Air pollution is a liberal myth that is propagated simply to prevent the glorious libertarian utopia that results from the pure beauty of unrestricted capitalism.
What if I'm offended by other things in the game? Like the substandard story line, the lousy dialogue, the lack of interactivity with the environment, the poor AI, or the nonsensical game logic?
I fail to see why there would be *any* compulsion to sue. You're missing the three *necessary* elements to have a contractual relationship:
First of all you're looking at it too narrowly; contract isn't the only way to sue; in actuality the lawsuit appears to be based on the trade secret issue and Illinois statute, neither of which seems to require a contractual relationship. And secondly, even if it was a contractual cause of action I can read enough in the press release to imply consideration did exist on both sides.
If you are dealing with a "billion" dollar product and are relying on an e-mail as your sole legally binding contract, you should fire your lawyer. It may be fine to start work, get the ball rolling, etc until the actual contracts or agreements are signed, but anything significant should have a hard copy, signed with an actual pen agreement.
Only in a lot of cases one party might not want to incorporate an agreement into a formal contract, but wants the other side to think an agreement exists. Which is entirely possible in this case. In that case the party that's trying to get screwed over might be able to show a contract if they can put together enough written communications that contain the necessary elements of a contract.
For what? Mopery and dopery? If the promotion was a quid pro quo exchange for technical assistance, then as long as the promotion happened, then LimitNone doesn't have a leg to stand on.
The promotion was, according to LimitNone, more than that. From a zdnet article:
LimitNone said it entered a confidentiality deal with Google to share trade secrets of its e-mail migration tool with Google engineers, sales people and key Google Apps customers.
If verbal agreements and emails were all that were necessary, though, we wouldn't have the aforementioned instruments. Verbal agreements are hard to make stick for large and/or significant disagreements. Again, a handshake and a nod will probably work for a nominal amount in small claims court, and you can find cases of larger settlements, but this smacks of a collaborative deal that didn't pan out.
Companies enter into formal contracts because those are the best way to make sure all the terms of the agreement are stated. But honestly with a few exceptions (especially in regards to the statute of frauds) an oral agreement isn't any less enforceable than a written one. And most jurisdictions recognize that parties to a contract both promise to deal fairly with the other party, and courts will enforce these unstated terms.
I'm not saying Google is in the right (though I'm a bit suspicious of the allegations), but that your analogy is completely wrong.
Easily fixed. Instead of opening a pizza hut next door before our joint one opens, I open up one after our has been operating for a couple of months. Then I start giving away pizza for free.
Sure, a smile and a handshake is fine if you're doing a $300 quick job with a repeat customer, but if a billion dollars is on the line there needs to be paperwork.
I'm sure there is. What I think a lot of slashdotters don't seem to realize is a "contract" can take many forms, both written and non-written. An e-mail chain can be considered a written contract, for example, if enough information is contained in aggregate.
If there are trade secrets involved, there should (must?) be an NDA, or it's not really a trade secret.
You don't need an NDA to prove a trade secret; if you did that would basically give the green light to industrial espionage. "Judge, yes I hired burglars to break into my competitor's office and steal his papers, but as the burglars never signed an NDA these are not trade secrets."
I find it rather ridiculous that LimitNone actually believes that an Email client migration product is such an advanced piece of software that Google with its legions of developers and mounds of cash couldn't cook one up on its own.
I didn't see anywhere in the press release where they claim that; if the press release is true, then the issue isn't whether Google couldn't cook one up on its own, but rather that they didn't--instead of that they made a deal with this company to use their product instead.
Trade secrets? What trade secrets? Google can't write a migration suite for its own email service? Geeze.
A trade secret isn't something that necessarily can't be replicated, or has to be unique, it just has to be not readily ascertainable. A typical "trade secret" would be a customer list; if I have a customer list of people who have bought my product, and you make a competing product, you can't gain access to my list through fraudulent means then use it.
This is ust another case of litigation over innovation.
No offense, but you're trying to have it both ways. It's not innovation when Google takes the idea, but when this company tries suing suddenly they're trying to squelch innovation.
