1. Write blog post with your "facts". 2. Write and distribute press release using your "fact" and referencing the blog as source. 3. Watch with glee as media outlets pick up your release and create thousands of references for your "fact" 4. Use the list of big time press that ran your "fact" in your advertising. 5. Evil laugh on the way to the bank.
One thing sales people often forget is that using fear does not help make sales. It slows the sales process. I suppose this tactic is good for delaying the inevitable or poisoning the well so if you lose so does the competition. Here's how it works:
Cust: We're thinking about going with MySQL for that database instead of SQL Server.
Sales: MySQL is open source and people can get the source code and easily hack it.
Cust: Hmm. I've never heard that. The other vendor said that I should't trust MS SQL because it has a history of being hacked and no one outside MS has audited the code.
Sales: Sounds interesting. Here's our contract. Do you need to borrow my pen?
Cust: Not yet. I'm going to research this further.
Every article about Linux market share decline bases such alarmist assumptions on sales of new PCs that include Linux. This doesn't take into account PCs sold with Windows where Linux is installed later on. Oh, and there are really no Linux software sales to track - it's usually a free download.
These articles do create great link bait, as evidenced by this non-article's coverage on Slashdot.
DentinYourHead - I own a processing company. Things have changed substantially in the past 3 years. It's mostly hitting the merchants now. I wish the banks were eating it, but most of it is going back to the merchants, and this is especially true of internet based transactions.
No wonder credit card companies are so eager to do chargebacks and eat the loss on fraud...
Actually, the seller gets hit with the chargeback. Hence the back in chargeback. The CC companies have no skin in the game. The people that eat it on fraud are the people that are selling. CC fraud is VERY bad.
I used to use a Heath|Zenith Z-29 a lot. It was designed to have a very selectric feel to it. I have never used an uglier keyboard, but man it was fast.
The new taskbar looks like KDE's 3.5's kicker taskbar. Hopefully it is equally customizable. I'm rooting for Win7 - ut will be nice not to cringe when someone wants a windows PC at the office.
1. NEVER EVER SHARE AN ORIGINAL IDEA IN CLASS OR IN A PAPER
It will be patented, copyrighted and sold by the university. Additionally, you will never be able to use it again without paying.
2. NEVER EVER USE UNIVERSITY COMPUTERS FOR DEVELOPING A BUSINESS
If you are successful, one day the University will come looking to extort money from you because they have one email where you outlined the idea.
3. USE YOUR OWN COMPUTERS AND BRING YOUR OWN NETWORK.
Don't use the University's high speed. For lots of reasons. Starting with the ease with which universities will give third parties like the RIAA information. Moving on to intellectual property rights. Moving on to using your activities against you in academic disputes. You just can't trust them, and the only way to be sure you own your work is to own the computer and network. In other words, get a 3G card.
It's about time someone got the K-12 world to figure out that teaching computers means a little more than teaching kids to use office suites and educational games.
It's really sad to read the responses that are seeing the laptop as an extension of the school's IT department instead of a tool for the student. My God, this is a portable computer. It is a 21st century replacement for a paper pad and pencil.
1. Locking down the laptop prevents tinkering, which is EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT STUDENTS DOING TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THEIR COMPUTERS!
2. Protecting from objectionable content is a problem best addressed at your network's border, not on the student's computer. Desktop censorware is expensive, difficult to maintain and doesn't work all that well. But you can do amazing things at the firewall that are cost effective. Most of the "lockdown the laptop" mentality comes from Windows network administrators who have to lock down everything because their client computer operating systems are very fragile.
3. All the snarking about Facebook and instant messengers from the K12 IT types shows exactly why there should be no restrictions on these things. IM and Facebook are vital ways to connect and communicate with other human beings. All the fear of facebook predators is silly given that a trip to the mall or your local city park is at least 25x more dangerous.
As a parent, if you gave my daughters a laptop with a lot of restrictions, we would likely buy our own and give yours back. The risk of my child getting in trouble for using the laptop for something completely legal is just not worth it, and I want lots of tinkering going on so I know they are learning.
Most of the posters here have no clue the difference between open source, and free software. To sum up:
Free software = GPL or other free as in freedom license.
Open Source = customer has right to source and right to modify it. Does not include redistribution rights.
Most of the posters here are talking about free software. And yes, free software is a tough way to make a living without using services as a method of generating revenues. That said, how do you enter an established market against huge players? Hmm - free software can open those doors.
Open source, on the other hand, does not preclude the exact same revenue as a classic proprietary software vendor.
