I have followed this entire trial from it's inception, including it's precursor, where Microsoft thumbed it's collective nose at Gov't efforts to restrain it... and do not get me wrong - I use and develop for Microsoft products, as well as Linux ( and a host of other systems ). ( Sidenote - I do not personally believe Microsoft has actually innovated anything, in terms of inventing it. They used the Japanese model of taking an existing thing and making it marketable at low cost to themselves, and extending it as market needs required... obviously for their own benefit. Our laws *require* them to do that ).
That leads me to my questions :
1. Do you believe that Microsoft will lose the case, and if so, how badly..... I am mindful of the phrase that losing a case can be mitigated depending on just how badly one loses.
2. If Microsoft loses totally - i.e. they are determined to be a blight on the face of innovation, then how willing will the judge be to grant structural remedies? And how far do you think He will go?
3. Do you think that the mere Findings of Fact will have any weight in the ( sure to appear) lawsuits against Microsoft for violations of SEC rules ( by stealing a business, for example )
4. Is it your opinion ( and I know I am asking much, asking 4 experts to agree on something....;-) ) that Microsoft is internally already preparing for it's - possibly - inevitable breakup?
Thank you indeed for lending your time and thought to the/. community:-)
* Unix -is- user friendly. It's just very particular about who it's friends are*
I was on the receiving end of one of these a few years back, and my one would not hold, either. The reasons are quite simple really:
Non-compete agreements may not be enforced simply to reduce competetition. In other words, a non-compete does not bar you from working from a competitor unless one of 3 allgations is sustained -
You had access to trade secrets and your new employer ( who is in direct competition ) could and would use those secrets or
You were given specialized training at company expense that you would otherwise not have been able to receive or
You are taking industry goodwill from your old company to your new one. This case is usually for salespeople who have 'their' clients. Those clients might follow the salesperson rather than stick with the original company.
In this case, the judge looked at the allegations and found they did not meet the requirements above. He also noted quite correctly that a year is an infinity in this business. Non-competes may be successfully challenged if they have the effect of preventing a person from working. So the judge first dismissed the actionable claims, and then also found it non-enforceable for work prevention. Seems a reasonable ruling to me.
It is perfectly possible to get faster ping times than usually achieved with V.90 ( 56K ) modems.
A lot of the time involved in the entire round trip of a ping, from application to remote system to application is handled in software or firmware on the modem itself. If 3Com has drastically improved the handling of the response at the hardware level to eliminate a bottleneck, then yes, you can get faster pings. Of course, this assumes that the server at the remote end is up. V.90 maxes out at 53K, by the way, and achieves that in one direction only. Just why is beyond the current scope, but there is an excellent V.90 intro on the 3Com site. No, I do not work for 3Com, but I deal with V.90 and the like every day;)
As always, many of the responses here ignore the realities of life in the hellmouth. Overreaction? Not really, given what we already know about the people who actually run our educational system. Let's look at some reality here, from the test itself, to who uses it and why.
The test itself is of a genre known as 'subtle psychological evaluations'. As the original article noted, these tests are very, very hard to beat, if not impossible. But there is one fatal flaw in all these tests; the frame of reference.
The people who write these tests must make certain assumptions about social norms. After all, this is a social interaction evaluation we are dealing with. What are those assumptions? Even if the assumptions are statistically valid for the population of this country there are two issues that immediately come up.
What if the student did not originate in this country, or was not raised according to the 'average' norms of this country?
A statistical norm can only be applied to a group with any real certainty of accuracy, and even then the accuracy is the margin of error inherent in statistics. Nothing in statistics is guaranteed. This norm can not be used to evaluate an individual with any degree of certainty at all. In fact, these tests are about as useful, in terms of accuracy on an individual,as a polygraph.
The researchers who create these tests know all this, and are careful to ensure that those who are paying for them ( a testing company, not the school ) know it too. The problem arises when the vendor withholds this information, or buries it in fine print from the end users, in this case the school administrators. The administrations are, then, using these tests without the full knowledge of their limitations or rules for interpretation. Now lets look at who is interpreting the tests - the school administrators. As a group, these people have proved pretty conclusively that they do not want to be bothered with hard questions - they want an easy answer to everything. An easy, simple answer... that is usually wrong. Don't believe it? In Texas, a youngster was set upon by 3 large bullies. He defended himself as best he could, but was suspended along with the bullies due to the district's 'zero tolerance ' policy. In Florida, a girl who was approaching her menstrual cycle took pills to school, available over the counter at any pharmacy for this time for women, and was promptly suspended for drug violations. These policies abound in the United States.
Therefore, in my view, the school administrations have shown they are unwilling to confront tough questions with thought and work....they are
1. Unwilling to put forth the effort required to understand the real meaning of the results of these tests.
2. Unqualified, in general, to understand these results without expert guidance, and this is virtually never requested, because, in the eyes of administrators, this might cause them to be perceived as less than all-knowing.
