A week ago Thursday, I spoke about software patents and intellectual property to the Twin Cities CocoaHeads developer group. This was my first significant presentation on the topic and I was concerned about how it would be received: developers have a very low opinion of patent law, even worse now in light of recent events regarding Lodsys and Macrosolve. I’m delighted to say that everything went brilliantly! In fact, one of the most active participants later admitted that he had expected to sleep through the presentation. The presentation itself went extremely well: we had a fully engaged audience, lots of questions, and provided valuable information on a difficult topic. But more than that, I learned a great deal about presenting this topic to developers.
Software patents for developers
In Memory of Steve Jobs
I really didn’t think I would be that affected by Steve Job’s passing, but it turns out I was wrong.
When I first got interested in computers it was 1979; I saw an Apple II in school and I *knew* I had to learn how to make it do amazing things. That was it, I was hooked; and it was an Apple product. When I got my first computer, a Heath/Zenith Z-90 running CP/M computer and BASIC-80, my first mission was to make it do all the things the Apple II could do; that shows just how much of an impression the Apple II made on me. (Thanks Steve)
iOS 5 beta 7 – Where did my music go?
Apple seems to have bobbled their latest iOS 5 beta release: after updating my iPhone 4 last night, the Music app is no longer able to play any music or audio books. Whenever I try to play a track, it shows the player, scans the albums track names, and returns to the album listing. It seems like it is unable to find the track.
I have two important points on this:
- It is beta software.
- This is pretty unusual for Apple to have such a glaring error in a late beta.
To be certain, I am not complaining; this is news-worthy since it helps others who are trying to diagnose or resolve the same problem. To anyone who does complain about this, please kindly recall that it *is* a beta release. Apple warns everyone before they downloaded, installed, or updated. If we have grown accustomed to nearly ready-for-primetime betas from Apple, we should consider how difficult that feat is and how well Apple normally handles it. Still, I’m looking forward to iOS 5 beta 8 and the opportunity to continue listening to Brian Greene’s “Fabric of the Cosmos” (or I can load it on another device).
Addendum: You can easily solve this problem by removing and reloading the audio.
Charlie Miller interview on “hacked batteries …”
Tom’s hardware has an interview with Charlie Miller on “hacked batteries, cloud security, and the iPad”. It’s worth reading.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/charlie-miller-battery-hack-security,2996.html
Whitehouse supports Patent Reform
This afternoon, President Obama address some remarks to the nation.
For more complete coverage, the original article can be found at: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2011/08/watch-live-obamas-latest-debt-ceiling-address/40711/
One gem which was pointed out by Article One Partners (thanks) was:
Through patent reform, we can cut the red tape that stops too many inventors and entrepreneurs from quickly turning new ideas into thriving businesses — which holds our whole economy back.
This is encouraging; well, it’s better than going unnoticed; but the truth is that national politics of full of great ideas and intentions but has a few problems in the delivery department. (Didn’t someone once say that they road to Washington was paved with good intentions?)
It was a politician’s speech and I don’t really expect changes as a result of one sentence; but here’s the questions: How do we go about making this happen? How do we tell Obama we appreciate the sentiment and we would like to know what he is going to do to address the issue?
Food for thought.
Defensive patents
I read an article earlier today, “By Definition, A Defensive Patent is a Bad Patent”, http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110729/03340615311/definition-defensive-patent-is-bad-patent.shtml.
To be clear, I am a software entrepreneur; I believe in innovation, in collaboration, in sharing knowledge. I like to think I come from the same philosophical mold as the original MIT hackers (in the original sense of the word) and I believe we are all better off when we expend our mental capital addressing meaningful and challenging problems instead of figuring out how we will protect our intellectual property. I also grew up with the ideals of the patent system: that it was designed to protect, foster, and encourage innovation. I have spent an astonishing amount of time trying to reconcile these viewpoints; and I have succeeded in realizing that it can’t be done. At least, it can’t be done with today’s patent system. So, I really understand the belief that patents are bad, evil, horrible things; that they represent the old order, the people who are willing to backstab society for their own greed.
Except that it isn’t that simple.
Timothy Lee’s “Disruptive economics” blog on Forbes has a post, “The Supreme Court should invalidate Software Patents”, http://blogs.forbes.com/timothylee/2011/07/28/the-supreme-court-should-invalidate-software-patents/
It’s a good post and I recommend reading it. I agree with Tim’s reasoning and logic but I ultimately disagree with his conclusion.
This American Life: When Patents Attack
This week the “This American Life” radio show on MPR aired the following story. It’s good to see that this is getting some wider coverage.
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack
Transcript: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/sites/default/files/TAL441_transcript.pdf
And http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/07/26/138576167/when-patents-attack
This American Life published an audio exposé on the problems of software patents and the current abuses of the patent system; it talks about how the patent system is failing business and preventing innovation; including:
- Patent system abusers
- Patent “trolls” & sham companies
- The role of Intellectual Ventures
- East Texas
- Bad patents
- Issued on obvious concepts
- Overly broad
- Written for attorneys, not engineers
- Negative impact on innovation
- David Martin of M-CAM, http://www.m-cam.com/, speaking on patent searches and the rampant similarity of thousands of patents.
App store download folder
Where, oh where, did my download go?
Apple was nice enough to put a debug menu in the OS/X App Store. To enable this menu, launch terminal and enter the following command:
defaults write com.apple.appstore ShowDebugMenu -bool true
Restart the App Store and you get the following:
App Store Debug Menu
I’m not sure how useful rest of the menu will be, but the second item is a little gem entitled “Show download folder”; I really learned to appreciate this when my Xcode 4.1 download failed and I had to delete the incomplete download before re-trying.
In case your wondering, after upgrading to Lion, my download directory was:
/private/var/folders/vl/1k3h6k9s1g1gnkpkn1579mm40000gn/C
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/07/patent-trolls-drive-app-developers-u-s-market, Julie Sameuls, EFF
Julie Samuels of the EFF reports on a significant problem: developers choosing not to sell apps because of fear of law suits. “…Lately we’ve seen a disturbing new trend: patent trolls targeting app developers. … It should come as no surprise then to hear reports that developers are pulling their apps from the U.S. app stores.”