Smidge - I agree with you - race had nothing to do with this. America has come a long way. It will be up to Obama to deliver the goods.
There is one thing you have wrong: McCain was on the out and was sinking faster than a torpedoed, burning oil tanker when he selected Palin. McCain was losing his own party at the time and her selection actually prevented McCain from becoming Bob Dole II. In four or eight years, I suspect we'll see Palin again, except with a much better resume.
The two strategies presented are not strategies against software.
The first, embrace and extend is a play against already established standards, and usually is applied to protocols and APIs but not to package software. Most successful E&E campaigns have been against standards implemented in closed source systems. Most of MS success was before the rise of Open Source as a viable model. Generally E&E fails against open source competition (see firefox, Apache, Linux v Unix, etc...).
The second was just a trashcan "make a better product" and "hide it from the competition" kind of suggestion. Oh, and segment your market better... problem is that it's assuming that your open competitors can't make better products or segment better.
IANAL. This is not legal advice. You can't sell it without having an offer. Simply tell them you are using the domain because it is your personal, real name. Tell them you would entertain an offer directly from them for the domain, but it would have to be worthwhile due to the inconvenience of having to change everything. Make it clear that the name is not for sale to the public. This is clearly a case of private property and sidesteps the trademark issue.
Also, should they try to file suit in a court, have a lawyer tell you if you can stop the court action by going for Arbitration via ICANN. That is much better for you, less expensive, and often more fair for the current domain owner.
Slashdot Mirror
I somehow don't think that Jones Day could make their case against the poor guy if he had just represented himself.
Jones Day was so wrong that the whole thing would have amounted to about $150,000 in lost hours representing the firm instead of paying customers.
This just in: a method of studying the spread of ideas that attempts to use viral disease as it's model finds that ideas spread like viral disease.
This is the oldest play in the book:
1. Write blog post with your "facts".
2. Write and distribute press release using your "fact" and referencing the blog as source.
3. Watch with glee as media outlets pick up your release and create thousands of references for your "fact"
4. Use the list of big time press that ran your "fact" in your advertising.
5. Evil laugh on the way to the bank.
One thing sales people often forget is that using fear does not help make sales. It slows the sales process. I suppose this tactic is good for delaying the inevitable or poisoning the well so if you lose so does the competition. Here's how it works:
Cust: We're thinking about going with MySQL for that database instead of SQL Server.
Sales: MySQL is open source and people can get the source code and easily hack it.
Cust: Hmm. I've never heard that. The other vendor said that I should't trust MS SQL because it has a history of being hacked and no one outside MS has audited the code.
Sales: Sounds interesting. Here's our contract. Do you need to borrow my pen?
Cust: Not yet. I'm going to research this further.
Sales: (head explodes)
Every article about Linux market share decline bases such alarmist assumptions on sales of new PCs that include Linux. This doesn't take into account PCs sold with Windows where Linux is installed later on. Oh, and there are really no Linux software sales to track - it's usually a free download.
These articles do create great link bait, as evidenced by this non-article's coverage on Slashdot.
DentinYourHead - I own a processing company. Things have changed substantially in the past 3 years. It's mostly hitting the merchants now. I wish the banks were eating it, but most of it is going back to the merchants, and this is especially true of internet based transactions.
No wonder credit card companies are so eager to do chargebacks and eat the loss on fraud...
Actually, the seller gets hit with the chargeback. Hence the back in chargeback. The CC companies have no skin in the game. The people that eat it on fraud are the people that are selling. CC fraud is VERY bad.
I used to use a Heath|Zenith Z-29 a lot. It was designed to have a very selectric feel to it. I have never used an uglier keyboard, but man it was fast.
The new taskbar looks like KDE's 3.5's kicker taskbar. Hopefully it is equally customizable. I'm rooting for Win7 - ut will be nice not to cringe when someone wants a windows PC at the office.
Verizon, Sprint and TMobile can all help you with that.
White lables, a sharpie, a box of index cards, a roll of tape. You can figure the rest out.
It's not worth taking that risk.
This is shortsighted advice
Not one point you brought up addresses the one point that matters:
Do you want the university as a business partner and owner of your invention?
1. NEVER EVER SHARE AN ORIGINAL IDEA IN CLASS OR IN A PAPER
It will be patented, copyrighted and sold by the university. Additionally, you will never be able to use it again without paying.
2. NEVER EVER USE UNIVERSITY COMPUTERS FOR DEVELOPING A BUSINESS
If you are successful, one day the University will come looking to extort money from you because they have one email where you outlined the idea.
