Maybe so, but lawyers cost money. People out of work usually don't have it unless the case was taken pro bono. I dunno different states may be different, but try dealing with the labor board in Virginia. The law here is your employer doesn't have to give you any reason at all.
Listen, if you want excuses why this has to happen, fine. But I am telling you this: there is not a state in this country where you would have trouble finding a lawyer to take an employment discrimination case on contingency.
The law here is your employer doesn't have to give you any reason at all.
AS I HAVE EXPLAINED A NUMBER OF TIMES:
You can be fired for any reason, except the wrong reason. If you suspect you were fired for the wrong reason - an illegal reason - go to the yellow pages. Go to the attornies section. Start calling offices. It will take you not mroe than 1-2 hrs to find an attorney to take your case.
Your attorney will ask your ex-employer why they fired you. They will answer. If they do not answer, then your lawyer will file suit. In the course of the first proceedings, your lawyer can force them to say why they fired you.
They don't have to tell you why they fired you. But in court, they must present a defense. Your attorney will say you were fired for illegal reason X. They will say no, that's not true. The judge will say "why was this employee fired?". The employer will answer, or else lose the case on the spot.
Then you bring in your witness(s) who saw/heard/knew why you were really fired, and you win.
If your employer fired you illegally, and you say so in court, and your employer cannot provide a reason why you were fired, you will win.
People who just bitch and complain annoy me. If you are legitimately discriminated against by your employer it is very easy - almost too easy by some standards - to win a judgement against your employer.
Proving those things you state can then be very difficult. That is the difference between theory and practice.
No, it's really not. It's usually very straightforward.
For example, if they refuse to answer, and you suspect they fired you for harassment, you get a lawyer. They file notice they intend to sue. You go to discovery. Your lawyer asks your manager under oath why you were fired.
If the manager says because they didnt need you, you have something to look at. Did they fill your position? Is it advertised? Ohh, there goes the cover story. Bam. Ask the manager again, why were you fired?
When I was growing up I was thought that lying, cheating and stealing was wrong. Since MS does these things just about every day I guess they are unethical in my book.
Okay, provide me five examples from the last five years, with links where applicable, and I will concede you are right.
For many like you it's perfectly OK to do anything and everything as long as you are trying to make profit.
It is not okay with me, thank you. You shouldn't assume. But you are not being realistic. I am willing to wager to you that you cannot find for me any publically traded company, in any country in the world, that has been in existence for more than 5 years that hasn't had some legal problems, hasn't a single problem with an employee lying, cheating, or stealing, and hasn't been criticized heavily.
Mmm how are you proven right? MS stole Eolas technology and got sued. They are still fighting the case but at worst they will pay 500 million which is just a small percentage of the money they made from stolen technology.
MS has not profited anywhere near 500 million from its DRM technology. It is a money losing portion of the business.
My point stands. You claimed MS has never lost to a competitor, that it is ruthless, that it always wins. It's unstoppable was your claim. I have provided a number of examples where they have in fact lost. Each one you dismiss as "not counting" in essence.
MS takes its fair share of knocks in the marketplace. The examples are many: MS handhelds still consistently are outsold by Palm. MS Smartpones are a tiny fraction of the total units shipped. IE has lost 10% market share in the last six months. MS has failed three times to write a replacement for Flash. MS has failed twice to write a replacement for Adobe Photoshop. MS's CRM business was purchased for billions and yet has returned virtually zero.
You are living in sometype of alternative universe where MS is some unstoppable juggernaut monolith. Get real, and get a clue.
I am waiting for your examples of MS unethical behaviour.
but Joe Developer who writes that email client and doesn't charge for it would be okay.
That's fine. So then MS says they are only selling a boot loader. Everything else is a free add-on.
There goes liability, until that hole is patched up. And we are right back to where we started.
There isn't a way to implement software liability that won't cause massive vendor lock in and major major problems for OSS.
are car manufacturers liable if they make cars that crash too often?
Depends. If the car "crashes" for no reason, then they are on the hook for a recall.
If the car is suspectible to crash in certain circumstances, then the answer is probably no.
For example, some SUVs have a higher-rate of roll-overs compared to a wide-wheel base lower car. Thats the nature of the design.
None of that matters though because it's not a good analogy.
The question is: for how long must MS provide "recalls" for an old product? Car manufactuers have a time limit. If you attempt to force MS to support all old version of their software, remember also what you will end up doing by proxy to the FOSS people.
but couldn't a corporation hold microsoft liable for damages incurred to an unpatched system
They could try, but they would probably fail. Others have tried, and failed.
1. First off, with a security flaw, you need to be exploited to suffer damages. In a court case it will be easy to argue that MS shouldn't be responsible because even though they made a flawed product there was an overt criminal act involved that trumps their involvement. For example, if a car manufacturer makes cars with easily defeated locks, or locks that sometimes don't work, can the owner of the car sue the car company for damages if the car is stolen? They could try, butit probably won't get far just on that argument.
2. Second off, in liability cases you have to do your honest best to mitigate your exposure to loss. If I buy a product, and later am notified that is defective, it is my obligation to act appropriately. That may include stopping to use the product. In this case, it may mean active content filters, firewalling, security zone changes, etc.
3. Finally, many industries are exempt from liability in certain cases. For example, auto-manafacturers do not have to recall cars after a certain age. It doesn't make sense for the government to require Chevy to recall the remaining 1976 S-10's because of a latch that might go dangerously bad at 200,000 miles. Microsoft would have a good claim that Win2k and earlier is the equivalent of that outdated pickup truck. You drive that old pickup at your own risk. Windows XP is running on well over half of all Windows machines now. That percentage is getting bigger and bigger. Soon it will be 66%. At what point is it okay to stop supporting a product?
