Posts by Richard Plinston

Re: Well they want to stay relevant

> Two things happened at once: (a) there were fantastically cheap machines on the market which could do some of what the bigger ones could, and (b) the price drop meant there was a market 1,000 times bigger within a year.

What you have claimed to be 'at once' and 'within a year' were actually over a couple of decades.

Micro computers started to be available from the mid 70s. The initial IBM PC was just another micro that cost more than your car and was very limited compared to others already in the market (no hard drive, no networking, poor performance). It was only in the mid 80s that clones started making the pricing much cheaper and the market expanded.

> DEC could and should have aggressively sought to compete, rather than saying "This stuff is a pile of shite" and expecting the users to know the difference.

You obviously weren't around in the early 80s when DEC were selling their Rainbow PC systems.

Re: cut the crap, Linux is UNIX? @Flocke Kroes

> the SCO Group (which I will shorten to SCO, even though this is a bit of a misnomer)

The usual TLA is TSG.

> If anybody actually has any real idea about who owns the core Unix IP

It is unlikely that there are any protectable copyrights in Unix source code. The Novell-TSG case concluded that no IP had transferred from Novell to SCO. While they did phrase it as 'Novell owns the IP' there are many barriers to this actually being true: early Unix versions were not registered when it was a requirement; some versions were put into public domain; agreements between Unix Labs and the Regents of Berkley; many third party contributions that did not assign their copyrights.

For these reasons, and others, Novell did not attempt to collect together copyrights in order to sell them to SCO and instead simply stated in the Bill of Sale that they didn't get them.

Re: ownership

> then *clearly* the image should belong to the photographer. Anything else is just bonkers.

Copyright may belong to the 'photographer', or the employer, or the client, or to others depending on contracts, employment laws, or several other things, none of which are 'bonkers'.

Re: if cost == 0 then panic

> So in my considered opinion... the original photograph had no attributable copyright,

> and the work derived therefrom, having not had any significant work put into it in order to create it, would not have any copyright of its own and ipso facto the photograph is the intellectual property of no-one.

Your opinion, no matter how long you have considered it, is wrong.

First of all, the original photograph does have an automatic copyright no matter how much work was required to make the final image publishable. Secondly, this is irrelevant because it is unpublished and unavailable and the case is about the final work.

Re: if cost == 0 then panic

> Copyright is held by whomever made the arrangements (e.g. programmed, fed data) that gave rise to the images.

Or, more likely, their employer.

Re: if cost == 0 then panic

> That has already been covered lots of times, it is the photographer that setup the shot.

Or the photographer's employer. Do you think that several cameramen own the copyrights to movies?

Re: if cost == 0 then panic

> Imagine if the Patent Office got the same number of autopatents as ...

They'd be insane rich from the application fees and would do their usual autoapprove so that they kept the fees and the annual renewals. Any challenges would require fees to be paid for that. Business as usual then.

> Youtube get DMCA takedown requests

Now, if a fee was required to be paid for a takedown request ...

Re: Devil's Advocate

> No they don't, they exist to try to avoid the exploitation and/or abuse of people. Exploitation and abuse of animals is a separate issue.

In the past there were many peoples who were considered by europeans and americans to be animals and thus exploitation and abuse of them was a 'god given' right for white men. Which is why slavery existed.

Re: Devil's Advocate

> It isn't enough to simply be the owner of the camera,

The article asserts:

"According to US copyright law, the person who took the picture is the copyright owner –"

That is not true either. There are many situations where neither the owner of the camera, nor the person who took the picture, would own the copyright. For example one may hire a camera and employ a cameraman and still wind up owning the copyright, as is often done when making movies.

Usually, the employee will have a specific clause in the contract, but even without this it is 'work for hire' and the employer will own the copyright. As a general rule it is the owner of the film, or original storage media, that will own the copyright. This is true even in cases where an unpaid agent is used, such as in this case.

Re: I'm not paying extra for that crap

> Even if it melts down? What will you do then?

First you will have to explain how it will come about that _every_ maker will only make devices that have IoT and won't work without it. Then you will have to explain why some new startup won't come up with the idea of making a cheap low-tech device that does the same job.

Just because [most] mobile phones are now general purpose computers that send data home, this hasn't stopped cheap 'dumb phones' being made and sold.

Re: The vendors will drive IoT

> I can think of lots of reasons why this will happen. And that's just toasters.

Anyone can dream up simplistic and useless 'ideas', but that doesn't mean that there is a business case for implementing them.

> optimise energy usage

There are machines, such as washing machines, that delay operation until the electricity prices drop overnight. When I put bread in the toaster I want toast now, not at 3am. In any case there are machines with buttons for 2 slices or 4, settings for different brownness, what could it do to 'optimise' more than that?

