"This too, completely legal, campus police are just security guards with no special right to be told the truth."
Actually campus police are usually sworn police officers under state statutes, just like municipal or county police.
I think MIT was morally wrong in not pursuing this, and the U.S. attorneys' office overreached, but the whole issue is not as cut-and-dried as most people here would prefer you believe. I don't think Swartz was just a passive actor caught up in forces he had no control over, and framing the story that way does a disservice to the truth. Even the 6 month prison sentence under the plea bargain was unfair but not a legitimate cause for suicide and I don't think you can put all of that on the prosecutors' shoulders; I mean 6 months in a minimum security federal prison is not exactly hard time.
I am not a patent lawyer so I have no special expertise on the subject, but generally different appeals courts develop different approaches to certain laws which stick around for years due to inertia. Appellate panels are randomly picked for each appeal, so if you get three judges together who by chance happen to be strongly pro-patent in an early case could set the agenda for the next decade. Subsequent panels are expected to follow the rulings set down under what's called the doctrine of interpanel accord, where a panel can't be overruled by a later panel, you'd need the entire circuit sitting en banc (all the judges at once) to overrule the first panel.
They're out of luck; once you settle you're done, you can't get the money back unless you can show some sort of fraud in the settlement itself. It doesn't matter what happened with the underlying claims later on, the whole point of settlement is to avoid risking an even worse outcome.
"Newegg was lucky that they had an in-house lawyer and the original owner who was prepared to make a stand. This is rare: Conventional wisdom is to hire outside lawyers - patent specialists and all. "
They did hire an outside law firm, Weil Gotshal, which is one of the top firms in the country.
In theory judges are supposed to dismiss law suits without merit, but they don't - because they don't give a shit about the costs and it gives them something to do. . . That the original judge fucked up does not surprise me. Forget what you see on TV about just and fair judges: In patent troll counties like the Eastern District of Texas the judges are blatantly pro-plaintiff. If they were not all the money flowing into their district would dry up, the judges and legal fraternity would be looking for a job somewhere else.
Absolutely wrong, judges love dismissing cases, particularly complex cases like patent actions, because they don't want their docket to get overloaded. Judges make incorrect holdings of fact and law all the time; that's the whole point behind appeal courts. It's usually not out of malice or incompetence, despite perennial slashdot anger at what is perceived as to the contrary. Speaking as someone who used to litigate in federal courts, the majority of judges just don't care on a personal level about the parties before them, they just want to get the cases moved through their court. The only personal investment most judges have in the cases is they don't want them to be reversed because they consider it as a hit on their reputation.
The funny thing is CDW, Zappos, Systemax, etc. are still on the hook for the money they settled for. Bet their trial lawyers are kicking themselves right now.
"It may not be the most effective, but it is the most common by far. Shaming performance "meetings", stern "talking-to" and threats of poor performance reviews are the standard motivational tools. Bonuses, free pizza and beer on fridays, and the occasional "attaboy" are far and few between, from my experience."
No argument here, that is definitely the most common, despite the fact that I don't think it works.
Also, sometimes someone can play the "asshole" role (strict or no-nonsense project management) without it being a completely negative reinforcement. Someone needs to stay focused on the overall objective and unfortunately has to "crack the whip" once in a while to remind others to stay focused as well.
Granted, it's a fine line. Unfortunately for Linux, Linus is incompetent at that aspect of his job.
Whoa, hold the phone there, bubba. The federal defender's office is elite; when a position opens up experienced lawyers with Ivy League educations fight each other for the job. While not as adequately funded as US attorneys' offices they aren't on a shoestring budget. Speaking as an experienced lawyer myself I would take a federal public defender any day of the week if I was charged.
That's the thing, from what I read he WAS prepared for this. Wasn't this an act of civil disobedience, which by its very nature requires the person doing it publicly accept punishment?
I am not signing the petition myself for a variety of reasons, but I do note that district attorneys and their subordinates are part of the executive branch, not the judiciary, and can be removed from office anytime.
Since he was charged with something that could result in that much jail time he was also entitled to a federal public defender if he couldn't afford his own lawyer.
