On Patents - <AUTHOR> http://notch.tumblr.com/post/27751395263/on-patents <comment><USER4> _If you own a software patent, you should feel bad._

Even as someone who feels we should be rid of software patents, I cannot for the life of me understand this statement.

I can believe, philosophically, that relatively high tax rates will benefit a society. That doesn't mean that, even in so believing, I wouldn't do my utmost to minimize the tax that I pay within the rules provided by the law. The question before me when I make such decisions is what makes sense for me as an economic actor, not what the broader policy for society should be. And there is no reason I should "feel bad" for acting in my own self-interest in that case even if I believe the rules should be otherwise.

So too, if I am a founder, I can abhor the idea of software patents while still using the full range of IP protections afforded by the law to enhance the value of my startup. If getting a software patent for my company's early- stage innovations enhances funding valuation, acquisition pricing, and competitive edge in the marketplace - and if the law says this is a perfectly legal way not only to protect but also to gain monopoly protection over intangible assets that my company has and others don't - my decision here will turn on weighing the costs of getting such protection (money costs, disclosure risks, etc.) versus the benefits, the likelihood of qualifying for it, and similar considerations having _nothing whatever to do with the abstract policy debate_ concerning whether the law should afford such protection in the first place. What is more, if I don't avail myself of such protections and if a competitor later does so in a way that hurts my venture's prospects because I now have to surmount legal barriers that wouldn't even have been there had I acted to protect my company's legal interests in the first place, then I have done affirmative harm to the people who trusted me to run my company to its best advantage - whether they be my investors, my co-founders, my employees, or just my own family members who might suffer if that venture should fail. This does not mean I need to blindly pursue some form of artificial legal protections for my company's innovations. It means that I need to make intelligent judgments about availing myself of such protections as opposed simply to categorically rejecting the idea of using them. In short, I need to be smart about protecting my venture using the tools afforded by the law and not forego those tools out of some philosophical preconceptions I have about what the law _should_ be. The "should-be" part of the law is basically irrelevant in this context for most entrepreneurial decisions of this type. And there is certainly no reason to "feel bad" owning software patents if they turn out to be helpful for one's venture in this context.

Maybe this will be seen as narrow, unenlightened, lawyer-driven thinking. It is, however, my universal experience in having dealt with countless founders over many years. Without exception, they have all acted consistently with the pattern I describe and there is no reason they shouldn't have. It makes perfect sense for a rational economic actor. Startups have enough risks as they are. There is no reason to add to them artificially owing to social pressures telling you to "feel bad" for doing what is right for your company.

I know the sentiments against software patents are strong here on HN but there is a big difference between a policy debate seeking to influence Congress and actions that make sense for individual actors having to deal with the realities of the law as it exists today. One can condemn the idea of software patents generally without necessarily passing censorious judgments about the actors who need to deal with the law as they find it.

<comment><USER5> So what you're saying is, you'd like to _talk_ like you have a virtuous outlook on life, but you don't actually want to own up to the consequences of said virtue. I can understand this outlook. It is easier to pander to people and act in your best interests than actually suffer the consequences of your ideals.

However, I might note that this approach is easy because it seldom accomplishes disruptive change. If you want to really disrupt a market or community, you will often face difficulty, incredulity, ridicule, and unfair play. So it may actually be in your long term best-interests not to play this way.

As a capitalist-friendly example, I'd like to point to the iPhone. Apple took a huge risk (especially financially); faced extreme difficulty in developing and sourcing the device; faced ridicule on all sides at the merest rumor of the iPhone; and had to fight very hard to not have a carrier completely destroy the product with their (still present) status quo of "differentiating" every product. However, the end result completely disrupted the phone industry. It's also fascinating to note that the "lawyer-driven behavior" has appeared from Apple as other parties have started working furiously to catch up, and finally begun to succeed.

I have worked hard throughout my career to make sure that my name has not ended up on a single software patent. When I was at Microsoft, several were proposed around work I did for Powerset (and 1 was proposed from work I did at Lockheed Martin). I did everything I could to shoot them down and stop them, because _I believe they are wrong._ Maybe I've hurt my career with this approach, maybe all I've done is piss into the wind, I don't know.

<comment><USER6> > So what you're saying is, you'd like to talk like you have a virtuous > outlook on life, but you don't actually want to own up to the consequences > of said virtue. I can understand this outlook. It is easier to pander to > people and act in your best interests than actually suffer the consequences > of your ideals.

That's not the point they were making at all. One developer refusing to file for patents on their work is not going to make any difference and will only put them at a competitive disadvantage. Reforming patent law will benefit everyone equally. Until the time that reform happens, there's no need to make yourself a martyr.

<comment><USER5> > One developer refusing to file for patents on their work is not going to > make any difference and will only put them at a competitive disadvantage.

Every developer says this individually, and they're right. But if we all were more diligent about shooting down spurious software patents as a matter of professional pride, it would be a better world. That is to say, if it was considered part of professional ethics to help vet patents for obviousness and prior art for software.

And if the thesis, "The patent system is broken" is true, then we're all already at a competitive disadvantage. The pursuits are not mutually exclusive the way you make them sound.

Personally, I am tired of everyone saying, "This is the way ____ is done." What you feel there is the status quo, and it is demonstrably not a good thing right now. Do you think these UK banks adjusting Libor have a similar speech about competitive advantage?

If we only define "success" but facile metrics like quarterly revenue, then we're going to dig ourselves a hole we will never emerge from, all while piously protesting our invisible hands are tied.

<comment><USER7> Why don't you go make an impassioned plea to the patent trolls? I'm sure you can solve this problem at its source.

<comment><USER5> I am not making an impassioned plea to patent trolls. I can't change what the people before me did. Instead, I'm trying to have my actions reflect the kind of world I want to live in.

That doesn't mean I don't donate time/money/my voice to lobbying for this cause. It simply means I try to be consistent in this.

<comment><USER8> "Be the change you want to see" -- Gandhi

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Not sure if the irony here was intentional but...

> But there is no way in hell you can convince me that it's beneficial for > society to not share ideas.

See, this is what's broken with the patent system. Originally, patents were supposed to _encourage_ idea sharing. The idea being that, if you couldn't protect your ideas, then you were likely to keep them a secret. Patents give you just enough protection that you _can_ share them. You share them, and then if the idea is good, people pay you to use that idea in their own work...

So, how about this: you can get patents, but licensing fees are regulated. Say, you take the average number of patents produced by a company in a field per year, divide the average expenses for those companies by that number, and divide that total by the number of companies in the field (that might be interested in licensing the patent), and that's your regulated patent fee.

This would ensure that, for example, the pharmaceutical industry (where average cost per patent is something like $10 mil) would still be able to charge appropriately high fees to license patents. The software industry, on the other hand, where patents are handed out like candy, and the number of companies that could license your patent is huge, would end up with licensing fees of something like $10.

I'd pay $10 for your software patent.

That's probably all it's worth.

<comment><USER10> You still need to fix 2 other problems with software patents, otherwise it won't work.

1) shorten the software patent period to 3 years

2) dramatically decrease the vagueness and triviality of software patents somehow

Otherwise, you end up like in the mobile industry, where something like 250,000 patents exist in any given phone, and I assume most of those are not enforced, but if they were regulated, and manufacturers were forced to pay for them by default, I could easily imagine patents costing more than the product itself. This is why you need to drastically reduce the number of patents as well.

<comment><USER11> It often takes more than 3 years to commercialize fundamentally new computer algorithms. It is not just development and implementation, there is also an integration and transition period from software designed under the assumption of previous algorithms. 10 years is probably a more reasonable limit for computer algorithms. The R&D cost that goes into computer algorithm patents is often substantial as well.

When people say "software patents" they are usually talking about "business process" patents, not computer algorithm patents, and business process patents should be disallowed generally. They are inherently vague.

<comment><USER12> > _When people say "software patents" they are usually talking about "business > process" patents, not computer algorithm patents, and business process > patents should be disallowed generally._

You are contradicting yourself. "Business processes" are nothing more than algorithms, themselves. Algorithms are math. Math isn't patentable.

