What a pity! I wonder how one can think it sustainable to be the only free rider to keep its code proprietary in a sharing community.
I don't understand where this attitude to SuSE comes from. That they don't contribute to Linux is simply not true. If you want to argue that they don't contribute enough, you can - but I think if you look at their performance you'll see that they'll do a lot for the community. Xfree, reiserfs and lots of translation efforts
come to mind.
To call them free riders is mean spirited, whether you like their proprietary management tool or not.
Ok, having sensible versioning standards in OS would be great, some of the systems used are horrible, I agree.
However:
Look what the lack of standard versioning scheme throughout the open source community is forcing SuSE to do [...] A commercial OS would have enforce such a standard on all its engineering teams
What is she smoking exactly? There is no Windows standard for version systems. Every app comes with it's own scheme. There is not even a scheme for Windows itself: Win98, Win2k, WinMillenium, WinNT4, Win3.1, WinXP. Ask a newbie to put those in order. Their apps version system is similar "clear".
On one point, I will agree: an installer or package manager should be as simple as it can be. If you install a package, any dependencies it requires should be automatically installed.
I'm not familiar with apt, it could well be great, but I think that feature has been part of YAST for a long time, too.
In principle I think this is a good idea - on the other hand: there are already people paid to do this very job. The guy who let this through was not doing his job, maybe he should be replaced.
Maybe what's needed is some sort of incentive system, in which the pay of a reviewer will (among other factors) depend on the number of frivolous patents which he let through.
Alternatively the company filing a patent should have to pay penalties if it can later be shown that no sufficient research for prior art was made. After all, that's already their obligation.
As it is, a system of checks and balances is missing in this process.
I agree with that, but I'd leave of the smilie...
IIRC the US has over half the worlds lawyers. That's a ridiculous amount, and a clear indication that something is wrong. Most countries have laws which make the losing party pay the winner's court costs. While this in a very few cases stops suits which have merit (because of the risks) - it greatly reduces the number of frivolous suits.
This company might think twice about suing someone over a patent violation, if the result
of that suit could be that they have to pay the
defendands costs.
Tell them what you really think. Here is the contact info from thier web site. Only one email address, the rest are using cgi-forms.
Remeber to be polite!
Normally I would be, but what's the point in this case? They are patenting other peoples ideas in order to steal money from honest people - they are nothing but a bunch of crooks.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I really can't imagine you could reach them, or argue with them. If they had any shred of decency they wouldn't go around stealing anyways. *shrug*
Re:Umm.. Lots of Software, not a lot of OSS
on
Mega-Geek March?
·
· Score: 2
Thanks this was very informative. I'm not quite convinced about who has whom by the balls - I'd assume that was mutual, if the system is just used by the government, and only maintained by one company?
OSS would only mean that the customer - i.e. the government gets access to the source code. So while that may not be of much use, admittedly - it also doesn't mean that everybody can see the source, if the state doesn't want them to.
What I'm trying to say is: these sort of issues could probably be worked around, and the state would still have the chance to profit from OSS for other applications.
Re:Umm.. Lots of Software, not a lot of OSS
on
Mega-Geek March?
·
· Score: 2
I think your points are very valid, but maybe you are to pessimistic in your evaluation.
Inhouse developed software is already OSS, if the government wants it to be so, right?
As for the proprietary software - well they don't necessarily have to use OSS replacements.
They can just tell the vendors "sorry guys we are no longer allowed to buy upgrades from you
unless you open the source". What is the vendor going to do? He can't even negotiate anymore, his partner has no leeway. For a lot of vendors it might mean they have no choice but to go OSS,
since they only have government customers.
A bit sneaky, I admit, but it may work.
Re:Politicos don't operate this way.. :(
on
Mega-Geek March?
·
· Score: 2
The right of assembly is guaranteed by the First Amendment, and it's entire purpose is
[...] to meet in order to find a way to change things.
Hmmm - really? I don't think it actually says that. It gives you that right, and you use it as you see fit.
Living in the district I am compelled to restate the obvious: Politicans move because of two things and two things only.
1) Because it will help them stay in office, 2) Because of money.
I agree with you, but this is were a demonstration like such a march can be useful - it shows that there are numbers of people who care about this issue. Can you imagine a politician looking at this group, licking his lips and thinking "I don't care either way, but I want these votes"? He needs point 1) there...
I agree that money is important, but as long as you have the right to vote, you have another lever to approach the issue - politicians need votes. Show that you are prepared to vote and politicians are forced to listen - they have no alternative in the long run.
