May'be if you had read the article before posting you would know at least some of them.
If Razorfish met the conditions of the contract, they should be able to counter sue.
Again, if you had read the article you would know that Razorfish did not meet the terms of the contract by missing deadlines and delivering an unusable interface.
But the point of the story is not the Razorfish Vs IAM case in isolation, but whether a precedent can be set for delivering high quality software.
As far as this is concerned, the precedents have already been set: companies have successfully sued custom software companies in the past. However this has always been the case where there were contracts with specific requirements on the deliverables.
In other words we will never be able to sue e.g. Microsoft for selling us a buggy OS, because their license has terms which specifically lift any responsibility from Microsoft if their product causes someone any problems.
I think you will find that most states have document retention laws, which specify for how long you are able to keep certain kinds of documentation. Lawsuits have been lost because companies did not comply with these laws, i.e. kept logs/documents for too long.
You might want to recheck the laws in your state before you start keeping stuff "indefinitely".
As I said, sometimes it is a fine line and other times it is not. Gambling falls in the latter category.
How am I endorsing them? I don't drink coke or pepsi, but my passive acceptance of their right to sell soft drinks is not an endorsement of either.
It is an endorsment. If they were selling something dangerous (e.g. heroin) you wouldn't allow them.
I'm hapy for you, though I find it unfortunate that you wish to deny others the same.
Yes I will deny someone the right to destroy his family and his fortune. I know, I'm such a bastard. But maybe if he doesn't gamble and stays in with his family, and sees how fun it is he might not want to gamble anyway and will thank me for that.
Wrong. See my answer above. And it seems that the majority of people and legislators agree with me otherwise it would have been legalised.
Right, it's worth pointing out that people do destroy their health every time they walk outside without wearing sunblock
You are missing the point. The point is balance. Claiming that shooting up heroin should be regulated by the same laws that regulate whether we use sunblock is stupid. You know that, and I know that. The legislators know that too, and have provided accordingly.
Unlike some things which are addictive (alcohol, cigarettes), gambling does not have any chemical which causes you to become addicted.
Again you are have a very simplistic view of how things work. Humans are a lot more complicated than rats: there are psychological addictions too aka obsessions. If biochemistry was advanced enough you would be able to measure them too.
No, but they are both activities which can take someone's money and leave them no tangible result.
*BZZZT* Wrong. Do not make such simplistic analogies. There is a distinction between business transactions (e.g. paying to see a movie) and exploitation (e.g. prostitution, drugs, gambling). Sometimes it is a fine line. Other times it isn't. You know that, and I know that. The legislators know that too, and have provided accordingly.
We aren't making it easier for people to gamble, the online casinos are.
And you say we should allow them, thereby endorsing their actions. Sounds very similar to me.
I'm sure there are some places which don't have 24 hour photo processing places, and I don't think we should make it possible for people in these places to process their photos in 24 hours, but if a photo processing company wants to open up a store there, that's fine with me.
Yet another totally useless analogy. Thanks.
Look, I know that I cannot convince you I am right, and you cannot convince me that you are right.
At least the thing I have in my favor is the fact that the laws agree with me. And yes, you might argue that the laws are crap, and the laws are unfair, and the laws are restricting our freedoms. But I think they work surprisingly well considering all that. I had a very nice day today. I was free to do all the things I wanted to do. I was able to earn money and to spend it in all the things I wanted to. It is working pretty well for such a crappy system isn't it?
I support the full legalization of drugs (including the extremely dangerous shit like heroin).
Well, most people don't, so it seems you are in the minority here.
A person's need for guidance is a completely separate issue from hir or her rights.
So how do you propose we do it? I didn't see you suggest any alternatives. Better education would be a way to achieve something like this, but improving the educational system to this point will take decades - something needs to be done in the meantime.
A person DOES have the right to fuck with his or her own health-- even if it does wind up killing them.
I think you meant "A pearson SHOULD have the right", because the fact is that attempted suicide is a crime. But I disagree with you on this as well: should we let a depressed person commit suicide? What if we can cure him instead?
