Corporations are part of the new social order. Look at the Japanese. They practically stay with the employer for their entire life! That's some respect!
I went up to the top to see if the moderator had marked it "Funny". I would have.... new social order... HAHAHAHAHA. Corporations are organizations formed by a group of investors to get a return on their investment. They have absolutely no loyalty to you... if things got rough enough, they'd fire you in a heart beat. And if things got really really good, its the investors, not the employees that really really benifit. Sacrifice now, and loose your job down the line when you are no longer "feisable". Yea! That's the new social order I tell you.
Most credit goes "unwritten" and hence can be withdrawn at any time -- especially if the manager
on the project moves on to another company. Having a sequence of credit memos in your file; ones which you can take with you on job interviews both internally and externally is an execelent compensation since it enables you to
work on more projects which personally interest you.
If you are interviewing which would you rather have, someone with 10 signed memos of recommendation from various managers or someone with a long resume listing phone numbers of managers who have moved on....
It is usually considered fair use to
copy for historical, archival usage
only. One would have go be clear
that any mirroring under fair use
would not be "republished", thus
put on to a backup tape and put
into a sealed envelope and mailed
to ones self would be sufficient.
A few years ago, the most complicated agreement I had to deal with was my rental agreement. Then came my employment agreement. That was bad enough, and most other things were relatively painless; I had a health insurance policy which was described in 5 pages. Not too bad. Now adays it's far far worse. My last health insurance policy was some 50 pages... totally incomprehensible. With complicated legal agreements, a summary in large print is absolutely necessary... and that summary needs to be fairly accurate. Leaving out essential items from the large print like... "only valid w/ rebate" or "only with 2 year $500 service contract" is just plain old deception. Period. Pretty soon we will be facing an 15 page ELUA for music CDs on the shrink wrap. I don't have time to scan every legal agreement... do you? What if it says you can't use it with a non-sony player... on page 4, 6th paragraph, sentance 2? We have a right to expect the large print to accurately reflect the legaleaze for every day transactions.
The primary problem with this is that it is temporary. One of the three *will* emerge as the dominant or "preferred" Windows provider and we will be back into the same boat. Although it is a good idea; it is not a long term solution.
A modified GPL focusing on freedom as in "freedom to innovate" instead of "freedom of cost" should be the goal. See my letter to the Judge in this regard.
As a software developer who has studied intellectual property law, I would like to present an alternative remedy for the Microsoft anti-trust case. I strongly feel that the root cause of our difficulty is an imbalanced copyright law, which is being used by Microsoft and many other software companies in a manner which undermines its constitutional justification and causes adverse economic effects. While remedies on the table will correct symptoms, the following proposal may additionally restore balance and could be applied industry wide.
In an emerging market, where prior investment is negligible, consumers desire highly differentiated software offerings; our legal environment supports this need exquisitely. However, in established markets, where consumers have invested in and have become dependent upon a particular software, these same consumers no longer desire competition for new and different software offerings. Instead, if given a choice, they would prefer competition for the change in the software they currently use. Unfortunately, our current legal practices, focused on emerging markets and justified with natural-right copyright thinking, deny the marketplace this alternative style of competition.
I do think that a contractual remedy for Microsoft, designed to establish such a competitive market for software upgrades, could prove more effective than a breakup. This proposal necessitates the creation of a non-profit registry-of-deeds tasked with maintaining records of software produced by revisions from competing authors. Specifically, the registry would administer access to source code and would calculate royalties from the licensing of administered software. The proposal rests on the following principles:
1. Before offering software to the marketplace, a developer would deposit into the registry all source code, description of patents, and design materials necessary to understand and build the program offered.
2. As part of each deposit, the developer would also specify a per-end-user licensing fee for programs derived from the material deposited.
3. Anyone can then retrieve these deposits and build from the material contained provided that any derived or competing work which the reader is thereafter involved is registered according to this same method.
4. When a derivative program is licensed, the sale price is calculated with the licensing fees for the materials upon which the program is derived. A technique involving anonymous serial numbers can be employed so that a given deposit is only licensed and charged once per user.
5. The developer may at any time reduce the posted price for their deposits; but may not license use of the material separately for amounts less than the posted price.
6. When fees are collected, royalties are distributed to each developer according to the number of licenses issued for each of their deposits.