I guess you have a point, having a fast train is useless unless it integrates into a decent local transport system.
The solution (if you refuse to finance and offer incentives for mass transit) is better roads.
Maybe, but that assumes that you have no problem to finance better roads.
If we'd just yank the license of anyone with a 3" tailpipe on a Civic and blondes with BMWs, I'd shave 2 hours off my commute time every week.
Uhm... I guess we could achieve the same with any other group we don't like. Maybe yank the license from all blacks. Or from everybody who is under 27?
It's not the citizens that are pushing for a highspeed rail system!
Huh what? This was a damn referendum, it was voted for by the people. How about taking responsibility for your own actions? How about accepting a majority vote?
Anyway, "the people" are the ones paying for the campaigns right now. Corporations are (made of) "the people."
I can't agree with that: corporations are set up to make money, they don't represent their owners or their workers. At the best corporations represent the political interest of their majority owners, a very small number of people. Giving them influence way above the rights of ordinary
people, disenfranchises the vast majority people.
I don't see why it should be necessary either.
If any of the owners of these companies want to donate to political parties they can do it with their own money. After all, it could well be that 30% of the people holding stocks in the company don't agree with their political views.
I make my own political donations with my own money - what's wrong with that?
Like an earlier poster said, anyone who doesn't own rights to a movie but works on it is just an employee.
I guess I agree to an extent, but it seems sad that culture is treated just as a product. I wouldn't really like it, if distributing edited movies would be prohibited, but on the other hand - cutting out pieces of movies, drawing on classic paintings, faking literary works - those are barbaric things to do.
Even if I were to buy a Rembrandt with my own money, if I paint it white I'm destroying something which was part of mankinds cultural heritage. Is money the only measure of value?
Does it really matter that much, that I have the
right to do it?
Ok the comparison is a bit off, the original movie can still be seen, but do you really want to teach your kids that this approach to culture is ok?
As was pointed out in the article, Microsoft doesn't respect free trade or market forces.
Besides that: this is not a restriction on trade at all. Peru is *not* closing their market to Microsoft products, any Peruvian company can continue buying them if they want. What Peru is doing, is making a purchasing decision for their government's IT structure. That's the whole point of a market, the buyer decides what he wants to buy, and in this case the buyer is the government of Peru.
Hmmmm hang on, the Peruvian parliament has every right to decide what IT strategy the Peruvian government should follow. They are not really forcing anyone, they are telling the organisation
they are supposed to control, what to do, just like they approve the budget and lots of other things.
You could follow a strategy to leave software decisions to your sysadmins, but if you want to implement a common IT infrastructure you need to
make a decision for it at the top. Which in this case means the parliament.
If they want to change their strategy later on they can just modify the law.
But if the U.S.A goverment starts threatening other goverments about the use of Microsoft products, it will be a completely different thing, and, in my mind, self defeating.
Well, in fairness, lobbying is not necessarily threatening. It seems that the ambassadors letter has been perceived, or at least called (almost) threatening. Of course with a country as powerful as the US even a "We really think you should do this" can be felt to be a threat, even if that was not intended. Also the US does have an unfortunate record of bullying other governments, so it's not surprising that they might be perceived as acting agressively, even if they do not.
Still the US ambassador has the right to lobby for US industries, just as the Peruvian government must have the right to dismiss his suggestions. Which hopefully they'll do.
There are probably a lot of H1Bs which are mainly intended to be the first step to imigration, but that's not always the case.
A few years back I was working in the US, but I never had the plan to stay there forever, I just wanted to work abroad for a while. (Just as I worked in the UK and Ireland for a while, too.)
One of the nice things about my job, was that I could get companies to pay for my tour around the world. (Well, almost...)
Part of the reason why H1Bs can be used to reduce wages is that they bind you so strongly to the company. (I have to add though, that
my company didn't do that.) If you'd have 3-6 months after losing a job, to find another one, then the pressure would be off.
Currently I think the deal is, that you have to leave the country within 2 weeks. This puts you in a rather tight spot, selling your car, buying an airline ticket, organizing to move your belongings... Even if you didn't necessarily want to stay in the US for your next job, this would be a nightmare.
Well, it's the old garbage in/garbage out thingy.
If your interview process focusses on riddles you'll end up hiring people who are good at riddles.
Alternatively you could focuss the interview on e.g. software development.
I imagine in that case you can't just pick up a book and look up the answers however - you need to actually thoroughly understand the topic, to evaluate the candidate.
