Reading at "score 5" I'm really shocked at how much bad law is being thrown around here. From misunderstands of what "public domain" means, to what prior sale under patent law, to the basic reason for such a clause to exist. I am almost a lawyer (waiting for bar passage results) but as what I'm about to say does not pertain to specific facts, this is not legal advice. (side note, those of you who give advice on specific facts and then follow up with IANAL are breaking the law against practicing without a license).
The prior invention clause is there to reduce discovery costs when you come out with wizbang B which seems a lot like wizbang A you were working on for the company. See, if you can make a defense of prior invention or independent source, you haven't violated the NDA. What they want is a list of everything you've done up until now so when you come out with wizbang B and it's not on the list, they have evidence that you violated the NDA. It's an easy and hassle free way of avoiding lengthy and expensive discovery.
Now, as for your best response... seems there are two good ways to handle this generally depending on what you are worried about:
1) provide the list but state clearly states this is a non-exclusive list and you retain all rights and defenses under prior invention and independent source. This essentially cuts at their ability to claim you stole from them. Best route if your concern is being sued for later competition.
2) require mutual NDAs that require they not disclose anything you disclose in your list. Best route if your concern is they are going to rip off your idea. The original submitter indicates that the NDA only holds for one year... that's not true! Things like non-compete clauses will hold for around a year, but NDAs are forever unless otherwise stated. It's the whole backbone of the industry.
For both options you should retain a lawyer who could draft up a reusable documents for future instances of this problem
It's worth noting that this fight isn't over yet. The defendant has lost his motion to squash the subpoena based on a privileged communications argument. That's really not surprising... the argument is tantamount to saying "I receive letters from my lawyer in the mail, so you can't have any of my mail." It's just not gonna fly in our civil justice system which has very liberal rules of discovery.
However, based on the article Google has not yet had the opportunity to respond to the subpoena. The third party can always move to squash, and that's where things will get interesting. Will Google be able to convince the court that certain messages are deleted and thus not retrievable. Or, perhaps, that the defendant believed he was deleting the messages and thus deserves to have the messages kept under lock?
These are questions only Google, as the third party, can raise. Now that the judge has issued the subpoena, Google is in a position to actually make those motions. And, if my legal education is worth anything, my money says Google/defendant will appeal if they lose because it's such a new area of the law that an Appeals Court really ought to announce a legal precedence.
In response to this story I did a little research and sent a letter to the website's author with some quick legal analysis and a suggestion to seek actual legal counsel. For those who are interested, here is the quick and dirty part of the letter:
It would be helpful to get a copy of the full letter from SIG, but I gather their central claim is a trademark violation. On this issue you have several possible defenses. First, I suggest your strongest argument is based on the unavailability of a generic term by which to describe Bluetooth technology. This is similar to the situation Kleenex found it self many years ago... by using the term Kleenex to describe their product and never using the generic term (tissue), they destroyed their own mark. A company who owns a mark, even a patented mark, MUST provide a term that can be used to describe their product by the competition. I reviewed the entire SIG site and could find no generic term to describe Bluetooth.
Second you have an arguable fair use defense. Your site is making commentary on the products in question, noting that these devices will work in Linux. That is classified as criticism and protected under the First Amendment.
The system assumes that money damages are less offensive to freedom than incarceration. If you buy that (and there are lots of reasons why it's bogus) then it begins to make more sense why money damages require a mere preponderance instead of beyond a reasonable doubt.
I have no idea where you are pulling the fact that emotional damages are usually "a few million dollars." At least, those aren't the numbers they teach us in law school. You might ask for a few million, but it's rarely going to be that much.
As for punitive damages... they are SO infrequent in this country that you really shouldn't be too worried about them. Our tort system is not designed to punish people, it is designed to compensate. You need to show amazing wrong-doing with malice and the whole bit in order to be eligible for punitive damages. As for who it goes to... some states take the money for themselves. Sometimes the court puts the money into a trust that is used to compensate other victims. It's really far more equitable than the media makes it out to be.
But then, you know that... or do you think that the media only slants the technology industry?
I don't know what area of law you are trained in, but there isn't a lawyer in the country who is going to take this guy's suit on to just "quickly settle these types of claims (versus dating companies) for real losses: costs of the subscription service, costs of the "fake" data, and a couple of hours of lawyers fees."