7. The license for each deposit does not extend to trademarks, intellectual property of other parties, or material that was deposited separately. Deposits which would overlap in material must be decomposed into smaller units; the original treated as a derived work.
While the above may seem complicated, it will administer software that is a composite of revisions from competing authors. I am positive that most of this process can be automated so that developers, customers, and distributors are shielded from the administrative burden.
I believe that this mechanism could bring about more professionalism within the industry. It would eliminate bait-and-upgrade schemes. It would also improve software reliability. Lacking serious competition for upgrades, established software vendors have little incentive to work on quality control issues. Furthermore, with source code and design documents publicly available, retired programmers could be independently contracted for the evaluation of commercial applications. I can even imagine professional review organizations emerging, helping the consumer sort through the hype to identify those products with good, solid engineering.
I feel that the consumer benefits to this proposal are more clear than those benefits resulting from a breakup. Further, this proposal is not necessarily a penalty for Microsoft, but a more industry focused solution which other software organizations could voluntarily adopt. This proposal also does exactly what is needed for Microsoft, it forces a decreasing price non-discriminatory license. And the proposal opens up the operating system market for competition, albeit a different style of competition. With a bootstrap, such as the Microsoft Windows Operating System, this type of competition could gain much credibility as consumers realize the benefits and demand registration for other commercial software.
In short, this proposal provides the community of users with some say in the destiny of the software they have invested in and have become dependent upon.
In a recent CSPAN discussion over the LoveBug worm, the respected representative from Washington asserted that the DOJ's action against Microsoft would prevent it from addressing security bugs like this. Gosh. I could not quite figure out why he was making this assertion; but since the representative kept repeating the assertion it must be true, right?
I heared this as well. There were a number of _bad_ and _uninformed_ assertions. One of the more interesting one was a statement by the representative from washington; who kept saying that breaking up Microsoft will prevent them from adequately making security updates. After a while I got so annoyed I changed the radio station. Clark
How can code be free speech? If I make a piece of hardware do exactly the same thing as a piece of software, does the piece of hardware become "speech"?
I would say probably not. The ruling linked to in the article above says that code is an expressive means of transmitting ideas about computer programming, essentially the algorithms. This means that compiled binaries, which are the end product and are not an expressive means of transmitting these ideas, are not protected under free speech. Similarly, hardware, which is not an expression of it's own design, will not be protected, though the plans and schema may be.
I would assume that binaries are also protected as an *expression* of an idea. The constitutional purpose of copyright is to encourage individuals to *express* ideas so that the arts and sciences may advance. To encourage this, the constitution grants specific rights to the creator; so that the marketplace can determine how to best encourage the creator. If it is held that a binary is not not an expression of an idea and thus protected under free speech... then I question its ability to be copyrighted. I think that these two aspects of constitutional law may be tightly intertwined. Also, I personall believe that you should be able to copyright a binary... as long as the source code is published (to advance the arts and sciences). The copyright/patent mini-blurb in the constitution is about a *trade* -- the creator gives their *ideas* (in the form of a copyrightable expression or in the form of a patent application) to the public in exchange for the rights granted. To summarize: If it is not *good-enough* to protect as free speech, then it is not *good-enough* to be copyrighted. BTW, visit www.distributedcopyright.org for some older ideas about copyright and software...
I would suggest that the review quoted above may actually be libel. The reviewer is stating as a fact that a fellow teacher has a particular opinion. The credibility of another individual is being wagered here... So if this fellow teacher doesn't exist or did not state this opinion; then the above may be a problem. I would suggest that the review site only allow for direct experience (hear-say is not postable). Further, a nice moderation mechanism like slash dot could help out.
This type of stuff hurts us more than it help. I don't get it, why provoke judges and legislators like this? Does it provide ego value? I feel this type of behavior only serves to show disrepect for the intent of the law; disrepect is not something we need to be showing. Thoughtful undersanding of the issues is what we need to be demonstrating; further dissemminating material which a judge has restricted (regardless of the country) will only serve to motivate the WTO and other organizations to have bi-lateral agreements which will only tighten our straight jacket. I feel this type of stunt is like squirming, allowing our opponent to pull the strings tighter.
Well, on page 8, he talks about open source as if it were a license; not a license categorization. He then points to the "License Must Not Contaminate Other Software" clause and infers that open source is not viral, unlike the GPL. He completely missed the fact that GPL is talking about linking, not shared distribution. I'm not sure if he has done all of his homework yet... I guess this is a work in progress?
