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Here's a choice for you all: (1) copyright as the IP protection for software, with cleaned up laws and procedures about "insignificant changes" and "derivative

Here's a choice for you all: (1) copyright as the IP protection for software, with cleaned up laws and procedures about "insignificant changes" and "derivative works" -- or -- (2) the current patent aystem, post CLS Bank, which has eliminated a lot of business method patents and some, but not all, software patents.

mikece 4y ago
Is there anything about Unix -- then or now -- which is unquestionably better than Linux? And if yes, are the Linux versions of the features or capabilities a significant enough constraint to warrant using Unix instead? It seems that certain networking and NAS applications are measurably better on Unix (Netflix is still a big using of FreeBSD caching servers iirc) but can't Linux close the gap?
- AlbertCory 4y ago
  interesting but not what I asked
  - simonh 4y ago
    It’s a heady picture because there were many Unixes. Most were me-to and fairly generic for the most part, but some had novel capabilities in specific areas. IRIX for graphics, Solaris for Zones and ZFS, but none of them had everything. Often what was special was down to proprietary hardware.
- PeterWhittaker 4y ago
  Well, that very much depends on the UNIX in question. If one defines UNIX as POSIX, then, for the most part, or at least a pretty good part, Linux IS UNIX, because Linux implements much of POSIX, and in some cases does it better, e.g., certain functions for which POSIX is quiet or negative about thread safety are thread-safe on Linux, and there are almost always TS versions, e.g., strtok_r. Outside of POSIX, one has to conside OS specific features, two of which come to mind as superior, though this is a judgement call: Solaris Zones and Mac OS. I was a Linux desktop user for years, but I found that over time the desktop just started getting in my way (this was tennish years ago, so I am sure things have changed). I’d curse how gnome or KDE had once again broken my UX, then I’d help my wife or daughter with their Macs, enjoy the experience, the curse when I got back to my machine. One day, after a particularly frustrating battle with whatever desktop I had then (I’d gone from Ubuntu to Mint to Debian to I cannot remember what, trying to find the sweet spot), I cursed, yelled that I would be back in 90 minutes, and bought my first Mac. They’ve been a joy to use since. If Apple does something stupid, e.g., stopping at an old, brain dead bash, well, homebrew, et al, to the rescue. Solaris Zones were wicked. One could get full MAC with labelled networking and restricted root with ease. It’s finally possible to get close to Zones with a mix of capability management, namespace management, SELinux, et al, but not as easily. So, yeah, there are individual UNIXisms that are better than Linux, but overall, at least on the server side, Linux is UNIX improved.
  - lizknope 4y ago
    I've been using XFCE for about 15 years. It feels like nothing has changed during that time and I think that is one of its best features.
    - dredmorbius 4y ago
      That's a major benefit of numerous older desktops. XFCE is one of my own fallbacks (I usually prefer WindowMaker), though fvwm, twm(!), the boxes (open-, black-, flux-, hacked-, etc.), tiled WMs, etc., are all perfectly serviceable. Some may look* vaguely dated, but tend to be rock stable and blazingly fast. XWinMan is still live, I find: <http://www.xwinman.org/ http://www.xwinman.org/>
      - lizknope 4y ago
        I'm not sure what window manager was on AIX in 1991 on an RT. Maybe it was twm. That is the first time I used Unix / X11. When I started college in 1993 our default environment was mwm but I quickly switched to vtwm and had a really cool setup. I switched to AfterStep because I loved the NeXTSTEP look and used that and WindowMaker for 10 years before moving to XFCE.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Some Unices come with things that Linux can technically do, but they were built-in, not bolt-on. ZFS is an example of one that's recognizable, you can bolt it onto linux and it (now) works quite well, but it was integrated much more into Solaris. There are also Unix platforms that fully support hot-swappable just about everything, which you CAN do with Linux but it's not as simple. Most of that stuff is gone by the wayside now, Linux is "good enough".
  - lonelygirl15a 4y ago
    I seem to recall that Sun put ZFS under a license that has been deemed incompatible with the GPL by pretty much everyone except Canonical, and so that it can't be integrated with the kernel but must remain a "bolt-on" for legal reasons. It won't surprise me if one of these days Oracle decides that Canonical is a ripe lawsuit target over ZFS.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      Yeah, but even if bolt it on (which Ubuntu does for you, any other distro it's easy to do) it's still a "bolt-on" that doesn't integrate as fully as it could if it were the native filesystem, allowing full system rollback, snapshotting, boot management, etc. It's similar to the "polish" available on macOS or Windows, Linux has all the pieces but you have to assemble them yourselves, even today.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      Why would they if they haven't already? It's not like Canonical has a lot of money. But, yes, anyone else who Oracle might actually elect to sue won't go anywhere near ZFS.