First, the court's not going to award lawyer fees in a case like this... repaying lawyers fees is not the norm in this country.
Second, no plaintiff is going to pay thousands of dollars to a lawyer to recoup a couple of hundred of dollars. It's simply not cost effective. Yet, assuming the facts alleged are true, these companies have committed a wrong. If the system worked as you envision it, they would be able to go along committing these wrongs to individuals so long as the value they extract from the wrong-doing does not exceed the cost to the plaintiff to bring an effective suit.
To remedy this injustice, the Courts and Congress devised class-action suits, allowing many plaintiffs to come together with their joint claims, sharing the costs of the suit. By pooling their resources, the plaintiffs are able to get compensated and the lawyers are able to get paid. It's a win-win. Unless, of course, you're the defendant whose brilliant low-class fraud scheme is getting closed down.
While not the most popular approach among Slashdoters, I highly recommend talking with your student government. Having served in one for way to long, I can tell you that most of them are just waiting for the perfect issue to come by to fight the Administration on. Network censorship is an easy issue to understand and they are obviously overreaching in their interpretations of "the Law."
The other important question is whether this is a state or private school. One poster said you had no recourse because it was "their network"... but such is not the case is if this is a state school. There may be certain laws that protect fair access. Again your student government can be a valuable source of information in this area.
I've been thinking about ways Google could respond to these sorts of demands for a while now. From what I understand of trademarks and copyrights (classes I haven't quite gotten to in my tenure at law school) Google is potentially infringing when it grabs froogle data, descriptions of page contents, caching the pages, you name it... the website has a supposed right that they CAN enforce if they wish.
I would propose that if a company has problem with Google AdWords, or Froogle collection, or whatever, that Google have a way for that company to register their complaint. Upon receipt of that complaint, Google will honor their request by completely removing them from the search database. For example, if General Motors filed a complaint that when you searched for their name that Ford came up first, Google would PURGE GM entirely from the system such that GM would never, ever show up... period. Google owes no duty to GM to produce their name when searched for, only a duty to NOT produce a competitors name. It seems that with this sort of trade off, companies would back down from asserting their rights.
Congress won't be back in session until after the elections. The only reason they will come back now is if the House and Senate Leadership come to an agreement on the Intelligence Bill.
I think we're okay for this Congressional Session... but next year its a whole new bag. And with Democrats trying to show they are as patriotic as the next guy, I don't know who privacy rights people can turn to anymore.
As with most things legal, its not as easy as it first appears. Initial thread poster is correct that the Supremes' decision to not hear the case does not create binding precedence on all federal courts, only the circuit in which the decision was made. What it DOES do is create a line of argumentation. While I disagree with the later post that there is a "gentleman's agreement" between judges... what you can rely on is extreme laziness among everyone in the legal profession.
If there is case directly "on-point" in an alternate circuit, then all you have to do is pick up the argument, find similar supporting cases from within your own circuit, and you have a fully developed (and tested) legal argument without any of the cost.
The fun things they teach you in Law School! -Sean
Okay... so its not the be-all-end-all, but I remember quite clearly during my early years learning linux from a friend how vital pico was.
Its a very light weight, non-nonsense text-editor that runs in the terminal. It is ideal for editing little conf files that are the number one stumbling block to someone trying to understand how linux works. When you find something you want to look at, you type "pico joe.conf" and up comes the file. UP/DOWN keys work as you expected (not to mention general insertion of characters), and when you are ready to exit, there is a helpful little box that says press "CTR + x". Its just that easy... No, it is not ideal for programming, go use emacs or vi, or whatever the kids are using these days... but non is still ramains one of my most used apps... as ubiquitous as 'ls'.
Small Free Software plug: Even though I'm a student at the University of Washington (makers of pico and pine) I use the Free Software alternative nano, readily available in most distros. Its EXACTLY the same (plus additional feature if you look for 'em) but without that nasty license stuff my alma matter feels necessary to include.