Yes, and they were saying that this could lead to a bunch of re-trials in the United States. From my knowledge most of the DNA related stuff in the US is used to relate DNA from a scratch, hair, or other item left at the crime scene to a particular individual. In this case, the probability is far less... although, this could be used to *find* potential criminal that might be scary. Might lead to a national DNA database for finding potential murders... I guess you would be guilty untill proven innocent in this case. Thoughts?
The largest and most ruthless trusts in the late 1800's and early 1900's were vertical, with explicit end-to-end control. This is a very real threat to the industry! It forces all of the competitors to do something similar to 'stay-alive'. And now there is no way to enter the market unless you are a multi-billion dollar organization -- stifling competition in every related market from design, to manufacturing, to promotion, to distribution, etc.
I think PKI offers a neet solution. If you need to "cache" information on the client for performance, do so. Just send it encrypted. Then, on a need-to-know basis, send the keys. This way you get the best of both worlds.
Domain names should have been treated as public property and auctioned to raise revenue -- the revenue used for further research of technology. Pity. Instead they are auctioned by cybersquatters who only take and give nothing back to the Internet. Kinda like giving away natural resources to companies without expecting market rates. Oh humm.
This is the first time where breakup of a monopoly based soley on intellectual property may occur. For monopolies past, breakup involved splitting the properties along physical boundaries. It is clear that the definition of this breakup will be along intellectual boundries instead. However, this leads to one question.
In the past, the assets were exclusive; thus only one group could control each asset after the breakup. Could the non-exclusive nature of information change the method of breakup?
In particular, it has been argued that the public of the united states (and the world at large) has already paid for Windows 98 far more than they would have otherwise; all in told billions of dollars more than they would have. So, due to the non-exclusive nature of the operating system; is putting the operating system code in the public domain a possible solution? After all, it is the abuse of the very intent of copyright law (to promote the arts and sciences by providing, for a limited time, exclusive rights) by interfering with the advancement of the arts and sciences which has been proven. Would it not make sence to simply revoke the copyright? Why or why not.
Slashdot Mirror
I went up to the top to see if the moderator had marked it "Funny". I would have.... new social order... HAHAHAHAHA. Corporations are organizations formed by a group of investors to get a return on their investment. They have absolutely no loyalty to you... if things got rough enough, they'd fire you in a heart beat. And if things got really really good, its the investors, not the employees that really really benifit. Sacrifice now, and loose your job down the line when you are no longer "feisable". Yea! That's the new social order I tell you.
Moderate this one down please. Thank you.
Most credit goes "unwritten" and hence can be withdrawn at any time -- especially if the manager on the project moves on to another company. Having a sequence of credit memos in your file; ones which you can take with you on job interviews both internally and externally is an execelent compensation since it enables you to work on more projects which personally interest you.
If you are interviewing which would you rather have, someone with 10 signed memos of recommendation from various managers or someone with a long resume listing phone numbers of managers who have moved on....
It is usually considered fair use to copy for historical, archival usage only. One would have go be clear that any mirroring under fair use would not be "republished", thus put on to a backup tape and put into a sealed envelope and mailed to ones self would be sufficient.
The bill isn't about "digital signatures", i.e. PKI, it is about _any_ kind of electronic acceptance; like clicking "yes" on a random web site. Clark
A few years ago, the most complicated agreement I had to deal with was my rental agreement. Then came my employment agreement. That was bad enough, and most other things were relatively painless; I had a health insurance policy which was described in 5 pages. Not too bad.
Now adays it's far far worse. My last health insurance policy was some 50 pages... totally incomprehensible. With complicated legal agreements, a summary in large print is absolutely necessary... and that summary needs to be fairly accurate. Leaving out essential items from the large print like... "only valid w/ rebate" or "only with 2 year $500 service contract" is just plain old deception. Period.
Pretty soon we will be facing an 15 page ELUA for music CDs on the shrink wrap. I don't have time to scan every legal agreement... do you? What if it says you can't use it with a non-sony player... on page 4, 6th paragraph, sentance 2?
We have a right to expect the large print to accurately reflect the legaleaze for every day transactions.
Visit www.distributedcopyright.org
This is a good split criteria. Perhaps you should fax the recommendation to the DOJ? Make it a very very simple half-pager.