<comment><USER11> Not at all. What distinguishes "business process" patents from other patents is that any specification strict enough to be on par with traditional patent matter are largely useless; they are uniquely vague in their specification because that is what makes them useful. This allows an enormous amount of scope creep simply based upon the subjectiveness of the interpretation.

Computer algorithms are "math" in the same way that chemical process patents are math. By the criterion upon which you deem computer algorithms to be math, you can prove that _all_ subject matter is math via algorithmic information theory. To make the distinction, you can patent a specific sorting algorithm (legal, there are an infinite number of such algorithms) but you cannot patent the idea of sorting (illegal because it is a mathematical concept). If the argument that computer algorithms are invalid because they are mathematical concepts is going to be made, it needs to be applied consistently which would exclude all currently patentable subject matter.

In fact, computer algorithms have always been considered patentable subject matter around the world because they strictly specify the design of an electronic circuit. Electronic circuit designs are a traditionally patentable subject matter. A mathematical concept has no such specification.

<comment><USER12> _> If the argument that computer algorithms are invalid because they are mathematical concepts is going to be made, it needs to be applied consistently which would exclude all currently patentable subject matter._

I wouldn't argue it that way, but you are correct: nothing should be patentable. The whole patent system is wrong and fucked up, we need to get rid of it before it causes even more irreparable harm to mankind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "If you own a software patent, you should feel bad." You might think its "just for defense" and have the best of intentions, but like landmines and toxic waste, the patent will almost certainly outlive your use for it and wind up in hands other than your own.

So there it is: Patents are like the toxic waste of innovation. You promise yourself to keep them safely contained, but its hard to do in the real world and once they spill, they contaminate everything around them, making the ground uninhabitable for 20 odd years.

Feel bad.

<comment><USER14> I think that a better analogy is thinking of patents as nuclear weapons. What we need at this point is a disarmament treaty.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Common sense speaking. Patents are indefensible nonsense.

That said, I think the point he raises is interesting. There _are_ some ideas which are entirely algorithmic and are _hard_.

Specifically complex technical standards like video compression and encoding, machine vision, wireless signal processing, etc.

These are things that require a significant capital outlay to invest in research to solve the problem, but once it's solved... well, someone else can clone the logic and make a free version. So you patent the process.

If you dont, you cant guarantee a return on investment in the project, and thus you dont _get_ investment in the project, and ultimately the problem doesn't get solved.

Its an interesting thought experiment, and it makes for a good argument for patents existing. ...but then, where do you draw the line between "complex and costly" and "stupid and trivial".

It's an argument I've heard a lot; I think it's nonsense too, but it convinces a lot of people. It'd be interesting to see a thoughtful critique of _that_ argument, rather than the 'stupid patents are bad' argument, which, basically everyone already agrees on.

<comment><USER16> In such cases, you try to convince people to pay for your idea up front. Depending on how revolutionary/badly needed this idea is, it will get funded.

Kickstarter and clones are the answer.

<comment><USER11> If you can already prove the idea isn't nonsense then there is no need to fund the R&D. If you can't prove the idea isn't nonsense, no one will fund you. Research tends to be either self-funded or backed by funding organizations that specialize in evaluating high-risk R&D projects.

Even among the organizations that specialize in it, there is a problem that there are only a handful of people in the world that can even begin to evaluate the potential of a proposal. And in those cases, the people doing the vetting do not fully understand it, but they are the best outside experts capable of detecting any subtle red flags that suggests it will fail. This is the normal state of affairs for advanced research; no normal person could hope to evaluate advanced research.

Kickstarter type models would be poor for funding most types of serious research. Leaving this to popularity contests like Kickstarter is a recipe for a lot of clowns and wannabes with good PR getting funded in the absence of serious (and expensive) diligence and serious research being ignored because it can't be wrapped into a shiny soundbite that everyone understands.

<comment><USER16> When your whole model revolves around it, the effort that goes into evaluating the prospects of serious research topics will perhaps undergo a massive change as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> An important point is that patents are not about having the idea first, but _patenting_ the idea first.

History is littered with examples of people that failed to patent their invention only to be beaten over the head by someone that did. In a patent- happy society there's no room for innovators, only lawyers.

<comment><USER18> Patents, by function, are government granted monopolies over a idea or concept.

So, basically, the person that holds the patents is guaranteed to have the ability to sue anybody that infringes on the patents. This is backed up the ability of the government to inflict violence on anybody that infringes.

And what is happening is that the system is getting worse.

USA was unique in that it had a first-to-invent rule governing patents. That is if you are the first inventor of something you have the right to the patent even if somebody else pays off the government first.

However, soon it's going to be first-to-file. Meaning that even if you invented something first you can still infringe on a patent if somebody else is able to get to the patent office and pay them off first.

This will go into effect on March 16, 2013.

Now people will argue that this streamlines the system and makes it much easier to identify people that have the legal ownership of a particular patent and thus reduce fees and the expense of taking people to court....

But seeing how patents are generally terrible things then making something that is terrible better at being terrible is not really the sort of 'reform' that we should be looking forward to.

<comment><USER18> To help put into a bit more perspective in case anybody is doubting the wrong direction of the first-to-file reform...

Basically: "First to file" means that unless you are able to get your product to market and publish it before another person files on your invention then you lose your 'rights' to use your invention.

In business it is very very easy to invent something. People come up with new and useful ideas all the time, and create demos and sample products, etc etc. Inventing something isn't the problem. Actually developing it and turning into a profitable product is the really difficult problem.

In other words: The act of taking the idea to fruition is the issue here. Inventing new things just happens as a matter of course.

Now in business the reason you will have a long time lag from invention, prototype, and then into production is lack of capital. It's extremely expensive process and you must have significant ability, credit, and resources to take something to public in a meaningful way. This means you either must sell your idea to 'big corp' or spend a huge amount of time, probably years, painfully making your case to various creditors and working a business up from scratch.

Now the people that don't have this problem are obviously 'Big Corp'. They have lots of money and lots of resources so raising capital isn't a problem for them. Hiring lots of engineers and lots of lawyers to scrutinize the engineer's activity and then file patents on behalf of 'Big corp' isn't a problem either.

Therefore 'first to file' as a matter of course will eliminate the competitiveness of 'individual inventors' and place pretty much all the market advantages granted by the patent system into the hands of massive corporations.

<comment><USER19> In the old "first to invent" system, BigCorp can make up document of having invent the things first, too. The only different is, with first-to-file, the "filing record" is public, as opposed to the "inventing record" which does not have to be published.

Also, first-to-file means that the sooner they file the patent, the sooner it'll expires. With first-to-invent BigCorp can claim to invent something for ten years and not file for patent, effectively makes their patent lasts "17 plus how many year they keep it secret without filing".

BigCorp will always have more resource than individual inventors, the different is first-to-file system forces everything to be put in public record.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > I'm not sure it's good for society that some professions can get paid over > and over long after they did the work (say, in the case of a game > developer), whereas others need to perform the job over and over to get paid > (say, in the case of a hairdresser or a lawyer).

Not sure I agree with this point. All professions are different, some make their money long term by providing value and gaining experience, some make their money by just _doing work_ and some make their money by providing a product over time.

A (good) hairdresser for example makes their money because of reputation, if they do great work for customers they can charge more, therefore their previous work _does_ matter, just in a different way. An actual example of people that get no long term value from the work they do are retail workers: a shelf stacker doesn't get a "better" shelf stacking job stacking "better" things if they can stack shelves well.

If people support the idea that content creators don't "deserve" to make money long term then content creators will just go further down the Steam / EA route: don't provide a _product_ , provide that product as a service. Instead of purchasing a copy of a game, you rent access to it on a _service_ which can be revoked at any time and is 100% controlled by the issuing company. This is what Steam is...

