Subtle... unless it looks like a part of a power strip? A bit larger than average, fine. USB ports — getting common. USB modem sticking out of it — somewhat suspicious...
you're saying that a tiny startup must choose lawyers over say rent or servers...
Not at all — more a "know your market" approach.
The volume of law and regulation means that it makes sense to involve a lawyer at an early stage, hence budgeting in to the development. I'm all for garage/shed innovation, and it's a real shame when someone's great idea, which they've invested their time, effort, and, often, money, into gets kyboshed because of a legal issue. Sometimes that's justified — some laws do make sense (at least, to me), and their existence serves the public good — and sometimes it's a travesty. It's also a shame when a product gets close to market and yet falls down because changing it would be too costly, when with some guidance early on in the process, it would be easy to make the product compliant / non-infringing / whatever. Rushing out to hire a lawyer whenever you have an idea is far from what I'm suggesting, but I *am* saying that, given that there are laws and regulations and patents and other such things, understanding the climate in which you are operating before spending all your money trying to launch something which is going to run into problem after problems seems prudent.
Is this ideal? Of course not! However, given what we have, I'd see it as being pragmatic — knowing your market. In an ideal world, we wouldn't even need to have this discussion, and we *certainly* would not need to have lawyers.
work in the legal department is more important than R&D
I'm a geeky lawyer employed by a company (rather than in private practice), and I would disagree with that. But it seems a bit odd to me to separate legal and regulatory issues from R&D, unless you are also separating market research and arguing that is more important, or user experience testing — to build a successful product (as opposed to something which merely works), there's far more involved than just lab work. The lab work is important, as are the other parts.
Should there be so much law and regulation — I don't think so. Even if there is a need for a particular law, it should be sufficiently easy to (a) find and (b) understand that one need not consult a lawyer — although when one pays a lawyer, hopefully one is paying for advice based on experience, rather than for a copy of some legislation. But, with the proliferation of laws and regulations (some with clear benefits, some less so), having a lawyer *involved* in product development from an early stage makes sense — far more so that designing and developing something, and then going to a lawyer close to the end, and realising that there are problems.
It would seem odd to try and build a successful product without working out if there is demand, whether the price people would be willing to pay would give a profit and so on, but all these activities should be carried out alongside (or, really, before) the development if the aim is to develop a product, rather than just research in the hope of finding something.
Real education can be had over the internet, but it's NOT the same and not as valuable as learning in-person
I agree that education "over the internet" is not the same as learning in person — but I'd completely disagree that it is not as valuable as learning "in-person." I am, perhaps, entirely biased about this, since I am coming to the end of a programme delivered entirely online, but this might just mean I can also contribute from experience:
For me, studying my masters online has been far more valuable to me than learning in person. I work, and I travel a lot — fitting in classes at a particular time, at a particular location, would have been a real struggle for me. Instead, the ability to listen to lectures at times convenient to me, and then discuss with students and the tutors online, has been very valuable indeed — far more people have asked questions on this course than they did during my (traditional) undergraduate degree. I know my tutors far, far better coming off this programme than I did at undergraduate level — perhaps just an importantly, they have said that they know their students far better than those whom they teach in their offline / blended learning courses.
For me, learning is not about having content shoved at me, which was, all too often, what seems to be classed as education. For what I study, I can easily find the materials online (even before using university credentials to access subscription journals and so on), and have read huge amounts more than I did at undergraduate level — in turn, I've spent hours just thinking and writing, and deleting, and writing it again. Whenever I've submitted an assessment, I've asked for detailed feedback from my tutors — why did I get this mark, what would I needed to have done to have got a higher mark, why a certain comment was made and so on. I haven't always agreed with the rationale but, having built up the relationship, I was able to argue why their position was wrong, and continue the discussion — this never happened in my traditional course but, when each party can communicate at a convenient time, it becomes a lot easier, to my mind.
The challenge, though, is getting everyone, or even "enough" people, involved — I've no problem sharing my views, and posting thoughts on our blogs, and responding to others, but I'm still in the minority. Still more discussion than at undergraduate, but still the minority, which is a shame. Perhaps it is frightening — perhaps people are studying remotely to cram in to a packed life, and do not make the time to contribute — whatever the reason, my view is that they are *really* missing out, just like those who sit at the back of lecture theatres, and sit silently in tutorials. But the software is there — the possibilities are there — students just need to make that leap.