      - bombcar 4y ago
        Likely because they want to keep that powder dry until someone with deep pockets gets involved, Microsoft, or IBM or someone. Because there's a moderate change that it goes against them.
- fsckboy 4y ago
  > Is there anything about Unix -- then or now -- which is unquestionably better than Linux? back when, unices were better at real multiuser, while linux was much faster at all sorts of I/O and CPU bound things in the personal-computer, single login context. Like massaging massive amounts text data (which everybody was doing to webify it), linux was blindingly fast, but don't trying to do much else at the same time, it would bring your machine to its knees.
JohnFen 4y ago
> with cleaned up laws Which one I'd pick depends a whole lot on what those "cleaned up" laws consist of. But generally, this looks like an exercise in determining which is the lesser evil.
- AlbertCory 4y ago
  "No IP protection for software at all" is your position, then?
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    No, that's not my position. Given the legal frameworks we have available, copyright is the right direction, IMO. Patents seem entirely inappropriate. But US copyright law is a royal mess and is not really a great tool. It needs to be reformed -- but as the last copyright reform demonstrated, not all reform is an improvement, so my position is that ultimately where I'd fall between those two choices depends on what, exactly, copyright laws look like.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    For proprietary software you could have licenses. In fact, the reason that IBM first licensed some of its software for the IBM/360 was that it was unclear at the time whether software could be copyrighted. However, absent copyright, it would probably be impossible (IANAL but have talked to lawyers about these topics) to enforce any usage provisions on open source software where you haven't explicitly agreed to a license. (Open source licenses basically give you rights that you wouldn't otherwise have under copyright law.)
    - AlbertCory 4y ago
      See above comment: the question is not "what does copyright law say now?" but "is some variation of that appropriate as a replacement for patents?" In other words, all options are on the table. We're assuming that Congress does its job, for once, and being that they're politicians, they do sometimes respond to public pressure.
nordsieck 4y ago
> (1) copyright as the IP protection for software, with cleaned up laws and procedures about "insignificant changes" and "derivative works" -- or -- I'd go with this. But ideally with a 10-20 year limit on copyright[1]. I do think that there are some software patents (RSA, for example) that seem worthwhile. But the system as a whole seems like it does more harm than good. --- 1. My ideal proposal for copyright is exponentially increasing fees (after a short initial grace period) for a linearly increasing time period. But that seems like several bridges too far.
- B1FF_PSUVM 4y ago
  IP paying property taxes would be nice. Could even let owners set the value, if it were coupled to licensing fees etc.
  - AlbertCory 4y ago
    Note that there are maintenance fees for patents, which are non-trivial. they're every 4 years, though.
- AlbertCory 4y ago
  thanks. please note that whatever a lawyer says about copyright law now is usually limited to what the courts have said plus the latest statutes and what judges are likely to rule. The topic for today is harder: it's what should copyright law for software say? We're assuming that Congress does its job for once. The lawyers will never do it. Don't like it that Disney had a forever copyright on Mickey Mouse? Me neither, but that's because copyright law is one-size-fits-all. The proposal is a carve-out where software law is different than literary. So property taxes or shorter terms are definitely on point. "Which Unix is better" is not.
ok_dad 4y ago
Whatever choice "zero patents for software" is. Already, no one shares their code, which would be in the spirit of the patent system. The patent system is designed to keep the design details open and public, but gives a legal monopoly to the holder of the patent. Currently, companies can write software implementations that are completely closed and secret, but still hold a patent for whatever the "thing" that algorithm does. Clicking one button to check out? Patented, and I still don't know what the detailed code implementation looks like from Amazon. The patent itself only shows the most simple, rudimentary steps as block diagrams. The most open software we have is that which is unencumbered by patents!
- AlbertCory 4y ago
  This is actually the topic of the first of (planned) four posts on software. For you lawyers, it's section 112.

mikece 4y ago

Is there anything about Unix -- then or now -- which is unquestionably better than Linux? And if yes, are the Linux versions of the features or capabilities a significant enough constraint to warrant using Unix instead? It seems that certain networking and NAS applications are measurably better on Unix (Netflix is still a big using of FreeBSD caching servers iirc) but can't Linux close the gap?

