Re:I kid because I love
on
Quicksilver
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· Score: 1
When I went to B&N to get a trade paperback copy of Cryptonomicon for my backpack, I found it to be five inches thick - and instantly experienced horrific memories of the Michener novels my mom used to read. I just walked away.
What Gray is talking (mostly) about is what we used to call the "Roadmaster Scenario." When I worked for [a major electronics company], we had a data center in Dallas and a redundant site about 30 miles away in Lewisville. Every Sunday the entire IMS database was archived to mag tape and shipped to the other data center for a second level of redundancy. This begged the question, why not just copy them over the T1 lines (this was 1980) to the other site's tape drives directly? The answer, of course, was that it takes a helluva lot of bandwidth to outrun a Roadmaster full of mag tapes.
IMHO, the point is: if it was better to employ americans, companies would do so...
The point really is, that companies don't care about hiring anyone of a specific group, its getting the work done for the least cost. In America, the usual cost of an employee is twice their salary due to taxes and benefits. So, when a naive bean counter says we can pay three of 'them' for one of 'these', the short-sighted CTO or who-ever sees bottom line cash savings that directly effects his annual bonus, so its a go. No other consideration is warranted, so far as they're concerned. The logistics are SEP's, and the actual costs won't be discovered until the next fiscal year.
There are a helluva lot of great engineers out of work right now, and the offshore problem is just another factor in their not getting back into the job market, or worse, leaving it for other pastures.
Got hooked on these when I got into FPS gaming. But since I travel(ed) alot, it turned out to be way cool on airplanes. Small footprint, and doesn't require any 'room' to move around. Just sits in place with my hand on it, and the pointer goes where I want. Saves the arm too.
Hmm...if SCO employees are unhirable because of SCO's actions, aren't those employees damaged? If so, should they file suit against SCO for defamation damages?
Ah, yes, there's the rub. The burdon of proof rests with DirectTV's when the case goes to hearing/trial. DirectTV should have to prove their prima faci case before a judge allows them to even serve papers on something like this. This is not the case, but as I think we've seen, there are those who will abuse the system (SCO, $cientologi$t$) to damage an enemy rather than to seek justice.
Also, there should be English Rule in this country - loser pays. Then we'd see a dramatic decrease in the number of suits filed - that being no suit would be filed unless is was certain to be successful. That would, however, also decrease the incomes of most of the trial lawyers in this country, and since most of the congressmen are trial lawyers, we have just about as much chance of passing English Rule as passing tort reform.
It should be done on a case-by-case basis. DirectTV should have to painstakingly research and determine and prove that an individual is using said equipment to damage them by stealing satellite. The burdon of proof should rest solely on the shoulders of DirectTV.
What infuriates me most about this, is that the three persons pressing the suit were not doing anything at all with satellite television, but yet settled to "avoid costly litigation." Is this the new Great American Business Model? This is not unlike what SCO is attempting to do - use the sheer weight of a threatened suit to extort money out of those who reason that it's easier to just pay up rather than fight the injustice. The injustice being that they shouldn't have to defnd themselves against baseless charges. Where is DirectTV's proof? Simply because they bought a piece of equipment from someone who also sells to pirates? This is guilt by association and unethical. It's like saying that I'm guilty of theft because I shop at Wal-Mart where many theives buy their stocking masks. Give me a break.
The filesystem would maintain the database on raw disk sectors and not in 'files' per se. Otherwise its just an abstraction layer employing a database engine to provide indexing services.
While this idea is interesting, I find the whole concept of indexing problematic, since the user is required to make all kinds of decisions about how to classify an object, which is not unlike having to decide upon a path name? The author gives in the paper the example music by U2. By magic numbers the filesystem should be able to identify a 'music' file, and by embedded headers a file with a group 'U2'. But this must necessarily be specified at object creation.
It seems to be trading one form of obfuscation for another...
I
thought it was best to telephone you and speak in person to see if we
could resolve the issues between our companies short of litigation.
I wonder if IBM tried this civilized and rational approach with McBride when SCO first filed? And what was SCO's answer - HELL NO! So the same should be RH's answer.
Take note - the SCO business model is the shape of things to come unless we get tort reform in a major way.