It's been an amazing experience, and has not been a solitary exercise, even if I would have liked more discussion and debate — just because I'm sitting in a cafe, rather than sitting in a classroom, has not degraded the learning experience at all and, much the opposite, has meant I've been able to interact with a far more diverse range of students than could have attended a fixed-location, offline program.
If I develop code, on my own time, that I reuse at the workplace, whose code is it?
Just my thoughts but, if your contact is not clear, I'd suggest getting this agreed in writing before you use it, particularly if, despite being developed on your own time, it was developed to solve a particular problem at that company. At the very least, make sure it has a licence attached, and use it in compliance with the licensing requirements, as if the company was any other third party recipient of the code — I'd aim to separate your two roles as (a) copyright owner and licensor of the code, and (b) employee of a company making use of third party code — if this means internal policy compliance of getting the licence checked out, the code use validated etc., then put the code through it..
(I'm not a developer, although this is a question I've been asked several times by developers, but I work for my employer four days and week, and spend my fifth day pursuing my own academic interests. There's a clear cross-over, since I'm fortunate to be paid to do something which interests me, and so, in reusing work I've done in my academic life, I try to be as clear as possible what is created in the course of my employment, and what is not... Any other thoughts / suggestions would be very interesting to me!)
The deal with a dongle is carrying it with you. It is something you have to remember to take
For me, it just sits in my bag, along with the power supply and VGA adapter — it's less convenient that having an Ethernet port onboard for sure, but it's small enough to be no hassle and big enough not to get lost easily.
That being said, I bought one for use at an event without Wi-Fi, and the only other time was configuring a friend's router — Wi-Fi has been easy enough to find when I've traveled, and I can always tether my phone if I don't need a connection to the place's local network. I thought I'd miss Ethernet, but it turns out that I don't in practice.
Under the GPL, only people that the executable was distributed to are allowed to request the code
It's perhaps a little more nuanced than this, to my mind.
Under GNU GPL 2.0, a distributor of a binary of the Program has two main options for distributing the source code:
a.) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code... or,
b.) Accompany it with a written offer... to give any third party... a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code...
If the source code does not accompany the binary, the binary must be accompanied by a written offer to give the source to "any third party" — it does not say "to give any third party who possesses the object code" or similar.
However, the GPL FAQs (which I'd treat as one interpretation of the licence), comment that:
The offer must be open to everyone who has a copy of the binary that it accompanies. This is why the GPL says your friend must give you a copy of the offer along with a copy of the binary—so you can take advantage of it.
However, this is not what the wording says — that the offer must be open to "any third party." If I get the binary directly from you, the status is clear, as is the situation in which I get the binary from my friend, who got it from you — but it's unclear, to my mind, what happens when I do not have the binary. I'd probably leave it that you have an obligation to provide the source code to me — an obligation to provide the source code to "any third party" — but that, without a copy of the offer myself, I'd likely have a very difficult time enforcing the obligation.
GNU GPL 3.0 clears this up, with clause 6(b) providing that a non-source distribution on a physical medium can take place if
accompanied by a written offer... to give anyone who possesses the object code [the source or access to the source]
However, the fact the words are *not* in GNU GPL 2.0 but *are* in GNU GPL 3.0 does not necessarily mean that they should be read in...
In the corporate / work world, I'd have thought that most lawyers use what they are given and, unless the corporate IT policy changes, Windows it probably is. But that's not the choice of the lawyer, in most cases — perhaps it reflects the lawyers that I know, but most of us are employees like any other paid staff member (in some cases, even if called "partner"), and have no real say on the IT or any other office aspects of the environment in which we work.
However, outside the corporate world, I (and quite a lot of others that I know) don't use Windows — for my academic and personal work, I haven't used Windows for years, instead preferring a mix of Linux, FreeBSD and Mac OS, depending on what I'm doing. Perhaps it's reflective of my areas of interest, but many of my legally-qualified friends use Linux either on a netbook for travelling, or else just at home — that may be because I tend to see myself as a legally-qualified geek, and my friends are probably in a similar position.
