One of the lawsuit recipients even managed to spam an address maintained by the attorney general's office.
This is surprising, why, exactly? Like spammers think: "Oh, this address is a government office, better delete it from my list."
The AG has gotta love this... J. Random Prosecutor thinks: "Now, let's see, so many spammers, which ones should I prioritize most highly for investigation today? Just let me make a quick check of my in box....."
Wow. Your advice is good, but your perspective saddens me. I, too, have worked at 2nd-level engineering manager level. At good companies, suck-ups and cheats don't get past 1st level, and get bumped from that, hopefully. Getting to director level is out of the question.
The key, IMHO, is to make sure that mutiny is always an option. I'm not kidding. As long as there is enough fluidity within a company for employees to move between bosses and projects, the jerks will be left with no one to manage. Problem solved. The situation is easy to create: sum_of_all_managers_actual_head_count + sum_of_all_managers_approved_interal_hiring_reqs > total_company_head_count. Hole flow solves the rest.
Verisign has just exploited the DNS system to make their service come up in situations where MSN's used to come up.
Odd that we haven't heard from MSFT on this one. Perhaps their lawyers are still niggling the words of their complaint, but I have to believe that MSFT will come after Verisign.
Of course, then we get into a "who do we hate more" conundrum, but they're always entertaining.
All you developers should pay attention to this issue at all times.
Software contracts between companies should address the issue of "residuals". In simple terms that is: "stuff programmers remember". Basically, the contract might state that the programmers involved specifically *can* work on similar, potentially competing stuff in the future, as long as they no longer have access to the code in question and are woking only from "residual" knowledge. The contract instead might state that you can *not* work on similar stuff for X number of years, regardless. Also, the contract might be silent on the issue.... bad news for you, but it does generate billable hours for lawyers. Did your boss explain the residuals clause the last time he pointed you at some work on a joint project with another company? Ask about it if s/he didn't.
In a past life (at a company not yet mentioned)Dipanker sat a few cubes down from me... DS is one very^3 smart dude... I suspect he could have remembered a lot. I sure as hell hope he does not get deposed... he's far too nice a guy to have to suffer that.
go be a farmer. buy yourself a couple of sections and see if you can make a profitable business of it. most can't these days, but it doesn't stop romantics from trying. the lifestyle does have some downsides... how do you feel about working with animal shit all day long? but, i gotta admit, the night sky is great out where the population averages 1/2 to 1 family per square mile.
Re:it seems silly not to include a hard drive
on
Lindows Webstation
·
· Score: 2, Funny
Back in my day I had to write games in BASIC, on a 4.7Mhz computer with no hard disk and 128K of RAM. And I was grateful I see. Another Slashdot youngster, then.
A regular organ donor gives "the gift of life". What is Lifeshares? The "quid pro quo" of life?? Pardon me while I snicker at the supposed generosity of their donation. It is exclusory. It is petty and churlish.
It's a profound change in the moral thinking behind organ donorship. It is putting a proprietary license on your body tissue.
Yes, I have strong feelings on the subject. Less than one month ago, my father-in-law received a kidney transplant. A mere month ago, for 3 days a week he spent more than 1/2 of his waking hours connected to dialysis. Today, he has one donated kidney running at 60% function. That is profoundly life changing. No more dialysis. He can spend significant time with his grandchildren again, do meaningful work again, have a life again. The petty greed of these lifetraders could have denied him that.
How did my post get attached to this context? I thought I hung it off a completely different comment. *sigh* It was funny in the other place. Really.... it was....
*Make* yourself affected. Buy 1 share. When the price drops because of McBride's idoicy, sell it. You have suffered dollar damages due to a stock pump-and-dump. That puts you, dear harmed and misled investor, right in the middle of the SEC radar, albiet a small blip because of only owning 1 share. However, and this is a big however, you are now a "represtative plaintiff", or whatever they call it, for a class action suit.
self-preservation
on
The Big Kerplop
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I worry about today's kids. How are they going to develop good instincts for self-preservation if they don't try some risky things? I grew up watching my elders work on big, dangerous machines in the shop, and working with big, dangerous animals in the corals. By watching, I learned what they respected, and learned a whole bunch of things to *not* do, like stupid handling of gasoline. So anyway, when I did my own risky stunts, personal safety (self-preservation) was part of the equation. (Elder: "Who took the welding hood??") How do today's kids learn that when we all have CRT-tans and it's a rare neighbor who has a welder, instead of a rare neighbor without one. Kids need to have the scope to do "experiments". But... kids need to internalize some important lessons first, in a safe way. How do we do that? My solution is to try to do as many projects with them as possible, role model safety, and keep the band-aids handy. I think of my townie cousins: Me: "Watch out! Electric fence." Him: "Really? Cool! OW! OW!! OW!!! Shit! Jeezus!" I don't want my daughter to be like that.
