If you sign a form saying you won't give away secrets, and then you do and get caught, why would the company feel bad for you? If you think it's so wrong to not be allowed to give away company secrets, you simply shouldn't have signed the form to begin with. This leak itself may not have caused Apple tons of harm, but if all their surprises got leaked, it WOULD harm them financially. Less surprises = less press. Less press = less sales.
Besides, this guy did not just mention the cube to his brother in law or something. He posted pictures of it to a website and then alerted the rumor sites to it! He went way out of his way to be sneaky about this, and if he gets sued it is 100% his own fault.
i love this, even though the article plainly states that CNET are the ones not publishing the employee's name, the slashdot wrapup doesn't say that and everyone jumps on Apple.
Read the article before trying to get your posts in guys, it won't slow you down too much on your quest to be the first one to bash whatever corporation is involved no matter what the story is.
oh i'm not arguing whether it's possible to copyright something like that, i'm saying that this case has NOTHING to do with copyright whatsoever, and to bring it up totally confuses the entire issue.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I can't believe the amount of hyperbole in this post. If you were just to read comments like this on slashdot you'd think programmers were treated like second class citizens and persecuted by the government constantly.
"man, those poor programmers, they make more money than anyone and get huge job perks, but apparently the government is right on the cusp of outlawing them! it must be true, i read it oni slashdot.org!". Simmer down buddy, the government doesn't care about you.
Wrong. Absolutely wrong. Unless CDDB are threatening to sue anyone for making a similar database, this has nothing to do with copyright whatsoever. They just want to be paid to let mediajukebox use their service. I am saying this is right or wrong, but this has NOTHING to do with copyright.
I guess anytime anyone does anything that could involve IP in any way whatsoever, Slashdot readers have been conditioned to start crying, shouting "this is evil!" and threaten to start 5 sourceforge projects copying whatever product they are currently angry at, so don't feel bad, it's not your fault for getting this wrong.
The one thing noted in the wired article about this was that the plaintiff still has recourse because a fraudulent act was committed, so he WILL get some money eventually. It sounds like his lawyers were just arguing it in the wrong way to begin.
The fact this has taken 5 years is ridiculous though, and if it was Microsoft it definitely would have all been over and done with by now. For proof, look at how NetSol did an emergency update of the root nameservers last year when AOL.com's name was hijacked. They would definitely never do that for any company smaller than MS or AOL. But then when there is provable fraud going on, they just drag their heels and let the court take care of it? sick.
Excellent post! I have been thinking this over lately, the glass ceiling on open source development.
Before OSS was the huge movement it is today, almost everyone involved was very smart and very productive. Nowadays the signal-to-noise ratio in the community is pretty bad. There are still great projects being created, but for everything that has the potential to be the next apache there are 20 badly written icq clones. The amount of new smart people coming into the ocmmunity is not rising in proportion with the amount of attention and hype OSS has gotten.
So I agree completely with these points as being very plausible ways for the OSS movement to change completely in the next little while. After all this study seems to think OSS isn't going to change at all, just Microsoft. Hmm.
Those Forrester people must have really done their research. Well other than the fact that Dell has nothing to do with software. But other than that!
Come on people, let's be critical for once here when something goes our way.. does this realyl sound like sound research? They go on about "beware geeks with guns", etc? That sounds like they just want press, like most of these researchers do. The fact they mention Dell makes no sense whatsoever and just shows what a lousy "study" this probably was.
exactly. declan is a fucking ass, everyone knows it (see previous slashdot discussions about almost anything he's covered). he might have some good opinions now and then, but that doesn't chnage the fact he is an asshole.
I wasn't saying it was. The guy asked in his post if Piranha was, and said he thought it was. I corrected him. Does everything have to be an us-vs-them thing around here? Can I not state one fucking fact without someone making it into an argument.
Nope, Piranha was definitely not installed by default on redhat servers. It's something you have to go out of your way to set up, like SQL server is apparently.
Hmm, maybe in 5 years this shitty, breaks-all-the-time powerbook they sold me last year will be worth something! God knows it's a piece of crap right now.
Another Apple innovation: computers that GAIN value over time.
"Technology Prostitute: A technology prostitute is a software coder who will program anything for money. Programming language, operating system or morality of the company who wants the coded project are of minor importance compared to the paycheck."
I'm sorry, but come on. The way that is worded is so silly.. "You don't care what operating system you program for???".. I thought it was called being a versatile programmer, not a whore. It's only being a prostitue if you maintain a really sad, religious devotion to your OS of choice.
And noone tell me "it was a joke", becuase if you read the article, it isn't. That thing isn't funny at all. This guy is the definition of an overzealous open source nut.
Could everyone please do a search for postgres or mysql and read the previous stories before repeating the SAMOE points that have been beaten to death about 1000 times here? Like:
- But mysql is faster!
- who cares, mysql doesn't do transactions
- who cares, most web apps don't need transactions
- well i hope you don't expect to do anything important without transactions!
etc etc etc etc
At least MySql is GPL now so noone can go off on THAT. But seriously, I find this story interesting, but geezus, let's get another section for these types of story. like a Database section, or maybe Flamebait section.
I think the good news is that let's face it, no matter how legal this might be, it's more or less a bad thing in a lot of our eyes right? Well don't despair, as soon as this gets out in public, Contentville is going to be SLAMMED and it's not going to make any money.