Washington State, my home state, operates under the Open Public Meetings Act which requires quite of bit of record keeping... however, it does not include the recording of bureaucratic conversations unless integral to the decision making process. The e-mail between one secretary to another is not part of the public record, whereas the minutes of a School Board are. Concerning phone calls, the one example I know is that conferences calls where a majority of a decision making body can speak to eachother all at once are forbidden because they could effectively hold their meetings beyond the public eye. But this is very different from a phone conversation between an employee and his or her spouse.
I think spending a few years in government might get you to sing a slightly different tune on the question of scrutiny. In my experience most government employees are really trying their best to do what they can with limited budgets. When we start to place bureaucrats under heavy inspection (different from elected officials, who have a whole other set of methods for evaluation) we end up having employees who are more worried about how they appear than the actual quality of the work preformed.
There is a critical balance to be struck between fairness/openness and efficiency. I am certainly one who falls to the fairness/openness side of the equation, but it has to have limits. Otherwise we'd just have elections every day and he who fakes it best wins.
Not my ideal, and certainly not the ideal envisioned by our founders or those who adopted the 10th amendment.
Unlike a legal office where communications are governed by extensive regulation, governments are really only required to keep records of official documents and decisions. The myriad of e-mails leading up to a decision are not generally protected under such an act, nor are snail mail or phone conversations. In fact, the whole idea of there being a digital trail to follow for governmental decision making is really very new. Does it makes sense to change that practice? Do we really think our government officials should be so closely watched that EVERY e-mail/phone conversation/smoke signal should be recorded and exposed to public scrutiny? Talk about making an unattractive job even less inticing.
In responce to the posters question about all those subpoenas: welcome to the world of civil litigation, where the first one to destroy the evidence wins!
I lived with a guy for many years who was constantly frustrated with the lack of electrical outlets in our room. For the first year we strung extension cords everywhere... which was really the only option given ONE outlet for the two of us (both computer geeks... with dozens of things to plug in).
The next year we moved into a triple with another guy, but power was still scarce. To add injury to insult, there was a panel above a desk that was clearly meant to be an outlet but had never been wired. Well... eventually my roommate snapped and decided he was going to fulfill the panel's destiny.
With the juice running the whole time, my roommate successfully wired a two outlet panel to the wall without shocking himself... except at the very end when he managed to create great arks of light that blew the power on half the floor. Thankfully we were good friends with the RA and had, on other more legitimate projects, blow the power before. Once we flipped the breakers back on, the juice was flowing and he had successfully wired a new outlet.
We made a number of "improvements" to that room over the year, but I think that one was the best
In 1942 the Supreme Court ruled (WEST VIRGINIA STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION v. BARNETTE, 319 U.S. 624 (1943))that students could not be required to recite the Pledge. The issue before the Court is not relating to those laws. While I appreciate the editorials fervor, it is wrong and (with regards to Slashdot) misplaced. This is a case regarding religious freedom, not freedom of association, as considered in Barnette.
The problem with the anti-open source government initiative rhetoric is that it presupposes that all groups are doing everything in their power to "sell their product". I can only imagine how much cash Microsoft and the like spend to ensure that their product brochures and seminars are available to every government official who has the authority to purchase paper-clips. They have every reason to secure those lucrative government contracts.
However, open source software simply doesn't do this. There is tons of good code out there, and more coming every day... and instead of sending out fleets of marketeers to try and sell the stuff, OSS developers have devoted their time to writing even better code. Yes, there are some companies like Red Hat, but there is so much more out there that isn't being pushed.
So, the question becomes, how do we ensure that governments give the same notice to OSS as they give to proprietary software and their glossy full page ads? I believe the solution is inherent to government... we the people DEMAND it! We demand that money be spent wisely and that every rock be overturned before purchases are made.
To that end, legislatures are taking up legislation mandating that agencies investigate such software options before making a purchase... that they actually go out and research instead of just opening up the latest issue of PC Magazine. Otherwise, the decision makers in government (most of whom are not accountable to us pesky voters) are not going to do the work to protect our interests.
That's ridiculous AC... Debian is hardly 3 years behind anything. But, if your talking about things like X, where we are a whole minor version release behind, you might want to ask what the fine folks running Mips or SPARC think of Debian. Its thanks to the folks on the Debian X-Strike Force Team that X packages even exist for those architectures. Its not easy supporting 11+ archs, but the Debian Developers have taken up the task and do so very well!