I also support a woman's right to offer sexual services in exchange for money. Why are women who do so in such need of guidance?
Because most of these women did not even know there were alternatives in the first place. Many of them were forced to do this, either by physical force or by psychological pressure. How is that for freedom? If we legalise what they are doing, we are encourage those who are taking advantage of them.
But just because some people wind up in bad situations doesn't mean that the government has the right to stop it.
Again I do not hear any other suggestions... Or are you saying that we don't need one? That it's ok to sacrifice people in the name of freedom to gamble?
Gambling == bad ==> infringements of freedom == good?
Uhm.. sorry what are you talking about? All laws restrict our freedoms in some way or another. This is how organised societies work. You are not alone in this world, and the society you live in needs to find a way to protect: a. itself from you b. yourself
The fact is that you are not totally free. But I don't mean this in a bad sense. You can think of it like the GPL (OK this is probably a shitty analogy, but I hope you will see my point): by restricting some of your freedoms, it guarantees other freedoms.
Laws work the same way. Remember that the government is not the only one who is restricting your freedoms. They just do it in a more "official" way. In this case by restricting gambling, it will maximise your opportunity to do something better with your time. Maybe read a book, open your mind and find out that gambling is not such a great thing after all. It will also minimise the risk of you destroying your life and turning to crime.
Why do our elected officials feel it is necessary to pass laws which protect us from ourself?
The reason is that not everyone is as responsible and mature as you are: Why is prostitution illegal - women should be able to earn money any way they want, right? Why are drugs illegal - people should have the freedom to destroy their health, right? The fact is that some people need some guidance and protection. As far as gambling is concerned, I have met people who gamble a lot, and they don't know anything about statistics; they don't even know that the odds are against them (in all gambling games) and the more they play the more they will loose.
I enjoy the experience of going to the movies, and I always leave the movie theatre with less money than I went in with. Should the government ban movies because they are clearly taking money from the public?
Gambling and going to the movies are not the same thing. Gambling is addictive, it has destroyed families, lives, and fortunes. Regulating it is a good thing. I'm not saying that banning ISPs from hosting gambling sites is the right approach, but the Internet does make it too easy for misguided people to lose a lot of money very fast.
No, the government should let the public make their own decisions on what form of entertainment they will spend their money on.
As I said above this is not always possible. The government also has the responsibility to protect its citizens, and sometimes it is hard to balance these things. Ideally, everyone would have a good education and would know when to gamble and when to stop, and the government wouldn't have to interfere, but saddly this is not the case right now.
As far as casinos are concerned, they are not ideal either (and that was the understatement of the year). Just because they are allowed to operate in some places doesn't mean we should make it even easier for people to gamble. And at least casinos are regulated, in some obscure and corrupt way of course.
Sorry, me a troll? I just saw something I disagree with and I replied. Please, be careful before making such accusations. May'be check my history to see if I have trolled before.
I don't know what the lawsuit is about, but I stand behind./
Why do you stand behind/. ? If there was slander then Natalie Portman or whoever was the victim could file a law suit. What does/. have to do with it? It is just a message board where people post what they want.
Uhm, no it doesn't. Censorship would have been if someone was taking away LinuxLinks' freedom to post something in their own site. The same freedom that Linuxtoday have to post whatever they want on their own site.
At best they are guilty of sloppy management.
How do you know what they are guilty of? All you have is a very biased letter from someone who works at LinuxLinks, who may very well be just trying to get hits on his site.
Do you have any factual proof? Do you know whether the link was actually posted in the first place in linuxtoday? If it was posted, do you know when it was removed? (hint: may'be it was removed after it was no longer news as someone else pointed out).
You say/. is managing a little better. I don't know but I find it annoying that/. posts a letter like this and does not ask LinuxToday first to see what their story is. It does not seem very responsible journalism either, because LinuxToday will probably get a lot of shit right now from knee-jerk reacting/. readers.
