http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/2006/11/tolerance_2.html

Another post on Intellectual Property for y'all.

So recently Microsoft and Novell did a deal whereby they will collaborate and cooperate to make SUSE Linux and Windows work better together. Importantly it also provides for patent indemnity for users of SUSE Linux and non-commercial contributors to SUSE (and by proxy other Linux distros).

So you'd think this would be a good thing, right?

Well it seems that the chunk of the open source community have their knickers in a twist over it.

I guess, to a degree, it all comes down to whether you support software patents or not. Now this is indeed a highly controversial area, but, as a talented software developer I fail to see why innovation in our field should be any less deserving of patent protection than say engineering or biotechnology.

Yet that's what the folks on the Samba team seem to be suggesting. Their opinion isn't just that open source software and patent rights do not go together, for the MS/Novell deal shows that they quite happily do. Instead they are quite vehemently opposed to software patents altogether.

Now I'm not always a huge fan of those enforcing their so called rights (see here on trademarks and parallel importing for example) and we should certainly be discussing and criticising the bredth of some of the patents that have been awarded by IP offices around the world- software and business process patents being the worst examples in many cases. But, a few bad apples or a bad interpretation of scope does not render software patents bad, per se.

We have patents for a reason, to encourage and reward innovation. They are a VERY powerful right to be able to enforce and as such we should be careful when awarding them, but, I really struggle to see why software should be any different to any other technological pursuit- people should be rewarded for genuine innovation. 

I taught some classes recently for Vista app compat readiness.

One of the key things you need to ensure your app does for Vista is take advantage of Windows Error Reporting.

This means you MUST NOT just swallow all exceptions with your own exception handling.

A couple of quick tips around this.

1. If you want to rethrow an exception with the original stack trace do a blind throw like this

try

{
...
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
DoFoo();
throw;
}

Note that we don'te append the exception variable onto the throw.

You can avoid any .NET dialog boxes and throw unhandled exceptions straight to WER by using this line of code.

Application.SetUnhandledExceptionMode(UnhandledExceptionMode.ThrowException);

I'm having some interesting discussions here:

http://www.vorb.org.nz/ftopicp-1055971.html

about the laws surrounding parallel importing. Specifically as they relate to the territorial exhaustion of trade marks. May be interesting for some of you PoliTechLaw-ites

http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?nzgg

Sign the online petition requesting that the GG decline to give his royal assent to the recently passed validation bill.

Bernard Darnton of Darnton v Clark Fame... is auctioning off a framed Pledge Card to support the case... some good comments on there too...

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=73761184

Well not really a little boy, more like a crusty old man...

But he waits and waits... by the phone for your donation to his *whip around*....

Such is the financial desperation of the Labour Party now that Mike Williams on National Radio decided that rather than answering the questions he would try and organise a whip around... and advertise his new 0900 LABOUR HAS TO BEG phone number....

I laughed my ass off so hard. This is great. THis is truely a magnificent day... smarmy bloody Mike Williams on National Radio with his begging bowl.

The solution is simple, the whip around should be around the Labour MPs for twas they that incurred the spending.

So I plugged the tablet PC into the hardwire. Vista asked me what sort of network it was Home, Work, Public and within 60 seconds it had grabbed all the drivers I needed t get WiFi going. A totally painless experience.... even the UAC-A-Mole was less conspicuous.

But, so far impressed.... more to follow- brain fart styles.

I just installed Vista on my VERY lowly specced Tablet PC (Centrino 1Ghz Ultra Long battery Life Panasonic Toughbook)... and bugger me if Vista isn't screamingly fast on it. At least as fast as XP. Vista suddenly seems really usable... and ready to hit the shelves! *rubs hands with glee*

No Aero Glass of course due to a basic Intel Video card. But who cares. Vista still looks amazing on it.

I'm about to scoot off to bed to play with it for a bit... got a big gym session in the morning.

No WiFi drivers yet so off to plug into my hard wire and see if Windows Update gives me any love....

Google now has a Code specific searching mechanism...

“

Syntax and Examples (more about regexp syntax)
regexp	Search for a regular expression go{2}gle  hello,\ world  ^int printk
"exact string"	Search for exact string "compiler happy"
file:regexp	Search only in files or directories matching regexp file:\.js$ XMLHttpRequest  file:include/ ioctl file:/usr/sys/ken/slp.c "You are not expected to understand this."
package:regexp	Search packages with names matching regexp. (A package's name is its URL or CVS server information.) package:perl Frodo  package:linux-2.6 int\ printk
lang:regexp	Search only for programs written in languages matching regexp lang:lisp xml  lang:"c++" sprintf.*%s
license:regexp	Search only for files with licenses matching regexp. license:bsd int\ printf   -license:gpl heapsort

“”

20 minutes is too long to wait. it really is painful listening to elevator music for that long.

The crazy thing is...

Once someone answers (in this case Philipa) the service is just totally fantastic.

And of course Telstra Cable Broadband eats ADLS for breakfast... it is just so nice not having to use crappy old twisted copper.

So, Telstra, find a few more Philipa types and boost your call center numbers up a bit.