One last point. It may be tempting to say that MS should be liable for exploited systems. That is a bad road to go down. If all of the sudden liability is assignable to software makers because of exploits like this, the whole software world has a major problem.
Software liability could be exactly the tool that MS wants to destroy Linux in the business world. If an individual writing OSS software new that any possible flaw they introduced coul cost them everything they own you can bet that the number of checkins to Sourceforge will drop drastically. Companies like MS will be able to whither the storm. They'll force everyone to use only signed binaries. Machines will become locked down to the Nth degree, and proprietary will be back in. Every software vendor will force their users to run approved-only configurations. It'll be like the mainframe days of the 70s and 80s only worse. Companies like MS can afford to buy the liability insurance and the lawyers to hold on. Meanwhile, the Mozilla foundation will flounder and die.
Software liability is a bad, bad, bad, bad idea for the entire industry, but absolutely deadly for Linux and FOSS in general.
Regardless, there are many paths to success.
I agree completely.
While you seem to consider yourself successful
Success is esoteric. However, I do believe I am earning a decent living, which is what I originally said.
the numbers show that most people who go to college do better than those who only finish high-school.
I dont dispute that. I finished college. Two degree programs actually, at two colleges.
Damn I wish I could make five-figures and think I was the king of the world like you.
No, I don't think I am king of the world.
. Just for the record, no one is impressed that you don't belive in yourself enough to take on debt to invest in your future - especially with the current cost of money so low.
I was actually referring to unsecured debt, ie, college loan debt, credit card debt, etc.
Mortgages and car money is cheap right now, I agree.
That's interesting. I have two close friends and a relative who work at the big IBM facility in NY state who reported as late as July that there was a total hiring freeze. That article isn't really all that encouraing, FYI. 1/3 of the jobs are in North America - Mexico, Canada, US - and only a portion of those jobs for new college grads. Bummer.
congratulations, poindexter... but how many times did you get laid in the last few years?
I just got married in April actually. So, yeah, I probably a lot more than your average Slashdotter, thanks.
About ADO.NET, that's true about it not being identical, I am just saying, there has been ADO.NET precurors floating around for a while..
..but about titles, I agree. Titles are mostly lame. However, I am literally in charge of other programmers - junior programmers - so the title really is pretty accurate. Senior Developer. I just get a kick out of saying it.
I can also guarantee you that in my capacity my job is very secure. As secure as possible and still be a non-long-term contract position. The code I supervise and write is relating to a task that can only be carried out during EST in the United States. It is very timely. The time difference alone makes it impossible. The thing we make cannot be legally or practically outsourced.
Yes, I've seen job offers exactly like that -- has ADO.NET even been *around* for 5 years?).
I dont know for 5 years, but I know i was hacking around on samples and messing it up wit ADO+ and ASP+ samples back in early 2000.
I feel bad for all my friends who went to college for 4/5 years when we graduated from high-school. I went to work straightaway after college, and went to a 4-yr college full-time in a 2-year program full-time. I got my Associates degree as they were starting their second semester of sophomore year. I transferred to a public University and finished my BS part time (well, I graduate after this semester).
That summer after high-school I was a pretty decent programmer already so I took an entry level programming position.
At the same time I very agressively pursued industry certifications. Cisco, MS, and Novell (bah, what a waste). I have a big string behind my name: CCNP, MSCE, MSCD, MSDBA, and SCJP.
What about now? I did almost two years at that first job, and "outgrew" it, and moved to another position. I "outgrew" that job at the height of the recession and was recommended by my boss for a different position at another company as - you guessed it if you said "Senior Developer".
I am doing very well. I have an AS Degree (which granted is a joke), a BS is a short march down the isle away, and I have less than $10,000 in debt (well, half that now). I have a much stronger resume than any of the other people my age in this area, and I am a pretty decent software engineer. I have six programmers working for me at our different locations including two junior programmers here. People really like me here and even the junior programmers who are older than me don't hold a grudge because (I think) they recognize me as a helpful, hardworking, industrious person (ohh, and I very obviously endorse heavy Slashdot consuption during down times). On top of all that I earn a very respectable living. I have been contributing my 401k since a few weeks after my 18th birthday.
I sympathize with those of you who spent big bucks to get a name brand education and who now enter the market to find the big-boys have frozen hiring (IBM, HP, et all), the little guys are looking for experienced players, and that the formely copious entry level jobs have dried up.
Companies are not necessarily "public" or "privately" held in a binary way.
Google sold a minority stake in its business.. the majority of the company is privately held. I believe (though oddly Google fails me here) it was a 20% stake they sold to the public.
They of course have a responsibility to serve those shareholders, but make no mistake Google is practically entirely privately held.
Wow. That's all you got? They left the sports game field. Wake me up when they close the xbox division and stop developing games
You claimed they never lose. I gave you proof otherwise. There are myraid examples.
Ah now it's clear. You do not have any morals either. You knwo those things your mother tried to teach you like obeying the law and following your inner sense of morals and ethics.
Everything I've said is both moral and ethical. The most moral and ethical business person is STILL out to destroy the competition. There is nothing wrong with that. It is the essence of being in business.
Yes. MS stole their property. They sued and won and court and got some money. In the case of Eolas it's still in court. People who work at MS are theives.
Again. I am proven right. You claim MS is some unstoppable monster who kills its partners. Here is proof otherwise.
MS is getting more desparate every day. In their desparation they will continue to try and steal other peoples technologies and get sued. Pretty soon people will dirty for using their products and that will be the beginning of the end. Of course there are still cases in europe and japan to deal with too.
Right. MS is more desperate than ever, with more cash than ever, more sales then ever, better market share than just about ever, better staff than ever, etc.