It *wasn't* the worst??? Good gravy, how can it get worse? Look, I own a legitmate, fully paid for, video of "Plan 9 From Outer Space" -- Ed Wood did better stuff than any episode of BG. BG never failed to, within a few minutes, turn my stomach out of shear stupidity of dialog, poor plot, and reckless ignorance of science in a science fiction story. And it is obvious that I have a strong stomach. (See above: Ed Wood).
I used to build my own systems, but unless I'm putting together a "stone soup" computer out of what's laying around the garage, I don't build them any more, even though I enjoy it. I can go to a local screwdriver shop, give them a laundry list, and say "build it". It's cheaper than buying the component parts and doing it myself, but I still get exactly the system I want.
So, my bro-in-law is an economist. MIT PhD and snazz teaching appointment. Of course, at family visits, we get into looooong discussions of economic issues, geek-logic against economic orthodoxy.
Anyway, at some point during one of them, he says: "But all of economics is based on the assumption that people make rational decisions." To which I replied: "Wellllll, that's a pretty shaky assumption on which to build an entire science." I recall a brief period of speechlessness.
So, SCO is essentially saying: "Lookie!! Same bits!" To which I say: "Yawn."
1. Show me the commit history, with dates. Now we know who first had it in the nightly build. This still does not say where it came from. 2. Show me some evidence that SCO developed it first, without relying on ouside sources. 3. Show me that there is no way they both could have gotten it from the same third party or resource, either legitimately, or not.
Only if #3 is shown with "a prepondonerance of the evidence" can they make anything stick. Given the history of IA-64, and SCO's involvement with it, they are going to have a tough time of that.
If I had been shown the kind of redacted "evidence" that was presented here, I'd have been seriously pissed a SCO for wasting my time.
Umm, well, I have a different take on that. One of my all-time favorite quotes comes from back during the days of the big leveraged buy-outs in the US stock market. (In hindsight, a period of very healthy creative destruction.) Carl Icahn, one of the drivers of big LBO's said: "Look, if the market says a stock is worth $40 with current management, and worth $60 without current management, then that tells you something about current management."
So, if you can buy the phone company for less than the value of the copper in the ground, perhaps that is simply the market pricing in the value-add of current management. Sell the physical plant to someone who recognizes a bargain and has a vision of how to do good with it.
This was mod'ed funny, but it contains a good point. Why isn't anyone talking about looking at commit histories? *Then* after looking at commit histories, looking for where the code actually came from. Like from a manufacturer ap note, from BSD, from a zillion other places they both could have legitamately copied from. Repeat after me: "Same bits in both places proves nothing."
You display a profound misunderstanding of California employment law. Sorry. The law is not on your side. Also, when your hobby and your professional employment are in the same discipline, it gets pretty fuzzy. Say you are employed to write device drivers... say you want to contribute to the driver layer of an OSS project... now we better start putting pretty clear boundaries on the respective sand boxes.
Even for OSS stuff you do on your own time. Basically, you ask your deparment's legal advisor, telling him which project and the scope of your proposed involvement. It is then OK'ed, or not. Approval depends on the project, what you do for Intel, and what you propose to do for the project. Oh... and they read you the rules, but none of the rules are surprising, they are things like: "Don't publish company secrets." and other stuff that should be obvious to the dimmist of wits. Reasonably balanced, and sensible, all things considered.
Who cares if you see source? Saying: "Looky looky! Same bits!" proves nothing. You have to look at source tree A and source tree B and the commit history with dates, and then you at least know who included it in the source tree first... still, *that* proves nothing. SCO must show the provenance (sp?) of the code in question, with a prerponderance of the evidence. Both A and B may have copied code from the same text book, same manufacturer's ap note, same whiteboard in a CS lecture, whatever. Unless SCO can show that they had it first, and that there is little likelihood it could have come from someplace else, only then do they have a case. Looking at source without commit histories is pointless. Looking at commit histories does not establish where the source came from. So, looking at source under NDA proves what, again?