A modified GPL focusing on freedom as in "freedom to innovate" instead of "freedom of cost" should be the goal. See my letter to the Judge in this regard.
As a software developer who has studied intellectual property law, I would like to present an alternative remedy for the Microsoft anti-trust case. I strongly feel that the root cause of our difficulty is an imbalanced copyright law, which is being used by Microsoft and many other software companies in a manner which undermines its constitutional justification and causes adverse economic effects. While remedies on the table will correct symptoms, the following proposal may additionally restore balance and could be applied industry wide.
In an emerging market, where prior investment is negligible, consumers desire highly differentiated software offerings; our legal environment supports this need exquisitely. However, in established markets, where consumers have invested in and have become dependent upon a particular software, these same consumers no longer desire competition for new and different software offerings. Instead, if given a choice, they would prefer competition for the change in the software they currently use. Unfortunately, our current legal practices, focused on emerging markets and justified with natural-right copyright thinking, deny the marketplace this alternative style of competition.
I do think that a contractual remedy for Microsoft, designed to establish such a competitive market for software upgrades, could prove more effective than a breakup. This proposal necessitates the creation of a non-profit registry-of-deeds tasked with maintaining records of software produced by revisions from competing authors. Specifically, the registry would administer access to source code and would calculate royalties from the licensing of administered software. The proposal rests on the following principles:
1. Before offering software to the marketplace, a developer would deposit into the registry all source code, description of patents, and design materials necessary to understand and build the program offered.
2. As part of each deposit, the developer would also specify a per-end-user licensing fee for programs derived from the material deposited.
3. Anyone can then retrieve these deposits and build from the material contained provided that any derived or competing work which the reader is thereafter involved is registered according to this same method.
4. When a derivative program is licensed, the sale price is calculated with the licensing fees for the materials upon which the program is derived. A technique involving anonymous serial numbers can be employed so that a given deposit is only licensed and charged once per user.
5. The developer may at any time reduce the posted price for their deposits; but may not license use of the material separately for amounts less than the posted price.
6. When fees are collected, royalties are distributed to each developer according to the number of licenses issued for each of their deposits.
7. The license for each deposit does not extend to trademarks, intellectual property of other parties, or material that was deposited separately. Deposits which would overlap in material must be decomposed into smaller units; the original treated as a derived work.
While the above may seem complicated, it will administer software that is a composite of revisions from competing authors. I am positive that most of this process can be automated so that developers, customers, and distributors are shielded from the administrative burden.
I believe that this mechanism could bring about more professionalism within the industry. It would eliminate bait-and-upgrade schemes. It would also improve software reliability. Lacking serious competition for upgrades, established software vendors have little incentive to work on quality control issues. Furthermore, with source code and design documents publicly available, retired programmers could be independently contracted for the evaluation of commercial applications. I can even imagine professional review organizations emerging, helping the consumer sort through the hype to identify those products with good, solid engineering.
I feel that the consumer benefits to this proposal are more clear than those benefits resulting from a breakup. Further, this proposal is not necessarily a penalty for Microsoft, but a more industry focused solution which other software organizations could voluntarily adopt. This proposal also does exactly what is needed for Microsoft, it forces a decreasing price non-discriminatory license. And the proposal opens up the operating system market for competition, albeit a different style of competition. With a bootstrap, such as the Microsoft Windows Operating System, this type of competition could gain much credibility as consumers realize the benefits and demand registration for other commercial software.
In short, this proposal provides the community of users with some say in the destiny of the software they have invested in and have become dependent upon.
In a recent CSPAN discussion over the LoveBug worm, the respected representative from Washington asserted that the DOJ's action against Microsoft would prevent it from addressing security bugs like this. Gosh. I could not quite figure out why he was making this assertion; but since the representative kept repeating the assertion it must be true, right?
I heared this as well. There were a number of _bad_ and _uninformed_ assertions. One of the more interesting one was a statement by the representative from washington; who kept saying that breaking up Microsoft will prevent them from adequately making security updates. After a while I got so annoyed I changed the radio station. Clark
Yes; However, this license is not a GPL-only license. He reserves the right to license it for non-GPL work.
His license reserves the right to license it for other proprietary code. Thus, it isn't a GPL-only license... Clark
How can code be free speech? If I make a piece of hardware do exactly the same thing as a piece of software, does the piece of hardware become "speech"?