MS as a company faces challenges, but MS right now is also a real force to be felt.
think people should make a "ethical software" branding like "dolphin safe tuna". That way we can educate the consumer not to buy software from unethical companies and make the world a better place.
That's fine, and I encourage you to do so. However, you should also realize, that as a company MS has a very good record. You simply cannot find a company of similiar size that has a better track record. You can't. They have a small number of employee suits. A very small number of vendor suits. They have an even smaller number of client/customer suits. They have very few (yes, including the DOJ case!) problems with the government. They have no ongoing troubles with the SEC. They have no wide-ranging judgements against them.
MS is a very healthy company. You'd love to believe they were some cyclops destroying the planet, but it's untrue and not supported by the facts.
Instead of posting back with some more ramblings, try this. Come up with 5 complaints you have about MS's ethics in the last 5 years. Provide sources.
question. What MS competitor beat MS at anything ever?
Let's see. MS gets beat all the time. They leave markets all time. For example, they opened a development office to create sports games. They recently closed it and laid off all the developers due to market pressure and the fact they got creamed again and again by EA.
That's one example. MS gets beat all the time. You are just blinded by some kind of myopic paranonia that causes you to think you know everything there is to know about MS. You don't. MS destroys companies.
OF course they do. That's point of competition. I am in business. I intend to destroy every competitor I can.
If it does not destroy them outright it leaves them crippled.
Again, thats the point of business. Survival of the fitest.
It also loves to sign partnership agreements and then backstabs their "friends" by stealing their technologies and customers.
Yes, and any friend who signs a deal with MS should know that. You to fail to mention times MS has been beaten at strategic partnerships. Of course that foils your little myopic vision of MS as the source of evil. Go research Eolas and Veritas and see how each got MS for over $500 million.
The DOJ could not stop them and I doubt anything short of a nuclear bomb in redmond would.
The DOJ can't stop them because they settled the only case they have against MS. And when the settlement expires next year, MS will be completely free to operate however it wants in terms of monopoly. Any new charges will have to be retried from scratch.
But they can lay you off until you can perform your duties.
No. They can send you home. You are still employed. Depending on your state you may or may not be eligible for workers compensation, continuation pay, or disability payments.
In the US you can be fired any time no reason at all.
You can be fired for any reason except the wrong reasons.
be the only exceptions but then if they don't give a reason you are screwed anyhow.
Untrue. There are myraid of reasons you cannot be fired.
You cannot be fired for:
Refusing sexual advances
Complaining about sexual advances, or sexual improprietary
Complaining about harassment, discrimination, or other similiar behaviour.
Reporting a criminal activity to the appropriate authorities
Reporting a criminal activity to supervisors
Because of your race
Because of your religious practices
Because of your creed
Because of your ethnicity
Because of your sexual orientation *see note
Because of your legitimate disability
(* regarding sexual orientation, right now this is in flux. Some states have enacted this type of provision, and the status of the rule on a federal level is working its way all through the court system)
Other than that this is an "At will" country. Unless you have a specific employment contract you are at the whimsy of your employer. Depending on your industry you may have additional protections in terms of termination beneifts. If you are a blue collar manufacturing type you are required to get notice if laid off for lack of work, relocation benefits, retraining benfits, and other minor benefits.
However, if they don't give you a reason you are not categorically screwed. You have recourse if they fired for one of the above reasons. Pretending to fire you for cause when its for an above stated reason is a big, big no-no in just about every state (if not all). In my home state the fines are big, big, big on top of whatever they'll get for the underlying case. Whistleblowers get multiple times the base damages in punitive awards.
Actually, did you read what the man, an actual Libertarian, wrote?
He wrote he would like to enact policies to get the land intpo the hands of conservation groups.
Period. He didnt say anything about selling the land on the free market.
Under a libertarian system of pollution control things are under much better control. You set an artifical ceiling on the amount of pollution society accepts. You sell the rights to that pollution the open market, reducing the amount incrementally to drive up cost. At some point the cost outweighs the value of the pollution, and alternate solutions are more economical.
You should research before you make "probablies", "surely" and "actually" statements.
They want to see wilderness areas privately owned by those who will preserve it?
This works suprisingly well. In my home state, private conservation groups own a stunning amount of land - almost as much as the whole state of New Hampshire.
They were given and purchased most the land. They worked out permanent exemptions from property taxes. It is in a binding trust and governed under a joint-agreement with the State.
Worse case scenario the land reverts to the State of Maine. In the meantime, a group of dedicated outdoorsmen preserve the land, study it, make sure it's being healthy, designate recreation areas, and generally do a great job of preserving the quality of the enviornment.
Before this, what happened is that every year the private landowners would comission loggers to take down a piece of the land to pay the taxes on it. When you own 1000 acres of woodlands and have a yearly tax bill of, say, $15,000 you suddenly have to kill a bit of what you love to preserve it. Starting the the 90's you saw more and more foremely pristine land being turned into a deforested wasteland.
My grandmother owned about 80 acres near where she was born, and loved to enjoy its serenity and natural beauty. As she aged and retired, she couldn't afford the taxes (which of course went from minor to massive over the period of 20 years). She had logged about 5% of the land a year for something like 10 years. The thing of course is that taxes continued to grow, lumber prices fell under foreign comepetiton, and bamo, suddenly, she went from logging 1 acre to 2 acres to 5 acres.
Anyways, it's a sad story that happened all over Maine. Mainers throwing beautiful woodlands incrementally to the loggers in order to prevent the land from being spoiled wholesale the logging companies.
A condition of employment was to not have TB. HIV/AIDS, pregnancy or a broken limb do not spread by a cough, to my knowledge.
That's irrelevant. They can say it's a condition of employment, but it doesn't mean it's legal.