I mean, I'm no IP law expert or anything, but a client migration tool? This could have easily have been some kind of open source project..who would LimitNone have sued then?
If the open source team had worked with LimitNone, agreed to help with its promotion, then turned around and released a competing version, yes, LimitNone would probably sue.
That's not really relevant. Let's say you and I enter into a plan to open a pizza hut franchise. You do all the work setting it up, training staff, etc., while I just hang around and watch, with the plan being that after it opens I'll help with the marketing and advertising. A month before it opens I suddenly open up a competing pizza hut next door.
Opening up a pizza hut isn't a non-obvious idea, hell it's a franchise. But you still should have a legal cause of action against me.
OK, a few numbers, dug up by a simple "litigation cost in american health care" google query. here you find:
That's the problem, the search was too simple. The website you cite is run by the far-right Manhattan Institute, which is partly funded by drug companies. Like most highly partisan "think tanks" they start with the result then work backwards to massage the facts to fit the result. The website you cite also declares a $3,300 per person medical "tort tax", but fails to explain how exactly this figure is arrived at.
In other words, $330. $330 for a family of four isn't really that much, when compared to the total health care costs incurred by that family of four. It's certainly not anywhere near the >50% number mentioned by the poster I was responding to. And considering that close to 100,000 people die every year because of malpractice, I don't think that's necessarily a bad number to hit.
Wyethâ(TM)s massive reserve for Fen-Phen litigation is $21 billion,[6] and Merckâ(TM)s exposure to Vioxx lawsuits may total as much as $50 billion.[7] Such figures are astronomical in comparison with these companiesâ(TM) individual budgets, representing nine to twelve times each companyâ(TM)s annual research and development costs.[8] In fact, since each drug was only widely used for about four years, the approximate annualized liability cost of these two drugs comes to almost $18 billionâ"equivalent to 10 percent of the annual revenues for the pharmaceutical industry as a whole.[9]
Massive numbers. Just massive.
Notice what they're doing? The "reserve for Fen-Phen litigation" isn't an incurred cost, it's simply a possible amount. The same for the "exposure" cited for Merck. And considering tens of millions of prescriptions for Fen-Phen were written for several decades before it was pulled off the shelves, the company may legitimately be on the hook for that amount. That's how civil litigation works, if you're negligent, and you cause damage, you're not entitled to get off the hook by saying "well that's too much."
Sad for you, because I do. But I'm weird that way.
Not really that sad. Jealousy or envy can be a constructive emotion I've found, if you know how to use it right. Suppressing your feelings, even if they're not considered admirable, generally leads to trouble down the road.
Costs related to litigation go beyond actual litigation. For example, if the hospital runs a bunch of "unnecessary" tests so that they can show due diligence in the event of a lawsuit, those costs would rightfully be placed in the "related to litigation" category.
I understand what you're saying, but the standard of care a hospital is expected to follow in most jurisdictions is generally that of a reasonably that of a reasonably competent healthcare provider in that community. If a test is unnecessary, then failing to run it usually won't result in liability.
My response was basically to the poster that alleged that healthcare litigation costs make up more than half the costs of healthcare providers, which is so wrong I just had to say something. It's like someone saying the murder rate is 50% in Detroit; yes, Detroit may not be the safest city around, but claiming that half the people in it are murdered (by the other half presumably) just doesn't add to any discussion.
In the USA where you probably are talking about considering this is/., about half, if not more these days, of health care cost is related to litigation.
That is completely and utterly untrue, and I dare you to cite a single source of that number. You've been gulled into believing an insurance company-created myth; medical malpractice premiums make up about half a percent of healthcare provider spending, and that is logically going to make up most of the healthcare litigation costs to the healthcare provider.
While you can be forgiven for falling for a sort of general lie propagated by the insurance companies, that medical malpractice costs make up a substantial percentage of healthcare spending, actually insisting that half of healthcare costs are over healthcare litigation is just beyond the scope of reason.
A VERY CHEAP combo meal from any fast food place will cost you $4 U.S. per person while I've been feeding a family of 7 for about $10 a meal. That $10 can cover a wide variety of meals, and it feeds the whole family every time.
