You have a point about circumventing EULAs to reverse engineer protocols. Thank heaven the DMCA was created to plug that nasty loop-hole!
And it is a win-win. We win because now we can all rest easier knowing that big existing companies have less pressure to waste money on technical innovation. And companies also win because we taxpayers pay for DMCA enforcement through our federal tax dollars! (Or did I get the win-win backward, they win the first, we win on the second? Ahhh, forget it.)
The last paragraph of the news story ends like this: In the hour-and-a-half session, Gosling answered many questions on a range of topics, including Eclipse and other Java IDEs (integrated development environments), DVD technology, security in Microsoft's.Net platform, the future of embedded software and more.
Only problem is the author thinks that's all we care to know about that. Sorta like writing "yadayadayada".
No need to actually report what his answers were. (Guess only an extreme geek like myself cares to hear what he said about these obscure technical topics.)
An old man was fired from his janitorial government job of 30 years when a new hotshot manager discovered he could not read or write.
Walking home through the city after his last day, he really wanted a smoke, but could not find a place selling cigarettes. So, he took what little money he had and opened a small cigarette stand on that street.
People bought cigarettes from him. He opened another one. And he opened another one. Finally, he had too much money to keep under his mattress and went to the bank.
The banker was impressed at all the money he had earned considering he was not literate. The banker says to the old man "imagine where you could have been if you knew how to read and write." The old man replied, "I don't have to imagine, I would have still been a janitor."
The mechanism by which voice can be carried on wires was discovered. Bell and Watson were trying out various combinations of microphone materials and electricity until they discovered the right combination.
It seems reasonable that even the most complex creations of man are nothing more, and nothing less, than the intelligent assemblage of various smaller discoveries. The end result is the discovery that putting them together in a certain fashion does something useful.
Done at work during work hours is something entirely different.
I've seen contracts that make no distinction where or when the work was done. Some contracts extend for years beyond the actual employment. (I've seen figures of 2 years and 5 years in topic areas.)
There are some people in some places where working in their kitchen would not make a product their own. "All your bases are belong to us" kind of stuff.
This is not just about projects that your employer asks you to work on. There are some good arguments on the side of the employer for that.
This is also not just about projects where you use your employer's resources and time doing something for your benefit. That is wrong for many obvious reasons.
The morality line is crossed here in the USA because contracts are written, and as near as I can tell, signed without much blinking which entitle the company to anything the employee produces. How would today be different if such a practice had always been common:
1. Mr. Eastman was a bank employee tinkering with photographic chemistry in his kitchen at night. OLD WORLD: Owns the product, creates a new business for himself. Very rich. NEW WORLD: Mr. Eastman gets nice company lunch and makes the bank very happy. Maybe makes manager if he is good at bank things too.
2. Other examples, including people I know directly. Built ideas, turned them into products, created companies. Kept food on the table while working somewhere else first.
3. Most people are not lucky enough not to work for someone else when they are young and getting started.
Every employeer I've worked for since 1995 has asked me to sign paperwork that effectively claims anything I think up as their own. Under such conditions where is really no such thing as "your own project." (Not moral and only arguably legal. People do need to work to eat, etc.)
The irony is that instead of protecting their business investments that kind of garbage just shuts the smart people in tech departments down. The smart folks know they should bite their lip sometimes rather than share all their creative energy.
Now if Google does not make sure claims on what their employees think up and work up, then bravo! Let them set an example that bean counters elsewhere might discover.
Instead of reacting with contempt here in the West, we should embrace this idea. For example, how else will we preserve break-dancing from the 80's? Also, line dancing from the 90's. Frankly, I don't want to see human beings doing that stuff anymore!
I've been placing family home movies onto our networked drives. Even with compression, our new 160GB drive is already full, and I am not done archiving home movies. Bigger drives would be great to have.
Why do this?
Because now the family and I can view these movies with minimal effort at any time. Even the kids know how to click through the folders to find what they want. We hardly ever bothered to sift through tapes. It was too much trouble to find the tape, and then too boring/much work to FF and RW.
And the tapes?
The tapes are safely tucked away in a fireproof box. They are available as backups. That is what tapes are good for.
PC business-application vendors were going to great lengths to "copy protect" their media back in the 80's. By the end of the 80's it was rare to find any doing it, for pretty much the same reasons Sony is going back to friendly CDs. No one has a credible measure of what if anything copy protection saves a company.
But it is easy to measure the customer dis-satisfaction and increased product returns and increased technical support costs.