Yes, I totally agree with you and I should have mentioned this in my original post.
internet.com have the legal right (IANAL ofc) to promote their websites. They have the moral obligation to be objective and treat all websites/companies/etc fairly, but this (some say fortunately, others say unfortunately) cannot be enforced.
At the end of the day, we, the users, will decide if internet.com gets our vote of confidence (and money). So it would not be in their long-term interests to cross the line.
Sorry but I do not see a problem anywhere. One company (internet.com) is using its news site to promote their portal. Why is that wrong?
Just because it is happening in Linux now which is Free Software? Because your motives don't seem so pure to me. They want money, and so do you.
I think you need to understand the difference between Linux as a business and Linux as a free operating system. If you were developping your own open source project, and contributing to the community you would get all the publicity you needed (and deserved depending on the quality of your product). If you want to make money out of this, then the same business rules as everywhere else apply.
I suppose it would be interesting to look at the insides of an ERP program (at least for some people). But the value of an ERP consultant is not in knowing the internals of such a program, but of knowing how to use it and how to customise it in order to integrate it with the customer's business.
Just like the value of a 3D animation artist is not in knowing e.g. how the rendering algorithms in 3D Studio or Lightwave work (most probably have no idea), but how to create an attractive animation.
My guess is that the only ones who might really benefit from Baan's open sourcing are going to be companies like Oracle and SAP that will be able to use that technology to improve their own products.
AFAIK ERP is a very expensive solution that only large corporations can afford. I am not talking about the licensing costs, but mainly about the consultancy/integration cost to set it up, and then maintenance & support costs.
Professionals who specialise in ERP are like gold dust, probably the most higly paid IT people out there.
Who would need an Open Source ERP solution? The amount saved by licensing is probably negligible compared to the total cost. I suppose it never hurts if we have more Open Source software, but in this particular case I am not sure if there will be any benefits either.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know the particulars of this case
May'be if you had read the article before posting you would know at least some of them.
If Razorfish met the conditions of the contract, they should be able to counter sue.
Again, if you had read the article you would know that Razorfish did not meet the terms of the contract by missing deadlines and delivering an unusable interface.
But the point of the story is not the Razorfish Vs IAM case in isolation, but whether a precedent can be set for delivering high quality software.
As far as this is concerned, the precedents have already been set: companies have successfully sued custom software companies in the past. However this has always been the case where there were contracts with specific requirements on the deliverables.
In other words we will never be able to sue e.g. Microsoft for selling us a buggy OS, because their license has terms which specifically lift any responsibility from Microsoft if their product causes someone any problems.
They should all be archived indefinitely.
I think you will find that most states have document retention laws, which specify for how long you are able to keep certain kinds of documentation. Lawsuits have been lost because companies did not comply with these laws, i.e. kept logs/documents for too long.
You might want to recheck the laws in your state before you start keeping stuff "indefinitely".
How do you decide what is exploitation?
As I said, sometimes it is a fine line and other times it is not. Gambling falls in the latter category.
How am I endorsing them? I don't drink coke or pepsi, but my passive acceptance of their right to sell soft drinks is not an endorsement of either.
It is an endorsment. If they were selling something dangerous (e.g. heroin) you wouldn't allow them.
I'm hapy for you, though I find it unfortunate that you wish to deny others the same.
Yes I will deny someone the right to destroy his family and his fortune. I know, I'm such a bastard. But maybe if he doesn't gamble and stays in with his family, and sees how fun it is he might not want to gamble anyway and will thank me for that.
On the issue of prostitution you reply:
Right.
Wrong. See my answer above. And it seems that the majority of people and legislators agree with me otherwise it would have been legalised.
Right, it's worth pointing out that people do destroy their health every time they walk outside without wearing sunblock
You are missing the point. The point is balance. Claiming that shooting up heroin should be regulated by the same laws that regulate whether we use sunblock is stupid. You know that, and I know that. The legislators know that too, and have provided accordingly.
Unlike some things which are addictive (alcohol, cigarettes), gambling does not have any chemical which causes you to become addicted.
