Yes, I am totally aware of what the FSF has brought us, and have been using and benefiting from their work since 1993. I did read the letter carefully and was most impressed with the Congressman's grasp of the issues.
The joking point of my post was to say that the typical "Linux" distro, contains the work of many organisations, not just the FSF and the kernel people, and all deserve credit - not to put down the FSF.
you got the Open Source movement who'll make laws preventing the use of proprietary software
No, you have a customer saying "I don't want any mayo on my hamburger" and a seller saying "you can't do that, we have a god-given right to sell you hamburgers with mayo on them."
Much better than a DDoS would be for SonicBlue to suddenly announce a conversion to the world of Free Software and GPL the ReplayTV software... I suspect the problem would be solved for them in less than a week.
Whiners. If the EULA is THAT bad, take the damn thing back to the store. Can't live without the program? Then shut up and accept it.
Again, it's already been paid for, and they're trying to add additional terms to the contract after the fact. If they're willing to refund the purchase price, plus my time at normal contracting rates for evaluating their additional and undisclosed at the time of purchase contract terms, plus my time travelling back to the store, plus the cost of gas etc, then I might consider your position reasonable.
As it is, even if I do take it back to the store, I end up losing both time and money on the deal due to them trying to change the contract after money changed hands. Why don't they - as people have already pointed out - print the EULA on the outside of the box so that you could read it before purchasing ?
But the exchange happens before the EULA, doesn't it (i.e. when you buy the software) ? So, the click-through is them attempting to modify the contract after the fact, without you getting any additional consideration in return ? IANAL, but I'd love it if one could tell me what I'm missing here...
Re:Is slashdot looking over my shoulder?
on
VoIP at $15 a Pop
·
· Score: 2
If you're paying more than about 6-7 cents a minute to the UK, you're getting ripped off on your international service anyway. No real point getting these for a transatlantic call.
Find yourself an expert ISP - someone like Speakeasy who will offer you excellent service and no-questions asked usuage policies. It really can't be beat. IF you aren't in the right area, physically relocate.
I have to second this. After being shafted by two DSL companies going splat in a row, I decided to try paying a little more for my service and switched to Speakeasy for my SDSL line. It was such a change - tech support folks who actually had a clue what I was talking about, a line that worked at rated speeds, and just an overall sense of professionalism that I hadn't seen from the bargain-basement ISPs I'd been using before.
(No, I don't work for them and have no business relationship with them. Just want to remind my fellow/.ers that if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys - which might be fine for the pr-aol-ateriat but wasn't much use for me).
"you may either distribute source or your code must display the text "Bill Gates is a stinky poo-head" every 5 seconds during operation" everything would be ok ?
Did you agree to the EULA? No. Then what right do you have to use the software?
I agreed to all the terms presented to me at the time of purchase.
If someone wants to modify the contract after the fact, then they can go take a long walk off a short cliff, as far as I'm concerned. Personally, (IANAL and all that) I'd say that your argument would only be valid if the EULA was printed on the outside of the retail packaging to be reviewed by the customer before money changes hands. There may be some legal justification for the bait-and-switch involved in springing an EULA on someone *after* they have purchased the software, but I sure can't see a moral one.
Meat (or any other inanimate thing) _can't_ be "unhealthy", or "healthy". What you're saying is that "Meat is not ill", which is wrong. The correct word is "unhealthful".
Depends on whether you're talking American English or English English.
Quorn is really good if you marinade it in lemon juice and garlic for an hour or so then chuck it in a frying pan. Anyone know where you can get it in the US ?
I think the spammers realize this as well. I'm getting more and more spam that tells me to call a phone number or write to some physical address for more information. This way, even if they lose their mail account (and they WILL lose it) there's still a chance one or two suckers will contact them.
The fun ones are where they give you a fax number to reply to. Sending back a fax containing the whole text of their spam with the words "no thankyou" is usually quite effective.
If you do it in a 180 point font, that is:)
Yup, whilst I was still living and working in the UK, my employer tried to get everyone to sign one of these "we own you 24/7" contracts. I passed a copy to a couple of friends in the Department of Employment for review and did some digging in Blackstone's Statutes On Intellectual Property (or whatever the correct Blackstones' is, something like that). Having an annotated copy of the proposed contract and a photocopy of the relevant legislation (Patents Act 1977) outlawing such contracts is extremely useful when negotiating. My advice - when someone offers you this kind of contract, no matter what country you're in, do your homework first then renegotiate.
One thing you might want to try that shows up flaws in both docs and code very early on, and improves everyone's understanding of what is going on is to have each developer write the docs for the module being written by the person to the right of them...
Make sure your interface (both external and between internal modules) specs are clear, complete and up to date.
Everything else that has been said is important, but this is *the* critical thing. If you fsck up your interface definitions on a project larger than about 3-4 people, you either won't ship or will ship way too late.
If you have that trite little "I only get paid to work 40 hours a week" attitude, then go home and read slashdot. With that attitude, don't pretend that you have some sort of right to have your screw around time subsidized.
Read what I wrote again.