I think you're on to something, I have worked in both IT and law and both fields seem to have a higher than average incidence of people with little or no empathy.
Free speech incorporates the right not to say things just as much as it incorporates the right to say things. YouTube should be allowed to determine what it is saying on its network just as much as the creator of the video should on whatever channels it controls. EFF is wrong about this.
Wow that may be the most incorrect series of assertions I have seen on slashdot for years, and that's saying something. Judges and juries really don't care how much you spend on lawyers, they care about what you present to them in court.
"Preferably fast breeder reactors"
The problem is fast breeder reactors are hideously expensive and have reliability issues. There's a reason that after large expenditures into R&D nuclear nations have backed off of instituting breeder reactor programs, and the breeder reactors actually built frequently spend long periods of time out of commission, frequently due to the technical limitations of sodium cooling.
"0 BCE was way warmer than it is now. How modern do you need man to be?"
Humanity, not man. If 0 BCE was "way warmer" then it is now, the world population was also a tiny fraction of the current figures, urban centers were not dependent on a global web of food production and transport, local economies weren't interconnected to a global system, and humanity's response at the time to large scale environmental problems was typically to die in vast quantities. I personally don't want to approach environmental problems in the way they did in 0 BCE.
Amen. But these kinds of people assume everyone else must be as equally self-serving as themselves, so they can't accept that someone might be motivated by something other than money.
Because you've acquired a very poor and shoddy education.
"the earth has been through many warm spells."
Irrelevant. Modern humanity has not.
"This is nothing other than egghead research "scientists" trying to keep the gravy train going and looking for more of our (yours and mine) money to sit on their asses and debate the issue."
Based on your lack of education I think we can safely assume your productivity and thus income is significantly small that you receive more in government money than you pay in taxes.
Slashdot Mirror
"This too, completely legal, campus police are just security guards with no special right to be told the truth."
Actually campus police are usually sworn police officers under state statutes, just like municipal or county police.
I think MIT was morally wrong in not pursuing this, and the U.S. attorneys' office overreached, but the whole issue is not as cut-and-dried as most people here would prefer you believe. I don't think Swartz was just a passive actor caught up in forces he had no control over, and framing the story that way does a disservice to the truth. Even the 6 month prison sentence under the plea bargain was unfair but not a legitimate cause for suicide and I don't think you can put all of that on the prosecutors' shoulders; I mean 6 months in a minimum security federal prison is not exactly hard time.
I am not a patent lawyer so I have no special expertise on the subject, but generally different appeals courts develop different approaches to certain laws which stick around for years due to inertia. Appellate panels are randomly picked for each appeal, so if you get three judges together who by chance happen to be strongly pro-patent in an early case could set the agenda for the next decade. Subsequent panels are expected to follow the rulings set down under what's called the doctrine of interpanel accord, where a panel can't be overruled by a later panel, you'd need the entire circuit sitting en banc (all the judges at once) to overrule the first panel.
They're out of luck; once you settle you're done, you can't get the money back unless you can show some sort of fraud in the settlement itself. It doesn't matter what happened with the underlying claims later on, the whole point of settlement is to avoid risking an even worse outcome.
"Newegg was lucky that they had an in-house lawyer and the original owner who was prepared to make a stand. This is rare: Conventional wisdom is to hire outside lawyers - patent specialists and all. "
They did hire an outside law firm, Weil Gotshal, which is one of the top firms in the country.
In theory judges are supposed to dismiss law suits without merit, but they don't - because they don't give a shit about the costs and it gives them something to do. . . That the original judge fucked up does not surprise me. Forget what you see on TV about just and fair judges: In patent troll counties like the Eastern District of Texas the judges are blatantly pro-plaintiff. If they were not all the money flowing into their district would dry up, the judges and legal fraternity would be looking for a job somewhere else.
Absolutely wrong, judges love dismissing cases, particularly complex cases like patent actions, because they don't want their docket to get overloaded. Judges make incorrect holdings of fact and law all the time; that's the whole point behind appeal courts. It's usually not out of malice or incompetence, despite perennial slashdot anger at what is perceived as to the contrary. Speaking as someone who used to litigate in federal courts, the majority of judges just don't care on a personal level about the parties before them, they just want to get the cases moved through their court. The only personal investment most judges have in the cases is they don't want them to be reversed because they consider it as a hit on their reputation.