Perhaps the priorities of our community are more important to us than your priorities?
And its great! The best part is that.debs can specify dependencies on perl modules, which can then be met via apt. This has the added benefit of keeping all files under the control of the package manager... instead of floating around in limbo.
Of course, some of the more obscure modules never get packaged... so if this RPM database proves succesful, perhaps Debian could look into automating the package of all the smaller, less used modules.
I think one of the hallmarks of the Star Trek movies is its on-again, off-again nature. From what I can tell, pretty much everyone hated ST1 (the motion picture... oh, my god), ST3: Search For Spoke, ST5: The Final Frontier, ST7: Generations, and ST9: Insurrection. But there are usually great reviews for ST2,ST4,ST6, and ST8. I would expect any good Star Trek fan to know this and jump at the chance to see ST10.
So, I suppose the old phrase should be reworked: Once fooled, shame on you. Twice fooled, shame on me. Thrice fooled, apparently I failed to understand the pattern.
Sorry, but your wrong. With Wellstone gone and his replacement choosing to vote independent on party leadership, Daschle remains majority leader. While the VP would break ties, the likelihood of such divisive bills actually making it to the floor is minimal because all of the committee chairs and Senate leadership are Democrats... and I doubt they will let legislation that might yield a tie hit the floor.
While the Homeland Security Bill is most certainly assured to pass now that the Republicans will control all of the 108th Congress (don't forget, its still the 107th, and the Dems still control the Senate) that doesn't mean all of the items being tacked on by the Senate will actually make it into law.
The House of Representatives already passed HR5005, the Homeland Security Bill, and did so with such tight rules that there was no chance for riders to be added. As such, when the conferees from the two houses to sit down and rectify the differences in the bill, the House will not have the pork that the Senate has... and I would go so far as to say that much of the pork will be stricken.
The computer hacking bill, on the other hand, has already passed the House. I was actually in the gallery at the time and watched the bill pass without a single objection. Even the floor leader managing the opposing side was in support of the bill. I don't know where "our" lobbyist was on this issue, but it was already decided long ago.
During the last few weeks of Congress there is a "great sucking sound". In other words, all of the bills that have been stuck in committee are suddenly tacked on to popular bills. Its been going on for years, and it is actually one of the few things that diminishes the power of the committee system, which in itself has some highly undemocratic practices. But that doesn't mean those items make it pass the conference committee.
Oh, and one last thing, about the line-item veto. Its not that the President's want it and didn't get it... Congress granted the power but the Courts ruled in unconstitutional because the President is not supposed to be vested with such power. If he did have that power, what would stop him from taking off items that would help members of the opposing party while keeping on items that help his own party? No, the power of the purse needs to stay in the hands of Congress. But we as voters need to stop rewarding Congressmen just because they send $50,000,000 toward our district.
This is where I begin to realize just how badly the open source community needs economists to get involved. To say that: "Free software depends on a few companies' ability to actually make money developing and using free software." indicates a misunderstanding of economic principles.
Any action that increases some other action's efficiency could consceivably become a business. This is where the consulting crazy comes from. Now, many/.ers out there seem to really hate consultants... but if they can help a business become more efficient, they help generate new revenue for the company, thus earning their keep in the modern economy.
I believe this is how free software will finally integrate into the common marketplace. It is such an incredibly efficient system that it blows proprietary systems out of the water. Yes programmers will have to be paid (we can't go on forever being volunteers... people gotta eat) but when it becomes apparent that those companies who are utilizing free software are spending less money to achieve the same goal (hence more efficient) everyone who is interested in the bottom line will switch over.
This is where the GPL becomes SO VERY IMPORTANT. As everyone starts using free software, new needs will develop, a company may need some new function. So they hire a programmer to write up some code to extend a GPLed program... and through the magic of RMS, everyone benefits.
This is only a framework for how the free software model might work... and its going to take a lot of economic research to understand the different components. But I maintain that you will not need companies who make free software in the future... you need companies who use free software and are willing to have a few programmers on staff to help contribute back.
But if this is going to succeed, we need to show the world how we can make things more efficient.
