Open-source honchos trash software patents

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You want to know the innovations?: [quote]However all I see here is yes they are, no they aren't arguements. Where is the evidence of innovation or lack thereof.
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How about a memory manager that runs circles around whatever MS has in Win2k, WinXP or Win2k3? No, wait! BSD and OS/2 has had better memmgrs for years. Linux probably stole one of those. Only trouble is, Linux's are better than most, equal to others, different from the rest and MS "innovations" through patented software is thoroughly lacking.

Okay, lets talk pre-emptive execution, multithreading and multitasking. We cannot even have this discussion with WinXP. Lets talk Win2k and Win2k3. Linux does a much better job --and I am limiting this to the x86 plaatform-- than MS does. MS doesn't even do it right. But wait! OS/2 was hard to beat when it came to Multitasking and multithreading on an x86! Maybe that is where Linux stole it from. God knows he didn't steal it from SCO. SCO Unix for x86 performed worse than Win95 did at multitasking. MS's 'innovations' through patented software isn't going anywhere.

Lets talk virtual machines. No, lets not. Again, MS is so lacking in this area that one misbehaved program in WinXP can still take down the entire system --alothough not as easily as in Win2k or Win9x-- and vulnerable programs still make the entire OS vulnerable even in Win2k3. But Linux probably stole that idea from OS/2, Novel, BSD or someone else who already mastered that even before Win95 was shipped. This, despite the fact that they handle it differently. MS' "innovations" through patented software isn't even close.

I seemed to have laid out a case that Linux obviously stole ideas from the pioneers but MS, being a law-abiding company, did not thus making Linux a superior OS. The fact is, however, that the pioneers gave Linux a place to begin with lessons already learned but MS refuses to learn from the efforts of those who came before. Open systems has resulted in innovations in Linux to produce a better product. Closed systems has has resulted in innovations being stiffled at MS.

Linux now runs natively on the AMD64 platform flawlessly. Win XX does not have a stable, native 64-bit OS to date. Linux and BSD were taking advantage of the NX function of the latest AMD chips long before WinXPSP2. Linux and OSS have adopted and embraced all the standards including OpenGL and XML from their conceptions. Windows still has not embraced OpenGL except to allow its use for other programers.

MS is the one not innovating. Open Systems have proven themselves as a catalyst to innovation. To illustrate, the best --and least expensive-- flight simulator to date is cross-platform, standards-based, more realistic, has real-world interaction, user-extensible, user-programable and open source. It renders at higher resolutions with greater color depths and faster frame rates (YMMV) than the flight sim that claims to be the best --i.e., MS Flight Simulator which they bought from MicroProse, not an MS innovation anyway.

Linus and the entire Linux crew of programmers and the OSS community have innovated their way around every problem with solutions formed from open collaboration. The wheel is never re-invented but new --i.e., innovative-- ways of using the wheel have been discussed and implemented. MS is stuck in a rut because their solutions are limited to the brainstorming of those on the payroll. They try to re-invent the wheel and call it innovation but no one wants a square tire on their cars nor their Segways.

You say you are a programmer. Do you want a challenge? Come up with a brand new, innovative way to sort data that has not been used before. I believe that the quick sort, bubble sort, linear sort, etc. are all patentable even if the intelectual property owners --i.e., the persons who first thought of these ideas eons ago-- never did patent them. C'mon, man. Innovate!

My point is that re-using code is not a lack of innovation and that software patents stiffle technology and innovation because too much royalty would have to be paid to too many patent holders if I were to write, from scratch, an application to read, interpret, edit and write vCard data to and from a file or collection of files. Too many things that I need to do to accomplish that is already prior art. You try it and I can show you thousands of lines of code identical to yours in products that have shipped years ago even before the vCard standard was established and adopted.; Posted by: The King's Servant Posted on: 02/02/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use