Re: IoT vs Users

> They can buffer the data and send later. When the buffer is full, then the machine could stop working, or make you call an engineer to check why the vendor isn't getting "their" data.

They would take it back to the shop and demand replacement or their money back under the warranty.

Re: The vendors will drive IoT

> Consider a toaster with IoT connection. Now add an RFID reader and assume that bread vendors add RFIDs to each loaf.

Why would bread vendors add RFID? They may be cheap but they are a huge cost compared to a printed barcode on the packaging. In fact not all bread is in packaging at all.

> I know exactly how cheap to build my toaster so that it lasts just longer than the proscribed "warranty" period,

If devices failed so soon after the warranty expired then the consumer would buy a different brand next time.

> ie the length of time that most consumers keep their toasters for before replacing them,

You are suggesting that consumers replace devices merely because the warranty expired, or coincidentally on the same period. I very much doubt that is the case and is merely speculation on your part.

Re: I'm not paying extra for that crap

> No, they'll say the warranty is null and void because of user tampering

There will always be a number of devices that fail without 'user tampering'. The more parts it has, the more functions, the more failures will occur and the warranty must cover that. The more warranty claims the more cost.

> And since the government will be in on it, they'll be on the manufacturers' side.

The government of my country isn't "in on it" in any way. If the government of your country is then you probably deserve your fate. If that is the USA then I will only be sympathetic if you voted against the orange buffoon.

> The automotive market appears to disagree with your optimism.

I am not sure what you are thinking of. I can buy new cars that do not have 'connectivity', do not 'call home', do not have GPS even. I don't know of any car that limits what petrol it can use, nor where it is allowed to go.

John Deere did produce tractors which could only be serviced by their agents, but there is a lot of push back on that, through the courts even.

Re: IoT vs Users

> if they get the money back by monetizing their data for use as potential shopping habits

Complete nonsense. It may be possible to collect such data if there is a built in 'shopping list' that is used by the household, but a toaster can't tell what it is used for without having barcodes on the slices of bread. It can't tell what is spread on the toast. The fridges don't know what is inside it, or, more importantly, what is not inside it but should be - not unless the user enters that voluntarily on, say, a shopping list.

I am sure that some companies would like to build a toaster that is selective about what brands of bread it can toast (cf printers) and then charge the bread companies to be put on the list, but how do you identify the brand of bread ?

What about washing machines that are selective about what brand of clothes they wash? Ovens that will only cook food bought from specific supermarkets? I am sure that you and other conspirisists (is that a word?) will dream up much other stuff, but only fools would buy them.

Re: IoT vs Users

> As a comic book journalist once touted, "Paranoids are just people with all the facts."

I am not sure that 'comic book' counts as 'journalism'. But then conspiracy theorists will believe anything.

> Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean the world really IS out to get you.

Settle down, take a breath, and reread your messages. The actual quote is approximately:

"Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean the world really ISN'T out to get you."

It comes from Catch 22 by J Heller.

Re: I'm not paying extra for that crap

> It won't be cheaper because the cost to add the tat will be practically nil.

Just calm down, the ranting is obviously giving you a red mist you are starting to actually make sense: No, you are right, "it won't be cheaper". It will be more expensive because any added component will give rise to more warranty claims. If blocking the communication bricks the device then there will be class actions. The data collection will cost money which the buyer will have to pay for.

Re: I'm not paying extra for that crap

> I'll buy the cheaper, non-IoT equipment, thanks.

I won't even have to do that. My toaster is around 2 decades old and is not on the 'replace' list. If only IoT ones are available in the shops for some stupid reason then it will never be replaced.

> And if ALL the manufacturers are doing it, ...

... then some business will start making stuff without it specifically for the market segment that wants low-tech.

Re: "We can't avoid the IoT revolution by refusing to play part."

> So what happens when the inevitable happens and you need a new fridge and ALL of them are IoT-FORCED that brick if you disable or cage them?

I'll buy a different brand.

Re: "We can't avoid the IoT revolution by refusing to play part."

> with plenty of network technologies covered by patents (and they're genuine hardware-based patents),

Patents are intended to _stop_ other companies from competing. If one company holds a patent then no other company can use that mechanism without buying a licence and paying a royalty. You cannot force a company to use a patented mechanism.

> good luck trying to roll your own network chips from scratch to get around them.

If there is a market for devices that do not use those patented mechanisms then someone will build them, or import them from India.

Re: Left handed touch-typist

> why they think that the tab is <just wrong and stupid>.