3. USE YOUR OWN COMPUTERS AND BRING YOUR OWN NETWORK.
Don't use the University's high speed. For lots of reasons. Starting with the ease with which universities will give third parties like the RIAA information. Moving on to intellectual property rights. Moving on to using your activities against you in academic disputes. You just can't trust them, and the only way to be sure you own your work is to own the computer and network. In other words, get a 3G card.
Algebra made sense to me after I had to make a few simple calculations work in BASIC. Variables become less abstract when you use them on a computer.
I don't see how teaching people some very basic computer science would hurt. We're not talking about compiler design, but CS 100 level stuff.
Stuff that can be applied on any computer from a graphing calculator to a PC. How about we swap out mandated intelligent design for computer science?
It's about time someone got the K-12 world to figure out that teaching computers means a little more than teaching kids to use office suites and educational games.
It's really sad to read the responses that are seeing the laptop as an extension of the school's IT department instead of a tool for the student. My God, this is a portable computer. It is a 21st century replacement for a paper pad and pencil.
1. Locking down the laptop prevents tinkering, which is EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT STUDENTS DOING TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THEIR COMPUTERS!
2. Protecting from objectionable content is a problem best addressed at your network's border, not on the student's computer. Desktop censorware is expensive, difficult to maintain and doesn't work all that well. But you can do amazing things at the firewall that are cost effective. Most of the "lockdown the laptop" mentality comes from Windows network administrators who have to lock down everything because their client computer operating systems are very fragile.
3. All the snarking about Facebook and instant messengers from the K12 IT types shows exactly why there should be no restrictions on these things. IM and Facebook are vital ways to connect and communicate with other human beings. All the fear of facebook predators is silly given that a trip to the mall or your local city park is at least 25x more dangerous.
As a parent, if you gave my daughters a laptop with a lot of restrictions, we would likely buy our own and give yours back. The risk of my child getting in trouble for using the laptop for something completely legal is just not worth it, and I want lots of tinkering going on so I know they are learning.
Most of the posters here have no clue the difference between open source, and free software. To sum up:
Free software = GPL or other free as in freedom license.
Open Source = customer has right to source and right to modify it. Does not include redistribution rights.
Most of the posters here are talking about free software. And yes, free software is a tough way to make a living without using services as a method of generating revenues. That said, how do you enter an established market against huge players? Hmm - free software can open those doors.
Open source, on the other hand, does not preclude the exact same revenue as a classic proprietary software vendor.
Great point this is:
The Democrats will still pass legislation that favours big businesses, just a different group of businesses.
And even greater is this:
most Republicans are not neoconservative and many Republicans found the neoconservatives to be embarrassing.
I would upgrade from embarrassing to annoyingly evil.
LOL - If you think for a minute that Democrats will protect your personal freedoms better than Republicans, I think you are in for a lesson:
Republicans generally favor protecting the state at a Federal level over protecting your rights. See patriot act, etc...
Democrats generally favor protecting the state at a local level over protecting your rights. Eminent domain, gun ownership bans and limits, etc...
None of these parties really cares that much other than to use personal liberty as a tool to get votes from the tools that actually believe them.
You sir, are the wisest poster on Slashdot today.
Smidge - I agree with you - race had nothing to do with this. America has come a long way. It will be up to Obama to deliver the goods.
There is one thing you have wrong: McCain was on the out and was sinking faster than a torpedoed, burning oil tanker when he selected Palin. McCain was losing his own party at the time and her selection actually prevented McCain from becoming Bob Dole II. In four or eight years, I suspect we'll see Palin again, except with a much better resume.
The two strategies presented are not strategies against software.
The first, embrace and extend is a play against already established standards, and usually is applied to protocols and APIs but not to package software. Most successful E&E campaigns have been against standards implemented in closed source systems. Most of MS success was before the rise of Open Source as a viable model. Generally E&E fails against open source competition (see firefox, Apache, Linux v Unix, etc...).
The second was just a trashcan "make a better product" and "hide it from the competition" kind of suggestion. Oh, and segment your market better... problem is that it's assuming that your open competitors can't make better products or segment better.
IANAL. This is not legal advice. You can't sell it without having an offer. Simply tell them you are using the domain because it is your personal, real name. Tell them you would entertain an offer directly from them for the domain, but it would have to be worthwhile due to the inconvenience of having to change everything. Make it clear that the name is not for sale to the public. This is clearly a case of private property and sidesteps the trademark issue.
Also, should they try to file suit in a court, have a lawyer tell you if you can stop the court action by going for Arbitration via ICANN. That is much better for you, less expensive, and often more fair for the current domain owner.