Slashdot Mirror
One of the lawsuit recipients even managed to spam an address maintained by the attorney general's office.
This is surprising, why, exactly? Like spammers think: "Oh, this address is a government office, better delete it from my list."
The AG has gotta love this... J. Random Prosecutor thinks: "Now, let's see, so many spammers, which ones should I prioritize most highly for investigation today? Just let me make a quick check of my in box....."
Wow. Your advice is good, but your perspective saddens me. I, too, have worked at 2nd-level engineering manager level. At good companies, suck-ups and cheats don't get past 1st level, and get bumped from that, hopefully. Getting to director level is out of the question.
The key, IMHO, is to make sure that mutiny is always an option. I'm not kidding. As long as there is enough fluidity within a company for employees to move between bosses and projects, the jerks will be left with no one to manage. Problem solved. The situation is easy to create: sum_of_all_managers_actual_head_count + sum_of_all_managers_approved_interal_hiring_reqs > total_company_head_count. Hole flow solves the rest.
"manipulating consumer choice"??????
I don't feel the least bit manipulated. I knew full well what I wanted to happen when I went to that web site and entered my do-not-call information.
Verisign has just exploited the DNS system to make their service come up in situations where MSN's used to come up.
Odd that we haven't heard from MSFT on this one. Perhaps their lawyers are still niggling the words of their complaint, but I have to believe that MSFT will come after Verisign.
Of course, then we get into a "who do we hate more" conundrum, but they're always entertaining.
All you developers should pay attention to this issue at all times.
Software contracts between companies should address the issue of "residuals". In simple terms that is: "stuff programmers remember". Basically, the contract might state that the programmers involved specifically *can* work on similar, potentially competing stuff in the future, as long as they no longer have access to the code in question and are woking only from "residual" knowledge. The contract instead might state that you can *not* work on similar stuff for X number of years, regardless. Also, the contract might be silent on the issue.... bad news for you, but it does generate billable hours for lawyers. Did your boss explain the residuals clause the last time he pointed you at some work on a joint project with another company? Ask about it if s/he didn't.
In a past life (at a company not yet mentioned)Dipanker sat a few cubes down from me... DS is one very^3 smart dude... I suspect he could have remembered a lot. I sure as hell hope he does not get deposed... he's far too nice a guy to have to suffer that.
go be a farmer. buy yourself a couple of sections and see if you can make a profitable business of it. most can't these days, but it doesn't stop romantics from trying. the lifestyle does have some downsides... how do you feel about working with animal shit all day long? but, i gotta admit, the night sky is great out where the population averages 1/2 to 1 family per square mile.
Back in my day I had to write games in BASIC, on a 4.7Mhz computer with no hard disk and 128K of RAM. And I was grateful
I see. Another Slashdot youngster, then.
A regular organ donor gives "the gift of life". What is Lifeshares? The "quid pro quo" of life?? Pardon me while I snicker at the supposed generosity of their donation. It is exclusory. It is petty and churlish.
It's a profound change in the moral thinking behind organ donorship. It is putting a proprietary license on your body tissue.
Yes, I have strong feelings on the subject. Less than one month ago, my father-in-law received a kidney transplant. A mere month ago, for 3 days a week he spent more than 1/2 of his waking hours connected to dialysis. Today, he has one donated kidney running at 60% function. That is profoundly life changing. No more dialysis. He can spend significant time with his grandchildren again, do meaningful work again, have a life again. The petty greed of these lifetraders could have denied him that.
How did my post get attached to this context? I thought I hung it off a completely different comment. *sigh* It was funny in the other place. Really.... it was....
It's the *Ransom* center.
*Make* yourself affected. Buy 1 share. When the price drops because of McBride's idoicy, sell it. You have suffered dollar damages due to a stock pump-and-dump. That puts you, dear harmed and misled investor, right in the middle of the SEC radar, albiet a small blip because of only owning 1 share. However, and this is a big however, you are now a "represtative plaintiff", or whatever they call it, for a class action suit.
