willfully-misdirected rebuttal to my explanation, so you are intentionally lying.
For someone who claims the high road and a position of reason, you certainly are prone to hyperbolous, inflammatory, and, I might add, highly impolite remarks.
A corporation cannot, as a matter of reduction to practice, incorporate a (full) GPL product in a release of its own software, because doing so requires them to give up intellectual property rights on their own works (the linking clause, read it yourself). While a few corporations might succeed based on a strict service model, this is the minority of them by a long stretch, and is otherwise inimical to the more normal conduct of commerce.
"The GPL has no poison-pill clause against corporations or commerce".
As a matter of reduction to practice, this is quite false.
Your characterization of the GPL is incorrect. The GPL is more like "here, have this," and anything you connect to this, you also have to give it to everbody else. You're thinking of the LGPL.
You're correct. Which begs the question of why it is that U.S. government workers are surrendering their intellectual property rights and agreeing to create derivative works of intellectual property which belongs either to a private individual or an institution, now doesn't it?
I don't have anything against government employees doing work for the public trust. I even believe that all U.S. government contractors should be forced to submit (non-secret/sensitive) software developed on the public dole to an open source license, but I'm a much bigger fan of BSD-style licenses.
It's not a lie. For example, any employee of any corporation cannot legally include a GPL product in any of their own work without explicit permission of a signatory executive officer of the company. Any other behavior is legitimate grounds for termination and would also be civilly actionable by the corporation against the employee. These problems, I'm quite sure, are often overlooked by employees of companies, even middle-to-senior level managers who believe that they actually have yes-saying power in this situation, when in fact they legally and most assuredly do not and would face the same potential censure as would the lowest level employee in the event of an error.
Your position that GPL software is "specifically available to everyone" applies more to the LGPL, which doesn't have a poison pill clause like the full GPL. This position of yours is really misrepresentative.
Having the U.S. government develop open source is just fine. We, the people, are the ones paying for the work, and the results of the work belong to us. However, having the U.S. government develop under the (full) GPL results in software which is restricted, and not available to everyone. The appropriate result of government work is really the PUBLIC DOMAIN.
My previous employer... hey that crook Dennis Kozlowski from Tycho was on the board... made us all sign non-compete clauses. You cannot WORK for a similar company for six months. I signed it because I was told it was unenforceable in California, where I was located.
I would have made a big show of laughing in their faces over it, only I would have made sure to get everything on tape.
...getting your own patents is enormously expensive...
About $10K, if it's simple enough, and you write up a good technical description. This is easy enough to do if you just trove over a few actual patents from your discipline of knowledge.
The industry crashed by such an order of magnitude that there will be ex-tech workers ready to jump on the bandwagon for years.
There's a name for a technical worker who's been out of work for years: "plumber".:) Seriously, though, have you looked at history? There was a tech bubble in the early 90's. When we were hiring, we'd get 50 _qualified_ resumes for just one opening. It was phenomenal. The people we could have hired then were 3 times better than most of the "wanna code Java web pages, dude!" guys that were later the bread and butter of our interviewees.
Anyway, the ultimate long term consequence of "a computer in every electronic device, home appliance, and automobile" is a lot of computers, dude. Moreover, corporations need automation and still do. Enormous amounts of data pass through corporations.
Since when has the collapse of an industry caused salaries to go up?
These things go in cycles. If there's enough public disinterest caused by the "tech bust" that university enrollments go down past a certain point, it's only a matter of time before demand once again exceeds supply. This can happen in any industry. Remember, certain kinds of tech jobs are difficult, and there's many a person who can't stand being a knowledge worker behind a desk all day, thinking about problems and solving them. If the pay goes too low, interest will be lost disportionately fast, because many kinds of IT jobs simply aren't very fun.
Oh, I've never for a moment disagreed with your assertion that attitude toward change is important. GGS just seemed like a less than obvious reference for it, given that other works have placed much more emphasis on culture and Diamond seemed to downplay it. But it has been years since I read GGS, and I will gladly stand corrected if Diamond placed more emphasis on culture than I remembered.