You're forgetting about the cost in time. If you're making minimum wage, you're most likely working at an hourly rate. A trip to taco bell takes 10 minutes. Compare that to shopping, preparation, and clean up time.
He's got genuine ailments - A sore back, the flu, no energy. I see him frequently enough to know.
Ummm...he's going to the doctor for the flu? "No energy"? A "sore back"? None of those things require a doctor's visit. I think he probably is a hypochondriac.
I think you have a strange view of human nature. I feel pleasure at seeing someone more successful than I, as long as that success seems warranted. That urge towards justice and fairness you mention works both ways if you let it.
Did you ever meet someone who just has everything in life? Good-looking, well-off, well-educated, happy, stable, popular but still a genuinely nice guy? You really feel pleasure at seeing this guy? I don't.
You'll also notice that trying to eat healthy (fresh food, etc) will push your food bill up sharply unless you are willing to eat nothing but oatmeal and beans. I call Whole Foods "Whole Paycheck".
Speaking of which, for a store that sells itself as healthy, Whole Foods' prepared food is amazingly high in calories and fat. Yes, most supermarket prepared food tends to be high-calorie/high-fat, but Whole Foods seems to even be worse than the conventional supermarkets, which are themselves pretty bad.
There are a number of non-evil motivations for acquiring the pirated version of a product.
Name one. The only thing I can think of is if you bought it previously, but for some reason (lost the CD key, lost the disks, etc.) your copy no longer works.
I'll add that she now regularly eats so-called superfoods and still ended up with "adrenal failure."
What foods are you talking about exactly? A lot of the "superfoods" are probably overhyped, but every one I've seen without exception is really a very healthy choice to incorporate into your diet.
if they're paying out more from insurance claims than normal, they'll raise their rates? No way!
No, that's exactly what the OP wasn't saying. What the OP was saying was insurance companies lie and cheat, and oftentimes rate increases are a result of something other than increased payouts, i.e. stock market speculation or unnecessary costs.
How about some kind of mandatory test (every couple years or so) in which people are placed in various life-threatening situations involving wild animals, obstacle courses, etc.?
How about we just have the skinny people fight the fat people, and the winners get to set health policies? That smug, moralizing, 105 pound granola-eating nutritionist/yoga instructor might change his tune after a few rounds with someone 3 times his mass. That's true darwinism in action.
Slashdot Mirror
Air pollution is a liberal myth that is propagated simply to prevent the glorious libertarian utopia that results from the pure beauty of unrestricted capitalism.
What if I'm offended by other things in the game? Like the substandard story line, the lousy dialogue, the lack of interactivity with the environment, the poor AI, or the nonsensical game logic?
because Google independently created an obvious, trivial application
According to the complaint, Google came to them precisely because they were having problems implementing it.
I fail to see why there would be *any* compulsion to sue. You're missing the three *necessary* elements to have a contractual relationship:
First of all you're looking at it too narrowly; contract isn't the only way to sue; in actuality the lawsuit appears to be based on the trade secret issue and Illinois statute, neither of which seems to require a contractual relationship. And secondly, even if it was a contractual cause of action I can read enough in the press release to imply consideration did exist on both sides.
If you are dealing with a "billion" dollar product and are relying on an e-mail as your sole legally binding contract, you should fire your lawyer. It may be fine to start work, get the ball rolling, etc until the actual contracts or agreements are signed, but anything significant should have a hard copy, signed with an actual pen agreement.
Only in a lot of cases one party might not want to incorporate an agreement into a formal contract, but wants the other side to think an agreement exists. Which is entirely possible in this case. In that case the party that's trying to get screwed over might be able to show a contract if they can put together enough written communications that contain the necessary elements of a contract.
The promotion was, according to LimitNone, more than that. From a zdnet article:
If verbal agreements and emails were all that were necessary, though, we wouldn't have the aforementioned instruments. Verbal agreements are hard to make stick for large and/or significant disagreements. Again, a handshake and a nod will probably work for a nominal amount in small claims court, and you can find cases of larger settlements, but this smacks of a collaborative deal that didn't pan out.
