Why would the loss of their coders hurt SCO? They dont have any particularly viable products being produced that they need the coders for. The only department that ever turned a profit for them is legal...
I understand your point, but disagree strongly that is is not much more risky than going long. When you go long, you can not loose one penny more than you put in. That is is, strict maximum of 100% loss. When you sell short, loss is only limited by realistic market prices for the stock to rise to, which could be pretty high if they did win this lawsuit and a multi-billion dollar judgement. You may be saved by a margin call, and shorting can be used as a risk mitigation strategy, but your loss exposure on a straight short sale is far more than when going long.
Say you buy one share long at $10. If it goes to $0, you loose $10, if it goes up to $30, you make $20. If you shorted at $10, if it goes to $0, you make $10, if it goes up to $30, you loose $20. For an initial exposure of $10 (paid or in margin account), your gain is limited and loss unlimited (at least until you get called) on a short, and your loss is limited and gain unlimited on a long.
Now, if you think the stock will go down, shorting is the way to make money on it, but not the least risky.
Re:McBride is doing what a CEO is supposed to do
on
Darl McBride Interview
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I guess a lot of the difficulty in this case is the number of if's involved. A lot of my objection is not to their legal right, but to how ethical some actions are.
SCO was more than happy to let the community help them. They made money selling the community's work, and SCO Unix (especially Open Server) was only made marginally useful with the inclusion of massive amounts of free software. They then sit, at McBride's own admission, on the discovery of this code until Linux is even more popular. It just seems they are perfectly willing to take, but want to sue anyone who may even potentially take the other direction.
Another issue is what they claim has been taken. If real, useful code was stolen outright, then yes, he is doing his duty. That does not seem to be the case. From a lot of his interviews, it looks to either be an attempt at _massively_ redefining the concept of derivitave works, or a claim that it uses "unix methods" dating from the 1970's. There may be a legal right to claim things from then, but there is not much moral claim to something written in 1970, currently with its 5th or 6th owner. Before SCO bought that "IP", they were doing the same thing they are now suing everyone else over. To the redefining of certain terms, I do not think that it is a moral act of them to attempt to redifine a term that, while it will make them money now, will cause huge amounts of lawsuits and destruction of large industry segments.
As to the solution, McBride does not seem to have any interest in an amicable solution at all. Their own Unix products, quite frankly, are worthless, and most ISV's I work with are forcing customers off of SCO, and have been for a couple of years, because it is a horrible platform and very difficult to support. They are trying to use litigation to suppress their main competitor in a market they couldn't win with their vastly inferior products. Every interview I have seen has no reference to reaching a good solution, and many references to massive legal actions.
There are some situations under which they may have a fully legitimate claim, but most seem to depend on strange redefinitions of legal terms or invoking obscure 30+ year old contract rights, purchased 5 parties ago. That may provide a small chance of legal victory, but I do not believe this attempt to be ethical in the least if it can only stand on those terms.
Re:McBride is doing what a CEO is supposed to do
on
Darl McBride Interview
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Well, I guess there are two main issues with that. First, McBride is not "trying to keep his struggling company together" for any reason except his own value. He couldn't take the money and leave the company to burn, SCO had no products or services that anyone was interested in aside from a few legacy installations. He is doing this to make his stock valuable enough to bail with, whether or not there is a legitimate case.
Second is the issue of the overall corporate ethic that making money for their shareholders, no matter how destructive the methods, no matter how honest the claims, is a good thing. The problem is that we grant corporations a large number of special exemptions and priveleges, and receive nothing in return, since they don't even have a duty to their community or the public at large. The shareholders receive all the benefits, and the public bears many of the burdens. Not a particularly fair deal...
Re:Learned Professionals?
on
Working Hard?
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· Score: 1
Actually, if you're being picky, it is a Ponzi scheme:)
I think the intent and connotation of that case, however, is taking another's idea and presenting it as your own. The reason we have to have such a convoluted body of law surrounding all this is because appropriation of an idea, and even more "intellectual property", are completely manufactured concepts with little grounding in physical reality. Where as the idea that a physical object may only have one posessor is simple, the "ownership" of ideas is much more likely to be vastly different between cultures.
In my experience, what truely makes them great is that after the 10 year old reads it, their parents immediately snatch it up and read it too. This series has brought more people I know back to reading as an alternative to TV than any other books I can think of.
So does that mean that I deserve payment if my neighbor does anything to reduce the value of his property, thereby devaluing mine as well? Or can I be compensated by those idiot kids downtown, since it will reduce patronage of downtown businesses. Those are real losses, real "theft of value", so have they, in your terms, STOLEN from me?