I've worked in hospitals. They can certainly restrict your duties if you have an infectious diesease, but they CANNOT fire you or terminate you or force you or treat your poorly based on your disability or condition.
As the medical establisment goes in the USA, if there's a chance you have TB, they treat you as if you did have it. This was effectively: take the treatment and you can go back to work, don't take it and take your chances unemployed. See the light?
That's not right, and its probably untrue. If you were threatened with your job - even if you really did have TB - then your employer comitted an actionable offense. If they really, really, really did that you own them. Especially if it was in writing.
An employer cannot legally terminate you because you have TB. Just as they cannot legally fire you if you are pregnant, have a broken leg, have HIV/AIDS, etc.
Such as: War decisions (going to war, progress in the war, etc),
A war between the US and the Islamic world has been brewing for 50 years. Regardless of who is president this war would have happened sooner rather than latter.
homosexual marriage
A law/amendment one way or another on this doesn't affect the fundamental nature of the issue. Homosexuals are recognized and accepted in ways never before in this country. A law isn't going to change that.
abortion rights
Again the acceptance or rejection of abortion is not a matter of law or policy. THe country is nearly evenly split on this issue. There are very few undecideds. If the law changes it doesn't change the underlying division of America on the issue.
seperation of church and science
Again. The country is very evenly split on this type of issue.
Although a president is limited in actual power, he is a strong influence to either encourage or discourage movements.
He is not. I find your arugment to be basically bogus. Bush is strongly pro-evangelical Christian. But he hasn't changed the national mood on the issue. The percentages and sides are basically the same. Same with abort rights, gun rights, etc.
Regardless of whether Bush or Kerry wins the national mood is that the country will continue to be going almost exactly as it is now.
The victory was getting MS distracted by having the Feds go after them. The facts of the case are that it was plausible that they could go either way - prosecute or not prosecute.
The DOJ prosectued ONLY because MS had no political protection. Both Clinton and Gore personally solicited campaign money from MS and MS individuals. They were flatly rejected. Before the anti-trust case, MS the company never made a donation to any national campaign, never was involved in politics, and had no lobbying strategy. Sun, IBM, Netscape, et all had all of those things.
MS was shaken down. Washington said: "hmm, here is a weatlhy company not playing politics.. why is that?" and investigated.
The bottom line remains that if MS had paid off those seeking donations - both Republicans and Democrats - the DOJ would never have gotten into their business with the anti-trust stuff.
What you are saying is what a lot of people are saying, ie, that the media has to give more to coverage to what THEY think is important.
Almost always it's in the end a ploy to sway coverage towards the persons viewpoints.
You obviously think (But it's a much larger issue than his foreign policy blunders and blatant cronyism.) that the media needs to be more critical of Bush. Fine. Whatever you want. But be clear. You want them to take a hardline on Bush. You want them to pursue stories that highlight errors.
The complete lack of substance in the political debate is utterly fed by the media.
I disagree totally. It is fed by the fact that most Americans lives are completely isolated from the "big picture". This is a big concept, and deserves some elobration.
Our country is so large and so vibrant - even in recession - that the tone or policy of any single administration is largely irrelevant. To feel the effects of a policy directly is rare. To be personalyl affected in any significant way is not common. Compared with, say, a country like Venezula or Agentina or Russia or even France our government policy changes very, very, very little between administrations, congress, and whatnot. Things change at a snails pace. Bush or Kerry - whoever wins in November - it's is most likely not going to affect me in any material way.
And so, the issues don't matter. If healthcare is an important issue to me, does it matter who wins in November for me? Absolutely not. If I had a big notion of what I wanted to see done, is either one going to be able to get the momentum to enact it, create the beauraucy to get it done, and get the net effect down to me? Absolutely not. Not going to happen. In 10 years I guarantee you the health-system is going to look 90% similiar to what we have now. Why? Inertia. And gridlock.
Basically, the average American doesn't care much more than bragging rights who is in office. It's like picking a sports team. Except for the hardcore activists no one really cares.
An example. We'd love to talk about the last recession. Let's say for sake of argument that Bush really did cause the most recent recession. Let's imagine that. Let's say he caused a 10-trillion dollar a year economy to go sour. What really happened? What was the effect? Did most Americans suffer fininancally? No. A half to one percent of the country lost a jobs. Even if you could trace that directly back to a set of actions by the President - which I dont think you ever could - it's not a big deal.
We are a stable country. Our government is stable. 99.9% of the workings of the country do not atler in any way when one guy or the next comes into office.
This means basically the few issues Kerry and Bush differ on are irrelevant. Whatever they think or say isn't going to happen. The country is going to continue on it's present course pretty much unabated regardless of what happens.
So whats the media to do? Pick a side when possible and flog-away. Big deal. They want ratings.
Summary: Politics is mostly like picking a sports team. Media is like hometown newspaper covering their hometown team. Media consumers pick their hometown newspaper to read. Nothing, however, is wrong with this. This is good.
You should read up on what you can and cannot do with the various DRM products out there. Nothing you said is able to happen within the DRM software I was talking about.
The proven way of protecting a envelopes is putting them into a safe, not putting a piece of C4 into each envelope.
That depends on how important the contents of the envelope is. Something are better destroyed than revealed.
Nothing has happened in regard to saving unprotected documents, etc. The DRM stuff only applies to documents specifically designated as controlled, and only in ways specified (ie, no cut and paste, no screenshots, no printing, no forwarding, etc).
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe so, but lawyers cost money. People out of work usually don't have it unless the case was taken pro bono. I dunno different states may be different, but try dealing with the labor board in Virginia. The law here is your employer doesn't have to give you any reason at all.