Slashdot Mirror
Reading at "score 5" I'm really shocked at how much bad law is being thrown around here. From misunderstands of what "public domain" means, to what prior sale under patent law, to the basic reason for such a clause to exist. I am almost a lawyer (waiting for bar passage results) but as what I'm about to say does not pertain to specific facts, this is not legal advice. (side note, those of you who give advice on specific facts and then follow up with IANAL are breaking the law against practicing without a license).
The prior invention clause is there to reduce discovery costs when you come out with wizbang B which seems a lot like wizbang A you were working on for the company. See, if you can make a defense of prior invention or independent source, you haven't violated the NDA. What they want is a list of everything you've done up until now so when you come out with wizbang B and it's not on the list, they have evidence that you violated the NDA. It's an easy and hassle free way of avoiding lengthy and expensive discovery.
Now, as for your best response... seems there are two good ways to handle this generally depending on what you are worried about:
1) provide the list but state clearly states this is a non-exclusive list and you retain all rights and defenses under prior invention and independent source. This essentially cuts at their ability to claim you stole from them. Best route if your concern is being sued for later competition.
2) require mutual NDAs that require they not disclose anything you disclose in your list. Best route if your concern is they are going to rip off your idea. The original submitter indicates that the NDA only holds for one year... that's not true! Things like non-compete clauses will hold for around a year, but NDAs are forever unless otherwise stated. It's the whole backbone of the industry.
For both options you should retain a lawyer who could draft up a reusable documents for future instances of this problem
Good catch :) This is why one shouldn't write Slashdot comments right after getting out of bed.
It's worth noting that this fight isn't over yet. The defendant has lost his motion to squash the subpoena based on a privileged communications argument. That's really not surprising... the argument is tantamount to saying "I receive letters from my lawyer in the mail, so you can't have any of my mail." It's just not gonna fly in our civil justice system which has very liberal rules of discovery.
However, based on the article Google has not yet had the opportunity to respond to the subpoena. The third party can always move to squash, and that's where things will get interesting. Will Google be able to convince the court that certain messages are deleted and thus not retrievable. Or, perhaps, that the defendant believed he was deleting the messages and thus deserves to have the messages kept under lock?
These are questions only Google, as the third party, can raise. Now that the judge has issued the subpoena, Google is in a position to actually make those motions. And, if my legal education is worth anything, my money says Google/defendant will appeal if they lose because it's such a new area of the law that an Appeals Court really ought to announce a legal precedence.
In response to this story I did a little research and sent a letter to the website's author with some quick legal analysis and a suggestion to seek actual legal counsel. For those who are interested, here is the quick and dirty part of the letter:
It would be helpful to get a copy of the full letter from SIG, but I gather their central claim is a trademark violation. On this issue you have several possible defenses. First, I suggest your strongest argument is based on the unavailability of a generic term by which to describe Bluetooth technology. This is similar to the situation Kleenex found it self many years ago... by using the term Kleenex to describe their product and never using the generic term (tissue), they destroyed their own mark. A company who owns a mark, even a patented mark, MUST provide a term that can be used to describe their product by the competition. I reviewed the entire SIG site and could find no generic term to describe Bluetooth.
Second you have an arguable fair use defense. Your site is making commentary on the products in question, noting that these devices will work in Linux. That is classified as criticism and protected under the First Amendment.
The system assumes that money damages are less offensive to freedom than incarceration. If you buy that (and there are lots of reasons why it's bogus) then it begins to make more sense why money damages require a mere preponderance instead of beyond a reasonable doubt.
I have no idea where you are pulling the fact that emotional damages are usually "a few million dollars." At least, those aren't the numbers they teach us in law school. You might ask for a few million, but it's rarely going to be that much.
As for punitive damages... they are SO infrequent in this country that you really shouldn't be too worried about them. Our tort system is not designed to punish people, it is designed to compensate. You need to show amazing wrong-doing with malice and the whole bit in order to be eligible for punitive damages. As for who it goes to... some states take the money for themselves. Sometimes the court puts the money into a trust that is used to compensate other victims. It's really far more equitable than the media makes it out to be.
But then, you know that... or do you think that the media only slants the technology industry?
I don't know what area of law you are trained in, but there isn't a lawyer in the country who is going to take this guy's suit on to just "quickly settle these types of claims (versus dating companies) for real losses: costs of the subscription service, costs of the "fake" data, and a couple of hours of lawyers fees."