So, yes, lawyers *do* use platforms other than Windows. Whether law firms do is perhaps a different matter.
Perhaps I should have said: calendaring uses CalDAV, and the address book uses CardDAV — whether or not there are Outlook connectors / addons for these, I don't know, but there appear to be at least some Windows-based clients for each (Cal, Card). Although whether your userbase would want to use these rather than Outlook is perhaps more questionable.
I've only used mine (and that's a Snow Leopard Server, not Lion) at home, but it would seem to support a lot of what you are asking for, including, I believe, workgroup management for Windows users. You'd need to find clients which would talk to the various server-side applications, and I'm afraid I've no experience of that.
Again from memory, and I may be wrong, my recollection is that Lion Server does not require client licences, so, once you've bought the box, and installed the software, you can connect as many people as it will handle, which might help keep costs down.
I guess I am a little surprised that you go on to say:
I... tried to tell him that, but computers are a big 'mystery box' to him, and I can't seem to nail stuff home on my own... He wants the moon without having to go there to get it
Surely not a good idea to say such things about a client (under a profile of the same name as that of the submitter), whilst saying that you are going to suggest that he reads the thread?
avoid 'alarming' his family to his clandestine monitoring intentions
This rather emphasises my view that you should either get a good quality (does he have much money?) indemnity from him that what you are doing is legal, or else be *very* sure of your own legal position (and, perhaps, his)... It would seem to be more than avoiding scammers if there is a fear that those within the network would be alarmed, rather than being consulted, and being grateful for the protection they were offered?
It obviously depends on the laws to which your client is subject but, if there are "legal issues" in putting monitoring tools on "devices on the network," you may also find that there are similar restrictions, or at least hurdles to clear, in operating an interception capability as part of the network...
If it is just a private house, for members of a family, as the summary seems to suggest, chances are these will be minimal. If it will end up monitoring the nanny, cook or whatever other staff your client might have, you might need to have more robust procedures in place. In either case, it's worth checking it out if any part of your contract says "system will comply with applicable law" or anything like that — or just for your own peace of mind.
Like the GP, I haven't used Unison in this context, but (a) Unison is easy to configure, and (b) there's plenty of configuration which can be done. I use it for keeping my machines in sync, which, here, would just mean replacing a remote path with a local path. I would definitely invest some time in seeing if this does the trick.
I agree — I absolutely agree. When you see few login boxes, or requests for money, it's easy to forget that you are in a very privileged class — that you have basically unfettered access (which would have perhaps been a better choice of words than "free access"), whilst most of the world do not.
journal access is really a fringe benefit to you
As an online, distance-learning student, electronic access to pretty much anything I might want to read (which includes, but is not limited to, journals) is not so much a fringe benefit as a major enabler to study.
Lessig spoke about journals, and access to scholarly works, at the Open Rights Group's recent conference, and made what I thought were excellent points:
Junior academics seeking tenure (more a US thing, I think) or else recognition in their fields may still need to publish in non-open journals. Movements towards open access should not necessarily mean eliminating junior academics' chances of promotion or recognition, but that academics already with tenure may be in a different position. It's not necessarily the case that everyone can move at once, but that those than can, should.
The problem of access to information in journals is often not felt by academics, given their university's licences to such material. Information, for many academics, is effectively free — I can access all sorts of wonderful materials by virtue of my academic life that I could not access so easily beforehand. As a result, currently, pretty much any article *is* freely available to me. But many are not so fortunate — particularly where universities cannot afford to pay access fees, but more so for those who are not affiliated to universities, and who would have to pay considerable fees for access to even individual articles.
(I may have misunderstood, of course — these are just my recollections of quite a fast-paced lecture.)
I'm not a fan of locked-up knowledge, and, if there is a way for someone to operate a successful publishing model, with good academic standards, then great — for those interested in open source legal issues, I'd point you towards the open access International Free and Open Source Software Law Review.
There may be situations in which simply getting a grade is of use, but, in most cases, I'd have thought that getting feedback was as important as getting the grade — knowing I have a good essay is one thing, but knowing where I went wrong, with guidance from someone skilled in the area, is the most important thing, since, otherwise, I have to guess as to where I need to improve.
in reality anything with no licence attached at all, yet inside the expiry date of copyright material may well lead people to thinking it's just an abandoned or owner-unknown copyrighted work, and not available for use.