Please qualify whether you are referring to the 'tab key' or the 'tab character', or is it the general concept of 'tabulating'.

> coding is boring enough without having to press a button 6 times over 1

If you believe that is ever necessary then get better tools or learn how to configure the ones that you have.

Re: Code-aware editor and diffs would be nice

> I do use 'diff -w'

I find that diffuse can be useful for identifying important changes while catering for ignoring irrelevant.

Re: My code won't run but the spaces are great

> you claim in this thread to have developed it along with wordstar.

To any competent reader it would be obvious that "(CP/M, Wordstar and others)" was an attribute or qualifier of "machines". In English, and other languages, placement within the sentence is significant.

Re: My code won't run but the spaces are great

> I never said that Space was rubbish meerly that redundant spaces are

The spaces that I use perform a particular function that I find superior to alternatives and are thus not 'redundant'. If you wish to operate in what I consider an inferior way then do that.

> "what about transmittion costs for capped data services"

There are tools that do compression and/or encoding for me when required. I don't try and second guess it.

> using blockreads to justify your added bloat when compression would for any large set would destroy your arguement is living in the past and not in a good way.

It was an argument that there may be other considerations to take into account rather than just following some dogma that you adopted on a BBC some decades ago, as you related. I constantly re-evaluate what gives me the best results. With databases I let them decide how to optimise.

> clearly you disagree with my opinion that creating bloat is a bad thing even though you also said the opposite.

It is called flexibility instead of having a fixed mindset that one solution fits all needs. The different 'solutions' were applied for different reasons with different tools.

> I am getting used to your duality of thinking, clearly you missed your vocation in the religion of your choice.

Religion is identified by having a particular unchanging dogma irrespective of any evidence, that seems to be you. 'Duality' is actually flexibility based on different or changing needs. You also are evangelising, another characteristics of a religion.

> I presume that this is you saying that you are aware that you are adding bloat but "it is the way things are done" so it is okay not to bother seeking improvement via innovation or thought.

It seems that it is you who have admitted to not seeking improvement since the 80s. You decided then that 'removing bloat' should be the top priority and it seems you haven't bothered to re-evaluate since. OTOH I have already given examples where 'bloat' gave an advantage and better tools avoided your objections.

Re: Code-aware editor and diffs would be nice

> I would like diff tools to ignore white space changes while also taking into account rescoping of blocks of code. E.g. I indent a block to b included in a for loop. I'd like the diff to show the block with its new indentation but only tell me that the surrounding for loop was added, not that all of it was deleted and replaced with th same code and some extra indentation.

man diff

-E --ignore-tab-expansion

Ignore changes due to tab expansion.

-b --ignore-space-change

Ignore changes in the amount of white space.

-w --ignore-all-space

Ignore all white space.

-B --ignore-blank-lines

Ignore changes whose lines are all blank.

-I RE --ignore-matching-lines=RE

Ignore changes whose lines all match RE.

--strip-trailing-cr

Strip trailing carriage return on input.

etc

Re: My code won't run but the spaces are great

> Yes you can change the keyboard repeat rate but the whole point was to move the cursor to the correct position without waiting too long, if you slow it down then you might as well mash it instead or type it all and indent afterwards both bad in their way.

You appear to be confused. The 'keyboard repeat rate' has nothing to do with anything. _My_ tools do auto-indent, block indent, do the right thing when the tab key and back key are pressed.

Your comments show a complete non-understanding of how others work.

> You seem to be avoiding KB is this a hold out to the old byte being other than 8 bits arguement? you see we all carry around conventions from when we started.

I certainly do not 'carry conventions from when _I_ started'. I have often reviewed and revised my procedures over the years. Tab characters were useful on BBCs and CP/M and you seem to be locked into that mindset from the 80s, as you related.

Re: My code won't run but the spaces are great

> just because you have a loads of storage does this mean you have to fill it with rubbish.

Spaces aren't 'rubbish', they perform a very useful function. In fact you probably have hundreds of space characters in your files: each side of an operator, between words in comments, etc.

Also, most source code files on disk do have 'rubbish' filling out the remainder of the final cluster (allocation unit). Changing spaces to tabs may save exactly zero disk blocks at all in the majority of files.

> The whole TAB/Space arguement to me smacks of complacency.

Bad spelling smacks of complacency too.

In my case it has been a deliberate choice that suits my needs best and my tools have been carefully chosen and configured to support that choice. For example I often generate source code from, say database schemas and screen designs, and process code in various ways. Tabs would cause complications and could lead to mixed code with leading spaces and tabs when processed code is added to hand written.

I don't care that you made up your mind on the BBC in the 1980s and have never changed. I review and revise my approach as I see fit.