I worry about today's kids. How are they going to develop good instincts for self-preservation if they don't try some risky things? I grew up watching my elders work on big, dangerous machines in the shop, and working with big, dangerous animals in the corals. By watching, I learned what they respected, and learned a whole bunch of things to *not* do, like stupid handling of gasoline. So anyway, when I did my own risky stunts, personal safety (self-preservation) was part of the equation. (Elder: "Who took the welding hood??") How do today's kids learn that when we all have CRT-tans and it's a rare neighbor who has a welder, instead of a rare neighbor without one. Kids need to have the scope to do "experiments". But... kids need to internalize some important lessons first, in a safe way. How do we do that? My solution is to try to do as many projects with them as possible, role model safety, and keep the band-aids handy. I think of my townie cousins: Me: "Watch out! Electric fence." Him: "Really? Cool! OW! OW!! OW!!! Shit! Jeezus!" I don't want my daughter to be like that.
It *wasn't* the worst??? Good gravy, how can it get worse?
Look, I own a legitmate, fully paid for, video of "Plan 9 From Outer Space" -- Ed Wood did better stuff than any episode of BG. BG never failed to, within a few minutes, turn my stomach out of shear stupidity of dialog, poor plot, and reckless ignorance of science in a science fiction story. And it is obvious that I have a strong stomach. (See above: Ed Wood).
Sounds correct to me.
I used to build my own systems, but unless I'm putting together a "stone soup" computer out of what's laying around the garage, I don't build them any more, even though I enjoy it. I can go to a local screwdriver shop, give them a laundry list, and say "build it". It's cheaper than buying the component parts and doing it myself, but I still get exactly the system I want.
So, my bro-in-law is an economist. MIT PhD and snazz teaching appointment. Of course, at family visits, we get into looooong discussions of economic issues, geek-logic against economic orthodoxy.
Anyway, at some point during one of them, he says: "But all of economics is based on the assumption that people make rational decisions." To which I replied: "Wellllll, that's a pretty shaky assumption on which to build an entire science." I recall a brief period of speechlessness.
Quoting company representative: "We are expecting the first RMPT based printer products to be launched on the market early 2005"
This is not real yet. These guys are still pulling back the foreskin of technology. Call me back when it is on the shelf at Fry's.
....re-arranging the spots on a Dalmation so that I can sell advertising space on them.
1. Show me the commit history, with dates. Now we know who first had it in the nightly build. This still does not say where it came from.
2. Show me some evidence that SCO developed it first, without relying on ouside sources.
3. Show me that there is no way they both could have gotten it from the same third party or resource, either legitimately, or not.
Only if #3 is shown with "a prepondonerance of the evidence" can they make anything stick. Given the history of IA-64, and SCO's involvement with it, they are going to have a tough time of that.
If I had been shown the kind of redacted "evidence" that was presented here, I'd have been seriously pissed a SCO for wasting my time.
So, if you can buy the phone company for less than the value of the copper in the ground, perhaps that is simply the market pricing in the value-add of current management. Sell the physical plant to someone who recognizes a bargain and has a vision of how to do good with it.
PROFIT!!!
My money has been on number 3 from the beginning.
This was mod'ed funny, but it contains a good point. Why isn't anyone talking about looking at commit histories? *Then* after looking at commit histories, looking for where the code actually came from. Like from a manufacturer ap note, from BSD, from a zillion other places they both could have legitamately copied from.
Repeat after me: "Same bits in both places proves nothing."
You display a profound misunderstanding of California employment law. Sorry. The law is not on your side. Also, when your hobby and your professional employment are in the same discipline, it gets pretty fuzzy. Say you are employed to write device drivers... say you want to contribute to the driver layer of an OSS project... now we better start putting pretty clear boundaries on the respective sand boxes.
Even for OSS stuff you do on your own time. Basically, you ask your deparment's legal advisor, telling him which project and the scope of your proposed involvement. It is then OK'ed, or not. Approval depends on the project, what you do for Intel, and what you propose to do for the project. Oh... and they read you the rules, but none of the rules are surprising, they are things like: "Don't publish company secrets." and other stuff that should be obvious to the dimmist of wits. Reasonably balanced, and sensible, all things considered.
Who cares if you see source?
Saying: "Looky looky! Same bits!" proves nothing.
You have to look at source tree A and source tree B and the commit history with dates, and then you at least know who included it in the source tree first... still, *that* proves nothing.
SCO must show the provenance (sp?) of the code in question, with a prerponderance of the evidence. Both A and B may have copied code from the same text book, same manufacturer's ap note, same whiteboard in a CS lecture, whatever. Unless SCO can show that they had it first, and that there is little likelihood it could have come from someplace else, only then do they have a case.
Looking at source without commit histories is pointless. Looking at commit histories does not establish where the source came from.
So, looking at source under NDA proves what, again?