Windows 2000 & Windows NT 4 Source Code Leaks

[scottyman]

yeah - I can agree with you on that point - it's starting to get very silly now.
I was going through some of my g/f's documents seeing what lawsuits they have outstanding - it's surprising how many companies are issuing patent suits over what could be considered prior art.
It holds very disturbing implications for the future, and it's an issue that can only be resolved by professional (as opposed to legal) review of all outstanding patent cases.
If this happens, then hopefully there would be more of an impetus to (i suppose) start acting more sensibly over copyright, patent and source-code issues.

[revol68]

i fail to see were a drive for reviewing these patents will come from, the governments are fully behind the large companies and as for a professional review well i oppose all forms of private property and i can't imagine a professional review proclaiming "property is theft". Basically its a sad that so much research (in all fields not just programming) is done to produce a profit not to actually advance the science and that lots of people are all competing with each other instead of sharing their collective knowledge.

Actually the award for pure hypocrisy regarding copyright must go to the sharman group for filing against the makers of kazaa lite. No shame at all.

[Stoo]

Hmm, as the dust is beginning to settle it appears that this really isn't much of a big deal, and seems more and more like a ploy to shift people over to windows server 2003 etc.

[Spud1]

no, linux hasnt proven the 'superiority' of open source, mearly that open source is a valid method of software development. However, this world currently works on a system where money is the main focus, and open source is mainly none profitable. Without money you cant get far in this world - thats the whole reason for windows etc. Its not for kudos etc, but for money. So intellectualy rights are valid, if they are your ideas, you want credit for them

(ps i hope this is readable, i'm quite drunk atm - i'll probly come correct this in the mornin )

[Anders]

... well i oppose all forms of private property ...

Are you saying you oppose all forms of private property or am I misreading what you wrote? You must have some things that you consider yours and that you would not like someone else to take from you? You got a car? I need one of those right now. How about your computer, your house or your clothes?

With a view to intellectual property rights, it is interesting to look at how much innovative software comes out of countries where intellectual property rights are not allowed, such as communist countries, not a lot in my opinion.

As for drugs and pharmaceutical companies, who would be doing the hugely expensive research into new drugs if it was not these companies? Without some form of patents for their drugs these companies would not be able to make profits from the drugs, hence no research. Now it is certainly not moral to deny African countries and those who cannot afford the drugs treatment, but as I said before, no patents would equal far fewer pharmaceutical companies.

I do agree that some companies are taking patents and other form of intellectual property rights too far. This is just as much a fault with (US) laws as it is with anything else though. There are just so many ridiculous law suits these days.

[revol68]

no mofo y'all gotta share one tooth brush and a spud

Private property is different from possesions, by private property i mean the means of production, the control of resources not ur computer. For example u own a house, u live in it fair enough however u own 6 houses live in one and rent the other 5 out to make a living, those 5 houses are what i mean by private property. And no most people would not include lending ur mate ur xbox for a fiver as private property.

Anyways that is a very long debate with lots of grey areas to be looked at but this is a thread on a forum so ill not try and update Das Kapital right now

as for ur point about a lack of inovative software coming out of communist countries well i don't know enough to confirm or refute that, however i do know that its quite hard to be innovative whilst the Secret Police are breathing down ur throat (im thinkin of china here) i also know that the chinese government is a great believer in private property even if they do have a fondness for red. I also know that by no account is china communist but again that is another book. Intellectual property rights are upheld in china btw otherwise all our favourite western brands wouldnt be having all their sh*t made with close to slave laboor in ole red china.

Also there is some very good medical research coming out of Cuba which is being made largely possible by the absence of intellectual property rights.

As for the idea that people only carry out innovative research if they can monopolise it for profit, well that is true of the companies but isn't true of the actual researchers. So what we need is someway of organising the researchers and innovators that bypasses the ceo's and shareholders.

Answers on a postcard.

For a useful site on alternative economics go here.

http://www.parecon.org/

[Anders]

Right, I did not know there are different definition of private property and possessions. I do find it hard to see where you draw the line between private property and possessions? It is indeed a colossal debate.

You are correct that China is a very repressive country and that it embracing some parts of capitalism. Piracy is rampant in China and only token gestures are made to enforce Intellectual Property rights. A Chinese programmer living in China would have a seriously hard time protecting any program they created under Chinese law. The lack of Intellectual Property rights laws and enforcement does stifle software development in China.

I am interested in this Cuban medical research. How is it funded? On what sort of scale does the research take place? Has it produced many usable drugs?

Companies will only fund expensive research if they can make a profit out of it. Agreed, many scientists do their work for the love of their science, despite what the some sections of the media might have us believe about "evil science and scientists". Unfortunately that "love" does not create state of the art facilities for them to work in. These have to be built some how.

On the source code leak: I read that the leak represents about 15% of the whole Windows source code. This was from the BBCi News WAP pages. I do not think it made it clear which flavour of Windows represented "the whole" though (e.g. 2000 or NT).