11 ms·

DR-DOS was a clean-room reimplementation of MS-DOS. Linux is a reimplementation of unix. Fender guitars work remarkably like Gibson guitars. The steering mechan

by cturner 11y ago

DR-DOS was a clean-room reimplementation of MS-DOS. Linux is a reimplementation of unix. Fender guitars work remarkably like Gibson guitars. The steering mechanisms on Masdas are the same as Mercedes. Nothing wrong with it. If you don't allow people to copy interfaces - where does that end? Does that mean that APIs should be protected from being copied?

ayi 11y ago
You are totally right and i'm against patenting such obvious design choices like Apple's patent for "slide to unlock" and "glass with rounded corners". I'm not defending MS, just trying to explain the rationale behind this situation because the article is pretty shallow.
icanhackit 11y ago
The steering mechanisms on Masdas are the same as Mercedes. That's an interesting point in more than one way. Forgive me if I'm stating the obvious but Mercedes is a high-end car manufacturer while Mazda chiefly serves cars to the middle-class and in the case of the Mazda 2 - this generation's People's Car. By aggressively protecting designs then only the rich (well, Mercedes isn't super high-end but it's an aspirational brand) can adopt new technologies, which means the markets for new technologies are tied to the speed at which wealth increases (that includes the rate at which adoption at the high-end subsidises the cost at the low-end). It stunts the speed at which we advance collectively.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  It's a good illustration of the general point - progress is driven by how many independent eyeballs we can have looking at the problem. Any form of limiting access to knowledge or technology limits progress in that domain.
  - mhuffman 11y ago
    This is a very important point, because the original intent of copyrights and patents was not for corporations or people to get rich, but, "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." The entire purpose of copyright and patent is to promote progress. It has transformed into a capitalistic weapon that corporations use to muscle competition and slow progress.
  - throwawaykf05 11y ago
    The flaw in this line of thought is that patents don't limit access to knowledge or technology. Quite the opposite, in fact. What they do limit is commercializing of knowledge or technology without license.
    - AnthonyMouse 11y ago
      > The flaw in this line of thought is that patents don't limit access to knowledge or technology. Quite the opposite, in fact. What they do limit is commercializing of knowledge or technology without license. So they don't limit access to knowledge or technology, they just limit commercializing of knowledge or technology. Because technology that can't be commercialized (and therefore obtained or used) is what people want? If someone has a patent on X then there is no competition for the production of X, so the patentee can charge higher prices, so fewer people will be able to afford X. If someone has a patent on X then there is a greatly reduced incentive for anyone else to improve X, because the original patentee can prohibit you from selling your improvement unless you give them an arbitrarily large share of your profits.
      - throwawaykf05 11y ago
        >So they don't limit access to knowledge or technology, they just limit commercializing of knowledge or technology "Without license." > If someone has a patent on X then there is no competition for the production of X, so the patentee can charge higher prices, so fewer people will be able to afford X. Right, because the hundreds of thousands of patents on various aspects of smartphones are consistently making them more and more expensive as time goes on. > If someone has a patent on X then there is a greatly reduced incentive for anyone else to improve X, because the original patentee can prohibit you from selling your improvement unless you give them an arbitrarily large share of your profits. Sure, they can ask for arbitrarily large shares of profits, but that's when you move to a lawsuit, where there are more concrete limits on what can be demanded as royalties. However, lawsuits are highly expensive and risky to both parties (even patent trolls risk having their patents invalidated), so there is a strong incentive to find a middle ground.
DanBC 11y ago
An electric guitar is a slab of wood, some pickups, some controls, some outputs, some strings, a neck, some frets, a head, some tuning pegs, and a couple of pegs for the strap. But even with this small number of elements there are many differences between Gibson guitars and Fender guitars. The obvious difference is the shape of the head. Gibsons tend to have a spade shaped head with three pegs each side. Fenders tend to have a scroll shaped head with all six pegs in a line. The screen shots supplied in this thread are much harder to tell apart.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- nanny 11y ago
  >An electric guitar is a slab of wood, some pickups, some controls, some outputs, some strings, a neck, some frets, a head, some tuning pegs, and a couple of pegs for the strap. I think that's his point. The things you listed are the interface, and the differences lie in Gibson's and Fender's implementations of that specific interface.
  - DanBC 11y ago
    But there's nothing else to a guitar. There's a bunch of stuff to a spreadsheet, and the interface is how most users will access those features. When the interface is nearly identical it's a problem. It's a bit more complicated here because Corel are apparently following MS instructions about how the interface should look.
maxerickson 11y ago
I didn't find them with a few quick searches, but it's highly likely that the early electric guitars had design patents attached to them (there's lots of guitars since that have had design patents issued).
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
AnthonyMouse 11y ago
> If you don't allow people to copy interfaces - where does that end? Does that mean that APIs should be protected from being copied? That is what I don't understand about people who argue that APIs should be copyrightable. It's like they don't see where the end is. The reason competitors want to copy an API is because it's inherently necessary for compatibility. That need has nothing to do with how good the API is. It exists even if the API is terrible. And APIs all chain together. General Electric makes steam turbines. Your power company uses them to generate electricity. If GE (by analogy) controls the API then all power plants on the same grid have to use GE turbines. Your house connects to that grid, so you have to use a GE breaker panel in your house. It has its own API, so you also have to use all GE appliances. If you want to charge your Macbook or iPhone at home then you had better hope that GE has a deal with Apple, and that they don't cancel it when GE enters the computing market. When they do you'll need a GE phone which will need a GE wireless carrier that will only serve GE websites. Now you can't buy anything from Amazon because you can't get there from here, you have to buy it from GE, and they only sell GE products. And so it goes. Who are the people signing up for that world?
- rayiner 11y ago
  > The reason competitors want to copy an API is because it's inherently necessary for compatibility. That need has nothing to do with how good the API is. It exists even if the API is terrible. The other way to look at it is that people want to copy an API to extract value from a market or ecosystem someone else did the hard work of creating, without investing the resources into creating their own.
  - AnthonyMouse 11y ago
    > The other way to look at it is that people want to copy an API to extract value from a market or ecosystem someone else did the hard work of creating, without investing the resources into creating their own. And why is that supposed to be a problem? You would prefer the world where Apple needs GE's permission to sell an iPhone that can charge from a GE power outlet? Ecosystems don't need owners.