First, the court's not going to award lawyer fees in a case like this... repaying lawyers fees is not the norm in this country.
Second, no plaintiff is going to pay thousands of dollars to a lawyer to recoup a couple of hundred of dollars. It's simply not cost effective. Yet, assuming the facts alleged are true, these companies have committed a wrong. If the system worked as you envision it, they would be able to go along committing these wrongs to individuals so long as the value they extract from the wrong-doing does not exceed the cost to the plaintiff to bring an effective suit.
To remedy this injustice, the Courts and Congress devised class-action suits, allowing many plaintiffs to come together with their joint claims, sharing the costs of the suit. By pooling their resources, the plaintiffs are able to get compensated and the lawyers are able to get paid. It's a win-win. Unless, of course, you're the defendant whose brilliant low-class fraud scheme is getting closed down.
While not the most popular approach among Slashdoters, I highly recommend talking with your student government. Having served in one for way to long, I can tell you that most of them are just waiting for the perfect issue to come by to fight the Administration on. Network censorship is an easy issue to understand and they are obviously overreaching in their interpretations of "the Law."
The other important question is whether this is a state or private school. One poster said you had no recourse because it was "their network"... but such is not the case is if this is a state school. There may be certain laws that protect fair access. Again your student government can be a valuable source of information in this area.
-Sean
I've been thinking about ways Google could respond to these sorts of demands for a while now. From what I understand of trademarks and copyrights (classes I haven't quite gotten to in my tenure at law school) Google is potentially infringing when it grabs froogle data, descriptions of page contents, caching the pages, you name it... the website has a supposed right that they CAN enforce if they wish.
I would propose that if a company has problem with Google AdWords, or Froogle collection, or whatever, that Google have a way for that company to register their complaint. Upon receipt of that complaint, Google will honor their request by completely removing them from the search database. For example, if General Motors filed a complaint that when you searched for their name that Ford came up first, Google would PURGE GM entirely from the system such that GM would never, ever show up... period. Google owes no duty to GM to produce their name when searched for, only a duty to NOT produce a competitors name. It seems that with this sort of trade off, companies would back down from asserting their rights.
-Sean
Congress won't be back in session until after the elections. The only reason they will come back now is if the House and Senate Leadership come to an agreement on the Intelligence Bill.
I think we're okay for this Congressional Session... but next year its a whole new bag. And with Democrats trying to show they are as patriotic as the next guy, I don't know who privacy rights people can turn to anymore.
-Niles
As with most things legal, its not as easy as it first appears. Initial thread poster is correct that the Supremes' decision to not hear the case does not create binding precedence on all federal courts, only the circuit in which the decision was made. What it DOES do is create a line of argumentation. While I disagree with the later post that there is a "gentleman's agreement" between judges... what you can rely on is extreme laziness among everyone in the legal profession.
If there is case directly "on-point" in an alternate circuit, then all you have to do is pick up the argument, find similar supporting cases from within your own circuit, and you have a fully developed (and tested) legal argument without any of the cost.
The fun things they teach you in Law School!
-Sean
Okay... so its not the be-all-end-all, but I remember quite clearly during my early years learning linux from a friend how vital pico was.
Its a very light weight, non-nonsense text-editor that runs in the terminal. It is ideal for editing little conf files that are the number one stumbling block to someone trying to understand how linux works. When you find something you want to look at, you type "pico joe.conf" and up comes the file. UP/DOWN keys work as you expected (not to mention general insertion of characters), and when you are ready to exit, there is a helpful little box that says press "CTR + x". Its just that easy... No, it is not ideal for programming, go use emacs or vi, or whatever the kids are using these days... but non is still ramains one of my most used apps... as ubiquitous as 'ls'.
Small Free Software plug: Even though I'm a student at the University of Washington (makers of pico and pine) I use the Free Software alternative nano, readily available in most distros. Its EXACTLY the same (plus additional feature if you look for 'em) but without that nasty license stuff my alma matter feels necessary to include.