I have no problem with your suggestiond, but would like to comment on two minor points:
Bay Networks owns the patent, and as such, it is their responsibility to enforce it.
Assuming that's what you meant, and AFAIK: The
"enforce or lose it" rule is only for trademarks.
So Bay could just ignore the project as long as
they want, and still demand fees from other
(commercial) projects.
the United States patent system. Sure, it's better than anything else in the world
That one surprised me, why would you think that?
It seems that regarding the basic setup the US patent system is virtually indistinguishable from
any European one.
Well, if you sit down and hug your knees, you
might fit in. You'd feel a bit like inside a cannon ball, I guess. Anyway, that's just a prototype, they'd probably make a bigger one, once they got the system working.
a 3 for 3 failure rate doesn't instill confidence.
That's true, but such a rate is not unusal for new technologies in the field of space exploration.
There seems to be an awful lot of inflatable women posts tonight
Like what? The article contains no useful information whatsoever. The article is probably a prank (or the result of a prank) or written by someone without any technical background.
Take this for example: feathers are strong but light, mainly due to their high air content.
Feather are strong because of their air content?
I find it very hard to believe that someone would have as little grasp on static as this.
This sort of nonsense is all over the article.
It better be a joke.
If a person sues a mail order company, where is the case going to be held?
This is much easier than on the internet. The mail order company is incorporated somewhere - that's their location. What if the company operates in Denmark, but the server is in the US, and the domain name is Greek?
What if a website is hosted in the Netherlands, and the content is illegal in the US? (Certain types of pornography for example.) Does it matter if the site owner is American? Does the language of the web site matter?
From what I've been hearing in the news, the courts do have problems with these issues, and they have come to rather contradictory results.
I'm not sure whether new laws are necessary, but there are certainly new problems.
At work will your company restrict you to "safe" sites
That's a danger, but I think with a domain like.kids.us, that's actually a diminished danger. Technical websites will not go to the trouble to get an additional kids domain, because they have no 13 year-old audience. There'd probably be additional costs, fullfilling the requirements.
I run a (fairly successful) site for my field, and I know I wouldn't bother.
So, I think this won't enable companies to allow "kids.us"-only access. If they could restrict access like this, then they don't need web access in the first place.
On the other hand it will take away the main
argument for the censorship effort. Once this is established, the argument that "we need to protect the kids", can no longer be used. You can now point to this domain, and say "here is the kids area".
Certainly, there'll still be other angles, like the "obscenity" argument, but those are a lot less powerful in the public opinion.
Also this might help to erode the market for filtering-software, since that filtering would be now very easy. A very good thing really. Developing content filters is a threat to freedom all over the world.
I think what would be dangerous, and potentially lead to the scenario which you are worried about, is something like the.xxx domain. Because this concept would declare all of the web as the "clean" zone, with the exception of the xxx area.
Well I think this kids.us domain is a great idea. I doesn't interfere with adults communicating in any manner they chose, and that's a good thing.
If some people want (for themselves or for their children) to have only access to "clean" stuff, well they now have the opportunity for that.
There is a special little corner set aside for
them, and that ought to stop the complaints. "Keep the children save" - alright do that, just make sure your kids can only access kids.us.
So I think this could have the effect of shielding the rest of the net from censorship.
I have to say I'm especially impressed that they propose it in the form ".kids.us" rather than ".kids". Different countries have different social standards, and this is a good way of handling that.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't understand where this attitude to SuSE comes from. That they don't contribute to Linux is simply not true. If you want to argue that they don't contribute enough, you can - but I think if you look at their performance you'll see that they'll do a lot for the community. Xfree, reiserfs and lots of translation efforts come to mind.
To call them free riders is mean spirited, whether you like their proprietary management tool or not.
However:
Look what the lack of standard versioning scheme throughout the open source community is forcing SuSE to do [...] A commercial OS would have enforce such a standard on all its engineering teams
What is she smoking exactly? There is no Windows standard for version systems. Every app comes with it's own scheme. There is not even a scheme for Windows itself: Win98, Win2k, WinMillenium, WinNT4, Win3.1, WinXP. Ask a newbie to put those in order. Their apps version system is similar "clear".
I'm not familiar with apt, it could well be great, but I think that feature has been part of YAST for a long time, too.
Maybe what's needed is some sort of incentive system, in which the pay of a reviewer will (among other factors) depend on the number of frivolous patents which he let through.