But I thought, under capitalist dogma, competition was never to help someone, but always produced the most efficient outcome. Or is it that all those countries "hindered by Socialism" can compete more effectively than us in the marketplace?
If only "voting with your wallet" actually had an effect. The problem is that the company has no idea why you didn't buy, so has no clue on what to do to get your patronage back. In this case, though, they'll just use it as an additional drop in sales to support their claims of widespread piracy. With these bozos, a boycott works against us.
If this negatively impacts you, you currently have little you can do about it unless you have a lot of money.
Stop shopping there or doing business with them. Simple.
I think he was talking about doing something that actually makes a difference...
Just because they have wrong you according to your views doesnt give you the right to wreak heavenly vengeance on them, any more than I have the right to punish someone who breaks into my house.
Wrong on both counts. The whole principle of representative government is that we can collectively choose to wreak vengeance on them. Also, in most states, you can when someone breaks in (US specific).
In all instances where business negatively affects citizens, the business should be called to task and made to answer for it's wrongs.
Businesses are there to make money. Dont like that? go to some place where they arent allowed to. As i said earlier, they may not precisely follow your own moral rules, but the worlds a big wide place, and if i were you, id stop having a tantrum, and grow up. The worlds not perfect, and neither, it seems, are you.
This gets to the root of the disagreement. The entire concept that business exist only to make money, and have no responsibility beyond that, is a uniquely modern and US centric view. A common view is that businesses exist to make money for the owners and to provide jobs in the community. Other views differ as to specifics, but very few take the point of view that businesses have no responsibility to their employees, neighbors, and the citizens of the country they reside in.
By granting strange rights to corporations under this increase-shareholders-value, to hell with everyone else view, the citizens of the US confer valuable rights and special protections to the corp, and in return receive nothing. We give them protection from liability, they buy influence to remove any protections we have against them. The world is not perfect, and people with the attitude that corporations have no responsibility beyond their own boardroom are a primary reason.
Actually, the BSD's have their own userland, and don't depend on any GNU software. They did decide to switch to gcc, but that was to promote unified development as much as anything else. Also, if you don't use the command line much, most of the GNU part becomes useless to you.
I agree that they have made very important steps, but the GNU project has been stagnant for a few years, while the Linux side has been pushing along faster than ever. How long can you rest on past accomplishments?
Re:so, why exactly are corporations and organizati
on
Working Hard?
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· Score: 1
Sorry, I forgot that was the usual protocol. What is it these days, erm...all your bases belong to me:) (Hmm, or is it bas3s...)
Because "cultural factors" are not easily encapsulated in numbers. A few decent ones to measure (not all, but a start) could be: number of hours worked (it is hard to enjoy income if you work 60-80 hour weeks) paid vacation days taken (most people enjoy vacation more than time in the office) access to health care (enjoying anything is easier when you are healthy) disposable income (this accounts for both per capita earnings and the different tax rates) fear/insecurity/stress (not just a factor by country, but also cultural and regional influences)
Different people give differing importance to these, and many other factors. The point I am still trying to make is that per capita income is useless alone. If you have the best income in the world, it doesn't necessarily mean quality of life if you work 80 hour weeks and never take a vacation (not uncommon in the dot-bomb era). One other negative factor in the US is that unemployment is a much bigger fear because there is no decent social welfare system in place.
On the other hand, sometimes it is worthwhile to give up current quality of life to retire early, and to have lower tax rates if you expect to strike it rich off going public.
Much of the difference is simply in how it feels. In the US, you make more money, but the job is also far more likely to consume a lot more of your life. In Europe it is harder to get filthy rich, but you have a lot of personal time and vacations, and don't have to stress about losing your health insurance in the next lay-off.
And the part about not getting anything for our work, we rarely do. As discussed in a couple of other threads, our tax burden is lower than Europe, but not nearly enough to explain the complete lack of services available to most US citizens in return for taxes paid.
It's all about trade offs, and can never be explained in a simple income figure.
Re:so, why exactly are corporations and organizati
on
Working Hard?
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· Score: 1
It is really strange to end up agreeing with someone so quickly on here, but well said. Given the typical poster here, I made the incorrect assumption that you also opposed unions, since most people with that initial point of view do.
Re:Working more pays off
on
Working Hard?
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· Score: 1
My eyes must be getting old...
You may pay a lower rate on the first 28k, but that only changes the comparison by a couple of points. Some states have less income tax than 7%, but they usually have property or sales taxes take up the slack, so the end result is not much different. The education deduction is dwarfed by actually having affordable public higher education. Do European countries commonly have deductions for children or interest? Even with a lower rate on the first 28k, it still looks like someone in the average income level pays around 40% here, and 40%-50% in Europe. Deductions, if only avaliable in the US, may change that figure somewhat.
