On Tue, May 31, 2005 01:30:51 AM -0400, Daniel Carrera
([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
>
> >The architecture of a new microprocessor can be drawn on a piece of
> >paper,
>
> The issue is cost. That drawing (which would not fit on any piece of
> paper I know of) is very expensive to do. The point is not whether
> you need a huge facility to design a microprocessor, but whether
> there is a heavy capital investment before you get any money back.
What is the difference? The point is that if you only design it
without manufacturing at least a prototype you'll never know for sure
that it works, and of course there is a huge capital investment to
build a silicon foundry, much before it starts to make money.
> >>So yes, actually, it definitely scales, all the way up to the
> >>largest projects ever made.
> >
> >Like what? The pyramids and the gothic cathedrals? Things that,
> >like accelerators and the telescopes you also mentioned, had no
> >private use?
>
> Where does "private" come from?
Sorry, I meant "personal". Cathedrals and other temples are not built
to be used by a single person for his own private business.
> >>The thing about using patents to "protect" invention is actually a
> >>very recent aberration in a few fields,
> >
> >The polio vaccine and the Internet are even more recent. Being
> >recent does not automatically makes something wrong or worst of
> >what existed before,
>
> That's not the point I was making. I never said "new = bad" and I
> don't know how you got that impression.
>From your sentence above: "The thing about using patents to "protect"
invention is actually a very recent aberration in a few fields".
> I was saying that most progress hasn't come from patents. I was
> saying that heavy capital investment to produce science is nothing
> new and patents are.
Heavy capital investment isn't new, but it has been for a long time
reserved, for any reasons, only to religious or politic, anyway
monolithic and centralized, administrations for which mere profit was
not *the* goal. Yes, in that context patents wouldn't mean much.
> But in general, the x86 architecture has been more open than the Mac
> architecture and this has been a driving reason why that architecture
> took off and now dominates the market, instead of the comparatively
> closed Mac architecture. So the basic point is still valid. The more
> closed system did worse.
Or, maybe, "both systems were closed by lots of patents, and the one
that made the smartest use of them (certainly not for the common good
and universal love) managed to keep control to make more money".
Ciao,
Marco
--
Marco Fioretti mfioretti, at the server mclink.it
Fedora Core 3 for low memory http://www.rule-project.org/
[media giants] have no idea how to do business with resourceful human
beings rather than passive vegetables. So they run to [the] government
for protection." -- Doc Searls on the SSSCA, in Linux Journal
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