The sad thing is that I see a pattern, and plenty of other people do too. Basic human freedom of expression is being strong-armed away from everyone. A little here, a little there. An entire Olymics. Etc.
Unless the counterbalance can adjust position without power, an engine seize at high speed will result in the following series of events:
1. Wheel locks up. (Conservation of momentum requires that the vehicle continue moving forward.) 2. Because of the seize event, the frame now spins with the wheel. 3. Look who is spinning with the frame, that flat guy. See him, no look now, see him? No look again, there he is, wait, he will spin back around, see him now?
Steamrolling is what will happen to the driver if the engine seizes while running at top speed. 1100 pounds hasta hurt when you are supporting it via a face kickstand.
Part of the beauty of an XML document, is that you do not have to code a parser at all. You only have to choose one of the many free or commercial parsers already available. This is not a minor benefit.
Ohh, and the parsers are content agnostic. Music, accounting data, children's stories, whatever. Same parsers.
...[patent porfolio] defensive measure, so that others don't hammer...
Yes, defend against other companies getting too successful in an area that IBM wants to own.
Let's be clear, patents are a weapon that can and are used to preserve and increase corporate profits.
Of course, IBM would be foolish to use them in a way that clearly costs them more than they would get. (e.g., Striking down open source --- in an open way.)
The validity of a patent is predicated on many things, not least of which is the assumption that intellection monopoly rights are ethical.
Of course, suggesting people and companies should be free to think, discuss, and produce products and services without risking extortion is pure crazy.
Slashdot Mirror
You have a point about circumventing EULAs to reverse engineer protocols. Thank heaven the DMCA was created to plug that nasty loop-hole!
And it is a win-win. We win because now we can all rest easier knowing that big existing companies have less pressure to waste money on technical innovation. And companies also win because we taxpayers pay for DMCA enforcement through our federal tax dollars! (Or did I get the win-win backward, they win the first, we win on the second? Ahhh, forget it.)
The last paragraph of the news story ends like this: In the hour-and-a-half session, Gosling answered many questions on a range of topics, including Eclipse and other Java IDEs (integrated development environments), DVD technology, security in Microsoft's .Net platform, the future of embedded software and more.
Only problem is the author thinks that's all we care to know about that. Sorta like writing "yadayadayada".
No need to actually report what his answers were. (Guess only an extreme geek like myself cares to hear what he said about these obscure technical topics.)
An old man was fired from his janitorial government job of 30 years when a new hotshot manager discovered he could not read or write.
Walking home through the city after his last day, he really wanted a smoke, but could not find a place selling cigarettes. So, he took what little money he had and opened a small cigarette stand on that street.
People bought cigarettes from him. He opened another one. And he opened another one. Finally, he had too much money to keep under his mattress and went to the bank.
The banker was impressed at all the money he had earned considering he was not literate. The banker says to the old man "imagine where you could have been if you knew how to read and write." The old man replied, "I don't have to imagine, I would have still been a janitor."
Or create a spin-off ST show with Howard Dean as the captain. He could thread his trademark yelping into the series as a regular feature.
In one of the episodes the Dean Enterprise will find itself displaced into a galaxy where Kerry is not scary.
Amen.
a il /story/0,10801,57382,00.html
http://www.computerworld.com/industrytopics/ret
Get a respected aol account for your political communications. And focus on work at work.
The mechanism by which voice can be carried on wires was discovered. Bell and Watson were trying out various combinations of microphone materials and electricity until they discovered the right combination.
It seems reasonable that even the most complex creations of man are nothing more, and nothing less, than the intelligent assemblage of various smaller discoveries. The end result is the discovery that putting them together in a certain fashion does something useful.
And America was discovered.
The difference between invention and discovery is an arrogant illusion.
Done at work during work hours is something entirely different.
I've seen contracts that make no distinction where or when the work was done. Some contracts extend for years beyond the actual employment. (I've seen figures of 2 years and 5 years in topic areas.)
There are some people in some places where working in their kitchen would not make a product their own. "All your bases are belong to us" kind of stuff.
That is not moral.
Yes, not moral.
This is not just about projects that your employer asks you to work on. There are some good arguments on the side of the employer for that.
This is also not just about projects where you use your employer's resources and time doing something for your benefit. That is wrong for many obvious reasons.
The morality line is crossed here in the USA because contracts are written, and as near as I can tell, signed without much blinking which entitle the company to anything the employee produces. How would today be different if such a practice had always been common:
1. Mr. Eastman was a bank employee tinkering with photographic chemistry in his kitchen at night. OLD WORLD: Owns the product, creates a new business for himself. Very rich.
