4 ms·

Ah, so they jus waiting until their patents expire ? Or maybe they waiting until some needed-by-them patent expire ? Look: MS did not manufacture mouses until

by Woodi 5y ago

Ah, so they jus waiting until their patents expire ? Or maybe they waiting until some needed-by-them patent expire ? Look: MS did not manufacture mouses until mouse patend got famous for making no money. And then it was global must to have. It was impossible to make singleton in C++ in 200x but atomics was described in literature (even in SICP) and only when patent expired Intel made it everyday tool... Patents should be automatically invalidated before half human life time is wasted.

SAI_Peregrinus 5y ago
IMO patents should have mandatory FRAND (Fair, Reasonable, And Non-Discriminatory) licensing. With higher (2x?) license fees allowed if a working prototype has been submitted to the patent office instead of just a design. Incentivize new inventions, but keep profits fair. Incentivize working designs over on-paper ideas. Promote the progress of useful inventions over rent-seeking.
rasz 5y ago
>MS did not manufacture mouses until mouse patend got famous for making no money MS started making mice in 1983 when they released Word.
- Woodi 5y ago
  And how this detail is relevant to this discussion ?
  - rasz 5y ago
    MS decision to make mice had zero to do with any patents. They simply had no products utilizing them before Word.
h0l0cube 5y ago
> It was impossible to make singleton in C++ in 200x but atomics was described in literature (even in SICP) and only when patent expired Intel made it everyday tool I'm curious about what you mean here. Are you taking about an atomic compare and swap operation? I'm sure these have been implemented in processors back as far as the 90s, if not earlier.
- Woodi 5y ago
  Yep, atomics was implemented earlier but, as far as I know, they was patented and only after patent expired Intel put them in. So, how many years it take to "popularize" atomics ? Ten, 20 years ?
  - h0l0cube 5y ago
    I suppose multi-threading wasn't a huge problem for most applications. But I'm not sure how a mutex could ever be properly implemented in a multithreaded environment without an atomic compare and swap, but they've certainly been a thing for a very long time. In terms of atomics as a assembler intrinsic, I think that only became popular when intrinsics started being supported in C compilers, but I doubt the patent was holding that back - unless you know different?

by Woodi 5y ago

SAI_Peregrinus 5y ago

IMO patents should have mandatory FRAND (Fair, Reasonable, And Non-Discriminatory) licensing. With higher (2x?) license fees allowed if a working prototype has been submitted to the patent office instead of just a design. Incentivize new inventions, but keep profits fair. Incentivize working designs over on-paper ideas. Promote the progress of useful inventions over rent-seeking.

rasz 5y ago

>MS did not manufacture mouses until mouse patend got famous for making no money MS started making mice in 1983 when they released Word.

Woodi 5y ago
And how this detail is relevant to this discussion ?
- rasz 5y ago
  MS decision to make mice had zero to do with any patents. They simply had no products utilizing them before Word.

h0l0cube 5y ago

> It was impossible to make singleton in C++ in 200x but atomics was described in literature (even in SICP) and only when patent expired Intel made it everyday tool I'm curious about what you mean here. Are you taking about an atomic compare and swap operation? I'm sure these have been implemented in processors back as far as the 90s, if not earlier.

Woodi 5y ago
Yep, atomics was implemented earlier but, as far as I know, they was patented and only after patent expired Intel put them in. So, how many years it take to "popularize" atomics ? Ten, 20 years ?
- h0l0cube 5y ago
  I suppose multi-threading wasn't a huge problem for most applications. But I'm not sure how a mutex could ever be properly implemented in a multithreaded environment without an atomic compare and swap, but they've certainly been a thing for a very long time. In terms of atomics as a assembler intrinsic, I think that only became popular when intrinsics started being supported in C compilers, but I doubt the patent was holding that back - unless you know different?