<comment><USER21> This is also an argument against capitalists or any sort of investment, really.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I think that whilst notch has raised some valid points, he has really written an argument based on half the picture. I believe that maybe notch should read up more on criteria of patentability, other patent areas, and the feasibility of having everything 'funded by government' and perhaps share some of that too.

I agree that something like a software patent may be a bad idea, but you have to realise that a lot of people read your stuff and get influenced by this 'half of the patent picture' and then leave with the wrong idea and start criticising legitimate patent areas.

For example: Company A spends $200M of investors money finding a new anti- depressant. Ok so they invested all of this money, now they need to spend 8 years proving to the FDA that it is safe to use, there goes another $300M. 'Generic pharmacies inc' says hey, thanks for doing all that work, now we can manufacture that drug in our factory for 1c/pill and make a little bit of money, good luck recouping your research money because we just got all the cheap sales. Company A goes bankrupt, the investors lose their money. Company B and C notice this industry is poor for research, and decide never to spend that money finding an anti brain-tumor agent.

However, if company A had patented their idea, then they will have around 10-15 years of patent-protected time (because they have to patent before divulging it, and by the time you get through trials and approval you can often have just a few years left) to sell their drug at a price where they can recoup their $500M, and invest in more bigger and better research. Meanwhile, whilst patented, other companies can see that research and build upon it with their own research - they just cant rip them off with the money they are owed in that time by selling it without permission. If they really want to sell it, they can ask the company to license it to them, and pay royalties. Later, the patent expires, as all of them do, and then generic company is free to manufacture it without paying the inventor a cent.

Is this not a valid reason for patents? I'm sorry notch but you cant copyright a pill, even though that copyright law may protect your own interests (minecraft)

</comment><comment><USER23> This is a mind-bogglingly simplistic and broken argument against patents. The main argument is by analogy and argument is patents suck because they prevent the sharing of ideas. These are both horrible ways to argue against the patent system. I guess it's garnered a large number of upvotes because of the author?

<comment><USER24> Those aren't analogies, they're examples, and software patents are almost exactly patents on ideas, not inventions.

"Although the invention has been described by way of examples of preferred embodiments, it is to be understood that various other adaptations and modifications can be made within the spirit and scope of the invention."

Good luck with that when the only invention actually described is a "system" that embodies the ideas described in the claims.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Debating whether patents are good without differentiating on industries seems wrong to me. I've been involved in investments in pharmaceutical companies and investments in IT companies. Those are two completely different worlds.

In the pharmaceutical world founders and employees more often have large opportunity costs by starting or joining a new venture. They are usually in their 30s or 40s with huge student loans, mortgage and kids. They forgo high incomes if they join a start-up. The road to the market is much longer (often more than 10 years). Investment in machinery is also at a completely different level. Drug development usually entails million dollar investment in specialized equipment. Perhaps the most costly aspect of drug development is the regulatory obstacles, such as getting approvals.

In contrast, IT companies are cheap. Founders often have little formal education (Microsoft, Facebook, Skype) and the road to market is much shorter. IT start-ups expect customers (or at least users) in a matter of weeks or months. Many IT companies can get to proof of concept with almost no investment in equipment. The founders simply bring their laptops on board). Regulatory concerns, if any, can usually be dealt with by one lawyer in a few days.

I cannot imagine anyone investing hundreds of millions of dollars in drug development over the course of 10 years without some assurance that competitors can't "steal" their idea. Usually that assurance is a patent or a trade secret. But keeping secrets over 10 years with employees coming and going - that's difficult.

tl;dr: Once you have an idea about, say a shopping cart in a web store, it can be implemented in a few man-weeks. Turning an idea about a new drug into a product often takes thousands of man-years. Whereas the institution of patents seems harmful in the world of software development, it may be necessary in the world drug development.

<comment><USER26> Of course the flip side is that if a drug is not patentable then research stops. More effective drugs are replaced with slightly modified, possibly less effective or more dangerous, and definitely shorter track record drugs just to preserve profit margins. If natural compounds are more effective in treating some condition, today's pharmaceutical industry will do all they can to avoid discovering that.

Sure drugs are expensive to development, but I'm not sure that the twisted system of incentives is beneficial overall. Of course the industry will claim that none of this research would happen without patents, but of course they are set up that way and can't imagine it any other way. I doubt that humanity as a whole would simply stop advanced medical research because the economics changed.

<comment><USER27> This is nonsense. Even for "natural compounds", phase 3 clinical trials are necessary to prove efficacy. These trials cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Nobody is going to put up that kind of money unless there's profit in it, period.

Oh yeah, also: most phase 3 trials fail.

<comment><USER14> >Nobody is going to put up that kind of money unless there's profit in it, period.

I don't know what kind of fantasy world you are living in but there are plenty of governments and charities who fund scientific and medical research without the goal of profit.

<comment><USER28> Sure they fund research, but how many of these governments and charities actually work on the final end product.

The research they are doing is generally not in the final phase of actual development of the drug which is where it gets incredibly expensive.

<comment><USER14> I don't know.

The interesting thing is that, from: <http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070927/012604.shtml>

>A recent GAO study found this to be a worrisome trend, noting that fewer new innovative drugs are being created -- with pharma firms instead focusing on ways to extend the patent protection on existing products by pulling a few tricks (such as "reinventing" Claritan as Clarinex just to get more patent coverage).

In other words, government funded or not, patents are stifling medical innovation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> To quote robomartin (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4275361>): "I am not against patents. I am against the granting of patents for non-inventions."

The main problem IMHO is the cultural definition of "obviousness" among patent examiners. They seem to think

a) that (in practice) all meaningful prior art is patented so all they have to do to find it is search their patent databases and

b) the slightest difference between prior art and a new "invention" makes the "invention" non-obvious.

IMHO prior art should be whatever you can find in library and (more importantly) on the Internet. The test should be that the _difference_ is non- obvious "to a person skilled in the art", i.e. the inventive step itself has to be non-obvious.

<comment><USER30> From the patent examiner AMA on reddit, and from comments that patent law professionals have made here, it seems that those involved with patents are a bit out of touch with the reality for software professionals.

The patent database is a tool, it's not reality. The way that patents are written and treated is also out of touch with reality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I can't remember a single case of patenting improving consumer experience in the modern era.

The way I see it, patents are designed to improve capitalist behaviour, once where your ideas are protected: the march towards innovation is strictly optional.

It's time instead to consider how dependent our world is on iterative practices. Everything we build on and upon is no longer unique: it's all inspired, and improved.

Jim Jarmusch said this once:

>Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows.

To embrace iteration, we need to get rid of patents. That much is certain.

<comment><USER32> Dyson Vacuum Cleaners.

One sole inventor who developed 5,127+ prototype designs and clearly brought something unique to the marketplace. Gave his whole life and money to the product.

Almost immediately after it came out Hoover copied the design and basically would have put him out of business.

The patents were the ONLY thing that protected him from a huge multinational who didn't invent anything.

Now Dyson went on to invent a whole range of very cool gadgets which never would have existed without patents.

<comment><USER33> Interestingly, the Dyson design was based on an existing cyclone system widely used to separate out dust and particles in industrial settings. The innovation was using the process in a domestic vacuum cleaner.

So it's not too far removed from the "thing-that-already-exists but _on the internet_ " patents which are a large part of the problem, or the "thing-that- already-exists but _on a mobile_ " patent which is biting Notch's ass at the moment.

Not that I'm saying Dyson's patents are invalid, nor that his designs haven't improved the state of the art in several fields, but he didn't invent the cyclone technology in a... vacuum.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> > If you own a software patent, you should feel bad.

I have several (although all of them are "owned" by my former employers). We filed them not to attack, but to defend. I hate software patents but I don't feel bad for having them.

<comment><USER35> Congratulations. That means you basically worked for a company that manufactured land mines.

<comment><USER36> Explain yourself.

I don't see any reason to not own patents in order to protect your work from being patent trolled.

Let's say you invent the novel. Right? You don't patent it because you think patents kill babies. Then I act fast enough and quickly patent the novel, because no one did so before. I did it quickly enough to make it unclear who was first. Then I sue your company for copyright infringment.