Washington State, my home state, operates under the Open Public Meetings Act which requires quite of bit of record keeping... however, it does not include the recording of bureaucratic conversations unless integral to the decision making process. The e-mail between one secretary to another is not part of the public record, whereas the minutes of a School Board are. Concerning phone calls, the one example I know is that conferences calls where a majority of a decision making body can speak to eachother all at once are forbidden because they could effectively hold their meetings beyond the public eye. But this is very different from a phone conversation between an employee and his or her spouse.
I think spending a few years in government might get you to sing a slightly different tune on the question of scrutiny. In my experience most government employees are really trying their best to do what they can with limited budgets. When we start to place bureaucrats under heavy inspection (different from elected officials, who have a whole other set of methods for evaluation) we end up having employees who are more worried about how they appear than the actual quality of the work preformed.
There is a critical balance to be struck between fairness/openness and efficiency. I am certainly one who falls to the fairness/openness side of the equation, but it has to have limits. Otherwise we'd just have elections every day and he who fakes it best wins.
Not my ideal, and certainly not the ideal envisioned by our founders or those who adopted the 10th amendment.
Unlike a legal office where communications are governed by extensive regulation, governments are really only required to keep records of official documents and decisions. The myriad of e-mails leading up to a decision are not generally protected under such an act, nor are snail mail or phone conversations. In fact, the whole idea of there being a digital trail to follow for governmental decision making is really very new. Does it makes sense to change that practice? Do we really think our government officials should be so closely watched that EVERY e-mail/phone conversation/smoke signal should be recorded and exposed to public scrutiny? Talk about making an unattractive job even less inticing.
In responce to the posters question about all those subpoenas: welcome to the world of civil litigation, where the first one to destroy the evidence wins!
I lived with a guy for many years who was constantly frustrated with the lack of electrical outlets in our room. For the first year we strung extension cords everywhere... which was really the only option given ONE outlet for the two of us (both computer geeks... with dozens of things to plug in).
The next year we moved into a triple with another guy, but power was still scarce. To add injury to insult, there was a panel above a desk that was clearly meant to be an outlet but had never been wired. Well... eventually my roommate snapped and decided he was going to fulfill the panel's destiny.
With the juice running the whole time, my roommate successfully wired a two outlet panel to the wall without shocking himself... except at the very end when he managed to create great arks of light that blew the power on half the floor. Thankfully we were good friends with the RA and had, on other more legitimate projects, blow the power before. Once we flipped the breakers back on, the juice was flowing and he had successfully wired a new outlet.
We made a number of "improvements" to that room over the year, but I think that one was the best
In 1942 the Supreme Court ruled (WEST VIRGINIA STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION v. BARNETTE, 319 U.S. 624 (1943))that students could not be required to recite the Pledge. The issue before the Court is not relating to those laws. While I appreciate the editorials fervor, it is wrong and (with regards to Slashdot) misplaced. This is a case regarding religious freedom, not freedom of association, as considered in Barnette.
The problem with the anti-open source government initiative rhetoric is that it presupposes that all groups are doing everything in their power to "sell their product". I can only imagine how much cash Microsoft and the like spend to ensure that their product brochures and seminars are available to every government official who has the authority to purchase paper-clips. They have every reason to secure those lucrative government contracts.
However, open source software simply doesn't do this. There is tons of good code out there, and more coming every day... and instead of sending out fleets of marketeers to try and sell the stuff, OSS developers have devoted their time to writing even better code. Yes, there are some companies like Red Hat, but there is so much more out there that isn't being pushed.
So, the question becomes, how do we ensure that governments give the same notice to OSS as they give to proprietary software and their glossy full page ads? I believe the solution is inherent to government... we the people DEMAND it! We demand that money be spent wisely and that every rock be overturned before purchases are made.
To that end, legislatures are taking up legislation mandating that agencies investigate such software options before making a purchase... that they actually go out and research instead of just opening up the latest issue of PC Magazine. Otherwise, the decision makers in government (most of whom are not accountable to us pesky voters) are not going to do the work to protect our interests.
That's ridiculous AC... Debian is hardly 3 years behind anything. But, if your talking about things like X, where we are a whole minor version release behind, you might want to ask what the fine folks running Mips or SPARC think of Debian. Its thanks to the folks on the Debian X-Strike Force Team that X packages even exist for those architectures. Its not easy supporting 11+ archs, but the Debian Developers have taken up the task and do so very well!