You make a *very* good point, and not something I'd thought of before. If copyright were reversed, such that one had to register / take a visible step to obtain protection, then that would not be an issue but, given the current copyright regime, some kind of express marking would be needed... Although there would still be the challenge that how could a subsequent user/re-user of a work be sure that the marking had been applied correctly, and by the author...
Food for thought, and perhaps an article, there — really appreciate your thoughts.
A single line on a piece of paper is a copyrighted work
It's probably more correct to say that it *might* be a copyright work — at least under English jurisprudence, the "sweat of the brow" test establishes a threshold for what is capable of protection as a literary work and, whilst it's a low threshold, I'd say that there is at least still something of a threshold there, and drawing a line on a sheet of paper might be sufficiently low to fail to meet the threshold. (If you meant a line of source code, which, on second thoughts, I'm guessing is where you were going, rather than a simple pencil-drawn line, chances are you're more likely to have used sufficient skill, labour and judgment to deserve, in the eyes of the law, copyright protection for your work — but that's not necessarily the case if, for example, you'd simply cut and pasted that line from something else.).
Thank you — yes, that's an approach which could be used to approximate the outcome. Similarly, I could use CC0.
The problem for me, though, is that it's an approximation, rather than the real thing. It's a licence, which requires something to be licensable, and, whilst the last attempts to be as far away from a restrictive licence as possible, it only work because of the existence of copyright, which is the very thing I wish to disclaim. Licensing under such terms might be the closest one can get to a voluntary gift to the public, but I still think it's a shame that I cannot abandon "my" copyright, forcing me to use a licensing hack instead.
With GPL, it appears that all you have to do is submit a change to get your name on the list of copyright holders, and you can apparently then sue on behalf of the entire software package. The original authors don't seem to have to be consulted.
I can't see this working as a matter of copyright law, but I don't know the US way of doing things. To my mind, you'd only have grounds to sue for an infringement in respect of the copyright of which you are the owner — if your change does not amount to a copyright work, I'd be surprised if a court would find you had standing to sue for anything, as your copyright has not been infringed. Making a minor (but still sufficient for copyright protection) change might be the way forward for that, though.
The US also allows transfer of copyrights (which I consider illogical - the creator doesn't change because money or paperwork changes hands)
The creator does not change but, when you buy a house from someone, you (or the bank...) owns the property in that house, not the creator — since copyright is a property right, the same rules apply. (You might prefer to be an author in jurisdictions where moral / authorial rights are regarded more strongly, where it is indeed impossible to assign ownership, as ownership is tied so closely to authorship.)
I prefer to use a more liberal license if I can
It sounds as if, in reality, you're more inclined towards a licence being a statement of intent / request — that you'd like someone who uses your code to do so in a particular manner, but that you are not going to chase after them with a legal stick if they refuse. However, since this would be difficult, if not impossible, to construct as a form of licence, you use a permissive licence to achieve the same ends?
This biggest disappointment to me is that, as with property generally, I cannot choose to disclaim ownership — for most of what I write, I'd rather simply disclaim it to the public domain. Whilst those using my work in an academic context will be bound by academic rules in terms of citation and the like, if someone else can benefit, great — since copyright was neither a driver not an enabler to the creation of the work, I'm unconvinced that copyright should exist over that work, but, since it does as a matter of law, I'd like to refuse to accept it. Which I can't...
Slashdot Mirror
Subtle... unless it looks like a part of a power strip? A bit larger than average, fine. USB ports — getting common. USB modem sticking out of it — somewhat suspicious...
"infringing the right to "make available"
More probably the exclusive right of communication to the public. s107(2A), Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1977 (here):
(2A) A person who infringes copyright in a work by communicating the work to the public—
(a)in the course of a business, or
(b)otherwise than in the course of a business to such an extent as to affect prejudicially the owner of the copyright,
commits an offence if he knows or has reason to believe that, by doing so, he is infringing copyright in that work.
