Posts by julian 18 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Jun 2007
Great Point: The Library Associations quote could come directly out of the mouth of Wesley Mouch.
It is a very interesting invention and like most patents will not create a monopoly on its own. It would be nice to see that - like a number of other dominant companies making huge investments, before anyone else and taking the risks – this one also provides the appropriate rewards to the risk taker.
The levy is unjustifiable.
Taxing media for every individual who uses it to back up or transfer his/her own data and for companies using recordable media to legitimately sell their own software or other digital product is totally unfair. It also allows the artists to collect twice from consumers who will soon be able to purchase and download movies and music to burn to recordable media.
This tax, unfair to date, is even less appropriate in the digital age where blank media has many many uses.
Get rid of it.
Over the last few years it has become increasingly more painful to enter the US and is as bad as it was in the 80's. The main difference is that the Immigration officials are on the whole pretty pleasant now - though I did encounter one jumped up no hoper making up for his little one recently - even though the queues are up to 1.5 hours.
However it seems to be reciprocal and many of my US friends are finding entering the UK is getting increasingly difficult with queues of up to 3 hours and quite officious officials.
I guess travelling is just getting harder so the greens should be happy.
A little unfair linking Gates with Ellison and Allen.
Apart from a large house, which as a fraction of his wealth is like my living in a cardboard box, he does not appear to have all the other luxury toys and dedicates most of his time AND MONEY to charity. It appears to me that Ballmer lives even more modestly and they put the Google guys -with their fights over company planes, Ellison et al to shame.
Not that I am against spending anyone spending their hard and rightfully earned money in any way they like. It's just considering the bashing he often gets here, I'd just like to see Gates noted for his (undeniably) good side.
Is Google serious with it's comments for "a free choice of search products that was not influenced by Microsoft operating systems".
How much of the search market do Google have? How much do they care about personal data and treating customers reasonably? A little competition would be great.
Google is certainly the most effective search engine and I use it all the time (as does almost everyone I know).
However I do avoid many of their other services as I am not overly keen on having any of my data stored on the servers of a company who thinks its mission is summed up by "do no evil" and therefore can do anything it likes. [Sounds like the early days of most every dictator on the planet.]
I am surprised that Google is still considered so benign considering the ire that any mention of id cards, databases or any other records that the UK government wishes to keep is mentioned on The Reg.
Finally I thought the excerpt of DiBona's posting made him seem quite childish.
I agree with The Reg on this one.
I like both Bond and Bourne films. Though I feel that Matt Damon's comments are somewhat misguided if not completely daft.
The Bond films have been going for many years and they seem to follow their (very lrge and worldwide) audiences' appetites (otherwise they wouldn't be making them). Certaily Roger Moore's bond films are not the same as Daniel Craig's
Matt Damon might have well have said 60's bands are rubbish because they wrote music in the 60's for ther time and audience.
Greg, your post is certainly amusing. Though I am not sure it is the use of the chips that is illegal if you buy them unaware that they are fake (though it may still be). But the production and sale almost certainly imfringes trademark, copyright and various other IP protection (I would hate to say patents in case that stirs up the whole should we patent shouldn't we?)
A bit like I bought this legal Gucci zip why can't I do with it what I like and buy a fake handbag to add to it? It's a lot cheaper.
Google is a really great company and has made the internet an easier place to navigate. Their valuation and wealth creation are directly related to this and their brand and market size keep small competitors well out.
However I do wish they'd stop whining so often. I almost expect to hear next that to accomodate all their new employees they need a bigger campus but they don't have the land: so property rights must be unfair so they can just grab all the space around them
I wonder how they feel about other IP such as trademarks: I'd like to create a seach company and call it google; it's not fair that someone else has registered it.,
Is a code of practise really necessary?
Surely this is similar to someone conatcting a high street store and saying they know a way of disabling their shutters. They will not disable their shutters but will tell everyone how to do it if the store doesn't pay up
Or even; I know a bunch of people who'd like to smash up your office if you don't pay me not to tell them. That's called protection.
If Jared had been contracted by LinkedIn to find bugs that's one thing but he didn't do that.
At the moment printer manufactures make their money selling ink. The printers are cheap. This is a little like playstation and games or cell phones and contracts.
If printer manufacturers can no longer make money from ink they'll charge more for the printers. No one wins
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