Taxes may be slightly lower here, I just don't think the difference is as big as most people believe it is. The gap looks even less relevant when you look at services provided as well.
Since you seem to have some good sources for European tax information, could you recommend some of the more reputable sites. It is really hard sometimes to sort out the factual and relevant information when the systems are so different. You are one of the most informative individuals I have run into on slashdot, thanks.
Actually, I am the one attempting to take many cultural factors into account. You are the one attempting to state which is best based solely on per capita income.
And if you think income and purchasing power are the main things that matter, vs education, health care, quality of life, etc, you have much bigger issues. We work far harder than people in most countries, yet receive few services and have much lower quality of life. Ooh, but we can buy cheaper stuff...
Naah. The funniest retort to that I've found is: Money can't buy love, but it can find a lot of people willing to fake it for you!
Re:US vs French vacation packages
on
Working Hard?
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· Score: 1
No, some people just believe that their quality of life should improve, not just the owners.
Re:Change of perspective, but working hard
on
Working Hard?
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· Score: 1
I don't know. Most systems people claim have failed have really never been tried in a reasonable fashion. Unfortunately, most have come about through a cult of personality around a dictator, which has doomed them to failure. I would be interested in how a more democratically implemented socialist system could work. I'm not sure it would solve the problems, but I hate to see alternatives dismissed out of hand based on deeply flawed historical examples.
Actually, 55% is not hard to reach at all. For a single person making between (roughly) $28k and $68k, they pay 27%. Add on 5%-10% for state, 8%-14% for social security/medicare/FICA (depending on employer or contractor status who pays that 6%). Then comes property taxes (not hard to pay at least $3-$5k per year there), so about another 5%-10% for that. That totals between 45% and 61%. Paying 55% on combined taxes, which he explicitly stated, is not hard to do at all, and certainly doesn't require close to a 6 figure income.
Re:so, why exactly are corporations and organizati
on
Working Hard?
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· Score: 1
Ahh, where exactly does this happen? Except for rare exceptions in fields with a temporary boom (see dot com bubble), they just hire the employees with the lowest demands. There is always someone willing to do without, and drag down the standards for everyone else.
This is the reason unions were popular in industrial areas. You need the job more than they need any particular worker. The only way to get enough leverage to have things in your favor is to be in the top 1% of your field, or to have the rest of the workers backing you up. If that won't happen (weakening of current union laws), then workers turn to the government to address the imbalance.
Slashdot Mirror
Why would the loss of their coders hurt SCO? They dont have any particularly viable products being produced that they need the coders for. The only department that ever turned a profit for them is legal...
I understand your point, but disagree strongly that is is not much more risky than going long. When you go long, you can not loose one penny more than you put in. That is is, strict maximum of 100% loss. When you sell short, loss is only limited by realistic market prices for the stock to rise to, which could be pretty high if they did win this lawsuit and a multi-billion dollar judgement. You may be saved by a margin call, and shorting can be used as a risk mitigation strategy, but your loss exposure on a straight short sale is far more than when going long.
Say you buy one share long at $10. If it goes to $0, you loose $10, if it goes up to $30, you make $20. If you shorted at $10, if it goes to $0, you make $10, if it goes up to $30, you loose $20. For an initial exposure of $10 (paid or in margin account), your gain is limited and loss unlimited (at least until you get called) on a short, and your loss is limited and gain unlimited on a long.
Now, if you think the stock will go down, shorting is the way to make money on it, but not the least risky.
I guess a lot of the difficulty in this case is the number of if's involved. A lot of my objection is not to their legal right, but to how ethical some actions are.
SCO was more than happy to let the community help them. They made money selling the community's work, and SCO Unix (especially Open Server) was only made marginally useful with the inclusion of massive amounts of free software. They then sit, at McBride's own admission, on the discovery of this code until Linux is even more popular. It just seems they are perfectly willing to take, but want to sue anyone who may even potentially take the other direction.
Another issue is what they claim has been taken. If real, useful code was stolen outright, then yes, he is doing his duty. That does not seem to be the case. From a lot of his interviews, it looks to either be an attempt at _massively_ redefining the concept of derivitave works, or a claim that it uses "unix methods" dating from the 1970's. There may be a legal right to claim things from then, but there is not much moral claim to something written in 1970, currently with its 5th or 6th owner. Before SCO bought that "IP", they were doing the same thing they are now suing everyone else over. To the redefining of certain terms, I do not think that it is a moral act of them to attempt to redifine a term that, while it will make them money now, will cause huge amounts of lawsuits and destruction of large industry segments.
