Charles on… anything that comes along

Seems that I have loads of Gmail invites to dispense. (50, at latest count.)

If you’d like one, just leave a comment with your email in the email field of the comment on this post, with the reason why you’d like a Gmail invite. Your email won’t be publicly visible. I’ll deal with them.

I find it works pretty well, and you can download it to your PC (like a normal POP mailbox) if you like.

(Side note: if anyone has managed to get Eudora 5.x on OSX to do POP access to Gmail, do let me know how. I’ve followed all the instructions, but Eudora is completely ignoring the account - won’t even check it.)

(Eudora update: this document suggests that Qualcomm broke SSL in the upgrade to 5.2. Durr! However, following the instructions, Eudora still won’t actually check my Gmail POP account, which I have enabled..)

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• Gmail praise: cool front page, excellent spam filtering (17 April 2005; score: 79.78%)
• Still waiting for IMAP on Gmail? You might already have it... (15 November 2007; score: 54.89%)
• Gmail is broken. Or its POP forwarding is. (16 August 2006; score: 49.05%)

My Independent article this week is on how software patents are being railroaded through the European Parliament, in a way that’s underhand and has the terrible smell of Machiavellian dealings all through it.

First, a Groklaw posting pointing to a Danish newspaper article suggesting Bill Gates threatened Denmark with the loss of Navision if it didn’t push software patents.

Second, a ZDNet leader which observes:

This is a triumph of bureaucracy over democracy. It’s said of newspapers that you only know how bad they are when you read what they say about something you know; this affair has highlighted the mandarin mechanisms of Europe at their baleful worst. The killer argument that won the day for software patents? “We are adopting the position for institutional reasons so as not to create a precedent which might have a consequence of creating future delays in other processes.”

Third, Wendy Grossman’s article for Wired which sets out who stands where, in a plain non-contentious manner. (Must have been hard to write :-))

Fourth: the nosoftwarepatents site, which has plenty of explanation and/or links of how software patenting leads to less secure, more expensive software. How peculiar then that Microsoft should back it - we all know they want us to have cheaper, more secure products.

Why do I think software patents are bad? First because they’re unnecessary - all the required protections exist through copyright law, which is the one that is applied when you tear off the shrinkwrap (and can anyone tell me of any products which are protected by both patent *and* copyright law?); and second because they’re used, in general, by the larger companies against the smaller one, to stifle competition. In the cases where small companies sue larger ones, such as Burst suing Microsoft, the aim is generally to ride the coattails of a successful technology.

And as a sideline, it’s interesting how many businesses find plain old copyright law, as described in the GPL, somehow too hard to comply with. Here’s a story about a GPL developer who has served writs on a number of companies, and a link to his site - GPL-violations.org.

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• Must-see TV: 'The Apprentice' (6 April 2005; score: 31.44%)
• Apple to marry IBM? No, and no, and no (8 December 2004; score: 25.35%)
• Take two buttons into the shower? No, I'll have four and a clicking sound please (2 August 2005; score: 24.3%)