Again you are have a very simplistic view of how things work. Humans are a lot more complicated than rats: there are psychological addictions too aka obsessions. If biochemistry was advanced enough you would be able to measure them too.
No, but they are both activities which can take someone's money and leave them no tangible result.
*BZZZT* Wrong. Do not make such simplistic analogies. There is a distinction between business transactions (e.g. paying to see a movie) and exploitation (e.g. prostitution, drugs, gambling). Sometimes it is a fine line. Other times it isn't. You know that, and I know that. The legislators know that too, and have provided accordingly.
We aren't making it easier for people to gamble, the online casinos are.
And you say we should allow them, thereby endorsing their actions. Sounds very similar to me.
I'm sure there are some places which don't have 24 hour photo processing places, and I don't think we should make it possible for people in these places to process their photos in 24 hours, but if a photo processing company wants to open up a store there, that's fine with me.
Yet another totally useless analogy. Thanks.
Look, I know that I cannot convince you I am right, and you cannot convince me that you are right.
At least the thing I have in my favor is the fact that the laws agree with me. And yes, you might argue that the laws are crap, and the laws are unfair, and the laws are restricting our freedoms. But I think they work surprisingly well considering all that. I had a very nice day today. I was free to do all the things I wanted to do. I was able to earn money and to spend it in all the things I wanted to. It is working pretty well for such a crappy system isn't it?
I support the full legalization of drugs (including the extremely dangerous shit like heroin).
Well, most people don't, so it seems you are in the minority here.
A person's need for guidance is a completely separate issue from hir or her rights.
So how do you propose we do it? I didn't see you suggest any alternatives. Better education would be a way to achieve something like this, but improving the educational system to this point will take decades - something needs to be done in the meantime.
A person DOES have the right to fuck with his or her own health-- even if it does wind up killing them.
I think you meant "A pearson SHOULD have the right", because the fact is that attempted suicide is a crime. But I disagree with you on this as well: should we let a depressed person commit suicide? What if we can cure him instead?
I also support a woman's right to offer sexual services in exchange for money. Why are women who do so in such need of guidance?
Because most of these women did not even know there were alternatives in the first place. Many of them were forced to do this, either by physical force or by psychological pressure. How is that for freedom? If we legalise what they are doing, we are encourage those who are taking advantage of them.
But just because some people wind up in bad situations doesn't mean that the government has the right to stop it.
Again I do not hear any other suggestions... Or are you saying that we don't need one? That it's ok to sacrifice people in the name of freedom to gamble?
Gambling == bad ==> infringements of freedom == good?
Uhm.. sorry what are you talking about?
All laws restrict our freedoms in some way or another. This is how organised societies work. You are not alone in this world, and the society you live in needs to find a way to protect:
a. itself from you
b. yourself
The fact is that you are not totally free. But I don't mean this in a bad sense. You can think of it like the GPL (OK this is probably a shitty analogy, but I hope you will see my point): by restricting some of your freedoms, it guarantees other freedoms.
Laws work the same way. Remember that the government is not the only one who is restricting your freedoms. They just do it in a more "official" way. In this case by restricting gambling, it will maximise your opportunity to do something better with your time. Maybe read a book, open your mind and find out that gambling is not such a great thing after all. It will also minimise the risk of you destroying your life and turning to crime.
Why do our elected officials feel it is necessary to pass laws which protect us from ourself?
The reason is that not everyone is as responsible and mature as you are:
Why is prostitution illegal - women should be able to earn money any way they want, right?
Why are drugs illegal - people should have the freedom to destroy their health, right?
The fact is that some people need some guidance and protection. As far as gambling is concerned, I have met people who gamble a lot, and they don't know anything about statistics; they don't even know that the odds are against them (in all gambling games) and the more they play the more they will loose.
I enjoy the experience of going to the movies, and I always leave the movie theatre with less money than I went in with. Should the government ban movies because they are clearly taking money from the public?