As to the solution, McBride does not seem to have any interest in an amicable solution at all. Their own Unix products, quite frankly, are worthless, and most ISV's I work with are forcing customers off of SCO, and have been for a couple of years, because it is a horrible platform and very difficult to support. They are trying to use litigation to suppress their main competitor in a market they couldn't win with their vastly inferior products. Every interview I have seen has no reference to reaching a good solution, and many references to massive legal actions.
There are some situations under which they may have a fully legitimate claim, but most seem to depend on strange redefinitions of legal terms or invoking obscure 30+ year old contract rights, purchased 5 parties ago. That may provide a small chance of legal victory, but I do not believe this attempt to be ethical in the least if it can only stand on those terms.
Well, I guess there are two main issues with that. First, McBride is not "trying to keep his struggling company together" for any reason except his own value. He couldn't take the money and leave the company to burn, SCO had no products or services that anyone was interested in aside from a few legacy installations. He is doing this to make his stock valuable enough to bail with, whether or not there is a legitimate case.
Second is the issue of the overall corporate ethic that making money for their shareholders, no matter how destructive the methods, no matter how honest the claims, is a good thing. The problem is that we grant corporations a large number of special exemptions and priveleges, and receive nothing in return, since they don't even have a duty to their community or the public at large. The shareholders receive all the benefits, and the public bears many of the burdens. Not a particularly fair deal...
Actually, if you're being picky, it is a Ponzi scheme :)
I think the intent and connotation of that case, however, is taking another's idea and presenting it as your own. The reason we have to have such a convoluted body of law surrounding all this is because appropriation of an idea, and even more "intellectual property", are completely manufactured concepts with little grounding in physical reality. Where as the idea that a physical object may only have one posessor is simple, the "ownership" of ideas is much more likely to be vastly different between cultures.
"Why buy the cow when the milk is free?"
Because I really like steak?
In my experience, what truely makes them great is that after the 10 year old reads it, their parents immediately snatch it up and read it too. This series has brought more people I know back to reading as an alternative to TV than any other books I can think of.
So does that mean that I deserve payment if my neighbor does anything to reduce the value of his property, thereby devaluing mine as well? Or can I be compensated by those idiot kids downtown, since it will reduce patronage of downtown businesses. Those are real losses, real "theft of value", so have they, in your terms, STOLEN from me?
But I thought, under capitalist dogma, competition was never to help someone, but always produced the most efficient outcome. Or is it that all those countries "hindered by Socialism" can compete more effectively than us in the marketplace?
You silly! The US only supports competition when the US will be the winner, otherwise, tariff away!
If only "voting with your wallet" actually had an effect. The problem is that the company has no idea why you didn't buy, so has no clue on what to do to get your patronage back. In this case, though, they'll just use it as an additional drop in sales to support their claims of widespread piracy. With these bozos, a boycott works against us.
If this negatively impacts you, you currently have little you can do about it unless you have a lot of money. Stop shopping there or doing business with them. Simple.
I think he was talking about doing something that actually makes a difference...
Just because they have wrong you according to your views doesnt give you the right to wreak heavenly vengeance on them, any more than I have the right to punish someone who breaks into my house.
Wrong on both counts. The whole principle of representative government is that we can collectively choose to wreak vengeance on them. Also, in most states, you can when someone breaks in (US specific).
In all instances where business negatively affects citizens, the business should be called to task and made to answer for it's wrongs. Businesses are there to make money. Dont like that? go to some place where they arent allowed to. As i said earlier, they may not precisely follow your own moral rules, but the worlds a big wide place, and if i were you, id stop having a tantrum, and grow up. The worlds not perfect, and neither, it seems, are you.
This gets to the root of the disagreement. The entire concept that business exist only to make money, and have no responsibility beyond that, is a uniquely modern and US centric view. A common view is that businesses exist to make money for the owners and to provide jobs in the community. Other views differ as to specifics, but very few take the point of view that businesses have no responsibility to their employees, neighbors, and the citizens of the country they reside in.
By granting strange rights to corporations under this increase-shareholders-value, to hell with everyone else view, the citizens of the US confer valuable rights and special protections to the corp, and in return receive nothing. We give them protection from liability, they buy influence to remove any protections we have against them. The world is not perfect, and people with the attitude that corporations have no responsibility beyond their own boardroom are a primary reason.
Actually, the BSD's have their own userland, and don't depend on any GNU software. They did decide to switch to gcc, but that was to promote unified development as much as anything else. Also, if you don't use the command line much, most of the GNU part becomes useless to you.