Alternatively the company filing a patent should have to pay penalties if it can later be shown that no sufficient research for prior art was made. After all, that's already their obligation.
As it is, a system of checks and balances is missing in this process.
I agree with that, but I'd leave of the smilie... IIRC the US has over half the worlds lawyers. That's a ridiculous amount, and a clear indication that something is wrong. Most countries have laws which make the losing party pay the winner's court costs. While this in a very few cases stops suits which have merit (because of the risks) - it greatly reduces the number of frivolous suits.
This company might think twice about suing someone over a patent violation, if the result of that suit could be that they have to pay the defendands costs.
Normally I would be, but what's the point in this case? They are patenting other peoples ideas in order to steal money from honest people - they are nothing but a bunch of crooks.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I really can't imagine you could reach them, or argue with them. If they had any shred of decency they wouldn't go around stealing anyways. *shrug*
OSS would only mean that the customer - i.e. the government gets access to the source code. So while that may not be of much use, admittedly - it also doesn't mean that everybody can see the source, if the state doesn't want them to.
What I'm trying to say is: these sort of issues could probably be worked around, and the state would still have the chance to profit from OSS for other applications.
Inhouse developed software is already OSS, if the government wants it to be so, right?
As for the proprietary software - well they don't necessarily have to use OSS replacements. They can just tell the vendors "sorry guys we are no longer allowed to buy upgrades from you unless you open the source". What is the vendor going to do? He can't even negotiate anymore, his partner has no leeway. For a lot of vendors it might mean they have no choice but to go OSS, since they only have government customers.
A bit sneaky, I admit, but it may work.
Hmmm - really? I don't think it actually says that. It gives you that right, and you use it as you see fit.
Living in the district I am compelled to restate the obvious: Politicans move because of two things and two things only.
1) Because it will help them stay in office,
2) Because of money.
I agree with you, but this is were a demonstration like such a march can be useful - it shows that there are numbers of people who care about this issue. Can you imagine a politician looking at this group, licking his lips and thinking "I don't care either way, but I want these votes"? He needs point 1) there...
I agree that money is important, but as long as you have the right to vote, you have another lever to approach the issue - politicians need votes. Show that you are prepared to vote and politicians are forced to listen - they have no alternative in the long run.
The solution (if you refuse to finance and offer incentives for mass transit) is better roads.
Maybe, but that assumes that you have no problem to finance better roads.
If we'd just yank the license of anyone with a 3" tailpipe on a Civic and blondes with BMWs, I'd shave 2 hours off my commute time every week.
Uhm... I guess we could achieve the same with any other group we don't like. Maybe yank the license from all blacks. Or from everybody who is under 27?
Huh what? This was a damn referendum, it was voted for by the people. How about taking responsibility for your own actions? How about accepting a majority vote?
I can't agree with that: corporations are set up to make money, they don't represent their owners or their workers. At the best corporations represent the political interest of their majority owners, a very small number of people. Giving them influence way above the rights of ordinary people, disenfranchises the vast majority people.
I don't see why it should be necessary either.
If any of the owners of these companies want to donate to political parties they can do it with their own money. After all, it could well be that 30% of the people holding stocks in the company don't agree with their political views.
I make my own political donations with my own money - what's wrong with that?
I guess I agree to an extent, but it seems sad that culture is treated just as a product. I wouldn't really like it, if distributing edited movies would be prohibited, but on the other hand - cutting out pieces of movies, drawing on classic paintings, faking literary works - those are barbaric things to do.
Even if I were to buy a Rembrandt with my own money, if I paint it white I'm destroying something which was part of mankinds cultural heritage. Is money the only measure of value? Does it really matter that much, that I have the right to do it?
Ok the comparison is a bit off, the original movie can still be seen, but do you really want to teach your kids that this approach to culture is ok?
Besides that: this is not a restriction on trade at all. Peru is *not* closing their market to Microsoft products, any Peruvian company can continue buying them if they want. What Peru is doing, is making a purchasing decision for their government's IT structure. That's the whole point of a market, the buyer decides what he wants to buy, and in this case the buyer is the government of Peru.
You could follow a strategy to leave software decisions to your sysadmins, but if you want to implement a common IT infrastructure you need to make a decision for it at the top. Which in this case means the parliament.
If they want to change their strategy later on they can just modify the law.
Well, in fairness, lobbying is not necessarily threatening. It seems that the ambassadors letter has been perceived, or at least called (almost) threatening. Of course with a country as powerful as the US even a "We really think you should do this" can be felt to be a threat, even if that was not intended. Also the US does have an unfortunate record of bullying other governments, so it's not surprising that they might be perceived as acting agressively, even if they do not.