by cturner 11y ago

ayi 11y ago

You are totally right and i'm against patenting such obvious design choices like Apple's patent for "slide to unlock" and "glass with rounded corners". I'm not defending MS, just trying to explain the rationale behind this situation because the article is pretty shallow.

icanhackit 11y ago

The steering mechanisms on Masdas are the same as Mercedes. That's an interesting point in more than one way. Forgive me if I'm stating the obvious but Mercedes is a high-end car manufacturer while Mazda chiefly serves cars to the middle-class and in the case of the Mazda 2 - this generation's People's Car. By aggressively protecting designs then only the rich (well, Mercedes isn't super high-end but it's an aspirational brand) can adopt new technologies, which means the markets for new technologies are tied to the speed at which wealth increases (that includes the rate at which adoption at the high-end subsidises the cost at the low-end). It stunts the speed at which we advance collectively.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
It's a good illustration of the general point - progress is driven by how many independent eyeballs we can have looking at the problem. Any form of limiting access to knowledge or technology limits progress in that domain.
- mhuffman 11y ago
  This is a very important point, because the original intent of copyrights and patents was not for corporations or people to get rich, but, "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." The entire purpose of copyright and patent is to promote progress. It has transformed into a capitalistic weapon that corporations use to muscle competition and slow progress.
- throwawaykf05 11y ago
  The flaw in this line of thought is that patents don't limit access to knowledge or technology. Quite the opposite, in fact. What they do limit is commercializing of knowledge or technology without license.
  - AnthonyMouse 11y ago
    > The flaw in this line of thought is that patents don't limit access to knowledge or technology. Quite the opposite, in fact. What they do limit is commercializing of knowledge or technology without license. So they don't limit access to knowledge or technology, they just limit commercializing of knowledge or technology. Because technology that can't be commercialized (and therefore obtained or used) is what people want? If someone has a patent on X then there is no competition for the production of X, so the patentee can charge higher prices, so fewer people will be able to afford X. If someone has a patent on X then there is a greatly reduced incentive for anyone else to improve X, because the original patentee can prohibit you from selling your improvement unless you give them an arbitrarily large share of your profits.
    - throwawaykf05 11y ago
      >So they don't limit access to knowledge or technology, they just limit commercializing of knowledge or technology "Without license." > If someone has a patent on X then there is no competition for the production of X, so the patentee can charge higher prices, so fewer people will be able to afford X. Right, because the hundreds of thousands of patents on various aspects of smartphones are consistently making them more and more expensive as time goes on. > If someone has a patent on X then there is a greatly reduced incentive for anyone else to improve X, because the original patentee can prohibit you from selling your improvement unless you give them an arbitrarily large share of your profits. Sure, they can ask for arbitrarily large shares of profits, but that's when you move to a lawsuit, where there are more concrete limits on what can be demanded as royalties. However, lawsuits are highly expensive and risky to both parties (even patent trolls risk having their patents invalidated), so there is a strong incentive to find a middle ground.