NEW WORLD: Mr. Eastman gets nice company lunch and makes the bank very happy. Maybe makes manager if he is good at bank things too.
2. Other examples, including people I know directly. Built ideas, turned them into products, created companies. Kept food on the table while working somewhere else first.
3. Most people are not lucky enough not to work for someone else when they are young and getting started.
4. Too tired to blather more about this.
5. yada yada
6. etc.
Ohh and Bill Gates? Had money to start with.
Every employeer I've worked for since 1995 has asked me to sign paperwork that effectively claims anything I think up as their own. Under such conditions where is really no such thing as "your own project." (Not moral and only arguably legal. People do need to work to eat, etc.)
The irony is that instead of protecting their business investments that kind of garbage just shuts the smart people in tech departments down. The smart folks know they should bite their lip sometimes rather than share all their creative energy.
Now if Google does not make sure claims on what their employees think up and work up, then bravo! Let them set an example that bean counters elsewhere might discover.
Instead of feeling revulsion, folks in the West should consider embracing this new use of technology.
For instance, how else will break-dancing of the 80's and line-dancing of the 90's be preserved? Also the macarena.
Think of the children! you don't want them doing that stuff do you? Let the robots do that nasty stuff.
Instead of reacting with contempt here in the West, we should embrace this idea. For example, how else will we preserve break-dancing from the 80's? Also, line dancing from the 90's. Frankly, I don't want to see human beings doing that stuff anymore!
Line dancing. Now that is sick.
I've been placing family home movies onto our networked drives. Even with compression, our new 160GB drive is already full, and I am not done archiving home movies. Bigger drives would be great to have.
Why do this?
Because now the family and I can view these movies with minimal effort at any time. Even the kids know how to click through the folders to find what they want. We hardly ever bothered to sift through tapes. It was too much trouble to find the tape, and then too boring/much work to FF and RW.
And the tapes?
The tapes are safely tucked away in a fireproof box. They are available as backups. That is what tapes are good for.
PC business-application vendors were going to great lengths to "copy protect" their media back in the 80's. By the end of the 80's it was rare to find any doing it, for pretty much the same reasons Sony is going back to friendly CDs. No one has a credible measure of what if anything copy protection saves a company.
But it is easy to measure the customer dis-satisfaction and increased product returns and increased technical support costs.
204GB of music. Wonder if the RIAA reads slashdot.
Perhaps the demon appearing in all three of your points is the legal invention of intellectual property rights.
Have we unnecessarily invented a new kind of property for the profit of the few at the expense of the many? This demon is not getting smaller.
Tsk Tsk.
That's about all I find myself doing too.
The sad thing is that I see a pattern, and plenty of other people do too. Basic human freedom of expression is being strong-armed away from everyone. A little here, a little there. An entire Olymics. Etc.
Unless the counterbalance can adjust position without power, an engine seize at high speed will result in the following series of events:
1. Wheel locks up. (Conservation of momentum requires that the vehicle continue moving forward.)
2. Because of the seize event, the frame now spins with the wheel.
3. Look who is spinning with the frame, that flat guy. See him, no look now, see him? No look again, there he is, wait, he will spin back around, see him now?
Steamrolling is what will happen to the driver if the engine seizes while running at top speed. 1100 pounds hasta hurt when you are supporting it via a face kickstand.
You might have a point, if reading the raw data as a text dump is important to you.
Part of the beauty of an XML document, is that you do not have to code a parser at all. You only have to choose one of the many free or commercial parsers already available. This is not a minor benefit.
Ohh, and the parsers are content agnostic. Music, accounting data, children's stories, whatever. Same parsers.
...[patent porfolio] defensive measure, so that others don't hammer...
Yes, defend against other companies getting too successful in an area that IBM wants to own.
Let's be clear, patents are a weapon that can and are used to preserve and increase corporate profits.
Of course, IBM would be foolish to use them in a way that clearly costs them more than they would get. (e.g., Striking down open source --- in an open way.)
The validity of a patent is predicated on many things, not least of which is the assumption that intellection monopoly rights are ethical.
Of course, suggesting people and companies should be free to think, discuss, and produce products and services without risking extortion is pure crazy.
When you hear patent think "dibs".
Go and read Animal Farm and construct a good alternative before you go starting a revolution
Not sure why you think Animal Farm is very relevant to the keeping or discarding of IP cartels.
Are you suggesting somehow that the patent system is fundamental to democracy? I hope you are not that confused.