Well, it wasn't so much as _culture_ as a section on technological innovation, and how the presence of lone inventors (an American meme, "we invent everything") isn't really relevant to the unfolding of technological advancement. Diamond was carefully point out that it wasn't the lone inventors, but rather the societies interest and timing in accepting the invention ("we embrace everything"). I found this to be very insightful. Think about what this might mean to the current world around you, and various nations with differing attitudes on technology.
I'm reminded of the "Americans invent everything, the Japanese just copy it" meme that I've heard repeated so often. Diamond would probably reply "more power to the Japanese, they'll go far". I think this is true.
He also argues empirically that when new resources, such as crops or technology are made available, they are in fact rapidly adopted,...
This isn't quite correct. He went to substantial trouble to discuss certain cultures that for whatever reason deliberately eschewed new technologies and later paid the ultimate price for their intractability. There's also a memorable section on the importance of cultural readiness for new ideas, discounting the importance of the lone inventor, and emphasizing cultural adaptability to new technology.
Take the Amnish, for example. This is a good example of an also-ran of history, a culture that couldn't even exist if it weren't for the protections offered it by much more powerful cultures with dramatically different attitudes and ideals. If an independent Amnish nation had existed at the beginning of the 20th century, is there any doubt in your mind that it would have been completely trampled over the tumultuous century that followed?
As for Guns, Germs, and Steel, I'm well aware of what the central theme was, truly. Telling me what the theme was won't change the fact that what I'm saying was actually also in the book.
Um, I believe the main message of Guns, Germs and Steel is in fact the opposite...
Incorrect. What you describe is indeed a major point of GGS, however there is an entire section on sociological attitudes and technological adaptation. I encourage you to continue your reading where you left off. There's a whole section where the author discusses invention and its relative unimportance next to the cultural readiness to adopt new technology.
What you've just posited was actually one of the important lessons from _Guns, Germs, and Steel_: simply the notion that the position of a society around knowledge or technology is far more important than the presence of lone inventors, no matter their genius. "Critical mass of knowledge" is important; likewise, a society that _cares_ about the invention is important, perhaps even more so. An important aspect about some modern cultures (American, Japanese) is the alacrity with which they adopt (and adapt to) new things. Cultures of this type actually tend to dominate the world. Cultures of the opposite type tend to be the also-rans of history, often trodden under heel of the first.
My point is, yes you're thawed and alive, but your life basically sucks. And nobody knows you, or cares about you. Suddenly immortality doesn't sound so appealing...
Probably any number of folks alive at 1900 would give an arm to be alive today, friends or no.
The DMCA makes click-thru licenses legally binding, right? Well, maybe all these free software efforts should start putting up click-thru licenses that grant the contributors to the free software unlimited rights licenses to all commercial software produced by any of the licenses. I can see it now! "Warez! This ain't warez, some guy at Microsoft clicked on my license and gave me unlimited rights to all Microsoft software. BWAHAHAHAHAH!"
Someone taking the liberty of issuing a terroristic threat to an employee is PER SE proving themselves to be a narcissistic power monger with a sense of invulnerability. IOW, they are _ALREADY_ acting stupid.
AMD knows all this. That's why K8/Hammer has higher IPC than K7/Athlon. It's the next-generation successor to Athlon, which is planned for obsolescence and will be retired to make way for Hammer, eventually.
Beside that, who cares for the CPU's instruction set?
A bit ironic, that remark. That's basically what the AMD guys decided when they went for X86-64: that the instruction set really didn't matter, and that it was implementation and good ole' Moore's Law that really counted. Meanwhile, when the instruction set doesn't matter, you've got Intel spending a cool $10 bill on theirs. So, I have to say, I find your remark quite amusing.
The _size_ of a company wouldn't change a thing. I still have a house payment, still have to buy food, still need money for fun. I _have_ to work. But if an employer said something like that to me, I _wouldn't_ have to work. I still _would_ work, mind you, I'd just do things that are more fun.
Slashdot Mirror
willfully-misdirected rebuttal to my explanation, so you are intentionally lying.
For someone who claims the high road and a position of reason, you certainly are prone to hyperbolous, inflammatory, and, I might add, highly impolite remarks.
A corporation cannot, as a matter of reduction to practice, incorporate a (full) GPL product in a release of its own software, because doing so requires them to give up intellectual property rights on their own works (the linking clause, read it yourself). While a few corporations might succeed based on a strict service model, this is the minority of them by a long stretch, and is otherwise inimical to the more normal conduct of commerce.