The funny thing is CDW, Zappos, Systemax, etc. are still on the hook for the money they settled for. Bet their trial lawyers are kicking themselves right now.
Are you schizophrenic?
"It may not be the most effective, but it is the most common by far. Shaming performance "meetings", stern "talking-to" and threats of poor performance reviews are the standard motivational tools. Bonuses, free pizza and beer on fridays, and the occasional "attaboy" are far and few between, from my experience."
No argument here, that is definitely the most common, despite the fact that I don't think it works.
Also, sometimes someone can play the "asshole" role (strict or no-nonsense project management) without it being a completely negative reinforcement. Someone needs to stay focused on the overall objective and unfortunately has to "crack the whip" once in a while to remind others to stay focused as well.
Granted, it's a fine line. Unfortunately for Linux, Linus is incompetent at that aspect of his job.
You don't know what an "assumption" is, do you...
"I've worked with some people who pretty much *had* to play the a**hole in their job-role at times."
The problem with this philosophy is it assumes, without adequate proof, that negative reinforcement is the most effective way of managing people.
Whoa, hold the phone there, bubba. The federal defender's office is elite; when a position opens up experienced lawyers with Ivy League educations fight each other for the job. While not as adequately funded as US attorneys' offices they aren't on a shoestring budget. Speaking as an experienced lawyer myself I would take a federal public defender any day of the week if I was charged.
That's the thing, from what I read he WAS prepared for this. Wasn't this an act of civil disobedience, which by its very nature requires the person doing it publicly accept punishment?
I am not signing the petition myself for a variety of reasons, but I do note that district attorneys and their subordinates are part of the executive branch, not the judiciary, and can be removed from office anytime.
Since he was charged with something that could result in that much jail time he was also entitled to a federal public defender if he couldn't afford his own lawyer.
I think you're on to something, I have worked in both IT and law and both fields seem to have a higher than average incidence of people with little or no empathy.
It takes a special kind of artist to draw something for 10 years and not get any better.
I AM a trial lawyer.
Free speech incorporates the right not to say things just as much as it incorporates the right to say things. YouTube should be allowed to determine what it is saying on its network just as much as the creator of the video should on whatever channels it controls. EFF is wrong about this.
Wow that may be the most incorrect series of assertions I have seen on slashdot for years, and that's saying something. Judges and juries really don't care how much you spend on lawyers, they care about what you present to them in court.
"we have a right to civial disobediene, we are not counterfitters or criminals, just dissidents"
Only if you break the law openly and accept the punishment willingly.
It might be redundant but he/she typed the sentence really fast.
Someone actually maintains sed and grep? I would think after FORTY years you can probably just let grep do its thing on its own.
"Preferably fast breeder reactors" The problem is fast breeder reactors are hideously expensive and have reliability issues. There's a reason that after large expenditures into R&D nuclear nations have backed off of instituting breeder reactor programs, and the breeder reactors actually built frequently spend long periods of time out of commission, frequently due to the technical limitations of sodium cooling.
"0 BCE was way warmer than it is now. How modern do you need man to be?"
Humanity, not man. If 0 BCE was "way warmer" then it is now, the world population was also a tiny fraction of the current figures, urban centers were not dependent on a global web of food production and transport, local economies weren't interconnected to a global system, and humanity's response at the time to large scale environmental problems was typically to die in vast quantities. I personally don't want to approach environmental problems in the way they did in 0 BCE.
Amen. But these kinds of people assume everyone else must be as equally self-serving as themselves, so they can't accept that someone might be motivated by something other than money.
"I don't see what's so bad about global warming"
Because you've acquired a very poor and shoddy education.
"the earth has been through many warm spells."
Irrelevant. Modern humanity has not.
"This is nothing other than egghead research "scientists" trying to keep the gravy train going and looking for more of our (yours and mine) money to sit on their asses and debate the issue."
Based on your lack of education I think we can safely assume your productivity and thus income is significantly small that you receive more in government money than you pay in taxes.