Yeah, that means I'm an asshole. Doesn't matter, I'm rich now. That's why you should patent you ideas, even if you don't mind other people using them.

<comment><USER28> >Then I act fast enough and quickly patent the novel, because no one did so before.

This is incorrect. Prior art would invalidate the patent, since someone is already selling novels--patents have to be novel(no pun intended). You can't patent the idea just because it hasn't been patented already.

If you don't mind other people using your idea, all you have to do is establish prior art by releasing it to the public, either by selling it or publishing it, to prevent anyone else from patenting it.

If you want to make doubly sure the patent office actually finds your prior art when doing a prior art search after someone else applies for a similar patent, you can file and abandon the patent by failing to pay the fees.

<comment><USER37> In practice, novelty is determined by prior patents because that is what the examiners search.

 _"Yes, for the patent definition of obvious, basically all the parts are going to have to be either patented, or in some printed publication."_ \-- Patent Examiner "lordnecro" ([http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/ww982/iama_patent_e...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/ww982/iama_patent_examiner_i_want_to_answer_questions/c5hau6v))

See the rest of the thread for the example where an idea is used in open source software prior to a patent application by a third party. The patent examiner concedes that this would likely not be found by the examiner, therefore the patent would be granted. It likely would not stand up in court, but that doesn't help anyone that can't afford the legal defense.

<comment><USER28> Did you skip the part where I said to ensure the examiner finds it you can file and then abandon?

<comment><USER37> You still have to prepare the application and pay some fees. <http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/qs/ope/fee092611.htm>

If a doubly-linked list is patentable, how many things have you built this month that are also patentable? Do you really have time to write all those bogus patent applications? In academia, it's a much better use of time to publish scientific papers, present at conferences, and put it in open source software. Industry has market-driven motivations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > I would personally prefer it to have those be government funded (like with > CERN or NASA) and patent free as opposed to what's happening with medicine > <cut>

I have to vehemently disagree with this.

Copying ideas and making incremental improvements on existing inventions is the core of what makes technological progress possible. Even just plain 'ape- ing' ideas is vitally important to getting improvements available to the public. This works best in a decentralized environment. Fundamentally it is my contention that a 'wild west' scenario will yield faster and more meaningful human progress then a carefully regulated and regimented system.

Assuming this is true: Then the patent system, as flawed as it is, is still superior to what was popular before it... which was official government academies were scientists and inventors were effectively wards of the state. This is uncomfortably close to what you are advocating.

In that sort of system internal bureaucratic politics and 'administrative law' (which is a term meant to indicate rules-decided-by-committee) dictates the distribution of resources and activities of scientists rather then merit or actual need. I do not think that is a effective environment for the creation of innovation.

I say that it's more freedom that is needed, not less.

<comment><USER38> Innovation can and does bounce back and forth between the public and private sectors. The Internet started life as a government-funded project before blossoming into the ultimate decentralized infrastructure.

<comment><USER18> public sector vs private sector metaphors are mostly nonsense. It's nice to say 'public sector' or 'publicly owned', but in reality the words and definitions are a creation of orwellian-style double speak. It's propaganda.

Institutions like NASA or any other government institution is owned and controlled just as much as IBM or Microsoft. They are all a for-profit institution simply because the people working and running them are in it for themselves.

Democracy seems like it would allow another means of control for the 'public' over the 'public institutions', but was easily nullified by the bi-partisan system. Effectively this country is controlled through two major political dynasties since just about the beginning. And these political dynasties are not driven by ideological differences, they exist for using political means to provide economic benefit for themselves. Democracy can only work on small scales; in city-states were they cannot control population movement. At the small scale governments are easily controlled by their tax base. On a large scale they cannot.

That is to say nobody works for free. Everybody works for profit, otherwise there is no point in working and no point in participating in the institutions in the first place. And a organization is nothing but a body of participating individuals.

The major difference is that government institutions are able to use the political means, that is violence, to get the funding and resources they desire. Where as a 'private' corporation either has to go through the government to get access to the political means or obtain what they want through economic means in the market place.

Ultimately when you say 'public sector' versus 'private sector' you are saying 'people that work for profit that you are required to pay by law' versus 'people that work for profit that can only obtain funding through the market'.

Unfortunately the government is intertwined very very deeply into the economic system of this country. When you get to the large corporations the distinction between government and private corporations is _very_ blurred.

<comment><USER38> I'm aware that public/private "sectors" are leaky abstractions, and that corporations and the federal government are deeply intertwined in practice. My core point was that tax-funded entities like NASA and DARPA can sometimes set the stage for later independent innovation in the marketplace.

I dislike ideological, knee-jerk reactions of [governments/corporations] are [always/never] [good/bad]. If there is a distinction to be made, it is between large orgs, small orgs, and individuals, and even then, those distinctions should be seen in the light of trading off strengths and weaknesses, with the possibility of statistical outliers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Regardless of how one feels about the ideal of software patents, the implementation leaves huge amounts to be desired with vague and obvious patents granted every day.

Imagine if every time a patent was invalidated by the defence at trial, the patent office itself was ordered to pay defence costs.

As one of the few government profit centers, I think you would suddenly find a big improvement in the standard of patents granted.

<comment><USER32> That's nice in theory. In the "real world" it would never work.

The patent office would be too scared to actually award patents and even if they did the due diligence they would do would take ages. During which time copycats could come in and copy the invention. You may as well abolish patents altogether.

A better solution is to punish those companies who are defeated at trial and then strip them of the patents to prevent future lawsuits.

<comment><USER39> You may be right about the patent office, and that would be OK by me. But for those who say that only some patents are a problem, it leaves open a nice incentive to make that distinction real. All it means is that the USPTO suffer for their own errors of judgement rather that foisting that suffering onto others.

If instead you punish those defeated at trial, there are many who say that this is unfair to small players who cannot afford to make as strong a case as the really rich companies. I personally don't see this as such a great problem as they should be doing something more constructive than filing lawsuits, but I think holding the patent office accountable does not favour large players to the same degree.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Let's stop for a moment boys and girls to fix one recurring theme in some of these blog posts and discussions: You are not supposed to be able to patent ideas. There's a reduction to practice requirement.

Sadly, I must say that there are tons of patents out there that are nothing more than ideas or concepts turned into patents. I've run into lots of them in the hundreds of patents I must have read over the years. They fact that they are or were mere ideas becomes a glaring reality when you look into actually implementing the patent and discover that nothing works as advertised.

This is another sad failing of the USPTO: While the rules of the game say that ideas are not patentable, in reality, they are. So, yes, I contradict my first statement. I still prefer to speak with more precision when it comes to patents and not say things like "patent you idea" or "people like to file patents to protect their ideas". You are not supposed to be able to do that.

</comment><comment><USER41> Wow, so the plaintiffs have a patent on checking with a server to determine if your software is licensed.

"devices that require communication with a server to perform a license check to prevent the unauthorized use of said application, including, but not limited to, Mindcraft."

<comment><USER42> The patent is a little bit more complex than that.

But yes, it appears to be a "thing that exists, _but with online stuff added_ ". This form of tweaking, taking an existing idea and adding a trivial modification and being able to get a patent is harmful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> "But there is no way in hell you can convince me that it's beneficial for society to not share ideas."

Sorry, but Notch has it backwards. Patents are designed to for sharing - <USER2> for preventing sharing. (Patent holder shares information on how they implemented something in exchange for being granted temporary rights to deliver on the method implementation.)

I know I'm being naively simplistic in that statement. Yet so is Notch in his analogy. I've found no one who claims that "it's beneficial for society to not share ideas". Setting up a straw man makes for juicy debate, but not great argument.

</comment><comment><USER44> Patents are not (should not) be about ideas. Patents are about inventions you make and want to licence or exploit by your own. They define the invention so that your clients or yourself are protected from copycats. It is very close to copyright protection where trinity gets tazed for copying the novel. It make sense.

The problem is patenting the concept of a novel. This is really questionnable. How much inventive is that ? This is where the line is fuzzy to set.