"The GPL has no poison-pill clause against corporations or commerce".
As a matter of reduction to practice, this is quite false.
C//
Your characterization of the GPL is incorrect. The GPL is more like "here, have this," and anything you connect to this, you also have to give it to everbody else. You're thinking of the LGPL.
C//
You're correct. Which begs the question of why it is that U.S. government workers are surrendering their intellectual property rights and agreeing to create derivative works of intellectual property which belongs either to a private individual or an institution, now doesn't it?
I don't have anything against government employees doing work for the public trust. I even believe that all U.S. government contractors should be forced to submit (non-secret/sensitive) software developed on the public dole to an open source license, but I'm a much bigger fan of BSD-style licenses.
C//
It's not a lie. For example, any employee of any corporation cannot legally include a GPL product in any of their own work without explicit permission of a signatory executive officer of the company. Any other behavior is legitimate grounds for termination and would also be civilly actionable by the corporation against the employee. These problems, I'm quite sure, are often overlooked by employees of companies, even middle-to-senior level managers who believe that they actually have yes-saying power in this situation, when in fact they legally and most assuredly do not and would face the same potential censure as would the lowest level employee in the event of an error.
Your position that GPL software is "specifically available to everyone" applies more to the LGPL, which doesn't have a poison pill clause like the full GPL. This position of yours is really misrepresentative.
C//
Having the U.S. government develop open source is just fine. We, the people, are the ones paying for the work, and the results of the work belong to us. However, having the U.S. government develop under the (full) GPL results in software which is restricted, and not available to everyone. The appropriate result of government work is really the PUBLIC DOMAIN.
C//
My previous employer... hey that crook Dennis Kozlowski from Tycho was on the board... made us all sign non-compete clauses. You cannot WORK for a similar company for six months. I signed it because I was told it was unenforceable in California, where I was located.
I would have made a big show of laughing in their faces over it, only I would have made sure to get everything on tape.
*evil smile*
C//
Just FYI: in some states, not only are these agreements not legally binding, it's actually _illegal_ for an employer to attempt to make you sign one.
C//
You did it on your own time? If not, and you're in the U.S., you've committed fraud.
C//
...getting your own patents is enormously expensive...
About $10K, if it's simple enough, and you write up a good technical description. This is easy enough to do if you just trove over a few actual patents from your discipline of knowledge.
C//
Um, as you are already DEAD, why would they bother going through the expensive process of RESURRECTING YOU to tell you this? :)
C//
The industry crashed by such an order of magnitude that there will be ex-tech workers ready to jump on the bandwagon for years.
:) Seriously, though, have you looked at history? There was a tech bubble in the early 90's. When we were hiring, we'd get 50 _qualified_ resumes for just one opening. It was phenomenal. The people we could have hired then were 3 times better than most of the "wanna code Java web pages, dude!" guys that were later the bread and butter of our interviewees.
There's a name for a technical worker who's been out of work for years: "plumber".
Anyway, the ultimate long term consequence of "a computer in every electronic device, home appliance, and automobile" is a lot of computers, dude. Moreover, corporations need automation and still do. Enormous amounts of data pass through corporations.
C//
Since when has the collapse of an industry caused salaries to go up?
These things go in cycles. If there's enough public disinterest caused by the "tech bust" that university enrollments go down past a certain point, it's only a matter of time before demand once again exceeds supply. This can happen in any industry. Remember, certain kinds of tech jobs are difficult, and there's many a person who can't stand being a knowledge worker behind a desk all day, thinking about problems and solving them. If the pay goes too low, interest will be lost disportionately fast, because many kinds of IT jobs simply aren't very fun.
C//
Oh, I've never for a moment disagreed with your assertion that attitude toward change is important. GGS just seemed like a less than obvious reference for it, given that other works have placed much more emphasis on culture and Diamond seemed to downplay it. But it has been years since I read GGS, and I will gladly stand corrected if Diamond placed more emphasis on culture than I remembered.
Well, it wasn't so much as _culture_ as a section on technological innovation, and how the presence of lone inventors (an American meme, "we invent everything") isn't really relevant to the unfolding of technological advancement. Diamond was carefully point out that it wasn't the lone inventors, but rather the societies interest and timing in accepting the invention ("we embrace everything"). I found this to be very insightful. Think about what this might mean to the current world around you, and various nations with differing attitudes on technology.
