Slashdot Mirror
Beta-Testers and Intellectual Property?
cozimek asks: "I've got a question I'm sure many other Slashdot users have dealt with. My startup has been starting programming development with testing from our beta-clients. One of these clients, however, has begun discussing intellectual property rights. They believe that they deserve rights to parts of our software because they have helped give us advice through the development process. We think we own it all, and that they should be happy to have our services, tailored to their needs, for free. Has anyone dealt with these issues? Has anyone created a beta-tester contract?" As with all such issues, the devil is in the details...particularly the contractual ones. If you've had such issues before, from either side, please let us know how things turned out.
Hey DICKHEAD ! Do us all a favor and FUCK OFF ! CUNT !
fp
#9. Slashdot is a plot by Microsoft to destroy the
productivity of Linux users.
I have friends who were once tremendously productive
programmers, until they started reading Slashdot. Then, the
endless stream of links, updated a dozen times a day no less (so
you don't go once a day to get your fix; instead, you keep a
window open and hit reload every twenty minutes or so), steadily
seduced them, until they eventually became babbling idiots,
dribbling saliva from the corners of their mouths, ranting on
the forums about the relative merits of Karma Whores and
Anonymous Cowards. Can there be any doubt that this website is
anything other than a nefarious ploy to destroy Linux by
undermining the productivity of its developers? And is there
any organization that would like to destroy Linux more than
Microsoft? (Well, maybe the Santa
Cruz Operation...) Is it any coincidence that just as the
Feds were working out Microsoft's sentence, Microsoft sued
Slashdot, resulting in a firestorm of geek ire that totally
overshadowed the monopoly ruling?
#8. Screaming 14-year-old boys attempting to prove to
each other that they are more 3133t than j00.
Need I say more?
#7. Technical opinions refereed by popular vote means
lousy technical opinions.
Before the Internet, a certain breed of deconstructionists
had a lot of fun telling everybody that "privileging of dominant
paradigms" was wrecking the world. The Internet has taught us
that privileging certain views is absolutely crucial to avoid
drowning in the ravings of idiots. On Slashdot, many articles
discuss technical issues---but comments are refereed by popular
vote, and even though the populace of Slashdot readers knows
somewhat more than your average set of people off the street,
they still tend to promote (as in "moderate up") a lot of
technical nonsense. Reading Slashdot can therefore often be
worse than useless, especially to young and budding programmers:
it can give you exactly the wrong idea about the
technical issues it raises.
The pre-Internet publishing world had magazines, newspapers, and
journals with editors. Respectable publications hired
qualified editors. Those qualified editors were educated
enough to make intelligent decisions about the quality of
content. The Slashdot model removes the editors and substitutes
popular vote, and the result (unfortunately) is that the quality
level becomes incredibly inconsistent. It was an interesting
experiment; it didn't work, not for Slashdot (though it might
work in some other population of users). Too bad. Now, it's
time to quit.
#6. Community myth that Linux is technically superior to
any other operating system in the known
universe.
People who do operating
systems research, of course, think this is a joke. Dissent
from this view in Slashdot, however, and you'd better be wearing
your asbestos fatigues.
#5. Butt-ugly visual design.
Of course, this one's a matter of taste. However, in my
analysis, the visual elements of the Slashdot site are basically
hopelessly confused and wrong. From the cryptic links in the
left margin, to the drop-shadowed graphics (hello, digital
design cliche circa 1994?), to the offensively lousy color
scheme (let's use circuit board green, because it's "News for
Nerds", right?) I can't find much to like about the design of
Slashdot.
#4. Gullible editorial staff continues to post links to
any and all articles that vaguely criticize Linux in any
way.
Blowhards (like the flock of irresponsible columnists over
at the Windows-boosterism rag InfoWorld) have had tons of
fun taking advantage of this tendency to drive hits to their
site. On any given day, Slashdot readers are treated to another
link to another column by another self-proclaimed pundit
declaring that Linux is (pick one) unreliable, not scalable, not
user-friendly, doomed, piracy-inducing, foul-smelling, or
un-American. And irony was that the editors of Slashdot are
falling right into the pundits' trap: inciting the Slashdot
community is the one surefire way to drive up your hit count and
hence your revenue from ad banners. Did the Slashdot editors
ever wise up? Not that I ever saw. Given how tiresome the
endless pro-Linux jihad had become by the time I quit, I have
very little desire to go back and find out whether that's
changed.
#3. Gullible editorial staff continues to post links to
bogus pseudoscience articles by crackpots.
At the time I quit, the editors were posting links to
theories of alternate consciousness, unified theories of the
universe made up by people in their garages, and the like at a
rate of two or three a week. And the number was only
increasing. If I want to read articles that promote totally
bogus pseudoscience, I'll open up the Village
Voice. We don't need another webzine filling that
role.