Perhaps the priorities of our community are more important to us than your priorities?
That's so cool... I had no idea. Is there anything this distribution can't do?
And its great! The best part is that .debs can specify dependencies on perl modules, which can then be met via apt. This has the added benefit of keeping all files under the control of the package manager... instead of floating around in limbo.
Of course, some of the more obscure modules never get packaged... so if this RPM database proves succesful, perhaps Debian could look into automating the package of all the smaller, less used modules.
I think one of the hallmarks of the Star Trek movies is its on-again, off-again nature. From what I can tell, pretty much everyone hated ST1 (the motion picture... oh, my god), ST3: Search For Spoke, ST5: The Final Frontier, ST7: Generations, and ST9: Insurrection. But there are usually great reviews for ST2,ST4,ST6, and ST8. I would expect any good Star Trek fan to know this and jump at the chance to see ST10.
So, I suppose the old phrase should be reworked: Once fooled, shame on you. Twice fooled, shame on me. Thrice fooled, apparently I failed to understand the pattern.
Sorry, but your wrong. With Wellstone gone and his replacement choosing to vote independent on party leadership, Daschle remains majority leader. While the VP would break ties, the likelihood of such divisive bills actually making it to the floor is minimal because all of the committee chairs and Senate leadership are Democrats... and I doubt they will let legislation that might yield a tie hit the floor.
While the Homeland Security Bill is most certainly assured to pass now that the Republicans will control all of the 108th Congress (don't forget, its still the 107th, and the Dems still control the Senate) that doesn't mean all of the items being tacked on by the Senate will actually make it into law.
The House of Representatives already passed HR5005, the Homeland Security Bill, and did so with such tight rules that there was no chance for riders to be added. As such, when the conferees from the two houses to sit down and rectify the differences in the bill, the House will not have the pork that the Senate has... and I would go so far as to say that much of the pork will be stricken.
The computer hacking bill, on the other hand, has already passed the House. I was actually in the gallery at the time and watched the bill pass without a single objection. Even the floor leader managing the opposing side was in support of the bill. I don't know where "our" lobbyist was on this issue, but it was already decided long ago.
During the last few weeks of Congress there is a "great sucking sound". In other words, all of the bills that have been stuck in committee are suddenly tacked on to popular bills. Its been going on for years, and it is actually one of the few things that diminishes the power of the committee system, which in itself has some highly undemocratic practices. But that doesn't mean those items make it pass the conference committee.
Oh, and one last thing, about the line-item veto. Its not that the President's want it and didn't get it... Congress granted the power but the Courts ruled in unconstitutional because the President is not supposed to be vested with such power. If he did have that power, what would stop him from taking off items that would help members of the opposing party while keeping on items that help his own party? No, the power of the purse needs to stay in the hands of Congress. But we as voters need to stop rewarding Congressmen just because they send $50,000,000 toward our district.
This is where I begin to realize just how badly the open source community needs economists to get involved. To say that: "Free software depends on a few companies' ability to actually make money developing and using free software." indicates a misunderstanding of economic principles.
/.ers out there seem to really hate consultants... but if they can help a business become more efficient, they help generate new revenue for the company, thus earning their keep in the modern economy.
Any action that increases some other action's efficiency could consceivably become a business. This is where the consulting crazy comes from. Now, many
I believe this is how free software will finally integrate into the common marketplace. It is such an incredibly efficient system that it blows proprietary systems out of the water. Yes programmers will have to be paid (we can't go on forever being volunteers... people gotta eat) but when it becomes apparent that those companies who are utilizing free software are spending less money to achieve the same goal (hence more efficient) everyone who is interested in the bottom line will switch over.
This is where the GPL becomes SO VERY IMPORTANT. As everyone starts using free software, new needs will develop, a company may need some new function. So they hire a programmer to write up some code to extend a GPLed program... and through the magic of RMS, everyone benefits.
This is only a framework for how the free software model might work... and its going to take a lot of economic research to understand the different components. But I maintain that you will not need companies who make free software in the future... you need companies who use free software and are willing to have a few programmers on staff to help contribute back.
But if this is going to succeed, we need to show the world how we can make things more efficient.