(4A) A person guilty of an offence under subsection (2A) is liable—
(a)on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months or a fine not exceeding £50,000, or both;
(b)on conviction on indictment to a fine or imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years, or both.
you're saying that a tiny startup must choose lawyers over say rent or servers...
Not at all — more a "know your market" approach.
The volume of law and regulation means that it makes sense to involve a lawyer at an early stage, hence budgeting in to the development. I'm all for garage/shed innovation, and it's a real shame when someone's great idea, which they've invested their time, effort, and, often, money, into gets kyboshed because of a legal issue. Sometimes that's justified — some laws do make sense (at least, to me), and their existence serves the public good — and sometimes it's a travesty. It's also a shame when a product gets close to market and yet falls down because changing it would be too costly, when with some guidance early on in the process, it would be easy to make the product compliant / non-infringing / whatever. Rushing out to hire a lawyer whenever you have an idea is far from what I'm suggesting, but I *am* saying that, given that there are laws and regulations and patents and other such things, understanding the climate in which you are operating before spending all your money trying to launch something which is going to run into problem after problems seems prudent.
Is this ideal? Of course not! However, given what we have, I'd see it as being pragmatic — knowing your market. In an ideal world, we wouldn't even need to have this discussion, and we *certainly* would not need to have lawyers.
work in the legal department is more important than R&D
I'm a geeky lawyer employed by a company (rather than in private practice), and I would disagree with that. But it seems a bit odd to me to separate legal and regulatory issues from R&D, unless you are also separating market research and arguing that is more important, or user experience testing — to build a successful product (as opposed to something which merely works), there's far more involved than just lab work. The lab work is important, as are the other parts.
Should there be so much law and regulation — I don't think so. Even if there is a need for a particular law, it should be sufficiently easy to (a) find and (b) understand that one need not consult a lawyer — although when one pays a lawyer, hopefully one is paying for advice based on experience, rather than for a copy of some legislation. But, with the proliferation of laws and regulations (some with clear benefits, some less so), having a lawyer *involved* in product development from an early stage makes sense — far more so that designing and developing something, and then going to a lawyer close to the end, and realising that there are problems.
It would seem odd to try and build a successful product without working out if there is demand, whether the price people would be willing to pay would give a profit and so on, but all these activities should be carried out alongside (or, really, before) the development if the aim is to develop a product, rather than just research in the hope of finding something.
Real education can be had over the internet, but it's NOT the same and not as valuable as learning in-person
I agree that education "over the internet" is not the same as learning in person — but I'd completely disagree that it is not as valuable as learning "in-person." I am, perhaps, entirely biased about this, since I am coming to the end of a programme delivered entirely online, but this might just mean I can also contribute from experience:
For me, studying my masters online has been far more valuable to me than learning in person. I work, and I travel a lot — fitting in classes at a particular time, at a particular location, would have been a real struggle for me. Instead, the ability to listen to lectures at times convenient to me, and then discuss with students and the tutors online, has been very valuable indeed — far more people have asked questions on this course than they did during my (traditional) undergraduate degree. I know my tutors far, far better coming off this programme than I did at undergraduate level — perhaps just an importantly, they have said that they know their students far better than those whom they teach in their offline / blended learning courses.
For me, learning is not about having content shoved at me, which was, all too often, what seems to be classed as education. For what I study, I can easily find the materials online (even before using university credentials to access subscription journals and so on), and have read huge amounts more than I did at undergraduate level — in turn, I've spent hours just thinking and writing, and deleting, and writing it again. Whenever I've submitted an assessment, I've asked for detailed feedback from my tutors — why did I get this mark, what would I needed to have done to have got a higher mark, why a certain comment was made and so on. I haven't always agreed with the rationale but, having built up the relationship, I was able to argue why their position was wrong, and continue the discussion — this never happened in my traditional course but, when each party can communicate at a convenient time, it becomes a lot easier, to my mind.
The challenge, though, is getting everyone, or even "enough" people, involved — I've no problem sharing my views, and posting thoughts on our blogs, and responding to others, but I'm still in the minority. Still more discussion than at undergraduate, but still the minority, which is a shame. Perhaps it is frightening — perhaps people are studying remotely to cram in to a packed life, and do not make the time to contribute — whatever the reason, my view is that they are *really* missing out, just like those who sit at the back of lecture theatres, and sit silently in tutorials. But the software is there — the possibilities are there — students just need to make that leap.