I mean really, if you annoy EVERY SINGLE PERSON who has ever written a thesis with your website, do you really think those people, a ton of whom ARE YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE, are going to shop with you?
I get the feeling the market is going to decide Contentville's fate long before the court system are done with them.
I am writing in response to most of the comments about this issue whenever it comes up. You're right though, the writers are just as retarded as the readers, good point, thanks!
yeah, but see, i guess i wasn't clear enough: 1000 people HAVE had this problem. there have been THOUSANDS of exercises in computer program UI design in the past years, and noone came up with this until Adobe did. If anyone had and it had become ubiqituous, then okay, but i think the fact it took so long proves it was original.
Everyone always objects to these suits saying "well tabbed widgets were OBVIOUS! well one-click shopping was OBVIOUS, etc etc etc". If it was obvious, why did it take so long for anyone to come up with it?
If anyone really thinks Macromedia would have thought up tabbed widgets without noticing Adobe doing them, then maybe you have an argument, but it is quite obvious that they wouldn't have, they have spent years not doing anything innovative. If Adobe was the first one to do this and got a patent, good. If it was obvious and Adobe should never have gotten a patent, then I guess there will be tons of prior art to win the case for Macromedia, right? Oh no, there won't be. Cause this is a genuine innovation.
Slashdot readers: Stop confusing "obvious" with "elegant" or "simple". Just because something isn't crazy intricate does NOT mean it is not innovative and original.
Slashdot Mirror
Besides, this guy did not just mention the cube to his brother in law or something. He posted pictures of it to a website and then alerted the rumor sites to it! He went way out of his way to be sneaky about this, and if he gets sued it is 100% his own fault.
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Read the article before trying to get your posts in guys, it won't slow you down too much on your quest to be the first one to bash whatever corporation is involved no matter what the story is.
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"man, those poor programmers, they make more money than anyone and get huge job perks, but apparently the government is right on the cusp of outlawing them! it must be true, i read it oni slashdot.org!". Simmer down buddy, the government doesn't care about you.
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I guess anytime anyone does anything that could involve IP in any way whatsoever, Slashdot readers have been conditioned to start crying, shouting "this is evil!" and threaten to start 5 sourceforge projects copying whatever product they are currently angry at, so don't feel bad, it's not your fault for getting this wrong.
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The fact this has taken 5 years is ridiculous though, and if it was Microsoft it definitely would have all been over and done with by now. For proof, look at how NetSol did an emergency update of the root nameservers last year when AOL.com's name was hijacked. They would definitely never do that for any company smaller than MS or AOL. But then when there is provable fraud going on, they just drag their heels and let the court take care of it? sick.
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Before OSS was the huge movement it is today, almost everyone involved was very smart and very productive. Nowadays the signal-to-noise ratio in the community is pretty bad. There are still great projects being created, but for everything that has the potential to be the next apache there are 20 badly written icq clones. The amount of new smart people coming into the ocmmunity is not rising in proportion with the amount of attention and hype OSS has gotten.
So I agree completely with these points as being very plausible ways for the OSS movement to change completely in the next little while. After all this study seems to think OSS isn't going to change at all, just Microsoft. Hmm.
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Come on people, let's be critical for once here when something goes our way.. does this realyl sound like sound research? They go on about "beware geeks with guns", etc? That sounds like they just want press, like most of these researchers do. The fact they mention Dell makes no sense whatsoever and just shows what a lousy "study" this probably was.
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Another Apple innovation: computers that GAIN value over time.
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I'm sorry, but come on. The way that is worded is so silly.. "You don't care what operating system you program for???".. I thought it was called being a versatile programmer, not a whore. It's only being a prostitue if you maintain a really sad, religious devotion to your OS of choice.
And noone tell me "it was a joke", becuase if you read the article, it isn't. That thing isn't funny at all. This guy is the definition of an overzealous open source nut.
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Well and then there would be the loud obnoxious ones who think they're totally clever and postmodern for being trolls.
Seriously though, can you imagine a more pathetic gathering than a troll convention? (QuakeCon doesn't count)
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- But mysql is faster! - who cares, mysql doesn't do transactions
- who cares, most web apps don't need transactions
- well i hope you don't expect to do anything important without transactions!
etc etc etc etc
At least MySql is GPL now so noone can go off on THAT. But seriously, I find this story interesting, but geezus, let's get another section for these types of story. like a Database section, or maybe Flamebait section.
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I mean really, if you annoy EVERY SINGLE PERSON who has ever written a thesis with your website, do you really think those people, a ton of whom ARE YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE, are going to shop with you?
I get the feeling the market is going to decide Contentville's fate long before the court system are done with them.
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Your prize is a "imagine a beowulf cluster of street performer protocols!" shirt.
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If anyone really thinks Macromedia would have thought up tabbed widgets without noticing Adobe doing them, then maybe you have an argument, but it is quite obvious that they wouldn't have, they have spent years not doing anything innovative. If Adobe was the first one to do this and got a patent, good. If it was obvious and Adobe should never have gotten a patent, then I guess there will be tons of prior art to win the case for Macromedia, right? Oh no, there won't be. Cause this is a genuine innovation.
Slashdot readers: Stop confusing "obvious" with "elegant" or "simple". Just because something isn't crazy intricate does NOT mean it is not innovative and original.
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