Salon.com has an article remembering Rich Stevens, whose influence is still treasured a year after his death.

Salon.com has an article remembering Rich Stevens, whose influence is still treasured a year after his death.

From humor site Segfault.org: “As a female surrounded by male geeks and on the way towards becoming a female one myself I am forever being asked that unvocalised question that eternally burns in the breast of every sock- and sandal-wearing techie who has ever stared at a half naked Pentium chipset, namely: Are geeks sexy? That is to say: Could a woman get linear with a man who knows his Linux?”

Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina will next week unveil the firm’s mainframe-class Unix server, codenamed Superdome. HP’s support for multiple, partitioned operating systems will find favour with firms wanting to consolidate multiple servers and applications into a single high-availability unit. HP’s Superdome will provide another alternative to Sun’s UltraSparc II-based systems, especially the top-end E10000. Sun’s Serengeti UltraSparc III systems will be released on 27 September, according to a story from IT Week.

Thanks to a collaboration with Linux.com’s Tuneup section Sandlab.org, an Italian news site recently opened a Linux zone where all Italian users will be able to read the Linux.com’s tips translated in Italian. — Submitted by Div By Zero

From a Los Angeles Times story about a shortage of electronic components: “At the heart of this shortage are prized commodity parts used in multiple industries. In part because of the popularity of music-swapping services such as Napster, laptop computer buyers demand the ability to create their own CDs from downloaded music. But the disk drives needed to download music from the Internet onto a personal CD depend on tiny components that also are sought by the booming cell-phone industry.”

Governments around the world must allow the evolution of the Internet to remain largely unfettered by regulations if its full potential is to be realized, according to a report released Friday by an Internet analysis group. The U.S. Internet Council’s “State of the Internet 2000” report addresses numerous global issues facing the future of the Web, such as the need to close the digital divide, encouraging online education, protecting personal privacy, limiting government intervention and the revolution in wireless communication. CNN.com’s story.

By Grant Gross
Managing Editor
Two Internet veterans want U.S. patent reform to start with a free, Web-based database of patents and with the creation of “antipatents,” which would give credit for non-patented inventions while preventing corporations from later claiming the idea.

In their essay “Transparent Patents,” released Sept. 1, Media.org co-founders Rebecca Hargrave and Carl Malamud pitch several new strategies to the growing chorus of voices calling for patent reform.

The two even suggest the U.S. Supreme Court should nullify the “thousands of bad patents that have been issued for business methods.”

“One of the frustrating things about people advocating changes in the patent laws is they don’t understand that a great deal of damage has been done,” Malamud says in a separate interview. “Thousands of patents have been awarded. The Supreme Court … can certainly declare property to have been improperly granted in the first place. This is crucial to reverse the damage.”

Management bureaucracy

Many Open Source advocates have been calling for patent reform for years, saying the current system has allowed large corporations to patent thousands of inventions that are unworthy, unoriginal, or already in the public domain.

“The problem with our patent system is not clueless examiners,” Hargrave and Malamud write. “The problem is a classic management bureaucracy coupled with an environment changing at the pace of Internet time. The current system is no surprise. The Congress has given the Patent Office a charge to make money … Patent examiners are on quotas to produce more patents, not better patents.”

They add: “Look at the question of obvious patents. How could they possibly be issued? Corporations filing a patent have no incentive to do a search of the prior art. To do so would only uncover inconvenient facts. Patent examiners … do searches, but do not have the tools at their disposal to systematically find prior art relating to a proposed patent. They operate behind a wall. We can’t see in, they can’t see out. The system is not transparent.”

“Clueless” patents and antipatents

The pair advocates an easier-to-use database to replace the current fee-based patent system, which can cost several thousand dollars for the full feed. The loss of revenues would be replaced by the cheaper, Web-based distribution of all patent information, they say. “Patents are the fuel for a marketplace of ideas, not some database product to be sold to the highest bidder.”

The authors also want a formal system for people to register their “antipatents.” The process needs to be centralized enough so that those seeking bad patents cannot avoid it, Malamud says.

“Antipatents are simple, a registration mechanism for your open-source inventions,” the two write. “Taking the time to document the antipatent prevents some clueless corporation from making it their property. Perhaps a handsome certificate, suitable for framing, can be sent with each antipatent for a modest fee.”

Hargrave and Malamud also call for a formal way for the community at large to shout down “clueless patents.” “Many people have suggested a period of comment by examiners or Slashdot-like community discussion,” Malamud says. “We believe the right way to do this is a series of area editors who systematically combined the literature and compare it to patents. Then Slashdot-style commentary makes sense.”

The two say these ideas could work in conjunction with those Open Source advocates calling for a total overhaul of patents laws or those saying patents are being improperly issued and the Patent Office should chance its procedures.

Momentum building

Malamud, who’s been advocating patent reform since 1993, says he believes those calling for change aren’t just tilting at windmills. “The momentum is building,” he says. “Our hope is that one or both of our presidential candidates picks this up … Our hope is that the Internet, instead of just sitting around and flaming, organizes itself and starts a coherent, strategically considered campaign to change the laws.”

Army officials this week awarded the Maxi-Minis and Database-1 contracts to GTSI Corp. of Chantilly, Va., and IBM Corp. The contracts include 64-bit Unix servers, workstations, operating systems, compilers, software, and LAN and WAN hardware and software. Ordering should begin by mid-November, if no vendors file protests within 10 working days of the Aug. 29 award, GCN reported.

From a Salon.com story: “Grant Bayley sees no reason to heed the recent U.S. District Court ruling that banned Eric Corley, aka Emmanuel Goldstein, publisher of hacker magazine 2600, from distributing a DVD-decrypting program. After all, Bayley lives in Australia, out of reach of the U.S. judge, which is why you might think that he would never stop linking to the forbidden DeCSS program from the Web site of 2600 Australia, a hacker collective that he organizes, and which, despite the name, is unaffiliated with Corley’s venture.”