I agree that they have made very important steps, but the GNU project has been stagnant for a few years, while the Linux side has been pushing along faster than ever. How long can you rest on past accomplishments?
Sorry, I forgot that was the usual protocol. What is it these days, erm...all your bases belong to me :) (Hmm, or is it bas3s...)
Because "cultural factors" are not easily encapsulated in numbers. A few decent ones to measure (not all, but a start) could be:
number of hours worked (it is hard to enjoy income if you work 60-80 hour weeks)
paid vacation days taken (most people enjoy vacation more than time in the office)
access to health care (enjoying anything is easier when you are healthy)
disposable income (this accounts for both per capita earnings and the different tax rates)
fear/insecurity/stress (not just a factor by country, but also cultural and regional influences)
Different people give differing importance to these, and many other factors. The point I am still trying to make is that per capita income is useless alone. If you have the best income in the world, it doesn't necessarily mean quality of life if you work 80 hour weeks and never take a vacation (not uncommon in the dot-bomb era). One other negative factor in the US is that unemployment is a much bigger fear because there is no decent social welfare system in place.
On the other hand, sometimes it is worthwhile to give up current quality of life to retire early, and to have lower tax rates if you expect to strike it rich off going public.
Much of the difference is simply in how it feels. In the US, you make more money, but the job is also far more likely to consume a lot more of your life. In Europe it is harder to get filthy rich, but you have a lot of personal time and vacations, and don't have to stress about losing your health insurance in the next lay-off.
And the part about not getting anything for our work, we rarely do. As discussed in a couple of other threads, our tax burden is lower than Europe, but not nearly enough to explain the complete lack of services available to most US citizens in return for taxes paid.
It's all about trade offs, and can never be explained in a simple income figure.
It is really strange to end up agreeing with someone so quickly on here, but well said. Given the typical poster here, I made the incorrect assumption that you also opposed unions, since most people with that initial point of view do.
My eyes must be getting old...
You may pay a lower rate on the first 28k, but that only changes the comparison by a couple of points. Some states have less income tax than 7%, but they usually have property or sales taxes take up the slack, so the end result is not much different. The education deduction is dwarfed by actually having affordable public higher education. Do European countries commonly have deductions for children or interest? Even with a lower rate on the first 28k, it still looks like someone in the average income level pays around 40% here, and 40%-50% in Europe. Deductions, if only avaliable in the US, may change that figure somewhat.
Taxes may be slightly lower here, I just don't think the difference is as big as most people believe it is. The gap looks even less relevant when you look at services provided as well.
Since you seem to have some good sources for European tax information, could you recommend some of the more reputable sites. It is really hard sometimes to sort out the factual and relevant information when the systems are so different. You are one of the most informative individuals I have run into on slashdot, thanks.
Actually, I am the one attempting to take many cultural factors into account. You are the one attempting to state which is best based solely on per capita income.
And if you think income and purchasing power are the main things that matter, vs education, health care, quality of life, etc, you have much bigger issues. We work far harder than people in most countries, yet receive few services and have much lower quality of life. Ooh, but we can buy cheaper stuff...
Naah. The funniest retort to that I've found is: Money can't buy love, but it can find a lot of people willing to fake it for you!
No, some people just believe that their quality of life should improve, not just the owners.
I don't know. Most systems people claim have failed have really never been tried in a reasonable fashion. Unfortunately, most have come about through a cult of personality around a dictator, which has doomed them to failure. I would be interested in how a more democratically implemented socialist system could work. I'm not sure it would solve the problems, but I hate to see alternatives dismissed out of hand based on deeply flawed historical examples.
Actually, 55% is not hard to reach at all. For a single person making between (roughly) $28k and $68k, they pay 27%. Add on 5%-10% for state, 8%-14% for social security/medicare/FICA (depending on employer or contractor status who pays that 6%). Then comes property taxes (not hard to pay at least $3-$5k per year there), so about another 5%-10% for that. That totals between 45% and 61%. Paying 55% on combined taxes, which he explicitly stated, is not hard to do at all, and certainly doesn't require close to a 6 figure income.
Ahh, where exactly does this happen? Except for rare exceptions in fields with a temporary boom (see dot com bubble), they just hire the employees with the lowest demands. There is always someone willing to do without, and drag down the standards for everyone else.
This is the reason unions were popular in industrial areas. You need the job more than they need any particular worker. The only way to get enough leverage to have things in your favor is to be in the top 1% of your field, or to have the rest of the workers backing you up. If that won't happen (weakening of current union laws), then workers turn to the government to address the imbalance.