</comment><comment><USER45> I don't think patents OR copyrights are moral. You shouldn't have the ability to stop people from using ideas in their mind (which belongs to them) even if you were the one who came up with the idea originally and put it into their mind. Other people's brains don't belong to you, neither does their equipment for making books, games, movies, music, medicine or anything else. If they can make it, why the hell should you be able to stop them from using their hands and their property to turn out exact duplicates of your own creations?

By the way Notch, I disagree with you on the government research thing. Government is terrible at just about everything. Instead, vital research should be done by the free market, but without the protection of patents or copyrights, as anyone who owns either is automatically a troll.

In a decade or three we'll be able to ask a computer to invent medicines and technology on the spot, so why should we let one person dominate something that is going to be so easy to discover and produce in such a short amount of time?

</comment><comment><USER46> > _you want to profit from all novels that are ever written_ //

Patents are time limited so that's out.

If Trinity, nor anyone else had seen your novel (as described in full in the patent application he fails to mention that he submits - this is key as copyright is an automatic right but patents are not) would they have come up with the idea?

If they would then why hadn't they?

How long would it have taken them to come up with the idea? More than 20 years?

Suppose the idea of a novel was so revolutionary that it never would have been created by anyone else ... is it worth a monopoly on the idea for 20 years to ensure that you open up that idea and share it with society for the rest of time?

Trinity of course can research your idea freely. She can use your idea. Indeed when she does use it privately she has an idea, based on yours, of a trilogy. Now, you're kicking yourself, Neo, wondering why you didn't think of that. Of course if Neo hadn't submitted his patent application in the first place then she never would have had the details on which to build her idea ...

</comment><comment><USER47> > _If you own a software patent, you should feel bad._

You should feel bad if you _enforce_ it.

Practically speaking, if I hadn't had a patent granted while I was doing my first startup, I would've never gotten the acquisition valuation I got. It's a part of the game, you just have to have an "IP." Do I think this is retarded? Sure. Do I feel _bad_ that I got a patent? No.

<comment><USER48> But the value of the patent comes out of someone potentially enforcing it at some point. Would you feel bad if the buyers of your startup enforced the patent or sold it to a patent troll?

<comment><USER47> There's also a deterrence value in patents, what's called a defensive patent portfolio. If someone were to sue you, you would sue back and that, presumably, stops them from making a move.

A patent making its way to a patent troll is certainly not a good thing, but being an unlikely event it needs to weighed against the benefits of having a patent.

With regards to the buyers enforcing the patent, this is easily handled by obtaining their commitment to use my patents only in a defensive capacity. In my case I didn't have to get an explicit commitment, because I knew the company and its internal ethics well, but in a more general case it's really not a show stopper.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Yes, patents suck. But talking will do nothing. We need to literally put our collective money where our mouthes are. I am only half joking, but somebody please run a Kickstarter campaign with the goal of reforming the patent system, I will gladly donate.

We need to lobby the sh_t out of our government. Start stuffing money in their pockets - this is the only thing the beast understands. Get them to phase out the patent system - that is, issue no new patents, wait for current patents to expire.

We also need to create an alliance of companies that agree to never sue each other over existing patents. We need to publicly shame companies (namely, patent trolls) that use patents solely for exploitation.

Yes, maybe these ideas are dumb or naive, but they would still be more effective than just talking about it...

</comment><comment><USER50> Is funny how things work out: patents which are meant to stave off copycats from profiting off someone else's work end up being snatched by patent trolls who sue anyone who does something even remotely similar even if they had no idea there was a patent on it. Meanwhile copycats always find a loophole, they much like patent trolls hire the best lawyers to protect themselves and keep blatantly stealing from others, sometimes going as far as copying the logo and other minor details, showing they don't want to compete but to deceive consumers of the original to use the copy.

Either way the innovator gets shafted, specially when the patent troll or copycat is an even bigger company.

</comment><comment><USER51> >The problem with this argument is that patents apply even if the infringer came up with the idea independently.

While I agree that our broken patent system is in dire need of reform, I'm not in favor of complete abolishment. That said, if an accused infringer claimed that she had come up with the idea independently I can't imagine a fair method of proving or disproving that. Hence, I don't see how one could make exceptions for independently developed ideas that aren't prior art.

</comment><comment><USER52> Please, please, please do not hand the development of new drugs over to the government.

Also, if you're going to make an odd blanket statement that ends up being a lynchpin of your argument like "patents in software are trivial" at least try to unpack it or back it up somehow. Microsoft (for example, via MSR) dumps a sh __ton of $ into research to come up with some ideas that end up being software, so how is that different than the biotech scenario?

</comment><comment><USER53> I keep thinking that they should not allow companies to sue on patents unless the patent has been implemented in one of the company's products, currently in market. Exception of course being algorithmic patents - compression techniques etc., - These could be made FRAND. My comment is vaguely generic and there may be lots of exceptions but the first part would eliminate a lot of the patent trolls I keep hearing about.

</comment><comment><USER54> Each time I see a patent related article on Hacker News, I'm thankful that software patents don't exist in Europe. That's at least one thing we got right.

</comment><comment><USER55> To kill software patents, don't abstain from patenting software. Do the opposite. Flood the patent office with so many ridiculous and obvious software patents and clog up their system so bad, they'll be forced to deny all of them or just let applications sit pending for decades.

</comment><comment><USER56> Honest question, if I have a software idea and am thinking about patenting it, but then don't (although I've developed the idea), what happens if someone else re-creates the idea and then patents it themselves. Would I now be infringing on their patent?

<comment><USER57> (Am not a lawyer, but am a tech entrepreneur whose job is to somewhat understand patent law:)

Yes, you would, in the USA. If you are not ever sued for infringing, nor asked to pay licensing fees by an agent of the patent holder, nothing happens and it's effectively moot. This is the most likely outcome.

If you are sued/asked to pay, you could try to invalidate the patent (or threaten that) because there is prior art... i.e. your implementation. You can only do that if you can prove that you implemented it, at a specific date sometime before the patent filing. This may not be easy. In fact - <USER3> ideally, there is a USPTO officer reading this who can comment - it may be the case that something can only be considered prior art if it's been published in a textbook, tech industry journal article, etc. (Or if there another existing patent for it).

Ideally your evidence is so strong, the patent holder will look at it and decide it's not worth taking you to court (i.e. they believe they will lose, or even risk getting their patent invalidated). Then they back away slowly from you, going after easier prey.

If you go to court for any reason, it's likely to be a long, hard drain on your energy, time and money.

<comment><USER56> Awesome, thanks for the reply. I'll take a look a bit deeper, but this really helps a lot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> This show called "This American Life" did a wonderful show on patents.

[http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/441/w...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack/)

</comment><comment><USER16> I feel obligated to link to my comment thread on this issue from earlier in the week: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4263790>

</comment><comment><USER59> Ummm, you can't patent an idea. You patent an invention. The problem with software patents is that the 'invention' is pretty close to idea level.

Nonetheless you can't patent the idea of writing a long-form novel.

<comment><USER17> If you've had a look through even a handful of these patents people are getting sued for millions over, they're basically the equivalent of the long- form novel.

You could probably patent the idea of a "long click" meaning a particular type of action. Then you could go about suing someone that came up with the same idea independently.

<comment><USER60> > If you've had a look through even a handful of these patents people are > getting sued for millions over, they're basically the equivalent of the > long-form novel.

No. They're not. You say this because you, like everyone else, don't understand what the claims say. That's likely because they're written in legalese, and you're just trying your best to give those terms their plain English meaning. You can't do that. Many of them are terms of art, with very precise definitions crafted by the courts. As such, you have to look to various court opinions concerning claim construction (i.e., context) to understand their meaning.

You may disagree with that on principle, because everyone should be able to understand the subject matter taken removed from the public domain as a matter of law, and I'm somewhat inclined to agree. However, nothing precludes you from gaining such an understanding: there are many books written on patent law, and it's not too incredibly complex.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Ideas are worthless, that's what everyone likes to repeat.