I work considerably more than I am contracted to do, because my employer gives me more than they are contracted to do. It's reciprocity. They scratch my back, I scratch theirs - it's cheaper than paying me hourly and the IRS don't take a third of it from us.
If one party to an agreement stops giving more than the minimum allowed under the agreement, why do you feel it so unreasonable for the other party to do the same ? I wasn't saying "I only get paid to work 40 hours a week" - I was saying "that although I only get paid to work 40 hours a week, I give more because I get more than just the money from my job - if the situation changes so that all I get is the money, then all I will give is what I'm paid for." I hope you understand the distinction I'm trying to make.
I also find it very scary that you think that it is reasonable for an employer to expect their employees to work any number of hours necessary, effectively getting the employees' time for free, but not for the employees to use *some* of those additional hours for personal activities whilst in the office.
I've managed software teams in the past, and have managed to keep them happy and motivated through incredibly long work weeks for months at a time. The secret ? Remembering that happy people work harder, recognising that they have given me more than they are required to do, returningt he favour by giving them more than I am required to do, and making the connection between the two explicit to both the team members and higher management.
FWIW, no-one subsidises my screw-around time. I work from home and pay for my own bandwidth - it's cheaper than the commute to the office and I get a faster connection, there's only me streaming audio and downloading pr0n to my desktop;-)
For goodness sakes' people--your at work. Your not getting paid to check your email or surf for personal pleasure. Your getting paid to work for the company. It is also the companies connection, so they should be able to make those restrictions if they so choose. I don't understand why people get so up in arms about this.
For the first 40 hours of the week, I'm getting paid to work for the company. After that, I'm doing them a favour. Even if you subtracted all the "goof-off" time most (employed)/. readers take each week, I bet the employer is still getting way more than the 40 they've paid for.
Reciprocity requires both sides to give. If the employer doesn't want to give something over and above the bare contracted minimum, what right have they to expect any more from the employee ? If you don't want people doing personal stuff in work time, that's fine, but don't complain when they refuse to do work stuff in their personal time.
Slashdot Mirror
It's about time someone got put away for this sort of crap.
California Penal Code, look for section 502
Yes, I am totally aware of what the FSF has brought us, and have been using and benefiting from their work since 1993. I did read the letter carefully and was most impressed with the Congressman's grasp of the issues.
The joking point of my post was to say that the typical "Linux" distro, contains the work of many organisations, not just the FSF and the kernel people, and all deserve credit - not to put down the FSF.
uses the appropriate term GNU/Linux to discuss the operating system
Actually, I believe the correct term is:
;-)
"Xfree/BSD/VixieLabs/GNU//Linux"
or "Linux" for short
you got the Open Source movement who'll make laws preventing the use of proprietary software
No, you have a customer saying "I don't want any mayo on my hamburger" and a seller saying "you can't do that, we have a god-given right to sell you hamburgers with mayo on them."
Heh
I have two middle names, which makes the name field on my driving license wrap onto two lines.
That always confuses them.
(In fact, my second middle name is down in my credit record as an "alias" because someone was too dumb to actually read the card properly).
Much better than a DDoS would be for SonicBlue to suddenly announce a conversion to the world of Free Software and GPL the ReplayTV software... I suspect the problem would be solved for them in less than a week.
Whiners. If the EULA is THAT bad, take the damn thing back to the store. Can't live without the program? Then shut up and accept it.
Again, it's already been paid for, and they're trying to add additional terms to the contract after the fact. If they're willing to refund the purchase price, plus my time at normal contracting rates for evaluating their additional and undisclosed at the time of purchase contract terms, plus my time travelling back to the store, plus the cost of gas etc, then I might consider your position reasonable.
As it is, even if I do take it back to the store, I end up losing both time and money on the deal due to them trying to change the contract after money changed hands. Why don't they - as people have already pointed out - print the EULA on the outside of the box so that you could read it before purchasing ?
But the exchange happens before the EULA, doesn't it (i.e. when you buy the software) ? So, the click-through is them attempting to modify the contract after the fact, without you getting any additional consideration in return ? IANAL, but I'd love it if one could tell me what I'm missing here...
If you're paying more than about 6-7 cents a minute to the UK, you're getting ripped off on your international service anyway. No real point getting these for a transatlantic call.
Phone call from Boss: "How's things going ? What is your team working on now ?"
Me: "I'm giving them some resource management training using the Warcraft 2 tool"
Boss: "Ah, ok then"
Cool ! Emusic has got a Stooges album I've never heard of - "Rough Power"
;-)
Excellent quality control, folks....
You can find simulators for "The Baby" (which was the first "real" computer and an ancestor of LEO) at www.computer50.org
Find yourself an expert ISP - someone like Speakeasy who will offer you excellent service and no-questions asked usuage policies. It really can't be beat. IF you aren't in the right area, physically relocate.
I have to second this. After being shafted by two DSL companies going splat in a row, I decided to try paying a little more for my service and switched to Speakeasy for my SDSL line. It was such a change - tech support folks who actually had a clue what I was talking about, a line that worked at rated speeds, and just an overall sense of professionalism that I hadn't seen from the bargain-basement ISPs I'd been using before.