Still the US ambassador has the right to lobby for US industries, just as the Peruvian government must have the right to dismiss his suggestions. Which hopefully they'll do.
A few years back I was working in the US, but I never had the plan to stay there forever, I just wanted to work abroad for a while. (Just as I worked in the UK and Ireland for a while, too.) One of the nice things about my job, was that I could get companies to pay for my tour around the world. (Well, almost...)
Part of the reason why H1Bs can be used to reduce wages is that they bind you so strongly to the company. (I have to add though, that my company didn't do that.) If you'd have 3-6 months after losing a job, to find another one, then the pressure would be off.
Currently I think the deal is, that you have to leave the country within 2 weeks. This puts you in a rather tight spot, selling your car, buying an airline ticket, organizing to move your belongings... Even if you didn't necessarily want to stay in the US for your next job, this would be a nightmare.
Alternatively you could focuss the interview on e.g. software development.
I imagine in that case you can't just pick up a book and look up the answers however - you need to actually thoroughly understand the topic, to evaluate the candidate.
Bay Networks owns the patent, and as such, it is their responsibility to enforce it.
Assuming that's what you meant, and AFAIK: The "enforce or lose it" rule is only for trademarks. So Bay could just ignore the project as long as they want, and still demand fees from other (commercial) projects.
the United States patent system. Sure, it's better than anything else in the world
That one surprised me, why would you think that? It seems that regarding the basic setup the US patent system is virtually indistinguishable from any European one.
Well, if you sit down and hug your knees, you might fit in. You'd feel a bit like inside a cannon ball, I guess. Anyway, that's just a prototype, they'd probably make a bigger one, once they got the system working.
a 3 for 3 failure rate doesn't instill confidence.
That's true, but such a rate is not unusal for new technologies in the field of space exploration.
There seems to be an awful lot of inflatable women posts tonight
Yeah, now that you mention it... :)
Like what? The article contains no useful information whatsoever. The article is probably a prank (or the result of a prank) or written by someone without any technical background.
Take this for example: feathers are strong but light, mainly due to their high air content.
Feather are strong because of their air content? I find it very hard to believe that someone would have as little grasp on static as this. This sort of nonsense is all over the article. It better be a joke.
This is much easier than on the internet. The mail order company is incorporated somewhere - that's their location. What if the company operates in Denmark, but the server is in the US, and the domain name is Greek?
What if a website is hosted in the Netherlands, and the content is illegal in the US? (Certain types of pornography for example.) Does it matter if the site owner is American? Does the language of the web site matter?
From what I've been hearing in the news, the courts do have problems with these issues, and they have come to rather contradictory results.
I'm not sure whether new laws are necessary, but there are certainly new problems.
"would you claim you'd push the button so that we'll give you the job?"
On the other hand they also implicitly asked: "would you work for complete slimeballs?" :-)
That's a danger, but I think with a domain like .kids.us, that's actually a diminished danger. Technical websites will not go to the trouble to get an additional kids domain, because they have no 13 year-old audience. There'd probably be additional costs, fullfilling the requirements.
I run a (fairly successful) site for my field, and I know I wouldn't bother.
So, I think this won't enable companies to allow "kids.us"-only access. If they could restrict access like this, then they don't need web access in the first place.
On the other hand it will take away the main argument for the censorship effort. Once this is established, the argument that "we need to protect the kids", can no longer be used. You can now point to this domain, and say "here is the kids area".
Certainly, there'll still be other angles, like the "obscenity" argument, but those are a lot less powerful in the public opinion.
Also this might help to erode the market for filtering-software, since that filtering would be now very easy. A very good thing really. Developing content filters is a threat to freedom all over the world.
I think what would be dangerous, and potentially lead to the scenario which you are worried about, is something like the .xxx domain. Because this concept would declare all of the web as the "clean" zone, with the exception of the xxx area.
If some people want (for themselves or for their children) to have only access to "clean" stuff, well they now have the opportunity for that. There is a special little corner set aside for them, and that ought to stop the complaints. "Keep the children save" - alright do that, just make sure your kids can only access kids.us.
So I think this could have the effect of shielding the rest of the net from censorship.
I have to say I'm especially impressed that they propose it in the form ".kids.us" rather than ".kids". Different countries have different social standards, and this is a good way of handling that.
The wiretapping is another matter, though.