I would say probably not. The ruling linked to in the article above says that code is an expressive means of transmitting ideas about computer programming, essentially the algorithms. This means that compiled binaries, which are the end product and are not an expressive means of transmitting these ideas, are not protected under free speech. Similarly, hardware, which is not an expression of it's own design, will not be protected, though the plans and schema may be.
I would assume that binaries are also protected as an *expression* of an idea. The constitutional purpose of copyright is to encourage individuals to *express* ideas so that the arts and sciences may advance. To encourage this, the constitution grants specific rights to the creator; so that the marketplace can determine how to best encourage the creator. If it is held that a binary is not not an expression of an idea and thus protected under free speech... then I question its ability to be copyrighted. I think that these two aspects of constitutional law may be tightly intertwined. Also, I personall believe that you should be able to copyright a binary... as long as the source code is published (to advance the arts and sciences). The copyright/patent mini-blurb in the constitution is about a *trade* -- the creator gives their *ideas* (in the form of a copyrightable expression or in the form of a patent application) to the public in exchange for the rights granted. To summarize:If it is not *good-enough* to protect as free speech, then it is not *good-enough* to be copyrighted.
BTW, visit www.distributedcopyright.org for some older ideas about copyright and software...
And the first PC wasn't 8-bit only?
I would suggest that the review quoted above may actually be libel. The reviewer is stating as a fact that a fellow teacher has a particular opinion. The credibility of another individual is being wagered here... So if this fellow teacher doesn't exist or did not state this opinion; then the above may be a problem. I would suggest that the review site only allow for direct experience (hear-say is not postable). Further, a nice moderation mechanism like slash dot could help out.
This type of stuff hurts us more than it help. I don't get it, why provoke judges and legislators like this? Does it provide ego value? I feel this type of behavior only serves to show disrepect for the intent of the law; disrepect is not something we need to be showing. Thoughtful undersanding of the issues is what we need to be demonstrating; further dissemminating material which a judge has restricted (regardless of the country) will only serve to motivate the WTO and other organizations to have bi-lateral agreements which will only tighten our straight jacket. I feel this type of stunt is like squirming, allowing our opponent to pull the strings tighter.
Well, on page 8, he talks about open source as if it were a license; not a license categorization. He then points to the "License Must Not Contaminate Other Software" clause and infers that open source is not viral, unlike the GPL. He completely missed the fact that GPL is talking about linking, not shared distribution. I'm not sure if he has done all of his homework yet... I guess this is a work in progress?
Yes, and they were saying that this could lead to a bunch of re-trials in the United States. From my knowledge most of the DNA related stuff in the US is used to relate DNA from a scratch, hair, or other item left at the crime scene to a particular individual. In this case, the probability is far less... although, this could be used to *find* potential criminal that might be scary. Might lead to a national DNA database for finding potential murders... I guess you would be guilty untill proven innocent in this case. Thoughts?
The largest and most ruthless trusts in the late 1800's and early 1900's were vertical, with explicit end-to-end control. This is a very real threat to the industry! It forces all of the competitors to do something similar to 'stay-alive'. And now there is no way to enter the market unless you are a multi-billion dollar organization -- stifling competition in every related market from design, to manufacturing, to promotion, to distribution, etc.
I think this would be a good version number... think that there would be trademark problems?
I think PKI offers a neet solution. If you need to "cache" information on the client for performance, do so. Just send it encrypted. Then, on a need-to-know basis, send the keys. This way you get the best of both worlds.
Domain names should have been treated as public property and auctioned to raise revenue -- the revenue used for further research of technology. Pity. Instead they are auctioned by cybersquatters who only take and give nothing back to the Internet. Kinda like giving away natural resources to companies without expecting market rates. Oh humm.
In the past, the assets were exclusive; thus only one group could control each asset after the breakup. Could the non-exclusive nature of information change the method of breakup?
In particular, it has been argued that the public of the united states (and the world at large) has already paid for Windows 98 far more than they would have otherwise; all in told billions of dollars more than they would have. So, due to the non-exclusive nature of the operating system; is putting the operating system code in the public domain a possible solution? After all, it is the abuse of the very intent of copyright law (to promote the arts and sciences by providing, for a limited time, exclusive rights) by interfering with the advancement of the arts and sciences which has been proven. Would it not make sence to simply revoke the copyright? Why or why not.