It's been an amazing experience, and has not been a solitary exercise, even if I would have liked more discussion and debate — just because I'm sitting in a cafe, rather than sitting in a classroom, has not degraded the learning experience at all and, much the opposite, has meant I've been able to interact with a far more diverse range of students than could have attended a fixed-location, offline program.
If I develop code, on my own time, that I reuse at the workplace, whose code is it?
Just my thoughts but, if your contact is not clear, I'd suggest getting this agreed in writing before you use it, particularly if, despite being developed on your own time, it was developed to solve a particular problem at that company. At the very least, make sure it has a licence attached, and use it in compliance with the licensing requirements, as if the company was any other third party recipient of the code — I'd aim to separate your two roles as (a) copyright owner and licensor of the code, and (b) employee of a company making use of third party code — if this means internal policy compliance of getting the licence checked out, the code use validated etc., then put the code through it..
(I'm not a developer, although this is a question I've been asked several times by developers, but I work for my employer four days and week, and spend my fifth day pursuing my own academic interests. There's a clear cross-over, since I'm fortunate to be paid to do something which interests me, and so, in reusing work I've done in my academic life, I try to be as clear as possible what is created in the course of my employment, and what is not... Any other thoughts / suggestions would be very interesting to me!)
The deal with a dongle is carrying it with you. It is something you have to remember to take
For me, it just sits in my bag, along with the power supply and VGA adapter — it's less convenient that having an Ethernet port onboard for sure, but it's small enough to be no hassle and big enough not to get lost easily.
That being said, I bought one for use at an event without Wi-Fi, and the only other time was configuring a friend's router — Wi-Fi has been easy enough to find when I've traveled, and I can always tether my phone if I don't need a connection to the place's local network. I thought I'd miss Ethernet, but it turns out that I don't in practice.
Under the GPL, only people that the executable was distributed to are allowed to request the code
It's perhaps a little more nuanced than this, to my mind.
Under GNU GPL 2.0, a distributor of a binary of the Program has two main options for distributing the source code:
b.) Accompany it with a written offer ... to give any third party ... a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code...
If the source code does not accompany the binary, the binary must be accompanied by a written offer to give the source to "any third party" — it does not say "to give any third party who possesses the object code" or similar.
However, the GPL FAQs (which I'd treat as one interpretation of the licence), comment that:
The offer must be open to everyone who has a copy of the binary that it accompanies. This is why the GPL says your friend must give you a copy of the offer along with a copy of the binary—so you can take advantage of it.
However, this is not what the wording says — that the offer must be open to "any third party." If I get the binary directly from you, the status is clear, as is the situation in which I get the binary from my friend, who got it from you — but it's unclear, to my mind, what happens when I do not have the binary. I'd probably leave it that you have an obligation to provide the source code to me — an obligation to provide the source code to "any third party" — but that, without a copy of the offer myself, I'd likely have a very difficult time enforcing the obligation.
GNU GPL 3.0 clears this up, with clause 6(b) providing that a non-source distribution on a physical medium can take place if
accompanied by a written offer ... to give anyone who possesses the object code [the source or access to the source]
However, the fact the words are *not* in GNU GPL 2.0 but *are* in GNU GPL 3.0 does not necessarily mean that they should be read in...
YVMV, of course :)
I've been scouring Google and the whole thing is very vague - no story really goes into depth about the actual problem he solved and how.
Looks like he's just invented the recursive puzzle!
a tablet that can be on a charger AND support a credit/debit card reader at the same time
Square, which uses the microphone / headphone socket. (Although, I note sadly, it's US-only at the moment.)
I do ;)
In the corporate / work world, I'd have thought that most lawyers use what they are given and, unless the corporate IT policy changes, Windows it probably is. But that's not the choice of the lawyer, in most cases — perhaps it reflects the lawyers that I know, but most of us are employees like any other paid staff member (in some cases, even if called "partner"), and have no real say on the IT or any other office aspects of the environment in which we work.