The point is to illustrate the the hardware manufacturers don't really mean it when they say you can get a refund, since they have no clear refund policy in place. In the end, we want M$ to stop forcing hardware manufacturers into bundling Windoze. If they have to issue enough refunds, it will happen. M$ is banking on the fact that most people won't go to the trouble.
The claim is that IBM violated its license and contract to use SCO code in AIX by using said code to "improve" Linux. SCO's behavior is the main indicator that they're FOS. First, if it were true that IBM used SCO code to augment Linux, a sane approach would be to contact IBM and resolve the situation. If damage had been done, then IBM would happily compensate SCO for the infringement, or remove the offending code, or both. This happens all the time. However, because SCO is being so loud about with its allegations, it reeks like partisan politics, where it doesn't matter what the other party did, its what I can make the public think they did, which will always be bad.
SCO cancelling IBM's license ab initio is simply to bully IBM into a premature resolution and add weight to their claims. The (general) public must be asking themselves, why would SCO revoke their license if they did not have a legitimate claim?
What he meant by suing not being the way to go is that a lawsuit is not the way these types of things are handled, usually, in business. IP and copyright infringement goes on all the time - most of it unintentional. When it happens, the offended company does not immediatley go out and file a suit, they first contact the company and ask for them to either license the tech or stop using it, and there may be other discussions about royalties, etc. Its only when the offending company does not respond that things get nasty.
In my experience, these things are usually handled by the offending company offering some IP of their own in exchange.
When SCO comes out with guns-a-blazing, the only purpose is to attempt to poison the well to aid weight to their argument. Hoping, in the end, that IBM will either pay them to go away, or make them go away by buying them.
IMHO - IBM has played this hand very well thus far. I think SCO is very much afraid.
There are no chips in Lexmark's inkjet cartridges.
Actually, there are. Lexmark inkjet cartridges are intelligent in that they count the number of dots per color emitted. The printer drivers then read these values to determine if the cartridge is empty (or on its way), as well as giving the user other 'useful' information. I don't recall if we ever ran tests to see what would happen if we refilled a cartridge that the printer thot was empty. hmm....
[Consumers] may well be willing to pay for their entertainment -- if the quality is guaranteed and the price is fair.
Isn't this the Second Universal Principle of Consumer Motiviation (the first being 'buy this or die?'). Why don't I have more CD's in my library? They cost too much. Which shareware have I paid for? The ones in which the author isn't asking $40 for little more than a bang program.
An inflated price in a market may get some customers, and even some repeat customers. But delivering a sense that the customer is getting what they pay for, that they're not being fleeced, nurtures that most important quality in a customer - loyalty. As any (good) book on selling will tell you - it's not the first sale you have to worry about so much as the second sale.
If I surf from my cell phone, am I really needing an IP address, or it it mux'd through the cell carrier? If I do have an IP address, then its a waste - the cell carrier could mux several web sessions through the single address.
How do you enforce that the peer group isn't just made up of people that stand to gain from the patent being granted?
The peer group would have to be scrutinized against conflict of interest. Prob. the best group would be to gather the petitioner's competition to do the review. If they can't come up with the same idea, then its obvious QED.
It makes defining "prior art" significantly more difficult given that the PTO first checks for prior art among existing patents.
There's much more software patented than you might think. 'Prior Art' refers to the condition that the solution already existed in some form prior to the patent, and not necessarilly under patent. For example, you can't get a patent on the bubble sort algorithm because its been (unfortunately) in use since the dawn of the computer age, and is obvious to the definition for patent purposes. That is (butchered) it must not be reasonably obvious to a person competent in the field. I would submit that this would exclude most patent clerks from being able to scrutinize a software patent application as prior art.
The major problem with patents is that the patent clerks have no earthly idea of what they're looking at. So the test of obviousness essentally gets ignored. I would be in favor of voiding all software related patents - but that's not going to happen. So what we need is a better way to demonstrate the obviousness of a patent claim before the fact.
I would propose that for a given patent claim, that the entity seeking the patent would have to fund a peer group review of the problem the claim is purpoting to solve. If the solution is truly obvious, or prior art, then a competent peer group should come up with something close fairly quickly (as we do here in this forum.) The test wouuld be that if this group could come up with say, six out of ten criteria for the solution described by the claim in, say, six hours, then the claim is obvious, and does not qualify for patent protection.
While I don't think this would work too well for mechanical or chemical patents, it would certainly work for software and business processes.