3. Adept at taking things out of context. I would be surprised if this test was used properly by any school.
The reality is that we can expect this test to be used as a profiling tool to ease the conscience and burden of the school administrators of actually having to think. After all, they would say that previous behaviour is a good indicator of future behaviour... and this is exactly their past record on using tools to 'reduce violence'
I admit to being biased....... Ariel Corp makes plugin cards designed for Remote Access, and support ISDN and V.90 connections. Look at the Ariel HomePage for details. The drivers for these cards were recently open sourced, and they are available with the RedHat 6.x distros.
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That leads me to my questions :
1. Do you believe that Microsoft will lose the case, and if so, how badly..... I am mindful of the phrase that losing a case can be mitigated depending on just how badly one loses.
2. If Microsoft loses totally - i.e. they are determined to be a blight on the face of innovation, then how willing will the judge be to grant structural remedies? And how far do you think He will go?
3. Do you think that the mere Findings of Fact will have any weight in the ( sure to appear) lawsuits against Microsoft for violations of SEC rules ( by stealing a business, for example )
4. Is it your opinion ( and I know I am asking much, asking 4 experts to agree on something .... ;-) ) that Microsoft is internally already preparing for it's - possibly - inevitable breakup?
Thank you indeed for lending your time and thought to the /. community :-)
* Unix -is- user friendly. It's just very particular about who it's friends are*
Non-compete agreements may not be enforced simply to reduce competetition. In other words, a non-compete does not bar you from working from a competitor unless one of 3 allgations is sustained -
You had access to trade secrets and your new employer ( who is in direct competition ) could and would use those secrets or
You were given specialized training at company expense that you would otherwise not have been able to receive or
You are taking industry goodwill from your old company to your new one. This case is usually for salespeople who have 'their' clients. Those clients might follow the salesperson rather than stick with the original company.
In this case, the judge looked at the allegations and found they did not meet the requirements above. He also noted quite correctly that a year is an infinity in this business. Non-competes may be successfully challenged if they have the effect of preventing a person from working. So the judge first dismissed the actionable claims, and then also found it non-enforceable for work prevention. Seems a reasonable ruling to me.
A lot of the time involved in the entire round trip of a ping, from application to remote system to application is handled in software or firmware on the modem itself. If 3Com has drastically improved the handling of the response at the hardware level to eliminate a bottleneck, then yes, you can get faster pings. Of course, this assumes that the server at the remote end is up. V.90 maxes out at 53K, by the way, and achieves that in one direction only. Just why is beyond the current scope, but there is an excellent V.90 intro on the 3Com site. No, I do not work for 3Com, but I deal with V.90 and the like every day ;)
The test itself is of a genre known as 'subtle psychological evaluations'. As the original article noted, these tests are very, very hard to beat, if not impossible. But there is one fatal flaw in all these tests; the frame of reference.
The people who write these tests must make certain assumptions about social norms. After all, this is a social interaction evaluation we are dealing with. What are those assumptions? Even if the assumptions are statistically valid for the population of this country there are two issues that immediately come up.
What if the student did not originate in this country, or was not raised according to the 'average' norms of this country?
A statistical norm can only be applied to a group with any real certainty of accuracy, and even then the accuracy is the margin of error inherent in statistics. Nothing in statistics is guaranteed. This norm can not be used to evaluate an individual with any degree of certainty at all. In fact, these tests are about as useful, in terms of accuracy on an individual,as a polygraph.
The researchers who create these tests know all this, and are careful to ensure that those who are paying for them ( a testing company, not the school ) know it too. The problem arises when the vendor withholds this information, or buries it in fine print from the end users, in this case the school administrators. The administrations are, then, using these tests without the full knowledge of their limitations or rules for interpretation. Now lets look at who is interpreting the tests - the school administrators. As a group, these people have proved pretty conclusively that they do not want to be bothered with hard questions - they want an easy answer to everything. An easy, simple answer... that is usually wrong. Don't believe it? In Texas, a youngster was set upon by 3 large bullies. He defended himself as best he could, but was suspended along with the bullies due to the district's 'zero tolerance ' policy. In Florida, a girl who was approaching her menstrual cycle took pills to school, available over the counter at any pharmacy for this time for women, and was promptly suspended for drug violations. These policies abound in the United States.
Therefore, in my view, the school administrations have shown they are unwilling to confront tough questions with thought and work....they are
1. Unwilling to put forth the effort required to understand the real meaning of the results of these tests.
2. Unqualified, in general, to understand these results without expert guidance, and this is virtually never requested, because, in the eyes of administrators, this might cause them to be perceived as less than all-knowing.
3. Adept at taking things out of context. I would be surprised if this test was used properly by any school.
The reality is that we can expect this test to be used as a profiling tool to ease the conscience and burden of the school administrators of actually having to think. After all, they would say that previous behaviour is a good indicator of future behaviour... and this is exactly their past record on using tools to 'reduce violence'
I admit to being biased ....... Ariel Corp makes plugin cards designed for Remote Access, and support ISDN and V.90 connections. Look at the Ariel HomePage for details. The drivers for these cards were recently open sourced, and they are available with the RedHat 6.x distros.