I've raised the example before that ideas aren't worthless, for example patents have value but was criticised because "patents are not ideas, they are execution".

Notch seems to think patents are ideas. I don't know enough about patents to really draw a conclusion as to if they are expressions of ideas or executions of ideas.

Also, the example of writing your own similar book is quite a clumsy one for patent infringement.

<comment><USER22> I agree the example is clumsy because people will find it hard in that example to imagine why a novel is patentable (because it is obviously not in our world, ironically lacking the criteria of being "novel"!)

I felt like notch matured a while ago but this is a surprisingly childish rant from him, i honestly felt it was a bit below him. He has a point, a valid point, but he has not conveyed it very well, and has caused collatoral damage to other valid fields for patents in the process of criticizing software patents.

<comment><USER62> Before you get too wrapped up in the idea of "other valid fields for patents", you might check out some of those other fields. There is actually quite a bit of evidence against patents in many other fields as well, though the only link I have handy is to Derek Lowe's discussions related to pharma - <http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/patents_and_ip/>

<comment><USER22> Have a read of my other comment on the page (search antjohnst to speed up finding it) giving an example in the pharma industry.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Git Workflow Basics - <AUTHOR> https://blog.codeminer42.com/git-workflow-basics-d405746f6205#.g648r8nuy <comment><USER2> This workflow is scary. A rebase should not be part of any everyday workflow and must be reserved _only_ for exceptional situations.

Rebasing can cause the loss of history and developers should be as careful with it as system admins are with `sudo`. I can't recommend any workflow that includes it without treating is as a terrifying and scary thing. How easy is it to accidentally remove a line during interactive rebase and lose all work associated with it?

This is why my team and I moved to squash merging. Sure it has it's own drawbacks, but they're far less worrisome than rebasing. If you screw up a rebase, the history is re-written or force-pushed by accident. If you screw up a squash merge, you can still check out the intermediate commits if you know the hash.

We won a Ruby award for our work on Git Reflow. There are big improvements coming this week that can make it easy for teams to tweak the workflow to suit any special needs you might have. It works on github and bitbucket and automatically creates pull requests (and makes sure they're reviewed.) Gitlab support coming soon (maybe this month).

[http://github.com/reenhanced/gitreflow](http://github.com/reenhanced/gitreflow)

<comment><USER3> But some of us use git-rebase every day perfectly fine and never lose information. Yes, you must be careful. No, you should never use it on public commits.

I wouldn't recommend it to others as I don't trust them to read the man page and understand what git-rebase does. Those of us who use git-rebase also know how to recover the refs since before they are GCed, though I've never had to do that.

It's dangerous to pronounce certain powerful features of a system as off limits for day to day private use. That's a different pronouncement than a decision not to share "why everyone should use git-rebase often".

<comment><USER4> And we use git-rebase commonly on public commits without concern. Everyone uses git differently.

<comment><USER5> I think this depends on your definition of public? For me public means "in stable branches". I sure hope you aren't rebasing master

<comment><USER6> That's a weird definition of 'public'; for most folks, I imagine 'public' to mean anything accessible without any authorization.

<comment><USER7> When people talk about public commits it means commits other people have access too, and more specific, were able to commit on top. Authorization has nothing to do with it. In practice it means anything you have pushed.

An exception can be made for topic branches, especially in a pull-request workflow. These branches could be rebased / amended to update the final result, even after they have been pushed already.

<comment><USER6> "commits other people have access to"

That's authorization.

<comment><USER7> You said:

> anything accessible without any authorization.

Even if it does require authorization, it's considered public in regard to this discussion.

<comment><USER6> It's not public if the public can't read it (requires authorization).

Why is this a conversation?

<comment><USER8> Because you've applied a different definition of public that doesn't fit the context. Public in the context in which it was used in this thread regarding git commits simply means commits you have pushed to a repo that another developer can access even if authorization is required to access it.

<comment><USER6> That's not what public means, though, in _any_ context.

<comment><USER7> What we are talking about is whether or not you should rewrite public history. The technical reason is based on the fact if others have access to this history or not.

It does not matter if you pushed it to a private repository where some other people still have access to; they might have fetched that history and committed on, which causes unexpected results when you rewrite such a branch.

I tend to use published history / commits for this reason to make it less confusing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> At the same time, with this workflow (just like git flow) you're not doing continuous integration. Which is quite bad, imho.

[https://www.franzoni.eu/git-flow-is-superflous-and- complex/](https://www.franzoni.eu/git-flow-is-superflous-and-complex/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Nothing stops you to use continuous integration with this workflow. For instance, Travis-CI and Codeship support branching (they can tell you if the new build will be fine or not).

I didn't mention that in the post because it's intended for beginners and adding that info there could maybe be a little too much :/

<comment><USER9> Sure, most CI systems support branching.

But what if you need to do ship a full pipeline of a branch for multi- repository project? I clarify the issue better in my post.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wow, a blog post called "Git Workflow Basics" that really does just have simple and useful basics and doesn't try to terrify you out of or into using specific git features that the author decided are infinitely sacred or infinitely profane.

I can't really explain the depth of how pleasant, and how surprising, this pleasant surprise was. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER11> Could anyone who follows the "rebase all the merges" workflow detail why they choose to work that way? It seems to me that Git's strength is being able to time travel in your repo (especially with something like git-bisect, one of the few tools I'd call downright magical)

But if you're rebasing your commits, haven't you lost that? The concerns about a "clean commit graph" seem more aesthetic than functional.

<comment><USER6> I don't know about rebasing _everything_ , but a commit is a changeset, and a changeset should always have a distinct and succinct purpose. There is no value added in having a single feature spread out over 5 commits.

When writing a feature, I use git to save my progress, and once I'm done, I would like to present the feature as a clear and complete changeset. A commit is me saying, "These are the changes I'd like to make to the codebase", and I feel that argument is easier to make when I present one thought, rather than the dozens of thoughts I had on the way.

If I were perfect, then I would commit in a way that _was_ one cohesive thought, but I'm not. My commits are often, "Did the thing", then "redid the thing, with better testability", and "Re-redid the thing, fixing some fundamental bug in how I did the thing at first", etc.

<comment><USER12> I really don't understand all the opposition ti this idea. This is exactly how git should be used, and it is how most successful large open source projects require you to work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Personally, i prefer having a develop branch which all the development happens on, with developers creating feature branches from that, and then merge develop with master, when a new version is achieved.

<comment><USER13> Keep in mind that i only work on small teams with smallish projects, this workflow would probably not work for big projects with a bunch of developers working simultaneously.

<comment><USER12> Actually this works perfectly fine in large teams too, if you add another level of branches. In fact, that is how the Linux kernel development works

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> How do you guys approach the one branch per developer rule? For smaller changes, i do it all the time but it is very hard for bigger changes.

When we write bigger features we always need at least two dev. One writing the front end (HTML templates) and one the backend (whatever populates the templates, makes sql query). We both need immediate feedback. I design the models around the templates so i need the templates at least partly to work. He needs the models to properly do his work either (if he wrote the templates before I write the models, the development of the whole feature would slow down and it is not nice to only work with a lorem impsum all the time. We also get very detached from the actual feature that way.

How do you manage those situations? Just do one branch per feature and if that feature requires more work, then just let two people work on that feature?

<comment><USER5> Do what you say and both work in the same branch. If the branch diverges from master and you need to catch synchronize and then one of you does a rebase the other does git reset --hard origin/feature-branch. Alternatively just leave any cleanup till the end of the MR and designate one person to it

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> So, commenters do not seem particularly impressed with this workflow.

What is a good workflow around git?

<comment><USER16> There are plenty; there's no one right workflow, because different teams have different requirements.

At work, we use deploy branches for a few repos, and integration branches for others. Personally, I use rebase for my own projects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Does anybody dislikes git ?

</comment><comment><USER18> The English needs a massage here. The very first sentence is grammatically incorrect, which doesn't inspire confidence. It's a fine introductory post for learning Git, though, and as such I welcome it.