NDA / Contract Question
on
My Visit to SCO
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· Score: 2, Interesting
From the essay:
Most Linux developers are unable to sign such an NDA, as it easily could prevent them from ever again working on the kernel. Similarly, employees of any company that works with Linux cannot sign such an NDA.
and
I suggested that SCO should change the NDA to permit the disclosure of information when legally required by a court
I have heard of people being ordered by courts to disclose information that, technically, forces them to violate a NDA or other contract. Then these people are sued for breach. Isn't there any protection in common or contract law that insulates people from liablity under these circumstances?
Keep in mind that the language in the complaint is designed to infuriate an otherwise ignorant judge. I'm sure if they could work in crimes against mom, apple pie, and puppy dogs, as well as draw correlations to Hitler, they would. The whole exercise is to give weight to the complaint so that the judge doesn't wipe his ass with it.
An apology would require a certain amount of remorse on their part. If they cared anything about open source they never would have made the statements to begin with.
Re:Much Research Done On This Topic
on
Ageism in IT?
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· Score: 1
It was my opinion, and he was in agreement, that there is a tremendous opportunity to teach others programming skills at levels of pay that meet or exceed current IT levels.
I concur. This was the exact advice given me by several career counselors when I began my hiatus. So I made inquiries and found out that even though there was a demand, 'policy' dictated that all teachers not only hold a masters degree in the discipline being taught, but also required a teaching certification from the state (of Texas.) This was true at the university and junior college levels. The only thing I could do in the teaching realm was start up a 'fun learning' class and charge admission - and there are already a plethora of those.
I eventually secured a descent position with a much lower salary, but it came just days before my extended unemployment ran out, so I am not daring to examine the gift horse's teeth.
Arthur: However when it comes to hiring younger, price traditionally has not been my deciding factor.
Guard: Pull the other one!
Arthur: I am!
I am an older programmer, and I have a lot of problems with what you've said.
Younger developers tend to understand that they don't know everything... and go out and learn in their spare time.
Any engineer worth thier salt will always be in a mode of self-education for two reasons: 1) it keeps them up to speed with emerging tech, and 2) if you're a real engineer, its fun. To wit:
Kirk: Scotty, what are you doing?
Scott: I'm catching up on my technical journals.
Kirk: Aren't you supposed to be relaxing?
Scott: I am relaxing!
Most of the older developers I've worked with have been quite stuck in their ways.
"Stuck in their ways" means they are comfortable and competent in a certain methodology and they prefer to play to their strengths. This is only wise. The operative word in your statement is quite, which says to me that they are stubborn. If they're unwilling (or unable) to adapt to your local methodologies, you don't want them regardless of their age. Otherwise I'd think you'd prefer someone who has done it a few times.
Much Research Done On This Topic
on
Ageism in IT?
·
· Score: 5, Informative
The canon on age discrimination in IT is here. If you are over 30 and working in IT, this paper is really worth your time to absorb.
I was RIF'd in May 2001 just after the dot-bomb collapse, and was unable to even secure an interview. In the two years that followed, I netted only two interviews although I have over twenty years in programming. I know this had a lot to do with my age, since it was communicated to me through recruiters and other sources that longevity in the field directly translates into dollars. They see that hiring younger necessarilly means hiring cheaper.
Slashdot Mirror
When I went to B&N to get a trade paperback copy of Cryptonomicon for my backpack, I found it to be five inches thick - and instantly experienced horrific memories of the Michener novels my mom used to read. I just walked away.
What Gray is talking (mostly) about is what we used to call the "Roadmaster Scenario." When I worked for [a major electronics company], we had a data center in Dallas and a redundant site about 30 miles away in Lewisville. Every Sunday the entire IMS database was archived to mag tape and shipped to the other data center for a second level of redundancy. This begged the question, why not just copy them over the T1 lines (this was 1980) to the other site's tape drives directly? The answer, of course, was that it takes a helluva lot of bandwidth to outrun a Roadmaster full of mag tapes.
There are a helluva lot of great engineers out of work right now, and the offshore problem is just another factor in their not getting back into the job market, or worse, leaving it for other pastures.
Got hooked on these when I got into FPS gaming. But since I travel(ed) alot, it turned out to be way cool on airplanes. Small footprint, and doesn't require any 'room' to move around. Just sits in place with my hand on it, and the pointer goes where I want. Saves the arm too.
