Apple says OK to podcaster for use of the term "podcast"
Nov 30Can you own a word.
Well, according to the american patent office, you can. Its the most bizarro system I have ever seen , but it does exist. The original idea of patenting was to protect inventors from having their ideas stolen by others. But it has , thanks to a lowlife breed of patent layers, degraded into a parody of that original concept. Where once it was a proud institution to protect those who shone the light of progress into the future, it now is rapidly becoming a stuck hand-brake on the chariot of progress, with evil layers sucking up the fumes of the burning asbestos.
Because patenting is no longer about original idea's, its about going to court, getting a patent approved for the most ridicules thing and then suing everybody in a 300 mile radius if only they dare to THINK about your patent. And why ? As a source of income of course. Now if all of this was just to keep legal departments occupied, we would just give both parties sticks with pointy nails and tell them to get it over with. But patenting (in its sick and twisted form) is slowing down progress. Cause not only can you patent products, you can also patent idea's, concepts, even WORDS.
Apple tried to sue several company's a few months ago for the use of POD in their company name. Podcastready.com felt the burn, Ipodder had to switch its name and suddenly PODcasters where getting nervous. What if apple started sending around cease and desist letters to all of us too. Some thought to duck the bullet by changing the term Podcast to Netcast ( I think thats a lame word btw ) but they had good reason. Cause in the whole system you don"t HAVE to be right. Its just a matter who has the most layers, the most money, and the time and balls to fight it out in court. Who cares if the judge rules in your favor after you've sold your house to pay your legal fees.
So the question remained : Can you own a word ? Dave Gray decided not to wait for an answer. With the "pod-patent" in limbo he took some balsy action and wrote to Steve Jobs, sending him a letter in which he explained he would like to continue to use the word "podcast" and included a cheque of one dollar to cover those expenses. Now writing to Apple is like writing to santa. Sure he gets your mail .. but he never writes back… Or does he ?
The kid that got the letter back from Santa.
Surprise surprise when yesterday a letter popped into the mailbox from Apple where they sent him back his money and stated IN WRITING that they would not sue over the term PODCASTING. A ripple of rumor vaulted through cyberspace as the news was noted. This might have big repercussions for future court-cases and to the shows of many pod-casters who feature the word "podcast". Can we rest easy now ? I do not now, there are always legal loopholes in loopholes in loopholes, but the core of the story is : No matter who you are, where you live or what you do . It are those with the guts to be bold that get the rewards of the few.
Read the original post HERE , and related articles HERE.
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The epiphany of simplicity.
May 28Keep it simple.
If visitor statistics have proven one thing in the last few days, then it is that keeping it simple works best. A small article about configuring a Ubuntu workstation for grandma turned into a site-rush overnight. The moral of the story ? Linux is being presented as an operating system that is way to hard. Somehow I think that the one thing that is holding back de destribution of Linux desktops to the mainstream is … The Linux community itsellf.
Blame the community ?
Now don't get me wrong. Whenever I was in need of Penguin related information, I knew where to turn. Tons of forums, newsgroups and websites where jam packed with information. And they where more then happy to provide it …. Only .. it was presented in a way that was only comprehensible for “the inner circle of linus-ians “ They where friendly and nice, and the howto's started out pretty friendly and easy , but three posts later in the thread the learning curve had gone allmost vertical and they where talking Grep this and Ls that and what have you. When this sudden increase of complexity startled me and I asked or a little more directions I was redirected to another thread that dealt with that problem on its own. Its like asking somebody to help you because your car door is stuck, and as an answer they give you a manual in automechanics.
My wires are crossed.
Wireless support in Linux is a pitfall in that account. When it works out of the box , its fine , when it does not : You're screwed ! And this is sometimes the fault of the evil hardware manufacturers that don”t want to release their drivers (poor Linux heroes even reverse engeneer them to get it to work). But other times there IS a way to get it going, but you have to edit this, copy that, compile this , download that … AAArg ! By the time I have figured that out my laptop will be outdated anyway.
And once more all together : AUTOMAAAATIX !!!
An example that it CAN work is the famous automatix script, instead of posting a gigantic textfile with a complete list of applications you can make, they decided to script it in a little Gui so people could click and pick what they needed. Is it Linux-geeky cool : NO ? Would bash-brawlers frown upon this de-geek-i-fi-cation of technology ? YES .. Does it work ? Hell yes !
Strip the technobabble from the how-to and bring it down to playschool level : Copy this, past it there, click that. No pipes , no grep, no compile, no wget .. just copy paste and click. And the result : A newbie proof way that has done MORE for the linux community since its early rise a year ago , then pages and pages of “man” files have done in years. I'm not saying we don't need these because we do and they are a wonderfull work of patience and passion, but to somebody who just gets started .. they just don't work.
It can be for dumb people too.
And the other thing is : Using Linux does not mean turning it into some major command line operating system that will be able to run the planet should the white house ever decide to pull the 64 k of ram out of the presidents head. It can also mean using it for a simple system. Or a safe-surft computer. So you see my bearded linux-zealots ! Keep'in it simple is keepin it popular !