I'm reminded of the "Americans invent everything, the Japanese just copy it" meme that I've heard repeated so often. Diamond would probably reply "more power to the Japanese, they'll go far". I think this is true.
C//
He also argues empirically that when new resources, such as crops or technology are made available, they are in fact rapidly adopted,...
This isn't quite correct. He went to substantial trouble to discuss certain cultures that for whatever reason deliberately eschewed new technologies and later paid the ultimate price for their intractability. There's also a memorable section on the importance of cultural readiness for new ideas, discounting the importance of the lone inventor, and emphasizing cultural adaptability to new technology.
Take the Amnish, for example. This is a good example of an also-ran of history, a culture that couldn't even exist if it weren't for the protections offered it by much more powerful cultures with dramatically different attitudes and ideals. If an independent Amnish nation had existed at the beginning of the 20th century, is there any doubt in your mind that it would have been completely trampled over the tumultuous century that followed?
As for Guns, Germs, and Steel, I'm well aware of what the central theme was, truly. Telling me what the theme was won't change the fact that what I'm saying was actually also in the book.
Anyway, good book, eh?
C//
Um, I believe the main message of Guns, Germs and Steel is in fact the opposite...
Incorrect. What you describe is indeed a major point of GGS, however there is an entire section on sociological attitudes and technological adaptation. I encourage you to continue your reading where you left off. There's a whole section where the author discusses invention and its relative unimportance next to the cultural readiness to adopt new technology.
C//
What you've just posited was actually one of the important lessons from _Guns, Germs, and Steel_: simply the notion that the position of a society around knowledge or technology is far more important than the presence of lone inventors, no matter their genius. "Critical mass of knowledge" is important; likewise, a society that _cares_ about the invention is important, perhaps even more so. An important aspect about some modern cultures (American, Japanese) is the alacrity with which they adopt (and adapt to) new things. Cultures of this type actually tend to dominate the world. Cultures of the opposite type tend to be the also-rans of history, often trodden under heel of the first.
C//
My point is, yes you're thawed and alive, but your life basically sucks. And nobody knows you, or cares about you. Suddenly immortality doesn't sound so appealing...
Probably any number of folks alive at 1900 would give an arm to be alive today, friends or no.
C//
What possible motivation would any future society have to thaw these people out?
PURE ALTRUISM. That's the beauty of the whole thing. If they wake you, it's probably good news.
C//
The DMCA makes click-thru licenses legally binding, right? Well, maybe all these free software efforts should start putting up click-thru licenses that grant the contributors to the free software unlimited rights licenses to all commercial software produced by any of the licenses. I can see it now! "Warez! This ain't warez, some guy at Microsoft clicked on my license and gave me unlimited rights to all Microsoft software. BWAHAHAHAHAH!"
*evil smile*
C//
Someone taking the liberty of issuing a terroristic threat to an employee is PER SE proving themselves to be a narcissistic power monger with a sense of invulnerability. IOW, they are _ALREADY_ acting stupid.
C//
You missed the irony.
C//
AMD knows all this. That's why K8/Hammer has higher IPC than K7/Athlon. It's the next-generation successor to Athlon, which is planned for obsolescence and will be retired to make way for Hammer, eventually.
C//
Beside that, who cares for the CPU's instruction set?
A bit ironic, that remark. That's basically what the AMD guys decided when they went for X86-64: that the instruction set really didn't matter, and that it was implementation and good ole' Moore's Law that really counted. Meanwhile, when the instruction set doesn't matter, you've got Intel spending a cool $10 bill on theirs. So, I have to say, I find your remark quite amusing.
C//
The _size_ of a company wouldn't change a thing. I still have a house payment, still have to buy food, still need money for fun. I _have_ to work. But if an employer said something like that to me, I _wouldn't_ have to work. I still _would_ work, mind you, I'd just do things that are more fun.
C//
"Im sure the conversation went something to the effect that if he gives his presentation that he will not work for any major computer company again."
I'd sure like to catch an employer giving me that conversation on tape. That way I'd never HAVE to work for any major computer company again.
LOL.
C//