> Yes you can do it either way but in computing removing redudancy should shout which is the _arrogant_ answer.

FTFY

In your code you will have both space characters and tab characters. I find the tab character is redundant because the tab key produces the appropriate number of spaces. If I actually need a tab character I can easily do that.

If you use Windows then you probably have 'redundant' carriage return characters following the line feeds.

> If everyone applied that "bit of thinking first" idea then there would not be any bloat at all, or just because you have a loads of storage does this mean you have to fill it with rubbish.

My experience is different, and more practical than yours. For example I found that access times on randomly accessed data files can be improved (by up to 30%) by making the 'record' size a multiple or sub-multiple of the physical block size as this reduced average number of block reads. This meant that 'rubbish' bloat is added to the 'record'. I'll take the performance improvement over saving a tiny amount of the disk storage available.

Re: My code won't run but the spaces are great

> So starting out on small computers perhaps gave me the idea that needless waste(bloat) was an anthema, perhaps it is a generation thing.

The first computer that I programmed for had 16Kwords (24bit) and 8megabyte disk drives (14 inch). I am well aware of avoiding needless waste. The first one that I had at home had 64Kb and 1megabyte 8inch diskettes on which I developed COBOL accounting and other systems for various clients. Compiles would run all night.

I also had BBCs and still have a couple here, a Master 512 and a B+.

> So if my code looks the same and works the same but uses less storage then why is that a bad thing.

I haven't cared about the difference in storage space between tabs and spaces for decades. I have dealt with code from many other programmers, some with mixes of spaces and tabs. I handle this by making it suit my style. My tools can easily bulk convert between tabs and spaces, so it is not an issue if the code was sent back to a 'tabber'.

One objection to spaces seems to be that 'tabbers' think that they have to hit the space bar don't seem to know that can be configured.

Re: "error in line 123, colum 43"

> (a) If you can't spot the error given a line number...

Is that the line number before the preprocessor was run or after ?

> When I press Tab, the editor inserts exactly three spaces. No more, no less.

Then you have very poor tools. When I press the tab key I get exactly to correct number of space characters required to get to the next tab stop. This may be 1, 2, 3 or 4 depending on the current position.

With at least one editor I have I can set the tab stops individually to any required positions and then the number of spaces inserted can be any number that is required to get to the next one.

Re: My code won't run but the spaces are great

> holding space until you go past and deleting to line up

Only if you are using poor or inappropriate tools, or haven't learnt how to configure them.

Re: My code won't run but the spaces are great

> using TAB to represent multiple indent spaces could determine if your code would fit in memory.

If you need to do that then you are not modularising the code sufficiently.

I developed complete systems on 64Kb machines (CP/M, Wordstar and others) without having to resort to compressing the code by having to use tab characters or shorter variable names or such (and it was COBOL).

Re: RPG/28 and RPG/400

> for people under 50

For people under 60, RPG goes back way before System 38. I encountered it on a Univac 1004 where the compiler was a plug board and a card pack.

Re: WGAFF??

> ancient wrists have better things to do than repeatedly bash the space bar.

I never understood why people think that one needs to 'bash the space bar' when the tab _key_ can produce the exact required number of space _characters_ (with appropriate editor settings).

If your editor cannot do that then get better tools.

> would argue that a server where Notepad is the only editor available is broken anyway...

and not only because it is running Windows.

> I tend to use tabs, because Makefiles demand it.

Most editors will have a simple 'insert special character' function. My editors are set to replace tab key with spaces to next tab stop and to show tab characters. For make files it only needs Ctrl-P Ctrl-I to get the required tab character. They show as a green block to indicate they are tabs, Thus I get the best of both worlds.

Re: Tabs are inconsistent...

> "Do I REALLY need an off-tab alignment?"

Tab stops originated on typewriters more than a century ago. The stops were physical tabs that were placed on a notched bar at the back of the machine at the points required by the typist. Later, card punch machines used a 'format card' that would be punched to give the required actions. In both cases the 'tab' key gave the number of spaces that was wanted. This is the correct way for all purposes.

I had an editor that catered for setting specific tab stops. The user could set the specific columns for a particular language or file type and the 'tab' key would go to the next tab stop. This was particularly useful for COBOL where the tab stops were 7,8,12,16,20,24,...73. Of course it inserted the necessary number of space characters to get there to prevent incompetent programmers from screwing up the code by using inferior tools and settings.

Re: Bah!

> What is correct and incorrect is decided by the system designer.

Then you don't understand what is meant by the term 'general purpose computer'. You want to have systems that are rigidly 'special purpose' and anything not specifically allowed by the 'designer' should be considered 'incorrect' and thus not allowed.