Hmm...if SCO employees are unhirable because of SCO's actions, aren't those employees damaged? If so, should they file suit against SCO for defamation damages?
While I agree with your points, the sad truth is that it takes an award like this to make companies sit up and take notice.
Also, there should be English Rule in this country - loser pays. Then we'd see a dramatic decrease in the number of suits filed - that being no suit would be filed unless is was certain to be successful. That would, however, also decrease the incomes of most of the trial lawyers in this country, and since most of the congressmen are trial lawyers, we have just about as much chance of passing English Rule as passing tort reform.
What infuriates me most about this, is that the three persons pressing the suit were not doing anything at all with satellite television, but yet settled to "avoid costly litigation." Is this the new Great American Business Model? This is not unlike what SCO is attempting to do - use the sheer weight of a threatened suit to extort money out of those who reason that it's easier to just pay up rather than fight the injustice. The injustice being that they shouldn't have to defnd themselves against baseless charges. Where is DirectTV's proof? Simply because they bought a piece of equipment from someone who also sells to pirates? This is guilt by association and unethical. It's like saying that I'm guilty of theft because I shop at Wal-Mart where many theives buy their stocking masks. Give me a break.
While this idea is interesting, I find the whole concept of indexing problematic, since the user is required to make all kinds of decisions about how to classify an object, which is not unlike having to decide upon a path name? The author gives in the paper the example music by U2. By magic numbers the filesystem should be able to identify a 'music' file, and by embedded headers a file with a group 'U2'. But this must necessarily be specified at object creation.
It seems to be trading one form of obfuscation for another...
... or dead. Yeah, dead is better.
I wonder if IBM tried this civilized and rational approach with McBride when SCO first filed? And what was SCO's answer - HELL NO! So the same should be RH's answer.
Take note - the SCO business model is the shape of things to come unless we get tort reform in a major way.
The point is to illustrate the the hardware manufacturers don't really mean it when they say you can get a refund, since they have no clear refund policy in place. In the end, we want M$ to stop forcing hardware manufacturers into bundling Windoze. If they have to issue enough refunds, it will happen. M$ is banking on the fact that most people won't go to the trouble.
SCO cancelling IBM's license ab initio is simply to bully IBM into a premature resolution and add weight to their claims. The (general) public must be asking themselves, why would SCO revoke their license if they did not have a legitimate claim?
In my experience, these things are usually handled by the offending company offering some IP of their own in exchange.
When SCO comes out with guns-a-blazing, the only purpose is to attempt to poison the well to aid weight to their argument. Hoping, in the end, that IBM will either pay them to go away, or make them go away by buying them.
IMHO - IBM has played this hand very well thus far. I think SCO is very much afraid.
An inflated price in a market may get some customers, and even some repeat customers. But delivering a sense that the customer is getting what they pay for, that they're not being fleeced, nurtures that most important quality in a customer - loyalty. As any (good) book on selling will tell you - it's not the first sale you have to worry about so much as the second sale.
A good product at a fair price - what a concept.
... they can track you!
If I surf from my cell phone, am I really needing an IP address, or it it mux'd through the cell carrier? If I do have an IP address, then its a waste - the cell carrier could mux several web sessions through the single address.
I would propose that for a given patent claim, that the entity seeking the patent would have to fund a peer group review of the problem the claim is purpoting to solve. If the solution is truly obvious, or prior art, then a competent peer group should come up with something close fairly quickly (as we do here in this forum.) The test wouuld be that if this group could come up with say, six out of ten criteria for the solution described by the claim in, say, six hours, then the claim is obvious, and does not qualify for patent protection.
While I don't think this would work too well for mechanical or chemical patents, it would certainly work for software and business processes.
An apology would require a certain amount of remorse on their part. If they cared anything about open source they never would have made the statements to begin with.
I eventually secured a descent position with a much lower salary, but it came just days before my extended unemployment ran out, so I am not daring to examine the gift horse's teeth.
I was RIF'd in May 2001 just after the dot-bomb collapse, and was unable to even secure an interview. In the two years that followed, I netted only two interviews although I have over twenty years in programming. I know this had a lot to do with my age, since it was communicated to me through recruiters and other sources that longevity in the field directly translates into dollars. They see that hiring younger necessarilly means hiring cheaper.
Read the paper - it's all in there.