Listen, if you want excuses why this has to happen, fine. But I am telling you this: there is not a state in this country where you would have trouble finding a lawyer to take an employment discrimination case on contingency.
The law here is your employer doesn't have to give you any reason at all.
AS I HAVE EXPLAINED A NUMBER OF TIMES:
You can be fired for any reason, except the wrong reason. If you suspect you were fired for the wrong reason - an illegal reason - go to the yellow pages. Go to the attornies section. Start calling offices. It will take you not mroe than 1-2 hrs to find an attorney to take your case.
Your attorney will ask your ex-employer why they fired you. They will answer. If they do not answer, then your lawyer will file suit. In the course of the first proceedings, your lawyer can force them to say why they fired you.
They don't have to tell you why they fired you. But in court, they must present a defense. Your attorney will say you were fired for illegal reason X. They will say no, that's not true. The judge will say "why was this employee fired?". The employer will answer, or else lose the case on the spot.
Then you bring in your witness(s) who saw/heard/knew why you were really fired, and you win.
If your employer fired you illegally, and you say so in court, and your employer cannot provide a reason why you were fired, you will win.
People who just bitch and complain annoy me. If you are legitimately discriminated against by your employer it is very easy - almost too easy by some standards - to win a judgement against your employer.
Proving those things you state can then be very difficult. That is the difference between theory and practice.
No, it's really not. It's usually very straightforward.
For example, if they refuse to answer, and you suspect they fired you for harassment, you get a lawyer. They file notice they intend to sue. You go to discovery. Your lawyer asks your manager under oath why you were fired.
If the manager says because they didnt need you, you have something to look at. Did they fill your position? Is it advertised? Ohh, there goes the cover story. Bam. Ask the manager again, why were you fired?
People win these types of cases every single day.
When I was growing up I was thought that lying, cheating and stealing was wrong. Since MS does these things just about every day I guess they are unethical in my book.
Okay, provide me five examples from the last five years, with links where applicable, and I will concede you are right.
For many like you it's perfectly OK to do anything and everything as long as you are trying to make profit.
It is not okay with me, thank you. You shouldn't assume. But you are not being realistic. I am willing to wager to you that you cannot find for me any publically traded company, in any country in the world, that has been in existence for more than 5 years that hasn't had some legal problems, hasn't a single problem with an employee lying, cheating, or stealing, and hasn't been criticized heavily.
Mmm how are you proven right? MS stole Eolas technology and got sued. They are still fighting the case but at worst they will pay 500 million which is just a small percentage of the money they made from stolen technology.
MS has not profited anywhere near 500 million from its DRM technology. It is a money losing portion of the business.
My point stands. You claimed MS has never lost to a competitor, that it is ruthless, that it always wins. It's unstoppable was your claim. I have provided a number of examples where they have in fact lost. Each one you dismiss as "not counting" in essence.
MS takes its fair share of knocks in the marketplace. The examples are many: MS handhelds still consistently are outsold by Palm. MS Smartpones are a tiny fraction of the total units shipped. IE has lost 10% market share in the last six months. MS has failed three times to write a replacement for Flash. MS has failed twice to write a replacement for Adobe Photoshop. MS's CRM business was purchased for billions and yet has returned virtually zero.
You are living in sometype of alternative universe where MS is some unstoppable juggernaut monolith. Get real, and get a clue.
I am waiting for your examples of MS unethical behaviour.
but Joe Developer who writes that email client and doesn't charge for it would be okay.
That's fine. So then MS says they are only selling a boot loader. Everything else is a free add-on.
There goes liability, until that hole is patched up. And we are right back to where we started.
There isn't a way to implement software liability that won't cause massive vendor lock in and major major problems for OSS.
are car manufacturers liable if they make
cars that crash too often?
Depends. If the car "crashes" for no reason, then they are on the hook for a recall.
If the car is suspectible to crash in certain circumstances, then the answer is probably no.
For example, some SUVs have a higher-rate of roll-overs compared to a wide-wheel base lower car. Thats the nature of the design.
None of that matters though because it's not a good analogy.
The question is: for how long must MS provide "recalls" for an old product? Car manufactuers have a time limit. If you attempt to force MS to support all old version of their software, remember also what you will end up doing by proxy to the FOSS people.
No.
You buy the product as-is, where-is. They are under no obligation - unless specified in a contract - to do anything for you after the sale.
If you know there is a risk, and you choose not to mitigate it, you really ruin any chance of winning a liablity case.
IANAL
Not many people are.
but couldn't a corporation hold microsoft liable for damages incurred to an unpatched system
They could try, but they would probably fail. Others have tried, and failed.
1. First off, with a security flaw, you need to be exploited to suffer damages. In a court case it will be easy to argue that MS shouldn't be responsible because even though they made a flawed product there was an overt criminal act involved that trumps their involvement. For example, if a car manufacturer makes cars with easily defeated locks, or locks that sometimes don't work, can the owner of the car sue the car company for damages if the car is stolen? They could try, butit probably won't get far just on that argument.
2. Second off, in liability cases you have to do your honest best to mitigate your exposure to loss. If I buy a product, and later am notified that is defective, it is my obligation to act appropriately. That may include stopping to use the product. In this case, it may mean active content filters, firewalling, security zone changes, etc.
3. Finally, many industries are exempt from liability in certain cases. For example, auto-manafacturers do not have to recall cars after a certain age. It doesn't make sense for the government to require Chevy to recall the remaining 1976 S-10's because of a latch that might go dangerously bad at 200,000 miles. Microsoft would have a good claim that Win2k and earlier is the equivalent of that outdated pickup truck. You drive that old pickup at your own risk. Windows XP is running on well over half of all Windows machines now. That percentage is getting bigger and bigger. Soon it will be 66%. At what point is it okay to stop supporting a product?