Companies enter into formal contracts because those are the best way to make sure all the terms of the agreement are stated. But honestly with a few exceptions (especially in regards to the statute of frauds) an oral agreement isn't any less enforceable than a written one. And most jurisdictions recognize that parties to a contract both promise to deal fairly with the other party, and courts will enforce these unstated terms.
I'm not saying Google is in the right (though I'm a bit suspicious of the allegations), but that your analogy is completely wrong.
Easily fixed. Instead of opening a pizza hut next door before our joint one opens, I open up one after our has been operating for a couple of months. Then I start giving away pizza for free.
Sure, a smile and a handshake is fine if you're doing a $300 quick job with a repeat customer, but if a billion dollars is on the line there needs to be paperwork.
I'm sure there is. What I think a lot of slashdotters don't seem to realize is a "contract" can take many forms, both written and non-written. An e-mail chain can be considered a written contract, for example, if enough information is contained in aggregate.
If there are trade secrets involved, there should (must?) be an NDA, or it's not really a trade secret.
You don't need an NDA to prove a trade secret; if you did that would basically give the green light to industrial espionage. "Judge, yes I hired burglars to break into my competitor's office and steal his papers, but as the burglars never signed an NDA these are not trade secrets."
I find it rather ridiculous that LimitNone actually believes that an Email client migration product is such an advanced piece of software that Google with its legions of developers and mounds of cash couldn't cook one up on its own.
I didn't see anywhere in the press release where they claim that; if the press release is true, then the issue isn't whether Google couldn't cook one up on its own, but rather that they didn't--instead of that they made a deal with this company to use their product instead.
Trade secrets? What trade secrets? Google can't write a migration suite for its own email service? Geeze.
A trade secret isn't something that necessarily can't be replicated, or has to be unique, it just has to be not readily ascertainable. A typical "trade secret" would be a customer list; if I have a customer list of people who have bought my product, and you make a competing product, you can't gain access to my list through fraudulent means then use it.
This is ust another case of litigation over innovation.
No offense, but you're trying to have it both ways. It's not innovation when Google takes the idea, but when this company tries suing suddenly they're trying to squelch innovation.
I mean, I'm no IP law expert or anything, but a client migration tool? This could have easily have been some kind of open source project..who would LimitNone have sued then?
If the open source team had worked with LimitNone, agreed to help with its promotion, then turned around and released a competing version, yes, LimitNone would probably sue.
You know, because its really a non-obvious idea.
That's not really relevant. Let's say you and I enter into a plan to open a pizza hut franchise. You do all the work setting it up, training staff, etc., while I just hang around and watch, with the plan being that after it opens I'll help with the marketing and advertising. A month before it opens I suddenly open up a competing pizza hut next door.
Opening up a pizza hut isn't a non-obvious idea, hell it's a franchise. But you still should have a legal cause of action against me.
That's the problem, the search was too simple. The website you cite is run by the far-right Manhattan Institute, which is partly funded by drug companies. Like most highly partisan "think tanks" they start with the result then work backwards to massage the facts to fit the result. The website you cite also declares a $3,300 per person medical "tort tax", but fails to explain how exactly this figure is arrived at.
In other words, $330. $330 for a family of four isn't really that much, when compared to the total health care costs incurred by that family of four. It's certainly not anywhere near the >50% number mentioned by the poster I was responding to. And considering that close to 100,000 people die every year because of malpractice, I don't think that's necessarily a bad number to hit.
For a counterpoint check out this.
Notice what they're doing? The "reserve for Fen-Phen litigation" isn't an incurred cost, it's simply a possible amount. The same for the "exposure" cited for Merck. And considering tens of millions of prescriptions for Fen-Phen were written for several decades before it was pulled off the shelves, the company may legitimately be on the hook for that amount. That's how civil litigation works, if you're negligent, and you cause damage, you're not entitled to get off the hook by saying "well that's too much."
Sad for you, because I do. But I'm weird that way.
Not really that sad. Jealousy or envy can be a constructive emotion I've found, if you know how to use it right. Suppressing your feelings, even if they're not considered admirable, generally leads to trouble down the road.
