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A 25-year-old video patent just expired, ending a legal headache for Linux

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Re: A 25-year-old video patent just expired, ending a legal headache for Linux

#101

Post by throw_m239339 »

killerstorm wrote: post #72
ThrowawayTestr wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software patents, no. They're just evil.

Suppose you came up with AI algorithm which is better than transformers and such. Your options are: 1. publish it e.g. as a paper or open source, letting all big AI labs to use it for free 2. keep it secret Are you saying that it's evil to have a secret third option of making the algorithm public but forcing AI labs to share profit if they use it?

then keep it secret, someone else will discover it eventually.

Software patents are evil.

Re: A 25-year-old video patent just expired, ending a legal headache for Linux

#102

Post by anthk »

foobar1962 wrote: post #28
anthk wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now imagine what would happened if Euclid's books (and Newton's Principia) were Copyrighted until today.

That's confusing copyright with patents. The right to publish Newton's books is separate from being able to apply the knowledge which a patent protects. Note that math equations cannot be patented.

> Note that math equations cannot be patented.

RSA can if you equal factors to 0.

Re: A 25-year-old video patent just expired, ending a legal headache for Linux

#103

Post by anthk »

daneel_w wrote: post #97
BarryGuff wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I remember DivX fondly Now THAT'S a name I haven't heard in a long time. Yes, DivX was the sh*t back in the day. So good!

With emphasis on shit . Really. I can relate to the rose-tinted memories, but DivX and XviD both encode to MPEG-4 ASP which has a lot of shortcomings that manifestly result in the infamous sludgy green-purple banding artefacts of the time, no matter how good the chosen encoder is. XviD is the better of those two MPEG-4 ASP encoders, but it simply does not look good in an absolute sense, just in a relative sense compa…

At 1024x768, compared to my Nokia 14" CRT TV it looked good enough.

Re: A 25-year-old video patent just expired, ending a legal headache for Linux

#104

Post by anthk »

WalterBright wrote: post #58
robocat wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Socialism's track record is pretty bad However the track record for developed countries communally sharing "intellectual property" is much much better. Universities, open source, and public domain all have some crossover with the ideals of socialism. Yes, communism has repeatedly failed spectacularly. The softer socialism of public welfare has worked (so far) for many countries including the US. Although I'm skepti…

The Chinese switched from communism to free markets. Prosperity resulted.

Hybrid system, actually. No 100% pure system survived, ever. Be capitalist, communist, or technology philosophy bound. The GNU project tried to expand Unix with ITS editors (Emacs), utilities, ITS'like freedom and Lisp (Emacs and Scheme, again).

For a while the most used editor for Unixen wasn't vi or a vi descendant (vim), but Emacs, an editor alien to Unix. Knowing Vi was almost something 'mandatory' in order to manage servers' configuration under any Unix like OS, and ed on hard emergencies where even the terminal wasn't reliable enough.

Windows needs WSL2 and POSIX compat to be relevant today. Win32 itself doesn't run on top of a DOS like VM having almost a 95% of control of the machine, but on a VMS'like kernel with objects a la IBM.

MacOS itself it's just a Macintosh like UI made from NeXTStep scraps, a Mach kernel and pieces from a FreeBSD useland.

Re: A 25-year-old video patent just expired, ending a legal headache for Linux

#105

Post by close04 »

WalterBright wrote: post #58
robocat wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Socialism's track record is pretty bad However the track record for developed countries communally sharing "intellectual property" is much much better. Universities, open source, and public domain all have some crossover with the ideals of socialism. Yes, communism has repeatedly failed spectacularly. The softer socialism of public welfare has worked (so far) for many countries including the US. Although I'm skepti…

The Chinese switched from communism to free markets. Prosperity resulted.

> switched from communism to free markets

Free markets are a component of capitalism just as they are a component of market socialism. China is a planned economy which stands in contrast to a market economy. But China has taken bits and pieces from many systems to create something that works for them, a hybrid that's probably specific to China alone. It's just capitalist enough to be able to interface with big wallets around the world, but we can all agree China itself is very far from being free market capitalism.

Re: A 25-year-old video patent just expired, ending a legal headache for Linux

#106

Post by close04 »

daneel_w wrote: post #97
BarryGuff wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I remember DivX fondly Now THAT'S a name I haven't heard in a long time. Yes, DivX was the sh*t back in the day. So good!

With emphasis on shit . Really. I can relate to the rose-tinted memories, but DivX and XviD both encode to MPEG-4 ASP which has a lot of shortcomings that manifestly result in the infamous sludgy green-purple banding artefacts of the time, no matter how good the chosen encoder is. XviD is the better of those two MPEG-4 ASP encoders, but it simply does not look good in an absolute sense, just in a relative sense compa…

> just in a relative sense compared to the alternatives of the era

This is common sense. Nobody thinks the original iPhone is revolutionary today, but they do think it was revolutionary for the time.

Re: A 25-year-old video patent just expired, ending a legal headache for Linux

#107

Post by manarth »

Brendinooo wrote: post #95

What other tech patents did we somewhat resent being patented that are now expired? I'm also thinking about the click wheel; I got one of my kids a knockoff iPod for Christmas last year. Can other e-commerce sites legally "one-click" to purchase like Amazon now?!?

  > "Can other e-commerce sites legally "one-click" to purchase like Amazon now?"
Amazon doesn't use one-click any more. The closest it gets is "Buy now", which is two clicks from item page to purchase.

Re: A 25-year-old video patent just expired, ending a legal headache for Linux

#108

Post by goodcanadian »

Certhas wrote: post #54
senshan wrote: post #20

Brazil? Why a Brazilian patent is of such a significant interest elsewhere?

Presumably it's an "international patent" filed in Brazil. You don't have to file your patent in every jurisdiction. There have been treaties for recognising each others intellectual property rights since the late 19th century and Brazil has been part of these from the start. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parties_to_internation...

So, I recently learned about this from my company's patent lawyers. Patents only give protection in countries where they are filed. So, you can not create a product in Brazil that violates a Brazilian patent. And, you cannot import a product into Brazil that violates that patent. But, there is nothing stopping you from making that product in the US and selling it to Americans. The whole treaty business essentially means that most countries have roughly equivalent laws and you can file the same patent in multiple countries if you are willing to pay the fees. What countries you pay to file in then becomes a commercial decision.

Re: A 25-year-old video patent just expired, ending a legal headache for Linux

#110

Post by WalterBright »

PowerElectronix wrote: post #69
robocat wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Socialism's track record is pretty bad However the track record for developed countries communally sharing "intellectual property" is much much better. Universities, open source, and public domain all have some crossover with the ideals of socialism. Yes, communism has repeatedly failed spectacularly. The softer socialism of public welfare has worked (so far) for many countries including the US. Although I'm skepti…

As I see it, fully voluntary socislism where people share and cooperate because they just feel like it, works exceedingly well. It also naturally regulates itself as people will just abandon stuff that looks iffy and work extra on stuff that is well run, fair, etc When you force people to pitch, share, cooperate, etc, things start to don't work out so well and you start getting people that takes advantage of a system…

Free markets are based on voluntary cooperation. Socialism is coercive cooperation.
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