep people from ever truely bennefiting unless they are willing to pay me and pay me dearly.

Quote :

"Link to a reply like this? Because a while ago, the Ubuntu developers got together for a conference and all input was encouraged for news ideas to be incorporated into the next release. That is to say they were taking feature requests."

Well, I could pull from your amarok forums:

ok ive got a feature request - and its so damn simple theres no way you could have a problem including it! Its not really even a feature, just a small touch.
When you add a \'random\' button to the toolbar it doesnt get a logo, it just gets the default \'new page\' kind of icon that kde gives to buttons that dont have an icon. Small thing I know but all these things add to the overall polished feel that we\'re looking for. Even just a simple arrow curling round or something to show that that button is to select random play mode.

We\'ve known about this since we made Random, etc. KActions. We can add icons to these as soon as someone draws us some.


Look, I'm not trying to rain on your OSS parade, believe me, I like OSS plenty, but the OSS model is hardly a poster child for good quality alternatives to the patent system.

6/3/2006 11:10:50 AM