Costs related to litigation go beyond actual litigation. For example, if the hospital runs a bunch of "unnecessary" tests so that they can show due diligence in the event of a lawsuit, those costs would rightfully be placed in the "related to litigation" category.
I understand what you're saying, but the standard of care a hospital is expected to follow in most jurisdictions is generally that of a reasonably that of a reasonably competent healthcare provider in that community. If a test is unnecessary, then failing to run it usually won't result in liability.
My response was basically to the poster that alleged that healthcare litigation costs make up more than half the costs of healthcare providers, which is so wrong I just had to say something. It's like someone saying the murder rate is 50% in Detroit; yes, Detroit may not be the safest city around, but claiming that half the people in it are murdered (by the other half presumably) just doesn't add to any discussion.
In the USA where you probably are talking about considering this is /., about half, if not more these days, of health care cost is related to litigation.
That is completely and utterly untrue, and I dare you to cite a single source of that number. You've been gulled into believing an insurance company-created myth; medical malpractice premiums make up about half a percent of healthcare provider spending, and that is logically going to make up most of the healthcare litigation costs to the healthcare provider.
While you can be forgiven for falling for a sort of general lie propagated by the insurance companies, that medical malpractice costs make up a substantial percentage of healthcare spending, actually insisting that half of healthcare costs are over healthcare litigation is just beyond the scope of reason.
A VERY CHEAP combo meal from any fast food place will cost you $4 U.S. per person while I've been feeding a family of 7 for about $10 a meal. That $10 can cover a wide variety of meals, and it feeds the whole family every time.
You're forgetting about the cost in time. If you're making minimum wage, you're most likely working at an hourly rate. A trip to taco bell takes 10 minutes. Compare that to shopping, preparation, and clean up time.
He's got genuine ailments - A sore back, the flu, no energy. I see him frequently enough to know.
Ummm...he's going to the doctor for the flu? "No energy"? A "sore back"? None of those things require a doctor's visit. I think he probably is a hypochondriac.
I think you have a strange view of human nature. I feel pleasure at seeing someone more successful than I, as long as that success seems warranted. That urge towards justice and fairness you mention works both ways if you let it.
Did you ever meet someone who just has everything in life? Good-looking, well-off, well-educated, happy, stable, popular but still a genuinely nice guy? You really feel pleasure at seeing this guy? I don't.
What happened to /.? Why is my comment window suddenly 1/10 the width of the page?
You know the slashdot motto, if it ain't broke, fix it.
You'll also notice that trying to eat healthy (fresh food, etc) will push your food bill up sharply unless you are willing to eat nothing but oatmeal and beans. I call Whole Foods "Whole Paycheck".
Speaking of which, for a store that sells itself as healthy, Whole Foods' prepared food is amazingly high in calories and fat. Yes, most supermarket prepared food tends to be high-calorie/high-fat, but Whole Foods seems to even be worse than the conventional supermarkets, which are themselves pretty bad.
There are a number of non-evil motivations for acquiring the pirated version of a product.
Name one. The only thing I can think of is if you bought it previously, but for some reason (lost the CD key, lost the disks, etc.) your copy no longer works.
I'll add that she now regularly eats so-called superfoods and still ended up with "adrenal failure."
What foods are you talking about exactly? A lot of the "superfoods" are probably overhyped, but every one I've seen without exception is really a very healthy choice to incorporate into your diet.
if they're paying out more from insurance claims than normal, they'll raise their rates? No way!
No, that's exactly what the OP wasn't saying. What the OP was saying was insurance companies lie and cheat, and oftentimes rate increases are a result of something other than increased payouts, i.e. stock market speculation or unnecessary costs.
If they pirated your game are they really your customers?
No, they're not, which is something most people on slashdot never seem to understand.
How about some kind of mandatory test (every couple years or so) in which people are placed in various life-threatening situations involving wild animals, obstacle courses, etc.?
How about we just have the skinny people fight the fat people, and the winners get to set health policies? That smug, moralizing, 105 pound granola-eating nutritionist/yoga instructor might change his tune after a few rounds with someone 3 times his mass. That's true darwinism in action.