Gambling and going to the movies are not the same thing. Gambling is addictive, it has destroyed families, lives, and fortunes. Regulating it is a good thing. I'm not saying that banning ISPs from hosting gambling sites is the right approach, but the Internet does make it too easy for misguided people to lose a lot of money very fast.
No, the government should let the public make their own decisions on what form of entertainment they will spend their money on.
As I said above this is not always possible. The government also has the responsibility to protect its citizens, and sometimes it is hard to balance these things. Ideally, everyone would have a good education and would know when to gamble and when to stop, and the government wouldn't have to interfere, but saddly this is not the case right now.
As far as casinos are concerned, they are not ideal either (and that was the understatement of the year). Just because they are allowed to operate in some places doesn't mean we should make it even easier for people to gamble. And at least casinos are regulated, in some obscure and corrupt way of course.
Not only that, you trolls
./
/. ? If there was slander then Natalie Portman or whoever was the victim could file a law suit. What does /. have to do with it? It is just a message board where people post what they want.
Sorry, me a troll? I just saw something I disagree with and I replied. Please, be careful before making such accusations. May'be check my history to see if I have trolled before.
I don't know what the lawsuit is about, but I stand behind
Why do you stand behind
Uhm, yes Slashdot is their website so they can do what they want, including censorship.
But I mean a law suit for posting some jokes? I think it is going a bit too far.
It fits the dictionary definition of censorship.
/. is managing a little better. I don't know but I find it annoying that /. posts a letter like this and does not ask LinuxToday first to see what their story is. It does not seem very responsible journalism either, because LinuxToday will probably get a lot of shit right now from knee-jerk reacting /. readers.
Uhm, no it doesn't. Censorship would have been if someone was taking away LinuxLinks' freedom to post something in their own site. The same freedom that Linuxtoday have to post whatever they want on their own site.
At best they are guilty of sloppy management.
How do you know what they are guilty of?
All you have is a very biased letter from someone who works at LinuxLinks, who may very well be just trying to get hits on his site.
Do you have any factual proof?
Do you know whether the link was actually posted in the first place in linuxtoday?
If it was posted, do you know when it was removed? (hint: may'be it was removed after it was no longer news as someone else pointed out).
You say
Yes, I totally agree with you and I should have mentioned this in my original post.
internet.com have the legal right (IANAL ofc) to promote their websites. They have the moral obligation to be objective and treat all websites/companies/etc fairly, but this (some say fortunately, others say unfortunately) cannot be enforced.
At the end of the day, we, the users, will decide if internet.com gets our vote of confidence (and money). So it would not be in their long-term interests to cross the line.
Sorry but I do not see a problem anywhere. One company (internet.com) is using its news site to promote their portal. Why is that wrong?
Just because it is happening in Linux now which is Free Software? Because your motives don't seem so pure to me. They want money, and so do you.
I think you need to understand the difference between Linux as a business and Linux as a free operating system. If you were developping your own open source project, and contributing to the community you would get all the publicity you needed (and deserved depending on the quality of your product). If you want to make money out of this, then the same business rules as everywhere else apply.
I suppose it would be interesting to look at the insides of an ERP program (at least for some people). But the value of an ERP consultant is not in knowing the internals of such a program, but of knowing how to use it and how to customise it in order to integrate it with the customer's business.
Just like the value of a 3D animation artist is not in knowing e.g. how the rendering algorithms in 3D Studio or Lightwave work (most probably have no idea), but how to create an attractive animation.
My guess is that the only ones who might really benefit from Baan's open sourcing are going to be companies like Oracle and SAP that will be able to use that technology to improve their own products.
AFAIK ERP is a very expensive solution that only large corporations can afford. I am not talking about the licensing costs, but mainly about the consultancy/integration cost to set it up, and then maintenance & support costs.
Professionals who specialise in ERP are like gold dust, probably the most higly paid IT people out there.
Who would need an Open Source ERP solution? The amount saved by licensing is probably negligible compared to the total cost. I suppose it never hurts if we have more Open Source software, but in this particular case I am not sure if there will be any benefits either.