One last point. It may be tempting to say that MS should be liable for exploited systems. That is a bad road to go down. If all of the sudden liability is assignable to software makers because of exploits like this, the whole software world has a major problem.
Software liability could be exactly the tool that MS wants to destroy Linux in the business world. If an individual writing OSS software new that any possible flaw they introduced coul cost them everything they own you can bet that the number of checkins to Sourceforge will drop drastically. Companies like MS will be able to whither the storm. They'll force everyone to use only signed binaries. Machines will become locked down to the Nth degree, and proprietary will be back in. Every software vendor will force their users to run approved-only configurations. It'll be like the mainframe days of the 70s and 80s only worse. Companies like MS can afford to buy the liability insurance and the lawyers to hold on. Meanwhile, the Mozilla foundation will flounder and die.
Software liability is a bad, bad, bad, bad idea for the entire industry, but absolutely deadly for Linux and FOSS in general.
Regardless, there are many paths to success.
I agree completely.
While you seem to consider yourself successful
Success is esoteric. However, I do believe I am earning a decent living, which is what I originally said.
the numbers show that most people who go to college do better than those who only finish high-school.
I dont dispute that. I finished college. Two degree programs actually, at two colleges.
Damn I wish I could make five-figures and think I was the king of the world like you.
No, I don't think I am king of the world.
. Just for the record, no one is impressed that you don't belive in yourself enough to take on debt to invest in your future - especially with the current cost of money so low.
I was actually referring to unsecured debt, ie, college loan debt, credit card debt, etc.
Mortgages and car money is cheap right now, I agree.
That's interesting. I have two close friends and a relative who work at the big IBM facility in NY state who reported as late as July that there was a total hiring freeze. That article isn't really all that encouraing, FYI. 1/3 of the jobs are in North America - Mexico, Canada, US - and only a portion of those jobs for new college grads. Bummer.
congratulations, poindexter... but how many times did you get laid in the last few years?
I just got married in April actually. So, yeah, I probably a lot more than your average Slashdotter, thanks.
About ADO.NET, that's true about it not being identical, I am just saying, there has been ADO.NET precurors floating around for a while..
..but about titles, I agree. Titles are mostly lame. However, I am literally in charge of other programmers - junior programmers - so the title really is pretty accurate. Senior Developer. I just get a kick out of saying it.
I can also guarantee you that in my capacity my job is very secure. As secure as possible and still be a non-long-term contract position. The code I supervise and write is relating to a task that can only be carried out during EST in the United States. It is very timely. The time difference alone makes it impossible. The thing we make cannot be legally or practically outsourced.
Yes, I've seen job offers exactly like that -- has ADO.NET even been *around* for 5 years?).
I dont know for 5 years, but I know i was hacking around on samples and messing it up wit ADO+ and ASP+ samples back in early 2000.
I feel bad for all my friends who went to college for 4/5 years when we graduated from high-school. I went to work straightaway after college, and went to a 4-yr college full-time in a 2-year program full-time. I got my Associates degree as they were starting their second semester of sophomore year. I transferred to a public University and finished my BS part time (well, I graduate after this semester).
That summer after high-school I was a pretty decent programmer already so I took an entry level programming position.
At the same time I very agressively pursued industry certifications. Cisco, MS, and Novell (bah, what a waste). I have a big string behind my name: CCNP, MSCE, MSCD, MSDBA, and SCJP.
What about now? I did almost two years at that first job, and "outgrew" it, and moved to another position. I "outgrew" that job at the height of the recession and was recommended by my boss for a different position at another company as - you guessed it if you said "Senior Developer".
I am doing very well. I have an AS Degree (which granted is a joke), a BS is a short march down the isle away, and I have less than $10,000 in debt (well, half that now). I have a much stronger resume than any of the other people my age in this area, and I am a pretty decent software engineer. I have six programmers working for me at our different locations including two junior programmers here. People really like me here and even the junior programmers who are older than me don't hold a grudge because (I think) they recognize me as a helpful, hardworking, industrious person (ohh, and I very obviously endorse heavy Slashdot consuption during down times). On top of all that I earn a very respectable living. I have been contributing my 401k since a few weeks after my 18th birthday.
I sympathize with those of you who spent big bucks to get a name brand education and who now enter the market to find the big-boys have frozen hiring (IBM, HP, et all), the little guys are looking for experienced players, and that the formely copious entry level jobs have dried up.
Just so you know..
Companies are not necessarily "public" or "privately" held in a binary way.
Google sold a minority stake in its business.. the majority of the company is privately held. I believe (though oddly Google fails me here) it was a 20% stake they sold to the public.
They of course have a responsibility to serve those shareholders, but make no mistake Google is practically entirely privately held.
Wow. That's all you got? They left the sports game field. Wake me up when they close the xbox division and stop developing games
You claimed they never lose. I gave you proof otherwise. There are myraid examples.
Ah now it's clear. You do not have any morals either. You knwo those things your mother tried to teach you like obeying the law and following your inner sense of morals and ethics.
Everything I've said is both moral and ethical. The most moral and ethical business person is STILL out to destroy the competition. There is nothing wrong with that. It is the essence of being in business.
Yes. MS stole their property. They sued and won and court and got some money. In the case of Eolas it's still in court. People who work at MS are theives.
Again. I am proven right. You claim MS is some unstoppable monster who kills its partners. Here is proof otherwise.
MS is getting more desparate every day. In their desparation they will continue to try and steal other peoples technologies and get sued. Pretty soon people will dirty for using their products and that will be the beginning of the end. Of course there are still cases in europe and japan to deal with too.
Right. MS is more desperate than ever, with more cash than ever, more sales then ever, better market share than just about ever, better staff than ever, etc.
