Quotes of the week [LWN.net]

I think that it'd be cool to have our community be the community of people who can go wild on the platform - "let a thousand flowers bloom". That the core GNOME project is solid and useful, but that we encourage experimentation, respins, freedom for our users. That seems inconsistent with the current GNOME messaging.

— Dave Neary

Our patent system is the envy of the world.

— David Kappos, head of the United States Patent and Trademark Office

to post comments

"envy"

Posted Nov 22, 2012 0:31 UTC (Thu) by jamesmorris (subscriber, #82698) [Link] (1 responses)

You keep using that word...

"envy"

Posted Nov 29, 2012 12:19 UTC (Thu) by gvy (guest, #11981) [Link]

It's called "autotraining".

(disclaimer: I've actually read enough of {app,pat}ft.uspto.gov as a technical expert and wrote some stubs for EPO API to ease the life of an attorney a bit; no envy at all, rather pity due to the relative rarity of solid texts)

Quotes of the week

Posted Nov 22, 2012 4:13 UTC (Thu) by cmccabe (guest, #60281) [Link] (1 responses)

When Mao said he wanted to see "a hundred flowers bloom," he wasn't serious. He just wanted to "entice the snakes out of their caves" (somehow, people don't remember this quote quite as much.) Many people were executed or condemned to prison labor camps as a result of falling for the chairman's ruse.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Flowers_Campaign

Quotes of the week

Posted Nov 22, 2012 9:38 UTC (Thu) by jezuch (subscriber, #52988) [Link]

> When Mao said he wanted to see "a hundred flowers bloom," he wasn't serious.

Heh, my thought exactly. I'm not trying to be cynical, I just know a bit about Chinese history :) A better reference would be to the age of Hundred Schools of Thought:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Schools_of_Thought

And if we really want to be cynical, also including the fact, that it was a "period was fraught with chaos and bloody battles" ;) Let's just hope we won't see a Linux desktop's equivalent of Qin Shi Huang.

David Kappos

Posted Nov 22, 2012 15:19 UTC (Thu) by robert_s (subscriber, #42402) [Link] (2 responses)

This guy's hilarious.

David Kappos

Posted Nov 22, 2012 20:04 UTC (Thu) by Seegras (guest, #20463) [Link] (1 responses)

He missed it only slightly. "Our patent system is the envy of the worlds lawyers" would be correct.

(Ow my goddess! I just found out this is the director of the USPTO. Now he sounds more hilarious indeed, like King Arnulf of Hy-Brazil: "Let's stick to facts. There has never been a safer, more certain way of keeping the peace. So whatever's happening, you can rest assured, Hy Brasil is not sinking. Repeat, not sinking.")

David Kappos

Posted Nov 29, 2012 20:31 UTC (Thu) by JanC_ (guest, #34940) [Link]

Or maybe he wants to become the next Comical Ali... ;)

Quotes of the week

Posted Nov 23, 2012 0:43 UTC (Fri) by Rudd-O (guest, #61155) [Link]

David Kappos: "The system works, if you just shut the fuck up and stopped criticizing it. People fighting each other and wasting billions of dollars over imaginary property is totally natural and reasonable."

Corn pone opinions for the win.

Quotes of the week

Posted Mar 5, 2013 10:17 UTC (Tue) by bluss (guest, #47454) [Link]

Gnome speaking diversity, after their comment "You have to determinte what your application is. I hope it is a GNOME application"...