(No, I don't work for them and have no business relationship with them. Just want to remind my fellow
So if the modified-GPL says:
:)
"you may either distribute source or your code must display the text "Bill Gates is a stinky poo-head" every 5 seconds during operation" everything would be ok ?
Cool. Problem solved
I got a Beowulf cluster of those ;-)
...
Sorry, had to say it
Did you agree to the EULA? No.
Then what right do you have to use the software?
I agreed to all the terms presented to me at the time of purchase.
If someone wants to modify the contract after the fact, then they can go take a long walk off a short cliff, as far as I'm concerned. Personally, (IANAL and all that) I'd say that your argument would only be valid if the EULA was printed on the outside of the retail packaging to be reviewed by the customer before money changes hands. There may be some legal justification for the bait-and-switch involved in springing an EULA on someone *after* they have purchased the software, but I sure can't see a moral one.
Actually, most car systems use a double-ended, or "bridged" amplifier which wiggles both ends of the speaker coil, giving you (as power = V^2/R):
((13.8*2)^2) / 4 = 190Wish
without any DC-DC conversion needed.
Meat (or any other inanimate thing) _can't_ be "unhealthy", or "healthy". What you're saying is that "Meat is not ill", which is wrong. The correct word is "unhealthful".
Depends on whether you're talking American English or English English.
Quorn is really good if you marinade it in lemon juice and garlic for an hour or so then chuck it in a frying pan. Anyone know where you can get it in the US ?
I think the spammers realize this as well. I'm getting more and more spam that tells me to call a phone number or write to some physical address for more information. This way, even if they lose their mail account (and they WILL lose it) there's still a chance one or two suckers will contact them.
The fun ones are where they give you a fax number to reply to. Sending back a fax containing the whole text of their spam with the words "no thankyou" is usually quite effective. If you do it in a 180 point font, that is :)
Yup, whilst I was still living and working in the UK, my employer tried to get everyone to sign one of these "we own you 24/7" contracts. I passed a copy to a couple of friends in the Department of Employment for review and did some digging in Blackstone's Statutes On Intellectual Property (or whatever the correct Blackstones' is, something like that). Having an annotated copy of the proposed contract and a photocopy of the relevant legislation (Patents Act 1977) outlawing such contracts is extremely useful when negotiating. My advice - when someone offers you this kind of contract, no matter what country you're in, do your homework first then renegotiate.
(yeah, replying to my own post and all that)
One thing you might want to try that shows up flaws in both docs and code very early on, and improves everyone's understanding of what is going on is to have each developer write the docs for the module being written by the person to the right of them...
Scary, painful, but it works really well.
Make sure your interface (both external and between internal modules) specs are clear, complete and up to date.
Everything else that has been said is important, but this is *the* critical thing. If you fsck up your interface definitions on a project larger than about 3-4 people, you either won't ship or will ship way too late.
If you have that trite little "I only get paid to work 40 hours a week" attitude, then go home and read slashdot. With that attitude, don't pretend that you have some sort of right to have your screw around time subsidized.
Read what I wrote again.
I work considerably more than I am contracted to do, because my employer gives me more than they are contracted to do. It's reciprocity. They scratch my back, I scratch theirs - it's cheaper than paying me hourly and the IRS don't take a third of it from us.
If one party to an agreement stops giving more than the minimum allowed under the agreement, why do you feel it so unreasonable for the other party to do the same ? I wasn't saying "I only get paid to work 40 hours a week" - I was saying "that although I only get paid to work 40 hours a week, I give more because I get more than just the money from my job - if the situation changes so that all I get is the money, then all I will give is what I'm paid for." I hope you understand the distinction I'm trying to make.
I also find it very scary that you think that it is reasonable for an employer to expect their employees to work any number of hours necessary, effectively getting the employees' time for free, but not for the employees to use *some* of those additional hours for personal activities whilst in the office.
I've managed software teams in the past, and have managed to keep them happy and motivated through incredibly long work weeks for months at a time. The secret ? Remembering that happy people work harder, recognising that they have given me more than they are required to do, returningt he favour by giving them more than I am required to do, and making the connection between the two explicit to both the team members and higher management.
FWIW, no-one subsidises my screw-around time. I work from home and pay for my own bandwidth - it's cheaper than the commute to the office and I get a faster connection, there's only me streaming audio and downloading pr0n to my desktop
For goodness sakes' people--your at work. Your not getting paid to check your email or surf for personal pleasure. Your getting paid to work for the company. It is also the companies connection, so they should be able to make those restrictions if they so choose. I don't understand why people get so up in arms about this.
For the first 40 hours of the week, I'm getting paid to work for the company. After that, I'm doing them a favour. Even if you subtracted all the "goof-off" time most (employed) /. readers take each week, I bet the employer is still getting way more than the 40 they've paid for.
Reciprocity requires both sides to give. If the employer doesn't want to give something over and above the bare contracted minimum, what right have they to expect any more from the employee ? If you don't want people doing personal stuff in work time, that's fine, but don't complain when they refuse to do work stuff in their personal time.