MS as a company faces challenges, but MS right now is also a real force to be felt.
think people should make a "ethical software" branding like "dolphin safe tuna". That way we can educate the consumer not to buy software from unethical companies and make the world a better place.
That's fine, and I encourage you to do so. However, you should also realize, that as a company MS has a very good record. You simply cannot find a company of similiar size that has a better track record. You can't. They have a small number of employee suits. A very small number of vendor suits. They have an even smaller number of client/customer suits. They have very few (yes, including the DOJ case!) problems with the government. They have no ongoing troubles with the SEC. They have no wide-ranging judgements against them.
MS is a very healthy company. You'd love to believe they were some cyclops destroying the planet, but it's untrue and not supported by the facts.
Instead of posting back with some more ramblings, try this. Come up with 5 complaints you have about MS's ethics in the last 5 years. Provide sources.
question. What MS competitor beat MS at anything ever?
Let's see. MS gets beat all the time. They leave markets all time. For example, they opened a development office to create sports games. They recently closed it and laid off all the developers due to market pressure and the fact they got creamed again and again by EA.
Link.
That's one example. MS gets beat all the time. You are just blinded by some kind of myopic paranonia that causes you to think you know everything there is to know about MS. You don't.
MS destroys companies.
OF course they do. That's point of competition. I am in business. I intend to destroy every competitor I can.
If it does not destroy them outright it leaves them crippled.
Again, thats the point of business. Survival of the fitest.
It also loves to sign partnership agreements and then backstabs their "friends" by stealing their technologies and customers.
Yes, and any friend who signs a deal with MS should know that. You to fail to mention times MS has been beaten at strategic partnerships. Of course that foils your little myopic vision of MS as the source of evil. Go research Eolas and Veritas and see how each got MS for over $500 million.
The DOJ could not stop them and I doubt anything short of a nuclear bomb in redmond would.
The DOJ can't stop them because they settled the only case they have against MS. And when the settlement expires next year, MS will be completely free to operate however it wants in terms of monopoly. Any new charges will have to be retried from scratch.
No. They can send you home. You are still employed. Depending on your state you may or may not be eligible for workers compensation, continuation pay, or disability payments.
In the US you can be fired any time no reason at all.
You can be fired for any reason except the wrong reasons.
be the only exceptions but then if they don't give a reason you are screwed anyhow.
Untrue. There are myraid of reasons you cannot be fired.
You cannot be fired for:
Refusing sexual advances
Complaining about sexual advances, or sexual improprietary
Complaining about harassment, discrimination, or other similiar behaviour.
Reporting a criminal activity to the appropriate authorities
Reporting a criminal activity to supervisors
Because of your race
Because of your religious practices
Because of your creed
Because of your ethnicity
Because of your sexual orientation *see note
Because of your legitimate disability
(* regarding sexual orientation, right now this is in flux. Some states have enacted this type of provision, and the status of the rule on a federal level is working its way all through the court system)
Other than that this is an "At will" country. Unless you have a specific employment contract you are at the whimsy of your employer. Depending on your industry you may have additional protections in terms of termination beneifts. If you are a blue collar manufacturing type you are required to get notice if laid off for lack of work, relocation benefits, retraining benfits, and other minor benefits.
However, if they don't give you a reason you are not categorically screwed. You have recourse if they fired for one of the above reasons. Pretending to fire you for cause when its for an above stated reason is a big, big no-no in just about every state (if not all). In my home state the fines are big, big, big on top of whatever they'll get for the underlying case. Whistleblowers get multiple times the base damages in punitive awards.
Actually, did you read what the man, an actual Libertarian, wrote?
He wrote he would like to enact policies to get the land intpo the hands of conservation groups.
Period. He didnt say anything about selling the land on the free market.
Under a libertarian system of pollution control things are under much better control. You set an artifical ceiling on the amount of pollution society accepts. You sell the rights to that pollution the open market, reducing the amount incrementally to drive up cost. At some point the cost outweighs the value of the pollution, and alternate solutions are more economical.
You should research before you make "probablies", "surely" and "actually" statements.
They want to see wilderness areas privately owned by those who will preserve it?
This works suprisingly well. In my home state, private conservation groups own a stunning amount of land - almost as much as the whole state of New Hampshire.
They were given and purchased most the land. They worked out permanent exemptions from property taxes. It is in a binding trust and governed under a joint-agreement with the State.
Worse case scenario the land reverts to the State of Maine. In the meantime, a group of dedicated outdoorsmen preserve the land, study it, make sure it's being healthy, designate recreation areas, and generally do a great job of preserving the quality of the enviornment.
Before this, what happened is that every year the private landowners would comission loggers to take down a piece of the land to pay the taxes on it. When you own 1000 acres of woodlands and have a yearly tax bill of, say, $15,000 you suddenly have to kill a bit of what you love to preserve it. Starting the the 90's you saw more and more foremely pristine land being turned into a deforested wasteland.
My grandmother owned about 80 acres near where she was born, and loved to enjoy its serenity and natural beauty. As she aged and retired, she couldn't afford the taxes (which of course went from minor to massive over the period of 20 years). She had logged about 5% of the land a year for something like 10 years. The thing of course is that taxes continued to grow, lumber prices fell under foreign comepetiton, and bamo, suddenly, she went from logging 1 acre to 2 acres to 5 acres.
Anyways, it's a sad story that happened all over Maine. Mainers throwing beautiful woodlands incrementally to the loggers in order to prevent the land from being spoiled wholesale the logging companies.
A condition of employment was to not have TB. HIV/AIDS, pregnancy or a broken limb do not spread by a cough, to my knowledge.
That's irrelevant. They can say it's a condition of employment, but it doesn't mean it's legal.