</comment><comment><USER19> Typo - CTRL + F "Oficial"

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for pointing this. It's fixed!

<comment><USER18> I would re-write the first sentence to "You probably know how to use Git on a daily basis" or perhaps "You probably know how to use Git in your daily workflow."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Ugh, not this again. How many threads like this do we need before folks accept that git is not the solution to whatever problem we have?

<comment><USER21> Could you be more specific?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This article appears to be a cheap copy of Atlassian's Git workfflows and tutorial

[https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/comparing- workflows/](https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/comparing-workflows/)</comment>


How a billion dollar autonomous vehicle startup lost its way - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-08-13/how-a-billion-dollar-autonomous-vehicle-startup-lost-its-way <comment><USER2> Oh, Quanergy, the vaporware LIDAR company. "Quanergy is the leading provider of solid state LiDAR sensors and smart sensing solutions." They announced a flash LIDAR in 2016, but don't seem to have shipped the product.

I expect that Continental, the German auto parts company, will be the winner here. They bought Advanced Scientific Concepts, which makes good but expensive flash LIDAR units for military and space applications. Now they have to make them cheaper and in volume, which is what auto parts companies do. They already have some shorter-range, lower resolution LIDAR products on the market for anti-collision systems, so they have experience with the automotive LIDAR environment.

Delco, the US auto parts maker, is also working on self-driving components, including LIDAR. They're not saying much, but they have a California autonomous vehicle testing license and some cars on the road. Bosch also has a self driving car in test. It's entirely possible that self-driving will just be an auto part, sourced from the usual big auto parts makers.

<comment><USER3> _It 's entirely possible that self-driving will just be an auto part, sourced from the usual big auto parts makers._

I've always assumed that this is the eventual outcome, even if there is a brief period where SelphDrivin, LLC, et. al., sell their own cars. For decades Bosch would sell a whole fuel injection and ignition system for your new model. Brembo and Bendix will sell you some brakes. I don't know who makes ABS sensors and computers, but I'd guess it's not GM (probably Delco, though) and Ford. MobileEye's lane assist was an option on the Mercedes Sprinter we bought. The next logical step in my mind is self-driving systems.

<comment><USER4> Speaking of MobileEye, from what I understand their goal is to slowly work up their parts offerings from driver assist to self-driving.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I suspect this will be a fairly regular story in the next few months/years. Self-driving tech seems to be a lot further off than people think so a lot of companies that were formerly very exciting will not be able to deliver and will need to close up shop. I think there's some possibility that it will go the way of flying cars at least for now.

Fortunately a lot of the tech that does work can find a second life as progressive enhancement for human drivers. Blind spot detection, auto lane following, and smart cruise control are great features that ease some of the burden in driving and I think it's good to see them being more widely distributed in newer cars.

<comment><USER6> I thought Waymo has pretty much cracked that nut. They've covered several million miles of testing in AZ and CA. You might be right, but do you have any links where I could see where your skepticism is coming from.

Waymo vs Quanergy is apples and oranges I think

<comment><USER7> Not the OP, but I think rain and especially snow and fog don't happen that often in those two States and afaik driving autonomously under those circumstances is still an unsolved problem with no easy solution in sight.

Now, if you want to extend the self-driving thing to other parts of the world you'll most probably need to solve the singularity problem, at least for driving in the Eastern European capital city where I'm currently living where you have to actually "guess" what the other traffic participants will do next: is that kid going against the flow of traffic on his bike? (answer: yes) Is that cab going to cut me off in the middle of the intersection and should I take my foot off the acceleration pedal so that we won't crash? (answer: yes to both questions). Are those pedestrians going to jaywalk without checking for any incoming vehicles? (answer: yes). All these things happened to me during my short city drive half an hour ago.

<comment><USER4> All of those scenarios are definitely a thing in sunny clear Oakland, CA. And San Francisco, where a lot of the testing has been run, is notorious for both its hostile and unpredictable driver/biker/pedestrian behavior, and for its fog. Rain and snow, which change the observed road surface, seem to be the harder problems.

<comment><USER8> That said, no North American city comes within an order of magnitude of the complexity of driving in Latin America.

You can forget about traffic rules, and you very often have to check the other driver´s body language to make split-second decisions, and play a game of "chicken" to cross a busy thoroughfare (inch through, then force yourself in front of an incoming car and expect him to stop). Giving way to other cars means you might be stuck in a traffic jam, so drivers can be incredibly aggressive - and I wouldn´t want to drive with an AI trained to try to battering ram their way around.

There are cities where I wouldn´t trust myself to drive (Lima, Peru is one I've experienced firsthand).

I'm hopeful for self-driving, but it's going to be very tough (and might take decades to adapt to the third world)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm not saying this is as extreme a case, but I got a whiff of similarity to Theranos, in the aspect of an emphasis on loyalty making it difficult for the CEO to listen to debate. Of course, that could also be because the journalists covering tech businesses nowadays are looking for the next Theranos story.

<comment><USER10> And Theranos was kept alive for too long by a _lot_ of symbolic value.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> "I hate the word 'wall'. We are anti-wall. We have a technology solution," - Oh, the amount of self-unconsciousness there.

</comment><comment><USER12> pony.ai

</comment><comment><USER13> > _In Eldada's vision, lidar sensors could be deployed along the border, > monitoring remote regions for movement, then determining whether there were > people attempting unauthorized crossings [...] Eldada acknowledged that a > contract for a virtual wall would be controversial, but he described it as a > kind of protest against Trump's version of border security. "I hate the word > 'wall'. We are anti-wall. We have a technology solution," he said._

This physically nauseates me. Where are our ethics? Just because we _can_ engineer something does not mean we _should._

It makes me glad that this company seems to be nothing but vaporware.

<comment><USER14> i dont think the arguments about a border wall were ever about morality, but more about it being a huge waste of money

<comment><USER15> Would the border wall be a huge waste of money?

It's a weird game where the stricter you enforce the less people try to come in the first place. So it's all about signaling.

And if a wall is to be built, should it not be a virtual wall to reduce cost and improve the likelihood that one day it can be merely switched off?

Wouldn't broad sensors of this type have massive secondary applications?

<comment><USER16> This is by far the best solution.

Plus by charging a small border crossing fee, Mexico could pay for the wall within a few years.

No massive environmental damage, no massive cost, and we could even help slow down the flow of guns back into Mexico.

Plus with a reliable and profitable entry program we could set up a WAY more reliable temporary work visas that would allow people to live and work freely without breaking US laws, stealing identities, or placing anyone at risk on either side!

Plus, police, tax officials and family services will get to know who everyone is and where they are working!

Everybody is a winner! No immigrant communities in fear. Prosperity for all. And did I mention Mexico pays for the wall?

<comment><USER17> There already is a legal entry program.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Golang DNS server, including DNSSEC and DNS-over-TLS - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/tenta-browser/tenta-dns <comment><USER2> Apart from the difference in programming language, how does this compare to [https://github.com/bluejekyll/trust-dns](https://github.com/bluejekyll/trust- dns) ?

<comment><AUTHOR> This appears to be in the same universe (DNS with TLS in a shiny new language).

It looks like Tenta DNS currently supports more features around scaling and production use, while Trust DNS includes a client component.

<comment><USER3> > DNS with TLS in a shiny new language

My goals with TRust-DNS are a little more than just shiny new language. I really want to leverage Rust's safety guarantees, especially in regards building high performance implementations for core tools like this. I believe that with Rust we can produce more hardened software and deliver at a faster pace than other more traditional low level languages.

I haven't yet had a chance to really optimize the library. In my measurements for example, BIND responds to queries in 100 micro-seconds, whereas TRust-DNS is now down to 250 (on my local system, YMMV). There are a couple of low- hanging fruit things that I hope to get to soon, that should bring that down significantly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I like your octocat-gopher logo, very cool. Looks like an interesting project also. How does it compare to the Cloudflare dns server in Go? (I guess being open source is the most important). They did some interesting optimizations of TLS with assembly

<comment><USER5> AFAIK they both use the same miekg/dns library. I am not sure the assembly optimizations have been merged into the library itself.