However, outside the corporate world, I (and quite a lot of others that I know) don't use Windows — for my academic and personal work, I haven't used Windows for years, instead preferring a mix of Linux, FreeBSD and Mac OS, depending on what I'm doing. Perhaps it's reflective of my areas of interest, but many of my legally-qualified friends use Linux either on a netbook for travelling, or else just at home — that may be because I tend to see myself as a legally-qualified geek, and my friends are probably in a similar position.
So, yes, lawyers *do* use platforms other than Windows. Whether law firms do is perhaps a different matter.
Perhaps I should have said: calendaring uses CalDAV, and the address book uses CardDAV — whether or not there are Outlook connectors / addons for these, I don't know, but there appear to be at least some Windows-based clients for each (Cal, Card). Although whether your userbase would want to use these rather than Outlook is perhaps more questionable.
I've only used mine (and that's a Snow Leopard Server, not Lion) at home, but it would seem to support a lot of what you are asking for, including, I believe, workgroup management for Windows users. You'd need to find clients which would talk to the various server-side applications, and I'm afraid I've no experience of that.
Again from memory, and I may be wrong, my recollection is that Lion Server does not require client licences, so, once you've bought the box, and installed the software, you can connect as many people as it will handle, which might help keep costs down.
Noting that you say:
I will direct him to this post and your replies
I guess I am a little surprised that you go on to say:
I ... tried to tell him that, but computers are a big 'mystery box' to him, and I can't seem to nail stuff home on my own ... He wants the moon without having to go there to get it
Surely not a good idea to say such things about a client (under a profile of the same name as that of the submitter), whilst saying that you are going to suggest that he reads the thread?
avoid 'alarming' his family to his clandestine monitoring intentions
This rather emphasises my view that you should either get a good quality (does he have much money?) indemnity from him that what you are doing is legal, or else be *very* sure of your own legal position (and, perhaps, his)... It would seem to be more than avoiding scammers if there is a fear that those within the network would be alarmed, rather than being consulted, and being grateful for the protection they were offered?
It obviously depends on the laws to which your client is subject but, if there are "legal issues" in putting monitoring tools on "devices on the network," you may also find that there are similar restrictions, or at least hurdles to clear, in operating an interception capability as part of the network...
If it is just a private house, for members of a family, as the summary seems to suggest, chances are these will be minimal. If it will end up monitoring the nanny, cook or whatever other staff your client might have, you might need to have more robust procedures in place. In either case, it's worth checking it out if any part of your contract says "system will comply with applicable law" or anything like that — or just for your own peace of mind.
Like the GP, I haven't used Unison in this context, but (a) Unison is easy to configure, and (b) there's plenty of configuration which can be done. I use it for keeping my machines in sync, which, here, would just mean replacing a remote path with a local path. I would definitely invest some time in seeing if this does the trick.
Reply to undo accidental mod.
You are paying
I agree — I absolutely agree. When you see few login boxes, or requests for money, it's easy to forget that you are in a very privileged class — that you have basically unfettered access (which would have perhaps been a better choice of words than "free access"), whilst most of the world do not.
journal access is really a fringe benefit to you
As an online, distance-learning student, electronic access to pretty much anything I might want to read (which includes, but is not limited to, journals) is not so much a fringe benefit as a major enabler to study.
Lessig spoke about journals, and access to scholarly works, at the Open Rights Group's recent conference, and made what I thought were excellent points:
Junior academics seeking tenure (more a US thing, I think) or else recognition in their fields may still need to publish in non-open journals. Movements towards open access should not necessarily mean eliminating junior academics' chances of promotion or recognition, but that academics already with tenure may be in a different position. It's not necessarily the case that everyone can move at once, but that those than can, should.
The problem of access to information in journals is often not felt by academics, given their university's licences to such material. Information, for many academics, is effectively free — I can access all sorts of wonderful materials by virtue of my academic life that I could not access so easily beforehand. As a result, currently, pretty much any article *is* freely available to me. But many are not so fortunate — particularly where universities cannot afford to pay access fees, but more so for those who are not affiliated to universities, and who would have to pay considerable fees for access to even individual articles.
(I may have misunderstood, of course — these are just my recollections of quite a fast-paced lecture.)
