Having just read through the article, I see it says:
"Congress capped the number of non-immigrant visas for skilled professionals at 65,000 in 2004 and 2005 in an effort to increase border security and ensure more jobs for home-grown tech workers.
That is a third of the 195,000 work visas issued annually during the high-tech boom years from 2001 to 2003."
Is it just me or was 2001-2003 *not* the high-tech boom years? As far as I can remember the boom years ended around 2000. So that means that while engineers were getting laid off by the many thousands, companies were hiring ~200,000 H1B's annually?
This is all nice and well, IBM, but what's really a sticking point for my workplace is the fact that there's no native Lotus Notes client for Linux. So far, IBM's solution for Notes is to run it under WINE.
I actually *despise* Notes. As a Notes developer I met said "It's great for lots of stuff, but email isn't one of them." Unfortunately, that's how most corporations I know of use it.
So, until I can convince the powers that be that Notes royally stinks, I'm afraid, we're stuck using it. Which means that we're stuck with Windows, 'cause they won't go for WINE either.
So, IBM, if you're listening, it sure would be nice to have a native Notes client.
Ok, so every time one of these stories about the BSA/RIAA/MPAA/etc. gets posted, the original source quotes some number ($10.1 billion this time) that was provided by the company that claims to have been harmed. And people try to compare it to stealing a car or something. In most instances, there is no physical loss of property--in fact the pirate usually uses up his/her own allotment of bandwidth and hard drive space (not to mention time), in order to distribute said IP. So, yes it's more harmful than some people would have you believe, but no it's not the same as someone stealing your car.
Second, does anyone else here not realize that companies like microsoft have huge investments marketing surveys about how much someone will pay for the latest release of windows/office? You know they've considered that for a sale of $X, they'll make $Y profit, and that Z people will buy the product and Q will "pirate" it, and that $X is their "sweet spot" for profit. If they charged less, there would be less piracy, but their profit margins wouldn't be as high... they don't really *want* less piracy.
They've decided how much piracy they want, and charged appropriately.
Maybe I'm just being obvious here, but this sounds to me like a situation where the shotgun malfunctioned and blew someone's head off. In such a case it's perfectly legitimate to sue the gun maker.
The situation you're talking about is if someone were to sue microsoft because some script kiddie used a windows box to break into their system.
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Having just read through the article, I see it says:
"Congress capped the number of non-immigrant visas for skilled professionals at 65,000 in 2004 and 2005 in an effort to increase border security and ensure more jobs for home-grown tech workers.
That is a third of the 195,000 work visas issued annually during the high-tech boom years from 2001 to 2003."
Is it just me or was 2001-2003 *not* the high-tech boom years? As far as I can remember the boom years ended around 2000. So that means that while engineers were getting laid off by the many thousands, companies were hiring ~200,000 H1B's annually?
Sorry, directed comment:
This is all nice and well, IBM, but what's really a sticking point for my workplace is the fact that there's no native Lotus Notes client for Linux. So far, IBM's solution for Notes is to run it under WINE.
I actually *despise* Notes. As a Notes developer I met said "It's great for lots of stuff, but email isn't one of them." Unfortunately, that's how most corporations I know of use it.
So, until I can convince the powers that be that Notes royally stinks, I'm afraid, we're stuck using it. Which means that we're stuck with Windows, 'cause they won't go for WINE either.
So, IBM, if you're listening, it sure would be nice to have a native Notes client.
My question is this:
These patents were filed in 1998...
Why would ebay have caved? Their site (at least functionality) is mostly unchanged from when I remember them well before 1998. Aren't THEY prior art?
Ok, so every time one of these stories about the BSA/RIAA/MPAA/etc. gets posted, the original source quotes some number ($10.1 billion this time) that was provided by the company that claims to have been harmed. And people try to compare it to stealing a car or something. In most instances, there is no physical loss of property--in fact the pirate usually uses up his/her own allotment of bandwidth and hard drive space (not to mention time), in order to distribute said IP. So, yes it's more harmful than some people would have you believe, but no it's not the same as someone stealing your car.
Second, does anyone else here not realize that companies like microsoft have huge investments marketing surveys about how much someone will pay for the latest release of windows/office? You know they've considered that for a sale of $X, they'll make $Y profit, and that Z people will buy the product and Q will "pirate" it, and that $X is their "sweet spot" for profit. If they charged less, there would be less piracy, but their profit margins wouldn't be as high... they don't really *want* less piracy.
They've decided how much piracy they want, and charged appropriately.
Maybe I'm just being obvious here, but this sounds to me like a situation where the shotgun malfunctioned and blew someone's head off. In such a case it's perfectly legitimate to sue the gun maker.
The situation you're talking about is if someone were to sue microsoft because some script kiddie used a windows box to break into their system.