AlbertCory 4y ago
interesting but not what I asked
- simonh 4y ago
  It’s a heady picture because there were many Unixes. Most were me-to and fairly generic for the most part, but some had novel capabilities in specific areas. IRIX for graphics, Solaris for Zones and ZFS, but none of them had everything. Often what was special was down to proprietary hardware.
PeterWhittaker 4y ago
Well, that very much depends on the UNIX in question. If one defines UNIX as POSIX, then, for the most part, or at least a pretty good part, Linux IS UNIX, because Linux implements much of POSIX, and in some cases does it better, e.g., certain functions for which POSIX is quiet or negative about thread safety are thread-safe on Linux, and there are almost always TS versions, e.g., strtok_r. Outside of POSIX, one has to conside OS specific features, two of which come to mind as superior, though this is a judgement call: Solaris Zones and Mac OS. I was a Linux desktop user for years, but I found that over time the desktop just started getting in my way (this was tennish years ago, so I am sure things have changed). I’d curse how gnome or KDE had once again broken my UX, then I’d help my wife or daughter with their Macs, enjoy the experience, the curse when I got back to my machine. One day, after a particularly frustrating battle with whatever desktop I had then (I’d gone from Ubuntu to Mint to Debian to I cannot remember what, trying to find the sweet spot), I cursed, yelled that I would be back in 90 minutes, and bought my first Mac. They’ve been a joy to use since. If Apple does something stupid, e.g., stopping at an old, brain dead bash, well, homebrew, et al, to the rescue. Solaris Zones were wicked. One could get full MAC with labelled networking and restricted root with ease. It’s finally possible to get close to Zones with a mix of capability management, namespace management, SELinux, et al, but not as easily. So, yeah, there are individual UNIXisms that are better than Linux, but overall, at least on the server side, Linux is UNIX improved.
- lizknope 4y ago
  I've been using XFCE for about 15 years. It feels like nothing has changed during that time and I think that is one of its best features.
  - dredmorbius 4y ago
    That's a major benefit of numerous older desktops. XFCE is one of my own fallbacks (I usually prefer WindowMaker), though fvwm, twm(!), the boxes (open-, black-, flux-, hacked-, etc.), tiled WMs, etc., are all perfectly serviceable. Some may look* vaguely dated, but tend to be rock stable and blazingly fast. XWinMan is still live, I find: <http://www.xwinman.org/ http://www.xwinman.org/>
    - lizknope 4y ago
      I'm not sure what window manager was on AIX in 1991 on an RT. Maybe it was twm. That is the first time I used Unix / X11. When I started college in 1993 our default environment was mwm but I quickly switched to vtwm and had a really cool setup. I switched to AfterStep because I loved the NeXTSTEP look and used that and WindowMaker for 10 years before moving to XFCE.
bombcar 4y ago
Some Unices come with things that Linux can technically do, but they were built-in, not bolt-on. ZFS is an example of one that's recognizable, you can bolt it onto linux and it (now) works quite well, but it was integrated much more into Solaris. There are also Unix platforms that fully support hot-swappable just about everything, which you CAN do with Linux but it's not as simple. Most of that stuff is gone by the wayside now, Linux is "good enough".
- lonelygirl15a 4y ago
  I seem to recall that Sun put ZFS under a license that has been deemed incompatible with the GPL by pretty much everyone except Canonical, and so that it can't be integrated with the kernel but must remain a "bolt-on" for legal reasons. It won't surprise me if one of these days Oracle decides that Canonical is a ripe lawsuit target over ZFS.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Yeah, but even if bolt it on (which Ubuntu does for you, any other distro it's easy to do) it's still a "bolt-on" that doesn't integrate as fully as it could if it were the native filesystem, allowing full system rollback, snapshotting, boot management, etc. It's similar to the "polish" available on macOS or Windows, Linux has all the pieces but you have to assemble them yourselves, even today.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    Why would they if they haven't already? It's not like Canonical has a lot of money. But, yes, anyone else who Oracle might actually elect to sue won't go anywhere near ZFS.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      Likely because they want to keep that powder dry until someone with deep pockets gets involved, Microsoft, or IBM or someone. Because there's a moderate change that it goes against them.
fsckboy 4y ago
> Is there anything about Unix -- then or now -- which is unquestionably better than Linux? back when, unices were better at real multiuser, while linux was much faster at all sorts of I/O and CPU bound things in the personal-computer, single login context. Like massaging massive amounts text data (which everybody was doing to webify it), linux was blindingly fast, but don't trying to do much else at the same time, it would bring your machine to its knees.