I've worked in hospitals. They can certainly restrict your duties if you have an infectious diesease, but they CANNOT fire you or terminate you or force you or treat your poorly based on your disability or condition.
As the medical establisment goes in the USA, if there's a chance you have TB, they treat you as if you did have it. This was effectively: take the treatment and you can go back to work, don't take it and take your chances unemployed. See the light?
That's not right, and its probably untrue. If you were threatened with your job - even if you really did have TB - then your employer comitted an actionable offense. If they really, really, really did that you own them. Especially if it was in writing.
An employer cannot legally terminate you because you have TB. Just as they cannot legally fire you if you are pregnant, have a broken leg, have HIV/AIDS, etc.
Such as: War decisions (going to war, progress in the war, etc), A war between the US and the Islamic world has been brewing for 50 years. Regardless of who is president this war would have happened sooner rather than latter.
homosexual marriage
A law/amendment one way or another on this doesn't affect the fundamental nature of the issue. Homosexuals are recognized and accepted in ways never before in this country. A law isn't going to change that.
abortion rights
Again the acceptance or rejection of abortion is not a matter of law or policy. THe country is nearly evenly split on this issue. There are very few undecideds. If the law changes it doesn't change the underlying division of America on the issue.
seperation of church and science
Again. The country is very evenly split on this type of issue.
Although a president is limited in actual power, he is a strong influence to either encourage or discourage movements.
He is not. I find your arugment to be basically bogus. Bush is strongly pro-evangelical Christian. But he hasn't changed the national mood on the issue. The percentages and sides are basically the same. Same with abort rights, gun rights, etc.
Regardless of whether Bush or Kerry wins the national mood is that the country will continue to be going almost exactly as it is now.
The victory was getting MS distracted by having the Feds go after them. The facts of the case are that it was plausible that they could go either way - prosecute or not prosecute.
The DOJ prosectued ONLY because MS had no political protection. Both Clinton and Gore personally solicited campaign money from MS and MS individuals. They were flatly rejected. Before the anti-trust case, MS the company never made a donation to any national campaign, never was involved in politics, and had no lobbying strategy. Sun, IBM, Netscape, et all had all of those things.
MS was shaken down. Washington said: "hmm, here is a weatlhy company not playing politics.. why is that?" and investigated.
The bottom line remains that if MS had paid off those seeking donations - both Republicans and Democrats - the DOJ would never have gotten into their business with the anti-trust stuff.
What you are saying is what a lot of people are saying, ie, that the media has to give more to coverage to what THEY think is important.
Almost always it's in the end a ploy to sway coverage towards the persons viewpoints.
You obviously think (But it's a much larger issue than his foreign policy blunders and blatant cronyism.) that the media needs to be more critical of Bush. Fine. Whatever you want. But be clear. You want them to take a hardline on Bush. You want them to pursue stories that highlight errors.
The complete lack of substance in the political debate is utterly fed by the media.
I disagree totally. It is fed by the fact that most Americans lives are completely isolated from the "big picture". This is a big concept, and deserves some elobration.
Our country is so large and so vibrant - even in recession - that the tone or policy of any single administration is largely irrelevant. To feel the effects of a policy directly is rare. To be personalyl affected in any significant way is not common. Compared with, say, a country like Venezula or Agentina or Russia or even France our government policy changes very, very, very little between administrations, congress, and whatnot. Things change at a snails pace. Bush or Kerry - whoever wins in November - it's is most likely not going to affect me in any material way.
And so, the issues don't matter. If healthcare is an important issue to me, does it matter who wins in November for me? Absolutely not. If I had a big notion of what I wanted to see done, is either one going to be able to get the momentum to enact it, create the beauraucy to get it done, and get the net effect down to me? Absolutely not. Not going to happen. In 10 years I guarantee you the health-system is going to look 90% similiar to what we have now. Why? Inertia. And gridlock.
Basically, the average American doesn't care much more than bragging rights who is in office. It's like picking a sports team. Except for the hardcore activists no one really cares.
An example. We'd love to talk about the last recession. Let's say for sake of argument that Bush really did cause the most recent recession. Let's imagine that. Let's say he caused a 10-trillion dollar a year economy to go sour. What really happened? What was the effect? Did most Americans suffer fininancally? No. A half to one percent of the country lost a jobs. Even if you could trace that directly back to a set of actions by the President - which I dont think you ever could - it's not a big deal.
We are a stable country. Our government is stable. 99.9% of the workings of the country do not atler in any way when one guy or the next comes into office.
This means basically the few issues Kerry and Bush differ on are irrelevant. Whatever they think or say isn't going to happen. The country is going to continue on it's present course pretty much unabated regardless of what happens.
So whats the media to do? Pick a side when possible and flog-away. Big deal. They want ratings.
Summary: Politics is mostly like picking a sports team. Media is like hometown newspaper covering their hometown team. Media consumers pick their hometown newspaper to read. Nothing, however, is wrong with this. This is good.
You should read up on what you can and cannot do with the various DRM products out there. Nothing you said is able to happen within the DRM software I was talking about.
The proven way of protecting a envelopes is putting them into a safe, not putting a piece of C4 into each envelope.
That depends on how important the contents of the envelope is. Something are better destroyed than revealed.
You should do some research so as not to appear so informed.
Office is already into a very comprehensive DRM framework, namely, Microsoft DRM Server.
A MS blogger wrote about it just a few minutes ago, actually.
You can read up on Windows Rights Management Services and all it has the ability to do.
Nothing has happened in regard to saving unprotected documents, etc. The DRM stuff only applies to documents specifically designated as controlled, and only in ways specified (ie, no cut and paste, no screenshots, no printing, no forwarding, etc).