<comment><USER6> If you want something faster than github.com/miekg/dns, there is golang.org/x/net/dns. I am the author, but I promise it is a lot faster. It is about an order of magnitude faster in my benchmarks.

<comment><USER7> Where does that order of magnitude come from? Certainly sounds interesting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> See also: [https://coredns.io/](https://coredns.io/) (also Go)

<comment><USER9> CoreDNS has some fun issues at times. The documentation around it is rather sparse and the last time I tried it, CoreDNS refused to reply with authorative responses to any query and also refused to properly resolve any recursive queries (delivering intermediate! results)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> If we're already at it comparing different implementations, how's your story versus Knot ([https://www.knot-dns.cz/](https://www.knot-dns.cz/))? Probably a different focus: Knot is authoritative-only, while your implementation mostly seems to focus on the recursive resolver, correct? Are there any reasons to use Tenta DNS over Knot as authoritative nameserver with DNSSEC support?

<comment><AUTHOR> Knot DNS is authoritative only. Our main focus has been recursive support and full security support. We haven't used knot dns, but it has an excellent reputation. At the moment, knot dns is more suitable for authoritative hosting (our authoritative features are still very minimal). Although in certain circumstances, like dns leak testing, we have built in support for that.

<comment><USER11> I'll put on my djb hat here, I'd avoid combining authoritative and recursive resolving servers in the same process. That is, unless you want to end up like bind.

<comment><AUTHOR> You can certainly make two configs, an authoritative only and a recursive only and just run two copies. However, while we cannot strictly control how goroutines are allocated, each module (recursor, resolver, nsnitch) run as their own little kingdom and primarily communicate with shared plumbing (geoip, for instance) through channels.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What's the valueprop over Linux Fondation backed coredns?

<comment><USER13> BGP integration and nSnitch, both are nice adds.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks! also vs coreDNS, we support actually running as a recursive or authoritative resolver. CoreDNS is appropriate (excellent, in fact) for running for service discovery, but not suitable for running as a public resolver.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Is it common in Golang to not write tests?

<comment><USER15> Certainly it's common to write _fewer_ tests than Python or Ruby projects, where you need tests to verify basic type and existence assertions.

<comment><USER16> This is starting to change, perhaps not in Ruby but JS and Python now have commonly-used pre-compile typecheckers with typesystems fancier than your typical typed C-descendant language, annotation stubs for the standard or popular libraries, etc. I wouldn't be surprised that if in a couple of years, the default for a new Javascript project would be more typechecked than Go, strange as it is to say.

<comment><USER17> I know only of Flow for JS, but are there signs that it's commonly used, or are there other JS typecheckers with a more optimistic trajectory?

It looks to me more like compile-to-JS languages are winning this race. Which is good, as it enables sthings like ClojureScript and Elm. Also many of us think the lack of static types is the least of the problems in JS.

<comment><USER16> Flow and TypeScript are used a fair bit and both have adoption in big organizations that make big, commonly used tools. I don't think any of the compile-to-JS languages have ever really got quite that far and I'm somewhat skeptical they will.

<comment><USER17> Ah. I guess due to the superset-of-JS property you might kinda sorta see it as annotated JS, though it has its own syntax and has to go through a compiler to produce runnable JS.

edit: Seems the TS tools also have JS linting functionality, where you put JSDoc annotations in comments and use the new --checkJs options, I guess you may have meant this too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've tried using the DNS listed in the page and they were very slow resolving new names (I'm in Spain).

DNS Benchmark ([https://www.grc.com/dns/benchmark.htm](https://www.grc.com/dns/benchmark.htm)) shows this results: [https://ghostbin.com/paste/rr65w](https://ghostbin.com/paste/rr65w)

Are they normal? Or are they slow because the servers are located in the US?

<comment><AUTHOR> Servers are located in Amsterdam, Miami, Seattle and Singapore. Since the resolvers are new, there's a lot of global cache to fill up.

In addition, if you'd be willing to share, visit [https://nstoro.com/api/v1/geolookup](https://nstoro.com/api/v1/geolookup) and shoot us the results to firstname.lastname@example.com. That API will pull your IP and the physical location of the box you connected to. If that location isn't Amsterdam, then we'll need to take a look at our routing.

<comment><USER18> I've just tested the nameservers again and ICANN ones seem to be a lot faster than before. OpenNIC ones are down for me right now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> How does it compare to PowerDNS?

<comment><AUTHOR> PowerDNS provides the standard by which other DNS resolvers are judged. It's an amazing, stable product. Our biggest features compared to PowerDNS are that we provide DNS-over-TLS, we're written in memory safe golang (which is also highly concurrent, although so is PowerDNS), and we support BGP natively, making "internet wide" deployments a breeze.

All of these things could be done with PowerDNS, but it would also require a number of other programs "helping" in order to get TLS and BGP, and the configuration would be a mess. With TentaDNS it's all in one convenient, easy to run place, with a single set of config, running multiple (even 10s or hundreds) of resolver configs all in one place.

That having been said, our Authoritative support (e.g. being the main nameserver for a domain) still lacks a lot of features, while our recursive support (e.g. being the resolver you use for your browser) is top notch.

<comment><USER19> For me the authoritative support would be relevant. Can you please elaborate on what important thing is missing?

What's a recommended way of using your product in a redundant way? PowerDNS for example has multiple backends, what I am missing is a bind style backend that is based on JSON files and is able to reload on the fly, so that I don't have to deal with a SQL database. Is this something that could be achieved with Tenta?

<comment><USER20> Hello, PowerDNS developer here! Not trying to steal Tenta's thunder here, but you should know that the PowerDNS GeoIP backend can be used without a GeoIP database, in which case it might better be called the 'YAML backend'.

Additionally, if you file a feature request for JSON support in the bindbackend, we might consider it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> You mentioned that the hosted recursive resolver is free to use along with api access in exchange for a backlink, and I checked out the parent project which is Tenta browser and it's currently in beta for Android, so how do make money? Do you sell any upgrades/support to businesses?

<comment><AUTHOR> Tenta browser business model is the opposite of most browsers. We don't care about ads. It's simply based on protecting data. We have a built-in VPN that's always free to use in-browser only, but if you want to expand VPN coverage to other apps then we charge a monthly subscription

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I did test on tenta.com but couldn't get any result [https://imgur.com/a/iK8Yh](https://imgur.com/a/iK8Yh)

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you let me know which browser you're using? Also I'm assuming you're running the test site with our DNS settings or another DNS? Also do you have a VPN running?

<comment><USER22> I'm using Firefox DE, and yes I'm on VPN and using DNS.WATCH server.

<comment><AUTHOR> ah, in some cases VPN providers push DNS options too, in which case your system DNS will be overridden. Can you check whether that's the case?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I know DNS over TLS is basically the same, but any plans to integrate dnscrypt too?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not currently no. First of all, there's sort of two parts to "DNSCrypt", the typical DNSCrypt, which is Client<->Recurosor, and DNSCurve, which is Recursor<->Authority. The implementation is complex, and not well supported. I know that a number of people in the OpenNIC community to support DNSCrypt.

We've decided to go with TLS instead of DNSCrypt, since it's a well understood (and now RFC standardized protocol). While we're the first to support this publicly, we expect others to follow soon, which, combined with DNSSEC, will provide true security for DNS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> How does this stack up against Unbound?

<comment><AUTHOR> Largely the same as vs PowerDNS. We've designed this to be an all-in-one for running a performant and secure server with BGP. However, we use the excellent miekg/dns library for the DNS wire protocol, which is related to (sponsored by) NLNetLab, which also produces Unbound.</comment></comment>


Do you highlight all the text you read? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bemmu.com/do-you-highlight-all-the-text-you-read <comment><USER2> It depends on how illegible the "designer" has managed to make the base text. Sometimes highlighting is necessary to make it readable.</comment>