DanBC 11y ago

An electric guitar is a slab of wood, some pickups, some controls, some outputs, some strings, a neck, some frets, a head, some tuning pegs, and a couple of pegs for the strap. But even with this small number of elements there are many differences between Gibson guitars and Fender guitars. The obvious difference is the shape of the head. Gibsons tend to have a spade shaped head with three pegs each side. Fenders tend to have a scroll shaped head with all six pegs in a line. The screen shots supplied in this thread are much harder to tell apart.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
nanny 11y ago
>An electric guitar is a slab of wood, some pickups, some controls, some outputs, some strings, a neck, some frets, a head, some tuning pegs, and a couple of pegs for the strap. I think that's his point. The things you listed are the interface, and the differences lie in Gibson's and Fender's implementations of that specific interface.
- DanBC 11y ago
  But there's nothing else to a guitar. There's a bunch of stuff to a spreadsheet, and the interface is how most users will access those features. When the interface is nearly identical it's a problem. It's a bit more complicated here because Corel are apparently following MS instructions about how the interface should look.

maxerickson 11y ago

I didn't find them with a few quick searches, but it's highly likely that the early electric guitars had design patents attached to them (there's lots of guitars since that have had design patents issued).

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

AnthonyMouse 11y ago

> If you don't allow people to copy interfaces - where does that end? Does that mean that APIs should be protected from being copied? That is what I don't understand about people who argue that APIs should be copyrightable. It's like they don't see where the end is. The reason competitors want to copy an API is because it's inherently necessary for compatibility. That need has nothing to do with how good the API is. It exists even if the API is terrible. And APIs all chain together. General Electric makes steam turbines. Your power company uses them to generate electricity. If GE (by analogy) controls the API then all power plants on the same grid have to use GE turbines. Your house connects to that grid, so you have to use a GE breaker panel in your house. It has its own API, so you also have to use all GE appliances. If you want to charge your Macbook or iPhone at home then you had better hope that GE has a deal with Apple, and that they don't cancel it when GE enters the computing market. When they do you'll need a GE phone which will need a GE wireless carrier that will only serve GE websites. Now you can't buy anything from Amazon because you can't get there from here, you have to buy it from GE, and they only sell GE products. And so it goes. Who are the people signing up for that world?

rayiner 11y ago
> The reason competitors want to copy an API is because it's inherently necessary for compatibility. That need has nothing to do with how good the API is. It exists even if the API is terrible. The other way to look at it is that people want to copy an API to extract value from a market or ecosystem someone else did the hard work of creating, without investing the resources into creating their own.
- AnthonyMouse 11y ago
  > The other way to look at it is that people want to copy an API to extract value from a market or ecosystem someone else did the hard work of creating, without investing the resources into creating their own. And why is that supposed to be a problem? You would prefer the world where Apple needs GE's permission to sell an iPhone that can charge from a GE power outlet? Ecosystems don't need owners.