I'm not a fan of locked-up knowledge, and, if there is a way for someone to operate a successful publishing model, with good academic standards, then great — for those interested in open source legal issues, I'd point you towards the open access International Free and Open Source Software Law Review.
So the hack just tunes the TV to Dave, then? :)
There may be situations in which simply getting a grade is of use, but, in most cases, I'd have thought that getting feedback was as important as getting the grade — knowing I have a good essay is one thing, but knowing where I went wrong, with guidance from someone skilled in the area, is the most important thing, since, otherwise, I have to guess as to where I need to improve.
in reality anything with no licence attached at all, yet inside the expiry date of copyright material may well lead people to thinking it's just an abandoned or owner-unknown copyrighted work, and not available for use.
You make a *very* good point, and not something I'd thought of before. If copyright were reversed, such that one had to register / take a visible step to obtain protection, then that would not be an issue but, given the current copyright regime, some kind of express marking would be needed... Although there would still be the challenge that how could a subsequent user/re-user of a work be sure that the marking had been applied correctly, and by the author...
Food for thought, and perhaps an article, there — really appreciate your thoughts.
You might consider the Woodie Guthrie license
That is a very nice find — thank you!
A single line on a piece of paper is a copyrighted work
It's probably more correct to say that it *might* be a copyright work — at least under English jurisprudence, the "sweat of the brow" test establishes a threshold for what is capable of protection as a literary work and, whilst it's a low threshold, I'd say that there is at least still something of a threshold there, and drawing a line on a sheet of paper might be sufficiently low to fail to meet the threshold. (If you meant a line of source code, which, on second thoughts, I'm guessing is where you were going, rather than a simple pencil-drawn line, chances are you're more likely to have used sufficient skill, labour and judgment to deserve, in the eyes of the law, copyright protection for your work — but that's not necessarily the case if, for example, you'd simply cut and pasted that line from something else.).
Done with OSX? Try Linux Mint!
Gone the other way on that one, I'm afraid :)
the most open license
Thank you — yes, that's an approach which could be used to approximate the outcome. Similarly, I could use CC0.
The problem for me, though, is that it's an approximation, rather than the real thing. It's a licence, which requires something to be licensable, and, whilst the last attempts to be as far away from a restrictive licence as possible, it only work because of the existence of copyright, which is the very thing I wish to disclaim. Licensing under such terms might be the closest one can get to a voluntary gift to the public, but I still think it's a shame that I cannot abandon "my" copyright, forcing me to use a licensing hack instead.
Thank you for your thoughts.
With GPL, it appears that all you have to do is submit a change to get your name on the list of copyright holders, and you can apparently then sue on behalf of the entire software package. The original authors don't seem to have to be consulted.
I can't see this working as a matter of copyright law, but I don't know the US way of doing things. To my mind, you'd only have grounds to sue for an infringement in respect of the copyright of which you are the owner — if your change does not amount to a copyright work, I'd be surprised if a court would find you had standing to sue for anything, as your copyright has not been infringed. Making a minor (but still sufficient for copyright protection) change might be the way forward for that, though.
The US also allows transfer of copyrights (which I consider illogical - the creator doesn't change because money or paperwork changes hands)
The creator does not change but, when you buy a house from someone, you (or the bank...) owns the property in that house, not the creator — since copyright is a property right, the same rules apply. (You might prefer to be an author in jurisdictions where moral / authorial rights are regarded more strongly, where it is indeed impossible to assign ownership, as ownership is tied so closely to authorship.)
I prefer to use a more liberal license if I can
It sounds as if, in reality, you're more inclined towards a licence being a statement of intent / request — that you'd like someone who uses your code to do so in a particular manner, but that you are not going to chase after them with a legal stick if they refuse. However, since this would be difficult, if not impossible, to construct as a form of licence, you use a permissive licence to achieve the same ends?
This biggest disappointment to me is that, as with property generally, I cannot choose to disclaim ownership — for most of what I write, I'd rather simply disclaim it to the public domain. Whilst those using my work in an academic context will be bound by academic rules in terms of citation and the like, if someone else can benefit, great — since copyright was neither a driver not an enabler to the creation of the work, I'm unconvinced that copyright should exist over that work, but, since it does as a matter of law, I'd like to refuse to accept it. Which I can't...