Microsoft Patent attack fended off

[Jook_roberts]

Re: Microsoft Patent attack fended off

Even now, with their profit engine threatened, they are flooding the country with emails making absurd claims about Universal Health Care, which is scaring poorly informed Americans into protesting improvement in the health care industry which would benefit ALL Americans.

No, I live in Canada.

I have heard about the USA insurance companies spreading FUD about universal health care. We have had it forever and it is good, not perfect, but good.
Base facts: All people are covered, rich, poor, sick and healthy. There is no spending limit. We can see any doctor we want.
Yes, we have waiting periods for some surgeries/treatments. Generally it is not that bad and it is always highest need first.
Eg stitches for a bad cut or broken arm - a few minutes to a few hours.
Cancer treatment – treatment should start within a few weeks after diagnosis.
MRI – will be scheduled after all other cheaper solutions fail (This bugs.)

If you have money and decide not to wait, you can always use the American pay for system. It is an option, but I don’t know anyone who has ever done this.

Outside of our hospitals, basically all our doctor’s offices are private clinics, but they bill the government not the patient. All the patient has to do is produce a health card to prove you are a Canadian.

We don’t fix things up here either.
We still have a copyright law that was brought out with cassette tapes. It is supposed to be replaced with something else, hopefully not something like yours!

[Ole Juul]

Re: Microsoft Patent attack fended off

Jook_roberts: It is supposed to be replaced with something else, hopefully not something like yours!

Yes, and the "American" copyright lobby gets first dibs at consultation behind the scenes. I won't go into the details of that common scenario. There is actually a bright light in that world at the moment. A Canadian law professor is championing the concepts of openness and consultation by using the power of the internet. It is working amazingly well. Check out Michael Geist, if you haven't heard of him. http://www.michaelgeist.ca/index.php This is the central place to keep up on developments relating to copyright and internet law in Canada.

By the way Jook, it looks like there is a 24 hour extension on submissions to the Copyright Consultation so you still have time! I got mine in.

[Jook_roberts]

Re: Microsoft Patent attack fended off

it looks like there is a 24 hour extension on submissions to the Copyright Consultation so you still have time! I got mine in.

I just submited mine, Thanks!

[GreyGeek]

Re: Microsoft Patent attack fended off

LOL

Never mind that UNIX and UNIX based OSs have been modular ever since their conception! Oh, and never mind that a modular windows does not even exist yet

Actually, under the hood, for what I heard, they started using BSD code around year 2000 (coincidentally, around that time they improved their stuff considerably). Of course, I never liked the BSD license because it is susceptible to this kind of abuse.

For a long time you could read the copyright notice concerning the BSD TCP/IP stack in the Windows subdirectory, which Microsoft modified to use in Windows. It is amazing how a company without THOUSANDS of programmers could take well written code and turn it into pure, bug ridden, infection prone crap.

[Ole Juul]

Re: Microsoft Patent attack fended off

It is amazing how a company without THOUSANDS of programmers could take well written code and turn it into pure, bug ridden, infection prone crap.

The bad code is, of course, a thoroughly considered choice on their part.

Thousands sounds unlikely though, I mean how many MicroSoft programmers does it take to... ? Two! One to steal the code, and one to make it incompatible.

OK... maybe I'm going too far. (couldn't resist) The fact is that most MS employees, including programmers, are probably very competent, and likely good human beings to boot. The problem is with the structure of the company. The whole operation of the company is beholden to the shareholders. The logical extension of that knowledge is that for all practical purposes, it is effectively the shareholders who are doing the programming. I honestly believe that the shareholders are more interested in a return on their investment than in the quality of the code that the company produces. That of course is very wrong, but unfortunately acceptable in our society. Until that changes, I would not expect any improvement in the code.

[undisputed]

Re: Microsoft Patent attack fended off

I have heard about the USA insurance companies spreading FUD about universal health care. We have had it forever and it is good, not perfect, but good.
Base facts: All people are covered, rich, poor, sick and healthy. There is no spending limit. We can see any doctor we want.
Yes, we have waiting periods for some surgeries/treatments. Generally it is not that bad and it is always highest need first.
Eg stitches for a bad cut or broken arm - a few minutes to a few hours.
Cancer treatment – treatment should start within a few weeks after diagnosis.
MRI – will be scheduled after all other cheaper solutions fail (This bugs.)

And its more or less the same here in the UK. WTF do Republicans call it "socialist medicine"? The NHS here isn't without its problem but the key thing is that it is free at the point of service.