#2. Editorial/comment system pretends to be democratic
but in reality most content remains firmly in the iron clasp of
the editors.
The above problems with editorial could be solved if stories
could be moderated as well as comments, or if editors paid
attention to negative feedback about the posting of certain
articles. However, the editorial staff, while pretending to be
ideology-free selectors of any "interesting" content, in fact
exert tremendous power over the content of the site, because
they are the only ones who can select top-level links. They
have furthermore demonstrated, for all the reasons above, that
they cannot use this power wisely.
In fact, if you think about it, the links on Slashdot are easily
an order of magnitude less interesting, on average, than those
of Suck, Hotwired, or FEED---all of which are run by
smart editors with good taste (and two of which are dead---thus
proving that only the good die young). If you've read any of
these webzines, you'll probably agree. Rob and Hemos simply
don't compare, as editors, to Stephen Johnson or Joey
Anuff.
So, really, it's time to ask yourself: why should I read
Slashdot? Because it targets my demographic? That's a silly
reason. So why not quit today?
#1. Two words: Jon Katz.
Every community has its resident gasbag. The difference
between Slashdot and other communities is that they have the
means to kick their village idiot off his soapbox, but they lack
the will. If Jon Katz is not the single worst writer for any
webzine, anywhere on the planet, alive today, then I am a
penguin. His writing manages to be endlessly meandering and
verbose, and simultaneously utterly content-free.
Notice, by the way, that I have not said a word about his
technical acumen. It's not necessary to. Katz (who, like all
opportunists, likes to paint himself as an innocent victim
whenever he's criticized) makes a big deal about how there are
"technical snobs" in the Linux user population who blast him for
not being a technical genius. To tell the truth, Katz's
inability to install even recent Linux distributions (which are
arguably as easy to install as MacOS or Windows) on a
run-of-the-mill x86 PC does testify to his general cluelessness.
However, Katz is not a programmer or sysadmin; he's a writer.
He must stand or fall based on the quality of his writing. And
his writing is totally the pits. He would never have gotten
published anywhere but Slashdot; even WIRED, cheerleaders of all
things "digital" and "decentralized", finally got tired of his
babbling and let him go. The cheesiest, most blatantly
pandering "Hookers Who Read Proust" article on Salon.com displays more literary
skill than the finest Katz screed ever to see the light of
day.
To make things worse, Katz is also a shameless opportunist who
regularly uses Slashdot to promote his books. And the Slashdot
admins go right along with it. You can't criticize someone for
their taste in friends, but you can criticize them for
continuing in a relentless and blind nepotism that destroys the
quality of the site.
No single factor wase more pivotal in driving me away from
Slashdot than Jon Katz. Even when I registered for an account
and filtered Katz out, still he made it into news items not
labeled Jon Katz---presumably to promote sales of his book.
What other webzine displays such a blatant disrespect for its
readers?
But then again, Katz's pandering, one-note "Ich bin ein Geek"
spiel may be exactly what the Slashdot audience
deserves.
Simply put, it's time to quit Slashdot, once and for
all.
I am President Al Gore
I OWN all of you. You are using my internet that I built with my blood, sweat, and tears.
I OWN all of you. When I first thought about creating this 'information superhighway' thing, I knew it would be great.
I OWN all of you. Now I see the error of my ways. When I originally created the INTERNET I figured there wouldn't be sooooo many people.
I OWN all of you. So what did I do? The dope I am - used IPv4.
I OWN all of you. What is your (as in the 'tech' community) solution? IPv6? I have never heard of such a stupid idea.
I OWN all of you. I worked very hard to come up with 32 bit addressing and now you are going to ruin it.
I OWN all of you. The INTERNET (which I invented) was created for the 'elite' in this society.
I OWN all of you. The fact that you are all here makes me sick. I have a new plan to create another INTERNET.
I OWN all of you. I have decided that I will be creating INTERNET 2.
I OWN all of you. Some people have even given credit to others for creating things such as the www
I OWN all of you. I can assure you this incorrect. I was doing the www in 1969 while everyone else was in Vietnam.
I OWN all of you. Some people think I am just a bleeding left wing liberal crack ass...they are not correct.
I OWN all of you. I am the collective minds of all the industry greats. John Gage, John Chambers, and the guy who invented Visual Basic.
I OWN all of you. So...do me a favor and get off my internet. I need the 10 gig links to setup many many mirrors to www.goatse.cx.
Thank You.
Very Good Point. Please Mod Up, Up, Up.
We are not lawyers.
I am.
You are truly a great and highly skilled first crapflooder! I commend you for all your hard work!
and you went to -1 from 2 in the time it took me to post that... (literally)
u r an obvious torll, ur info is so wrong im not even gonna address it stupid
Who the fuck cares. Shut up.
As far as I know, my current IP rights are to 141.154.81.215....
My life's goal is to get a score of +3!