JohnFen 4y ago

> with cleaned up laws Which one I'd pick depends a whole lot on what those "cleaned up" laws consist of. But generally, this looks like an exercise in determining which is the lesser evil.

AlbertCory 4y ago
"No IP protection for software at all" is your position, then?
- JohnFen 4y ago
  No, that's not my position. Given the legal frameworks we have available, copyright is the right direction, IMO. Patents seem entirely inappropriate. But US copyright law is a royal mess and is not really a great tool. It needs to be reformed -- but as the last copyright reform demonstrated, not all reform is an improvement, so my position is that ultimately where I'd fall between those two choices depends on what, exactly, copyright laws look like.
- ghaff 4y ago
  For proprietary software you could have licenses. In fact, the reason that IBM first licensed some of its software for the IBM/360 was that it was unclear at the time whether software could be copyrighted. However, absent copyright, it would probably be impossible (IANAL but have talked to lawyers about these topics) to enforce any usage provisions on open source software where you haven't explicitly agreed to a license. (Open source licenses basically give you rights that you wouldn't otherwise have under copyright law.)
  - AlbertCory 4y ago
    See above comment: the question is not "what does copyright law say now?" but "is some variation of that appropriate as a replacement for patents?" In other words, all options are on the table. We're assuming that Congress does its job, for once, and being that they're politicians, they do sometimes respond to public pressure.

nordsieck 4y ago

> (1) copyright as the IP protection for software, with cleaned up laws and procedures about "insignificant changes" and "derivative works" -- or -- I'd go with this. But ideally with a 10-20 year limit on copyright[1]. I do think that there are some software patents (RSA, for example) that seem worthwhile. But the system as a whole seems like it does more harm than good. --- 1. My ideal proposal for copyright is exponentially increasing fees (after a short initial grace period) for a linearly increasing time period. But that seems like several bridges too far.

B1FF_PSUVM 4y ago
IP paying property taxes would be nice. Could even let owners set the value, if it were coupled to licensing fees etc.
- AlbertCory 4y ago
  Note that there are maintenance fees for patents, which are non-trivial. they're every 4 years, though.
AlbertCory 4y ago
thanks. please note that whatever a lawyer says about copyright law now is usually limited to what the courts have said plus the latest statutes and what judges are likely to rule. The topic for today is harder: it's what should copyright law for software say? We're assuming that Congress does its job for once. The lawyers will never do it. Don't like it that Disney had a forever copyright on Mickey Mouse? Me neither, but that's because copyright law is one-size-fits-all. The proposal is a carve-out where software law is different than literary. So property taxes or shorter terms are definitely on point. "Which Unix is better" is not.

ok_dad 4y ago

Whatever choice "zero patents for software" is. Already, no one shares their code, which would be in the spirit of the patent system. The patent system is designed to keep the design details open and public, but gives a legal monopoly to the holder of the patent. Currently, companies can write software implementations that are completely closed and secret, but still hold a patent for whatever the "thing" that algorithm does. Clicking one button to check out? Patented, and I still don't know what the detailed code implementation looks like from Amazon. The patent itself only shows the most simple, rudimentary steps as block diagrams. The most open software we have is that which is unencumbered by patents!

AlbertCory 4y ago
This is actually the topic of the first of (planned) four posts on software. For you lawyers, it's section 112.